"What Brought It On?"

Winston Churchill called it his "Black "Dog".  A psychiatrist who knew Churchill said of him "Only a man who knew what it was to discern a gleam of hope in a hopeless situation, whose courage was beyond reason and whose aggressive spirit burned at its fiercest when he was hemmed in and surrounded by enemies, could have given emotional reality to the words of defiance which rallied and sustained us in the menacing summer of 1940". Much the same could have been said about Robin Williams. Those who suffer as they did from depression and it's dark partner anxiety are hemmed in by forces that do not rise from the rational mind. Their demons are not summoned by events of the day.  They linger and taunt and then seek to destroy by cloaking and choking and snuffing out all light. Don't ask "what brought it on?".  Grieve that there is no warning and no cure. Marvel at the courage and strength required to overcome.

My Father

Tomorrow, September 29, 2014 would have been my father's 97th birthday.  He died in the spring of 2001.  He lived much longer than his own father who died at age 54.  My grandfather's name was Frederic Lyman Ballard.  He named his son, my father, Frederic Lyman Ballard Jr.  My  grandfather was still alive when my brother, his first grandchild, was born and was named Frederic Lyman Ballard III.  They followed my great grandfather, in turn into the law. They practiced in the same firm.  When my grandfather died, my father dropped the "Jr" from his name and my brother took it in place of his "III".  When my father died my brother dropped "Jr" too.  He died this year, too young at 72.  As the year turns to 2015, there will be no Frederic Ballard practicing law.  One hundred years have passed . Their combined effort spanned a full century. I loved them all.

To Succeed in School, You Have to Get There

This afternoon I drove several miles behind a school bus.  We were on a country road.  It was never safe to pull around the bus when we were underway.  I was content to sit and watch as the driver and children made their way home.  Each stop offered a short story about America.  Friends disembarked,  animated by their plans for the afternoon.  A father waited as first one, then a second and finally a third child emerged.  Each was embraced.  They walked off tightly, lovingly.  A dog joined the crowd of moms at the end of a cul de sac development. Backpack personalities: "Twelfth Man" for the Seattle Seahawks; Dora the Explorer; Skip Hop Zoo; Disney Frozen Princesses; courageous transparent plastic; day glo orange.  The earliest bus collecting children for school was called a kid hack. It was often just a farm wagon.  Children in the late 1800's bounced along like so many pigs or chickens.  It would be 50 years before young passengers had much comfort and protection from the weather. Until the 1930's school buses remained crude adaptations of trucks and wagons. The best offered roll-up canvas side curtains.  Many remained open to the elements.  In 1939 rural education representatives met at Columbia University and took up school bus design and safety.  The body and chassis manufacturers were there.  Also the paint companies.  Among the 44 agreed upon industry-wide standards was adoption of National School Bus Glossy Yellow, favored for visibility and sharp contrast with black lettering. There is an American School Bus Council.  You can visit their website and learn much more.  It is their assertion that to succeed in school you have to get there, and they offer convincing statistics about school bus efficiency, effectiveness and safety.  For example, 58% of student fatalities during school hours occur when a teen is driving.  23% when an adult drives but only 1% when students are traveling in a school bus. Twenty five million children ride 480,000 busses every day. The bus dropped off three little girls who skipped and hopped away.  Then it turned off, leaving me, and the line of cars behind me free to go. The pageant was over.   I was a little lonely.