Rambling Josh

There’s a Zen-like proverb that can be found in many variations if a-Googling-you-go. I’m not sure of the original source. Sometimes, when I’m roaming through a bookstore or a library amidst the rows-and-rows of books, I wonder how it’s possible to write anything “original”.

There’s only 26-letters in our alphabet, and it amazes me (I’m easily amazed) the plethora of ways those letters can be mixed-and-matched and strung together to form words and sentences that attempt to move something from one head into the head of another.

Some are more successful at this attempt than others, judging by how quickly some books move from the festive, well-organized “New Arrival” section, to the random disarray of the “Just Take It” pile of discarded not so interesting sentences.

How does it feel as an author to stroll into a bookstore and find the ideas, thoughts, and whatnot that you were trying to move from your head into the heads of others, piled amongst last year’s diet, get rich, or become a likeable person books? The product of hours-and-hours of your time and effort lying there in a heap with a big red sticker over your smiling face on the cover boldly proclaiming “196% off”.

As a rule, I’m skeptical of a book whose author found it necessary to put themselves on the cover. Usually standing, arms either crossed or on the hips, with an expression attempting to convey mirth, wisdom, and vulnerability.

Good or bad…hard to say. At least they did it. They put themselves, and whatever was in their head, out there for the public to render judgment upon. In this day and age of constant and instant everything, that judgement occurs swiftly and without mercy for Mister or Miss mirth, wisdom, and vulnerability. So it goes.

Back to the Zen-like proverb…

There was once a farmer in a village. One day, his horse ran away. So, the villagers came up to him and said, “That’s bad.” The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Good or bad…hard to say.”

The next day, the horse came back with seven wild horses. The villagers came up to the farmer and said, “More horses, that’s good.” The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Good or bad…hard to say.”

A few weeks later, the farmer’s son was riding one of the wild horses and was thrown off it. As a result, he broke his leg. The villagers came up to the farmer and said, “That’s bad.” The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Good or bad…hard to say.”

The next week, the king sent word commanding all able men to enlist in the army for the upcoming war against a neighboring kingdom. The farmer’s son wasn’t enlisted as he had a broken leg. The villagers came up to the farmer and said, “That’s good.” The farmer shrugged his shoulders and said, “Good or bad…hard to say.”

The next month the farmer and his gimpy son harvested a bumper carrot crop. A more impressive crop of carrots had never been witnessed by the villagers, and they said, “That’s good.” The farmer threw back his shoulders, puffed out his chest, and said, “Darn right!”

That night the scent of freshly picked carrots attracted a massive flock of giant flying rabbits. A flock so vast they blotted out the moonlight as they descended upon the village. Nibbling and hopping about ferociously until nary a carrot remained, reducing the village to rubble, and littering it with boulder sized…You get the idea.

The “original” proverb didn’t descend into giant flying rabbit chaos, but if that farmer kept shrugging his shoulders, and didn’t get a little cocky, the proverb would never end. A proverb in itself I suppose. Don’t get cocky about your carrot crop.

Just think of the possibilities if you could break one of those rabbits to ride…“Good or bad, hard to say.” Or as an old German proverb states, “Fortune helps the bold, but not always.” Definitely maybe…or not. Such is life.

As you are most likely aware, another year has recently been put to rest. Rest in peace 2016, thank you for your time. If you were not aware of this, I apologize for the spoiler, and would recommend you place “get a friend” towards the top of your list of resolutions for 2017. If your personality or lack of personal hygiene (or perhaps both) renders that particular resolution unlikely, replace it with “acquire a calendar”. Wait a minute… my mom gives me a Lignite Community Calendar every year for Christmas. So it goes.

After our New Year’s celebration this year, I put “avoid champagne” at the top of my list of resolutions. It’s tasty and makes my friends tolerable, but apparently some sickly soul must have coughed on one of the half-dozen glasses that found their way to my hand, and passed along a bit of a fast acting stomach flu to me. I’m much better now, thank you.

To kick off the first day of 2017, my wife asked if I would like to accompany her to the movie theater to see Will Smith’s new film “Collateral Beauty”. I am not one to go to a movie willy-nilly, just for the sake of going to a movie, as I see it as an investment of my time and I value time, mine and yours. I found the movie description intriguing “Retreating from life after tragedy, a man questions the universe by writing to Love, Time and Death” so I decided to give it a go.

As a minor side note, I prefer to call movie theaters “show halls”, but have found that nobody outside of northwest North Dakota seems to know what I’m talking about, and I grew weary of the pointing and laughing. My Grandpa Fritz took us to the Columbus Show Hall, not some hoity-toity theater, to see “Smokey and the Bandit”.

Although my taste in movies may be questionable, you may find comfort in knowing that both my wife and I thought it was a good flick. It was well acted, thought provoking, and it managed to pull a tear or two down my cheek. I’ve attempted, with moderate success, to train my tear ducts to only release tears from the side away from wife during movies to limit the mocking.

As the description may have indicated, the movie spoke of time, and that coupled with the arrival of the New Year, has time on my mind as I sit down to write this first column of the new year. New Year’s is an interesting time. It’s as if, for a fleeting moment, we get to straddle time…past, present, future…all right there, all at once. We stand in the present swaying to “Auld Lang Syne” with our arms draped around the shoulders of friends and loved ones, thinking back fondly, looking forward hopefully.

The parties over folks, it’s time to take on another year. As the late Steve Jobs once said, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”

Here’s to time, may good people and good times make you lose track of it often.

For those that aren’t on our Christmas card list (you know why) I thought I’d share a bit of our goings on over the past year. First, a word from our 2016 holiday sponsor, “Aged 12 years in bourbon oak casks, Knappogue Castle Single Malt Irish Whiskey, making the holidays mostly tolerable for ye and me. Mellow and well-balanced…unlike your in-laws. Enjoy a dram over ice or straight from the bottle…drizzled with the tears of Christmas present. Knappogue Castle…your home for the holidays.”

This summer, the wife and I celebrated our 20th year of being locked securely, and blissfully, within the institution of marriage. I thought only crotchety elderly couples that smell of Vicks, Ben-Gay, and foot powder celebrated 20th wedding anniversaries. Turns out I can’t smell. Dawn is a thoughtful lass, and got me a 12 and an 8-year old bottle of lovely Irish whiskey for our anniversary. The gift was, and still is, much appreciated, her attempt to make me do math was not.

Dawn loves the holiday season, and spends as much time as she can wrapping her thoughtful gifts, baking goodies, listening to Christmas music or watching sappy Hallmark Holiday shows. Not necessarily in that order and sometimes simultaneously. I’ve tried to watch those Hallmark Holiday shows with her, but Dawn finds the chronic eye-rolling and frequent bouts of bulimia to be distracting. I just get so emotional.

Jackson is 17, and is a kind and caring young man that is begrudgingly, and not very attentively, attending to his junior year of high school. He had a successful tennis season last year, and we’re looking forward to quietly cheering him on again this spring. Unlike other sports, at tennis matches, yelling and screaming like a fowl mouthed howler monkey is frowned upon, rather you are to politely rattle your jewelry. Charm bracelets snag on my arm hair, but we all must make sacrifices for our precious children in an attempt to keep them from resentfully sticking us in a cut-rate retirement home that serves generic jello and cold coffee.

Sierra is thoroughly enjoying her junior year studying film and photography at Montana State University in Bozeman. She is a caring, creative soul that harbors great reserves of empathy for one and all. She has a genetic predisposition to wanderlust, and has scratched that itch this past year by attending the Sundance Film Festival, gallivanting around Arches National Park, exploring Seattle and the Pacific Northwest, and has plans to visit San Francisco in the spring. Sure, it makes a parent nervous having their child out in the world without their hand readily available for them to grab if things get unsteady, but I’m proud of her independence, and the lens of curiosity and caring that she views the world through.

The years click by so fast. Seemingly overnight our children have grown into young adults, on the brink of a life of their own. A life “of” their own, but never “on” their own, as family is a forever sort of deal. A deal where we raise them to the best of our ability, and in exchange, they eventually forgive us for our shortcomings, and begin asking us for advice…and get this…listening to it.

This whole “kids growing up and kicking ma and pa to the curb” deal is sad at times, but sitting on that curb together, after 20 years of chasing kids and careers, Dawn and I took a bewildered glance at one another, and seemingly simultaneously said, “Where have you been?” Thus has begun another chapter in this crazy book of life. The chapter where we ditch the kids and go on vacations or out on the town (sort of like adults). The chapter where the holidays become more about simply enjoying fleeting family time together, rather than a quest to cross the shiny gadgets of the year off of a list so your child doesn’t suffer any irreparable mental trauma questioning the existence of Santa and small herds of Rangifer tarandus that have magically mastered flight.

As for the old dogs, Pre and me are getting by just fine. We walk where we used to run, and are much more selective as to what we expend our time and energy chasing. I suppose one could call it contentment. Grateful for the work I get to do at Chadron State College, appreciative of the friends that call me a friend, and so very happy and proud of the family that counts me amongst their clan. May contentment find you and yours.

Happy Holidays from the Ellis family.

It’s that time of year. That time of year when the final few weeks of a sixteen week semester marks the beginning of some student’s sudden concern over their grade. I don’t really have any complaints about my students, there a good lot of young adults, and being young adults they’re prone to bouts of irresponsibility now and again. For that matter, young adults don’t have the market cornered on bouts of irresponsibility.

“Bouts” aren’t generally an issue, after all, one bout of diarrhea, although unpleasant for all involved, isn’t generally a major concern with excessive long-term negative consequences. Other than, perhaps prompting the immediate shift of your favorite white Levi 501s from the “looking snazzy in school” pile to the “only wear while shoveling coal in the dark of night” pile. I’ll chalk that one up to divine intervention, protecting me from excessive photographic evidence that I once was the proud owner of white jeans.

Over the course of the next week or so, I will generally get a couple of emails from students stating, “I see that I have an “F” in your class. Is there anything I can do to raise my grade?” Some instructors are greatly annoyed by these emails, I happen to find them entertaining, and will type out my response with a smile, “Yes, I also see that you have an “F”, so we are in agreement. Myself, and the rest of the class, have missed you greatly over the past 14 weeks. Swing by and see me and we’ll chat about your grade.”

If they overcome their 14 week bout of irresponsibility, and bother to stop by my office, I will accept any and all late assignments they turn in. If they don’t bother, neither do I. The majority do bother, and the majority own up to their bout of irresponsibility. I think, and I could be wrong, that allowing a student to rectify such a bout can be a positive learning experience for them, and hopefully will serve to prevent the bouts from becoming chronic.

Chronic anything is generally a bummer. Chronic bedwetting, chronic pain, chronic constipation, chronic whining about the chronic pain from chronic constipation, chronic flatulence…okay, that last one has some entertainment value. Chronic happiness in the face of someone chronically whining about the chronic pain from their chronic constipation won’t win you any friends, but then who wants chronically constipated friends…they’re like ticking time bombs.

I’m not sure where I was headed with all this lowbrow talk of bodily functions? If I never got sidetracked, I’m not sure if I’d ever move.

The holidays can bring about both bouts of laughter and tears. Laughter, as we visit and spend time with friends and family, and tears, as we think of friends and family that are no longer with us. By “no longer with us” I’m not referring to those that moved to Canada after the election.

As the holiday season marches on, my wish for you is that your bouts of laughter outnumber your bouts of tears (and chronic constipation…avoid fruitcake). Speaking of fruitcake and laughter, I’d like to wish my mom, a chronically witty and creative woman that is always good for instigating a bout or two of laughter, a happy birthday.

Happy Holidays my friends.

Mission accomplished. Our daughter Sierra’s longtime wish of celebrating her 21st birthday in Lignite at the 109 Club was a rousing success. It was the birthday girls wish that everyone come to her party dressed as their favorite movie character, and a grand old time was had by all the “stars” in attendance. A few years back I had my 21st in the 109 as well, but it pales in comparison to this star-studded gathering.

We had Ethel and Norman from “On Golden Pond”, Vivian from “Pretty Woman”, Jim Halpert from “The Office”, Ricky, Lucy, and Ethel from “I Love Lucy”, Joanna or Annie from “Overboard”, Samantha from “Sixteen Candles”, King-Kong, Donnie from “Donnie Darko”, and Rachel from “The Bodyguard”. Sierra and my brother Gabe chose The Dude and Walter from “The Big Lebowski”, makes a father proud.

As for me, I chose my favorite “home” movie character, 1980s Donavon. After I got into character, a costume that included an actual pair of my dad’s old cowboy boots, I walked upstairs to wet my whistle, and to see if dad would recognize the “character” I was shooting for. As I walked, the clip-clop of dad’s boots on the floor instantly brought me back. Back to my room in the basement of our old house, where most every morning I would hear the sound of dad’s boots moving about above me as he prepared to head off to work.

That sound above me meant many things. It meant my father worked long hours to provide for his family (still does), and it meant that I had about two more hours of sleep before I had to shuffle upstairs for a bowl of Peanut Butter Captain Crunch and be late for school. It was a comforting sound (unless you had done something stupid and hadn’t cooked up a good story yet), and thirty-years later, as I strolled around in my dad’s boots that same feeling of security and comfort came over me.

Although my dad’s boots fit me perfectly, I know I will never fill them to the capacity he has, but a boy can try.

The party started at mom and dads with food, drinks, stogies, lots of laughs, and of course a photo shoot of the stars in all their glory. The party really got going when the karaoke machine got fired up, and all the stars acted like they could sing. After a bit of indulgence in all the above, murmurs of heading uptown to pay our respects to the 109 Club began, and the crowd of characters dispersed like moths (possibly a plague of locust) towards the street lights of main street Lignite.

For the most part the rest of the evening consisted of dancing (a.k.a. jumping about in a quasi-rhythmic fashion), singing (a.k.a. yelling in a quasi-intelligible tone), and of course the occasional cocktail (hate to cramp up mid “Hammertime”).

I’ve been to a few 21st birthdays in my day, and this one takes top honors. I think the “come as your favorite movie character” directive was the key ingredient lending to the success and elevated level of revelry.

“Thank you” Sierra, for giving all those characters you call family the opportunity to share your day with you. Also, a big “thank you” to the lead characters in our lives (mom and dad) for hosting the party and fanning the flames of fun. You’ve taught us well.

On November 3rd, 2004 my first attempt at “Ramblings” was published in this newspaper, and in the twelve years between that day and this, I have made roughly 288 more attempts. Any statement, answer or explanation I’ve ever given that required the application of math has been, and always will be, preceded by the word “roughly”.

I’m sure you odd (and even) “numerophiles” that can’t help but ensure that things add up correctly, rather than roughly, are busy trying to solve the very advanced formula I used to arrive at 288. No, I didn’t take into account leap years, those weird months when I had three columns, or the 284 times my pet chimp, Mr. Chips, filled in as my ghost writer when I was experiencing writers block or other intestinal issues.

Mr. Chips has actually evolved into an “associate”, but we are able to take advantage of various tax and legal loopholes if he is referred to as a “pet”.

Twelve years. Other than my underwear, a lot of things have changed in that time. The 5 and 9-year-old kids that provided me with so much material to ramble about, are now young adults that are busy trying to write their own stories. Just twelve years, and all those day-to-day routines that accompanied the raising of our children have all disappeared.

I often wonder when the last time was that I gave them a piggy-back ride up to bed, read them a bedtime story, and sang “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”. When was the last time I picked them up at school, and heard them yell, “Dad!” as they ran and jumped into my arms?

I don’t remember when those things stopped, but I remember them happening quite clearly, and the fact that they happened, is much more important than that they have stopped.

“Time marches on” as they say, but it crawls, wobbles and runs first. The kids are off and running. Sometimes in four directions at once, sometimes headlong into a wall, but they’re running, and whenever they look back they’ll see me cheering them on. Except for the first and third Sunday of the month, when I’m busy mixing daiquiris (banana of course) for my associate, Mr. Chips. He claims that they fuel his creativity, and help him tolerate my whining about writers block and other intestinal issues.

If you indulged in a little more math a few paragraphs ago, you may have deduced that the 5 and 9-year-old kids that I waxed poetically about are now 17 and almost 21. Yes, on November 5th, our little girl can legally drink anywhere in the world, and Wyoming. Anywhere in the world, and she has chosen to celebrate her day, and most likely a portion of the wee hours of the next, with her family in Lignite.

Actually, she made it known that she was going to celebrate her 21st in Lignite when she was about 11-years-old, and being a goal orientated woman of her word, Lignite is where it shall be.

As a film major, her only request is that everyone come dressed as their favorite movie character. Armed with an excuse to dress-up, the Ellis and Chrest clans are eagerly rummaging through their tickle trunks in anticipation of the celebration. Stay tuned for the Mr. Chips exposé on Sierra’s 21st the next time “Ramblings” comes around.

I’ve always enjoyed a good sit-and-sway in a porch swing or the rhythmic rock-and-creak of an old rocking chair. Each have their own rhythm, their own unique sound, and eventually, if you allow, you might find yourself a part of that melody.

Over the years I’ve made a few chairs for our cabin, chairs whose sole purpose is to allow their occupants endless hours of comfortable fireplace gazing while tipping back a hot cup of coffee or an indulgence of something of a bit higher octane. The cabin is a long way from anything or anyone claiming to be civilized so howling at the moon is tolerated and encouraged.

I thought about making a rocking chair, or possibly converting one of the chairs I made into one, but it seems I must have missed rocking chair conversion day in shop class, because the task proved to be beyond my woodworking skills. Thankfully wood tends to burn quite well, so all evidence of flawed design and shoddy craftsmanship can be reduced to a bucket of ash before it, and its creator, have to endure the pointing and laughing of the before mentioned “moon howlers”.

Thoughts of, “I can build that” soon gave way to, “I can buy that”, and so began my search for the perfect rocking chair for our cabin. I’m a bit peculiar about everything that goes into our cabin, and I suppose that’s bound to happen when one starts planning and picturing it all at the age of 11 after watching the first of many episodes of “Grizzly Adams”. Most everything in our cabin has some sort of story behind it, so if you’re ever in the mood for a story, or you feel the need to howl at the moon, swing by and sit a spell.

During my rocking chair search I found a few potential rockers here and there, but none of them sat or creaked quite right, and more importantly, their story was unknown, so I passed them up in hopes of finding “the one” (or “the one” finding me).

I was out for a bike ride one Saturday morning last month, slowly pedaling up a hill, when I saw a garage sale on the horizon. Not just any garage sale, a garage sale with a rocking chair sitting in the driveway. With more excitement and anticipation then one should have over a garage sale rocking chair, I rolled up, lay my bicycle in their front yard, and gave it a sit.

It sat well, it creaked nicely. The owner came out of the garage, looked at me a bit oddly, (might have been the form-fitting lycra biking outfit, funny silver biking shoes, and helmet) and said, “That’s a good rocking chair, it was in my classroom for over 25 years.”

As I rocked, we visited, and I learned that she was a recently retired elementary school teacher. She said, “A lot of kids sat around that chair over the years as I read to them during our story time. Sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, you never know how a story is going to affect a kid.” I said, “I’ll take it” and assured her that it was going to a good place, a place where most everything had a story, and that many more stories were going to be told around it.

I confessed that some of those stories may not be fit for an elementary kid, but she didn’t seem to mind. I suppose a story is a story, and this is the first story I’ve written from my new rocking chair, while sitting in front of the fire at our cabin. I hope you like it, and I hope a story finds you now and again.

Rock on.

I recently was in Salt Lake City to attend and present at a conference with a few of my colleagues. I won’t bore you with the details of the conference, but it was a pleasant trip and a good conference. We didn’t have much time for extensive sightseeing, but we managed to mosey around downtown a bit while in search of local fare to fill our gullets with.

I often hear some of my colleagues complain about “kids nowadays” and their students constantly farting around with their smart phones in class. To combat this they implement a variety of classroom electronics rules and policies in an attempt to divert student’s gazes away from their shiny “Google machines”. This “Google gaze” used to bother me, but then I thought about “why” it bothered me.

I think it mainly bothered me because I had spent three hours preparing for this one hour lecture, a lecture that I was sure my students would find quite educational and enlightening, and yet, some preferred what their smart phone had to offer. So the “why” turned out to be about me, not them. About “me” lecturing about what “I” thought they “should” be interested in. Strangely enough, a 20-year old college student may not be interested in what a 44-year old college professor has to say.

Faced with this revelation I decided to step off the stage, shut my mouth, and let the students and their interests guide the course. Strangely enough, 20-year old college students are very interested in what they are personally interested in, and will choose to engage with real people rather than their phones when not being bored to tears by some 44-year old college professor who thinks he knows what they are interested in. Go figure.

The conference I attended was regarding college education, which meant that there were college professors presenting to other college professors (poetic justice). I found some of the presentations to be engaging and interesting and some of them not so much. What I found most interesting was the number of college professors gazing at their smart phones while being lectured by other college professors. If only their students could have seen them.

My phone is not so smart, so even when a presentation is boring the shine off of my shoes, I’m forced to rely on old fashioned doodling to keep from slumping to the floor in heap of disinterest. Doodling…Googling…two sides of the same coin I suppose.

My son called while I was listening to what I’m sure was a riveting presentation had I not been doodling. Thankfully, I always put my phone on vibrate, because nobody can hear a phone vibrate. Although nobody can hear a whispering, hushed voice in a small, quiet room exclaiming, “I can’t talk right now” I did have the common courtesy not to answer.

After the presentation I called my son to see what he wanted or needed, because when he calls he either wants or needs something, and quite often mistakes wants for needs. He answered, and I said, “Hello, need something?” His response caught me off guard, “No, just calling to see what you’re doing, and how the conference was going.” Surprised, but still skeptical, I waited for the follow-up need or want to come as we chatted, but it never came.

Could it be that a seventeen-year-old boy would call his dad to just talk? It was an enjoyable visit that didn’t include me having to come up with any defensive arguments against a need or a want, or any cash for a need or want. I’m still not convinced that I wasn’t being softened up for an upcoming need or want, but as it currently stands, a son called his dad just to talk. Kid’s nowadays.

I rarely watch the news on television, but I do enjoy reading the newspaper each day to find out all the local, and worldly, goings-on. Reading the news with a cup of coffee, in the peace and quiet of our back deck, is a much more pleasant mode of delivery than having the news blabbed at me by one of the many talking heads on television.

Talking heads topped off with luxurious piles of hair, mouthfuls of shiny, perfect rows of teeth, all hovering above an impeccable ensemble of attire and accessories. One clone after another, blah, blah, blah, blah, look at me talk, blah, blah, blah. The local news isn’t quite so painful, the talking heads don’t take themselves as serious, but I have a difficult time enduring three weather reports in a thirty minute news cast.

I have a perfectly good window, or two, I can take a gander out to get an up-to-date weather report, or I can even step outside if I desire a more accurate climatic assessment. All of this without having to watch a meteorologist stammer and orchestrate little weather symbols around a green screen, and act as though they are in some way responsible for the weather conditions. “See that sunshine? I did that. That breeze? All me.”

The kids were always concerned about what the weather was going to be like when they were getting dressed for school in the morning. “Should I wear a short sleeve or long sleeve…shorts or pants…?” I would generally respond, “You are going to be in school, you’re not a longshoreman or a lumberjack, what’s it matter what you wear?” They would roll their eyes and Google the forecast. Hate to wind up stranded on the monkey bars wearing inadequate attire.

I do read the weather report in the newspaper though, actually I read everything in the newspaper, front-to-back…comics to classifieds. Occasionally, if I have a lot of time on my hands, or I just don’t feel like moving anything but my brain, I’ll do the crossword puzzle. My wife prefers Sudoku. Like most things numeral orientated (other than batting averages and bingo cards), I find Sudoku extremely confusing. My wife tried explaining it to me once. You would have thought she’d learned her lesson after attempting to explain algebra to me in college. I think she enjoys the confused, dim witted glaze that overtakes me.

The weather report in the paper generally has the local seven-day forecast listed. The high and low temperatures, a weather symbol of some sort for those too busy to read words, and a brief description for those that have time to read words. Words like, “Breezy and hot with clouds and sun”, “Sunshine with a thunderstorm in the area”, and “Partial sunshine”. Brief, but descriptive, just as it should be, no “blah, blah, blah”.

Generally, I glance through the seven-day forecast without much thought, but in this Friday’s paper the description of the weather for Saturday caught my eye. It simply said, “Delightful”, and delightful it was. Sunny, not to hot, hardly a whisper of a breeze, “delightful”. As I peddled my bike around town, enjoying the delightful day, I thought, “What if every day was delightful?”

I thought of the many days I’ve been granted that I would label as “delightful”. Some weren’t “forecasted” to be delightful, most were just ordinary days made “delightful” by the company of a loved one, a phone call from a good friend, or maybe stumbling upon an old photo album of memories. May your “delightful” days be plentiful.

Well it’s back-to-school time for the Ellis gang. Sierra headed west for her junior year at Montana State in Bozeman and Jackson is commencing his junior year at Stevens High School, and hopefully will progress to graduation commencement next year. Dawn’s prepping to dazzle her students at National American University and I’m a few weeks deep into my third year at Chadron State College. It was nice knowing you summer.

As has been the custom for many years now, the family convened for an end of summer supper. This year’s venue of choice was the Golden Phoenix for some Chinese cuisine, and the hopes that a small piece of paper, liberated from a stale cookie, may provide some wisdom for the year to come. No such luck on any useful wisdom from a crappy cookie, so I guess we’re going to have to fly blind into yet another academic year. So it goes.

Like a game of Tetris played with an assortment of shoes, cameras, and clothes, Sierra and I loaded up her little two-door Honda Civic, until the nooks and crannies were no more. Before she slid into the driver’s seat I offered up some last minute fatherly advice, “Don’t fart, there’s no room.” Then we both tried not to cry, neither one of us are good at trying not to cry, so we shed a few tears, and said as much as one can say when they’re trying not to cry.

It was good to have the family under one roof for the summer. Sierra and Dawn were working much of the time, but I found that simply being at the house to witness their many comings and goings to be a comfort.

It doesn’t seem to be possible, but it was 25 years ago that my parents left me to fend for myself at Northern State in Aberdeen. I can still see that big green Chrysler pulling away, with dad watching me wave goodbye in the rear view mirror. Dad later told me that Mom cried all the way to Jamestown, and all he could think was, “What are we doing? We can’t just leave him here all alone.”

I don’t remember thinking much of anything at the time (thinking isn’t something 18 year old boys do much of), but I laid in bed that night on a tear soaked pillow missing everyone and everything I had known for the past 18 years. I remember thinking, “This is stupid, I don’t belong here.” The only way I could make it stop was to convince myself that I would finish the semester at Northern and then transfer to Minot State, closer to everyone and everything I had always known.

That one semester turned into two, and I met people that are still my good friends today, people that made me feel like I belonged there. If it hadn’t been for them, and the distraction and joy playing college baseball brought, I don’t think I could have weathered all those homesick storms.

It takes great strength for a parent to let their child go off and find out who they are and what they want to do in this world, but it also takes strength for a child to leave everyone and everything they’ve ever known and face an unfamiliar unknown. I guess we each put on as brave a face as we can to try and put the other at ease.

It’s that time of year…be strong…all will be well.