PMA Is Not The Only Answer

One of my favorite music groups, a band called "Bad Brains," recorded a song called "PMA."  PMA equals Positive Mental Attitude.  Many people have made comments about PMA.  Surely if you expect things to go poorly, it just might happen.  This could be called a "self fulfilling prophecy."  It is also possible to achieve what you want without a reasonable expectation of a positive outcome, meaning that you might have a so-called negative attitude.  PMA is harder to achieve a desired outcome all on its own.  Negative outcomes usually follow lack of action and take form of the usual way of doing things.  Success requires work, not laziness.  You have to do something, not just hope for things to happen.

 

Think of all the obstacles you have.  You think of the advantages that other people possess.  You feel sorry for yourself.  You obsess about the things that you do not own.  That is your selection, your "problem."  Life is full of choices.  There is no reason that you cannot make your life be the best that it can be or into the life that you want to have, within reason.  

 

I could be wrong but I feel like I have worked hard for everything that I have.  Besides my family, community, and schools, no one set me for success.  Yes, I had some help, do not get me wrong.  In examining my life up until the time that I moved to Los Angeles, my character was defined when I made mistakes or when I had to push through difficult circumstances.  When I began to work as a full time employee, I was lucky at different times in my career to have had a few individuals give me a break here and there.  None of that would have been possible without my work ethic. 

 

Make your life the ultimate that it can be, at this particular moment.  Wallowing in pity will not get you to where you want to be.  None of this is new information yet it must be repeated because I have met numerous people who have not accepted that it is up them.  We might be looking for an easy way out or a knight in shining armor to fix what needs fixing.  We cut corners.  As my mom used to say to cheaters: "you're only cheating yourself."

 

I hear “but there is no time, I am so busy.”  That is nonsense.  There is always time.  The problem is that the time you need is right now.  There are two things that you are not able to save up they would be sleep and time.  Save your money, but spend your time.  Whatever it is that you need to do is doable now.  Turn off your Grateful Dead internet radio station and get your work done!  You know who you are.

 

There are advantages that we have that we are not exploiting.  There are people that have done more with less.  I watched television the other day and there was a story about a blind man who was a football player at the University of Southern California.  There is a gymnast who has no legs, young people who are wrestlers who are missing limbs, and Veterans returning from wars with PTSD.  Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey failed several times in their careers.  I think Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Walt Disney all went bankrupt in their lifetimes.  I found out that Jim Carrey's family was homeless when he was a kid.

 

As they say the grass always seems greener on the other side of the hill.  I do not know about you but I would like to make more money.  This is a reasonable desire in life.  Every now and then we are going to test the waters, just to see what our value might be to other companies.  You apply for other jobs.  Most of us might look for the same job somewhere else mainly because we do not like the low amount of respect that we feel we are given.  In the career market over the last few years, it is an accomplishment just to be called for an interview.  When I have been interviewed over the last few years, I failed to perform up to the level of my expectations.  I surprised myself in my failure because, as a manager, I interview candidates for jobs all the time.  Normally I am the hiring manager, not the other way around.

 

My failures as of late has led me to think about my life experiences with a degree of clarity and perspective.  A few years ago I decided to write about the art of the interview, with the hope that I might improve my skills and effectiveness in acquiring the job of my dreams.  When I started to write a book about interviews, I ended up writing about the parts of life that led me to fatherhood.  It was like being a dad took over, and boy, did it ever.

 

My latest joke that I like to tell is that unfortunately, I chose the right career for me, the food business.  One interview question that I fouled up once was: "how did you decide to work in restaurants?"  My answer was: "I don't know I just sort of started working in a restaurant, and one thing led to another."  Dumb answer, right?  This was not exactly what happened.  I was cognizant as a youngster that I was going to be working in business whether it was in management, marketing or in restaurants.  I did not know many people who would make that decision, but I did.  

 

One day in the 1990s I was bussing tables in a restaurant.  On a slow day I recall watching O. J. Simpson in his white Bronco racing down the freeway.  For some reason I was having a conversation with a waitress that was working there.  We were talking about the food business and she mentioned that working in restaurants was a good way to make money because people would always need to eat.  That comment struck me for some reason.  Another day the boss left me alone and told me to lock the door behind me when I left.  That made me realize that I could actually be a restaurant manager.

 

Whenever I have set my goals and went after what I wanted, I have been successful.  One can achieve any realistic goal they choose given time and effort.  I have heard many people say this and I agree.  Going after what you want is more difficult than figuring out what you really want.  Taking the steps to achieving goals is fairly simple.  It just takes time, dedication, and character.  None of that is new but there are people that need to hear that again.  

 

One thing I will say that other people might not say is that just having a good attitude is not the absolute best way to achieve your goals, simply by itself.  I hear people say: "all you need is a good attitude," as if that is a magic wand of problem solving.  You also have to do something.  Attitude alone will not carry you over the finish line, but it can help.  It can really help.  At the least having a good attitude would not hurt.

 

I have accomplished many things without ever thinking that it would really happen because I just kept going, determined to carry out the process.  I suppose I did not always have the best attitude because often people around me, and I am not referring to my family, did not believe that I could do it.  They did not have faith.  People just repeat to you that you will fail over and over.  Those maroons who did not think that I was worth their time were the ones with the bad attitude.  Perhaps that thinking was only in my head, but it was there for some strange reason.

 

My philosophy is to do what needs to be done until someone stops me.  If you are focused on achieving your goals, someone will tell you that you have a bad attitude at some point.  Why do you have to work so hard, they might say?  Can’t you just smile?  If you are constructive they will say that you are negative.  

 

Any criticism is like saying everything is terrible to many people.  Can you meditate, pray, or wish your way to the life that you want?  You can, to an extent, but sitting on your couch will not help you go far.  There is no substitute for plain old fashioned hard work.  Staring at Facebook all day will not change your life.  Do not expect anyone outside of your family to care about your goals.

 

My early experiences set me up to achieve success and to deal with failure.  When I was a kid I wanted to work.  Everyone told me not to work so hard but I did anyway.  I wanted to work to help my family, though my parents did not request my help.  My mom worked two or three jobs to support our family until she finally retired in the early 1990s.  There were meals in our home that came from a garbage can when I was a kid, I am not ashamed to say.

 

My family did not have enough money to make ends meet when I was growing up.  One of the primary reasons for this was due to their interest in music.  Music does not pay well.  When my son refuses to eat his dinner in a restaurant because he would rather just fast forward to dessert, I might remember when my family would buy one dinner and then we would split it four ways.  I do not know what it is like in your home, but when I was a kid, we only had enough money to pay the bills and buy groceries for the first two weeks of the month.  After that it was a struggle to make it to the next pay-day.

 

I played a famous real estate board game against myself because I was obsessed with management when I was a kid even though I did not know what management was.  I owned imaginary businesses, mowed lawns, collected cardboard, sold Christmas trees, worked in a cotton candy wagon, and provided customer service at taco selling drive-throughs.  I was trained to work in almost every job in the restaurant business well before the time that I earned my undergraduate degree.  This did not leave much time for student council or the French club.  

 

Around the the time that I began junior high school I knew that I would need to take care of myself.  Earning my own money would be the way that I could do that.  I saw that people in the community that I grew up in were generous.  I was thusly influenced to help my family when I earned my first paycheck.  I was determined.  Still am.  Always will be.

 

I had my obstacles but that only fueled my desire to do what I wanted to do.  The best way to motivate me was to tell me I could not do something.  I love that feeling of proving people wrong.  IN YOUR FACE is my favorite victory song.  I am still told by people that I had exceeded their expectations.  This is a strange compliment because that says they must have thought poorly of me.  “Before I worked with you I thought you were a loser and so did everyone else.”  Thanks for the compliment, not.  

 

When I was in high school, the one failure that was my personal fault was in accepting that a person could not be a good student and be an athlete.  I faked my way through school while I dedicated myself to sports.  That was an error and I spent the next few years making up for that when I graduated.  I barely graduated high school with a c minus grade point average.

 

 The one advantage that superseded my life's barriers was the help that I had from my family, aside from materialism.  They were behind me even while they told me not to work so hard.  I always survived adversity solely from working hard both in school and in work.  I struggled in community college, almost flunking out in my first year, only to turn everything around to the point that I had applied to go to UCLA a few years later.  

 

At the end of the day my family was always there for me no matter what I did.  If I only had a good attitude, none of this would have been possible.  No matter how much you try to have a good attitude the majority of people do not.  People tend to have negative emotions and that is something that one will have to work around if you want to get anything done in life, even with the best attitude ever.

 

My dad was cursed with torment from losing his parents when he was a teenager in the 1940s.  He used to ask God why He did that to him.  I think it was a fair question.  At some point my dad developed a slightly bad attitude or a bitter outlook.  I can fully understand why he felt that way.  My dad was homeless, jobless, and without a family.  I do not think that my dad ever gave up, bad attitude or not.  People should not be condemned just for having a bad attitude.  My dad was worth saving.  I would not be here right now if my mom did not salvage his life.

 

From the time that I left my parents' home in Orange County to now, I have felt that there was a grey cloud over my head, but I never let that stop me.  That cloud is going away slowly.  Maybe that could be the explanation for having a chip on my shoulder which I readily admit to. I have not always been at my best.  Sometimes I slowed down or forgot about the things that were important to me but eventually I have been able to get back to where I should be.

 

I discovered through self-reflection that a person with a bad attitude can actually be a frustrated person with a passion for what they care about.  If you find a person like that, they can be turned around for the benefit of your team, yourself, your community, and for that person.  Being there for a challenged person can create a best friend for life.  I compare it to taking a splinter out of a lion's paw.  

 

I have tried to discuss what a bad attitude is but to be honest I really do not know what that is.  If you do not go along with everything or if you ask questions you are going to be labeled with the moniker of having a bad attitude.  In life I have been stressed out.  I am not able to hide my expression on my face or my body language when I think something is wrong.  I have been frustrated.  I am emotionally honest.  I see what is possible and I am feel unhappy when my goals are not in reach.  I have only wanted to be my best and that could be misinterpreted as a so-called bad attitude. 

 

I never stopped working.  I have been relentless.  Even the one person in the world that might like me the least would say that I am extremely focused.  The challenges in life never stop and neither should you.  Looking over my life since I graduated from UCLA, there have been many great times and other times were not so hot.  I had some bad years and some good.  2008 to 2009 was not so great.  2014 to 2015 was wonderful.  I can take failure and defeat.  Bad times do not bother me.  The exceptionally difficult part of my life was losing loved ones.  More difficult than that was not being able to have a child.

 

Just as my wife and I almost lost hope the best thing ever happened.  It was all because we persevered.  

Where I Am Coming From

In my family, professionally speaking, there are artists, managers, teachers, musicians, and lawyers.  These individuals are leaders in their respective fields.  My family's background and completing my son's adoption process are the top components so far that inspires the direction of my life.  

 

My work experience is secondary to my family in my approach towards day to day activity, but it is a very close second.  My education is important as far as the direction that my path continues to take me.  I believe that my calling, outside of my family life or working in restaurants, is writing, and it is up to me to be disciplined in my craft.  I am never going to be the next George Orwell or John Steinbeck but I can try.

 

I am not great at being an author but I have fun doing it.  Do what you love, they say.  After many years of neglecting my gift, whatever it is, I have been highly disciplined in it.  I write every day.  I completed one book so far and I have two more that are two-thirds done.  By the time you read this I might have several books published somewhere.  Working the process is all that matters.  It is what I am supposed to do.  This is something that I have to do even if I am not as good at it as much as I would like.  

 

My mom started her work as a one-classroom school teacher in Shasta County in California during the 1950s, and spent the majority of her career in Huntington Beach in the southern portion of the state.  As a woman of her times, I believe that she was a trailblazer and courageous individual in the face of biases.  After ten years as a music teacher she became a fourth grade teacher for the remainder of her career after music was cut from the elementary school system.  

 

In addition to playing in all of the orchestras that my dad was involved with, my mom was a board member of the Arts Board in the city government of Huntington Beach in the 1980s.  She began her college studies in Sacramento, completed an undergraduate degree in Oregon, earned a graduate degree in counseling from the University of La Verne, and obtained her teaching credential at the University of California at Irvine.  Throughout her employment history of almost forty years, my mom privately tutored students, gave private music lessons, and played in orchestras until the age of seventy-eight.  

 

My dad attended a music conservatory in Athens, Greece, during WWII as a young child, a child prodigy.  After the war, he was sent to live in the United States on a scholarship to study at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois.  As a teen-aged orphan he lived and studied with Knut Finney, a violin teacher in Chicago.  Mr. Finney became Dad's official guardian, mentor, and violin teacher.  

 

After he left the Conservatory, my dad's education as a young man was in the United States Marine Corps.  During the Korean War he played drums in the Marine Corps Band.  For all of the upheaval that happened during my dad's life, I credit the Marines with teaching him how to be a survivor.  He was homeless for more than ten years of his life, maybe closer to twenty.  We will never know for sure.  

 

I am proud of my dad's recovery from his misfortune to be the man he became.  In the process of writing this book I became more aware and embracing of my dad's homelessness.  I was not scared to tell people that my dad was homeless, but I can now say that I am actually boastful that he was. He was a refugee, an orphan, and a veteran.  Any one of these circumstances of his life could have caused him to be homeless.  If you put all three of his challenges together, it is no wonder that he ended up living in Macarthur Park in Los Angeles for many years.  My curiosity is not in why or how my dad became homeless, but how he recovered in his life.  For me, that is a lesson to never quit, keep trying, and to always better myself.

 

My dad kept up a regimen of personal hobbies for most of the time that I knew him to stay sharp and active.  He was a reader.  Half of our house was taken over by books or newspapers.  The other half of our house was taken over by musical instruments, music stands, stacks of orchestra music, and vinyl records.  He loved to troll all of the thrift stores for vinyl records many years before it was popular to do so.  He was a painter, liked to assemble small military scenes, and even composed music.  

 

My dad never stopped competing in musical competitions throughout America, even if he did not win.  He was good enough to go head to head with the most talented violinists in the United States.  I am biased but I think my dad was the most interesting man in the world.  It hit me the other day that my dad was a Renaissance man in the truest sense.  He even lifted weight and gave me a passion for pumping iron.  My dad used to go to the old Jack Lalanne fitness gyms that later became known as the "Bally's Fitness Gyms" which were later sold to another company just a few years ago.

 

I do not know very much more about my dad's family in Greece.  I can infer some information from common history that has been reported from the time my dad lived in there but not anything that pertains directly to him.  The fact is that the overwhelming majority of my dad's life was spent in the United States.  Even though his Greek heritage defined much of his early character, he spent most of his life living as an American citizen.

 

My Greek grandfather lived in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1920s and 1930s.  I discovered that it was common for people of Greek heritage to go to the United States to earn their way prior to becoming married.  There were thousands of Greeks that lived in Chicago at that time.  Thousands stayed in Chicago.  Due to this there is a "Greek" town in the Windy City.  Many Greeks still live in the United States, predominantly in the northeast and in Canada.  My Greek grandfather met his wife, a Swedish woman, in Chicago, where my dad was born.  They moved back to Greece, as was the custom, when they formed their family, in the early 1930s.  

 

One of my goals is to find out more about my Greek family.  The war was dramatic for all that lived under the Axis occupation during WWII, an understatement.  As a result of the trauma of the war and the Greek civil war afterwards, there was a humanitarian disaster.  The United Nations and the policies of the Truman Administration moved tens of thousands of children out of Greece.  As a United States-born citizen, my dad was fortunate to be moved to New York after the catastrophe in Greece in the 1940s, and subsequently to Chicago, the place of his birth.

 

Most of Dad's life is unknown until he met Mom when he was in his late thirties.  He was thirty-nine when I was born in the early 1970s.  With Mom's support, Dad started several orchestras in Orange County, California until he was in his sixties.  One of Dad's chamber orchestras appeared on Chuck Barris's "Gong Show" prior to 1980. 

 

Another highlight from Dad's music career was as the concert master of the orchestra at Robert Schuller's Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, in the early-to-mid 1980s.  Dad was a member of various orchestras, as the concert master, over a period of twenty years, including several community colleges.  Music was my dad's life-long vocation and education.  Music chose my dad.  He did not have a choice.  He was a mentor and teacher to many people who were in his orchestras.

 

Mom's family, the Gilroys, includes a line of pioneers, homesteading in Oklahoma during the Great Land Rush.  Her parents were refugees of the Great Dust Bowl in the 1930s.  The Gilroys decided to go west to Sacramento, California from Oklahoma around the time of the Great Depression.  I believe there are still Gilroy relatives living in Oklahoma to this day.  Granpa John Gilroy was a painter and handyman by trade.  Granma Elizabeth Gilroy was an active Baptist.  Uncle John David Gilroy was a lawyer, lobbyist, and a chairman for the Board of Appeals in the California Department of Education.  In addition to other appointments, John was an advisor & lobbyist working for the State Superintendent of Schools.

 

My older sister is a lawyer in the field of worker's compensation in Oregon.  My younger sister, a UCLA Bruin and a graduate from NYU Master’s program in jazz, is a junior high school music teacher in Los Angeles.  My younger sister and I graduated from UCLA together.  I have other family members scattered throughout the Oregon, Washington, and the Midwest.  Most of these family members from the Gilroy family are public high school teachers or university instructors.

 

In my wife's family, there is an expectation that everyone would get the best education that they could possibly get and find the most rewarding career that they could be qualified for.  On this side of the family there are at least six UCLA Bruins, and some our my wife's cousins graduated from Ivy League schools.  I would love to point out that the most impressive quality of my wife's siblings and cousins is that they are excellent parents.  My sisters are excellent parents as well.

 

Given all of the exploits of my family, I am the most proud of, and blessed by, my wife.  She is really too good for me.  When I was a younger man, my primary goals were to be married to a good person who would challenge me in life, to work in business, go to a great college, have a family, and be a good citizen in my community.  My wife is the fulfillment of most of my goals and more.  I hit the jackpot.  She probably got the weaker end of the deal.  I still do not know why she wanted to marry me, but she did.  If I just stopped there, I already exceeded my dreams in life.

 

I cultivated my ability to follow-through on my goals from help from my relationship with my wife.  I was always a courageous person, often stupidly so, but with her support, I feel that I can take on the world.  Bring it on!  My wife is a determined human being.  I am still amazed when she decided to be a school teacher.  One day, my wife figured out that she needed to go back to school for her master’s degree.  A college application was filled out, turned in, she was accepted at Pepperdine University, started to student teach, graduated, and then was hired to be a teacher.  She knew what she wanted and she went after it.  When my wife wants to do something she does not fool around.  She is very tenacious.

 

I was mindful for most of my life that as I evolved, I would pinpoint my life's purpose from relationships that developed over time.  I perceived that one of the most significant relationships that would influence my life would be with my wife.  My wife is my coach, teacher, counselor, strategist, and motivator.  We have been through so much together, but we remain gritty, focused, and goal-driven.  Together, we navigate our careers, earned advanced degrees, grieved deaths, handled infertility, and adopted our son.

 

The main reason that I met my wife was due to the fact that I was in active pursuit of my goals.  I met her when I traveled with my sister for a new student orientation at UCLA.  I was not accepted into UCLA yet, so I tagged along to the orientation for the experience.  My sister was accepted into an Ethnomusicology program at UCLA at the same time with my future wife.

 

My wife had this red curly head of hair that was impossible to miss.  Her hair is kind of her trademark.  Random people go up to her all the time, asking if they can touch her curly locks.  She reminds me of the "the little red-haired girl" from "Peanuts."  I guess that makes me "Charley Brown."  A year later I was accepted at UCLA.  During my first quarter I needed a job and I found one.  I was working at Borders Bookstore in Westwood, where my wife worked by coincidence. 

 

I slung out coffee in the cafe and she was sang along in the music department.  More than fifteen years after we left the company, the day that Borders went bankrupt and finally closed, was a sad one for us.  The store where we worked is a discount clothing store now.  Most of the college students that I work with now do not even know what Borders was.  

 

My first official promotion was as a lead clerk in Cafe Espresso in Borders, which was like a shift supervisor position.  After I graduated from UCLA, I was promoted to the position of Borders Cafe Manager in Cerritos, California.  After a couple years I began working for the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (CBTL), earning my way to the position of General Manager (GM).  Meanwhile, still at Borders, my wife was in management in marketing and music selling.  She was a "Community Relations Coordinator" and later a manager of a music department back when they used to sell things like CDs.

 

As my wife and I began our journey to parenthood, we experienced difficulties.  This led to a lengthy period of personal growth.  This evolution guided us to pursue a path to adoption.  We discovered that adoption through foster-parenting would be the most realistic route for us to take in starting our family.  More than three years after this decision we finally achieved the task of following through on all of the required documentation and court proceedings to realize the adoption of our boy!

 

While we were dealing with the adoption process it felt like it took forever.  Now looking back on it the whole experience seemed to go by pretty quickly.  Our story is much more complicated than that, needing a more detailed explanation as you will find in later chapters.  The concept that I want to express is that you can have an idea of what you want in life but to go after what you will need the support of your family.  You might feel like that it is never going to happen for you, but if you work as a team, it can happen.

 

After we adopted our son, one of my few monumental life goals that I have had was to write a book.  They say to write what you know about.  I was writing at first about interviews, my career, how I became involved in it, and which direction I was heading in.  I was soul searching.  I still do not know where my career is going to be ending up if I were to be totally honest.  The way I have been treated lately I guess I should be lucky to have a job.  

 

I might retire managing coffee shops and taking out trash.  I do not know, it is not a bad thing really.  My hope is that as I write my books I will become better at it.  As each book will be completed, my ability to write them will improve.  One day I hope to write a book that many people might want to read.  In my fantasy future life I can sell enough books to pay off my students loans and maybe earn another degree.  It might sound far-fetched but my imaginary life will become more of a reality with each book I complete.  So get ready.

 

Back in reality as I wrote my book, I hoped a light bulb would go off over my head and I could find my real destination in my work.  What happened was that the entire narrative of my career appeared to shine a light on our odyssey to adoptive parenthood.  The adoption process also motivated me to achieve this work of writing.  I was doing it.  The only validation that i did not have was materialistically based.

 

There have been times in my clock punching when I fell into the temptation of being complacent.  There is "being in the moment" or “mindful” and being complacent.  Complacency is when a person goes along with things, fails to ask if it acceptable to keep everything the same, lives in the same apartment, makes the same amount of money, and wears blinders.  Expressions of complacency might be: "if it is not broken, don't fix it" or "there is no need to reinvent the wheel."  That was me for several years.

 

In the interest of your loved ones, taking an active approach to enriching your life is important.  This might not change everything but you are doing anything you can to make the most that you can out of every day.  My family continues to motivate me to grow, be a better husband, brother, and a great dad.  What is more important than that?  Be the best you that you can be.  Life can be so much more.

 

My hope is that while you read my story you might think about your life and those unfinished dreams that you have had in your life.  Twenty years ago, I could never fully imagine my life as it is right now.  I am totally surprised by what happened in my life when I went beyond my goals and achieved what I thought was impossible.

My Beliefs

When a parent becomes ill or passes away, it may cause you to reassess your life.  Maybe it is better to expect these events to happen and to find a way to be prepared.  Regardless, when a loved one is gone, it is a shock.  You will never be ready when a loss happens.  Even when you know people are slowly dying it is still disconcerting to hear that the person you depended on your whole life is gone. 

 

Though my parents were married late in life, my dad made the most out of being a parent during my childhood, and I can say that he did his best.  I only appreciated this after he was gone when I was able to have a child of my own.  Now I can understand what a great example both of my parants were for me.    

 

A belief in something greater than yourself is reassuring.  Even though I am not a religious person, throughout my life I respected the faith practices of others.  The first course I took in community college was about studying the religions of the world.  My belief in what could be called a higher calling, or my destiny, is the experience of being a parent.  

 

The following information in this chapter could be thought of as my religious education.  My earliest experience with "church" as a kid was that there was a congregation near the local high school on Main Street that set up a drive through nativity scene.  My parents might have taken me to church when I was very young but I could hardly remember that.

 

Another day in the early 1980s we drove by a Lutheran church in our neighborhood one Easter Sunday.  I noticed kids my age in the church yard looking for Easter eggs, so I decided to find out what was going on.  I found out later that Lutheran churches were for German people or others from northern Europe.  My sister and I thought of ourselves as Greek, not thinking of our other identities such as Irish, Scottish, Swedish, or German.  We were derived from all of those backgrounds.  

 

My parents maintained certain values that would be compatible with just about any religion.  Our family was not religious in terms of being committed to a specific belief system or four walls of a church.  I respect all faiths.  When I was a kid I was aware of the other religions that my friends were a part of but I knew that church was not a thing in our family.  Still, we had an open mind to the beliefs of other people, whether we agreed with them or not.

 

One fine Sunday, I attended Lutheran Sunday school at that church that I saw those Easter egg hunters, and I went there for five or six years.  I walked there by myself.  I put on my little suit and walked on over.  I just showed up.  I wonder what they were thinking in that church when I just made myself part of the group.  I did not ask my parents to go or if I could go.  I just left the house.  Later, my parents later became involved in the church's music programs.  They allowed my dad's orchestra to practice in the Lutheran church and perform Mozart every so often for a Sunday program.

 

My family did not consider ourselves to be Lutherans but we were still engaged thusly.  I loved the Lutheran church actually.  I asked to be baptized there.  I was not even ten years old.  To old to really be baptized, but young to make a decision like that for myself.  If my parents were allowed to play their instruments, they would be involved in any church or religious group.  Music was their religion.  My parents loved classical music like Mozart, et al.  The music of the Lutheran church was more or less classical-based, so in that way it was a nice fit for my parents.

 

My parents did not sit in the congregation or handed in money, called tithing by some beliefs.  I think that my dad went to a Greek Orthodox Church once.  He got into an argument with one of church representatives, never going back.  He was not involved in the Orthodox music program, so that was how it was.

 

My parents had friends that were in the Mormon Church, known as the "Church of Latter Day Saints."  My parents were introduced to a family of Mormon sisters from their generation.  The Mormon sisters grew up in Huntington Beach, learning to play music at a very young age.  Naturally, my parents spent a lot of time with this family, and I spent time with their kids.  

 

We are grown up now, maintaining Facebook friendships.  When we were smaller we ran around Mormon churches.  I think they are called temples or visitor centers or I do not really know for sure.  We spent time in the halls of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Ca. a couple miles from Disneyland and Angels Stadium where there were orchestra performances or practices.  While other kids my age were in sports or karate, I was waiting for my parents' orchestra practices to end.

 

Similar to our Lutheran church involvement, while we were not dedicated to a particular religious belief system, these cultures seemed to rub off on how we lived, or our values were similar.  Again, my reference to being conservative is not a political designation.  It is a description of how we lived our lives.  The words "liberal" or "conservative," to me, have lost context or have become decontextualized until the words have become something different.  Conservatism is a way of life.  Liberalism is a political description.  There are a lot of Democrats that I would say were concervative.  I think it is possible to be "conservative" and to be

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Bildmaterialien: All Images are from the Public Domain unless otherwise noted.
Lektorat: Johnathan Pappas
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 06.05.2017
ISBN: 978-3-7438-1135-5

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Widmung:
This is dedicated to my son, my wife, and my parents.