A letter to Gerald Lee Harmanson

This is a letter I wrote a while back (before I had a blog) and have never gotten around to posting it until now. It was posted on Sheila's blog about a month after I wrote it, I think.

This letter is part of the reason that I started writing a blog. I've written lots of things over the years, but with each one, I've deleted it once it was finished. Writing is a good way for me to speak my mind or get things out of my system, especially since I'm not much of a talker. When something is stuck in my head and I need to shut it off, putting it down in words usually seems to work. There's a lot of things that I should probably write about, but for now I'm putting this one to rest.

Anyway, here it is:

Dear Mr. Harmanson,

We've never met, but I've heard quite a bit about you. I know that you have always been known as a good storyteller and I think that you would be interested in the story I have to tell you. This story stretches over many years, but is certainly one worth telling. As any good storyteller would agree, it's best to start from the beginning.

On October 31st, 1950, a beautiful, healthy baby girl was born in Chicago, Illinois. She was the cutest baby anyone could ask for and best of all, she was yours. For some reason that still remains a mystery, shortly after she was born you left. Her mother struggled to raise the tiny baby on her own, something that would be a daunting task for a single mom today; but much more so in the 1950s.

Her mother raised her well, despite hardships. She was much like her dad; besides sharing his middle and last name, she had his kind sense of humor, his eyes, and even his smile. She was hard-working and intelligent, helping her mom around the house and excelling at school. He would be proud of the way she gave her best effort at everything she did, from piano lessons, to her studies, and even in her friendships. Yet there was always an awful void that overshadowed everything she did. With each birthday, she hoped that she might get a card or a gift from her dad, or maybe he would write her a letter. Maybe he would even show up on her doorstep. He might even come back to stay with her and put her on his knee and tell her stories to make her laugh. But he never did.

She couldn't help wondering if he left because of her. She wondered if he had wanted a boy instead of a girl. Then she wondered if he had even wanted a baby at all. Maybe he left simply because she was born. That burden of undeserved guilt hung over her every day. Didn't he want to see her? Didn't he want to know what she was like? Had he forgotten about her? Her mother wouldn't tell her anything about him. Not even his first name. If she knew his first name, she might be able to find him, but then maybe he wouldn't want to talk to her.

For years, she searched for him. Even if she found him, she wasn't sure he'd want to talk to her, but she had so many questions. There were so many things that they could talk about and so many things that she needed to hear. A smile and an "I love you" would have made a world of difference. So many things were left unsaid. He never reached out to her and her mother had no idea if he was still in Illinois or somewhere several states away.

Time went by and her mother became ill. Knowing that her mother's time was running out, she asked again for his name and anything else her mother could tell her about her dad. Her mother revealed his name and she even had some photos she had saved of him from shortly after they were married.

Not long after, her mother passed away. Now she began searching in earnest, hoping that with a full name and some pictures she would be able to turn up something. The search hit one dead end after another, but she was persistent. She searched records in several states, but to no avail. It seemed as if he had completely vanished.

Today, 60 years after you left, she found you. There you were in the obituary section of the newspaper. Even in that grainy photo, the resemblance between the two of you is unmistakeable. The brief biography in the paper revealed fascinating details from your life. For many years the two of you lived only 15 minutes apart. I wonder if you knew this. Did you know her house? Did you ever drive past? In spite of all, your daughter still loves you and grieves for all the years that she spent not knowing you. Even though she's no longer the tiny baby you left behind, she is still your daughter.

I'm writing this letter knowing that you'll never read it, but hoping that you found peace. I hope that your daughter can finally have some measure of closure and that she can put this part of her life to rest. As I mentioned at the beginning of the letter, you and I have never met, and yet I have learned some important things from you. Being a father myself, the circumstances of your life have impressed upon me the importance of fatherhood and the need to always be a steady part of my daughter's lives. Many of the things I often take for granted are so much more important than I ever realized, whether it be spending time with my daughters or simply telling them I love them and how important they are to me. You can rest assured I will always be there for them, no matter what. I thank you for that lesson.

Your grandson,
Mark

My garage

I have a garage. When I go out there, my hands get dirty, I bang stuff around, and I frequently spit (on the grass, not on the floor). My walk becomes more ape-like and I fart a lot more (I dunno what that's about). There's always something to tinker with and plenty of hammers and screwdrivers to assist with the job. That's about all I have as far as tools, but you'd be surprised how much can be accomplished with just those two things. It's really great to go out there and be all manly and whatnot.

This weekend I have to tune up my snow thrower and get it ready for winter. It's a beat-up old 1974 Bobcat and the loudest, meanest snow thrower on the block. There's nothing like firing it up early in the morning and shattering the snowy silence with a mechanical roar and a puff of smoke. Every time I use it, I find myself scratching my armpits and my speech reduced to grunts.

Yeah, the garage is OK.

Going nowhere

There are worse places to live than Cedar Rapids. Really, there are. For example: Detroit, MI; Jackson, MS; Atlanta, GA; Miami, FL; New Jersey (yup, the whole state); Albuquerque, NM; nearly all of Nebraska; and most of the rest of Iowa, to name a few. But if you really feel like you'd be better off anywhere else, Google suggests getting some ink done. If you Google directions from Cedar Rapids, IA, to "anywhere": you'll end up getting a tattoo. Or three.

Planning to go nowhere in life? Go to college. Don't get mad at me, Google said it first.

Silver screen

I really like watching movies. Not TV shows so much, but if I had a job that required me to watch movies all day, that would be alright. Old movies are especially fun to watch, for some reason. It's interesting to see how early movies have clearly influenced contemporary flicks and often been remade and presented as something new.

There are a number of elements in older films that make them interesting to watch. One, they had no CGI or sophisticated special effects of any kind. Any fancy stuff had to be done by hand and since they were inventing techniques as they went along, it required a lot of creativity and invention. Making the transition from stage acting to film acting (two very different things) took some time, too. Stage acting required exaggerated movements, expressions, and dialogue since much of the audience often sat some distance from the stage and did not have the benefit of being up close to the action. This is why much of the acting in early films was so melodramatic and overstated.

Another thing that makes old movies so fun to watch is that society and culture has changed so much over the past one hundred years that much of the common parlance back then has been lost and comes across odd or just plain funny when we hear them now. This is true when it comes to styles of dress, mannerisms, and the contrast between the things that are entertaining now and the things that entertained people back then.

I'm a fan of the film noir genre from the 40s and 50s, but I also like to watch some of the early silent films. Some of them actually hold up to today's standards – as far as dialogue and plot go – but others are just bizarre. For example, I watched The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari earlier this week. This movie is full of creativity and weirdness, but the weirdness is what really makes it shine. It was filmed in Germany in 1920 and had a very surreal, expressionist set with crooked doorways, oddly-shaped windows, leaning walls, and strange props. If Tim Burton traveled back in time, this would've been his movie.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is all sorts of disturbing and most of the time I really had no idea what was going on. That just added to its creepy, sinister vibe. The dialogue frames in the movie were few and far between, so a lot took place between each one, leaving me guessing as to what was going on. One of the characters, Cesare, was especially chilling and I think his appearance has inspired the makeup for a lot of metal bands. He sort of reminded me of Edward Scissorhands, too, for some reason. It moved along, though, and didn't drag on into tedium (which old-timey movies sometimes do).

Anyway, here are some stills from the movie. Those old-timers knew how to keep it creepy!

Rain

It's a great day to not do anything.

A sinister smile in every aisle

Last night I had another dream that has stuck in my head. Most dreams fade quickly after I wake up, but this one won't go away. To give you some background, I have a strong dislike of Hy-Vee. It's important to understand that, or much of the significance of this dream will be lost. It's not even a rational feeling of animosity. It's sort of like the feeling you get when you are about to visit a new dentist. Of course that dentist isn't going to tear your face apart and pull all your teeth out. We know this. But he could.

Loathe, detest, abhor, despise. These are words that come to mind when I try to describe how I feel about their stores. The people who work at Hy-Vee are great, and they are all professionals. Except for a few who aren't. The problem I have, is that roughly 50% of the visits I've had at a Hy-Vee (not just one location, or even in the same city) have ended badly. Once I waited in a long line with all my groceries as people ahead of me argued with the cashier. When I finally got up to the counter and all of my groceries had been rung up ("rung up" sounds very old-timey, but who cares), that's when the dude at the register decided to tell me that the debit/credit card reader was not working. And I didn't have my checkbook with me. Or $64.00 cash. No wonder everyone ahead of me was so mad. Then there was the time that the lady in the bakery refused to wait on me. I still have no idea why. She waited on everyone else, but flatly refused to wait on me. There was the time that a grocery item wouldn't ring up. Instead of figuring it out, they asked if I really needed it. Sure, I just brought that up here for kicks. I didn't really need that lunch meat. Once in January or February I went out to Hy-Vee late at night to pick up some hot chocolate for Cynthia. They didn't have any. See how horrifying this is? Anyway, about my dream:

********

I had to run to the store to pick up something. I could go to Walmart, but that's twice the distance as Hy-Vee and almost as bad. In this dream, I decided to go to Hy-Vee. As I walked across the parking lot toward the store, it was sunny out, but as usual there were ominous black storm clouds above the store. ONLY above the store. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled as ghost-shaped plastic shopping bags blew past in the wind. The automatic door opened with a haunted house-like creak and I could hear a loud cackling echoing from somewhere in the store. The air was unnaturally cold when I walked in and for a second I wondered how badly we really needed another gallon of milk.

Suddenly, all of the Hy-Vee employees ran to the front of the store where I stood and sprang into song. In a carefully choreographed routine, they danced around and sang some show tune about friendly smiles and how much fun it can be to shop at Hy-Vee. It was a Hy-Vee musical! I couldn't tell if this was better or worse than my usual experience. They tap danced on the conveyor belts and even clambered up into a giant human pyramid for the finale. Colored confetti rained down from nowhere and colored lights swirled patterns across the floor.

********

Then I woke up. How's that for weird? (Not the waking up part, the dream part.) Trust me, if I posted half of my dreams on here, no one would want to talk to me anymore.

Get up and win the race

When I was growing up, my dad had a phrase he'd use as his way of offering encouragement. When he saw someone struggling with something in their life, he would say, "Get up and win the race!" I didn't get it, especially since the situation didn't usually involve a race, but I thought it sounded inspiring and it seemed like good advice.

As I got older and I would hear him say that, I used to think it was kind of corny. I realized he was speaking metaphorically, but I still felt like I really didn't need that advice. I watched other people make their mistakes and I learned from them. There was no doubt in my mind that I was not going to make the mistakes that other people had made and I knew that I would never place myself in a position to end up needing that advice. Every time a friend or acquaintance found themselves in tough circumstances, I used to think, "Wow. There's no way I'd allow myself to get into a mess like that." If you're smart and you work hard, life is going to go your way, right? Yup, I really was that naive.

Now I'm older and I've fallen down many times (literally and figuratively) and I know that it's not always possible to control the situations life deals out. Sometimes things just go wrong and you can't do much about it. Everyone falls at some point, but to have the resolve and the persistence to get back up each time is not easy. It takes grit and determination and even that is not enough.

Hebrews 12:1–3 says, "1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart." God has given us the strength to get back up each time and has set an example for us in His son, Jesus.

This race is not about coming out ahead of everyone else, but about fighting the good fight, finishing the race, and keeping the faith (2 Timothy 4). It's about getting up each time we fall and not giving up, despite what life throws at us.