Industry is the Enemy of Melancholy

I was fortunate to retire from my traditional work career at the relatively young age of 56. Retiring early had become a goal of mine ever since I observed how much my father enjoyed his 30 year post-work life. My father was perfectly content to leave the working life behind and fill up his days with fishing, tending his vegetable garden, solving the daily crossword puzzle, taking naps and watching the home town Sports teams on his television.

When the time came for me to retire, I had an idyllic vision of spending my days in similar fashion. Finally, after 56 years, I was looking forward to being my own boss – thrilled to have the opportunity to wake up every day and do whatever it was that interested me. I believed that every day would feel like Christmas!

And those first few months of retirement really were magical. Gone was the stress of having to be available 24/7 to my company’s sales and management teams who were battling to close million dollar deals, gone was the daily 3 to 4 hour commute in bumper-to-bumper traffic, and gone was the chronic sleep deficit.

It was goodbye to all that. What replaced it was the pleasure of deciding which book to read from my list of “books I always wanted to read“, fly fishing in the beautiful rivers of New England, taking long rides on my electric bike, spending quality time with my grandkids, and attending stimulating concerts and plays with my wife.

Something begin to happen, however, that I was not expecting about six months into my retirement. As the novelty and thrill of being retired began to subside I began to notice that I was experiencing melancholy moods and moments of soul searching. I was spending time reflecting on topics like past loss, the certainty of my physical and mental decline, and the uncertainty of how future generations will deal with the big existential challenges the world is facing.

Without the rigors of work to occupy my attention, my mind was set free to wander where it wanted to go and to my surprise I discovered that it often wanted to contemplate dark and doleful topics. I was not that concerned about these sometime melancholy moods because I reasoned that it is one of life’s natural reactions to harbor feelings of both happiness and sadness; and I remembered the wise old grandmother who once said: “A good day is a laugh and a cry“. Still I wondered why my pensive thoughts were increasing in frequency at a time in my life when I expected to be most content.

Then I happened to read about a study conducted by Harvard psychologists Matthew A. Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert which could help to explain the phenomenon I was experiencing. These researchers developed a smartphone app that allowed them to collect the thoughts, feelings, and actions of a broad range of people at random moments as they went about their daily activities.

Using the app, Killingsworth and Gilbert asked people what they were doing and how happy they were while doing it. They sifted through 25,000 responses from more than 5000 people and reported that 46% of the people were thinking about things other than what they were actually doing at the time (in other words, they were daydreaming about something other than what they were doing). They discovered that those people who were daydreaming typically were not happy; while those who were fully engaged in their activity were the happiest. 

The researchers wrote that unlike other animals, human beings spend a lot of time thinking about what is not going on around them, contemplating instead events that happened in the past, might happen in the future, or will never happen at all. This “stimulus-independent thought” or “mind wandering” appears to be the brain’s default mode of operation.

Although this ability is a remarkable evolutionary achievement that allows people to learn, reason, and plan, it apparently comes with an emotional cost. “We see evidence that a human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind,” they said in their report. The bottom line is that we’re more likely to think negative thoughts when we let our minds wander.

Maybe that is why people who are waiting in line or stuck in traffic appear to be more irritable. And maybe my melancholy moods have increased in frequency since leaving work simply because my mind is no longer required to spend 10+ hours a day focused on the demands of my job.

This study confirms that many philosophical and religious traditions are on to something true when they teach that happiness is to be found by living in the moment, and by training their practitioners to resist mind wandering and concentrate on the here and now. Yoga teachers and those teaching meditation practices usually stress the importance of “mindfulness” or “being present” for a good reason — because when we do, it usually puts us in a better mood.

When I look back at my work career, I can see now that those moments when I felt most fulfilled was when I was in the middle of product development activities, being part of a team inventing electronic test solutions to solve complex manufacturing challenges. During those moments all the powers of my mind were fully engaged in solving the problem at hand and there was a sense that the results of the team’s collective work would have a positive impact on the company, our customers, and to a certain extent, society in general.

William F. Buckley put his finger on the unique ability that meaningful work has in preventing the onset of depressive feelings when he wrote “Industry is the enemy of Melancholy“. Simply put, if we are busy doing work that requires a focused mind it becomes difficult for the mind to wander and contemplate spirit dampening topics that are likely to cause the blues.

I happened to listen to an online homily about work that touched on a similar theme from a spiritual point of view that was given by Bishop Robert Barron. Bishop Barron made the point that our very being is deeply influenced by our actions and that the kind of work we do has a lot to do with the kind of people we become.

People who have no work usually struggle with depression because our sense of dignity often comes from work. Those who suffer from unemployment feel not just the financial burden of a lost paycheck, but also the loss of dignity brought about from the loss of their livelihood.

When you are feeling down one of the things psychologists recommend is to get to work on a project. It tends to make you feel better because work engages the powers of mind, will, creativity, and imagination and we become awakened when we give ourselves over to a project.

It doesn’t have to be a grand or complicated project. In fact, Bishop Barron mentioned that he found that one of the things that brings him the most satisfaction is doing the dishes. His day is usually filled with meetings and intellectual activities, so it is a relief for him to do some simple physical work at the end of the day. It brings him satisfaction to make order out of a dirty kitchen and to see everything clean and in its place when he is done.

The Bishop referenced this lyric from Bob Dylan’s song “Forever Young” to emphasize that work is a blessing and that souls can not fully prosper when their hands and feet are idle.

“May your hands always be busy, may your feet always be swift, may you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift”

Bob Dylan; Forever Young

Not all work is physical, though. Pope John Paul II categorized different kinds of work for the faithful. There is physical work (the work of the body), intellectual work (the work of the mind), spiritual work (the feeding of one’s soul), and moral work (charitable work on behalf of the poor and mistreated). When we are attentive to each of these categories of work in our daily life, it is then that we best fulfill our divine potential and become collaborators with the purpose of God.

I like that idea. May we all come to see our work, in all its different manifestations, as collaborating with the purpose of God and as bringing us into a more perfect union with a higher power.

It’s Not Dark Yet, But it’s Getting There

I recently celebrated my 60th birthday – a moment of reckoning in one’s life when it seems appropriate to reflect on the bygone days of youth while also wondering what form life will take during the inevitable transition to old age.

The 60th birthday is considered a major milestone in many cultures. In China, someone who has reached the age of 60 is considered to have completed a full life cycle. The 60th birthday is commemorated with great extravagance because it is considered by them to be the beginning of a second life. 

When I think about it, it does seem to me as if I have lived a full life cycle. After all, what more can a man ask out of 60 years of life than to be born into a loving family; be bestowed with good health and a good education; be fulfilled with a satisfying job and rewarding career; be fortunate to find and share in the love of two beautiful women – who made me a proud father, step-father and grandfather to children who are now on their way to living out their own successful life cycles.

It’s funny to think back now of memories I have of playing the old Milton Bradley Board Game of Life in my College apartment with my future fiance and our friends. The game simulates a person’s travels through his or her life, from college to retirement, with jobs, marriage and possible children along the way. The overall goal is to retire as the wealthiest player at the end of the game.

Milton Bradley’s Game of Life

The decisions players make along the way – which include purchasing insurance policies, bank mortgages and stock investments – determine who wins the game of life and who spends their retirement days in Millionaire Estates, Countryside Acres, or the Poorhouse Farm.

Seems like only yesterday I was playing that game, but it was 40 years ago, and I realize I am now at a point where I have completed most of my personal life decisions and ought to be thankful for getting to the end with a winning hand.

I may not have retired the wealthiest man, or live in a Millionaire Estate, but I do live in a comfortable home in a bucolic setting which could easily pass for Countryside Acres. No matter what happens now, I can’t really lose at the game of life because I’ve already won – I’m playing with house money!

One glaring omission in the Life board game that I didn’t notice at the time (because no one who is young ever thinks about getting old) was that it stops at retirement – the end of our 1st life cycle.

The game does not ask the players to consider Medicare or Social Security benefits, Long Term Care insurance, Health Care Proxies, Wills and Trusts, Durable Power of Attorneys, Assisted Living and Nursing Homes, Disability, Hospice, Death, Funerals and burial decisions. All of those elements make up the domain of the second life cycle.

The unrecognizable face of the old man staring back at me from the mirror reminds me that I’m running out of time; as do these song lyrics that I find shuffling more often now in the soundtrack in my mind:

“I don’t look like I used to, I don’t walk like I used to, I don’t love like I used to. Oh… I can’t do the things I used to because I feel old”

“I feel Old” by the Heartless Bastards

“Ain’t gonna need this body much longer, ain’t gonna need this body much more. I put in 10 million hours. Washed up and worn out for sure”

“Don’t Need this Body” by John Mellencamp

“I was born here and I’ll die here, against my will. I know it looks like I’m moving, but I’m standin’ still… Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer, It’s not dark yet, but it’s gettin’ there”

“Not Dark Yet” by Bob Dylan

I am beginning my journey into the realm of the second life. From what I have observed, people who first enter this realm can become bewildered and embarrassed by the onset of old age and all of the infirmities that begin to come with it.

I was struck by this paragraph from the Grace Paley short story “Friends“, because it captures the awkward unsaid sentiments aging friends can experience when they haven’t seen each other in a while:

People do want to be remembered as young and beautiful. When they meet in the street, male or female, if they’re getting older they look at each other’s face a little ashamed. It’s clear they want to say, ‘Excuse me, I didn’t mean to draw attention to mortality and gravity all at once. I didn’t want to remind you, my dear friend, of our coming eviction, first from liveliness, then from life’. To which, most of the time, the friend’s eyes will courteously reply, ‘My dear, it’s nothing at all. I hardly noticed’.

“Friends” by Grace Paley

My wife’s work at a hospice agency reminds me every week that the end comes before we know it and when it does it is usually painful and undignified. To focus only on this inevitability, however, is a distraction that diminishes all the possibilities for living a rewarding second life.

Instead it is better, I think, to focus on encouraging past research that shows people tend to grow steadily happier as they age. As the moodiness and demands of youth subsides, maturity seems to bring more contentment.

In a Pew Research Center survey, seven-in-ten respondents ages 65 and older said they were enjoying more time with their family, more financial security and more time for volunteer work, travel and hobbies. Sixty percent said they feel more respected and have less stress than when they were younger.

But there is some conflicting research on the subject of aging and happiness and some experts say contentment, no matter what the age, boils down to one thing: Attitude. They say attitude is everything and that the qualities that most contribute to feelings of contentment as we age include:

• Optimism – Older people seem to display a more positive outlook on life than their younger, stressed-out counterparts. As a person’s life expectancy decreases, they tend to focus on what makes them feel good today; rather than mulling over past regrets or future worries. They live in the moment focusing on what is good in their life rather than what has not been achieved.
• Less Want – Jackie Coller wrote: “There are two ways to be rich: One is by acquiring much, and the other is by desiring little.” The Buddhists believe that it is the human mind’s craving for things that is the source of suffering. As we age, we tend to become more comfortable and accepting of our lot in life and our role in society – thus reducing the conflicts and anxieties that come with constantly wanting to change our situation.
• Humor – Mark Twain said that “Humor is the great thing, the saving thing after all. The minute it crops up, all our hardnesses yield, all our irritations, and resentments flit away, and a sunny spirit takes their place.” Being funny is possibly one of the best things you can do for your health. You can almost think of a sense of humor as your mind’s immune system.

Even though humor improves people’s overall quality of life, it is a hard habit for some people to adopt and practice. They take life too seriously and find it difficult to laugh at themselves or the frequent absurdities that make up our daily life.

In the novel East of Eden, John Steinbeck writes about an encounter an overly serious young girl has with her wise old Chinese friend:

“Do you think it’s funny to be so serious when I’m not even out of high school?” she asked. “I don’t see how it could be any other way, ” said Lee. “Laughter comes later, like wisdom teeth, and laughter at yourself comes last of all in a mad race with death, and sometimes it isn’t in time.”

“East of Eden” by John Steinbeck

With all this in mind, my simple goals for pursuing a second life filled with contentment are:

• to stay optimistic (60 may be old, but it is the youth of old age!)
• to want less (have few desires, be satisfied with what you have!)
• to cultivate my sense of humor (like George Carlin who joked when he turned 60 years of age that he was only 16 Celsius!)

If I am able to a accomplish those goals then maybe I will be lucky enough to feel like Ben Franklin who, at the goodly age of 84, wrote these words as he was preparing for the end of his remarkable second life…

“Let us sit till the evening of life is spent; the last hours were always the most joyous. I look upon death to be as necessary to to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.”

Taken from “The First American – The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin” by H.W. Brands

“There’s a way to do it better – find it”

I mentioned in a previous blog about the serendipity of finding interesting or compelling books at the book swap shed of my little town’s Transfer Station. I recently finished reading a book that I happened to find there called The Grace of Great Things – Creativity and Innovation.

The author, Robert Grudin, a former professor of English at the University of Oregon, described the book as a study in creativity and innovation. The title refers to the words a monk is said to have spoken to the young child Michel Colombe (before he became a famous sculptor) as the monk observed the child forgetting to eat because carving things in wood seemed more important to him:

“Work, little one, look all you can, the steeple of St. Paul and the beautiful work of the Compagnons. Look, love God, and the grace of great things will be given to you.”

Even though I do not consider myself a particularly creative person, especially in the area of the arts, the study of creativity holds some interest for me because I have had a tendency throughout my personal and professional life to seek out innovative solutions to problems I encounter. My training in engineering and the sciences taught me to step back and look at a problem from all perspectives – and to devise solutions that are not always obvious or biased by traditional thinking.

Of all the kinds of joy in this life, none perhaps is as pure as the kind experienced when sudden insight leads to the discovery of an elegant solution to a vexing problem. I have felt this satisfaction often in my professional life while creating software applications to solve our customer’s problems and while patenting new test methods that made finding electrical defects on Electronic Printed Circuit Boards faster and safer.

The word inspiration originally meant a breath of divinity, and it seems appropriate that it is used to describe that moment when a creative solution flashes into your consciousness. To be inspired feels like a divine event – something that seems to come from beyond as the mind surrenders to a force outside its control.

Gruden’s study documented the characteristics and particular habits that creative people share and that lead to original thinking and bold ideas. Those looking to become more inventive should practice the following mental habits and attitudes that Gruden writes are most congenial to inspiration:

Passion for Work – People are often advised to find a job that they love and it appears that those who do are usually the most creative. Creativity blossoms when you fully identify with your work and see it as an expression of your character.

People who love their job, derive pleasure from it and like the border collie are happiest when they are working and have a job to do. Their passion for work inhabits the full volume of their mind and persists during leisure hours and even during their sleep. In the creative life there is no distinction between leisure and work. Creative people belong to their work, and their commitment is rewarded with unexpected discovery.

Love of the Problematic – People who spend their lives ignoring and denying problems rarely become inspired. Conversely, the minds of creative people instinctively love tackling problems and discovering solutions. Creative people are sometimes seen as troublemakers because they upset the status quo by exposing problems that have been ignored.

Thomas Edison would instruct his engineers to observe closely and pay attention to things that did not totally fit. When he saw the slightest flaws with a proposed solution he would send them back to the drawing board with the instructions “there is a better way – find it“.

Love of Beauty – Moments of creativity, when inspiration leads to the discovery of an elegant solution to a problem one has worked on so passionately are rare.

Innovative people see great beauty in these moments when they come and they strive to capture the same feeling of beauty in all the other areas of their life.

A Sense of Wholeness – Creative people are good at looking at the big picture. When examining a problem, they are able to deconstruct the individual elements that form an object and see how the various parts are interconnected.

This quality opens up perspectives that allow them to visualize the true identity of a problem and it encourages their minds to explore new thought patterns and see potential discontinuities and anomalies that others don’t.

Boldness and a Sense of Openness – A willingness to follow good ideas despite their forbidding strangeness takes courage. Creative people do not fear ideas and are willing to ignore prior assumptions and walk on the edge of chaos; opening themselves to bold new ideas even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

Innocence and Playfulness – Inventive people have a way of looking at each new project as a blank slate – unbiased by tradition and what has come before. They are like inquisitive babies trying to make sense of an item without known purpose or use.

They do not put limits on solutions (like people whose only tool is a hammer want to define define all problems as a nail) and they are happy to travel down unexpected paths (like a cook who turns a failed mousse into a successful chocolate topping).

Suffering – It is not obvious, but inspiration is related to suffering. Creative people often have to suffer through failure of experiments, the refutation of hypotheses, the trashing of one’s own findings, dead-ends, disapproval and rejection.

Even the process of achieving professional credentials is usually full of pain (endless study, practice, humiliation by teachers, competition with peers, the sting of criticism and the fear of inadequacy). Inspiration is impossible without groaning effort, without the painful winning of skill, and hard-earned expertise.

Pain has always functioned as a stimulus to material progress. It was fear pain, and grief that helped drive the great medical and social advances that exponentially increased the length of the human lifetime.

Individuals who spend their lives in the persistent avoidance of pain are not likely to amount to much. When pain and suffering is duly faced and endured, like exercise, it builds the endurance and humility that make us amenable to inspiration.

Remembrance – Many noted revolutionaries and innovators claim that their ideas were not new. They explain that they were simply maintaining continuity with the past and restoring old ideas that had been corrupted or forgotten.

Creative people utilize their remembrance of the past to invent new applications that incorporate old ideas – they are adept at rediscovering something that was always true and adapting it to a new application.

Liberty – The essence of inventiveness lies in recognizing that the world is capable of innumerable configurations. Those who have lived long and paid attention know not only that things can change – but also that it is a law of nature that they must change.

Successful people anticipate how things are changing or will change in the future and work within a system that gives them the freedom and liberty to advocate solutions that will best meet those changing needs.

People living in autocratic and rigid systems of governance do not advance as fast as those living in a free and democratic system because the barriers those societies set in place do not empower their citizens to pursue their ideas to their full potential.

When looked at together, these identified habits and attitudes map out an environment that makes the mind fertile for creativity and the growth of inspiration – planting a virtual garden for the inquiring mind to wander. For most people, visits to this garden are rare, only occurring by chance and surprise.

That is the case for me. I recognize in myself many of the qualities and characteristics that Gruden associates with creative people and I have been fortunate to experience the thrill and satisfaction that comes from discovering innovative test methods and software applications during my long work career.

But those were high points in a career that also included plenty of low points, times when the enemies of discovery (depression, complacency and laziness) took root in me. Those were unproductive times in my life because people who are lazy or just trying to get by seldom make important contributions.

I am finding that just because I am retired now doesn’t mean I need to stop striving to be creative. The habits of creative people identified by Gruden are not limited to the workplace. I find these same habits of creativity can be applied while I am fishing, while I am working on household projects, while I am coding fun software programs for my grandsons to play and even while performing my volunteering activities teaching children and serving on the school board.

It is important to mention, amidst all this praise about the delights of inspiration, that creativity does not always confine itself to happy subjects or result in happy outcomes. History, unfortunately, is filled with examples of tragic visions and genius put to use in the service of malice. Knowing that creativity can be put to dangerous applications gives us an obligation to always be on the lookout for it and to speak out against it when we see it employed in harmful ways.

In the end though I believe there is a major connection between ethics and creativity. The great majority of inventions and innovations throughout the ages have been driven by a desire to make the world a better place. That 15th century monk was on to something profoundly relevant when he linked the word grace, and the pattern of moral strengths that it suggests, as the foundation of major creative achievement.

May you practice the habits of creative thinking to free your mind and to make your life and our world a better place… so that the grace of great things will be given to you too.

Mathematics is the Poetry of Logical Ideas

One of my post retirement goals is to spend more time reading. After living in my town for 8 years it felt good to finally visit my library last week to request a library card. I have a long list of books that interest me and plan to dedicate at least one hour every day to reading.

My reading list contains novels and biographies but it also includes technical books on engineering and mathematics. There is something profound and beautiful about the laws of mathematics which led Albert Einstein to equate math and logic with poetry and the philosopher Aristotle to observe that the mathematical sciences exhibit order, symmetry and limitation; and that these are the greatest forms of the beautiful.

Math is beautiful because it is governed by proofs, logic and a set of laws that can not be disputed. Mathematical laws properly applied to solve problems lead to insight and truth – solutions that can be trusted. In a world where so much of life falls into areas of gray, it is refreshing to work occasionally in the black and white world of math.

Today’s polarized political environment generates a lot of arguments and misinformation. Too many people purposefully practice the politics of division and fear – spreading select information that matches their personal biases of what is right and wrong; telling people what they want to believe; and keeping a closed mind to alternate facts that contradict their preconceived positions.

Decisions made with insufficient facts always invite danger. At critical moments, people tend to see exactly what they wish to see, rather than objectively considering all the facts. Logic is the beginning of wisdom and without logic bad decisions will be made. The country would be much better off if our governing officials eliminated  emotion and party politics from their decision making process and instead used logic, facts, statistics, chemistry and science to craft wise policies that will best solve our nations problems.

I have discovered that there also appears to be health benefits associated with doing math. I recently worked on a book of Math puzzles which occupied and focused my mind over a period of several weeks. I was surprised that working on these puzzles had a positive effect on my mind and body similar to the effects I get when I meditate. While I am working on a math puzzle, all other life distractions temporarily disappear and I find that my mind becomes more focused and my body less stressed. I think a topic on “Mathematics Meditation” would make for an interesting TED Talk and be a good area for future studies in the meditation sciences field.

One last cool thing about math is that it can be used to perform magic tricks that will amaze your friends and encourage them to further explore the mysteries of math and numbers.

Try this Math as Magic trick with one of your friends:

• Have a friend give you any 3 digit number [For example, the number 519 – this trick will work with any 3 digit number]
• Repeat the digits to make a 6 digit number [519519]
• Tell the friend that your magical power leads you to believe that the number is evenly divisible by 13 [519519 / 13 = 39963 : No remainder!]
• Now tell the friend that you feel the resulting number is evenly divisible by 11 [39963 / 11 = 3633 : Again no remainder!]
• Now, have your friend divide this new number by lucky number 7 and say Shazam when the number that is returned is the original 3 digit number they gave you [3633 / 7 = 519!]

“The laws of nature are but the mathematical thoughts of God” – Euclid

 

 

“The problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

I recently decided to retire at the relatively young age of 56. It is quite a big transition for me as I have been working in one capacity or another since the age of 10 – the last 34 years were spent working at a respected high technology company.

I always envied my father who worked a city government job and was able to retire at age 57 with a guaranteed lifelong pension. I watched him enjoying a rich and active retirement lifestyle which encouraged me to set a goal to be on track for my own early retirement.

Because my job in the private sector did not offer the benefit of a pension, I had to achieve my early retirement goal by making sacrifices through the years to limit my spending, increase my savings and consciously deciding to live below my means.

I will be forever grateful to my employer whose work made it possible for me to take care of my family over 3 decades; who provided me with interesting and challenging work to do; who gave me the opportunity to travel and see the world; and who allowed me to establish myself as a key contributor to the company’s products and to become a respected voice in the greater electronic manufacturing test industry.

In return for all of the above I gave the company the majority of my life energy for the better part of 34 years – the prime years of my life. It was an exchange and a bargain that I don’t regret but it does make me think about this joke Lily Tomlin once made about work: “The problem with the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat”.

I do consider myself as having won the rat race. By all measures I was successful at the various roles I was given in the company and I was able to leave on my own terms after achieving all of my goals.

Despite all that I achieved and even though I liked the work I did and the people I worked with – in the end I was still a rat. I had to endure 3 hour daily commutes on some of my state’s most congested highways; my marketing and operations support activities for our global company often called for 24 hour/ 7 day a week availability which cut into personal and family time; I missed family events because of frequent business trips; I put off doing things that interested me because I did not have time.

I know that lost time is not found again, but I am excited to see what lies ahead now that my time is now my own. I look forward to spending my remaining life energy pursuing the many things that interest me and the activities I have put off over the years – while I am still healthy and physically able.

I hope it will be said of me, unlike those aging athletes who continue to play too long past their prime, that I left at the right time when I was on top.

“The best way for a father to love his children, is for him to love their mother”

I have learned that writing is one of the things that helps me to cope with the grieving process. In that spirit I offer up this blog on the occasion of the passing of my father – a reflection and appreciation of my Dad’s life.

Mom & Dad

Ronald E. Albee 1928 – 2015

Reflection on a Life

Ronald Edwin Albee was born in 1928 – at the tail end of the “Roaring 20’s” and just before the Great Depression began to blow across the country. – It was the year that Charles Lindbergh became the first man to fly across the Atlantic Ocean and Television started broadcasting its first channel. He was the second of three children born to Nellie and Ray Albee.

His earliest memory came when he was 3 years old. A sparkler he was holding during an Independence Day celebration ignited his shirt. His father saw his young son in flames and jumped down from a second story porch to help smother the fire – but not before young Ronnie suffered serious burns on his chest.

His Aunt Gly Tallman helped to nurse him back to health, giving her a special place in his heart throughout his life. In later years Ronnie would show his children the burn scars on his chest as a way to teach them about having a healthy respect for fire.

He was an active kid growing up and he made friends easily with the kids of his South Gardner neighborhood known as the “Patch”. They played sandlot baseball and football and would usually beat the teams from the other sections of the city. He forged lifetime relationships with his “gang” of kids (which included Billy Meehan, Tony Stone and Tony Manca) who kept in contact with him throughout his lifetime and who would call him every year – even into his 80’s – to wish him a happy birthday.

He liked to go to the Saturday movie matinees with his older brother, Clyde, at the old Gardner Uptown theatre. He would spend his 15 cent allowance to see a Double Feature of Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Roger’s movies – he paid 10 cents for the movie tickets and 5 cents for a large bag of his favorite Peanut Butter kisses.

Walking home from one of those Saturday matinee movies, 10 year old Ronnie and his brother got caught up in the great Hurricane of 1938. They tried to fight the high winds but for every step they took the wind pushed them back 2 steps. They ended up huddled under a concrete stairway at the Royal Steam Heater Co on Main St to wait out the storm. Luckily, the owners happened to notice the two boys under the stairs and offered them shelter in their house. After the storm passed the owners drove the two grateful boys home.

Although Ronnie made friends easily, he enjoyed solitude mostly– perfectly content to amuse himself and be on his own – especially if it had anything to do with nature. When he was a young teenager he bought a “Make Your Own Kayak” kit that he put together by himself. It wasn’t the most seaworthy of boats but it served his purposes. He would carry that kayak down the street on his back to Bent’s pond where he would spend many happy hours fishing and paddling around.

He was fortunate to have an uncle and a lifelong friend in Eddie Tallman who taught him the ways of nature – especially how to trap and fish – when he was a boy. He was always grateful for the time his uncle spent teaching him and he made it a point to return that favor throughout his life; teaching his sons, daughters, grandchildren, and even his Parish Priest (Fr Martinez) how to fish and enjoy nature.

One of the first things he caught trapping when he was 13 years old was a skunk. He was so proud of that first piece of fur that he put the skunk in a shopping bag and rode the bus to Uncle Eddie’s Templeton house to show it to him. I’m pretty sure that the others riding on the bus that day were not as excited as my father was about his first catch.

In 1944, many of my father’s friends were drafted to serve in World War II – Ronnie enrolled for the draft at 16 but was given a deferment so that he could finish High School. By the time he graduated two years later the war was over.

In the Summer of 1946, the Boston Red Sox celebrated Gardner Day at Fenway Park – 18 year old Ronnie was part of a committee representing the citizens of Gardner that went on the field to present Ted Williams with a gift of a telephone pole sized baseball bat from the citizens of the “Chair City”.

Dad would boast with pride in later years that he was on the same field with Ted Williams, Johnny Pesky, Bobby Doehrr, and Dom Dimaggio. I remember visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown NY 65 years later in 2011 and seeing that same gigantic-sized baseball bat displayed prominently on the museum wall.

Ronnie was always a good student and a dependable worker. He began working at 15 on a chicken farm for 25 cents per hour, then he moved on to an upholstery job, doing piece work where he could make up to $3 hour – which was a lot of money for a young kid in those days. After graduation from High School he began work as a laborer for the city highway department.

It was about this time that Ronnie’s cousin introduced my Dad to the beautiful Claire Meunier. Claire fell in love with Ronnie’s blue eyes and quiet nature and made it a point to show up at events she knew he would be attending. Ronnie didn’t have a chance against Claire’s many charms and he fell head over heels in love with her.  The two would date and Ronnie would take her home on the last bus from Gardner to Templeton. He didn’t mind running the six miles from the Meunier farm back to his home in Gardner if it meant he could spend an extra hour with his sweetheart.

When he asked for Claire’s hand in Marriage, her parents surprised them by saying no. You see Ronnie was a sometime practicing Protestant and Noe and Bernadette could not permit their daughter to marry a man who was not a Catholic. Ronnie was heartbroken, but he decided to talk to a Priest and sign up for catechism classes and become a Catholic. It was in this way that Ronnie came to win his prize bride, and the riches of his Catholic faith also, which gave him great comfort throughout his life. He once told me that marrying my mother and becoming Catholic “were the two best decisions he ever made”.

He married Claire Aline Meunier on her birthday in September 4, 1948 when they were both 20 years old. The Newlyweds began a charmed life together, filled with work, Saturday Night dancing to the music of the Sparky Lane orchestra and the arrival of their first son Robert.

Over the course of the next 16 years, Diane, Danny, Gary, Aline, Linda, Alan and Lisa followed: a blessing of eight happy and healthy children. It was a home where the children thrived because the love of our parents was at its core.

There is a saying that the best way for a father to love his children, is for him to love their mother. And my father loved, cherished and respected my mother all the days of his life – and through loving her, he did the most important thing he could do to love his children.

Our family was never rich in material things, but it didn’t seem to matter – we were happy. Seven kids were squeezed into that first 2 bedroom house. Brothers and sisters often wore hand me down clothes, and we knew better than to be late for dinner lest the food disappear before we could get our share. But the love was abundant and by their actions they taught us a lesson to live simply, work hard and share what we had with others.

One way they saved money was to give their children haircuts. My father would corral his four sons in the basement where we would each take turns sitting in the haircut chair. Dad only knew one style, very short crew cut. Not being fans of that particular style, we were glad once we got our first jobs because it meant that we could earn enough money to go to the barbershop and escape Dad’s haircut chair.

My father was never too much of a disciplinarian; he would do it if it was called for – or if my mother twisted his arm to do it. His heart was never in it but somehow it was still effective because just knowing that our Father was disappointed in something we did made us feel terrible and it hurt more than any punishment he would give us.

In the early years my parents took on small second jobs to make ends meet. My father would take his whole year’s vacation time during the month of November to go trapping. He would spend 17 hour days, 7 days a week setting traps and taking care of the muskrat, mink, beaver, otter and Fisher cats that he would catch. He would sell the fur he caught at an auction in December and then give all the money he collected to my Mother so she could buy Christmas gifts for the family. Christmas was always magical because of the sacrifices he made.

Many of those years on the trapline were spent with his son Danny. They formed a close bond that comes with being partners on a trap line and they developed a healthy competition trying to see who could catch the most fur. My father would proudly recall the day when Danny caught a mink on the last day of the trapping season to beat him out in the race to see who would catch the most mink. He was so happy that he lost to his son. That’s the kind of father he was – happier for his children’s success than for any of his own.

He worked his way up to become Foreman of the Highway Department and then Director of Public Works for the City of Gardner. He liked working heavy equipment and being outside but as he rose higher in the ranks he did not enjoy the paperwork and politics of the desk job.

When I was in High School, I discovered that my Father was the one who helped make the call as to whether school would be cancelled due to bad weather conditions. I would try to cajole and badger him into telling me if school would be canceled the next day, but his response to me was always the same “I suggest you do your homework son”.

In 1985, after 38 years working for the Gardner DPW, he decided to take a retirement package at the early age of 57. That freed him up to do the things he loved most during the last 30 years of his life: fishing, trapping, gardening, going to the dog track, watching sports, playing cards, doing crossword puzzles, napping and indulging his sweet tooth.

My father was never bored – even though in his 87 years he never left the New England area and never traveled more than 300 miles from his home.  He was a lifetime Gardner resident. He was content just walking in wooded areas and canoeing along rivers or ponds observing wildlife activities and signs.

I spent many of the happiest days of my life fishing with my Dad. We would usually catch fish but it didn’t matter to me if we didn’t – because just being with him made me happy. It has been said that the Lord does not deduct from man’s allotted span the hours spent in fishing. If that is the case, I estimate Dad extended his life a good nine years past his allotted time.

One particularly memorable fishing experience happened in early Spring at the Millers River. We beached the canoe we were fishing in at a small dam and began casting from shore. As we were standing there we noticed that the canoe had gotten loose and was floating unattended down the river. It eventually got hung up on some bushes on the other side of the river but we could not get to it because the water was deep, cold, and very fast.

We couldn’t figure out how to get to the other side without walking several miles to the bridge upstream. My father then suggested that we try to cast our fishing poles and “hook” the canoe and reel it in over to our side of the river. We figured it was worth a shot – my first cast sailed right over the canoe and got caught on the branches – which was predictable for me at the time. That put even more pressure on my Dad – he was cautious in his first two casts, landing in the water just short of the canoe, but his third cast hit the canoe dead center and wrapped around the support bar – an amazing cast!

He worried that the weight of the canoe and the swift current would break his line as he tried to reel the boat in, so I stripped down to my underwear and stood in the cold water just downstream prepared to swim after the canoe in case the line broke. Luckily I did not have to jump in, as Dad used the drag on his pole to reduce the tension on the line and gently guide the canoe over to where I was waiting. We often joked afterwards about that being the biggest catch of his life.

I remember tagging along with Dad when I was young boy and marveling at how many different places in the woods he knew and how he never got lost. He was at home in the woods and seemed to have unlimited energy bounding up and down the river banks as effortlessly as a mink. It was difficult for me as he aged to see how Father Time had slowed him down and how I now had to help him up those same river banks he used to help me climb so many times when I was a boy. Life comes full circle in the end, but even as his conditions worsened he never stopped showing us how to live a life of dignity and integrity – even to the end in the way he chose to die.

There is a saying that “One day all that will be left of us is the memories we leave with others – so make sure they are good ones”. I have shared a small number of the good memories that my Dad has left with me. There are countless others in the hearts and minds of all those he touched in big and small ways.

It is a testament to the kind of man he was underneath it all; someone who was honest and humble, someone who valued people for who they were and welcomed everyone with a smile, someone who enjoyed life’s simple pleasures and was happy with what he had.

Joy and success for him were not defined by money or things, but by the love of his wife, the gathering of his children and grandchildren around his table, and the opportunity to share laughs until his blue eyes were sparkling with delight. My daughter summed up her Pepere nicely when she wrote: “if you knew him, you couldn’t help but love him”.

So here’s to you Ronald Albee – beloved husband, father, grandfather, friend and best of men. You lived a life full of grace and made this world a better place. We will miss you but you leave us with a legacy we will carry in our hearts everywhere we go – to every stream, lake, wood, hill, field and far off place that we travel.

You will always be a light for us; guiding us in the right direction as we strive every day to live up to your high standards and make decisions we hope would make you proud of us. We love you Dad – Thank you for a job well done. May you rest in peace.

“Money doesn’t talk, it swears”

Dollar Sign by Andy Warhol

This lyric comes to mind whenever I hear stories about the growing inequalities between the rich and the poor; how money is corrupting the political process and financial industries; the violent gang warfare taking place to determine who will control the illegal market for drugs; the expensive battles being fought by couples going through bitter divorce proceeding; and the woes of families who fight to distribute the large sums of money they win in government sponsored lotteries. With the media reporting all these stories about the evils of money, it is easy to understand what led Bob Dylan to sing out that money doesn’t talk, it swears.

But in truth, money is not good or bad. It is the things we do in life to obtain money and how we use the money we obtain that matters. St Paul wrote in his letter to Timothy that it is not money itself that is an evil, but the lust for it that leads us to wander off the path:

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.”

People that let their lives become infected with the love of money are like the character in the John Steinbeck novel The Winter of Our Discontent who believe that “there is no such thing as just enough money. Only two measures: No Money and Not Enough Money“. Pursuing this philosophy can lead to grief when people become slaves to the acquisition and protection of their money at the expense of the more important things in their lives.

It can be easy to become deceived that money brings happiness, but we have countless examples in life that show riches and fame and power do not guarantee happiness. All you have to do is watch one of the many reality TV shows that document the drama and misery of most celebrity lives. After viewing a few of those shows, I’m thankful that I’m not rich, powerful, or famous. I think it would be difficult to live when people treat you like a god and you have to deal with the kinds of temptations that come from knowing you can have anything you want. And it must be an empty feeling to know that you have all these things yet none of them brings you happiness. I once listened to a nurse talk about a hospital in Miami that catered to very rich and famous people. She said that the number one reason why those people came to the hospital was because they were suffering from depression.

Theodore Parker acknowledged that having too much money or too little money can make life difficult when he wrote “Wealth and want equally harden the human heart“.  I’m convinced that money itself does not bring happiness, but I do realize that money does make life easier. People with means have more freedom to make choices in their life that are not available to those who are struggling to live from paycheck to paycheck. And statistics show that the well-off are better educated, have better access to health care, live in safer communities and have longer lifespans. Money, when used in the proper way, can be a good that gives people more freedom to make choices about how they will live their life and those who have it are better able to positively influence the lives of their families and promote the causes that are important to them .

In my life I have tried to live a life of integrity, living simply while using the money I have accumulated as a means to an end – not in the acquisition of things but in the accomplishments of my life’s objectives. I have been fortunate to live somewhere between wealth and want  – in that ideal middle ground that Pablo Picasso once described “…as a poor man, with lots of money“.

Here are some examples from my life that show how I attempted to avoid wandering off the path in my pursuit of money, while at the same time using the money I did make to help achieve my life goals:

• When my wife and I were newly married and just starting out, we made the collective decision that our living budget would be based on my salary alone so that she would not have to work and could stay home with our young children. That decision led us to buy a reasonably priced house with an unfinished upstairs that I could afford with my salary and finish in my spare time as the family grew and our financial condition improved.

• While the children were young, we spent money for my wife to take college classes at night so she could get a teaching degree in Early Childhood Education. As a result, when the children reached school age she was able to land a job teaching at the same private Catholic Elementary school that our children were attending. The time they shared together and the bonding that resulted during those formative growing years was priceless to us and worth all the financial sacrifices that we made.

• Throughout my career I have made it a point to avoid becoming coin-operated – chasing salary and job positions solely to earn a higher paycheck. Several times during my career I turned down promotions and other job offers that would have paid me more money, but would have resulted in more headaches, more time away from my family, and less job satisfaction.

• From my first job as a paperboy when I was 10 through all the various jobs I have had in my career, I made it a point to save a portion of my paycheck. This practice  allowed me to always have money on hand to pay for those inevitable emergencies that come up during life and to put money away to pay for my eventual retirement – so that I will not become a financial burden to my children in my old age and so that I can retire while I am still healthy and pursue other activities that interest me and will contribute to my growth.

• I allocate a percentage of my income to donate to the people, organizations, and causes that I feel are worthy or that have touched me along the way in  some way great or small. A Memorial Fund for my wife that benefits childhood education, Catholic Charities who provide services to help the poor and vulnerable, Hospice programs that comfort the dying and offer bereavement programs for their loved ones, a Conservation organization dedicated to preserving wilderness areas for the public and contributions to individual causes that come up in the course of daily life.

My objective in all the ways that I obtain and spend money is to turn Bob’s phrase around – rather than make my money swear, I try to make my money pray. A prayer to do useful and productive work in the world, a prayer to provide material comfort for my family, a prayer to help those who are in need, a prayer to assist my loved ones to reach their full potential, a prayer to preserve our world for future generations and a prayer to retire with dignity and leave a legacy for those that follow.

My prayer for you is that all the money that you receive and spend be for a blessing – and not a curse – all the days of your life.