Trunk Restraints

Trunk Restraints

Noel Laflin

1-27-15

I first recall seeing the old domed-top steamer trunk as a kid.  It sat against a pine paneled wall of the family room for years.  The trunk made the move, along with my folks, to Leisure World many years later.  It was relegated to their garage at that point, safely hoisted to a large shelf, unceremoniously draped with an old army blanket – and for most intents and purposes, forgotten.

Following the death of my father, I took procession of both the old trunk and its contents – my parents’ correspondence - letters written during the stretch of World War II.  And from fleeting glances of a single page or two, they would appear to be love letters between two people newly married and then separated by a world gone mad.

As these Victorian beauties, domed-topped steamer trunks that is, were first manufactured in 1870, it’s tough to know for certain the exact age of this particular one, the one that now resides within the bowels of my garage here in Orange – protected by a plastic shower curtain.  But, they are common apparently, common enough for my folks to have acquired one somewhere along the course of their fifty-five year marriage.

 

I have been sitting on this family treasure trove of words,

endearments, and everyday gossip from seven decades

ago – always claiming that I would wait

until I retired before I opened that old trunk and begin to riffle through my parents’ young past.

 

Well, I am six months into my retirement, filling this wonderful opportunity in my life with intensified but leisurely photography, research, reading, writing, traveling, house cleaning, and - as the light lingers just a bit longer each day now - a desire to spend more time in the garden. But, the urge to open that trunk is growing stronger by the day.

 

And when that persistent itch becomes too unbearable, I will do the inevitable and scratch it.  Will it provide relief or just lead to more scratching of a past of which I'd love to know more?

Stay tuned.  You never know for certain what treasures an old forgotten trunk might hold.

Or for that matter, what ghosts emerge, either happy to see the light of day as they dance about and whisper in my ear - or silently hoping that I just close the lid and leave the words behind - in a trunk high upon a forgotten shelf. 

Thankful for a Plan

Thankful for a Plan

Noel Laflin

1-26-15

My mother once told me about an observation an elderly neighbor had made of me long ago.  So,whenever I get in a rut nowadays, I try to recall that line from old Joe.  He was reported to have quipped, according to mom, “That boy – he always looks like he has a plan.”

I take comfort in those words, especially when I’m feeling rudderless, stymied, lethargic, mentally beaten-up, or just plain overwhelmed with indecision.   And even if our elderly next door neighbor never did elaborate further as to just what kind of plans a five-year-old might have had in mind at the time, I know that he must have seen something in me that kept me driven and gave me purpose.

Thus, when a new plan in this present life is needed (as is all too frequently the case with adulthood), the older me of today will immediately call upon that young boy to step across the decades and lend a hand in sorting things out.

And while I am reaching out to the lad of long ago, I often walk across the old driveway, shake Joe’s hand, and say ‘thank you.’

Thank You, Dear Teacher

Thank You, Dear Teacher

Noel Laflin

January 24, 2015

Eighteen years ago, I stood at a lectern similar to this and looked out onto a sea of friendly faces – faces of young and old, hopeful and sad – not all that different from what I see today.

It was also a memorial service – the one for my mother.

I wrote of this moment in a short story about our friend, Jack Schlatter. I entitled it “Tears and Inspiration.”

 

You see, there were tears for the passing of a great lady, my mom – and inspiration, as the eulogy I finally chose to use that day was also about another great lady.  It was the story that Jack wrote following the death of his own mother – a story that has been read by thousands and thousands around the word.  I know that many of you have read it too.  It is entitled, “See You In The Morning.”  And, as my own mother had also been a big fan of Jack’s some three decades prior, I could not think of a better way to honor her at that memorial service than to quote the words of one of her favorite teachers, the man who so inspired her son.

It was ten years before I was finally able to pass my remembrance of this occasion on to Jack.  By then, we had not seen one another for forty years.  To put that into perspective, that’s more time on this planet than some of you here today have been alive.  But once we did meet up again - well, time flew out the window for the both of us.  I was magically transformed into a shy, skinny junior high kid embracing a young dynamic teacher only twice my age as Jack was just thirty-two at the time. Einstein would have understood the relativity, not to mention enchantment of the moment. In fact, Jack loved one Einstein quote in particular and I believe it fits very well here: “Our death,” Einstein said, “is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation.  For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.”

I wrestled for two weeks in preparation for this short time with you all today.  Like preparing for my mother’s memorial, I sought out both scripture and poetry.  I looked to the great immortals in history for pearls of wisdom.  I searched my memory trying to recall all of the humorous, inspiring, and uplifting times with Jack.  What stories, either old or new could I bring to the table today?

Well, just one short story perhaps…

 

On Jack’s last visit here in late March, three of us went out to dinner.  There was Jack – along with my partner of fifteen years, David (whom Jack loved dearly) - and me.  Upon being seated at a local Mimi’s Café, Jack immediately whipped out one of his cards, handed it to our waitress, Christine, introduced all three of us and then proceeded to charm the very socks off of the young lady – only as Jack can do of course.

Within minutes, Jack knew about Christine’s major in healthcare, her boyfriend, her hopes, dreams and ambitions.  She paid scant attention to the other tables, as sometimes happens to servers when they have Jack Schlatter as a customer.

At the end of two hours, as we prepared to depart, I thought it would be fun to see just how awake, our sleepy friend still was.  So, I turned to the waitress and said, pointing across the table, “Now, Christine, doesn’t Jack look GREAT for an older, distinguished-looking gay man?”

Christine nodded enthusiastically, smiling broadly, as she headed back to the kitchen.

It only took a moment, but the words finally registered with Jack.  His sleepy eyes opened wide, hands slapping the table as he bellowed, “But I’m not gay!” And if looks could kill – I would have been dead on the spot.  Then he laughed uproariously.  In fact, we laughed about it the entire way home.

Fast forward to the present. As I was saying a minute ago, I was trying to prepare for this moment, and in doing so, what could I speak of? And then it dawned on me … re-read the man’s stories! Hear his voice anew as it jumps from the pages.  Seek out and gather every magic pebble laying untouched about my feet and fill my saddlebags like there was no tomorrow.

 

Do you see this book?  “Gifts by the Side of the Road” – by John Wayne “Jack Schlatter.”  Well, what you may not be able to see from where you are sitting are the all of the brightly colored small stickies attached to various pages.  For as I read, sipping and savoring the words like a fine wine, I kept finding and marking new insights previously overlooked in prior readings.  I rediscovered Jack’s love of family, friends, colleagues, teachers, students, principals, mentors, waiters, waitresses, bus boys, clerks, cabbies, train conductors, bus drivers, carolers, priests, rabbis, ministers, jugglers, tinkers, salesmen, dogs, cats, children, toddlers and babies.  He engaged everyone he met and then frequently wrote of the experience later in a style we have all come to know and love.  But mostly he wrote of friends and family – in fact, many in this beautiful gathering today have a permanent place in this small book – living gems whom inspired the teacher so very much that he felt compelled to sing their praises. You have a place in history, my friends.

As I turned the pages I chuckled over the semester-long woodshop production of a single misshapen but expensive doorstop, forever loved by his mother.

 

I cried over the passing of brothers and friends’ children.

 

I whopped and hollered with renewed joy and admiration for those overcoming immense obstacles: Brother George beating polio - Jack’s friend, Tally, a man with neither face nor hands but whose spirit never wavered, but only inspired all he met.

 

I winced with pain as Jack noted that he was still haunted by the memory of a slight he’d given to a fellow-teacher, long ago, all for the sake of “self-glorification.”

 

I marveled anew at his interest in EVERYTHING and EVERYBODY!  I wondered aloud, time and again as I poured over his writings, how he managed to observe so much, write so compellingly, and never tire of gently admonishing us all to do better.  And finally, I treasured once again his ability to understand the human condition so well and to have the ability to love us all so unconditionally.  What gifts!

Oh, dear teacher, you gave beyond measure.  I hope you know that.  And I hope you somehow now know that your gifts will be handed down through generations to come.

“And so” Jack wrote in preface to his final piece in “Gifts by the Side of the Road,” I come to the final pages of this book, but not the ending, for this is where it all began, and there will never be an ending.  One who spends his or her life with the young continues to live, even after he or she has left the planet.  That is why I have spent my life saying with great pride and gratitude … I AM A TEACHER.”

David and I need to head over to a Mimi’s Café in Tustin soon.

We need to find our favorite waitress, Christine, and tell her some very sad news.  And like all of us, I know that she’s going to cry.

Survivor's Guilt

Survivor’s Guilt

Noel Laflin

January 22, 2015

I am much older than I appear.  But I’m not letting on by just how much. Do you wish to guess?

As a point in fact, I am older than those of you reading this today - or for that matter, the combined years of any of you and the three fathers that preceded you.  We are talking centuries, my friend.  And I have the rings – as well as scars - to prove it.  But I prefer to keep those intact for a bit longer, so don’t get any ideas of trying to disprove my claim just yet.

I am a survivor of drought, fire, insect and man.  And of them all, man was the worst by far.  But I suppose some of you already knew that.  However, for those who may not know my story, come closer and share my shade as I enlighten you as to how things have changed in my little ‘neck of the woods.’  As you have no doubt deduced by now, unless you are as dense as the granite encasing my roots, I am a tree – a trustworthy fir – honest to my ancient core and a credit to my species.  Did I also mention that I was just a bit vain?  Ah, so be it.  I have lived long enough for that to be forgiven.

Now, in my beginning, the land about you teemed with greenery.  Oh, sure, you see some tall trees today surrounding this open plain, a plain once known as Lightingdale, but it pales in comparison as to how it once appeared.

 

And believe me, it was a ferocious gamble that one could even make it above topsoil when I first sprouted so long ago.  It was a veritable jungle out there when I was a youth.  Oh, not a tropical jungle, have you – I use the term metaphorically – but a jungle in the sense that it was a game of mere survival of the fittest.

Old companions of mine, now long gone unfortunately, told me how they marveled at my tenacity to live at all, given that there was such competition for sunlight and moisture.  Oh, sure, the winter snows were plentiful for the most part, but summers were not always so kind to us when it came to rainfall.   And the crowded canopy above, as well as all about us, was intimidating to say the least.  One had to push and shove his way to the top just to grab a faint glimmer of life-sustaining sunshine.  But, I was determined to live and grow – and I did.

As those first decades passed I was eventually assured of a place on this mountain. I shared this higher elevation with giant ponderosas, flame-resistant incense cedars, ancient oaks, sweetly scented Jeffrey pines, and other firs – all competitors of course, but good solid, upright friends nonetheless. Beneath us grew ferns, buck brush, monkey pods, willow and the occasional lovely snow plant. Our forest was abundantly dense with lichen-encrusted trees and rocks covering every rise and fall of the land.  And we also had this flat plain to center us, and the occasional lightning bolt to enflame us. But it is today, as I look down upon the openness from my lofty height, much as it was back in my youth.  Only, there were so many more of my kindred back then keeping guard as we pressed in upon this clearing …

It was also during this time in my youth that I first became aware of man.

The humans would come to our clearing every spring.  The older trees informed me that they had been doing so for many generations.  The men and children were as naked as the day they were born.  The women dressed in modest skins.  They carried little as they walked up from the deep creek below – the creek that was their highway into the sky.

For nearly three centuries I bore witness to the arrival of these gentle creatures who came to the coolness of the mountain in order to escape the desert harshness below.  They did not stay but for five moons each season before picking up their brightly colored baskets and babies and making the trek back down the steep creek highway once the autumn chill was well under way. But while here, they fared well, sitting beneath our shade, hunting small game, and collecting the nuts, cones and berries that were in such great abundance.  If you look closely – just over there by that stand of oaks, you can still see where they ground the acorns they so highly prized. The women crushed them with smooth stones into the gentle indentations that can still be seen in the face of that large flat rock.  They spoke softly to one another as they toiled so.  Children were taught the ways of their elders and grew as quickly as young saplings. The people of this era considered the giant bears – those that so freely and abundantly once roamed these woods - as kin. The families that migrated here each season never harmed grandfather bear – never partook in his killing – never ate the meat or wore the skin of their ancestors. Yes, they had manners, these gentle humans.  And I miss them.  I have not heard their quiet words for more than a century and a half now.  Nor have I seen grandfather bear in nearly that long as well.

 

Within a century or two, however, other men eventually took the place of the quiet ones.  We, as an old growth species, did not care for them at all.  They were strangely dressed, loud and disrespectful of the land.  They carried guns and axes and used both with reckless abandon – taking down stately friends and the last of the bear clan, not to mention any deer or squirrel foolish enough to stick around.

The new uncouth humans – awash in wild facial hair and stinking body parts - came in ones and twos originally, bearing strange instruments and taking measurements of our surrounding hillsides.  Then the loud men started to arrive in droves, pitching their ugly tents, shooting those few animals unfortunate enough to wander into our old lightning plain, pissing and shitting in the once pristine creek that you can still hear yonder.  They began to clear a pathway through many a stand of tree on the western slope.  The men then hauled them away, only to return some of my former comrades now misshapen beyond recognition.  Without reverence these men began to pound roughly hewed, sharpened spikes through my old friends, all the while laying heavy metal rails onto their bleeding limbs on this new devil of a highway they had carved around our mountain.

 

But this was only a preview of the real perversion yet to come.  And it came one day in the form of a belching, smoking, clanging metal monster riding the backs of my old mates.  The men cheered upon its arrival, throwing their sweat-stained hats into the air and firing their guns willy-nilly.  Birds flew, deer quivered, raccoons grabbed their young and ran.  I only wish that we could have run as well.

Thick cables were strung across the land and steam-powered machines began to vibrate in murderous anticipation.  The metal lines commenced to slice through the younger, weaker trees – while teams of men wielding wickedly sharp axes plowed into my larger friends.  The forest shook and cried in pain as one giant after another toppled to their death. I kept awaiting the axe men to lay into me at any moment – but the moment never came.  Instead, they rounded my generous girth with their sharp cable and used me as an anchor in order to haul those who’d already perished up the mountainside so that their dead bodies could be stacked onto wooden flat beds and hauled away for further slaughter at the sawmill but an hour ride away.

The holocaust went on for nearly ten years - even after the very last of the great bears was brought down.  Men came and went – tents were struck and reassembled season after season.  The pathway through the forest was ever lengthened so that more ancient stands of trees could be harvested and hauled away.  Lightning continued to dance upon the newly denuded hills. But by then, I was the only lightening rod within leagues of any strike.  And let me let you in on a dreadful secret – I prayed to be struck back then.  I had, what some of you refer to today as, survivor’s guilt.  I was all alone within the first dozen years of the last millennium.

One day, the metal beast did not return – as there was nothing to return for.  The forest was gone.  The birds were gone.  The deer were gone. And soon, the men were blessedly gone as well, uprooting their metal highway and leaving only the remains of some of my old friends to rot away on the narrow pathway.

What they also left behind was a stump-filled wasteland surrounding this patch of flat, trampled earth.  It took several decades for new growth to come about.  I sustained a sleepless vigil over the youngsters as they slowly took hold, breaking through the tough granite and reaching for the sunlight.  They had an easier time of it than I, as there was no competition from older generations to hinder their growth.

 

As the young ones grew and became aware, they questioned me in regard to the deep scars about my base.  With time, many of those scars healed over – but not all, as you may have noticed.  Some ran too deep and will stay with me for whatever time I have left.

Four decades passed before the next set of humans arrived.  By then, many new trees had filled in the once barren land.  It’s the only reason the people returned, I suppose.

But this time the humans were kinder – rarely carrying axes.  They have now come and gone in waves for the past half century or more.  They marvel at my girth and touch the old scars that will never heal and wonder aloud as to how they came about.  Many have not heard my story until now.  So, I hope I have been of some enlightenment – a rather not-too-subtle pun, considering where I reside, don’t you think?

The human youngsters of today do not come from the deep creek below, as they once did with their parents. Today they come via a different highway, or so I have come to learn.  But they remind me of a more civilized people, despite their clothes and laughter and silly campfire songs. They whiz past me on their winter sleds and saunter by on summer hikes.  Some stop to marvel at the beauty of the place and try to guess my age as they lay their small hands upon my bark.

But I am not telling.  I will only let them guess.  

Without A Leg To Stand On

Without A Leg To Stand On

Noel Laflin

January 19, 2015

My mother always admonished me to never take anything for granted.  And of course, mothers are always right.

So, as each January 20^th makes its annual pilgrimage on the calendar, I am filled with remembered gratitude (not to mention just a shiver of near-forgotten pain) as it’s the anniversary of the day I broke my leg in three places.  And although the shattering of my lower left tibia, due to a sledding accident, took place long ago – the memory of that recovery still plays an integral and important role in how I view general health and simple mobility nearly five decades later.

 

Now the fear of a repeat episode also kept me off of sleds for many years.  But even that major trepidation also evaporated on another day in January, some years later, when I met a man with only one leg.  And as fortune would have it, he was in dire need of my assistance - and as fate would further have it, I needed to pilot a sled once again.

The breaking of my leg took place on a Saturday.  The year was 1968 – I was barely fifteen. The location was an icy slope in Idyllwild, known as Devil’s Slide.  That name alone should have set off alarm bells to our church’s youth group – but alas, we paid it no heed.  And all went well initially.  Sleds were dragged up the hill and then ridden down the steep icy slope, time and time again.  The rides were fast and bumpy as some major natural indentations in the mountain had formed over time.  The trick was to avoid the larger holes as they threatened to do bodily damage if hit.  But that’s exactly what I did on my last run down the hill – I hit one dead on.  Had I been lying prone – and alone – I might have just been thrown off the device and slid the rest of the way relatively unharmed.  But, as luck would have it, Debbie Wolensky and I were riding double and sitting up. Thus, it was my left leg that flew off the rudder, went into a rather deep hole, and stayed there while the rest of us flew violently forward.  Consequently, my tibia snapped.

The cast that I had to lug about for the next three and a half months ran from toes to crotch.  It took two hands wrestling it into bed at night. It meant sleeping on my back at all times until the damn heavy hindrance was removed sometime in May. I have never begrudged the inconvenience of a night filled with ‘tossing and turning’ since then.  Sleep may elude me occasionally, but at least I have had the mobility to deal with it.

During my cast-encasement I became an expert at washing up in the bathroom sink.  Years later I came across the term, ‘whore bath.’  I grasped the concept immediately.  I’ve appreciated the simple ability to shower ever since.

A boyhood friend and his father faithfully picked me up and returned me from junior high each day, helping me to both slide into and out of the back seat of their classic 1940’s-era car.  It had a massive back seat that allowed me ample room to stretch out with both cast and crutches.  And, I rode in style. I give silent thanks to that dynamic duo to this very day.

School mates carried my books and opened doors for me.  Teachers gave me a five minute head start so that I could make it to the next class on time.  Friends signed my cast.  I only now hope I adequately thanked everyone for these simple acts of kindness some forty-seven ago.

And when the cast was finally removed and I felt as if the weight of the world was lifted once and for all from my lily-white leg, I gave heartfelt thanks to the medical profession in general for saving my leg and the doctor with the magic saw, in particular, who loosened and ultimately freed me from my plaster shackles.

But I was hesitant about ever getting on a sled again until I met a one-legged man named Dan some eight winters later.

Now, Dan may have explained to me just how he lost his leg – but I apologize for having forgotten the circumstances all of these years later. Not that Dan would have cared most likely, as he was an independent cuss and shied away from any pity that folks may have wanted to toss his way.

 

But here we were - this old wood-chopping, pipe-smoking, sarcastic, one-legged Souter and me - sharing winter duty on a cold, snowy January day in Camp Ahwahnee.  With chainsaw and me in tow, Dan led the way through camp as we headed out to first find, and then deal with a reported fallen tree blocking the old camp road some half mile away from our warm quarters back in the camp’s parking lot.

And although the snow was deep and Dan had to really swing his artificial leg in awkward fashion in order to propel himself forward, we made decent tracks.  The only time we moved out of the center of the icy snow-packed road was to let the occasional Scout on a sled come barreling by.  I wished them all a safe landing.

The fallen tree was eventually found and expertly dealt with as Dan was a master with the chainsaw.  As we turned to head back, however, one of the straps that held the man’s artificial leg in place snapped.  Dan lurched forward into soft snow.  The fake leg with boot still attached, lay uselessly upon the icy road.

Well, Dan was normally pretty clever about coming up with solutions at times like this – and he knew exactly how to remedy the situation.  But, the tools by which to do this lay back at our sleeping quarters.

 

As evening was drawing neigh and the temperature was starting to drop, we knew that we were in a bit of a fix as far as getting a one-legged man twice my age – not to mention a great deal heavier than me - back to his leg-fixing tools.

But, as luck would have it, a whooping and a hollering from up the hill preceded a young daredevil on a sled careening our way.  The lad had no choice but to veer off his track once he saw the two of us - one with chainsaw in hand, sprawled across the snow - blocking his path.

Like cops commandeering a civilian’s car, Dan and I kindly confiscated the kid’s vehicle and had him push us off.

 

So, there I was piloting a sled through the woods once more.  Only this time my traveling companion was not a pretty girl from Sunday School class, but rather a cantankerous old guy, smoking a pipe and holding a chainsaw across his lap.

 

And across my lap, as I nervously grasped the ropes and rested my restless feet upon the steering rudders, sat a plastic prosthesis - with boot still attached.

I was filled with gratitude the entire ride back to warmth and legs anew.

Regret Resolution

Regret Resolution

Noel Laflin

January 1, 2015

A friend of mine once confessed that for every regret he had for something that he had done, he had nine regrets for things he had not done: friends he had not called when intuition told him otherwise, a word of encouragement he'd failed to give at an opportune moment, and not saying 'I love you' as often as he should have. 

The ironic thing is, this man was one of the most encouraging individuals that any of us could ever hope to encounter - especially at an impressionable young age. He changed folks for the better every day of his life. And yet, he still felt that he could have done more. Like an Oscar Schindler berating himself at the end of that epic film, my friend often mused: "If I'd only given more ..."

Oh, dear teacher, you gave beyond measure. Don't you know that, old friend? And yet you have given me one last gift with this view on regrets. I am just now realizing it ...

You see, I sat alone one night, not all that long ago, obsessing on many of the mistakes in my life. They were of the one percent you spoke of - where we had done something we wished we had not. I even started a list, and wondered how I might seek long over-due absolution.  

Then - like magic - my mobile rang. It was you. We spoke for an hour and a half. We laughed over familiar jokes as we settled into an old comfortable pattern.  

You then told me that I had found my calling with my writing - the real purpose of your call. 

You then told me that I was loved.

You made me shine like a freshly minted penny! 

You made my night with this unexpected boost to ego.

You then left us three weeks later and broke ten thousand hearts - mine included. 

I tore up that old list and have replaced it with a more positive one. 

There are folks I need to call - words of encouragement that must be given. 

And, I need to say, 'I love you' more often.