Eva Isabelle Blann, 1920-2011

Proverbs 31:10-31
A wife of noble character who can find?
  She is worth far more than rubies.
Her husband has full confidence in her
  and lacks nothing of value.
She brings him good, not harm,
  all the days of her life.
She selects wool and flax
  and works with eager hands.
She is like the merchant ships,
  bringing her food from afar.
She gets up while it is still night;
  she provides food for her family
  and portions for her female servants.
She considers a field and buys it;
  out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
She sets about her work vigorously;
  her arms are strong for her tasks.
She sees that her trading is profitable,
  and her lamp does not go out at night.
In her hand she holds the distaff
  and grasps the spindle with her fingers.
She opens her arms to the poor
  and extends her hands to the needy.
When it snows, she has no fear for her household;
  for all of them are clothed in scarlet.
She makes coverings for her bed;
  she is clothed in fine linen and purple.
Her husband is respected at the city gate,
  where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.
She makes linen garments and sells them,
  and supplies the merchants with sashes.
She is clothed with strength and dignity;
  she can laugh at the days to come.
She speaks with wisdom,
  and faithful instruction is on her tongue.
She watches over the affairs of her household
  and does not eat the bread of idleness.
Her children arise and call her blessed;
  her husband also, and he praises her:
“Many women do noble things,
  but you surpass them all.”
Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
  but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.
Honor her for all that her hands have done,
  and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

I've heard Proverbs 31 many times in my life.  As a man, I was encouraged to find a "Proverbs 31 Woman."  This chapter paints a picture of this extraordinary creature who seemingly does it all - and looks good doing it.  Naturally, guys WOULD gravitate towards this chapter.  I mean, who wouldn't want someone like that?  Women, unfortunately, have been saddled with living up to this chick for millennia.  Her children may rise up and called her blessed.  But future generations call her "troublemaker" and "curve wrecker."

When I was thinking about the life of Eva Blann, it was harder for me to put into words all that I wanted to say.  When her husband, H John Blann, passed away two years ago (almost exactly two years), the words just flowed out like my tears.  I had spent so much time with him that it just poured out.  But when I tried to put a point to my thoughts on Grandma Blann, it wasn't so easy.  It wasn't because I didn't love her as much.  She was as dear to me as my own flesh and blood family.  She treated me just like her biological grandchildren, even though I was an in-law.  And we had many conversations as well.  But it just wasn't as simple to express.

When Grandma passed away earlier, the first thing to popped to mine was Proverbs 31.  And finally I knew what to say.  I think my confusion came because there was SO MUCH to put down.  As I read through that passage again, I saw Grandma's picture emerging through every line.  From the very beginning, about being a woman of good character.  This was not ever in doubt.  Grandma was the most noble woman of high character I could ever imagine.  I remember any time a joke even approached some sort of line, she would just smile and say, "Oh my," or "Oh my stars."  Heather has told me about when she was a child that Grandma sat the kids down and gave them a lecture on the meanings of euphemisms when one of the kids dared to say "gosh."

Her husband has full confidence in her.  She brings him only good and no harm.  I cannot even imagine a couple that were closer than Eva and John.  They were just a set.  But this is also one area that helped me to know why it was hard to figure out my thoughts.  All that time I spent with Grandpa - she was there just about every time.  She may have been in the kitchen and we were in the living room.  Or she was in the living room and we were in the kitchen.  Or she was sitting in her chair reading and not even listening to what we were saying.  (Or so it appeared.)  She knew he had stuff to do.  He needed to minister to me - and she let him.  She stepped back and let him do it, but was right there the whole time.  It takes an amazing amount of grace to be a pastor's wife.  She did it better than just about anyone.  She enhanced his ministry because she brought so much to the proverbial table and took absolutely nothing off it.

All the lines about wool and flax and making coverings for the bed just made me think of Grandma.  Every one of her grandchildren have an afghan she crocheted for them.  There were always blankets and clothes around the house that she had made.  When it talks about grasping the spindle with her fingers, I can't help of think about Grandma's hands.  She played the piano, she crocheted, she cooked, she worked hard.  Her hands were always working (vigorously, like the proverb says).  The thing that amazed me when I found it out was that she had nine fingers.  This endlessly fascinated my kids, especially the story of how she lost the tenth one.  She got bit by a snake while serving as a missionary in Africa.  And she lost her finger.  But that never seemed to affect her at all.  She did more with nine fingers than most did with ten.  And most people probably never even knew one was gone.

She gets up when it is night.  By the the time I rolled into the picture, Grandma and Grandpa were up in years.  And, as is required for all older people, they got up at Oh Dark Thirty.  They were up very early and eating breakfast.  They also used their early mornings to pray for their family.  They had a notebook with every family member's name in it.  And they prayed for all of them every day.  They also prayed for friends and missionaries and pastors and leaders and anyone else you asked them to.  That's how they operated.

So many other little phrases just jump out to me.  Opens her arms to the poor.  She speaks with wisdom. She watches over her household - and can tell you exactly when the garage went up when you got home.  It was like the passage was written about this woman.  She did all of those things.  She never knew a stranger.  Grandma and Grandpa knew everyone who worked at the neighborhood Wendy's.  They greeted them every time they went there and talked to them like they had grown up on the same block.  This was Wendy's, people.  She didn't care.  Those people needed love and Grandma was going to love on them.

And when this tremendous woman's life is over, her children do arise and call her blessed.  Two weeks ago, all four of her children were down to see Grandma.  They came to spend some final time with this incredible lady.  The woman who watched her new husband leave on a boat to serve in Africa, knowing she wouldn't see him for months - if everything went well.  The woman who delivered a breech baby in an African field hospital.  The woman who raised four of the godliest people I have ever met.  She never stopped being that woman.  She used to spend time with my kids drawing and reading.  My youngest one, Gabe, had a special place in his heart for her.  He used to come crawl up into her lap in the recliner on Sundays waiting for lunch and have her read books to him.  He would pretend to "fix" her walker with a toy wrench.  And she loved it.  The staff at the assisted living facility she has lived in for the last few years were so heartbroken at the thought of this lady passing away that they desperately clutched at any hope to keep her there.  But you can't cure old age.  And time runs out for every one of us.  It was time for her to go home to see her Heavenly Father and be reunited with her husband.  And it was time for us to say goodbye.

You can't just say goodbye to someone like that.  The loss of a person that is so incredible just leaves a gaping hole in your life.  You know it is inevitable.  And in some ways you are glad, just because they aren't suffering any more.  But there is a gaping space where they used to be.  And then you look around and realize that they are a part of your entire life.  There are the physical mementos, like the old books and gifts she has given you over the years.  And there are the memories that flood back.  But a big part of it is the very foundation on which you stand.  She helped to lay that through her sacrifice and love and teaching and serving.  It wasn't ever flashy.  But it was always meaningful.  It always communicated the love of God.  It may have just seemed like a peach jello salad brought to a Sunday lunch to a random observer.  But it was so much more than that.  It was the fact that she remembered that the husband of one of her seventeen grandchildren loved that peach jello salad.  And she knew that he and his family were going to be in town for lunch that day.  And she wanted him to feel loved.  And so she made it and brought it over.  She gave him a big hug, like every time she saw him.  She saw his big smile at the salad and smiled back.  Then she quietly went in the kitchen so that he could spend time with her husband - knowing how desperately he needed to have someone like that invest time in his life.  And she prayed for him to get what he needed as she helped set the table.

THAT'S a woman worth praising.  That is the kind of woman I hope my daughter grows up to be like.  That is the kind of woman I hope my sons are blessed enough to marry.  That is the kind of woman that I was fortunate enough to marry and that I thank God every day for.  [She learned how to be that kind of woman at the feet of her mother (another example of that kind of woman) and her grandmother.]  That is the kind of woman that never sees the limelight and never seeks it.  But she will be the happiest person in the world if you gain it.  (And she'll also remind you of the dangers of spending too much time in it.)  I thank God I had a chance to be a part of her life.  And I know I am a better person because she was a part of mine.

Movie Transformer

From the latest box office numbers, is looks like everyone in America is rushing out to see Transformers: Dark of the Moon.  I read on Facebook as dozens of my friends rushed out to see the film - some at midnight the day before it officially opened.  Then I read their varied opinions.  These ranged from "you will wish you were dead" to "that was the most amazing thing I've ever seen" and just about everything in between.  I keep hoping the movie will stop making money, but it doesn't.  This makes me wonder what exactly is wrong with me.  Why don't I want to see this epitome of a summer action flick?  Not only have no interest in seeing it, but I actually have been rooting for it to fail and be awful.  Why is that?

I am a movie fan.  And I am far from one of those snooty filmgoers that only watch foreign films and limited release films (aka Oscar voters).  I am just as likely to avoid an Oscar nominee as a brainless action film.  I set my own standards for what I want to watch.  They don't have to make sense to anyone else.  I really don't care if you think my decisions are stupid.  I'm the one who ends up having to sit there.  I used to go see just about everything that came out, except for horror films.  (I have NEVER liked those.)  But now I actively avoid certain movies.  What changed?

I spend far too much time thinking about this and came up with reasons.  And, more than that, I came up with an exact date when all of this changed.  September 11, 2001.  Now, I know a lot of things can be hung on that infamous date.  You may think it is extreme to blame my increasing disconnect with many movies to that day.  But I don't.  There are three major reasons that can be traced back to that particular 24 hour time period.  But they aren't all what you may think.

REASON 1:  REALITY TRUMPED FANTASY
I used to be lustily waiting for big time disaster and action movies.  Independence Day, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Godzilla, Volcano, Dante's Peak, The Rock.  I loved those movies - even with all the completely impossible plot lines and over the top stupid dialogue and moronic characters.  I knew they were far from top notch cinema.  But they were sure entertaining.  And I was just as amazed as anyone else with the shots of the White House exploding and New York City being demolished.  But, when 9/11 happened, the reality came home to roost.  The fact is that a city being annihilated is horrific.  When it came down to it, no one sat there and thought, "Ooooo, cool.  Look at that sucker fall."  Instead, we all got nauseated and started crying.  Turns out mass destruction and global upheaval wasn't so cool after all.  I had trouble disconnecting that reality when I watched movies.  I couldn't help thinking about the aftermath.  We always are left with scenes of plucky survivors hugging and promising a new day.  But the reality would not even be close to that.

As we saw several other major disasters, like the tsunamis in Thailand and Japan and the earthquakes in New Zealand and Haiti, we began to realize the massive human toll in these events.  It isn't just special effects.  Cities and countries don't just "come back" from that.  They are decimated and may never recover.  For me, I couldn't always turn that off.  In some movies I really like (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Iron Man) I can turn down the volume on those thoughts.  But even then, I may have random questions pop up like, "How much money did it cost Gotham to rebuild that elevated train after it got blown up?  What did all those people think when their cars got destroyed?"  But I couldn't ignore it when movies like 2012 and Day After Tomorrow just cavalierly obliterated these mega cities.  That was one of the same things I thought about in the original Transformers.  There was this major battle in the middle of downtown.  Buildings are getting shredded.  City blocks are destroyed.  The mayhem is a little too much for me to take.

REASON 2: HUMAN LIFE ELEMENT
The second reason that came from that day was the awakened reality of human suffering.  That wasn't so much from the scene in NYC.  It more came from the fact that my first child was born at 2:11am on September 12, 2001.  In the midst of all that tragedy, my wife was in labor with our boy.  And now, I had this little life to protect and care for and hurt for.  And suddenly it wasn't so minor to watch lives get snuffed out - even in a fictional context.  Subconsciously, I am always aware of the fact that those characters had families.  Those thousands of people who just got blasted by an out of control robot had kids who now were orphans.

I know a lot of people say, "It's just a movie.  Lighten up."  But isn't the point of a movie to have viewers connect with the story on screen?  I just connect in a different way.  I easily slip myself into the story.  As a result, I have a hard time watching movies about kids getting hurt.  I don't enjoy movies that have a lot of physical pain or killings.  Again, there are some movies that I like enough to disconnect those things.  But this plays a major part in how I watch movies.  I remember going to see Monsters Inc after our child was born.  I had such a hard time because I sat there and kept saying, "This must be killing Boo's parents - to have her missing for days."  I actually had to walk out of Finding Nemo when I went to see it in the theater.  My pregnant wife was on a mission trip in Germany and my toddler son was staying with his grandparents.  The images of a father losing his wife and kids were too much - even if they were fish.

As my kids have grown and I have become more experienced as a father, this has diminished somewhat.  I have more experience disconnecting my personal feelings from shows and movies.  But I still try to avoid things that spend a lot of time showing kids getting hurt.  If a movie shows child abuse, I won't see it.  I didn't follow the Casey Anthony case at all.  When my wife and I had a free night this summer without the kids, we wouldn't go see Super 8 because I knew kids would be in peril - and our kids were hours away from me.  I couldn't just go home and kiss them after the movie.  Transformers is just another movie franchise that glorifies violence.  People get hurt without much thought.  And I just don't like that any more.

REASON 3: KIDS ARE EXPENSIVE
Money isn't so easy to come buy when you are responsible for a family.  That combined with high ticket prices means that you have to be choosy when going to films.  If I am going to spend $10 on a ticket - or $30 on a family worth of tickets - the movie had better be worth it.  I know that critics are usually giant wastes of space.  But, when there is an avalanche of bad press and negative reviews, it may not be worth my investment.  It used to be that I could use my student discount and get a $5 ticket.  If that didn't work out so great, it was only five bucks.  And what else was I going to spend the money on?  Now, though, it is much more expensive.

When you combine that with the easier access to movies after their theatrical run, it doesn't make sense to risk an unpleasant movie going experience.  I have Netflix.  For $8 a month, I can watch any of thousands of movies free.  So, if there is a film that I wanted to see and wasn't so sure about, it's easy to watch.  Or I can go to Redbox a couple months after the theater run and rent the movie for a buck.  Or I can buy it on DVD or BluRay for less than a family going to the theater.  So now, if I'm not sure about a movie, I just don't go.

It used to be that I would go to any superhero movie that came out - if it was good or not.  For Pete's sake, I saw Spawn in the theater.  But that changed when I had to buy two tickets, pay a babysitter, or leave my family home to go.  Now, I am much more discriminating.  Take this year, for example.  I saw Thor, Pirates 4, X Men: First Class, and Cars 2.  That's pretty standard.  I will go see any Pixar movie that comes out.  I go to see most Marvel movies - although I avoided the first Hulk and both Fantastic Four.  I did NOT go see Green Lantern.  I love DC Comics.  I prefere them to Marvel.  I like Green Lantern.  I like Ryan Reynolds.  But I had a bad feeling about this one.  I could just tell it was going to suck.  And, sure enough, it did.  It was either going to be phenomenal or a disaster.  I guessed right and saved a good chunk of money.  If there is a franchise I particularly enjoy (Harry Potter, Bourne, James Bond, Pirates) I usually will keep seeing them until they prove themselves unworthy of that support.  Pirates 4 did just that.  If they do a fifth film, I will not go see it.  I still want to go see Captain America, Cowboys and Aliens, and Zookeeper - and of course Harry Potter 8.  

[Side Note: Yes, I realize Cowboys and Aliens seems to violate two of my new rules.  But there are several things that make me want to see it anyway.  Jon Favreau is making it and I think he is brilliant.  It stars Daniel Craig - who I really like.  It also has Harrison Ford - who I have always liked.  Mix in Sam Rockwell and Olivia Wilde (NO! Not just because she is attractive.  She is an intriguing actress.  Follow her on Twitter and watch Tron Legacy and you'll see what I mean.  This is where I am interested enough in the movie to suppress the other stuff.]


I am even discriminating with kids movies.  My kids would go see anything with a G or PG rating if they could.  But I don't take them.  We have found out how to minimize costs (go Tuesday night to a Regal theater or before noon to an AMC one).  But it still is $25 doing that.  So, even though my kids wanted to see Mr Popper's Penguins, I didn't take them.  That is a Redbox movie.  I still love movies and watch a lot of them.  But, honestly, I have swayed more to television shows - I think they have a higher percentage of enjoyable ones.  And I just watch my movies in different ways than I used to.

So, when it comes to Transformers 3, it fails on all my criteria.  It has too much wanton destruction and violence.  It is cavalier with human life.  And I wasn't sure it was going to be worth seeing.  I never saw the second one and didn't feel like I had missed out on anything.  I even got the DVD for it from Netflix and sent it back eventually unwatched.  Truth be told, I could have been fine without ever seeing the first one either.  It wasn't exceptionally enjoyable or life changing.  I think Michael Bay knows how to make an exciting loud movie.  I don't think he knows how to make a good one.  I hated the Transformers in their modern form.  They were so chaotic it was impossible to make out many features.  The voiceovers were poorly connected to the character (like my argument for why the Hulk movies keep failing).  The movie is so loud and wild - just for the sake of being loud and wild.  Shia Le Bouf is so annoying; I think he ruins anything he is in.  I feel the same way about Megan Fox.  And, replacing her with an animatronic Barbie doll isn't going to help matters much.  So, I just will remain in the minority of movie fans and stay away from Transformers.  I may have felt different if everything I read and heard was trumpeting the film as a work of cinematic art.  But, since even my movie loving friends couldn't decide on it if was "epic" or "lame," I stayed home.  I'll bide my time and save my money until something more my taste arrives.

Cars 2

As any of the millions of readers of this blog can attest, I am a huge Pixar fan.  I frequently bemoan their lack of respect when it comes to the Oscars.  I consider them some of our greatest modern artists.  I also have raved about their story telling.  I have even ranked all the Pixar movies - just so you can have a handy authoritative guide on Pixar.  Even though I used to go to anys. movie that came out, finances and three kids have made that an impossibility now.  I frequently miss even movies I really want to see.  But, I never miss a Pixar movie.  [The fact that Disney almost pays you go to their movies now through promotional tie-ins certainly doesn't hurt.]

Cars 2 has now entered the Pixar universe.  Obviously, we were going.  I really liked the first movie.  My oldest son was a huge fan of the franchise and owned a bunch of the cars and tracks.  My youngest son has now discovered his older brother's cache of cars and is a fan himself.  All three kids have been waiting for the movie to come out.  And we had two free tickets.  In the words of Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, "We're there."

I had heard some negative reviews of Cars 2.  That was a shock in and of itself.  Pixar movies don't get negative reviews.  They are bullet proof.  It wasn't going to stop us from going, but I was a big concerned.  Then I read a very interesting article on the Orlando Sentinel, of all places.  And it was written by Roger Moore, of all people.  I have usually felt Moore's movie reviews were useful for lining bird cages and not much else.  (Since I only read the electronic version of his reviews, I obviously meant lining Angry Bird cages.)  But, recently, I have noticed his commenting on the movie industry in general is vastly superior to his movie reviewing.  He talked about the "retroactive movie review."  This is where a critic rips into a movie that becomes a big hit, or overly praising a dog meat movie.  They usually will rectify this by going too far the OTHER way with a sequel.  His example was Siskel and Ebert ripping into Ace Ventura when it came out.  It was a runaway blockbuster.  So, they actually praised the idiotic sequel - even though it really sucked (even when considering it was a Jim Carrey movie).  It is the movie equivalent of basketball's "make up call."

The original Cars movie was overrated.  I was guilty of that.  It was undeniably gorgeous.  But it was a little boring, especially to kids.  And it was not very original.  I commented at the time that its plot was basically a retelling of Michael J Fox's Doc Hollywood - a movie no one is considering rebooting.  When I made my list of Pixar movies, it was last.  Admittedly, that is not necessarily an insult, since the worst Pixar movie is better than the best most other studios have to offer.  It was an adult movie masquerading as a kids' movie.  Kids don't understand the message of "take it slow and enjoy the ride."  They are too busy making life seem like it racing by.  So, according to Moore's theory, this attack by the critics was to make up for lavishing too much praise on the original film.

I don't know if Moore is right or not.  Personally, I think he has some validity.  Cars became a runaway hit NOT because of the movie itself.  Rather, it was because of the merchandise tie-ins.  It was the most licensed movie ever when it came out.  And those licensed toys made a fortune.  The little metal toy versions of the Cars characters were brilliant.  They created a third line of toy cars - right along side Matchbox and Hot Wheels.  And the sheer brilliance of it was that, while a Matchbox car costs 97 cents, a Cars car cost four bucks.  My son had tons of these cars.  You looked for the rare ones.  And they kept bringing them out.  There was regular McQueen, dirt track McQueen, tongue out McQueen, Radiator Springs McQueen, Dinoco McQueen.  They did the same thing with Ramone (available in just about every color) and Mater.  Then they brought out the "World of Cars" line and put the characters in different places.

Disney also realized that kids liked the Mater character way more than the Lightning McQueen character.  They liked the concept of McQueen.  But he was the straight man to the wild and crazy Mater.  You began to see more toys focusing on Mater.  It was a case of the sidekick superseding the star.  Pixar is far from stupid - they know where the money is.  They put out a line of shorts on Disney called Mater's Tall Tales - which spun into its own DVD and toy line.  Kids loved everything about Cars - except Cars itself.

So the second movie had a specific goal.  I know this had to be true.  They wanted to entertain the kids.  This was not going to be the well written, artistic home runs like some Pixar movies.  The last four films all could have earned Best Picture Oscars (Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up, Toy Story 3).  This was going to be an action-packed, comedy-filled, fun kids-magnet movie.  And on that front, they nailed it.  I remember taking Josiah to Cars and realizing that he zoned out for vast stretches of the Radiator Springs section.  When he watched the DVD, he would get really into the beginning and end.  Most of the middle he would go back and act out the beginning.  Gabe has been the same way.  He'll watch the first thirty minutes and then wander off or ask to watch Veggie Tales.

Last night, kids were engaged in the movie.  There was action and silliness.  There were four different racing scenes.  There was lots and lots of Mater.  It was everything the kids loved about the Cars universe with little of the adult navel gazing.  The "message" of the movie was even more kid friendly - love your friends just like they are.  Kids don't read movie reviews.  They see toys and cereal boxes and posters.  And so Disney got just what they wanted.  They reinforced a brand that was already very strong.  If possible, they made it even MORE kid friendly.  There are now more characters to spin adventures off from, more licensed products, more money.  And my oldest son walked out of the theater wondering when Cars 3 would be released.

It was far from original.  I think the whole alternative fuel plot may have actually been stolen from Quantum of Solace.  What was original was the amazing visuals.  They were incredible.  The scenes in Europe looks so realistic they were almost like photos.  The rolling waves in the opening were incredibly rendered.  And the way that Pixar worked this action movie around cars was pretty impressive.  I like how they give certain vehicles certain personalities.  The evil submarine/boat looks like sharks.  And I always find it funny how they represent facial hair with fenders and license plates.  (The Russian mobster cars all looked like they had scruffy beards.  The Italian cars had little pencil mustaches.)  And the vocal talent, as usual, was top notch.  My personal favorite was Bruce Campbell popping up as an American spy car - basically playing his Burn Notice "Sam Axe" character in car form.

The movie was fun.  It wasn't ground breaking or Oscar worthy.  But it was fun and exciting.  The kids will want to watch it again on DVD when it comes out.  Gabe and Josiah have already begun asking for the new cars and Lego sets.  It seems like Disney and Pixar accomplished their goals.  When a really respected actor makes some blockbuster movie with little artistic merit (Ben Kingsley in Prince of Persia, for example), they often will say, "I have to pay the bills.  I make these movies so I can make those other movies."  This was a bill paying movie for Pixar.

Going Home

At the end of the week, we will load our stuff in a truck (shudder) and drive back home. Well, I guess that is what to call it.  I consider Orlando my home.  I was born in West Palm Beach and lived there full time for eighteen years, and during the summer for another year.  So, I suppose people would call that my "hometown."  Honestly, though, I detest West Palm Beach.  I hate South Florida in general.  It was different when my parents still lived there.  But my dad passed away twelve years ago and my mom moved and lives in Tampa.  I still have family down there, but I don't think I've been down there since my Grandma's funeral almost seven year ago.  Hard to call that "home."

I spent four years in Orlando during college.  Heather and I moved our little family back there in 2002 and we stayed there for seven years.  I think that part of the problem is that we moved around so much during our time in Central Florida.  We have lived in Winter Park, Orlando, Oviedo, and now Winter Springs.  In college I lived in six different places.  During our second stint in The City Beautiful, we lived in five different homes.  So, as we begin our third go round there, this will be the twelfth different location I where have resided.  (This not counting the four different addresses in Tampa I had, one in Orange Park, and one in Tallahassee.)  That makes it rough to really connect - when you are constantly having to pick a new Publix, a new pharmacy, a new gas station.

But there is just something about Orlando that resonates with us.  I remember when we lived in Tampa, we used to drive over to Orlando - just for the day.  We didn't go to the parks or anything.  We would go to a Super Target or walk around City Walk or Downtown Disney.  It was our place.  Going back this past week to work on the new house, it just felt familiar.  That is NOT to say that it is the same place we left.  You may think that not much can happen in an area in two years.  But that is very wrong.  As we drove around, we had to take stock of what was still in business and what wasn't.  There is an entirely new massive apartment complex with parking garage across the street from UCF.  Multiple restaurants have changed hands or closed down.  Our hot dog place closed down.  The Beef O'Brady's we used to go on Sundays after church is gone.  The Oviedo Mall is even more of a corpse than it was when we left.  One word that cannot be ascribed to Orlando is "static."  It changes more than any other area I've ever frequented.

Orlando is such an unique city.  It really is three cities.  You have the tourist Orlando on the West side.  That is where you find Disney, Universal Studios, Sea World, International Drive, the Florida Mall.  You have whole communities that have popped up and grown due to their status as support to the tourist areas - Kissimmee, St Cloud, Lake Buena Vista, Celebration.  There are residents out there.  But there is also a constant massive coming and going of tourists.  We like that side of town as a place to visit - but we hardly ever go there.  It's too crazy, too busy, too expensive.  It's humorous - when we talk about moving back to Orlando, people invariably mention Disney.  In the eleven years I've lived in Orlando, I think I have been to Disney a handful of times.  And, I have only paid for tickets myself maybe one or two times.  I had friends who got me in, or someone else bought me tickets.  Those places are just too expensive to go a lot - unless you can manage annual passes.  But we will go over to the surrounding features a couple of times a year:  the Lego store, the giant McDonalds, the big movie theatres.

Heading east, the next area is Downtown Orlando.  You have the big buildings, the government offices, the giant courthouse, the arenas, the performing arts center, museums, SoDo, Baldwin Park.  It is the arts, sports, and cultural center.  This area is similar to many other large, but not massive, cities in our country.  Again, it has its residents and its normal traffic.  And people in the other areas only go there when they have to.  If they have to go to a government outpost, a hospital, a lawyer, a basketball game, a play.  There is a night life, but it is hardly as robust as the city wishes it had.  They are constantly trying to boost the area and renovate areas of it.  I know they have been trying to get more traffic (and fewer homeless people) to Church Street since I got to UCF in 1992.  It is a constant battle against urban decay.  But some people love this area of town - and it certainly has its purpose.

The farthest east is the UCF area.  The University of Central Florida is considered a metropolitan university, since it is housed in a large city and was built after the city was founded.  It is not in a town that grew up with the school - like Gainesville or Athens, GA or Knoxville.  But, in many ways, UCF is actually a college town.  The East side of Orlando was nothing until UCF started.  And as the school has exploded, so has that area of town.  I know that Oviedo bristles at being called part of UCF's reach - but it was a horse farm until UCF boomed.  Now the college is massive.  It is the biggest in Florida and the second largest in the country.  It probably will pass Arizona State before long.  I has an amazing campus with more and more opportunities.  It has a Medical School, a football stadium, new basketball and baseball stadiums, a great concert venue.  They are starting a Dental School.  It is a great place.  And that whole area of town has benefitted from its growth.  This is the area where we have always lived.  And we really like it.  Everything you need is right there.  And if there is anything else you want to do, it isn't hard to get out to it.

[There is a fourth district developing over at Lake Nona - partly due to the new Medical School.  It is called the Medical City - with the school, new hospitals, research facilities, all that stuff.  In a few years, it will deserve its own paragraph.  Right now, it is still in process.]

Lots of people have asked how we liked Tallahassee.  Honestly, we hated it.  I know some people are fiercely defensive of our state capitol.  Those people are called Seminole fans.  Seriously, though, much of what makes people like Tallahassee is exactly why we disliked it.  They talk about the great stuff they did in college.  Exactly.  We are not college kids.  I have told numerous people, if you are a student whose goal is to party and drink and have a great time - Tallahassee is a great place.  If you are a politician who needs to go to the office in between running for re-election and whose goal is to party and drink and have a great time and hit on college girls - Tallahassee is a great place.  For families, it is a rough place.  It was oppressively hot.  There were not a lot of options that didn't cost a ton of money.  It was not a great experience.

That is not to say there are not some great things about Tallahassee - or the last two years.  The city administered recreation facilities put anything Orlando has to shame.  The kids were able to join gymnastics programs, go to water parks, or join sports leagues for minimal money.  Those were great things.  The school the kids attended was a great experience - but that was more due to individual teacher than the school as a whole.  We have had some good things happen.  Heather had a great time at the FSU Med School.  I lost a bunch of weight.  The kids and I have a stronger relationship now.  We return better people, to be sure.  But there were not many tears about leaving the city.

I think one thing we like about Orlando is the potential.  While we probably will not go to Disney or Universal often (or at all), the potential is there.  We could go there, if we wanted.  On a Saturday when there isn't anything to do, we could go to the science center or walk around one of the shopping villages. In reality, our day to day lives are not much different in Orlando and Tallahassee.  But they could be.

The biggest thing about going back to Orlando, though, is the people there.  I think that is what really make Orlando feel like home.  We are going back to people who love us and who we love.  Yes, we have people that fit that bill in every city we have ever lived.  There are friends and family in Jacksonville and Tampa and West Palm Beach and Rock Hill - and even Tallahassee.  But the quantity of people in Orlando who are close to us is so much larger.  That is what hurt so bad about leaving.  It wasn't the Magic or Mickey or Super Target or Del Taco that made leaving Orlando so bad.  It was leaving those people.  It was knowing that for two years that we would rarely be able to see them.

Facebook makes things like that easier.  But it is not a suitable replacement to sitting in their living room and laughing and holding their baby.  It is not the same thing as eating together and watching your kids all run around a play place.  It can't take the place of standing next to them in church, or going to a movie together, or sitting at a table and talking for hours.  I know that on our trips back during the last two years, it was always stressful to try to fit in time for all the people who wanted to see us.  There are friends from Lifepointe Church, First Years Preschool, International Community School, UCF, the Apple Store, First Baptist Oviedo, Defender Ministries.  I think that is what makes the thought of coming back to Orlando so sweet.  It is like they all are standing there with their arms open, waiting to hug us.  That is actually the picture I have in my head as I think about it.  I see hundreds of individual faces smiling and saying, "Welcome Back.  We missed you."

In the back of my head, I know that there is a good chance that this is only a two year return.  When residency comes, we may have to move again.  And that time it may be for good.  I know that.  It lurks back there, haunting the trip back.  For the next few days, though, I am going to ignore that thought.  I am going to dwell on the fact that I finally get to go home.  And I can't wait.

Memorial Day

I went back through my blog and was shocked - SHOCKED - to see that I had never actually written a Memorial Day post.  I could have sworn I had.  I know when I worked at First Baptist Church of Temple Terrace I wrote a yearly article about the day.  But somehow I have not done a Memorial Day blog post.  Time to remedy that oversight....

This weekend is the official opening of summer, according to most people.  It is a three day weekend filled with cookouts and beach trips and car races.  School is winding down or finished for most students in Florida.  Big movies are invading the multiplex.  So it is easy to forget the point of this weekend.  In America, we have three national holidays to recognize those who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom: Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Veteran's Day.  We also have two unofficial holidays that bring the same reflection - September 11 and December 7 - and several smaller days like Armed Forces Day and Flag Day.  You would think that our country would just be filled to the gills with appreciation for the military and other service groups.

But, somehow, it isn't that way.  In recent years there has been a resurgence in these feelings of thanks - largely due to 9/11 and the military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It wasn't too long ago, though, when it felt like Veteran's Day and Memorial Day just slipped by with nary a mention of what the point was.  It also was easy when the country went through a long stretch of time without a major military conflict.  It was normal to have a President with military service.  Anyone remember how damaging it was to Dan Quayle when he was labeled a "draft dodger?"  And that was one of the points against Bill Clinton, too, when he first ran.  Now, though, it is more uncommon to have a veteran running for President.  None of the major candidates over the last few elections, with the exception of Wesley Clark and John McCain, had military experience.  Well, John Kerry did, but that somehow came across as a bad thing due to what happened with it.  Obama, Bush, either Clinton, Romney, Palin, Huckabee, Gore, Edwards, Guiliani.  None of them were of a military background.  I'm not criticizing this - just stating facts.  Most of the military actions - Kosovo, Somalia, Panama, First Gulf War - were smaller in scope and not seen with the same eyes as the larger wars in the past.

I have always been more sensitive to this, having a father who was one of those who served.  He was a Marine and veteran of the Korean War.  He earned a Purple Heart for being wounded in battle.  He is buried in a Veteran's Cemetery in Vermont.  I have spoken of this several times in this blog.  This military service is one of the things I am the most proud of about my father - it always was.  I learned to appreciate the sacrifice he made.  It was easy to remember, since I saw it every day of his life.  He lost the top joint of each of the fingers of his right hand to the frostbite that set it after a bullet struck him.  He had scars on his neck and leg from shrapnel.  His hearing was damaged from explosions.  It was a living reminder.  You couldn't really look at him and NOT remember.  He rarely talked about it.  But we knew enough from the few conversations he had.

The First Gulf War took place when I was a junior in high school.  It was scary to me.  I had grown up with the spectre of the Cold War looming over everything.  There were nightly reports of the Soviet Union and the posturing between our countries.  When the USSR fell, it felt like there was going to be peace.  And then this war came along out of nowhere.  I remember the fear was that this war was going to drag out.  The last two conflicts were far from short - Vietnam and the Cold War.  I was about to hit the draft age.  There were several times my friends and I discussed this fact.  And it hit close to home when a friend of mine from Debate Club enlisted and was sent to Iraq.  He was dating the sister of one of my best friends - so we got updates frequently.  I remember making a badge with a yellow ribbon and his name and wearing it every day to school.  Then it was over before you could blink.  This kind of started a string of shorter, limited conflicts.  Budgets got cut since we weren't in a perpetual battle.  And the military slipped from view.

I firmly believe that our challenge, as Americans, is to never forget the past.  It isn't so we live there.  But it is to remember the lessons taught.  It is to be appreciative for what we have.  There are two major dangers that people groups face - forgetting history and feeling entitled.  That is how atrocities happen.  You forget the sacrifices made to get you where you are, the price that was paid.  And you begin to believe that somehow you deserve the freedoms and luxuries you have.  In my opinion, this is one of the biggest problems in America today - people feel they deserve a certain quality of life, a certain status, a certain set of goods.  So they get angry when they don't have those things.  And they blame everyone else for that.

There have been societies in the past that have had that mindset.  Ancient Greece.  Ancient Rome.  The Feudal Lords.  Even to some extent, WWII Germany.  What happened to those places?  They got lazy and complacent.  They were blind to the dangers around them.  They started to think they were invincible or too mighty to lose.  They got greedy and fat.  And they got defeated by someone else who were not looking at things through a falsely covered perspective.  I believe that gratitude goes a long way to keep your perspective right.  It requires you to look back at the lessons of history.  It makes you realize that there was a supreme cost to your situation.  It forces you to remember there are other people around you.  It reminds you that you are in someone's debt, that your good fortune came at a price.  We teach our children to say thank you when they get a present, right?  Why?  It is to show them that we should always show appreciation for the good things we have.  It helps us also appreciate the gift more when we remember that someone gave it to us.  There are some things I have received as gifts that I would have gotten rid of over the years based on the item itself - it had outlived its usefulness, for example.  But I kept it just because of who gave it to me.  It meant more because it was a gift.

The fact is, we as Americans did not get to where we are just because we are inherently awesome.  We didn't deserve it.  It wasn't just our destiny.  It took the sacrifice of literally millions of men and women.  And, once we achieved a land with freedom and opportunity, we had millions more people sacrifice themselves to protect that way of life.  I may not agree with everything the government does.  I may not like some of the decisions they are making or some of the steps they take.  I believe as a responsible engaged citizen that I am required to point out when there are things wrong.  I need to vote and debate.  I need to write my representatives.  I need to be informed.  That is part of my role.  But I am never going to get to the point where my frustration with the people in government is going to be mistaken for a hatred of the nation itself.  It drives me crazy when people threaten to leave America because they are angry over health care or social issues or gay marriage or whatever.  I do not believe that you can show me another country on earth that allow you to the freedoms you have in America.  There are not other places that give people the chance and ability to move themselves out of the status they were born into like the USA.  A person born into a regular average home can make money, get elected, fulfill their dreams.  They are not locked into a status forever.  I am a born again Christian and an ordained minister. I am allowed to type that into this blog without fear that someone is going to come bust down my door and haul me off to prison.  You may not like the fact that I believe that way.  You may detest my God and my religious beliefs and WISH someone would drag me off to prison.  But, the great thing about America, is that you can feel THAT way too.

We live in an amazing country.  And the only way that this place exists is because people fought and died to create it, maintain it, and defend it.  It is essential to remember that.  If not, we start to think that this is just the way things should be - that it is our right just because we were born here.  Earlier today, someone told me that when they complain about stuff, their mom will say, "It could be worse.  You could be deployed overseas for a year."  It is her way to remind this person that there are other people whose situation is harder than ours.  That is important to remember - it gives the right perspective.

That is why I think Memorial Day is SO vital to our country.  It forces us to remember those people who are serving in our military to protect us.  It makes us think back through history - the good and the bad - to make sure we learned the lessons well.  It gives us a chance to express our gratitude to those people who sacrifice their lives, their families, their safety for ours.  "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."  Yes, that came from John 15:13 in the Bible, but it just as much applies to the members of our military.  They sacrifice their lives for us - how can you top that?

So I challenge you this holiday weekend, in between the hot dog and the burger, express some gratitude.  Offer a prayer of safety for our troops overseas.  If you know someone who is serving, send them a letter.  Contact their spouse and see if there is anything you can do for them.  At the very least, thank THEM for allowing their loved one to serve.  If you can, make a donation to the USO or to a Veteran's support organization.  Make something to take to the veterans at a local nursing home.  If you see someone in uniform, pay for their meal or coffee or groceries.  If you own a company, give a military discount.  If you work at a company that offers a military discount (most of them do, if you check), make sure that you give that to your customers.  At the very least, be thankful.  It is quite certain they deserve that.