Today is Parker’s last. Her health has progressively declined since her boyfriend, Brody, died at the first of January. Twelve years ago I noticed St. Francis Animal Care as they brought many of their clients to a pet food store in our town. I saw a collie and told MJ that perhaps we should consider […]

Goodbye Parker…Our Friend — The Jazz Man

I have just returned from my second Covid vaccine. Both the National Guard and the Jackson County Health Department are thoroughly professional and friendly. As of tomorrow our family will have all received our second dose. It is a good feeling and one that we have sought for over a year. I saw our friends, Joan and Jim, at the Civic Center and thought about the plain fact that we are all in this together.

Recently I have had my interest renewed in the terrible malady of bullying in the work-place and the herculean emotional and mental and physical ramifications that good employees undergo rather than face the very real fear of retaliation. All to often university administration and management and others tend to keep their heads firmly planted in the clouds while the precious staff, that they are responsible for, are maligned and screamed at and undergo bizarre and at times, obscure judgmental religious speech, in the form of brow-beating members of their staff. Environmental studies reveal that one of the prominent complaints from rank and file employees is that they are bullied and undergo stress by their supervisor’s unwarranted work demands and verbal statements that are not only unrelated to their job requirements but should be taken to the Labor Relations Board.

When I became a manager at Southern Illinois University @ Carbondale my primary goal was to treat my colleagues in the department like I wanted to be treated…like family… I had first hand knowledge regarding the deleterious effects of draconian management. I had witnessed staff cry and be forced to take disability for mental and emotional distress. I have counseled several people over my 25 years as a manager/administrator at SIUC who were considering suicide. This problem is real and can not be ignored.

The blindness to staff abuse is a direct result of administrators and managers not wanting to do the hard work of investigating the problem rather than simply taking the slanted advice of the person that they should be investigating. When I became the superintendent of Building Services…as well as the 12 years that I was the assistant superintendent of the department…I had an open door policy. I invited and encouraged all of the members of Building Services to come and talk with me at any time that they felt the need. I informed my immediate staff that if they were doing their jobs properly and treating their staff with respect and as a servant leader that I would back them…but if there was abuse or bullying of staff by their supervisors…I would take the person who was being bullied’s side. I did not recognize Carte Blanche support for management…

Tears are being shed. Sleepless nights are happening. Emotional and mental and physical distress is battering the lives of people who need their jobs and are dedicated to the vision of the institution and the success of our precious students…will someone simply pay attention…will someone care…will someone do the job of an administrator and manager and investigate the suffering of the poor and dedicated… and the backbone of our University…to ensure that everyone is seen and appreciated…and treated like a member of the Saluki Family?

Winter has 4 days remaining. It is a chilly 59 degrees today. Two days from now I receive my second jab of the Pfizer vaccine. While the United Sates is succeeding at the new President’s goal of 100 million Covid vaccines during the first 100 days of his presidency…Europe is undergoing another group of lock-downs due to a third wave of the Pandemic. We are, as the old axiom goes, ‘So close and yet so far!’ Texas has removed all of its restrictions surrounding the virus and that is including the wearing of face masks. College youth are flocking and flooding the beaches of Florida and rejoicing in no fear of the scourge that their parents and grandparents have told them about…but we are no where near Herd Immunity… Sadly…time served in the lock-down of our 2020/2021 Pandemic does not give we prisoners a reduction in our Coronavirus sentence.

Welcome spring…say we survivors of the ice and snow and blistering winds of arctic air! We are thinking of Hawaiian shirts and shorts and no socks and straw hats. The President told us to prepare for backyard cookouts on the 4th of July…and we are already writing the menu. Travel to Destin, Florida and Booth Bay, Maine…is in our future…we think…but not quite yet… Our winter has 4 more days…and it will not be hurried by our impatience. The stark realities of our Pandemic are ‘sport coat lapel grabbing’ and ‘face slapping’…as in the Francis Ford Coppola movie classic, The Godfather. Marlon Brando, The Godfather, slaps the character, Johnny Fontaine (Al Martino) around the face and tells him, ‘You can act like a man!,’ after he starts whining about not getting a movie part that he desperately wants.’ And so it goes…with us… We are neither in a movie nor a children’s bedtime story…this is real life…and the caviler ignoring of the basic health principles that have kept us safe thus far we do at our own peril!

There is a hint of sweetness in the air. The trees on the SIUC Campus are budding and some blooming. Aaron and Jonathon and I get our second vaccine this week. We are feeling somewhat excited about the return of a new normal to our lives. I enjoyed watching the squirrels this morning on campus […]

A Time Of Renewal — The Jazz Man

Billy B. was on his way to the theatre. He was excited about just making the journey as it had been over a year since he had attended the movies. Going to the movies had been a life long passion of his. When he sat in the darkened auditorium and watched the larger than life actors portraying their roles on screen…he was transported to other worlds and times and places. This morning he had engaged in his daily regiment of walking on campus and noticing the natural beauty of the well kept grounds. A flock of loudly honking geese had flown over and he mused that they were returning home after the long and cold winter. He noticed that his legs ached and that his movements were more deliberate than in his younger days. When he sat for a season…he wanted to continue to sit a while longer. Once that he was moving the lubrication of his rusty hinges seemed to enable continuing movement. He could walk 10 thousand steps if he did not stop to smell the roses. Billy had seen the photo of a friend who was in hospice care on Facebook. There were his loved ones around him and their smiles accompanied by their sad eyes.

Chet was waiting for him at the Orpheum Theatre front door. ‘What were you doing and where have you been,’ asked Chet? ‘I was contemplating writing a story about what it feels like to grow old,’ Billy B. replied. He went on to say, ‘Have you ever felt like you are experiencing things that you already have experienced…but you can not seem to remember where or when?’ Chet answered, ‘They call the feeling, deja vu.’

‘Riddles: ‘Brothers and sisters have I none, but that man’s father was my father’s son…’

‘How can a son be his own father?’

As the movie progressed Billy continued to write his first book in his head. It would be about the ending of a Pandemic in the year 2021. He would be the main character and would be 63 years old and living in the largest town…or small city in Southern Illinois…Carbondale…the home of Southern Illinois University.

Then…Billy B. awoke and there he was on the porch of his ‘Leave It To Beaver’ house in Sauk Village. He was waiting on Danny and Pauly to come over to play…and he had the definite thought that this house was nice as compared to others that he had lived in….he was 4 years old…

Wednesday I observed many buds on the trees at SIUC. Today some of the buds are blossoming. The natural cycle of life is working and our deferred hope for a brighter future is budding out on our barren tree of life…as well… We are on the precipice of embracing more normalcy than we have experienced in over a year. A year is a long time in the annals of a human life.

Harold’s Chicken is delicious! Jonathon brought us home some wings…and I did not realize how good that this delicacy could be…but I do now. The American Rescue Plan is a good thing. Millions of Americans, who have been devastated by our Pandemic, will receive sorely needed help. We have not been through a minor tragedy…we have undergone the worst Pandemic in over 100 years. Some say that there is work for those who want it. I do not believe that is remotely true for everyone and the trite observation certainly does not feed their hungry and starving children. The Hospitality industry has been decimated and many of our local restaurants have shuttered their doors for good…due to not having funds to remain open. It is widely reported that the American Rescue Plan is the greatest outreach to the middle class and the poor…since President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. I was watching a Republican Senator from Mississippi brag about how many Mississippians will be helped by the Bill…but he neglected to mention that he did not vote for it… I agree that all of our citizenry should be expected to work and provide for themselves and their families…but that is difficult when you have lost your means of employment due to no fault of your own. Covid is a crisis like none of us have lived through…and many of us did not survive.

Humans are an intrigal component of nature. The rhythms of our lives are in sync with nature’s clock. We can no more separate ourselves from the earth and the stars than the air or the trees or the animal kingdom…of which we are members. I regularly see deer or squirrels or ducks of geese or Great Blue Heron…and I wonder what they are thinking about the condition of the earth and their predatory animal neighbors…humans?

So now we are,’ coming up out of the wilderness…leaning on the arm of our beloved…’ Many of us have gone through; denial…and then acceptance….and then sadness…and now joy in the morning! Churches will reopen for in person worship. Movie theatre’s will again have an in person audience. The Brooks will be flying to Destin, Florida…and in the fall…to Booth-bay, Maine…and we will have an increased appreciation for how in a moment our life can change…and what a blessing normalcy is…

The new Nordic Track has arrived ensconced in its box. I am thinking that Aaron and Jonathon and I can slide it down the basement stairs and there it will await the person, yet unnamed, who will assemble the walking machine. Rain clouds are gathering and there is the threat of some flooding in a neighboring town. We live in the Big Muddy River Basin and flooding is a periodic hazard of our area.

Our inner life and reality often control our interactions with others. If we are not careful our brains will assign a meaning to each interaction and communication that we have and the meaning will be colored by our bias and world view of others. Friends and colleagues say one thing to us…and we hear another. By the time that the communication clears our auditory filter…it is much like the old telephone game that we played when we were children. The game consisted of several people sitting around a room and the first whispering a phrase into their neighbor’s ear. For instance the person might say, ‘Molly rides her bicycle to school each morning.’ Then, by the time that the message reaches the ear of the last person on the ‘Telephone Line’ they might report that, ‘Mary says her prayers each night before bed.’ Such is our continuing battle to communicate effectively.

Others are essential to our successful walk through this roller coaster of a life. We cannot make the journey alone. Sadly we have all experienced the hidden agenda of faux friendship. We hear from someone whom we admire and later discovered the they needed a favor from us or wanted to engage us in a business deal…or wanted to sell us something? But…this does not involve most human interactions. At times we are a bit like a porcupine…our friends do not know where to touch our live as there is some pain involved.

Many times we say yes to jobs and volunteer duties that we really do not want to be engaged in. Everything is not for everybody. We must learn to say no…when a request is placed before us that does not fit with our life plan or time constraints. Our friends encourage us in endeavors that are not right for us…but we hate to say no…and we end up a square peg in a round hole.

Walking is exciting and stress reducing and health edifying. Walking is a practice that we have been engaged in since we were born….either metaphorically or physically. Rachel Held Evans said, ‘The folks you’re shutting out of the church today will be leading its tomorrow. That’ how the spirit works, the future’s in the margins.’

We criticize our friends and family and colleagues…with a wanton abandon. We measure them by our mental photo of our life. We measure by the yardstick of our experiences. We judge from the lofty height of our pure motives and sacred calling. All this is accomplished without understanding what the person on whom we pass summary judgment is undergoing or what their mental and emotional state is…or what herculean challenges they are facing…and they are alone…

The wind is whistling through the willows in Little Egypt. Although it is 63 degrees the 25 to 40 mile per hour gusts create a chill in the air. After much moaning and maneuvers Aaron and Jonathon and I finally disassembled and removed all of the old treadmill…to make room for the new one that […]

Why Do We Attend Church? — The Jazz Man

MJ has been a treadmill aficionado for over 30 years. I have been a reluctant treadmill user on a sliding scale. Our treadmill of 15 years has bit the dust. When I telephoned out trash removal company to ascertain if they could pick it up…they told me to disassemble what I could and that they would send the big truck tomorrow. MJ and I got to work and I unwrapped my cloth satchel of 100 screwdrivers and related tools…and we were successful in some significant disassembling of Old Faithful. When I telephoned the treadmill retrievers I spoke to another woman and told her, with some pride of purpose, that we had disassembled a significant portion of the treadmill and that it would be waiting by the road for them in the morning. She responded that they would do their best…but that they, at times, were unable to pick up some treadmills due to their being…humongous…

One of my problems with treadmills is that they remind me of the futility of some aspects of life. Have you ever felt that your were walking as fast as your legs and feet would carry you…and yet you did to seem to be getting anywhere? I had the feeling, at times, when I was working. Try as I might there were years that I seemed to be able to move the department forward and other years when we simply marched in place. Ever diminishing budgets were are most virulent foe. The same could be said for our 2020 Pandemic experience. We count our blessings if no one in our family or friends became ill with Covid and if no one succumbed to the terrible plague. Everything has been on hold and we have been walking in place…waiting for the vaccines. Now we see the light…as we round the corner of our discontent. Now we understand how precious was the fellowship and comity of our family and friends and the living of what we call a normal life. Perhaps now we realize that we were never walking or marching or running in place…but rather we were living a wonderful and generous and full life…that could so easily be altered in a draconian fashion…

Treadmills produce appreciable results that redound to the health and well-being of the user. They are neither a waste of time or a useless endeavor. The treadmill exemplifies much of the feeling of the daily walk-of-life. Sometimes it seems mundane and ordinary and repetitious…but the benefits are immeasurable…