Category Archives: Events

Titration and Me

14 Thursday Jul 2016

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Six months ago I entered a sleep study. I thought I was sleeping well, getting my eight or nine hours a night of solid sleep, usually interrupted by a brief trip down the hall once a night. Jan encouraged the decision, asserting that she was tired of finding me taking time-outs from breathing. There was also the occasional early morning when I would awaken with severe chest pain and a pulse sub-30 bpm. The first night of the study was miserable—noisy, hard mattress, wires attached to nearly every part of my body, but the technician was glad to let me know that I had slept the required three hours, I did indeed have sleep apnea (which I have known for years), and I would need to return someday to have a titration study.

Titration is a laboratory method of quantitative chemical analysis that is used to determine the unknown concentration of an identified analyte. I expected that the only time this would become important in my life would be the study of concentrations of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. It turned out that the study of oxygen saturation in my blood had become the issue, since 70% was probably not enough.

I didn’t hear anything back from anyone for two months, so I judged that I was in the clear, but Jan thought I should check with someone about the titration study schedule. Unfortunately I had just been overlooked, and they wanted me to have the study after all, so it was scheduled for two months later. Then a cancellation occurred, and they wanted me to come in and fill it six weeks early. When I reported for the study, the cancellation had been a mistake, the other person had shown up, and I was sent home again, but not for long. A few nights later they were ready for me again.

On the night of the titration study, in the same hard bed and with the same wiring attached, I tried out three different facial devices, attached to a “Continuous Positive Airway Pressure” pump to provide breathing assistance during sleep. If the hospital space was noisy or not, it did not matter, because the facial devices, from the “nose pillows” to the “nasal mask” to the “nose and mouth mask” made enough noise and leaked enough to keep me from sleeping and make the results ambiguous. Nonetheless, the physician in charge wrote a prescription for a Bi-PAP machine (with a two stage pressure setting) and the last mask that I tried, and soon I had one to use for a three month trial. The mask did not fit well, so after three weeks, I exchanged it for another. Although it fit better, the machine and mask still made getting to sleep difficult, and they still woke me a dozen or more times every night for the next three weeks.

At that point, only my wife’s faith and the encouragement of three people who had successfully adapted to the use of the devices kept me from dropping the whole project. I had to admit there were already two benefits—Jan was sleeping better, and I had not experienced chest pain or extra-slow heart rate for the last three weeks.

Three months after the original titration study, I am doing better. The supervising physician is happy that I have met the required “four plus” hours of BiPap use every night. At the time of my appointment, they had not seen the results of the continuous wi-fi monitoring system, because the medical equipment people had not bothered to connect me to my physician’s office (and the office had not requested it). A few hours later they adjusted the pressure on my machine upwards, so, presumably, my “titration” has finally occurred. At least the rough indicators of better oxygen saturation –fewer episodes of breathing interruptions—were not yet where they wanted them to be, at twenty per hour instead of five, so they have increased the pressure setting. There is yet hope. Having “qualified” for further attention, since I am “compliant,” I have another chance to get a better-fitting mask and possibly even more adjustments that increase the oxygen saturation in my blood. I am sleeping better, almost as well as when I started. Thank you to my medical insurers for their investment of fourteen thousand dollars, and counting.

This is not a problem. It is a learning experience. I am smiling. Maybe you will, too, if you ever have a sleep study.

Voting for a Compromise Nominee

07 Saturday May 2016

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Chicago skyline 1970

For the first election in which I was eligible to vote, 1968, I began the year as a supporter of Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy, the anti-Vietnam War candidate for President. Only a handful of political leaders took on the challenge to oppose the war. The opinion polls indicated that a majority of U.S. citizens still supported the war even though the reasons for it changed with the calendar. Some military analysts stated that the U.S. would have to prosecute the war for another thirty years before any resolution could be expected. Already we had used more armaments than we had during the entire Second World War, and the prospects of suffering in Southeast Asia and loss of life for everyone involved would surpass that war if the analysts were correct.

When Bobby Kennedy joined the campaign, I did not immediately move to support him, even though I knew that he had a better chance of mounting a successful campaign than McCarthy. His willingness to join the war opposition seemed late and calculated, depending on the courage of McCarthy and others to clear the way. Nonetheless I knew that I would vote for Kennedy when the time came. Sirhan Sirhan removed that possibility in the wake of the successful Kennedy campaign in California.

Next came the Chicago convention and the disastrous clashes between demonstrators and police that alienated people on all sides. The convention nominated a stalwart and hard-working liberal, Hubert Humphrey, who in ordinary times would have seemed an outstanding selection to win the office. Humphrey had been supportive in his role as President Lyndon Johnson’s Vice President, but as a candidate he tried to conciliate between those who supported and those who opposed the war, without specifying changes in the conduct of it. Republican candidate Richard Nixon promised that he had a plan for ending the war, but he was no more specific in describing his plan than Humphrey. Perhaps, given Nixon’s history, people could have foreseen that his plan for ending the war involved a major escalation in waging it, doubling the deaths and destruction, but a majority of voters chose Nixon and his secret plan.

Having my own views of the histories of Nixon and Humphrey, I opted reluctantly to support Humphrey. In this first election I also decided to work for him, canvassing the precinct including our apartment in Hyde Park on Chicago’s south side. I volunteered at precinct headquarters and was assigned to a Mr. White, a distinguished Jewish gentleman. While we worked together in his precinct, he invited me into his home, my wife and me to join him and his wife for a meal, and to worship with them at their Reform synagogue.

Mr. White had endured through many decades of Chicago politics and somehow remained idealistic. His work for Senator Paul Douglas and Alderman Leon Despres had given him sufficient hope to keep at it. Somehow he had managed to negotiate the tortuous route between the Chicago Democratic “machine,” the needs of people in his precinct, and his sense of the larger world beyond the city. He and his wife were the only bright spots in what proved to be a disappointing election.

Playing with Dynamite

13 Wednesday Apr 2016

Posted by in Caring, Church, Death, Disabilities, Events, Growing up, Learning from mistakes, People, Small town life

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Monkeys see, hear, speak no evil, Bangra.com

Marty (not-his-real name) was one of my parishioners many years ago—memorable nonetheless. His life would have been a case study in oppositional defiance if anyone had chosen to examine it. His parents and siblings were “good church members”—steady, reliable, active in volunteering and supporting as well as anyone else, but Marty was a no-show in the church and in the community as long as I was acquainted with him.

His father was a World War II veteran and his brother had served in the army, but Marty first showed up looking for me when he learned that I had been a draft counselor, and Marty wanted to avoid the draft at all costs, not on any principled grounds, as this was during the Vietnam war, but just because he didn’t want to serve his country under any circumstances. His timing was right and he managed to slip between the cracks when the draft lottery was instituted.

Next came his girlfriend, seeking help in dealing with his bad moods and abuse, which, predictably when co-dependence is strong, escalated steadily. He lived with his under-age girlfriend in her mother’s home, which I naively assumed should make it easy for her and her mother to kick him out. No child was involved. Neither she nor her mother could carry out a resolution to make Marty behave or leave. It appeared that her mother was as emotionally tied to Marty as his girlfriend was. We talked about all of their options, legally and behaviorally and in seeking help, but they did not change anything. Marty continued to abuse them within their own house.

Marty had trouble keeping a job, mostly because he could not take orders or follow directions. He always knew better than anyone else how any job should be done, or he simply did not want to do the job in anyone’s time other than his own. In his favor, Marty was intelligent and curious enough to figure out many things, and well-meaning employers saw his potential, especially when they knew the rest of his family and attempted with their enabling persuasion to give Marty another chance. Marty went from job to job at a time when many young adults were having trouble finding a first job.

Marty’s record included any misdemeanor you can name—tickets for speeding, parking, noise, shoplifting, drunkenness, disorderly conduct. Someone was always bailing him out in one way or another, although I could not persuade people that this was not helping Marty accept responsibility. I tried to find him, to talk with him about the direction of his life, but he was more adept at avoiding me than I was in catching him. For a while I lost track of him and the newspaper carried no more news of his infractions. I had hope that he might be growing up. He and his girlfriend had a son. She had stopped calling me to ask for advice. Things might be working out, I thought. Certainly I knew that there were many people praying that they would.

The end came in an unusual way. Marty had worked for a man who cleared trees and prepared land for development, and he knew where the dynamite was stored. Marty broke into the building and stole some dynamite and decided to have some fun with it, blowing things up. He was successful. One of the first things he blew up was himself.

I officiated at Marty’s funeral. I said in passing that there were many ways that Marty played with dynamite. My words were not appreciated.

The Descent Into Hell

05 Tuesday Apr 2016

Posted by in canoeing, Events, Learning from mistakes, Life along the River

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Shannondale Community Center

When we can’t turn around and go back, when we have no choice but to go forward into a place where we do not want to be, when we find ourselves in that place and do not want to be there….

One stretch of the Current River has always been problematic for me and for those with me, either because of the weather that day in storm or miserable heat or some other unexpected development. Below Round Spring to Jerktail Landing is that stretch. Few signs of civilization are evident, and that in itself isn’t a problem as long as the trip is going well. The most redeeming feature of the ten miles is the Courthouse Cave with its beautiful large flow stone near the entrance, but that is only a short paddle below Round Spring. Long relatively straight vistas of the river follow with series of shoals that prove that you are in fact descending steeply into an area where the mountains seem to grow taller by the minute and deeper into wilderness. Beyond Jerktail is an equally long stretch to Two Rivers Landing.

My partner on one trip was Tom, a big, good-natured youth with a gentle heart. We had started out the day at the tail of ten canoes, but by the time we reached this stretch we were in the lead of many tired canoers, trying to set a pace that would get us to Jerktail Landing before dark. He had worn flip-flops, against my advice, and had lost one of them when we were collecting the gear from one of the overturned canoes of people in another group along the way, so his tender feet were suffering every time we had to find our way through the shoals and his weight meant that we had to step out of the canoe frequently onto the rocky river bottom.

We had set our take-out for Jerktail Landing, although this was the first time for the new Shannondale Director Jeff Fulk to go to Jerktail. The ten mile bus ride (towing the canoe trailer behind) down the narrow , winding, rutted gravel ridge road down to Jerktail Landing was no fun for him and his two young sons with him. After paddling all day we were all-in when we arrived at the large peninsula rockbar that was Jerktail, and the canoe behind us was just within sight. Our ten canoes were probably stretched out along the river about half a mile. Jerktail itself is more barren and desert-like and larger than any other rockbar on the river, and we had to paddle several hundred yards around the rockbar to reach the Landing. Right away when we reached the Landing, Tom and I were relieved to see the Shannondale bus, but we noticed that no one was standing around it. In fact the Landing appeared to be deserted until we saw some people at a distance standing and pointing toward the river shore.

Then we saw what they were pointing at—the largest diamondback rattlesnake I have ever seen , basking in the sun at the edge of the river in the middle of the landing area. It looked to me like it was big enough to be a python but it was unmistakably a diamondback rattlesnake, something I never expected to see nor hope ever to see again in the Ozarks. We did not approach the Landing but found a calm spot near the opposite bank to wait for the other canoes, wondering what we would do if the rattlesnake did not move.

We waited for a while until the snake decided to move, and it gradually made its way along the shore until well clear of the landing area before Tom and I and all of the rest of the canoes ventured to make our way toward the landing, and before Jeff and his sons left the security of the bus. It had only been a few minutes but, as time goes, it had seemed like hours.

Some years later Jeff told me that he had never made arrangements with another group for taking out canoes at Jerktail Landing. Nor did I ask for it.

 

 

The Ethan Allen Roast

11 Friday Mar 2016

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Shannondale Community Center

While we walked through the Rock House shortly after we moved in, Shannondale Director Jeff Fulk had noted in passing that the old overstuffed rocking chair with the springs sticking out of the seat had seen better days. No one could sit in it comfortably without one of the springs poking him in the wrong places. I thought he was probably right.

It happened a couple of days later, after we had been out working in the rain most of the day. When the time came for the campfire that evening, and the temperature was warm and inviting, we looked around for dry kindling, but most of the wood on the forest floor was well-soaked from the day’s downpour. The evening was too nice to waste after a nasty day, so we gathered around the campfire pit anyway. Jim Wilson was ready to tell some tales. The rest of us couldn’t compete, but we could add a few tidbits to keep him going. But what is a campfire circle without a campfire?

The old chair came to mind. Inside. Dry. Just a few yards away. I had a hatchet. I asked for a couple of volunteers to come with me. Soon we were lugging the old chair outside into the campfire area.

Some of the members of our party registered some reservations. Nonchalantly I noted that we had enough money to replace the chair. I chopped off a few pieces and got a fire going, enough to dry out some damp wood and keep it going. Then for whatever reason—I don’t remember—I left the scene. When I returned someone (or ones) had toppled the remainder of the chair onto the fire and the resulting blaze was reaching as tall as the bottoms of the pine tree overhead. Fortunately for us, the tree was still wet from the day. Fearing the worst I called for help to bring some buckets of water from the house, and we successfully dampened the blaze down to a manageable size before the tree above us caught fire.

 

To Hide from Storms at Shannondale

05 Friday Feb 2016

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We were camping at Shannondale, and I made arrangements for our group to take an evening tour of Round Spring Cave, courtesy of the National Park Service staff. The only problem was that the number of tour participants was limited, and we had one more person with us than the available slots for the tour. Art Klein had stayed at camp, and another youth or two, who were not fond of caves, had stayed with him. Dean Moberg volunteered to stay above ground and let the rest of us go on this spelunking adventure. He had gone before, and, although there is always more to see in such a dynamic and complex cave, he was willing for the rest of us to enjoy it this time. There would be another trip and another opportunity to tour the cave.

As the time for the tour approached we gathered near the cave entrance, and Ranger Ruth entertained us with some colorful stories from the area lore about sinkholes, caves, and Ozark culture, and we were glad to be in the cave overhang area when the rain began. Still, Dean dutifully stayed outside when the rest of us followed our guide into the cave. Some of our group were a bit jealous of Dean’s choice during our squeeze through the narrow channel of the first hundred yards, as uncountable numbers of bats flew past our ears on their way outside for the evening’s mosquito harvest.

Dean, meanwhile, returned to the parking lot and our cars and observed the onset of a powerful windstorm, maybe even a tornado, wondering whether the wind would do more than scatter tree limbs and branches and rock the car that was his only available shelter.

An hour or so later our group emerged to a different environment, with evidence of the storm all around us. Dean greeted us and assured us that everything was all right, although he had wondered for a while whether he would be blown away. We returned to our campsite and found the tents in various degrees of collapse and disarray, which Art and his crew had tried unsuccessfully to remedy. We decided to take advantage of Shannondale’s more dependable shelter for another night, grateful that most of us had been able to spend the time of the storm oblivious to the world outside and enjoying the amazing and utterly quiet world below.

We were grateful, too, to those who had braved the elements on our behalf. We could always count on Dean and Art.

One More ‘Stupidest Things I Have Ever Done’

04 Thursday Feb 2016

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Rock Creek Wilderness, Oregon

Returning to Shannondale along the Current River in Missouri was one of my fond dreams when I came to Zion Church in Burlington. Dean Moberg said that he also was eager to return, with his pleasant memories of getting to court his wife-to-be at that camp. Therefore, we planned a trip with Dean and Jeri, Art Klein, and several fine high school young people. We camped at Peaceful Point at Shannondale the first couple of days, did a service project—cleaning up and painting some camp facilities, and proceeded to canoe the river, putting in at Cedar Grove, canoeing to Pulltite in the morning, and reaching Round Spring in the late afternoon, a  twenty-mile trip  on the first day.

That year I had suggested  that we  do what I had done with other groups earlier, which was to carry food and gear with us in canoes, stay overnight on the river at one of the campgrounds or gravel bars, and canoe the next day another twenty miles to Two Rivers. The Current River’s… well…fast current, of course, had enabled this ambitious agenda with groups that were largely novices, as well as heavy rains on the days prior to previous trips. On this year of return, the river was quick, but not so quick, and the rains that came, came on the second day of our planned canoeing.

The second day opened gray and overcast, but seemingly warm enough, so “we” decided to go ahead with our planned trip, all the way to Two Rivers. (I don’t know if my enthusiasm was operative in the “we” or whether it was really a consensus.) We hadn’t been on the river more than ten minutes when the rain began, and, at first, it was gentle and warm. Not very long afterwards, it ceased to feel warm . Most of our group did not bring raingear. We stopped at a rock overhang and brought out the box of large garbage bags (along with duct tape, the other requirement for any trip we planned). At least everyone had an improvised raincoat for the rest of the trip. In addition to the dampness, the temperature began to fall.

Finding another rock overhang with just enough space for all of our group, and everyone beginning to be both tired and cold, we stopped for lunch.  We needed a break from paddling, the energy from the food and drink we had packed for the trip, and also warmth from somewhere. My matches were wet, but, fortunately we had smokers with us. Art used his lighter and the few items that were still dry to get a smoky fire going, providing just enough warmth to thaw us out a little, when we took turns standing near it.

We had no choice but to continue downriver. There was no place to pull out of this section of the river until we had paddled ten more miles to Two Rivers, where there was a store and a phone to reach our Shannondale driver, who would pick us up and save us from ourselves.

Our only hope to avoid hypothermia was to paddle like the devil and avoid the usual tipping of the canoes. Since these seemed too much to hope for, our only hope really was to pray like the…saints, even if we weren’t.

Never was I happier to have three determined adult helpers and a mostly good-natured and forgiving group of high school young adults. Together, urging each other on, we made it. When we finally reached Two Rivers and our Shannondale helper picked us up, I hurried to rent the Goat Barn for our overnight accommodations, instead of setting up our wet tents. We made liberal use of the hot showers and established the custom of closing our canoe trip with a visit to Salem’s Pizza Hut.

(Some readers may offer corrections to this memory and life-lesson; they are welcome!)

 

Becoming a Draft Counselor

18 Monday Jan 2016

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Chicago skyline 1970

I was almost finished with applications for conscientious objector status when a physician informed me that the question had no personal significance since I would not pass the physical examination anyway, even if I wanted to serve in a non-combatant role. Since I was opposed to the U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam, I looked for other constructive ways to be involved. In the fall of 1968, as we took up residence in Chicago and I continued graduate studies for ministry, I entered the American Friends Service Committee training for draft counselors.

Having training in law would have been an advantage in dealing with the selective service system and legal precedents in the cases that we studied, in order to give helpful information to people who came with concerns, both draft-eligible men and their families. Having more experience in counseling also would have been useful, but some of that came with the counselees as they presented their questions. Motivations and concerns varied greatly, and responding equitably and sympathetically to people who held different beliefs and values was challenging. Enough trained people participated as counselors that it was not overly demanding for each of us who entered the volunteer AFSC network, and that was important as I tried to balance all of the requirements of study, work, service to others, and being a new husband. It could have been much harder, and I still would not have faced a fraction of the hardships that several of my friends and family, and especially my family-members-to-be, were facing in Vietnam.

Those who came with questions included people who were conscientious objectors, people who were simply draft avoiders, people who wanted to help others in their family or friendship circles who were having trouble dealing with the variety in draft boards and their practices, people who were in the military service but unwilling to fight in Indochina, people who were already in trouble one way or another, and those who were interested in all the options that were available before they committed themselves. We all had a lot at stake, and, although I was glad that an all-volunteer force replaced the selective service system, finding ways to serve our country as good citizens was in front of all of us in ways that have not been matched afterward.

Serving our country as citizens remains a universal duty, but being willing to kill people who differ with us in perspective, who are not threatening us, as persons or as a nation, in any direct or meaningful way, is not justifiable. Often personal judgment must be set aside, but too often conscience has been set aside as well, in responding to the orders that come from a chain of command.

We are now in the gap between the Vietnam War’s foggy beginnings and ignominious ending fifty years ago. I still puzzle about how to honor those who served their country as soldiers and those who served their country as resistors, then and now. The phrases “serving our country” and “defending our freedoms” pass easily off the lips of many people. The reality is much more complicated and difficult.

The Youth Trip of a Lifetime

14 Thursday Jan 2016

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Last night I dreamed about a youth trip that didn’t turn out so well, but often I think about the scores of trips that I led (with the assistance of many helpers!!) that went better than I had any right to expect, and the first trip (led by others when I was seventeen) that set the stage for all of the rest. It was 1963, and a couple of Methodist minsters had a brainstorm that the Central Illinois Conference would send a bus-full of high school juniors and seniors to New York City and Washington, D.C., in January of 1964, to experience a seminar on religion and current events.  With their plan, they were braver than I ever became, but I was privileged to be on the bus. This was entirely due to the benevolence of my pastor at the time, Rev. Glen Sims, and a generous older member of my congregation at Paxton Methodist Church, Gladys White.  All of my expenses were paid.

Many of the teenagers on board that week knew each other from camps and youth fellowships, but we all got to know each other, and at least one became a friend for life. The bus travelled all day and night, and those couples who knew each other found not-so-quiet corners of the bus to expose their raging hormones during the long dark hours, but that was not me (or the aforementioned friend). I just noted the consternation of some of the adults who didn’t foresee this aspect of packing so many teens so closely together for so many hours.

We arrived in New York in time to attend worship and the site chosen was Marble Collegiate Church where Norman Vincent Peale was continuing to share his “power of positive thinking.” Peale’s center-stage style and the white-gloved, tuxedoed ushers made an impression.  There, too, some of the adults had preferences in other directions that were fulfilled when we visited Riverside Church and the Interchurch Center, headquarters at the time of the National Council of Churches and several denominational offices, and a Methodist Church in Manhattan that sponsored many outreach services to needy people.

The next two days saw us spending time at the United Nations and the Church Center for the United Nations, where we heard presentations and engaged in discussions about current affairs involving church interests, especially the Conventions on Human Rights that were in the process of development. We stayed in small crowded rooms in a hotel just off Broadway, and we must have eaten somewhere, but, surprisingly for me and my appetite, I do not remember any food. I do remember our exposure to Charles Wells, a Pennsylvania Quaker who posted a newsletter to which I promptly subscribed until he retired years later and my subscription transferred to his compatriot , I. F. Stone.

We again boarded the bus for the shorter trip to Washington, D.C., where our itinerary took us on a tour of the White House and several sights—the Lincoln Memorial, of course—and we listened to church lobbyists at the Methodist center across the street from both Capitol and the Supreme Court. Desegregation, plans for the war on poverty under the new president, Lyndon Johnson, and international affairs in the Cold War were high on the agenda. We went across the street for a meaningful discussion with Illinois Senator Paul Douglass, who supported the U.N. Conventions, but did not see a path for their early approval, and another but less meaningful meeting with Senator Everett Dirksen, whose memorable words focused on his sympathy for us being there in winter and missing the cherry blossoms in bloom. The Soviet Embassy provided an interesting stop, and I was impressed with the many publications in English and the ambassador’s efforts to impress us with how friendly and progressive Russians could be. In the light snow of a gray afternoon, we visited Arlington Cemetery, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, and freshly turned earth and eternal flame of President John F. Kennedy, whose efforts I had just begun to appreciate when he was assassinated.

I did not realize at the time how much of my world shifted during that week, how much larger it became, how many of my thoughts about church, state, national and international concerns began. We talked for a while as the bus turned toward Illinois, but mostly we slept. We were very tired.

[C1]

Sneaking into the Christmas Gifts

16 Wednesday Dec 2015

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Happy Holidays.

My brother and I never had a reason to be in my parents’ bedroom when they were not there. The room was upstairs in a ‘newer’ wing of the hundred-some year-old farmhouse where we grew up. We gained access to the bedroom by going through the bathroom that replaced one of the three tiny bedrooms of the original story-and-a-half cabin. (You might say that it became the ‘Master Suite’ except that there was only one ‘inside’ bathroom in that house, and everyone used it when it worked, which was only part of the time.) Obviously my parents were not at home when we went into their bedroom. My older brother, David, must have been about thirteen, and me, eight, when this event occurred. We felt safe in sneaking in.

David thought he knew where the Christmas gifts must be kept—in the little closet at the far end of the bedroom. He opened the door and rummaged through the clothing and shoes to get to the hidden part of the closet, and he said that—sure enough—there were packages back there. Did I want to see what I was getting?

Of course, I wanted to see. What was I doing in that room with him if I didn’t want to see what I was getting for Christmas? What eight year old boy wouldn’t want to know ahead of time? At that moment something told me not to look and not to ask and not to let him tell me. I shrank from knowing ahead of the time how my parents wanted to surprise me.

My brother became a generous man. Perhaps it was an early manifestation of his generosity that he was sharing with me this escapade into sneakerdom. He certainly didn’t have to include his bothersome little brother in this opportunity. He didn’t need me as an accomplice either. It is not clear in my memory that my mother discovered this intrusion into the back corners of her closet, but she was observant and she probably did, and my brother probably paid for the infraction of unwritten Christmas rules with the humiliating insight that he could not be trusted in that day’s responsibility.

Among the many gifts coming from my parents that I do remember from those childhood years, I do not remember what I received on that particular Christmas, except the knowledge that I could be tempted, and that finally I could resist the temptation of knowing what I wasn’t supposed to know ahead of time. I could wait and be patient and learn in due time. That, and what my brother learned, were the most important and memorable gifts from that Christmas.