A Charlie Brown Christmas (The Meaning of Christmas)

This classic is now 50 years old.

Last year the city of Reading put up such a straggly tree it raised a ruckus that was heard nationwide. But it turned out to be the most memorable Christmas tree the city ever had. And this year they have added Snoopy's dog house to the display in memory of last year's Charlie Brown tree.

Thanksgiving

 

 

When Kids Become King

A lot of the parenting advice that is printed today is not worth reading. Here is an article in today's Reading Eagle newspaper that is right on the money.

 

 

When Kids Become King

In the 1960s, as part of an overall, culture-wide paradigm shift, a sea change took place in our collective understanding of the rearing of children. The two fundamental questions in that regard are and have always been: 1. What is the nature of a child? and 2. What constitute parental responsibilities toward a child? In the 1950s and before, those questions were answered in one way; since the 1960s, they have been answered in quite another way.

One parenting point of view was replaced with another. As I say in my latest book, "Grandma Was Right After All!" the traditional point of view was represented by a set of parenting aphorisms that all but disappeared as the new, postmodern psychological view took over. For example, I am a member of the last generation of American children to be corrected when one of us acted too big for our britches. But then, our parents understood the common sense of not sanctioning high self-esteem.

In the good old days (when according to reliable statistics the mental health of children was lots and lots better than it is today), children were to be seen and not heard. In more direct terms, when adults were talking, children were to listen. They were not to interrupt. This assisted in maintaining a healthy boundary between adults and children. That boundary caused them to "look up," to aspire to become adults (because they were not treated as if they already were adults, only shorter).

In the good old days, children lay in the beds they made. One's parents made clear, early on, that one was responsible for the choices he/she had made. Today's parents lie in the beds their children make. They also complain that child rearing is stressful. Get it?

In the good old days, parents told children to stew in their own juices. The parent was not going to be swayed by a child's emotional outbursts. Today's parents feel their children's pain. When they make decisions that cause children emotional pain, they actually think their children's pain (expressed as crying, shouting, screaming and so on) is indication that their decisions should be revisited. Lots of today's parents complain to me that their kids are manipulative. Duh!

Once upon a time, money did not grow on trees. It still doesn't. Today, it magically appears when a parent swipes a plastic card at an ATM. I wish I had some ATM money for every time a parent has said to me that her child acts entitled.

Baby boomers ate what parents put on their plates because there were starving children in the world. I credit unfortunate children in Europe, Africa and China for why I enjoy eating stuff some people can't even pronounce - borscht, for example. I have lost count of the number of times I've seen parents bring a plastic container of the only food their child will eat to group meals. Proper parenting is hard, or so I'm told.

Nearly every child raised in the 1950s was told he was just a little fish in a big pond. That's a good thing for anyone to keep in mind. Humility, after all, is weightless. It must be a terrible burden to think of oneself as a big fish.

The burden is all the worse if the big fish in question is 4 or 5 years old.

by family psychologist John Rosemond

Retirement?

The month is ten days old and I have not posted anything since the last days of October. Why? Too busy. I thought things were supposed to slow down by this stage of life. In some ways, it has but the overall picture is the same. It's just that the type of activity has changed. I have never sat around with time on my hands wondering what to do. Here's a run down of the first ten days of this month.

November 1--One of our sister churches had a weekend meeting with a speaker from Virginia on the subject of the Civil War. We took in all three sessions: Saturday evening, Sunday morning and evening.

November 2--Laundry day, finished the project I was working on all summer in which I was serving as editor, revival meetings began at our church in the evening

November 3--Worked at the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society all day, church in the evening

November 4--Took a friend to a funeral in the morning, planted some tulips and cleaned up some flower beds, cleaned upstairs so it's ready for overnight guests on Friday, worked on preparing to teach Sunday school, and went to church in the evening

November 5--Babysat a 3 year-old grandson, caught up on ironing, cleaned most of the house, had a long phone call from someone asking for advice about writing, finished reading a manuscript someone else sent for review, went to church in the evening

November 6--Finished getting my Sunday school lesson ready, mopped floors, and went for groceries. We skipped church that evening because I was one of the speakers at a book signing arranged by the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society. Becky McGurrin was the other speaker. She read from her book Somewhere In The Skies and I read from my newest book Esther Starts From Home. We had a nice turnout and sold a lot of books.

 

 

Becky and her husband, Joe, followed us home and were here overnight. They live in West Virginia and it was too far for them to drive home that night.

November 7--We had a wonderful visit with Becky and Joe which stretched out until nearly noon. Then we spent the rest of the day at the Christian Aid Ministries' Open House.

November 8--I taught Sunday school in the morning, we had a fellowship meal for lunch, came home to get much-needed naps, and went back for the final session of revivals. I had not had time to make anything for my contribution to the fellowship meal and got by with dumping jars of pickles and olives on a tray.

November 9--Laundry day again. I had breakfast at a restaurant with three other ladies which again stretched until nearly noon. Then I came home to finish laundry, do some more clean up work in flower beds and other small jobs. Finally, the rush was over and I sat down to read a book.

November 10--I am taking today to catch my breath and do some sit-down jobs like this. Maybe tomorrow I will have the energy to tackle something more strenuous.

I am enjoying this stage of life as much as I did each stage before this. But the idea that "retirement age" is slow and boring with not much to do is an illusion. I'm just as busy as ever, just in different ways. Excuse me now as I move on to the next thing.

Glory of Autumn

When we were younger and had a passel of children at home, we had an annual tradition of going on a hike when the leaves were colored in the fall. This was usually around our daughter's October 19 birthday. We hiked parts of the Appalachian Trail or other places in Penn's Woods.

We ran out of children and ambition and dropped the tradition many years ago. But on Sunday the leaves were at their peak and the colors were more brilliant than some years. I got the urge once again to go out and enjoy the glory of autumn. I thought we could just take a drive rather than hike but that turned out not to be satisfactory. To really see and fully appreciate fall leaves, you have to get up close to them. So we parked the car in a parking lot on the Blue Mountain and walked some trails.

The bright sunshine brought out the full colors of the leaves and the smell of the fallen ones can only be appreciated while walking in the woods. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience but there was something lacking with just the two of us. There was no one to run ahead or lag behind poking sticks in hollow logs, picking up the perfect walking stick, collecting handfuls of leaves or other woodland treasures, saying, "I have to go to the bathroom," or "Mom, he hit me with his stick." When hiking was a family activity I never thought I'd miss that kind of thing, but I did. We walked sedately along snapping pictures and stayed out as long as the light lasted. It was nice but I missed the company of the children who have disappeared into adults.

 

 

 

We wound up at Bloody Springs where the Spatz family were killed by Indians during the French and Indian War. They lived near the spring, which was renamed Bloody Spring after the attack. This is not far from where the Hostettler family lived and whose story of the Indian attack they suffered in 1757 is well-known. Not many details seem to be available on the Spatz family and their story. Whether it is fact or fancy I cannot confirm but it certainly was a distinct possibility. The Blue Mountain was the dividing line between the frontier and Indian territory. The Hostettlers lived at the foot of the mountain but this spot is part way up the mountain. Being too close to Indian territory made them easy targets.

 

 

This monument has been erected to mark the spot. The spring has been reduced to a trickle but is still there.

 

Penn's Woods has changed so much it's hard to imagine what it was like to live here 250 years ago. Time moves relentlessly on. Children grow up, trees disappear, leaves fall---the cycle repeats year after year. The changes come in such small increments they are hardly noticeable. But one day you look back, see how much things have changed, and wonder how it happened so fast.

Esther Starts From Home

My newest book, Esther Starts From Home, arrived yesterday and will begin to appear in bookstores next week. It was published by Christian Light and will also be available for online orders at  https://www.clp.org/. The retail price is $8.95.

 

The book is a collection of 29 short stories for children up to age 10. All of the stories are about Esther and her sister Grace. The title is taken from one of the stories in which Esther thinks about how the only way she knows to get somewhere is by starting from her house. She wonders how people know which roads to take if they start from somewhere else. The story ends with:

 

 Suddenly something dawned on Esther that she had never thought of before. “We live in the middle of the world and everybody else lives around us.” 

Everyone but Esther laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Esther cried. “We do, don’t we?”

“Yes, dear,” Mom said. “Our home is in the middle of your world. That’s the way it should be.”

“You can start from home and go anywhere in the world—and all the way to Heaven too,” Daddy said.

Thomas Jenkins

We always go to Ohio about this time of year to help our daughter celebrate her birthday. We went out on Friday morning and came home Sunday evening. Leroy took the whole day off Friday so we could go first thing in the morning and have enough time for me to do some research in the Guernsey County courthouse before it closed at 4pm. I packed a lunch which I ate on the way, and then he ate his after we arrived at 12:30.

The need for this research is a long story. Suffice it to say I got in an argument this summer with someone who was claiming the Thomas Jenkins reported to have been buried in the Logan cemetery (on the hill above our daughter's house) was a Thomas Jenkins who lived in Champaign County. I was sure the Thomas in Guernsey County was not the same person as the Champaign County Thomas and went in search of documents to prove that. I achieved my objective but also found more than that.

This all began when I found a badly damaged but still legible gravestone in the cemetery for a Sara Jenkins who was the wife of Thomas Jenkins. The cemetery record says Thomas was buried there in 1832, so it seemed they must be husband and wife since they are the only two Jenkins listed there. A more careful reading of the stone this weekend shows that it says Sara was "the wife of Thomas Jenkins who departed this life February 29, 1832." Whoever read that stone and wrote up the cemetery record took that to mean Thomas died in 1832 but it was actually Sara's death date.

The Guernsey County records show Thomas Jenkins Sr. died in 1838 and Thomas Jenkins Jr. died in 1858. There is nothing to support a Thomas dying in 1832. In addition, the wife of Thomas Sr. was Margaret, not Sara.

Anyone who is interested in the documents on the family of Thomas and Margaret Jenkins can read my findings here

 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=jenkins&GSfn=thomas&GSbyrel=all&GSdy=1832&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=151354257&df=all&

 

That is all the further I plan to go with the research on this family. I am satisfied that I have proved the Thomas Jenkins family in Guernsey County was not the same as the one in Champaign County. If anyone who is in that family wants to do more research, they can build on this foundation.

 

We spent Saturday at the Antrim Mennonite School benefit auction, which just happened to be the same weekend. We bought a few small items and food. They had a good turnout and raised a nice amount of money for the school. The weather was more agreeable than sometimes but turned colder in the afternoon.

 

 

On Sunday morning there was a heavy, killing frost on the ground. That moved east with us as we came home. It was snowing as we crossed the mountains and on top it was enough to cover the ground with a layer of white. This morning (Monday) we had 28 degrees and a heavy coating of frost. Growing season 2015 is over. We're heading into another winter, like it or not.