I Salute Those Who Serve

William Hayward Lumpkin

On this Veterans Day, I think of all those who willingly step up to serve our country, especially those who choose to wear a uniform that requires them to go where they are sent, even when those orders take them  to the front lines.  Most especially, I think about those soldiers, sailors and air warriors, nurses and medics who served in World War II.  Many of them are gone now, as that conflict ended more than 60 years ago.

I think especially of my husband's father, William Hayward Lumpkin.  He was among those in uniform in World War II, then served until his retirement from the U.S. Army many years later.  Though retired from military service, he never really left the Army behind, retiring a second time from a civilian job at Ft. Campbell in Kentucky.  He remained loyal to his comrades-in-arms, maintaining friendships made in the Army throughout his life.

While I never saw him in uniform, I heard the pride in his voice when he talked about his service.  Those comments were rare, actually, despite the breadth of his experience.  He wasn't inclined to share war stories.  Rather than talk about those memories, his conversation was centered around those he loved and his penchant for wry humor.  Whatever he'd known of hardship and strife in uniform was left behind, replaced by the joy he knew in home and family, friends and golf, or the pleasure of a good horse race.

I saw the pride in the eyes of his family, their pride in his service.  I know that pride lives on in their memories of him more than a decade after his death.  They know the sacrifices he made for them and for our country, a country boy from Alabama who honored the uniform he wore.

So, I think this Veterans Day of the man we called "Pappy."  I thank him and all the others, gone but not forgotten, who have given of themselves in service to America.  I thank those who go into harm's way today.  We are a fortunate people to have among us the men and women who choose to serve.

Some Thoughts on Perspective

Each bloom is unique; together they become special anew.

It seems, in this hotly-contested political season, that even when the two sides say they want the same thing for our country, they feel compelled to find mutually exclusive solutions. We hear words like “partisan politics” and “non-compromising positions” so frequently that they have taken on a life of their own, seeming now more important than the issues at hand. Attack and blame substitute for collegial action on behalf of the citizens these people ostensibly represent.

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.” ― Thomas Jefferson

I, like most Americans, am bombarded daily by the onslaught of political messages flooding the airwaves. I have wearied of the intrusion of politics into social media, wishing that, instead of flogging each other with the vitriol collected from websites hither and yon, we could talk about the issues without so much rancor. Why are we so angry? In the privacy of our own thoughts, do we really believe that our anger will make things better? Or are we just allowing ourselves to be manipulated by those who feed our fears?

“When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.”

― George Bernard Shaw

In fairness to all concerned, we humans all too often lose our ability to see beyond the ends of our noses. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and it seems to me a little perspective can go a long way toward more happiness in our lives and less misunderstanding.

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” ― John Lubbock

Close at hand are so many instances that might help us look at life with more balance, less angst. In my case, life is enriched daily by one man’s journal of hope. It is a testament to courage in the face of adversity, faith in the face of fear. The journal, updated online multiple times each day, chronicles the open-heart surgery of the journal writer’s partner, a friend whom I was lucky enough to meet at a business gathering many years ago. The patient is someone I know as a good and decent man, now fighting for his life. One might think him always fit, always healthy. In reality, his heart was sick and needed repair. So he has undergone a very serious operation and now, cared for by excellent medical expertise and a loving partner, he fights to recuperate. As I follow his partner’s journal, I marvel at the strength and endurance both patient and caregiver are displaying.

“Some people grumble that roses have thorns; I am grateful that thorns have roses.” ― Alphonse Karr

I was reminded by a high school friend’s post on Facebook of a favorite teacher we had. He encouraged us to learn through questioning. While debate was often provoked in his classroom, it was managed and tempered with civility. When passions ran too high, he reminded us that our differences of opinion were just that, differences and opinions, none life-threatening. For myself, in the arrogance and ignorance of my youth, I espoused and defended positions that were outdated and ill-informed, primarily due to lack of experience and perspective. Rather than chide me, our wise teacher encouraged me both to speak my mind and, more importantly, to listen to other views.

“It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.” ― George Eliot

There is a wonderful saying about perspective that goes something like this: “I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” The world recently watched such a man who had no feet, Oscar Pistorius, run in competition with footed athletes in the recent Summer Olympic Games. The sheer inspiration this man embodies remains vividly in my thoughts. Any time I’m inclined to whine about the psoriasis that hurts my feet, I think of Oscar. It’s not just the wonder of watching him run on those amazing springs, but the genuine joy he expressed in interviews after coming in last in the semi-finals of his event. He obviously understands that winning is a different thing than being number one.

“When it rains it pours. Maybe the art of life is to convert tough times to great experiences: we can choose to hate the rain or dance in it.”

― Joan Marques

In looking at what others have said about perspective, I’ve found so many different ways of expressing it. A favorite thought comes from Jane Yolen’s writing in Briar Rose: “Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.” [so they say] “That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.”

Photo by Mike Lumpkin

Morning Magic

Some of the most magical times I’ve experienced have been mornings. There’s something primitive in me that appreciates the dawning of a new day, that reassuring appearance of first light. It’s a beginning, or to indulge in redundancy, a new beginning. It’s a step into the unknown, the future that unfolds a minute at a time as we rub our eyes, sip that first cup of hot tea and open the door to feel the air and hear the sounds. Whatever came before, each morning promises a chance for something new.

The days that we spend at the lake are especially inspiring. When it’s foggy with the clouds hanging low across the mountains, I’m reminded of a morning walk in Edinburgh when we could barely see three feet ahead, but ventured into a blufftop park and met an elderly Scotsman and his “wee doggie” and heard a tale of his wartime days. We struggled to understand his accent, but reveled in his delight in telling tales.

On those mornings when we see the first pinks and lavenders of the rising run across the eastern end of the lake, I think back to mornings at the Outer Banks. Mike and I like to get up early and head out to the dune to watch the sun come up from the ocean. Before the sun breaks the horizon, the sky above the water is painted with all the glorious colors of the clouds in the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. It is spellbinding.

One of the joys of the cruises we’ve taken has been early morning walks around the deck as the ship moves through the water. The sense of adventure is heightened by the first sight of the next port as we circle the deck before breakfast, breathing in the ocean air and hearing the cries of gulls that have come out to greet the ship.  Often, we enjoy a last sight of the moon before it disappears from the sky.

Our mornings in North Carolina often begin with the musical gobbling of wild turkeys in the woods around our house. In many places, near and far, we’ve awakened to the voices of cardinals, loons, hawks and eagles, the buzzing of hummingbirds speeding around the feeder, and the chattering of squirrels. Their presence connects us to nature and to the earth, assuring us that we belong together in this world.

I remember cold mornings as a child when, snuggled in bed, I didn’t want to get up. I imagined that I would just stay there, tucked into the warmth of the quilts, forever and ever. It seems funny now that I didn’t want to yield to bedtime back then, but also resisted getting up in the morning.

I remember, too, mornings when I couldn’t rise quickly enough. Those were the days when we were going fishing with Daddy or going on vacation with the whole family. They were the days when, despite giggling late into the night with sleepover friends, we leapt out of bed in the morning to pursue whatever schemes we’d plotted the night before.

Now, though I sometimes wish for a few more minutes of sleep and stumble through the routine of getting up, dressed and out the door, I relish anew the experience of being up and about when few others are there. I cherish those first sights and sounds and the sure sense that the day ahead, whatever it brings, is mine for the living.



Who is an American?

Holidays like the Fourth of July cause me to become reflective. In a society currently sensationally polarized by a number of issues, I hope tomorrow can be a day that we can all share with, I hope, less rhetoric about what separates us and more about what makes us all Americans.

Quite by chance, I am currently reading a book about the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Last Stand , written by Nathanial Philbrick, is a well-researched and well-written account of that infamous meeting between the Seventh Cavalry, led by George Armstrong Custer, and Native Americans, led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Philbrick has obviously done his homework, checking his sources and collecting facts. He has a knack for turning all of that into a fascinating series of stories that all add up to the larger saga, detailing not just what went on in battle, but what was going on in the country.

One of the revelations of the book for me was finding that Sitting Bull, learning that white men were headed to his village, initially told his warriors to hold back because it might be an effort to make peace. As we all know now, it was not a peace initiative and it ended badly with plenty of blame to go around on both sides.

Somehow, this story of two cultures at odds in 1876, the year of our nation’s centennial, seems timely. Each side believed it had rights, including the right to its own beliefs. Both were frustrated by the other side’s inability to “live and let live.” It’s a parable for our time in that our search to protect our rights seems to require that, in order for one side to be right, the other must be proved wrong and, often, denied its rights.  Then, as now, uncertainty engendered fear and fear drove actions that had disastrous results.

Many of those killed near the Little Big Horn River that late June day in 1876 were veterans of the U.S. Civil War, including Custer and several of his family members who rode with him. Those men had endured horrific battles over whether the United States would even survive as a nation less than a hundred years after its formation.

"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows." -- Sitting Bull

We were then, as we remain today, a nation of immigrants, a human tapestry of differences. Philbrick describes one point in the battle in which several of the Seventh Cavalry took refuge in a buffalo wallow, among them an Italian, an Irishman, a quarter-blood Blackfoot and an American of French Canadian heritage. Though Sitting Bull was of the Hunkpapa people, his village that day included members of many tribes, including Cheyenne, Oglala and Minneconjou and others.

The hostilities then, as now, were about who were the “true” Americans. The progress of settlers and gold miners ever westward spoke to their dreams of a life better than the one they had known. With them came their sensibilities about civilization and railroads that would bring more of them faster than ever before.

On the other hand, their dreams had created a tipping point for the nomadic tribes whose lives depended on keeping their natural lands free for buffalo herds and other game. Many of the warriors who rode against Custer’s men had left reservations to gather with Sitting Bull because there was not enough food on the reservation to sustain their families.

Laws were made and broken. Treaties were signed and broken. Out of the brutal defeat suffered by Custer and his troops came not a victory to be savored by the native warriors, but instead a stronger and equally brutal crackdown from the growing majority white population in the nation.

Maybe what America will always be about is this tension, this angst about who among us are the “true” Americans. At our best, we come together in moments of great challenge. At our worst, we splinter into factions, each so hungry to have dominion that we must diminish any who disagree. Somewhere in the middle there is, we must hope, room to respectfully disagree about some things, while protecting always the rights of all, whether "eagles or crows."

Photo by Mike Lumpkin

Remembering a Special Father

I’ve been lucky so often in life, never more so than when I married my husband who has been our son’s father, steady and true for almost 30 years. I often say that Mike married me so that he could be Michael’s father. When Mike and I married, Michael stood snuggled between us and told everyone at the wedding that “we got married today.”

In marrying the father our son has relied upon for all the years since, I got a very special father-in-law. Father Hayward and son Mike looked so much alike that anyone who knew either of them could be sure of their relationship without being introduced to the other. Not only did they have the physical resemblance, but they shared the same devilish sense of humor.

My name for Hayward Lumpkin was “Wayward” because of his constant effort to slyly mislead and misdirect all who came his way. A career in the military had not changed his sense of fun. A World War II veteran who had surely seen much that he would never forget, he never brought darkness to those around him, instead lighting the room with the twinkle in his eye.

One of my fondest memories of “Pappy,” as the grandchildren called him, was at a lake in Alabama where he spent an afternoon fishing with Michael. The two of them were thick as thieves from the moment they met, sharing hours and days of loving camaraderie. Their time as fishing friends was something both treasured. The photograph of that day is one of our favorites.

Occasionally when Mike and I had to be away from home, Pappy eagerly volunteered to come to stay with Michael. He loved to take our little one to Shoney’s where kids ate free. Pappy enjoyed the amazement the staff expressed as Michael turned up again and again to refill his plate at the buffet. He was the proverbial “bottomless pit” and Pappy claimed that Michael might single-handedly put them out of business. Pappy prided himself on pinching his pennies and sought bargains wherever they were to be found.

Pappy and the love of his life, Willie Mae, raised three wonderful children, encouraging them to learn and pursue higher education. They glowed with pride in each child and in the grandchildren who followed. They embraced me as a daughter-in-law, as they did their sons-in-law. They welcomed friends and family into their home and even went out of their way to help an elderly couple with a myriad of needs from driving them to doctor visits to helping them pay their bills.

I miss Pappy and will for the rest of my life. Like my father, he was a source of strength and joy. He encouraged me to be myself, even when my unorthodox approach to playing as his bridge partner occasionally baffled him and caused us to lose. He was an excellent card player and played to win, but indulged my rebelliousness, perhaps because he recognized my individuality as he prized his own.

I am much blessed this Father’s Day. It has been my great good fortune to know the love of father and father-in-law and to see that shared with our son. I am gifted with the love of my husband, a good father himself. As my son said to me recently, “I look forward to having children who know Dad because I think he will be the kind of grandfather to them that Pappy was to me.” I can’t imagine higher praise.





Ma. Mike, Linda, Ramona, Hayward



Honoring My Father (1908-1986)

For all the years that he has been gone, my father’s presence in my life is with me every day. I hear his voice in my own with the words that he used. I see his eyes in my face and in my son’s. I feel his sense of humor rippling through me as I laugh and I recognize it in the spirit of fun that has been a part of my son almost from the day of his birth.  John William Armstrong, Jr., lives on in us.

He resides in me today, not just as a memory, but as the spirit imbued in me through his example. He taught me so many things, some of them seemingly contradictory. His compassion for others was evident in many ways. He would answer a call any time of day or night to help someone to whom he felt responsibility. He gave his heart to those who needed someone to believe in them, even when their frailties or disabilities might bring him to tears when he returned home from working with them.

He could be intimidating to us as children. His expectations for us were high. We were in awe of his edgy intelligence, a breadth of knowledge drawn from living and from voracious reading. Unable to attend more than a few months of college, he educated himself while working in a myriad of jobs. When we were growing up, he worked long hours and was often up long before we arose, then home in the afternoon when we finished school.

Even as he hungered for knowledge, he remained bound for too long to some of the ways of the past. He clung to the mores of a rural South he learned from relatives with bitter memories of Reconstruction.  Ultimately, he would admit that he had been wrong about many things, but in his wrongheadedness, I never knew him to treat anyone unkindly or cruelly.  He would not allow us to treat anyone as our inferior.

He espoused a level of cynicism that was hard for me to understand as a child. I can relate to it better now, having experienced more of life, including the disappointments, as well as too many views “behind the curtain,” where I’ve discovered flawed human beings are seldom wizards or heroes. Though an avowed cynic who often told me: “you’ll see,” Daddy showed an enormous faith in human nature throughout his life.

So what is this heritage that fathers leave their children? Is it the way we look, or the training we’re given? Is it the biases and prejudices we carry forward into our own lives? Is it their beliefs? Is it their questions? Is it the talents witnessed or the manners ingrained? It is all of these, I believe. Those of us fortunate enough to have a loving father in our lives, one we might honor this Father’s Day, take away a gift.

It is the gift of love, given freely and generously in the best way our dads know how. They give themselves in risking parenthood at the start, in being our role models throughout and in leaving us with the grace and courage to go on if they pass on before we do. Sadly this year, as during so many wars and other armed conflicts in the past, many will miss a father who gave his life for our country.

My wish for them and for all of us is to have the memories that allow us to have our fathers, though gone before us, living in us. May we know that grace this Father’s Day 2012.

Tuesday Morning with Mike

I awoke very early this morning, my head full of thoughts about the month just past. I was missing my dear friend Dale, feeling that loss anew with the realization that her friends in New York City gathered to remember her yesterday. As tears fell again, I reminded myself that she would want me to be happy with those memories rather than sad. I could hear her voice once again, saying as she so often did: “Are you okay? Are you sure? I want to know you’re okay.”

When Mike woke up, we had that first cup of tea and headed to the park along the lake for our morning walk. That was what my soul needed. With few sounds other than the occasional honking of geese and the rattle of Mike’s cart on the boardwalk, I was enveloped in the peace of this place.

Above and around the lake, the lush green cloak that spring rains have brought to the mountains lends a softness to their rocky sides. The sun, still low in the sky, gleams and glistens on the lake’s surface. We pass a neighbor’s garden where deep blue hydrangea blossoms cascade down a slope.

As we follow the path through the park, we see a wood duck with her ducklings on the far side of the pond. She seems to be tucking them into the foliage along the bank, perhaps hiding them from our view until she is sure we aren’t there to harm them. A couple of mallards share the path with us briefly, keeping up an incessant quacking. We dub them “the bachelors in search of girlfriends” and leave them to their quest.

An evergreen along the path catches our eyes with its dark green branches liberally tipped with new yellow-green growth. Most things here are thriving, drawing up the abundant rains from recent storms into branches and leaves.

A flock of geese is noshing on the grass, more than a dozen adults watching over six or eight young ones. These goslings still have some of their baby yellow, but are more a fuzzy brown now, wobbling around on legs than seem too long for them.  Just a couple of weeks ago the babies were still yellow, practicing swimming with their parents.

It’s the first morning in a week or so that we haven’t seen fishing boats heading out into the lake, but we do spot the fellow who brings his single skull here to skim across the water many mornings. Along the river’s edge, chairs on the docks await those who will come today or tomorrow to sit for a spell and enjoy the water and the wildlife as we do. Here and there canoes are on their racks, their red and green sides still now, but we know they will be in the water when Memorial Day weekend fills them with vacationers.

We pass the gazebo, quiet now, but I can almost imagine a time-lapse film of the weddings that have taken place here on the lakeshore. A few days ago, there were rose petals in the grass nearby, left from weekend nuptials. It’s a beautiful spot for happy ceremonies.

As we leave the park after making our circuit around the path, we see again the wood duck and her babies on our side of the pond, counting six. As they swim out into the middle of the water, five little ones stay close to Mama’s right side, but one ventures out on his own from the left until she gathers him back closer. It’s wonderful to watch how the waterfowl care for their little ones. They know the dangers of predators and attempt to hold their young close and safe for as long as possible.

Back along the boardwalk we find our way to the car again, now noticing how the traffic has picked up. It’s almost time for school and kids are being ferried to schoolyard or bus. Others are headed for work. The Lake Lure Arcade, built in the mid-1920's, centers the town, overlooking the beach and settled into the curve of the mountains rising behind it.  

Our day starts with this panorama of life and nature, blended into something that seems almost magical .  There’s that great sense of beginnings that each morning brings, somehow made oh-so-special in this little mountain lake enclave we love.

All photographs by Mike Lumpkin