{"id":7667,"date":"2025-02-23T09:02:59","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T14:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/?p=7667"},"modified":"2025-02-23T09:03:02","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T14:03:02","slug":"lost-and-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dahlman.online\/index.php\/2025\/02\/23\/lost-and-found\/","title":{"rendered":"Lost and Found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes the weight of life in our \u201cinteresting times\u201d seems too much to bear.   So today, it\u2019s time (really, past time) for another \u201cSunday Story\u201d on Our America.  Today\u2019s topic:  a look at a story of what gets lost, and what gets found.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Origin Story<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Part of my \u201corigin story\u201d is my parents\u2019 religious beliefs.   Mom was British, but of Irish ancestry.  So no surprise, she was Roman Catholic.  Dad\u2019s ancestry was Jewish, and so was he.  His grandfather migrated to Cincinnati from Alsace (a province between Germany and France) after the Franco-Prussian War in the 1870\u2019s.  Mom was an \u201coperative\u201d in the British Special Operations Executive during World War II, a \u201cspy\u201d if you will.  Dad was a Warrant Officer in the US Army based in England, assigned to the finance section.  They met on a blind date in London and quickly fell in love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Jewish man and a Catholic woman getting married was frowned upon by both religions.\u00a0 \u00a0But it was when Mom refused to promise that any children would be raised Catholic, that the local priest actually ex-communicated her from the church.\u00a0\u00a0She was denied the religious sacraments that she grew up with.\u00a0\u00a0But, while Mom could no longer practice Catholicism, the traditions of the Church were still strong within her.\u00a0\u00a0(The story goes, that when the Priest arrived at my grandparents\u2019 house to inform Mom of the ex-communication, my Grandfather hastened his exit by punching him in the nose).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Episcopalian<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We kids were brought up in the Episcopal Church.  The apocryphal story is that it was as close as Mom could get to Catholic without \u201ccrossing the line\u201d. As a rule, Episcopalians aren\u2019t worried about the hierarchy of the Saints.  But we Dahlman kids definitely knew two Saints, for sure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0The first was St. Anthony, the patron Saint of lost \u201cthings\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0Whenever something was lost, Mom was sure to pray to St. Anthony to help return it to the owner.\u00a0\u00a0And the second was Saint Jude.\u00a0\u00a0He was the patron of \u201cimpossible causes\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0So if Anthony didn\u2019t come through, perhaps Jude would do \u201cthe impossible\u201d. (That mission is why the hospital in Memphis for desperately ill children is named for St. Jude).\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Glasses<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In third grade, we discovered that my vision was really, really, bad.\u00a0 \u00a0The school lined us kids up in the lunch serving line (really), and had us look down to the other end at an eye-chart on the exit door wall. I discovered that everyone else could read several lines down the page.\u00a0\u00a0Me, it was the big \u201cE\u201d, and maybe a shot at the second line of \u201cF,P\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0The third line \u201cT,O,Z\u201d was really just a guess, and after that, it was a total blur until they let me walk up by the cash registers.\u00a0\u00a0No wonder everyone else knew what was on the \u201cold school\u201d blackboard in the front of the class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I soon had glasses with thick, almost \u201cbulletproof\u201d lenses.   Back then, glasses were actual glass, and weighed a lot.  So as a kid I often made the choice to see less, and not have the weight on my face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a note \u2013 20\/20 is \u201cperfect vision\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0I was 20\/120 in the left eye, and 20\/150 in the right eye, all not good.\u00a0\u00a0My right eye was worse, perhaps because I got a stick in my eye, looking up at a waterfall in the Hocking Hills when I was three. It hurt, and we ended up in what I now know was a shaky hospital in Logan, Ohio.\u00a0\u00a0But I did get to play \u201cpirate\u201d full time with a patch on my eye for six weeks!!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh Canada!!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Our family went on a summer vacation every August.\u00a0 \u00a0In those years, we joined several other Cincinnati families in a \u201cretreat\u201d to Hilton Beach, a Canadian village on St. Joseph\u2019s Island between the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and the mainland Canadian coast. (And, as the joke went, the location of the only \u201cHilton Hotel\u201d not in the Hilton chain).\u00a0\u00a0Our mornings always started with a bath in the lake, water from Lake Superior about to reach Lake Huron.\u00a0\u00a0It was always, always, dramatically cold.\u00a0\u00a0But Dad made sure we were all in attendance, with our Cincinnati-made Ivory Soap in hand: it floats!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our quick immersion \u201cbath\u201d was soon followed by a warmup  in the \u201cwalk-in\u201d fireplace, and a hearty breakfast of eggs, Canadian bacon, and thick white bread.   Then it was onto a day of boating, skiing, hiking; and even some quiet reading time.  I can still remember the musty-fireplace smell of the old couch, as I curled up with some \u201cLandmark Book<\/a>\u201d about an historic figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We often piled in the car to tour around the area; with trips to Lornie\u2019s Restaurant in the village, or to call home from the only pay-phone in town, or to venture across the island to old Fort St Joe.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0And some years, we went on the ferry back to the Canadian mainland and to the \u201cbig town\u201d of Bruce Mines, for their summer festival.\u00a0\u00a0The \u201cBlack Watch\u201d Scottish Highland bagpipers were there, and there were rides for us kids, and other stuff for the adults to look at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lost<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Since I was eight years-old, I was very much \u201cinto\u201d the rides.   My first action was to put my glasses \u201csafely\u201d in my pocket.  It wouldn\u2019t do for them to fly off in the middle of some hairpin turn!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally it was dark, and time to head back to Hilton Beach.  As we reached the car, I put my hand in my pocket to retrieve my glasses.  And, as you might have guessed, they were gone.  I was faced with the rest of the vacation being an actual blur, and I wasn\u2019t happy.  But what was the possibility of finding a pair of glasses, somewhere in Bruce Mines, in the dark of night?  We headed back to the Ferry, across the St. Joseph\u2019s Channel, to Hilton Beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mom, on the other hand, was completely confident.  We\u2019d go back in the morning, and search the high grass by the road for my glasses.  And she\u2019d have a special discussion with St. Anthony, who surely would intercede to return my \u201cbulletproof glasses\u201d to my face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Minor Miracles<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The next morning, after our dip in the lake, we headed back to \u201cthe Bruce\u201d.   We pulled up approximately to where we parked the day before, and got out to slowly comb the overgrown weeds for glasses.  As we started our quest, I heard Mom muttering:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c St. Anthony, who received from God the special power of restoring lost things, grant that I may find Martin\u2019<\/em>s glasses, which have been lost!<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wasn\u2019t the only one who thought there wasn\u2019t much of a chance.   Dad and my sisters didn\u2019t seem too impressed with the \u201cpower\u201d of St. Anthony either.  But Mom was so sure; and so we searched, head\u2019s down, trying to find a pair of glass lenses bound in the black plastic rims that were \u201cin-style\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fifteen minutes into the search, Mom reached down, through the weeds, and pulled my glasses out.  They were intact, ready to go right back on my face.  And she made it clear who to credit for the find:  \u201cThank you St. Anthony!!!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, I am lapsed from pretty much all forms of religion.   Aside from weddings and funerals, it\u2019s been decades since I\u2019ve been inside of a Church, a Synagogue, or even a Mosque.  But there is one situation when I still mull over the idea of calling for heavenly intercession.  When I lose something, I mean, really lose something, a thing that I cannot replace and I cannot find:  I might still think (though not say aloud) about asking for some help.  I might say a silent prayer to St. Anthony.  He proved his worth!!!!  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sunday Story Series<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

2021<\/h4>\n\n\n\n