Husbandry

I've been thinking a lot over the past several weeks of exactly what it means to be a husband. I heard someone mention "husbandry" as it relates to gardening, and it started me down a path of thought I had never considered before. Specifically, what kind of sowing have I been doing in the "garden" that God has blessed me with?

My garden is precious to me. God first let me see it when I was in 9th grade. And I immediately fell in love. But I didn't believe that I could qualify for such a wonderful, God-given, gorgeous blessing. So I watched from afar, stealing a glance whenever the opportunity presented itself.

One day, a surge of insane confidence arose, and I began the process of preparation & cultivation. And I began to learn about the types of seeds that were available to buy.

At first, I wasn't always a trustworthy farmer. Oh sure, I had a pocket full of love, devotion, caring & provision. But I also carried seeds of disapproval, judgement, guilt & reproof. I planted these seeds with varying regularity, and could not always be counted on in time of need or want. I was not a consistently faithful gardener. And as a result, my precious garden did not grow as it might have under better care.

As I grew older, I began to realize the error of my ways. And I began to be more careful in the types of seeds that I planted. I determined to begin the day by reassuring my garden of my commitment, devotion and love. I worked to build up the soil, to strengthen, enrich and reaffirm. And I learned that whatever I planted is exactly what would grow.

If I settled for less than perfect seed, then the crop that would grow was undesirable. Condemnation. Unkindness. Hurt. Fear. Whatever I planted, that's what grew.

But if I chose seed that was worthy of my precious garden, I was blessed with a bountiful harvest in return. Love. Reassurance. Commitment. Hope. That harvest was far more blessed, and immensely more enjoyable.

I'm still learning how to be the gardener....the husband...that God wants me to be. I am blessed with a bountiful, precious, beautiful garden. May He continue to teach me, is my prayer.

Full Service Gas Pump

When I was just starting to drive in the 70's, the following wasn't unusual. You'd pull up to a gas station, the attendant would rush out, begin filling up your tank, clean all the windows, top off all the fluids, check your oil, etc. It was full service. But you paid only for the gas. The extra service was no charge. Gratis. A benefit of your stopping in to THAT specific gas station. Going the extra mile so you would keep coming back to them.

Fast forward to 2010. Full service pumps are a thing of the past, UNLESS you're driving in Oregon (that's another story....it's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon....I found out the hard way on an artist promo trip). Self service pumps are the thing now. You might be able to find a full service pump somewhere, but they are not the norm.

This past Friday I was running on empty, so I stopped at a gas station in an unfamiliar part of town. Getting out of the car, I hadn't even gotten my credit card out of my pocket before I noticed a lady walking towards me. I use the term lady loosely....this sentence in itself should explain a lot. She apparently had left the majority of her clothing at home, and even though it was 95 degrees outside, the thought crossed my mind that she might be cold. Anyway...she walked up to me, got within that uncomfortably close proximity usually reserved for a good friend or family member, and said...

"My car broke down over there (pointing to her right) and I need to get to work over there (pointing to her left) at Kroger. Can you take me to Kroger in your car?"

Well, the little voice inside my head screamed NO for several different reasons. I had been expecting her to ask for money. I had already prepared myself to try to figure out how to get her a hamburger somewhere, or something. But I wasn't prepared for this request. So I told her that I was traveling in the opposite direction, which was true, and that I was in a big hurry, which was true, and that I wouldn't be able to offer her a ride.

She then leaned in a little closer, lowered her voice, gave me THE LOOK, and said, "I promise to make it WELL worth your while".

What??? Oh no she didn't! Yes, I believe she just did! I got embarrassed, mad and hilariously tickled at the same time. I took a quick glance around and inventoried that no one else was paying attention to this little conversation that was happening at pump # 7. I considered her questionable promise, and my reply. And then I reverted back to high school....back when my smart butt comments would often get me in trouble. All this took just a couple of seconds, of course. Looking at her with feigned seriousness, I said, "mam, you do realize this is a self service pump, don't you?".

Well, apparently she wasn't used to getting THAT kind of answer to her invitations. She took about two steps back, put her hands on her hips, and screamed a declaration at me (something calling into question the character and PEDIGREE of my mother) and stormed off, leaving heel prints in the concrete. She was torqued at me, for sure. And I was still fighting back the giggles.

Since I was STILL on empty (hadn't had the chance yet to begin filling my gas tank) I proceeded to finish as fast as possible and vacate this full service establishment. She continued on her quest to find a ride to "work", approaching no less than 3 other men in the short time it took me to fill my tank. Suitors #1 and #2 were not interested. Contestant #3 however was apparently either a friend or needed his windows cleaned, because she got in the car with him and they drove off....in a 3rd direction that was not headed to either her car or her job. Hmmmm....maybe she was just making up the entire story???

I shook my head, said a prayer for her and her family, and then laughed as I called my wife to replay the events. Thankful, thoughtful, and with bugs still on my windshield.

"Millionaire's Envy", by Chad Giles

If you're reading this, it's because you've come to enjoy my father's style of writing. You clicked on that familiar link with confidence that you would read some recent experience of his that would, at the very least, give an amusing boost to your day. You know what's coming, as soon as the page loads up. An experience that most of us would either never take note of, or one that would be frustrating beyond the bounds of humor, or perhaps, if we admit it, something that stands outside the edges of our maps. The kind of something that we have not the wisdom to apprehend without the sagacious insights of another to render it down to our level of comprehension. And somehow, he takes any one of those kinds of experiences and lets the rest of us in on the joke in a way that makes it anecdotal yet profound.

So, if you're reading this...because you've come to enjoy my father's style of writing...and clicked on that familiar link with confidence that you would get something like what I described above, then you should stop reading. This won't be anything like that. In fact, I'm not sure what it will be. Consider this your disclaimer, your warning label, your “get out of jail free” card, your tax/tag&title statement, and your all-purpose “you can't sue me” notice. If you're just painfully bored, then this may be for you.

Let me help you get to know me better by introducing you to the two men who are the very banes of my existence. These are not figurative men. They are not allegorical. They are flesh and bone, with distinctive personalities and very real capacities for vexation.

The first man is an arrogant idiot. Now, we all suffer people who are one or the other, which is to say, either an arrogant person or an idiotic one. But how the deuce does somebody carry on in life as both? All the time? For over thirty years? I could go on, but this isn't the man I'm dwelling on today.

Today my bitterness broods on the other man. The one who is arrogant, rightfully so, and not an idiot. His name is Bootsy, and he is a multi-millionaire.

Please hear me on this point. I am not bitter about the fact that he is filthy-stinking rich. I think that wealth can be a tremendous blessing or a terrible curse, depending on the owner. I also believe that part of kingdom expansion for the Christian is becoming the kind of person who is capable of governing the world's resources. Oftentimes, that means becoming rich in the process.

No, I'm bitter about the lucrative, luxurious, lackadaisical ease with which the man makes money. In fact, he doesn't even have to make money anymore. It just finds him. When Bootsy walks down the street he makes a point not to walk with his hands in his pockets, so that money can just jump right into them as he passes by. His money-achieving feats have become the stuff of mythologies. He has it coming out the wazoo. He also has a magnetized horseshoe up the wazoo that is attracting money even in his sleep. You think I'm kidding.

Here's a summary of his most recent trip to Vegas, representing one of many throughout the year. Flash forward to the end of the story: Bootsy returns to little ol' Lynchburg, VA with a brick of $100 bills, stacking up to $47,000 – glad to show it off. Back to the beginning: Bootsy is playing slots. Slots! There is no skill set involved in slots like there might be in any variation of cards, roulette, or dice. With slots, monkey feeds coin, monkey pulls lever, monkey waits for pictures. Over and over again. Well, Bootsy is a winning monkey, and he doesn't have to pull the lever much.

Legend has it that he plays one machine for about an hour, spending roughly a hundred bucks. Bootsy can smell it coming. The wazoo horseshoe is pinging. The machine hits. Four thousand dollars! When the machine lands that kind of money, an attendant comes by to verify everything and then give the man his money. While Bootsy is waiting for the vested man to do his work, he reaches over and plays the machine next to him, just to pass the time. One pull. Another four thousand bucks!

Not a bad take, but he is nowhere near done. This is Bootsy we're talking about. That night, asleep in a swanky room at the Vegas casino hotel, Bootsy wakes up from a dream about a particular slot machine. He rushes to get himself just-barely-decent-enough, which amounts to his robe and slippers, dashes down to the game floor, feeds the machine he just dreamed about, pulls the lever and makes another whopping sixteen thousand dollars. I'm sorry. I ran out of exclamation marks on the last slot machine.

So far we've only accounted for roughly half his winnings that week. I have at least a hundred other such stories, in enterprises and gambles far away from Vegas. You may have heard the saying “money finds money.” Well, that adage is incorrect. Money finds Bootsy. He is the possessor of the wazoo horseshoe. And he has my envy.

However, I wonder a lot about Bootsy's motivations in life and living, and whether he is truly happy. On better days, I take stock of the blessings in my own life that are difficult to estimate monetarily. Here's a few.

My greatest blessing has to be my wife. A man never makes a greater decision than who he marries, in so doing, deciding a lot of who he will become through and with that person. In her, I have a person who is strangely capable of suffering all of my freakishness, and somehow wandering through the whole complex labyrinth that makes up who I am. Adena and I have managed to create four miniatures in five years. Obviously, the bedroom is in good order.

And the miniatures are glad to see me when I come home at the end of a long day roofing. The boys like to wrestle. The girls like to hug. They all love to laugh. They also forgive, as I'm still learning how to be a parent, continuing to make mistakes or just plain sinning against them as they suffer the consequences of my fallen-ness.

Their grandparents and great-grandparents love them greatly, and do a lot of our job for us, providing for them all they could want or need. They do it for us, too, still refusing to let us completely “grow up,” out of reach of their loving provision.

All in all, I'd say life is pretty good. We may struggle some months to pay for the groceries, a pain Bootsy forgot about a long time ago. Even so, aside from the money problems, or the frustration with the incompetence of my superiors, or the philosophical angst that drives a lot of my life, I think that I have recently discovered a little wazoo horseshoe of my own. Because there is no good explanation for how I have been so richly and undeservedly loved.

And that is what makes me the millionaire's envy.

Customer Service

As Mothers Day is this weekend, I wanted to do something special for the ladies in my life. So I ordered flowers, and scheduled them to be delivered on specific dates. These ladies are important to me, and since I was going to be on the road the week before Mom's day, I wanted to be sure it didn't sneak up on me. So I took care of it beforehand. Or so I thought.

Here's the email that I received this morning...."Dear customer, we received your order for mothers day bouquet, scheduled to be delivered on Tuesday May 11. Since Mothers Day is May 9, we feel you would want them to be there in time for the holiday, so we have changed your order and are shipping them today, May 5. We apologize for any inconvenience, sincerely..."

Seriously. No kidding. They changed the delivery date on my order without checking with me. Really??? What if I had sent flowers to my girlfriend, and they decided that I really meant for them to go to my wife instead? And what if I had never referred to my wife as "Pookie" as it said on the card, nor had I ever taken her to the Romantic Hearts Hunting Lodge and Possum Exporium, as referenced. (lucky for me, my girlfriend and wife are one in the same). But the florist doesn't know that! I was agitated!

Why was it such a big deal to me that the delivery date was changed? Well, cuz my mom-in-law (who really is more like a mom to me) was going to be traveling over the holiday...and would not be home until May 11. The flowers would be dead when she got back! Isn't that supposed to be the ultimate insult, to send someone dead flowers, to show them how much you really care? Thanks a LOT, son.

Well, I replied to the email that was sent, kindly explained the error, and respectfully asked that it be corrected. About 3 minutes later, I get a reply from Jerome, in customer service (apparently he uses that term loosely). Here's what Jerome had to say...."I'm sorry, your order has already been shipped, and there is no way that we can make any changes. Very sorry for the inconvenience. Sincerely, Jerome". Really, Jerome? Sorry for the inconvenience??? Inconvenience is when you purchase something, get it home, take it out of the box, realize it doesn't work, and have to take it back to the store for an exchange. THAT's an inconvenience. Inconvenience is when you visit the drive thru, order a cheeseburger with no mustard, receive EXTRA mustard, and have to drive back around to the window again to get your order right. THAT's an inconvenience. Inconvenience is...well, you get the picture. THIS is not inconvenience. THIS is an error in customer service. THIS has me completely unsatisfied. And now, you've just made error number two :-)

So, I dialed the 800 number that was NOT included in Jerome's reply, took a deep breath, and determined I was going to be polite to whomever answered the phone...unless his name was Jerome. Apparently Jerome was busy crafting another email customer care masterpiece, or he had just left to teach his class on how to win friends and influence people. Either way, Janet answered. And she sounded like she meant it when she said, "how can I help you?".

Well, I explained the situation to her, in detail, carefully retracing all the steps. She was completely silent when I told her of Jerome's thoughtful email reply. I suspected she might be getting ready to give me the same answer as the King of Courtesy & Common Sense, but I later realized she must have put me on mute so she could scream to whomever was listening in the call center, "JEROME HAS DONE IT AGAIN!!!" The reason I know this is because the next words out of her mouth were, "you are kidding me, right?" To which I replied, "no mam". And she promptly began to assure me that there most definitely would be another shipment going out to my mom-in-law, at no cost to me, whenever I wanted it to get there. And that she was so sorry for their error that never should have happened. And that she was making a note of the episode so that all the supervisors would see it, and work to see that it didn't happen again.

Problem solved. Graciously and expeditiously. Just as you would expect from someone with "customer service" in their title. I thanked Janet for her kindness, asked her to wish Jerome good luck in his career as a Disney Entertainment Host (not really!) and hung up, satisfied.

Thanks, ProFlowers. You got it right. Janet is a champ! You're not paying her enough. And I will be back. But I won't be writing to Jerome anytime soon :-)

What Do You Do All Day?

(with thanks to Norman Csarni, this is perfect, from a wife & mother to her husband)

A man came home from work and found his three children outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard.

The door of his wife's car was open, as was the front door to the house and there was no sign of the dog. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall.

In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a Cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing.

In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, the fridge door was open wide, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes,looking for his wife. He was worried she might be ill, or that something serious had happened.

He was met with a small trickle of water as it made its way out the bathroom door.

As he peered inside he found wet towels, scummy soap and more toys strewn over the floor. Miles of toilet paper lay in a heap and toothpaste had been smeared over the mirror and walls.

As he rushed to the bedroom, he found his wife still curled up in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went.

He looked at her bewildered and asked, "What happened here today?"

She again smiled and answered, "You know every day when you come home from work and you ask me what in the world I do all day?"

"Yes," was his incredulous reply.

She answered, "Well, today I didn't do it."

Fathers, Sons, Friends

We had a father-son getaway this weekend. Chad, Devon and I met in Gatlinburg, and just chilled for a few days. Nothing spectacular, no mountain climbing, no white water canoeing, no zip lining (except for the raincoats). Nope...it was just three men with a deep love and respect for each other, hanging out, sharing stories, and resting.

It was a time of reflection on all of our years together....from sons, to young men, to friends. I learned a little more of their perception of me as a dad. And found a little more grace in their forgetfulness of my many faults.

The first time I laid eyes on Chad, our oldest, I instantly loved him more than any other boy in the whole wide world. And began to understand what it meant to be a dad. When I found out we were going to have a second son, I wondered how in that wide world I could love him as much as the first. One look at that 2nd precious little boy, Devon, and I knew the answer. Yes, I could. And yes, I did.

I had heard parents say how the love is different for each child, but I didn't understand it until I was able to experience it firsthand. The love is no less special, but it is different. The relationships are equally as deep, but they each cover their own native turf.

It's also interesting to note how those relationships change over time, and yet stay the same. A son is always a son, but he can also become a best bud. I'm blessed to have both, and I treasure them dearly.

Once serving as warden to adolescence, I now am a confidant of adulthood. They were once my children, growing before my eyes. Now they are peers, nurturing families of their own.

Nance and I never had a daughter. Now we have two. Adena. Hollie. Both loved as if they were our own, both unique in their relationships and friendships. And then there are the grandkids. :-) Oh my goodness, all that joy rolled up into such a small package? My cup absolutely is filled to the brim, and spilling over.

Thank God for sons & daughters who love Him, and who are doing their best to raise their children in His light. And thank God for sons who love their mom & dad, and want to be around them....and call them friends. That is a joy that I cannot explain.

The 23rd Psalm, as I read it in The Message, says it best; "The Lord is my Shepherd, I have everything I need". Married to my best friend in the world, I'm a 50 yr old dad able to share a weekend with his sons, age 26 & 29. What a priceless gift. And to be treated like a trusted friend by them both? I don't have the words.

I am blessed. Filled. Overflowing. Undeserving. Grateful. Dad.

Mouse Droppings

So, I'm sitting in a mid-class restaurant with a good friend a few days ago, enjoying some chicken wings and conversation. Out of the corner of my eye, I spy something moving under the leg of a couch in the center of the room. My attention is drawn, and I see what looks to be a mouse. But I'm sure I'm imagining things. Nope...said mouse leaves the security of the couch-fort, and does the combat crawl between the wall and the booth right in front of us. I saw it...no doubt about it...there was an unwanted foreigner in our midst. And I immediately realized that I could quite possibly be enjoying the privilege of chowing down on mouse droppings, no extra charge, at that very moment.

Now, I must admit, I wasn't really thinking mouse droppings at that point. The word that was running through my mind and forming on my lips actually rhymes with curds...I think that's a word far more descriptive and fitting. But I'm not going to use that here...so get curds out of your mind....I'll stick with droppings.

I told my buddy what I had just seen (it happened behind him) and then promptly got the attention of our waitress. I discreetly told her about the mouse, and where she could find it (I had it under constant surveillance by this point). Her reply? "oh, I'm glad I didn't see that". And then she just walked away. No, "I'll get someone right on that....sorry you had to see that sir....we'll be sure to get that little critter caught right away...can I get you some extra celery?". (Don't mice really like celery?? Don't they pretty much like ANYTHING edible?) Nope...she didn't make any other comment or effort to allay my concerns...she just walked away.

I watched with interest as she began talking to another server. She was obviously recounting my tale of the mouse intruder. I could tell by the multiple SHIVERS and the look of relief on her face. Server #2 took a few glances in the general direction of the rodent's lair, and then they BOTH walked away. Apparently they either both didn't care, or figured it was somebody else's problem....which at this point, I considered MY problem. They didn't do anything. We stayed there for a couple more minutes, watching to see if anyone would come over to check it out more conscientiously. Nope. No one seemed interested. (I did notice during this time, during a close inspection of a few of my remaining wings, that they closely resemble the size and shape of the rodent in question...but I'm sure this is just a coincidence).

We had lost interest in our food by this time. The thought of Curds and whey was hard enough for me to stomach when I was a kid. Anything rhyming with curds is far beyond my realm of graciousness as an adult. So we left, leaving some uneaten food on the table. Maybe my new friend, which I had now named "mickey" (he was too big to be "minnie"), would appreciate our gesture.

On our way out, we took one last opportunity to mention, DISCREETLY, that there was a mouse between the wall and the corner booth. "Yeah, your server told me. We'll get right on that". He said it with such sincerity (sarcasm dripping here like an ice cream cone on the 4th of July) that I just KNEW he was going to take care of it. I think it might have been his practiced eye roll that convinced me. It was as if he thought I might be scared of the mouse. I wasn't scared of the mouse....I was mad because I quite possibly had just eaten mouse DROPPINGS (curds). I left before enlightening him any further.

That was two days ago, and here I am still thinking about it. Should I call the manager? It's certainly not because I want free food....I will have to be VERY hungry before I go into that establishment for another order of wings with mouse dropping sauce again. No, I just believe that I would want to know if I were the manager. And then, what if the manager shows the same apparent lack of concern as his wait staff? Should I call the health department? There's obviously an issue there. One that needs to be corrected.

I'm not a problem child. I rarely complain about food or service. But this one has my moral responsibility barometer cresting at hurricane pressure level. I'm not listing the name of the franchise here, as I don't want to cause anyone harm. But I am wondering, what should I do?

What would you do? Besides joining me in not choosing curds...no whey....at least on purpose.