Month: October 2018

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Why I Love Funerals [Post #8]

Well, that title probably got your attention.  But there is truth in that statement.  Let me tell you why I love (good) funerals.  Now, I know funerals are very sad events.  At the last funeral I was at, the best friend of the deceased started his eulogy with the statement that “funerals suck!”  And that is true.  Of course funerals suck.  But there is a sense in which I love funerals.

At most funerals (and at memorial services) I get to hear the deceased’s life story.  I get to hear stories of their life that I would never hear otherwise.  It is my last chance, usually, to find out very interesting facts about the fascinating life they lived.  I happen to love people’s life stories.  After all, we never really know most of the people in our lives.  We know very little, usually, about our friends.

So I sit there and am amazed by what I learn as people share their experiences and knowledge of their dear, deceased loved one.  I am sad that it takes a funeral to learn about my friends, to really know who they were.  As I see it, by then it is too late to appreciate their life and let them know.  I guess it’s better than never knowing the stories, I just wish they had shared more of their real selves while they were alive.

Which brings me to today, and me and my writing, blogging, and speaking.  Several years ago, while visiting my nephew in Florida, he handed me a book.  The book was my father’s memoirs, an autobiography.  My father apparently typed out these pages of his life story a long time ago, but nobody knew of this until my nephew found them among boxes of family “stuff” after my father’s passing.

My nephew had these pages printed up in a book and gave a copy to family members.  What a surprise!  I never knew much about my father and reading the book filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge of him and gave me an appreciation of what he lived through.  And that got me thinking, Maybe I should do something like that, get my stories out there, out of my head and into the world, or at least out there for my friends to know.  I thought about it, realizing, yes, we don’t know people and their life stories until their funerals, and then we don’t know very much, usually.

The problem is, writing your memoirs or autobiography can be a daunting project.  I was interested, excited and committed, but it is too easy to procrastinate to just write the long story of one’s life.  I realized I might never get very far with the project.  That’s when the thought of internet blogging came to me.  I realized I am not a “techy” type person and probably couldn’t handle writing a blog, but doing some research I discovered even people not computer savvy could do it with a little help that was available.  So, I plunged in, and here we are. I realized that besides my life stories, there are other subjects I could write about.  I have lots of ideas, so there is always something to write that might be of some interest to someone.

I have a little public speaking/preaching  background, having been to seminary.  I enjoyed that and I got some good reviews.  But that takes a lot of work in preparation, plus I have to seek speaking opportunities (sell myself, etc.), and then the audience is usually rather small, and who is going to remember anything I said a few days later.  I find it easier to sit down and write and when I do, there is a written record to come back to if I or someone else chooses to.

So, that was the genesis of my blogging project.  I like having good conversations with people.  I like really learning about people. I want to know about people before they die.  I say, let’s be more open with our lives, that’s my wish and desire.  We get too hung up on the unimportant things in life.

Wally

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Time for a Little Religion: Born Again Christian, Atheist, Then ??? [Post #7]

Okay, I’ve covered briefly my chronological life in blogs 3 through 6. Nothing controversial about that, just pretty objective.  Now it is time to get into controversial subjects.  Yes, we’ve all been warned to stay away from religion and politics in polite conversation, etc., but well, a blog does get into these areas sometimes.  I’m hoping to stay away from politics, there’s enough of that elsewhere in the world and on the internet.  But religion, well, that’s a factor in my life that’s always been of some significance, whether good or bad.  So, we will take a quick tour of my spiritual journey, if you will.  We’ll start at the beginning.

When I was a child, my family made us go to church, even though we were not a religious family, as I saw it.  I really did not understand why we were made to go, but I guess that was pretty much the norm back then when couples had children, even rather “secular” couples.  We did say grace before meals and I was taught the bedtime prayer, “now I lay me down to sleep.”  But that was about it for religion in our family.  My dad did like our minister because he talked football a lot, but he was not big on religion, really (my father, not the minister).  My father did use God’s name and Jesus’s name, but not in a sacred way, if you get my drift. (Unfortunately, I picked up this habit from him and haven’t quite rid myself of it yet).

In high school I had what you could call a “born again Christian” experience.  A coming to God and Jesus was good for me at that time as I was having problems living with my family and a spiritual/religious dimension in my life helped a lot.  I do not regret that experience at all at that time.

After high school I went away to college, to a Christian college in Seattle where I had three friends from my high school days.  It was a new life for me, being away from home.  I got involved with a group of friends there, good people.  They were charismatic Christians, which means they were really on fire in a religious sense during that chaotic time. It was the 1960’s, a wild time of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King’s assassination, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, Kent State killings, etc.  Sometimes I am amazed that we lived through such an insane time.

There were drugs, there were the Jesus freaks, Woodstock, all of that.  But I ran around with my “spiritual” friends and it probably helped me survive being in such a group.  We had good times hanging out together and going to church.  

When college was over I continued on to a theological seminary.  I was there for one year and I learned a lot.  I got to study deeper  the interesting subjects of church history, theology, ethics, etc.  I remember being told that what we learned in seminary we do not want to tell our congregations  when we become ministers because it may damage or destroy people’s faith.  Like I said, I learned a lot.

I left seminary, got a job with an airline and did the career stuff.  Life was rolling along pretty well.  For a while.  At some point, I began experiencing a “crisis of faith.”  I challenged my religious beliefs with deep study and deep reflection and thought.  I guess real life was beginning to affect me and my spiritual assumptions.  Not an unusual experience for some people.

I do realize, and I do know a lot of people that never seem to waver in their religious beliefs since they were children, indoctrinated into whatever church or religion they were brought up in.  But this was not my situation. I went from no faith to a fundamental, conservative Christian faith, to theological study and on to the dog-eat-dog real world of cruelty and awful people and situations in the world.  I could not put it all together.  So, I decided I was, after all, an atheist.

Well, this was an unexpected turn in my life.  But one I took seriously.  When I decide something, I really make a decision and commitment.  So, I joined the American Atheist’s Association, based in Austin, Texas.  It was headed my Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a very famous atheist activist.  I even attended one of their annual conventions and got to be with her and her family (pictures were posted on Facebook a while back).

The convention I attended was a very interesting experience.  I met a lot of people who felt like I did about religion at that time, but something began to gnaw at me.  I realized a lot of these people were very bitter, unhappy people.  I realized that atheism is really just another “religion.”  They have their strong, set beliefs and they hate anyone who does not agree with them.  In fact, they really hate agnostics who question whether there is a God or not, as they see agnostics as weak people unable to be strong and stand up and be atheists like they are.

So, I learned a lot being with those atheists and it caused me to reevaluate where I really stood on this religious/spiritual thing.  As I thought it over, I realized I have always felt there was “something else” in life, something in the invisible world of the unseen forces or energy active in life.  Maybe it wasn’t the childhood concept of God that I (and most children) had at one time early in life.  Even the concept I had of “God” in college.  Maybe I had to grow up my concept of God or whatever was active in life behind the scenes, in the invisible, unseen world of the spiritual dimension.

I studied a lot on religious and spiritual subjects.  I began checking out churches again.  I discovered a branch of religion and even Christianity called “new thought,” not “new age,” but new thought.  It was a much better match for me than the standard,  conservative, mainline, fundamental protestant Christian church.  I found the Unity Movement (Unity churches) and Religious Science churches fit me better than anything else.  I find Science of Mind (the teaching of the Religious Science church) and Unity teachings are my best expressions of my spiritual experience now.

That is a brief trip through my spiritual journeying of my life.  Recently I sat down to draw up my most simple definition of my beliefs. It turns out it is very similar to Jesus’ statement of his theology (if we can call it that).  He said the ten commandments from the Hebrew Bible can be condensed into two commandments, to Love God and to Love your neighbor as yourself.  I came up with a seven word religion that really is it for me: Trust God and Love and F the rest.  That really covers everything if you think about it, as I see it.  

 

 

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The Airline Career and Retirement [Blog post #6]

I spent thirty-three years in the airline industry (1973-2007)  I don’t know many people that stay in one field, job, or a specific career for their entire working life.  I did because I did not want to change careers. I hated the anxiety of looking for a job and the job interviews and all that, and once I had the job I liked, or at least in the field I wanted to be in, that was it as I saw it.

It was a rough field to be in, as there were always strikes, layoffs, and pay cuts all the time. There was never any sense of real job security, at least not for very long. But the work was exciting enough for me to put up with the bad times and “hang in there.”

I had many different jobs with the airline. I started in the kitchen, went to the commissary department (loading food and supplies on the planes), then the ramp (baggage handler) and then airport agent, working at the ticket counter and the boarding gates.  I was laid off during the Gulf War (Operation Desert Storm) but took a new job in the city ticket offices.  Those were the days before etickets and people had to buy paper tickets to travel.

I enjoyed the new job in the city ticket offices.  My supervisor gave me the position of working “vacation relief” which meant I would go and fill in in offices where someone was on vacation.  Often it was out of state and it was a one-person office, meaning I worked all alone for a week or two.  I loved that.  When I was not filling in for a vacationing employee, my home office was the Beverly Hills ticker office at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, owned by Merv Griffin.  I got to talk to him a little bit when we were walking around on breaks.  Of course, in that ticket office we handled ticketing for many  celebrities.  It was normal to see movie stars, etc. almost every day.

When I was “on the road,” I got to be in places live Denver and Albuquerque and Phoenix. I loved that. Staying in hotels and seeing the area and getting to know new cities for a week or two at a time. Being my own boss with no one looking over my shoulder was wonderful. It was a great time.

I eventually stopped my piloting and sold my membership in my flying club and partial interest in our aircraft.  My flight instructing at Santa Monica Airport was very short-term, but my love of aviation and piloting never wavered. During that time I lived on the beach at Santa Monica (eleven years). That beach apartment was in a dream I had many years before I lived there.  I had a very strong and vivid dream of me living right on the beach in Santa Monica. I learned that we can create our own dream conditions in life.

Half way through my airline career my life made a big turn. I had lived with a friend for many years but it was not a good relationship and I eventually lived alone. My social life was getting pretty stagnant so I made a very bold move and decided to take up country western dancing.  Someone years earlier had told me I should look into country western dancing as a fun activity. 

I did some research and found where there were dance lessons being given in the area.  I just jumped right in and very quickly met someone who just “clicked” with me (and vice versa).  The chemistry was immediate and intense and finally, in 1990, I left my dream location at the beach and moved inland to the Hollywood area. Believe me, I did not see this change coming at all.

It was nice having an improved living arrangement and not living with someone who was not a good match for me.  Twenty-five years later we would get married, another thing I never imagined or saw coming in the early stages of the relationship.  Of course, we needed same-sex marriage to become legal, and it finally did.

When the terrorist attacks of  9/11 occurred, big changes came to the airline industry. American Airlines bought out TWA after our third bankruptcy and took on the TWA employees.  So many other airlines went out of business in those days and the employees lost everything.  Fortunately we kept our jobs but for TWA employees to keep their full-time status and their seniority (seniority is everything in the airline business), they had to go work at the St. Louis airport.

For me that was a “no-brainer” and I decided to move to St. Louis and work there.  Fortunately, Terry was my registered “domestic partner” then so he got free airline travel.  He came to stay with me in St. Louis every other week and every other weekend I would spend my days off at our L.A. home in Hollywood. Another time in my life when it all worked out just great.  That was a good time living in both places and being together a lot of the time. Terry loved the traveling to be with me in St. Louis.

Well, it was good times followed by bad times, in a sense.  In 2004 American Airlines “downsized” the airport hub in St. Louis and I took a position back in Los Angeles at the airport.  I lost all my seniority since I left St. Louis, and it was as if I was a new hire, I had no say in anything with no seniority.  No choice of shifts, no choice of days off, no choice of vacation weeks, etc.

I lasted for two years at LAX and then decided I could take no more.  My dream airline job had changed too drastically for me to keep doing it. I took my retirement at age 58.

My story improved very quickly when I retired.  Now, I am one of those who loves retirement.  I truly believe I was made for retirement. No more having to spend all my time and energy working for some company, and for some boss that often times is a real jerk ( I did have a few bosses that were good or okay, to be fair) Now my life and my time were mine!

So there you have a quick romp through the basics of my life. Yes, it was very basic and perhaps shallow autobiography, but more may be revealed in future blog postings.  At least now you have the outline of my life.  My whole life is perfect looking at it from my current perspective.  I see how things happened and why certain thing happened, even if they did not look like very good experiences at the time.  The bad times, the dark times, yes they exist, but they are just parts of the puzzle, the big picture!

So now you know the basic outline of my life and we can turn to other topics in my blog.  I hope you will stay tuned and see where we go.

Wally