A frog and a prince - inspired by Mrs. Helen Head

Last weekend was one of my favorite times each year when I get the chance to go back to the Osage and visit the places I grew up and more importantly the people who made a difference in my life.  Helen Head is four months from turning 90 years on this earth.  She was an inspiration to hundreds and probably thousands of students she taught but many she touched in ways you cannot imagine.  Today I would like to ask all of you who were touched by her to write a short letter and send it to the Shidler Review to be published over the next few months as Mrs. Head closes in on 90 years.  But here is my story about Mrs. Head.  I have two favorites but only one I can figure out how to publish and that is another story.

Mrs. Head (College English) seemed to get great joy in coming to class and dropping a bomb of an assignment on us.  This one in particular resonates with me over the years.  She came to class with a frog attached to an air hose which she sat on her desk then proceeded to compress a small ball pushing air through the small hose which was attached to the frog.  The frog would jump forward guided by the escaping air going through its body causing its legs to straighten out pushing the body forward just like a normal frog creating a leaping action.  Mrs. Head said very little about this inspiring event other than she demanded we write a story of what we observed.

This type of thing just ticked me off because it had no meaning to me.  I thought she had lost her rocker.  Well anyway I find myself today thinking that was precisely the type of thing that helped me think "outside the box".  I was the type of person that everything had to be logical and make sense and have a purpose I could relate to at that time.  I had to see the value in something to deal with it.  Well, the great thing I learned is sometimes there is "no right or wrong answer".  I learned that my imagination was more important than everything adding up and balancing.  In fact this reminds me of the commercial saying America is number 32 in world math skills.  I ask myself, thanks to Mrs. Head, is that what is important or just a fact based on someones analysis?  What I learned from the frog and Mrs. Head is critical thinking skills and the ability to look beyond the obvious is most important.  Show me that America is 32nd in the world where folks want to live and thrive.  NOT!  America is number 1 and proud of it.

You see that frog helped turn me into a prince.  Not in the royalty sort of way but in a person who can think and reason beyond the pundits who say ridiculous things just to score political points.  Rather appropriate at this time every four years.

For me I want to be the frog free from its umbilical cord full of air doing what someone else says.  I want to be free to be all I can be and think and act freely, as long as it is moral and ethical, to better my situation not at your expense but mine.  I want to be a prince responsible for my decisions and actions even if there are consequences I neither anticipated or hoped for.  (Mrs. Head would not like that sentence since it ended with "for").

Thank you Mrs. Head for taking frogs and making them into princes and princesses.  You are forever loved and appreciated for a magnificent gift.

I can not help but end with "what do you learn in the Osage?".

• A frog on a string might be one of the greatest gifts you can ever receive
• Life lessons may have strings attached or air hoses
• Growth in life is a decision and sometimes we have to take things we don't like and find the good in them

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Grainola Methodist Church and Kerney Graham

Grainola, Foraker and Webb City Methodist Churches were on a circuit so each Sunday whoever was the preacher had to go to all the churches and preach.  There was a lot of good things about that church but most of all it was the folks in the community.  I remember my folks making, yes - forced, me to go when I was a kid, just about every Sunday.  Today someone would call that child abuse but it was just normal.   We sat in the fourth row from the back on the north set of pews.  It seemed that everyone and every family had their own pew.  Marguarete and Jim and of course Jamie, Jon Tanny and Jay sat in the front on the south side to be close to the organ because Maggie (Marguarete) played the organ.  Boy was it a big deal when we got the organ on top of having a piano.  Larry and Dorothy Olsen, Tanny and Levi went to church in Dexter but on occasion came to Grainola.  Just about everyone came some of the time and especially on Christmas and Easter.  I gotta tell you a story someday about Larry and Dorothy, don't let me forget.

The men wore felt cowboy hats in the winter and straw cowboy hats in the summer.  You could always expect them to wear their best hat on Sunday.  It was always interesting to know that as their hats got older there was a sweat mark around the hat and soon enough they would get another.  I don't think anyone wore hats to avoid getting cancer but to keep the hot sun off their heads.  Now Carl McConaghy always wore a hat because he could feel the heat sooner than most, if you know what I mean.  It was a shame but when baseball type hats got in gear the cowboy hats started disappearing except for funerals and weddings.

OK, so back to Kerney and the church.  When you are growing up and especially when you have a young family there is always a preacher that comes up special.  In our case it was Kerney.  I remember his family coming over after church for our Sunday roast beef with potatoes and carrots.  It seemed that about once a month or so they would come over after church and we would sit around and visit.  Kerney had a great influence on our lives and at that time we had a very active MYF (Methodist Youth Fellowship) which my brother Larry and C.H. Codding were especially active in.  The best part of MYF for me was that Cindy Hustead went to the Webb City location and was a member of the MYF.  I thought she was tops.  I never really did much with MYF and I don't really remember why other than It was about that time Kerney left and I started going to Shidler High School where I fell in love with sports.

Over the years my family always stayed in touch with Kerney and family.  As I remember he moved to Hominy and Newkirk and a few other towns over the years to serve a new group of families.  He seemed to always be the preacher of choice for weddings and funerals long after he left.  In fact he was the preacher at my dad's funeral and it was exceptional.  He expressed how when we are standing on this side of a wide body of water saying goodbye to dad who has just left us that there was another group of folks welcoming him home on the other side.  Now I don't know about you but that is about as clear a picture as I can think of when a person dies and Christ is welcoming them home.  I can still see Grandpa Olson and Grandma waiving at him saying, "Hurry, it has been too long and we want to hug your neck".  Kerney made the meaning of knowing my destination with Christ real and clear and simple.  He was a blessing.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• A great leader is a great servant, just like Kerney
• Even when you are sad someone is rejoicing on the other side
• Dying is like trading commodities - there are winners and losers so it is best to make a good choice
• Eternity can be a great journey if you choose Christ
• Have a great day, it is YOUR choice

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Should we focus on our goals or on our journey?

Should we focus on our goals or on our journey?

I have spent most of my life thinking about my goals but realized what I have been doing is writing and thinking about my journey.  It is with this thought I look backward and forward on where I have been and where I am going.

Goals are a great thing and I personally believe we should write them down.  I started writing them down when I was a senior in dear old Shidler High.  I spoke them to myself many times and many ways long before I wrote them down.  For example, I always wanted to be funny and smart like Jim Heath who was and is the smartest guy and the funniest.  We went to school together for 12 years.  I wanted to be fast like Hugh Allen Jones.  I also wanted to write real neat like Hugh Allen.  I wanted to be able to fix things like Jon Tanny Olsen who could fix any vehicle or tractor or combine long before he could legally drive.  He could just figure things out.  I wanted to be admired by my teachers like they would always praise the work of Denise Logue and Joy Frank.  Sure these are small things but they were the building blocks of what I was and am today. 

But what really resonates with me is that it was not as much my goals that lead my behavior but my journey.  My journey was filled with lots of small things that added up.  Some were bad things and some were good.  In fact I wrote myself a note today: 

• ·      By losing do you win?
• ·      Is losing really winning?

It depends on YOU, your attitude and how you reflect on those things.

I look in my rear view mirror through Christ who strengthens me and I focus on what I learned.  I look through my windshield where Christ deflects the bugs and the wind of my life.  Putting all of this together brings me to this conclusion:

·      Constant growth personally and professionally on a daily if not hourly basis is the brick that is laid, one at a time, cemented together creating a sturdy wall that I can stand on, reflect on and rely on when times get tough and when things are great.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• ·      A great journey depends on the people you grow up with
• ·      A great journey depends on the people you surround yourself with
• ·      And a great journey depends on how you ground your morals, principles and ethics in life and it was a free gift

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

Sometimes when you know where you are going you are still wrong

Sometimes when you know where you are going you are still wrong.

When we lived on Beaver Creek in the Osage my dad would always make sure I was doing something worth doing.  Somehow when he told me something to do I knew I had better get it done.   Anyway, once he told me to get the tractor and the rake and bring it to him so when he was done cutting hay he could start raking.  Now just in case you did not know a rake is an implement used to take cut hay and put in rows like in the picture.  Now this picture shows a swather which belongs to the McConaghy’s in Grainola.  Basically a swather took a hay cutter (mower or sickle bar mower) and a rake and combined them to make it more efficient.  So anyhow, I hooked up the rake to the tractor and took off to where I thought dad was working.  Notice I said thought!  Well I crossed the creek and drove through the woods to get to the far west side of our property.  Now that was not a simple matter since there was not a road wide enough through the trees for the rake.  It took me more than an hour to get over there to only find I was in the wrong place and had to come back the same way I came.  When I got back, right in front of the house is where dad was working cutting a 20 acre field of Bermuda grass.  Luckily he was in a good mood and just laughed and asked what I was doing and where was I going.

So what is the point?  What do you  learn in the Osage?

• ·      I was determined to get “where I thought I was going” only to find I was going to the wrong place.  Stop, ask questions, get clarity before you take off and go somewhere.
• ·      This also begs the question, “how do you change directions in your life if you don’t know where you are going?”  Do a little planning and thinking.
• ·      It don’t make sense to shoot, aim and pull the trigger.  Think about it.

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com

It is never too late to start

I am sure if you are like me, which I am certain you are, you have realized that life is not always easy and things don't go your way all the time.  But when I was very young and too young to remember I was sick for more than a year.  In fact I spent most of my first year and I did spend my first birthday in the hospital.  By my second birthday they had taken out my tonsils and they figured out I was extremely allergic to milk.  Now that is not too big of a problem, normally.

My challenge was that I was living in Grainola which is about 50 miles from Pawhuska, Ponca City and Winfield, Kansas (where I was born).  That means we lived a long way from being able to get to the doctor or hospital in a hurry and many times mom and dad needed to hurry because I could not breath due to allergies.  I do have to explain that I always lived in Grainola growing up but our family doctor was in Winfield.  The second problem is we lived on a dairy farm and we milked cows so milk was in everything.  There was another problem with living on a farm and that was I was allergic to dust.

OK, so back to the point.  Well do you remember when you did not get the best grade?  I remember when we had spelling contest every Friday and Debbie Jones and in fact almost everyone else in the class out spelled me.  I sat down faster than anyone else.  The way it worked is if you were given a word to spell and you were wrong you got to sit down.  I just hoped I would be the last in line so I could sit down later rather than sooner.  I NEVER WON.  Then there was penmanship which I was lousy at.  It was not that I did not want to be good but it was that I did not have the patience and some might say the talent.

Of course we can go on and on with those disappointments in life but you know I think that is what makes all of us better, hard times, disappointments, hurts, pains, cuts, bruises (sometimes on the bottom if you know what I mean), headaches, and on and on.  If a person learns early on how to deal with these things and learns everything is not handed to them but EARNED I believe it makes them a better person.  You see (metaphorically speaking and that is the biggest word I know) it is impossible to protect a child from everything but it is possible to be their cheer leader and encourage them when it gets tough.  YOU can share wisdom or just be an EXAMPLE for them on how to overcome and that their decisions are what make the difference and how they react to challenges.

I guess I am just trying to say we need to stop enabling children to be poor decision makers and start being what we need to be as an example and mentor.  With that I am taking the position "it is never too late to start".   Mentor someone, help someone, start again on your own life but don't give in to defeat or depression or misfortune.

So what do you learn from the Osage?

• when the going gets tough the tough get going
• defeat is a frame of mind not a permanent part of us
• If life were easy we would not appreciate the good times
• Let's all get started

Thanks for listening,

gary@thepioneeman.com

Five frogs are sitting on a log

When I was a kid I remember hearing a riddle, "Five frogs are sitting on a log.  Four decide to jump off.  How many are left?"  This riddle probably created more angst in me than you can imagine.  You may be like me and said, "There is one left".  Well you and I were wrong.  All five are left.  The four only decided to jump off.  In other words they never did anything.  That is the point of this story.

When I was growing up and even when dad was 87 years old he said, "let's go do something even if it is wrong."  Two days before he went in the hospital he showed up at my house in Edmond about 6:00 A.M., yes, in the morning.   He drove from Perkins, just south of Stillwater.  Go figure.  That means "think about it".  He must have gotten up around four in the morning, got dressed, had breakfast at Around the Corner in Edmond and then showed up at my house.  If you have not figured out yet that my dad was a "doer, getter done" kind of person you are a little slow.  Anyway back to the house in Edmond, "Clifford Farms" which was named after him, he proceeded to tell me he was going to go weed eat.  There are two things about this that were ridiculous:  First, he was 87 years old and it would be embarrassing for me to have someone see an 87 year old man weed eating around my house.  Second, my driveway was about 1/2 mile long not counting the front of the property which he would also weed eat.  The property was 80 acres!  Dad and for that matter Mom were and are both crazy hard workers.  After dad informed me what he was gonna do I emphatically informed him that he could not weed eat my property.  He stuck his tongue out at me and said, "piss on you".  Now I know that is not the nicest way of talking but that is the fact of what he said.

If you ever watched the movie "True Grit"  with John Wayne you saw a 10th or 100th of the true grit of my parents.  They were Real Gold from the Osage.

So what do you learn in the Osage?

• Deciding and doing are two different things
• You are not done until you are done and that is when you decide or your body just quits
• Dad never quit but his body did
• Put your value in doing something to the end
• don't quit early in life
• If you intend to do something, go do it, don't intend to the end

Thanks for your time,

gary@thepioneerman.com