Jimmie Fletcher - A Eulogy

A bit more than a month ago, my father died. It was not unexpected, but no matter how much you expect it, the death of a parent is always a blow. I was surprised to be asked to present a eulogy at his funeral. I didn't see how I could do it, but I knew I had to give it my best shot. This is the result, and I had the honor of presenting it to a room full of family, friends, and people who cared about my father. It does not do justice to the good man my father was, but maybe in some small way it will help keep his memory alive. And if it reveals the connection between my real name and pseudonym, so much the better. I am proud to be the son of Jimmie Fletcher.
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JIMMIE FLETCHER
by Gary Fletcher (aka Gryphem)

When I was asked to present a eulogy of my father, I knew it would be an impossible task to portray my father in a few minutes’ time. No number of words could ever convey all that my father was. Fortunately for me, most of you knew him. So I will simply try to help you remember him for a moment.

I have always been proud of my father. All my life I have lived in awe of him, really. I never told him that, because we just didn’t say that sort of thing. I think he knew, though... at least after I became an adult.

My father was larger than life. He came from a humble beginning to do remarkable things. He was modest, without pretensions, yet always completely confident in his own judgment and abilities.

He never tolerated foolishness or disrespectful behavior, yet he was full of compassion... for his family, friends, students or coworkers... even random people who crossed his path.

He was professional in the extreme. He took every responsibility seriously, willingly giving his time and energy until it hurt to be sure the job was done and done right... whether the job was improving student learning, speaking on behalf of the Gideons at a church he’d never seen before, planting trees in our yard, or winning a football game.

But he never let work get between him and his family. Somehow he managed to do it all. He might have gone to a lot of meetings or classes in the evenings, but when he was home he made up for it with quality time.

Usually that quality time involved doing things together. Sometimes it would be a fun activity like playing catch or going for a bike ride. Sometimes it would be a job, like cleaning the pool or mowing the lawn. Sometimes it involved a trip to the woods to shoot, or fishing Shingle Creek or the canal, or even going to the dump to drop something off.

My brother and I would jump at the chance to run an errand with Dad. When he had to go to the convenience store for a gallon milk in the evening, as he often did, he would usually call one of us to ride with him. Just for the ride, and maybe some light conversation if we were so inclined. Whenever he called me to ride with him, I felt important. Whenever he called Tony, I felt a little jealous. Fortunately he was happy to let both of us come along to watch when he played softball on the church league. Those were fun times.

When all the activities and errands were done, when Dad had no meeting and his Sunday School lesson was ready to go, and when there was time left at the end of the day, sometimes we would watch television and eat ice cream. He loved Andy Griffith and Hogan’s Heroes, The Beverly Hillbillies and Tim Conway and college sports. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t bond in front of the television - as long as the programming is worthwhile and you are watching and talking together. And especially when there is ice cream involved.

My father enjoyed seeing new places, especially if they were fun or historically significant. Our family took weekend trips to Daytona Beach, rode over to Clearwater to watch the Cincinnati Reds in Spring Training, and drove as close as we could get to the Kennedy Space Center to watch the Apollo missions take off. We took annual trips to my grandparents’ homes in Kentucky and sometimes fit in side trips along the way.

One of my earliest memories is a road trip through Virginia in 1961, in which we visited Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello. Another is when Dad worked on the C&O Railroad, and he took me for a ride in a caboose. We rode that caboose from Raceland to Greenup, Kentucky, and it impressed me so much that I remember it clearly more than 50 years later.

One particularly eventful summer we went from our home to our grandparents’ by way of Tallahassee, Montgomery, Nashville, and Frankfort, touring all four state capitols. Another time we found the cabin where Abe Lincoln had been born. My parents instilled in me, during these early trips, a lifelong love of history and travel.

My father was a devout man. He didn’t much care for ritual, but his convictions ran deep. His firm understanding of right and wrong influenced his every decision. He always tried to do the right thing, regardless of adversity or consequences. And if, once in a while, he fell short - which was rare, but let’s face it, we’re all human - he believed in grace, forgiveness, and new beginnings.


My father believed shortcomings were to be acknowledged, corrected to the best of one’s ability, and put in the past. Each responsibility, he believed, was a sacred obligation. He held everyone, including himself, to the highest standards, expected the best... to put it plainly, he was kind of a perfectionist. Yet he was a realist. When people fell short of his expectations, he did not condemn. He simply sighed and expected better next time.

My father loved his people. He loved the family he grew up with, including two of his brothers who are here with us today. He loved my mother deeply. And she loved him just as much. /// Although this is all about my father, I must take one moment to commend my mother for the magnificent care she has given my father for these past eight years. She has kept him the center of her life, even while he has been in the nursing home, visiting him daily (sometimes more than once per day) for all that time. What an example of devotion! Thank you, Mom. /// As I was saying, Dad didn’t make an elaborate show of his feelings but they were strong. There’s an old saying, “Still waters run deep.” That was my dad. He and Mom loved my brother and me, too, and did their best to give us a good start in life... even if we didn’t always listen as well as Dad thought we should. Actually, I think we were listening far more intently than he ever realized.

My father was characterized by Strength... Determination... Intelligence... Integrity... Compassion... and one other very significant characteristic: Humor. Dad had a powerful sense of humor that made people enjoy being around him. How could you not enjoy hanging around with someone who was having so much fun himself? I can still hear Dad interrupting himself by chuckling as he was trying to tell a story about some “good ol’ boy.” My brother has done a good job of sharing some of Dad’s sense of Humor. I want to add a few bits.

No one could beat Dad at cards. Never in my life have I seen anyone who won more consistently than my father. Whether it was Hearts or Rook or some other game, he always WON. It was uncanny. But winning often never diminished the joy of victory to Dad. He would raise the final, winning card high above his head, slap it down onto the table and laugh and laugh. Our misery in losing all the time was tempered by the contagious happiness he displayed in winning.


Sometimes Dad was funny when he didn’t even mean to be. When we traveled to interesting places I used to collect souvenirs. Usually they were things I picked up off the ground. I picked up geological specimens from various parts of the Appalachians between North Carolina and Kentucky, sea shells from Florida beaches, pebbles of bits of gravel from historical sites. Dad never understood this. One Kentucky trip I had picked up more than the ordinary amount of souvenirs. I had filled an entire shoe box. When we were packing the trunk of the car for our trip home he came across it. “What’s this?” he asked. “My souvenirs,” I replied. “It’s a box of rocks,” Dad said with confusion in his voice. “They’re important,” I said. “You need to get rid of these,” he said, “We don’t need to be carrying a lot of rock hundreds of miles.” A discussion followed, in which I made an impassioned plea to keep my box of treasures. It ended when Mom stepped in. “Oh, let him keep them,” she said, “It isn’t hurting anything.” Dad just looked at ground and shook his head in bewilderment as he wandered away. More to himself than to us he was muttering, “It’s a BOX of ROCKS!” We had to act serious at the time, but it was hilarious.

Dad sometimes accused me of being quirky... and he was right, of course... but he could be kind of quirky too. When Mom took custody of Dad’s wallet when he went into the nursing home in 2007, she found a voter registration card, some family photos, and one other very unusual item. It was a very old laminated newspaper clipping. What, you might ask, would be important enough to my dad that he laminated this clipping and kept it in his wallet at all times, even decades later? Would it be the announcement of his victory in the Superintendent election of 1976? No. Would it be the obituary of a family member? No. Would it be something of vast historical significance, like the moon landing? No. Would it be about some family member’s great success, like a college graduation? No. It was a short clipping from the Sentinel with a picture of Dad holding a big fish and a few lines describing the scene. Those of you who have known my dad a long long time might remember that way back in 1964 (the first year we moved to Kissimmee), he caught a record size catfish - 27 pounds and 37 inches. Dad was so proud of that catch (He caught it using 8 pound test line!) that over 40 years later he was still carrying around the laminated newspaper clipping to show to anyone who might seem interested. Now that might seem kind of unusual, but I don’t care. I am happy that he caught that big fish, and I love that he was so proud of it.

I want to share with you a few more short stories about my dad.

When Jimmie was about 12 years old, living on the farm in Kentucky, he had the task of rounding up the cattle from the hillside. He was having a lot of trouble finding them. He was asked, “How do you expect to be a farmer if you can’t even find the cows on a hillside?” He replied, “I don’t. That’s why I go to school” (He graduated from high school at age 16, by the way.)

When Jimmie was a young teacher and track coach in Greenup County, he had a particular student in one class who continually frustrated him - not listening, interrupting, not following directions and so on. Well, one day when that student was being particularly annoying, Mr. Fletcher, who was also Coach Fletcher, reached down to the bottom drawer of his desk, pulled out the starter pistol he had there in preparation for an after-school track meet, and fired it. Let’s talk about results: Humor and improved classroom discipline all in one act of ingenuity. (Of course, that probably wouldn’t be a good idea today. Times change...)

To bring this to a close, I want to share one last story. I was 15 years old, and a sophomore in high school. As an administrator in the Osceola County Schools, Dad sometimes had to travel. This time he had to go to Miami. He invited me to come with him and I, of course, jumped at the opportunity. Besides being a trip with Dad, I thought I might get the chance to do some driving as I had my learner’s permit and needed some time behind the wheel.

We were cruising the Florida Turnpike somewhere in the wide open spaces of southern Osceola or Okeechobee County when Dad offered to let me take the wheel. He pulled over and we changed places. I was not a bad young driver, but I was an inexperienced young driver. Almost all my driving experience to that time had been in a 4-speed manual 1971 Pinto, but the car we were taking to Miami was a big new Ford LTD which was about twice as long as the Pinto, with about a thousand times more power. It was automatic, with power steering, power brakes, power everything. About as different from the Pinto as a car could possibly be.

You probably see where this is going... which is more than I can say about the two of us that memorable day in 1974.

Behind the wheel, I accelerated gently and eased out onto the highway. Traffic was light, conditions were pleasant, and everything was right with the world as I sped down the highway for several miles. But inevitably, I eventually found myself drifting too far to one side of my lane. I turned the wheel - what I thought was gently - to the right. My correction would’ve been just right in the Pinto, but in the power-everything LTD, it was too much. I swerved across the line a bit. Now embarrassed, I turned the wheel back left with some enthusiasm. Bad move. The power steering took us all the way into the gravel margin in the center of the highway.

Fortunately there was no traffic in the immediate vicinity, because then I really panicked. I threw the wheel back over to the right and we bounced across two lanes of Turnpike onto the right shoulder. Fully in the grasp of fear and adrenaline I was preparing to throw the car into its steepest swerve yet when Dad reached out and grabbed the wheel with his left hand. He arrested the swerve to the left and told me to brake slowly. I of course hit the brake too hard, but had the good sense to let up and try again, more gently. While I operated the brake, Dad drove with one hand from the passenger side. He guided us to a safe stop on the right shoulder.

We turned the car off and sat for a moment. We caught our breath, let the adrenaline subside, and took stock. No real damage had been done. I figure I had been one more swerve away from flipping the car and rolling down the turnpike sideways when Dad took control. But here we were, safe. I looked at him. He looked at me. I said, “I’m sorry.” He said, “I know.” Then a minute later he asked... “So do you want to keep on driving or do you want me to drive?”

My dad was like that. Strong, capable, ready to let me take the wheel. Ready to rescue me if I failed. Supportive, ready to take control if I needed him to do that. Brave enough to let me try again if I was ready. That’s how he was.

Jimmie Fletcher was a great man. I am proud to say he was my father. I will miss him. Thank you, Dad.

Beirut Airport 1984

Stationed on board a large amphibious ship, I didn’t get ashore too often while on operational deployments. My job was on board the ship – on the bridge, in the Combat Information Center, or other places from which sailors fight battles. There were a couple of exceptions.

USS Guam (LPH 9) was well into her second deployment to Lebanon in early 1984. I had been on board Guam when she delivered a Marine Amphibious Ready Group ashore in Beirut in 1982, with the mission of keeping peace between warring factions. We had stayed for many months as an offshore command and control facility (the current term would be “sea-base”). In effect, we drove the ship slowly around a navigational box off the coast of Beirut, Lebanon, and flew helicopters between the ship, the Beirut Airport where the Marines were, other ships in the Eastern Mediterranean, and nearby shore facilities. It was weeks of boredom made tolerable only by the dazzling view of the Shouf Mountains in the distance and the occasional bursts of life-and-death “excitement.”

One of my jobs as a Navy Lieutenant in the Communications Department was to take care of the communication security materials, the ‘codes’ that enabled us to talk on the radio without anyone else being able to understand. For security purposes, each month the shipment of materials had to be hand-delivered to users afloat and ashore.

One month in early spring the time came to deliver new materials to the Marines at Beirut Airport. The fighting had subsided, in fact was in a lull. There had been few bombings, fewer sniper attacks, and no real action to speak of for well over a month. We were glad of that, but at the same time beginning to get a little bored. Stir-crazy. Were we still needed in Lebanon? Were we ever going to get any liberty ports during this half-year deployment?

Normally we had a member of the Marine Detachment ashore fly out to the ship to pick up the communication materials, but this was my chance. I suggested to my boss that this time I should deliver the materials ashore myself. To my surprise, he agreed.

It was early morning, sunny and warm in the Eastern Med. I pulled on my flak jacket and flight helmet, grasped the satchel full of communication codes firmly, and walked rapidly across the flight deck from the ‘island’ of the ship to the green Marine CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter turning on the deck of USS Guam. After a deployment and a half of looking at that shoreline from the sea, I was finally going to set foot in Lebanon. The flight deck crew signaled, the helo blades rotated faster and louder, throbbing so powerfully that we felt more than heard their rhythmic pulsation. The helicopter lifted itself off the deck, tilted to one side and was suddenly a hundred feet over the ocean waves.

The first maneuver was a steep turn toward the shore. We raced landward. The ship grew smaller by the second.

I had been on helicopters before, and I immediately noticed a difference. This time the acceleration was more urgent, the turns were more deliberate, than I had experienced. With speed and resolve, the pilot brought us in low over the waves. We raced toward the beach… that strand of white between sea and land… it used to seem so far away when I had stared at it longingly week after week, month after month, from a safe shipboard distance of two to four miles. Now that same beach was drawing closer so quickly that I barely had time to take in the whole scene… I remember it in bits and pieces… waves, glistening sun, helo shadow pacing us, snow-capped mountains, whitecaps, sand.

Suddenly, we were over land. The pilot brought the helicopter sharply up in altitude so we didn’t collide with any structures near the shore. He directed the helo toward a cluster of tall buildings that seemed to be racing toward us at great speed. Then we were among them, 8 and 12 and 15 stories tall… and as I looked toward the rooftops I was looking up.

The next 30 to 60 seconds was the most thrilling ride of my life – better than any roller coaster. As a safety precaution, the helicopters flying into Beirut Airport practiced evasive maneuvers, even when there was no present indication of danger. We flew up to rooftop height, dropped back down, flew literally between six and eight and ten story abandoned apartment buildings, turned to port around a blind corner... When we emerged without warning over the landing zone our airspeed suddenly fell to zero and we dropped to the ground so fast that I really didn’t have time for my stomach to catch up until we were on solid ground. Rotors continued to turn as I grabbed my bag of security material, stood, and took a moment to regain my equilibrium. I checked my flak jacket, secured my helmet, and watched as sailors and Marines debarked ahead of me. One by one they went, in rapid succession, following the direction of a Marine who slapped each one on the shoulder in turn and shouted “GO!”

Suddenly he was hitting my shoulder. “GO!” I jumped to the ground and ran, head-down, across the landing zone to the small building off to one side where I checked through with the LZ manifest coordinator.

Still a little dizzy, I caught my breath and got my bearings. I could see some snowcapped mountains in the distance between buildings off to the right. The beach, then, was to the left. (Sailors like to keep track of that.)

From the chief on duty I got directions to the Communications Center, and set out.

Once away from the intensity of the helo ops, the pace of operations slowed dramatically. In fact, it was fairly relaxed. Well, relaxed for a combat zone, anyway.

I found the Comm Center with no trouble. The entrance to the fortified earth-covered facility was a dark opening between heavy timbers, where I found a reinforced steel door in the shadows. Via intercom I identified myself and was “buzzed in. Quickly I effected the exchange for which I had come ashore. I did have a nice conversation with the Comm staff, whom I’d only know by radio to that point, but it was short. They were busy, and I was more interested in getting back outside those steel bulkheads. Part of the appeal of this trip ashore was to get away from all the steel bulkheads and decks for a while. And to enjoy a short respite from the intense regimentation of shipboard life, to have even a few hours with nothing to do and no one in a position to task me… I had some hours before my return flight, and I intended to enjoy them.

It was a pleasure and an adventure to walk on solid ground again. When a sailor comes ashore after months at sea, he experiences a strange sensation. In spite of all evidence it seems, inexplicably, like the land is moving. This creates a tendency for sailors fresh off the ship to fall down, which amuses landlubbers to no end. Especially Marines. So I took care and, with a bit of concentration, did not stumble.

It was a gorgeous day, beautiful by any measure but especially so to one who hadn’t stood on solid ground, or seen a real plant, or remembered the smell of the sun on stone, for months. The sun gleamed brilliantly above snowy peaks in the east. I squinted and felt the warmth on my face. The sound of the surf was there if I listened carefully, far off to the west. A gentle breeze wafted scents of hot sand and grass. The sounds of the city were there, distant in the north and east.

After all those months smelling steel and paint, fuel and electronics, fresh air. After all those months hearing ship engines and helo rotors and radio transmissions, peace and quiet, and far-off sounds of ordinary human activity. After all those months of job and watchstanding and unrelenting schedules, a morning off. Really, it was too much to absorb. I really enjoyed trying.

A wide vacant field appeared before me, sandy with clumps of grass and tiny colorful wildflowers. With time on my hands and no worries in the world, I found no reason not to wander there… looking at flowers, feeling the calm, breathing deeply, experiencing the good life…

It may be that memory has played a trick on me as I think back on this from the distance of years, but if it’s not literally true, it ought to be. In my memory, I was humming the theme from “The Sound of Music” as I stood there in the sunlight, in the wide open space, unobstructed view of the Shouf Mountains to the east.

The strange sounds registered first on a subconscious level. I didn’t actually hear, or maybe just didn’t realize that I was hearing, anything. But I began to feel an incongruous uneasiness. At some point I became aware of the strange, tiny little sounds around me. I realized suddenly they had been there in the background, for several seconds at least. I stopped and listened for the next one… There it was! What was it? I could see only flowers. Was this some kind of strange Lebanese insect pinging in the grass? There was another one, on the other side. I turned. Then a particularly loud one went “Ping” at the base of a wall bordering the field. I was a little amused, and totally mystified.

At that point that a Marine in full battle gear came running from beyond a building to the southwest. What the heck? Was something about to happen? I realized he was running toward ME!

Ten or fifteen meters away he paused. “Follow me, Sir!” He waved me for me to follow and took off running to the northwest. It was phrased respectfully, but there was no doubt that it was an order. Though he was a Corporal and I was a Lieutenant, I instinctively knew that I had to do what he was telling me.

Thank God some part of my mind understood the most important thing that morning, something I will now share with you. It is this: Regardless of rank, in spite of confusion, no matter about questions or opinions or preferences or any other irrelevant nonsense, when a Marine gives an order, Follow It!

I followed the Corporal’s order, then I followed the Corporal. We ran to a small wooden structure build into the ground. Quickly down some stairs, we stopped in a small room with narrow openings near the low ceiling. The walls were of large timbers. There were bunks, tables, and a lot of Marines who had arrived ahead of us. Peering through the openings at eye level to us and ground level to the world outside, I had a view of our surroundings. This included the field where I’d been standing.

“What’s this?” I asked.
“This is a bunker, Sir,” the Marine responded.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“That was sniper fire, Sir,” the Marine responded.
“Oh.”
What more was there to say?

After what seemed a long time, the ‘all-clear’ signal was given, and we came up out of the bunker. The place was still beautiful. It was no longer innocent as it had been before. But it was more than ever a place of life, a place where I learned to feel life in a whole new way. Once more, sincerely but without sentimentality, I thanked the Marine who had come to get me. We went our separate ways.

I still had some time, which I did enjoy. I walked the compound carefully, listening for ‘pings,’ with one eye always toward the unseen snipers up there in the Shouf. I met some other junior officers from my ship and we talked about the irony. How remarkable that the snipers decided to start shooting again on the day we happened to be ashore.

In early evening the time came for my return flight to the ship, and I made my way to the LZ. I checked in, watched the erratic inbound flight path and sudden landing of the helo, and stood ready to board. I heard the direction to go, waved a greeting to several shipmates who would be on the next flight, then ducked, ran, and climbed on board the helicopter.

Almost without warning we were off, ascending upwards past empty apartments with broken balconies, swinging hard around the corners as if we were hugging a curb, flying high then low through the man-made canyons. Suddenly we emerged into the slanting orange sunlight, raced fast across the beach toward the sun setting over the sea, outbound over the waves in the evening light. Before we knew it we were safely back on the flight deck of USS Guam.

I later learned that my flight from the Beirut Airport to the ship was the last one of the day. Apparently, about the time my helo took off, the sniping resumed… with a few random shells thrown in for good measure. Flight ops were cancelled immediately, and those shipmates I’d left at the LZ were destined to wait for a return trip until the next morning. I was a little envious at first, that they were experiencing more of Beirut than I had. But upon reflection I decided that I’d probably had the most intense experience of them all. And besides, I was just happy to be alive and well.

To the best of my knowledge, no sailors or Marines died in Beirut that day. But that is largely because of a young Marine who did not hesitate to put himself at risk for a few critical seconds to get a well-intentioned but oblivious Navy officer into a bunker.

I do not remember the name of that Corporal. I wish I did. It may have been routine for him, but it was not for me. Sometimes I wonder if he ever thinks about the fact that he saved my life. Because of him, I have lived another three decades, so far. Without him, no good thing that has happened in my life since 1983 would’ve been possible.

There was a time when I gave Marines a hard time, like a lot of sailors do. I don’t do that anymore. This is one member of the US Navy who has nothing but respect for Marines.

Semper Fi, shipmate. And Thank You.

The Last Surviving Veteran of the Crimean War

I came across a fascinating bit of history yesterday, something that I had never known before. Because I was so impressed, it occurred to me that Gryphem readers might also want to learn about the longest living survivor of the Crimean War. I hope you will find this as fascinating as I did.

I was looking into the roots of the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine in Crimea, on the northern shore of the Black Sea. You probably know that the current conflict is not the first war fought in or for Crimea. In fact, there was a major international conflict known as the "Crimean War" back in the 1850s. It was power struggle primarily between Czarist Russia and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), France, and Britain.

Timothy was a veteran of the Crimean War. Timothy was on board British Royal Navy Ship HMS Queen at the siege of Sevastopol in 1854-55. Only 15 or 16 years old at that time, Timothy survived the Crimean War and went on to serve on board a number of other Royal Navy ships for the next 38 years. Timothy finally retired as a guest of the Earl of Devon to Powderham Castle in Devonshire (southwestern England) in 1892. That’s interesting, but I think what follows makes it more so.

The First Amazing Fact:

In 1926, when Timothy was 87 years old, it was revealed that Timothy was, in fact, female. Apparently, no one had ever noticed before. Wow.

But that’s not all. There is the question of whether the Earl and Countess of Devon knew what they were getting into when they offered lifetime accommodations to 53-year-old Timothy. Because Timothy was destined to live a very, very long time.

The Second Amazing Fact:

Timothy lived long enough to receive nationwide recognition as the oldest surviving veteran of the Crimean War. At the time of her death Timothy actually was the oldest resident of the entire British nation. Timothy was witness to the invention of the telephone (at age 37), publication of the first Sherlock Holmes story (at age 48), the end of World War I (at age 79), the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II (at age 113), and the successful conclusion of the Falklands War (at age 143), to name but a few events. Timothy survived to the ripe old age of 165 years old, finally passing away peacefully in 2004.

All completely true.

Anticipating your curiosity, I sought out a picture of this amazing Crimean War veteran and witness to three centuries.

Here is a picture of Timothy taken in her later years at Powderham Castle.

Doesn’t she have a nice smile?

Now you know.

- Gryphem

A little skepticism is a good thing.

I received the email below from a colleague: 

This is the only time you see this phenomenon in your lifetime.

August 2014 will have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens only once every 823 years.  The Chinese call it 'Silver pockets full’. It is based on Chinese Feng Shui.

The only time in my lifetime?  Then I had better pay attention!  Right? 

Not so fast.

The guy who sent this to me is reasonably intelligent, a second career professional with a major government organization.  If he had stopped for a  few seconds to think about that "astonishing" claim, he would've realized something was wrong.  I think the “silver pockets full” thing mesmerized him, gave him evocative words and a mental image to distract him from critical thought - much like a magician distracts his audience with dramatic gestures.

According to this email the month of August has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays only once every 823 years, and this phenomenon is so unusual that it has a special Chinese name.  Now think about it.

I probably would have dismissed the whole thing without thinking it all the way through myself, except that the last day of August happens to be my birthday.  So I thought, "Oh, my birthday is on Sunday this year."  Then I took a step back and did a mental double-take.  "My birthday has been on Sunday before... more than once,”  I thought.  This is particularly memorable to me because when my birthday falls on Sunday, the next day is always Labor Day.

So what did that email say?  That I only get a Sunday birthday once every eight centuries or so?  Let’s think about that.  By the 28^th day of a month, any month, we have already had four of each day of the week (28 divided by 7 is 4).  So the 29^th, 30^th, and 31^st are always the fifth of their own particular day of the week.  

"I know that every time I have a birthday it is on August 31^st,” I thought.  Obviously.  “And I know that every time I have a Sunday birthday there are five Fridays (the 29^th), five Saturdays (the 30^th), and five Sundays (the 31^st) in the month of August." 

Bottom line:  August has five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays, on average, once every seven years - every time August 31^st happens to fall on a Sunday. 

There’s more.  Up to that point I had not considered the other six months with 31 days each.  Hmmm... there are seven months with 31 days each, and whenever the 31^st of any one of those falls on a Sunday it will have five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays.  That means that this five Fridays, five Saturdays and five Sundays thing happens, on average, about once each year.  Not once every 823 years, with a funky Chinese name.

Then there is that “Feng Shui” comment… Doesn’t feng shui have to do with the physical arrangement of objects within an environment?  I may not understand it completely, but I’m pretty sure the focus of feng shui is spatial rather than temporal.  Maybe the writer of this bit of amazing fiction should’ve referred to the Mayan calendar instead.

The morals of the story are these: 

(1) Don’t believe everything you read, especially if it comes to you in an email, and

(2) Pay Attention!  Stop and think before you pass along nonsense.  It clutters our inboxes and our minds, and it doesn't make you look good.

Of course, everything on the Gryphem blog is completely reliable.

- Gryphem

Rikki and the Tornado

It was Tuesday evening in the Cow County Sheriff’s Office, and the newest deputy had just arrived for his shift.  It had been storming all afternoon, but the latest thunderstorm had just finished passing over and I hadn’t even got wet coming in.  I put down my hat on the folding table that doubled as my desk (the sheriff promised to get me a real desk real soon), grabbed a jelly donut and a cup of java, and settled in with the local newspaper.  The Cow County High School Bovines were having a banner baseball year – might even make it to district playoffs. 

Just then the Sheriff burst into the room.  I quickly pulled my feet off the table, wishing I’d heard him coming.  For once, he didn’t seem to notice.  “Mrs. Grayson says Rikki is missing,” he said.  “You get out there and take care of it.  Get one of the other deputies to ride along.  It may get ugly.” 

If the Sheriff thought anything having to do with Rikki Grayson was ugly, well, he must never have met her.  Although I can’t say how he might’ve missed her in a town as small as Doggerel.  I can’t say we were friends, exactly, but we had been in high school together back before I went off for my year of college in the city.  Mason City Community College, certificate of proficiency in General Law Enforcement with a K-9 specialty endorsement.

“Wipe that moon pie look off your face and get moving!” he added.  “And I was talking about the weather.  Bad line of storms off to the north and west.  Possibility of a tornado.  Go!”

“Sorry, Sir,” I responded as I hopped up and spilled coffee all over my desk-table.  The Sheriff watched impatiently as I mopped up part of the spill with my napkin.  No time to waste, I thought.  I tossed the dripping napkin into the trash can, told the deputy who thought he was going off duty that he couldn’t yet, and pulled him along as I dashed out.

I dashed back in, grabbed my hat, and left for the second time.  The sheriff hadn’t moved.  No time for conversation, though.  In a matter minutes we were racing out to the Grayson farm, siren wailing.  I love driving the squad car.

Old Mrs. Grayson stood on the porch, all lit up in the brilliant rays of the setting sun. The sky was orange in the southwest, but it was cloudy and dark from northwest around to northeast.  Ominous sounds of thunder rolled in from over the northwestern horizon.  Mrs. Grayson wrung her hands.

 “Now, now, Mrs. Grayson.  Take a deep breath.  When did you last see Rikki?” I asked her. 

“Well, the last time I saw her was about an hour and a half ago as she headed into my granddaughter’s bedroom to hide from the thunderstorm,” she replied.

“Isn’t Rikki your granddaughter?” I asked.

“Of course.”  The hand wringing stopped and she looked at me strangely.  Suddenly, despite my law enforcement certificate and the shiny silver deputy badge on my shirt, I felt as if I were not the one in charge.  In fact, I felt almost like I was being reprimanded.  It was a feeling I knew well.  I’d had to repeat Mrs. Grayson’s Home Ec class at Cow County High twice.  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried.  On the other hand, I never did understand why I needed to know how to sew, anyway.

Returning to the moment, I continued the investigation.  “Then what happened?”  My interrogation techniques were simple but effective.

“Well, apparently she jumped through the open window and took off running across the pasture.”  What odd behavior!  This case was really beginning to intrigue me.

“Why did Rikki jump through the window instead of using the door?” I queried, slyly.

“She often does that,” Mrs. Grayson answered. 

“Really?”  I was testing the accuracy of her recollection.

“She doesn’t care about proprieties like doors and windows.  Dogs just go wherever they want, however they can, don’t they?”

“Of course,” I muttered.  Dog?  It was beginning to dawn on me that I may have had the wrong idea about what was going on.  “I have an endorsement in K-9 operations, you know.”  She said nothing, but looked at me in exactly the same way the sheriff had when I’d spilled the coffee.  It was eerie.

Over the next few minutes Mrs. Grayson explained to me that her little black and white dog had run away during the last thunderstorm.  Rikki was a 10 year old mutt who was mostly retriever, collie, and Pekinese.  Mrs. Grayson told me she had always been afraid of thunder and lightning.  “Of course, my dog sensed that about me,” Mrs. Grayson said.  “That may be why she was afraid, too.”

“Usually she just hid under the bed when the weather got bad,” she added.  The hand wringing was back.  “This time was different.” 

About that time Mrs. Grayson’s granddaughter Rikki came out to join us.  I stood up straight, sucked in my belly, put on my most professional expression and listened with extreme intensity to Mrs. Grayson’s description of the events leading up to the disappearance. 

At least, that was what I intended to do. “Are you okay?” Rikki asked me.  “You don’t look so good.”

“Of course,” I replied with a wave of the hand.  I exhaled, sadly gave up on trying to impress Rikki, and asked Mrs. Grayson to go on.

It seems Rikki had accidentally left the window open in her bedroom.  Hiding under the bed, Rikki noticed the open window.  Before she could crawl out and close it, the little black and white dog had leapt out and was running across the pasture ahead of the cows. 

“I’ve always been afraid of cows,” Rikki admitted.  “I guess Rikki is, too.”  I looked at Rikki with wonder and paused to ponder the remarkable way the universe can work sometimes.

“About that time,” Rikki continued, “Granny called out for Rikki.  I told her she’s gone out the window.”

She told me that the earlier thunderstorm had been short but particularly severe.  There had been gusting wind that had pulled a few shingle off the roof, and some hail.  But it was the reports they’d been hearing about a tornado that got them so very concerned about the dog. 

On the way over I had heard the radio report about thunderstorms spawning a tornado over in Potato County, a few miles west of the Grayson farm.  The Potato Tornado, they called it.  It had been moving fairly rapidly to the northeast.

Apparently when Rikki left she had been headed west for Potato County.  But when the hail started she had turned the car around and come back.  The dog, on the other hand, had run off to the north.  Which at this point was even worse.

Granny Grayson was of the opinion that the twister was going to zero in on her little dog like it was a trailer park.  Her fears were beginning to affect her granddaughter. 

“I hope she don’t get twistered up,” Rikki Grayson worried.  “If a twister was to pick her up, I don’t know how Rikki would do with that.”

“She’d bark like the devil ,” Granny Grayson added.  They both laughed.  Then they both wept. 

“Oh, Rikki, what are we ever going to do with you if you don’t come back?” Rikki cried out to her missing little dog. 

“Not likely to do anything with her if she ain’t back,” Granny Grayson observed.  Then they wailed.

What was needed was less wailing and more action.  With a comforting Pat for grandmother and granddaughter, I strode out to the squad car on my way to find the missing canine.  My partner Pat stayed behind to comfort them.  He’s better at that sort of thing than me.

I started the car and gently eased up on the clutch.  The vehicle spurted forward, bounced over roots and ruts, and found the highway northbound.  Flashing lights pierced the twilight and the sound of the siren clashed with distant thunder.  I was on a mission to save Rikki and it was exciting.

Ten minutes later the siren was beginning to give me a headache.  I popped an Advil, cut off the siren and flashing lights, and turned on the radio.  My favorite station, KDOG out of Mankato, used to play a nice selection of swing and country on Tuesday evenings.  It was worth a good listen even with all the static. 

The orange glow had faded to a dim line along the horizon in the southwest.  The rain and hail came and went.  Ahead was only blackness.

Mile after mile raced by, with no sign of Rikki the dog.  I was astonished at the amazing speed of that mutt!  ‘I should have caught up to her by now!’ I thought. 

The darkness became nearly absolute - only the headlights and the glow from the dashboard lights.   Then, I seen it!  Up there, up ahead, was a cloud of darkness darker than the dark dark night sky around it.  It was a roiling mass of darkness reaching from sky down to earth, a sinister shadow slithering across the countryside. 

I stopped the car and got out.  Wiping driving rain from my eyes, I stared into the darkness and listened to the roar, like a freight train far off.  It was the Potato Tornado, gone from over west in Potato County to up in the north of Cow County up toward the Minnesota border!

I got back in my car and began to sweat.  Or maybe it was just the rain dripping in my eyes.  But I began to get queasy.  Hadn’t figured on this turn of events.  But I started off up the highway, anyway.  I had a duty to do.  Rikki was depending on me.  And to tell the truth, I had been thinking about asking her to the Founders Day dance next weekend.  So I had to find her dog.

Five minutes later the roaring swirling mass of darkening darkness was directly in front of me, dancing weirdly, rising from the road ahead up into the sky, swaying slowly, erratically, hesitantly to and fro, sliding from left to right.  The volume was deafening.  I turned down the radio.  The tornado was loud, too.

I heard one time about a tornado that picked up a cow and put it down in the top of a tree.  Weird things, tornados.  Who knows why they do what they do?  I used to wonder how that cow got down outta that tree.  But I reasoned – if a tornado could do that with a cow, why not with a dog?  I spotted a large tree in the middle of an open field to my right, so I stopped the car.  I jumped out, hopped over a ditch full of stormwater, stepped through some barbed wire, and started toward it.

The tornado was getting closer and louder with each passing second.  I began to notice things flying past me in the air.  They were birds, mostly.  The wind was getting stronger, buffeting me, whipping wildlyin my ears and through my hair… That was when I realized my hat had taken flight, too.  The sheriff was gonna be pissed. 

As I got closer to the tree, a sense of dread began to rise up from the depths of my gut into my stomach and throat.  I nearly had a panic attack, but I fought it down.  All those years of counseling with the school psychologist and I still hadn’t overcome the old fears completely.  But even in the face of imminent disaster I was still functioning, and that was pretty good.  There had been a time when I would have been paralyzed by that old fear of falling cows.  But I was no scared kid any more.  I was a lawman with a duty to do.  I clenched my teeth and strode purposefully on. 

‘Besides,’ I kept telling myself, ‘it couldn’t happen twice.’  Could it? 

I ran to the tree and jumped onto the lower branches of that big oak.  Things began falling from the sky.  More hail.  And some of the upper branches.  I think there was a squirrel in there, too, which kind of freaked me out until I remembered that squirrels are a lot smaller than cows. 

I climbed through the onslaught.  There was a terrible ripping sound… was the massive tornado literally ripping apart the sky?  No, it was my pants.  Those uniform pants were not designed for climbing trees, I can tell you.

But a split pair of trousers wasn’t important at that moment.  The tornado was bearing down on us, that is, on me and… on me and… Was that a yelping sound I heard up above?  Barking, maybe?  Was Rikki waiting for me in the top of this tree just as I knew she would be? 

Of course not.  That would just be silly.  The yelping and barking was coming from down below!  There on the ground was Rikki the dog, front paws on the trunk, barking her head off as if to say, “What in the world are you doing up a tree in a tornado?  Get yourself down here right now and let’s get out of here!”  She had a point.  I jumped from the tree and hit the ground running.  Then I got up from the mud and started running again.  Rikki and I raced for the car as the tornado exploded that big oak behind us.  We went through the barbed wire (ouch!), leapt over the ditch together, and stopped. 

The car, of course, was destroyed.  A cow had fallen on it. 

Mercifully, the cow was no longer with us. 

The Potato Tornado was reeling off to the east.  The hail stopped.  A few stars were visible in the south.  I pulled a Slim Jim from my pocket and decided the dog had earned her share.  I broke it and gave half to Rikki.  Then I realized I didn’t want any so I tossed my half into the ditch.  I’d had a nice burger basket at the Doggerel Diner before coming on duty.  We started the long long – did I say it was long? – walk home.

It was nearly dawn when we trudged up the road toward the Grayson farmhouse.  I hollered out, and Granny came out onto the porch.  She was overjoyed to see her little dog again.  They hugged and yelped and danced around and licked each other with delight. 

A minute later Rikki, wakened from her troubled slumber, stumbled out of the house, rubbed the sleep from her eyes, and shrieked with happiness.  Those two sure pitch a fit when they get worked up.

We went inside, and Granny made some coffee.  She served it up with some jelly donuts and Slim Jims, which suited me fine.  For the last several miles of the long journey home I had regretted tossing away that meat stick.

I told them the story of how I had tracked the tornado, rescued the little dog, and fended off the falling squirrels and cows.  With tears of gratitude, Granny kissed my cheek.  Her granddaughter looked at me in a different sort of way and kissed the other cheek.  The dog licked Slim Jim grease and frosting off my face.  I must say I enjoyed the attention.

After I ate the last jelly donut, we woke Pat and sent him on his way back to town.  He whined a little bit about having to walk, but what could he say?  I couldn’t help it if the car had been in the path of a falling Guernsey and he had to be at work in an hour.

“Let me mend those trousers for you,” Granny Grayson offered, kindly.  She knew I never was any good at sewing.

I was exhausted, but the whole experience had invigorated me.  Or maybe it was the sugar in the jelly donuts.  Anyway, in a flash of inspiration I realized the moment had come.  Then and there, I asked Rikki if I could take her to the Founders Day dance.  She agreed, of course, with a wag of her tail.  She had been fond of me ever since I gave her that half of a Slim Jim.

The best thing was, Rikki Grayson agreed to go with us, as a sort of chaperone.  Not that we needed one, after all we’d been through together. 

I certainly hope the weather is nice for the dance next weekend.  And it also might be nice if there are no bovines in the vicinity.

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A Simple Statement of Faith, Revised

This is a revision to a previous post that unfortunately was misunderstood by some readers as a dogmatic proclamation.  I respect the integrity and freedom of belief of all Gryphem readers, and would never be so audacious as to tell you what you must believe, especially in the realm of personal spirituality.

The comments that follow have been inspired by a new realization, a “eureka moment” in my personal spiritual experience.  More about that later.  First, some background to give context.

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I was raised in a fundamentalist denomination in which I alternately heard two very different explanations of how and why we believed as we did. 

The first rationale for our particular belief system, simply put, went something like this.  You cannot prove God.  God demands that we accept him by faith.  We are required by God to accept on faith that the Bible is his inspired word, authoritative in all things, and is to be interpreted literally (which really meant interpreted according to the tenets of fundamentalism).  No proof is required, just blind faith.

The second rationale is this.  Christianity is a religion based in historical events.  The events of the Bible, and in particular the life of Jesus, are provable occurrences with objective reality.  We can know that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected.  These events, while not rising to the level of proof, are extremely strong “scientific” evidence for the validity of our belief system.  Faith is still required, but only as an acceptance of the historical record (the literally-interpreted Bible) and as a bridge from that historical reality to personal acceptance.

Ironically, no one ever seemed to notice the contradiction between these two common rationales.

When I became an adult, I left that church.  I was tired of the contradictions and the demands that I must believe just as “they” told me to believe.  I became an agnostic for many years.  I was never an atheist, for I always believed in God.  I simply could not imagine that those dogmatic (and often judgmental) people in the pews were portraying him accurately.  I began to find what religious experiences I found in the beauty of nature, in uplifting music, in the faces of children… not in the church or even the Bible. 

The irony of the matter is this.  During my agnostic years, my prayer life began to grow.  From my earliest memories, I had prayed, and I did not stop when I walked away from the fundamentalist church.  Freed from those demands and damnations, I voiced my questions to God himself. 

Over time, I began to learn to listen to his answers.  I learned that God was not offended by my questions.  I discovered that he did indeed want me to use my intellect.  Faith as I came to understand it  was not opposed to reason; faith in its rightful role augments reason.   I concluded that God was not offended when I stayed away from the church building, that he wanted me to appreciate the wonders of the world he made.  I came to understand that God, too, appreciated the highest forms of human accomplishment.  Finally I learned, mostly by listening, that God does not want my praise; he wants to share life with me.  It’s not about laws or worship services or even creeds.  It’s really all about a relationship.

The proof of my religious conviction is not blind obedience free of critical thinking.  Neither is it historically incontestable.  The proof of my religious conviction is not found in bible, or church, or historical event, but in the ongoing conversations I have daily with God.  To be sure, bible and church and historical understandings sometimes enlighten my walk with God.  But the root of my religious experience is a relationship.  As Jesus himself said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”

After 20 years or so, I returned to the church because of a congregation of Lutheran people of God who accepted me with all my questions and residual anger, and loved me anyway.  They showed me how God was present in their fellowship and invited me to join them.  They made no demands; they just offered me friendship and love.  Once I realized they were sincere, it was not a difficult decision to join them.  I came back.

Now, to return  to that “eureka moment.”  A few years ago I watched a fascinating dramatization of events surrounding the fictitious discovery of the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth.  Such a discovery would, if true, disprove the physical resurrection of Jesus, one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith.  I watched intrigued, expecting to be offended by what I supposed would be the anti-Christian conclusion.  In fact, I was not offended.  Against all expectations, I found myself forever impressed by the response of one particular priest.  Confronted with facts that seemed to disprove the foundation of his faith, he smiled.  He did not choose to argue the validity of the archeological discovery, or the scriptural record.  Instead, caring but unthreatened, he replied, “I know God exists, for I spoke with him this morning.”  That’s all.  That was all he needed. 

I don’t think I realized it at the time, but the faithful response of that man changed me. 

For reasons unknown, all this returned to my mind a few months ago.  I began to think about what my response would have been if I had stood in the place of that faithful priest.  What would I have done when confronted with irrefutable proof that my beliefs were in error?  Would I argue?  Refuse to listen?  Try desperately to adapt my beliefs?  Abandon my faith altogether?

My previous post was a response to that question which I had posed to myself.  Here’s what I wrote back in May.

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I am a believer in the revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth.  I have experienced the presence of God through Christ.  I talk to God daily.  I am a Christian living in communion with God by his grace.

Do I believe in the resurrection?  Yes.  Would I stop believing in the God of Christianity if it were somehow proven that Jesus did not rise from the dead?  No.

Do I believe in the virgin birth?  Yes.  Would I stop believing in the God of Christianity if it were somehow proven that Jesus was not born of a virgin?  No.

I am a Christian because I have met God through Christ.  Through scripture, through the Church, through people who Love, and most of all through prayer, I have met and know God. 

He speaks, and I listen.  I speak, and He listens.  He has known me and now I know him.  He has loved me and now I love him.  I can no more stop believing in God than I can stop believing in myself.

I am grateful and blessed. 

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Thanks for letting me clarify. 

Peace be with you.

Gryphem