Wrecking Yard...

I visited my mother earlier this evening. It was the second time in two days, although it was the first and only time in those two visits I really got to have any interaction with her.

Unfortunately, when my wife and I got there yesterday she was asleep. Asleep, as in: out of it, mouth open, heavy breathing, asleep.

It was frustrating to say the least. It takes a while to get there depending upon the traffic and the "prize" is being there with her: being there for her... The secondary prize is having her care-givers and nurses always wondering who will show up and when.

You see, my mother is in a skilled nursing/assisted living facility in the San Fernando Valley. The very best facility of its kind, as far as that goes. But, that doesn't mean having her there is any easier. The problem is, she has Alzheimer's and the kind of speech aphasia that generally accompanies it, which means that at this point there is no alternative.

If you've been through anything like this... and, too many of you have; you know exactly what I'm talking about. The difficulties associated with dealing with this condition are difficult enough. So is the level of care necessary, especially because my mother cannot communicate on her own behalf. It takes a lot of care and an almost mystical kind of intuition, the kind of second sight that generally comes with constant companionship. The level of care in the current facility is incredibly good. But, it still isn't the one-on-one care we're used to.

Consequently, separation brings with it a fairly high level of anxiety. That, coupled with a technician's sensitivities (always wanting to "fix" things...) make visiting as close to emotional suicide as you can get and still remain functional. I can't tell you what it feels like to get off the second floor elevator and see the patients stacked in front of the nursing station like the rows of used up and broken cars I'm used to seeing in a wrecking yard.

In a way, I guess this is a fitting metaphor. Everyone there has certainly seen better days. Almost all are pretty well used up. And, it would be safe to say, the majority certainly aren't 'running right.' So, we do the same thing with our elderly that we do with all things no longer useful in our culture: we discard it. We segregate it. We remove it. We eliminate it and limit its ability to distract or depress us.

If that seems harsh I apologize. But, you'll have to prove to me that I'm wrong. Even though I'd like to believe I'm the exception to the rule, my mother is there because I can't care for her at home. I have neither the training, nor the specialized equipment. I don't have easy access to the medical technology necessary to ensure her comfort or health either. And, I don't have the resources to pay for any of that kind of care around the clock. Consequently, I'm trapped.

The fact that I was business partners and best friends with my mother and father for more years than I've been married and I've been married for forty years doesn't help. It just sharpens the edge on the responsibility I feel so deeply every day. So, this is the best of all possible solutions - barring, of course, a complete and totally impossible recovery - in the worst of all possible scenarios...

What does it mean? Nothing, really... It doesn't change a thing. I'm still going to visit and she will still be waiting... kind of like that proud old sedan I saw at the 'yard' the other day: a remnant of gentler times and a more elegant era, when people were more important than things, and all things weren't 'instant' and disposable.'

Picture This...

I find myself in the interesting position of having two blogs - count 'em: two! While not being exactly sure what to do with either.

What I find most interesting about all this is the more I write, the more I want or need to write: which is interesting for someone who never kept a "journal" outside the columns I've written which chronicle the past twenty-five years of both my personal and professional lives.

Now, I find myself agonizing over where to place what I've written - whether it 'belongs' on the SchneidersAuto.Net site, or here on the CaptainCarFix.blogspot.com site. I know... Ridiculous! Especially, when no one is following either! But, "agonize" I will, nevertheless.

I will probably consolidate both into one and then proceed from there... In the meantime, here is something I've just posted on the Schneider's site along with some interesting images of a time gone by. They have a lot to do with me, my Dad, our shop and another era... What they really have to do with are roots: roots that go deep and way back: back to the early 50's and earlier... to four cent a gallon gasoline in a Jewish/Italian neighborhood in Bensonhurst.

***

I don't fancy myself one of those individuals who likes to drown themselves in things nostalgic. It seems like there are far too many things to occupy one's self with in the present to want to dwell in the past.

However, having said that, there are times when it does seem appropriate to take a few minutes to look back, if for no other reason than to see how far you've come. I'm not sure you can, or even should schedule moments like these; it seems to me they would certainly lose a little something if you did. But, every once in awhile something happens that triggers whatever portion of the brain given over to warehousing important memories like these and these multi-dimensional images explode like the cloth-covered, spring loaded, snakes in a circus act.

That's what happened to me late last week while I was going through one of the cabinets at the shop trying to 'make room,' a very weak euphemism for cleaning things up and throwing things out, and came across a folder filled with a number of black & white photos of our Grand Opening, thirty years ago: February 1, 1980.

The rush of memories was overwhelming. So was the sense of loss brought on by the number of people who are no longer with us, not the least of whom is my father. But, as easy as it would have been for that sense of loss to get me down, it didn't...

Why? Because, there is a lot of history packed into those thirty years: social, cultural, political and personal history. There are values deeply embedded in our company that reflect who my father was and what was important to him: the way he lived his life both personally and professionally.

I'd like to share some of these with you over the next few weeks and months as I reflect on where we are and where we are going. I think they are important not only from their 'historical perspective,' with regard to our company... because they tell the story of how got here. I think they are important culturally, so we don't lose our way as we close the book on the first decade of the 21st Century.

THE WORLD BETWIXT AND BETWEEN...

I spend a lot of time in the uncomfortable world that exists between the real and the ideal… a world suspended somewhere between imagination and experience. Perhaps, too much time if I made the choice to honestly assess where I am and what I am doing at any given moment during the day or at night.

That isn’t to say I’m an escapist or that I’m not tethered tightly to the real world. I am definitely not an escapist. I’m not running away from reality. I’m just trying to bend it a little. And, yes, I am tethered to the real world: tightly tethered! But, that doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about ways that world could be or should be, either. Frankly, I think we should all be doing a lot more of that kind of thinking.

I'm a realist: a pragmatist. I have to be. I work on automobiles and trucks: or, at least, I did for most of my adult life. Now, I run an automotive repair shop... Or, it runs me! I have employees. I have responsibilities. I have kids: grown kids, but still my kids, nevertheless.

I am a senior contributing editor with two deadlines a month. In other words, I have all the real world anyone could want... or, handle. Maybe that's why I am continually drawn to the world of "Could Be" or "Should Be:" a world of theory, a world of supposition and conjecture.

So, you won't hear me complaining a lot. Nor, would I expect anyone to listen if I did. This is where I choose to live.

It is a world of books and magazines and articles and lectures and seminars, written and presented by a host of individuals, most of whom I’m not sure I agree with all the time: hence, the discomfort.

Why do it if it makes you uncomfortable? Well, because… Because, it forces me to think and by thinking I improve the quality of my living: the quality of my life, despite the discomfort. In other words, most of the time it is time well spent and proves more than worth it!

And, the pain? Well, the pain comes from continually trying to move the needle, raise the bar, in my industry: the automotive service industry. The pain comes from continually trying to explain the inexplicable to a motoring public with little patience and less interest; from trying to improve the current reality of shop owners and technicians in a culture that does not appreciate the important role we play in ensuring personal mobility and freedom, and reinforces the fact that I am still here, still alive…

Living between the real and the ideal does something else for me, I guess. It just about guarantees that I will never have to wonder about my existence… The pain is a constant reminder I'm still here, and the other side of that pain; the satisfaction and the joy experienced when you are successful and someone who has read what you have written, listened to what you have said, thought about what you have suggested, joins you in the world betwixt and between because they realize as you do, it is the bridge between the past and the present: a bridge between the present and the future! And, you realize, you finally have a little company!

Because It Gives Me Peace...

I'm relatively new to this 'Blogging' stuff.

I tried my hand at it in August... unsuccessfully.

I really didn't have a handle on what it was supposed to be all about, but that didn't stop me. Although, it probably should have. I was subsequently inspired to try again by my son who is more or less keeping an electronic journal of his preparation for the 2010 Tempe Ironman event, Seth Godin and Tom Peters.

Reading my son's blog (theironmadman.blogspot.com) and becoming addicted to Seth Godin's have helped me to understand that there is no right or wrong way to go about this which has in turn quieted my perfectionist neuroses to a manageable level: You know, that not so small voice that demands everything you do is done flawlessly lest someone find out you are somehow less than you appear to be... somehow less than you think they might think you are.

Did I just say that out loud?

The result of of this exploration has me taking another run at it, first on my company's website: schneidersauto.net, and then again here. Realistically, I haven't decided if the content will be the same, similar or different. You know, one focused on our automotive service business, the automotive aftermarket, broken cars and broken people: more or less the heart and soul of the columns I have written to the industry for the past twenty-five years, and my 'other life...' the one that begins and ends on the other side of the driveway at 607 E. Los Angeles Avenue; a world of family, friends, kids and community.

Realistically, it isn't all that easy to separate the two. I lean toward obsessive/compulsive behavior... a lot. And, tend to carry my professional life home with me every night and every weekend mixed in with the stack of papers and folders I drag back and forth every night. In fact, I'm sitting here right now bracketed by one of the 6 1/2" x 9" spiral notebooks I've started carrying everywhere on the left pull-out writing surface of my desk, and that five-inch stack of papers and folders I just mentioned, crying out for attention on my right.

It's Sunday and I just finished watching a digital recording of the The Sunday Morning Show, something that has more or less become a ritual around here: a recording because I refuse to get up at "0:Dark:thirty" in the morning to watch it when it actually airs, and a ritual because it is something that both my wife and I take great pleasure in doing together.

The motivation for this post is something that was said upon the conclusion of this week's episode and my subsequent response. After my wife and I finished talking about what we had just finished watching, I got up and started toward my office. She asked where I was going and I told her, although there aren't all that many choices in the small, 4-bedroom tract house referred to with love as "the Baronial Estate," purchased new thirty-six years ago.

She asked me why... And, I told her I was heading to my office to write. After all, that's what writers do.

She asked me why... And, without a second thought, I replied... "Because it gives me peace!" And, at that moment I achieved a blinding insight into something a dear friend and client said to me more years ago than I care to remember... "Work is prayer..."

Suddenly, I realized that work is prayer and that the purpose of prayer is to elevate; to communicate with powers in the universe greater than one's self. And, that through this dialogue we can achieve peace - Or, at least, I can: if not on demand, then, at least, at times! And, even though I may be writing about something that happened in the "real" world, the world in which I struggle to confront every day - the very act of writing about it transforms whatever it was that happened into something somehow more objective: something, somehow less personal and subjective. And, there is a very real kind of peace to be found in that simple transformation. There is a very real peace to be found in moving from the direct to the indirect...

So, in a way, my ultimate reason for my return to blogging is somewhat selfish: it is at least in part a search for the kind of peace most of us are probably struggling to find. In another, it is totally altruistic: altruistic in the sense I hope that by sharing my search with you, you may discover a door or a window leading to the kind of peace you are struggling to find.

Who knows... We may even find what we are looking for together. But, right now, it's time to pray: time to work for the peace I seek! In other words, I have a deadline to meet...

More later...