When the boomerang booms back

“How long did you say you are you going to be home?”

That was my dad’s question to me, Christmas holidays, 1975-76.

I had set my shaving kit in the small bathroom I had shared with Dad for years. Then, I moved his shaving cream, after-shave lotion, and cologne to the side so I could spread out mine where his had been, just like I had done when I was in high school.

“Why is Dad asking me how long I’m going to be here?” I thought to myself. “Isn’t he thrilled to have me home, sharing this cramped space together once again?”

A few weeks ago, Lori and I found ourselves asking my dad’s question, only now it was to our children.

“How long did you say you’re going to be home?’

Although Lori and I were sad when each child flew away, we enjoyed our empty nest: no planning meals around the kids’ schedules; less laundry and dish washing; more privacy.

Then this summer one child flew back, and our empty nest was no longer exactly empty.

“Only for a short while,” he said.

Lori and I glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. I stroked my chin, not sure what to make of our new circumstance.

Then a second child flew back with our grandchild.

Lori and I, the once merry residents of an empty nest, looked at each other, thought about the prospects of two adult children and a baby living with us---and like Macaulay Culkin in “Home Alone,” when he slapped his dad’s shaving lotion on his face---patted our cheeks with the palms of our hands and screamed, “Ahhh!”

For a moment I thought about hiding under the bed. The words of Barney Fife trying to frighten those disobedient children with the threat of jail echoed in my ears: “No more care free hours, no more doing what you want when you want to do it, no more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

But I soon learned there are many adults like us with children who have returned home. Perhaps you are one of them. Or maybe you could be.

The percentage of young adults between the ages of 18 and 24 who have returned home to live with their parents has increased from 51% just a decade ago to 56% in 2012. Not since the Great Depression have so many young adults moved back home. Sociologists have given them a name: the “Boomerang Generation.”  

The primary reason they have returned home has to with the economy. “The recession hit young adults the hardest because they were often ‘last hired, first fired,’” according to Zhenchao Qian, professor and chair of the sociology department at Ohio State University.

Others have graduated and not found employment.

Still others return home because of broken relationships or transitions in life. But even then, these kids most often just cannot afford to move out on their own.

It’s important to have a serious conversation with the boomerang adult in order to set some ground rules. For instance, are you going to charge rent? (Most financial counselors recommend this if the young adult has a job, and finding work should be a priority. Doing nothing should not be an option).What other expenses are you willing to absorb? (Be careful about being an ATM machine.) Have you established an exit plan? (You should. It can always be renegotiated.) What other boundaries will enhance mutual respect and assure some privacy? (For instance, what habits are unacceptable? And, will you set a curfew?)

We have been fortunate in that our two temporary family residents are both employed and are more than willing to share with household duties.

One Saturday morning a few weeks ago, Lori and I walked to the kitchen and grinned as we saw our two young adults sitting on the back patio, drinking coffee, laughing, and chatting.

.

Now that they are more mature, I enjoy conversations with them at a level I couldn’t when they were younger. Had they not returned home, I would have missed out on those talks. And then, I have the joy of placing my grandson in my arms and walking him to sleep at night.

I know it won’t be long until they fly away again.  

The boomerang will boom back the other way.

And I’ll be sad.

But then I’ll sit back, exhale a sigh of relief, and enjoy my empty nest once again.

Don’t underestimate those nuns

A very telling scene occurs in the movie, Promised Land---the film about two corporate salespeople, Steve Butler (Matt Damon) and Sue Thomason (Frances McDermond) who visit a rural town in an attempt to buy drilling rights from the local residents. The two represent an energy company specializing in obtaining natural gas through a process known as fracking, which critics claim involves a variety of environmental hazards.

Butler and Thomason’s efficient record of quickly sealing the deal for their company is jeopardized by an environmental activist, Dustin Noble (John Krasinski), who has started a grassroots movement to derail the corporation’s efforts.

The energy company tries to intimidate the activists, and Thomason patronizes Noble: “Listen, you're just a kid who doesn't understand he's in way over his head on this one. We've already signed more than enough leases to start development in this town. You're too late.”

But Noble calmly responds: “I really wouldn't underestimate these people.”

It’s a revealing comment because ultimately the future of the small town lies in the citizen’s hands and not the energy corporation.

Hopefully, like the people in the movie, the citizens of Kentucky whose land is in the crosshairs of a proposed pipeline carrying natural gas liquid will have the opportunity to choose their own destiny rather than having the government and/or pipeline companies determine it for them.

And perhaps Bluegrass Pipeline, which would build approximately 500 miles of pipeline to transport natural gas liquids from sites in Pennsylvania and Ohio to the Gulf Coast, should heed Noble’s words, especially now that a group of nuns, The Sisters of Loretto, are among “these people.” The controversial pipeline would slice through Kentucky, including part of the land where the nuns’ Motherhouse is located.

At a meeting hosted by Williams and Boardwalk Pipeline Partners on August 8 in Elizabethtown, Ky., the Sisters drowned out the companies’ representative by singing “Amazing Grace.” Finally, the representative, accompanied by the police, asked the Sisters to stop.

Note to company: Never ask the Sisters to stop singing. You might just find yourself in the middle of a “Sister Act,” you didn’t bargain for.

People who oppose the pipeline proposal are doing so for several reasons. Tom FitzGerald, director of the Kentucky Natural Resources Council, points out that the very fact that three companies are competing to be the first to transport the natural gas underscores “why we need a certificate of need processing, to assure that we don’t have more pipeline construction than is needed, and more damage to land and water resources.”

Another objection has to do with private property and eminent domain. Even though the pipeline companies claim that their projects would create jobs, confiscating citizens’ private property to do so doesn't sit well with independent minded Kentuckians.

James Bruggers, of Louisville’s The Courier Journal, voices another concern. He wonders if the conversion of natural gas lines to natural gas liquids would leave Kentucky and Indiana without enough natural gas. Bruggers notes that at least one utility company, American Electric Power, shares his worry.

Then there is the matter of safety. The proposed pipeline would carry toxic byproducts of fracking, and if one of the pipelines ruptured or leaked, water in the area could be polluted. Bluegrass Pipeline contends that pipelines are “37 percent safer” than transporting natural gas liquids via truck and rail. FitzGerald disagrees, maintaining that although the frequency of pipeline accidents may be less, the damage is far worse. “Between 2002 and 2012… total gallons spilled from rail cars were 95,256 compared with 19,926,540 spilled by pipelines.”

It other words, Bluegrass Pipeline’s claim of safety would be like saying automobile accidents occur less frequently than bumper-car mishaps, making automobile travel safer---all the while ignoring the fact that automobile wrecks result in a much higher loss of life.

The online source, LEO Weekly, raises another question about the possibility of such an accident in Kentucky: “Hypothetically, a large pipeline accident that cuts through the heart of the bourbon trail could be devastating for the industry.”

It may seem far-fetched, but it does point to another potential problem: A rupture in the pipeline could damage Kentucky’s bourbon industry.

I doubt that the nuns are too concerned about the possibility of danger to bourbon, unless of course the whiskey could be converted to holy water---for holiness seems to be the motive for the nuns’ objection to the pipeline.

The pipeline would impact three counties in Kentucky known as the “Holy Lands of Kentucky.” They are referred by that name because the first Catholics who came into Kentucky were among the first settlers from the coastal colonies in 1775, and the three counties, Marion, Nelson, and Washington, not only have significant Catholic populations, but the Catholic communities of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, the Cistercian monks of Gethsemani Abby, and the Sisters of Loretto, are all located there.

Although Loretto member Susan Classen has indicated the pipeline would desecrate “Loretto’s sacred land,” the Sisters also believe all land is holy. “This isn’t me standing with someone else who is the victim of corporate greed.  This is us and the land entrusted to us that the corporation thinks can be gobbled up at will,” said Classen.

The Sisters would agree, I’m sure, that this world of ours is still, as another Christian hymn says, “my Father’s world.” We have sullied it; we have abused it; we have pillaged it. But it is still God’s creation, and the Christian community, being the salt of the earth, should stand as a restraining force against the further degradation of our environment.

And so the nuns sang of amazing grace. Amazing grace will be necessary if the proposed pipeline for natural gas liquids is halted.

The nuns may be too few in number and too short on financial resources to successfully oppose Bluegrass Pipeline.

But they have another line to Another Source.

A truly Amazing One.

No, I really wouldn't underestimate these people.

What I learned from my father-in-law

They let her know he wasn’t her “real” dad when she was a little girl.

It stung, at least for a while. “I always thought I was my daddy’s ‘real’ little girl. I guess I was afraid that might change.”

But it didn’t. Not even for a moment.

This dad---legally her stepdad until he adopted her--- treated her as his own, no different than he did her two younger siblings, his biological children. Like a “real” dad, he made her take out the trash, set the table for dinner, clear it afterwards, clean her room.

And come home on time.

I know because I dated her in high school; Lori, her daddy’s real little girl, would later become my wife. And back then, I knew that 11 o’clock p.m. meant 11 o’clock p.m. to George Wilburn, Lori’s father.

He seemed like her real dad to me.

That’s because he was and still is.

He was there for Lori whenever she needed him, like the time she needed help finding a part time job for the summer, or when she ran out of gas in her Volkswagen, or couldn’t find a ride home after school, or when she broke up with her boyfriend.

I respected George back then, just as I do now, because he honored his family, standing by his kids no matter what they did---even when he had to discipline them in the process.

Observing the way he acted toward his own children, I was the fortunate recipient of the wisdom he shared with them.

“People tend to get more work done when they start early,” he liked to say. George was usually at the coffee shop by 5 a.m. and at work by 6 a.m.

“You’ll be able to count your true friends on one hand.” I didn’t believe him when he said that, but how true it’s proven to be.

“When you take some time for yourself, you’ll be more effective at work.” For years George was an avid golfer because that was something he enjoyed. The same was true for fishing. It would take a while, but I eventually learned the importance of that proverb.

Now, all these years later, George has lost a step, maybe two, and after two hip replacements, golfing can be painful.

And the shine in his eyes appears at times to have faded to a glimmer.  

And though he’s still quicker than I am with his wit, George’s retorts may not be as snappy as they once were. (I still smile when I recall the time George was looking for a place to park his motor home after he and Ruth Ann, my mother-in-law, had driven here for Lori’s and my wedding. When I mentioned to the owner of the park, who had no idea that George was to become my father-in-law, that I was a preacher, the man teased George, “You never know about preachers.” Quick as a flash, George said, “I’d better know about this one, he’s marrying my daughter tomorrow.”)

And George sometimes struggles with short term memory loss. (But then, so do I)

But one thing hasn’t changed or slowed down: the constancy and celerity with which he expresses his love for his family. He’s still there for them, always and without fail.

When I was in high school, I learned from my future father-in-law how to treat an adopted child, although the lesson would lie dormant for years. After the death of my first wife, I eventually reconnected with Lori. Then we took on the challenge of blending our two families, and I adopted her children.

“What would George Wilburn do?” I would sometimes ask aloud when facing a trying situation.  Although I never heard him say it explicitly, the words would often come to my mind: “Treat them like they’re your own, because they are.”

He had already given me the living life lesson I needed because he had loved Lori just like she was his birth daughter, his “real” little girl.

It’s love and not a name on a birth certificate that makes someone “real.”

I later learned after I had asked Lori for that first date, that George had checked me out with one my football coaches, Butch Brown.

“This David Whitlock, is he okay?”

Thankfully, Coach gave me a decent enough report.

And I did my best not to disappoint.

After all, Lori was George Wilburn’s “real” little girl.