Restringing Guitars and Young Men

                                    Restringing Guitars and Young Men

            Fridays are my day at the local youth correctional facility.  In the morning, I work in their garden, helping young gardeners tend to their chickens, vegetable plots and herb gardens. 

            We plant, weed, water, and harvest, and then preserve and dry the results.  Most every week, we cook, enjoying the bounty of our work, and treating the young men to fresh, nutritious produce and the concept of healthy nutrition and living.

            The real gardening comes in our conversations, the camaraderie of young and older gardeners, working and learning together, truly being in community.   

            They are learning where food really comes from, and how to be invested in that process, being self sufficient and healthy.  The metaphor of the garden is not lost on them, as they work to become strong, healthy, productive farmers of their lives. 

            I also work with some of the young men individually, being the “surrogate parent” and being the visitor they need and wouldn’t have otherwise.  I’m the “family” who shows up with some baked goods or candy, and just visits for an hour.  Sometimes, we play games, but mainly, I just listen, offering the compassionate ear of the uncle or dad who is missing in their lives.

            I’m tender and kind to them, being the encouraging voice, the cheerleader, the supportive dad they wouldn’t otherwise have. 

            Today, one of my young men and I restrung one of the guitars there.  It is a “state” guitar, which means it’s the guitar that gets played by those who don’t have their own instrument.  The guitar is played a lot, and replacing the strings has become a regular task for me. 

The guitar gets loved to death, played hard by lonely, frustrated fingers pouring out the emotions of the neglected and abandoned, the incarcerated, the young men who have no other way of expressing themselves.  I’m like that guitar, a place where the emotions of these young men can have their voice, a willing ear, an appreciative audience for what they need to say. 

            My guy has had a rough year.  He’s one of the lucky ones, not serving a mandatory sentence, a guy who can walk out the door if he’s done all his treatment, completed high school and shown he can be a responsible young man.   

            He literally has the keys to the front gate, but the old voices keep telling him he’s worthless, and should be abandoned and left out for the trash man. 

            Like so many of the young men here, being responsible and healthy is a new experience, and the fear of going back into the world, and being around the family and friends who were a big part of the bad times that brought him here, is one huge scary nightmare of parole. 

            The thought of being successful in life is a new idea.  For most of their life, they’ve been told they are worthless, failures.  My job is to be a spark of encouragement, the mirror of their successes and self worth, to be the dad who believes in them and is proud of who they are becoming. 

            My job and the job of the guitar are a lot alike.

            My buddy has derailed himself a number of times here, despite all his good work. The old ways, the old voices still show up, beating him down with the whips of shame  and guilt, the indifference to the beauty of their young souls. 

            Today, though, he moved ahead.  He took the initiative and restrung the guitar, without much help from me.  With confidence, he completed the task, grinning as the new strings sang out their song in his confident fingers.  His eyes twinkled with pride as he showed others the work he had done. 

            We did more than restring an old, well-used guitar.  We restrung a young man and gave voice to the new, self-confident man now playing his songs, happy with what he’s done and who he’s becoming. 

--Neal Lemery, 12/9/2016

Judge Neal Lemery Publishes New Book

            

Neal Lemery, retired Tillamook County Justice of the Peace, has published a new book. Homegrown Tomatoes: Essays and Musings From My Garden explores mentoring youth through gardening and other teaching opportunities.

“Growing young people is much like tending a garden,” Lemery says. “We can all make a difference in the lives of young people, helping them grow strong and self-confident.”

Judge Lemery will read from his book and offer his book for sale at the Five Rivers Coffee Roasters author panel and book fair in Tillamook November 19 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Homegrown Tomatoes is available on Amazon.com as an e-book and paperback.

 Lemery is the author of Mentoring Boys to Men: Climbing Their Own Mountains and is a volunteer mentor at the Tillamook campus of the Oregon Youth Authority. His book emphasizes community and enriching the lives of young men, by being present in their lives, and offering them support and emotional strength.

He offers us hope in troubled times, and helps answer the question: "What can I do to make a better world?"

“This new collection of short, powerful essays and poetry took me by surprise, nevertheless. I found myself moved to tears, uplifted, inspired, and even sometimes exalted as I read. I devoured HomegrownTomatoes in one sitting. These musings will inspire readers to look with new eyes at their own backyards and to dream of new ways to take action as peacemakers in our own communities.” says Rhonda Case, MA, Professor, College of the Redwoods.

The Revealing Otolith

                                    The Revealing Otolith

            Heard at the Tillamook Bay Watershed Council, October 25, 2016:

            “Therein lies the story.”

            The biologist, Dr. Daniel Bottoms, speaks about the salmon in the river he’d studied for ten years, how they lived, and how their habitat changed after dikes were removed and estuaries are regaining their primordial way of life.

            Research is showing that the assumed cycles of life and old assumptions grew more complex.

            Much is revealed in the otolith, a bone found in the sensory organs, the “ears” of salmon. It grows every day. A new layer of bone is added, much like a tree ring.  In each day, there is the record of the nutrients consumed, growth, the salinity of the water. 

            Scientists analyze the rings and measure the amounts of strontium, a telltale sign of salt water. 

  

            He talks of estuaries and restoration efforts, man trying to undo what has been done in the last one hundred and fifty years, hoping to bring back the number of salmon, strengthening species and the various runs in a particular river and estuarine system.  Estuaries provide a varied mix of salt and fresh water, nutrients, and food populations.

            Oregon has twenty estuaries, ranging from a few miles to 148 miles on the mighty Columbia, from the ocean to the head of tidal influence.  Within those systems, a wide spectrum of salinity, and complex “detrital based food webs”. 

            What is learned is that within a species, within a particular run of salmon on a particular river, there are up to six varieties of life histories.  There is diversity in numbers and adaptability.  Resilience is directly related to habitat, the more diverse the better. Both genetics and environment are major players in their lives.

            In the Salmon  River estuary, north of Lincoln City, Oregon, various marshes have been restored over a 30 year period.  In restored areas, salmon tend to spend more time, and life histories become more diverse.  Food becomes more plentiful and diverse. 

            Depending on the environment, salmon can shift their life behaviors, thus ensuring their survival and their success. 

            In the Salmon River estuary, 70% of the Chinook population has significantly benefitted from estuary restoration, but only 30% of the coho have significantly benefitted.

            Old hypotheses have been revised, and there are more questions to be answered. All of the research reveals more of the complexity of the life of salmon and more questions.

            Tillamook Bay is now undergoing significant estuary restoration, with 528 acres undiked and tide gates and other barriers removed.  This is the largest estuary restoration project in Oregon. We aren’t sure what this will mean to salmon in this watershed but the changes are significant. 

           

Pathways to Resilience: Sustaining Salmon Ecosystems in a Changing World, Bottom, et al, Editors, (Oregon State University Sea Grant, 2011)

Defining Family

            "What IS family, then?" The young man asked. 

            He's getting out in less than a year, and we were talking about his plans for when he is "out" and life no longer has the physical limits of being "locked up". 

            Going home is not the most attractive of his choices.  There, old ways, old relationships, and old expectations for how he is to live and move ahead in life are all in play.  He's no longer a young teen, struggling with addictions and bad choices, and the labels that comes with the mistake he made at a tender age, the mistake that cost him his freedom. He's earned a fresh start, and be able to move ahead without the baggage of prejudgment and assumptions.  He's not who he was, and he's rightfully proud of that accomplishment. 

            Yes, being "inside" has given him many opportunities, and he had taken advantage of them, growing into a smart, sensitive, and thoughtful young man.  A young man I'd be proud to call a son and live with me, become part of my family.

            He's looking ahead, and looking for options,  possibilities for a new life, moving ahead with his life and seeking his dreams.  At the core of that is being part of family.

            So what IS family?  Yes, the first, quick answer is the biological answer: the family I was born into.  Yet, family can be and probably should be so much more. 

            Being a part of a family is a choice, a conscious, deliberate choice. We can do that in many ways.

            When we marry, we intentionally create a new family, blended or mixed from both spouses' biological families, or the families each partner is currently a part.  We mix it up, sometimes adding kids and also adding in-laws, and close friends from both sides of the marriage.  New rules and new expectations emerge, along with new dynamics. 

            New territory and new challenges await us as we navigate these fresh and often turbulent waters. 

            What is it that this young man needs, what I need, in a family?

            We made a list: love, respect, a place in which to belong, be accepted, nurtured, cherished.  A place to grow as well as a place that you come home to after a day out in the world, being challenged and jostled.  A place that takes you for who you are.  A place where there's a chair and a table setting just for you at dinner. 

            "We each need to make our own family," I said.  "And the definition needs to fit what we need, creating a place where we grow to our full potential." 

            My young friend has figured it out.  He knows what a family is, the family he needs and wants, a place where he will flourish.  Like all of us, he just needs permission to seek that out, and be good to himself, to find his very own family, creating his own happiness. 

            And, yes, its OK to want that, and its OK to make sure that having that good family is part of our lives, helping every one of us at achieve our dreams and live a productive, love filled life. 

-- Neal Lemery 9/30/2016