She does it for the “Love of It.”
This just might be the most remarkable comment that anyone can make today about anyone else. It is more than a comment. It is adulation. It is respect. It is devotion. It is a singularly exemplary behavior when you think about it. I am not going to say that there are not lots of people who warrant such a compliment. But in many respects, they are unsung heroes and heroines.
We are surrounded by people who only do things because they get paid for it or because they will be rewarded by power, fame, or fortune. If the highest calling we can have in the world is to love others, then the next highest calling must be to perform some task or effort simply for the “Love of It.” Not because we are going to receive any payment for it. Not because we expect to get a promotion for it. Not even because we expect to get a pat on the back for it. Simply because we do it for the “Love of It.”
I would like to see an evening news report which starts off by honoring people who perform many thankless tasks simply for the “Love of It.” The world is full of such people. While I await such a news program, I would like to share a few of the stories and thankless tasks friends I know perform that have touched my life. I would love to hear about stories or such efforts that you are familiar with in my comments section.
Evelia Zajac
We first met Evelia through a mutual friend in Arizona City. Evelia then told us about a good dentist she went to in Sonoita, Mexico. Evelia is a Mexican citizen who has lived in the USA for over 60 years now. Like many Americans, we now go down to Mexico for good dental service that is affordable. We decided that since Evelia and Karen were both needing more dental service that we would carpool with Evelia to the dentist. It is about a three-hour drive from our home to the dentist’s office.
Over time we discovered that Evelia did not only go to the dentist in Sonoita, but she also took supplies and food to an orphanage in the town. Furthermore, she organized “caravans” at least twice a year to go down to Puerto Penasco in Mexico. Puerto Penasco or Rocky Point has been called the Arizona Riviera. Beautiful beaches, beautiful town, and a beautiful ocean. It is a favorite destination point for USA tourists with a nice selection of waterfront hotels.
Evelia would stockpile clothes, food, and other materials during the year for both the orphanage in Sonoita and a St. Vincent DePaul charity center in Puerto Penasco. Through her church and word of mouth many people learned of her charity trips. Twice a year ten or more cars will show up at Evelia’s house on a Friday morning. We will load all our trunks with her goods and other products that we all contribute and proceed together across the border in Lukeville and on first to the orphanage in Sonoita. We will unload lots of food and sundries at the orphanage and then spend a little time visiting with the young children that live there. Next, it is on to the St. Vincent DePaul in Puerto Penasco. The remainder of our goods will be deposited at the donation center. Often the people there will have a big pot of stew and we will sit around for some time talking to them before going on to our destination.
Our destination is most often the Hotel Playa Bonita. Evelia will take care of reservations. This is a beautiful hotel right on the beach with a very nice restaurant. Most of the caravanners will spend the weekend eating, dancing, and listening to nightly music on the patio. Some will go back on Sunday and some of us will stay until Monday. Karen and I always like to go visit the old town section of Puerto Penasco with its many markets and tourist goods. We never fail to help contribute to the Mexican economy. We look forward to these trips every year.
If you are asking what Evelia does this for and why she does this, I will tell you. It is simply for the “Love of It.” We have known Evalia for over 12 years now and she is one of the most charitable and caring people you will ever meet. She has no thoughts of remuneration or rewards for her efforts. No matter where she sees anyone needing help, she extends her effort to help them. Karen and I have been blessed to meet such a wonderful woman who always steps up when help is needed.
S. Kwame Rice
Sylvester Kwame Rice is one of my best friends. Kwame and I met when we were undergraduates together at Rhode Island College in 1971. I was 25 and Kwame was 27. We were both veterans, both in our first year of college and both attending on the GI Bill. Kwame was a Navy veteran, and I was an Air Force veteran.
We had both signed up for one of the mandatory electives required for a B.S. degree. I will never forget the class. I do not remember the instructors name, but it was an intro 101 class in sociology. The instructor had wanted to have a class with lots of discussion (or so he said.) Well, we had quite a diverse group of students. Gay students, African American students, White students, and Latino students. We anxiously awaited the group discussion topic. During the second class, the instructor announced that we would discuss Anti-Semitism. We were astounded and appalled. To the best of our knowledge, there were no Jewish students in the class. We challenged our Professor but to no avail.
Several of us met after class and with Kwame and I as ringleaders we decided we were not going to stick with only discussions of Anti-Semitism. We would bring up discussions of racism, sexism, homophobia, and any other type of discrimination we could think of. We had not spent four years in the military to simply lay down and ignore what was happening in our own country. Our discussions over the next semester proved quite enlightening and challenging. Kwame and I became best friends and have remained so ever since. I do not know what became of our instructor, but I think he might have decided to change career fields. 😊
Now if you do not know how Kwame received his middle name and the name he goes by, I want you to think about who Kwame Nkrumah was:
“Francis Kwame Nkrumah (21 September 1909 – 27 April 1972) was a Ghanaian politician, political theorist, and revolutionary. He was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana, having led the Gold Coast to independence from Britain in 1957.[1] An influential advocate of Pan-Africanism, Nkrumah was a founding member of the Organization of African Unity and winner of the Lenin Peace Prize from the Soviet Union in 1962.” —- Wikipedia
My friend Kwame is also a fighter for freedom and justice. He became a teacher, principal and is now a minister. Kwame has spent the better part of his life trying to help make the message of Dr. Martin Luther King a reality. An America where racism and prejudice does not exist. Kwame could have made a great deal of money in many other career fields, but he never backs down from a challenge or speaking out when he thinks he should. Now retired he still preaches regularly, and he serves as a minister at a Veterans Center in Rhode Island. He is not paid for these efforts. He does them for the “Love of It.”
Karen Yvonne Persico
Karen is my wife and my best friend. Karen spent fifty-five years as a nurse and 40 of those years as a Home Health Care nurse. Fifty years ago, you did not go into nursing for the money. Karen is one of the most frugal people I know. Even if we have the money, she would rather shop at Goodwill than a Norstrand or Macys. I have a hard time convincing her to buy herself anything. While she may be frugal when it comes to spending money on herself, she is the opposite when it comes to spending it on other people. Whenever I ask her about a donation to a charity, she is always ready to share what we can. Not once in our thirty-three years of marriage, has she ever said that we could not afford a donation to help other people or causes. She is always ready to help someone in need with time or money.
About fifteen years ago, while we were on a motorcycle trip to Arkansas from Minnesota, we stopped in a small town in Arkansas called Mountain View. Upon arriving we found that the town was known as the Folk Music Capital of the World. The middle of the town is organized around a park known as the Pick’in Place. Every weekend, people from all over the countryside gather here to play mountain music together on guitars, violins, mandolins, and a rather interesting instrument called the Mountain Dulcimer.
The Dulcimer is a four or three stringed instrument somewhat like a guitar that you play on your lap. It is relatively easy to make one and inexpensive to purchase. It is a small lightweight instrument. While watching the various groups that self-organize to jam together at the park, Karen immediately recognized the value of such an instrument. Light weight, good sound quality, and relatively inexpensive, it would make an excellent instrument to take on our many trips together. No problem to store it or carry it.
Karen spent some time trying to teach herself to play but finally found an instructor back home in Minnesota. Since then, we have been to many music festivals together and the highlight for Karen is learning and playing with other Dulcimer people.
The costs to date for Karen’s musical hobby have included travel, instruction, dulcimer strings, tuners and of course the few dulcimers that Karen has acquired over the years. You must have at least a baritone and a standard if you are going to play in a group. I used to ask Karen when we were going to get our money back. But you see, money was never the issue. Karen plays for the “Love of It.” She loves music and with being in a choir and playing with a Tucson Dulcimer Ensemble, she has the best of two worlds. She plays music and helps others enjoy the music.
About every few months, the Tucson Dulcimer Ensemble plays at venues that include churches, assisted living centers, nursing homes, senior centers, hospitals. Many of these venues do not have a budget for music but that is no concern for Karen and her friends in the Tucson Dulcimer Ensemble. You see they don’t play for money. You guessed it, they play for the “Love of It.”
Now just for a second what if politicians, lawyers, auto salespeople and real estate developers worked for the “Love of It?” Can you imagine what a different world it would be?
If you liked this blog and it evoked memories of someone whom you really admire for their ability to do things for the “Love of It”, I would really appreciate your leaving a short story or message about this person and why you feel they warrant this description.
There are going to be those of you who will say that the title of this blog is preposterous. A few years ago, I would have called “Bullshit.” Funny how aging changes ones perspective. I asked four friends all over the age of 70 what they thought about my proposition. They all nodded sagely and said that they agreed 100 percent. I then went to my spouse Karen who as a Home Care nurse spent many years working with the elderly. I expected her to deny my proposition. I was quite surprised when she also agreed. I asked her why. She explained as follows:
I mentioned this to some running friends of mine. One of the younger ones asked me what I had done to prevent falling or to somehow adjust my attitude so that I could continue running. I explained that over the years I had started running with knee pads, elbow pads, shatterproof glasses, and hand guards like roller bladers used. I had the best trail running shoes that I could afford. He asked if I would be willing to look for some new ideas so that I could return to the mountain trails. I told him that I appreciated the offer but that I was finished with running rocky mountain trails.
Our Founding Fathers wrote a Big Lie and African Americans have been paying for it ever since. Women and other minorities were not even mentioned in the Big Lie, but it applied to them as well. Lies can be committed because people believe things that do not mesh with reality. Lies are a coverup for many government actions that our politicians do not see as palatable for the public. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, the overthrow of Salvador Allende, the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are only a few of the lies that have been fed to the American people. Of course, our politicians would have us believe it is for our own good. The really sad part is that the media is always complicit in these lies by reporting them with little or no verification of their truthfulness. Some of these lies fall into what I call the “Realm of Taboos.” Taboos are a good place to look for Big Lies.
So, we tell a Big Lie that age does not matter. And we have no one willing to challenge that lie. However, it is not only physical aging that puts people at a disadvantage, but mental aging as well. Many older people are stuck in a past generation of ideas and values that are no longer relevant today. Values and cultures change over time and people born in the 40’s and 50’s are less likely to understand and adapt to the changes that daily life brings. If you can only see the “Good Old Days”, you may be suffering from old age. The average age of Nobel Prize winners when they conducted their prize-winning research is 44.1 years. As for writing, “According to experts, we start becoming more creative and prolific in whatever field of art or study we work, around the age of 25. Most people reach their peak after the age of 35 or in their 40s. This is when they produce their most valuable work. After the age of 45, most artists’ prolificity starts slowly declining.” — 
Love is a word used in many semantic constructions. People associate love with sex, marriage, partnership, and other types of relationships between human beings. It is also common for the word love to be associated with inanimate objects and other animals. For instance, people say “I love my car” or “I love my dog.” These uses of the word trivialize the meaning of love. Romantic novels (think Romeo and Juliet) portray love as undying or “dying” passion but seldom show the hard work required to keep love burning. TV and movies feature continuous images of love based more on lust rather than what real love is. Even Jesus the greatest prophet of love did not get the idea of love right.
Jesus gave one example of “true love” but missed the most significant example in his life. Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13. Many soldiers have given up their lives to save others in the course of war. Often these soldiers were friends with the men they died for. However, to say that they loved them is quite off the mark. A number of years ago, I dove into a river to save a guy who was being dragged down the St. Croix River by its current. He did not know how to get out of the current and was fighting it instead of going with it. I swam out and brought him to shore. He was very grateful. I risked my life for this man. I did not know this man and I certainly did not love him. Many acts of heroism have been done by people out of a sense of responsibility or compassion, but I would not call these “acts of love.”
I propose that the greatest acts of love are to stand by someone when the world is bent on destroying them and you risk being destroyed along with them. The love of a mother for a son convicted of a heinous crime is one of these acts. Jesus’s mother Mary stood by the cross and watched her son die, never deserting his side. I am sure she suffered insults and criticisms and was blamed for his behavior. A mother who will feel love for her son or daughter no matter how grievous the crimes they have done is committing an act of love.
A few months ago, the news carried a story about a young man who had been in and out of trouble. He went into a dinner with a gun, robbed several patrons and was shot in the back as he was leaving. No charges were brought on the shooter. As it turned out the gun that he used in the robbery was a water pistol. The mother was questioned as to her thoughts. She did not attack her son’s killer, nor did she defend her son’s behavior. She did wonder if he really needed to be shot in the back as he was leaving. I was struck by the mother’s sadness and love for her son. It did not matter that he was a bad kid or that the whole of the media was gleeful about his being shot in the act; his mom’s (like Mary’s) love remained firm.
One of the most common tropes in movies and shows concern what I call the “Two Ships Passing in the Night Love Model.” Individuals who seem to resonate with each other go about their daily business and never tell the other person how they feel. This has been a part of so many shows that I have watched that I am losing count. You sit there and wonder episode after episode if they will ever say anything before it is too late. It is frustrating as you want them to get together and say, “I love you.”
I thought about this problem for a while. Many would say it was just a writer’s trick to get you to keep coming back for the next episode. You get hooked on whether or not they will ever consummate their love either physically or emotionally. It is a rather good hook but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was really art mimicking life. I have been guilty of the same behavior and many people I know have also been guilty of the same behavior. We fail to say I love you when it counts the most. We can say that we love our new shoes or that we love our cat easily enough, but we have a hard time telling friends and relatives that we love them. We often abbreviate the sentiment with “Love you” or we use the term generically. “See you later folks, love all of you.” The simple act of looking someone in the eyes and saying “I love you” is perhaps one of the most difficult tasks that many of us face.
But what is true love anyway? Is loving a person in the same ballpark as loving your dog or your new shoes? Would you give up your life for your cat or your shoes? There are many elements that are part of true Love. A life without true love is rather sad but more common than many people realize. How many people do you know who took marriage vows only to divorce within ten years or less? How many of these people were willing to go to a marriage counselor before they divorced? How many of them just gave up on the other person before giving them a chance to change or giving themselves a chance to change? My elements of true love include:
I think of the places I have been. Their memories come randomly. Sometimes I remember being 16 at the New York Worlds Fair in 1964. Roaming around by myself with no particular agenda. The Vatican Pieta exhibit really made an impression on me. Then it was my year in Biloxi, Mississippi. Scuba diving off Ship Island whenever I could get a break from my Air Force duties. Unalakleet, Alaska where I spent a year on a remote mountain top off the Bering Sea. Dating Eskimos and Indians who were the first women I ever really cared about. After leaving Alaska for Wisconsin, I developed a whole new family to start life with as a responsible father and husband.
There are many lists of “places” to see but much fewer lists of great events to see. Events are harder to find. Some occur every year like the Newport Jazz Festival and others are one off events like the Woodstock Music Festival. We frequently do not find out about events until they are over. In our travels, Karen and I have discovered posters of local events. Generally, they are not within our travel dates, or they have already occurred. Sometimes though we have been lucky enough to “trip” over an event and attend it. On occasion, it has been through the advice of local people who have told us about the event.
In one of my blogs, I noted the distinction between being a tourist and being a pilgrim. One definition of a tourist is “A person visiting a place for pleasure.” My definition of a pilgrim is non-religious. You do not have to be on a sacred mission to be a pilgrim. I propose the idea of a pilgrim as someone who takes part in the cultures they are visiting. Someone who is not looking in from the outside like at a visitor to a Hawaiian Luau but someone who joins the celebrants. They say there are three types of people. Those who do not know that there is a parade. Those who watch the parade. Those who are in the parade. Tourists are watchers. Pilgrims are in the parade. In many of our travels, Karen and I have managed to “be in the parade” at least for a short while.
We have so many memories of friends met during travels. Friends such as Alex and Heidi in Cervelló, Spain enriched our lives and made our trip to Spain more than memorable. Xibo and Mary were friends we met on our Chinese trip in 1989. They accompanied us on several adventures in China. Years later, we helped them to emigrate to the USA. They now live in San Francisco with their daughter, son-in-law and three grandchildren. In Seoul, we attended a birthday party for our grandson Sam after our adopted Korean daughter Susan found her birth mother. A year after Sam was born, we traveled back with Susan to Korea for the celebration of his one-year birthday with Susan and her birth family.
A “Last Man Standing Bottle” includes some of the most interesting people I ever met in Frederic, Wisconsin. We would gather every weekday in the town library to discuss books, politics, guns, cars, ideology, and any other ideas brought up. We agreed 10 years ago to create this iconic “Bottle” for our coffee group. Since putting the Old Granddad Bourbon in a beautiful case with a pendant that had our names on it, four of our members have passed away. The group disbanded with the advent of Covid and was never resurrected. The bottle now sits in a case at the Frederic Train Museum along with many other relics from Frederic. I am 76 years old and the youngest of the three remaining bottle members. The shadows of Dick, Jerry, Brian, and Ken periodically go through my mind. I remember each of them so vividly in respect to ideas, but their physical aspects are just lingering shadows who periodically are guests of my thoughts.
Aging Capriciously 