Thursday, March 26, 2020

The IMPORTANT factor



Every human on the planet has a need to know that they are significant, that they have value, that they are important.  Peoples’ need, it seems to me, can be calculated in degrees. Some have it big, very big.

No one likes it when they feel that what they do doesn’t matter, that it no longer has value. These feelings pop up when someone loses a job, is furloughed, and is sentenced to staying at home with no job to do.

A high-level business consultant, lounging in pajamas on a Thursday morning, might wonder if there will be a place for a business consultant among companies simply trying to survive. “Whoa,” this person may think. “There won’t be a market for my services. The world isn’t going to notice if I never go back to my job.”

A Disney executive may wake up to the realization that his or her job is no longer important. A world struggling to recover from a long-term virus scare probably won’t be seeking out a high-priced opportunity for the family to hobnob with Mickey Mouse. The executive’s importance meter may take a dive.

On the other hand, those who clean, deliver, transport, harvest, cook and serve other basic human needs may feel more important than ever. They see a world waking up to the fact that they are needed, something they’ve always known but that has not often been acknowledged. They see a world at risk of collapsing without the services they provide. Their importance meter goes up.

We all know people whose need to feel important is wildly out of control. We wonder about how they manage to surround themselves with people dedicated to boosting that person’s outsized importance factor, often disregarding facts.

 Is it possible that COVID-19 may have arisen for a reason?

Saturday, March 21, 2020

Remembering Hope

After a long debilitating illness, my dear friend, Hope Cassiday, died this third week in March 2020. There will be no service for a while because of a pandemic sweeping across the country. But when there is a service, it will be huge because Hope more than lived up to her name. She touched so many lives, serving brain-injured people in her own community, and raising funds to meet urgent health and education needs  through a Simple Supper fundraiser she founded. Simple Supper survives to this day.

As I think about Hope, I am suddenly reminded of another March day, in 2006. A fierce wind, bare trees, dust swirls and scruffy pale grass greeted Marcia Benfica and her five-year-old son, Ruy when they arrived in Colorado, invited by Hope to speak at the Simple Supper fundraiser in Greeley.

I came to know Marcia when I was in Mozambique. I was a failure when she tried to teach me Portuguese, but we became good friends, translating African folk tales into English. She took me to a Mozambican wedding where I was the only white person. We laughed when one of her friends asked her why, since I was American and no doubt wealthy, wasn’t I better dressed?

Marcia is African, but firmly planted in three worlds: rural Mozambique where she grew up, Maputo, the capital of her country where she attended university and earned a degree in languages, and in Lansing, Michigan where she cleaned motel rooms, became proficient in English, and gave birth to her son while her husband earned a graduate degree in 2000. In 2005 they returned to Michigan so that her husband could complete his PhD.

Meanwhile, Hope had committed the Simple Supper funds raised in 2006 to help in completing a kindergarten in Mozambique. I realized that Marcia would be the perfect spokesperson to add authenticity to the project. 

“Of course, I’ll come,” she said. “But what is this fundraising—what does it mean?”

I was thrilled and told her that if she would speak about the importance of education to Mozambicans and the extreme shortage of kindergartens in her country, that would be enough.

She spoke so eloquently that no one at the Simple Supper could have questioned the need or her sincerity. Nearly $7,000 was raised in a single night and the dollars continued to trickle in later, making the goal of $8,000 a reality.

Despite fickle March weather, Marcia and Ruy had a week to remember in Colorado. They visited Rocky Mountain National Park, the capitol in Denver, took a tour of Cheyenne, saw a puppet show, and went to a pizza birthday party.

“Oh no, its too cold,” Marcia pleaded when I suggested a late night dip in my hot tub. 

“Just try it,” I insisted.”

Little Ruy slipped in clutching his inflatable crocodile and Marcia followed, gingerly at first. 

“Soft water,” Ruy said, swishing his hands across the bubbling surface. Sinking into the deliciously warm water became a nightly ritual for the rest of the week.

Marcia went back to Michigan with a collection of recipes, measuring cups and spoons, and Ruy went home with a couple of books, a few marbles and a collection of dinosaurs given to him by new friends who learned that he loved them.

When they departed, there were only tiny buds on the trees, no leaves but small sprouts of green were emerging from the winter-brown grass. A cold wind blew but Spring was around the corner.

Back in Mozambique, fall, the dry season was on its way. By winter, a new school would be complete and would soon be filled with small children taking their first steps into a wider world.

When Marcia goes back home, she will visit the school and tell them about Hope and a windblown week she spent in Colorado.




Saturday, March 7, 2020

The Last Laugh

The Last Laugh

My grandson, Mason Arndt, is a junior at Middlebury College in Vermont. This semester he is enrolled in a political science class in which the professor is quite formal and known for asking hard questions of his students.

My daughter, Jeni Arndt, Mason’s mother, lives in Colorado and serves as state representative for her hometown, Fort Collins.

During a recent session in Mason’s political science class, the professor called on “Mr. Arndt.” Mason perked up.

“Mr. Arndt, can you name the governor of your state?”

“Yessir. That would be Jared Polis.”

“And your senators?”

“Corey Gardner and Michael Bennett.”

“Very good. Now, answer this one. I’ve never had a student get it right. Who is your state representative?”

“That would be Jeni Arndt.”

“Impressive. How is it that you know that?”

“She’s my mom.”

In retrospect, Mason wishes, instead of answering "Jeni Arndt" to the professor’s question, he should have just said “mom.” He did say that his professor has become a bit less formal and now chats with him frequently.

I got such a charge out of this little incident that I had to share it.