Mrs. Mary Young, A Cog in the Wheel

My home town.  My home folks.

My 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Mary Young was one of the Tanner sisters.  She was also one of the most influential people in my young life, outside of my family.  She was "good" on so many levels in spite of suffering great tragedy in her young life; her husband John had died very young.  It was clear to all that she loved him and missed him.  WE became her/their children.

Her life, already marked by tragedy, ended in tragedy before I reached my teen years.  She died shortly after being anesthetized for a "routine" surgical procedure.  Poof, the bright light of a caring, talented young woman was extinguished...unfathomable, even now.  I still remember the shock & sadness I felt upon learning that her life was over.

So much has changed since those days.  So much has yet to change.  Would Mrs. Young even recognize the Canton, Georgia of today?  (Sometimes, I don't!)

Mrs. Young's tenure as a teacher in the recently integrated public schools of Cherokee County could not have been easy.  I'm sure she had her resolve tested on so many levels to fulfill her dream to teach my 4h grade class in 1968.  She was the remarkable product of a remarkable family.  

She, they and I are all cogs in the wheels of history.  How momentous the "everyday" can seem in hindsight.

http://cherokeetribune.com/bookmark/23463463/article-50%20years%20later-%20mother-%20daughter%20reflect%20on%20civil%20rights%20?mobile_view=false

Mr. Helmick, A Most Gracious Guest

This past week, I completed the first of two 6-day trips that are on my August schedule.  Six days of flying is an ambitious undertaking and represents more than half of a normal month's pay and credit.  This particular trip consists of just 4 flights:  Houston to Tokyo, Tokyo to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Tokyo and Tokyo to Houston with +/-24 hour breaks in between.

I met Mr. Helmick on the 3rd leg of my trip.  

Departing Los Angeles, we were a little tardy due to the continuing "teething pains" of the newest aircraft in our fleet, the Dreamliner.  When time to board finally arrived, our customers were generally annoyed and a little anxious.  Many of them had onward connections in Tokyo to our many intra-Asia departures.  Boarding was dominated by the bigger-than-life personality of one our most frequent customers (as indicated by his status on our preliminary report.). This loud, overly-familiar fellow was seated on my side of the cabin.  He immediately and incessantly demanded what I guess he saw as his due attention.  Nevertheless, I managed to address and introduce myself to all of the customers in A zone (18 total) and tried to set a relaxed, gracious tone for our 10+ hour flight.

Mr. Helmick was seated with his father (a man of about my age and also "Mr. Helmick"), just behind my "energy black hole" customer.  Each of the Mr. Helmicks was also a very frequent customer, just one level below EBH in frequent flyer status level.  I found young Mr. Helmick to be charming, both fully engaged in our interactions and very engaging in his on right.  I only mention that fact because young Mr. Helmick was profoundly mentally challenged.  

Eye contact, a warm and welcoming smile, loads of pleases and thank yous marked my every interaction with young Mr. Helmick.  Despite his difficulty grasping every exchange on the first try, his attentiveness and desire to participate in those exchanges are starkly different from the typical young person these days.  Most can only communicate on a "get by" level while their attention is locked onto whatever electronic entertainment or communications device happens to be the rage of the day.  I'm sorry to say that MY generation of parents is responsible for birthing and "raising" a race of warm-blooded cyborgs!  I shudder to think what the next 20 to 30 years will bring as these automatons reach an age of accountability and responsibility for those of us who are coming into our "golden years":  "What do you mean it is MY responsibility to care for you as you get older?  What's in it for me?"  (I'm glad that I enjoy my job!  Looks like I'll be attached to the end of an airplane barcart until I drop!)

Young Mr. Helmick was happy to oblige my request that he call me by name if he needed anything during the flight.  His liberal use of "Tony" was alternately punctuated by, "My good man!".  Sometimes both issued forth in my direction while I was on the opposite side of our wide-bodied jet cabin, to the apparent chagrin of some of our other guests.  I just smiled and nodded, occasionally raising a finger to indicate that I would be right here.  More often than not, the urgent call issued forth for yet-another-refill of his glass of Sprite.  He drank us dry in A zone within the first 2 hours of our flight!!  The B zone stock was depleted a short time later.  

When I offered warm bread during our "setup" service, young Mr. Helmick eagerly said, "yes, please". I extended the linen-lined silver basket with my tongs at the ready.  As I began to explain the different selections, my young guest succumbed to his desire to test all of the options and "manually" cleared the deck.  The elder Mr. Helmick's eyes rolled and he moved to correct his son's over-zealousness.  "No worries, Mr. Helmick!", I said quickly.  "I'll just freshen up our selection in the galley."  Good thing the Helmicks were sitting in the last row!  What second bread service?  None today!

And so it went.  Near the end of every flight, I address each customer in my area by name to thank them for continuing to choose my airline-employer for their travel needs.  Somehow, on this day, I knew that my "closings" would be memorable.  I had completed thanking about 3/4 of the cabin and was nearing my Energy Black Hole.  To my surprise, as I came near,  he sat up straight (the first time all day) and waited attentively.  "Mr. Portillo, Mr. EBH, it ws my honor to serve you today.  I hope that everything was satisfactory.  Thank you so much for choosing us.  And Mr. EBH, thank you so much for being one of our very best customers.  We appreciate your loyalty."  I was astounded by the eye contact and warmth of his response!  Mr. EBH thanked me as graciously for my service as I've ever been thanked.  You just never know...

I think I'll keep my final exchange with young Mr. Helmick to myself.  It was moving.  I genuinely look forward to seeing him again someday!

The way I see it, my job is as much about making our guests comfortable and anxiety-free as it is about serving food or, God forbid, evacuating a smoldering aircraft.  Different guests require different approaches to feel comfortable, of course.  My Energy Black Hole guest, for example, was the diametric opposite on a "need level" basis of my young Mr. Helmick.  It was both challenging and entertaining to meet the two distinct need levels in such close proximity, one to the other.  More remarkable still is that, in my memory, they might as well have been my only two guests that day!  I can remember the others; Mr. Okayama and son, Mr. Portillo, Mr. Shull, Mr. Kimpara, the elder Mr. Helmick and Mr. Davis, who were also my direct responsibility.  But those others were not my focus.

No.  That day, for that long flight, I was laser-focused on the yin and the yang:  my Energy Black Hole and my young Mr. Helmick, a MOST gracious guest!  

Is it possible that Mr. EBH was paying attention and learning a lesson in civility from a most unlikely teacher?

"DEEP THOUGHTS": Is this important?

For as long as I can remember, I've employed what I call my "30-second litmus test" when trying to decide if an event, idea, or person is important...

"Is this something or someone that I will spend the last 30 seconds of my life thinking about?"

It hasn't failed me yet.

Milestone: Coming Out...Coming Clean

I admit it...

I have used the "n" word.  Actually, growing up in the rural South during the desegregation era, I used it quite a lot.  I think that any white person who lived in the South during the first 3/4 of the 20th century who denies using it is probably being less than candid.  It's ugly.  It's demeaning.  It's purposely hurtful.  It engenders generations of hate and distrust.  And it is WRONG.  But I used it and I want to cleanse myself of my offense by taking ownership of it.

Incomprehensibly, the word was used ON ME as much as I used it on others!  You see, I am no less a product of my circumstances than anyone else...  

I was a bookish, tall white boy in a newly desegregated school system (1966-1974)) who possessed a modest amount of talent at playing basketball (mostly defensive) in rural north Georgia. My teammates were as different from me as they could possibly be: varying heights and ages, extraordinarily talented in basketball (especially on offense), not too great in the classroom and all were black.  The fact that James Strickland, Chris Byrd, Dwight Thomas, Ronnie Jennings and I became a team is really a little mystifying, even to me.  But we were the starting 5 players in our 7th and 8th grade years at Canton Elementary and friendships formed.  Recently, I've learned that some of those teammate friendships still endure, despite the years and a formidable set of circumstances that separate us.  As in all friendships, some are closer than others.

I played center.  What a spectacle we must have been on the court!  Chris and Ronnie were guards, Dwight and James were forwards as we played 2-1-2 defense (we occasionally played man-to-man but it was much less colorful).  Our offense was more "run and gun".  Together, we were the best grade school team in the county and region.  My forte was rebounding, blocking shots, and outlet passes.  I very infrequently visited "our end" because our offense tended to "ricochet" off of our defense.  I was the biggest, slowest, least shooting-talented of the five.  My presence on offense was usually just not needed!

Off court, I felt "tolerated" by Dwight who was our most prodigious talent, by far.  His older brother had recently signed to play at basketball powerhouse Marquette and it appeared that Dwight was destined to follow in his footsteps.  Ronnie was our MTV star.  Always conscious of his look with a comb standing up in his "natural", he was always singing or humming.  Ronnie's energy level reminded me of a hummingbird, always busy.  James usually had a scowl on his face.  It took me a while but I finally figured out that if he was angry, it wasn't me that made him that way.  Eventually, I decided that he was angry at the world but, at that tender age, I couldn't figure out why, exactly.  Oh, how I've learned about that kind of anger!  Then, there was Chris...

Chris Byrd is one of the most affable, easy-going, natural people that one will ever meet.  He had an easy smile and a ready laugh that made everybody happy to be around him.  He and his girlfriend, Cindy, had recently had a baby (in 8th grade) that they named Shatasha Terease.  Although I never met her, her photograph revealed that she was the cutest possible combination of both parents.  Chris was a proud but unprepared father, as I guess most 8th graders would be.  But he was a prince among young men!

When we were together, the "n" word floated around like dandelion blossoms, blown by the wind.  "N" could mean any of us, including me, or all of us, collectively.  "What's wrong with you, "N"?  You couldn't see that outlet pass comin'?"  " 'N', you got to get on those rebounds!  Step it up!"  Hearing the "n" word when we were together became as natural as my mother asking, "Tony, please pass the butter" at the dinner table.  I distinctly remember Chris telling me one time, "T, you are an honorary 'n'."  I was thrilled!  I was thrilled to be included in something so special, so unique, so important as our little basketball dynasty.  For a naive while, that's what I thought "n" was all about.

Our playing success allowed us the opportunity to travel outside our home county, Cherokee, to play in invitational tournaments in the region.  Our winning streak continued but there was one tournament that will always stand out in my mind.  It required our team to travel to the county seat of neighboring Forsyth County in Cumming.  This was a problem.  Black people were notoriously unwelcome in Forsyth County (Oprah Winfrey visited there in the 80s and broadcast one of her most famous episodes from Cumming on the subject of racism.)  To be sure, "unwelcome" is the epitome of understatement for how black people felt about Forsyth County.  It's history could have come straight from the pages of Isabel Wilkerson's THE WARMTH OF OTHER SUNS.  None of my teammates made the trip.  We won our game but not by our customary margin and NOTHING about that trip felt right.  When I asked my parents why Dwight, Chris, James and Ronnie refused to go, they told me a truth so ugly that I refuse to repeat it!

I was not raised in a racist home, against all odds.  The "n" word used by my family was "negro" which, at the time, was polite and accepted.  The use of that word demonstrated to all that my family was progressive and forward-thinking.  I just didn't realize that then.  I have no evidence that my home, my family were treated differently by white friends because we were this way but we were NOT the norm!  And a visiting friend or distant family member was always dragging the "old South norm" to the door with them when they came.

The family who lived next door, for example, had their children attend a different school because of their views on "mixing."  Although I had grown up with their two children of approximately the same age as my brother and me, the fact that we attended different schools was mostly just a curiosity to me.  Their father's racist views were "out and proud".  This man was one of those "bigger-than-life", John Wayne, man's-man types who my brother and I more-or-less idolized.  In adulthood, I know that his views were predicated on his fear and ignorance.  He most certainly passed those views to his progeny, my friends.

To some degree, I guess that I was somewhat protective of my "basketball life" and teammates.  They validated me, made me part of something important, something bigger than myself and it helped me to minimize the emerging "other" difference that made me unique in all the wrong, most unacceptable ways.  Although I was keenly aware that race was not the only thing that made me distinct from my teammates  and all the other boys my age, I couldn't put my finger on what that other distinction was, exactly.  I would certainly not have recognized that distinction's name (actually several, not-so-nice names), although I had heard them before:  queer, fag, gay, homo.  I will repeat here what I recall having heard about "those" people: "Queers are like snakes.  The only good ones are dead ones."  I participated in the condemnation and persecution of other boys and men who were more effeminate than our strict Southern code deemed acceptable.  Isn't it ironic that I was much more contemptuous of gay people than of black people?

Is it possible that I successfully hid my homosexuality from my teammates and others?  I can't really say.  Chris, Ronnie, James and Dwight certainly never made an issue of it, if they were aware.  And they were VERY sexually aware: much moreso than the other kids in school.

When we all made the "leap" to high school at the age of 14, our team was disbanded.  As freshmen, we were stratified by our individual talent levels and cast into new roles on the Varsity team (Dwight and Chris), B-team (James) and 9th grade team (me).  I don't recall what happened to Ronnie but he had other issues.  It wasn't JUST about the basketball.  Dwight's star burned bright, garnered him much attention and then fizzled.  The increasing rigor of high school academics soon overwhelmed my former teammates. I traversed the next 4 years successfully in academics but my interest in basketball waned as did the notoriety I had enjoyed as part of "the team" which no longer was.  The teen years are tough on everyone, us included.  We lost touch.  I don't recall hearing of or from Dwight or Ronnie again in the years since.  I wonder...

Almost 30 years later, I ran into Chris at a hometown funeral home upon the death of my great aunt.  He too had come there to memorialize a fallen relative and we recognized each other immediately.  The circumstances were so strange, so other-worldly.  Both of us were compelled in opposite directions with little time to "catch up".  But the sheer elation of having seen and recognized him after so long and the JOY I recognized in his face at having seen me moved me to my core!  Chris was still the Chris of old with a ready smile.  Did he find me to be the same Tony?  Two old friends shared a moment nearly totally devoid of words yet so powerful, so meaningful.  It was an amazing encounter on so many levels.  In our "salad days" it is exceedingly unlikely that such circumstances would have brought us together so.

Blacks and whites would have never used the same funeral home.  In spite of racial desegregation, certain aspects of life would need far longer to "homogenize".  One of those aspects being death.  Thirty years on, societal evolution set the scene for our meeting.  How serendipitous, how karmic that meeting was!

It was such a sudden event, and over as suddenly as it began.  Chris was swept away by his conventions to mourning, as was I by mine.  There was no exchange of information, no attempt to perpetuate our reunion.  In retrospect I have chided myself, "Why didn't I make the effort?"

During the final three years of my father's life, I returned to my hometown often and experienced that peculiar phenomenon of "reconnecting" with one's past.  Places and things can seem so familiar when one revisits one's childhood home....people, not so much.  My little town had become a "bedroom" to metropolitan Atlanta.  The few faces that seemed familiar, I later learned were the children or GRANDchildren of the names I recalled for those faces!

One night, while shopping for a new set of bed linens for Dad's recently-arrived hospital bed (he was in hospice care at that point and I was acutely aware that we were nearing the end of our journey together), I noticed a strikingly beautiful, middle-aged black woman.  Her beauty was amplified by the fact that she was animated, happy and in the company of a very nice-looking black man with an "upright" posture and purposeful bearing.  He looked vaguely familiar.  I had returned to concentrating on the task at hand when I heard, "hey, didn't we go to school together?" asked in my direction.  I turned back toward the voice and IMMEDIATELY knew that I was looking into the adult iteration of James Strickland!  His chronically dour teen face had morphed into the most relaxed, contented, beautifully-proportioned, wall-to-wall smile I've ever seen!

"James!?"  I was incredulous and elated.  I sensed he felt the same.

Before I could get hold of my verbal skills, James started by introducing me to his lovely wife.  They had met while he was stationed in the north on one of his military assignments.  James followed the path of many from our part of the world; he enlisted at a young age and had fully-capitalized on his opportunities in the military.  He received a college education, found a gorgeous mate and discovered the potential within him that had longed to be free of the yoke of our historically segregationist world.  In many ways, his journey out of racism paralleled my own out of the prison of the small-minded.  We were both thriving in our new realities!  The beauty of the moment was overwhelming.

YES!  I wanted to shout without even knowing why.  At 52 years old, I couldn't wait to rush home and tell Mom and Dad all about it.  That chance meeting with James, much like the one with Chris, "completed the circle", to some degree. At least two of the friends who had been so important when I needed that importance were OK.  They were better than OK.

I couldn't help wondering, "did seeing me have any effect on them?"

As we parted company that night, I overheard James' summation of me to his wife.  His off-handed remark about me is the greatest compliment I've ever received.  It sounded like the continuation of a conversation, already in progress:

"Tony was one of the "good" ones."

What more could I ask for?

Yes.  Of course I have used the "n" word.

I commit to never use it again.

But maybe not for the reasons you think...

"Old" Canton Elementary School

(until 1976)

The Stream

I believe that no one or nothing is pure evil.

I believe that no one or nothing is pure good.

Every life, every event achieves a point of stasis on the good/evil spectrum and that point is subject to change.  Are you the "same person" as you were, say, twenty years ago?

Our being is subject to the eroding forces of the day-to-day, like a stone being moved by a stream from the mountaintop to the sea.  The stream of time inexorably compels us forward toward our destiny but every event, creature, obstacle and opportunity along the way serves to fashion us into the "us" we ultimately become.

The positives can be wonderful.  They are often the events that we consider the milestones of our life.

But it's the challenges that truly make us who we are.  Challenges are actually opportunities which allow us to choose the future path our life will take.

One of the most pivotal examples of this in my life occurred in my 20s.  I was an eager-beaver idealogue who believed that anything is possible (actually, I still believe that) with the right attitude, talent and perseverance.  I had been a Flight Attendant for a few years and thought my forward path should be in management.  So, when it was offered, I accepted the position of Inflight Supervisor.  What I didn't know but should have was that managing Flight Attendants is about as easy as herding cats!  There is some debate about my longevity in the job but it was either 87 or 88 days.  Why?

Because I encountered one of those life-altering erosive forces in that job.  The invincibility of youth simply was no match for the task of taking away the employment of another Flight Attendant, regardless of the odious circumstances that precipitated that action.

I had been tasked with the supervision of the Service Manager group, the onboard leaders of our workforce.  Theirs was a particularly precarious role because they were essentially Flight Attendants, like all others, with certain leadership responsibilities and accountabilities.  Flight Attendants are generally unaccustomed to direct, on-site supervision and were rankled by the concept.  The one in question felt as though a particular Service Manager was going to disclose to management his suspicion that she was stealing liquor and/or liquor money, so she took action.

In what was meant to be a pre-emptive strike, she participated in the fabrication and submission of a fake customer complaint against the Service Manager that she felt threatened her.  The complaint was detailed, specific and damning; it might have cost the Service Manager his position and ultimately his job. But by virtue of its detail, specificity and intent to damn, I called the veracity of the letter, which was received via the mail from a "customer", into question.  It took me three months to piece together what ultimately were the facts surrounding its production and submission and there was no question as to the outcome.  The Flight Attendant responsible would be fired.

And I was the one to do the deed!  I knew for approximately 2 weeks prior to her termination that the responsibility would be mine.  Honestly, I don't know how I got through it.  It affected my sleep and eating habits.  I was constantly anxious.  The thought of ending the career of a 23 year employee was all-consuming, regardless of the circumstances.  On the date of our meeting, I was a wreck.  There were 4 of us in that small, stark room that morning:  the Flight Attendant, her witness, my notetaker (and fellow, more tenured supervisor) and me.  The Flight Attendant asked as we got started if she could record our proceedings.  I wasn't sure but my notetaker said, "no".  I proceeded to read her letter of termination and when she realized what was happening, the Flight Attendant burst into a tirade of obscenities and threats. I was the focus of the tirade.  I was mortifed, although more for her than for me.  I remember looking at her witness who appeared to be in shock.  The rest is just a blur....

What resulted from that event was a 10 year "dark cloud" hanging over my life.  Through arbitration, the Flight Attendant was returned to work a few years later, in spite of the fact that we had proven the case against her.  She apparently took this as a positive sign and began legal proceedings against me and two others, in hopes of re-couping her financial losses.  She sued me!

Hour upon day upon week upon month upon year of consultations with attorneys, depositions, the contstant feeling of being unsettled, answering questions on mortgage forms about being "party to a lawsuit" left me feeling hung out to dry.  The company said that I was indemnified AS LONG AS no proof came to light that I had acted outside the scope of my supervisory responsibilities.  All the while, the Flight Attendant, having been returned to work, felt vindicated and vengeful.  She wasted no time telling her slanted side of the story to anyone who would listen.  Part of my indemnification was that I could not utter a word about the case, not even to defend myself.  It was hellish.

Ultimately, there was a jury trial held in state court in Honolulu.  It lasted +/- 8 weeks.  The result was that she lost, utterly.  I'm not sure what her attorney saw as a cause of action, she was as guilty then as the day she fomented her plan to have another employee fired.  Perhaps it was the lure of a huge corporation standing behind the defendants (me!) and the potential pot of gold at the end of that litigeous rainbow.  All I know is that one juror sustained me through the process.  One older, Asian lady who sat at the end of the back row gave me constant, reassuring eye contact throughout every day of that trial.  I don't know who she was but I would love to think she knew what her gesture meant to me during that awful process.

The culmination of testimony in that trial occurred when we returned from a lunch recess on what was to be the final day.  Large speakers had been setup in the 4 corners of the jury box.  When I asked our attorney what was going on, he replied that a recording had been made of the termination meeting and that the attorney for the plaintiff intended to play that recording for the jury.  I was gobsmacked!  I was about to relive the most traumatizing moment of my life in a court of law!  Our attorney asked if there was anything in that recording that he should know about.  What?!  I had done all in my power to minimize that event in my thoughts and memory in an effort at self-preservation.  What could I tell him now?

My anxiety was ill-founded.  My recorded voice was so weak as to be nearly inaudible.  My recitation of the termination letter was closer to a lament than a condemnation.  What did they hope to gain by playing my pitiful voice?

Then it came.  The moment in the recording when she launched into her tirade against me and mine.  It was truly awful!  But, on the whole, I suppose it was necessary.  It was almost as though divine intervention was serving to release me from my 10 years of bondage.  For in that terrible moment, I saw and heard myself for what and who I was in this event:  a pitiful pawn in life's chess game.

The Flight Attendant lost her case utterly.  The older, Asian lady-juror smiled at me and nodded as the verdicts (23 in all) were read:  "not guilty".  I was relieved, I was vindicated, I was transformed into the next iteration of Tony Reece, the one whose innocence and invincibility had been disproven by life's erosive forces.

I suppose that she, too was transformed in the process.  In the years since, I have had occasion to work with this Flight Attendant, often in the same cabin, working side-by-side.  My reaction?  "How awkward this must be for her!"  Her actions were those of a human being, doing what she thought was necessary to "survive".  At least, that's my account of it all.  Does it serve any purpose for me to remind her of those actions, to hold her up to public scrutiny for those actions, to hold it over her head like an ax, ready to fall?  I don't think so.

No one is all good.  No one is all bad.  Not her, not me and not you.  We are all trying to stay afloat on time's mighty stream.  When we bump into other people and objects on that journey, our shape, our constitution, our destiny is refined by the process.  I believe that we have some degree of input into how those erosive forces affect us and make us who we are meant to be.  Whether or not we exercise that input is our true measure.

Think about the path that led to the YOU of today.  Which events were more fundamental in affecting that YOU?  The easy ones or the difficult ones?  

I've had a few "life philosophies" ebb and wane in my 53 years: "everything is relative", "that which doesn't kill us makes us stronger", etc.  But my favorite and the one that has had the most staying power is, "if life were easy, what would be the point?"  I suppose my philosophy has a rather eastern flavor because I see the point of life as being "enlightenment" more than "success" or "winning".  

For don't we all come to the same end?  If that is the case, how is one more successful than another?  Our end is our end.  The state in which we arrive there is the point of the exercise.

The "Sixth Element"

The four classic elements of the ancient world were earth, wind, fire and water.

In a relatively recent film whose premise was frustratingly lost in meandering (shout-out to Chris Tucker), Bruce Willis learned that the character played by Mila Jovovich was the missing "FIFTH ELEMENT". 

In this post, I would like to promote the existence of a sixth essential element; the element of trust.  Trust is the element which fundamentally binds all human relationships.  For if "no man is an island", then we all most certainly depend on each other in every aspect of life.  Trust is essential to that successful dependency.

MERRIAM-WEBSTER defines trust as:  "assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something."

Is there ANY interpersonal relationship, from the exalted to the quotidien, that does not absolutely rely on trust?  In the library (where I am now), we trust that the other patrons will preserve the quiet.  In the car, we trust that other drivers will observe the rules of the road.  At school, church, work, the supermarket, we trust that all those with whom we have even the briefest contact will fulfill their end of the mututal trust bargain and thereby assure that all will be well.  On the airplane, I trust that the aircraft manufacturer and the pilot-in-command are competent and trustworthy.

But on a more intimate level, the element of trust may be even more apparent.  How do close relationships form without it?  The brief answer is, "they don't"!  Taking that concept a step further, even the most intimate relationships of long standing will not endure the loss of this one key element.   Examine those relationships that YOU find most meaningful:  parent/child, spouse, master/pet, best friend, close family member, boss/employee.  When I reflect on those relationships in my life that I feel have been and continue to be the most "successful", invariably they share that one common element.  Conversely, I can think of none that has thrived in its absence.  At home, my partner and I have built a successful, 27 year relationship whose foundation is our mutual trust.  

To measure the value that our society places on trust, think about the measures we have in place to address its loss:  divorce, DFACS, employment termination, expulsion, prison, the death penalty...  We do not suffer lack or loss of trust, nor will we long abide those whom we deem to be untrustworthy.    Trust is essential to maintaining "the peace".

THE BIBLE (1 Corinthians 13:13) cites "faith, hope and love" as being the three most important values for humanity, the greatest of these being love.  

But don't faith, hope and even love rely on "the sixth element"?

Milestone: "Maturity"

So, how will I know when I'm "mature"?

What's the absolute test that determines one's maturity?

Philip and I spent this past week at my respite, my heaven on earth, my "true north" as I sometimes have referred to the small home we own on the mid-coast of Maine.  To be sure, he and I see it in an entirely different light!  MooseWalk Cottage has played and continues to play a significant role in my maturity process.  

The cottage recently took on the role of "gut check" catalyst when we signed a contract to sell it in the fall.  While not particularly robust, the mid-coast real estate market has strengthened from its plummet of 2006 and it has become clear that our needs for a Maine retirement home have evolved since the days when we felt that MooseWalk would be perfect.  Alas, the inevitable has arrived.

To preclude my casting Philip in the role of villain where this action is concerned, I independently made the call to sell but based that call on cold, hard facts that the two of us had discussed.  I have so much emotional capital tied up in the cottage that to sell was truly one of the most difficult decisions of my life.  But the things that we "clutter" our lives with, that WE imbue with so much importance, from possessions to friendships, can be seen as both assets AND as liabilities, just like in accounting.  When any of those things morphs from being a clear asset to being a clear liability, we must act.  

The recognition of that bothersome fact and the fortitude to do something about it is what I call maturity.  

Maybe it's a little naive to think that "the cosmos" have a reward in store for us when we find the courage to make the truly hard decisions.  So, call me naive!

As the week grew bleaker and bleaker for me with the realization of what, exactly, I was committed to doing, we began the search for a potential replacement that would be more suitable for our dotage.  Several areas and properties seemed promising but none really "ticked all the boxes."  Almost in desperation after a long day of "go sees", I decided to drive past a condominium that we had seen almost 2 years ago in the Topsham/Brunswick area.  For whatever reason, a home that we had discounted then suddenly had all sorts of potential.  We arranged a walk-through which confirmed our hopes that THIS might be the place.

So now we begin the arduous and very uncertain process of selling and buying real estate...ARGH!  

MATURITY....to be continued (I hope!)