Melvin Nelson (1927-2021)

Mar

26

Remembering Anna Marie Nelson (1930-2024)

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Our dear mother Anna Maria Nelson went to be with the Lord on Sunday February 4, 2024 at the age of 93. She was a kind, gentle, and generous lady who loved animals and music. Although she suffered a great deal during her later years from severe arthritis and dementia, Mom continued to love her family and her cats. Her son and daughter-in-law Janis and Ed Nelson faithfully cared for her during her last years in Katy, Texas.They visited her regularly, loving and serving her in so many ways until the very .end. My brother Ed and I are grateful to the many friends who prayed for her these past few years. Ed was with her, reading the Bible to her as she breathed her last and entered into glory. All who knew her loved her.

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Jan

15

Remembering Melvin C. Nelson (1927-2021)

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Mel Nelson was born in Kearny, New Jersey in 1927. He was an only child, grew up in a Swedish immigrant family and in an immigrant neighborhood. He went to a Swedish Baptist Church until he was about 10 years old when the family made the switch to an American Baptist Church. He was a Boy Scout and had a band of friends in the neighborhood who roasted “mickeys”(apples pilfered from a neighbors tree) and swam in the meadows (read “swamp”) nearby. He was proud of the fact that when he visited his ailing grandparents in California, he taught the local kids how to make slingshots. The birds, squirrels, windows and parents were probably not very happy with this East Coast Technology transfer. Dad graduated at 16 because he skipped 2 grades in elementary school. He got right to work as a chemical technician.

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Sep

07

It Runs in the Family

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Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power. I will meditate on your majestic, glorious splendor and your wonderful miracles. Your awe-inspiring deeds will be on every tongue; I will proclaim your greatness. Everyone will share the story of your wonderful goodness; they will sing about your righteousness. – Psalm 145: 4-7

Most doctors take a dim view of the self-diagnoses certain of us love to make with the help of the internet. When I’m afflicted with one thing or another, I usually get caught up in some late-night online symptom sleuthing. My findings are quite often hair-raising and only serve to add to my insomnia.

And when at last I do get in to see my doctor, I helpfully supply my own personal diagnosis of the ailment that has brought me to her office.

Problem is, most of the time I’m wrong.

The physical therapist I saw last week corrected my assessment of my current problem. The trouble was not the flare-up of plantar fasciitis I had so confidently advised him I had. He looked at an x-ray and let me know that the real reason every step I take feels like a demon is driving a nail into my heel is because I have a bone spur.

And, now that I think about it, it wasn’t actually shingles that other time, nor was it skin cancer the time before. Maybe I should just abandon my amateur practice of worst-case scenario medicine and leave the diagnosing to the professionals. ( I do love this advice from a sage friend regarding alarmist tendencies when facing ailments and disorders: when you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras!).

A New Diagnosis

But this time it’s different. Todays’s web-surfing helped me with a self-diagnosis I am sure is 100% accurate.

I have thalassophilia.

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May

26

Helping Others Transition: A Lesson in Leadership from the High Command

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And any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction: ‘I served in the United States Navy.’ – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

This sweet-faced boy is my father at 17—the age at which he enlisted in the Navy and went off to boot camp to prepare to serve his country in World War II. Happily, the war ended the month before he was slated to ship out and so, by the age of 19, he was a veteran, back home with his relieved parents, and planning to start college with the aid of the GI bill.

He is now 90, and although his time in the Navy lasted just a few short years, his military experience has had a lasting positive effect on his character and identity. As one of America’s “greatest generation,” he has always viewed his service in the Navy with great pride. His love for both his country and the sea has never died, and he still wears a Navy ballcap as he heads off to the VFW meetings in his retirement community.

My brother recently found this treasure—one of the few letters my father has ever kept. Personally addressed to “My Dear Mr. Nelson”, it was signed by James Forrestal, the wartime Secretary of the Navy, and dated July 1946, the month after received his my honorable discharge.

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Oct

31

Fishing for the Right Words

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My grandfather loved the sea. He’d built a sailboat, but what he enjoyed even more was the small cabin cruiser on which he spent the happiest days of his retirement fishing for flounder. An introvert and engineer, he was a patient, soft-spoken man. I imagine he liked fishing in large part because of the quiet it afforded him to think his thoughts in peace.

My father also loved boats, but did not have the same high tolerance for passively waiting in solitude as did my grandfather. My grandmother was fond of repeating the old saying: “Patience is a virtue, have it if you can; seldom found in woman, never in a man.” Although I didn’t perceive it at the time, she was probably

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Dec

11

Advent Meditation on Longings Fulfilled

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We don’t always wait in vain. Faith and patience inherit the promise. Sometimes  we get a holy hint of what is to come.

My first and long-awaited grandchild was born in June . Yesterday , as I sat gazing at a photo of her, anticipating her first visit to California for Christmas, I was struck by its great significance. In the picture, Summer Adelle is being proudly held by her great-grandfather. My dad is a crusty old Swede, a sailor whose relationship with strong drink shaped my world. But God does hear

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