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DAD --
The Man Who Lied to Save the Planet
Available Now for Father's Day
Concept
Author James Michael Pratt credits the life of his father, Grant, for the inspiration he drew upon to write his first three bestselling novels The Last Valentine, The Lighthouse Keeper, and Ticket Home. All three honor the generation Tom Brokaw has called "the greatest generation." Now he brings to life the man, in a quick and easy to read story-telling fashion, that illuminates old fashioned virtues readers are bound to find refreshing.
Uncomplicated life lessons were offered from father to son by a man who never possessed monetary wealth. The father of ten, he worked six days a week for most of his life. He was never able to give cars, schooling, or other financial rewards to his children. He died financially as he started
his marriage to his wife Virginia-with faith, hope, and love-but nothing in the bank.
What he did give offers a classic example of fatherhood at its best. James has chosen to set up twelve chapters with twelve "values" illustrated through short but heart warming stories that readers can relate to.
The themes are designed for fathers and their children to ponder and appreciate. Designed as a smaller hardcover "gift book" for Father's Day, the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author provides insights that can make a difference in anyone who reads and then applies the twelve values.
Before DAD and After
This book title came to me out of the process of pondering upon concepts for my fourth novel Paradise Bay. I was seeking insights, probing mentally about what I wanted for the novel's father and son relationship, in harmony with notes I had received from my New York editor, the talented Jennifer Enderlin.
The title "DAD, The Man Who Lied To Save The Planet" struck suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere and with such force, I had to chuckle.
"No," I replied to the writer's muse from that ethereal zone, the invisible instructor who sometimes interrupts my fiction making meditations. "No, you can't side-track me from what I am doing," I thought back. "Get up and write it down," the sometimes challenging inner voice charged in return.
I fought the notion to get out of my easy chair where I sat with pen and paper in hand, and go to my computer to type this title into a folder I keep for possible future work. The voice just got stronger and more insistent, and as was the case with my first published novel, The Last Valentine, I knew I had to get up, write the basics of the idea down or I would never get any rest. Four hours later I had an outline and two years later you are reading this.
I wondered as I wrote how and why simple stories from a very ordinary father and son relationship could ever be compelling reading. I knew I had to get it out on paper, but "...for whom and why?" I continued to mentally pose the question as I wrote. Some background may be helpful before you launch into the first chapter, and certainly helps me answer those questions to my satisfaction.
My father was a poor man from the day he was born until the day he died, at least as the way the world looks at wealth and things. He grew up in a generation much venerated now as it slips from us daily. Their parents were born n the 1800's. Their grandparent's were born before the steam locomotive and telegraph.
My folks and their peers were given a chance to hold hands with the old generations of America and yet live most of the twentieth century witnessing the development of technologies that boggle the mind when considering where the world was a mere ten decades before. My parent's generation was literally linked to a Victorian age, a bygone era uniquely qualified to pass along fundamental American values to our time.
But they were ordinary. None of them would think they had done or lived extraordinary lives. Almost cookie-cutter in every way, with their simple neighbors and friends who knew the hardness of a world-wide economic disaster so encompassing that history books still refer to it as the "Great Depression," they thought of themselves as anything but remarkable. From their modest way of life, from the age of frontier wisdom that my grandparent's knew, from the simple slowness of life that they began their journeys on, comes a discernment meant for our day of frenetic schedules, and communications at the speed of light. What yesterday may have seemed as ordinary to them, becomes extraordinary to us as we stop, take a deep breath, and go back to a simpler way of looking at life and the world.
I do not suppose that my father, mother, or their generation were the last with moral fiber. I do not suppose that, what Tom Brokaw called "the greatest generation," was the only one to live the simple truths I will pass along to you in this book. Nor do I suppose that parents of my generation, the "baby boomers," or our children who now are becoming parents, do not possess equivalent values, insights, or moral strengths.
But the greatest generation was the last generation holding hands with the age before light, sound, speed of travel, and ease of life became available to every American household. They were taught things in a quintessential American way that mirrors values of the founding families, the great immigrants with a dream, the religious seeking freedom, those who came to the eastern shores and moved west to build this land of ours.
A common wisdom pervaded the culture of the early 20th century that I hope you the reader will recall, enjoy, and find refreshing. I may seem to eulogize my father and his peers, but that is simply a way to draw conclusions from their lifestyle and thought process as we speed along in a more hectic way of life.
What you are about to read comes from the life of my hero father, a simple everyday blue-collar working man, who was never important to the world at large, whose hands moved dirt for a living for most of his adult life; a uncomplicated man who would be embarrassed by all the fuss I am making over him.
To some, the 12 values and virtues I share as handed down to me, may seem new. There are those who may not have had the advantages of a father in the home, a stable family life, a solid love between parents as I experienced. My uncomplicated father would be uneasy by all this, but he also would have put his arms around those needing a Dad, listened, and then shared a pearl or two of common experience from his times in hopes of helping them along somehow on life's tenuous journey. To those I would especially like to share my DAD...The Man Who Lied To Save The Planet.
Chapter One
He Lied to Save the Planet
Dad's family was from pilgrim stock, immigrants who founded this nation
starting in the mid-1600's. His parents were literal pioneers of the west,
hardy folks of decent and moral values, the kind of simple virtues that our
very nation was founded upon.
Now it was 1941 and the fate of the nation so dear to him and his family,
and indeed the fate of the world, was about to be decided in the biggest
military contest of all time. With the country in peril, Dad, like millions
of other draft age young men, was determined to be part of saving democracy
and the most free Republic the world had ever known.
But to be part of the great cause of World War Two, Dad had to lie. He had
to "fudge" a bit for a greater purpose. But it was a "righteous lie" after
all, he would remind me.
It was an extraordinary time in the history of our country. By December 8,
1941, the day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States was at
war. Not just on one front, with one enemy, but the United States had joined
countries fighting for freedom in a world war, and this was the second world
conflict in the short life span of our young twentieth century.
Perhaps not since the era of the Roman Legions spreading their military
might across the known world, had so many countries been conquered in so
short a period of time as those of Europe by Adolph Hitler's German war
machine. In Asia, Japan was on the march conquering China, Korea, Manchuria,
Burma, and the island chains from Malaysia to the deep mid-Pacific. The
conquest of the planet by tyrannical and oppressive powers devoid of any
humanity for the vanquished was in full force.
The attack on the United States by Japan, and the subsequent declaration of
war by Germany on the United States, galvanized the spirit of freedom across
America. It sent our young men flocking to the enlistment stations in every
city and county seat in the country.
Their spirits were high, and Uncle Sam, Mom, the girl back home, and even
the dog, were right behind our boys. Our citizens who turned their lives
over to the military to become soldiers, airmen, and sailors, knew that if
they didn't stop the enemy on distant borders they certainly would have to
do so on our own. They cheerfully gave themselves to the cause.
Unprepared as the United States was, still using World War I gear and
fighting equipment, our young men stepped up to the medical exam tables and
accepted whatever uniform was available. The requirements for fighting were
not too stringent but minimums were necessary. When our country became
threatened during World War Two, Dad was under the physical minimum weight
to serve in the Army.
My father, Grant Pratt, was one of those who had decided he wasn't going to
be left out of the war. A slight build, and definitely what one would call
"skinny," he stepped up to the scale and began his career in lying to save
the planet.
"Next," the Army sergeant called pointing to the scale.
Dad stepped up and onto the scale. "One hundred and twenty pounds," he
called off, the minimum weight for passing the physical.
"Pass," the Sergeant said. "Take this file to the line over there. Next,"
the Sergeant called out again.
After fundamentals in combat at Fort Knox, Kentucky, his lying got him a
free ticket to Ireland for more armored training, and then to North Africa
and Italy for the fight against Nazi Germany's and the Italian Fascist
forces already battling our allies, the British.
Although Dad had told me it wasn't his first lie, it was his biggest. It
definitely was bigger than pretending to play the clarinet in the High
School Band so that he could get in to the Saturday movies for free. Bigger
than saying he didn't know who had broken several watermelons in a farmer's
patch during a "watermelon bust" with friends.
Dad had just lied to make himself available for target practice with the
German and Japanese at the rifle end of the bullets. He was all of one
hundred and fifteen pounds soaking wet. Boyish, but handsome, at age
twenty-three in 1942 he returned in August of 1944 one hundred and eighteen
pounds. He had gained three pounds during the war. He would laugh recalling
how the Army felt so bad about his two years overseas and his loss of weight
during combat, that they gave him special duty and eventually an early
release from the military.
So, he lied. And as kids we all were taught at church where liars go. Along
with 16,500,000 other Americans he wore a uniform, picked up the rifle, and
went were he was told to go. I wonder if the war would have turned out the
way it did if my father had never lied? Perhaps he was the one that tipped
the scale in favor of victory.
I guess we will never know. But the point is this. He and his generation
were made of stiffer stuff; tough material. They had been brought up to
"make do or do without." They scrapped and fought their way into work early
in life helping their families by their ten and twelve hour work days. They
understood team-work and helped to bring the nation out of the Great
Depression of the 1930's.
Forged in the fires of hard work and war, and molded by the hearth in the
homes where they grew up, their mettle has stood the test of time. Specific
values stand out to those of us who grew up under their guiding hands, and
in the shadow of their lives.
The twelve virtues and values I learned from Dad are also twelve
life-lessons I believe millions of children, now adults my age, grew up
learning from their fathers and perhaps even grandfathers who were from
Grant Pratt's time.
These stories and insights are a window into my Dad's beliefs and why he
lived as he did, but perhaps it will also give you a glimpse into your
father's or grandfather's life as well. In any case, Dad and his generation
have left a legacy of values to us in how they lived and what they did with
their time.
Perhaps they weren't any more the saints than those before them, but we are
missing them now more than ever. We find ourselves increasingly looking back
as an average of one thousand of those veterans of World War Two pass from
us each day. Somehow we feel diminished for not having them near.
This is a book for Dads and those remembering how they were. It is a book
for Dads today-fathers seeking a way to instill fundamentals of life into
their children. It is a "hoorah" for our Dads before us and still with us.
In this book I seek to promote values, virtues, and gifts left behind to us
from what Tom Brokaw has called "The Greatest Generation." While I offer
what I witnessed about my own Dad, this is a tribute to all those who lied
to save the planet. Saving the planet was a worthy cause. But Dad wouldn't
have approved of lying under any circumstances other than perhaps this:
"It's okay to lie, if you are willing to give your life for it. Otherwise
always tell the truth."
*SPECIAL REPORT*
Reporting From The
American Military Cemetery in Normandy, France June
6, 2004
Remembering American
Dads Who Saved The Planet
by
James Michael Pratt
America, and indeed the entire world, witnessed the
convulsions and hemorrhaging of armies at war as
individual men bled, died, and killed, for feet,
yards, and miles of precious earth to come off the
victors in the cruelest military conflict of
recorded history, World War Two. An unprecedented
bloodbath and a kill-or-be-killed fury ensued as one
ideology sought to suppress and eliminate personal
freedoms and another fought to save the world from
its demons.
As a member of the official press pool for the sixtieth
anniversary ceremonies commemorating the Allied
D-Day invasion of
June
6, 1944, I had the privilege of witnessing a
never-to-be-repeated celebration of honor and
courage at the battlefield locations in Normandy,
France. The gathering of old warriors in their
eighties and nineties said it all. They came because
they knew this would be the last time in their lives
such a large congregation of nations and people
would pay them and their fallen comrades homage. We,
the sons and daughters, came for the same reason.
The speeches of the French and American President honoring
American and Allied Forces contained a solemn and
spiritual tone while at the same time spoke to the
ideals of the common-man-soldier who made it all
possible for us to enjoy what we have after World
War Two.
That is not to say we have not had men and women of equal
ideals who sacrificed, died, and fought for causes
America believed in during the years since the end
of war in
Europe and Asia in
1945. The “Cold War” was hot to the Korean,
Vietnam,
and other war veterans of those intervening years.
We have thousands of stories of courage and
commitment from living men whose battle weary
brothers of the last sixty years never lost their
youth—just their lives.
But this group, my father’s age of old-young men, are leaving
us at more than 3,000 veterans a day and soon will
take their history of war, love, and bravery with
them.
I stumble at conveying the feeling I possessed while in
attendance at the
American Military Cemetery
ceremony above the sandy invasion beaches. I
stumble to describe the emotions of gratitude for my
own humble father and his comrades who entered Rome,
Italy, with the First Armored Division to the far
south on D-Day June 6th 1944. Most young
Americans don’t realize that our men had been
fighting and dying in the Pacific,
North Africa, Italy,
and Sicily, since early 1942. For those who fought
from December 7th 1941 through the end of
the war in August 1945, each carried his own
personal D-Day to the end of his life, and so this
anniversary celebration was really a final “hoorah”
for them all.
Instead of stumbling further on relaying the emotions of the
June 6, 2004 celebration in Normandy, France, or
giving an eye-witness account of the various public
celebrations and ceremonies I attended, perhaps I
might convey simple words two old soldiers shared
with me. In their words you may find some strands of
meaning; the perspective of young men trapped in old
bodies who lost friends and their innocence as they
starred death in the face, and took other young
men’s lives in the freedom crusades of so many years
past.
Howie Beach was childlike in his rhetorical question
as we listened to the former World War Two combat
soldier’s history of D-Day and 11 months of hell in
combat that followed for him and others of the 9th
Infantry Division.
“Do you think I can find them?” he asked.
“Howie,” I answered, “You’re friends are waiting for you to
find them.”
He teared up. I got a lump in my throat as my brother Rex,
documentary film director, and myself, script-writer
and author, witnessed the aged soldier become the
youthful one again. “I lost seven close friends in
France and Belgium and I want to find them. Do you
think I can find where they are buried?
“Yes,” I answered. “There are seven American Cemeteries
throughout
Europe. The Cemetery at Colleville overlooking the
invasion beaches is the biggest and most famous with
over 10,000 American crosses. Your friends can be
found, Howie.”
“Oh,” was his simple reply as he searched the meaning of sixty
years having passed.
“You are 19 years old again, aren’t you?” I asked.
“What?” he asked with moist eyes.
“You aren’t 79 today. You are 19.”
“How do you know that…how I feel?” he responded with surprise.
“Everyone feels the same way. We are eternally young inside,
like the young soldier friends of yours. They
haven’t aged, and in some ways, neither have you.”
“That’s right! It is just like it was all yesterday. I don’t
understand it. I shut it out for so many years and
now it’s as if I am there again and it is all fresh;
fresh in my mind, I mean.”
I didn’t reply. This was Howie’s moment to teach and our
opportunity to learn as we stood in line with him
and his family member who brought him here to the
official 60th Anniversary Ceremony at the
American Military Cemetery held on the 6th
of June 2004.
Howie Beach was one of many men, American, British,
French, and Canadian who we met on our travels for
one week in June to honor on film and in the written
word American dads who stormed on to these beaches
and others around the world to save the planet.
These men had a call, and all recounted how they
felt quite ordinary then, but part of something
bigger. “It was a mission,” Howie reminded us. “We
were part of millions in uniform. Most of us figured
it was a matter of time before we were dead men
anyway, so we fought like mad.”
Norman Akers, a British soldier traveling to
Normandy to be at a reunion of fellow British D-Day
survivors was with his daughter, when we met him. He
showed us an original photo of his brother’s
shrapnel torn helmet lying upon a fresh mound of
earth where he lay buried. The custom of the British
was to immediately bury their soldiers where they
fell. Later he was crossing into Belgium and then
Holland during Operation Market Garden and came upon
a bridge named “Aker’s Bridge.” He inquired and
found out from a British officer, “Oh yes. That
would be named for your brother. He was quite the
hero, you know.
Norman Akers looked proud, wistful, and sad all at the same
time as his 83 year-old eyes strained at the graying
photo of the bridge he was sharing with us; the sign
posted as “Aker’s Bridge,” and what it meant to him
to “carry on” as the surviving Akers brother of a
war that consumed so many hundreds of thousands of
British sons. “It seems like yesterday now,” he
whispered. “I can’t understand why, but it is all so
clear again.”
We thanked him for his service for us. Our British allies
fought hard and lost nearly one million sons beside
our American forces in bringing victory to the
cause.
These two men both testified that they were not uncommon of
other men of their time. They think of their dead
brothers and comrades as the true heroes. But they
survived to remind us of the cost. And now those
“common men” of yesterday seem so extraordinary to
us. Their heroics remind us of just how much one
good man can do to make a difference in the world.
Our French hosts were generous in their regard for their
American friends who gave their lives to liberate
their country. American flags hung from the windows
of
Normandy countryside homes along with French flags,
British, and Canadian. A proud people, sometimes
with disputes regarding American foreign policy,
they lacked no gratitude for their hero “soldats
Americain” who waded from chest deep water into
enemy fire on D- Day. More than 50,000 French
civilians would also end up surrendering their lives
to bombs made by Germans, and the Allies as they
lived in the midst of warfare during those first
terrible summer months of 1944.
The city we stayed in,
Caen,
France, is as charitable today in her regard for
American, British, and Canadian sacrifice as it was
60 years before when nearly 95% of the buildings
were destroyed and thousands of inhabitants were
killed or wounded during the several weeks of
fighting there between Allied and German forces.
Somehow everyone gathering during the week ending
June
6th 2004 to honor our dead and living veterans of the great conflict understood
that with the sacrifice, with something given up and
lost, the pendulum of justice swung fully to the
opposite direction offering a precious but sacred
blood-stained gain in return. In
Howie
Beach’s
life the loss was friends and the innocence he had
known as a teenager when he was called upon to
become a killer of men. What he gained was a
profound depth of appreciation for freedom, a love
beyond measure for comrades, and a decency he would
live the remainder of his life in spite of carnage
and terror he experienced. In Norman Aker’s life it
was the same, plus the sacrifice of his beloved
older brother. For French men and woman it was often
their homes being destroyed along with family
members being sacrificed for their final freedom.
One week earlier I had the honor of speaking to thirty wounded
Marine’s at the invitation of personal friend,
Chaplain Ronald Ringo, USN stationed at
Camp Lejeune, NC. Now home from
Iraq
and Afghanistan’s battle fields, these men had
gathered to listen to the Chaplain’s instructions on
how to transform from warrior to peace-time dad and
husband.
The Marines wondered aloud if we, the American citizen,
appreciated them; if we cared. Many are husbands and
dads, doing simply what they know their fathers and
grandfathers did in World War
Two,
Korea, Vietnam and other conflicts.
“Will the American people be grateful?” one asked. “Will they
let us finish our job?” another questioned. “I used
to take my family for granted,” added a young staff
sergeant. “I used to act like a drill sergeant to my
young son. But when I got back from
Iraq, and some of my friends didn’t, I just looked
into his eyes and when he said ‘Daddy…and…’” His
throat closed tight on his own words. He wiped at
the tears. “I’m not the same man,” he began once
more. “I’ll never be the same man. I will never take
my family or this country for granted again.”
Gratitude, love, honor. I witnessed these with our current
crop of heroes, some Marines who want nothing from
us but understanding and respect. And then on June
6th 2004, in an overflowing abundance of
appreciation on French soil, hallowed and made
sacred by men who died and also lived to tell their
tales, I understood what soldiers of every time and
conflict may have wondered when they asked
themselves, “Will they remember me back home?”
I imagined in my mind’s eye a beneficent Creator offering an
approval for a collective gathering of the spirits
of the fallen whose bodies lay buried in the
Normandy
sod. Dads, sons, heroes all, I imagined another
cerebration taking place near us; the dead among the
ten thousand crosses, witnessing an earnest
heartfelt homage being paid to them. The thoughtful
question, as if posed by a silenced warrior asked
again, “Will they remember me back home?” I knew the
answer and whispered back: “Yes soldier, we do
remember. We haven’t forgotten you. And we never
will.”
James Michael Pratt
AVAILABLE FOR
MOTHER'S DAY
Appreciation for Everyday Moms
“Youth fades, love drops, the leaves of
friendship fall; a mother’s secret hope
outlives them all.” --Oliver Wendell Holmes
I figure my Mom was normal in almost every respect
regarding basic mores and teaching her children the
standards of conduct, faith, and values passed on to
her from her mother who was born in the late 1800’s.
Mom did her best to instill in her boys born in the
‘40’s, 50’s and ‘60’s, virtues that would bring them
success, happiness, and well being.
Mom had seven sons, two daughters, and adopted an
adult, my third sister, later in her life. She
qualifies, in my mind, to remind us of what really
matters most.
She represents the best effort of millions of Moms
who as children grew up in the milieu of the Great
Depression of the 1930’s, waited for their soldier
boyfriends and husbands of the world’s greatest
military conflict of all time – World War Two – and
denied herself comforts unknown to previous
generations in favor of her children having the best
she could give.
With that alone, Mom merits Sainthood. And I believe
the reader will also agree that “Mom” is a sacred
and affectionate title given to the woman we know
the best, one who always put our needs above her
own.
The themes portrayed here are also appreciations
for Moms. I am sure my stories are, by in large,
representative of most experiences the reader will
have known in growing up under the care of a good
mother.
But my Mom is, after all, the only Mom I have had
experience with. So for fun I will refer to those
days and experiences that showed me a way of living
I give gratitude for now.
If by chance you did not have a positive experience,
missed growing up under the protective wings of an
angel mother, I offer you mine, with the hopes you
may feel the guiding love, and use it from this time
on to influence those in your
care and all others
around you.
Mom, we can never say “thank you” enough. These
words pay tribute to you and are in appreciation
for everyday mothers who build the world, one soul at a time!
Sample
Chapter
TWO
“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater
than natural laws.”
-- Barbara Kingsolver, Novelist
Wholesome goodness is what Moms are all about. What
Mom hasn’t gotten up before her children to make
sure they were nourished and ready for the world?
All Moms know that the heart needs nourishment along
with the body. Until it is filled, an empty stomach
can hardly endure patiently Mom’s wise and loving
counsel. So mothers feed first and teach second. And
behind the rib cage, close to that stomach which
each morning anticipates breaking the nightly fast,
is the heart.
As
a child I grew up under the wings of a Great
Depression influenced mother. Her attitudes of care,
protection, health, and wisdom were highly motivated
by the times and the people she grew up with. There
are many lessons of life and values I learned from
her which I now recall as I watch her slip into old
age; a new age of mothering as shocking a
realization to me as it is to her. But she is still
here, and still giving guidance, and still reminding
me to eat right, take care, say prayers.
It
might not sound like it but Mom was one of those
women who could better say what she meant by
unconsciously using a metaphor. The frequent oatmeal
speech was one such attempt by Mom to instill
wholesome habits of nutrition thereby fortifying her
children for the day ahead.
“Umm, umm, good, umm, umm good, that’s why…” a
jingle from the 1950’s and 1960’s starts, as it
still rings in my ears after all these years. In
fact, if all that was left of America were its
kitchen pantries and travelers from a distant planet
arrived seeking out signs of life, they may draw a
conclusion or two from what they find.
There in the pantry, as they spin the Lazy Susan
they will watch several cans of Campbells, a brand
of soup that could be called “America’s Official
Soup” because it is so ubiquitous. The other item
most likely to be discovered is Oatmeal. The most
prolifically distributed brand the aliens will find
is Quaker Oats.
If
I were an alien from deep outer space, knowing that
the entire country was devoid of living human
beings, my first communication back to my superiors
on the mother-ship might be something like this:
“It would seem that the American humans were known
for their tastes with two strange foods. One of them
contains a liquid mixed with a variety of edible
plant and native animal parts. The other is a dry
dusty meal that one can only assume would be hard to
swallow. In fact, if consumed in large quantities it
might be considered one of the killers of this
civilization.”
“You are suggesting the American beings were fed
this? A dusty meal, given them by their mothers?” the
mother-ship commander would reply.
“Yes, undoubtedly so. And in its present form it is
certainly deadly. One would choke and thus die from
asphyxiation unless mixed with the soupy liquid
found in cans.”
“I
see. Are there any clues as to who the maker or
culprit causing this kind of death might be?”
Commander of mother-ship asks.
“Yes, Commander. Because it is found everywhere, in
almost every residence we have investigated, we
believe we can identify at least one source for the
flaky material.”
“Proceed with a description,” the alien on the
ground hears from mother-ship.
“The containers for this meal substance most
universally show the likeness of a rosy cheeked but
round faced, white haired, and happy male wearing a
black cloak and a wide brim head covering of some
type. A hat, I believe the former inhabitants called
it.”
“This hat would signify leadership of the
American tribe?”
“Perhaps. No doubt they respected him greatly for
his image is always found on this meal’s containers
they call Quaker Oats.”
“We shall call it oat meal, for the
record,” the commander responds back.
“Yes, 'oatmeal.' Quite unlikely any human could eat
this without some sort of modification such as
adding the liquid first. In fact, supreme leader,
there was a written message, a note found in one
habitation next to the carton containing the dry
food.”
“A
communication?” the commander in the mother-ship
responds excitedly. “It might contain valuable, even
secret information,” he suggests to the explorer on
the ground. “Perhaps from the happy male himself –
their leader,” he adds.
“Yes, Excellency. Or might I suggest this message
comes from the feminine side of the race. Everywhere
we find images of these American females preparing
foodstuffs.”
“Then a message from a female American to the happy
man you described?”
“Perhaps. Shall I send the message to you through
our portable translation screen?”
“Please.”
“Scanning.” The alien on the ground passes the note
through the hand-held device beaming it up to the
command mother-ship.
As
the words pop up on the screen before the alien
commander seated at the control console of the
command ship he reads:
“Jimmy. Don’t forget to eat your oatmeal. It will stick
to your ribs. Love, Mom.”
The commander exclaims: “So the leader’s name, the one on the box, was
Jimmy. Stick to his ribs. Must be some sort of
primordial code. Hum… Interesting.”
Sometimes taking an idea to the absurd serves in
illustrating a point. But my point, more recently
than childhood, was made another way.
My
younger brother Rex, and the brother I grew up
closest to -- you know, the one you cheat at board
games, take advantage of and ask to test the cold
water of the swimming pool first -– was in a
hospital a few years back for a major surgery that
would take the surgeon through his rib cage.
I
had promised that our family would pray for him and
I just wanted to call him to let him know I was
aware of his needs the hour before the surgery was
to take place. I had merely expected to leave a
message for him. He was in a well-known Los Angeles
hospital. Somewhat sedated from the effects of prep
drugs he picked up the phone in his private room.
Our conversation went something like this:
“So Rex, you worried?”
“No…not…really…” he stammered.
“I’m praying for you.”
“Oh…well, uh, I’m…kinda…drug…ged…right now.”
“Well, I know everything will go well.”
“Oh…O…kay…” he slurred as the drugs took greater
effect. “I’d…bet…ter…go…now,” he added, drifting
away from the conversation.
“Can you do something for me?” I asked.
“What?” he demanded, but as kind as he could under
the circumstances.
“Ask the doctors a question when you come out of
recovery.”
“What?”
“Ask them if they found any oatmeal.”
“What?” he squeaked out. “I got…ta…go… Bye…”
“Bye. Love you brother.”
Click.
The surgery was a success and for some reason I
thought Rex was capable of remembering our
pre-operation conversation when I called him back
the next day.
“So,” I said. “The prayers worked.”
“Yeah. Guess so,” he answered.
“You ask the doctors the question?”
“What question?”
“You know. They cut through your ribs to get to
that gland and fixed it right?”
“Yeah…so?”
“So did they find what I asked you to have them
look for?”
“Jim, what are you talking about?”
“Oatmeal. Did they find any on your ribs?”
Silence.
Rex was still drug afflicted so I let him off
the hook.
“Talk to you later. We are remembering you in
our prayers. Ask the Doctors for me will you?”
“Yeah…sure. Bye.”
Click.
See, Mom never lied, unlike Dad who lied to get
into World Ward Two so he could save the planet. I’m
not sure if she ever mentioned it to any of her
other children, but Mom definitely had always told
me when I lived at home: “Jimmy, eat your oatmeal,
it’ll stick to your ribs…”
Today my kitchen cabinets are full of oatmeal.
All flavors, I eat the stuff regularly. But I never
quite understood what Mom meant by it “sticking to
my ribs.” I have never asked either, just assumed if
she said it stuck, then it must.
I
recall as a boy feeling around my ribcage after
eating my oatmeal and wondering if it took a trip
other foods didn’t. Maybe oatmeal really did hang
out down there.
“…and it’ll keep you warm,” she would add, an
assurance that eating the entire bowl would be good
for me.
See, I trust Mom. So I had never in my life,
not even to this day in my fifth decade, asked why
she thought oatmeal, above all other foods, would
linger on the ribs instead of becoming digested.
The idea that I took from Mom, especially when
I was thousands of miles away from home in South
America, and offered almost daily a soupy gruel of
watered down hot oats for breakfast (a drink rather
than thick spoonfuls) was that preparation for the
day with good sound nutrition will keep you safe. It
was never quite like Mom’s but whenever I brought
the warm cup of soupy oat drink to my lips Mom was
there with me.
As I think on it now, the oatmeal comforted Mom
too. She just needed to know that something she did
would stick to us from home when the seven boys and
two girls ventured out into the cold hard world.
Eating oatmeal might not really stick to ribs,
but I never, ever, eat it without hearing Mom’s
voice. It isn’t just oatmeal that stuck to this boy
though. It was the time-tested values that gave real
warmth and protection. Like a shield against the
punches, life’s knock-out blows to the rib cage, Mom
always meant more than just oatmeal would stick.
Obeying Mom on eating the hot cereal was assuring
myself that I could succeed.
Mom always got it right, because it was always the
best she gave. There are no perfect Moms or Dads,
nor children I suppose, but some come pretty close.
After all is said and done just knowing your Mom
cared made a boy feel safe.
And as for the oatmeal, every time I eat it I smile
and think about it sticking to my ribs in a special
way, a way that causes me to silently say:
“Thanks Mom. Your warmth and caring has stuck where
it matters most, and it still is protecting my
heart!” |
