Windsor Gardens Life

May 2021 Page 31 To read more of the Windsor Writers' work, you can visit the their website at www.wg-wg.com . Windsor Writers Back in my toddling days and beyond into my maturing childhood, my mother told all the culturally demanded lies. Most of these fabrications were in support of the country’s major religion. Tales such as that of an obsessive-compulsive old man who is fixated on delivering toys to all of the world’s children in one night each year. Supposedly he was enabled by an army of elves who helped him create the gifts to be distributed. Christmas is a feel-good time of year, but imagine how you would feel if someone held a birthday party for you and the participants exchanged gifts with each other and left you out of the loop. The Easter Bunny comes along in the spring as a reminder to the populace to go forth and multiply. The Tooth Fairy, which goes back to a 10th Century Norse tradition, is just there to incentivize children to have their baby teeth pulled to clear the way for permanent teeth to grow in. I appreciate the fact that my mother did not try to convince me that George Washington would not tell a lie. The public school system tried to do that for her. Other than the culturally mandated fibs, I do not believe my mother ever lied to me. However, she did unwittingly pass on volumes of misinformation. When we moved into central Wyoming, we lived fifteen miles from the nearest town. Mother rarely went into Riverton with us. She spent her time doing housework, gardening, reading and listening to her Zenith table radio. I remember listening to the Army-McCarthy hearings with her, and she found a radio station The Ten Suggestions by Pete Clark that specialized in kooks and their conspiracy theories. One man read and discussed the Stillwell Papers, which were the General’s diary. The man extracted information from the papers that was more his imagination than anything Stillwell had written. He was trying to prove that Vinegar Joe, as the press called Stillwell, had set China up for a communist takeover. That was far from the truth, but my mother believed him and others voicing far-out conspiracies theories. Mom listened intently to radio evangelists. One of them pushed the Hoxsey cancer cure. Hoxsey had moved his clinic to Mexico as the FDA had refused to recognize it as a valid method to fight cancer. The evangelist claimed the procedure was outlawed because the AMA did not want to lose its greatest cash cow, cancer treatment. A second evangelist fixated on a supposed governmental UFO cover- up. The Roswell Incident in July 1947 provided a lot of fodder for those who manufacture reality and envision a warped future. A third radio preacher voiced great concerns about the development of a unified Europe that would become a fierce contender against the United States in the struggle for world domination. My mother knew her King James Version Bible inside out and did not consider the Ten Commandments to be the Ten Suggestions. Other than in the instances of the above-mentioned cultural demands, she was true to her word with me and anyone else. Like everyone else, I have learned many things over the years about people and human nature. Most folks are kind and decent and we should ignore those who are not. Here are a few things I have observed over the years about having a well-lived life. I have learned that you can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for a long time; that it’s taken me a long time to become the person I want to be and I’m still not there; that you should always leave loved ones with loving words, it may be the last time you see them; that you can keep going long after you can’t. We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel; that we either control our attitude, or it controls us; that heroes are the people who do what has to be done, regardless of the consequences; we should be happy if we didn’t give, or get, Covid. I’ve learned that sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you’re down will be the ones that help you get back up; that sometimes when I’m angry, I have the right to be angry, but that doesn’t give me the right to be nasty; that maturity has more to do with the types of experiences we’ve had and what we’ve learned from them. Human Nature by Hap Hansen I’ve learned that your family may not always be there for you. It may seem funny, but people you aren’t related to can also take care of you and love you and teach you to trust them; that no matter how good a friend is, they’re going to hurt you once in a while and you must forgive them for that. Sometimes we have to learn to forgive ourselves; that no matter how bad our hearts may be broken, the world doesn’t stop for our grief. I’ve learned that our backgrounds and experiences may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become; that we don’t have to change friends if we understand that friends change; that we shouldn’t be so eager to find out a secret, it could change our life forever; that two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different, especially in politics! That even when we think we have no more to give, we can find a way; when a friend calls out to us, we will find the strength to help and that people we care most about in life are taken from us too soon. Most of all, I have learned from that old cliché, that yesterday is gone, tomorrow may never come, today is all we have. Make the most of it. Live your life well! Theme: Thoughts on a Well-Lived Life Theme: Lies My Mother Told Me