Sunshine

September 3rd, 2025

Every Thursday I take my grandson, Asher, to see his therapist. Once we get off the elevator, Asher runs down the hallway and bursts into the waiting room. The office manager grins at Asher from behind the counter and says,

“There’s that energy! There’s that sunshine!”

Other people react to Asher in a similar way. Asher had his first taste of kindergarten today. There are seventeen children in his class. The teacher uses symbols to designate which locker and chair each student has. Most of the kids can’t read yet, so they key on their personal symbol. One child has bunny for a symbol, another has a rainbow, one has diamond. Asher has sunshine. His image is that of a blazing sun with rays flowing out from it.

The teacher picked symbols that somehow capture the essence of each child, or at least what she perceives that to be. She sees an inner light in Asher. When he’s excited, he’s incandescent. He can bring joy to people without any effort at all. It’s just who he is.

This is not to say that Asher is all sweetness and light. He’s not. An angry Asher is a sight to behold. I have a Buddhist friend who described the boy as “a force to be reckoned with”. Indeed. Asher has a strong will and an equally strong intellect. He is often intensely passionate. I can’t recall him ever being lukewarm about anything. The boy isn’t even five years old yet, and he already lives on the edge.

How do you control a kid like that? Well, you don’t. You work with him and try to guide that erratic geyser of energy. A child like Asher has a rare gift, but he is also a person who requires love, patience, and understanding. He is simultaneously lovable and terrifying at times.

That’s our grandson.

Autumn

August 31st, 2025

“Grandpa, when do I start school?”

Asher woke me up at 2:00 AM to ask me that question. He was lying in bed next to me. He had been restless for a few minutes prior to that. I roused myself long enough to answer,

“In three days.”

Asher begins kindergarten at the Waldorf school on Wednesday morning. For him it will be a seismic change in life. New schedule, new friends, a new teacher, a new environment. My wife can still remember her first day of school. She has a faded black and white photo from Germany with her smiling and holding her Schul Tute, a large cone with little gifts inside. I can’t remember my first day of kindergarten, but I can recall my first day at West Point, back in 1976. In some ways that sort of radical change could be similar to what Asher may experience. I moved a thousand miles from home and cut the connection with nearly everything I had done and learned in my first eighteen years of life. I entered a strange new world, and Asher will do much the same thing on Wednesday.

Asher laid his head on my shoulder. He twisted and turned until he made himself comfortable. Then he fell asleep again in the crux of my right arm.

I had an intense and vivid dream. It was from my time in the Army as an aviator. I was in an aircraft hangar and looking out at the sky. A storm was rapidly approaching. Heavy, swirling clouds darkened the horizon. Winds blew and whipped into the hangar. Large objects were thrown about. I dodged them as rain poured outside.

I woke up late this morning. Well, for me getting up at 6:21 AM qualifies as late. It was light already, and I didn’t get up in time to see the morning star. The sun shown through the trees. A heavy dew covered the grass in the yard, and drops of water dripped from the gutters. The kitchen window was open, and cold air blew into the house. It is still August, but it feels like autumn. A few of the trees already have leaves changing color. The goldenrod is in full bloom with tiny bright yellow flowers.

Things are changing, and they are changing quickly.

My wife went to a handicraft store yesterday. She came home a bag full of wool yarn.

She told me sheepishly, “I spent $200.”

I replied, “We have the money. Spend it if it keeps you happy and sane.”

As Asher approaches the beginning of his school year, Karin is delving more deeply into her fiber arts. She is weaving more, knitting more, spinning more. On Friday, she will go to the annual Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival. She assures me that she won’t spend as much. That doesn’t matter. It matters that she feeds her creativity. She will attend a class at the festival. She can buy whatever she needs while she is there. Once Asher is in kindergarten, Karin will have a small hole in her life where Asher used to be. She has to fill it. Karin loves to care for Asher. She should fill the hole with something else that she loves to do.

New things. Exciting things. Scary things. Fun things.

A change of seasons.

Back on Brady Street

August 25th, 2025

Asher starts kindergarten at Tamarack Waldorf School on September 3rd. This is obviously a big deal, both for Asher and for Karin and me. Going to school will open up a whole new world for Asher. He will get to know his teacher, and he will make friends. He will have to learn how to follow a schedule. He’s never had to do that before. Asher has mostly done what he wants when he wants, and for the most part we, as his guardians, have been okay with that. That all changes in a little over a week. He is going to have to get up early, eat breakfast, get dressed, and go to class for the morning every morning. I’m almost certain he will balk at this, at least until he gets comfortable in his class and starts looking forward to doing things with the other children.

I will mostly likely be driving Asher to class each morning. I am a morning person, unlike my wife. The Waldorf school is close to downtown Milwaukee, which means Asher and I will have a half hour drive to get him to class by 8:00 AM each day. Traffic will suck. My wife did this kind of thing with our own kids twenty-five years ago. We know the drill. Since Asher will only be there until 12:30, it is kind of iffy as to whether it is even worthwhile for me to drive back home once I drop him off. I might as well stay in area around the school while he is in class.

Tamarack is located on Brady Street on the lower eastside of Milwaukee. It’s close to Lake Michigan. Tamarack uses the old school building from St. Hedwig’s Catholic Church. The steeple of St. Hedwig’s towers over the other buildings on the street. It is the anchor for the neighborhood. The school building is ancient. It has classrooms with high ceilings, tall windows, and hardwood floors. The school has a feeling of solidity and durability. If you listen closely, you can hear the voices of previous generations of children laughing and yelling in the halls. For me, there are ghosts in the school. Even if I am surrounded by the new parents and their kids, I can still feel the presence of the people who taught and learned in that place a quarter century ago. The school contains echoes of the past, but it is also vibrant with the energy of the latest generation. It’s like life is coming full circle.

Brady Street is an interesting neighborhood. It always has been. Early on, it was an immigrant community of Germans, Poles, and Italians. St. Hedwig’s is named after a Polish saint. There is still an Italian grocery store (Glorioso’s) a few blocks away from the school. Peter Sciortino Bakery is across the street from Tamarack. During the 60’s and 70’s, Brady Street was a hippie hangout. Now, it’s a narrow road lined with bars that cater to a mostly hipster crowd, young people with money. But the neighborhood is still quirky. The community is very LGBTQ friendly. The area is ethnically diverse. Brady is a good street for walking and browsing. There is a paradoxical sense of permanence and simultaneous upheaval. It’s a neighborhood that is alive.

I came to know that area in the 1990’s. I used to go down the block from the school to the Brewed Cafe for coffee. Sometimes, I went there by myself, and sometimes with my wife. Brewed is not there anymore. They closed down a few years ago, and now the place is a Brazilian coffee shop. The new coffee house is nice enough, but it’s not Brewed. The Brewed Cafe had this scruffy, working-class, antiestablishment atmosphere. Once a person managed to get through the front door, which never really opened and closed very well, they would see numerous pamphlets and posters advertising upcoming shows by local bands or political events or art exhibits. The front counter was small and cramped. At busy times of the day, customers lined up almost all the way back to the door. Once at the counter, a person could order coffee or other beverages. They had beer (it’s Wisconsin-almost every establishment serves beer). There was a tiny kitchen in the back where people made vegan sandwiches and other dishes. The folks working at Brewed all had more than usual number of tattoos and piercings. I’m sure they worked for minimum wage, but they got to pick what music was played in the coffee shop.

Even when there were only a few customers, Brewed seemed crowded. Space was at a premium. The tables were small and wobbly. If you ordered coffee, you got that immediately. If you ordered food, it showed up eventually. The walls were covered with works by local artists. The bathrooms were microscopic in size, and the walls were plastered with graffiti and stickers for bands that I had never heard of. The place was clean, but cluttered. Over the years, it had accumulated a variety of objects that somehow lost their purpose and meaning, but remained there, nonetheless. Brewed was oddly comfortable. Going there for coffee or lunch was kind of like going into somebody’s home.

I miss that place. I will have to find another hangout on Brady Street.

Santa Claus-of-Color

August 23rd, 2025

On Thursday morning I took Asher to see his therapist. He goes every week to get help for a number of things. The boy is only four and a half years old, but he’s had more than his fair share of trauma. Asher spent an hour with his clinician, and then I came back to the office to collect him at the end of his session. He wasn’t quite done, so I sat around and talked with Eli and Dr. A. Eli is the office manager and Doctor A runs the whole show.

Doctor A smiled at me and said, “Frank, only four more months and you are going to be our Santa Claus.”

I need to explain this. Three weeks ago, I was sitting in the clinic’s office and Doctor A remarked on the luxuriant growth of my beard. I do have a decent beard. I’m bald as an egg, but I can grow a beard. It reaches down to my breastbone, and it is mostly white and curly. Doctor A, out of the blue, asked if I would be Santa Claus at the clinic’s holiday party for the kids. I thought about it for a moment and said, “Yes”. A life changing decision.

I had thought that maybe Doctor A had been kidding me about the Santa gig. She was not. The woman was deadly serious. I’m committed. I have never been a Santa, and as my wife told me, I would be a rather grumpy one. However, it is my time in life to be St. Nick for children that are involved with the clinic.

When I came to pick up Asher on Thursday, Dr. A start talking to me about the Santa thing again. Eli made comments too. They both seemed much more excited about this event than I am.

Doctor A said to me, “We are going to have to feed you. Now, when you are the Santa-of-color, we need to give you soul food. Frank, what do you know about soul food?”

Whoa…back up. It needs to be noted at this point that Eli and Dr A are Black. The clinic has an eclectic ethnic population, both with regards to service providers and clients. Asher and I are very white. So, how the hell am I going to be the “Santa-of-color” for these kids?

I have been thinking about it. I’m white, but I tan well. Right now, considering my facial features, I could probably pass for somebody from the Middle East or North Africa. Many years ago, When I first met my wife in Germany, she was absolutely convinced that I was Turkish. In the German culture, at least at that time, Turks were considered people of color, and not in a positive way. Could I be an Egyptian Santa? Egypt has some Coptic Christians, and I know a smattering of Arabic. By the time Christmas rolls around, I will be pasty white again. I’m sure as hell not going to try a Trump fake tan. This is just bizarre, but I’m still going to be Santa.

Back to Doctor A’s question. I replied to her, “I like BBQ.”

Both Doctor A and Eli shrugged and groaned. Bad answer.

I tried again, “I’ve had collard greens. I like red beans and rice.”

They both smiled. I had some minimal street cred.

Doctor A talked enthusiastically about soul food. She asked me,

“Frank have you ever had the mac and cheese? You know, the kind that Black people make?”

“Uh, no.”

Eli grinned and said, “Oh Man, it’s got that crispy layer of cheese on the top.”

Doctor A told me, “Frank, it’s goooood. You got to try it.”

I was getting hungry. I hadn’t had anything for breakfast, and these people were talking about food to die for. Fortunately, Asher appeared, laughing and jumping around. It was time to go.

I said, “Asher, we got to go. These people are going make me pass out from hunger.”

I bet we talk more about the Santa gig next Thursday. Doctor A had joked about me wearing African colors when I with the little kids. That might actually happen. I have no idea where this is all going.

Ho ho ho.

Illegal Orders

August 19th, 2025

I recently read an article in Military.com titled “4 Out of 5 US Troops Surveyed Understand the Duty to Disobey Illegal Orders”. In the essay, the authors state,

“Our poll, fielded between June 13 and June 30, 2025, shows that service members understand these rules. Of the 818 active-duty troops we surveyed, just 9% stated that they would ‘obey any order.’ Only 9% ‘didn’t know,’ and only 2% had ‘no comment.’ “

I have to mention here that the article and possibly the poll itself have a partisan slant. The authors are not fans of Donald Trump. Even so, the essay and the results of the poll are interesting to me.

I would have preferred to read that 100% of active-duty troops understand how to recognize an illegal order and know when to disobey such an order. However, 80% sounds realistic. Actually, I find that number to be encouraging.

I entered West Point as a new cadet in July of 1976. That was a long time ago. I don’t remember much of my first day at USMA. Most of it is a blur. However, I can distinctly remember when I stood on the Plain to take the oath to defend the U.S. Constitution. Did I really understand at that time what I was promising to do? No, but I figured it out as time went on and I realize how life-changing that oath really was and still is.

I suspect that most veterans can remember when they officially became service members. It’s hard to overstate how important that moment was. The oath that we took stands in stark contrast to the oath that German soldiers took in WWII. Those men (which probably including my father-in-law) swore allegiance to the person of Adolf Hitler. We did not swear allegiance to a president. We did not swear allegiance to a political party. We did not swear to protect a religion or a particular ethnic group. An American service member swears allegiance to the core document of our republic. In effect, we took an oath to defend a noble idea.

What does it mean to defend the Constitution? That’s where it gets hard. We don’t always get into situations where the line between right and wrong is crystal clear. Sometimes, we are forced to choose the lesser evil. Even in peacetime, a soldier may face an order that is illegal and/or immoral. My oldest son fought in Iraq, and he often found himself in extremely violent circumstances where the decisions had to made immediately without time for thoughtful consideration of the consequences. I am pretty sure that at those times he seldom thought about the Constitution. He thought about survival.

Can we expect service members to always fulfill their oaths? Probably not. However, it makes me hopeful knowing that the vast majority of them understand what they promised to do.

Martyrdom

August 17th, 2025

“In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point on shedding blood.” – Hebrews 12:4

The priest gave a homily (sermon) today based on the verse from the letter to the Hebrews that is shown above. Our pastor is originally from India and wanted to talk about Christians in various parts of the world whose lives are in danger because of their faith. He mentioned that there are some parts of India where being identified as a Christian can be life-threatening. He seemed to indicate that he had some personal experience with that kind of persecution. I would suppose that under Modi’s Hindu centric regime threats against any non-Hindu group would be common.

Our pastor emphasized that numerous Christians have in recent years chosen death before renouncing their faith. He summed up his sermon by pointedly asking the members of the congregation what they would do in such a situation. Would they abandon their religion or would they become martyrs. A “martyr” is by definition a “witness”. That is the original meaning of the word. So, a martyr is one who bears witness.

I had to think about the priest’s question. I feel like his choice is simplistic. So, what would I do if somebody was ready to kill me? The answer is, “I don’t know.” I have trouble even imagining that scenario. I doubt that, if I was threatened with death for being a Christian, I would raise my eyes to the heavens and make a noble and inspiring profession of faith. It is more likely that I would tell the persecutor to fuck off and let him or her do their job. Or maybe, I would tell them whatever they wanted to hear. I really don’t know what I would do, and I don’t want to find out.

I thought some more about it and, if somebody was ready and willing to kill me for my beliefs, I would probably first think about Asher, my little grandson. I would be asking myself, “Who will care for the boy if I die?” It’s one thing to surrender my life if I have no responsibilities toward others. It’s whole different matter if my grandson would be an orphan if I chose the martyr’s route.

Taking the thought experiment a step further, “What would I do if the persecutor told me, ‘Abandon your faith in Christ, or I’ll blow this kid’s head off’?” I am pretty sure that I would give up my religion to save Asher.

Jewish tradition deals in depth with the reality of martyrdom. Jews have lots of experience with that. The rule for Jews is that they should forfeit their lives if the alternative means committing idolatry, sexual immorality, or murder. To die instead committing those sins is kiddush hashem, meaning ‘sanctification of God’s name”. In all other cases, a Jew should do whatever is necessary to stay alive. Historically, during forced conversions, many Jews allowed themselves to be killed, others committed suicide, and some renounced Judaism to save themselves and their families. The rabbis and the scholars are divided on what is the best course of action.

The question that comes to my mind is: “What is more important? Dying for your faith or living it? Or are they two sides of the same coin?”

Scenes in religious movies usually show martyrdom in a heroic and dramatic fashion. The images are violent and bloody. People literally go out with a bang. What films don’t show are the people who give up their lives a little bit at a time. I know loving individuals who care for sick or disabled family members, and they do this work for years or decades. These folks are giving away their lives as a trickle of blood, a few drops every day until there is nothing left. They may not get recognized for it, but theirs is a slow-motion martyrdom. They die for God in the service of others. They will never get into a stained-glass window, but they are sacrificing just as much as the person who has “Jesus” on their lips just before they get a bullet in the head.

These people also bear witness.

Little Things that Go Sideways

August 15th, 2025

I came home from visiting a friend on Tuesday afternoon. My wife, Karin, wanted me to be home to care for our grandson, Asher, so she could go to her knitting guild meeting. As I backed into the driveway, I saw my wife standing in front of the garage. The garage was open and the RAV4 was inside of it. Karin looked very upset as I pulled in.

I parked and Asher came over to my car and smiled. He said, “Grandpa!”

Karin did not smile. She said, “The car and the garage door are broken.”

Oh.

To digress for a moment, when I was growing up, the standard reaction to a statement like that in my family was origin was emotional chaos. There was always a lot of hollering. Enormous amounts of energy were immediately expended on finding somebody to blame for whatever bad thing had happened. That was the priority. After an initial burst of rage was directed at somebody, then, maybe, an effort would be made to solve the problem. Sometimes, the issue never really was solved. The important thing was to find a scapegoat.

I used to react like that for a long time when I was younger. I think that my wife still expects me to blow my top when she bears bad tidings. Sometimes, if I am worn out, I do, but I don’t get angry nearly as often. I frankly don’t have the stamina for it. Rage takes a lot out of a person. In any case, I barely reacted at all when she told me that things had gone sideways.

My wife explained that she had been backing into the garage when suddenly the door came down hard on the rear of the car. It shattered the rear window. Neither Asher nor Karin were hurt, thank God. However, the accident terrified them both. It would have freaked me out too.

I examined the damage. Ugly. The rear window in the RAV4 was pratty much gone. The storage area in the back of the car was littered with tiny pieces of glass. The garage door was hanging cockeyed. One of the cables had torn away from the bottom panel of the door. It’s an old door, the original door from when we built the house in 1991. The wood on the bottom panel was rotted out in some places. I don’t know if the cable let go before or after my wife was backed into the garage. It doesn’t matter. The door was now junk.

There was no point in me getting upset. My wife was already stressed out. I went about starting the process to fix things.

It was already late when I stared making calls to our insurance, both auto and home. I called a garage door contractor. They were closed for the day, but I got hold of their 24 hour service guy. He convinced me to wait until the next morning for an inspection (they have a $200 surcharge for after hours service calls). I left the RAV4 in the garage (it rained hard later in the evening). I closed the door as far as it would go. After that, it was completely immobile.

I’m still making calls. For the last couple days, I have been talking to insurance adjuster, contractors, and car rental companies. I will be calling a collision repair shop as soon as they open this morning to find out when I can bring in the RAV. This is all a hassle, but it’s one I can manage. The garage door was replaced yesterday. Eventually, it will all get repaired and life will go on.

The Milwaukee area, where we live, suffered torrential rains and severe flooding six days ago. It was bad. We got lucky, and had no damage to our property. Other people in the metro area got hit hard. A large number of residents had flooded homes or flooded cars. One family’s home in a nearby suburb was hit with so much water that the foundation shifted and the basement wall collapsed. Those people are now homeless. That house is probably a dead loss. Those folks have real problems. Our issues are minor.

We had to wait two days to get rental car that is paid for by our insurance. I initially found the delay to be annoying. We finally picked up the rental car yesterday afternoon. The office manager at the car rental explained to us why he did not have a car for us right away. Apparently, that facility only rents out maybe seven or eight cars per day. Since the great flood, they have been renting out thirty cars per day. They don’t have thirty cars available. Nor do any of their other locations in the area. They ran out of cars, and they still don’t have enough to go around.

I have to admit that I am fortunate. Other people are not.

Oh well, it’s time to make some calls.

How Did We Get So Old?

August 12th, 2025

Karin and I celebrated our wedding anniversary yesterday. Forty-one years. It seems like an impossibly long time. Of course, we know elderly couples that have been married for sixty years or more. We also know people who didn’t even make it through a year of marriage. And we know couples who don’t bother with marriage at all. I don’t understand why some couples stay married and others don’t. I certainly don’t why Karin and I are still together. Is it karma, love, or dumb luck? Or is it a combination of all those factors?

I suspect that a reason that a couple might stay together is because they have an intense, almost irrational level of commitment to each other. The “until death do us part” part of wedding vows is actually taken seriously. In many cases, marriage is seen as a contract between two parties. The relationship is purely transactional. It can be broken one party fails to comply with its obligations. A marriage can also be viewed as a covenant, as an unbreakable agreement where both individuals promise to stick withe the other regardless of what happens. In some situations, like spousal abuse or addiction, even a covenant can be broken, but the commitment is there at the beginning and the two members of the marriage do their best to make it work. That involves struggle and sacrifice, and sometimes love and joy. It is a vocation, a lifelong process. In a sense, two people really can become one.

Karin and I went out to eat yesterday. Our grandson, Asher, visited his mama for two hours, so Karin and I could be a couple while he was with her. Asher is constantly with us, since we are his fulltime caregivers. Maybe two or three times a year, we are Asher-free and we can do adult activities without a four-year-old tagging along. It just happened that one of these events occurred yesterday on our anniversary. We made the most of the opportunity.

We went to Cozumel, a Mexican restaurant that has outdoor seating on a balcony that sits high above the banks of the Milwaukee River. Karin ordered a potato fajita and I got choriqueso, an appetizer thar consists of chorizo and queso with a smattering of onions and peppers. It is basically a bowl of spicy cholesterol, but it tasted good with tortilla chips. Karin had a raspberry margarita and I had a cold mug of Negra Modelo.

We talked while we ate. We reminisced about our wedding in her home village in Germany four decades ago. Some of that is hard to recall. We have memories of memories at this point. Karin wanted to know what we had for dessert at the reception. I had no idea. Germans don’t do massive wedding cakes like Americans do. Actually, they prefer to have a plethora of smaller cakes. I remember her parents’ house being packed with kuchen from friends and neighbors.

Oddly enough, I do remember the wine we had. It was local vintage from Karin’s region of Germany. We toasted with a Marklsheimer Propstberg, a fruity white wine produced in the little town where we had our reception. It’s odd what things I can recall and what things I have completely forgotten.

Karin looked up from her meal and asked me,

“How did we get so old?”

I shrugged and said, “Lots of practice.”

She gave me a smirk. Then she said, “I’m seventy already.”

Yeah, she is. I’m sixty-seven. Most of our lives are in the rear view mirror. We’ve already done many things and made most of our decisions. Now, we are busy raising a little boy. This is our vocation, our calling. It may be the last one for us.

Karin didn’t finish her fajita. We asked the waiter for a box to take home. We were sitting at a tiny table at the edge of the balcony. I was trying to scoop the remains of the fajita into the box. I had a couple plates stacked up to make room. I nudge the plates and utensils as I filled the box.

“Fuck!” I said suddenly.

Karin asked me, “What is it?”

“A fork went over the edge of the balcony.”

She looked down and there, thirty feet below us, was a fork from our table.

We paid the bill and got ready to leave. I glanced at the waiter. I asked Karin,

“Should I tell him about the fork?”

She nodded.

I walked over to the waiter and tried to explain what had happened. He looked puzzled. I took him to the side of the balcony. I said,

“Look straight down.”

He did, and then he laughed.

“He told me, “Don’t worry. This happens all the time. Have a good night.”

I replied, “Gracias.”

He smiled, and said, “De Nada.”

We left to pick up Asher.

When the Flood Comes

August 10th, 2025

“When the flood calls
You have no home, you have no walls
In the thunder crash
You’re a thousand minds, within a flash
Don’t be afraid to cry at what you see
The actors gone, there’s only you and me
And if we break before the dawn, they’ll
use up what we used to be.

Lord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent
in any still alive”

Lyrics from Here Comes the Flood from Peter Gabriel

I woke up at around 11:00 PM when I fell out of bed. There was a moment of utter confusion before my mind cleared. The bedroom lit up with a flash of lightning. I could see my little grandson, Asher, asleep in the bed. He was lying there crosswise, as he usually does. He was dead to the world, but the crack of thunder that accompanied the lightning made him roll over and moan. The room was filled with the machine gun patter of rain beating on the skylight. I didn’t bother to look out the window. I knew that I wouldn’t see anything with wind and rain.

My wife and I built our house thirty-four years ago. We live in an area close to Lake Michigan that is relatively flat. It’s not a flood plain, but rainwater tends to drain slowly. We don’t have storm sewers here. The water flows from yards and fields into deep ditches that hug the sides of the roads. Sometimes, when massive thunderstorms roll through, the ditches aren’t quite deep enough to handle the flow of rainwater. Last night was one of those times.

During severe weather, I always check to see if we have electricity. That is the first thing I do. This part of Wisconsin often has power failures. Nearly everyone in our neighborhood has a generator at the ready. Mostly, we need the generators to keep the sump pump (or sump pumps running). We’ve had a flooded basement in the past, and that is a distinctly unpleasant experience. We currently have two sumps in the basement, and last night they both ran almost continuously.

I could hear the sounds of the pumps from the bedroom.

“Click. Wirrrrrrrrrr. Flush. Water rushing from the drain tiles into the sump. Repeat.”

Every fifteen seconds, I heard the cycle of water being pumped out of the basement sumps through a PVC pipe out to the ditch. The outlet of the pipe was already submerged by the water in the ditch, but the force of the pump pushed the water from the basement out of the pipe. The pipe has a one-way valve to prevent water from backing up again.

The noise from the pumps is oddly soothing. It’s when I don’t hear the pumps that I worry. It doesn’t take long for water to slip through cracks and crevices in the basement floor and walls. Once that happens, there’s hell to pay.

I’ve never been in a serious, life-threatening flood, and I hope that I never experience that. Back in 2008, I went with my youngest son’s 8th grade class to New Orleans to help with the rebuilding of the city after Katrina. Keep in mind that we went to New Orleans three years after the hurricane hit. The city was still devastated. My son’s classmates were assigned assist a local family finish working on their home. The owners had to strip the house all the way down to the studs and completely remodel it. In that neighborhood, one out of every three houses were abandoned. I don’t know if that part of New Orleans ever really recovered from the flood.

I don’t ever want to be in that situation.

I didn’t sleep much last night.

Are You from Here?

August 8th, 2025

We were at the playground with the big sandbox. Asher likes to go there. He has a plastic bin full of beach toys that he insists on taking to the park. There isn’t a beach, so he plays with his shovels and trucks in the sandbox. Sometimes other kids are there. Asher is a good sport about letting the other children use his things. Most of the time the other kids ask before they use his toys, especially if their caregivers are nearby. Sometimes, they don’t ask. Asher doesn’t seem to mind, and I don’t either.

After a while, Asher got tired of playing in the hot sand. Even though we arrived at the park early in the morning, it was still quite warm in the sunshine. He had a drink from a cold smoothie, and then he decided to go on the swings. A group of children had just come to the playground from the Salvation Army center down the street. The kids were part of some kind of summer youth program that the Salvation Army sponsors. There were a couple chaperons with the group. One of them was a Muslim woman. She wore a hijab and a long abaya that went down to her ankles. She sat down under the shade of an oak tree close to the playground.

A little girl came over to the swings and tried to make friends with Asher. He wasn’t interested. The girl was sturdy looking. She had a very round face and a page boy haircut. She was wearing a dress with lavender unicorns on it. Asher likes unicorns, and he likes lavender, but not so much this time. It should be noted that for reasons that are obscure to me Asher is a babe magnet. He has the uncanny ability to attract girls, usually older than himself. Admittedly, he has a winning smile and a dimple on his right cheek that can melt hearts. However, he wasn’t smiling at the girl. He just stared at her as she spoke to him nonstop.

Eventually, the girl moved away and climbed on to the monkey bars. She hung on them for a bit and then she asked me,

“Are you his grandpa?”

I nodded.

She asked, “Does he talk a different language? Or is he too young to talk?”

Little did the girl know that Asher can be a relentless chatterbox. His verbal skills are very strong. I know from experience that it is sometimes almost impossible to get the boy to shut up when he is on roll.

I told her that Asher didn’t speak to her because he’s a bit shy (that’s kind of a lie, but whatever). She asked,

“How old is he?”

“He’s four-and-a-half.”

She replied, “I’m six-and a half. It’s kind of like being halfway six and half seven. He’s half between four and five. We got that in common, I guess. Is he in school yet? I’m in first grade, almost in second grade. I can only hang on to two of the bars on the monkey bars, even though I’m six-and-a-half.”

Then she told me, “I don’t worry about falling off the monkey bars. I’m tough. I don’t cry if I get hurt.”

She showed me her ankle and said, “I scraped my foot here. It was bleeding a little, but that’s because I scratched at it, but it’s better now and I didn’t cry or anything.”

I forget what all else she said. She rambled on for a while. Then she went back on to the monkey bars and swung unsteadily from one bar to the next. The Muslim woman got up and shouted to the girl,

“Be careful! Don’t go so far! You’ll fall!”

Ah, the voice of a mom calling.

I turned to the woman and said, “You have a very brave girl!”

She looked at me and said, “But she must be more careful. She could get hurt.”

At that point, I said to her, “A salaam alaikum.”

She blinked for a second, then smiled and replied, “Wa alaikum asalaam.”

I told her, “I know a little Arabic.”

She asked me, “Where are you from?”

I looked around for moment and said, “I’m from here.”

I need to mention that I grew up in the local area, but I was far away for twelve years of my life. I almost never ask people where they are from anymore, especially if they have a foreign accent. In today’s political environment, with all of the fear and xenophobia, I am reluctant to pry into somebody’s history. My wife is from another country, and I lived overseas for three years. I know how it feels to be “from somewhere”.

I told her, “I studied Arabic in the Army, but I don’t remember much.” That’s true. I took Arabic for four years at West Point, but that was many years ago. I am not fluent in the language at all, but having studied Arabic makes me relatively comfortable with Arabs and other people who are Muslim. I helped tutor the children of a Syrian refugee family for several years. My extremely limited Arabic was helpful at times

I talked to the mom about Asher. She talked about her tomboy daughter. She told me that it must be hard for me and my wife to care for the boy. I replied,

“Sometimes it is, but Asher is also a blessing.” I fumbled for the Arabic word. I said, “He’s a baraka.”

The woman laughed. “Yes, exactly. He is a baraka.”

It was hot. The kids were wilting. The group from the Salvation Army lined up to go back to their building. The little girl went to her mother.

The mom waved to us and yelled, “It was good to meet you!”

Yes, it was.