Old timey handshake

Marge and I were at the meat processors the other day, and the butcher came out to help us. Everyone at a meat processing place has a list of jobs and responsibilities. Some cut the meat, and some package the meat. One at this plant just butchers the critters. He kills and skins and hangs the meat in the big refrigerator. It takes skill to be a butcher. Anyway, he came out with wet hands that were kind of covered in questionable stuff, and I reached out to shake his hand. He kind of questioned whether I wanted to shake his stained hand. I told him my hands had been dirty before. Yeah, I wanted to shake his hand.

That was kind of how I grew up in the culture and the time back then. Men shook hands. I kind of remember Dad showing me how to shake a man's hand when I was little. It was awkward with the man's hand being big and my kid hand being so little. But it was part of growing up. I can almost still feel the feeling of reaching out my pint-sized hand to shake the hand of a tough grizzled old man with ham-sized hands.

It's been important to me down through the years, and I'm not real sure why. I know it's a sign of respect. When you shake a man's hand, you are touching who he is. If he's used to pushing papers, there won't be any callouses or stained fingers or cracked skin or broken nails. His hands will be lily white and soft. And there is nothing wrong with that. That's who he is. Most of the guys I grew up around had callouses on top of callouses.

If you shake the hand of an old farmer who had driven tractors countless hours without power steering, there will be some callouses. Or shake the hand of a rancher who has spent many a cold night delivering a calf that was too big or had a leg back or was backwards. Or a rancher who has spent a good part of his life on a horse. Or a guy who works in timber, and the list goes on. At times the hands won't be sterling white but stained. Our son works on motors so most of the time his hands are in grease. His hands are almost permanently stained with a hint of grease color, but that's who he is.

Not that long ago, I was at a monthly church breakfast, and a good friend of mine was doing the hand bump because of the flu going around. This I understand. From what I've read we get in contact with the virus by getting it on our hands and then we transmit it to our eyes or nose or mucus membranes with our own hands, and, doggone, we get the flu or a cold or gosh knows what. So by bumping hands we keep the bugs on the back of our hands and hopefully won't get the virus in our eyes. I'm ok with this, but I do like to look a guy in the eyes and shake his hand.

I hardly ever shake a lady's hand. Back in the day, it didn't seem like you shook a lady's hand. One would nod or kind of tip your hat but normally you didn't shake hands. There were a few times when I've shaken the hand of a lady. Couple gals I've met down through the years may have been women, but they were as tough as nails and real tom boys. They were as rough and tumble as any guy. And they shook your hand like a guy.

Things have changed. Now there are hand bumps and all kinds of stuff. I've watched them kind of twitter their fingers at each other. Don't have a clue as to what they are doing. I wonder if they even know. A lot of this fancy hand shaking seems more like show then the real deal.

As I was thinking about handshakes I thought about when a graduate of something like high school or college walks up to get his degree, he shakes hands with the proper authority. Kind of like friends will shake the hands of the groom who just got married. Or shake the hands of the brand new dad after the birth of a baby. I usually shake the hands of someone I have just come to meet for the first time. Down through the years it is a genuine way of reaching out to another in celebration or recognition or just a simple hello.

I kind of wish I could have shaken the hands of some men back through the history of our country. I've always admired Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. I'd like to have met him and shaken his hand. President Kennedy was another. I like how he served and was injured and went on to be the president. An old timer from up in the Sandhills in Nebraska was Jules Sandoz. Jules was rough. How I'd like to have met and shaken hands with Charles and John Wesley or Martin Luther. Wish I could go back in time and shake the hand of Grandpa Piihl, my mom's dad. I just might have skipped washing that hand for a few days or even weeks.

I like to be around guys that grew up being men. I've spent a good amount of my life studying under some awesome professors. Most of them didn't have an abundance of callouses, but they were real stand-up guys. There are a couple shows on TV I've kind of come to like. Both of them have rough and tumble lawmen. Some parts of the show I really don't like, but I do like the men being men.

We have lost that stand-up kind of guy, in some cases the tough rough and tumble kind of men, and replaced it with I'm not sure what. It's like we have feminized manhood and now the guys don't seem to be real men and the ladies don't seem to be real ladies. It's like we have mixed up things.

Some will say this is OK, and that's OK with me. We just happen to disagree. I still like a man being a man and a woman being a woman.