The past two consecutive days, I’ve answered the landline at home to the sound of some lady with a faint squeaky irritating voice asking for me by name. I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. It wasn’t the General. For starters, the General’s voice isn’t faint or squeaky. As far as irritating, seldom is that the case, but the potential does exist. I’m sure being hearing impaired played into my level of frustration.
The lady’s communication style was so faint that I could only decipher about every other word, but I understood enough to know I had been selected to participate in a brief survey. I still don’t know what kind of survey and I have no interest in knowing more. I politely thanked the person for their call and declined participating. With the poise of Paul Harvey signing off his radio program with the words “Good Day”, I used the same line to bid farewell to the caller. I suspect she will call back later this morning. Already, I’m sensing that she is a creature of habit.
Last night when I logged on to Facebook, first rattle out of the box, I saw the words: “Donald, we’re asking a small group of people for their opinion. Could you take a few minutes to answer a short survey?” My first thought was, “Most people don’t care what I think”, but I’ll at least open the survey to discover the topic.
You may not believe this, but I don’t spend that much time on Facebook. Words to the contrary from the General could well be a misperception on her part. I simply post my morning blog and move on to my business. I generally get a notification if a Facebook friend has posted something or has made a response to my blog.
They say curiosity killed the cat. I guess I take after my nine-year-old grandson, Jake. When he posts something on my blog, he has a very active-interest in knowing if it resonated with folks and what they thought. I guess Jake and I are a lot alike. I also value your response, reflections and shared stories. I even look very forward to those from a third world country like Oklahoma. I am particularly fond of those that come from my little younger brother.
The other day, Larry attempted to correct me for an error, only to make a blunder himself. As it turns out, I got it right (miracles of miracles) and he was the one mistaken. I patiently and lovingly provided him a word of redirection pointing out that the error was his, not mine. Not to be outdone (who said we are competitive, I taught the kid everything he knows) he lovingly responded:
“I have a demanding job, sir, and I don’t have all day to peruse an encyclopedic tome of mammoth proportions. Besides, man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest (Paul Simon)….Concerning your preaching, are you an exegete or an eisegete? (that will keep a retired man busy for awhile). Regards!
Yesterday morning at church, a friend sat down beside me and said: “Don, no one will cry at my funeral. I’m not even sure I want to have one.” I smiled. He obviously had read my morning posting. If you want to know what all of that is about, I’d invite you to review my musings from yesterday. I am often amazed at the topics I touch and how it resonates with others. When folks connect with my attempt at addressing an issue or topic, the stories they subsequently share add quality and depth to the storyline. Not so much with yesterday’s topic.
Yesterday, there was mostly the shroud of silence. There were only a couple of comments posted in response to mine. For that matter there were very few likes. One of the comments put a smile on my face. My pastor’s wife from my college days in Abilene posted that Bro. Bob has always said: “He hoped he lived a life where when he died even the undertaker would cry”. I figure in the next day or two my younger brother will offer his wise counsel and explain to me how I missed the boat altogether. I obviously don’t always get it right.
As it turned out, true to their word, the brief survey requested from folks at Facebook was in fact a brief survey. Frankly, I was surprised at the brevity. The survey asked about my level of interest in five categories. They included interior design, arts and crafts, DIY, homemaking and buying a home.
The first category struck a chord with me. I like the concept of home design and I think I’m pretty good at it, but I pale in contrast to the fixer upper folks, the property brothers, and the slow talking bearded guy with the Southern drawl and his wife on Home Town. I can envision how something will look even if it is only in my head, but my imagination falls short of the competency level of these folks. I am always amazed at their work.
Sometimes I am amazed at how dated the houses are that folks view on most of the HGTV “before-and-after” sequels. After all, it has been a very long time since green shag carpeting was the rage or avocado colored appliances were thought a necessity. Anyway, all of that got me to questioning: “Is our home dated?”
Maybe? – Maybe not? I’m not even sure I’ve asked myself that question before. There is one bedroom in our home that has the potential to fall into the “dated” category simply because I’ve repeated the look in every home where we’ve lived over the past 37 years. Craig was ten-years-old when we moved into our first home in Henly. He was interested in hunting and fishing and wanted his room decorated in a Western décor. Consequently, I found a stencil that took forever and a day to apply. I can’t remember how many colors of paint are involved, but it was a time consuming process to pound that much paint onto the walls. In fact, just getting the light colored background for the stencil took a lot of time and effort.
This was back during the days before either blue or green painters tape was available and it was nearly impossible to paint anything with a perfect line. Consequently, I took heavy string and pulled it tightly across each wall and then subsequently tacked the string to the wall with very small nails about every eighteen inches. I then painted the walls up to the string or down to the string on the upper side. After the paint dried, I removed the string and the very small nails. Then I was ready to apply the stencil that had a dozen or so different applications. It was a very time consuming process, but it was lovingly done for a ten-year-old-kid who I knew would enjoy the look.
Craig was in college when we moved from Henly to our first of four homes in Midland. Who knows why, but I duplicated that same look in each of the homes we subsequently lived in during the Midland years.
One of my first orders of business after the General and I moved into our current home sixteen years ago was to duplicate the look of Craig’s room. Did I mention it has been a very long time since Craig was ten years old? So, the possibility exists that our home or at least one room in our home is dated. You be the judge. The picture with today’s posting is an identical duplication of the look I captured from 37- years ago. The wall is even he same color.
In case your wondering, the signature series for Andrea’s room has always been the framed dress she wore home from the hospital. It has hung in one of the bedrooms in every place where we lived since 1981.
All My Best!
Don
Carpe Diem 