The Passages (Stages) of Life

 

     In Gail Sheehy’s classic textbook of human development, “Passages,” she discusses the various periods of life (“passages”) one experiences as life evolves from infancy to advanced maturity.  Youth, with its excitement of exploration and discovery, inevitably leads to the highly productive middle years in which we exercise with maximum energy our greatest creativity.  It is during these middle passages (there are various stages even within this middle period) that we create families, fortune, and fame, and the challenges of creating drives us and keeps us at a peak operating efficiency due primarily because we are young enough to be healthy and physically able to handle the tasks of 24-hour parenting, planning, and producing.

   Coupled with this drive to create is a certain feeling of indestructibility. Although an incomprehension of our mortality is evident from the early days of youth, the compelling evidence which we observe on a regular basis…deaths and illnesses of friends and loved ones combined with life-changing accidents and events, has little impact on our personal conviction that “none of these things will ever happen to me,” or “this thing may happen to me, but it will be sometime far into the future.”  This personal concept of indestructibility can sometimes work toward a positive outcome and is why younger generations are usually more willing risk takers.  It is the reason they don’t hesitate to attempt to beat the odds in physical activities, business, or personal relations no matter how stacked against them the odds may be.

    Inevitably…and in the passages of life the word “inevitably” is sprinkled throughout the entire life process, once we have survived our years of maximum production and activity, the period of deactivation begins.  It is during this period that working overtime no longer has great appeal regardless of the extra pay, and, where an uneventful evening was once considered lost time, a quiet evening at home is now highly anticipated.  The children have long since left the nest, and now there are grandchildren visiting.  The grandchildren are loved dearly, and when they visit it is an exciting, joyous time, but once children and grandchildren have said goodbye and gone back to their home, we heave a big sigh of relief and collapse on the sofa. 

    The most anticipated event of this period of life passage, however, is probably retirement from full-time work.  Having worked fifty or more years on average and hopefully been fortunate enough to have a retirement plan, the freedom from a full time work obligation creates endless opportunities for activities which have been put on the back burner for years due to work restraints.  Travel, recreation, hobbies, and various other enjoyable activities are now within reach, and the anticipation of this “free time” is what motivates many experienced workers as they see their retirement day approaching.

    One of the beauties of retirement is the clock ceases to be your master.  No longer burdened with the time requirements of employment, use of the clock’s alarm pleasantly diminishes.  Leisurely breakfasts can be enjoyed at will, and each day becomes a blank schedule which can be filled in at the whim of the retiree.  Want to be busy?  Fill in the schedule.  Want to lay low?  Keep it blank.  It is a lifestyle almost incomprehensible to the middle passage person with a full schedule of parenting, working, and managing a home.  Mention retirement to a middle passage person and that same glazed-eye look appears on his/her face as when we try to talk to children about finding jobs when they grow up.

    At the same time, the challenge of parenting, working, and managing a home, though we wistfully look forward to the day when these obligations are passed, satisfies for the middle passage person a critical requirement…a fulfillment of dependency.  The drive for success during the middle passages is fueled by the knowledge that others are dependent upon our productivity.  Parents are driven to provide for their children.  An employee’s production affects the success of his manager, and a manager affects the working environment of his/her employees.  In short, we want someone to need us.  We strive to be good parents, employees, or managers because we would like to think that someone needs us to do well.

   Retirement, with all its free time, takes away this fulfillment.  Since we are no longer productive members of the workforce, there are no employees anxiously awaiting our management decisions.  There are no bosses anywhere impatiently waiting for us to show up so the big problem of the day can be solved   Even at home, there are no lunches to prepare for workers or students.  We can leave our schedules open for the day because no one needs us.  That perception can extend to family.  With children now grown and faced with fighting their own parenting wars with our grandchildren, we feel that, though we may be concerned observers, we are not required as our children carve out their own destinies.

    The result of this perceived lack of need can be a nagging depression, especially if the perception of uselessness is within the home.  Faced with a lack of obligations, retirees can easily retreat within themselves to the point that though a husband and wife have fought the parenting and working wars for years together, once the battles have been survived, each one enters a personal cocoon replete with his/her own personal activities, preferences, and interests.  Seldom sharing moments of common interest, they intensify the isolation to the point that in time they become strangers sharing only a roof over their heads.

    In most cases, of course, this perceived lack of need is just that…a perception.  Husbands and wives still love, children and grandchildren still love, and friends are still friends. Psychologists, however, will attest that many of our thoughts and actions are based on perceptions and not actual facts.  With that in mind, retirees must initiate active attempts to deflect any signs of depression encountered upon retirement by any member of the household.   During the middle passage years, there is a feeling of camaraderie while a couple works together to raise a family and provide for its general welfare, but upon entering the later passages when retirement has come and the children have gone, that feeling of working together for a common cause can vanish.  The truth is, that feeling needs to morph into a realization that close personal support and companionship are needed more than ever.  Their personal bonds of love and need, cultivated years before during courtship and enriched during a life of sharing, need to be strengthened, not weakened.

    I penned the following poem the year I turned sixty years old.  Although it was written pre-retirement, the gist of the message still applies today.

Nothing Rhymes with Sixty!

Nothing rhymes with sixty as one turns the annual page.

Nothing rhymes with sixty.  It’s an awkward, frustrating age!

Too young to be old; too old to be young,

Obsessed with the fear your song’s already been sung.

The memories of the past grow stronger, yet fade,

While the future once dreamed seems fainter in life’s shade.

Helpless and hapless, trapped in time’s ceaseless tide,

Then saved from the gloom by, “Hey Papaw!  Come outside!”

The message becomes clear; it’s not the future or past

But the present is where our legacy is cast.

Children and grandchildren, the love of a wife,

The closeness of a family…therein lies life.

With His hand to guide us as we travel along

Everything rhymes with sixty…if you play the right song. 

A Single Decision...A Lifetime of Reward

 

     A few years ago, on one of my music CDs, I recorded my version of a Frank Sinatra ballad, “September of my Year.”  It was an acknowledgement that I was rapidly becoming a genuine senior citizen and was beginning to look back instead of looking forward.  Today, I guess if I were to record the same song, I would have to entitle it “Christmas Season of my Year” since at the age of eighty-two I have become acutely aware of my mortality.  The difficulty in looking back is sometimes we become more aware of our past mistakes than we do of our accomplishments.

    I have had a good life; I was born into a solid, close-knit family which offered the security and comfort that children of today so seldom experience.  My parents were church-going people, and we children learned early on the importance of establishing a personal relationship with God.  That relationship has sustained me through more than one crisis in my life, and the eternal rewards of a relationship with our Creator cannot be overestimated.

    It is in life decisions…those decisions which affect the quality of our lifetimes and yet not have a spiritual context…which sometimes become the tipping point toward happiness or strife.  Over a period of nearly 70 years (since my early teens) I have made dozens of decisions, many of which I made on impulse…decisions made in an instant which have had lifetime implications.  This little essay, however, is not a review of my brilliant or dumb decisions.  It is an acknowledgement of the one event (other than my eternal relationship to God) which has made my life a testament of happiness and accomplishment.

    By the time I was ten years old, my parents had joined the Pentecostal church in Baytown, Texas, and were living solid Christian lives.  As a youngster, my main reason for attending church was to see my friends there and create some sort of fun activity.  However, there was this girl…. her name was Shirley Creel, the daughter of the assistant pastor, who somehow kept capturing my attention, and, though I was not particularly interested in girls in general, somehow, she managed to sneak into my thoughts on a somewhat regular basis.  But we were just kids, and the association was more on-again/off-again than anything serious.  (How serious can you get at ten years of age?)

 Things changed, however, once we reached the mid-teens, and our relationship rose to a new level…but the relationship was tenuous.  For months we would be “going steady,” (mid-fifties terminology for boyfriend/girlfriend,) only to break up the relationship for some adolescent reason.  The separation period would last a few months, and then some event or change of mind would take place, and we would be back to “going steady.”  The last time we “made up” and became “steady” again was in the eleventh grade.  My homeroom class at Robert E. Lee High School was just before lunch, and I would stash my lunch bag from home in my locker there when I first arrived at school and then pick it up on the way to the cafeteria.

    On this one particular day, when I unpacked my lunch in the cafeteria, there was a note which said, “Hi, Bobby!  I’ve been told that the way to a boy’s heart is through his stomach, so I’m going to try!”  And in my lunch bag were some cookies Shirley had made.  I fell like a ton of bricks…I had been missing her, anyway.  Within two years, on August 18, 1961, we were married and meeting the world’s challenges together. 

   In those first six years of marriage, we could put everything we owned in our car.  We traveled light from Baytown to the United States Air Force (Bloomington, Indiana; San Angelo, Texas; West Berlin, Germany, San Antonio, Texas; back to Baytown.)  By the time we arrived back in Baytown from the USAF, we had the first addition to our family, our son, which naturally changed the normal routine of our lives. We were suddenly burdened with…parenthood…i.e… responsibility.

    Shirley’s mother had passed away from cancer when Shirley was in her teens, and she became a substitute mom for her three younger siblings.  She took to the duties with the skill of a veteran.  If anyone was born to be a mother, it was Shirley, so when our son came along, she was up for the motherly duties.  To this day, she has a special way with infants, and they somehow sense that she is their friend.  She can calm the most tempestuous child.

    After we left the Air Force, I managed to graduate from the University of Houston and went to work for Sears, Roebuck and Company.  This was back when Sears was the big dog in retailing and offered a promising career.  However, circumstances changed when we gained the opportunity to move to Casper, Wyoming, and help her dad, Rev. James Creel, as he pastored a small Pentecostal church.  For seventeen years, we enjoyed Wyoming and the winter sports, fresh air, and laid-back atmosphere.  

However, even as we became more established, we still maintained our nomadic nature.  In fact, in our first thirty years of marriage, we lived in twenty-seven different locations, primarily due to the military and in addition, I had gotten into real estate marketing in Casper and bought and sold houses when it was profitable or attractive.  Since 1991, however, we have slowed down the movement considerably.  We migrated back to Baytown in 1991, and since then we have lived in four homes, our present home being in Tomball, Texas.

    During this now unbelievable sixty-four-year span, in times of financial struggle, health emergencies, packing/moving/unpacking, losses of loved ones, and job changes, my beloved wife has always been at my side, loyal and unmoving.  I have told more than one person that I have spent many days in the hospital in the last fifteen years, but I have never been in a hospital room alone.  Shirley has always been there.  During my darkest days and while in pain, I could always look over to the chair or sofa in the room and see the shadow of Shirley there. She was a very comforting sight.

    As we have now entered our twilight years, Shirley and I have accumulated a wealth of memories.  We have slowed down considerably, but what has remained is our strong love and dependence on one another. 

    During my lifetime, I have been honored to serve in many capacities, and I have received honor from those I served, but the greatest honor of them all was when a beautiful young girl named Shirley Renee Creel said she would be my wife.  All other honors pale when compared to that one, life changing moment when she said, “Yes.” 

    

Tempelhof Central Airport, West Berlin, Tour of Head Building East, Sixth Floor, 1965

     On March 3, 1965, I landed in West Berlin to begin my stint with the 6912th Security Squadron.  I had finished my Russian language training at Indiana University and intelligence training at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas and was now ready to put my training to work as a Russian linguist. 

   The 6912^th was based at Tempelhof Central Airport, a civilian airport dating from the early 1900s.  Tempelhof consisted of one massive building nearly nine/tenths of a mile long in a incomplete circular shape.  The 6912^th was situated in the easternmost section of the building, referred to as Head Building East. The operations center was located on the sixth floor, with the other floors dedicated to personnel, logistics, storage, and gym.

    On the first day of arrival at the 6912^th, a new linguist was given a tour of the sixth floor with brief explanations of the tasks each section performed.  The following paragraphs are a review of what the new arrival would have heard from his tour guide.  This information is excerpted from Cold War Warrior: A Memoir written by Retired MSGT Warren “Molly” Knight.  When I read it for the first time, I was flooded with memories of those days long past.

    Airman Jim approaches you and begins:

    “Hi, my name's Jim. Call me Tank. Before you ask, I am a Dash-A.   Again, before you ask, that means German linguist.   Let's start back at the entry door to this floor.  Here is the security box to the door…remember the code…don't write it down.  The code will change from time to time.  If you forget it or miss out on the change, you can use the phone located right there near the box, and someone inside will come and open the door for you.   The only problem with that approach is if they are busy and no one comes along to hear the phone ringing… well, you know how that goes.  When that happened to me once, I just reached in there and punched all the buttons with a properly irritated smack.  Then some nice air policeman came up to the elevator and another up the stairs and let me in.  They were not pleased, so I don't recommend that approach.  Remember the code.

     “The door over to your left is our Armory.  If there is an alert and your assignment causes you to need to be armed, there's where you'll pick up your weapon and any required communication device.  Otherwise, you might be assigned to destruction or burning or maybe even trying to figure out what is going on by means of your regular job.

    “Back through the main door and to the right is the part of our crew who works in the dark and writes with grease pencils (Radar.)  They have fascinating equipment.  You could end up working in there.  If you don't, sometime when you and they are not busy, get them to show you the things they can see and do with their equipment.  It is indeed fascinating.

    “Further down the hallway here is the inside phone I was telling you about.  It is a non-secure line.  If you hear it ringing, answer it by repeating the phone number and that's it.  Say no more; you might be asked to go get someone here on the floor.  Do so.

   “Through this door straight ahead is where you'll be working...at least initially.  Over here to the right is the ditty-bop (Morse Code) position, and that fellow there is an analyst.  He can read what the ditty-bop types and write what it means backwards.

   “Directly behind that position is the Search position.  You will be trained to work there as a short-term rotating task.  I'll likely be the person who shows you how to do that when it comes up.  Over there further to the right is the I/A (Intelligence/ Analysis) Coordinator's desk.  They don't relieve (change shifts) when everyone else does, and they talk on the intercom.  Every now and then, they'll jump up, type up a short teletype tape, and send a message off to someone elsewhere.

   “The room behind them is where you'll store your headsets and pick up a patch cord from one of the pegs there on the wall.  Make sure your operator number is on your headsets. Never use someone else's headset…it's not healthy and it erases the frequencies the headset is good for. (joke)

   “You will learn how to operate those tape players in that row while holding one of your headset speakers to your ear with your shoulder, making the tape go forward with your foot and backwards with your finger…all the while typing.   You'll get so good at it that you can do it without thinking, but you do need to be sober.

   “And this device is a degausser.  It erases tapes.  You put the tape on this way, flip this switch, turn the tape in this direction slowly with your finger…hear that buzzing growl? Turn your body in this direction.  If you don't do it just like I told you, the machine will sterilize you.  You will have no children.  You do not decide which tapes are to be degaussed.  Sergeant XXXXXX makes that decision for the dash A’s (German linguists.)

    “See that wall of audio tapes?  If anyone asks you where we should store them, don't say the basement.  We did that one winter.  It got so cold down there that the oxide fell off the tapes.

    “Here in the center of the big room is the Mission Supervisor’s desk.  His job is to worry. Don't irritate him…he's got enough to worry about.

   “The fellow over there wearing the headsets with a microphone and leashed to the thing that looks like a dog run cable is the Voice Controller.   He'll be your immediate boss.  He'll know what you're working on at all times…that's his job.

   “You'll note that there is an air conditioner in every blacked-out window over behind those receiver consoles.  In fact, they're all along the wall and into the adjacent rooms.  It surely causes the German nationals who might be out around the hangar to wonder about all those air conditioners running at full blast in the middle of winter when it's freezing out.  They keep the smoke down in here, too.  It's not part of your job to adjust the air conditioners, but you will note a number of people working in their T-shirts.

   “On the other side of the ditty-bop room is the door to the Communication Center.  Don't try to go in there.  The people who work there have different badges.  They are trained to glare at you if you try to go in there.  In this doorway here to the left is where the Reporters work. They look at the information the Analyst writes backwards on the other side of that translucent wall so the Reporter can see it forward.  Then the Reporters write little reports and hand them through that window to someone in the Communication Center for further communication.  As we keep going through this door, we'll see where the Flight Commander's desk is located.  He spends a lot of time in the Reporters’ area when not otherwise commanding.  Beyond that is where the Voice Analysts work.  They separate 6-ply pads into one-ply stacks and package up the stacks for the Courier.  You might be assigned to this section after a while.  Otherwise, expect to work a few hours on some midshifts helping with the stacking and packing.

   “Back out to the main room and further back through the door at the end is the Blue Room (Electronic Surveillance.) These people work in the dark, too, but there's always an eerie light from their gear.  I cross-trained back there for a few months when they were running a little short.  Great job!

   “The burn room is back here in the corner.  Flip that switch on for the exhaust, put a burning paper in there on the hearth, turn that valve, and pray.  Don't blow the place up.  Turn it off in the reverse order.  My roommate will likely be the one to train you in burn-bag burning.  He loves to have burn duty because we do that on midshifts, and if you get the hang of it you can get the job done in a couple of hours, tidy up the room, and head back for a needed shower as you do sweat in the burn room.  That metal ladder is a way you get to the roof and our gear (antennas) up there.  Maybe I can show you around there someday.

   “In this little room is where we store the floor mopping and waxing equipment.  Until you get a little rank or some time in grade, you’ll become familiar with this equipment when our Flight has midshift on a Sunday.  You'll agree that’s a fine looking, heavy-duty mop and mop-wringer bucket.  There's no finer mop-ringer bucket anywhere.  Learn to use it right.  Don't even think about running the buffer until you have been properly trained.  A buffer operator cannot be bouncing off our people or our equipment.  That's it.

   “I'll turn you back over to Sergeant XXXXXXX who will probably get you some side-saddle time with one of the old timers today.  Be advised…that in no training anywhere have they prepared you for the massive explosion you're going to hear in your headsets here at Tempelhof.”

                                                      End of Tour

    My first impression upon listening was the incredibly poor quality of the Russian transmissions, and I began to realize that I was about to embark on the most challenging mission of my life.  Over the next two years, technology helped improve voice quality, but, even at best, listening, comprehending, translating, and deciphering communications required every ounce of concentration one could muster. 

    In September of 2011, many of us who served in West Berlin during those exciting years of the Cold War reunited in Berlin for a last reunion.  Time had done to us what the Soviets could not do.  But even Father Time cannot diminish the patriotic pride felt by those who were the Silent Warriors of the Cold War.  We did our job.

 

 

Memorial Day, 2025

      To many, Memorial Day is the unofficial beginning of summer. Memorial Weekend is a time of relaxation with family gatherings, barbecue on the grill, civic parades, and celebrations, and, if one is a race fan…the running of the Indianapolis 500, which has been run during every Memorial Day weekend since 1911. 

      However, the true purpose of Memorial Day is much more somber. It is a day and a moment in which a grateful nation pauses to remember the men and women who have died while serving in the U.S. military defending our country against those who would do us harm. The holiday is not to be confused with Veterans’ Day held in November, which is meant to honor all military personnel, both living and dead. On Memorial Day, we give special honor to those who have paid the supreme sacrifice that we may enjoy the freedoms we hold dear today. 

      Memorial Day first began as Decoration Day in 1868 after the American Civil War. It was first commemorated at Arlington National Cemetery when 5,000 volunteers decorated the graves of 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers who are buried there. At that time, the nation was still reeling from the effects of four years of civil war, which to this day is the most devastating war in our history. There were more casualties in the Civil War than all other wars the U.S. has fought from that time to the present, and tragically, in many instances, it was brother against brother. Of the 1.1 million military casualties the U.S. has suffered since 1862, 600,000 were lost in the civil war alone.  As the twentieth century wars took their toll with WWI and WWII, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam War, and now our present struggle against terrorism, Memorial Day, as it has come to be known, has evolved into our honoring all military personnel who have died while in service of their country. 

     For the first 100 years, Memorial Day was observed on May 30, but in 1968 Congress changed the date to the last Monday in May to allow for the public to enjoy a three-day holiday. Many states resisted the changing of the date at the time because they felt it would undermine the meaning of the day, and time has proven that the three-day holiday has contributed to the public’s somewhat nonchalant observance of the day’s purpose. 

     There are still some traditional observances which occur on Memorial Day. 

    (1) At most military cemeteries and federal office buildings on Memorial Day, the flag of the United States is briskly raised to its topmost position on the flagpole, then slowly and solemnly lowered to the half-staff position only until noon, at which time it is again raised to full staff the remainder of the day. The half-staff position is to honor the more than one million heroes who have given their lives in service to their country. At noon, the flag is raised to honor the living who have resolved not to let the sacrifices of the fallen be in vain, but to rise in their stead to continue the fight for liberty. 

    (2) In the shadows of the nation’s capital in Washington, D.C., the National Memorial Day Concert takes place, and… 

   (3) At exactly 3:00 p.m. local time across the nation, citizens are encouraged to pause for a moment of silence and remembrance for our fallen soldiers. 

     On May 3, 1915, Colonel John McCrae, an officer with the Canadian army in the Flanders area of Belgium during the First World War, observed after months of fighting that the poppy flower seemed to grow well around the graves of young fallen soldiers. He was inspired to write this poem which is written from the viewpoint of the dead and speaks of their sacrifice and serves as their command to the living to press on: 

                                                          In Flanders Fields. 

 In Flanders field the poppies grow 

 Between the crosses, row on row 

 That mark our place, and in the sky 

 The larks, still bravely singing, fly 

Robert Downing  1967   2017

 Scarcely heard amid the guns below. 

 We are the Dead.  Short days ago 

 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunsets glow 

 Loved, and were loved, and now we lie 

 In Flanders field 

 Take up our quarrel with the foe 

 To you from failing hand we throw 

 The torch, be yours to hold it high. 

 If ye break faith with us who die 

 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 

 In Flanders fields. 

 In 1918, inspired by the poem, a woman named Moina Michael attended a memorial wearing a silk poppy pinned to her coat and distributed over two dozen to others present. Within two years the poppy had become the official symbol of remembrance. 

 Today we enjoy spiritual freedom because of the supreme sacrifice of our savior. As we enjoy our families and celebrate over this holiday period, may we also give honor to those who also made the supreme sacrifice to make our country’s freedom possible. In the words of Abraham Lincoln…” May we resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain---that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom---and that the government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

 May God bless the United States of America.