Who Is My Family?
March 29th, 2010
Who is my family? by Stan Weddle
With some exceptions, we humans go to great lengths to take care of, and love our families. Parents work to establish a safe and comfortable home for their children. They feed, cloth, and educate them. They try to provide advantages and opportunities above and beyond what they have personally experienced. Children in turn care for older family members when they become unable to care for themselves. It is a social arrangement that assures survival of our species. The better job we do of nurturing our children, the better they will be at being able to care for their elderly. By taking care of our elderly, we build a cultural norm for our own future care. Beyond the physical and psychological needs we share a love for each other. Families are a wonderful thing.
Complex societies often create a breakdown in the simple family arrangement. Children leave the home and community they grow up in to go to school or find better financial opportunities. They make friends and create new family units away from parents. Family units often become divided by things such as accidents, war, crime, poverty, divorce, natural disasters, illness, and substance abuse. Governments attempt to step in and fill the role of family by providing assistance. In this country, we have social security for the elderly. We provide aid to families out of work and unable to work. We provide health care. Most of us agree these are good things. We often disagree on who should receive benefits, who should pay for these things and on the amount that we should provide. These issues should be addressed thoughtfully, with compassion and considered for what they really are. They are substitutions for family.
This season, as we enjoy the holiday celebrations, many of us will see family and friends we haven’t seen for a while. We will miss those family members who are separated from us for whatever reason. We will share memories of events of days past. We will share plans and hopes for the future. We will strengthen our family bonds. We will most likely be reminded that families are wonderful.
Most cultures have created formal definitions for family. They are based on the parent-child relationship. They can include members based on blood kinship and by marriage. They can include unrelated persons that are adopted as family. There is no universal, fixed definition for family. We, as individuals, can decide who is family. I believe we create a better world by expanding our family. Including others into our family who can create mutual benefits of love and care is good. It is even better when we can find the ability to include those who need more than they can contribute to our needs.
With the ability to instantly communicate with people anywhere in the world, we can develop friendships that can grow into strong bonds, like family, with people very different from us. We can recognize our differences, and still find common experiences that we can share. I look forward to reconnecting with family this holiday season. I also hope to find some new friends and grow them into family members. Families are wonderful!
This article first appeared in the Harper County Herald and is reprinted here with permission.
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Why Am I So Lucky?
March 29th, 2010
Why am I so lucky? by Stan Weddle
When I went into the military in 1968, the Vietnam War was in full action. I was told throughout training that I would be in combat. The school where I was sent for advanced training for several months had a tradition of allowing the top graduates a choice of duty stations if there were openings. There usually was at least one job opening somewhere other than Vietnam. I was finishing first in my class. I was so lucky.
My fiancé’s mother died just before graduation. To go to her funeral, I would have to miss my graduation and return to a class that was a month behind mine. I would lose my ranking and have to compete for ranking with the students in the new class. I chose to go. My original graduating class had two slots available in Germany. Since I held the top position, the person in third place moved up and was allowed a posting in Berlin. He was so lucky. After those two desirable positions, everyone else was sent to Vietnam. Their job there was to carry an 80 pound communications pack into a forward position and call in for bombers and artillery. This was one of the most dangerous jobs in the war. It created a very high percentage of casualties.
After the funeral, I returned to school and finished first in my new class. My friends who held the top places before wondered whether there would be more than one slot for a desirable post. They were angry at me for causing them to move down in ranking. When the notices of available job positions were announced, there were three available outside of Vietnam. I chose Berlin and my friends got Okinawa and Thailand. Those were our first choices. We all got what we wanted. We were so lucky.
I got married just before going to Berlin and my new wife was able to join me and spend the first year and a half years of our marriage together in a foreign country. We got to become best friends before returning home and starting a family together. We have been together for over 40 years. We have two happy, healthy, intelligent, and beautiful children and three happy, healthy, beautiful and smart grandchildren. I am so lucky.
I’m sure almost everyone has wondered at some time, why am I so lucky, (or blessed)? Or, why am I so unlucky? Why did I live and a friend die in a similar situation? Why was I born healthy and someone else came into this life with deformed limbs or mentally disabled? Some either blame or praise God for their fortune. Some are either angry or unappreciative of their circumstance. Some take personal credit for all that happens to themselves and some blame God or others for their situation.
As always, I have more questions than answers. We all must find answers in our faith, philosophy, and current state of being. Our questions change as we contemplate and seek answers. It is a lifetime search for satisfactory answers. The path to a fulfilled life is covered with the unknowable. We can find satisfaction in our questions. I am so lucky.
This article first appeared in the Harper County Herald and is reprinted by permission.
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Manual Upgrade to 2.9.2
March 24th, 2010
For some reason, which I haven’t discovered, I have been unable to automatically upgrade to WordPress 2.9.2. So I finally took the time to manually upgrade. It has been a learning experience. Only a little more complicated than the original install, it took about the same amount of time to complete. I clipped the extended instructions to Evernote and followed the directions. I used Core FTP Lite and Notepad++. I can upgrade next time in much less time. I still need to discover why the automatic upgrade doesn’t work.
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Making progress!
March 23rd, 2010
I have made significant progress this last week. I hung the drywall in the new room and taped and mudded most of it. I’ve worked on the electrical and data cable installation. I’m pleased with the way that the job is coming along. I’m pleased to be improving my skills as well.
I’m feeling stronger physical as well. Some shoulder pain from lifting the wall panels to the ceiling and from the deep push-ups I’m doing daily. I’m going for acupuncture tomorrow. That always helps relieve the pain and allows better flexibility. I was skeptical of it when I first started the therapy, but I feel like it has been effective.
I’ve gotten good feedback from my weekly articles in the Harper County Herald (Kansas). The column is titled, “I Wonder… .” It is a challenge to be having a deadline, but I’m getting the writing done earlier and not pushing the deadline. I’m very excited about the project. I plan to post the articles here in the future.
Small steps on a long journey. It’s happening.
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Spring, Fitness and A Fresh Start
March 15th, 2010
There is a strong hint that spring is near. The weather is warm enough that I don’t dread going outside to walk and run. I started back on the walking/jogging route that I discontinued last winter when the cold set in. The circuit is 2.2 miles. I was able to complete it in the same time as before. It just wasn’t as easy.
I’m also making progress on the home improvements. New plumbing drains in the upstairs bath. We picked up the gypsum board today and will start hanging it tomorrow.
Starting on a new phase of the work seems like a fresh start and makes me feel enthusiastic for the work.
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