I’ve Been Thinking . . . About What Is and Was

Theodor Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Ted, as he was called by his friends in Springfield, grew up sketching the animals on trips to the zoo with his father.  In college, he wanted to become a writer, and he began writing for a college humor magazine.  He ultimately wrote some of the most memorable, and best-selling, children’s books under his pen name, Dr. Seuss.

Studies in the mid-1950s pointed to the problem of waning reading interest and literacy among school children.  Geisel – by the late-1950s, an accomplished author of children’s books – was tasked with writing a book, not using more than 225 words (he used 236).  The objective was to create a book that would make reading fun and engaging for those children.  The result: The Cat in the Hat.  He was next tasked – allegedly in the form of a $50 bet with his publisher, Bennett Cerf – to write a book using only 50 words.  The result was a book with 49 single-syllable and one multi-syllable words: Green Eggs and Ham.

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I enjoy writing, which is why I started this blog.  For whatever reason, I have been distracted and derelict in my efforts.  The distractions have come from a variety of places, none of which warrant a lack of effort on my part.  That’s where the dereliction comes into place.

This being New Year’s Day, a resolution seems necessary.  I’m not particularly big on resolving to do or accomplish things that I’m likely to forget before January 2^nd.  In this case, however, I resolve to write and post blogs more consistently in 2024.  I will not, however, commit to a number or frequency; just more consistently.

How can I possibly not express a goal – a specific number – a specific frequency of postings?  My life has been filled with setting goals.  As a manager, I knew that if I didn’t have measurable goals, I could not adequately plan the actions necessary to achieve the goals, nor would I be able to assess what I accomplished.  As a college management professor, I preached/taught the gospel of goal-setting.

But writing this blog is avocational – not vocational – and I write for my enjoyment, and hopefully for yours.  Writing and posting more consistently is my avocational goal, and I’ll know if I have achieved it if I feel I have achieved it.  As I begin the new year, I will resist the urge to discuss the concept of time in favor of a review of things that were.

An old man and his dog were walking down a dirt road for quite some time when they finally came to a beautiful marble wall with a golden gate. The person standing guard was dressed in a white robe and said: “Welcome to Heaven”. It was then the old man realized he and his dog were dead and traveling down Eternity Trail. They both were hot and very thirsty as they had been walking for a long time. The old man was so happy to be at Heaven’s gate. He started to enter with his dog following him but the gatekeeper stopped him and said: “I’m sorry, but dogs are not allowed in Heaven so he can’t come in with you”, as he gestured towards the man’s dog. The old man replied: “But my dog has been my faithful companion all his life. If my dog can’t come in with me, then I will stay out too. I will not desert him now, not even to enter Heaven.”  The gatekeeper replied: “Suit yourself, but I must warn you, the Devil’s on this road and he’ll try to sweet talk you into his area. He will promise you anything to get you to enter. So if you don’t leave your dog now and come in, you will spend eternity on this road hot and thirsty or end up in Hell.” But the old man still refused to enter and continued walking along the dirt road with his dog. After walking a long way further, the man and his dog came upon a rundown fence with no gate. He saw a man dressed in old, ragged clothes just on the other side, standing next to a large shady tree. The old man called out to him saying: “Excuse me Sir. My dog and I have been on this road all day and are very hot and thirsty. Would it be okay if we took a much-needed rest under your shady tree?” “Of course”, the other man replied. “There’s some cold water under the tree too. So please come in and help yourselves.” The old man asks: “Are you inviting my dog too, because I won’t come in without him. In fact, that’s why I chose not to go to Heaven because I was told dogs are not allowed.” The man smiled and said, “Welcome to Heaven, and bring your dog!” The old man exclaimed, “You mean this is Heaven? And dogs are allowed? How come that fellow down the road said they weren’t?” “That was the Devil and he gets all the souls who are willing to give up a lifelong companion for a few small comforts. Those who choose that route soon find out their mistake but it’s too late. The dogs always find their way here and the fickle people who abandoned them stay in Hell, for eternity.” “You see my friend, GOD would not allow dogs to be banned from Heaven. After all, He created them to be man’s companions in life, so He would never separate them in death.”

We enjoy the mountains in the summer.  Just as we like to go south in the winter to enjoy sunshine and warm weather, instead of winter’s cold and dark gray clouds that seem like they could drop on you at any time; we like the fresh, crisp air and blue skies of the mountains instead of the oppressive heat and humidity of a midwestern summer.

As we wander along the serpentine trails carved out of the trees and the contours of the rocks, I look in awe at the panoramic views from the higher elevations.  I gaze up through the trees, watching them sway gently to the whispering songs of the wind.  The sky’s expanse, the white of the clouds contrasting with the blue, stills me in place.

The “road less traveled” refers to a choice the narrator makes in “The Road Not Taken,” a famous poem by Robert Frost.  The road less traveled metaphorically refers to a sense of independence, of embarking on a path that is less defined, and making one’s own way.  Another interpretation of Frost’s poem is that the narrator is looking back on choices made and interpreting those choices in light of their current situation.

It’s tempting to look back on one’s life and think, “If only I had . . . chosen a different college major . . . accepted the other job offer . . . and any number of major and minor choices we made through our lives.”  I might occasionally look back at some of those junctures – those diverging paths – but I don’t dwell on them.  I can never know if the “other” choice would have resulted in some better outcome, nor if I would consider it a better outcome in its own context.  Every interpretation would be shaped by all that has happened since the choice was made.

While we might consider chance occurrences serendipitous in the present moment, we still must live our lives from this point forward, from where we are now.

According to a brief biography of Theordor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel, he “showed his determination early on when he faced a whopping 27 rejections from book publishers for his first children’s book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street. One day, when he was walking down the street, he literally ran into an old classmate who happened to work for Vanguard Press — and the book was published in 1937. ‘That’s one of the reasons I believe in luck,’ he said, according to Seussville. ‘If I’d been going down the other side of Madison Avenue, I would be in the dry-cleaning business!’”