“Anonymous” left a comment about last night’s musings.  “A Sunday afternoon nap punctuates a morning of Worship, a good meal and the woes of the week past.”  Now, I don’t usually do follow-up posts, but I can’t pass up this propitious opportunity.  First of all, I’m always happy when readers leave a little of themselves on my pages; otherwise, how would I know if I’m on the right track at all?  While I don’t depend on the comments for my sense of well-being, it never hurts to get a feel for what the recipients of my ramblings take from them, as well as giving me a sense of who you are.  But, in reality, my brain was jolted into activity by the wonderful comment above.  I have no idea who the author is and I’d kind of like to keep it that way.  I can imagine some wise person perusing my daily nonsense, finally finding a post worth commenting on and making an intellectual statement which may one day be in all the lists of quotes by famous writers, motivational speakers, and anonymous sources.  Not likely, but a guy can dream, can’t he? 

I  read the comment aloud to the Lovely Lady, finding that hearing the words brought a completely different perspective to the statement.  What roused me was the use of one word in the sentence.  The verb in the sentence brought me to a screeching halt.  Yep, just like a period.  “…punctuates…”  The nerd in me was all atingle instantly.  The picture drawn by the sentence was vivid.  Yes!  They get it!  The Sunday nap is the period on what is past.  A full Stop.  No more.  And, just like that, I wanted to believe that it was true.  The hard week, the busy days, the weariness, all were banished with the period of the nap.  This far and no further.  Gandalf the wizard was on the bridge in Moria standing against the evil Balrog.  “You shall not pass!” 

But, just as quickly as it appeared, the vision dissolved into nothing.  That’s not right, I thought.  There’s no disconnection from one day to the next.  There’s no full stop and restart.  Perhaps, the punctuation  Anonymous meant was a comma.  I like commas, simply because they give me a chance to catch my breath.  A very brief rest and we’re on to the next phrase.  Yes, maybe the comma.  But as I considered it some more, I don’t think that fits either.  The comma doesn’t give any sense of renewal, but simply separates parts of the same idea.  Just a pause, and a continuation of the same old, same old.  Not much refreshment in that.  No, not the comma.

We could keep going.  We haven’t talked about the exclamation point!  Excitement! Surprise!  Shock!  They’re all rolled up into one little straight line with a period below.  Nope, not quite the description of a nap.  At least, not a good nap.  How about the question mark?  Why?  How?  When?  It still misses the target by a good bit.  I scratched my head for a moment more, and then I had it.

I think the Sunday nap, or a nap on any other day for that matter, is best described as a semicolon; the little mark, part period and part comma (it includes both in its form) which gives a chance to place two sentences next to each other.  The sentences continue from the first into the other, both aiding each other, but able to stand alone if need be.  I’m exhausted from the events of this week; the semicolon allows me to be refreshed for the new one to come.  It’s not a full stop, not a momentary pause, but a chance to regenerate, to be ready to go forward.  This must be what Anonymous meant!

As I start to think outside the lines a bit, I’ve come to realize that this thing we call time is a bit arbitrary.  We make the day start and stop at midnight, but the moments keep marching past, oblivious to our false milestones.  Time pays no attention to weekends, nor to Mondays; only we humans are foolish enough to mark those anniversaries.  What is true is that our past leads continuously to our future; the lessons of yesterday become the practices of tomorrow.  The times of refreshment we crave and even require, simply give us a chance to regroup and move on through the days that are appointed to us.

Even having acknowledged the foolishness of our shortsightedness, living from work week to work week, I’m grateful for the rest on the way.  I will happily admit that the nap isn’t the only thing which accomplishes this.  I love the fellowship of friends and family, the joy of music, and even reading; all these and more bring about revival and rejuvenation.  May we  enjoy these times throughout our lives, with the real goal in sight, the goal of serving our Maker daily.  Every new moment is an opportunity for service and being agents of change in the world; every encounter is a chance to show God at work in us.

The sentences are long; the semicolons between them are short and blessed.  They’re not intended to stop the action, just to get us ready for what’s next.  As the Bard so aptly uttered centuries ago, “What’s past is prologue.”  

 I’m not sure if Mr. Shakespeare also wrote the old ad copy for Lee Nails, but it speaks to us too.  “Press On!”

“But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint.
(Isaiah 40:31)

“Sometimes you get a glimpse of a semicolon coming, a few lines further on, and it is like climbing a steep path through woods and seeing a wooden bench just at a bend in the road ahead, a place where you can expect to sit for a moment, catching your breath.”
(Lewis Thomas~American physician, poet, and etymologist)

Of all the legacies my parents gave me, I think I enjoy the Sunday nap the best.  When I was a kid, however, it was the longest hour of the week.   Every Sunday, we would head for Sunday School and church, coming back home to our Sunday dinner of roast beef and vegetables.  I never realized until much later in life that the reason the menu never varied was that it was a meal which could be left in the oven before leaving for church, arriving back home to a prepared dish.  We didn’t have a long wait before eating, but after the cleanup came the dreaded nap.

One hour of enforced quiet time, lying down, hopefully sleeping, but at least resting.  For a young boy, full of energy and imagination, it was torture.  There were places to go and things to do!  I didn’t have time to waste!  Something might happen while we were asleep and I’d miss it!  But onto our beds all of us went, there to lie quietly until the prescribed hour was completed.  As with the menu for Sunday’s dinner, this nap was also something I didn’t understand until I matured a good bit, but now I realize that this time was for my mom and dad, not for us.  They were exhausted.  Five long work days for Dad and a continuous around-the-clock job of taking care of five children for Mom.  How could they not be tired?  Sunday morning wasn’t very restful either.  Getting all the kids presentable for church, checking ties and shoes, making sure that there were no toys concealed in pockets or up sleeves, looking under fingernails and behind ears for stray dirt missed in the Saturday night shower, and combing the unruly hair.  Then at church, teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, ushering, chasing errant children, and finally back home, knowing all would be repeated later that evening.  Ah! But, nap time was coming.  The kids would lie down in their beds, quiet at least while the parents had a well-deserved, if abbreviated snooze.

I can so identify with that!  The weeks are long and fatiguing, with not enough rest and more than enough stress.  Sunday morning is still busy and Sunday dinner more so.  The Lovely Lady is a good bit more ambitious than my mom was, so the table is always filled, both with diners around it and with food on it.  I don’t sit around and watch ball games while it’s being prepared either,  Today, I set the table (with help) for nine adults and four children and it bent beneath the load of food which the Lovely Lady prepared (also with a little help)…No not roast beef today. although that’s a favorite which is served frequently, but the ham was wonderful, along with salad, veggies, and bread, with a few extras squeezed in there (and I do mean squeezed in, if you get my drift).  Afterward, the oldest grandson helped me serve coffee as the homemade apple pie was served with ice cream. 

Ah! But nap time was coming (is there an echo in here?).  When the company headed home and the cleanup was finished, I settled into my comfortable recliner, the Lovely Lady in her corner on the couch, and I slept the sleep of the weary.  I don’t even know if she slept today, but a couple of hours later, I know I awoke refreshed, ready to face a new week.  Now that I’ve had my restorative timeout, I can take whatever the natives throw at me in the days to come.  Bring on your worst, your toughest!  I’m ready!  It’s amazing that the nap not only helps physically, but the mental aspect is improved as well.

I’ve told you about the attributes my parents shared with me, the high cholesterol and the breathing problems from Dad, the ability to “argue with a fencepost” from Mom.  I’ve shared about the good gifts too, but this Sunday nap habit, I will be eternally grateful for.  What a great way to cap off the Day of Rest.  I’m thinking God is pleased with this, too.  If you don’t agree, maybe you could just keep your opinion to yourself.  I like this tradition and hope I can pass it on just like my parents did. 

“I usually take a two hour nap, from one to four.”
(Yogi Berra~Professional baseball player and manager)

“Think what a better world it would be if we all-the whole world-had cookies and milk about three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap.”
(Robert Fulghum~American author and speaker)

The first time I drove a car, I experienced what could only be described as sensory overload.  I couldn’t have explained it.  The scenery simply shifted from passive to active in my perception.  I have yelled “Shotgun!” as many times as anyone in my life, so the front seat was not new territory to me.  There was no change in what I actually saw.  No, the alteration was in the import of the information reaching my eyes and ears.  As I began to drive, I suddenly realized that every single article in my field of vision (and some not in it) was in play.  Each item, whether another car, a trash can, a mail box, a pedestrian, or ditch, or bird (the list goes on and on) had the potential to impact what I was doing (and yes, the pun was intended.)   The instantaneous realization was that all those things which had just been part of the backdrop, now were the active cast in the stage of driving.  It’s odd; driving wasn’t that much different than riding a bicycle, at which I was an old pro.  You’re moving down the same street, with the same objects, but somehow, the sobering realization that serious damage could result from one split-second choice changed the perspective exponentially.

Driving for the first time is not the only time I’ve experienced this feeling in my lifetime.  It happens to a lesser extent every time I’m thrown into a new, unfamiliar situation.  A new town, a new job, a new marriage, all of these changes have made me keenly aware that I’m no longer directing the show; there are other actors in the play of life, all of them with the capacity to affect me.  The overused catchphrase for this is, “out of my comfort zone.”  I’ve meditated on this a bit and think a more appropriate phrase might be, “out of my control”.  We love to live in a place where things happen at the appointed time and in the prescribed manner.  We don’t want to worry about a chance encounter or an overturned time schedule.  The ordered, neat little world we have arranged for ourselves is just fine, thank you!

It’s sad to realize that even when I’m used to a situation, if I get out of it completely for a period of time and then jump back in, the same thing happens again. This may be one reason that I don’t like taking a long vacation.  The reentry is like sliding under the wheel in the car for the first time all over again.  Oh, the break-in time is a lot shorter, but for those first few minutes, I sincerely wish I had just kept my nose to the grindstone without the break.

I’ve had to live “out of my comfort zone” a lot the last few weeks, but this week, it just might be described as completely out of control.  I don’t like it.  The little corner of the world in which I exist seems to be moving at me too fast and I’m afraid that I may do some lasting damage (or be damaged myself). Most of us have watched a child riding a merry-go-round on the playground and can identify with them, at least symbolically.  For the first slow rotations, it’s all smiles and happy squeals, but as the speed increases and the queasiness in the stomach rises correspondingly, we wait for the shout of “Stop the merry-go-round!  I want off!”  I’ve thought about yelling it a time or two myself this week.

I will admit the OCD part of me would be fine with that.  It’s easy to actually make the image of objects (real or imagined) coming at me worse than it really is.  If I dwell on the thought, the potential for disaster is overwhelming, with every person I interact with being a plausible candidate for catastrophe.  But, every once in awhile, I have to tell myself the same thing my drill-sergeant fitness-guru sister-in-law yells repeatedly at her victims, er…classes.  It works for me, temporarily at least.  “BREATHE!”

It turns out that I’m not the only one with problems in the world, not the only one just figuring out that he’s not in control.  I’m happy to say that I haven’t totaled any cars or people this week, and I’m not getting off the merry-go-round anytime soon.  But, if you see me leaning over, taking deep breaths, just give me a minute.

I’ll be back in the driver’s seat making good time pretty soon….

“We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.”

(Bill Watterson~Creator of the Calvin & Hobbes comics)

“It is a dangerous business going out of your front door.”

(J.R.R. Tolkien~English novelist~1892-1973)

“Close the deal!  Don’t take no for an answer!  If they didn’t want what you’re selling, they wouldn’t let you in the door.”  I sat and listened to Bob Q trying to teach me his selling techniques and determined that I was going to sell those Kirby vacuum cleaners if it killed me.  When I answered the newspaper ad for a position with his company, Mr. Q promised me huge paydays if I would follow his instructions, so I hung onto every word.  The other trainee and I practiced on each other, perfecting our skills, answering objections with ease and impressing ourselves beyond our wildest expectations.  We were ready!

I have a fair assortment of memories in my head of which I am not proud.  Some, you will never read about here, others will come to light as I can face the chagrin they evoke, mostly from myself.  My stint as a vacuum cleaner salesman is one of those depressing recollections I would rather leave buried in the past.  In some ways, however, it informs who I am today, so I’ll drag it out of the storage bin and air it out for a little while this evening, if you will indulge me.

I have asserted many times that I am not a salesman, even though I’ve spent my entire adult career (with a few short detours) in sales.  I approach sales a bit differently than the training I had with the vacuum cleaner concern.  I would rather suggest to a customer that he or she come back later to buy a product than to force the sale today.  I have actually talked customers out of purchases because I believed that they had no need of the product they were considering.  Bob Q would not be proud at all.

I actually sold one Kirby vacuum cleaner during my stint as a rep for that company.  Okay, to be truthful, Bob sold it, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  When we were ready to start selling, we made “cold calls”, finding names and numbers in the phone book and calling people out of the blue to set up demonstrations.  I set up my first call and made my way to the home one afternoon.  The lady of the house listened patiently to my pitch, allowing me to run her vacuum and then mine to show how much more it picked up.  The photos of ruined carpet were shown, advantages touted, warranties explained, payment plans offered, and then the door was closed behind me.  No sale! 

To say that Bob was unhappy with me would be an understatement.  He was livid!  “Don’t you know she wanted to buy that vacuum?  She didn’t want to say no!  She wanted you to help her say yes!”  Then he gave me the fateful instructions, “Don’t you ever leave a prospect who says no without calling me first!”  I listened to him and determined to do better on the next call.  The opportunity came within a day or two.

The older man and woman were both on Social Security, living in a small frame house with peeling paint and a rickety front porch.  Their furniture was aging and threadbare and most of the flooring in the house was scarred-up hardwood, with just a faded area rug in the living room and a fraying runner down the hall.  As with my first presentation, these nice folks listened attentively to my spiel, watched my demonstration, and said no.  After talking with them for a few moments, I knew they didn’t need the vacuum (they had just two old rugs in the entire house!) and they certainly didn’t have the money to purchase this pricey model.  I wasn’t interested in trying to get them to buy any longer, but I had to call the office.  I couldn’t face Bob’s anger again.  With their permission, I called to let the man know that it wasn’t going to happen.  “Let me talk with them,” he demanded.  Twenty minutes later, I walked out of that house with a check in my hand.  When I got back to the sales office, we celebrated.  Well, Bob and the other trainee celebrated.  I was ashamed.  Those folks had no money and would be doing without things they needed because I had walked into their house.  Never mind that it was Bob’s persuasive personality and words that convinced them.  I had taken their money.

I did face Bob’s anger one last time, because I started looking for another job the next day.  When I was supposed to be out on sales calls, I went to employment offices.  A couple of days later Bob confronted me as I walked in the front door.  “What have you been doing this afternoon?”  “Looking for a real job!” I retorted.  He fired me on the spot.  It was the only job I was ever fired from and I was relieved beyond belief. 

I have thought of that couple many times in the thirty-four years since that day.  They have provided an incentive to honesty and integrity that no sermon ever could.  I’ve dissected the situation many times, to determine why I was so ashamed and I believe I know the answer.  You see, Bob Q’s world-view told him that he was the most important person in his circle of influence and he was acting on that creed.  Try as I might, I can’t get away from the principles I learned as a child and have had reinforced time and time again as an adult.  “You cannot serve God and money.”  (Bob Dylan said it clearly when he sang “Gotta Serve Somebody.”)  Many of the other precepts I learned as a child flood my thoughts as I write this: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  “Consider others better than yourselves.”  “Where your treasure is…”  The list goes on and on, all reminding me that I don’t come first.

I haven’t always been able to live with integrity.  As I said, I’ve got a lifetime of missteps and failures hidden away beyond your view.  That’s the depressing part.  The thing I celebrate is that each day is a chance to do better; each encounter an opportunity to redeem the evil times.  I’m enjoying God’s gift of more days and new opportunities to get it right.

But, don’t bring back that guitar you bought from me last week.  You wanted it or you wouldn’t have come into my store in the first place…

“A little integrity is more valuable than any career.”
(Ralph Waldo Emerson~American poet and essayist~1803-1882)

“There are worse things in life than death.  Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?”
(Woody Allen~American actor and movie director)

I was stumped.  I had started the phrase on the piano three times, assuming each time that my memory would get jogged and let me finish the piece, but every time, I got to one chord and nothing else would come.  Many of you know exactly how I felt.  You’ve been there yourself.  Just when you need it the most, the brain just shuts down, leaving you in the lurch.  Just in case you wordies out there have ever wondered where the term “in the lurch” comes from, it describes a position in the game of cribbage where you have moved less than halfway around the board before your opponent finishes the game.  It usually characterizes a desperate and embarrassing place.  And, that’s where I was this particular evening.

I was about 15 years old, having taken a number of years of piano lessons.  I wasn’t fond of the lessons, but loved playing the piano, so I sat down to the piano at home whenever I could.  The lady who scheduled special music at the church in which I grew up found out about my “talent” and tricked me into agreeing to play a song one Sunday evening.

I had grown up in this little church, a pretty brick building with hardwood floors and the hardest wooden pews you ever sat in.  At some point in my childhood, they bought pads for the seats, floral tapestry covered affairs that promised comfort, but didn’t deliver.  The old building wasn’t air conditioned; almost no churches or schools were in those days.  (I remember when simply posting the words “air conditioned” on a sign outside a restaurant made the establishment a four-star destination.)  The little church was cooled by the old original paddle-bladed ceiling fans and big single-glazed windows which could be opened either from the bottom or top, depending on the amount of air that was needed.  We would sit in our pews and watch the ushers as they moved around the room with long wooden poles which were notched on the end to adjust the fans.  The old ceiling units had been installed in a day before wall switches and could only be regulated by rotary switches on the center of the motors, which were about fifteen feet off the floor.  Well, maybe not that high, but it seemed like that to me growing up.  Frequently, the usher would get the speed too high and would have to return to the fan to adjust the switch again, as the prim and proper lady situated under the wind machine smoothed her hair back into place and frowned at the unfortunate man.

I suppose I was about 12 when the air conditioners were installed.  Two huge compressor units were set outside the building at the stage end, and two upright boxes about four feet by four feet wide and eight feet tall were installed in each corner of the building, right up on the stage.  The cold air was blown at high speed out of the top section of these and the return air was in the bottom.  Talk about a maelstrom!  I’m only partially speaking about the commotion that ensued every time the unit roared to life.  While the turbulence created by that much air blowing from one location was significant, it was nothing compared to the reaction of the good people there.  There was not just a little turmoil surrounding the installation of the air conditioners, emanating from the folks in the church.  It wasn’t natural, wasn’t a good use of God’s money, was too cold, too noisy, too ugly.  Honestly though, from my point of view, I didn’t have anything to complain about when it came to the air conditioning.  At least, not until the night in question.

It was a hot evening, but the units hadn’t started blowing cold air when I sat down at the piano to start my special.  I placed the book on the music rack of the old grand piano, nervously adjusted the bench and began.   I was playing a lovely transcription by Ted Smith of “Oh Worship The King”, a four page song which I had worked on for weeks.  The first page flew by like a charm.  This was going to be a breeze (probably not a good choice of words)!  The first page of my solo completed, I flipped to the next one.  After about two lines, the trouble started.  The thermostat triggered the big unit in the corner over my left shoulder into chaotic, gusty life!  I recalled momentarily, that one of the ladies who normally played the piano had requested that the airflow be directed downward a bit, so she could benefit from the cooler air.  That’s all the time I had for that thought, because the airflow caught the edge of my page and blew it right back to where I had just been playing.  I nonchalantly reached up and slapped the page back over, never missing a beat.  I knew this song!  Even with the page flipped over, the music continued unabated.  But the monster behind me had other ideas.  Whiff!  The page was back over again!  I slapped it once more, but to no avail.  Immediately it was back to page one.  By this time, I was on to page three, my practice time paying off for once.  I had this song down in my memory, so I didn’t even try to flip the page over again.  Playing from memory, I persevered onto the last page of music, the notes flowing from my fingers like liquid.  I was invincible!  No vexatious machine was going to ruin my performance!  Van Cliburn couldn’t have been more confident at that piano!

“Pride precedes a disaster, and an arrogant attitude precedes a fall.”  The old Proverb was just waiting to kick in and boy, did it kick in with a vengeance!  Two lines from the end of the song, my mind went blank and my fingers stumbled to a stop.  Disaster!  But I knew what to do, so I went back to the beginning of that phrase and started confidently, knowing that it would come.  It didn’t.  All I got was the lurch.  You remember where that is?  Yeah, well, score one for the monster in the corner and zero for the wanna-be concert pianist.  Finally, frustrated and embarrassed beyond belief, I reached up and slapped the pages back over long enough to read the notes and I finished the song. 

One of my young friends played the offertory at our church last week.  She missed a chord.  I was so proud of her.  She kept going.  She finished the song with finesse and confidence.  When I complimented her later, she said, “But, I messed up.”  And I could tell her, “I know how it feels, but you finished.  No one will remember the wrong chord.  They will remember how well you played the whole piece.”  I knew whereof I spoke.  A few weeks after the disaster I’ve described above, they asked me to play again.  I was terrified.  It took all the courage I could muster, but I told them I would.  And, I did.  And the next time they asked me, I played again, and the next time.  I doubt that anyone who was there that night remembers my nightmare performance.  But what if I had never played in public again?  How do you suppose they would remember me?

I think, of all the things I like most in life, second chances rank right up there.  The chance to do something well that you were horrible at the first time.  The chance to help someone you ignored earlier.  The chance to redeem yourself.  I’m a great believer in redemption.  I’m not a golfer, but I really like the idea of a “mulligan”.  You get to take the shot again, since you muffed the first one so badly. 

“Overs” aren’t always an option, but when they are, take them!  You messed up big the first time, you can’t do much worse with a second chance.  And, I’m guessing you’ll actually do a lot better.

“Swallow your pride occasionally.  It’s not fattening.”
(Frank Tyger~Editorial cartoonist and humorist)

This blog is a century old.  Okay, not in years, but in the number of posts.  Tonight is number one hundred in the series and I’m still trying to decide whether it’s time for a retrospective look back.  I guess that would be a little silly, considering that we just started this little journey last fall, to say nothing of being more than a little presumptuous.  Maybe I should just start issuing a few reruns.  If this were a television series, it would have happened long ago.  Many TV shows go into reruns after as few as twelve consecutive new episodes.  Think of it, a couple weeks of new articles, then six weeks of recapitulations of those posts.  Come to think of it, we might just be better off to keep moving forward.  There’s probably still enough material left in the mental files for at least another hundred, so we’ll proceed onward and upward.  Well, onward anyway.  If nothing else, I have learned to persevere.

I’m remembering a lesson about perseverance and judgment I learned early in my retail experience.  I hadn’t yet been working for a year in my father-in-law’s music store, but I already thought I knew everything there was to know about running a successful business.  I understood profit margins and overhead, inventory management, and even a good bit about customer relations, but I needed to get a little experience in understanding people.  Danny was the right person to teach me a memorable lesson in people skills.

Maybe a little background would be helpful.  The old store was in the downtown area of our little city.  In the Seventies, downtown was a bustling area.  The Post Office was right across the street and since email hadn’t yet been heard of, everyone eventually had to make their way down to Broadway Street for the mail.  Additionally, there were two jewelry stores, various clothing stores, a five & dime store, even a drug store, and a hardware store.  It was a wonderful location to do business, so we had no lack of folks who passed through our doors.  Top Forty hits in the form of 45 records (yes, records!) drew in the young kids, and the guitars and pianos brought in the teenagers and adults.  Many days, all we had to do was to ring up sales at the cash register, so selling wasn’t much of a chore.

Danny now…there was a hard nut to crack.  The first few times he made his way into the store during his lunch hour, I tried to help him.  He would go immediately to the guitar section, so I attempted to show him various instruments.  Each time, he simply asked to see one of the twelve-string guitars, then proceeded to sit for half an hour and play it.  At the end of his lunch break, he replaced the guitar on the rack and walked out the door, thanking me for my help.  It didn’t take too many of these visits for me to understand that it didn’t make any sense to ask if I could help him with anything.  Invariably, he headed for the same twelve-string guitar, carrying it to the nearest stool, adjusting the tuning and then strumming and finger picking as many popular tunes as he could squeeze in within the half hour he was there.  With a “See you next time”, he would breeze out the door, to my great frustration.  After a few weeks of this, I had had enough!  After he left one afternoon, I turned to my father-in-law and blurted out, “We should tell him to go someplace else for his entertainment!  He’s just wearing out that new guitar.  We’ll never be able to get our price out of it after he get through with it!”  Dad Whitmore just smiled and said, “Give it time.  You never know…”

I have to admit, I actually started ignoring Danny when he arrived, as he was wont to do at lunchtime a couple of days a week.  With barely a nod to acknowledge his presence, I’d return to my task of sorting records, or checking in merchandise and would repeat the action as he left.  Thus it was that I was a little bewildered when one afternoon, he came back around the corner from the guitar department carrying that same twelve-string guitar in his hands.  I assumed that he had broken something or was going to point out some problem, but his words were simple and to the point.  “I’ll take it!”  He paid his money and walked out of the store grinning like that proverbial cat who had successfully consumed the caged songbird.  I was left standing at the cash register, holding his money, I’m confident with my mouth agape at the shock of this turn of events.

The long and short of the story is that some people need to be given time to make up their own minds.  They want to be sure of their decision and won’t be rushed.  Danny wasn’t sponging off of us for dinner time entertainment, as I assumed.  He was shopping.  Playing that guitar was his research.  When he was finally convinced that it was a good fit and that he could be happy with it for the long term, he made his purchase.  It was an eye-opener for the young inexperienced sales clerk I was back then. I think I had always expected that all thinking people would act just like I did.  Impulsive and quick to make decisions, I would never have taken the time and put in the effort to make the right choice that Danny did.  But, the lesson has been brought to mind again and again.  And, not only in retail sales.

Danny isn’t alive anymore, killed in a car wreck within a year of purchasing that guitar.  But thirty years later, I still think of him often.  The illumination I gained from his example that people approach problems in different ways encourages me to be patient with those less impetuous than I.  Patience is a virtue I have not completely mastered, but it has paid off over and over as I have matured.  In many ways, I have learned to make sure that people in my life know that I am interested in helping when they are ready to be helped.  Less and less do I have to worry at the problem, but am finally grasping the concept of letting things happen in their proper time.  Oh, it’s not always as easy as that.  Like the kid who keeps picking at the sore because it itches, I want to make things happen on my timetable.  Occasionally, I’m even tempted to give up on people, but the picture of Danny, sitting on that stool day after day reminds me to hang in there and give them time to come around.

I’m not trying to convince anyone to take any actions with my posts, but I’m thinking that perseverance is a virtue here also.  One hundred writing sessions have passed quickly for me and I’m content to keep plodding along for a few more.  I hope you keep coming in to sit on the stool, trying out the products I’m hawking.  Anything you see that you can use, you’re welcome to. 

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”
(Leo Tolstoy~Russian novelist)

“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by smashing it.“
(Arnold Glasow~American humorist)