Things I Learned Along the Way: Putting Life's Lessons in Perspective

By Glenn W. Martin

Each of us has only one life to live. Some lives are long and some are cut too short. They can be full of happy times, but there can also be sad moments. The events that shape our lives are all pieces of our life's puzzle. The choices we make, the lessons we learn from our life's experiences, and the people who share them with us, all help to influence who we are and who we will become.

I have been around for over 80 years, and during my long life, I have had many experiences and learned many lessons along the way. In sharing some of these with you, it is not my intention to teach or give advice. Nor do I want to tell anyone how they should live, what they should believe, or what they ought to do. Instead, I want to share some of the things I learned that proved to be useful to me on my life's journey. I hope some of these lessons might also be helpful as you make your way on your own journey through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 13, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595814381

Glenn W. Martin

Glenn W. Martin is originally from Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He has a journalism degree from the University of Wisconsin, and a graduate degree from Boston University. During his lifetime, he has been a musician, writer, teacher, and ordained minister. Now retired in Plymouth, Minnesota, he does freelance writing, speaking and teaching.

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Copyright © 2005 by Glenn W. Martin

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I want to dedicate this book to all of those many nameless persons who were my models, mentors, teachers, and guides; to the people who took the time to teach me the lessons I needed to learn about life…….what it is, its purpose and meaning, and how it begins and ends.

These same people also taught me what is right and what is wrong, and the principles and rules of good behavior and moral conduct.

But most of all, I dedicate this book to those rare individuals who also shared with me their own experience, faith, and wisdom, for it is from them that I learned the most valuable lessons of all.

Contents

Introduction

About The Tree

Some Words About Wisdom

Part 1: Identity and Relationships

How I Became A Man

Models, Mavericks, Misfits And Me

Finding Maturity In All The Right Places

What Will You Do When You Grow Up?

The Blue Collar Working Class

Pondering The Mysteries Of Life

Our Unforgettable Wedding Night

Turning 80

Part 2: Perspective

The Shoe Repair Man

Time And Time Keeping

Is New Always Better?

My Lucky Number

Are You Having Any Fun?

The Joy Of Giving Things Away

The Parable Of The Ants

My Journey To Holly Springs

Caught In The Middle

Listening To The Elders

Before It’s Too Late

Part 3: Suffering, Death and Grieving

A Bathroom, A Telephone, And A Window

The Day My Aunt Evie Died

The Death Of My Father

The Death Of My Mother

Death Parts Us

The Painting

Our Beloved Dean

Death And Dying

The Lost Art Of Grieving

The Tales Of A Woman And A Man

Part 4: Legacy

Planting Trees

The Things I Have Tried To Teach My Children

A Last Sentimental Journey

More About Memories

How I Want To Be Remembered

Part 5: Faith

Magic, Miracle, And Mystery

Obeying The Commandments Or Living By Faith

What Is Missing?

No Solemn Assemblies

The Man Who Wouldn’t Join The Church

Part 6: Inspiration

Dreaming The Impossible Dream

Those Wonderful Moments Of Grace

Something Very Beautiful

A Parable: A Walk With Our Creator

A Poem: Movin’ On

About The Author

Acknowledgments

This book could not have become a reality, and certainly not the book it turned out to be, without the able and necessary assistance of two wonderful and talented people.

The first is my daughter and partner, Carol Hendricks, who again designed the cover and the format for the book, did all of the final editing and proofing, and worked closely with the production staff at iUNIVERSE to get it published. I am never able to thank her enough for what she does.

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The other is my sister-in-law, Pat Meighen. She took the beautiful photograph of the unusual tree that graces the front cover of the book and she did the original renderings of the tree that appear on the back cover and on the inside pages, as well. Her creative work provides the underlying theme for the stories in the book.

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Introduction

I have been around for a long time, more than 80 years now, and during that time I have learned a lot of things.

The main reason for writing this book is that I want to get all of the good stuff I learned down on paper before it gets lost forever. Of course, I don’t need to report everything, only the wisdom that still makes sense and is worth preserving.

I’m really not doing this as much for me as I am doing it for my children and grandchildren. I have already learned what I want and need to know, but they still have much to learn about life.

By sharing these things with them (and with you), maybe I can help them to get off to a good start. It may prevent them from making some of the mistakes I made and keep them out of trouble. It might also point them in the right direction, encourage them, support them and challenge them. I don’t intend to tell them everything, just a few things that they ought to know and might be useful to them as they make their way through life.

My purpose is not to teach or to give advice. Nor is it to try to tell anyone how they should live, what they should think or believe, or what they ought to do. My only purpose is to share some things that proved useful and helpful to me on my life’s journey.

If any of what I have to say makes sense to you, feel free to pass it on to others. We humans need all the help we can get!

About The Tree

The minute I saw it, I knew it had to be on the cover of this book. But I didn’t quite know why. When you first saw it, you may have wondered, too.

The tree on the cover is small and ugly, not anything like the perfect trees I always picked out for our family and home for Christmas. Nor is it one of those beautiful trees I see up here in Northern Minnesota every day.

So, why did I pick this tree? Because this tree tells the story I want to tell in my book. It is an accurate portrait of what this book and our lives are about.

This tree is straight, but not at all full. Its branches are crooked and badly spaced. Some of them are even dead. There are more branches on the left side than on the right. It has obviously been the victim of some of the harshest Minnesota weather. If you could see the bottom of it, you would wonder how it ever came to be or why it is still living. It doesn’t seem to have any roots. And it stands out there all alone where everyone can see all of its imperfections.

But that what makes this tree so special!

I found the tree early one fall when my wife and I took a trip to see her sister, Pat, who lives out in the country near Preston, Minnesota. We had never seen her house and were not familiar with that part of the state. We soon learned what we had missed. Southeastern Minnesota is beautiful, bordering the mighty Mississippi River, with lots of wooded areas atop its bluffs on both sides. Some might call it pristine.

The view from Pat’s house is breathtaking. It is also a dangerous place to be if one is not careful and does not know the territory.

As we walked out of the house and out into her backyard the first day we were there, Pat warned us to be careful. She told us that if we walked too far, we would suddenly come to the end of the bluff, which dropped almost 200 feet straight down. It is hard to see where the edge is, even in the light of day. You can’t see it at all at night.

We decided it was wiser to enjoy the magnificent view through her large picture window, which provided a view of undeveloped land that stretches for many, many miles. It was fall and the colors of the changing leaves were at their peak, except for that pine tree which was right in the middle of that panoramic view. It was ugly, but it was still green.

For some reason I couldn’t take my eyes off that tree. Something about it fascinated me. It was compelling.

It was as if it were trying to speak to me and tell me something I needed to know, some secret that it wanted to share with only me. I do not tend to be superstitious, but this feeling was not logical or rational. I could not explain how I felt to my wife and sister-in-law, who kind of raised their eyebrows and rolled their eyes when I tried.

I kept seeing that little tree every time I looked at the view out the window. I would see it out of the corner of my eye as I sat on a comfortable chair by the window reading or meditating, or at the dinner table having a wonderful meal. I saw it when the sun came up in the morning and when it went down in the evening. I could even see it by the light of the moon at night.

As the day went, on everything else seemed to change, except for the tree. From every angle, it always looked the same. There was a mystery about it. It held some message and meaning that I was not discovering. I was determined to find out what that was.

And I did.

Pat unconsciously gave me the clue.

She said that the thing that fascinated her most about the tree was that it was not growing out of the ground. She said that if I could get close enough (which she urged me not to try), I would see that it was growing right out of the limestone bluff. The bottom of its trunk came straight out of the rock for a short distance and then the rest of the tree shot up toward the sky. It was just hanging there on the edge of the cliff. That tree was determined to live, to stand up straight, and to have its branches pointing up into the sky. Even its crooked top branches seemed to be trying to point toward heaven.

Somehow it got its nourishment from an unknown source and it certainly must have been struggling just to keep alive. Parts of it were dying and it wasn’t pretty. Unlike most pine trees, it was badly misshapen. But while many of the other trees around it had given up, died, and had fallen to the ground where they were rotting, this small tree clung to LIFE as tenaciously as it clung to the bluff.

It was determined, or destined, not to die…at least not yet!

Then it hit me. I think I might have said it out loud, That little tree is a perfect picture of my life!

It has lots of flaws and it isn’t beautiful.

It is too small, it is imperfect, and it may be slowly dying.

It shows the signs of being battered and bruised.

It is no longer young, though it is still green.

And it still shows some signs of growth.

Some day the wind might blow the little tree over the cliff and into the river……or lightning might strike it……or heavy rain, ice or snow might break off more branches. Maybe the nourishment that it seemed to have struggled to get might not be enough to feed all of the branches or enable it to continue to grow.

One day it will finally die, as all things do. Some day, when I come back to visit Pat again, it may be gone. If that happens I will grieve for it.

However, maybe it will outlive me.

I hope it does.

But for now, it holds on. It is still alive.

And it is still lovely and ever GREEN!

I knew before I left Pat’s house that this tree had to be on the cover of my book. And I wanted pictures or drawings of it scattered throughout its pages. If you forget everything you read, I want you to remember the tree.

I chose this particular tree as the main image for my book because for me it is both a perfect symbol of the tenacity of life and also of life eternal. That small and imperfect tree is just like you and me, just like all humans, alive for a few score years and ten, and then destined for more life somewhere else.

Like all life here on earth, it is a mystery yet to be revealed.

The rendering of that small tree, like art works often do, represents what I am about to say better than what I can say with my words. The tree sums up, as my book attempts to do, what I have learned in my long life, what wisdom I have attained, and what I want to leave as a legacy for my family and friends.

That tree says, by what it is, what the writer of the Book of Proverbs in the Bible took a whole book to say, that when all is said and done, it is always better to be ALIVE than it is to be beautiful and perfect.

So, I wrote this book with that message in mind.

And then, like the tree, I will be ready to return to where I came from or go to the next place on my journey…which will be yet another mystery of life!

Some Words About Wisdom

In our Western Societies, we value and reward intelligence and knowledge. In other cultures, the highest value is wisdom. They both are a kind of knowing, but they are continents apart.

In America, we expect our citizens to be smart so we send our children to schools and colleges to learn. In other cultures, the children gather around those who are wise, to learn from them their experience and insights. Who is right? Which is the better way?

As our country gets more and more intercultural, perhaps both ways of learning will come together in a better mix. And in the process, our children will not only learn what they need to know, but also become wise before they get old.

One of things that will be quickly learned it that being old and being wise is not the same. Wisdom has to do with insight, not with longevity.

Older Or Wiser

We often try to put together two things that do not necessarily go together.

We like to say that someone is older AND wiser. But one can be old but NOT yet be wise, or one can be wise but NOT yet be old. Being old in years does not automatically give one wisdom. And wisdom is not always a byproduct of age.

These ruminations will not be about growing old, being old, or the problems and possibility that come with old age. That is a topic for another time and place.

The stories in this book are about wisdom……what it is, how one gets it, and what wonders it performs when one has it. The problem is that wisdom is not something that one acquires, works for and earns, or accomplishes through some extraordinary effort on one’s part. Wisdom is a gift. It can only be received, appreciated, relished, and enjoyed.

Wisdom is more than the sum total of information that has been accumulated over a lifetime…it is more than a collection of experiences, it is more than rare insight or genius, and it is not the same as being smart.

The best way to put it is to say that wisdom is KNOWING, knowing what life is and what it is all about, and how to put things together so they make sense.

Wisdom is not just knowing the right things to do, but the best things to do. Wisdom is closer to insight than it is to knowledge.

Those who have it are lucky, those who do not are missing something.

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Part 1:

Identity and

Relationships

How I Became A Man

St. Paul was a smart man. He said some real smart things, but I don’t think he ever said anything wiser than when he said, When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up my childish ways.

But he didn’t tell us when that was going to happen or how. When does one stop being a child? When does a young boy become a man? What is this thing called puberty all about? Or, let’s put it another and better way. When does one become an adult? When do we finally mature?

I can only tell you how that happened for me. You will have to say for yourself how it happened for you.

Each In His Own Way

You would think that we would have given up our childish ways by the time we graduated from high school, wouldn’t you? But that’s not the way it was for those of us who graduated from good old Central High School in Sheboygan, Wisconsin in June of 1942. We had our diplomas and we were finished with high school, but we were not quite ready for the real world.

We may have tried to fool people and pretend that we were mature, but we were not……far from it. We still wanted to be free, unencumbered, and have jobs that paid enough money to buy cars. But we were far from being ready to assume adult responsibilities and duties. We were not quite ready to grow up. Not just yet. We liked the benefits of childhood too much.

Actually, if the truth be told, we were still very dependent, very selfish, and very foolish! We were still a bunch of kids, only our toys were getting bigger and faster and our games were getting to be more daring and dangerous. As I remember it, every one of the boys in my graduation class had some personal childish obsession that they were unwilling to let go of, including me.

For some of the guys it was sports, for others, it was motorcycles or fast cars. We all had some group we ran with. Some of the guys let their hormones carry them away and thought that going steady or having lots of sex with lots of girls was the thing to do.

The girls had their things, too. Their main obsession seemed to be looking as pretty as possible and chasing after and hanging around boys. But in the back of their minds, they were thinking marriage and babies.

My Passion

My thing, my passion, my obsession, was jazz music and playing my drums. I would have done that 24 hours a day, if I could have. I really thought I was a pretty hot drummer, and I was sure that some day I would be as good or even better than Gene Krupa or Buddy Rich, my two idols.

I had my own band while I was still in high school and was regularly playing at taverns, at clubs, and in ballrooms. I lived to play gigs. Now that I was out of school, I was ready and eager to go on the road with a band, my own or someone else’s. I planned to spend the rest of my life being a professional musician. It didn’t take long to get started on my career.

The day after graduation, my band and I started working full-time at a summer resort, playing the music we loved to play and making more money on that first gig than we had ever dreamed of earning. It was almost as much as our fathers made on their factory jobs! If the requirement for being a man was a good paying job, we had already made it. But……….

Was I a man?

Not yet.

Was I mature?

Hardly!

Would I become an adult when I turned 18 in February?

No! At that time, you had be 21 to legally be an adult. That was the law at that time. So I still had a few years to go.

Off To A Good Start

But, I was making more progress on my way toward manhood than most of my friends. I had already done many of the things that men at that time were supposed to do.

-   I had left home and never planned to come back there to live again.

-   I had a steady job, earned my own money, and paid all of my bills; I never asked my parents for financial help.

-   I took full responsibility for the decisions I made.

-   I was willing to accept the consequences for my actions.

Didn’t those things add up to being a male adult? Wasn’t I qualified now to be a man? I thought so then, in the summer of 1942. I was to learn otherwise very soon.

You’re In The Army Now

In my last book, Some of the Funniest Things Happen in the Most Unlikely and Unexpected Places, I told my readers about the Sergeant who was determined to make men out of us, and how hard we tried to follow his formula in order to do that. But he, and we, failed. The outcome of that endeavor was really sad   we had tried so hard!

When I was discharged and came back into civilian life, I knew I had still not accomplished I had attempted to do……become a man. It would still be another month before I became a legal adult. It would take longer than that before I reached maturity. I was sad to have to admit that I still had to acquire some needed skills, and becoming a man was not going to be as quick and easy as I thought it would be. I still had a lot to learn, some of it the hard way.

Being The Big Man On Campus

Shortly after I got discharged from the Army, I found myself on the campus of a small college in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ready to work on a degree and surrounded by lovely and lively co-eds, eager to test my manhood. Now was my chance to show what I could do. I was 21 now and legally an adult. I could vote, sign contracts, smoke and drink if I wanted to, and satisfy my hormones if and when they urged me to do so. I was on the brink of becoming a man, though I did not know it at the time. All I had to do was mature.

I hadn’t been at the college long before some silly, snotty, smart-alec 18 year old sophomore, who had been too young to go to fight and die for his country during the war, took me aside and whispered in my ear, "Once you get

to be a big man on campus you’ll have it made…….and you can have any

chick you want. If you want to make it with the girls, just get to be a big man on campus!" I wanted to make it with the girls so I was determined to be a big man on campus.

I didn’t think that should be so hard. Any guy who was 21 years old and had been through the war, should be one up on these kids who were still in junior high when we were off fighting and dying for our country. I was determined to become the BIGGEST MAN ON CAMPUS this old school had ever seen. And I was. And it didn’t take long. It was almost too easy.

Before my first year in college was over, I had become the President of my class, and then the President of the whole student body. I was the Editor of the school paper, the Chairman of the Platform Committee, and the Chairman of the Student Council.

I was also a drummer in the concert band and the drummer for the school’s dance and jazz bands. I was elected the Grand Master of my fraternity. My credentials and power went on and on. If there was an office, I held it at one time or another. If there was a way to be in the spotlight, I found it. But, lest you think that all I did was fool around in college, I will impress you with the fact that I was also an Honor Student and won awards for that. And I did it all in two years.

I had it all and I did it all. I was truly a big man on campus, maybe the biggest man on that campus at that time.

I was also about to have one of the greatest and one of the most shocking experiences of my life, both at the same time.

It Took A Blonde To Show Me The Light

A cute little blonde appeared one day and finally came to my rescue. She also captured and broke my heart. I am not sure how she did it. All I know is that she gets at least part of the credit for making me into what I became, a mature and responsible person. In the process, I did get engaged to her and fully intended to marry her and raise a family with her.

Did I love her at the time?

Not really. I didn’t know what love was.

Did I want to marry her?

I thought I did. But I found out I didn’t.

She came with the territory. She helped my image as the Big Man on Campus. Fortunately for her and for me, it did not last. It was over even before I left campus and moved out of town. She found someone else she liked better than me.

But I no longer felt like a failure. She taught me what I needed to know about girls, things that I needed to know when I did find the right person and was mature and ready for love and marriage. That was to take a few more years.

At the time when my blonde girl friend and I broke up, I was still too self-centered, irresponsible, and selfish. I was having a lot of fun, but I was not really happy and I knew it. I was busy, popular, talented, and getting well educated, but I was leading a very shallow life, without any sense of direction or purpose. I was an adult, but I was not yet a man. I certainly was not yet mature. I was looking for something more.

And then it happened. The transformation took place, rather unexpectedly and suddenly, as these things often do.

It Took A Friend…It Usually Does

A good friend and fellow musician decided one day that I needed a painful lesson before I could grow up. He decided to risk our friendship in order to help me.

We were playing a band job together and were on a break. I was smarting off about something or other and bragging about how great I was. He finally had enough.

He looked me straight in the eye and said, "You are my friend, Glenn, but you are a DAMN FOOL! You think you are really hot stuff, don’t you? But what you are is nothing but a silly little kid. When are you going to grow up? Do you think anyone out here in the world really