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Thursday, December 25, 2014

2014 Xmas Poem



Christmas 2014
By Nate Bender

The passing years add poignancy to evolving benchmarks,
Notable of which is this years’ Christmas Holiday mark.
Gratitude runs through our very veins,
Acknowledging the myriad blessings we hold dear:
Our health;
Our growing spiritual foundations;
Our connective community of friends;
Our enduring and supportive family ties, devoid of pretense;
Our ever-present quest for truth and understanding;
Our intimate, life-enriching exchange of energy (snuggling)!
The foundation of this joyful time is seated in the love we share,
And the love we carry into the larger world community.
Here’s to continuing our celebrations each and every day,
For the rest of our lives, my dear wife and soul mate…

Merry Christmas and wishing you a Happy, enriching New Year!

Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Sid Salter Xmas post

Christmas no longer about presents; presences matter


I remember so well the unbearable anticipation of Christmas Eve with my sisters Sharon and Sheila in the little teacher’s home across from the Beulah-Hubbard school in rural Newton County a half-century
 ago. Sheila, my twin, shared my suffering. Sharon, who was older and wiser, was able to put up a more mature front.

But we all lay awake late into the night, listening for sleigh bells, reindeer hooves and wondering how Santa actually got into a house that didn’t have a chimney.

The rituals were observed.
 We helped decorate the cedar tree that our father cut in the woods and brought home. Most of the decorations were homemade and the lights were colorful, large and hot.
Momma carefully selected a plate and glass for us to leave cookies and milk for Santa.

There were photos made of the children by the tree in our pajamas. We sang Christmas carols loudly, and engaged in other diversions that Momma created to help
 us pass the time. My father would make the announcement that it was time to go to bed — and always intoned that if we didn’t hurry up and get to sleep that Santa might not come because he would pass our house and find us awake.

So off to bed we went. I fought against sleep — wanting so badly to hear or see something, anything, that would reward my faith in Santa. But I never could stay awake long enough.

Once, when I was 6, I could have sworn I heard something large and foreign on the roof — but the next morning there was no evidence of that.

Some hours later, usually about 4 a.m., I would awaken, run to awaken my sisters, then together we’d inspect what Santa had left behind. My parents would join us after Momma put on a pot of coffee.

Our parents had a rule that presents weren’t opened in our home until the scriptures sharing the story of the birth of Christ were read aloud
 by one of us. I think whatever skills I later had in broadcast journalism were born in my ability to speed-read the first 20 verses of the second chapter of the Book of Luke without discernible errors.

When the carnage of torn paper and bent ribbons was over, there was a big breakfast and then off to our grandparents’ home to spend time with aunts, uncles and cousins.

The feast, and it was a feast, would be enjoyed down to Mamaw Salter’s
last custard pie. I remember it all — and in my heart of hearts, I miss those days in ways I can’t readily describe.

Mom and Dad, all my grandparents, most of my aunts and uncles and some of my cousins are all gone now. My wife
 and I are now the grandparents and the destination of four beautiful grandchildren who ponder the wonder of Santa Claus and greater joys of Christmas. They so enjoy being together.

My older sister and I will have some time together with our grown children. Our sister Sheila left our circle in 2006 and her absence has forever changed Christmas for me. But her daughters will be with me and what a gift that will be.

I remember watching my father open his presents back in the 1960s. Another bottle of Old Spice, another necktie, another white dress shirt. He feigned surprise and delight, but there was a touch of boredom in his manner. He was more concerned with watching us open
 our presents and asked us earnestly if we were happy.

We were — which I think was his greatest gift on Christmas. When he died, I remember finding in his closet enough bottles of Old Spice to float a battleship and boxes of unworn shirts and ties.

All that makes sense to me now, as I have reached the age that it’s no longer the presents that matter on Christmas, but the presence of loved ones young and old mean all the world to me.

Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, I wish you peace and joy during this season. May your Christmas presences be everything you want and need.


Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at .

Thursday, December 11, 2014

2014 Recap

Merry Christmas from Nate
I declare the year to be a winner! 2015 is forming in front of me, revealing an
inviting glow to journey forward. Never have I ever imagined being so happy and
enriched at this stage of my existence!
I’m blessed to have an expanding circle of friends, with the most nurturing ones
being a collection of my Osher Life Long Learning Institute writers group, now
numbering 17 stalwarts. We collaborated in producing an anthology of short stories
and poems, marking my second participation in such a creation. When asked
what I do I typically respond, “I’m a writer!” Sometimes people are even impressed,
and it’s a nice departure from, “I’m retired!”
Our travels have taken us to South Florida, the Bahamas, Washington D.C., Boise Idaho, Salt Lake City, Utah, Iowa
and Birmingham, Alabama.
A major undertaking has involved being assessed for a cochlear implant,
first at the Biloxi VA, followed by the Birmingham VA, where implants
are performed by the VA. Having learned that Medicare covers such a
surgery, I’m now being prepped for the procedure in Jackson, as its proximity
is more inviting and doable. All of this is generating heighten level
of anticipation!
Bottom line, I’m a blessed man with an inordinately compatible and
nourishing spouse with whom to gracefully grow into my elder years!
Merry Christmas from Sandra
What more can I say? I confirm all the blessings Nate listed. Plus—I continue
to grow vegetables and have begun to teach organic gardening. I
am teaching a seminar this spring about how to be a healthy, vital centenarian.
No, I don’t have direct experience, but I’ve read about others who do. We have rich relationships with our children
and grandchildren. We have joined a small Unitarian Universalist church that inspires us. And yes, I am blessed
beyond measure to be growing old with Nate.
Lucy, 2, is melting Grandpa’s heart.
With beauty and grace, Ariana turned 40. Our grandson,
Sachin, wows us with his first grade accomplishments.
Grandma and August, 6, play nicely together.
Samantha, 17, and Max, 16,
will be in college in a blink of an eye.

A memorable experience this October was our trip to Germany to learn more about Nate’s family. His grandfathers and
grandmothers came to America in the 1800’s. We contacted our friends, Hans Jorg and Claudia Suss and asked them for
contacts in the tiny village of Rodheim that isn’t on the map. We were met by Sigurd, an English teacher, translator, and
guide; Helmut, the museum curator and specialist on the history of the area; Ekke, another English teacher, and guide;
and Gerhard, Nate’s German cousin. These people guided us through the region for several days teaching us history and
culture. We visited the church that was built Catholic in the 1100’s and transformed from Catholic to Lutheran during
the Reformation. Nate’s ancestors were baptized and attended there. From there we went to Wurzburg to visit our
friends, Hans Jorg and Claudia to see this classic German city and wine villages at the height of Octoberfest. We felt a
heartwarming connection with our German friends.
Our best wishes for peace on earth and a healthy and happy year ahead.
Love from Sandra and Nate


Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Mother's Funeral Note

Thank you note to my Mother (upon her passing)


I’ve looked for you
in everyone I’ve met.
Here and there I found a few
who had your faithfulness,
your warmth,
your loyalty,
integrity and joy.
These few became my friends.

You made a difference
with your courageous and gentle ways.
Thank you for the woman you were,
for the woman you were
has colored all my days.


Your son, Nathan Bender

Friday, November 28, 2014

Chardin quote



“There is almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision. 

The immense fulfillment of the friendship between those engaged in furthering the

evolution of consciousness has a quality impossible to describe.” 

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Christmas at Aunt Ida’s by Dick Feagler


With a nod by Dick Feagler to the issues of today, we republish his Christmas column, which first appeared in The Plain Dealer in 1993.

On Christmas, when I was a kid, we all went over to my Aunt Ida's house -- an old house in the old neighborhood.
Just what did you think I was going to talk about today? The little town of Bethlehem with its sniper towers? The unholy mother Britney? The lack of one wise man, let alone three?
It's Christmastime, my friends. Let's rest our weary brains. Let's turn our backs on earthbound stars and People magazine celebrities and media personalities. Let us visit some people whose names get into the newspaper only when they die. And even then, just in the tiny type of the death notices.
Let's go to my Aunt Ida's house. Come on. It won't take long. You'll be home in time for the 11 o'clock news, I promise you.
The house wasn't far from the steel mills, and the fallout from the mills made the dirt in Aunt Ida's back yard black and rich. When the wind was wrong, the air in the neighborhood smelled like a chem lab. Breathing it might have been bad, but nobody knew that then. By the way, my Aunt Ida had great luck with flowers.
On Christmas, we'd all be there. The old folks, the young folks and the kids. The young folks were the young men and their wives still recovering from the great upheaval of World War II. The old folks could remember World War I.
The kids, like me, weren't old enough to remember much. We were busy collecting memories, and this is one of them.
There was no TV. The only one among us who had a TV was my cousin Stanley, who sold them. He hasn't yet sold one to any of the rest of the family, but he keeps trying. He knows it's only a matter of time. For, what isn't?
"I have a 10-inch screen," he tells us, a cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, a tall brown beer bottle at his elbow. He's sitting at the dining room table with the rest of the young men, playing pinochle. You'll notice that they have all, just for a little while, assumed the present tense. A Christmas present tense.
"They are never going to be able to make a screen bigger than 10 inches that will give you a decent picture," Cousin Stanley lectures. "According to the laws of electronics, 10 inches is as big as you can go."
The Army Air Corps gave Cousin Stanley a job fixing radios. That's where he got his electronic knowledge. So my Uncle Ziggy, who flushed out snipers on Okinawa, and my Cousin Melvin, who knocked out tanks in Italy, listen to Stanley with respect. Stanley -- the trumpeter of the dawn of the age of television.
By now, the tiny type has recorded Stanley's name. And Ziggy's. Melvin's, too. And my Aunt Ida's. Time killed them. The tanks couldn't do it and the snipers couldn't do it. But Time? It does it every time.
Time erased my cousin Billy's name. He crossed the Rhine River in the bloody, final act of his war. He lived through obscene and notorious battlefields. He died at 85 cutting wood in his front yard in Parma.
Time is the inevitable eraser, but it does not erase cleanly. If you look hard enough, you can still see traces of them all, faintly. And if you look even harder -- why they are right here!
The women are gathered in the living room, talking about babies and recipes and operations. Nylon stockings that have come back again, so you can throw the leg makeup away. Electric stoves that practically cook your meal for you. Jobs they can quit now -- are expected to quit now -- because the men have come back from the war.
Their woman talk would make a feminist despair. They talk of "female trouble" and permanent waves. And the Christmas crowds at Halle's and Taylor's and Bailey's. And the big Sterling-Lindner tree that looked even a little bigger this year. And Hough bake shop cookies. And trolley cars that turn on Public Square, showering the safety zones with a blizzard of sparks.
Jay Leno is not here. I told you, there is no television set, except the one Stanley is describing -- sketching it in the air with the smoke from his cigar. Nobody has bothered to turn the radio on. There is just talk -- endless, trivial, sometimes mysterious. Sometimes, if a kid comes into the room, the talk suddenly stops. "Ix-nay," one of the aunts will say. "Little pitchers have big ears." There are things, in this long-ago time, that a kid is not supposed to know about. If, for some unfathomable reason, anybody said the word "condom," it would take the room an hour to recover its equilibrium.
Where are the kids? Would you mind, my friend, if I went in search of myself? It won't take long. I know just where to look.
I am with my cousins in the unheated bedroom at the back of the old house. We are burrowing under the piles of coats that have been dumped on the bed. Moutons, mostly, with a few Persian lambs, for animals do not yet have rights. Just a glimpse of myself is all I want. I don't want to look too hard. Because for me, this trip is a wistful mirror.
The bedroom door opens and Aunt Ida is standing in a rectangle of light.
"You kids go into the living room now," she says. "Santa Claus is coming soon."
We go. And as soon as we leave, Aunt Ida opens a bureau drawer, reaches under some flannel sheets and pulls out a moth-eaten Santa Claus suit and a scraggly beard. The pants of this suit have long since disintegrated. So my Aunt Ida hikes up her dress and yanks on a pair of my uncle's blue serge pants. Over these she tugs galoshes.
She takes a pillow from the bed and plucks off the pillowcase. She stuffs the pillow under the Santa jacket to give herself a tummy. She fills the pillowcase with toys from Woolworth's, Kresge's and Grant's. She puts on the beard, the cap. She tiptoes out into the hall. Then out the back door and into the night -- air so cold it makes her nose sting, sky lit with a faint glow from the mills.
Around the house she goes and up on the side porch. She pauses and peeks in the window.
She sees what we see now. Me at 7. My young, handsome father and pretty mother.
(Death took my mother gently, during a nap. My father followed her the next year. But memory brings them back now, and makes them young again.)
On the frosty porch, my Aunt Ida sees us all -- the old folks, the young folks and the kids. Moving, though we can't feel the current, down a river of time.
We don't see her. She is on the other side of the dark windowpane. The adults know she's out there. We kids aren't sure. It's a moment of great suspense for us. We are not yet old enough to understand that life is fairly predictable. That you can usually tell what will happen next. That there are only a handful of plots, endlessly repeated.
I promised I'd get you back. But let me take a last look into that room. Almost all of the people we see there are gone now. But they haven't gone far, and on Christmas they are very close. They are just the other side of the windowpane.

We can't see them. But we feel them there, those simple people who loved us and took care of us. They left us blessings we too rarely count. And, if we let them, they come back at Christmas with gifts of everlasting life.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

August's 6th Birthday Poem

Happy 6th Birthday greetings to August Bender

Holy Moly, is August now 6 years old?
It seems like it was only yesterday he was five years old!
Time passes fast when we grow older, doesn’t it?
Well then, it must be time to celebrate, right?
Will there be surprises?
Will there be singing a ‘happy birthday August’ song?
Not many people have a birthday on Thanksgiving Day,
So let’s make it a special day.
Let’s recognize the many ways in which August is special;
He likes to swim in the water,
He likes to ride his bicycle,
He likes to climb up hills and other things,
He likes to build different things,
He likes to help his parents prepare meals,
He likes to teach sister Lucy new words and skills,
And, he likes to learn new things in school.
All in all, let’s take note that August is one special person,
And his Grandpa Bender is very proud to have him as his grandson.

I love you forever and a day,

Grandpa Bender