Howard

There was never a time in my earliest years that his life was not a part of mine. Just a month or two younger than me, Howard was my cousin, my best friend, my brother. During those earliest years of my life, it was as if our lives melded together to form one. I loved him as much as one little person could love another, as much as I loved even myself.

His mother and my father were brother and sister. They had come from a dysfunctional family, dysfunctional at best, and, other than their elderly mother, each one was all the other had of that family. There were some relatives, but they had little contact with them. They were each married and they each had four children, all of comparable ages. They each had three boys and a girl. Our families lived near each other in Western Oklahoma during the post-war years of the late 1940s. The brother and sister were both born and raised in Beckham County and they were raising their respective families essentially as they had been raised since that was all they knew.

My parents were farmers, a hardscrabble life then and there, barely a decade removed from the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. Howard’s parents had already given up on farming and they worked for the small dependent school called Hext. It was a very small country school which had only eight grades when Howard and I started the first grade there in 1950. His dad worked as custodian and drove a school bus; his mom was one of two cooks who prepared our lunches.

Most of my preschool memories involve and include Howard. We shared time in each other’s homes. We picnicked together, went to school functions together and had sleep overs. They lived in a small house across the road from the school. It was furnished by the school as part of the compensation package for their services to the school. There were times when we would spend the night at each other’s homes. Three boys in each family, when we spent the night together we usually managed to sleep in one bed, three sleeping at the head of the bed and three at the foot.

A very early memory is documented by an old black and white picture. It is of a picnic in the summer of 1946 or 1947 at the Sayre public park. The old photograph shows Howard and me, together with his older brother, Charles, playing in the wading pool. It shows Howard being his same goofy self and me trying my best to mimic him. It was usually that way. I thought he was the neatest kid I had ever known. What he said was always funny. What he did was always important. Whether we were getting into some mischief or simply walking down the sandy, country road, it was always a joy to be with him. I had two older brothers with whom I was very close, but Howard was special.

We started in the first grade together in 1950 at Hext, that small country school which went to the eighth grade. We were in the first grade in a classroom that housed both the first and second grades, taught by Mr. Berry. She was an adequate teacher for the day, but the memories I have are not of what she taught. They are, instead, memories of recess when Howard and I would play together. We would see how high we could get on the swing set and how hard we could hit the ground on the see-saw, now called teeter-totters. How fast could we run and how much could we tease the girls?

Hext wasn’t just a school, it was a community. There was some organized boxing in the county, so Hext decided to host a boxing tournament. The building had been built around a gymnasium. Built by the WPA, it had two classrooms on either end of the gym, bleachers on one side and stage and restrooms on the other. A boxing ring was set up on the basketball court and there were fights far into the night. Howard and I, both pre-school age, were encouraged to get into the ring and fight. Howard didn’t want to and neither did I. We both adamantly refused to fight for other people’s amusement. The more I think about that, the more outrageous it is that these people wanted us, a couple of four or five year olds, to fight each other.

That first year in school was a glorious year as far as I was concerned. I got to see Howard every day. We sat next to each other in class, went to lunch together, played together during recesses and generally did everything as a single person. I loved him with all my heart.

During our first years of school, Howard’s parents made a major and life-changing decision. They decided to move 150 miles away to Oklahoma City. His father and mine are a study in contrasts in some ways. They were very close. As far as my father was concerned, he never had a brother so this, his brother-in-law, became his brother. They were brothers in every sense of the word. Now, with similar families and children close in age and identical in number, they made different choices for those families. Uncle Glen made a decision that his family would be better off if he moved them to the large city and raised them there. My father made a decision that his family would be better off if he kept them on the farm and associated with a small town environment. Sixty years later, who’s to say which one was right and which one was wrong. Or, was either of them wrong? They both provided for their families in their chosen way and it appears both families flourished.

Howard’s leaving had a heart-breaking effect on me. I moped around the house. Gone were the days when we would run over to the Bowen’s for an evening visit. There was no getting together to make home-made ice cream. No picnics. When school started again, I went into the second grade and Howard’s absence was not lost on me. I was disinterested in school. I wasn’t causing any trouble, I was just there, oblivious of most things around me. Mrs. Berry complained to my mother and was told that I was just having a difficult time adjusting to Howard’s leaving for Oklahoma City. Mrs. Berry had a solution; she yanked me up from my desk and spanked me. I don’t think it had any lasting effect, either positive or negative.

We would see the Bowen family during the year, particularly in the summer. They would come to Erick to see my grandmother from time to time. And, we would go to Oklahoma City to visit them. In those days, it was not an easy thing to make that 150 mile trip. We planned weeks in advance. It was a long drive on those two lane roads and you didn’t run up there just to turn around and come home the same or even the next day. It was always painful to see them leave or for us to do the leaving at the end of one of these visits.

Occasionally, but not often, I would be allowed to spend a week or so with them in Oklahoma City. More often, Howard and his brother, Charles, would be allowed to spend a significant part of the summer with us on the farm. And when they were there they did what we did. If we were chopping cotton, feeding the hogs or milking the cows, they were there. If we went to Vacation Bible School, they were there. And, if we stopped to pick blackberries at my grandparents after VBS, they were there. It wasn’t all work. There was a lot of play. We rode our old horse, Lady, everywhere. We would go to the river and play in the water. We ran all over that farm.

Once when we were visiting them in Oklahoma City, Howard and I were riding a bicycle on a busy street where we probably should not have been. We heard a roar and then saw a plane pass over our head and crash into the back yard of the house next to us. We went back there and saw the plane and the body parts scattered all over the yard. It had hit nose first, coming nearly straight down into the ground so that the wreckage was contained in that single back yard. I remember seeing a torso lying there. Various limbs, also. There was one head that we could see. Two people had been in the plane and it was a gruesome sight for a couple of ten year old kids to see.

It seemed Howard and Charles spent significant amounts of the summer with us each year. They fit in and did whatever we did. We lived on the farm, in a small farm house. Each summer we would move our beds outside. We didn’t have air conditioning and it was cooler outside. Besides, the house was so small the addition of other children pretty well filled it up. But, they seemed to love being there as much as we loved having them. Charles was the first to get a little older and too busy with his own life to continue making these summer visits.

One summer, Uncle Glen and Aunt Laura came to Erick to see her mother who was getting along in years and was in failing health. She would live only a few more years. Howard was with them. By this time, he was their only child young enough to still be going with them places. They spent the weekend there and the day they were going to leave we were working on plans for him to stay a little longer. We had a camping trip planned to go to Colorado. We loved camping in the Rocky Mountains and would spend quite a bit of time on these trips. They were work on Mom and Dad, especially her, but it was something she enjoyed. The change in scenery from the flat lands of Western Oklahoma to the grandeur of the Rockies was always awe inspiring. It was a big deal to get to go to Colorado and spend two or three weeks.

We floated the idea with my parents of Howard’s going with us to Colorado. They didn’t mind at all. We asked his mother and her first reaction was to say no. We continued to try to wear her down and she finally asked Glen what he thought. He wasn’t really a quiet man, except when Laura was around. She did most of the talking for the both of them. Uncle Glen thought about it briefly and then said, “Well, I’ll tell you what I think. If I had a chance to go to Colorado and my mother didn’t let me, I’d probably hate her the rest of my life.” Howard went with us. It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable trips I ever had. I walked familiar trails, explored familiar sights. I did all the things I did every year, but this time it was special. This time Howard was with me.

As we got older, the high school years saw a distance growing between the two of us. Our grandmother died in 1961 and they came back to Erick less often after that. And we were busy so we went to Oklahoma City less often. Howard’s life, like mine, was getting more involved and he didn’t come with them so often. And after we grew up and had our own families, we went years without seeing each other. We finally reached the reality of most families which have allowed distance to grow between them; we saw each other at funerals.

My father was the first to die and Howard and his family, including Aunt Laura and Uncle Glen and all their children, were there to share our grief. Uncle Glen died and it broke our hearts. And then, in 2007, my mother died. Once again, Howard and his family were there. Recently, Aunt Laura’s second husband, Dutch, died. My sister and I went to his funeral. We really didn’t know him, but we did know Aunt Laura. She is the only one left in the family of that generation, the only child of the Depression who remains in the family of William Waldren and Della Poarch. William and Della had two children, Aunt Laura and my dad. She is the only one left. We went to the funeral because that’s what families do, because that’s what my mother would have done had she still been alive.

When I was very young, I had a small picture of Howard who was about six years of age when it was taken. It showed a little boy in blue jeans and a striped T-shirt looking up at the camera. That was a heart-warming picture, just a precious image of a precious little boy. I loved that picture and would have even if I had not loved the little boy. I carried that picture with me far into my adult years. And, then, somewhere in the confusion of my life, it was gone.

I saw Howard at Dutch’s funeral. He was carrying his new little granddaughter, proudly showing her off to me and everyone else. It was a poignant moment filled with pleasure and pride. And in that moment I saw a generational shift in the family. But, I also saw that little boy in the picture, the cousin of my youth. And I was reminded of how I loved him.

The Wind

Where I live, the wind blows. And blows. And blows. And blows. The Great Plains of the American West is a large area consisting primarily of grass lands. The traditional forested area of the Continental United States, the great deciduous forests, was primarily situated east of the Mississippi River, and they play out a relatively short distance west of its western bank. From there to the Rocky Mountains is the area known as the Great Plains.

Large herds of bison, the American buffalo, migrated over these plains, moving where the grazing took them. Infrequent water holes, creeks and rivers imbedded in their genetic memory, they survived the great climatic changes that wiped out so many other giant omnivores. And, they survived the great carnivores which reigned over the continent in prehistoric times. For at least 10,000 years, nomadic people walked these plains, following the bison which they used for food, clothing and shelter. From the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, a vast sea of grass, there were few trees or other natural breaks to prevent the blowing of the wind.

The things that cause the wind are the natural weather patterns. There are other areas on the globe which have windy conditions as well, and they probably have their own unique conditions also. On the Great Plains, the Arctic weather moves unchecked down across the plains in Canada, gains momentum and moves, sometimes with violence, down through the United States. This cold, dry air meets with the warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, the combined form being pushed by the natural flow of weather patterns from the Pacific Northwest to the Atlantic Coast, and when the two weather patterns meet their union can cause violent turbulence which creates the wind.

When my mother was in her late 70s, I, who was at the time in my 50s, asked her when one gets used to the wind around here. Her reply was a simple, “You never get used to it.” She had endured it all those years and, now, so have I. She lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s, a child coming of age in the heart of the Dust Bowl. She had experienced not only the wind, but the wind carrying with it the dirt and dust and topsoil of a multi-state area. One dust storm originating in Eastern Colorado and Western Kansas swept south through Oklahoma and moved from there, curling in an eastward direction, and made it all the way to the Eastern Seaboard. Dust and soil from the Great Plains had traveled over 2,000 miles on that day’s journey.

When she was young, it wasn’t just the wind. It was the wind and the dust, the choking, killing dust. And the constant blowing of the wind had caused more than one person to literally go crazy. I have seen similar dirt storms in the 1950s. They weren’t nearly so bad as what people endured twenty years earlier, but those kids who had endured the winds and the dust of the ‘30s were now the adults, responsible for their own safety and survival and that of their children as well. Remembering the earlier days of devastation, they were frightened at the prospect of a new round of dust bowl days. Schools closed and they sent us home where we weathered the storms the same way our parents had when they were young.

The wind was blowing this week. Thirty miles per hour, it was a balmy day for around here. At forty to fifty miles per hour things were blowing. My son and I were mowing our yard with riding mowers, a dirty job. And, behind our place was an eighty acre field a farmer was plowing with heavy equipment, trying to turn some moist earth up to the top in an effort to hold it and prevent it from blowing away.

Years ago, a friend of mine moved to Oklahoma from Memphis. He told me to never complain about the wind. He claimed the wind cleansed the air. Later, I drove my family from Oklahoma to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. About one hundred miles west of St. Louis, we picked up a smog, the likes of which I had never seen before. We crossed the Mississippi River and the smog stayed with us. It was industrial smog which made breathing difficult. My sinuses burned, my eyes burned and my lungs burned. The sun was blocked from view and the sky was a darkened, ugly gray. There was no wind and the particles in the air hung heavy on us and in us. The haze collected in our lungs. We drove on to Indianapolis where we spent the night. It was difficult to sleep because breathing was labored. The haze followed us to Detroit were we spent a couple of days visiting relatives. As we drove out of Detroit, making our way to the Mackinaw Bridge, we were still under its dark and ominous cast. We finally drove out from under the haze two to three hundred miles north of Detroit. “Don’t ever complain about the wind,” my friend had said, “it cleans the air.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., died on this date forty-three years ago, in 1968. His life was the twin of a movement witnessed by me and my contemporaries, witnessed by myself at first with suspicion and then with acceptance, approval and embrace. And as my own views of the movement evolved, so did my views of the man and mankind.

He was an American Christian clergyman. An incomparable preacher and orator, his cause was justice, first for the African-Americans and then the poor of this country. Social justice was more for him than a mere slogan, it was a cause for which he lived and died. To fully appreciate the work of King, one must be fully aware of the injustices suffered by the African-Americans of his day, both as a social policy of the Federal and State governments and as a result of social behavior neither ordained nor approved by political subdivisions. People now and in succeeding generations should remind themselves of the well-documented plight, the suffering, of African-Americans. Writings of the day, together with cinema and pictures, clearly enlighten us of their plight. Pictures of public lynchings of Black men with smiling, happy and contented onlookers are the ultimate commentary on the discrimination of that era. We assume, as Americans, that we cannot be deprived of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” without due process of law. We assume this, even though it seldom crosses our minds that our “life” can or may be taken from us. African-Americans could not make such assumptions from the day the first slaves were taken from Africa and sold into the New World to the post-World War II era of America. And, this is the ultimate of deprivation of social justice for an entire people. We must keep this portrait in our minds to understand the early works of King for social justice.

His later years would expand his awareness of suffering beyond the Black community, to people suffering from poverty in this, the richest and greatest of all nations. Again, documentary evidence of the poverty of interurban slums and rural disaster areas should give us an understanding of the suffering of the poor in America. He interpreted this as a social injustice every bit as much as discrimination based on race, and our failure to so interpret it today shows how calloused we have become, politically and socially, toward the weakest among us. King held out hope for a better nation and a better people.

Using his skills, knowledge and wisdom as a clergyman, he called for us to act more Christ-like. He looked toward a day when we could and would achieve something akin to a city set on a hill, a light for the world. He looked forward to a new world when people would stop their meanness and mean neglect of others, to a day when the little white child and the little black child would play together, judging each other by the content of their hearts. He looked forward to a day in a new world when we would hurt when we saw people suffering with too little food, clothing or shelter, when we saw sick people suffering for inadequate healthcare. He looked forward to a day when we would no longer walk on the backs of our fellow man and would extend a hand of fellowship and brotherhood to lift him up to stand with us in our fellowship with God.

"I know you are asking today,” he said, “ ‘How long will it take?’

“Somebody's asking, ‘How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?’

“Somebody's asking, ‘When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?’

“Somebody's asking, ‘When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?’

“I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because ‘truth crushed to earth will rise again.’

“How long? Not long, because ‘no lie can live forever.’

“How long? Not long, because ‘you shall reap what you sow.’

"How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."

Israel

Just a little on the heavy side of “middle-aged,” I had occasion to spend the better part of a week attending the wedding of a niece on my wife’s side. We arrived three or four days early because She Who Must be Obeyed had to be involved with her sisters, one of whom was the mother of the bride, in pulling off this affair of the heart. It was a beautiful wedding.

The bride’s aunt, on her father’s side, was there from Chicago with her “significant other.” His name was “Israel.” The mother of the bride and her two sisters were in their element. Each was planning the wedding, the dinner the night before and the reception afterwards. They were planning jointly and severally and were kind enough to include the sister of the father of the bride in their sessions.

The father of the bride had his own assignments which, as most men’s assignments are in a wedding, were seemingly important but essentially meaningless. You can’t ignore the father of the bride, but you don’t have to allow him to have any actual input. The other brother-in-law was something of an artist and a photographer who had some ideas which were helpful to the Three Sisters, not that they would ever acknowledge the suggestions were beneficial—they would simply listen discretely and act on it later when it could appear to be one of their own ideas. And, then, there was me. And, Israel.

We were situated in Southeast Oklahoma and Israel was from Chicago. His culture was different from ours. He was a little older and he probably had some misgivings about this strange group of people from an area we affectionately call “Little Dixie.” Since he and I had no actual purpose for being there, I was given a two-fold assignment: 1) Keep Israel with me, and 2) stay out of the way. It turned out to be a delightful assignment.

Israel, in his 70s at the time, stood about five feet, six or seven inches tall. And, he was about as round as he was tall. He was a jovial little man who spoke with an Eastern European accent. Bald headed, if he had had a white beard he would have made a perfect Santa. Except that he likely didn’t celebrate Christmas. Israel was a Jew.

As far as I could tell, he was a practicing Jew, although he didn’t seem to press issues I might have expected. But, to be fair, I really had little experience of contact with people of Jewish heritage. In the small town in which I was raised, there were two Jewish families. They ran one of the local dry goods stores which was the only place I ever saw them. If they were ever involved in the social structure of Erick, it was somewhere and in some way that our paths would have never crossed. I understood at the time that they went to Synagogue in another town which afforded them an opportunity to associate with their Jewish community.

Israel was a little quiet at first, but he quickly warmed and opened more, revealing himself, his history and life. After a few days, he was comfortable enough to tell me his story. It started on the second day when he asked me if I could tell him about my name. To me, it isn’t anything special. I told him I really didn’t know much about it. He very calmly and humbly asked if I was Jewish. “No,” I replied. “I was named after my father’s best friend who fought in World War II. His name was Hershel Sloan.” I explained that I did not know if the Sloans were Jewish. He asked me if I wanted to know what the name meant. “It means ‘Beloved one of God,’” he said. I had always had a fondness for the name, but only because my father had chosen me to honor his childhood friend. Israel added another dimension.

On the third day he was comfortable enough to tell me his story. He was a youngster in Poland when it was invaded by Germany. He was a captive of the Germans and he and his entire family were taken to a concentration camp. He was about 11 years old when he was taken to Auschwitz where he was kept until the liberation near the end of the war in 1945. He told of the hardships, the cold, the hunger and the labor. Never complaining about his lot, he told his story in a matter-of-fact manner. There were no tears as he told the story, as the tears were all shed years earlier. And then one day, a group of Jews were rounded up to be taken to another place to work. As he and his other family members were standing in line to go to the new location, his mother told him to go back in the barracks and get his coat, or what passed for a coat. When he returned to the barracks the people inside didn’t allow him to leave. He tried to get back to his family but they forcibly retained him until the group was dispatched. Of course, they were not going to another work location, they were going to the “showers” (gas chambers) and the crematoriums. He never saw them again.

Israel showed me the numbers tattooed on the inside of his arm, just above the wrist. He looked quietly at them, telling the story of his liberation and his coming to America. He told me of his marriage, his children and his business life. These were all important to him, but he spoke poignantly of that period in his young life when he was a captive in a concentration camp because he was a Jew.

We spent hours driving throughout Southeastern Oklahoma looking at the scenery, which is unusually beautiful for that time of year. We attended the wedding and then the reception. The bride and groom had provided to have a karaoke at the reception and we all took turns singing. I asked the D.J. if he had “Sunrise, Sunset” from Fiddler on the Roof. He had it and I invited Israel to join me. There we were, two fat, bald-headed men, one short and one taller, one old and one older, singing to the bride.

Is this the little girl I carried?

Is this the little boy at play?

I don't remember growing older

When did they?

When did she get to be a beauty?

When did he grow to be so tall?

Wasn't it yesterday

When they were small?

Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly flow the days

Seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers

Blossoming even as we gaze

Sunrise, sunset

Sunrise, sunset

Swiftly fly the years

One season following another

Laden with happiness and tears

Israel departed the next day and headed back home to Chicago. His health was failing but he had hidden it well for those celebrations. I corresponded with him a couple of times and wanted to go see him. But, like so many people, perhaps most, I put it off, waiting for a more convenient time. Finally, I heard that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s and shortly thereafter heard that it had taken a very grave turn. Quickly he had become stricken with that damnable disease and he got to where he did not even know his own children. It broke my heart to hear that. And I regretted that I had not gone to see him.

I would soon learn that he was departed from this life. I regret that I did not get to know Israel better; that I did not have an opportunity to spend more time with him. And, that I had not taken advantage of the time I did have. I wish I had asked him if it would have been appropriate to have his numbers tattooed on my arm in his honor. I haven’t done that. I simply don’t know if it would be appropriate.

A great read.. heartwarming and inspiring..

(I have never posted someone else's writings in this blog. But, this is so execellent and I do not know how else to get it out to other people. Therefore, I am taking the liberty to post it and encourage others to read it. I will link it to facebook and email a link to as many as I can. --HF) STEVE JOBS CEO, Apple & Pixar Animation (This is a commencement speech that Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, gave at Stanford University in 2005. In it, Steve recounts three personal stories and his advocacy of 'following your heart and doing what you love to do.') I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That’s it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: “We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky — I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn’t know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down – that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me — I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn’t see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I returned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple’s current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I’m pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn’t been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don’t lose faith. I’m convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don’t settle. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now. This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960′s, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.” It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. Thank you all very much.

First Dental Visit

I recently went to a new dentist. I like to change every so often, thinking that someday I might find one who could work wonders without costing me an arm and a leg. I have horrible teeth. They were always straight, but there was a bite that caused them to wear each other out. They always say it is caused by grinding my teeth, but I don’t think so. I think it is just the way they hit each other. It is the same bite causing the wear on teeth that my father had to contend with. But, he died young so the wear didn’t get as bad as what I am experiencing. They are wearing off down to the gum. They can be fixed. But, the last estimate I had was $30,000.00 and that was nearly ten years ago. It would probably be more like $40,000.00 today and at my age, 66, with my level of health, fair to OK, I see no reason to spend that kind of money.

I credit my problems to the bite which is something my father passed down to me through his genetics. And, another thing I suspect may have contributed to it was penicillin. Penicillin had just been discovered, or invented, when I was born. Suffering from serious ear infections, I received 21 consecutive daily injections of this new wonder medicine as a tiny infant. I’m not sure this didn’t tend to weaken the enamel on my still forming teeth.

My latest dentist was doing a review of the condition of my teeth. There is not a tooth in my head that doesn’t have a cap or a crown or a filling. A majority of them have had a root canal. And still they look like they belong to a hillbilly from the mountains who has never seen a dentist. Or, a meth addict. He was inspecting each tooth and his aid was keeping notes. He was giving the number of each tooth when he came to an anomaly. He said it looked as if one was missing, however the space seemed to have filled with the other teeth pushing in. I told him there was one missing, it had been pulled when I was in my early teens.

It was my first visit to a dentist. A cavity had developed in one of my permanent molars and got steadily worse. It hurt from time to time with the pain getting more intense and more constant. Finally, one night I bit on a tube of toothpaste to squeeze out the last of the paste. Tubes of toothpaste in those days were made of aluminum rather than plastic and, for some reason I still don’t understand, chewing on aluminum will set off a toothache like nothing else. It hurt all night and the next day my mother announced she would be taking me to the dentist.

Roger Miller was raised in my small town. (Those who don’t know who Roger Miller is should ignore the foregoing sentence, or google his name.) He once said that we didn’t have a local drunk in Erick (our home town), so the boys took turns. That’s not really true; we had several. And Doc Bonefield, the local dentist, was one of them.

Mom took me to see Doc Bonefield the next morning. They lived in a nice house in town and his office was set up off the living room in what would ordinarily have been the dining room. Mom introduced us and told him of my complaint. He took me into his dental office, sat me in the chair and leaned me back. After laying out his tools, he stepped into an adjoining closet, retrieved a bottle of whiskey and took a large drink straight from the bottle. He returned and proceeded to pull the molar. Only one of us in that room had any deadening that day and it wasn’t the guy having his tooth yanked out.

I didn’t go back to the dentist for another twenty years. Another cavity resulted in an abscess. It was my own fault because I had discovered a toothache kit at the pharmacy and had used it to ward off the pain. I held off the pain all right, but it allowed the decay to get worse until the tooth could not be saved. Actually, it could have been saved but the dentist I used wasn’t much better than Doc Benefield. He liked to bend the tooth until it broke at the gum line; then he would cut the roots to separate them and dig them out individually. I lost two teeth to that barbaric treatment, but at least I enjoyed some deadening. The abscess was painful, but I was introduced to the wonder of codeine.

I eventually became concerned with the condition of my teeth and started seeking out better treatment. They look horrible and if anyone could see them, which I have learned to prevent, they would have no idea I have spent tens of thousands of dollars getting them to where they are today. I keep looking for a dentist to pull them and make me some dentures. But, they don’t want to do that. They all tell me what wonderful bone structure I have and how good the roots are. I haven’t been without pain in my mouth for ten or fifteen years, but I have great roots and bone structure. I recently changed dentists and asked the new one about pulling them. I got the same response, great bone structure and roots. He built them up some and improved them, but they still look like something from the 1920s or 30s.

I’ll bet Doc Bonefield would pull them.

Mordecai the Mortician

I never knew if Mordecai was his name or if that was just what we called him. He was at least a decade older than me, not so noticeable at my present age but quite a difference when I was in my early teenage years. He was a little slow and had probably been relegated in life to hard labor, if employable at all, had he not found an opportunity in something which had been his dream job all his life. Mordecai’s mother’s sister was married to the man who owned the local mortuary. She had been particularly fond of her nephew and her training as a school teacher, together with her love for her sister, had softened her heart, making her want to do all she could for him. She had singlehandedly seen to it that he got through school with a high school diploma as good as anyone’s. After he was out of school, college being out of the question, Mordecai was as prepared as possible to enter the work force.

Following a brief stint as a fry-cook at the local drive-in, it looked as if he would never be able to hold down a job again. He lost the fry-cook position for reasons which were absolutely not his fault. The drive-in became infested with mice and when that knowledge became public it was bad for business. His boss told him to do something about the mice and Mordecai, with his limited imaginative powers had only been trained to run the deep fryer. So, he applied his knowledge to the problem at hand and had it remedied in no time.

When word of Mordecai’s firing reached the ear of the public, there was a reaction against the owner of the drive-in which resulted in a loss of business from which he never did completely recover. People were furious that Mordecai had been treated in such an arbitrary and capricious manner. But, sympathy doesn’t pay the bills; he had to find another job. After a month or so of unsuccessful job search, his lovely aunt came through again. She demanded her husband hire Mordecai as an assistant at the funeral home. He didn’t want to, but he could never say no to his wife’s requests. We all assumed it might have been because she seemed to be one of the dearest, most beautiful saints we had ever seen, but we later suspected that it might have been because her requests were not requests at all.

Mordecai was hired to be just a general helper around the mortuary. His duties at first were to clean up around the place and he took to his new job with alacrity. His uncle had to admit that the place looked better than it ever had before. He would have been perfectly happy to keep Mordecai on forever in his custodial position. But, Mordecai had greater plans. It was a while before his uncle allowed him in the embalming room. That was where he really wanted to work. Like any successful person, Mordecai was working himself out of custodial work, looking for more and greater responsibilities. It was a proud day when Mordecai informed the locals over morning coffee at the café that he had been promoted to “Embalmer’s Assistant.” It wasn’t very good for business right at first; there was a noticeable drop off in the number of funerals for women who were put off by the idea that Mordecai would be touching their naked bodies. But, where else could they go. The funeral home was the only one in town. So, as time went on people became more accustomed to the idea and business picked back up.

He seemed to do well in this career change. He did not get to conduct the funerals; that would have demanded more class and dignity than Mordecai could ever muster. He did, however, work his way out of the custodial role and did everything necessary for the preparation of the body and the service.

Mr. Davis owned the local hardware store. He wore a toupee for as long as anyone could remember, and he was known as “the man with the moving hair.” When it fell off, Mr. Davis would simply pick it up and stick it back where it belonged. His hair was never situated the same two days in a row. You didn’t know if the part was going to be on the right or the left or right down the middle. One time it was even across his head, running from side to side. He might have bangs one day and a receding hairline the next. When he died we all wondered how they would get that thing to stay on his head. At the funeral, as we walked by paying our respects, more than one of us laid our hands on his head imparting a special blessing from God. And while we were at it we gave it just a slight push to see how well it was on there. To our surprise, it seemed solidly attached. Later, when we were through grieving and mourning, we asked Mordecai how he got it to stay on so well. All he said was, “Nailed it,” and we changed the subject.

After he had been working at the mortuary for several years, his aunt prevailed on her husband to take a vacation. They hadn’t been anywhere in years and she was reaching an age that she was a little restless and needed a change. She needed a change in scenery or else she might start looking at changing something else. Her husband didn’t feel he could get away, his was the only funeral home in town and Mordecai was his only full-time employee. She was confident Mordecai could take care of things and, after great entreaty, persuaded her husband to take her to the beach, one of those resorts in Mexico, for a week-long holiday in the sun. It was December and cold where they lived and, if the truth be known, he, too, was looking forward to some time off in a warmer climate.

Her husband prepared a list of instructions for Mordecai. He told him to just keep the doors open and keep everything looking good and professional. He had made arrangements with the mortician in the next town to cover any funerals which might arise. But, he also gave him a list with about a dozen names on it with strict instructions that if any of those particular people died, Mordecai was to call him immediately. He was to take possession of the body and keep it cool. The people on the list were simply too rich to allow the other mortician to bury them. He could net as much from one or those funerals as he would from ten normal ones. And it wasn’t just a matter getting that funeral. He knew that if he did a good job with that one it would be good advertising for getting more and bigger funerals in the future. He had a bearing about himself like a gentleman from the Old South. Often calling himself a Southern Planter, he dressed and spoke and held himself out like a character from a Tennessee Williams play. He cultivated his image wherever and whenever he could and he knew doing a rich man’s funeral was the ideal time and place to showcase his many talents.

Mordecai, left alone and to his own devices, went about the daily work of the mortuary. Only one person died that week and since she was not on the rich list, he called the neighboring mortician to come get her and conduct the funeral. Mordecai stood in the back and observed with a very critical eye. He was critical of the dress she was wearing, her makeup and her hair. Nothing was right as far as he could see. His uncle could have obviously done a better job and, for that matter, Mordecai could have done better himself. It was the first time he allowed himself to think that maybe he could run his own funeral home someday.

With little else to do, Mordecai visited with his friend, an old eccentric living outside of town, by the name of Taylor Hanks. He was a large man with a full head of white hair and a long white beard. He was known for drinking to excess, usually a cheap whiskey. But, when Mordecai’s uncle was gone, he and Taylor would break into his private stash of Jack Daniel’s Black Label. And now he was gone for a week. On the second night they had pretty well emptied the cabinet of the good stuff. Taylor had done most of the drinking, although Mordecai did his share, and as he normally did when he went on a binge, Taylor went to sleep.

Mordecai decided he needed more of the good stuff, but he was short of cash. His uncle didn’t pay him all that much, but he wasn’t in the work for the money anyway. He had a job he loved and his salary was just a little bonus for him. But, clearly he had enjoyed the liquor from his uncle’s cabinet. He wanted to buy some more of it, and he knew he needed to replace what he and Taylor had consumed. His aunt and uncle were scheduled to come home in three days so he really didn’t have a lot of time to come up with a suitable plan. There were limited opportunities to make a good living in his small town and Mordecai knew there were even fewer opportunities to make extra cash quickly. And that was what he needed, extra cash quickly.

Fortunately for him, he had visited a neighboring town just the previous week and had seen at the local Walmart a sign saying, “Pictures with Santa.” As he was thinking about this, he took inventory of what this might require and compared this to what he had on hand. He had a camera and had mastered putting pictures on the computer where he could print them off if he so desired. They printed their own funeral programs and obituaries so he had everything he needed to print pictures. He still had an old Santa Claus suit he used to wear to schools and rest homes during the season. It was a little worn, but it was still red. The only problem he could see was who would be Santa and who would take the pictures? He couldn’t do both.

As he pondered the predicament, he cast his eyes toward Taylor where he was sleeping off his inebriation, lying on the embalming table. He was a large man with snowy white hair and beard. He was perfect for the part. And Mordecai knew from experience that Taylor would be asleep for another day or so.

It wasn’t easy getting Taylor into the Santa suit. It was like working on a dead man, but, of course, Mordecai was accustomed to working on dead people. It was a struggle, but he finally got Santa dressed. Now there was another problem. Taylor was sleeping so soundly there was no way he could possibly sit in a chair with a child in his lap. About the only position he was capable of maintaining was what he was already doing, lying prone on the embalming table. There was only solution as far as Mordecai could see. He rolled the finest casket from storage into the embalming and, with the aid of ropes and pulleys, placed Taylor into the coffin. He did a little last minute touch-up on the makeup and splashed some talc on his hair and beard to make it look even whiter. As he looked at him, he was satisfied with his work and looked forward to the day Taylor would be there for real and Mordecai could do it all over again.

A makeshift sign was placed out front. “Pictures with Santa.” All was ready and Mordecai waited with camera in hand.

Mollie Thompson worked at the local day care center. She wasn’t much smarter than Mordecai, if any at all. She had grown up with him and had gone to school with him. She and he had dated a little and most of the townsfolk thought they would make a good couple. They enjoyed the idea of their dating, but rather cringed at the thought of procreation. About the only people who expressed any concern for Mollie’s working with small children were people who didn’t have any of their own in the day care center. Those mothers who had children there really didn’t have any choice in the matter. They had to leave them somewhere and that particular center was the only place in town that provided such a service. So, they either knew Mollie better than the other townspeople and knew she was able to provide safe and nurturing care for their children, or they simply didn’t want to admit their misgivings. People with little alternative often have to accept the unacceptable.

Mollie was taking her young charges, aged 4 and 5, with a few just having turned to 6 years old, on a walk. It was a pretty day for December, the weather was unseasonably warm. They had a long rope on which the children held as they walked. Mollie took the lead and her subordinate followed behind, with the children strung out between them. It was a sight familiar to the people of the town and it pleased them to see the small children being so orderly and well-behaved.

As they approached the mortuary, Mollie saw the sign advertising the pictures with Santa. She didn’t know they were doing this as she had heard nothing about it and the sign wasn’t there the day before. She didn’t have the parents’ permission to have pictures made, but she thought what a treat it would be if she could just step in and let the kids see Jolly Old St. Nick. She turned off the sidewalk onto the walk to the front door. Her charges dutifully followed her like a flock of ducklings following their mother. And her aid came along unquestioningly, like a caboose bringing up the rear, following the engine without any input where or when it would go.

Mordecai was a little surprised to see them. They were his first visitors for the morning. He didn’t know anything about parental consent before taking pictures. He simply thought this was a windfall. Mollie thought she saw a little glow in Mordecai’s eyes as she entered the building and was convinced it was because of her. Mordecai smiled at her and she smiled at him. And she then smiled a little smugly at her underling who didn’t have a boyfriend like Mordecai, and probably not even the possibility of ever having one of such high quality. After the greetings, Mordecai took them into the viewing room.

Neither Mordecai nor Mollie had sense enough to see the wide eyes of the little tykes as they looked deep into the room and saw Santa lying in the coffin. Mollie could only see Mordecai and Mordecai could only see dollar signs, still having not been told there could be no pictures at that time. Everyone was seeing their own reality and the reality of the children was Santa lying in a coffin.

It took a little coaxing to get the kids up near the coffin. And as they stood there looking at him, Santa awakened.

(The above is purely fictitious. It was based on a sign I saw outside a funeral home a year ago which read, “Pictures with Santa.”)