Rachael Phillips

Sunday Morning with the Grandkids

Every August, the college exodus begins. Many freshmen leave home for the first time, making that magical move towards adulthood and eventual independence. Gallons of tears are shed and dozens of phone calls made.  Sometimes even professional counseling becomes necessary for successful adjustment.

For the parents.

Before the kid even leaves the driveway.

As the mother of two (almost three!) college graduates, I offer my insights to ease parental separation anxiety.

Number one, hit the school sales. Ah, you moms feel better already, don’t you? First things first: for your own sanity’s sake, buy a dozen boxes of Fannie Mae Mint Meltaways. Hide them in your laundry room, where no self-respecting college-bound freshman would ever think of going. Of course, the chocolates are on sale. School sales, which begin as Fourth of July sparklers cool, involve price reductions on everything from goldfish to combines.

What? Your student does not need a goldfish? Or a combine? Just in case, buy her one of each while they’re on sale. She also will require a multitude of other articles: forks, curling iron, microwave, dinette set. Purchase them on sale now, or after she leaves, you will find yourself with straight hair sitting on the floor eating cold Spaghettios out of a can using your fingers.

More thoughtful, mature college freshmen leave at least a portion of family property at home. For example, if your son takes the computer and monitor, he will leave you the keyboard. If he confiscates the phones, he will leave you the phone book. If he takes your credit card, he will leave you the bill.

Speaking of phones, offer your daughter a brand-new cell phone equipped with unlimited Mom-and-Dad minutes, as well as other special features designed for college freshmen. Not only can she take digital pictures, but the phone automatically takes hourly photos and e-mails them to you, the parent. Other innovative features include a weekend tracking device and force field Dad can activate from home by remote control.

The latest electronic gadgets help soothe a parent’s apprehension. However, nothing dispels fear like getting to know your student’s future roommate before the two of them move into the dormitory together. When your son’s housing contract arrives, encourage him to call his roommate, introduce himself and find out who has the most money. While he is putting his best foot forward, you, the parent, should be doing your homework on this unknown entity. Googling the roommate’s name, reading blogs and making Internet background checks are helpful, but a truly conscientious parent will invest a week in a neighborhood stakeout to insure her child will not share quarters with a leprous Klingon. In dealing with new college roommates, stalk beats talk every time.

Two schools of thought exist as to whether parents should help students pack and unpack. If you do not assist in the process, you will not know that your son bagged a frying pan, a half-eaten bag of Cheetos and a toilet brush together. Every mother will live a few years longer without such knowledge.

On the other hand, if you do not monitor the packing procedures, you may need to rent a semitrailer—and that’s just to transport your daughter’s shoes.

By the way, how are you doing on your weight lifting? Every freshman’s parent should have begun an intensive weight training program during her senior year of high school, a step which aids loading, moving and carrying bags of money to the college billing office for the first installment on tuition.

If you have worked out regularly, loading will be a cinch. In no time at all, your minivan/U-Haul/semi/convoy should be ready to hit the highway. Your daughter will no doubt have stuffed her car to the overhead light with Beanie Babies. Never fear. Your youngest, a junior higher, will hang out the window and do lookout duty to help her change lanes on the freeway.

When you arrive safe and sound only to discover the dormitory parking lot is full, helpful university attendants will direct you to another parking lot—in a different area code. But your family will rise to the occasion. After several hours of carrying computers on your back and sofas on your head up five flights of stairs, your son will finally, officially, change his residence. He will have become a college student.

And it will be time for you to leave.

Give him a hug and kiss and depart. Out in the parking lot, wave at his window until he disappears from view. Remove his car’s fuel pump and take it with you.

For one night, he will stay put.

And you will sleep a little better.

Plymouth and Change

Has it been almost 25 years?

I really do not need a calendar to check. The three-way mirrors at J.C. Penney’s remind me all too well that this summer will mark 25 years in Plymouth for my husband and me.

By the way, why don’t stores install mirrors that lie? A reverse of carnival fun house mirrors that make people look good? Streams of grateful swimsuit customers would make it worth their while. Just a thought.

Speaking of J.C. Penney’s, when we first arrived in Plymouth, their store was located downtown, where I also visited Bosworth’s Department Store and Robart’s Shoes, with stops at Harvey Mart and Glaub’s Supermarket. We also shopped at the tiny Bible Bookstore. I wonder if the nice ladies who worked there still remember my two-year-old’s first visit. She discovered a tiny pink rhino among the Noah’s Ark Bible school erasers and sang out her joy at the top of her lungs. Unfortunately, she couldn’t say her r’s yet: “Wino, wino, wino, WINO!”

There’s nothing like making great first impressions—and Plymouth did. Fresh from short tenures in South Bend and Indianapolis, my husband and I marveled at small-town friendliness. A checkout lady named Shirley at Kroger’s accepted our out-of-town check because she recognized my husband as the new doctor in town. A church welcomed us as family from the moment we set foot in the parking lot. Believe it or not, they still claim us.

As a new resident, I braced myself for the usual all-day ordeal required to change our cars’ registrations. I compiled the suitcase of paperwork I needed to prove our existence and armed myself as if going into combat. Diaper bags—check. Picnic lunch—check. Toybox and storybook library—confirmed. Thank goodness I had memorized one hundred seventeen nursery rhymes to soothe the sweet small savage hanging onto my knees while we waited an eternity in the purgatory otherwise known as the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

No line snaked outside the building. Did I drive to the wrong address? The “License Branch” sign assured me otherwise, and I hauled kid and gear into the large, airy office. No line there, either.

The smiling worker invited me to the counter. I glanced from side to side. Wrong universe, maybe?

She accepted our old registration. I counted out twenty-dollar bills.

“We do take checks.” She looked a little puzzled.

“Really?” I stared. South Bend only accepted cash—which apparently went into someone’s pockets, as that branch supervisor later went to jail. But at the time, I thought cash-only was the norm. “Will—will you even take an out-of-town check?”

She nodded, still smiling. “

Toto, we’re not in the city any more,” I mumbled under my breath.

I completed our transaction in record time—even before my daughter’s next potty break. The cheery alien at the counter wished us a good day.

Small-town friendliness continued to blow my mind, but I gradually learned to handle the strain. In fact, I now greet strangers on the street with a “Good morning!” and wave at whoever honks. Call it neighborly syndrome. I’m glad I caught it.

I treasure the Plymouth things that remain the same. Bride dresses in Treat’s window, where young girls still stop to dream. Basketball games, a form of town therapy where, as good Hoosiers, we take out our hostilities and keep our crime rate down. Blueberry Festival and graduation open house seasons, in which, on the average, we consume more than 2.357 times our normal body weight in fried elephant ears, blueberry sundaes and photo-top cake.

May these time-worn, honored traditions endure forever.
As a progressive Plymouthite and good citizen, however, I am willing to move forward. Despite the unspeakable distance, I make the ten minute-drive “clear across town” to Wal-Mart, K-Mart and J.C. Penney’s at their present locations. I am willing to change.

Especially if the stores install those mirrors that lie.

Lifetime Fitness Awareness

     Three little words.
     We’ve all heard them: word trios that drop on our heads like clusters of miniature anvils. You are overdrawn. The IRS called. What’s our deductible? Congratulations! It’s quadruplets.
     But the three words at the bottom of my adult college registration eclipsed them all. Dress for exercise.
     Dress for exercise?
      “Lifetime Physical Awareness is required for everybody,” my college advisor insisted.
      “But I’m already aware,” I whined. “My knees crack, I injured my back reading the newspaper last night, and my fallen arches make my feet resemble skateboards with no wheels. Why should I throw away perfectly good money to find out what I already know—my abs of steel are flabs I conceal.”
      She gave me a sympathetic look, but said nothing.
      At first, I felt encouraged. Our instructor, a Nice Young Man (over-50 translation for Hunk), prayed at the beginning of our class for health and well-being. A Christian college has its advantages; I could use divine help, especially since one glance told me I was at least ten years older than any of my co-sufferers. He prayed, his voice full of understanding and compassion.
      Then he proceeded to kill me.
      “Okay, everybody, let’s hit the weight room!”
      Weight rooms exist for football players. Olympic medalists. Japanese wrestlers in loincloths.
      I don’t even like to swimsuit shop.
      As we filed into the weight room, young men with biceps the size of Thanksgiving hams gave us polite smiles as each hoisted half a house above his head.
      I stared at one of the machines.
      It smirked back at me. Deep in its shiny metal innards, it knew the truth: to me, heaven presents no mystery, compared to the incomprehensible operation of any and all machines. But I refused to be defeated by a lower species. I grasped the machine’s cold, skeletal limbs and yanked them toward my chest. The machine fought back, but with grim determination, I conquered my opponent. I had nearly completed a whole set when the instructor interrupted me. Would I please stop wrestling with the equipment rack?
      He stuck close to me after that, introducing me one by one to various torture devices: machines that bent my biceps, pulled my pectorals, decreased my height, reversed my elbow direction. I lay on the floor panting, my tongue hanging out. My instructor kneeled down beside me.
      “Tongue looks out-of-shape,” he said, marking his clip board chart. “Come with me to this machine over here. . . .”
      “Can you believe it?” I asked my advisor later, after describing my brush with death by machinery. “To top it all off, we spent the last class session talking about managing stress. I’ll tell you about stress. Taking ‘Slow Execution 101.’”
      My advisor looked up from her schedule of classes. “You’re mistaken,” she said. “That course is required next semester.”

Practicing Spanish

     How did I get myself into this mess?
           
     I had just stumbled through the dingy customs area of the airport in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, Central America. The officer had taken one look at me, shrugged, and filled out the customs forms without my input.

     But I can speak Spanish! I wanted to protest. At least, some. Uh, maybe a little. Foggy recollections of counting ducks in high school Spanish class, plus a few nouns from Taco Bell’s menu came to mind. By that time, my luggage and I had been deposited in a patio area where we faced a literal wall of people, all yelling (in Spanish, of course) and waving arms like tentacles.

     The sun had just set, and I desperately needed to find a place for the night. While I am not a globetrotter, I have visited Mexico, Ecuador, western Europe and Canada. But I had never faced a foreign city alone.

     Nothing like an airline ticket mix-up to create adventure.

     “Okay, God,” I said, “I’m glad you’re bilingual. Somehow, you’ve got to get me to the right place at the right time.”

     The right place, my Honduran, English-speaking seatmate had told me on the airplane, was not the modest-priced hotel I’d found on the Internet. “I’m not sure that is even open,” she said. “Tegucigalpa is a dangerous place. Last week they found dynamite in the school where I teach. You’re not wearing jewelry? Good.  You’d better stay at this hotel; it emphasizes security and service, with people who can help you work out your ticket problems. Some will speak English.”

      The right hotel was also the most expensive in town, but at that moment I would have mortgaged my pancreas to stay there.

     “This hotel has a shuttle, too; you don’t want to trust Tegucigalpa taxi drivers to get you back to the airport,” my new friend warned.

     Watching the random NASCAR race going on in front of the airport, I saw what she meant. I also saw the hotel shuttle with (thank heaven) both Spanish and English signs painted on the side. But he was leaving! Screaming at the top of my lungs, I hauled my heavy suitcase toward him, determined to grab his bumper, if nothing else. A cortege of food vendors and indignant taxi drivers trailed after me. He threw his door open and said, “You have reservation?”

     “No,” I answered in quiet desperation. “No, I don’t.”

     “’S okay!  Don’t WOR-RY!” he answered, face split in a huge, toothy grin.

     I climbed aboard with the gratitude the last chimpanzee must have felt when she entered Noah’s ark. But I found the shuttle driver had earned his pole position; he, like all the other Honduran drivers, whizzed through the narrow, unpredictable streets like a meteor, ignoring the existence of all other vehicles.

      “Warp factor two, Mr. Scott,” I said, clinging to my suitcase.

     “Qué?” said the lovely, exquisitely dressed young businesswoman next to me. To my surprise, she responded to my few halting words of Spanish, then waited patiently for my replies. We had a delightful conversation, which distracted me from performing my own last rites and made me feel I was not cut off from all human contact.
     
     I made it alive to the excellent hotel, which sported three locks on the door and numerous satellite trash sit-coms like “Frazier” in English to make me feel secure. Between my Spanish and their English, the hotel business center folks straightened out my ticket and got me to the airport at 5 a.m. the next morning so I could finally rendezvous with my daughter on Roatan, an island paradise.
     
       Other good Samaritans rescued me during my trip: shop owners, hotel personnel, airline security people, the family with whom my daughter lived, and their friends, who endured my conversations throughout a day-long picnic. One waitress in Trujillo, who resembled a prostitute from Man of La Mancha, probably saved our lives. She flagged down the only taxi available because we ignorant North American gringas stayed late to watch an indigenous Indian dance by the ocean in a less-than-safe neighborhood, with no way back to our hotel.

     Kindness where I least expected it. Understanding despite the language barriers. After a week in Honduras, all things Spanish intrigued and excited me.

     “I really want to learn more Spanish,” I told God enthusiastically. “I’ll look for opportunities to practice, and get really good at it.”

     “Actually,” He said, “you’ve already had some opportunities to practice in Plymouth, long before you went to Honduras.”

     “When, Lord?”

     “Do you remember the Hispanic guy in the store the other day?”

     I cudgeled my brain for a moment or two. Oh. The guy who wanted to make a phone call.

     I had been shopping—behind schedule, as always. Several of us stood in line at the cash register, checking our lists and our watches. A thirtyish Hispanic man had stood without a word beside the clerk until, upset by his silence, she irritably asked him what he wanted. He pointed to the telephone.

     “I’ll ask my manager,” she said.

     The manager, a weary, stressed woman, clicked her tongue with impatience when she saw him. “Oh, no. No free phone calls! I get so tired of this—”

     He held out a phone card.

     “That’s right! Go use it at the pay phone. They speak Spanish. Go!” She more or less shoved him out the front door. He stood on the sidewalk. Stranded, probably. Lost. Alone.

     I stood in line. Behind schedule. Embarrassed at my terrible Spanish. Afraid of accosting a stranger. Especially a male stranger.

     I could have helped.

     But I didn’t.

     “The linguistic opportunities are there,” the Lord said. “Not to mention a few chances to be a Good Samaritan. Want to practice your Spanish?”

   

Thank, You, Baby

[A speech delivered at Bethel College's traditional graduation banquet on April 30, 2005, for an audience of more than eight hundred.]


Good evening. I’m Rachael Phillips, and, yes, I am a graduating senior—finally.  I’ve been asked to represent Bethel’s married students in thanking our spouses and our families. Perhaps I’m a little unique in this gathering in that I have experienced both sides of this “married student” coin. Thirty years ago, I was the student wife that waited—prayed—fasted and prayed—for Graduation Day.

           Believe it or not, you married students and spouses will one day look at a jar of Aldi’s peanut butter without gagging. You may even drive a car that gets miles to the gallon rather than miles to the push.

           But—back to my main point: we students appreciate the superspouses who have loved us “for better or for worse.” More often than not, they’ve loved us for worse during our college careers. We have excelled in biology, psychology and eschatology, yet we forget to pay the light bill, plunging our homes in outer darkness.

            We know how to discern literary archetypes and construct syllogisms, yet we somehow never make it to the grocery, and the family eats five-day-old onion pizza for breakfast.

            And when our spouses turn the lights down low and play “our song,” looking forward to a romantic evening, we say, “Sorry, honey, I can’t; I have to write a research paper on “Principles for a Successful Christian Marriage.”

            We ask your forgiveness, and we thank you.

            Our children, too, have made sacrifices and helped us out. You’ve fixed our computers, helped us with our homework and listened to us gripe about our teachers.

You’ve also said, “Go, Mom!” and “You can do it, Dad!” and your encouragement has meant far more than you’ll ever know.

            Despite our deep love for our little ones, we have not always been able to give them the time and attention they deserve. We hold them close and read them a storybook at bedtime—but guess who falls asleep first? However, we graduates look forward to better days. As for my own little granddaughter, Annabelle Kate, Grandma is finally all done with her homework, and she can come out and play now.

            We cherish you all; we are grateful for your love, your patience, your faith in Jesus, your faith in us. But I must close with a special tribute to our superspouses: this long, difficult, wonderful journey has proved all the richer, all the sweeter, holding your hand.    

 




 
 

Married Is Better

            It is my unfashionable but astute opinion that married is better. Better than what? you may ask. Better than jumping off the Marshall County Courthouse in pajamas with a big red golf umbrella from Bloomingdale’s? Better than being tied to a crocodile who prefers the bottom of the Nile to the top? Better than working alongside Osama bin Laden in a nuclear power plant?

            Perhaps I should define my position a little more succinctly: I believe that being married is better than being single. Yes, I really do.

            For starters, if I were single, I would have spent the past thirty years of my life in utter darkness. You see, I was born without the gene which aids in changing light bulbs.

            Victims of this grievous handicap rarely survive. They have not changed their refrigerator light bulbs since Carter was president. They subsist on diets of hairy leftovers and solid milk because they cannot see. 

            Add to this the dangers involved when every last light is burned out on the afflicted person’s automobile, and you can understand the low rate of survival.

            In contrast, my husband changes and re-changes every bulb in the house, even as they burn.

            He would, however, die of starvation as a single person because no one would be there to hit the microwave button.

            Marriage provides for the mutual society and sanity of both partners in many ways. For example, I awaken nightly for my official Worry Time about 3:00 a.m.  I worry about our parents. I worry about our grown children. Will the future bring the demise of Social Security, the collapse of America and even pointier shoes? If I were single, no deep, sweet voice of reason would calm my fears: “Don't worry, babe. You’ll be dead by 2030 or so, anyway.”  

            As a bachelor, my husband would have computerized the garage door, the kitchen faucets, our ice cream scoop.

             I would have bought band candy from every big-brown-eyed child in the western hemisphere.

             He would have grown a bumper crop of spaghetti in his beard.

             I would have sported a bale of spinach between my teeth.

             If we have stayed single.

            Not to mention that we would not have produced together the smartest, most gifted, most beautiful children in the universe. Just ask their grandparents.

            Or us.

            But, you protest, I am living in the 50s, right back there with Beaver Cleaver and the Ricky Ricardos. Get real, because this is the new millennium, and we can do all that without being married.

            True. But for the religious, the answer to that is simple: we have ample reason to believe God likes marriage better, too. But even if you have decided He does not exist, living together without marriage poses other concerns.

            Two people can say, “I love you, and I want to live with you,” without the overpriced ruffled white dress, a cousin's off-key version of "I Love You Truly," cake loaded with Crisco icing, or signatures on the dreaded piece of paper. However, living together without marriage inevitably means, “I love you, but….” Long, romantic explanations emanate from polite partners who balk at marriage: "We respect each other’s freedom"; "I don’t want to tie you (and definitely, not me!) down"; and "The planets, stars, satellites and space shuttles are not in cosmic harmony."

            For the not-so-polite (and more honest), the “but” boils down to one clear credo: “I never know when somebody better might come along.”

            I am truly sorry for people who seem to regard themselves and each other as bologna samples to be passed out on Bargain Day.

            And I am truly glad that my husband, like myself, believes that married is better.

 


 

Manger Madness

 

            It was a silent, holy night.

            Heavenly music encircled the darkened church sanctuary like a golden Christmas ribbon. Worshipers breathed the spicy green fragrance of pine wreaths and garland, warmed to the glow of haloed candles that dripped slowly as if on cue.

            I saw the church children’s choir director slip into the front pew. She threw me a weary glance over her shoulder. I, a fellow musician, understood. After a month of Sunday afternoon Christmas practices, she would gladly have exchanged places with the New Testament martyrs, who faced only lions.

            Later she told me about the dress rehearsal earlier in the day. The Shepherds clobbered the Three Kings with their crooks. Having missed their rest times, the cranky angels refused to sing. The buttons on the sanctuary keyboard stuck during their practice, and “Silent Night” on chimes setting erupted into a wall-shaking dirt guitar version. When the director and her helpers herded the entire nativity scene into the restrooms for a last potty break, five-year-old Joseph dropped his lapel microphone into the toilet and flushed it down.

            But now, lovely and fragile as a Victorian Christmas card, “Silent Night’s” melody tinkled as the children entered. I held my breath. Maybe she shouldn’t have chosen anything that remotely resembles “tinkle.”  But the potty break, while complicated and a bit expensive, had done the trick. The three-year-olds kneeled with hands—or paws—at their sides before the manger, adorable in furry puppy costumes. A multitude of lovable bunnies, teddies, kittens, and lambs, along with two cows (complete with udders) and a two-kid camel crowded around the manger. A curly-haired Mary and Joseph (minus microphone) hovered around the pastor’s baby girl in the manger, who followed the script, sleeping sweetly.

            Lights went up on the big-eyed heavenly host, who actually stood still on boxes behind them, raising small, chubby arms in holy benediction. One king sucked his thumb, and one shepherd fingered his staff, longing to wield it. But he refrained, as his mother sat, poised for attack, in the third pew. After a few minutes of quiet, even the much-enduring mom relaxed. A supernatural tranquility pervaded the scene. The choir director bowed her head. I marveled at the miracle. If peace was possible here, maybe the Middle East wasn’t a lost cause, after all.

            “You’re in my place.” The thin whisper from the stage pierced the gentle quiet like a broken bell.

            The director froze.

            “You’re in my place! Move!” One of the bunnies elbowed the large teddy bear near her. He glanced her way. Obviously, the only way to deal with an angry woman was to ignore her. He did so, to his peril.

            “Move!” she yelled, and swung a right that would have put Evander Holyfield to shame. The teddy collapsed into a heap, knocking the camel flying. The entire animal group crashed down like dominoes, only to rise for a battle that resembled Gettysburg in a petting zoo. The shepherds and kings tackled each other, the angels wailed.

            Baby Jesus, enraged at the disturbance, let the entire world know what she thought of the whole shebang. Obviously, she’d never learned the second verse of “Away in a Manger,” because everybody knows the Little Lord Jesus never cried, even when the cows in the stable bawled directly into his divine Ears. And Baby Jesus came on a Silent Night, when all was “calm and bright.” His teenaged mother never sweat during her labor. She did not scream that she didn’t want to birth the Son of God in a smelly, disgusting stable, and why hadn’t Joseph made reservations?

            Baby Jesus came to clean-shaven Shepherds who used Right Guard. He arrived in picture-book Bethlehem and made His home in a world as perfect and peaceful as a Christmas nativity scene.

            Didn’t He?

            Maybe the little kids got it right, after all.