Category: Life

Posted in Life

Uh-oh. Now you’re in big trouble

Posted on by William Douthwaite

As I sat beneath this welcoming sign outside of Starbucks, I wondered, “How do they enforce these rules?”

If someone from a youth group stopped by and asked for a gift card donation for their summer mission trip fund raiser, would the barista reach under the counter and push the silent alarm button? Do you think the police have a ten code for that?

What do you think counts as “loitering”? A lot of people hang out at Starbucks for a long time, making phone calls, studying for a test, and interviewing for jobs. They use a coffee shop as their office. I suppose you need to buy something if you’re going to spend time there.

The recent remodeling of our neighborhood Starbucks eliminated a lot of seating, making it harder to camp out there.

All of these people were here for a long time. So was I as I watched them. Check out the guy on his second sugary venti drink.

What about trespassing? I guess that would be sitting at the tables after hours. I guess you wouldn’t want someone spending the night under a table out front or out back by the dumpsters.

Signs like this are only hung up when there’s been a problem with people soliciting, loitering, or trespassing. It’s too bad, since the proliferation of signs announcing what you can’t do detracts from really nice parks and buildings. In most places, it seems like you can’t do anything!

Posted in annoying people, Life

“Come on, hit me!”

Posted on by William Douthwaite
This isn’t actually her. But you get the idea.

I got to see a Karen in the wild today. She came out of Starbucks with both fingers blazing and a mouth ready to take a bite out of an SUV that was in her way.

Starbucks was crowded inside, so I had to sit outside at a table. The cloud cover made my shady table spot a pretty nice place to enjoy some ice coffee and do some writing. This particular Starbucks is on a busy corner of a shopping center where you’ll hear lots of horn honking on any given day.

A teenage granddaughter carrying a whipped cream topped cold drink came out trying to put some distance between her and grandma. I didn’t think much of it until I saw the older woman standing in front of an oncoming vehicle, yelling, “What are you going to do? Hit me? Go ahead! Hit me! Come on, hit me!” She raised both of her hands and fingers high, demanding the right of way. The SUV rolled to a stop and the surprised driver just sat there watching the show. Grandma finally stomped across the street to her parked car, and traffic started moving again.

I saw the SUV signal to turn in, so I kept watching to see if the situation would escalate. Would the driver get out and confront her? Box her in so she couldn’t get out of the parking lot? Lean on the horn? I secretly hoped so, but nothing happened. Maybe next time.

Next time came really quickly. A vey nice orange Mustang was slowly rolling into the Starbucks parking lot. The driver made sure we could hear the well-tuned exhaust. He was rolling too slowly for the guy behind him, who leaned on his horn. I chuckled as the Mustang slowed down even more, revved his engine a few more times, and stuck his finger up through the open sun roof.

It’s so entertaining to watch all of this. And it’s all over an overpriced cup of coffee. I hope they all ordered decaf. Everyone needed take it down a notch.

Posted in Life, neighbor, neighborhood

“Is he wearing two different colored socks?”

Posted on by William Douthwaite

If you’ve ever read my writing, you know I love to take a photo and wonder, “What in the world is going on here?” This is one of those moments.

The big dog and I were half way through our early morning walk when we came across this gentleman watering his gardens. He just moved into this just build house. He immediately tore out the builder’s stock landscaping plants and must planted something new, otherwise he’s just watering the mulch.

But the thing that really caught my eye was his socks. I asked the big dog, “Is he wearing two different color socks?” Intentional? Accidental? I don’t know.

  • I know that you’ve all got orphan socks at home. Dryers consume them so that we are left with drawers full of single socks with no partners. After a while, you just pull out two, knowing that you’ve got no matches.
  • It could be a special sock for a special foot condition. Perhaps a clean, white sock (or a black one) is better for whatever toe ailment he is nursing.
  • If you wake up before sunrise and don’t want to disturb other sleepers, you might pull out a mismatched pair in the dark. But most mismatched pairs would be blue-black, or colors not too different from one another. The contrast here would be difficult to miss, even in the darkest room.
  • Maybe his partner is wearing the exact same pair, and he had no others to choose from.
  • Some of my grandsons wear mismatched socks on purpose. They find certain color combinations appealing, especially when dressing in uniform for a sport.

I should have stopped and asked. Maybe he didn’t know. Maybe he doesn’t care. I know, maybe it’s none of my business.

But it’s fun to speculate.

Besides, black and white works, right? It works for cookies, zebras, newspapers, and photographic effects.

Posted in Life

Don’t take yourself too seriously

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Irene Strong on Unsplash
Daily writing prompt
If humans had taglines, what would yours be?
View all responses

My tagline would be “Don’t take yourself too seriously.” It’s been my mantra for a while. One could paraphrase that as “Lighten up,” “It’s not about you,” or “Just relax.”

My tagline helped me keep perspective during my career in full-time pastoral ministry. The church was there before me and it’ll be there when I’m gone. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Believe it or not, there are a lot of unhappy people who go to church. I would wonder, “Was it something I said or didn’t say?” Or, “Was it something I did or didn’t do?” Most of the time it wasn’t even about me. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Knowing how fragile memory is, I knew that within months of my retirement, some would mention, “The pastor who was here before…what was his name?” I know that because they forgot my predecessor’s name a few months after I started preaching. So, don’t take yourself too seriously.

On one occasion, I was at the church and dressed in a black clerical shirt. Someone walked in and asked me, “Are you the pastor?” I chuckled then and I’m chuckling now. Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Much of the time, people aren’t really paying attention. They aren’t listening to you. They’re thinking about themselves. They tell you what they think you want to hear.

In response to all of that, I try to pay attention to what’s going on around me. I work hard to listen. I try to express myself in a sincere, positive way.

And I don’t take myself too seriously.

Posted in Life, sounds

There are some sounds I no longer hear

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Yesterday, I talked about all the sounds I heard in the distance, sounds that immediately brought images to mind. Today, I happened to think, “There are some sounds I don’t hear any more.”

  • Like a phone ringing. By that, I mean, the ringing of a phone hanging on the wall of my home when someone called. Ninety percent of the time, I’ve got the ringer on my phone turned off. It’s in my pocket and I feel a vibration when someone calls. But the phone automatically silences the majority of my calls, since they are from unknown numbers. Once in a great while (usually in church or a movie theater), someone’s ring tone will be that traditional harsh. It’s annoying. I don’t miss it at all.
  • I don’t hear the doorbell. I disconnected it. When we had one, the only time someone pressed the button was when someone was taking a nap. It could be me. It could be a grandchild. The dogs would go nuts, the kid would start crying, so I cut one of the wires inside the wall unit. Problem solved.
  • I don’t hear the sound of nails being hammered. All I hear at new home construction sites are nail guns run by noisy compressors. I suppose the carpenters have a hammer somewhere in the back of their truck, but I don’t hear it hitting a nail very often.
  • I no longer hear coffee percolating. Our coffee maker pushes hot water through a pod with a surprisingly quiet hissing sound. When we travel, it take about ten minutes to burp the water through an old Mr. Coffee. I don’t miss him at all.
  • And speaking of phones, I no longer get a busy signal when someone is on another call. Instead, I am sent immediately to voice mail.

The sounds I don’t hear tell an interesting story about innovation, technology, and our changing world.

Posted in Life, memories

My first grade broken ankle

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Daily writing prompt
Have you ever broken a bone?
View all responses

I don’t have a lot of memories from first grade, but I do remember breaking my ankle at the end of that school year.

Some friends and I were playing on a swing set that included a two person glider. For some reason I put my right foot down as the glider came back, making my foot twist backwards at a painful angle. I hobbled home and my mom, a nurse, looked at the swelling, wasn’t too concerned, and had me put some ice on it.

I went to school the next day and hobbled around as the pain got worse and worse. When I got home, it was more swollen than the day before, so my mom took me to the doctor. This was 1964, so the family doctor was your one stop shop for medical care. The doctor took an x-ray, saw the fracture, and wrapped my ankle up in a heavy plaster cast. For the next four weeks, I hopped around school on crutches as the ankle healed.

Finally, the four weeks were up, and it was time to remove the cast. The doctor used a special circular saw designed to cut only the cast and not the skin beneath. Once he took it off, I remember my right leg floated up as if it were weightless. But just for a moment. Then I was back to normal, assured that an ankle with a healed fracture was stronger than one without.

I found one picture from my dad’s old slides of me in the cast. Looks like I’m having a good time!

Posted in Life

Get the h*** out of here!

Posted on by William Douthwaite

The big dog (Willow the Great Dane) and witnessed a David and Goliath moment on our morning walk yesterday.

All the noise came from a mockingbird (I think) who was annoyed at the red-tailed hawk sitting on top of a utility pole, minding his own business. She squawked, swooped, and circled the hawk as he (or she) sat and scanned the ground for a snake or something else to eat. Like an annoying mosquito, she buzzed his head again and again until he finally gave in, screeched, and flew away. For good measure, the annoying bird gave chase for a few seconds and then flew off.

Maybe the mocking bird was protecting a nest. Maybe it was a territorial thing. Maybe she was picking a fight. Who knows. I found it fascinating that the smaller bird chased off the bird of prey.

We like to root for the underdog, don’t we? There’s something appealing about the long shot. We cheer when the powerful go down. We want Rocky to win.

Oops. I still shop on Amazon. I still go to Walmart. I want to support small, local businesses but succumb to lower prices and free one day shipping. Ugh.

Today, the little guy won. Tomorrow? Who knows.

Posted in grandparenting, Life

Mother’s Day preparation

Posted on by William Douthwaite

I spent some time with my nine- and five-year-old grandsons yesterday while my daughter took my wife out for an early Mother’s Day brunch. When they show up at my house, the boys typically chase the dogs around, climb and swing on the play fort, and exercise with all the garage gym equipment. Yesterday the older rode his long board up and down the street while the younger did a few odd jobs to earn a few quarters. But then it was time for the main attraction.

One of my grandfatherly tasks was to get them working on Mother’s Day cards. I printed out a few card templates I found online, got out our bucket of crayons, and announced it was time to get to work.

To my surprise, they dove into the project with passion. They took their time carefully coloring the cards rather than hurried scribbling. Each was proud of his work, showing off color combinations and attention to detail. I enjoyed watching the “I love my mom!” side of the boys that is usually hidden behind a young man’s “What can I climb?” “How can I annoy my brother?” and (while hanging upside down from something) “Look what I can do!”

The five-year-old was filled with pride as he wrote his message inside the card, along with a bonus picture. The older thought, “I need to get her a present.” Boys definitely need a dad, but they sure love their moms!

I got a whole hour of focused worked out of them before they started asking about lunch. That’s impressive.

Posted in Life

“It’s almost the weekend.”

Posted on by William Douthwaite
Photo by Dawn McDonald on Unsplash

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a nip hit the already full trash can next to the gas pump. It was a small bottle of E & J brandy, rather than the popular Fireball or Smirnoff. On the other side of the pump, a young man was lying in the bed of a pickup truck while another filled it with gas.

A voice said, “Good evening, sir.”

“‘Evening.”

I thought he then said, “It’s almost the weekend.” It was a Wednesday evening so I said, “Yup, hump day.”

He was very hard to understand and I thought he repeated, “It’s almost the weekend.” He must have seen the puzzled look on my face and spoke slower, but still slurring his words. After a third try, I finally figured out he was trying to say, “It’s almost Mother’s Day weekend.”

Unsure where the discussion was headed, I said, “My mom died about nineteen years ago.”

“I wish I could talk with you. Mine died a week ago.”

“That must be hard.”

“I was right there with her. A massive heart attack. I’m not sure what to do.”

I said, “I guess you’re not looking forward to this weekend.”

He went on, “Nope. But she was a good Christian woman.”

“It’s sad, but at least you know she’s with the Lord.”

He reached out his hand to shake mine and said, “God bless you, man.”

“God bless.”

And that was it. The pump clicked off and I closed the gas cap. As I drove away I saw three others standing outside the pickup truck. I didn’t catch the license plate, so I don’t know if they were local or passing through Daytona Beach.

Most people at the gas pump do their thing and drive off. Occasionally I’ll have a random conversation. The culture of convenience stores is interesting, including huge cups of coffee, tiny bottles of booze, and plenty of scratch off lottery tickets.