From the Observation Deck

Just some quick thoughts before I head off to the shores of the Chesapeake Bay to play with my friends at Camp Tockwogh for the weekend. Yesterday I took my camp friend, Bob, home from the hospital and saw the house he just bought for the first time. They were nice digs and I’m happy for Bob and Emily. The funny part of this little excursion to the western edges of the beltway was the scene in their neighbor’s front yard.

In ordinary circumstances, this would be a perfect set-up to make fun of my good-humored friend. But here’s what I’m going to say instead.

For any of you who have ever been mad or upset about your homeowner’s association board, the rules of the HOA, the citations they hand out, etc., I just want you to take a look at the picture below and think about it for just…one…minute.

When you’re done, think about how the valuation of your home would be affected if you had a lot of neighbors like this. Personally, I think it would be worth it to shave a bit off the home value just to be able to have something to laugh about all year round. Because yes folks, this display stays out all year long. Evidently the main character stays in the yard but the scene around him changes with the seasons.

So say hello to your neighbors once in awhile and thank them for being normal and helping to keep your house standing in good condition (or not depending on your personality).

Pig in the yard

Forty years ago. Lots of people gathered for music and fun at Woodstock. It’s amazing that in the turbulent times of the late 60s when violence and protests were occurring throughout the world, that such a large gathering could be so peaceful. I guess that was what that generation was going for. At Woodstock we got an earful of the hippie’s mantra of peace, love, and happiness. (Not that that is a bad thing, mind you.) But let’s be serious, when it comes right down to it, it was mostly drugs that affected that crowd and the memory of that event. (Not the bad brown acid though as the crowd was told to keep away from that stuff.)

Looking back on the event now, many would say that a lot of the musicians who were there usually gave excellent performances. But they didn’t necessarily perform well during those three days. And some of the best acts of the day weren’t even there. Santana was peaking on mescaline during his performance. Others were high, too, or the weather affected the equipment, or they were out of tune. But do we think of Woodstock as a musical failure? No. Why not? Because the attendees were all high. And because the now baby boomer generation loves to look back on their youth and think that everything they did was the most groundbreaking, wonderful thing that any of us could ever imagine.

Forgive my mini rant here. As a gen Xer I’m tired of our nation being run by the boomers and now the millennials. My generation is doing some pretty neat things as well but we’re being overlooked. So get out of our way you anti-establishment, turned materialistic, ethics-lacking, social security sucking generation. We’ve elected an African-American president, worked our way through three or more recessions, upgraded to iPods, and now have to figure out how to survive without our retirement funds. If you still want to make a difference in this world, start with how we can afford you in your old age. I found a pretty funny quote that the WSJ wrote in 1969 after the festival. “It would be a curious America if the unwashed, more or less permanently stoned on pot or LSD, were running very many things.” 

So enough 21^st century protesting (via blog). I was just a baby when this festival was going on. And I had a dorm mate in college whose parents took her to Woodstock as a baby. We’ve heard the stories, learned about equality and justice, loved the music (as heard through better recordings), and appreciate the sentiment of the time. I guess it’s always nice to look back at events that shaped our history. But as the stories my friends tell of our youth seem to grow and get more interesting than what really happened, I wonder how much of the past is revisionist fiction vs. just mud, bad music, and hallucinations. Happy 40^th anniversary of Woodstock and by the way, Joe Cocker is awesome. Just ask my friends about my famous imitations of him.

Have you ever gotten a “Dear John” type of letter? The reason I ask is because lately I’ve been thinking a lot about communications and the kind of impact it has on our lives. The media is a whole other conversation (don’t get me started), so I’m going to talk about us as individuals. People use various mediums to communicate—e-mail, postal mail, phone calls, Facebook, face-to-face, notes passed in class, as well as other people (lawyers and our friends in sixth grade come to mind). Some people like to talk a lot, others deal with conflicts straight-out, and others…many of us I’m afraid, don’t communicate well at all. And I don’t mean you have to be a great orator or writer, but there are skills you can use, develop, and hone to strengthen your relationships with people.

Over the years I’ve become a better communicator mostly by learning from others. Not just the excellent writers and editors I’ve had the privilege to work with, but also friends, supervisors, and family. I’m not perfect at this but I’ve learned how much better it is to deal with conflicts instead of ignoring them.

While up in Michigan, I observed my family in action. My aunt Sandy was telling me stories of her childhood and how in her family, you always knew where you stood. My cousins (Sandy’s sons) on the other hand sometimes deal with conflict head-on but are often passive aggressive—I think they do it on purpose to annoy their mom. For example, one day my cousin John called his mom, Sandy, to let her know that her car that was back in Detroit wouldn’t start. (We’ll skip over the expletives that went on over how he knew that.) She then called her other son, Michael, to ask him to take the car in to the shop for her. He hemmed and hawed and she told him that she would pay for it; he just needed to send the bill to her. In typical Andrews smart-alec fashion he then asked, “Do you have a stamp?” More expletives. When the letter came two days later Michael wrote “Dufus” on the return address. Boy it’s fun watching other families communicate.

And while taking a little “booze cruise” with the neighbors, I had to laugh at all the old stories. Here we were, several generations of families that have been neighbors (and on and off again friends) for the past 70 odd years. Some of the stories were about how our grandparents and other neighbors fought—cutting off access to each other’s houses just because they felt like it, not talking to each other until someone had a heart attack, pinning a list of “why you’re going to hell” on someone’s door, and last but not least, going to court. But there were also stories of friends helping each other. Like the one when Nancy helped George pull his car out of the woods at two in the morning—no questions asked, or how Marilyn befriended a lonely new bride, Sandy, or how Scott and Marc took us on a nice boat cruise to watch the sunset. It makes me think how great it is that I have nice neighbors here in VA. It makes life so much nicer.

And in an awkward segue, another reason I was thinking about communication is because on my walks I kept seeing funny mailboxes. We spend so much time e-mailing and texting people now that the postal mail is going out of style. Personally, I love sending and receiving letters and cards. And I love when people put an emphasis on their postal mail. We can’t lose out on the personal nature of cards and how much they can lift the spirits of our loved ones.

Up in the Walloon Lake area the houses are so off the beaten track that each family has put up a little sign on a tree so the mail carrier would know how to find their house. And the mail carrier lady that worked that route was so nice; she threw out biscuits to Grendel and some of the dogs as she delivered those precious packages. Communication can happen in lots of ways both good and bad. And how we communicate can make a huge difference in our lives.

So keep talking people. In the end, it’s our relationships that matter. (And funny mailboxes.)