Maybe one should never give up, folks. I more or less gave up on the Chicago Cubs' 2007 season on June 3. But since then, the Cubs have posted the best record in major league baseball. They've turned things around. Doesn't mean they'll become world champs. But hey, being in first place in August -- well, that's a new feeling of elation for Cubs fans. Here's what I had to say about the Cubs on June 3 -- when I was losing faith.
Well, I’ve reached the stage of the baseball season where I’ve given up on the Cubs. It’s a team that doesn’t believe in itself. Doesn’t believe in destiny. The fascinating thing about the game of baseball, is the role chance has something to do with the outcome. It’s partly a psychological game. A head game. One needs confidence. Self-confidence. That especially goes for a pitcher. But a hitter, too. You’ve got to believe. And that’s the primary problem with the Cubs. Always has been. The lack of belief. A tradition of losing. The loveable losers syndrome. To me, life is a reflection of baseball. And baseball is a reflection of life. Belief can tip the scale, one way or the other. For instance, the Cubs are 2-12 in one run decisions this season. In the close games, they become uptight. Instead of believing that they’ll win, they think something will go wrong. That fate is against ‘em. That they’ll lose. The players have turned into head cases. Just the other day, the pitcher and the catcher got into a fight. It started with a shoving match in the dugout. Right during the game. And ended in fisticuffs in the clubhouse. Yes, they keep finding new ways to lose. Such as fighting each other. Fighting themselves. Not playing as a team. Not believing. --Jim Broede
Friday, August 3, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Or forever, for that matter.
Look at the standings, folks. The Chicago Cubs are in first place. Today. We long-time, die-hard Cub fans know we could be in for a big, big letdown. We don't set our expectations too high. We settle for a few thrills. We know full well that the bottom drops out. Sooner or later. We've learned to accept fate. We've learned to think of our team as loveable losers. Our hopes have been dashed time and time again. But just the fact that we keep dreaming of the impossible. In Nirvana. That, in itself, is satisfying. A consolation. Worth savoring. The Cubs haven't won a World Series since 1908. We've waited 99 years. So, what's another year or two or three? Or forever, for that matter. --Jim Broede
Love does that.
I'm thinking. About myself. And about my own upbringing. And how I was influenced by my mother. More than by anyone. Far more than by my dad. In many, many ways, I am the creation of my mother. I had a very good mother. A loving mother. But a mother that was rather controlling. And maybe that’s why I tend to be controlling. Of my environment. Of my life.
I think my mother always sought happiness. But at times it was elusive. As an 18-year-old, she entered into a marriage of convenience. With Art Broede. My dad. And I think she knew almost from the start that it was a mistake. And so, for 17 years, from 1932 until by dad committed suicide in 1949, it was a marriage filled with tension. I grew up in a house of tension. I really didn’t consciously understand that until I left and went away to college. Because I thought tension was natural. That tension was the norm. Maybe that, in part, was why I became a writer. For newspapers, of all things. Because it was a profession filled with tension. Stress. Meeting deadlines. On a daily basis. I thought that’s the way one is supposed to live. Under stress. It seemed so natural. I suppose it’d be a little like growing up with a headache. It would begin to seem natural. Conflict began to seem normal. Even to this day. Maybe that’s why I thrive under conflict. I’ve been trained for it. Strange, isn’t it?
But I’m also trained to love. To care. That comes naturally, too. Maybe my mother taught me something about love. Her second marriage was truly a loving marriage. The 33 happiest years of her life. This time she married for the right reason. For love. She fell head over heels in love. With a married man. Our across-the-street neighbor, Ernie. Her boss, too. She worked for him. He owned a business, an office supply store. It was something of a scandal in our small town. Their affair. Blanche (my mother) and Ernie. The talk of the town. And they had to move away. He sold his business and they moved to Denver and started a new life with each other. They established a business. Together. And she also became an interior decorator. She was damn good at it. A natural. They lived together in Denver even before they were married. Before his divorce. But they were made for each other. Very compatible. They brought each other happiness. It was a good marriage. A very good marriage. Ernie’s one big vice, by the way, was his addiction to cigarettes. He died of lung cancer. Age 83. He was born in 1905. Five years before my dad. Mom was born in 1914.
Anyway, after my dad died, I became closer to my mother. I truly understood her unhappiness. And I empathized. I was the son who stepped in and tried to be the man of the house. At age 13. I got a job delivering newspapers for $3.65 a week. And I offered to give my earnings to mother to help pay the rent. And it wasn’t long before Ernie hired me at his store to stock the shelves and to do maintenance for 50 cents an hour. And every day after school I reported for work, and on Saturdays, too. I hit it off with Ernie, who, of course, became my step-father when I was in college. And he and mother helped to pay for my college education. Of course, I worked, too, part-time, while attending college.
I always felt close to mother. In some ways, she became a model for me. My brother and sister thought I was the favored child. That I got special treatment. That mom loved me the most. That I was mommy’s boy. And maybe they were right, to a degree. I was the good son. The one that set the example. And that especially annoyed my sister, Babs. And she was alienated toward mom from early on. Even blamed mom for dad’s suicide. Which, to me, seemed preposterous. Because dad was an habitual gambler. And spent most of his time away from home. Because he was a traveling salesman and a bartender. On the road weekdays, and often away even on weekends. It was a big event to have dad at home. When we knew he was coming, my brother Bruce and I rode our bikes down to the end of our street, and waited for him. And when we spotted his car – I remember a light green Plymouth coupe loaded with dry goods samples – we raced home behind the car and gave dad warm greetings. We wished he had spent more time at home. We liked him. We loved him. And we missed him. But I don’t think we ever really understood him.
And yes, I was a mama’s boy. Because mom was present. On the scene. Mom was there. And mom was often more unhappy than happy. Until Ernie entered her life. In a big way. That changed her life. For the better. Love does that. --Jim Broede
I think my mother always sought happiness. But at times it was elusive. As an 18-year-old, she entered into a marriage of convenience. With Art Broede. My dad. And I think she knew almost from the start that it was a mistake. And so, for 17 years, from 1932 until by dad committed suicide in 1949, it was a marriage filled with tension. I grew up in a house of tension. I really didn’t consciously understand that until I left and went away to college. Because I thought tension was natural. That tension was the norm. Maybe that, in part, was why I became a writer. For newspapers, of all things. Because it was a profession filled with tension. Stress. Meeting deadlines. On a daily basis. I thought that’s the way one is supposed to live. Under stress. It seemed so natural. I suppose it’d be a little like growing up with a headache. It would begin to seem natural. Conflict began to seem normal. Even to this day. Maybe that’s why I thrive under conflict. I’ve been trained for it. Strange, isn’t it?
But I’m also trained to love. To care. That comes naturally, too. Maybe my mother taught me something about love. Her second marriage was truly a loving marriage. The 33 happiest years of her life. This time she married for the right reason. For love. She fell head over heels in love. With a married man. Our across-the-street neighbor, Ernie. Her boss, too. She worked for him. He owned a business, an office supply store. It was something of a scandal in our small town. Their affair. Blanche (my mother) and Ernie. The talk of the town. And they had to move away. He sold his business and they moved to Denver and started a new life with each other. They established a business. Together. And she also became an interior decorator. She was damn good at it. A natural. They lived together in Denver even before they were married. Before his divorce. But they were made for each other. Very compatible. They brought each other happiness. It was a good marriage. A very good marriage. Ernie’s one big vice, by the way, was his addiction to cigarettes. He died of lung cancer. Age 83. He was born in 1905. Five years before my dad. Mom was born in 1914.
Anyway, after my dad died, I became closer to my mother. I truly understood her unhappiness. And I empathized. I was the son who stepped in and tried to be the man of the house. At age 13. I got a job delivering newspapers for $3.65 a week. And I offered to give my earnings to mother to help pay the rent. And it wasn’t long before Ernie hired me at his store to stock the shelves and to do maintenance for 50 cents an hour. And every day after school I reported for work, and on Saturdays, too. I hit it off with Ernie, who, of course, became my step-father when I was in college. And he and mother helped to pay for my college education. Of course, I worked, too, part-time, while attending college.
I always felt close to mother. In some ways, she became a model for me. My brother and sister thought I was the favored child. That I got special treatment. That mom loved me the most. That I was mommy’s boy. And maybe they were right, to a degree. I was the good son. The one that set the example. And that especially annoyed my sister, Babs. And she was alienated toward mom from early on. Even blamed mom for dad’s suicide. Which, to me, seemed preposterous. Because dad was an habitual gambler. And spent most of his time away from home. Because he was a traveling salesman and a bartender. On the road weekdays, and often away even on weekends. It was a big event to have dad at home. When we knew he was coming, my brother Bruce and I rode our bikes down to the end of our street, and waited for him. And when we spotted his car – I remember a light green Plymouth coupe loaded with dry goods samples – we raced home behind the car and gave dad warm greetings. We wished he had spent more time at home. We liked him. We loved him. And we missed him. But I don’t think we ever really understood him.
And yes, I was a mama’s boy. Because mom was present. On the scene. Mom was there. And mom was often more unhappy than happy. Until Ernie entered her life. In a big way. That changed her life. For the better. Love does that. --Jim Broede
...my dream.
I have a dream. And a solution, of sorts, for some of our country’s and the world’s many problems. Everything from the need for respite care for Alzheimer care-givers to helping the poor and impoverished people of the world. I’m for mandatory national service. Right here in America. Every able-bodied and able-minded young American would be required to join, to give two years of serving the common good. Maybe we’d call it the Common Good Corps. I’d also encourage retired senior citizens to join the corps, voluntarily. The idea is to have vast numbers of citizens available to help people in need and for serving the nation’s and the world’s common good. The draftees and volunteers would be allowed to choose from a variety of public service. Some may even choose the military. Others could choose strictly peaceful service, such as working at nursing homes and hospitals or in projects aimed at helping poor and destitute and needy people. Just think of what could be accomplished from all this. We’d set an example for the rest of the world. And gain great respect for America, too. And at the same time we Americans would gain respect for ourselves – for working for the common good. I also have a hunch that after our two-year stints of service, many of us would become hooked…and work for the common good for the rest of our lives. Yes, that’s my dream. --Jim Broede
...they'll put he died of exercise and love.
Sometimes the very things that destroy us give us pleasure. We're all somewhat guilty of that. aren't we? My dad got pleasure from gambling. But ultimately, the gambling destroyed him. Meanwhile, I'm trying to get pleasure from relatively positive addictions. Such as exercise. Maybe the exercise will destroy me some day. I'll drop dead from exercise. I'm also addicted to love. Maybe that'll do me in some day, too. Imagine that...on my death certificate, they'll put he died of exercise and love. --Jim Broede
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Thanks dad, for giving me precious life.
I’ve been brooding for a long, long time. Virtually all of my life, it seems. But not gloomy brooding. It’s about 90 percent upbeat meditation. Positive brooding. Take, for instance, a letter I wrote to my dad on the 50th anniversary of his suicide. The letter was dated April 3, 1999.
Dear dad:
I suppose it’s appropriate to ‘brood’ today. It’s 50 years ago tonight that you committed suicide. You walked down to the basement and hung yourself. If you had lived, you’d be 88 now.
Maybe it’s coincidental that I picked up Friday’s New York Times and turned to the obit page, where I was drawn to the obituary of Harold Greenwald, a psychotherapist, who died at 88, having been born in the same year as you dad, in 1910.
“What he (Greenwald) founded was the opposite of psychoanalysis, which is what he started in,” said Albert Ellis, the Manhattan psychologist who developed rational emotive behavior therapy. “He (Greenwald) said you make a decision to upset yourself. You don’t get upset because of something that happened in your childhood.”
I’m thinking how those words ring true for me, dad. I don’t think I ever got real upset over your suicide. Oh, maybe at the time it happened I had trouble reconciling it. But after a few years, I got over it. And I’ve rarely thought about it remorsefully because I got on with life. And for me, life always has been the pursuit of happiness.
It's obvious as I get older that one doesn’t have to choose to become upset, especially over events that one can't control. The sad thing is that for a while brother Bruce and sister Babs would get upset over your suicide. They may still have trouble today coming to grips with it.
At our rare family gatherings, Bruce and Babs invariably raise the subject of your suicide. I don’t. I’m more inclined to talk about what we are doing with our lives and our plans for the future. Upbeat subjects. And funny things.
Inevitably, Bruce and Babs steer the discussion to the past and to sadness and anguish and the ‘what ifs.’ Gloomy stuff. On the other hand, I look at the silver lining in your suicide. I tell myself, dad, that maybe it was a heroic act. You were a habitual gambler. Unhappy. With life in general. There was strife and conflict between you and mother. It was really a marriage of convenience, wasn’t it? Let’s be honest. Not a marriage nurtured by love.
When you were gone, things settled down. Yes, things got better for us in some meaningful ways. Mother, of course, went on to another marriage, maybe the 33 happiest years of her life. Maybe this sounds a little harsh, dad, but in a way you did us a favor by cashing in your chips when you did. In that sense, I’m able to look at you today as my hero.
And dad, like Greenwald says, I have a choice. No matter what happened in my childhood. I can choose to be upset. Or happy. I was 13 when you took your life. That’s over and done with. Now, I’ve learned to give life sort of a romantic twist. I actually take so-called ‘bad’ experiences and events and find ways to construe them as ultimately leading to good – to genuine happiness.
You know, dad, mother laments over the loss of her mother to bone disease. Mother was only 7 at the time. And then she lost her father, to pneumonia. Mother was 18. And she needed security, I guess. She told me it was a marriage of convenience.
I reflect, dad, that if the two of you hadn’t hitched up, and mother had waited for true love, I wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have experienced life. Indeed, I’m thankful to you for marrying mom. In her time of need.
So, dad, I’m saluting you on this, the 50th anniversary of your exit from this earthly world. You did me the greatest favor imaginable before you left. You gave me precious life. --Jim
Dear dad:
I suppose it’s appropriate to ‘brood’ today. It’s 50 years ago tonight that you committed suicide. You walked down to the basement and hung yourself. If you had lived, you’d be 88 now.
Maybe it’s coincidental that I picked up Friday’s New York Times and turned to the obit page, where I was drawn to the obituary of Harold Greenwald, a psychotherapist, who died at 88, having been born in the same year as you dad, in 1910.
“What he (Greenwald) founded was the opposite of psychoanalysis, which is what he started in,” said Albert Ellis, the Manhattan psychologist who developed rational emotive behavior therapy. “He (Greenwald) said you make a decision to upset yourself. You don’t get upset because of something that happened in your childhood.”
I’m thinking how those words ring true for me, dad. I don’t think I ever got real upset over your suicide. Oh, maybe at the time it happened I had trouble reconciling it. But after a few years, I got over it. And I’ve rarely thought about it remorsefully because I got on with life. And for me, life always has been the pursuit of happiness.
It's obvious as I get older that one doesn’t have to choose to become upset, especially over events that one can't control. The sad thing is that for a while brother Bruce and sister Babs would get upset over your suicide. They may still have trouble today coming to grips with it.
At our rare family gatherings, Bruce and Babs invariably raise the subject of your suicide. I don’t. I’m more inclined to talk about what we are doing with our lives and our plans for the future. Upbeat subjects. And funny things.
Inevitably, Bruce and Babs steer the discussion to the past and to sadness and anguish and the ‘what ifs.’ Gloomy stuff. On the other hand, I look at the silver lining in your suicide. I tell myself, dad, that maybe it was a heroic act. You were a habitual gambler. Unhappy. With life in general. There was strife and conflict between you and mother. It was really a marriage of convenience, wasn’t it? Let’s be honest. Not a marriage nurtured by love.
When you were gone, things settled down. Yes, things got better for us in some meaningful ways. Mother, of course, went on to another marriage, maybe the 33 happiest years of her life. Maybe this sounds a little harsh, dad, but in a way you did us a favor by cashing in your chips when you did. In that sense, I’m able to look at you today as my hero.
And dad, like Greenwald says, I have a choice. No matter what happened in my childhood. I can choose to be upset. Or happy. I was 13 when you took your life. That’s over and done with. Now, I’ve learned to give life sort of a romantic twist. I actually take so-called ‘bad’ experiences and events and find ways to construe them as ultimately leading to good – to genuine happiness.
You know, dad, mother laments over the loss of her mother to bone disease. Mother was only 7 at the time. And then she lost her father, to pneumonia. Mother was 18. And she needed security, I guess. She told me it was a marriage of convenience.
I reflect, dad, that if the two of you hadn’t hitched up, and mother had waited for true love, I wouldn’t be. I wouldn’t have experienced life. Indeed, I’m thankful to you for marrying mom. In her time of need.
So, dad, I’m saluting you on this, the 50th anniversary of your exit from this earthly world. You did me the greatest favor imaginable before you left. You gave me precious life. --Jim
...making the failures a distant memory.
I know someone who has so very much on her mind. It affects her physically. Headaches. Being tired. I tell her, she can’t do it all. And that if she's afraid of failure, she mustn’t be. She must learn to accept her limitations. She doesn't have to do it all. She doesn't have to be everything to everybody. That won’t make her any less of a human being. We all fail. Miserably, sometimes. I tell her that positively. I tell her to think success. But sometimes, success is to fail and to accept it. To understand that failing is a part of life. We can’t always be successful, so to speak. I had a dream recently. An uncomfortable dream. A bothersome dream. I felt the sting of failure. As if it was shameful. And upon waking, I told myself, “No, it’s not shameful to fail.” And I said, “Jim, if you fail, find something, some endeavor, some act, some pursuit in which you can and do succeed. In your human relationships.” One must learn to understand that often successes spring from failures in life. I told my friend she's had success with me. And with others. With all sorts of people, I suspect. Now focus on your successes, and not your failures, I said. Have confidence in yourself. Know that you’ve impressed me. And others, too. You’re moving in the right direction. You are getting your life together. Sure, you may keep failing in some aspects of your life. Do you think for a moment that others don't feel the sting of failure? Remember, we all fail. Often, we fail each other. But man oh man, we also succeed. We learn to bounce back. We learn to get on with our lives. We make reasonably happy lives for ourselves. That’s how we succeed. You have that capacity, too. A capacity for success. In your human relationships. Maybe not in every one of ‘em. But at least in one or two or three. That’s all one needs. Don’t ask for more than that. A handful of successes will suffice…making the failures a distant memory. --Jim Broede
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