Rod and Staff, I hate thee

Electric Fence and Death

  My first memories are of belonging. I of course did not know it then but I was surrounded by love. Soon after I was born my parents rented a farm in Munson, Ohio. My first memories are of my momma teaching me to sing in the kitchen there, she was always singing. She would wake my brother and I up singing “Wake Up Sleepy Head” and other cheery songs. She would sing all day…. in the kitchen, in the car, in the garden, and then as she tucked us in to our beds. I can remember in the kitchen one spring morning I heard a beautiful sound outside and asked momma what it was. “Oh that’s a cardinal, and he is singing to God” she said and showed me where he was perched in the lilac bush. Funny how that particular memory is crystal clear today and I was maybe 4 years old.

  My memories of Daddy were “helping” him with chores and handing tools to him as he was working on something. I get a lump in my throat to think of those happy times and the few memories I have of that farm. Dad has told me since that the Emmons farm was his favorite place to live. He had a little herd of cows, some sheep, a few pigs, chickens. He loves animals and farming and he has never since had the animals he had there. He sternly warned me one day not to touch a strange new fence that he had put up. It was one strand of wire even with my chin and the next morning when I inspected it by myself I noticed that a piece of wool from the sheep was caught in a barb. Surely it would not matter if I touched the fence to retrieve this fascinating treasure would it? Seconds later I was franticly wiping my hands on the grass to get rid of the searing pain from the electricity coursing through the harmless looking wire. Perhaps the electricity helped seal that memory but it is very, very real yet today and I have tremendous respect for electric fence bordering on paranoia. The paranoia may come from the added trauma of soon after tripping and getting caught in an electric fence for little piglets on Jonas Bontager’s farm as I was tearing around like a heathen in a game of high stakes tag. This is completely unrelated but if you were a boy on Jonas’s farm you learned very quick to keep a sharp eye out for electric fence, I have never seen such ingenious ways to run fence and they were not mindful of short legged boys. That time I could scream like I was getting scalped but the incident with the wool was endured in silence because I was terrified of getting spanked. Strangely enough, I have no memory of lambs then but there are pictures of Daddy and I playing with lambs in the front yard. He looks like he is possibly 17 years old and 135 lbs soaking wet. We are both laughing and posing with two lambs. Now the sheep, I do have memories of. Bitter memories. When we moved to Mespo so that Mom would not have to drive so far to school all the animals had to be accounted for. They were either taken to auction or to “John Dan’s” farm. It was just Daddy and I for the sheep and he instructed me to stand in the narrow gate entrance and just hold my hands outstretched in warning to keep the sheep from making a dash for it. No problem, Daddy knew everything and if he said stand there and the sheep will not hurt you, well, of course there was nothing to fear. I remember him disappearing around the barn and then the small group of 8-12 sheep thundering wild-eyed around the corner of the barn straight at me. I rose up as high as my 5 year old frame would allow and demanded “whoa” just like Daddy would have. The devils didn’t even break stride and thundered over me. I still remember the shock of it and the rage and indignation at such wicked beasts. Curiously, Dad does not remember that little story and it is always sure to get a nervous chuckle out of him when I bitterly recount it to my sympathetic kids and nephews.

  I remember Daddy catching a little wild bunny one summer evening and we put it in an empty grain bin. I remember exactly where the bin was and how it was just getting dark and Daddy and I were holding the little bunny and I just thought it was beautiful. The next morning when I rushed out to check on him he was gone. “Cat must have got him” was the casual answer from Daddy and I was horrified. I thought for days about death and the poor, poor bunny and the wicked, cruel cat. At some point we raised chicks and one morning I found two dead chicks. I franticly ran just as fast as I could to tell Daddy. When he came out to look he just casually threw them both in the weeds. Years later my mom told me how she was very worried about me after that because I just moped around for days and asked question after question about death and heaven and why did Daddy just throw the chicks in the grass where the cat will no doubt eat them?

  Do I tell these very personal memories because I think I am unique and I lived a special life? Of course not, but I am convinced that everything about who we are today had a start with those first memories. Mine were of belonging and identity: OK maybe just a little death fixation thrown in. My Daddy loved me and Momma loved me. People would comment how Mom would just always be kissing me when I was a baby and toddler (I will have to take her word for this).They would never ever yell or scream at each other or to me. I was the oldest grandchild for the Schwartz family and my mother tells me how my uncles and aunts would play with me and make me laugh when I was a toddler and how they were the first ones to get me to laugh out loud. They loved me. I remember my uncle’s flipping me upside down and the absolute thrill of terror and pleasure combined as they would take their big hands to my little ankles and make me walk the ceiling. They loved me. Grandpa Miller would tease me mercilessly at the dinner table by walking his fingers over the table at me and in a sing-song voice saying “bally bally bally GHIX”. He loved me. Grandpa Schwartz insisting I sit on his lap and partake of his peppermint candy stash. He loved me. The lap sitting was a ritual that persisted with him until long after it was comfortable. I remember my brother and I hiding when we went to Grandpas to avoid the awkward knee sitting. But that old man loved me, for all his human failures he accepted and loved me and I am who I am today because of him. I never really knew it until I found myself stroking his gnarled hands and weeping over him an hour before his body was committed to the Carolina red clay. I have had so much love in my life I scarcely know what to do with it. I know I don’t treasure it like I should. But it is why I play horse and wild bull with my nieces and nephews. Why I love to have an adult conversation with a five year old and maybe end it by making her walk the ceiling. Why I cry when I see pictures or hear stories of the horror some children must go through.

  Consider the love you have received. It is truly all around you, of that I am convinced. We just need the eyes and heart to see and feel it and the open hands to receive it. You cannot give love until you have received it and it is there for us all.

  Jesus Himself made the claim that “God so loved the world, (you and I) that he gave his only begotten son (Jesus) that whosoever believes in Him (that He is good and loving) will not perish (live a hopeless life) but have everlasting life (experience love forever starting right now) John 3:16

  This love that God offers is not conditional on my merit or basic goodness. I am his son. I became a part of the family when His son died for me and I believed and accepted it as truth.

  For all those that long for the love they never received, the belonging that was never felt, the family that did not exist  Jesus stands with arms wide open to be the brother you never had. His Father waits for you to climb up in his lap and relax as he hugs you and loves on you.

  If you are like me sometimes, you hide from it like I did from my grandpa. You don’t know what to do with such love. Thankfully the Father never stops loving, never lets up. The Bible says he pursues you. And it is that pursuit that makes him a special Father. He chooses us. My parents had no choice with what greeted them when I was born. Boy, girl, tall, short, thin, fat, smart…..not so smart, they loved me because I was a gift to them but they had no choice in who exactly I would be.

  A skilled writer and theologian would now be able to close with a quote that would drive the point home. All that I can leave you with is a request to open your heart to love.

  “Behold what manner of love the Father has given us, that we should be called the sons of God”

Celebrating Stories

  The average person does not have a story about their conception. Those that do, have the good sense not to use it as a conversation starter whenever their birthday is mentioned. I had the dubious good fortune of knowing the date of my conception as well as a mother and aunt who enjoyed telling the details to anyone remotely interested. In a culture where any talk of sex is taboo and for a growing boy discovering his sexuality this was the source of no little discomfort. To think about it meant acknowledging that my mother and father had, well…..you know.

  So, I have my cousin Lois to thank for my birth. She dare not take too much credit for it though, for all that she had achieved to date was, well, be born herself. But when my mother held her little niece for the first time something stirred her deeply. She told her 19 year-old husband of barely 6 months, “Honey, I need a baby”. And so, legend has it, that I was born exactly nine months after Lois’s birthday. I think of it now and what an incredible act of love it was for this newlywed couple to be starting a family so young and with barely enough money to buy groceries. My father has only recently told me of those barren first years. He was working as an intern at a hospital for his 1W service as a CO. His paycheck paid the rent on a sweltering hot apartment on the second floor apartment of an old farmhouse but after the rent there was gas and food and he never told anyone but for weeks he would get by on one meal a day, shared together in the evening on their second hand table. When no-one was looking he would make a quick check for loose change in the doctor’s lounge and his take from that would average enough for a single mallow cup every 2 days for lunch.  For reasons I don’t understand my mother was not accepted by her father-in-law and during this time she wrote a love letter to dad telling him how she would love him no matter  what his father said. She said that even if all they had to live in was a “dirt floored shack by the side of the road” she would always love him. I know this because she was no slouch of a story teller and I heard this one many times.

  This is the story of my conception and birth. We all have one. Mine was washed in love. Some stories have just too much pain to tell while others are full of shame. Some may not have considered the incredible story of their conception and birth. Consider this, you and I are a product of perfect timing. God’s timing. All of the DNA for Bobby Schwartz was only present that one time, that one night, when my mother so fiercely wanted a baby of her own (Thanks Lois!). If those two foolish youngsters would have done the sensible thing they would have waited until they could afford a baby. If my grandfather would have listened to the doctor when he was sternly told that his wife would not survive another childbirth, than he would never have worried about who would raise “little Idie” now that his wife was dead. Imagine the pain of that particular birth. Imagine a world without me in it. I can’t.

  I think then of another birth that was washed in love but shameful.  Jesus was born of a woman who, anyone with simple math skills could tell, was pregnant before she was married.  One of Jesus’ names was “Emmanuel” meaning God with us. As God’s son it was important to come to earth and live as the rest of us do. He had to experience life in all its joy and pain. Have you considered that he likely had his illegitimate birth thrown in his face more than once? He grew up in a small town where everyone knew everything. He was sure to be to some as, well, a bastard. I will leave that for you to ponder and invite you to consider your story in the light of “Emmanuel”.

  The good news, or gospel as we now call it is that we are not alone. Our story has a purpose. We are not random occurrences, mistakes, embarrassing failures, victims of circumstance.

  What we do with our stories can be so much more than a chuckle or a closely guarded secret. God himself invites us to celebrate our stories in the light of His love.

Bob Schwartz Memoir Chapter 1

  I have often puzzled over what my first memory is and have never been able to identify a "first" so I shall begin my life narrative with history that I have no memory of. I was still not on the scene.

  In 1962 an Amish family left their church after a series of events had convinced the father, Samuel J. Schwartz, that he just could not conform to the rigid rules and structure demanded of him. The final straw was when a brother-in-law had run to the deacon to inform that Sam was using electric on his farm. Actually the electric was thought necessary to keep the pump in the basement running so that it would not flood without firing up a gas engine powered pump. But, the deacon was not to be persuaded and Sam had enough. He stopped going to church and was threatened with excommunication. Then Sam did something very bold, he bought a car. Although it outraged the church and grieved his in-laws, Sam's children were absolutely thrilled. They had a car. This new excitement was tempered slightly when the entire family piled in on the next Sunday instead of going to church and went for a drive. Because this was a completely new experience for some of the kids there was violent car sickness to deal with. It was serious enough that even today, almost 50 years later, there are still stories told about it. So now, Sunday’s were spent driving with the family. Where, it did not matter, they were driving and seeing sights unseen before. One Sunday as they were exploring a new road, they discovered the family bonding that comes from a flat tire. I happen to know all the characters in this little drama so, because I have encountered this particular “bonding” with my family as well, I can imagine the ill tempered and sweating father being watched by his restless kids. There is a faint smell of puke in the air, I am sure there was at least one baby in diapers for the mother to tend to. While this mini-drama is unfolding another family is leaving their church just a mile or so down the road and heading home to lunch. This family is even larger than the one experiencing its first flat tire but they are squeezing into their car and the father, himself only recently removed from the Amish church, starts the short drive home. The driver of the second car has a reputation even now in his 80’s of absolutely never passing a motorist in distress. So, with his restive and hungry passengers exchanging stares with the other occupants, Daniel P. Miller stops and helps Samuel J. Schwartz change a tire and of course insists that Sam’s family come and eat a Sunday meal with his family.

  The ending of this story is still not written. A 13 year old girl, the sixth of fifteen kids and named after her mother Ida, remembered this day until she died as the first time she saw a certain tousle haired 12 year old boy with a ready grin. His name was Robert L. Schwartz, oldest of eleven of the tribe of Samuel J. Schwartz. He was my father. She was my mother.

  Today I left the same parking lot that my grandfather did on that day and traveled the same road home. My mother is now buried behind the same church house that she left that day in 1962 and her family and that of my father are widely scattered leaving two of my brothers and two of my cousins as the only descendants from both families fortunate to still be living in the same community our parents and grandparents and their parents before them were born and raised.

  On the drive home I drove past the barn that my grandfather milked cows with his brothers and where his nephew is still milking cows. Today I walked the fields and woods he farmed in Huntsburg. I drank coffee in a house that was built in Grandpa's cow pasture.

  I thought about life today and my place in it. I thought about my two kids and their future. My story. Their story. Our story.

  How the story progresses I do not know. Will they weep over my grave and speak to me, wondering if I can hear, years after I am gone as I did yesterday? (My mom’s grave that is, I am of course unable to stand over my grave….I think)

  That’s what memoirs are I guess, a mix of reflection and musing interesting only to those who have some role in the story, confusing and tiresome to everyone else.

  Next, my first memories. The good, the bad and the ugly.

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