Well. Thirty years ago Jo Ann and I moved to South Bend, Indiana, so that she could study at Notre Dame. I got a job at the Bendix Proving Grounds as a test driver. Which sounds remarkably glamorous, but actually wasn't. Though I did love that job dearly. One (of the many) things I loved about it was that I met some people who were really interesting and good. I didn't have the foresight or stamina to maintain contact with any of them, I'm sorry to say, but I still think about them on a regular basis. Tim and his brother _____, who were really into comics. In fact, Tim had done an issue, maybe more, of his own comic book. I had it once upon a time. Might still have it somewhere. And Jackie, who was a skinny, sassy little redhead who I really REALLY liked, but I was married, so not even a whisper of a possibility there. Bob, the salty old dog who was always good for a laugh. Stan, who drove an ancient Cadillac. Ray, the Good Boy who got on everybody's nerves. (One time he was tailgating me and I got on the CB and said, "Ray, why don't you get a little closer so you can kiss my ass?" Ha ha. I thought that was a pretty good one. The Boss, who was monitoring the CB traffic, did not agree.) Lisa, the hot blonde. But the person I remember most fondly and most often is The, who had come from Vietnam. I only have a vague memory of what The (pronounced "T") looked like, and have no memory at all of his voice or most of what we talked about. But I remember him loaning me a book which had been written for Vietnamese refugees. I don't remember why. Maybe he'd told me something about it and I'd shown interest. Maybe he just thought I needed it. Maybe he wanted to let me know that you don't have to live like a refugee. At any rate, I read at least some of it, because I remember a bit that was in there about marking the calendar.
The writer said that when you crossed the day off of the calendar, you shouldn't mark it out with an
X
as if you were killing it or negating it. Instead, you should put a check mark
√
so as to say to yourself, "I did the best I could to fill this day with meaningful activity." Or something positive like that.
I liked the idea. So I started putting check marks to mark off the days on my calendar. And still do so to this day.
My daughter Jacqueline is a two calendar kind of girl. At the moment, she has a church calendar on one wall of her bedroom and an Alice in Wonderland calendar on another. They both look like this:
Well, except for Alice's legs and that bit of dress there. That's not on the church calendar.
If I get behind on doing the check marks on my calendar, as I am sometimes wont to do, Jacqueline will remind me to get busy with it.
It's the circle of life, brahs and tahs.
Kind of nice to know that it's not just the sins of the fathers that are visited on the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.
(Man, that Baltimore Catechism really sticks to your ribs.)
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