On being...Addicted to the Magic of Oatmeal

I love oatmeal: plain (with a little a salt to bring out the flavor); not so plain (with a touch of vanilla and cinnamon); exotic (with walnuts, apples, craisins, lots of cinnamon, more than a touch of vanilla, and freshly ground nutmeg). In fact, I eat the exotic oatmeal everyday for breakfast. I love oatmeal made in the traditional manner on the stove top and I love it baked. By the way, I've got some great oatmeal recipes. Let me know if you want to give them a try.

Just to be clear, if I'm ever invited to have oatmeal at your house, be advised that I have at least three oatmeal limitations.  First, I'm not a fan of microwaveable faux oatmeal. It contains so many chemicals that I always worry about a universe-ending explosion when cooking it. Second, my oatmeal has to be made using the "old fashioned" rolled oats, not the ground-to-a-pulp "quick" oats that have no substance, taste, or reason for existence. Third, I won't eat oatmeal without salt. The salt (which is always listed as an optional ingredient on the box) is what makes the flavor "pop."  Warning: most restaurants and hotels with the complimentary breakfast buffets don't put salt in their oatmeal. Such an inhumane action is probably not worthy of a boycott or class action lawsuit, but do be aware that you'll need to salt your own oatmeal. However, it should be a criminal offense when they (and you know who you are!) try to pass off the faux oatmeal as "homemade" or "freshly made."

Shortly after moving to the East Coast, I wrote of my passion for oatmeal in a piece that I submitted to National Public Radio's "This I Believe" project. I now believe they didn't care much for it because it was kindly rejected in that soft-spoken NPR way by someone with one of those delightfully inimitable NPR-type names, like Dharma Chung-Nunberg. Nonetheless, I liked the piece and I'm going to publish it here anyway. (Ha, take THAT, Dharma!)  

I believe in the magic of oatmeal. My palate prefers the old-fashioned, whole grained oatmeal, but the magic of oatmeal transcends its form.

As a child, a steaming bowl of oatmeal, generously trimmed with farm-fresh cream and mounds of sugar, seemed to warm the kitchen of our Iowa farmhouse. On frigid February mornings the oil-burning stove at the end of the kitchen strained against the toe-numbing cold. Yet the oatmeal warmed me inside-out and seemed to mystically radiate throughout the drafty house. On those mornings of school bus windows frosted-over for the entire ride into town, I still remained warm and satisfied until the noon bell signaled my daily race with best friend Mark down the steps to the basement lunchroom.

As a young man and new father I introduced my baby boy to oatmeal’s magic. Having wrestled him into his high chair and locked him into place, I’d begin the morning breakfast routine. He’d strain against the unyielding high chair and vocalize his hunger. I’d mix his oatmeal with just enough water of just the right temperature. As the first spoonful of the oat concoction reached his lips he’d begin to emit a low “mmmm” sound. He would eat and coo, and I’d whisper to him of his goodness and strength and my love for him. For the next several minutes we were connected, father and son, by the warmth and satisfaction of oatmeal. These early bonding moments have been built upon through the years as he grew and became a man and I, well, became just an older man.

Today, for the first time in my life, I live far from both the farmhouse and the son. Preparing to move from Des Moines to Washington last December I gave away nearly every food item in my kitchen.  Except my near new box of oatmeal. Upon arrival I unpacked it and shelved it in a cabinet where I couldn’t miss it. The following morning it became my first meal in my new home.

Middle age demands I eat oatmeal more for its physical benefits today and, sadly, trim it less generously now, using limited amounts of brown sugar and skim milk. As the morning’s first spoonful triggers my taste-buds, it also triggers my memory. It takes me back to winter mornings in which I remained warm despite the bitter cold. Even more it warms me with the memory of being a dad. It transports me back to a series of wonderful mornings when my son and I became a part of each other through the magic of oatmeal. I can close my eyes and recall the sounds, sights, smells, and smiles of those moments. When I open them I realize it is only a memory and, even more, realize it won’t happen again.

Or will it?  Who knows…in the latter stages of my life I may be the one who coos as my son lovingly feeds me my oatmeal. By then, cream and sugar really shouldn’t be a factor in my longevity…so be generous, my son.                             

On Being...A Son

Until this year, I've never given a whole lot of thought, or effort, to Father's Day. My family never made much fuss over celebrations and holidays.

For his birthday my dad usually got new socks, underwear, and work clothes. My mom got new PF Flyers for her birthday because those were the most comfortable shoes she could wear while working as a cook at the local nursing home. Iowa farm families didn't have a large fashion repertoire in those days. Mom would buy Dad's gifts but Dad would flip a $10 bill from his billfold and ask me to go into Vicker's Department store to pick up the Flyers.

If that was the fuss we made for birthdays, imagine the excitement of Mother's Day or Father's Day at our house! As a result, I've never given much thought to these more minor holidays except as duty required.

This year was a bit different though. Tim Russert, a beloved and respected NBC newscaster, died only days before Father's Day. Throughout Father's Day weekend, and into the following week, there was extensive coverage of Russert's death, including a retelling of his own life story. The coverage by the media was inescapable - even rival networks carried extensive stories about Tim Russert.

It was in one of those stories that I heard Russert talk about his own father in a way that gave me a new appreciation for my dad. Russert's father was a sanitation worker and truck driver in Buffalo, New York. As I remember it, Russert expressed sincere appreciation and admiration for his father's willingness to allow him to venture beyond Buffalo and hope to attain more than his father's own life had allowed for him.

This got me thinking about my own dad. He was born in 1913 into a German immigrant farm family. Though I know embarrassingly little about his early life, I do know he learned how to work hard at an early age and the family apparently counted on his working. He left school after he completed the 8th grade to join the family farm full-time.

He continued to work my grandfather's farm for 40 years until Grandpa died in 1966, and then the farm became his. At the time of my grandfather's death my dad was 56 years old (two years older than I am today) and had lived every moment of his life in service to his father. Until the day his father died, he had not made any of his own career choices. It would have been so easy for him to have expected the same of me, his only son.

I remember the layout of my grandfather's farm, which would become my dad's farm, very clearly. A wire fence ran around the whole of the house and barn area, and another wire fence bisected the giant square, separating the house yard from the barn yard. There were only three gates that allowed access to the larger fenced area. One was a small, modestly ornate gate that opened to the house yard. Another was a wider, sturdy gate located behind the barn which was only occasionally used to load lifestock. The third was the wide, functional, main gate of the barn yard that was used for "every day" comings and goings on the farm. Unlike fences found in the city, these farm fences and gates were designed to prevent escape, not entry.

I remember as a child standing, sometimes with my dad, on the main barn yard gate just watching the world go by. That last statement makes it sound much more interesting and fast-paced than it really was. In fact, very little of the world went by our farm. An occasional car or truck would drive by. Sometimes the "traffic" consisted of a neighbor on a tractor, on horseback, on a bicycle, or, for real excitement, driving a herd of cattle or hogs between feedlots. The main gate, in the shade of a couple of large elm trees, was a particularly comfortable place to sit and ponder the world.

On one of those occasions when we sat together on that gate watching the world, it would have been so easy for my dad to say something like, "Tom, turn around and look at this barn yard and house. These, and the dreams and work they represent, are your life - today, tomorrow, for every day you take breath. It is mine today, but it will be yours when I'm gone. And I expect you to build upon what my father and I made of this farm and then, someday, pass it on to your son as it was passed on to me and to you."

That conversation never occurred. I'm not sure why it didn't and I'll never know. We just kept looking over the fence, into the greater world - such as it was then - beyond the gate.

Next Father's Day I will have a new reason to honor my dad. It may, in fact, be the single best reason I've ever had to honor my dad. He gave me the freedom to not only look over the gate, but beyond the gate and to eventually leave the confines of the farm. I have no idea if that was a conscious decision or not, or if it just seemed inevitable to him and not worth the fight. Either way, I was allowed to leave and to pursue my own dreams. This freedom was the greatest gift ever given to me by my father.

I have also come to learn that it is one of the greatest gifts any father can give his child. It is what I strive to give my son - some days more successfully than others. On those days when I struggle with myself to give my son the freedom my father gave me, I think of my own dad. I wonder what it must have been like for him to set me free. Was it made more difficult because he had no similar freedom from his father? Or did his own confinement to his father's dreams and wishes make it easier for him to loose me? Sadly, I'll never know.

Sometimes I also wonder what my dad would think about just how far off the farm I've traveled. When I lived in Central Iowa, only about 125 miles from my home town, my dad visited one time. He was excited to see that the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids television stations I watched were different from the ones he watched in Southeast Iowa. He was amazed that the those different stations would feature the same television shows he liked to watch on the same day of the week at the same time. He never could figure out how that happened and I finally gave up trying to explain simulcasting to him. It's probably a good thing he died before cable TV or the shock would have surely killed him!

No doubt my dad would have been amazed, and I'd like to think proud, of how far I've traveled from the farm. Today I get to watch my own son begin his journey from the "farm" I built. It is yet unclear where his travels will take him, but it is exciting and fascinating to watch and wonder. I expect that I will be no less amazed by his journey than my dad would be of mine. And I know I will be proud, too.

Thank you, Tim Russert, for giving me cause to think beyond the mostly negative images I have of my father to discover something good, rich, and worthy to cherish. Thank you, Dad, for letting me go and not confining me to the life I now know may have driven you to the bottle that took yours. Happy belated Father's Day!

On Being...Rather Than Doing

An early mentor once taught me that it is "better to burn out than rust out." For much of my career, and life, I've taken that advice to heart. As a result, I'm known, more positively, as being, "hard working" and "focused" Or, more more negatively if you prefer, as "compulsive" even "workaholic."

I assess myself more negatively than positively. The causes of my "compulsivity" and "workaholism?" They are too many for sure. Some will possibly be explored in greater detail in the future. For now it is enough to say that confusion played no small role.

The confusion I have worked most of a lifetime to unravel is the relationship between "doing" and "being." For many years I lived in the belief that "doing" is the source of my value to others and even to myself. The more I could "do" the more welcomed, popular, loved, and accepted I would be. So I became very, very busy.

When I moved from being an introvert to an extrovert at the beginning of my junior year in high school, I became involved in everything - which was very easy in a high school of less than 90 students. When I entered the work world, I worked long hours and consistently performed above and beyond the expectations of my supervisors. When one job wasn't adequate to support the needs of my family, I worked two, sometimes three, and, for a time, four jobs simultaneously. The harder I worked and the more I did, the higher my expectations, nay, hope, that it would make me more acceptable to the people from whom I most sought acceptance.

Except it didn't really seem to work out that way at all. Occasionally something I would "do" garnered brief approval. Mostly I developed high blood pressure and walked through many days exhausted as a result of the stress.

That is not to say that I didn't accomplish some good through all the "doing." However, I've since learned that much of that good came at a very high, and sadly, unnecessary price. I know now that had I become more comfortable and accepting of myself at an earlier time, I still could have accomplished the same good but without the damage the compulsive "doing" did.

In the past five years I have come to a new understanding of myself as a human being and of the importance of simply "being" a human. These essays and stories are really a continuation of my efforts to unravel the confusion of "doing" and "being." Even when they are not confused with one another, they are still inextricably related. Who I "am" will always inform what I "do." What I "do" similarly always informs who I "am." For me the secret of living well is to respect the delicate balance between these but, when it really counts, give the highest priority to "being" rather than "doing."

"Okay," you say. "That sounds good. But what the heck does it mean 'to be'?" In truth, it means different things to different people. However, I will be using this space to try to answer that question, in a more or less public way, for myself. Why? To increase my own understanding of what it means to me. To offer a small insight to other seekers who are on a similar life journey. Most significantly to me, to give my son a kind of history and perspective on a life that has profoundly impacted and shaped his own - for better and worse.