Share what you can spare

My father perished from the earth forty-two years ago today, on Friday, September 13, 1968. He was one month and three days shy of his thirty-eighth birthday.

Although I grew up referring to Blanchard Guy McManus as "my real dad" to put distance between him (and me) and the sorry bum my mother elected to assume that role during my formative years, in truth he is barely real to me at all.

I have no memories of the handsome pilot who abandoned our family when I was two years old. I have no stories to tell you of his exploits. Except for genetic material, I have nothing he gave me.

If you can imagine standing high above a teeming city and looking out over miles of pitched rooftops, all the way to the edge of marked territory and maybe even curving a little bit into made-up land, nothing but rooftops as far as your eye can see, those would be the memories most people have of their fathers.

My landscape is empty clear to the horizon and back. Abandoned children wander aimlessly there. Sometimes I join them for a game of What Might Have Been.

What I do have is some stuff that came in a box left to me by my paternal grandmother upon her death in 1983.

Included is a creamy white military sash my father wore (complete with appliques and a medal), his Certificate of Election from Arizona Boys State (1949), a few business cards, and a couple of old pictures. 

There is a yellowed invitation from Bryan Air Force Base to witness my father's graduation from Air Force Pilot School on August 1, 1953. Time travel, anyone?

There is the section of newspaper which contains the gruesome story of the airplane crash that took my father's life fifteen years and six weeks after that happy day.

Except for the larger photos, which I framed and hung on the wall, all of the above fits into the well of a small curio table with room left over for lots of other family memorabilia.

Like the round flat gray-white blob of cement my mother's Uncle Harold made wherein he planted my two-year-old feet, then took a matchstick and poked into the still-wet material the letters of my name … only in his haste to finish he left out an N and it forever reads JENY 1959.

There is a small candy dish that belonged to my mother's mother, and a snapshot of my then-young Mamaw wearing a fur coat and an enigmatic expression.

There are snippets of poetry -- both original and famous -- typed on onionskin paper long ago by my father's mother.

There is the birth announcement my mother sent to her mother-in-law on the occasion of my appearance on the scene.

I put some antique blocks in there a long time ago, just for wit. They spell M-E. Plus I have some other random ones that don't make words but they fit with the overall scheme.

Oh -- I also have a piece of paper on which, three years ago, I scribbled the precise location of my father's grave: Pierce Brothers Valhalla Cemetery, 10621 Victory Boulevard, North Hollywood, Los Angeles County, California 91606, Lot 2, Section 228, Veterans Memorial Garden.

The man on the phone at the cemetery was very nice when I began to cry, telling me to relax and take my time.

I'd love to visit there someday and take a picture, maybe look the nice man up and thank him in person.

(If you're going to be in that neck of the woods, let me know. Maybe you could do it for me.)

I'm not feeling sorry for myself; really I'm not. I'm just reminiscing.

Problem is, I have nothing about which to reminisce. Each year I process that a little differently.

So ... since I don't have any memories of my father, would you share with me some of yours? Memories of your father, that is.

Even if you think I might know them already.

Not everybody all at once, now.

See and say

Once upon a time a wise man with a highly-developed sense of self-preservation expertly drew a little black dot on a letter-sized sheet of white paper and held it up in front of me.

"What do you see?" he said.

"I see a little black dot," I said.

He smirked. "That's what I thought you'd say."

See, in this particular situation I'd been painted with the no-no brush for being the one who refused to act as though certain bad things that were happening, were not actually happening.

I was thereupon characterized as a great big bundle of cranky negativity, which meant I was not worth listening to. 

In reality it was a tad bit more complicated, but for the wise man it was so much easier that way.

Water In A Glass Is Just Water In A Glass

You know that glass-half-full versus glass-half-empty thing?

It's bogus too.

You know why?

Because it's simple: the amount of water in the glass is the amount of water in the glass. Whether it's "half empty" or "half full" is beside the point and whichever way a person terms it really doesn't say all that much about their perception of life in general.

The point is, there is a certain amount of water in the glass. That's what's known as an absolute.

If someone asked me to choose between half full and half empty (as to a glass of water), I'd say, give me a measuring cup and I'll tell you exactly how much water is in the glass. 

I can be impartial; can you?

If You Can't Reel Them In, Mock Them Out

It's an old trick of one engaged in an argument to, once their wrong is pointed out, turn it back on you and call you wrong for having the audacity to call them wrong.

But acting as though someone is permanently locked in a prison of negativity just because they see the little black dot that is plainly visible on the white sheet of paper -- and don't mind saying so -- is ignorant.

Because if they say they don't see the black dot but only see white paper, they're either lying or blind or both.

Let's bring it on home.

To act as though those who see and are willing to assert publicly that it is a very bad idea to erect a mosque (and yes, it is a proposed mosque, with all tax exemptions thereto appertaining, and not a community center as the Imam has suggested) within three blocks of Ground Zero are evil and racist and islamophobic, is ignorant.

In a recent Huffington Post article entitled If The 'Mosque' Isn't Built, This Is No Longer America, Michael Moore agrees that the mosque should not be built near Ground Zero. 

He insists that it should be built smack-dab on Ground Zero.

See Ya Later, Hater

Mr. Moore provides a handy link for his readers to donate ten dollars (or more) to the building of the mosque at Ground Zero. He will personally match the first $10,000 donated.

Then he asks: "When would be a good time to take our country back from the haters?"

Only problem is, the haters are not those who oppose the building of a mosque either on or anywhere near Ground Zero. 

The haters are those -- like Michael Moore -- who oppose those who have the nerve to oppose the building of a mosque on or near Ground Zero.

Just because you can see the black dot on the white paper doesn't mean it's all you see.

But it does mean you see.

See?

What have we learned in nine years?

Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

I believe Barack Obama may be the best thing that could have happened to post nine-eleven America.

Ever put your hand so close to an open flame that your hide was scorched and you got a taste of how much it would hurt to actually be burned?

Ever gotten too near the edge of a precipice where the rocks are loose, and slipped and fell, and were scared out of your wits but managed to regain your footing and save your life?

It would be a long time before you'd put your hand so near an open flame or walk so close to a cliff edge again. 

Some Americans voted for our ultra-progressiliberal president two years ago. Shame on them; they knew what he was and what he wasn't.

They thought it was "historic" to flirt with the open flame and dance near the cliff edge.

Maybe now they see the error of their ways; maybe not.

Either way, come November, we're putting into motion the mechanism for taking it back.

I refuse to believe our beloved country's glory days are in the past.

But I hope we never go anywhere near the open flame or the cliff edge again in my lifetime, or my children's, or my grandchildren's.

Photo Jennifer Weber 2010

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O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea.

O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America!
God mend thine ev'ry flaw
Confirm thy soul in self control
Thy liberty in law.

O beautiful for heroes prov'd
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life.
America! America!
May God thy gold refine
Till all success be nobleness
And ev'ry gain divine.

O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears.
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

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"Never Forget"

SkyWatch Friday: Near the Cross

Jesus, keep me near the cross

There a precious fountain

Free to all, a healing stream

Flows from Calvary's mountain.

Near the cross, a trembling soul

Love and mercy found me

There the Bright and Morning Star

Sheds its beams around me.

Near the cross! O Lamb of God

Bring its scenes before me

Help me walk from day to day

With its shadow o'er me.

Near the cross I'll watch and wait

Hoping, trusting ever

Till I reach the golden strand

Just beyond the river.

In the cross

In the cross

Be my glory ever!

Till my raptured soul shall find

Rest beyond the river.

Near the Cross

by Fanny J. Crosby and William H. Doane

Ahead of the game

So I'm driving down the road on Wednesday, headed for this place:

When I see this:

And immediately I think to myself, That looks like the back of Michael Jordan's head on that truck!

And then I think to myself, How do I know that? And then, Am I right?

So I speed up and I see that I have indeed identified MJ's head from about ten car lengths.

And I think to myself, That is scary. Imagine being so famous that people can identify the BACK of your HEAD from a long way off. 

The back of the man's head is an icon unto itself. So much so, they can use it as an advertisement.

I can't get my head around that. I'm not sure I'd recognize the back of my own head in a similar setting.

TG used to drag me to Chicago in the middle of winter to see Michael Jordan throw a basketball around with his (MJ's) black millionaire friends. He (MJ) appeared to be about an inch tall from where we sat ... in the cheap seats.

Now his HEAD is fifteen feet tall on the back of a truck in front of me.

That is just ... weird.