kenlassblog

I love old, corny sci-fi movies. One of my favorites is a 1970 film titled “Colossus: The Forbin Project”. Scientist Forbin has developed a giant computer system named Colossus that is so smart, the United States government decides to trust it with control of its nuclear defense system. But the plan backfires when Colossus learns of a similar system in Russia, and unites with it to take over the world. The human race must obey its commands or the unified machines will wipe out humanity by launching its nuclear missiles. The computers keep folks under control by ordering the installation of monitors which watch and keep track of every move every person makes.

In real life, we’re not quite there yet, but I couldn’t help recalling that old movie as I was watching TV in my den the other night. We were in the middle of another rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond. It’s one of our favorite TV shows ever. We’ve seen every episode countless times but we keep coming back to them, mainly because the great majority of new programming is not targeted to us and therefore of no interest. When the show went to a commercial break, a small link appeared in the upper left hand corner of the screen. It read “Ad Info”.

I’d seen it many times before and just ignored it, figuring it was just a strategy to sell me something. For some reason, on this night, my curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to click on it. The most interesting text then appeared on the screen. It was an explanation of why this particular commercial was on my TV. It seems Google, the company that runs my streaming service, has been watching me as I watch my TV. It’s also been tracking everything I’ve ever googled, which is a lot. I google any number of things every day.

The message informed me that this ad was “personalized” for me based on my interests, my searches, my activity while signed in, and my “general location or the general locations where you have been”. Apparently, I was to regard this as a good thing, because the post said it made commercials “more useful to me”. I confess, however, that it gave me a bit of a chill. Not only did I not want my TV to decide which commercials I should watch, but I found it a little unsettling that Google had some sort of portfolio of my interests and locations.

Of course I was aware, on some subconscious level, that this was nothing new. Internet providers have been tracking everything we do on our laptops and desktops and phones for decades. It’s the source of all those annoying pop-up ads we encounter as we surf for important information, such as whether Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have really gotten back together. Some sites just go right ahead and tell you up front they are watching you. They tell you they use “cookies”, which are basically recordings of what you are doing. Sadly, in this day and age, you have to expect it from your laptop or phone. You go on the internet, you take your chances.

But my TV? Somehow that struck me as being a little more personal and invasive. Besides, Google might get the wrong idea. My program choices can be pretty random. Sometimes I want to watch an educational documentary on PBS about World War Two. Other times I might want to watch the Three Stooges hitting each other in the face with a pie. What if my grandkids are here watching Mickey Mouse Playhouse, or Blues Clues? Can Google figure out it’s not me? Or am I doomed to seeing commercials for Barbie’s dollhouse every day?

I suppose it’s all part of the gradual surrender of American culture to this nebulous thing we call the internet. Maybe the Forbin Project movie was just ahead of its time. What if Google eventually decides to punish me if I don’t watch the shows they favor? They could do something drastic, like force me to watch lawyer commercials. I think I might actually prefer nuclear destruction over that.

Deep in my heart of hearts, I know the ultimate answer is obvious. We should try going back in time, before we even knew what an internet was. Turn the TV off. Close the lid on the laptop. Put your phone on silent. Read a book. Work a crossword puzzle. Write someone a thoughtful greeting card. Volunteer for something. Play with your kids or grandkids. Mow the lawn. Paint your guest room. Take a walk.

Or just buy an antenna.

Forty-seven years of marriage. That’s forty-seven Valentine Days. A lot of times to think of creative ways to express your love for that special person. I started running out of ideas about year twenty. Gradually, our Valentine celebrations got more and more casual. Dinner at a fancy restaurant evolved into the quarter pounder combo meal at McDonald’s. Don’t judge me. I did throw in a hot apple pie for dessert. She’s worth it.

It’s not even clear who this romantic day is named after. There are murky accounts of three different men named Valentine, all of whom were storied to have been martyred by the Romans back in the third century, and later canonized by the Catholic church as saints. You can pick your favorite legend. There’s several of them out there. The one I like best has Valentine being a priest who was forbidden by the military to perform marriages. The idea being that single men would make better soldiers. However, being a hopeless romantic, Valentine continued to perform weddings in secret, uniting countless love-struck couples. When he was found out, Valentine was executed.

Makes a good story. No telling if it’s true. Anyway, the Valentine’s Day tradition really exploded when the Hallmark company popularized the greeting card in 1913. Ah, but true love, and mass commercialism, soon rendered a mere greeting card inadequate. The occasion became an opportunity, some think even an obligation, for lovers (read men) to display their sincere affection with some sort of unique gift or experience.

This quickly became problematic for me, not being the most creative or romantic person in the world. My idea of changing things up is to switch to a dozen tulips instead of roses. Candy? Who needs that? We’re always watching our weight and sugar intake. My taste in stuff like jewelry or clothing is a non-starter. If I were to buy her a sweater, she would flash me a big smile, a heart felt thank-you, and a peck on the cheek. Whereupon the sweater would be hung up in the deepest and darkest recesses of her bedroom closet, never to be seen again, until enough time went by for her to dispose of it discreetly.

Around year thirty-two or so, I decided it was time to truly surprise her with something unexpected, although I had no clue what that might be. At the time, I was doing the morning drive radio show on WDJC, and I decided to go on the air and solicit suggestions for a Valentine gesture that was out of the ordinary. The audience was very forthcoming. Some of the ideas were pretty off the wall, like take her parachute jumping. I don’t even like to step on a stool to check the smoke detector.

But one idea that recurred was the ancient tradition of washing feet. Several women callers chimed in to say their husbands would get down on the floor with a basin of warm water, a wash rag, and a tube of oil. They washed the feet of their bride, and then massaged in the oil. All of the women said they regarded this as exceptionally romantic.

I was intrigued enough to do a little research. I found that the washing of feet was a common practice in both the secular and religious communities back in the day. It was considered a polite and humble way to greet guests and honor them. And of course, there are several references in the Bible. For example, John 13 states ” Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.”

Well, if it was good enough for Jesus, it was certainly good enough for me.  So that year, on Valentine’s Day, after our dinner at Sneaky Pete’s, (no apple pie), I told Sharon to have a seat on the sofa. I disappeared momentarily into the hall bathroom, and reappeared with my basin, rag, oil and towel. She looked at me quizzically. I think she thought I was going to give the dog a bath in the living room. I carefully removed her shoes and told her I was going to wash her feet as an expression of my love.

She went along with it, trying her best not to giggle when I tried to work around her toes and ankle bone. No doubt her favorite part was the oil massage. She sat back and smiled. She clearly enjoyed the gesture and that made me happy. When I finished, not only was she pleased, but her feet looked and smelled great! In fact, I was reluctant to put her shoes back on. I wanted to admire my work for a bit. All in all, it turned out to be a pretty neat moment. I recommend it to any husband in search of a new Valentine’s Day idea.

Afterward, as we huddled warmly next to each other on the sofa, I remembered that some of those radio callers remarked that it’s even better if you and your spouse wash each other’s feet. I chose not to suggest that. No sense pushing my luck.

She was born and raised in Georgia. Motivated by a strong desire for service and ministry, she pursued a career in nursing. She married a man whose job took them on several relocations, all over the country.

At one point, they landed far away from home in Michigan. She hated it there. She cried almost every day, missing her family and roots, now the breadth of a nation away. This felt like foreign territory. Folks there were obsessed with her southern accent, asking her to say certain words, then giggling when they came out different from the way they spoke. She felt like entertainment and novelty to them. She said northerners would equate her dialect to ignorance, gullibility and lack of sophistication. It got so bad, she lamented, that she chose to become very quiet and withdrawn, for fear of inviting mockery and condescension.

Her story struck a sympathetic chord with her listener, whose experience was similar, though geographically running in the opposite direction. Having spent the first twenty-seven years of his life growing up in Wisconsin, he also chose a transient path, moving frequently, eventually finding himself in the south, knowing not a soul, far, far from home. He would encounter steady teasing about being a “Yankee”. Though no one ever said it, he often took it as a subtle implication he was not welcome. This caught him by surprise. He had never thought of himself as a Yankee. Yankees were people who lived along the eastern seaboard. He had always thought of himself as a Midwesterner, and thus, kindred to the people of the south in culture and values.

Nor had he ever thought of southerners as backward or slow. To the contrary, he envied them. His image of Dixie was what he observed on television, a land of good looking, tanned people who frolicked on the beach, enjoyed incredible cooking, and excelled at southern hospitality. As a child, he sat spellbound in front of a black and white TV, watching Bear Bryant and the Alabama Crimson Tide dominate college football, and admiring the way the fans passionately supported their teams. He and his family would religiously watch the Miss America pageant each year, and note that the final ten always seemed to be dominated by smart, poised and beautiful southern women.

Yet upon his arrival, he found himself often stereotyped as impolite and impersonal. Southern folks seemed surprised when he routinely addressed them as “Sir” and Ma’am”, as he had been raised to do. Some were not expecting him to work hard at blending into their traditions and customs.

He could relate to what this woman was telling him. But now, with the benefit of three or four decades of hindsight, they reflected on what they had learned. She moved back to the south. He sensed perhaps a trace of regret in her voice, as she told him, given the chance to do it over again, she wouldn’t let the inquisitive fawning of her northern acquaintances keep her from getting to know them better, and experiencing the love and kindness that is an integral part of the midwestern way of life.

He never migrated back to his northern roots, having fallen in love with the people of the south, who had proven not only to be welcoming, but deeply loving, loyal and inclusive. He would stay for forty years and counting, raise a family there, and feel every bit as much at home as he did amidst the love and security of his native Midwest.

Both of them agreed the major takeaway is that people are just people, no matter where you go. What a shame we let so many things divide us. Trivial things like speech accents, or larger things such as politics, race and income levels. We are so much stronger together. Though it is sometimes hard to recognize, we truly do have much more that unites us than divides us.

We are different, yet so much the same.

How can you tell it’s January? Just drive past any of the gyms in the Trussville area. You’ll find the parking lots are packed. It’s the busiest time of the year for them. January is the month of new beginnings, which very often involve resolutions to lose weight and get into better condition. We start out excited and motivated to work out. We set our goals and prepare to sweat it out. This time, it’s on for real. We might even splurge and buy a treadmill or a stationary bike for our home. Or map out a walking route around the neighborhood. We begin our exercise regimen with energy and intensity.

Ah, but after a few days, muscles begin to ache, joints are sore, back is throbbing, and you’re just plain tired. All the time. It gets hard. Too hard. Oh, you press on for a few weeks, but eventually you start to invent excuses to take a few days off. You have a doctor’s appointment. You have to babysit the grandkids. The dog needs a bath. Your favorite episode of Gunsmoke is on TV. Gradually, you get more and more creative with the excuses, you work out less and less, and by sometime around mid-February, the gym has become a distant memory, and that new treadmill has become handy for hanging wet clothes so they can air dry.

Our Christian walk can be like that. We experience a great spiritual renewal at church over the Christmas season. We are pumped up for Jesus. We leap headlong into the new year determined to get closer to God, to pray more, to get more deeply involved in church activities, to reconnect with folks in your life that might need a little ministry. This is the year!

But we rediscover that it takes time and effort. It usually involves coming out of your comfort zone, and it often doesn’t yield the kind of immediate, satisfying results you envisioned. You try to press on, but slowly you begin to let yourself off the hook. So many others are praying for this person, they don’t need my prayer time. I’ve done all I can to minister to that person, but it doesn’t seem to be making a difference. I can’t make time for this ministry, I’m too busy. I’m just not cut out for that kind of service. I don’t know what to say.

Did you ever decide to go on a diet, and hear people say “the first few weeks are the hardest, but eventually you’ll lose your desire for sweets and fatty foods. You won’t even want them anymore.” Well, maybe you’ve had that experience, but it never happened for me. I’ve gone on restrictive diets for six months at a time, and guess what? I still craved those french fries and that hot fudge sundae more than ever. And they still tasted every bit as glorious.

Temptation is not going away. The devil is real, and he will not relent in his effort to lure you into sin and lazy worship. He will have excuses ready for you if you want them. Here’s one thing I have tried, and it has worked. When I got hungry and was enticed to break my diet, I picked up my Bible and started reading. It doesn’t matter where you are in the Good Book, eventually you get into the Word and get your mind off eating. Even better, you will find that praying and studying the Bible is going to help you stay the course in your Christian walk as well.

So get back on that treadmill. Find your path back to the gym. Head out the door for that walk. Open your Bible. Read and pray. And every once in a while, go ahead and order the french fries. Just maybe share them with someone. That counts as ministry, right?

It is Sunday morning. Sharon and I are in church, taking our monthly turn working at the coffee bar. I have come to the conclusion that Christians drink entirely too much coffee, especially when the weather turns cold. I know this to be true because all of the many coffee pots around the general gathering areas dwindle down to empty faster than I can refill them.

I am furiously ripping open packets and pouring coffee granules into the filters, hanging them on the large brewers, pushing the “Start” button to get the hot water flowing, then turning to see if Sharon needs help with customers. As the busy morning wears on, a familiar figure leisurely strolls up to the bar. He is an older man, I’m guessing around eighty-ish, with thinning hair, a gray moustache and a kind face. He is dressed in coat and tie, as people of his generation were raised to do for Sunday church.

This is Joe. He comes by this way every week. He never orders anything. He just wants to socialize. He will ask me how I like this cold weather we’re having, or what was it like working in TV news all those years, or what do I think about that football game yesterday. Just friendly ice breakers designed to start a conversation. I don’t really know him, but I instinctively like Joe. His smile is warm and empathetic.

Unfortunately, this is not a good time for me. There are coffee pots to fill, cups of sweet and unsweet tea to be drawn, donuts and fritters to be restocked in the display case, lids, filters, napkins and straws to be replenished, money to be taken in and change to be given back. So I keep my answers short, and try to politely indicate with my body language that I can’t fully engage with him at the moment. Joe seems to be a genuinely sweet and friendly guy, but I just don’t have time to chat. Besides, it won’t take but a minute before he turns and strikes up a conversation with somebody else nearby. Everyone seems to know him. Everyone except me.

When I actually stop to think about it for a moment, it occurs to me that coffee bar work is not all that intense. As they say, it’s not brain surgery. I could easily have taken a few moments and made small talk. After all, a big part of belonging to a church family is fellowshipping with other believers of all ages and walks of life. No, the truth is, I just didn’t want to. I wanted to stay focused on the tasks at hand. There would be a time and place for developing new relationships. Surely one day I’ll bump into Joe around the coffee bar when I’m not on duty. Would be fun to talk and get to know him better then.

Except that Joe doesn’t stop by the coffee bar anymore. I went to the visitation for his funeral the other day. It was at the church. On my way into the sanctuary to offer my condolences to the family, I took the pamphlet containing his obituary and began to read it. Turns out Joe was a musician, but much more than that. He was first chair trumpet player for Alabama’s Million Dollar Band. He was a band director at several local high schools, including Hewitt-Trussville, Leeds and Elba, also serving at Gardendale and Shades Valley high schools. He built the foundation for what the Hewitt-Trussville band program is today. He played trumpet in the church orchestra until the final years of his life. I never knew. I never took the time to find out.

Wish I had, because I love the whole band culture. I was not in band in school, but I got hooked on it when my daughter spent much of her high school years on the Hewitt Trussville color guard team, and then as a High Stepper. We went to all the competitions. I learned about the intricacies of choreographing a top notch marching band, how the various sections have to work together, how all the band members have to stay disciplined and patient. I learned what the judges were looking for and enjoyed trying to evaluate the various bands on my own. It was fascinating and fun.

Joe would have known all about that stuff. He was also an educator for 33 years. I could have asked him his thoughts on the state of our schools, another area of interest for me. We had so much in common. We could have talked for hours.

There was, I knew, a lesson to be learned from this, though sadly too late. Everyone has a story. Our lives are far richer when we spend time focusing more on relationships with others, and less on our own concerns and priorities.

After the visitation, as I was leaving the church, I passed by the coffee bar, which then was closed and quiet. For a moment, I could picture Joe standing there, his quick smile inviting me to conversation. Maybe I’ll see him again one glorious day, and we’ll have that talk. The coffee will be on me.

Help me to understand something. Our culture wants to take God out of everything public. Teachers may not lead prayer in public schools, nor can they teach biblical creation. They are taking the words “under God” out of the national anthem. The term “Merry Christmas” has been replaced by the more generic “Happy Holidays”. The Ten Commandments have been removed from parks and courthouses. Announcers, news anchors and journalists of all sorts have to be careful. Any reference to God or praying in public is inappropriate because it might offend an unbeliever.

But then I am watching a Monday night NFL football game, as a young player drops to the ground after a typically violent tackle. It becomes immediately clear the injured player, Damar Hamlin, is in distress. Medical personnel are applying CPR as an ambulance quickly rolls on to the field. Players are stunned, some openly crying. Suddenly, coaches are gathering their entire team around them and very publicly lead them in prayer. Solemn announcers are saying the game is now meaningless, and their thoughts and prayers are with the young athlete. They’re urging viewers to pray as well.

One fan in the stands has written huge letters on a sign that states “Pray for Hamlin”. Does the network camera ignore the sign? Quite the contrary. There is a slow, poignant zoom into the message, followed by a dramatic fade to studio commentators, who also profess prayers for Hamlin. Suddenly, no one seems to be concerned about offending a non-believer.

What happened? What changed? How can public prayer be so inappropriate one moment, and then completely acceptable the next? Imagine the outrage if, just prior to kickoff, the play-by-play announcer would say “as we get ready for the game, I’m going to lead us all in a quick prayer”. Yet, when a player is critically injured, it’s suddenly okay to publicly solicit and endorse prayer for the victim.

The reality is God can’t, won’t, be left out. Only the will of the almighty and powerful Creator of the universe could help Damar Hamlin. Furthermore, deep down inside, every human being senses that truth. Some will try to deny it, to discredit it, but when the need is dire, we turn to prayer, to God. It’s instinctive, almost beyond our control. Those announcers weren’t trying to offend anyone. They weren’t consciously promoting Christianity. They were merely compelled to state that which has given comfort and hope to the species since the first human heart began to beat. To acknowledge that God, only God, is in control. That when we truly need help, it is not only acceptable to call upon His name, it is mandatory.

I have to believe you can’t have it both ways. You can’t claim God is offensive in one breath, then call upon Him when an emergency arises. Yes, by all means, pray for Damar Hamlin. But if it’s okay to do that publicly, and to encourage others to do the same, then it’s also okay for a teacher to lead a prayer in her classroom, for a Ten Commandments monument to adorn a courthouse, for a pledge to state that our country is “one nation, under God.”

You don’t need permission to pray. It’s already woven deeply into your DNA.

Here’s a nosey and random question for you: Do you read obituaries? If you do, what part is of the most interest to you? The answers likely tell much about your age and stage of life.

As a child and teenager, you ignore them. Obits are for old people, and the only old people you care about are Memaw and Peepaw. As a young adult, perhaps you scan them every once in a while, just to see if the list of survivors contains a name that you recognize, maybe somebody you know. As you transition to middle age, you begin to read them more thoroughly, examining the professions and accomplishments of the deceased. In a way, it helps you to put the path of your own life into some sort of perspective.

But in retirement, your attention is drawn immediately to one particular statistic. Age. The first thing I want to know about someone who has passed away is how long they lived. Was it a tragic loss of young life? Were they cut down in the prime of middle age? Or did they have a long and prosperous run? It’s more than just curiosity. It kind of gives you a running average of what you might expect for yourself.

I broach this somewhat morbid subject because I am staring another birthday in the face. I was born in early January, so every time the calendar folds over to a new year, I find myself greeting it with emotions that are mixed. I am profoundly grateful to the Good Lord for blessing me with another year in the beautiful world He has created, and the blessings He has bestowed. But as your birthday comes calling, you are also forced to acknowledge that the number has clicked up another notch, and you are left to ponder the impossibility of it all.

That number. There’s no way you can be that number. You don’t feel as though you are that number. You don’t think of yourself as that number. You look in the mirror. You try to be objective. You’re thinking by golly, honestly, I really don’t look like that number! The malaise is temporary. In a few days, you’ll forget about the number, and you won’t think about it for months. About twelve months. Until the next birthday looms.

Your spouse asks you what you want for your birthday. You think, think, think. Nothing comes to mind. Nothing! That was never a problem when you were younger. There was always something you needed, a gadget you always wanted, a guilty pleasure you coveted. Now you look around at all the stuff your life has accumulated, and you’re more concerned with how you’re going to get rid of some of the clutter, rather than receiving more of it.

There’s an old joke that goes “Retirement is great! Every morning, I get up and read the obituaries, and if my name isn’t in them, I get dressed.”

There is some truth to that. I never want to take birthdays for granted. I never want to treat a day of life as though it is something I am entitled to. All the clichés come back to me. Age is just a number. You’re only as old as you feel. You’re not getting older, you’re getting better. Seventy is the new fifty. Having a birthday is better than the alternative, and so on. They’re all designed to make you feel better about that number ticking up another notch. And I will. Just need a few days.

By the way, I figured out what I really want for the occasion. I want you to have a great new year, and my prayer is that it’s a year in which you get to have a birthday too.

We make the right turn off Trussville Clay Road into the Trussville Civic Center parking lot. It is 9:15 on a Friday morning and the lot is packed. Cars are circling the perimeter desperately waiting for a set of taillights to light up, indicating somebody backing out. We finally find a space in the very back.

We get out of the car and fall into a line of folks heading through the front entrance. I see mostly women. Actually, I see nothing but women. As we come through the door we are greeted by a large sign that reads “Trussville Civic Center presents Totally Christmas”. We are also greeted by a large black arrow and a friendly lady instructing us to turn left. That’s where you start. Don’t even think about turning right. You would be walking against the traffic flow and your life may be in danger. It would be a terrible way to go, stampeded and run over by shopping carts, overflowing with Christmas craft items. You might not be noticed until Sunday.

We begin weaving and zig zagging through lines of tables. Some of the vendors are out front, actively engaging and connecting with passers by. You can tell they revel in this, the interaction, the dynamic. Others, not so much. They sit back in their chairs, looking at their phones, wishing they were back home watching reruns of Family Feud. All of them are women. Am I the only man here?

Eventually, I stop thinking about finding male fellowship, and find myself getting interested in the merchandise. There really are some creative minds and talented people in and around our community. One lady turns clam shells into beautifully painted decorations. Another hand paints crosses on to dough bowls. There is a woman selling Grinch cookies for three dollars. She explains her secret recipe to me. I smile and nod, but I am thinking that if she does this with everyone, she is blowing the secret. Kind of like KFC’s eleven herbs and spices. Some things should remain a mystery.

I find a table featuring Swedish dish cloths. The sign says they will absorb fifteen times their weight, as much as sixteen paper towels! Leave it to the Swedes. Here I thought they only specialized in meatballs. There is another dish towel with an inscription that reads “If I ever go missing, I want my picture on wine bottles instead of milk cartons. That way my friends will know how to find me”. Another nice lady inquires as to my interest in something called Kickin’ Jalapeno Jelly. I blush and explain that my sensitive tummy can’t even handle bananas. There is a baby bib with large print screaming “Rub My Belly”. We walk past Magic Reindoor Food, and a specialty hand soap labeled Euphoria. I can experience euphoria just washing my hands? Sign me up.

The Trussville Historical Society is here, selling various books about the history of our fair city. One sweet vendor tells me about her struggle with Parkinson’s disease. She takes broken jewelry and superbly crafts it into spiritual items. She explains that the reclamation of the broken jewelry symbolizes how God can reclaim a broken life.

Everywhere on the journey there are clusters of women gathered in tight circles, laughing and talking. Clearly, this is not just about merchandise. This is a social event. And a good one. Everyone seems to be here. It’s a thing. A ladies’ thing.

Or is it? Suddenly, as we turn to go down the back row, the one closest to the stage, I see them. Men! All kinds of men. Men wearing shirts with team logos on them, sporting ball caps with pictures of construction equipment. I finally found them! My people! As I get closer, I can see their mouths moving. Probably talking about football and hunting and, you know, man stuff.

Wait, they’re not talking….they’re eating! Eventually a few of them saunter off, revealing a view of the table behind them. It’s a large display of bakery and pies, with plates of free samples out front. So this is where the guys hang out. I make a mental note for future craft shows. I recognize and approach a fellow who used to be one of my neighbors. He explains to me that he is only here to be a “pack mule” for his wife. But the wife is nowhere in sight, and hey, even pack mules have to eat.

Everywhere we went there were smiling faces and well wishes. Turns out Christmas spirit does seem to have a way of surviving any mercenary taint here. Trussville’s version of the holiday craft show is certainly not on the scale of something like Christmas Village at the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center, but that’s okay. You also don’t have to pay twenty dollars to park and then pony up an admission fee just to walk in the door. Totally Christmas is free and growing every year, and I walked out of there with a little more spring in my step.

I can only hope my holiday spirit was shared by the drivers of the three cars that were hovering around my parking space, waiting for me to back out.

There is an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, which is titled “The Inner Light”. The starship Enterprise encounters a high tech time capsule floating randomly through space. As it approaches the ship, it scans Captain Picard and shoots him with a laser. The strike causes him to have a vision of a distant planet, destroyed thousands of years ago by a collision with a meteor. In the vision, Picard meets the people of the lost world and learns their culture. The inhabitants explain they created the time capsule so that history would record their existence. The moral of the story (and there usually is one), is that no one really ceases to exist until nobody remembers them anymore.

I thought about that episode recently when Sharon hauled out a huge stack of old family photographs. They had been gathering dust somewhere in the deep recesses of the house for years. Sharon figured it was time to determine their permanent fate. Either organize and keep them, give them away, or dispose of them.

Interestingly, the further you dug into the stack, the further back in time you seemed to travel. It began with baby photos of me and my brothers. Then there were photos of my parents at their wedding. Then there were photos of my grandparents getting married. So far, so good.

Then it got weird. We started finding pictures of huge family gatherings, circa 1900. The men were all wearing buttoned up vests with dark coats over them, bow ties, hair parted down the middle, and bushy moustaches. The women wore roomy dark blouses with black turtlenecks attached, belted around the waist, flowing dresses with no trace of skin of any kind showing, hair pulled tightly back. In the front row was a bevy of children, decked out in knickers with large bows protruding from their necklines. Nobody was smiling. Apparently, it was not fashionable to smile on a photo in those days.

The photos were embossed on a black cardboard frame. There were a few rips and chunks missing from the edges. I quickly flipped them around, hoping to find some sort of identification or context on the back.

Nothing. Not a thing. Just a picture of a group of people that were strangers to me. I only have an educated guess as to whom they might be. I suspect they are the extended family of my grandparents when they were children. But I have no way of knowing that with any certainty. Anybody in my family tree who might be able to identify them has passed away, including my mom and dad. They are just images without a story. As such, sadly, they mean nothing to me, nor to anyone I know.

I suppose I could invest the time and effort in one of those apps that help you trace your genealogy, but quite honestly, I lack the motivation to do so. I’m really not all that curious about my ancient heritage. I may even be a little scared of finding out my roots. What if I descended from some sort of evil cult group? Or worse yet, from Chicago Bear fans?

The Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons are a time to reunite with family, to catch up on each other’s lives and, inevitably, to share memories of those who have passed on. We retell our favorite stories about them, stories that will make us laugh, and maybe even cry. In a sweet sort of way, they’re not really gone. They live on in our hearts and minds, just as clearly as if they were standing in front of us. But the passage of time is relentless, and the arrival of each new generation pushes the memories of those gone before a little further into irrelevance, until eventually, they are just……strangers on a photo.

So I stare down at these old pictures spread out on my desk. What to do with them? Throw them away? My grown children are even less interested in these photos than I am. No point in handing them down. Yet I can’t shake this feeling that, in some strange spiritual or metaphysical way, the folks in those images will continue to have some sort of legacy, some sort of life story, some sort of relevance, as long as I, or anyone for that matter, hangs on to these photos. That once they hit the trash, to be ground up and buried into the earth, any trace or acknowledgement of their existence is ground up and buried with them.

Then again, I am also quite sure that if I store them somewhere in the house, they will languish there, forgotten, for years to come, after which we will dig them out one distant day and be faced with the same decision. What to do? What would Captain Picard do?

As I write this, my attention is drawn to a picture that sits atop my desk. It’s a family photo, taken at Easter. It’s Sharon and I, our son and daughter, their spouses and their children. It’s one of my favorites. I’ve written our names on the back, but who knows if my family name will survive long term? I find myself wondering if, a hundred years from now, my great-great-great grandson will be sitting by a desk, looking at that picture, with no clue who we are, and caring even less.

I wonder if he’ll throw it away.

(Ken Lass is a retired Birmingham television news and sports anchor, and a Trussville resident.)

I marvel every day at God’s incredible creation all around me, but when I get to heaven, I have a few questions for the Almighty. One of them will be, what was He thinking when He created bees? Oh, I know they pollinate the flowers and all that nature stuff, but God could have designed any number of bugs that could do that. Why did he have to give that assignment to these ill-tempered, scary buzzers with the miniature swords protruding from their backsides?

The front of our house is lined with azalea bushes. In the spring they bloom into the most beautiful pink blossoms. Sadly, the blooms only last about two or three weeks. However, the leafy bushes grow like wildfire all summer long. By August my azaleas have all grown into each other and formed a tangled mess of foliage. It’s time to drag myself out there to trim them up, rake out the clippings, bag them and take them to the street for pick-up. Usually it’s just a dreary job that takes about three hours of back aching work.

This year was a little different.

I had finished trimming about two thirds of the bushes with my electric trimmer, when I bent down to get the lower branches on one of the plants closest to the house. Suddenly I felt a stinging pain on my leg. It was a hot day and I was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. I jerked upward and discovered to my horror that I was surrounded by a swarm of bees. Angry bees at that. As I flung my trimmer and bolted out of the hedge, I was stung several times all over my body. They got me just beside the ear, both hands and both arms, on the back and on the leg.

Thankfully, I’m not one of those folks who has a toxic reaction to bee stings, but for about two hours I just hurt all over. It was like my brain couldn’t sort out which pain signal to acknowledge, so it just sort of rotated all the messages. Eventually, the pain subsided. Several of the stings swelled up a bit but at least they didn’t hurt any more. I thought I was past the worst of it. I was wrong.

Once the pain subsides, the itching begins. Relentless itching. I poured on all the creams and ointments, nothing helped. I only survived thanks to the blessings of Advil and Tylenol. I was miserable for about two days but felt better after a steroid shot from my doctor.

The bees had declared war, and I was willing to accept the challenge, so long as somebody else actually did the fighting of course. My daughter recommended a pest control guy whom I called. He came out the same day. His first question was “What kind of bees are they?” I calmly told him I was too busy shrieking bloody murder to stop and get a good description. I just pointed to the shrubs and whimpered “they’re in there somewhere.”

These bug guys tend to be very nice people, but they are either extremely brave, or just a little crazy. Without hesitation, he strutted into the shrubbery and started kicking the individual plants, hoping to roust up the bees and discover their home. Suddenly he darted out of the landscaping faster than a speeding bullet. “Found them!” he proclaimed. Sure enough, they were flowing like a river out of a chipmunk hole at the base of one of the shrubs, the one I was trimming when I got attacked. “Yellowjackets” he explained. “They love to nest in chipmunk holes, and stuff like vibrations really get them mad.”

Oh, you mean like the vibration of an electric trimmer shaking their world? That kind of vibration? Good to know. A little late, but good to know.

He said he was going to poison the hole with some sort of white powder. He told me to stay inside the house during the procedure. No problem. Way ahead of you. Afterward, he showed me the hole, as the bees were busily sampling the powder and, hopefully, taking some for the queen to sample. The bug man said the whole colony should be dead in a few days. Just give it some time.

That was in August. I’m giving it time. Plenty of time. Meanwhile, if you happen to drive by my house, please forgive the look of the front landscaping. The bushes are only about half trimmed. I’m working up the courage to get back out there and finish the job.

Maybe by Christmas.