“. . .though he stumble, he will not fall, 

for the LORD upholds him with his hand.”

 At the turn of the 20^th century, what Willa Cather experienced as a child out on the Great Plains, surrounded as she was by a weave of ethnics, recent immigrants all, was something she never forgot and always celebrated.  My Antonia, a great pioneer novel, has given us one of the most powerful women characters in American literature, Antonia Shimerda, whose strength of character and purpose out on those broad plains simply will not be defeated.

 And hers was not an easy life.  When she was still a girl, her father, an educated musician in his native Bohemia and someone clearly not fashioned for opening rugged prairie, takes his own life one cold night in his first winter as an American.  Because he was a suicide, the local cemeteries wouldn’t take the body; the most unpardonable sin at the time, it seems, was the despair he suffered, the abandonment of hope itself, which is to say, by those old religious calculations, the abandonment of faith.  Mr. Shimerda, who shot himself in the barn, was buried in the road.

Willa Cather frequently drew her stories from her own experiences, and if you’re ever blessed to visit Red Cloud, Nebraska, where she grew up, you can follow dusty roads through the bleak, unforgiving landscape she loved, roads which pass places where she found some of her stories. 

 Mr. Shimerda had a prototype on the land west of Red Cloud, and on one of those roads you can actually drive over the intersection where an anguished suicide, forbidden a place in the local cemeteries, was once buried, very much alone. Driving through that intersection is eerie, even though the man’s remains have long since been removed and reinterred.

Today, suicides are not refused burial in any local cemeteries that I know of, and, for that, all of us should be wonderfully thankful.  I can not sympathize a whit with those who kept Mr. Shimerda’s body out of proper burial, but when I read a verse like this—from David—I can at least understand something of their fear, for fear is what it was, I’m sure. To take one’s own life is to reject the eternal truth of what David says:  “though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand.” 

Even though, out here on the Plains, we have come a long way from Mr. Shimerda’s—and others’—horrific rejections, we don’t know quite what to do with those among us who depart on their own. We don’t know what to do with them, in part, because we do know—those of us who are believers—that the act of suicide defies the eternal hope of this line and so many others from the Word of God almighty.

Not long ago, it happened again, in a community not far away.  I didn’t know the man, never met him, but I know his family and I know of their profound grief.  Since it happened, no one has said much about it because, well, there’s not much to be said. By all accounts, he was a believer. And he suffered, suffered badly, within, for the past several years. I know very little else. But I know--as we all do--the horrific toll darkness within can register.

What I do know—what I can believe because I know this much of the Almighty—is that he alone will judge the living and the dead. 

And I trust Him and his promises.  I trust he will do what he has always done and promises he will do forever—he will love. He is love.

Saying no to the Orange Man

Here's Donald Trump during the primary season in 2016. He's at the BJ Haan Auditorium, and just about to tell the audience and the world that he is himself shocked at the immense loyalty of his following. "I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and never lose a vote," he said--or something like it, and that line, spoken there, turned out to be immensely prescient. It's true and still is. It's impossible for me to guess what might make his minions lose heart or allegiance. 

That Trump would like to come back to the BJ Haan on the campus at Dordt College is understandable. Any appearance there would be historic, not simply because he's an ex-President, but because it would remind a national audience of the immense resonance of his prophetic judgement in that single, oft-quoted line. So, my guess is his people tried to line up a date for another Dordt appearance.

Dordt said no. That's a story.

I don't care how it came about, who did the heavy lifting, or why someone or other shut the door, but I'm proud of the institution I attended years ago, the place where I taught for most of my life. I don't care if the reasons for the marriage of the institution and the ex-President had only to do with procedure, something in small print, I am thrilled that there is some "incongruity" between Donald J. Trump and Dordt University, because there is and there dang well should be.

People don't often say no to Trump. When it has happened, that no has created some untoward effects. Trump's army takes care of business for him. I can't imagine that the administration at Dordt isn't already getting some raucous testy emails and flaming text messages. Trump's loyalists don't like their savior, their "retribution," scorned.

But I'm happy--and proud. I'm all for free speech, and I think it's just fine that the whole rally thing was passed along to another venue in town. That I would hope people don't listen to him doesn't mean I think he has no right to speak. News stories claim it was a question of format that undid the union--political candidates are invited to campus to talk to and with students all the time, but not just to have a rally. It seems the Trump team didn't really questions, said it was a rally or nothing. DU admin then advised them them to look for another venue.

That's just great. I'm happy.

And proud. 

In and around Oyens, IA

An uncle, now deceased, used to tell me that Oyens, largely Catholic, had lots of partying girls when he was a kid. Whether or not he was right, it stuck me then as the kind of reaction one might expect from a kid from upright Orange City. Yesterday, however, an abundance of sheer beauty hung on the branches in the neighborhood, enough to make me pull over, try out the camera in my new phone, and take a bit of that beauty home.

Sleet that blew in on Christmas Eve made for a bejeweled yule--not a white Christmas, but even two days later, a remarkable crystalline world.

Wasn't really hoarfrost. For that we wait. When it comes, as it will, the world here holds its own unique charm.

Sleep--and ice storms--bend and break limbs, a reminder that once upon a time out here there was no distinguishing feature anywhere to be seen other than endless prairie grass.

There will likely not be a day quite like yesterday again any time soon--no snow to speak of on a backdrop of naked earth tones, trees and fence posts adorned in that low December sun.

Somehow humbling to think that what was out there yesterday may not be repeated in my lifetime. Maybe I'm just getting old.

Why some moments the camera catches are gorgeous is something I can't explain.

I couldn't help thinking--and I still do--that this featureless space, outfitted in jewelry, foregrounded for that remarkable puffy winter sky, is somehow beautiful just plain beautiful.

Those spicy Oyens girls, circa 1955 or so, likely attended the little church in town. Who knws, some few of them may be laid to rest beneath the churchyard's stunning statue, which, right now, is hardly Christmas-y, but always appropriate.

 

 

Testimony of Het OWC

It's a story from the New York Times, a story just out this morning. You can read all of it right here. At its heart is a German Jew from Holland, who created a magazine while hiding in the crawl space of the home of a Dutch undertaker during WWII, this magazine, Het Onderwater Cabaret (OWC). The word onderwater (under water) is a derivative of a designation given to those men (usually) who, rather than serve the cause of the German war machine, chose to hide--to be hidden--somewhere out of the view of the Gestapo, those who "dived under." 

In Wiltz, Luxembourg, American forces swept out the German occupiers, the village grew exponentially because so many of its own men were "under water," hiding under cover. They were in town, but not there to anyone who didn't know.

For the war years, Kurt Bloch--who had already fled Germany during the 30s to try to find safe haven in the Netherlands--was onderwater, living as he did "under water." With what scraps of magazines and newspapers the underground could get to him, he'd slice and dice until he could create a little monthly magazine for friends and accomplices, The Underwater Cabaret, he called it, like the one above, featuring "Santa Claus at war"--ho, ho, ho with a sword. Or this one. 

Bloch's magazine was only a few pages thick, often featuring his own little poems. 

Who read it? Anybody's guess, I suppose, but it's hard to imagine he could have had a wider readership than dozen or so, most of them, probably hidden-away Jews or onderdykkers. Not a ton of circulation, but immense creativity under the constant pressure and dangers from the war all around. 

Bloch's devotion to his little hidden away magazine, like the diaries of Anne Frank or Etty Hillesum, or the war time saga of Berendina Eman, are the kind of stories that need to be rebreathed, need to be read and told again and again. They offer all of us mighty examples of human courage and selflessness amid life-threatening dangers. These magazines--a granddaughter of Mr. Bloch unearthed them--are a testament to heroism, to conviction, to the human spirit rightly driven. 

Percentage-wise, the Netherlands lost a higher percentage of their Jewish population during World War II than any other occupied country--100 thousand of the 140. The two population groups most involved in Resistance work during the war in Holland were the Marxists first, and then the Orthodox Protestants. In Bloch's case, the center point of the Resistance group who tended to his needs was led by a Dutch Reformed preacher named Leendert Overduin.

About Overduin I need to know more. . .

The Gold-standard Christmas, circa 1958

Almost inevitably, they picked it out of a Sears Roebuck catalog. The J. C. Higgins brand name belonged to Sears Roebuck, and after the war they put it on their whole line of bikes. See that one at the top of the page, that's the one Mom and Dad bought. That they paid that kind of money for a bike for their little boy seems a stretch, but that Christmas obviously they did. 

I don't remember the light out front, but I do remember the whitewalls, the fancy, mid-ship tank--complete with push button horn--and the luggage rack, which never held luggage but often lugged buddies. 

I don't remember thinking that bike was ultra fancy. It wasn't a Rollfast, built for speed, or a Schwinn, the Cadillac of bikes. It was just an ordinary J C Higgins from Sears, the Walmart of the era. Still, I can't help thinking that Gilson Brothers must have forked over a healthy Christmas bonus that year, maybe 1956 or 57.

It likely wasn't my first bike. It was a 26-inch, full-size, after all, and didn't come with training wheels. Lakeshore Christmases were almost inevitably white, so I'm sure I had to wait weeks before actually taking a spin. I had some kind of spoked transportation before that Christmas, but that J C Higgens I will never, ever forget because it created in my heart the greatest Christmas ever.

It started with the Christmas Eve Sunday School program, the only service of the year when kids moved the podium off the stage and took the place over. Everybody got "a line," a verse or two to say when appointed, and I remember being scared witless about forgetting. Don't remember if I ever did. I was a kid before anyone risked candles, so there was no lights-out "Silent Night" kind of thing, but the kid program on Christmas Eve was blessedly special, as well as a test of patience and faith you simply had to get through in order to get back home and open presents. 

That bike and its fancy tank was the biggest Christmas present ever, and a real problem to hide. Wasn't about to fit under the tree in the living room, and there really was no place in the house where it could sit and wait for the ritual opening of presents. I don't know whose decision it was, but Mom and Dad did what they could to hide it behind that big red sofa against the west wall. Dad must have moved that thing out of the way to get the bike behind it, then realized the handlebars weren't about collapse. Maybe Mom had the grand idea of just throwing coats from the vestibule over it--add a couple of blankets over the back of the couch for a bundle, a cloud of stuff to cover the whole thing.

And it worked. That night, when I sat cross-legged beside the tree, I had absolutely no idea. There'd been nary a whisper about what little Jimmy was getting for Christmas. I had no suspicions and wasn't even hoping for a bike--it was December, after all, and nobody was going anywhere on bikes over those icy streets. Who was thinking of bicycles anyway?

Half-way through maybe, not before. I don't remember thinking somehow forgotten, so I'm sure that bike wasn't last; but at some appointed moment that Christmas Eve, Dad pointed to the hills of clothing and blankets over the back of the couch and directed me to peel 'em off. I was still in complete darkness.

But when I did, that Christmas moment became the gold standard. I was a boy, a child, a kid, and I had absolutely no idea it was coming. I was shocked, overwhelmed--that J C Higgins was about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen or owned. I don't know that I could breath. Then Dad moved the couch again so I could slip that monster gift onto the living room rug where it took over the room.

There are fragments of maybe seventy Christmases in my memory bank, but none are as complete our bountiful as the year--mid '50s--Mom and Dad hid that brand new, white-walled J C Higgins behind the couch and blew me away with their love.

We have definitely scored some bigger gifts--inheritance checks that, decades later, silenced my wife and me. But no single memory will ever climb the heights that Christmas around the tree did, the moment Dad suggested I grab those silly coats from the back of the couch.

The story at the heart of Christmas is the blessed saga of a child in a manger, a newborn surrounded by gawking visitors, maybe even a lamb or two or three. It's a baby who is king, a king in a manger, but a child, a baby. 

Maybe that's why, a couple thousand years later, Christmas will always be a day for children.  

Facts of Life -- finis

And bless Kelly's soul. I can get so angry at that girl sometimes, but then she just comes through and does something just like an angel. When Mandy came in that night, she was wearing Verona's black jumper, the whole outfit, even the yellow belt. She took off her jacket and every one of the girls was just stunned. But she is a beautiful girl. I know I'm not to be trusted, being her grandmother, but I've got twelve and that makes me somewhat objective.

My Kelly's hair is dark and straight and cut short like that famous ice skater's. What hair Reg has left is thin and red. But Jeff has his mother's hair, blonde as beach sand and very thick —and so does Mandy. She wore it up that night, in a single braid.

And we sang. We could have done a whole lot better with Martha at the piano, but grandmas don't really care that much about their kids' fumbling. Mandy brought along her own book, a starter, so the melodies of the old favorites—"Silent Night," "Little Town of Bethlehem," "Come, All Ye Faithful," the only six she knew—came out slowly in one‑finger jabs.

And all of us, even Mandy, sat around the table afterwards, eating candy like none of us should. Twenty minutes, maybe, we sat there, when Martha said she had to leave.

"We haven't even played cards yet," I told her, but Martha got up from the table and went to the closet herself for her coat.

"I got big things to do," she said, "and tomorrow's Christmas dinner." It's the biggest meal of the year at school. But you just stay on here and have a good time, okay? Don't mind me."

See, they had it all arranged, the girls did. One by one they left— Anne had a brother over from Texas, Millie was worried about getting a call from her son in the service. They had it all arranged so that the three of us were left, Verona and Mandy and me. That was the plan. I finally figured it out.

"I suppose I ought to be going myself," Verona said, once Millie was up and at the door.

"You stay awhile," I told her. "It's still early."

Those were the first words I spoke to her in a whole week.

"Mandy," I said, "I bet Verona would like to hear those carols again. Whyn't you go over and play them—you two together. I got to do a little cleaning up here or Grandpa will have a fit."

I winked at my friend Verona, and she didn't have to say a word because what was in her was written over her face in spades like it always is. She looked liked a child again, with a face full of Christmas wonder. It was all Martha's idea. I just played along.

*

I took my time cleaning up afterward because what I saw on the piano bench, the way Verona touched that beautiful child for the very first time in her life, then hugged her when she'd make a little mistake somewhere, was just about the best gift I could ever have imagined. I love Mandy, maybe more than some of the other kids, the older ones sometimes for sure, but I got this great big joy in me from giving my darling granddaughter to Verona that night. It was Christmas joy, giving being the blessing it is. And that's something a human being never stops learning either, I'll tell you.

I let the two of them go for a long time, picked up all the food, did some of the dishes, even dumped the garbage, then I got out the present. I'd wrapped it up, complete with a bow, and I told Mandy I was giving it to her for playing for us, for all the cooks—for being our accompanist.

But it wasn't her eyes that I watched when Mandy’s fingers fumbled with the paper. When Verona saw the necklace she'd bought herself, I put my hand on her shoulder to shush her up—and because I wanted her to look at me right then, at that very moment, to see my own eyes, so that once she saw my tears she'd know she didn't have to cry.

"It's beautiful, Grandma, " Mandy said. "I love it. It's gorgeous. " She lifted it out of the little box with her fingers and let it dangle. "I want to wear it," she said, and she turned to Verona without even thinking. "Help me put it on."

That moment was Verona's whole Christmas, let me tell you. Nothing else, no present, could possibly come close. I can't tell you what I felt

I shooed Mandy out the door at 8:30, already a half‑hour too late, but her mother never once minded time in her whole life so she's not one to complain.

That left Verona and me.

She didn't say a thing. Her lips were shaking, and her eyes were glazed She hunched her shoulders as if there really were nothing at all to say and then she walked to the vestibule and pulled out her coat.

"Thanks for coming," I said.

Then she reached over and kissed me, hugged me too. I wonder how long it had been since she'd done that to anyone.

She had her hand on the knob when I remembered the jacket and the boots and the whole winter outfit. I could have let it go too, in the charm of that party and the blaze of joy in her eyes. But I know there's more to life than Christmas candy, and I figured if my Kelly could dress Mandy up for her ghost grandma that night, then Verona could learn to bend a bit herself.

"I got some stuff here that belongs to you, " I said. "I think you’d better take it along."  I had it in a couple of shopping bags on the floor of the vestibule.

She had no idea what it was. I know she didn't. She was still in a dream. She looked at me strangely, then reached down to slip open a box. I don't think I can really describe exactly what happened right then to my friend's face. Maybe the best way to say it would be that her heart got moved from heaven back to earth—but not to hell. She took this deep breath, as if the whole time on that piano bench she hadn't even taken a minute for air. And then she bit her bottom lip, and smiled. I know very well it wasn't easy for her to say anything.

"It's something how easy it is to return items nowadays," she said. "It's so simple, don't you think?"

"Wasn't always that way," I told her.

"Sure wasn't," she said. She looked up at me almost as if she didn't want to leave, but she did. It's Christmas dinner at school tomorrow, after all.

Once she was out the door, I pulled out what was left of the chocolate-coated pretzels and ate all of them, every last one. Not once did I feel guilty either. I ate the whole works. It's no holiday at all, if you've got to watch yourself every last minute. What's a holiday for, I figure. Joy— that's what it is.

_______________ 

To all, don't eat too much, but have a wonderful Christmas!!  

Facts of Life -- v

*

It was my turn to host the girls for our Christmas party this year. It's one of those things you enjoy only when it's going on, not when it's ahead of you. Years ago, it would have kept me awake nights. I would have wondered what to serve and how to be sure everybody has a good time. But I don't care so much anymore; and now that I don't, I wish I hadn't got myself thick with nerves for so many years.

I made some chocolate pretzels and some blitzes and spread frosting over a host of Christmas cookies. I made a batch of sea foam and even a couple dozen gum drops, and the whole time, I tell you, I ate way too much, way too much. I'll bet I spent twenty dollars on Chex mix, since my own kids eat it by the pound whenever they come over during Christmas because I'm the only one who makes it with real mixed nuts. I took out the pine cone wreath from the closet and an old Christmas tablecloth that Ted claimed he didn't even remember. The only thing new for the party was a pair of Christmas CD's Ted picked out himself, only because he couldn't resist buying himself a new toy this year, that new CD player, when the tape deck he bought not that long ago still played very well, as far as I'm concerned. Boys will be boys.

It was Martha's idea to sing. Usually the girls each bring a five‑dollar present, and we throw them in a pile in the middle of the room, pick a number, and everyone gets to choose—or trade. After that it's cards. But Martha says that this year we ought to sing a little for a change, since everybody likes to sing anyway.

"Whyn't you get Mandy over to play for us?" she says. "Didn't you say she was already playing carols?"

Now listen. Martha plays ragtime like Al Jolson, by ear too yet. If she wanted to sing so badly, she could have played every last carol herself. There was something up her sleeve.

But I played the game. I asked Mandy to come over around 7:30 or so—it was a school night, after all—and play those carols she'd been practicing so all the cooks could sing along.

By then, I figured, I'd have my sandwiches served, and we'd have gone through the whole presents thing. 

 You know, it sometimes amazes me what we can do to each other. We all had a good time that night, even though Verona never said a word to me. I didn't try to pry her loose because I think she's got a right to what she feels. We all joked with each other, we all had a good time, but the two of us never said a word.

___________________ 

Tomorrow: the end of the story.

Facts of Life -- iv

That was Monday, a week ago, and Verona didn't say a word to me in all those days together. Everybody in this kitchen knows we aren't speaking—and they know why, too, even though I never told a soul, and neither did she. We're all grandmas here.

It's not easy living in silence. You go about the day‑to‑days and even laugh and joke with the others, but the whole Mandy business—and she's such a sweetheart herself— sits in your craw. It hovers over everything, every minute on the job, every last minute. But I wasn't about to break the silence because it wasn't my problem. Maybe that's pig‑headed of me, too, I don't know.

On Saturday, Kelly was back at my house with a big box in her hand, fighting mad. "I took the jumper," she said, "but I'm not taking this—Christmas or no Christmas. " She flung the box over to the couch, where it slipped off the pillows and fell to the floor. "It's got to stop. I told you to tell her, Mom. I told you."

When Kelly gets angry, her face sets hard as cement, almost like Verona's. She tries to mask her anger as if its only determination.

"What is it?" I said.

"She must have paid a fortune for it. Look."

I put down my coffee, walked over to the couch, and picked the box off the floor. "Whyn't you stay awhile?" I said.

But she turned around and walked right out, leaving the door wide open. What was in the box was magenta ski jacket with corduroy trim and a snap‑off hood, polartec, light as a feather— plus a matching hat and mitten set tucked into the hood. The price tags were all neatly cut.

Now they were both mad, I thought.

Kelly showed up at the door again with another box she set down on the step. "Take the whole mess," she said. "I've had it. You talked to her, didn't you?"

"I mentioned it—"

"Then nothing's worked. She's pushed me too far now. I didn't want to do it this way. I tried to avoid it, Mom, you know I did. But she's driven us to it now—she has. It's her fault what happens."

"What's in there?" I said, pointing at the other box.

She gave the box a little kick. "Matching boots and a bib pants. She doesn't even need it. We just got her the whole winter outfit ourselves in November. "

I hadn't seen her so angry since she was thirteen when I told her eleven o'clock was late enough, county fair or not. She spit then too. She's spit quite a bit in her years.

"Let me try once more," I said. "You just hold your horses awhile longer. You don't want to be Scrooge. Let me try again." Sometimes I think if Kelly would just cry, I'd feel less scared about her myself.

"All right, " she said, "but once Christmas is passed, it's got to stop. " Mad as a wet hen.

"Don't you ever forget who she is," I told her. "Don't you ever forget."

"You're her grandma, Mom," she said. "I won't hear it."

"Then you won't hear the facts of life," I told her.

All she came for was to yell about the presents, that's all. "See you tomorrow at church," she says, and then she leaves again, just like that.

I tell you, I'd do anything for that girl, I swear, but she can grieve me no end— always could.

There I sat on the floor with my coffee up on the table, that cute little jacket all in a bundle, half out of the box. I picked it up and held it by the shoulders, then flipped the hood back. It was pretty, so little‑girlish. I couldn't help thinking that Verona must have held it up before her eyes the same way. She must have pulled it out of the box it was shipped in just to hold it in her hands, to feel it, let the whole sweet outfit inflate with Mandy's imagined body.

I got to my feet, kept a hold of the jacket, and kicked the other box over to the coffee table beside the one Kelly had thrown. Then I sat on the edge of the couch and opened it up. I shoved my hand up into one of the boots, probably the same thing Verona did, imagining Mandy's feet, warm inside against January cold.

The hat had stripes, with little tips like fingers. I put my hands into the mittens and that's when I found the little brown bag. I opened it up and a smaller bag fell out, a tiny plastic bag holding the thinnest gold necklace.

O, my soul, Verona just couldn't stop herself, I thought. Even if she tried—even if her conscience told her that what I'd said was gospel truth, she just kept on buying because she couldn't stop. Giving those presents was all she could do for Mandy for eight years. I could just see her paging through J. C. Penney's—"this, and this, and this, and, oh yes, this too." She probably already had the whole outfit when I'd spoken to her a week ago. She probably took it all out that afternoon and laid it on the dining room table, the whole outfit—jacket over pants, hat tucked into the hood, mittens snuggled up into the cuffs on either hand, boots down at the bottom. And then she probably laid that gold necklace beneath the collar. She probably had it all in her closet since October already, two weeks after the winter catalogue first showed up in her mailbox. I know Verona.

__________________ 

Tomorrow: the cooks annual Christmas party.

Facts of Life iii

 

On Mondays we spread more peanut butter sandwiches than we normally do because sometimes kids don't get enough to eat over the weekend. Of everything we do in the kitchen, spreading sandwiches takes the most time. We go through more than a gallon of peanut butter every day.

Verona and I sat there together for almost an hour while the others were out setting tables and getting the lines ready. It was almost 11:00, time for the second grade to show up. The vegetables were already up in the roasters, ready to serve. It's almost Christmas now, but we were talking about the March menus. Planning school meals isn't any different from doing the job at home—it's hard to come up with something new. And it's got to be likeable, of course. The waste here is a sin you never quite get used to.

"We could use tons of apples," Verona said.

Sometimes government fruits come thick during the winter, if there's a surplus.

"You never know if we'll get them for sure," I told her.

"You never know anything for sure," Verona said.

"You got me there, I guess," I said.

It was already the fourteenth. I knew that if I was ever going to say a thing, I had to now. So I didn't wait for something easy. I kept telling myself it was me or the lawyers. Kelly doesn't just shoot off her mouth about things like that. So I charged in right there in the middle of menus, and maybe I shouldn't have. Like I said, we've never said a word about it before.

"Verona," I told her, "Kelly says that jumper you sent for Mandy's birthday was just darling."

You could feel cold seep into the room as if someone had just opened a window to winter.

"I've been waiting to see it on her," I told her. "She looks so cute in dark colors."

Government peanut butter isn't the texture of Peter Pan. Sometimes towards the bottom of the can it spreads in chunks and rips the bread.

"Verona," I said, "I wish there was some other way we could do this. I know what that child means to you. I mean, I can see it when she comes through the line."

She wasn't looking at me at all. She reached in the bag and pulled out a half‑dozen slices of bread, then jammed the spatu1a down into the tub for more peanut butter.

"I know we never talk about it," I said, "but if it helps at all for me to say it, I think I know how you feel."

"How dare you say that?" she said, turning to me, her eyes full of glass shards.

It was pointless for me to argue, so I let it go and the both of us kept on spreading.

Martha finished up on the tables and came up to the window wondering if she ought to start slicing up cheese for tomorrow's lasagne. When I told her to check the napkin holders, she knew something was sticky between us.

"It hurts me to have to say this," I told Verona, "but Kelly's always been her own person and I long ago gave up trying to fight her. Maybe she's got a point too. She says it's got to stop—your presents." I didn't know whether or not the woman was even tuned in to what I was saying. "Are you listening to me?" I said.

She never moved.

"Well, you're going to hear me because I'm the one who's got to say it." I was shaking myself, I'll have you know, maybe even a little bit angry because Verona just couldn't be civil. "Kelly says you've got to stop sending presents because Mandy's getting old enough to wonder where they're coming from. That's what I'm supposed to say. And you know it's true. You've watched her grow."

Verona's eyes stayed down on the bread. She turned hard as the counter top.

"She's right, Verona. Mandy's no baby, but she doesn't have to know the whole story, not yet. You know that too. She's too young."

Miss Brigston from the second grade came through the door all smiles. "It's five minutes early I know," she said. "But I figured you might not mind if I brought the kids down a little quick. They're so excited. Did you see the beautiful snow?"

I hadn't even looked outside since seven.

__________________ 

Tomorrow: More troubles.

Facts of Life -- ii

Kelly came over Tuesday, mad as ever, because Verona had sent Mandy a new dress for her birthday. Verona's sent things anonymously for years—at Christmas she writes "Santa Claus" on the tag. First, it was rattles, then stuffed animals. The last few years it's been clothes, school clothes.

"You've got to do something about it, Mom," Kelly told me.

She stood at the door and didn't even unbutton her jacket, left the car running on the driveway, the boys inside. "It's driving me nuts, I swear it. Mandy's getting old enough to where I'm going to have to explain it, you know. Here's this big package comes in the mail." She draws the lines with her arms. "The boys don't get anything extra. Mandy's going to wonder—you know she will."

"What can I do?" I said.

"You know her. You talk to her everyday at school. Tell her she’s got to stop—it's for Mandy's own good, Mom."

Like I say, I've seen Verona's long face whenever that darling Mandy walks by with an empty tray. Ever since the girl's been in kindergarten I've seen that look on Verona’s.

"I've talked to Reg's lawyers—the business, you know—and they claim I can get a court order—"

"My goodness, Kelly," I said.

"Listen to me! They said I can get a court order that would keep her from contacting Mandy in any way. It's the law."

"You going to arrest her for sending a pair of socks?"

"If I have to," she said.

Somewhere it's written, I think, that once they leave the nest a mother's supposed to stop worrying. You think that's the way it's going to be, but it isn't.

"You want me to tell her?" I said.

"I'm right about this, Mom. Maybe someday when Mandy's old enough, you know, when she can take the truth. But she's only eight years old." She ran her fingers through her hair like she always does, front to back, her father's thick dark hair. She's beautiful, my prettiest daughter. I've never quite figured out where she came from—such a beautiful girl at the end of the line.

"Mom, " she says, "please? I just can't think of Christmas in another two weeks. Besides, she's getting so extravagant. This outfit must have cost forty bucks."

"What was it?" I said.

She rolled her eyes. "What difference does it make?"

"Really?" I said. "Tell me about it."

She let out this long, grieved breath. "A black, cotton jumper with suspenders and a bright yellow tube belt—"

"Sounds cute," I said.

"She even sent a pair of panty hose and a turtleneck."

I waited for her critique. "Well?" I said.

"I just won't have it anymore," she said. "I don't care if it's cashmere. You've got to tell her."

"Why me?" I said.

"It's either you or the lawyer," she told me.

Her father used to say that if Kelly got up a head of steam, she could carry the Chicago Bears on her back and still get where she wants to go. In her entire life, the only thing she wanted but never got was Jeff Worth.

_________________ 

Tomorrow: the problem is addressed at school.

Facts of Life -- i

For Christmas--an old story created after my wife mentioned, in passing--in fact, after church--how difficult it must have been for a woman, a cook at school, to have to see her darling granddaughter come through the lunch line every day, and not touch her, not hold her, not indicate the child was, in fact, her granddaughter--her only grandchild. It's a small-town story, could only happen where people who live together know each other. For a quarter century, I'm sure, I've read it for Christmas gatherings. It generally has no trouble creating tears. It will run for six days. 

Merry Christmas! 

*  ~  *  ~  *  ~  *

Countless times I've watched Verona Worth dole out extra chicken strips to Mandy, her granddaughter, the only third grader in Greenwood School she wouldn't dare to touch. I've worked with Verona ever since she started in the lunch room, and a hundred times, I bet, I've seen her dawdle over a cup of applesauce just to keep Mandy at the window for an extra second. Sometimes she'll scrape beans off trays for twenty minutes on the chance the girl will give her only the slightest glance when she files by the tubs of dirty silverware.

Every noon she stands a countertop away from that child and sees her own son's eyes—strong and bright and quick, blue as heaven. And when she does, what she feels is written so deeply on the lines of her face that it doesn't take a gypsy to read it, only another grandma. She loves that child, even though Mandy doesn't know her from Martha Eshuis or Sylvia Brantsen—or any of the girls who work the lunch lines with us.

Mandy is my granddaughter, too, my seventh, out of twelve in all. She's the daughter of my daughter Kelly—and Verona's son Jeff, who wouldn't marry Kelly, even though my daughter surely would have had him. But at school the whole business has never come up between us, even though Verona and I work side by side, baking chicken, spooning chocolate pudding into the Charlie Brown pies, and scrubbing out pots once the sixth grade is through the line at 12:30.

It happened at college, like so much does, and the night Jeff and Kelly came to tell me and my husband, Verona came with, alone, like she's been since her husband died trucking a dozen years ago or more, killed on an interstate in Utah, I think, or maybe Nevada. My daughter was pregnant, we found out, but Ted and I jumped the gun ourselves way back in the olden days, so I've been through some of that hurt myself, even though it's a whole lot worse when it's your daughter, let me tell you, and when she doesn't have a husband.

I love my Kelly, and I always have, but she's been a chore to bring up, headstrong as she was from the moment she wouldn't take a nook. But that night it wasn't Kelly that scared me, it was Verona, who sat with her legs crossed in a rocker beneath the clock and couldn't stop crying. She didn't bawl really, just whimpered constantly, kept dabbing at her eyes, so that whatever she said, or tried to say, came out off‑key.

She'd taken Jeff over to our house to apologize to us because he'd already made it clear he wasn't about to marry my daughter. Lord knows Verona tried to do everything right, tried with a passion, but she was so broken that night, all she could do was mumble.

We never talk about little Mandy on the job, even though what happened is eight years behind us. It never comes up because Verona is embarrassed about what her son did to my Kelly. But that isn't all of it. She's embarrassed about that night, too, about how she couldn't do much at all but slobber when she tried to be the mother—and the father Jeff never had.

I feel the same way around the nurse that stood by me when my son Tom was born. When that boy didn't want to come, I know I made a horrible ruckus. If I see that nurse on the street—even today—I look away. She saw me in a state I'm not proud of, the way I saw Verona pinched in the rocking chair, in perfectly helpless pain over her only child.

Jeff's gone on to be someone, but he's never married; and if you ask me he doesn't pay much attention to his mother. He lives in Virginia and works in Washington D. C., does something with numbers--financial, works for the government, Verona says.

My Kelly took the next best thing once Jeff turned his back on her. When Mandy was a year old, Kelly married Reggie Ellenson, who stands first in line to inherit his father's masonry business. Reg never went to college. He's a fine man, but Kelly runs him, and she knew darn well she would. There's already two little boys—two little masons—behind Mandy, the princess she had with Jeff. I'm not proud of saying this, but I pray more for my Kelly today than I did eight years ago, the night she told us she was going to have a baby. My daughter is not finished growing up, even if she doesn't know it herself.

___________________ 

Tomorrow: Kelly goes ballistic when her daughter gets yet another anonymous gift. She threatens to sue.

The last post card

The handwriting is cramped and occasionally difficult to read. It's addressed to the family of his daughter Emma. They live in the Chicago suburb of Evergreen Park, where her husband, Marinus, is a pastor, like Grandpa.

A note below the address, penciled in, documents this post card is the "Last card from Grandpa." It's dated October 29, 1955, and returned-addressed to a "J C Schaap" of Oostburg, Wisconsin. That's my grandpa. He was living at our house at the time. I was in first grade.

Two months would pass before Grandpa died. The newsprint clipping I have announcing his death says he passed away on Thursday, January 5. While it's fair to say that this postcard, despite its cramped hand, wasn't written from his death bed, the provenance of the additional line is likely true: this was the last card the Goote family received from Grandpa Schaap. He was 75 years old.

And what's the news? "Dear Ones in Evergreen Park."

Well, it's a bit jumbled. In typical Depression-era style and, I'd guess, without much thought, he loads the page, fills the card. The lines don't wiggle, but neither are they flat nor jumbled. When he was younger, Grandpa Schaap likely had quite commendable handwriting--"penmanship" we called it long ago. The exact nature of the good news he claims he received from his daughter's card to him is not revealed--perhaps Emma was, once again, with child. 

He says he's spent a few days at his son's house ("Gerard & Jeanette"). "When I was home..." and then there's a scramble that makes reading and meaning difficult, but the sentence concludes clearly: "feel as I did." But he goes on to explain, "Pain in my chest and in my arms," which suggests the criminal heart attack that two months later would take him. 

There's a news story here: "I sent for the doctor and he gave me some pills," and the immediate outcome: "I feel much relieved. I hope it will not bother me again." About that he was likely wrong. 

The weather gets a word or two--"not very nice, cold and rainy. It's signed "Pa + Grandpa," expecting the kids to want to be in on the news. 

It's a bit portentous, at least when read so many years later. That pain in his arm and chest, the doctor's being called--and, of course, his descendants knowing the date of his death all suggest his being fairly oblivious to death's stalking just outside his door.

Then, whether as an afterthought or in an effort to use all of the page, Grandpa tells a quick, gossipy news story from "home." "A certain Ramaker," he says, "brother of Mrs. Lennooye wanted to commit suicide," he says, then turns the post card on its side to fill up the last open space, and adds, "but he didn't die." 

That's it. That the Gootes knew this man is unlikely. His daughter Emma was college age and out of the house when Rev. Schaap moved his family to Oostburg. Her husband, a big city boy from Grand Rapids, was notorious for mocking goofy small towns. There is no really good excuse for his telling the dark story of a botched suicide attempt by someone the "ones in Evergreen Park" never knew, except for one--the story is amazing. Get this: "he didn't die." End of story.

It's not that you wouldn't expect a preacher to tell a story like that, but shouldn't there be at least a bit of a homily right there alongside, a one-sentence sermon about suicide maybe, or some mention of the Lord giving this poor man a second chance? That there's no sermon is surprising. Maybe he just ran out of white space.

The word on my grandfather--at least one of the descriptions that I ran into early in my adulthood, when people remembered him--was, oddly enough, that Rev. Schaap was maybe a scotch better at a banquet than he was from the pulpit, a better story-teller than preacher. 

I sort of like that. 

An old man's last post card is scant proof of anything, but I can't help thinking that this one suggests an assessment of the old man's ways that's not far afield. What's amazing about the suicide story is "he didn't die." 

Quirky. Unexpected. A surprise, even a shock. Wow. 

Amazing story--don't you think, Gootes?

Sunday Morning Meds--from Psalm 37

“If the LORD delights in a man's way, he makes his steps firm;”

Thus saith the NIV.

The rough logic of verse 23 of Psalm 37 is not that difficult to understand: When—if, even—the Lord likes what he sees in a person, he’ll give the guy or gal a break. Sounds fair. That’s the kind of God I can deal with. He’ll love us if he determines we’re worth his investment. I can deal with that.

Listen to this: “The steps of a man are established by the Lord,” says the New American Standard; “and he delights in his way.” Or how about the KJV: “The steps of a good man are ordained by the Lord, and he delights in his way.”

Seems a whole lot different from the NIV. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in the gap that separates the translations, there’s a whale of a difference. In the NIV, something reciprocal is occurring—“you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.” That kind of thing, as if God almighty is shopping for a used car—kicking tires, checking mileage, looking for dings. If he likes what he sees, he buys. It’s that simple.

In the King James, God isn’t shopping. He’s turning out human beings, setting them on a charted course, and watching them go exactly where he’s determined they would, as if, in a way, he were spinning tops. But even that’s a lousy analogy because, once spun, the top-spinner has no idea of the thing’s direction. Maybe he’s like one of those folks who love model trains. Get the cars out of the box, assemble the tracks, and let ‘em go. The tracks are there.

What seems unmistakable in the KJV and New American Standard is that God knows where we go, when we stand, and when we stoop--our ups, downs, and all arounds. What’s more, he delights in watching it happen, in seeing what he in fact determined. He loves to watch us circle around the tracks he’s laid.

That’s a whole different God from the one looking for used cars—or so it seems.

What’s at the base of the difference is a pair of contrary ideas that are not arcane, ideas that have puzzled human beings for centuries. Are we free, or is everything about us pre-conceived, foreordained, predestined? Good folks, brilliant theologians, learned scholars have and will continue to disagree, I’m sure, as do—obviously—the linguists who work as bible translators.

Who’s right? Good question, and always worth considering.

But what did the poet/King say? Where would he come down? What did he intend? Whose translation is accurate?

Those questions don’t bother me at all because this is, first of all, a song and not an academic treatise. Psalm 37 is all about security, about comfort, about feeling rest and peace in the Popeye arms of the one who made us and who never leaves.

In the very next verse David will admit he’s an old man, a fact which may well be key to our accepting the sheer joy of this line’s thickly upholstered comfort. I’m likely older than he was when he wrote the song or offered the meditation. And I think I know why he wouldn’t care for the debate. Really, all he wants us to know is that when he looks back on his life—all of it—he knows, for sure, that the God who breathed his own breath into the child who would, surprisingly, become King, that God would never really leave him alone. That God was there always, and will be, forever, every last step of the way.

Verse 23, no matter how you read it, is far less a proposition than a promise.

Donald's Retribution

 

Once upon a time, my son-in-law, a fine political observer, told me Donald Trump was dead in the water. He said it would be impossible for orange man to continue his campaign after throwing John McCain under the bus for, of all things, getting captured a half-century ago in Vietnam. "I don't like losers who get captured," he said, or something to that effect.

"That's it," my son-in-law said, echoing sentiments throughout the nation. "He's done."

That was summer, 2016. Years later, his numbers are higher than ever if you believe the polls.

Lately, I've been trying to explain the Trump phenom to myself in a different way. When he said, most famously, here at Dordt University, that he could shoot someone dead on Fifth Avenue and not lose a vote, what grew exponentially was the fear that he actually could, this itchy, scary perception that he is, in fact, that almighty. He can't be bound. He'll win every court case he's facing and never, ever spend a morning locked up. No one else would sell little fabric chunks of the blue suit he was wearing when authorities snapped that famous mug shot--$3000 for a two-inch square. Trump gets away with it. He gets away with everything.

Everyone's scared of the biggest brute on the playground, and Putin knows it, as do all the world leaders, which is why you should vote for him because once the orange sheriff rides into town there'll be peace on earth with him at the helm. He scares people. What America needs is a tough guy. 

A commercial is playing 24/7 in Iowa right now. It features a spirited Gov. Kim Reynolds praising the King. For thirty seconds she screams at a fanatic crowd that Donald Trump is a friend of Iowa. She's good at campaigning, a popular governor. She's not just a cheerleader, she's an entire cheering section. You can't believe how much she loves the guy. 

But she doesn't. Months ago, she told Iowa voters she was siding with DeSantis, going over to the deep state. Trump is so angry he's spending six-figures on a double-barrel campaign not only to show off what a lovely singer Kim Reynolds was last time around, but also to humiliate the heck out of her. He's spending real money for retribution. That's the man half of the country would like to be President. 

How many ways can he throw people under the bus?

He has no shame, no guilt, no moral compass. That's why he's scary, and that's why the world is better off with him at the helm, or so say his disciples, even those holding open the scriptures before them. 

"I am your retribution." That's the lord speaking, the orange one.

Luci's Christmas poem

The Schaaps are greatly blessed to be on the Luci Shaw's Christmas card list. She's a wonderful poet who has been writing poems for most all of her 95 years. Although she's done some things in mixed genres, it's likely that her devotional poems are most beloved. I own an anthology of poetry, A Widening Light, made up of poetry created from Bible stories. It must be 30 years old, but I still go to it this time of year because Luci always does splendid things with the biblical narrative, shining out new insight from familiar stories that become, in her hands, new as the snow on everyone's Christmas dreams.

This year Christmas card poem stays in the barn where the baby lay that night in Bethlehem. Luci looks over Mary's shoulder here to be awed by grace itself spun in some barn spider's creative act. 

Merry Christmas, from Luci Shaw--

Wiltz, Christmas, 1944 -- ii

There was a lull, and that's when it all began, just a week before St. Nicholas Day. As you might guess, the idea of doing something for the kids swelled like a clear blue sky. They'd get something approximating a costume from the local priest, dress a couple of little girls up like angels, put the three of them in a jeep, get the teachers to call off school, and run through the town as if there were no fighting anywhere. A real holiday celebration, as if there were no war.

The men scrounged through their aid packets for all the chocolate and goodies they could muster. The company cooks made donuts and cake, and Harry Stutz's hair-brained idea blossomed, mid-winter, into the biggest celebration the town had since the Nazi occupation had begun, when any and all celebrations ceased under penalty of law. 

The 28th Division, torn-up and tattered from horrible conflicts through France, did something extraordinary: they threw a St. Nick party not to be believed or forgotten by a host of thrilled kiddies from Wiltz. And it was huge. Even invites, printed up beautifully. "The 28th Signal Corps. . .is happy to have the children of Wiltz as their guests for our Santa Claus Party On Tuesday, December 5, 1944."

Stutz's buddy Cpl. Richard Brookins got talked into playing the central role, outfitted in broad, white robe, the bishop's mitre aboard his noggin--way too tight, Brookins said. There they went, up and down the streets of the village, a pied piper in a Santa Claus beard (a mop), collecting children, all of them perfectly wide-eyed.

The whole thing was not to be believed, but to be loved. Stutz, the Jewish guy, pulled it off, the whole thing, one big party for the sweetheart children of a war-torn village at the foot of a forest soon to be in the line of fire for bloody hostilities. 

Richard Brookins loved it, relished every moment of the party, replayed every last gift in his mind and heart, played the role like a saint, and when it was over was perfectly thrilled--but somehow disappointed because it seemed no one recognized him, no one knew it was him beneath all that wardrobe. When it was over, no one said a thing.

But if you know the story, you can't help thinking his remarkable anonymity that cloudy December day was verifiable proof of the success of the idea a Jewish man named Stutz had created. To the kids--and even to his buddies--for a couple of hours, far from home, Richard Brookins hadn't been Cpl. Brookins at all. To everyone around town, he'd been Santa Claus, for real.

There would be much more war to come in just a few days. Hitler threw everything he had at the woods where there'd been a lull, everything, pulled out all the stops, even took some of his best troops from the Eastern Front. The Battle of the Bulge ensued; thousands would die in the biggest single battle of the war.

But for one solitary day--and for years and years thereafter--everyone who was there remembered the astounding day St. Nicholas came up the streets of town giving away candy in a jeep. It was--and in Wiltz still is--a Christmas to remember. 

Wiltz, Christmas 1944 - i

Wiltz, Luxembourg

There was a lull. No one would have said the sudden silence was anywhere near the peace-on-earth promise of Christmas, and while it would have been nice had German troops determined to take a holiday, no one thought that's what was in the cards. 

But there was a lull. Six months of brutal mud-slogging fighting had brought Allied forces off Normandy beaches, through eastern France, all the way to a wild liberation party in gay Paris. Hitler was withdrawing slowly from his dream of empire, pulling back from Holland, Belgium, and little Luxembourg, a nation no bigger than most Siouxland counties. Most believed the end was near.

There was a lull, a December lull, and a place like Wiltz, Luxembourg, a touristy little burg at the edge of Ardennes forest, became for a moment at least a fair haven for battle-weary GIs getting some much-needed R and R.

There was a lull, and Luxembourg bathed in freedom. People could speak French again and not risk punishment--bonjour returned, Heil Hitler vanished. In 1942, Wiltz had orchestrated a national strike against German military conscription, the entire country shut down until, in typical Nazi fashion, 21 local instigators were executed to bring the angry populace back in line. Two long years later, hundreds of men emerged from hiding places where they'd successfully eluded a Wehrmacht draft. After four long years, the fascist yoke was lifted.

Once again Luxembourg had done it--stayed independent, and because they did, they took great joy in their national motto: Mir wëlle bleiwen wat mir sin--"We wish to remain what we are," not German, not French, not anything other than Luxembourgian.  

There was a lull, and it was December, 1944, and the whole town, along with the GIs they were hosting, was thrilled. Cpl. Harry Stutz, "a tireless optimist," his buddies say, had an idea he passed along to others, an idea he'd come up with after visiting a local man who'd been part of the underground, and whose niece, a little seven-year-old, came by and grabbed Cpl. Stutz's heart right out of his chest. 

He'd been thinking, he told some others, that after four years of misery, the Luxembourgians--especially the children--needed some holiday joy. "It's the kids I really feel sorry for," he'd told a buddy named Brookins. He was recruiting. "Maybe we should throw a little party," he said, "--you know, for the kids."

"There's a war going on, and you're talking about a party?" Brookins just laughed.

"A Christmas party, a St. Nick party," Stutz told him. 

Brookins looked at him strangely. "You're Jewish," Brookins said.

"And we're at war," Stutz told him. "I'll speak to the rabbi when it's over."

Sunday Morning Meds--from Psalm 37

 

“. . .those the LORD blesses will inherit the land, 

but those he curses will be cut off.”

 

            We’ve been here before, of course, as in verse 11:   But the meek will inherit the land and enjoy great peace.”  As I read through this psalm, verse by verse, it seems that the world’s greatest poet is stuck on a chord.  You don’t have to be an English teacher to realize that he’s saying things over and over.  Where was his editor anyway?

            Far be it from me to criticize the Word of the Lord, of course.  For that matter, far be it from me to critique the world’s greatest poet.  Those who pulled together the canon, inspired as they were, gave scant thought to the possibility that their readers would be hoity-toity literary critics.  They weren’t thinking of art. 

            But let’s ask the question anyway:  why does King David repeat as much as he does in this psalm? 

            Yesterday, we spent the entire day without phone service because our grandchildren hiked up to our bedroom, played with the phone, then left the receiver off the hook.  Hence, no one called.  How do I know they were the culprits?  Because playing with the upstairs phone is step eight or twelve or 23 in their weekly ritual when they come to Grandma’s house.  Our two-year-old grandson always pulls at the room dividers and slides his pudgy bulk under the couch pillows.  He goes to the cupboard and pulls out a can, then proclaims to all of us that it’s corn, as if it were gold.  Children love repetition and ritual; they love doing the same things over and over; as do we, I think.

            Why?  Because the rituals they’ve created when they come to Grandma’s house relive joy.  It was fun to grab the corn the first time; let’s do it again—and again, and again, and again.  Like tail-gate parties before football games (it’s September). 

            David repeats himself in this psalm because the each repetition offers another jolt of joy.  Say it again.  “I have a dream” is a line that echoes, not simply because it rose from a famous speech by a famous man, but because Dr. King repeated it, time after time after time. 

            It’s a reinforcer too, of course.  Maybe he doesn’t ever, ever want us to forget our inheritance.  He wants to drive the point home, so it becomes the chorus, the refrain.  And we love it because we love repetition. 

            Maybe he says things again and again and again and again because he knows he’s only too well that his own personal doubt requires a battering ram of repetition.  Maybe he repeats himself to hold himself together.  He says it again and again because he fears the silence.  We do that, most of us.  One doesn’t have to be Buddhist to have mantras.

            “Play it again, Sam,” a really memorable line from Casablanca, one of the most famous movies of all time, is memorable not simply because of who said it or the movie itself.  It’s famous because we know, from the heart, its impulse.  We too have fears.   

“Play it again, David,” we might just say.  I want to hear it.  I need to hear it.  I can’t go on without hearing it again.  So say it again.  Play it again.  Sing it one more time.

For all of those reasons, I like reading the line again:  “those the Lord blesses will inherit the land,” a land without tornadoes and grasshoppers and hail, a land He’s given us forever.  The land of eternity. 

Let me hear that again.  One more time.