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Archive for August, 2023|Monthly archive page

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You’ve got this.

In Children and Family, Opinion, psychology, Uncategorized on August 28, 2023 at 10:25 pm

Deer In Headlines II

By Gery Deer

If you have followed my series for a while, you know that I dealt with a lot of health problems growing up. From birth, until I was about 21, I had around 200 different procedures and surgeries. Some were experiments, with unknown outcomes, and others were common procedures as some type of intermittent step from point A to point B. Some went perfectly, others did not. Something that I learned through all of that was a fierce sense of what I’m going to call determination.

That determination came from a confidence, not in myself, but in the physicians, my parents, and my family. Not for one second did I ever doubt I would make it through something, even with talk like, “This procedure may limit his ability to walk,“ or, “Recovery could take up to a year,” or my favorite, “This one’s pretty involved“ – like the others weren’t? Yeah, sometimes it didn’t sound too good, but everyone kept reassuring me and, to my kid brain and blind faith in those looking after me, I knew everything would be alright.

As a child, the only dependable sources for accurate information and support are the adults around you. It’s not like your playground friends could be much help. Most of mine didn’t even understand what was going on with me – and didn’t care. Such ignorance generated the incredible amount of bullying that I endured (kids are awful). The irony was, none of the hurtful things they said about me had any basis in fact. Actually, most were downright science fiction. But, through all that, I still believed all would eventually be OK. No, it was more than that. The truth is no other outcome ever crossed my mind. This was my world and I would get through it.

Today, I carry that same fortitude, grit, or determination; call it what you will. I’ve experienced my share of depression as an adult, mostly related to the deaths of my parents. But, for the most part, I am just not wired to perseverate on negatives. I realize the good in a problem may be pretty hard to find, but it’s there. It’s not about being a “glass half-full” kind of person, but rather I prefer to be a realist. I look at all the negatives and I’m firmly aware of everything that can go wrong (or already has). Dwelling on all of that will not change the outcome one bit, but it will keep me from having the energy to fight through it.

I’m afraid I don’t have your answers and positive thinking is simply not enough. We all have to try to find proof within ourselves that life is worth living. Even the bright spots are buried deep down you have to try to recognize them. I always say that some part of me fought to survive to this point, so I would just be letting myself down if I give up now.

The bad news is, I don’t know how to tell you to do any of that. And I have more bad news for you – neither do any of the self-help gurus. They’re all throwing out a bunch of dimestore psychobabble. They wrap it in rainbows and sunshine, drop it between the covers of a badly-written book, and advertise it to you on Amazon for $23.95. But, for all of that, they really have no answers. Here’s a secret, though – you may already have the answers you need. Yes, you will have to make the effort and take the time to find them.

That may be really, really hard, and anyone who says otherwise is full of crap. We all face things that we think we can’t get through, and some of them we don’t – the residuals of those events stay with us. Life is hard but it is not impossible. If you leave the gate thinking the race is lost, then what hope is there? So, for what it’s worth from me, whatever’s going on, I know you can handle it – and so do you. Hang in there. Find your bright spot, hold onto it, and don’t let anybody deter you. You’ve got this.

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Fair Play

In Entertainment, history, Local News, Opinion, Uncategorized on August 5, 2023 at 7:27 am

Deer In Headlines II 

By Gery Deer

The onset of fall means fair season here in Ohio, and my visit to our county fair this year was simultaneously familiar and foreign. When I was a kid, the county fair was the grand finale of my summer. At the time, I was probably annoyed with how much work it was. But what I wouldn’t give to walk through the fair of my youth. I didn’t appreciate it then, but those were some of the best days of my childhood.

As a young 4-H’er, I always had multiple projects to exhibit each year. If you had livestock (I showed cattle) you generally camped on the grounds to tend to your animals and get show practice in the arena more easily. My Dad always brought our small motorhome for me, so I had a nice place to sleep and some privacy. But sometimes, just to be closer to it all, I tossed my sleeping bag on the bales of hay next to my calf’s stall in the cattle barn. At night, the summer heat gave way to a cool breeze that flowed through the open sides of the barn, and I’d fall asleep to the sounds of the fair all around me, and some occasional mooing.

In the morning, I’d feed and water my calf (I only ever showed one at a time). Then breakfast at my favorite food tent where a youth group sold Bob Evans sausage, biscuits, pancakes, and all the trimmings. A kid’s gotta eat, right? We didn’t have money for it every day, but it was really great on the days I was really busy. 

Later, it was exercise time, for me and the cattle. I walked a 900-pound steer as if I were strolling through a park with a poodle. Showing an animal at the fair meant a great deal of training – for them and me. So, my calves behaved more like someone’s pet than a half-ton farm animal.

I showed in the dairy beef class and on show days, I had to wear white. I know, right, white clothes in all that muck and dirt? But we weren’t allowed to be dirty and neither were the animals. After a bath came a good brushing and a polish of the hooves. Finally, I had to “bob” their tails. It was a weird practice of teasing the hair at the end of the calf’s tail until it fluffed out like a ball, then folding the ends under and rubber-banding it, upside down, to the tail. Believe me, even if there was a picture, it wouldn’t make sense. 

Along with all the work, there was plenty of play. Many of the kids stayed on the grounds without their parents and no one ever seemed to worry about us. In between chores, we were normal kids, playing games, eating cotton candy, and riding on those rickety carnival rides. Once there was even a woman in a cage who turned into a gorilla! How did we survive all that? For one week every summer, I was in my element, one place I didn’t feel like a misfit.

Amidst all the fun, however, I had responsibilities. So, every kid had to keep one ear tuned to the dreaded public address system because, in the middle of a ride on the Scrambler, a garbled announcement would echo across the entire fairground sounding something like this. “Gery Deer, meet your mother at the FFA tent, immediately. Gery Deer, go to the FFA tent.” You see, before mobile phones, if parents needed the kids to somewhere during the fair, we got paged – very publicly. Talk about embarrassing, I can still hear the other kids. “Ha ha, Gery, your mommy wants you!” Oh, the humiliation.

I still miss those days and even then, I had some appreciation for the role the experience played in my young life. One night, just as the fair was closing, I shut my eyes and just listened for a moment as if storing the sounds for later, maybe when I couldn’t go back there again. I remember every moment of my time there. It’ll always be a part who i am, and I will always be grateful.

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