Today is Memorial Day 2024. I’ve been exploring this morning the WordPress software, what drives this blog. I just came across a Welcome Letter I drafted back in November 2018 to be sent to new subscribers that I don’t recall though I ever sent anyone. But that doesn’t carry much weight with me anymore as Loretta can attest. If you pick up on the clues I’m sending out , such as going to the gym now frequently, reading and listening profusely, writing continually, taking more time to communicate, even looking up persons of influence in my past, you may make some credible deductions about my State of My Union, or Of my Body. That’s exactly why I avoid mirrors and cameras, which was much easier before phones became human appendages. Doesn’t Mark Twain have an aging quote?
Just a minute ago I discovered this letter was indeed sent out at 11:21 pm 11/24/18, minutes before I turned 70, as my very first now of 312 blog posts. Until just recently, they were mostly just weekly. Shocker! No incriminating comments from me. Don’t you know what you say, even think, is what you get? Haven’t you read or ever listened to Carolyn Leaf’s writings or talks? Profound stuff!
For example, most notable thus far of these memorable renewals, which is a list I’m making, was writing my HS English & Speech teacher, always in heels, dressed to the gills, and yet, a Harley rider and the only sympathetic teacher to my only mode of transportation back then (most of the other teachers thought we were budding Hell’s Angels) in’65 when I bought my first bike, a ’62 Honda 300 and drove it 11 miles to school on dry days, even if temps were in the lower 20’s. I even wrote her a letter in the last five years on her 100th birthday, to which she even responded, thanking my sister Verla when she went thru her party’s congratulatory line. Mrs. Bruins lived well til 102.
Enough peripheral introductions. Here is the post.
Entering this world of a creating a blog may be a small step for many of you, but for me, on the day before I turn 70, it is a major undertaking! I basically withdrew from the technology race when my eldest son Ben was in middle school and was totally enamored with computers. He became my expert and I moved onto other tasks in my business and in 2001 when he transferred to UC, I was in trouble and even though I had been courting a sale prior, I did spin off that component of our business within months rather than attempting to catch up.
However, back to the blog, it’s not like I haven’t thought about doing this for several years. The event that finally forced me out of my boat so to speak, and it happened on land none the less, was the auto accident I caused at 9 pm September 18, 2018 in front of a friend’s house near Cochran St and Rt 30, the first street east of the Dairette. The split second I saw my Prius hood shoot straight up and felt the crash, I knew my life would never be the same again. And indeed, it wasn’t. Yes, I was still here and that was good, but I’d been ready to go home for some time, and actually, more ready than I even originally thought. But now, I also was instantly retired, but at least alive.
And that was good too, because I’d spent years thinking just how would I tell my 20 clients I was finished. So that all sounds like a double win! Right? But honestly, several days later, would you believe I really seriously thought maybe I would have been better off just having gone on home-home? What a difference a day can make! Especially when tempered with severe pain, a massive dose of obnoxious reality, and perhaps an inordinate amount of time to think and reflect on the pain I had just inflicted again on my wife for not just a few weeks but likely for 5 or 6 months! I should also include the guy that was forced to hit me, and even Larry, my likely frustrated insurance agent.
And you have absolutely no idea how far-reaching the ripples from that crash are still ever expanding into the nooks and crannies of the crudely constructed edifice of an abode (my temple of sorts) that I, Merlin L Erb, have slapped together (figuratively speaking of course as I much prefer working with words rather than lumber) since I first frightfully squalled on Thanksgiving Day 1948. And a few of you were actually there at Grandma Erbs (whether you remember it or not, speaking to my cousins now) that day for dinner when Stella Mae Gingerich Erb was noticeably absent from the table and instead, was resting at St Mary’s Hospital in Detroit Lakes, MN with her first born.
And so in summary, this blog will be my attempt at sharing not only the ripples since 9/18/18, but indeed the tremors and even a few shock waves I’ve witnessed in my 69 years of life. OK, can we just be real honest here and I’ll admit my guilt in both the tremors and shock waves. I was not merely witnessing; often I was indeed the cause! Some posts may make you smile and recall similar events in your life, while others portray an absolute train wreck! But all are presented as I best recall and hopefully, not to merely entertain you, but to challenge you to get out of your boat and give others in your sphere of influence, their much needed hope to keep “going til they’re gone” as well, and of course, without nearly the drama I put into play on 9/18/18.
I really do enjoy communication, both written and spoken. Had I known it was a major available when I was in college, there is no question what I would have chosen it, especially after Mrs. Brun’s impact on my life thru her high school speech class in my senior year. As I recall, by the time I graduated in ’73, Communications had been added as a major at Moorhead State College. And since I seldom speak publicly, I now resort to writing and more than anything, I find it good therapy for an aging mind.
The big drawback I’m currently experiencing is this compelling desire to share, but with whom? I’m quickly tiring, as are they no doubt, of me intruding on my friends, family and acquaintances by emailing them my latest revised documents. I understand a blog functions more the way we provided salt and trace minerals to our cattle when I was a boy. We simply placed it on the bunk in a box and they consumed it “free-choice” whenever they felt the “urge”, and it’s not like I ever communicated with any one or group of those Holsteins, as to when they felt or didn’t feel that urge, but it did work! We always had healthy animals! I really do like the term “free-choice of His GRACE” and I have it on very high authority, that “free-choice” rules, and by that I mean, it always has, and always will. I trust in a literary sense, it will for me here too …. And for you as well!
Three days ago I read a book by Gary Miller, who writes frequently for such as CAM, Christian Aid Ministries in Berlin OH, and the strikingly refreshing & worthy Plain Communities Business Exchange (PCBE), titled “Going Till You’re Gone” (GTYG) that speaks truth and says it far better than I. Fact is, if given my druthers, I’d encourage you to read that first. Trust me on this, for I know you’re not all ready for GTYG, especially since it was specifically written for the over 50 crowd, but don’t worry, you’ll all catch up soon enough, and actually, for some of you, you may need an early start just to get here on time. Why else do you think I’ve been so majorly inconvenienced three times in 30 months? Not merely because I’m a stubborn or a really slow learner, surely? (update here 5/27/24: I suffered, no actually witnessed, several more close encounters including a triple by-pass in July ’20 which was like going for a hair cut compared to the 12 breaks in my legs below my knees on 9/18/18 and then in ’22, hospitalized again with a serious knee infection. All being God’s inconveniences to get me on the potter’s wheel to mold me into His image…)
Blessings as you ponder God’s continual grace and mercy to all of us.