ANOTHER LESSON LEARNED

You know how they say people never appreciate what's in their own back yard? For instance, here in southeast Idaho I am only a short and fairly pretty three hour drive from the most beautiful country on the face of the earth, Yellowstone National Park. Yet I talk to people all the time who live right here in the same town and who have either never been to the park or who might have only gone once or twice in a lifetime. What do I say to that? What a shame. And it is.
But it's a bigger shame to have my little sister living only forty minutes away, near my home town of Shelley, and to only see her two or three times a year. It took her moving to Missouri to have my eyes open to what I've missed.
Going back, WAY back, in time, I was eight years old, my older sister was twelve, when we got the phone call from the hospital telling us we had a little sister. I'll never forget that moment. My sister Kandy and I jumped up and down repeatedly, yelling in delight. A baby sister.
I adored that little girl. I remember cuddling her, nestling her in the plethora of pillows my mom had on our window seat, staring into those alert, watchful eyes, and knowing SHE WAS MINE. And nobody was ever going to hurt her, or they would have to go through me. Not that this was much of a threat, as an eight-year-old boy. But the point is I thought I would have protected her with my own life if I had to. I never dreamed back then that there would be a time we were separated.
But time passed, as time does, and we both moved on. My little sister, whom I should introduce by name as Marqueta (pronounced "Mar-KEE-tuh), grew and proved to be as beautiful as an adult as she had been as a child. Some would most likely compare her to Sandra Bullock, but I'm not an SB fan, and I say she's much prettier and more intelligent and talented. I know, I'm a little biased. Marqueta went on a mission to Philadelphia, came home and married a great guy by the name of Kenneth Graham, and so my little sister, whom at the age of eight I naturally assumed would always be a Jonas, was now Marqueta Graham, and she moved away.
The Grahams have lived off and on for many years within an hour and a half of me, yet, like those people who don't visit Yellowstone, I saw them but seldom. We kept in touch now and then through email, but even that was sparse.
And then, for reasons all her own, Marqueta decided she wanted to move to Missouri. And slowly our world fell apart. Not to say we are all lying depressed on the couch, taking medication and wishing our lives away. But over the many months we've had to think of Marqueta and her family being gone we have come to realize how many things we will miss, and it became harder and harder as the weeks passed.
Today was the last day before their departure. I took part of the day off work and went to Shelley to pick up some shelves from them...and to say goodbye. I thought I could be strong and not cry, but honestly, Missouri is a long ways away, and in my current state of economics and with current gas prices I don't travel much anymore, and it could be a long, long time before I lay eyes on that part of my family again.
I could go on and on about Marqueta's little girls and her boy. But I know it would only be interesting to family. My point is, I had my sister very close to me for many years, and it has only been in the last few months that I have realized how much it has meant. And even then, you guessed it, we STILL didn't visit any more than before!
As I said goodbye this afternoon, the tears filled my eyes, and I couldn't speak. I guess the sadness was as much for my failure to be a real brother as anything else. I know that now I will find a moment every other day when I want to see my little sister again, and there won't be any forty minute drive to accomplish that. Her beautiful little girls and the boy are going to grow and grow, and when I see them again I don't know if they will know me or even want to talk to me. That is the saddest part of all.
Don't let yourself be in the place I am this evening. If you have family who are close by, take the opportunity to visit them, because you never know when they will no longer be nearby. Yellowstone will always be in the same place.

Evolutionism v. Creationism

Doubtlessly, I am opening up a humongous can of worms with today's blog, but to be frank this has been on my mind for quite some time and really needs to be put out there, no matter the resulting explosion.

I just went online (the best place ever to do research, they say) to read up on evolution and the origins of life. Now first off let me say that I do believe in a certain amount of evolution. Most conspicuous because I've observed them for so long are the different kinds of dogs. No clear-thinking, intelligent individual could possibly look at all the various kinds of dogs and say dogs have not evolved. Arguably, all dogs came from one original dog, likely enough a wolf. Even if I didn't pay attention to all the new breeds of dogs that have appeared over the past 100 years due to man's creative breeding practicing (i.e., labradoodles, etc.) I would have a hard time believing that all dog species appeared at the same time through one almighty Creator. Can you picture a pack of Chihuahuas bringing down a mammoth? They aren't even fast enough to bring down a rabbit, unless it's a baby rabbit. So yes, evolution does exist. I bow to that fact.

However, evolution as an explanation for the existence of man and the many varied forms of life in the world today is another story altogether. I'm not going to go into trying to explain away all of the science fictional theories there are out there for how the earth first came to be. That's not my intent. Number one, it's a waste of time. Number two, I have only one real purpose in bringing all of this up, and this one purpose is to pose a question, which you will read at the end of this blog.

All right, let's get to the meat of this. If I understand one theory correctly, it proposes that life as we know it began as a one-celled organism. Through many millions of years and many strange natural occurrences, this ended up splitting into two-celled organisms, then eventually multi-celled organisms, and each and every one adapted to its own conditions and surroundings until today you have, voila, a multitude of living beings, from the germs living in your sewer to man himself--which often, I might add, don't seem too far separated, if you watch the news very often. But that's a side note I won't go into here.

So let's take mammals, for instance. Most mammals have varying amounts of hair on them to keep them warm. The amount of hair on different species can believably be explained by the theory of evolution. The original appearance of hair on a creature is another question that science can't satisfactory explain to me. And that seems a pretty simple thing.

Now let's move on to eyes. Wow. So we are supposed to believe those eyes just ... happened? Have you ever studied the eye? Or the ear? The brain? The tongue, the throat, the heart? Taste buds? The kidneys, liver, lungs? How all of the bones and the muscles fit together in their perfect order? If you haven't, and if you believe they all just came from the original one-celled organism and "happened" over hundreds of millions of years, then read on.

Let me look at a very humble house in the United States of America, for example. Let's say that this house is divided into five rooms. First there is a bathroom, replete with all the amenities: a shower, a toilet, a nice bathtub in which to soak, a sink, a garbage can, a mirror--you get the idea. There is a living room with couches, chairs, book shelves full of books, a TV, a stereo. Then there is the kitchen with its garbage disposal, dishwasher ... Okay, I'm not going to list every room. You get the idea. Now keep this house in mind.

Say I were to go outside now, take a simple grass seed from a nodding head of grass. Say I were to plant this seed of grass in a special, well-cared-for place in my yard. All right, now let's say at a hundred years of age I die and someone else buys my house and cares for my yard as I always did. Say it has all the best of care until the new owner also succumbs to age. And on and on for the next, say... 610 million years.

If my figuring is correct, then according to the evolution from the one-celled organism theory, that seed of grass should by then have evolved into that humble house spoken of above, with all the amenities, the TV, the computer, the garbage disposal--all of it. It seems highly unlikely that evolution, no matter how many millions of years it is given, could bring this change about in that blade of grass, doesn't it? It sure does. But no more unlikely than that one-celled organism eventually morphing into the highly specialized, diverse, and, I might say, well thought out organisms in the world today, things such as the elephant, the horse, the giraffe, the monkey, the mouse, and, not least of all, the human--all of which came from that same one-celled organism, I might add.

So that question I mentioned earlier is this: Assuming I were immortal, if I let my lawn evolve long enough, and all of the conditions were, as they must have been for that one-celled organism somewhere in that ancient ocean, how long until I would be the proud owner of whatever metropolis my lawn will have evolved into?

Gray Day, Silver Outlook

It’s not always a bad thing, this color, or lack of color, that man calls gray. After all, what is the difference between gray and silver but the amount of light that’s reflected? My Fleetwood Cadillac might be called gray by some, but the title says it’s silver. A man whose black hair is losing its pigment at the temples might be said to have silvering hair, while one with light brown is graying, yet they might be exactly the same shade. I guess gray and silver are in the eyes of the beholders.

Looking outside today, I am greeted by what most would call a gray day. It isn’t the kind of day with black or purple, towering clouds, swollen with rain, ready to assault the earth with lightning, or to reverberate with the pounding, sonorous boom of thunder. Rather, it is one of those days where the gray clouds hang low over blue, snow-dusted mountain, dusky foothill, and amber plains alike. One of those days that starts out misting, and you can see the gray bleakness stretch beyond the horizon, and you know that the entire day, from dawn to dusk, is going to sleep in this dim-lit blanket of fog-like quietude. The entire day, at least infrequently, will drip with the rains of autumn. And if you aren’t careful, your mood will become as gray as the day.

The silver in a day like this comes, perhaps, because two of the things I claim most deeply are to be a lover of nature, and an artist. I have on my land over one hundred fifty trees, and hundreds of flowers, all of which are loving this day. They stand quietly as the silver autumn mists wisp like smoke to the ground, as the cooling and calming waters of October-end seep like lifeblood into the thirsty soil. Except perhaps for spring, this is the time of year for which the landscape holds its breath most impatiently, waiting for reprieve from the triple digits of summer. It is this time of year that gifts the land with its last long drink of water before laying the soil and the flowers, the grass and trees, down for their long winter’s nap under sheets of blue ice and blankets of sparkling snow. It is this time of year that goes down with a promise of things that are brighter, things that are full of life and color, and not so very far away.

Now is the gardener’s time of reprieve from watering, from weeding, and from the harvest. It is the time to sit at one’s window, a down comforter across one’s lap, sipping hot cocoa and gazing at the wintry blue landscape and city lights that sparkle through the chattering, wind-battered branches of the trees. It is the artist’s time of contemplation, of thanks for the beauty of the fall, appreciation for the austere and solemn snowscape, the chickadees and juncos that flit among the crab apples or the mountain ash berries, still stark red or flaming orange against the drab purple-gray of the bony branches left by the old year gone.

Two days ago my wife and I stood in the logging yard at Pratt Logging, in Blackfoot, Idaho, surrounded by the scent of new-felled lodgepole pine and the pitchy-sweet aroma of burning pine slash. The sun was bright, and golden and fiery leaves surrounded us on every side. Sawdust was thick beneath our feet, and its fresh-cut perfume rose up to us with every step. So soon that sunshine faded, and this grayness—this silver—flowed down over us, this sign of autumn lying down to rest.

To an artist, to a friend of nature, this isn’t dull grayness. This is the silver promise of a ghostly white winter, melancholy on some days, sparkling with the brightness of broken diamonds on others, yet in all cases only a sweet March breath away from new grass and flowers, new growth on the trees, and new life in the landscape.

A LIFETIME ACCOMPLISHMENT

(Photo: Jacob Jonas and Hannah McIntire, the front runner for the girls team)

There he was, at the top of the hill. The last two hundred yards of the three mile race lay before him, all of it downhill. And Jacob Jonas was in the lead. And all alone . . .

The crowning of my oldest son, Jake, as the top high school runner in his district this year, as a junior, began many years ago. At least for a boy of sixteen it has been many years--the vast majority of his life.

Jacob was four years old at the time. It was a bitterly cold night in December, shortly after his birthday. I had missed taking my wolf dog, Loup, for her run earlier in the day and felt guilty for it, so I decided that in spite of the cold that seemed to gnaw into your bones, a cold magnified by winds of twenty or more miles an hour, I would take Loup for her run. But in this case, I did a personal cop-out, because she was going to be running alongside me while I drove in the nice warm pickup. Loup was half timber wolf, half malamute, so the cold was nothing to her. In fact, she preferred it. She could come in the house for five or ten minutes in the deadest of winter nights because it was too warm for her inside, even though we keep our house at a fairly consistent 62 to 65 degrees.

Debbie, my wife, wanted to come with me, and of course we brought the baby, Clay, and Cheyenne, my daughter and oldest child, would never miss an adventure, which a ride is to her. So we all bundled up and ventured out into the cold. Behind our house was a dirt road that wound up into the mountains at an incline of somewhere between 5 to 12 degrees, depending upon the stretch. It was a road I loved to run, but not with a wind chill of twenty degrees or less.

This night there was ice covering most of the road, and there was no moon, so it was fairly dark, and the stars sparkled like ice chips in the sky. I had only gone a hundred yards or so when Jake began saying that he wanted to get out and run with Loup. Mind you, Loup was then 9 years old, and what I would consider an extreme athlete. She could run with me for a dozen miles, but her "miles" were double miles, because she would sprint back and forth, checking out some mystery of nature ahead of me, then coming back to make sure I was still tagging along. She was the ultimate sled dog, just without the sled.

Jake was a four-year-old boy with a big imagination. He imagined he could run alongside this world-class athlete who was my dog. He was very adamant, and as I drove along I told him several times he could not get out. It was too cold, too steep, and too slick with ice. I knew he couldn't last, and I would be stopping the truck right away to let him back in. It was nothing but a pain in the butt.

Yet Jake was insistent, and so finally, with a knowing glint in my eye, I relented. We made him bundle up, tie his hood down tight, and then he hit the ice. I looked at Debbie as the door shut and said, "I'll give him half a minute."

Well, I gave him more. A full minute. Then two, then three. Debbie and I started to get a little worried, so we started opening the window and asking him if he was ready to get back in. Hardly looking up at us, he would just shake his head and say, "No." Jacob has always been a boy of few words.

So on and on Loup ran, and on and on Jake stayed with him. Like the protective girl she was, Loup started going back and forth, this time checking not on her daddy, but on his little boy. For tonight, this miniature of his father had become her friend, her partner . . . her charge. She wasn't about to let him fall behind.

There is a point a mile up in the mountains and eight hundred feet or so higher that the road dead ends. Little Jacob Jonas was still running by the time we reached that dead end. He was running, and running strong. By this time we had stopped asking him if he wanted to get back in where it was warm. It was obvious that this four-year-old had determined to stick it out as long as Loup did. He would not be deterred by any biting wind or freezing ice.

At the turnaround, Debbie and I finally made the command decision that all parents at some time must make. We forced him to give up and get back in. He wanted so badly to run all the way home, too, but with the icy road going downhill didn't seem like the best of ideas. That and the fact that we had another twenty minutes or more ahead of us if we allowed him to have his way forced us to draw the line.

But that was only the beginning for my son. In the 7th grade, he joined the cross country team, and one of his first races was an invitational for all family members and friends. I was the only adult who took the team up on this invite, and although I got endless harassment from Jake's team mates, telling me no forty year old could keep up with them, I placed fourth (beating all of the naysayers by a LONG distance, I might add), and came in behind Jake. And my boy had won it fair and square. Yes, I tried to catch him. He beat me by four seconds.

He has been running off and on now for twelve years, and although I was still easily able to take him as an eighth grader in an eight mile run, by the next summer he was blowing my doors off by ten minutes in an all steeply uphill six miler. And I was doomed.

All through grade school I had coached all of my children about starting out too fast, about pacing themselves early and overtaking those who insisted on sprinted out at the gun. The grade schoolers always ran a half mile run in the fall and another in the spring, and about the fourth grade it switched to one mile, fall and spring. Jake came in first on every one he ever ran, as did his little brother, Clay. But I learned in the last few years that although Jake doesn't take off from the mark in a sprint he might as well, because it is certainly a sprint compared to mine.

My last hold-out, the last ace in the hole, was my 100 yard dash. Even last fall Jake had no chance against me there. But this summer he beat me by an easy 10 feet. My reign, in all arenas (well, except for weight lifting) has ended. Jake is the king of the track, not only the top runner for Pocatello High School in the three miler, but the top runner on the track in the spring as well.

I guess as parents we all want our kids to do better than we did, to reach a higher mark. Jacob has reached this in all areas of his life. I struggled to be a B to A minus student, while Jacob is consistently at over 100 percent in all of his classes and seems to hardly ever study. (Don't ask me how they figure OVER 100 percent, as I have never grasped that.) He has the girls flocking all around him all the time, although he is shy like I was and pretends not to notice. I had none of that--and if I did I truly DIDN'T notice. Jacob, it would seem, has it all, including a sweet personality, the best trait of all. So he has indeed come in far ahead of his father, as a runner and as a person.

As for the district race, for the first half this year the runners had to come past the starting line, and as Jake came around a runner from one of the other schools was still ahead of him. Jacob has been a second place runner many, many times, and I feared this was his lot again. So I generally go out about two hundred yards or so to cheer him on, to work him into a hard sprint at the end of the race. I did this for the district meet.

In this case, I went up the hill, the last stretch, then down a steep hill that comes just before the summit. Here is where I thought I would have to cheer him on to come anywhere near that other boy. I got in position. I waited. Then I saw Jake. He was alone. The other boy was nowhere in sight!

I sprinted up the hill with Jake, cheering him on. We reached the top, and I yelled for him to give it everything he had. It seemed like the entire school was there to cheer the other boy on, and they knew their boy had this race. But their boy had disappeared. Instead, they had Jacob Jonas and his much-too-excited dad running up the last stretch, to the top of the hill. From there, Jake had it. He took the last two hundred yards at a sprint, and nowhere in that two yards was another runner. Jacob took the race, and he took it by leaps and bounds.

I just finished watching the video of that finish, the finish Debbie saw, but I could only watch from the top of the hill two hundred yards away. I don't mind admitting I watched the end of the race through tears. There he was, that four-year-old boy, the little winter runner. It was a beautiful autumn day, and he was flying across the line, all alone--at least to everyone else's eyes. I knew different. Loup's spirit was right there beside him.

A TRIPLE RAINBOW AFTERNOON

Yesterday, while driving a patient from Pocatello, Idaho, to Salt Lake City, Utah, in the ambulance, I saw something I have never witnessed before and had no idea was possible. A triple rainbow. I want to describe this scene as vividly as I know how, and admittedly I do not feel up to the task, so it may be a very humble attempt. Most anything would be humbled in comparison to the scene I saw yesterday.

First, I will attempt an explanation for what I saw, then attempt to describe it in all its glory and pray that if the glory of nature is attractive to you you might be able to envision the scene in the eye of your mind. I did some research this afternoon on rainbows, and it turns out that the phenomenon I observed was what is known as a "reflection rainbow." This makes sense, because it was explained as exactly what I had ascertained it to be: a second rainbow coming off the primary rainbow, but the second one being made from light that was reflected off a bay of the Great Salt Lake, to my right. A reflection rainbow, as opposed to a reflected rainbow, is made by the sun striking brightly off a body of water and thus hitting the rain drops that in conjunction with the sun form the rainbow. Because as you might have observed if you have studied rainbows as I have over the last ten or fifteen years you will have noticed that the farther down the sky the sun is when the rainbow appears the steeper the angle of the rainbow, the reflection rainbow is, at least in the case of the one I saw, almost exactly vertical, and is not a "bow," as such but a strip of rainbow heading straight up from the base of the primary rainbow. Okay, enough for technicality. Now let me get to the surreal beauty of the scene . . .

As I drove the ambulance south, lost in my own melancholy thoughts, wishing I could still be home with my family, the rain was dumping in buckets all over the four lane. At times I was plowing through, and hydroplaning OVER, an inch of standing water. I like rain, but driving in it at high speed is not my favorite pastime, and I was feeling pretty out of sorts. The feeling of melancholy was no doubt heightened by the gray and gloomy day and deep, dark clouds hanging low over the hills, sometimes just above the foothills, with the tops of the Wasatch Range breaking through above, but still within their own shrouding gray-blue mists.

Then, as beautiful coincidence would have it, the sun reached a point in its westward descent where the cloud bank was broken by brilliant patches of azure blue, and it was precisely at this point that I came to the northern end of what is known as Willard Bay, an arm of Great Salt Lake.

Fleeting images of rainbows began to appear to my left, to the east. At first, these were simply spears, only the southern leg of rainbows, and some of them pretty faded, since the sun was still struggling through clouds. But as the sun continued to drop far down the sky, these rainbows began to brighten and grow, sometimes forming all the way across the east in a full, brilliant bow, and often in a double rainbow, the secondary one being outside the first, less brilliant, and a mirror reflection of the first.

To set this full scene, I have to say that the Wasatch Range is in the full height of its autumn color. The close-up brilliant gold-yellow of cottonwoods was almost brighter than an artist could capture, and the gambel oaks that carpet the steep ridges of the mountains were in full and gleaming cloaks of scarlet. These are some of the most beautifully rugged mountains I have ever seen, pale tan to gray in color, and in some places can hardly support a blade of grass for their ruggedness. Deep canyons open up in them and chew their way back into the mountainsides, and in the gleaming, golden sunlight of late afternoon every crag and fastness and mountain valley was accentuated. Yet because the sky was so black and glowering, much of these mountains were in shadow, and so the clouds hanging like tattered sheep in the foreground stood out against them that much more brightly. It was against this backdrop that the rainbows appeared.

Suddenly, as if by magic, the two magnificent bows of color came at a steep angle out of the ground, seeming almost close enough to touch, and then, forming at the base of the inner, primary rainbow and shooting almost straight upward to meet the secondary rainbow as it started to make its northward bend, was a third band of gleaming light. At first, I thought it was a trick of my eyes, something to do with light coming off my window. So in spite of the still-falling rain I rolled down my window. But still, there it was, beautiful and plain as day.

I had no explanation for the phenomenon at the time. To be honest, I could hardly think. To things amazed me, truthfully. The first was the very beauty of the scene, and the second was how every driver who passed me in the next twenty minutes or so that this phenomenon remained visible were staring straight ahead, moving down the road as if this were just another day, as if the most incredible display of nature's beauty wasn't sprawled out right over their left shoulders. Unbelievable. I'm all for driving safe, but had I not been taking a transfer I would have pulled to the side of the road and gotten out. This scene was most likely a once in a lifetime occurrence. I'm guessing that's the case, since I'm 45 and after that many years of studying nature's beauty have never seen it before.

So now you have this incredible scene as I hope in some remote way I have managed to capture it: One of the most rugged and steep ranges of mountains I know of, its rocky tan crags turning orange-gold in the late afternoon sun, its deep canyons dark purple, black clouds hanging over them, with lighter clouds drifting before them, bright white and sometimes leaning toward yellow. A vast array of trees clothed in colors from dark to pale green to the most impossible yellow you can imagine, and the mountains clothed in red oak. And then, framing it all, this display of triple rainbows the like of which most people will probably never see.

It was just as I was nearing the end of the Great Salt Lake that I realized this third phenomenal rainbow was being created by the reflection off the lake itself. I had started noticing that if I looked that direction I was almost blinded by the light off the lake, and then it hit me why that stretch of rainbow was vertical. Shortly after this, the ambulance passed the lake, and the vertical spear of color was gone.

I was left pondering the wonder of nature and my gratefulness that I had taken this opportunity for overtime. Even though I was away from my family, I had witnessed something I would never have known about had I been home with them. And yes, I broke one of my cardinal laws of driving and got on the cell phone to share the wonderful moments with my wife.

Being an artist, besides a writer, I will one day attempt to recapture what I saw yesterday, but I pale at the very thought of the challenge. Perhaps some things are of such unspeakable glory that they were never meant to be put to canvas or even to the written page.

I guess that remains to be seen.

Disclaimer: The reflection rainbows shown in the photos at the top are NOT the one I saw. These are pale, drab version of what laid itself out over the Wasatch Valley yesterday afternoon. These, particularly the bottom one, judging from the almost vertical sides, are from probably just before the sun slipped from sight below the horizon.

BLOGS OF NOTE???

So a couple of days ago I was just perusing Blogspot, and I come across this link entitled "Blogs of note." I have to admit, I'm only judging by one of those "blogs of note," so this blog probably isn't being fair, but . . . what the heck????

From what I read of that blog of note, I am writing my blog all wrong. Silly me! To have a blog of note, I think I am understanding that there are several requisites I haven't been meeting. One of the most important is to write in the vernacular of a "Valley girl." Yeah, that's right--like, you know, like totally awesome, I KNO-OW! Hmm... Another requisite is to pepper my blog with vulgarity and profanity, and I've been completely missing the boat there too. Then, I should be telling a story, and in that story I should make myself look like a complete blithering idiot. And if not me, then everyone else in the story.

I guess I'm just doing this all wrong. I mean, like, don't you get the !@#$%^&* idea? Okay. Maybe that's just not my style. I guess I'd better stick with my own way of blogging and forget trying to write a "blog of note." I'll just never be in the "Blogspot Hall of Fame."

THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE ...

Today isn't my normal working day. I should be on the second of my four days off. But in this fire department we have the unique ability to trade shifts with other firefighters, and a month ago Howard worked for me so I could go to West Yellowstone, Montana. Well, as they say, paybacks are . . . nasty. Or at least they say SOMETHING like that.

So here I am, working at Fire Station 3, one of the busier stations in this city of 52,000 people. We are normally allotted time in the morning to workout, but I am in the habit of getting up and going to the gym before work, especially when I know I'll be at one of the busy stations, because, like today, I have missed far too many workouts by thinking I would be able to do it on shift.

But that isn't the topic of this blog, just one of my many sidetrails you all must be used to by now. The topic of this blog is the old saying, "There but for the grace of God go I."

Our most recent call tonight was to a trailer park. One of the more poverty stricken trailer parks in town. As we pulled into the park, there were police cars everywhere, and in one particular yard were the cops who drove them--my former comrades-in-arms. There were also the denizens of the trailer park everywhere we looked, from very young to fairly old, including all ages in-between.

The call was for a battery, and it was obvious who was battered from where the group of cops was standing. It seems, from what bystanders said, that this fellow had attempted to molest a thirteen-year-old girl, and someone caught him before he could and laid him out on the sidewalk.

I won't get into my feelings on this topic, because I have four children of my own, I would literally die for them, and if I were to begin a blog about child molesters it would be pages and pages long.

What I thought of most at the time, however, was those poor children--and yes, the adults, too--living in that trailer park. Cigarette smoke filled the yard we were standing in, the grass-less, tree-less, dusty, littered yard. I could also smell the odor of alcoholic beverages, and sweat, and dog feces.

There was a time I would have scorned these people. Why would they choose to live like this? Why can they not change their lives, get a good job, and be useful members of society?

Now, I only pity them. My heart goes out to those little children, and the adults whose past choices--and sometimes LACK of choices--brought them to this place in life, where at a glance everything seemed so bleak and hopeless. What chance do those children have? For that matter, what chance do those adults really have, adults who likely once were children living exactly the same way as the children in that park tonight.

I find myself whining sometimes about not being able to pay a bill, about not being able to buy a new computer. And then I go on a call like the one tonight, and I remember how much I have compared to so many other people in the world. Not for one minute to I advocate taking money from the middle class and doling it all out to the poor. To a certain extent, a person can change his life. He is the master of his destiny. Some people truly are simply lazy and don't want a job. But when a child is born into an environment like what I saw tonight, they are starting out on a path from which it must be very hard to break away. I was not born on that path. I was born on a path one step up from poverty, and my hunger as a child, my lack of heat in the house, and the lack of ability to take a bath more than once a week because we had no hot water heater drove me to want to give something better to my own children.

But I could just as easily have been born into a trailer park like the one I saw tonight. I could just as easily feel the hopelessness those children must feel and see the entire universe through gray-colored glasses. At least those folks live in America, and that's a start. But they have a big job if they are going to pull themselves out of a depressing hole, and they have not likely been equipped with as many tools as the more fortunate of us in life to do that job.

We should all say a prayer for those people who seem from the start destined to live life in a dirty trailer park. We should all say a prayer for ourselves, too. For there but for the grace of God go I ....

THE "RIGHT-OF-WAY" MENTALITY

Tell me I'm not the only one who is highly aggravated by today's mentality, particularly on the part of teenagers, but definitely not restricted to them, of "I have the right-of-way." What is right-of-way, anyway? It refers to the "right" of one entity taking precedence over the "right" of another. In other words, when two cars come to an intersection, the car without the stop sign, or the car with the green light as opposed to the red, has the "right-of-way." Or, in the case of a pedestrian in a crosswalk, he has the right-of-way over any vehicles that are approaching. Okay. I'm sure you all knew that, but I just had to say it. Now let's explore this right-of-way.

I'm sure that many of you have already guessed, and if you hang around me very long you will know for sure, that one of my huge pet peeves is the attitude of people who use crosswalks today--and many who DON'T use the crosswalk, just cross illegally in the middle of any street they feel like crossing. Maybe it was just me, maybe I was a dyed in the wool coward, but back when I was a kid, when I crossed a street, crosswalk or no crosswalk, I RAN. Or at least I walked fast. Nowadays I think about the poor car having to stop and then build up a head of steam again after the pedestrian has crossed the street. But that's life, right? Especially if it's nasty weather outside. I don't begrudge any pedestrian crossing the street while that driver sits in his nice warm car and waits for him.

HOWEVER... I do begrudge the pace at which 90% of the population crosses that street. I mean, hey, let's face it: A lot of drivers don't stop at crosswalks? Why? Well, some are probably not paying attention, and maybe they didn't even see the person who wanted to cross. Shame on you, buddy. Pay more attention. And I'm sure some are just plain rude from the get-go. They feel like their time is more important than anyone else's, and why should they have to stop when they're going down the road peacefully at 25 mph? I can see that point, but if every driver had the same attitude, some days, and in some crowded cities, people would NEVER get across the street. And then there's a third group: the group who have been burned so many times by stopping by today's pedestrians that they are fed up and don't feel like they owe much of anything to someone trying to cross the road.

Okay, here's a scenario: You're driving down the road, and you near a high school. It's still 25 mph, right, because by the time a kid reaches high school he's supposed to be smart enough to look both ways before he crosses the street. Great. You see a kid or two walking toward the curb now, so like a good guy you come to a stop before the intersection. In the old days, said kid or two would then hurry across the street, and maybe even wave at you for being polite enough to stop for them. You would both smile at each other and go on your merry way, pedestrian feeling good that driver had stopped, driver feeling good that he had been polite and that the pedestrian had kindly thanked him for it. Today? Today most of those kids would hit that intersection, and IF they even looked to see if a car was approaching they would SLOW DOWN their pace, not speed it up. They would adjust their all-important headset, or turn nonchalantly to talk to their friend. And some might as well get on their hands and knees and crawl, for all the speed they muster. And of course, while performing this act of utter sluggishness in the face of the driver's show of responsibility, most of them would never DREAM of giving the driver a smile or a wave. Why? BECAUSE THEY HAVE THE RIGHT-OF-WAY!!!! Of course. The right-of-way. It's the law. The driver HAS to stop.

Well, the driver doesn't HAVE to stop. By law he does, but by the laws of nature the laws of man are made to be broken. So what happens when that 1 mile an hour high school kid who wants to exercise his snail's pace right-of-way meets up with the 35 mile an hour pickup whose driver didn't see said teenager? Hmm.... Well, it's nice to legally have the right-of-way, but when that teenager is lying in the morgue, right-of-way doesn't mean a whole lot anymore.

My concern is, whatever happened to common courtesy? Why do so many people, no longer just junior high and high school-age people, but folks of all ages, feel like it's their duty to go across a crosswalk at a third the pace they were traveling when they first reached the crosswalk? Whatever happened to using your "right-of-way" to politely get across the street and let the traffic move on? There's not a sane person in the world who would argue against some little old senior citizen or a person with a handicap moving slowly across the crosswalk in front of them. That's great. I'm glad to wait for them and help them on their way, even though the common courtesy of a wave of thanks would still be appreciated. But where did this mentality of going as slow as one could move come from? Is it all part of the sense of entitlement kids are taught now? The whole idea of "life is all about me, the law says I can do this, and I'm going to make the most of it?" Wouldn't it be sweet if instead of simply following laws everyone still did things for other people out of the goodness of their hearts?

And I haven't even said much about those pedestrians who are breaking the law themselves by crossing mid-street, and who still think they have the right-of-way simply by the fact that they are a PEDESTRIAN and become highly agitated when your rearview mirror almost clips them as your vehicle passes. I know, I shouldn't get that close. But nothing makes me much angrier than sheer rudeness.

Once in a while, I see a kid walk fast when he hits that intersection. Some of them even run, and not because they're in a hurry, because when they reach the far curb they slow back down. That is how my own kids cross the street. Politeness has been drilled into them from a very young age. But many parents forgot that lesson when they were raising their kids. I sure wish we could get that back. I have often thought how fun it would be to take a wad of five dollar bills and cruise around and around the local high school at lunch time, and when any kid hurried across the crosswalk in front of me, get out and slap him a five and thank him for being polite. Unfortunately, I wouldn't need a "wad" of fives. I probably wouldn't use more than one or two. It's sure a different world than the one I grew up in.

So, have you got the idea yet that creeping across a crosswalk is a pet peeve of mine? Oh, right. Maybe I already mentioned that.

OLD FRIENDS

They say you can't go back. Well, in a lot of ways I guess that's true. But if you keep your mind sharp, and you are a nostalgic as I am, in other ways it's not true. The other day I proved once again, that yes, sometimes you can go back.

I met my friend Kim Stillwell on Facebook. Some say that site is a waste of time. I beg to differ. For one thing, my life would be a sadder place without Kim. But that's not really what this blog is about, so I'll save Kim for another time. This blog is about going back in time.

That brings me to Scot. Scot Peeler. Until last Saturday, since May 1983 I had not laid eyes on my old classmate Scot. Yep. That's a lot of water under the bridge. The last time I saw my friend, in fact, he was trying to hold things together out in his garage when the cops finally showed up to bust up his senior graduation kegger. My one and only kegging experience, and I got the full meal deal--well, minus the drinks! Got to see a bunch of my school buddies acting drunk and stupid, giving me all sorts of good laughs in my completely sober state, and then on top of it all I got the fun of watching everyone scatter like rabbits when someone shouted, "The cops!!!!" Great fun. I know, you might argue that it would have been more fun if I was drinking too, but that's the subject for yet another blog!

So anyway, Scot has been living in Germany with his wife and daughters, but apparently he comes back to the States now and again, and I didn't know this until his cousin Kim Stillwell let me in on the secret. So we arrange a get-together, another "full meal deal," where I got to not only meet Kim in person (and she's beautiful, I might add!), but I get to see Scot again and have a long overdue reunion. So we meet in this place in Idaho Falls, Idaho called the Sandwich Tree, Scot's favorite place to eat in that town.

It was amazing the years that vanished when I laid eyes on Scot. If you've ever had a good friend and not seen them for, in this case, more than half your life, you probably know a little of the feelings that went through me when I saw Scott sitting there, some twenty-eight years after the last time. He was the same old Scot, believe it or not. Not all of my classmates have survived so well preserved, but there he was, and he was still Scot. And as a bonus, Neccia (Jensen) Hahn was sitting there with him, a total surprise. Neccia was my fifth grade crush, although she probably doesn't know it even to this day, because I was too shy to tell her, then or now.

It wasn't enough to sit and gab with old Scot and with Neccia at the sandwich shop. My wife Debbie and I even followed Scot back to the old home place and visited for a few more hours, and man, the memories we dug up. For many years I had this memory in my head of Scot, but somehow, I guess as too many new entries were being made into the data banks of my mind, this particular file got put into deep storage. But somehow Scot remembered it and reminded me. Way back in the first grade, when I was scared to death of other kids and horrified to be in mean old Mrs. Blake's first grade, surrounded for the first time by more kids than I had ever laid eyes on, Scot was the first person to befriend me. We kicked one of those soft red balls back and forth on the asphault beside Shelley, Idaho's Dean Goodsell Elementary, and that was when I decided maybe school wouldn't be so bad after all. I have Scot to credit for that, and I'm thankful he saved that memory all those years and carted it out for me. It was a bit of nostalgia I won't let go back into deep storage again.

Sometimes you can go back, I've found, and the memories can sure be sweet. Old Scot. I remember going home for lunch in the third grade, Miss Hone's class, with money from him in my pocket, and on the way back to school stopping off at King's department store to buy him a box of Lemon Heads, or Red Hots, or whatever his pleasure was that day (and skimming three or four off the top as my "fee," although I never admitted that to him until I placed an oversized box of Lemon Heads in his hand the other day at the Sandwich Tree). I recall Scot with his long-ish hair flapping in the wind. He used to have this jouncy walk that helped it do that. Now he doesn't have so much of that long hair left, but he's still Scot, and I find after all these years I'm still just as fond of him. He's one of those guys who's pretty hard not to like. Some things you just can't shake--a bad cold, or a good friend. One you don't ever want to see again, and the other, like Scot, you don't ever want to lose.

AUTUMN IN THE AIR

Something whispers to you in the wind, and you can't tell quite what it is. Some days are still hot--some even VERY hot. Yet there is a certain something you can't put a finger on. Is it that the sun is a little farther to the south? Is it that the nights are cooler even when the days still grow hot? Is it the sun coming up later in the day? Going down earlier? I don't know, but somehow as I grow older, even without looking at a calendar, I can always tell when fall is around the corner.

I don't know if "fall" is really the fitting term for this season, unless it means another year is about to fall. It just seems so unpoetic, for a season that is so beautiful, spectacular, and yes, in a way, melancholy. Autumn looks and sounds like such a beautiful word that as I get older I find myself using it more and more. So autumn it is. My favorite season of the year.

There is an odor that comes with this glimpse of fall, an odor you can't associate with any other time of the year. Perhaps it is the scent of decay, but a soft kind of warm, glowing decay, telling stories of the gradual death of the summer grass, the leaves of the hardwoods. Subtle changes come into the sky, into the clouds. The light seems to hit them a different way. The birds seem enlivened, perhaps by those coooler nights. I've noticed my beautiful meadowlarks singing more, serenading me from the sage behind the house. This was particularly true when a grumbling and rare early morning thunderstorm woke me up early yesterday morning and made me run out to cover the last of the hay, which I had neglected to put the boards back over. While I was at the barn, the rain came down, and I went inside and listened to it patter pleasantly on the roof. Then, for a few minutes, the sun came back out, and I made my dash for the house.

After I came back in and the rain charged over the mountain in one very heavy, dark sheet that I could see cascading toward us like a ghost in a B movie, it began to soak the land, if only briefly. It was after the rain that the meadowlarks came out in droves, and I lay in bed and thought of my friend Stephanie, who so loved the meadowlarks. It was such a moment as this when I would have loved to call her and share, would have loved to hear the excitement in her voice. Like me, it was the simple things about life that brought joy to Stephanie and made her eyes sparkle and put a huge smile on her face, dimpling those cheeks. But since I can't call Stephanie anymore, I sat and remembered her and dreamed her near. My beautiful little wife, Debbie, and I lay warm under the covers breathing in the fresh, clean air and listening to those meadowlarks, and the day was as perfect as it could be. And somehow I knew Stephanie was out there in the sagebrush, or walking through the forest to the west, and she, too, was listening to those meadowlarks.

The lightning flashed, and the thunder cracked sharply, and then, like a stubborn child, it lingered and grumbled and rattled its way on into the distant mountains. Fall is on its way. Autumn, beginning with September, "The Hunting Moon." Or, in Cheyenne, the Moon of Drying Grass; Kiowa, Moon When the Leaves Fall Off; for Sioux, Moon When the Plums are Scarlet. So maybe the Indians had a much more poetic way to describe their "moons," or months. Our name, "September," means simply the ninth month. But I guess it's poetic enough, in its own way.

The important thing is fall is almost here, and although it signals a coming time of cold and dreary days, it is a glorious season that no one should miss being in the middle of, even if it means getting away from the TV and going for a walk in the mountains. Maybe we'll run into each other out there.

Vaya con Dios.

Safe drivers

I've given a lot of thought lately to how the roads would be if all of the people who drove "wrong" were taken out of circulation. You know, those who drive too slow, those who drive too fast, those who rubberneck everything they pass, those who drive while drinking, eating, talking on the cell phone, or reading books.

And in case you're wondering about that last one, I'm not joking. I've seen people reading novels that are sitting on their steering wheel as they drive 75 mph down the freeway. If anyone ever deserved a ticket for inattentive driving . . .

One day I was sitting behind some lady with three or four kids in her car, and there was a green light in front of us. I waited a couple of seconds, thinking maybe she was having trouble shifting. Then I realized she was eating! Not just a sandwich or an ice cream cone, mind you, but a meal! In her rearview mirror I saw her swear, out of anger, not embarrassment, and suddenly she tossed a styrofoam box full of Mexican food right out of the car into the middle of one of the main thoroughfares of town. I went by her and let her know I had seen, which she couldn't have questioned anyway, as I was fifteen feet behind her, and her response was to extend her middle finger in my general direction, and I don't think she was waving. Looking back, that was one person I should have turned in for littering, and with whom I would have gladly gone to court as key witness. But at the time I was too shocked to call the police.

Another time, I was in the turn lane, and another car was directly in front of me at a red light. The driver was conversing with the driver of the car next to him, in the straight lane, and the light turned green. I gave them a couple of seconds, then tapped the horn, thinking they were simply too busy and hadn't seen the green. The response? Again, this guy gave me the one-finger salute. Had I been a serious road rager that day, I'm pretty sure that one would have ended badly.

Being a former Wells Fargo driver, who put 170 city miles on a 10,000 pound truck six days a week in Phoenix, Arizona, a cop in a city of 52,000, and now a firefighter in the same city, I have numerous opportunities to watch stupidity and rudeness at work on the road, and I feel safe in saying that if every rude and unsafe and simply, uh... "non-intelligent" driver were taken off the road, it would be like we were all living in ghost towns. I swear, the municipal bus system in every city would have a boom like we can't envision, and trains would come back in bigtime circulation. I'm pretty positive that there wouldn't be 1 out of 5 cars still on the road.

Heck, maybe some days mine would be one of them!!!

Losing a Best Friend

Have you ever lost a best friend? Have you ever felt the heart-wrenching feeling of knowing you can't pick up that phone and call them and hear that voice on the other end, the voice of the one person you know will understand you, and who will stand by you no matter what stupid mistake you've made? You can't open the computer and compose an email for them to tell them how your day has been. You can't even sit and watch the moonrise, or the sunset, and know you will be able to tell them about it later. All of the little things in life that you passingly thought were "nice" become priceless. Every meadowlark singing in the sagebrush, every butterfly, even the smallest pink stone, lost among a million others along the bank of a river. A blue forget-me-not, blooming in the spring, becomes some kind of a beacon, sent to you, you fancy, by that friend you can no longer see.

Have you ever woken to the emptiness of longing for one last hug, one last word of praise, one last touch? Have you ever walked through a forest or along a gurgling stream and thought of God and eternity and wondered why, if you can't be with your best friend, you ever came to earth in the first place? Have you ever dreamed of the past and wondered if you could have changed it, had you only known what was out there? What was waiting around the very next bend?

Have you ever stared into the vastness of the sky and watched the clouds, those silent castles and dragons, wizards and ... angels ... and wondered if your best friend is somewhere looking at them too? Have you ever felt a passing breeze, cool on an otherwise hot day, or warm on a day when winter is not far gone or fall is waning, and wonder if that breeze is the touch of your friend, a wish for you. Does your friend long for you as you do them? Do they keep secrets that no one else will ever know because you were the only person they could tell them to, the only person who would listen or even try to understand?

Simon and Garfunkel sang "I am a rock. I am an island." But in the grand scheme of things there should never be a rock of that kind, nor that type of island. Every person should, at least once in their lifetime, meet that best friend who changes the way they think about the universe, about life, about love. If you are not looking and you let that one best friend who could have been but never was pass you by then the blessings you could have had will be sadly locked away in a treasure chest you will never see. Will you experience the pain of losing that best friend? Perhaps. Only time knows that. But it is a promise that you will cherish their memory, and it is reflections of them that will carry you through some of your darkest days. Reach out. Touch. Give. When you find that best friend you will know it. Then hold onto them as tightly as you can as long as time will let you. You just never know when fate will choose to carry them away.

The Meadowlark Came Back

I think it was last August when I wrote about it, that dearth of songbirds that had come to my world. In particular, I mentioned that I had noticed how the Western meadowlark was absent, and how lonely the sagebrush grasslands seemed without his song. My best friend, Stephanie, recalled the Western meadowlark from her childhood in Cody, Wyoming. Now, of course, Stephanie is in an urban area in Utah and wouldn't have noticed the absence of meadowlarks so much. But to hear that they weren't even here, in the heart of the sagebrush-covered West, disturbed her as it did me.

This year a hint of spring came early. Way back in March we had warm weather--above average, they said. But that was only a teaser, for little did we know what was coming. Between a cold, wet April and the coldest recorded May on record for Pocatello, this has been a remarkable spring, remarkable for its dreariness. But out of it all a Phoenix arose, so to speak. Out of the figurative ashes of the cold and the wetness of our Idaho spring, came all kinds of songbirds I hadn't seen on my property before: goldfinches, western tanagers, evening grosbeaks. In fact, two grosbeaks greeted my wife one morning about thirty seconds before I pulled into the driveway when they ran headfirst into my new picture window. I went to pick up the male and found the female sitting there beside him, stunned. Being the bird lover I am, I put the female in the pocket of my coat with only her head protruding and held the male in my hand as I called my mom to tell her about this remarkable experience, most importantly, the appearance of the long-absent grosbeaks. Well, as you might guess, the male got his strength back and flew out of my hand, and the female took strength from her mate's revival and took wing out of my pocket. So I no longer had "two birds in the hand," but unfortunately two birds in the house! After both birds managed to once again knock themselves senseless from INSIDE the house, I had the foresight this time to take them both outside, where in short order they revived and flew away.

But back to the songbirds. For some reason they are back. I never dreamed I would see the incredible black, red and yellow plumage of the beautiful western tanager in my yard, but there they were. And the goldfinches--both birds whose absence I had mourned. Yet above all, there in the sagebrush meadow behind my house, piped the song of the meadowlark. Filling out their bright yellow chests, with the black chevron pinned so boldly across it, they let their melodies fill the air. They are back, and I am soaking in the beauty of their song. I guess it is last year's absence that makes this year's music sound so sweet, and I suppose that's how life always is. You have to have the sadness to know the joy.

All I care about when I walk into my forest is this knowledge: The meadowlark has returned.

Reptiles with feelings?

It was one of those incredible moments when you would give almost anything to have a camera, particularly a video camera, with you, but you don't. My family and I were traveling to a friend's house to take down some juniper trees when something in the road caught my eye. I'm one of those inexplainable oddities who actually tries to NOT run over a snake when I see it in the road, and when I realized I was looking at one I swerved to the left. I missed the snake, but looking in my rearview mirror I could see that this one wasn't crawling out of the way. So I backed up in order to chase it off the road before a less hospitable motorist could drive by.

What I found when I reached the place where the snake had been was nothing short of shocking. First off, the snake that had made me stop was already off the road by then. But there on the shoulder where it had crossed were two more of them, intertwined. The larger of the two was on its back, and the other one, perhaps two inches shorter than the four feet of the first one, had the entire length of its body snug up against the other's. My first reaction, as I'm sure would have been the reaction of most people, was to believe they were mating. But a closer look proved this to not be true. First, their "parts" weren't connected, and secondly, the larger snake was dead! It's head had been run over by a previous car.

So here were these two snakes, a dead one, on its back, and a live, slightly smaller one, that had completely "embraced" the first one and was writing and back and forth like crazy. Now, I'm no herpitologist (snake scientist), but as I watched this live snake's activity a number of things came to me. It appeared that he/she, the live snake, was by virtue of lying on and around the dead snake and writhing madly back and forth, trying to bring life back into it, or to coax it to move. Another possibility was that it was actually trying to move it farther out of the roadway, out of danger's path. Either way, the live snake was so engrossed in whatever it was doing that I was able to pet its body, and it gave no sign that it even noticed. It didn't hiss, didn't try to get away, just continued this bizarre "dance of death" that it was occupied in when we arrived.

We ended up staying there watching it for fifteen or twenty minutes, and all the while the snake tried to move its buddy, its mate, its brother/sister--whatever the connection was--off the road, or to bring it back to life by moving with it, perhaps sort of a reptilian artificial rescuscitation. Finally, I picked up the dead snake and moved it to a safer place several feet off the road. I have known too many people who might have seen it on the road edge and gone out of their way to run it over, killing the other one in the process. This brought about the first change in the live snake's activity. Once we put the live one down in the grass as well, it darted away from the dead snake, and I thought it was going to make its escape. However, I picked it back up by the tail and held its head near the dead snake for a couple of seconds. At that point, the snake seemed to recognize its comrade once more, and once more it entwined itself with the body of the dead one and began trying to move it. Now, of course, the snakes were nowhere near the road, and it seemed the obvious conclusion was not that the live snake was trying to move the other one off the road but truly was acting as a rescuscitator.

We left and chopped junipers for over an hour, and when we returned we were shocked to find that the snake was still there, performing his rescuscitative efforts. This time we rushed home with our load of wood and grabbed the camera. However, when we made it back half an hour later things had changed. The live snake was still there, but now he was still. The sun had moved, causing a nearby juniper to throw shade over the snakes and chilling them. Either that fact or perhaps sheer exhaustion had caused the snake to stop trying to "save" his friend. I tried moving them both out into the sunshine again, but it was as if the cold shadows had broken the spell, broken his obsession, so to speak. The live snake slithered away into the low branches of the junipers, and we let him go.

But that snake has left me pondering: What do we as humans really, truly know about the feelings, the "emotions" of the animal world. Many people like to believe that we are the only beings who can think or feel, who do more than just react to circumstances. Perhaps in the case of this snake that is true. Or perhaps there is something more, something deeper, that no mere human being can understand. I don't know. I can't pretend to. All I do know is that on that warm spring day I was witness to something I have never seen in 44 years of life, 44 years as an amateur snake "expert," something I will probably never see again. I will always wonder what the connection between those snakes truly was, and I will always wonder what purpose the living snake had in mind. I guess it's just another mystery for the ages.

Mustang

MUSTANG


I am the mustang,
The primeval wanderer of the American West.
From pure stock were my ancestors born.
Now I am born of the wind.
From the Arabian, the Spanish barb,
The Tennessee walker, the saddlebred,
The Andalusian, the Morgan.
The Spaniard brought my fathers, my mothers,
The American and the Frenchman too.
They were set free, lost or escaped.
Now I run free, of mixed blood,
With my flags flying,
From the supple crest of my neck,
From behind me,
My flags of victory,
My flags of glory.
In the high plains wind they toss,
The wind that carries scent to me of such as you.
You are not my master.
I am your equal.
If you capture me and treat me as such,
I will respect you.
In time I may be your partner.
But I will never be your slave.
I am the mustang,
The primeval wanderer of the American West.
From pure stock were my ancestors born.
Now I am born of the wind.
Born of fire and of the flood,
Of thunder and of rain,
And of the lightning that pounds the earth
As my hooves pound that same earth.
Ancient am I, ancient as the wisest stallion,
Yet new as the brightest colt.
Follow me, learn my ways;
In time, you may gain my wisdom,
And the wisdom of my forbears.
And if you listen, if you watch me long enough,
You too may one day be one with the land.
Without me, without my kind,
You will not survive.
I am the mustang.
I am born of the wind.

© Kirby Jonas, April 17, 2010

Tree of Life

TREE OF LIFE

Deep in the darkest, dampest forest,
You are the tree that waits to shelter me,
The tree that has spread its branches protectively out over the forest floor,
That has prepared a bed of soft needles for me to lay my head down
When I am sad and scared.
You are the tree that stands tall and strong
But ready to sacrifice any part of itself—
A branch, some needles—to light my fire of life, to warm me, inside and out.
You are the tree with the sweetest fruit, the truest grain,
A tree I could make a home with, a tree I could feed on spiritually,
A tree I can admire for its incredible physical beauty
And stroke gently for its softness,
A tree whose limbs would sigh out in delight as it felt my gentle hand.
You are the tree who, when the wind comes sighing through the boughs,
Sings the loveliest music when you put your branches together,
Music that draws the tears from my eyes, music that lures me from afar.
In my forest of life, I’m not certain how I have survived
Before you, not knowing your security, not knowing your song.
The heartwood is the center of the tree,
But that heartwood in you is visible through places,
Not where you are weak, but where you are strong.
It shines with a glowing light, as if the angels
Have already lit a fire inside you, and for centuries it has been waiting
To light my way, to warm me, to call me home.

Workout # 2

Workout # 2, otherwise known as "The Workout from Hell"

All right, guys, this is the trim down workout, the workout you start after you've "bulked up" and want to trim off that excess fat that necessarily comes with adding on any significant muscle. Unfortunately, when you are a day or two into this you're going to realize that lifting those heavy weights, and doing one body part per day, is a cakewalk . . . compared to this.

There are several versions of this trim-down workout that I do, and I will try to get all of those on here. I'm just going to start out with a basic split I do which puts the back and biceps with abs one day, chest, shoulders and triceps the next, and legs separate. The leg workout in particular will be a drastic change to what you've been doing.

I'll list the exercises I do each day, then the specifics.

On back day I do four to five exercises. Generally, they are the following, or exercises that are similar. Pullups or machine pulldowns; Bent rows; dead lifts; pullovers; seated rows.

To that, I add barbell or dumbell curls; hammer curls; and one arm preacher curls for the arms. There are different variations of these, but until you really get into it it will be fine to stick to these basics. Believe me, they will put you through all the pain and suffering you desire.

On chest day, I will do the following, either with barbell or dumbells: flat bench press, incline bench press, decline bench press. Add to this some dumbell flyes or pec deck flyes and possibly cable crossovers. For the shoulders: Don't forget the overhead military press, with barbell or dumbells; side laterals, bent laterals, shrugs, and front raises. For triceps, pushdowns, single dumbell behind the neck raises; kickbacks. Please refer to either YouTube or Google to see photos/descriptions of each exercise. This information is all over out there if you look.

On leg day, I do what is called Hindu squats. These are squats with no weight, and I do from 500 to 1000 of these, which is an incredible leg burn and endurance/strength developer. You can see how to perform this exercise on YouTube. Just type in Hindu squats.

With this workout I will also start doing a lot more cardio. If you want, you can stick to half an hour to 45 minutes at a 4 mph hour fast walk or a 4 mph slow jog. Either way will burn some fat for you. You can also do intervals, if you're feeling frisky.

Now for the important part of these workouts: SPEED. Start out at a minute's rest between sets, and do your sets in the 10 to 15 repetition range. Do four sets of each. So to use your bench press exercise on chest day as an example, pick a weight you can stick to or even raise each set and do: 15 reps, wait a minute, 15 reps, wait a minute, 15 reps-one minute-15 reps. Wait another minute or two at most and go into your next exercise, in this case the incline press. You can change the order up, but I suggest doing your big muscle groups, back and chest, before the arms.

The key to this workout, as I said above, is SPEED. Don't let any grass grow under your feet. If you aren't sweating heartily throughout this workout, if you have time to stand around and gab, and if you don't at times look as if you're going to pass out from the strain, then you're doing it wrong. After a while, if you keep it up, you will probably get people commenting on your workout, and in another while they will start asking you how you've accomplished what you have in the gym. Believe me, they will if you stick to it. DON'T GIVE UP. The new you you find inside will blow you away.

In this segment, cut down drastically on your calories. For me, I'll go down to 2500 calories a day and slowly cut out from there. If I'm really trying to get cut for a photo shoot I might be eating as little as 1000 calories a day at times, which will cut your weights in the gym DRASTICALLY. So get ready to throw ego out the window. You will still be strong, but when you aren't taking in the calories it isn't going to be nearly as impressive.

Try to do this workout every three or four days. In other words, for example, back/biceps/abs on Monday and Thursday, Chest/shoulders/triceps on Tuesday and Friday, Legs on Wednesday and Saturday.

A word to the wise here: Until you know what this workout is going to do to you, don't get drastic. Start slow, as with all workouts. Don't get hurt trying to do something that I have been doing for many years. That will only frustrate you and make you want to quit, and that's the last thing I want you to do. Maybe start out with 2 sets of each of the exercises I listed. Work up from there.

DRINK 10 to 15 eight ounce glasses of water a day. DO NOT SCRIMP ON THE WATER. You will pay for it if you do, especially if you are eating a proper amount of protein. And don't forget to do the protein drink before, during and after your workout. Keep those muscles replenished. Down a handful of raisins and nuts after the workout to replace the glycogen you've been burning out of your muscles.

Workout # 1

Above: Frank Zane, Mr. Olympia three times running, back when Mr. Olympia still meant aesthetically pleasing, before the rhoids really took over.

For those of you who come to this blog only for the entertainment value I have to apologize in advance. Unless you are currently a gym rat (weight lifter, etc.), or you are interested in getting in good, muscular physical condition you probably won't get far into this "blog." This is the first in a series of weight lifting/fitness/nutrition articles I've been promising for a while giving those who haven't been gym frequenters a place to begin and maybe a goal to shoot for.

This first one is going to start you out a little drastically, but never fear. Just work it at your own pace, with whatever weights you can do. HOWEVER, PLEASE don't make the mistake of jumping into this with both feet if you aren't used to working out at the gym. Give it a couple of weeks of basic movements, fairly light weights, to get your body used to it. Otherwise you are going to be so full of lactic acid, so incredibly sore, that you are 1) not going to like me anymore, and 2) probably not going to go back to the gym any time soon. Start in slowly!

First, I'm going to give you five basic laws of the game you MUST follow if you plan to find success in the gym.

1) Don't skip workouts! Stick to the routine.

2) Eat every 2 or 3 hours, mostly whole grains, oats, wheat, brown rice, sweet potatoes, etc.

3) SLEEP! If you aren't getting close to 8 hours a night, you are cheating yourself and your workout

4)DO NOT overtrain. I can't stress this one enough. What you think is going to make you stronger is going to break you down, hurt you, make you vulnerable to getting sick. I'll address overtraining again later.

5)Take a good quality protein drink one or two times a day. You aren't going to get a decent amount of protein without this, or at least not as easily. Nitrotech is the specific brand I use, and at age 44 this is the one I went from 210 to 218 with in one month. And mind you, I am still wearing the same pants size. This was not fat gain.

Those are the basic rules you have to follow. The rest we can tweak as we need to.

Before we get into the weights, let's talk about this first program. I am designing this specifically for those who want to gain some muscle, good quality muscle in a short time frame. Don't worry about getting bulky. It's not going to happen in the month I will have you on this. If you continue to hit this one, okay, you will possibly get bulky IF you have that genetic potential. But in the first month you are just going to build a basic framework on which to model the rest of your future programs. This goes for the ladies, too. Don't be afraid of muscle. It looks good no matter who it's on, and I'm not trying to get you all beefed up. I'm talking about nice, firm muscle, not steroid-pumped Muscle and Fitness magazine fodder.

Now let's talk food. This is going to hurt, for those of you who have been dieting forever (and often not with the results you desire). For every pound of body weight you should be eating 20 calories of QUALITY carbs and protein. I'm not talking about Twinkies and French fries. Let's hear it for the oats, wheat, brown rice, and sweet potatoes mentioned above. Don't be afraid of fat, but DO NOT touch the sugar. Please leave that poison alone. You will thank me for this later, if it's the only thing you get out of this article. White sugar is a poison to the human body, pure and simple. Beyond taste there is nothing good about it. Break yourself of it and you are on your way to being far more fit than most people in the good old USA.

Now, specifically, protein. You can pound the weights all day and eat until you're blue in the face, and you are going to get nowhere at all unless you are consuming quality protein. Chicken, fish, eggs, cottage cheese, venison, and yes, the evil beef. Grass-fed beef is actually good for you. No, I'm not kidding. And to supplement it, Nitro-tech Hardcore. Worth it's weight in gold, and they aren't paying me to say that.

I mentioned not being afraid of fats. Now I'm going to go a step further: EAT THEM. Flax seed oil, virgin olive oil, fish oil, nuts. Eating a handful of walnuts, almonds and peanuts every day is one of the best things you can do for yourself, especially if they're raw. Like peanut butter? Go for it, as long as it's the natural kind that has to be put in the fridge, or better yet, make it yourself with a Vitamix blender.

Before your workout, eat around 40-60 grams of slow burning carbs like oats, etc. This will force water into your muscles, and you need that. Then, and this is important, start consuming that protein shake. Drink half a cup or more before the workout and sip it throughout, then finish your workout with at least a half cup. Also, this is your one chance to ignore what I said about fast burning carbs (you know, that poisonous sugar). Take in 60-75 grams of fast-burning carbs, like chocolate milk, dark chocolate, etc. This will spike your insulin levels and refill what should by then be very depleted muscle glycogen stores.

And now for the workout itself. Remember, I'm recommending this for one month. After that, switch it up with one of the others I hope to have up here. If you don't, you will find your muscles become bored, and you will stop seeing the growth. So get in there, rack some weights (after that initial two week break-in period, that is) and slam some calories. Don't be afraid. Any fat you gain I'm going to help you shed next month.

(If you need guidance on the following exercises, drop me a line, but I'm sure you can find a description of each online, probably along with photos. Important note: Do all reps slowly, especially on the downward stroke, and concentrate on thinking about the muscle you're working. SQUEEZE hard at the top of the movement. The squeeze is more important than the amount of weight. Don't let your ego get you in trouble. You can get an astounding workout with 20 pound dumbbells even if you think you're a pretty big guy. It's all in the squeeze.)

Oh--I almost forgot the best part: REST. I am only going to have you working the major muscles one day per week. A full seven day rest period. No kidding. This is paramount. Follow the routine. Don't add anything in. You won't regret it.

DAY ONE: Chest and abs

Bench press (trade off every other week with dumbell press) 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps

Incline bench press (trade off every other week with db's) 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps

Flat Dumbell flyes 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps

Pec deck (the machine that some call a flye) 4 sets, 10 to 15 reps. The stretch on this is extremely important, far more so than trying to kill yourself with a heavy weight and tear out those all-important shoulders.

Chest is done!!!!

Now for the abs: Hanging leg raises (you will likely have to start out with leg raises on the end of a weight bench) 5 sets of 20 (Note: PLEASE do these very strictly, and at the top of the movement, when it hurts the most, SQUEEZE those abs together. Imagine an accordion. This is imperative if you want to build your abs.

DAY TWO: Back (and ONLY back!)

Lat pulldowns: 4 sets, 10 to 12

Deadlifts (one of the best exercises you can do, even though you hate it!) 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps

Barbell rows (arch that back and squeeze!!!) 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps

Dumbell rows (one arm at a time for a good stretch) 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps

Seated cable rows (you should be able shot by now) 3 sets, 10 to 12 reps. Squeeze it hard at the end. Come on, you can do it. You've come this far.

DAY THREE: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!! You can do a thirty minute fast walk or light job, but don't run hard. You will negate a lot of the training you're doing. Don't worry, we'll get that cardio back. It's only a month! Believe me, I'm into cardio too.

DAY FOUR: Shoulders and calves

Barbell military press, 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps (keep your back straight!)

Dumbell laterals supersetted with front raises: 4 sets of 10 to 12 ech exercise

Rear (bent over) dumbell laterals 4 sets, 10 to 12 reps

Dumbell shrugs (or barbell, if you must) 4 sets, 8 to 10 reps (try to imagine squeezing your shoulder blades together behind your ears. FEEL IT in your upper back. Very important. You can also hold this one a couple of seconds at the top and stretch it as far as possible at the bottom.

Shoulders are done. Now for the calves, those little buggers that are so genetically dependent!

Seated calf raises: If you don't have a machine for this, you can pad a barbell, but it will be very helpful to have a partner if you do. 5 sets of 12 to 15 reps, and the squeeze at the top, a squeeze so hard it hurts BAD is paramount.

DAY FIVE: Arms and upper abdominals

Dumbell curls (and you can trade off with barbell if you like) 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps

Hammer curls 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps

Dumbell preacher curls (watch the weight here--a little goes a long way!) 4 sets of 10 to 12 reps

Close grip bench press (let the bar come all the way down until it touches your chest for a great stretch!) 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps

Lying triceps extensions (get that stretch again!) 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps

Bodyweight dips (here's the fun one) 4 sets to failure (I was doing sets of 16-22, but don't go so fanatic that you collapse and knock your teeth out on the dip bar! If you can only do 6, 8, or 10, then great. Everyone starts somewhere.)

Rope crunches (I've started doing these with a twelve-inch cambered bar held over my head. Much more comfortable to the hands: 5 sets of 20 (And squeeze it HARD at the bottom. I'm using 80 pounds on this one.)

DAY 5: Upper legs and Calves

Leg extensions: 4 sets of 12 to 15

Barbell squats: 4 sets of 8 to 10

Leg presses: 4 sets of 8 to 10

Lying leg curls: 4 sets of 10 to 12

Stiff-legged deadlifts (do these slowly so you don't tear out your knees!) 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps

Standing calf raises: 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

Seated calf raises: 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps

Calves can be worked more often than other muscles, as they get used on a day to day basis, pretty harshly by some of us!

I'm not throwing any forearm routine in here, but you might want to add it in yourself for ten minutes or so later on, especially if you have dumbells or a barbell at home. But you'll be using forearm muscles in much of your other work, so if you don't want to worry about it for this month, don't.

DAY 7: OFF, again!

DAY 8: Start it all over again.

This is a lot of information to digest in a short space, so if you have any questions you can email me at kirby@kirbyjonas.com . I know this is a hard workout, but as the saying goes, I didn't promise it would be easy, I only promised it would be worth it. Remember, unless you want to, this isn't going to get you huge. Look at this as the jumping off point into a whole new world. I guarantee you if you stick with it you will love the changes you see in the mirror.

And here's a teaser for my next workout: VERY LITTLE REST BETWEEN SETS, say 15 to 40 seconds. HIGH REPS. Believe me, this one is going to hurt. BUt to a bodybuilder, it's a good hurt. Some will tell you you don't need the pain to see satisfactory results, but I am here to differ. Some pain and discomfort is a good thing. Just be careful that it's not the wrong kind of pain. If you have pain that lingers for more than four or five days, crank it back a notch. And don't forget to eat and stretch those muscles hard. I stretch hard for my back, chest and legs throughout the day. This is another one of those things that can make or break your progress in the gym. STAY LIMBER!!!! Any body builder worth his salt should be able to lay his palms flat on the floor without bending his/her knees. Just go for it slowly!