Roger Barbee

                                                                     By Roger Barbee

            Were he alive, Fred Templeton would turn 79 on April 2. However, he died of lung cancer in August 1992–too young for him, his wife, and his two children. A young 51,  he was a fine English teacher at Surrattsville High School where he was also an outstanding coach of soccer and baseball.  He also coached youth soccer, basketball, and softball in the Rec League of Alexandria, where he lived.  As a teacher at St. Stephens/St. Agnes, the school his children attended, I casually knew Fred and his wife Sarah, but when his son Michael  enrolled in my freshman English class, he and I forged a bond cemented around Leslie Norris’ short story Shaving.

            During the late 1980’s, I had good results teaching Norris’ Shaving, the story of 17-year-old Barry whose father is dying from cancer. Coming home from a rugby match, Barry is told by his mother that his father, lying in the family dining room turned into a sick room, is uncomfortable because of his unshaven face. After drinking a glass of milk, Barry announces to his mother, “I’ll shave him.” He does, and in such a way that all students who read the story are moved in profound ways. Because of the positive results, I always taught Shaving until the news spread around school about Fred’s cancer. For the school year of 1991-’92, I chose not to use Shaving because Michael would be in my class, and I thought that would be too difficult for him. That year the school community watched in awe as Fred, who had taken a leave of absence from Surrattsville, continued to coach his Rec League teams while showing us how to live life at its fullest.  However, as he lived and battled, the cancer advanced in such a manner that in late August, 1992, as preparations for the coming school year were being made, the news spread that Fred was home, the family dining room having been turned into his sick room, and that if any of us at school wanted to see him, we should come quickly as his lungs were filling with fluid, and his death was imminent. My friend and fellow administrator, Roger Bowen, asked me to accompany him to visit Fred on a hot, late August morning. I declined, not wanting to see Fred in such a state. Little did I know, but when Roger Bowen returned from his visit with Fred and his

family, he gave me an envelope and said, “Fred asked me to give you this.” Asking him what it was, he answered, “I don’t know, it’s sealed.” Going to my office, I opened the envelope and saw a copy of Shaving, and a note in Sarah’s hand that read, “Fred wants you to have a copy of this story, one of his favorites.” Stunned, I immediately called her asking for a chance to see Fred, which she managed to give me that afternoon.

            Going into their townhouse, I saw Fred lying in the hospital bed that had been placed in what had been the dining room, just like in the story. I told him my story about Shaving and how I had chosen not to use it for Michael’s year in my class, and he told me how, when Michael had begun to give him his shots for pain, he was reminded of a story he had taught long ago. He sent his family looking through all his books, and his sister had found it, Shaving. Liking it, he wanted me to have a copy. As my time with Fred waned, I promised him that I would always teach Shaving and asked him if he had a particular date that he would like. He said, “Teach it today, the day I died.” I reminded him that school was not in session in late August, but then asked him when his birthday was. “April 2,” he answered. We then agreed on the teaching of Shaving on each April 2 and since it was his birthday, as the story was being read, cake would be served to the students. So, every April, since 1993, cake has been served while students listen to my reading of Shaving. That first year, his daughter Kate sat in my class, ate cake, and heard the story that is so much like her father and brother.

            In April 2005 I ran across a reference to Leslie Norris, who was living and teaching in the Midwest. I emailed him my account of his story and he responded, telling me that as a young boy growing up in Wales, he had shaved his father who was dying from cancer. He told how he had put off writing the story, but finally did. His father’s birthday was April 5, so since 2005 I have felt as if I read it for both fathers and their sons. It is a promise.         

By Roger Barbee

Memory is suspect—yours, mine, all memory may have been warped by suggestion, desire, denial, or other factors. But if it is your memory, then claim it and cherish it because it is part of who you are.

One of my claimed and cherished memories is of blooming, white dogwood trees, the cold that arrives in an early spring, and Easter. One recent evening I sat on the screened porch and marveled at the full blooms of one of our dogwood trees. Looking at the rich array of white on the tree, I recalled warmly the myth taught to all us children: The story told that the dogwood was so small and misshaped because its wood was used for the Cross; and the four petals, shaped like the Cross, had blood-like stains on their tips. But for that evening, I just enjoyed the beauty of that one tree and of the other three dogwood trees in full bloom. Now, the week after Easter, all the white petals lie on the ground. Washed off by a strong rain or blown asunder by bitter, cold wind, the white of the dogwoods is just a memory.

Paul uses a powerful verb to describe what happened on the Cross. But after Jesus tasted death during his humiliating form of death, He rose from the dead and spent forty days with his disciples and others. One of my favorite stories of that time is the one told in Mark and Luke. Luke’s version, in more detail, shares that two believers are walking to Emmaus, a village near Jerusalem, when they are joined by another person. When the couple (Cleopas and his wife Mary) arrive at home, they invite the stranger they had been talking with about the recent events concerning Jesus in Jerusalem to stay with them. When they sit to eat, the stranger breaks bread, and they recognize the risen Lord, who “vanished out of their sight.” The Christians of the first century “lost” Jesus for those three, affrighting days, but He came again as promised, and He walked and lived with them for forty days.

I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had been there with Cleopas and Mary. I don’t know how I would have acted if I had been on that shore to see Jesus next to a fire of coals, ready for cooking some of the catch. However, I do know that when I watch the dogwoods come into bloom, I am thankful for their beauty, the adults who taught a young boy truth and myth, and the man who tasted death for me.

By Roger Barbee

Last night’s wind left dogwood blossoms covering the walkway of our back garden. When I exited the screen porch, I tread on a blanket of still-white petals from the tree next to the walkway. None of the other dogwood trees had lost their petals, and this one particular tree still had many of them left on its limbs, but for whatever reason, it had showered a spring dusting that caused me to think about death. Especially the death that Christians celebrate this time of the year.

Crucifixion most likely began with the Assyrians and Babylonians who tied their victims to a tree or post, leaving their feet to dangle. The Romans, after learning of the punishment during the Punic Wars,  began using crosses to perfect the punishment. The Roman Empire used it especially in the Holy Land, and in 4 B.C E. the Roman general Varus crucified 2,000 Jews, and the historian Josephus writes that there were mass crucifixions during the first century A.C.E.

 The victim was scourged, forced to carry the horizontal beam to the upright post, stripped, then either tied or nailed through the wrist to the cross beam before it was attached to the upright post. The victim’s name and crime was posted above his or her head. It was a slow, painful, and public death. Viewed as a shameful way of death, it was reserved for only the worst of criminals, and no Roman citizen would be executed in this manner.

Christians wear crosses, churches attach them to high steeples, and the symbol is used in a myriad of other ways that represent our belief. Yet, the crosses we use are sanitized images of what was used to kill. The Christian crosses have no representation of blood, mucus, pieces of torn flesh, urine, feces, or hair. Nothing that is evident from such a brutal death is on any part of the gold cross worn around the neck of many Christians or on the silver crosses that are present in all Christian churches. They are pristine, and I suggest that is where we delude ourselves concerning His death.

Through our art, music, architecture, jewelry, and more, we have created a false image of what His death was. While we read and say the words of it, we deny its reality by our accepted images of what His execution was. What  I am suggesting is that we can be honest of its brutality by our language of His ordeal and the images we use for it. Each of us, for instance, can discard the neat, golden cross worn around our necks and wear a small, rough, and irregular wooden one that would be more representative of the cross on which our Savior tasted death for us. I appreciate that houses of worship will not and perhaps can not remove their crosses. But we individual Christians can make a small change to remind us of His death on a tree and the brutal pain He endured.

By Roger Barbee

As an amateur watcher and feeder of birds, I have had my disagreements with squirrels, the rodents that many folks, unlike me,  enjoy. However, after years of battle I have reached a reluctant peace with the varmints. The feeders are as much “squirrel proof” as possible, and I begrudge any squirrel the seeds on the ground under the feeders. A tree rodent, in my view, the squirrels have their place in nature. Just not in my garden hogging the bird seed.

But last evening was one of those early spring ones when budding life emerged from every shoot, limb, and blade. The dogwoods in our back garden offered early buds that would soon be white petals, and Carolina chickadees, blue jays, nuthatches, and titmice fed at the three feeders while the rufous-sided towhee shared ground morsels with the brown thrashers and a lone, grey squirrel. The returning pair of chickadees had already established a nest in their bird box on the far dogwood, and we had seen the thrashers bringing nesting material to the large azalea beside the back gate. The camellia in the berm had been taken by a pair of cardinals for season residency; and we sat on our screen porch enjoying the end of a grand spring day watching the fading sunlight rest on the far shore and the animals eating from the three feeders.

Then every bird was gone. An uncomfortable silence descended on the garden, covering it like a shroud. Every bird had flown to a safe limb or rushed into one of the two azaleas for refuge. The squirrel hopped to the dogwood truck, alert with its head erect, but near the ground and observant-poised like a statue. Following the stare of the squirrel, I saw the invader. The resident cooper’s hawk had lit in a dogwood in the berm, about thirty feet from the back feeder, bird bath, and poised squirrel. Not even the blue jays, who will attack a snake, stayed to battle with this intruder.

We watched the hawk, one who is a frequent visitor because of the bird feeders. It was a beautiful animal to us, but the birds had fled because their view of the hawk was different from ours. They saw death while we saw primeval beauty. We watched the squirrel, almost frozen to the tree trunk with its head erect, watching the cooper’s hawk across the fence. We witnessed a scene of nature’s way as the hawk glided to the top fence rail within a few feet of the squirrel who then wisely bounded into the thick foliage of the azalea. The hawk jumped to the ground and began hoping in its awkward walk toward the thick bush as if to peer inside the bush for a meal. It was then that the squirrel came out of the azalea and stood next to the dogwood.

If you watch nature enough, even in a small back garden like ours, you will soon enough see death. It may come from a predator, an accidental falling from a nest, or any other result that I have come to realize is “Nature’s beautiful way.” We sat frozen in the safety of our screen porch as the squirrel faced the attacker. Then, as if scripted, the squirrel leaped at the cooper’s hawk, who made one hop backward. The squirrel lunged again, and the death threat turned and flew away to other hunting grounds.

All the grey squirrels that frequent our back garden look alike, so the brave heart one will remain anonymous. However, since witnessing such an act—whether foolish or brave—all squirrels have become more tolerable. While I still have some issues with their antics, even I cannot deny the act of that lone, grey squirrel against the cooper’s hawk.  So because of his act, each one will be more tolerated than before.

By Roger Barbee

 For many years I was part of a school’s administration that planned and supervised  annual retreats for its high school students. One of the most popular activities on those retreats was the group hike to the large rock outcrop at the summit of Great North Mountain.  We gathered our students onto the rock, and they would gaze east, looking far below to the village of Orkney Springs and Shrine Mont, the Episcopal Conference and Retreat Center for the Diocese of Virginia. It was a view that gave dimension to the hike they had just completed and to the village and retreat center. During one of the retreats, a student asked if some of them could hike back to the summit the next morning to see the sunrise. That is how I came to be standing outside the dining hall the next morning where about a dozen seniors met me, each gripping a flashlight in the morning chill. Leaving the center’s parking lot, our sleepy group walked past the outdoor chapel and followed a shadowy fire road where the walking was rather easy, even in the thick darkness of the woods.  But soon enough, the rather smooth way of the fire road gave way to the trail, a narrow rock-filled path that served as a stream after every summer storm. Carefully we walked up the steep trail, each of us working in his or her own way to step gingerly on and around rocks. The walking was such that not even this group of high school seniors did what adolescents do best—talk. The flashlights’ beams and the labored breathing of walkers marked our progress, but we finally arrived safely at the summit and our destination.  

We helped each other to climb onto the large stone outcropping, and the deep quiet was only disturbed by the many clicks as we turned off our flashlights. Getting comfortable on the outcrop in the thick dark of the forest, we reverently watched for the sunrise.  The dawn came slowly to the valley that held the village and retreat center far below. A student asked about the lakes we saw, and another explained that what we were seeing was not lakes but concentrations of fog in low places that looked, in the low light, like lakes.  Sitting in awe of the scene, we each tried to guess exactly where on the forested horizon  the sun would show. Time in that stillness seemed halted, but suddenly one of the students said in a hushed shout, “There it is.” We each turned to our left, looking beyond the resort of Bryce, and watched in that dawn’s cloistered light until the sun grew so bright that we had to turn away, unaware that as we had been mesmerized by the sun rising, the warming of the earth had caused the heavy fog to evaporate, revealing the retreat center and the village of Orkney Springs far below us. When the sun cleared the far horizon, a student said (with only the wisdom of a high school senior), “Well, that’s over.”  We then stood, stretched, and quietly commented about what we had done and what we had seen. We then hurried down the trail to the dining lodge for a breakfast of fried apples, sausage, and pancakes.

In Hold Everything Dear, John Berger writes, “A mountain stays in the same place, and can almost be considered immortal, but to those who are familiar with the mountain, it never repeats itself.”  For many years I led students and teachers on the hike to that large rock on Great North Mountain.  But only that one time did some students want to walk in the dark in order to witness a sunrise from the rock.  Since that morning I have seen dawns come over at Shrine Mont and at other locales. Many dawns. Many years. Many students. And all are like Berger’s mountain: All the same without repetition.

The student who announced, “Well, that’s over,” was right. Our shared experience of the hike in the dark and that particular moment of seeing dawn come is now past, but I hope that the effect of rising so early, walking in the dark with  classmates, and witnessing such a fine dawn is still with that student and all the others. I hope that that memory is one carried onward into their lives so that, when needed on one of those dark trails we all walk, it brings light, warmth, and hope.

By Roger Barbee

March 19th was the first day of spring and the March equinox, which occurred at 5:37 A.M EDT, is marked. I noted the sun’s position over our house roof as I rode the stationary bike which I had recently moved from the screen porch to the front, on a corner of the driveway. The changing of the bike is a seasonal one that places it on the porch for the winter cold but outside for all the other days. Thus, each March when I begin riding in the front of our yard, I anticipate a renewal with neighbors and other walkers.

The spring equinox occurs when the earth tilts so that the sun crosses the equator, and the northern hemisphere shifts closer to the sun, and we begin to experience spring followed by summer.  This day of equal light and dark is almost magical, and I thought of the Greek myth of  Persephone, and her journey from the underworld that brought the earth its renewal each spring.

The spring renewal under the forty pine trees in our front yard is spectacular, and for my new rides here, the life of rebirth is awe inspiring. I marvel watching all the life under our pines—the male birds staking territory like settlers on the prairie, the emergence of fresh leaves on every plant like splashes of paint, and the innumerable green shoots bursting forth like rockets escaping gravity. But I am most eager to re-acquaint myself with neighbors who I have not had a meaningful conversation with since last fall.

            Over the past two weeks, I have shared in good renewal chats with Ethel; Martha, Rich and their poodle-doodle Buddy; and exchanged a “Good morning” with others. Some neighbors, like Ken, do not count because he had often visited with me on the screen porch—even in the coldest mornings.  But one pair I have not renewed with is Max and her standard, cream-colored Pomeranian Puccini, nicknamed Puci. He generously carried the nickname as well as his formal one.

            Max and Puci live near the end of our dead-end street, and for the three and a half years I have ridden the stationary bike in our front yard, I have always known they were coming up our road because I would hear him barking at each vehicle as it passed. His short, sharp bark at a passing vehicle was a signal for me to begin watching for them on the ox-bend of our road. Sure enough,  I would soon see him walking with his mistress along the edge of the road. He would stop and inspect odors only he or other dogs could detect, study other objects of interest, and then royally continue on to the intersection near our house that marked his turn-around. When Max saw me riding the stationary , she would say, “Puci, let’s say hello to Roger,” before walking over to chat. He would greet me with one of his barks, allow me to touch him if he were in the mood, and after being polite long enough so as not to embarrass his mistress, he would turn to face the direction of their home. It was his announcement that they had given me enough of their morning, and it was time to go. Then off to home, his sharp barks and noble carriage marking his journey to whatever awaited him at home.

            The spring equinox announces change. The scene that I rode in last fall is still like that where I  ride now: The forty pine trees, the road, my shop building, the vast sky, all of it is the same as last fall. Yet, over the winter months, change did occur and, while some of it is expected, some of it, like death, came unannounced, bringing its companion grief. Then the sadness.

            Puccini, the grand little fellow, died from cancer. No longer will his short, sharp bark herald his coming like the whistle of an upstream steamboat. No longer will his well-groomed, cream form move gracefully along the long bend of our road. No longer will he wait patiently and regally as two humans chat away precious minutes of his morning walk. During the cold of winter he, as King David wrote, “Went the way of all living things.”

 Puccini, the cream-colored, standard Pomeranian, was just a dog, but what a fine dog he was.  And because we embrace that, we will be renewed when we celebrate an early-morning bark signaling that a dog comes round the bend of Isle of Pines Road.

By Roger Barbee

Times of hardship offer opportunity. The trials may allow our best qualities to shine, or they may let our lower selves emerge. The writer Seneca wrote, “It does not matter what you bear, but how you bear it.”

During the present COVID-19 crises, I so appreciate the action of such people as Mark Cuban, Anthony Fauci, Yamiche Alcindor, and Peter Cancro. These four and many more folks have stepped up and led in their own way during the pandemic. They each are successful in their professional arenas, but their success has not kept them from sharing it with the nation when it is most needed.

I wish the owner of the shuttered Hahneman Hospital in Philadelphia was able to “step up” and give to the community. It seems, according to news’ reports, that Joel Freedman, the owner of the closed hospital, wanted to charge the city $400,000 per month to rent the space during this COVID-19 crisis. The city, in desperate need for additional hospital beds, turned to Temple University for space. The leaders of Temple, unlike Freedman, rose to the occasion and stepped in.

It is encouraging to witness so many folks being active supporters for the good of all. They are following the words of Seneca quoted above. But for some, like Freedman, their only desire is to act selfishly. Those people are missing a great opportunity to do a good and to grow as a person.

By Roger Barbee

 This morning, as if to announce the arrival of March, the temperature invited my wife and me to have our coffee on the screen porch.

Early risers because our aged hound, Nolan, wanted to eat, we drank our first cup of coffee in the fading dark of last night. No birds called yet because of the lack of light, but a soft breeze blew through the tall pines, sending a song of early spring.

We knew the morning was a brief gift of nature because, as the weather woman had promised last night, the soft breeze soon became a harsh wind that blew in colder air. We stayed and finished our first cup of coffee, but then moved back inside to the breakfast table. Even the cats came in with us.

However brief the time had been this morning,  it was a signal of porch mornings to come. On those mornings,  my wife and I will speak softly to each other, listen for and then watch the morning’s arrival, drink coffee, all the while sharing the blessings of our home. Cats will sit on our laps, the dogs will come and go, and life on the planet earth will happen on its scale of the unexplained.

Later in the morning, when I was wrapped up in its busyness, I thought of the monk Thomas Merton and his words, “Nothing has ever been said about God that hasn’t already been said better by the wind in the pine trees” realizing of what he knew about God and man’s thirst for an explanation of all things.

By Roger Barbee

Recently I shared with a friend how I disagreed with a well-known economic expert and his views concerning the economy and pandemic. My friend listened to my rant and then told me that he knew the man, had worked with him, and admired him. While my friend valued the expert’s opinions, he admired mostly how the fellow had overcome a chemical dependency after years of struggle. All of a sudden for me, the person who had previously been only a one-dimensional figure who appeared in the news, became a human being. While I still disagreed with his economic views, I appreciated and honored his struggle and his success.

I have been thinking about that conversation and how public figures are too often judged by what we see of them in the media. While we are free, as I did, to reach conclusions about the political or other philosophies of public figures, we should be careful about forming any opinions  concerning their character.

According to my on-line etymology dictionary our word character is explained as “The meaning of Greek kharaktēr meant an “engraved mark” and was extended in Hellenistic times by metaphor to mean “a defining quality, individual feature.”

Certainly the economic adviser had led “a secret life” while suffering addiction. Perhaps like many addicts he was successful as “a functional addict” who led two lives. And when he  began battling his addiction that few folks were aware of, they would never know of his battle against it. His, like all who seek freedom from a chemical dependency, was a lonely battle, but he faced his demons and began to understand them. His character is defined by his success at overcoming his addiction, not by it.

I am not a trained economist, but like many citizens, I have opinions concerning that field and others. Fine. But opinions become dangerous when they lead to character assessment and that was my error concerning the economic adviser. I allowed my opposition to his economic views to become a judgement of the person, not just his philosophy. But when I learned of his struggles with addiction, his humanity became more important than his philosophy.

The American poet Longfellow writes, “Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.” The economic adviser is now freed of his sadness, and I hope to free myself of cold assessments of the character of another.

By Roger Barbee

The television advertisement shows a green plant with its leaves wet from a gentle rain that is the over sound. It is a pleasant and calm scene in which the viewer is asked to do nothing  for  fifteen seconds as a circle winds down the time. The viewer is told that she can download the Calm app for free. When I pulled the Calm,com app up on my phone I read the following: “Calm is The #1 App For Mental Fitness, Designed To Help You Manage Stress. Sleep Better And Live A Happier, Healthier Life. Try Calm For Free Today.”

Wow. All that in capital letters promising a better and happier and healthier life.

Now, I did not load the app onto my phone. My decision is not against an app that promises to calm me and help me manage the stress in my life. It is not, simply put, something that would be of use because I can walk out into our front yard or back garden and be calmed by the sounds of nature.

For instance, during my morning stationary ride  on the screened porch I was gifted enough calming sights and sounds to last the day. A red-bellied woodpecker repeatedly flew from one of the dogwood trees to a feeder returning each time with a sunflower seed to crack open in a crevice of  dogwood bark; the camellia bush held its first deep red bloom in its rich, green foliage; nuthatches scampered up and down the dogwood in a search for grubs or the rights of mating; a high breeze caressed the pine tops; cawing crows glided above us all on a mission known only to them; and  much more. As I rode my five miles, I registered all of this and more because I accepted nature’s gift of the morning, knowing that I may need it later during my day as a reminder of things larger than my life and me.

Modern technologies amaze me, and I use one right now as I type this on my computer. My computer program will correct much of my poor spelling, make suggestions for grammar, and automatically store all these words in whatever folder I  choose. That is convenient and truly awe inspiring. However, all of this cannot compare with the wind passing through the high reaches of the pines or that woodpecker gliding from tree to feeder and back. No machine, “intelligent” or not, can compete with the nuthatches that live in or visit  our back garden.

Yet our culture has evolved into one that is constantly searching for and creating mechanical ways to improve our lives. Our culture is one in which many folks while exercising supply themselves with mechanical means to shut out the world as they walk, ride, or run. It is as if the sounds of nature are invasive, so a chosen man-noise is deemed better than the sounds of nature; even when exercising in an urban area nature is present but will never be heard while captured in a man-made system of noise.

Calm is good, and the Calm.com app is pleasing. Who would not like the rain falling on leaves or more. But we do not need to create it or record it. We just need to walk outside and look for it. Nature is all around for us.