By Dorothy Seehausen

I’d just finished reading Louis Schmier’s teaching and caring, and wanting at once to share Schimer’s signature motto, “If you want to climb mountains, don’t practice on mole hills,” I said to my husband of forty-three years, “Do you want to climb mountains?”

“Say what?” he replied with a squint.

“Do you want to, you know, climb mountains in your life?”

He thought for a second, then replied, “Sure.”

Of course, he was saying what he thought I wanted to hear.

“Then don’t practice on molehills.”

I smiled smugly, like his dominant left brain would immediately grasp my meaning.

“Oh, ok, I won’t,” he answered, believing these were the magic words that would make me go away. He avoided my eyes, the TV clicker poised in his right hand as colored images of light from the football game he was watching bounced off his wire rimmed glasses.

“You don’t get it, do you?”

“Evidently not.” He grinned sheepishly.

I persisted, warming to my topic. “Let me put it this way. Think of the future. Where do you want to be in five years?”

He thought for another second, pursed his lips, lowered the clicker to his lap,