Look on the bright side

I’m sure that as you look at the title to this particular column, you are probably thinking I need to be slapped. Fair enough. I guess it would be in all of our best interests to just be depressed and give up. It will never get better.

But we all have to be smarter and tougher than that. There are enough ‘woe is me’ people that don’t appreciate a thing that they have, and the more they get the worse off they are.

My parents got married five years into this nation’s depression, and a year later welcomed their first child into this world. I think that took a lot of trust and love that things would get better. And throughout the uncertain economic times and World War II, they had two more children.

Following the war and a move or two, they had their last two children with me being the last, and would wind up living in the same house my dad was born in. This all happened in a little less than 20 years.

There was a lot of hard work and determination that went into this relationship, and I appreciate it every day. I can’t imagine having to live during the depression and all of the uncertainty that went with it. Spend ten minutes in your bathroom just looking around. Does your toilet flush? Do you have a shower or a tub? Do you look in the mirror that hides the medicine cabinet? Again, appreciate it.

Is your house warm? Does it have electricity? Do you have a TV set? How is the lighting? I ask this as I write this column on a laptop computer. My phone is a photo album that gives me pictures instantly. I contact friends and family with a text message. My mom hand-wrote letters that were five pages long, and couldn’t wait for a reply two to three weeks later.

Long distance phone calls were expensive, while today you can call anyone and talk for hours because you have unlimited talk and text on your cell phone plan.

I look back on my playing days in junrio high and high school, and like most young people I sort of took it for granted. My dad didn’t have the luxury of playing high school sports, because he dropped out of school to help his dad with the farm. When I was playing sports, I could always count on my dad to be in attendance even when I was a member of the B-squad basketball team. He did love sports.

After my dad passed away in 1987, mom and my brothers and sister were at my mom’s going through some of dad’s stuff. My sister said to mom, “It’s too bad that Dad didn’t finish high school, because he always was so intelligent when he spoke.” Mom replied, “He did finish high school after we got married.” We were all spellbound, because he never said a thing about that.

Remember, he earned his high school diploma in the 1930’s before there were computers to study on-line. That right there takes a lot of dedication and pride to earn something that had, in a lot of ways, been taken away from him as a youth. He never complained because he also worked for other farmers when his dad’s work was done, enabling him to buy a car as a teenager.

We are going through some tough times, and all you have to do is watch the news to realize how bad our lives are. I’m not watching the news much right now. I have been watching football and basketball, and even with all of the mask-wearing and social-distancing of players on college sidelines, I’m getting my fix of entertainment. I’m doing little projects to keep me out of trouble, and it’s amazing how much can get done just as long as you get a good start.

I’m fortunate, because I don’t have a long list of things I need for Christmas. As a matter of fact, I don’t need anything for Christmas. I can complain with the best of them, but when it comes to what I do and where I live, I look on the bright side and know that I am extremely fortunate.

– Merry Christmas from the Worst Seat in the House!