My History with the Tomato

How can anyone have a history with a tomato?

I think I do. I will let you be the judge and jury while I present the evidence.

My evidence doesn't begin in the beginning. I begin when I was 9 years old, in the 4th grade at Lincoln School in Muscatine. This was our first year after losing the family farm in March, 1938, living near Muscatine.  Now Dad had rented an 80 acres bordering Weed Park on the road called "lover's lane." Our main crops were going to be tomatoes for H. J. Heinz, a ketchup factory processing and bottling ketchup, along with field corn. Both crops became a disaster ending our living on the 80 acres.

More explanation for the disaster is needed. I'll start with the tomatoes. We may have planted five acres or more. Memory does tell me if I helped plant but memory does say I helped keep the weeds down and especially pick the tomatoes putting them in hampers (half bushel baskets) and then on the horse drawn wagon. With a load we went to the factory where they were received and each basket dumped on a tray where workers could examine them to see if they were acceptable. Unfortunately many were rejected. A wet year with too much rain had left many rotting in the field and we had to pick carefully. Often we did not pick carefully enough and the crop was a wipe out. 

My pleasure in this wipe out had been to see a ripe tomato the right size, wipe it off, and eat it on the spot. It must have been good since I had more than one. 

This morning while eating a couple tomato sandwiches using tomatoes from our garden, reminiscing took over, and I remembered that tomato patch in Muscatine and the H.J. Heinz factory and the lost crop while enjoying eating tomatoes at the same time. There might be a paradox here someplace. Now I am reminiscing more as there is more to the story/stories. Tomatoes are the Mississippi River with other stories serving as tributaries.

I grew up in a garden. In the depression of 1930's with few commercial toys or sand box my toys and play area were garden centered. Pulling weeds, hoeing, and helping harvest were some of my chores. After finishing my education, getting married, and starting a family with a house we called our own, I began to garden again on a small scale. A tomato plant was often enjoyed. 

Upon retiring as a hospital chaplain I became even more serious about gardening. I was out in the country with a lake home. I began small but soon I had a 20' x 60' garden fenced in to keep the rabbits out. They still got in. The fence was four foot high and they could jump the fence. Rabbits and cats come from the same family.

I always had different tomato varieties, from cherry too large. Even a heirloom from time to time. From early days we left the tomato plant to grow on the ground but now I stake them up.

Fast forward to the present, my first wife died while were at the lake. I lived and gardened alone missing my partner who knew what to do with the produce. Then unexpectedly I met an amazing lady who grew up in a large family with a big garden. Green beens were her favorite.

Her home had a large yard with a sizable garden flat on the ground. Both of us were getting older so she decided to landscape with four raised beds 8' x 20'. The landscaper filled the beds with a combination of good growing soil. Worm castings were included. The first year our plants created a jungle. Now four years later we have plants producing like I have never seen, i.e. the tomatoes, pepper, and string beans. We know the varieties we like and they are the varieties we plant. With two three tiered grow light most plants grow from seeds. We are organic gardeners. I grow lettuce under the grow lights more than planting them outside.

This year the celebrity tomato had been hybridized. they are a little larger fruit with plants that are heavy producers. With the first frost holding off I hope to have a number of tomato sandwiches before the freeze and then more as the green ones ripen.

Since my partner has canned a number of jars of tomato sauce we will continue to have our tomatoes during the winter.

There are some additional tributaries, more history with the tomato waiting to be told. I could end up doing a commercial for H. J. Hienz.

Marlin Whitmer, Board Certified Chaplain, retired.

 

A Unitive Relational Spirituality.

 

I am asking myself, listening within, “Is there anything else?”

 

The heart as the heart of listening and spirituality is a beginning.

 

As we learn more about the Vegas nerve connecting mind, heart, and gut we can say we listen with our whole being. And the Greek word parakaleo, a called one alongside, i.e. Befriender, comes into relevance.

 

St. Paul with all his skill as a lawyer and word smith used the word nine times in five verses. His way of expressing a unitive relational spirituality.

 

2 Corinthians

^1:3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort (Befriending), ⁴ who comforts (Befriends) us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort (Befriend) those in any trouble with the comfort (Befriending) we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort (Befriending) abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort (Befriending) and salvation; if we are comforted, (Befriended) it is for your comfort (Befriending), which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort (Befriending).

 

As we continue to learn more about our physiology we learn more about the Incarnation and our spirituality. As we view unity and oneness, a step forward was made by Hans Selye when the immune system was seen as two track. Specificity and non-specificity. Our antibiotics now acknowledge this. We have a both-and which brings unity and modifies either or since both-and brings balance. I think the Benedictines recognized balance and the researchers of the book Metaphoria included balance as one of the deep metaphors. 

 

 

 

Women’s Professional Basketball and Cultural Wars

The career of Caitlin Clark provides a pleasant diversion from the divisions my life faces in the political and cultural realm. That is what I thought in the begining. I soon found out differently. Conflict is an ever present shadow that is now casting its spell on Women's Professional Basketball.. the devil, diabola, is ready to piggy back on every new situation. And Caitlin provides a new situation as I will attempt to show over time. 

Some background

My wife and I were present at the game In Iowa City, the 20^th of February, 2023, where she broke the record for the number of baskets made in the Big Ten. She did that in the first three minutes of the game against Michigan with two 3’s and a layup. She had 47 points that game.

 

My blog will be divided into two parts as I slowly work on the writings. The first will cover her college days and the second her professional. I am starting with her professional career.

 

As a professional she will be a rookie for a year. Already in five games she is the leading scorer for Indiana Fever and she has the most assists without the team winning any games so far. They have come close in the last two games. Within three points. Clark is correcting her turn overs. Two in the last game compared to ten in one game.

 

While she continues to work on improvement being guarded well by her opponents, she is making history off the court. Her latest recorded in the Quad City Times is a contract with Wilson Sports to be an advisor on basketball equipment. The amount she will make was not given but it definitely is an ongoing project. 

 

More to follow. This is an ongoing project as women’s basketball, college and professional, will never be the same. Caitlin Clark has introduced a new day. The attendance records and 

the increase in tickets sales are bringing a new day. All will benefit.

I am behind in my writing, age 94 is not a speedy time of life, energy disappears in a sudden hurry. I shall return with the crisis of June 1 with a flagrant foul by a player from New York Liberty against Clark. A foul that wasn't called during the game but afterwards during a review. This happening has set off a "firestorm." Now there is a metaphor.

The date is now June 20 and a cultural war has appeared among the players. So much for what I thought would be quiet and peaceful. Clark remains somewhat quiet about the cultural, concentrating on what she want to do. I want to play basketball. As a black players said in response to her quietness, "we do not have that luxury." To Be continued.

the financial figures will be an indication of the change. 

March Madness: Basketball 2024

 The metaphors are different this year since Caitlin Clark has changed the way women's basketball is being played and watched. A few of the metaphors she has generated are entertainment and circus.

The records she has broken are phenomenal. And the records for attendance provides another broken record not only at Iowa but in the other Big Ten schools as well. Folks went to see Caitlin. 

Fran McCafry, the Hawkeyes Men Basketball coach says she is a "generational player." A player like Caitlin appears once in a generation. She has the highest number of 3 point shots on record in a year.

Annie and I went to Iowa City, to the Carver Field House, to see her play in a game against Michigan. We were fortunate to get tickets at a good price. We were in row 6, center of the court.

Fran McCaffry the Iowa Men's coach was in the row ahead of us at the end seat. 

At the start of the game Caitlin only need 8 points to make a record. She did that pronto with two three's. and a lay up for two points.

She is a tall thin lady, maybe 6' 1', who has strong arms the way she throws the ball across the court to another play who is open. She now holds the records for assists. When she shots for the basket sometime near center court she jump up and shoot. She defies gravity. A number of games the has over ten rebounds, ten assists, and an average of 27 points, most of the time more than that. How about 37. 

We are down to the sweet sixteen for the women's games. 

There will be more.

Shalom,

Marlin. I have been watching basketball since high school, 1945-7 Murray Weir was the outstanding player in our high school. Who went to Iowa and became an All American.

Spiritual (mystical) experience

 



Reflecting on a spiritual experience continues. What was the setting?  What were the outcomes, still continuing.

The year was 1973, the third Sunday in March, and I was the guest celebrant at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Bettendorf, Iowa. The next day I would be leaving for Atlanta, GA, where the College of Chaplains would gather for their workshops. I was scheduled to give a paper on the training of lay people to be story listeners in a hospital setting. We began in 1966 and I now had enough experience to let others know about our adventure.

Since I could not find other like programs in the journals I was anxious about the reception. During the prayer of Consecration and the words “he took bread, gave thanks, and broke it”. I lost my voice. I could not speak. My mind went into a life review of rejections.  I don’t know the length of time, enough time for many in the congregation to start wondering if I was getting sick, faint, etc. Then I heard a distinct voice and words. “Broke is not the last word.” My voice came back and I finished the service. The paper was well received. A chaplain across the river in Illinois asked to join me in training lay people for his hospital. We worked together for five years and wrote a book at the request of Howard Clinebell who came to do several workshops for clergy and laity in the community.

The words and experience were the beginning of a creative pastoral adventure culminating (2013) in a six session DVD on the Healing Power of Story Listening. The art of listening for metaphors became the key for the spirituality of deeper listening. The initial words are also metaphorical, moving to different life events, my mantra for living in crisis, grief, conflict, any transition. They are meno. “He in us and we in Him” from John’s Gospel.

Marlin Whitmer, BCC (Ret.)

Florence Nightingale: Observations Make a Difference

On August 12th, we remember Florence Nightingale in our Episcopal Church Year Calendar. My years as chaplain generated interest in the founder of modern nursing, often called “the lady with the lamp” from her work in the military hospital in Turkey during the Crimean War.

What few realize: she was a religious mystic. Two mystical experiences set the course for her life. A call to service at age 17 brought great frustration on two fronts. The first was service with nothing specific and the second was her land-owning family who sought the social life for her as prescribed at that time. It was near age 30 when another mystical experience in Egypt gave resolve and specifics, “service without reputation.” “Think only Thy will.” She connected with Jesus beginning his mission at 30. 

 

Her desire to be a nurse brought great resistance from her family. Nurses not part of a Religious Order were either prostitutes or drunkards. She refused to be a slave to marriage and a social life. She would be “nailed,” her word.

 

This resistance from family and her inclination brought on periodic depressions, suicidal thoughts, and trance like states of dreaming she called her enemy. Friends of the family would step in to revive her by furthering her interest in the world at large. She was well traveled, France, Italy, Germany, Egypt, and Greece by age 30.

 

Her father home schooled his daughters in a classical education, including his interest in mathematics. This resulted in Florence becoming an early statistician using research and numbers to make her point and convince others. Her image as the lady with the lamp and getting nursing started during the Crimean war overshadows her huge accomplishments over a fifty year period afterwards. She sought the numbers, studied the numbers, and used the numbers to argue for change in lowering the death rates in hospitals, among soldiers in the army, the slums, and in child birth. She was concerned about prevention and collected data on diet, sanitation, ventilation, over crowding, helping found the Red Cross, the Geneva Convention, etc. She developed the first pie chart diagram to prove her points.

 

She influenced the health in England, Africa, and India. In England nurses under her direction started public health. She even influenced health care in Davenport, Iowa, indirectly, as Miss Craig Anderson, head nurse and administrator of St. Luke’s Hospital for 20 years, was English trained. When I started as chaplain some still remembered the hymn singing and worship before nurses started their morning duties.

 

As late as the early 1900’s nursing was not thought of as a socially acceptable occupation in Davenport. When St. Luke’s hospital began and a school of nursing was formed they kept the name of the nursing school separate to not reflect on the hospital. I am talking about changes within the last 150 years. 

 

For Florence Nightingale we are talking about changes that met with powerful resistance from the military doctors and politicians of her day. The changes made in her time were accomplished by a few influential people working within a society that wanted to keep things as they were. 

 

Upon her return from the war her health was such that most of her work was done from her house and bed. I am sure we would call her condition post traumatic stress syndrome today. People still came to her for council and direction and she wrote copious notes, letters, and books to communicate her concepts and always with plenty of statistics to back them up. She lived to be 90 dying in 1910. Her grave has a simple cross with her initials and the two dates: born 1820 and died 1910.

 

My remarks about Florence Nightingale are all too brief. The Scripture chosen for her day is most appropriate.

 

       Isaiah 58:6-11  Matthew 25:31-46 Psalm 73:23-29

 

Special prayers and thanks for all the health care workers who served through the pandemic. The stressful times cost lives and those living. The stats apparently are 2.3 million retired, etc. The nursing shortage will take some time to recover and the experience lost even longer. Hard to measure the loss from experienced nurses except it is real and makes a difference.

Prayer for Florence Nightingale: Life-giving God, you alone have power over life and death, over health and sickness: Give power, wisdom, and gentleness to those who follow the lead of Florence Nightingale, that they, bearing with them your presence, may not only heal but bless, and shine as lanterns of hope in the darkest hours of pain and fear; through Jesus Christ, the healer of body and soul, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Shalom,

Marlin Whitmer, B.C.C. (ret.)

 

 

Fitness Exercise at age 93

I had a number of session with a physical therapist to help me deal with balance. Neuropathy made balance an added challenge. I have given up wearing socks so the numbness is a little closer to the ground. This provides me with more assurance whether it is true or not. What I did take away from the physical therapy was the need to strengthen my leg muscles and core.

The Fitness Center I had attended for 7 years closed. The city of Bettendorf decided it was too expensive even though a sizable number of elderly retired attended as well as a middle age group doing pickle ball. We went to a public hearing. But that was a farce. You could tell the decision had been made. The YMCA bought the building for a gymnastics program. It took me some time to decide to go the the big Y in Bettendorf.   The building is overwhelming. I did get a membership but I didn't use any of their equipment.  I decided to go the the new Y in Davenport which was funded in part by the Bechtel Trust. The new Y is a beauty. I knew the Bechtel. Marie Bechtel had been a Befriender at the hospital.

The membership at the Y, paid by health insurance, allowed me two free sessions with the fitness trainer. The first 1/2 hour was a review of my health. The second was an introduction to the resistance machines he recommended. He directed me to the machines he said would be best. We started with three that worked on my leg muscles. He said you start with the long muscles. Then four for my mid section, shoulders, and chest. Last were the two machines were for triceps and biceps .  What I discovered when I starting doing the exercises twice a week on my own. I was forget the breathing in and out part. I have made the correction. I am starting to experience an energizing at the end of the exercise time. That is what I was hoping for.

I will meet with him again in a month to review and get further instructions.

My schedule is adding a three day week,Monday, Wednesday,  and Friday. I am working on a time of day. The place is busy with younger people by and large. A very diverse group. After 10 AM and after 3 PM seem to be times when fewer people are present. Many exercise in pairs or if alone they seem to need the iPhone for a longer break. That means waiting for the next machine at time. Amazing how many people seem to be addicted to the iPhone.

Since I have only been at the Fitness Center for a couple months I have much more to learn and discover in terms of benefits. What I can say, I strongly recommend the activity for myself. While gardening provides movement and enjoyment my muscles do not get the workout they seem to need.

I sometimes wonder about growing up on a farm where there was a lot of physical labor even for a boy, carrying buckets of feed, shelling corn with a corn sheller, etc., establishes that need and frequency at an early age. I am talking about the 1930's and 40's. Then athletics in high school, wrestling and track. Not much physical activity during college. Although I did get a Red Cross Life Saving certificate and served as a life guard for church camps. Seminary did have flag foot ball and an a required afternoon for a work detail. That did turn out to be fairly heavy after the hurricane went through our campus with 40 acres of timber.

After seminary and out in a parish I went to the Y and took up hand ball. That put me in shape. When I came to Davenport Paul Mendy and I became the doubles champions one year. At age 52 in a tournament I strained my sternum. I decided to hag up the gloves and take to bike riding. 

I could take long rides out into the country in the evening after work at the hospital.

After retiring as a hospital chaplain and moving to a lake home there was a great five mile ride to another town on a back road. The total ride made 10 miles with breakfast in between. My wife and I were going to the Fitness center in DeWitt. She went to a water exercise group and then beach ball water pollo. They seemed to do a lot of laughing as I walked around the track.

After her death I kept the fitness routine. Now remarried, my retired Army Nurse, is also into exercise as part of retirement. Mutual support is an added advantage.

More to learn and experience. The body is a teacher as well. Since I have periodic bladder scopes that have led to five surgeries to remove tumors I know how weak you can feel after a surgery. The physical therapy provided some specifics but the fitness center has helped to restore strength as muscle loss increases with age.

Three times a week isn't working out. I will stay with two times. 

I am on a continuing journey, stay in touch.

Marlin Whitmer, BCC, ret.