Freefall of the Mind

Tears. Old people crying. My friends of 30 years crying. It's hard to make sense. One friend wasn't crying--he is 92 years old and the youngest of 4 siblings--all still living. My friend has Alzheimer's or Big Al as we've come to call it. Big Al has him. My friend is a hero--he survived the beaches during the invasion of Normandy. He has been a wonderful model of a Christian who walks the walk.

Now that he no longer understands what is going on, he can be seen slumped down in his big recliner--a recliner that now dwarfs him rather than comfortably accommodating him the way it used to. He mumbles--but he mumbles prayers. He can be heard thanking God, telling Jesus he loves him. When he looks up at his wife, he gazes straight into her eyes and says, "Bee, I love you so much." But he can't remember how to dress himself.

Sometimes his Alzheimer's causes him to mix up faith and history. If there can be a humorous side to such a treacherous enemy, it comes out in my friend's professions of faith. Apparently he occasionally mixes up Jesus with Teddy Roosevelt. Sometimes his prayers sound like "I love you, Lord, but I carry a big stick." When I left him yesterday, he blessed me.

But why were there so many tears yet none from this generous man? My friends were turned out of their own church. Except the court ruled it wasn't theirs. They had attended this beautiful old downtown church for an average of 40 years each. They had given faithfully to its financial upkeep and missions. They had weathered all the storms every congregation has to endure. They endured also. All 130 of them. Yet yesterday was their last Sunday. The court ruled the building belonged to a small group of less than 2 dozen people of whom most had not set foot inside the door for decades, if ever.

So, there were many tears. This congregation will be just fine--but they will have lost something beautiful. For many, it was the place they expected to have their funerals. It was a building filled with memories of marriages and baptisms and yes, sadness at times. It roared with a spiritual life I've rarely found anywhere else. I'm glad my friend's mind didn't comprehend what was happening. He already carries what the church is really about inside his heart. He had no need of tears. He was too busy blessing everyone.

Toc Gets Chastised

It seems that my golf pace is slowing down play. We are to practice "swing ready" golf. We are not to make anyone else wait. We must keep up. We must be assimilated. Well, maybe not the Borg part, but I was told by Jimmy the Knees to put the camera away, knock off taking photos during play and KEEP UP.

Harumph. I like to mosey along the links. I stop under trees and drink some of my green tea and pomegranate juice. I like to snap pics of the deer and their fawns. I wave everyone through. I'm willing to chat with any group that looks agreeable. It seems that is not the golfy way.

I should have known that a game that talks about a club that sounds like an item on a Chinese restaurant menu (Ping chow luck) or a weapon of war (Big Bertha War Bird) would not be amenable to the garden party pace.

I was caught HOLDING UP PLAY whilst penning a short poem to my driver. I was tired, the bench was so inviting and the rhyme just popped into my head. Lectured and chastised, I put my camera, tea and note paper away and soldiered on.

But I will leave you with my little Ode to my driver.

Listen up, Driver,

Your days are numbered.

You hurt my hands

And twist my lumbar.

Your head's too big

You drive me daft

I'm close to wringing

Your long, skinny shaft.

A Horse is a Horse

I can handle Coast To Coast topics like Area 51, Alien abductions, Reptillians, OBEs, Remote Viewing and all the other usual topics. But last night was too much. Instead of putting me to sleep in five minutes, I was truly taken aback.



The guest was a man named Jason. Not just any man--oh no--a HORSE who claimed to be trapped in Jason's body!



Jason gave a blow-by-blow of how the world looked from the horse's point of view. Did you know horses see grass as gleaming white instead of the dull green we mere humans see??



Not content with just being a horse trapped in a human body, "Jason" had consulted a psychic who had done a past lives regression for Jason. Not past human lives--oh no. Past HORSE lives regression.

These people can VOTE!!! And we wonder why we're in the mess we're in?

A witch named Sandra Davis is suing a Catholic church for denying her coven permission to hold their Halloween Ball in their parish hall. Then she calls it discrimination rather than conflict of interest!http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5560105/Witches-coven-claims-religious-persecution-after-church-hall-ban.html

People think they're horses with past horse lives?

California hasn't been kicked out of the Union yet in spite of Barbara Boxer acting like this?


We are doomed.

Why Bells Matter

(I have permission to reprint this.)

From this month's issue of the New Oxford Review:

IMPOVERISHED LANDSCAPE

For Whom the Bells Toll Not June 2009By R. Kenton Craven

Dr. R. Kenton Craven describes himself as a scholar-in-exile in Sparta, Tennessee.

When I awoke as a boy, it was always to bells; first to the slow, dipodic clanging of the switch engine bells on the Norfolk and Western Line, the main yard of which ran past our house and carried millions of tons of freight and coal, troop and passenger trains, and shrouded armaments for war. No matter the time of day or night, the bells were there, a part of consciousness as sure as the fog and drizzle of the Appalachian valleys.

Then, from the Spanish gothic bell tower of Sacred Heart, the lesser bell rang out the Angelus, serving notice to the world that the Word had become flesh and dwelt among us, calling us to kneel and pray. At Mass the triple hand bells I rang insisted on the greatest happening in the universe, and they echoed in the stone of the sanctuary, a place where bells said, "Awake! Awake to these Mysteries!"

At Easter, when the Gloria was sung for the first time since Ash Wednesday, we rose exulting as two bell-ringers were lifted off their feet, pulling hard on the bell ropes, and the great bells pealed out the news that He is risen. On school mornings, Sister Innocentia stood in the school door and rang the large hand bell, which must have reminded her of school and her own youth in Germany.

And, a special memory: One morning my mother and I were on the way to church when every train and church bell (and steam whistle) sounded together. I looked to her in fear and amazement; she explained through her tears, "The war is over!"

Bells permeated my existence then: life meant bells; church meant bells; bells called me to the mystery of things. A world without bells was unimaginable, but in the grim modern process of unimagining, the unimaginable happened when I wasn’t looking.

The railroad locomotives and their bells disappeared, to be replaced by the rude blatting of diesel horns; and churches gave up their real bells for electronic chimes. Bell towers were abandoned as unsafe or primitive, and new suburban churches simply ignored 1,500 years of Church history, from the times when the monks of Ireland marked the liturgical hours first with hand bells and then with larger ones, which they had to bury when the Danes came.

From something like cow bells — which have also mostly vanished, soon to be replaced by microchips — the monks’ hand bells developed into the great cast bells that began to define the sacred time of Europe and beyond. Then, for more than a thousand years, Europe was not only the Faith, it was the daily sense of the hours marked by prayer, and even the humblest of churches strove to have the best and most melodious of bells.

Bells meant prayer; bells meant the holy; bells meant the Church universal; and more, to borrow a phrase from Belloc, they meant "the physical network upon which the soul depends."

http://www.newoxfordreview.org/

Our Greens Are Rolling at Close to 10 on the Stimp Meter

A Stimp Meter???? The greens are now rolling? And I won't even go into the snipet of conversation I overheard comparing Big Bertha to a Bazooka. Should we duck and cover or alert Homeland Security?

What was there to blog about before golf? Where to begin? Today was golf class with Johnny the Grip. The usual 14 determined golfers gathered at the far end of the driving range for class--FAIRWAY WOODS.

If I ever end up in a fairway, this could be a good bit of intel to have. My problem was that I only have a 3 wood. Well, I also have a driver but after I got finished hacking off over an inch from the shaft and having it re-gripped it's not exactly like it was.

So today my class partner was a lovely, athletic German woman. I knew I was in the minor leagues when she introduced herself with "Hallo. Mein Name ist Liesel." This was accompanied by the one, sharp, firm handshake. She maybe weighed 100 pounds--all muscle and sinew. My guess is she was on the short side of 70 and the shortest I saw her hit that golf ball was 170 yards!

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "You're so good at this! You really get your lower body strength into your swing! How do you do that???"

"Oh no--Zis is terrible. I haven't been the same since my accident. I had a bad accident when I was riding my bike and nearly died. They had to put in a metal plate--if I didn't ski I probably couldn't hit the ball at all."

Okay. Biking. Skiing. Nearly died. Still whacks the ball 170 yards. I don't have a chance. I grew up playing with dolls, practicing the piano and writing plays for all the cousins to perform. I bet Liesel knows what a Stimp Meter is.

If It's Friday It Must Be Golf Clinic

Today's lesson: THE DRIVER

Fourteen serious souls lined up along the driving range to hear Johnny the Grip reveal the secrets to wielding this club that is designed after the main body of the Starship Enterprise.

I was paired with another woman named Poopsie who seemed as unenlightened as I was. And the lesson began.

Do these golf pros only know male sports analogies?

Johnny the Grip: You know how it is when you're up at bat and you're ready to hit the ball out of the park ?

Toc and Poopsie: Well, actually, NO.

Johnny the Grip: Well, how about the way it feels when you're getting ready to throw the football?

Toc and Poopsie: Uh, NO.
So much for analogies. Apparently one is supposed to address the ball with the body language and attitude of some tobacco-chewing, butt-scratching, face-twitching slugger. Suddenly, I knew what ol' Johnny was talking about!

I was able to ASSUME THE POSITION!

Even better, I was actually able to hit the ball 150 yards! This is a personal best. I had passed a line, crossed over into new jargon, made my first baby step. Now that I finally felt myself in my body as "Slugger" it was time to start blaming the equipment.

Obviously I would really be hitting that ball if my no-good, limp-noodle, floppy, totally unacceptable driver had a shorter shaft and thicker grips. It was dropped off at the Pro Shop right after the lesson.

After about 15 minutes the class had mastered The Stance, The Attitude and the Backswing. The actual follow-through which included hitting the ball was a tad harder. Finally Johnny the Grip stopped the class. His question for us? "What are you all thinking about when you take that long break/pause at the top of your backswings?"

Once again I didn't realize that the question was rhetorical. I asked Poopsie what she was thinking about and she said her family coming to visit and getting to Safeway. I was about to tell her that I was thinking of the paradox of the Body/Soul Dichotomy and also of that wonderful grass-cutting scene in Anna Karenina when Johnny the Grip stopped our little chat. I don't think that there is supposed to be a pause and, if there is one, thinking should not be occurring. Okay, Johnny, I'll work with you on that!

So Sweet You Could Get Fat Just Reading This

This is one of those posts that is so full of Grandma bias that those looking for more objective comments should go somewhere else.

Mama Toc got to give a 3rd birthday party for her little grandson this week-end. Even though there were only 5 of us, it felt comparable to planning The Surge. Do you know that there are entire stores devoted to nothing but selling cheap party junk made in China for any party theme you can think of???

Since I was informed that parties now have THEMES I selected Thomas the Train. Compared with some of the perv kiddie characters out there now, a train seemed very innocuous.

One hour later, with nerves absolutely frayed, I emerged from Party City with a huge sack of party props. The velvet crown was a nice touch--the scepter that spun neon lights was truly wonderful. It didn't help that I was shopping the same week-end as all four city high school graduations were occurring.

The part with the birthday cake was the best. I order my groceries online through Safeway. It was possible to order a Thomas the Train cake with all the bells and whistles over the phone. A beautiful cake was delivered along with my groceries--all in time for the barbecue and party. Very impressive.

The party was underway with the 3 older generations enjoying beer and wine with their hot dogs when suddenly the Grandchild announced at the table that he was "tired and needed to go take a nap!"

Say what? Go take a nap when the cake candles were being lit and ice cream ready to be dipped? That, indeed, is what little 4G guy did. And he slept for nearly 2 hours--which gave generations 1-3 down time with nothing to do but sample more adult bevereges.

The party finally resumed and all gifts were a great hit. But the biggest surprise was the way he took to the toy golf clubs. I can't begin to do what he does instinctively! I pay money to learn to do what he does simply because he's a 3 year old boy! Sigh and alas......Look and weep. Or Rejoice.

Golf--A Good Walk Ruined

I did not receive the mystery of initiation into the attraction of golf when I played my first nine holes yesterday. Sigh.....

I did receive aches and frustrations. It took me an hour to get ready to go. The purse to carry the camera, cell phone, bee sting shot, the inhaler for lung choke up, a hoody in case it rained or got cold, a fruit drink, nail file, Actifed for allergy attack, Kleenex and hand sanitizer! That ought to do it--I also brought 24 golf balls--just in case.

The first tee--the first shot--the first lost ball. Dang!

The first tee--the 2nd shot--the 2nd ball not exactly lost but into the trees and creek bed. And that's how it went.

How does a ball land in a sprinker valve???

After 3 holes I grabbed a shaded bench and rested, waving several other players through. A sign said "Restrooms and Refreshments ahead" and I wondered why I hadn't just driven the Jeep down to the clubhouse and skipped the physical punishment?

The fairways looked beautiful--I was actually on a fairway about 4 times in 9 holes.

I had a guardian angel watching out for me. Pete the "Players' Assistant" checked on me about every 2-3 holes. His encouragement kept me going although he drew the line at going back to my house, fixing me a G&T and bringing it out on the course.

One bunker put up quite a battle and won. I got lost and going the wrong way looking for the 6th tee.But 58 strokes and 2+ hours later I dragged back to the Clubhouse. And today I have taken to mah bed. By the way, have you all heard the Robin Williams routine on the invention of golf? It's on YouTube--but watch out for the f bombs. It has to be the funniest thing out there about this silly game.


The 9th green--Hallelujah!

DO IT ONCE? NO! YOU'LL DO IT EIGHTEEN TIMES!!!!!