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."
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Saturday, September 4, 2010
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 ....
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 ....
Thursday, September 2, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
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!!!
Sunday, August 22, 2010
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.
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.
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