Musings ahead alert. An incident recently occurred which brought to mind how no matter what one wishes or how one tries, there are times when certain things are no longer sustainable. This is hardly a new thought and has been rendered in story, song, and other arts for probably as long mankind has been able to acknowledge and express the sentiment. After all, most know Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, “There is a time for everything”, if not through church lessons then the Byrds song of “Turn, Turn, Turn.”

Back a few years ago, a longstanding non-profit closed out as a combination of aging participants to where membership dwindled and a few other factors. I’ve posted before about family businesses that often don’t make it past the third generation. The house and property that was in my first husband’s family for I think seven generations was another example. We were supposed to eventually move there and carry on the tradition which we would then have passed to our son. In the “life happens”, it simply didn’t work out that way. The small law office my maternal grandfather established might not go into the fourth generation either; only time will tell. History comes in all forms with certain ancient places enduring to at least be remembered if no longer used. In far more modern applications, there are frequent struggles between “progress” or “economic benefit” that override a sense of history. There are multiple cable TV series of individuals and organizations that seek to preserve or restore places, buildings, or items that have been neglected or abandoned. In other cases, there is merely documentation of something that will be allowed to deteriorate to the point of no longer being recognizable.

There can be a sadness in losing what once was, yet sustaining something of historical value/legacy requires resources of usually funding and effort that aren’t always available.

Rumors had been swirling around that the local family-owned restaurant that’s been in business for 50+ years was going to be sold. Those of us who are regulars have known for a while it was more or less on the market. As often happens, the third generation of the family doesn’t want to continue. It is a “legacy” restaurant and the intent has always been for someone to agree to maintain that aspect, so there was no plan to just sell out. The current deal is still in the “process stage” and we’ll see what actually comes about.

The point to the blog goes back to what I’ve written about the next generation in a small business. In writing for the community paper, I’ve now encountered one family business with the fourth generation, several with three and more with two. A friend and I were discussing this the other day and she quoted, “shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.” I wasn’t familiar with that one and found this on-line: “from proverbial saying, early 20th century; meaning that wealth gained in one generation will be lost by the third.” In the situation I’m talking about, it isn’t so much the loss of wealth (although that certainly does happen), but rather the loss of interest. In some cases, it’s because interests simply diverge; in others, it’s having “grown up in the business” and deciding it isn’t a fit. That’s what happened on my father’s side. Even though Papaw had the farm in good shape with the amount of land he handled and the acreage he leased out, none of the four sons wanted to follow in his footsteps. On my mother’s side, it was the opposite. I don’t recall if my uncle stepped into the law office before Papaw became a judge or as soon as he did. As I explained, I was supposed to be the third generation and when I stayed longer in the Army than I initially planned, my cousin joined the office. His younger sister did too for a while, then she followed the line of being a judge. In talking with her oldest daughter, now a lawyer, married to a lawyer, whether or not they choose to take it over remains to be seen. Moving back to the really small town where she grew up might not be  in the works.

I think things may be stabilizing a bit although that doesn’t mean less busy. Among the issues for the past week-plus was a potential problem that required two extra optometry visits. Let me start by saying I’ve been fortunate to have anything other than the occasional painful stye. I do spend a lot of time on the computer and right after Memorial Day I was experiencing what seemed to be shorter times between when I would need a break from looking at the screen and my left eye watering. I wasn’t experiencing any pain. I overdue my annual exam and took that as a sign. The optometrist I’ve seen for years has really cut back her time and I had the new doctor; a very pleasant young lady. They have the type of machines now where your eyes are scanned and photographed from all sorts of angles. Nothing unusual showed up and my prescription didn’t even need to be changed.  The doc gave me mild steroid eye drops for a week with a follow-up. The drops seemed to help and when I returned, she did notice a small cyst in my lower left lid, although I was still not experiencing pain. However, that’s outside their expertise and I was referred to a specialist. Great, just what I needed along with everything else. In not wanting to travel to Kendall, I had to delay the appointment for when the specialist would be in Homestead. It isn’t that I was overly concerned so much as it was I also couldn’t take a chance.

Fortunately, other than the waiting time to be seen being frustratingly long and mild dilation being involved, the cyst is small enough it should resolve without further treatment. (Obviously I let her know if that changes). I was very glad, but there was a different aspect that surprised me. She noted I had some crusting on my left eyelash I hadn’t thought was unusual. She then explained I should wash my eyelashes 3-4 times a week with baby shampoo. Say what? Apparently this is commonplace and having now purchased baby shampoo for the first time in decades, we’ll see how it works.

Last week I attended/covered/sponsored the annual Chamber of Commerce Ladies of Legacy Luncheon. As usual, it was quite a line-up with four panelists and the moderator, topped by the Mayor of Miami-Dade County (first female). The Mayor of course could only stay for a short time and spoke about her “journey into leadership” before the moderator posed questions to the panelists. They represented a mix of profit, non-profit, and government.

Not surprisingly, in listening to them, another memory was stirred about my days of “being the first female to…..” As I have posted before, while I held seven such positions over the course of my career, the first most significant from a “ground-breaking one” was at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. That’s because it was a huge installation with a long history and therefore, when I took command of the large maintenance company (right around 300 personnel), it gained a lot of attention. We would also periodically be visited by different general officers, who were almost always unaccustomed to a female being in this position. Not to say they disagreed with it; merely it was a surprise. One time, it was a three-star general I think and during the course of discussion he asked something like, “How long did it take your people to accept you as the commander?” Now, based on his tone and body language, I understood he was actually curious; not trying to put me down. I said something along the lines of, “Not long, sir, everyone got used to it pretty quickly.” We went on through the tour and about an hour after I returned to my office, the Colonel (who was the rank about my direct boss, the Lieutenant Colonel) called me personally to make sure I wasn’t disturbed by the General’s question. I knew the Colonel had been supportive of my selection from the beginning and I assured him everything was fine. It was, however, another interesting moment of “affirmation”.

A recent conversation reminded me of one of those amusing aspects when I was in the advanced stage of pregnancy. My first husband and I were solidly with him as a General Motors guy and me as Ford with Dodge close second. Now I actually had one of the first RX-7’s brought into Clarksville, TN when we married. That was because many of us singles had sports cars and while I would have gone for another Mustang; being a “first” with the RX-7 was too hard to resist. Anyway, my husband had a Corvette and I don’t recall how many he’d had prior to that. The point is a distinct lack of cargo space in either car and we did buy a house. With a house you have to do things and my husband was quite handy. That means hauling stuff like bags of mulch, etc., Being newly wed I surprised him when I sacrificed my RX-7 and swapped it out for a Chevy Silverado truck for him. While I didn’t derive any particular pleasure in driving the Corvette, he had it for the weekends.

As I think I’ve posted in the past, I became unexpectedly pregnant early in the marriage and that was all fine and good. I never had any sort of physical problems – no morning sickness or anything serious.  I did deal with the  minor issues like I couldn’t eat certain foods due to getting heartburn more easily. Anyone who is familiar with a Corvette knows it sits low and in the last part of my pregnancy my belly was of course much bigger and, I “carried the baby high”. (Note: wives’ tale said that meant it was a boy and that did turn out to be true). So, trying to get into and out of the Corvette became extremely difficult. Not that climbing in and out of the truck was much better, however, there was a handle on the door and the running board. So here I am at eight months pregnant now driving a big truck while my husband had his Corvette back. In truth, we knew we would need a family car (that was before they had extended cabs options to allow for a “back seat” in trucks). Not long before son made his appearance, my husband decided he did like having a truck and traded out the Corvette for a Buick Electra.