CRUNCH TIME!
by CHARLES C. HALL , Ed.D

Okay, by golly, it’s hollyjolly time once again. Glad to be here, folks! (as Leno says). It’s time to demonstrate we are not complete jerks the entire year. Hey! You’ve got 364 other days to be a low-down skunk. So, shape up! You could really fool your friends by being nice for only a single day. Now, that’s a really cheap price to pay in order for others to see you in a new light -- no aura or halo -- maybe a dull amber?

I don’t know what most people find in the idea of this particular holiday season. At our house, everyone eats far too much, kind of like starving pigs, then says -- no, screams - - “I ate too much!” Then they amble around making strange air waves the next hour or two. Then the Cowboys get on TV - - or, Texas, OU or A&M, whatever -- and everyone yells and screams for his (or her) pet team. Not I, I’ve not yelled at a football game for years. I take that back. ROMO. He opened my big yap -- wide. I even jump up into the air and scream, “Did you see that?!!” Man! I love this kid; he’s a real sensation! So it goes.

But, that can wait, I’m on a mission here.

What’s it gonna cost you to be less of a jerk just once each year? Well, one cost could be that you’ll be grumpy and sarcastic all the next day (it may grow from there) since you’re not in your usual mood. When one’s unseen switch flips in one’s brain/motor system from sourpuss to nice guy, the change-over is normally not as smooth as one would like. Besides, those around are wondering, “Should we send him to Rusk?”

Old synaps and dendrites (brain connections) tuned to NICE, when we were younger, creak and groan trying to recall the days when we were ruddycheeked, smiled, laughed and heartily joked around -- a lot. The grinding of those little zippers in our cranium finally mesh, and, hot dang! A smile! Wow! On special occasions during the year, we had chances to be real people. No more. Those days are gone forever. Now, all we have of them are long-gone dreams and beautiful sunsets. A wonderful life was ahead for each of us.

What happened? Well, for one thing, the bottom’s dropped out of the economy all over the world, and The Grapes of Wrath got written about some of it, and it was here called “The Great Depression.” The Germans said “...it’s time to start the conquest of the world”; the French said “Hey! Let’s party!”; the Russians said, “What is Depression? Get out of here!” Man! It’s like this around here all the time. So, join our Vodka party, it’s cheap stuff, but still blows your mind out your caboose such that you don’t give a ----!” (I don’t know what the Russian word for ---- is. It’s probably the same as mine). So it goes.

Another thing that happened to a great many families was that the parents got killed in some terrible accident, and there was a house full of kids who were then shuffled off to some nondescript orphans’ home. I knew a lot of kids in homes like that. I worked at Denton State School (10p - 6a shift) while attending NTSU for my advanced degrees (still had one wife, three kids, one dog, no cats), with a fellow who ran away to Colorado when that tragic thing happend to his parents. He never, ever saw or heard from his sister again because he was fearful the “do gooders” from the Presbyterian Church (or some other one) would track him down and stick him in a “home” and he’d never have a free mind.

He was fourteen when he drifted off into the night, sister crying, but resigned to her fate. That’s the thing about the evermysterious female, painful as things are, she accommodates. Anyway, Wayne got to Colorado on a slow freight, and somehow hooked up with a kind rancher who took him in. Had a “home” ‘til he aged enough to join the Army. He became a kind and caring man. He could empathize with our “clients.”

Many of the orphans’ homes in those days collected money from charities, government entities, etc. for taking in these unfortunate children, and then treating them like chattle. (See Childrens Crusade).

Another thing that happened was the “ties that bind” marriages frayed, then snapped, causing some men to abandon their families. A hard thing. Some left carelessly. On a large scale, kids suffered the abuse of frustrated parents. So it goes.

Lots of other things happened to which many of us can relate. Me? (or, is it “I”?) anyway, I was happily wondering what a star was, where it came from and, why is it so dark out there? Planets? I didn’t know from planets. My Dad was a good and kind man. My Mom and Dad worked like drag horses, and kept all the bad stuff outside the house. And I? Up at 4 a., milk 4 Jerseys, walk three miles uphill to school -- in both ways, milk the same 4 at 5:30, chase a hoop, lie in the grass, dream. My Mom, wife, old girlfriends, even a psychologist, have called me a dreamer. Well, what the hay? It’s an order of magnitude much higher than that I’m sometimes called. So it goes.

Getting to the core of this piece is to remind us that at least once a year we should examine our behavior and act with deep empathy for someone other than ourselves. (I started to say “human beings,” but then I recalled that “those people” have caused all the problems since endless time). Empathy catches my fancy. So it goes.

I could not say it better than O. Hobart Mowrer, a psychologist, like me. Well, actually, Mowrer was much better than I. He wrote a little paperback called The New Group Therapy in which he recognized that some of the traditional practices of psychiatry were not working, and he postulated a new look at an old problem -- “mental unstuckness.” (Them’s my words.)

What I am pleased (and graciously permitted by C/BS) is to call to your attention something from Mowrer that doesn’t have anything to do with professional psychology or psychiatry. No, it deals with empathy -- alms, to be truthful. Permit me, please, to run it by you in an abbreviated form, keeping the basic point in sharp focus. So it goes.

Mowrer recalls a scene from the book, Magnificent Obsession (made into a movie) where a young doctor loses his wife, goes to a monument works to select a marker for her grave. He, perchance, meets the talented and eccentric sculptor, Cline Randolph. Randolph senses the young doctor’s state of mind and profound grief, and gently engages him in conversation. As their friendship grows, Randolph imparts a “secret ” to young Doctor Hudson, which can “transform” his life. So it goes.

Mowrer writes, “Most of us live depleted existences -- weak, zestless, apprehensive and neurotic.” The reason is that when we do something “good” for another, we “display and advertise it,” thereby “collecting ” the approbations of others. We “spend” the results of that good deed immediately, enjoying the moment. This person is “chronically bankrupt in the moral and spiritual sense,” Mowrer writes. If we always “spend” what we earn, our net worth suffers, same as in a spiritual sense. So, what’s the alternative?

Well, old strange, eccentric, and talented Cline Randolph clues us in. He told Hudson that he visited a church with his small daughter and heard the preacher read a few verses from the Good Book. (He didn’t say it like that; I did).

“The preacher read in a perfunctory monotonous tone,” said Randolph. He didn’t speak as if the passage was important, therefore the congregation sat “glassy-eyed, and it made no impression.” But Randolph was “... stirred ... There it was in black and white, the exact process for achieving power to do, be, and have what you wanted! I experimented.” So it goes.

Mowrer writes, “The book never tells us the exact passage, but it was obvious the verses read.” So it goes.

“Take heed that you do not do your alms before men. Do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have their glory before men. Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, do not let your left hand know what thy right hand doeth; that thine alms may be in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” So it goes.

After studying Mowrer, et.al., I cut that piece from a Good Book I had lying around, unseen, since childhood, and have kept it in my billfold, where I have kept it for nigh on to sixty years now

I have practiced its morally uplifting message as best I could, and I can tell you, I have enjoyed a WONDERFUL LIFE. I never want anyone to know when, if, or ever I do anything for another.. Hey! I ain’t got a lot of capital of any kind. Therefore, I’m not gonna crow about what little I can drop on someone. I always wish I could do more, but that’s just me wanting to build up my own secret net worth. My meager accomplishments are out there for all to see, and they aren’t much to gaze upon. Granted, I have more than I probably deserve. That’s another story. So it goes.

What I’m trying to share here is that each of us can be better than we usually are, once a year, at least. I think about how much my family means to me. They are really all I have that’s worth a plug nickle. I hope I don’t embarrass them too much. (I’m an embarrasser, not a divider). So it goes.

So, have a happy holly-jolly time, by golly, and do yourself a favor -- think about others and maybe do a little secret stuff. So it goes.

Happy Holidays!!