Defining

Defining?                               

By John W. Vander Velden

I understand that there have been times that have had a great effect upon my life.  I had two teachers in the sixth grade.  There was one – I shall call him Teacher A – that I feared.  He made me yearn for three-thirty on Friday afternoons and dread Monday mornings.  I witnessed Teacher A, in fits of anger, drag a student out of his seat and across that student’s desk, simply for giving the wrong answer.  I felt on edge every moment, Teacher A taught our class.  But the one thing I will never forget was the day Teacher A addressed me directly in class.  He told me then that I reminded him of his brother and that I, like that brother, would not amount to a “hill of beans”.

A “hill of beans” is not a pile of soybeans of some consequence.  No, the term refers to a mound of soil where perhaps four or five beans would be planted.  That was a “hill of beans”.  And though I did not know that exact meaning at the time I understood – lack of worth!

Then there was my other teacher.  Let’s call that one Teacher B.  Teacher B made us work harder than the other.  But he also made learning fun.  Yes, he had become frustrated with the same student that drew physical violence from Teacher A, but handled the situation very differently.  He gave the student extra work at each infraction.  Teacher B never had the need to lay a hand on any of us.  But some months after Teacher A had branded me worthless, Teacher B took me into the hallway.  I will remember that time for all my life.  He showed me one of my examinations and explained how if I wrote a bit better, my grades would certainly improve.  For he told me I was bright, and he would, by error, mark my papers because he could not make out that I had entered the correct response.

Strange isn’t it – how one moment – one comment can change a person.  Growing up we had moved about and I had not really felt that I belonged at the school I found myself in then.  But my grades did improve.  I graduated in the top quarter of my high school class, while taking the most difficult courses available.  Later I would graduate from the university with distinction.

Did I do these things to prove Teacher A wrong?  I don’t think so.  Did I achieve that level of excellence to please Teacher B?  Perhaps.  But I think the most important thing that happened in that hallway, so many years ago, was that I had a teacher tell me he thought I had potential -- a potential I did not know I possessed.

So what is the bottom line?  No one, not a teacher, parent or siblings, not fellow students or coworkers, not your friends and especially not your enemies, have the right to define who you are and what you will become.  For each of us has grand potential and with hard work and determination anything we set our sights upon, need not be beyond our reach.  It is for each of us to find that spark that makes us unique.  To use that spark to build a light that carries us to all that we can be. 

Do not let someone define you.  Only GOD knows your heart and from that heart of yours grandeur awaits.  For each of us has potential – do something special!   (584 Words)

Blood Spilt

Blood Spilt      1-22-2014

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Too often it fills the news.  We hear of the tragedies in New Town, Sandy Hook, and Boston.  Terrible things happening in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Georgia and New Mexico.  But when the bullets strikes in Elkhart or Purdue University – then….  For though we earnestly feel for the victims and their families introduced to us by the media, when the places and faces become familiar our discomfort rises.  Our mind wraps around, “How could something like this happen here….”  We feel vulnerable, when realizing we are not immune to the illness that invades the lives of the innocents.

For the plague is not bound to “far away”, only to touch others.  And each time it rears its head and attacks, be it near or far, it assaults us all.  This is not someone else’s problem – it is our problem, whether the places and names are unfamiliar or is our home and kin.  It matters little, to the harmed, if injury is driven by disease or rage.  Has the value of human life diminished so much?  Do we no longer see the faces and understand life’s sanctity?  It seems to some that is indeed the case.

How can we respond?  Is there something we can do?  It seems love and respect the key.  Understanding one another, tolerance of different views, to care first for others, before our own needs.  Simple things – but most difficult. 

For sadly we live in an imperfect world.  Sadly there are those that feel violence the only solution.  Sadly kindness is not always returned, yet it seems, anger begets anger.   

It is not enough to pray for justice – pray for the end of the madness that permeates our world.  Pray for the end of violence that threatens the young. Pray for the end of this senseless growing pool of blood spilt!  

(310 Words) 

 

 

First Steps...First Words

First Steps…First Words

 

An Exert from, “Full Circle Moon…a Daddy’s Little Book”

 

By John W, Vander Velden

 

 

I think it is important to remember that dealing with all the challenges of a child connects us to all the generations before.  We deal with different things -- have new tools to aid us -- yet there is this constant stuff that parents, all through history, must face.  So we remember and write little thing down -- important things, like first tooth, first steps, first real food, and first word.  All parents understand.  The whole process is a mix of worry and pride.  We watched each milestone wondering if Nick met standards considered normal -- if indeed normal truly exists. 

Nick began standing very early.  Figured he would be walking at eight months.  But he fell and didn’t try again for ages.  Trust me walking is great but it makes the kid faster and harder to contain.  The house had been kid proofed.  You know sharp edges eliminated and those plastic things stuffed into all the wall outlets – etc – etc -- etc.  I remember Nick crawling and examining the outlet cover.  The kid took everything apart his little fingers could grasp.  Does it surprise me he wants to be an engineer?  Naw.  So he didn’t really walk until he was fourteen month, but he took off with a vengeance. 

Those first steps, Nick firmly gripping my finger, surely this is one of the things a father remembers.  I feel sorry for any father, that for whatever reason, did not have that joy.  But of all the things I remember, that moment remains a treasure.   

When a child begins to talk -- it is clumsy at first.  New parents listen to each sound as if the child were about to say something very profound.  After months of garbled gibberish, misconnected syllables, a word comes out by accident it seems.  No one appear more surprised than the toddler whose lips formed their first coherent sound.  How fortunate the parent that hears that first word -- over and over and over again.  In this crazy busy world -- with work and all manner of responsibilities -- nothing quite stands up to the sound of the first word. 

That one word does not remain lonely for long.  A day came when Nick connected words in all sorts of babble.  How is it children learn to speak, intelligently?  I guess by hearing intelligent conversation.  I did not make a habit of returning babble for babble.  Nor did I speak to him as if he was a history professor, but rather as the small person he was.  And soon Nicholas spoke to me in a simple logical way.  Oh, there were many words and concepts he had to learn -- and correct pronunciations as well.  But that is part of the magic.  As he watched “Thomas the Tank Engine” on TV he called Harold a Hoc-a-Doctor.  For well over a year we smiled as “Hoc-a-Doctor” came from his lips while he pointed skyward anytime a helicopter flew past.  Of course we are thankful he no longer calls the aircraft by that name -- yet miss the wondrous sound of young lips attempting complex words.  Where has the time flown?  Nick no longer calls his shoes “woofs”.  But that word and so many others will always remain in my memory.  

I remember a time.  Nick must have been three or four.  I had brought him home and it was dark.  Before going in, we wandered the back yard.  The moon was particularly bright, near full.  I can still see him standing in the dark, awe upon his face as he pointed skyward.  “It’s a full circle moon.”  He said confidently.  Another time he pointed at the moon’s crescent, naming it as well -- “A Rocking Horse Moon”.  It was then I knew that I must write this story.  A story of Rocking Horse and Full Circle Moons…a daddy’s little book.  A book of all the feelings and remembrances.

 

(655 Words)

 

White

White                                 4-8-2013

By John W. Vander Velden

A late night, returning from relatives, I sat in the back seat of our ’54 Dodge Coronet.  The winter intense, the heavy snow fell.  Great fluffy white flakes danced across the windshield, all I could see.  My father, with firm grip on the wheel, stared intently ahead.  How he could see anything beyond the floating whiteness, I could not imagine.  The drive took much longer than usual, surely a sign of his caution as wipers flailed and puffs of white blinded.  The ride quiet, unusual, unnatural, none dared to speak, each staring out the windshield and seeing nothing…nothing but white.  I had lost track of the turns made, the lefts, the rights, lost track of how the journey was proceeding, how far we had come, how far we had yet to go, mesmerized by the white, taunting, swirling, that hid the world beyond. 

The Dodge turned suddenly, to the right with a thump, its nose rising, the car slanting as it came to an unexpected stop.  The front doors swung open, pushing the deep powder aside.  Mom quickly climbed out.  My youngest sister wrapped in a blanket in her arms. Dad dashed around taking the rest, a small caravan by the hands.   Cold wind blew the white flakes that bit at cheek and blinded my eyes.  Frightened, I trudged lost, only my father’s hand leading through knee deep snow.  Suddenly steps…familiar stairs, a known door opened and we entered our own home, leaving the cold, the snow, the white, behind.

(251 Words)

Oliebolle

Oliebolle

                                   

By John W. Vander Velden

 

When you move from one place to another, what you bring will surprised you.

 

My parents came to this country from the Netherlands in 1948.  Fortunately they did not come alone, for my father’s oldest sister and her family settled in northern Indiana a few months before my parent’s arrival.  Times in Holland were difficult so shortly after the war.  As newlyweds at twenty-three, they had little and leaving a county in reconstruction were allowed to take less.  Yet the Vander Veldens came with that optimism that so many had, when reaching this “land of opportunity”.

Though their suitcases lacked the material things, they carried memories of family and customs for the remainder of their lives.  With time, they became citizens and blended into this land, that had once been new to them, yet they retained much of the “echt Hollands” (real Dutch) in their home.

Perhaps New Year’s would be the best example.  The holiday was to be celebrated in the home of the oldest member of the family – within a reasonable distance.  Growing up we always went to Tante Agagt and Oom Cass after milking on New Year’s Eve.  The adults, a large group, played a game they brought from the “old country”, “Clock and Hammer”, until the wee hours of the New Year, while the young played Monopoly in the kitchen.  But the whole event would be for naught if it were not for oliebolle, a deep fried Dutch treat.  I loved my aunt, but she couldn’t make oliebolle like my mom.  Tante’s were OK, but mom’s….

Over the years things changed.  My Aunt and Uncle moved to a farm further away.  We continued to visit them on New Year’s Day though it was no longer reasonable to go after milking on the Eve.  As the family grew older and larger, we assembled at the Vander Velden farm house to wait out one year and welcome in the next. 

Mom would work all afternoon, making a raisin bread dough, filling large pans covering them with dish towels, warming the rising dough until the pots nearly overflowed, then dropping large spoonfuls of the sticky concoction into the hot bubbling oil.  She removed the olliebole, when the bobbing balls of raisin bread became golden brown.

At the end of the day’s work, we would enter the house, to an aroma that I am unable to describe but will be part of my memory all my days.  And everyone knew that something special awaited. 

Yes, over time many thing changed.  The family now “blown apart” by distance, no longer gather to celebrate the New Year’s beginning, though a few of the descendants of Jacob and Nel Vander Velden or their spouses continue to make oliebolle.  Yet the memory of that delightful treat reminds me of the place from which I have come -- and the life my parents left behind.

(480 Words)