Wanna Play?

A friend recently asked me a question. Am I competitive? Well? I answered the question but continued to think about it. I’m kinda funny. When someone asks me a question and wants to know my opinion, I need some time. Oh, I can always spout something immediately, but I need time to process before I can give a really accurate response. That delay itself can and has created misunderstandings and uncomfortable situations in the past.

So? Am I competitive? Well it means more than one thing doesn't it? In some contexts, being competitive means you actually have the capacity to succeed or win the race or sell your product at the same or lower price or offer more advantage than someone else.

But I think the question this time was along the lines of plumbing the depths my desire to win or finding out just how important coming in first is to me.

I have never been a professional athlete, but I have played various sports in a competitive environment. Sometimes I was more than aware that I was not ‘competitive’ in the first sense, but that did not diminish my desire to do my best. I did well in several activities, bowling and ping-pong to name two, and closing a game rolling a ‘Turkey’ in the tenth frame generated a fist pump and high five along with an adrenaline surge which could just as well fuel an internal ‘Primal Scream’ when a well placed slam kisses the very corner of the table and slides past a hopelessly out-maneuvered opponent. 

I love to play card games and board games, and of course those are all set up in a win/lose format. I prefer to win, and if my opponent loses with an entertaining demonstration, so much the better. That being said, I enjoy playing for the sake of the game and camaraderie….the wins and losses seem to even out, and it really doesn’t matter, anyway, Right? Whoops...except in chess.....  ;-)

When I was a younger person, I recall feeling that my ‘worth’ was somehow tied to being the winner, and felt bad if I didn’t finish first. But don’t we get set up for that? Those of us who know the agony of being chosen last when sides are picked are well aware of the perceived value of being competitive. And the incredibly ridiculous salary that so many professionals bring home is evidence of the truth in that.

These days, I compete mostly against me. I tell myself it is for personal growth and self-improvement, but I’m really taking inventory, looking for signs of physical or mental decay, and at my age, finding such is all but inevitable.

I don’t like winning at someone elses’ expense, but how would I feel if the competition was for food or shelter for my family, and my ability to ‘win’ was a matter of life or death for them? I might find I was a much different cat.

Bottom line? Bring it on. Let’s dance….:-)

Firsts and Lasts

Getting in the shower last night (and doesn’t a shower in the evening feel great, specially if you are going to climb in between clean sheets!) I began thinking about 'firsts' and 'lasts.'

When we begin life, our world is full of 'firsts' and we aren’t even aware of many on them. Our first words, first steps are things someone else remembers well, but we ourselves, not so much. Other things we not only remember but perhaps anticipated….the first day of school, or the first time we were able to tie our own shoes.

Then came the bigger events we really anticipated with varying degrees of joy/dread. First date, first period, first car, first job, not necessarily in that order…graduating from high school or going off to college, getting married, having kids of our own. Most of these we saw coming, often long before they actually arrived with time to prepare. Others, like our first speeding ticket or first auto accident we didn’t see coming at all…though others may have known it was only a matter of time.

The last time things from those years ended in one of several ways. Some may have ended quietly, almost unnoticed like the last time we used a sippy cup. Others with great fanfare, like graduating from diapers to big boy pants, tho perhaps if we live long enough we learn we don’t really stop using them we just pause for a while. Some early 'lasts' may come with tears. Parting with the blankie can be tough.

What seems to get past us are the last times we don’t notice at the time. As I get older 'firsts' are farther apart and 'lasts' are much more frequent. Sometimes we do something, then don’t do that same for a while then realize that for some reason we can’t do it again. Opportunity, ability, health or situation..all can change and spell the end of this or that.

The last time I went skiing, it never occurred to me that I was saying goodbye to that thrill as I drove down the mountain. The last time I flew an aircraft, I never dreamed that I wouldn’t be back at the controls. The last time we drive ourselves or the last time we make love, we usually don’t realize that that was it.  When we finally figure it out, it's too late.

Sometimes it is the last time we speak with a friend, and sometimes we wish that if we had only known, we’d have done it differently. But we who have been there and done that…we know, and hopefully leave no regrets…..

Bus Rustler

This tale bubbled up from the depths of the swamp that used to be my mind on the way to work this morning, and I don’t have the good sense to keep it to myself.

Several years ago, I traveled to Denver on a business trip. I flew in on Saturday to have a free day to explore, which I dearly love to do. I decided Saturday evening that I would like to go to church the next morning. I was scheduled to use a company vehicle during my stay, but I wouldn’t be able to get access until Monday. This meant I was dependent on public transportation.

So I have three problems to solve, find a church, locate the church and get to the church on time.

Being a relative stranger to the area, this was a bit more difficult than it appeared. I had to know where I was, where the church was, and how I could integrate those locations with the availability of the city bus. Now, realize that this tale predates Google Earth, or at least my ability to use it. So…to the phone book. I was looking for a Lutheran church, and an ELCA Lutheran church at that. The phone book listed several, with their addresses, but being a stranger, I had NO CLUE where they were, or which one was closest. I did have a paper map…yeah, yeah I know, you didn’t realize this was pre-history.

Anyway, I determined that St. Marks on Del Mar Circle was the closest, and that there was a bus that would pick me up within a block of my hotel and take me to Del Mar Circle. Whoo Hooo. I’m set.

Armed with my trusty paper map, a paperback book and a bottle of water, I set out to go to church. The bus comes by, right on schedule, and except for the driver, I have the entire bus to myself…kinda like a giant limo. I sit up front and chat with the driver for the half hour it takes to get to Del Mar Circle.

Now, I know the address of the church, but the circle thing throws me. Del Mar Circle is about ¾ mile in diameter, and there are six churches scattered along its circumference. The driver has NO CLUE which church might be St. Mark’s either. I gamble and hop off in the midst of a cluster of three churches, and of course none of them is the church I am looking for.

Now, if you do the math, ¾ times pi equals about 2 1/3 miles, so St Marks could be just over a mile away, at the most, if I go the right way. Crap shoot. I pick a direction and begin to walk. In less than a minute, a car stops beside me. The driver, a woman, rolls down the window and asks me for directions. Her luck is obviously on par with mine. The person she chooses to ask for directions is a total stranger not only to this part of town, but to the whole damned state! No, wait. Her luck is better than mine because she happened to pick a fella with a city map in his back pocket. We figure out her dilemma, she goes on her way, and I resume work on mine.

Turns out my luck is good and bad. The bad news: St. Marks is exactly opposite the place where I got off the bus. Couldn’t be any farther away….but….the good news is it didn’t matter which direction I walked……

I get to the church about 10 minutes before the service begins, I go inside and sit down. Here is where the fun begins. Lutherans are just like other folks, but more so. By that I mean everyone always sits in the same place every Sunday. When I picked a seat, I was displacing somebody. So they had to sit somewhere else and that created ripples throughout the sanctuary. Couple that with the fact that I was a stranger……well I felt like the hole in the doughnut. There was clear space all around me. Maybe this is how it is supposed to be…makes it easier for the Pastor to spot Newbies. Which he did. He stopped by to greet me, and also pointed me out during the service…like nobody had noticed the stranger in their midst.

The service ran a bit long, and I didn’t hang out for coffee because I had a bus to catch. Got to the bus stop and checked the schedule. Crap. According to the schedule, the bus had come by 10 minutes before. Sigh.

I sat down, took out my book and began to read. Lo and Behold, the bus drives up and stops for me! I get on board and see a rather harried looking woman driving the bus with a piece of white paper in her hand which she seem to be referring to every couple of blocks. As I often do, I strike a conversation with her. She is a brand new driver and has never driven this route before. She is following a hastily scribbled turn by turn description of the route and becoming more and more confused by the minute. That’s why the bus is late…works for me! I, of course am a total expert, because I just came from where we are headed. I assume the navigation chores…sort of an unpaid civilian adviser to the Denver Transportation  Department.

I now realize I missed a great opportunity to take that bus all over the city, but I wanted to get back to my room to watch the game. In retrospect…it would have been fun, but I didn’t want to find out what the City of Denver does to Bus Rustlers.

TED

I've known about TED talks for a while now, a number of years, actually, but I never took more than a casual interest in them. If a link took me to a YouTube video of  a TED talk, and if the subject interested me, I'd watch, but that was the extent of my involvement.

Over the last several weeks, a job function has tied me to my desk, but it has not required much of my mental faculties. I used the time to stream a number of TED talks.

If you are unfamiliar, TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design (a thorough history is available on Wikipedia), and currently consists of around 2000 recorded lectures on an incredibly diverse range of subjects.

It is amazing to explorer the breadth of subject matter addressed here. I found lectures which inspired, lectures which surprised me, and more than a few which frightened me. But the overarching theme that meant the most to me is the proof within these talks that our younger generation is producing some incredible minds which are doing some incredible thinking, asking questions and finding answers that are so far outside the box that........well, the promise for the future is bright indeed.

If you are ready to be enlightened on your own schedule, visit TED.com.

A Good Day

Something happened that I wasn't expecting.

To be sure, it was something I wanted, but I was not so bold as to expect it.

It wasn't even planned. It just happened.

It started and grew in a natural and positive way, and as all really good things do, it ended too quickly.

But if anyone ever asks about that particular day, I will tell them that I finished the day with a wonderful memory......and eleven cents. :-)

Milk Carton Boy

I was raised by a single mom in an era when that was the exception, not the rule. She honestly tried her very best and although her love for me was never in question, she fought mental illness and debilitating physical problems all of her adult life.

The summer before I was to enter the 6^th grade, people who loved her convinced her to sign herself in to a mental health facility. The next question, of course, became “What to do with me?” I spent a month with my aunt and her kids in a distant state, then flew across the country to live with my dad and his family, sorta kinda.

He had remarried (to the Wicked Witch of the West), and sired two rug rats. I was pretty inconvenient…again. The decision was made. I would go to boarding school, a Military Academy at that. As I reflected later, the depths of her desire to keep me away were indeed deep. The private school was relatively expensive and they were not rich.

At the end of the summer, I was prepared to matriculate at San Rafael Military Academy. I had a footlocker; uniforms both Olive Drab and Dress Blue; and all my clothes had tags sewn in. I was to begin this new stage of my young life in two days.

I was staying with my grandmother, a wonderful lady full of love and fun. She lived fairly close to the new school and was a convenient place to stage all my stuff. About six o’clock in the evening the phone rang. It was mom.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Hi Mom. Wow, I’m surprised to hear from you. I didn’t think they would let you use the phone in the hospital. You’re not? Where are you? You’re here? Sure I want to see you. Ok, I’ll stand by the mailbox on the curb so you can find us. Then, in a few minutes….Hi Mom! Cool! I didn’t know you had MayBeth with you! MayBeth was her sister-in-law and I had a secret crush on her from the moment I first saw her. Yeah, I’d like a soda. Sure I’ll go with you to get one. I didn’t know the soda they were taking me to get was halfway across the country.

I got in the car, and before I knew it, we were on the Freeway headed for the Great State of Texas. Did I feel kidnapped? Not  really.  After all, I was with my mom. We had done so many road trips together over the years that a moving car was like a second home to me, and I was always up for an adventure.

Things went pretty smoothly from my perspective, but there was stuff going on of which I wasn’t aware. Mom planned to cross the state line in Needles. There are only so many highways that leave the state. By this time my dad had figured out not only that I was gone but also that my mom was the perp. If you know who the ‘Unsub’ is, do they become simply the ‘Sub?’ In any case, the APB was out, and the local cops pulled us over in Needles. Turns out I was the ‘Droid they were looking for,' and I was taken into protective custody. Mom and MayBeth were not arrested, but I got a ride in the patrol car.

It is interesting being in protective custody, at least it was back in the day. First of all, let me say that I was no stranger to the inside of a jail. My mom used to date a county Sheriff. She would visit him in the evening as he worked at the local lock-up. I would go along and while she was visiting, I would play draw poker in the cell block with the inmates. So yeah, I knew what the inside looked like. For the Needles Mounties, I was a bit of a problem. I wasn’t a criminal and hadn’t done anything wrong, so they couldn’t just throw me in a cell and forget about me, but I might be a kidnapping victim, and until that was sorted out, I needed to be ‘protected’ from everybody, it seems.

So what does a small town cop do with a ten year old? I slept in a cell by myself, but during the day I had the run of the station. I became a self-taught expert at taking my own fingerprints. I recall the ID form to be filled out when someone ran afoul of the law. Ten fingerprints and a space to describe any identifying tattoos; location and picture or words. That may be when I decided to forego ever getting a tattoo myself. The sheriff had a deal with the local doughnut shop, and brought in breakfast and lunch from their selection of day-old goods at very reasonable prices. Doughnuts and milk for breakfast. Doughnuts and milk for lunch, then a nice nutritious hamburger for dinner.

The whole Custody thing was a mess. Mom had physical custody of me as a result of the divorce, and when she went into the hospital, I was just sent to my dad’s. As far as I know, there were no modifications to the custody order, so she had as much claim to me in California as she did in Texas.  So was I really kidnapped? Or was she just picking me up under the old “Easier to ask forgiveness than permission” thingy.

On the third day, Mom won some sort of legal tussle and they released me into her custody. Lickety-split, we were across the state line into Arizona, and home free. I heard later that my dad arrived in Needles to collect me hours after we crossed the border.

The balance of the trip was unremarkable. I returned to Texas and back to regular school. Two years later, Mom was committed to the same institution, I repeated my trek west, finally did enter the Military Academy for a year, and have lived in California ever since.

Mom? She only left the State Hospital to go to a rest home, where she died at the age of 57. Her “Treatment” consisted of numerous Electroshock Therapy sessions. I was never able to have a normal conversation with her again.

Boxing Day, 2004

I stumbled across an interesting set of videos last week on YouTube. If it turns out your interest is piqued, the title is “Tsunami, Caught on Camera.” The content was assembled, in the main, from amateur video captured by individuals who survived the onslaught.

The tsunami in question is the Indonesian Tsunami of 2004. It was caused by a large earthquake off the coast of Sumatra on the morning of December 26, or Boxing Day as it is known in some parts of the world.  For perspective, the massive tsunami which devastated the coast of Japan in 2011 is estimated to have taken between 20,000 and 30,000 lives. The Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 killed 10 times as many, with estimates ranging from 260,000 to 290,000 dead.

Over a quarter-million fatalities.

Much of the footage was captured by tourists who were staying at resorts in Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka. Of course they are the ones standing around with cameras all day so it makes sense that they become our cinematographers. Unfortunately, they also became the victims and in some cases the casualties.

The images are by turns stunning, compelling, mesmerizing, awe-inducing, horrific, terrifying, mystifying and confounding. As I watched, unable to turn away, I was astounded by the power of Nature’s fury, the very inevitability of the unstoppable water as it swept away everything in its path. I was amazed that so many people seemed completely unaware of the warning signs of the impending destruction. As the water receded to an incredible degree, the video showed many who followed the ocean out only to be gathered up by returning waves and swallowed in a heartbeat.  

Although the scenes were actually not as dynamic as the recent video from the Eastern Japanese coast, I found them even more disturbing because of the nature of the places depicted. Most were resorts on beautiful tropical beaches. When we go on holiday, we don’t expect to have our lives changed forever or suddenly ended by a so called Act of God.

All of the commentary was from survivors in the form of interviews, years after the fact. Most of the people had stories of their personal struggle for survival, and stories of the struggles of those around them, some of whom survived and many that didn’t. Particularly poignant was the testimony of a young mother on vacation with her family who had her 5 year-old daughter swept away by the flood and then came very close to drowning herself. Imagine, if you will, swimming for your life with your child’s arms wrapped around your neck one instant and just….. gone the next. If you survive, you spend the next days or weeks trying to find your child, praying she will be alive and unharmed while you look through thousands of photos of the ones who didn’t make it hoping against hope that you won’t find her there.

So many people lost not only their homes and jobs, but many lost their entire families as well. I am not sure how one continues following such a tragedy. I hope I never have to figure out the answer to that one.

Oblah Dee .......Oblah Dah

I spend some time thinking every once in a while. We all have the same lessons to learn. And when I learn them, I often forget that I am not the first person to figure this or that out. All I can claim is that I finally got it.

I’m gonna hitch a bit on a blog I wrote for another venue. Remember the dreaded “Grading on the Curve?” That infamous bell shaped curve that defines so many aspects of our lives? Here is one angle I was thinking of recently. Take your knowledge, your physical skills and your mental abilities and distribute them along the time line of your life. If you are somewhat normal and live the expected number of years, you’ll find that your skills and abilities will follow the curve. From birth to death, you are either increasing or decreasing.

Sure, there is a smooth spot at the top, and you may ride the crest for quite a while, but it really is either up or down. In the very beginning, you don’t even notice your progress, but you are assimilating experience and knowledge at an ever increasing and quite astonishing rate. I always think of my learning and my experience as measured by milestones. Do you remember when you first rode a two-wheeler by yourself? Your first kiss? Your High School graduation or your first driver’s license?

I have always been a bit short-sighted. When I graduated High School, I didn’t envision my College graduation. When I first rode my bike around the block, it never occurred to me to look forward to driving a car or riding a motorcycle. That first kiss? Didn’t ever imagine being married. At the wedding, becoming a parent was the farthest thing from my mind. Now that I’m a bit older, though my eyesight is getting worse, my vision seems to be improving. The lens of experience, I guess.

As I grew, I collected experience, knowledge and skill, bit by bit, one piece at a time. I eventually reached a zone of relative competence and have cruised there for a while. If you will envision a metaphor with me, picture walking up a rounded hill. In the beginning, the slope is gentle, but as we have just begun our walk, we are full of energy and enthusiasm encouraged by our very ignorance. As our ability to learn and do increases, so do the challenges. Farther up, perhaps the hill is less steep, but the air becomes more rarefied the higher we go and the going does get tougher. We approach the top, and buoyed by our work to this point, we can do what we must fairly easily. At the top, our tasks, though they still take time and energy, are almost effortless.

The surprise waits a little farther. Gradually things become even easier, but……is that because we are even better, or has the slope crested and started down? At first it may be hard to tell. We are full of ourselves, matured as human beans, competent to handle most situations and able to enjoy life and the fruits of our labors. However, the rock we stand upon, that bell curve full up with our skills and abilities, is diminishing. The area under the curve is becoming smaller and smaller.

Maybe the first thing we lose is just a step. Perhaps I can’t quite catch up with that fastball, or some motion I used to make routinely now elicits a twinge of discomfort. An injury may cause us to be a taste more cautious. A restricted back-swing knocks 50 yards off the drive. Perhaps every face doesn’t always have a name attached the way it used to, or, dare I say it, maybe I get just a little bit lost on a familiar road?

At some point you begin to realize that the walk is just a bit too easy; the slope is helping you to walk just a little bit more quickly than you really want to, and it takes effort to slow down. It’s like driving down a hill: at first it’s just enough to lift your foot from the accelerator, any steeper and you begin to use the brakes. (OK here my improved vision kicks in and I can picture myself sliding, on my back down an enormous slip n slide, arms and legs flailing wildly, grasping at anything to try and slow down.) Maybe somehow our equilibrium fails and instead of a nice smooth curve into the flat line (Ooh, there is an interesting and appropriate analogy!) we trip and simply fall off the hill, straight to the bottom, not to be confused with illness, injury or accident at an unfortunate moment dropping us to zero before our time.

Another way to look at the whole thing is this. We spend a bunch of time adding…adding skills, adding knowledge even gathering stuff. Then, one by one, things are taken away. In the end you will leave just as you arrived.

My point is this: when you receive a gift, appreciate it. Be it a gift of time, space, or love, treasure it….live in the moment and savor each precious tick of the clock. You never know which tick will be your last.

Oh! Did I tell You About...........

Here is one I don't talk about much. My SO is a wonderful person, but she does have an interesting quirk.

She has never met a story that she can't improve. Literally and literarily, every time she tells a story it changes. Eventually it becomes bigger than life, and I find this incredibly amusing. Once she gets started, I sit back and marvel at how creative her manipulations become. If I have heard the story before, I have a baseline, a benchmark or starting place to mark and measure the width and breadth of her inevitable prevarication.

The funny thing is that she seems to be more solidly grounded in the improved tale than she does the truth. Every retelling drifts further and further from fact towards fabrication. She seems to believe the story and will even swear to its veracity.

Here is an example:
One day the kids borrowed her car for a while. We ran errands in my vehicle and stopped in at Trader Joes. As we parked, we saw her car in the parking lot; the kids were next door at the Wherehouse. She thought it would be funny to move her car. I have a bit of a mean streak and readily agreed, so we did move it several rows over, then went in to Trader Joes. As we were checking out, the kids rushed in looking for us, saw us at the check stand and came over to let us know just how unfunny our prank was. We laughed. End of story. OK...that's what really happened.

Now for the improved version: Everything is the same up until we moved the car. At this point we hide in the bushes and wait to see their reactions, and you wouldn't believe the looks of astonishment on their faces when they come out and find the car missing *laugh out loud and slap thigh for emphasis* "You should have seen the looks on their faces! It was hilarious!" She has even quoted dialogue between them on occasion(I guess the bushes were pretty close.)
A simple change and maybe it does make a better story......she surely does enjoy telling it more.

Anyway, it has created a new hobby for me. When she starts, I just relax and wait to see what new paths our old adventures have taken since the last time. I'm always amused and often amazed at what we have done.

Of course I can only testify about the ones to which I've been an accomplice. The stories that scare me are the ones where I wasn't........ 

Some Days are Golden, Some are Maroon

OK… now I feel like a Maroon.

I am away. On a business trip. A looong way from home.

Business finishes early, but my reservations are cast in financial concrete. Back at the hotel, I wander down to the concierge (that’s what you call the afternoon manager at Best Western when you need to ask him a question) and inquire as to the location of the nearest decent steak house. Being a good concierge and obviously concerned for my expense account, he suggests that the nearest Red Robin might be just the ticket. I counter with the concept that when you stray from a given establishments forte menu item, you are treading on a very slippery slope. Does Red Robin even serve whole meat without feathers? He finally begins to get my drift and does make a reasonable offer. I consider it.

Before dining, I head down to the business center to print tomorrows boarding passes. The computer requests my password. Back to concierge. “Oh, yes! I’ll give you the password, but it won’t do you any good. The Internet is down.” I explain that I have just come down from my room where I checked my e-mail. That Internet was working fine. “Well, we have a different Internet down here and it isn’t working at all!” He’s right. 

Hmmmmm

I abandon the whole steak plan and walk a half-block to Wendy’s for a forbidden cheeseburger with bacon. Maybe his Internet will be fixed when I get back.

Delicious. And 'Ain't Happening'...No printer for you, Kemosabe.....

Back in the room, I stand admiring the In-Room-Spa sized for four. I am traveling alone this trip, more’s the pity, but not wanting the Spa to go unappreciated, I decide to fill it and flounder around by myself. I can turn on the water from the floor, but it is impossible to actually touch the water to say…. oh… feel the temperature or whatever without actually being “in the spa,” so to speak. To avoid obvious later disappointment, I disrobe, and clamber in to check the water. At my age you don’t ‘step’ into a spa…clambering is the most generous description that can legitimately be applied here.

At the risk of giving the whole plot away at this point in the story, let me say that my rental car is a technological WunderKar. The radio doubles as a rearview TV when reversing. And it picks up music from outer space. To start the thing, you simply push a button. When you are finished driving another push of the same button shuts it off…..

Back in the Spa. I am standing buck nekkid, ankle deep in the tepid water of the ‘just clambered into' Spa when hotel phone rings. This strikes me as rather odd because nobody who needs to call me knows exactly where in the Sam Hell I am. 

Again, Hmmm.

I execute the Much Vaunted but Seldom Seen ‘Reverse Clamber’ and slosh my way to the insistent instrument. Hello? 

“Good evening, Sir! This is the Front Desk." 

Hardly ever a welcome call unless expecting a package from UPS or the Pizza Boy. 

"We are attempting to locate the driver of a car in our parking lot which has been sitting with the motor running for several hours. Which vehicle is yours?” 

With a sinking feeling I confess both Make and Model. 

With a barely concealed squeal of glee, she replies, “Well, Sir, I believe it is yours!” She is delighted because finally she can can quit calling rooms, and now I know why they ask for your auto's curriculum vitae at registration...Information I chose not to provide...... as a security measure, of course.....I stare at the "Keys" to my WunderKar sitting on the dresser, I think about the button on the dash.....Krap!

I start to explain that I am part of the WunderKar test team conducting “Long Term Idling Tests” at Best Western altitudes, but I can tell that her Geezer B.S. Radar is finely tuned and she’s not buying any of it.

I thank her, dry off from the ankles down, dress, sorta…..and slither down stairs, praying there is no thundering crowd to cheer me on the last 20 yards. I'm sure when she disconnected, she shouted "Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!" Funny, I don't feel exactly like a winner.....more like a Maroon.

Oh…the quadruple In-Room-Spa solo act…don’t bother…….it's just no fun by your self, and if you doze off (highly likely at my age), your Kindle gets to test the Submarine Clause in Amazon's warrantee.

Geez....Ida swore I pressed that danged button the second time…….mumble…mutter….mmmmph ........

Hmmm...wonder if the boss will notice I used $80.00 in fuel on a twenty-mile round trip?

p.s. A big tip-o-the-hat to the Manager of the local Guitar Center who graciously allowed me to get a solid 'Guitar Fix' this afternoon playing his $3000 instruments so far from my babies.....There is this one Martin I played, it was like soft butter in my hands, and such a bargan at only $1999........nnaaahh, I dasn't........

Easter Observations

Easter Sunday today...Lent is officially over.

On Good Friday, the youth of my Church presented a shadowbox performance of the crucifixion. Most dramatic to see Jesus arching his back in agony with every blow of the hammer driving the nails through his hands.

Also on Good Friday, I saw a man dressed as Jesus, wearing a thorny crown, blood dripping from his brow, dragging a large cross down the sidewalk near the Rescue Mission. He was accompanied by a Roman Centurion. I appreciated the demonstration of Jesus' sacrifice, but the only folks there to observe have probably had it up to here with sacrifice. They drag their entire lives down the sidewalk every day. He should have been dragging that cross uptown. Those are the people too comfortable to understand.

Maundy Thursday celebrates the Last Supper and Jesus' commandment to love on another. It passed with no foot-washing here this year. I attended MT services in our National Cathedral several years ago quite by accident. I entered the Cathedral to take photos not knowing the service was in progress, when I realized the fact, I decided to stay. During the appropriate part of the service, you get in line, wait your turn, then sit and have your feet washed. If you choose to take a turn at being the washer, simply touch the shoulder of the person who washed your feet. You then kneel, take their place and wash feet until someone takes your place, or until the last person has clean feet!

In my Bible study last year, our Pastor made it quite clear that the word 'feet' in the Bible was most often a euphemism for the genitals......hey.......wait a minute.......

The Strat

I indulged myself this week. I bought a guitar…well to make that statement more accurate, I should say, “I bought another guitar.” This brings my current total up to eight. Very few people that I know truly understand the why of it all, and all of them are keepers of multiple instruments themselves.

I’m not sure I can ‘splain in a way that is meaningful to a layperson, but let me say first of all that I am blessed to have the means to be able to maintain such a collection. That certainly hasn’t always been the case, and I am bright enough to know that it may not be the case tomorrow. I remain humble and thankful.

Well crafted instruments are a wonder, like anything else that is really well made, the quality is obvious to anyone with the knowledge to appreciate it  Although looks can be deceiving, fit and finish, or the feel and smoothness and effortlessness of operation can’t be faked. This is especially true of guitars. A poorly made guitar may well be unplayable at the worst, or simply difficult to play at best, requiring too much effort to form chords and sounding bad even at their best.

This is so unfortunate for people who would like to learn. They are unwilling to spend the money for a good instrument when they are unsure if they have the ability to learn or if they will even stick to it. So they buy a $100 instrument. They end up with a beast that savages their fingertips because the strings are so hard to depress and often quit, happy that they did ‘waste’ a bunch of money. Sad.

If you are a musician you know the feel of a good instrument. One that almost plays itself. If it is a keyboard, every key falls readily to hand and is radiused perfectly. The amount of force required is perfectly balanced…just enough resistance to avoid accidentally depressing a key, and perfect linearity, the volume increasing in correct proportion to effort.

In a guitar that is just right for you it is similar. The spacing of the strings is just right, not too close together, not too far apart. The effort required to form chords or play discrete notes is the same where ever you are on the neck. The strings require only a light touch to hold depressed…no death grip required….. and the intonation is correct from top to bottom  and end to end of the neck.  The strings will easily bend to alter pitch when you ask them to, but stay well behaved otherwise. The sound will be pure and clean, with no buzzing of string against random fret, and enduring sustain that leaves you marveling at the sound.

My guitars? I have one that is sized to travel, an easy carry-on, small but with surprising presence, a joy to play but inexpensive enough to not hurt so much if lost, stolen or destroyed. I have three 6-string acoustics. The first and my oldest is a nylon stringed pure acoustic on permanent loan to my youngest daughter. The second is a steel stringed acoustic electric that I keep tuned to an open G for Hawaiian Slack Key practice. The third is a concert quality steel stringed acoustic-electric for gigs. I have two 12-string acoustics, the first of which is a real beast that I have had for too many decades. It is pretty much unplayable with terrible intonation and finger killing action. I keep it for sentimental reasons. The second is the first guitar I bought after I quit drinking five years ago as a reward. It is a beautiful acoustic electric with buttery action. I love its full sound and often gig with it. The last two are also my newest, pure electrics, fine quality professional instruments, one for rhythm and the newest one for leads and rhythm. It is indeed a joy to hold and behold. Playing it is like driving a Ferrari. You don’t hold it, you wear it, and you don’t play it, you think it. It is happiest when it is playing with you and it shows……

Deja Vu All Over Again

I learned something again.

I mean that in all possible ways: another learning experience, a re-learning of something, knowledge once known but lost, a learning of something new, having an epiphany, or any other way you care to parse it.

I am fascinated by how our knowledge of a subject colors our view. When I was first learning to land an airplane, the single thing that grabbed my attention was exactly how quickly the world was getting bigger in the windscreen. The view was mesmerizing. What? I'm supposed to be doing something here? As I became more and more familiar with the process, I learned to make the decisions and perform the actions required to ensure that the arrival was less than earth-shaking.

When I began to play a musical instrument, my first pieces had only two or three notes, then they began increasing in complexity as my skills and knowledge increased.

My point is this: when I first see something unfamiliar, I am often so overwhelmed by the event that it is impossible for me to really absorb the details. When my experience increases, I begin to see things in a different light. I can start to appreciate the nuance and subtlies in greater depth.

This leads to other questions. When do you know enough? Is there always a deeper layer of understanding, always more to learn if you are willing to invest the time? I think perhaps there is.

I had a small epiphany of my own last night. I was transcribling (Not a typo…well, it began as a typo until I saw the truth of it) some music.....the Halelujah Chorus (and believe me, that is some music), anyway, as I was entering the notes for the organ part in my MIDI staff, I could hear the pitches at the same time. I knew on a logical level that the grouped notes formed chords and chord inversions, but listening to them caused me to think about them in a different way.

In my novice naivety, I had always assumed that the keyboardist read every note and figured out which finger went where each time. What I suddenly saw was that each chord could be read as a word, the notes analogous to the letters, and performed by the fingers as a unit as easily as we pronounce a word after we have learned to speak. Wow.

We don’t learn to speak in full sentences, and we don’t learn to play in complete passages. My first instrument was the Cornet, followed by the Saxophone, both instruments that normally form only one note at a time. When I learned guitar, I learned chords, but I learned them individually as hand and finger positions, not as discrete notes. The big deal is thus: if I know a chord, say a C major, and I need to play a C6, unless I have learned the C6 I can’t do it. I have no clue which note(s) I am playing in my chord is(are) the one(s) that need to be modified to change the chord. I just know that when I do this it makes a C.

So…one thing I have not done is to really learn to play melody lines on my guitar. I can read music Ok, I just never took the time to learn where to find the notes on the guitar, There are a lot of places to find the same note on the fret board – some are more useful than others.  I’m taking the time now…crap….if I was only half a century or so younger…this would be so much easier!

The Gift of Storytelling

I met a young lady the other day. I was in one of my favorite restaurants, enjoying my lunch and reading an e-book on my kindle. The young lady in question is on staff at the restaurant. She asked how I liked my e-reader, and a brief conversation ensued. Turns out that she is an aspiring author, but it goes deeper than that. The lady is tee-totally in LOVE with writing and all things writerly.

I asked if she participated in NaNoWriMo 

http://www.nanowrimo.org/ 

(if you are not familiar, this is an organized challenge, open to anyone who cares to play. The month of November is designated ‘National Novel Writing Month,’ and the goal is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words between the beginning and the end of the month.

She admitted to having won (you win by completing the task) 4 times, and last year doing a double……yep, 100,000 words! I certainly admire her ambition and sticktoitiveness. She has a website and a blog and she is all about writing. All about Writing. I read several of her blog entries, the comments and replies to comments many from friends and supporters, other writers offering encouragement. All about writing. I attempted to have a meaningful conversation. After all, I'm an avid reader, but I quickly realized that my experience as a reader did not qualify me to speak with any knowledge about the craft of writing.

Now, I love to read, always have, and I obviously enjoy writing or this meager blog would not exist, but I’m not in LOVE with writing. But…there exists a whole community of folks out there who are. Many also love to read, but their passion, yea their addiction, is writing. If they aren’t writing they aren’t happy. They study writing and writers. They attempt to master the craft of storytelling. They are fascinated with plots and characters, genres and styles…..and how and where to get published. They are fascinated with being authors.

I have no hard facts to back this up, but based on my knowledge of superstars in other endeavors, for every really successful artist or athlete there are literally thousands of individuals who want to be just as successful, rich or famous. And, as fame and success rarely alight on beginners, so must aspirants often support themselves by doing something other than painting, playing second base (or second fiddle) or writing. Hence the staff position at the restaurant. A filler job until the novel takes off.

This underscores for me just how lucky I am. I could not put together 50,000 words that anyone would pay to read if my life depended on it. The only subject I can paint well is a house, but it will look best if someone with a better eye picks the color. I could never hit major league pitching or drive a golf ball 300 yards. I can, however, design things mechanical, things that function and do their jobs with efficiency and beauty. I can imagine the way a thing needs to be made and then build it or communicate my design to those who can build it, I LOVE doing it and I get PAID to do it.

I didn’t sign a 25 Million Dollar, 6 year contract. I won’t read my works to throngs of admirers, or sign copies to become treasured heirlooms. I won’t be chatting with Dave or Conan on late night television. But I will go home at the end of my day knowing that I enjoyed my job today…knowing that I used my God-given talent to do something special. I’ll be pleased with what I have done today and I’ll look forward to tomorrow’s challenges. I am a lucky man.

So write on, dear friend. Let your passion guide you and put everything you have into what you LOVE to do. Do what pleases you with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might, and the Universe will find a way to reward you. Be Happy.

A Little Melancholy

I was listening to the news today. I don’t really advise it. As my old friend Sam Clemmons once said, “Those who don’t read the news are uninformed, those who do are misinformed.”

Any road, the discussion I was eavesdropping on revolved around the nuclear issue in general, and Iran and Israel in particular. The question seemed to be whether or not Israel’s eminent action to interrupt Iran’s Nuclear Programme would result in War, Cyber or Shooting, and if Iran would target sites in the US for terrorist attacks in retribution.

That got me thinking about my family, how war would affect them, be it a shooting war, an economic war, cyber war or whatever. Seems to me that we are so fragile right now, teetering on the edge of the abyss, it won’t take very much to seriously disrupt our way of life.

As I thought about these things, my mind did a zoom out in space and time. As I got farther and farther from ground zero. I saw other families in other places at other times. I had a bit of an epiphany as I realized that there really was no difference between me and mine and you and yours no matter where, or for that matter, when you are.

You don’t love your kids and grandkids any more or any less than I do. Their futures are or were or will be every bit as promising as mine, yet, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t make any difference. They will either live to be full of years and full of memories, or tragedy will overtake.

Live in a quiet little town in Alabama. Save and build your entire life, then one day a tornado reduces all to zero. Time to start over. Then ten months later, go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 as another random act of Nature clears the works of man from the Alabama countryside.

It has always been this way and always will be.

From Dust you came, and to Dust you shall return.

Can you picture a family living in a small town on the coast of Italy? It is August of ’79, and people are involved, as people usually are, in the mundane activities of everyday life. The kids are running through the house yelling, mom is getting ready to do the laundry. The small earthquakes have been rumbling for a few days. When the eruption begins in earnest, a cloud of super-heated gas rushes down the nearby mountain at a speed that defies the imagination. The strong quake that signals the start of the eruption frightens the children, who rush to their mother, just in time to die together. The year? 79 A.D. The town? Pompeii

Love those you care about with everything you have. Savor each moment and treasure every sunrise. Live each day as though it is your last. 

One day you’ll be right.

You've Come A Long Way, Baby!

I have this image set as my desktop. I downloaded from NASA a picture taken in the International Space Station. The woman in the photo is Tracy Dyson, a NASA astronaut. The photo was taken in the cupola of the station. From what I understand, this is the most popular place in space, and I believe it.

As I looked at this young woman, after I got over my jealousy, I could not help but think: thirty-some years ago a mother and a father held a tiny girl child in their arms. Perhaps they were in awe over the miracle of life they had created. Maybe they were concerned with the responsibility a new child imposes on a family.

Her father may have looked down at this swaddled infant and for a moment wondered, "Where will you go, Little One? What adventures await you there?"

Could he.....did he.......even for a moment, imagine his beautiful daughter floating weightless in space, a hundred miles above the Blue Planet, gazing serenely out the window. perhaps amazed herself at just how far she had come?

Where will my children go? Where will yours?

The Big Difference

Aging is so strange.

I feel like I am looking out of a window, and outside that window I see many things that have changed. Or I guess I should say the things of man have changed. The cars have changed, although they are not the wheel-less, gravity defying wonders that some of my favorite authors had predicted. Other technological change is evident everywhere, and we can freely marvel at what man has wrought.

If you can see past all that, take the time to look at God’s world. It is changing too, but for the most part the change there is slow. I and all that I know or will ever see or do is less than the blink of an eye on that scale.

If I draw my personal window close enough, (imagine me standing inside my own eyeball, leaning forward against the curve of my eye, hands grasping the edge of my iris, and peering through the circular window of my pupil) then my current body becomes something outside myself, and I am free to examine it for the curiosity it is.

I look at my hands and wonder to whom they belong. The strong, supple hands of youth have given way to the ‘experienced’ hands of today. Each scar a memorial to some faded page in time, the weathered skin a testimony to years so quickly disappearing in the rear-view mirror of life.

The collection of experience that is my body rejoices with every new dawn, still each morning the payments due are tallied against accounts received, the black or red ink perhaps defining the day. Eyes that once were clear now dim little by little, needing a bit more aid each passing year.

The ‘me’ inside looking out is still 16 years old, healthy, happy and full of wonder, still wanting to inhale the world like a dog with its nose in the wind out the window (wind door) of a speeding car. I am amazed by the promise of the sunrise and comforted with the reward of a glorious sunset. The smell of the ocean shore and feel of the damp sand between my toes take all my worries, and the immensity of the starry night seen from the top of a tall mountain still reduces me to my just insignificance.

My heart, the one that loves, and yearns, and longs, not the one that merely beats……. my heart still is ready and willing to embrace life, to love and be loved, to ache and fill to bursting with passion. That heart is ready to write checks my body cannot honor, and yet even that sure knowledge is not enough to still its desires.

I am jealous of the very youth of the young, and yet if offered the chance to return to those tumultuous times, I’m not quite sure what my answer would be.

I would like to believe I am wiser today than I was yesterday, but I doubt that is true. I know a lot more than I did then, but knowledge doesn’t necessarily translate to wisdom.

The single biggest thing that really makes a difference to me now, is the fact that contrary to the belief of youth that time stretches ahead infinitely, I realize all too well that my remaining time is not infinite, whether measured in years or minutes, and I am determined to appreciate every person, every moment and every thing to the fullest.

Amen

I think it will always hurt

I am angry, and I don't know what to do with my anger and my hurt, so I'll write about it.

A while back, on a Saturday night, a man killed my eighteen year old cousin.

I am angry at him.

He had been drinking, as apparently was his habit.

I am angry at alcohol and alcoholism.

This man had been picked up in a bar by my cousin's mom several weeks earlier. She brought him to her house and laid him, a one night stand.

I am angry at her.

He came back for seconds but my Aunt wasn't home, so thought he'd try to score with my cousin. She let him in, but refused his advances.

I am angry with her for letting him inside the house.

When she turned him down, he beat her, knocked her down, and shot her twice in the back. Shot her in the back as she lay helpless on the floor of her own home, killing her, a college freshman with her entire life ahead of her.

She was happy, healthy, pretty and smart.

The police caught him, thanks to another man with a conscience who had heard the killer bragging about the score he was going to make with this freshman girl, coupled with the killer's own gross stupidity in covering his tracks.

He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for this cold-blooded murder. I am aware of two appeals he made. Each time, his appeal was based alleged procedural errors on the part of the investigators and the court, and violations of his 'rights'.

His rights....Where is her chance to appeal her death sentence? What about her rights?

I am angry.

Each time, his appeal was rejected, his conviction and sentence confirmed. He did not appeal his conviction by claiming his innocence. He wanted out on a technicality. Thank God for no-nonsense Southern Justice.

This occurred more than thirty years ago. An anniversary of her death is little more than a week away. It hurts today every bit as much as it did when it happened. I hope he died in prison and rots in hell.

Perhaps you can tell, I am still angry.

Draining the Swamp

Jim and I decided to go fishing one Saturday. We often fished together from the rocks on the rugged California coast. Our equipment was simple, but so were the fish and we usually fooled a few into biting on our hooks.

This day was different though. Today we were hitting the big time. We had access to a boat with a motor, and we were sure that all we needed to do was get out there a ways, and man, were we gonna catch some beauties!

The boat was, well......marginal would be high praise, and the motor was just...wait. I'm getting ahead of myself. The boat was an ancient rowboat, about 14 feet long, and had been well on it's way to total decomposition years before, but it had been 'rescued' that year through the ill advised efforts of the entire school. We essentially took a rotten hulk with zero physical integrity, barely enough to hold its  own shape, and fibre-glassed the crap out of it inside and out. This involved layer upon layer of woven glass cloth covering the entire hull, bonded with a two part plastic resin that must be mixed in the correct proportions to set properly.

We learned several things doing that project. If you don't combine the ingredients in the right amounts, the resin either will never set, or set incredibly quickly, and incidentally get amazingly hot and then cure to a really brittle solid, in the can in which you mixed it. To make up for the lack of  structural strength in the rotted wooden hull, we used lots of fibre-glass. When complete, it was a thing of beauty. The hull was painted a brilliant white, with bright red stripes outlining the profile of the boat, and another red stripe running diagonally down from stem to stern.

Fibre-glass is heavy. Our boat could float, but it wasn't a happy ship. It only floated because physics demanded that it float. The darn thing was lighter than the amount of water it displaced, but only barely. And the shoddy workmanship of the fibre-glass crew ensured that the hull was not entirely water tight.

No worries. It didn't leak that much, and we had a coffee can to bail with. and at 14 we were pretty much invincible anyway.

Now we get to the motor, which proved to be quite sufficient to start, and get us out of the cove and well into the current running dawn the coast from North to South. The plan was fool-proof, we motored out to a position well North of the mouth of the cove and killed the motor. We would drift South with the current, fishing along the way, and when we wanted to head back up the coast, why, we would just start that little motor and putt back up stream.

I don't know what I expected, but the coastal cliffs looked much smaller from the ocean. The swells lifted, then dropped us on a regular basis. The wind, which sculpted the low-growing trees along the coast into a dense mat, blew constantly from North to South along with the current, hastening our drift. Because we were outside the surf line, we couldn't actually see the white foamy breaking waves, but we could sure hear them between us and dry land.

The first part of the plan worked to perfection. Out into the current. Kill the motor. Bail just a little. Bait up and cast our lines out. No takers in the first drift, time to head back up hill. This is where the plan began to unravel. That poor little ole motor had pretty much given us everything it had getting us into this predicament. We were drifting directly towards a rock they we called 'Spray.' It got that name because of what happened to the ocean waves when they dashed themselves against the flat vertical surface of the rock that faced the oncoming surf.

We had oars, so I began to row us back up current as Jim yanked repeatedly on the starter handle. Rowing takes on a different aspect when you are propelling a half submerged boat that drifts back a little bit farther than you managed to row it in the first place every time you stop to bail with a coffee can that moves so little water out compared to the amount that is now filling the boat.

Jim and I took turns rowing, bailing and pulling that damned starter cable, for what seemed like hours. First pulling away from the rocks and then drifting back towards them, time and again. The wind had picked up and some spray was blowing into the boat as well. We were both getting soaked, cold and tired. I could only imagine what would happen to us if we couldn't stay off of 'Spray.'

Every once in a while the motor would pretend to start, only to stutter a die again. We had to go quite a bit North before we could try to enter the cove because there were many rugged rocks with lots of waves breaking over them between us and the safety of the cove.

As I fought alternately with the oars and the rising water in the boat, I thought about the fact that we had not actually told anyone what we had planned to do, not that it would have made any difference. There was no other boat for miles; our fate was solely in our young hands.

After almost an hour, we were finally far enough North to began to head into the mouth of the cove. As soon as we pulled even with the surrounding cliffs, the wind, which had been conspiring with the current to drive us on to the rocks, was blocked. The calm was palpable. The constant bobbing of the boat had ceased and we began to be able to actually feel the warmth of the sun. Of course, that is when the motor decided to rejoin the party, when we needed it the very least.

We calmly motored the rest of the way to the rocky beach, got out and pulled the boat above the high water mark, then felt the giddy release of those who suddenly realize just how close they came to disaster. Oh, yeah, during that last hour, our focus had shifted a wee bit. We had no fish, but I now understood the fullness of the saying, "When you are up to your ass in alligators, it's hard to remember that you came to drain the swamp."

Once you arrive, there you are!

Ok.

I've arrived.

Today I got run off.

I'm standing there minding my own business, when I hear someone shout, "Hey!"

Which of course, I ignore.

Then again, louder, "Hey!!"

I look up, and a rather large man in a yellow vest is waving his arms. "Hey, you! Completely off the property!"

He is still 50' away, so I feel no immediate threat, but I have just clicked my shutter, and I think the shot is a good one, so I smile, wave, and say , "Sure, no worries," and slooowly wander back to my truck.

Really? Really, Mister? The freight train was barely moving, and although it was on the tracks I was in-between (and betwixt), I was only on 'his' property by three feet or so, and if I stepped back four feet, I'd have been in eminent danger of being run down by a big yellow (Wow, yellow is getting plenty of play today!), a big yellow school bus. Sure, I know they are Supposed to Stop at all railXroad crossings, but the bus was doing 40 and the train was doing 2. I'll take my chances with the train, thank you very much!

I figure he was just selfish. Not only would he not let anyone play with his trains, he didn't even want to let someone take a picture of them.


I felt so 'Paparazzi.' Now I am wondering if I could have actually gotten him to chase me, maybe just a little ways? I'm sure that would have gotten the adrenaline flowing! I could have been like a streaker, only with clothes.......

What a rebel.

So, once you arrive, there you are!

Who Are You? Who who...Who who...?

A couple of days ago I was reading my horoscope and it mentioned reflecting on the person I used to be, and the danger of seeing that person through the flattering lens of time. The danger, of course, is failing to enjoy today while longing for yesterday

It got me thinking about whether or not I have changed. I guess I could say that everybody changes, and it is certainly true that my body has changed, but at some level do we really ever change? If I am an ass, am I destined to always be an ass? Or if I am a push-over, will I always have round heels? If I am an Angel, will I never screw up? I'm pretty sure that if you are good, you will still make mistakes and if you are rotten, you will occasionally do something nice, even if it is only accidentally.

Someone much smarter than I once told me, if you squeeze an orange, you always get orange juice. It doesn't matter how you squeeze it, or within limits even when you squeeze it, what comes out under pressure is still orange juice. I guess what I am saying is that we can change our behavior if we are motivated to do so, but I'm not sure that we can change who we really are on a fundamental level.

So then are we our behavior? That is what people see. In fact that really all they can see. Maybe you've seen these people? You know the ones I mean...the mom talking to another mom in the market...all smiles and happy faces...until their child does something that gets moms goat, and in a heartbeat, eyes flash, teeth are bared, and threats are delivered in a harsh whisper. Then a quick turn back to the friend and a quick turn back into the pleasant woman who disappeared so quickly just a moment before. Who is that mom? Is she the gay social butterfly or the wicked  mother jerking the choke collar tight? I don't know. Maybe we are the person who we are most of the time. Or maybe we default to the very best or worst we have ever been. Is your glass half empty or half full?

I do know that sometimes I surprise myself with my behavior. Sometimes my response seems all out of alignment with the situation I'm responding to, and I wonder who I am. I think I know who I want to be, and I believe that agrees pretty well with who I really am, whoever that is today. But still there are times when I look back and wish I had responded differently in a given situation. I've actually stopped and said to myself, "Wait, that's not me!" Once, when I was taking my young son to a hockey game, a guard offered to let us in through a side door at a steep discount. What went through my mind was the fact that I had almost zero disposable income in those days and his offer meant that I could buy popcorn and a soda (at the hideously inflated prices - but that is another blog) for me and my son. I accepted his offer. Almost immediately, I was overwhelmed with guilt, and sat there wondering what sort of a dad I was, setting such a terrible example for my son. So who am I? The low-life who conspired with a crooked authority? Or the guilt-ridden dad concerned for the well being of his child? I believe the latter, and I know I learned an important lesson that day.  My son? He has grown into a fine and honest man of whom I am deservedly proud.

Can we define a situation that is an environment in which we can be positive that the person we are in that situation is 'who we really are'? The best one I can think of is 'What do you do when you believe that no one will ever find out what you are doing'. That's kinda the same as 'What do you do when no one is looking?', although today that may not exist, and might not ever exist again. I saw a T-shirt last summer that said, "What happens in Vegas stays on You Tube and Facebook forever." True that!

A question came up a while back. If you do something while you are drunk that you wouldn't do sober, is it the drink's fault, or did the alcohol simply lower your inhibitions and allow you do behave as you really wanted to all along? The phrase 'In vino veritas'(In wine there is truth) has its complements across languages, centuries and cultures, however this phrase specifically references spoken words as opposed to actions. Surely secrets are more likely to slip through wine lubricated lips, but does this beg the question? Are we really only who we are when we are drunk? Personally, I think not.We are who we really are drunk or not...just a lot stupider when drunk....

I was a conservative in my youth because my father was a conservative. I became a liberal in college because the girls I wanted to sleep with were liberals. At some point I realized that my belief system included the notion that I should be rewarded in measure equal to the effort I was willing to expend. This seemed to fit conservative philosophy better than liberalism, so I switched back. While we are on the subject, have you ever noticed that the people who work the hardest often are rewarded the least? The man or woman who sweats in the sun, digging a ditch for our sewer, or picking food from a field for our tables...really back breaking work...these folks are among the poorest paid members of our society. And at the same time a man who plays a professional sport for 2 or 3 hours a day, four months out of the year, may make more money in a single year than a whole field full of pickers will earn in their lifetimes. Yeah, yeah, I know...the 'best of the best'..yadda yadda...what about the best of the best tomato picker? Guess he picked the wrong job, right? Go figure.....

Anyway, I do believe I am still the same person I used to be and for the most part I am happy with who that person is. The body is a little(?) worse for wear. I have learned a lot through the years. The moments I treasure have changed, the things that are important to me have changed. The way I see the world around me has changed. Does this mean I am a different person?

I used to drink to excess every day. Was I the person who drank too much? Or was my drinking masking the real me?  Maybe the real me is different every day. Perhaps 'me' is one thing, and "me + alcohol' = something else entirely.

Do you respond differently depending on who you are with? Are you one person when you are with your parents and another person when with your kids? Maybe you are someone else at work or at school? Ever try different behaviors? I always wondered about actors...if they are so good at portraying others, how can you ever know who they really are? I do think that who I am around has a strong influence on which parts of me I want to take out and live. I also believe that what I choose to feed my mind makes a difference. The phrase 'Garbage in, Garbage out' may have been coined for the computer age, but it has never been more important than in relation to our minds and spirits.

Another question came to mind. I asked myself  why I was blogging in the first place. What is my goal?
I decided that I blog because I like writing, because it helps me to organize my thoughts and feelings, and because I find something quite cathartic in seeing my ideas in black and white. Oh...yeah...and because I feel like I don't communicate very well verbally. This gives me the chance to take as many Mulligans as I need to beat the words into submission before I click 'Post.' Wait....that means I have no excuse for poor writing...Crap!