#162 - Family, Holiday Camping, Allergies, and Road Trips

(NOTE: I know that for many, spending time in a RV does not constitute camping. However, at my age I appreciate no longer having to get up from a tent floor after trying to sleep on an air mattress while it loses air through the night.)

Let me start by saying I understand that the true purpose of Memorial Day is not so people can have a three-day weekend. However, the fact that it was a three-day weekend, coupled with the fact that two of my wife’s brothers were visiting from out-of-town, made it an opportune time to take the RV out of storage. So that’s what we did, taking the truck and fifth-wheel about 90-minutes outside of Boise to Bruneau Dunes State Park.

The good thing about a holiday weekend of any kind is that it provides an extra day away from work and the demands of daily life. The bad thing about holiday weekends is that even the nicest campground can begin to resemble a Wal-Mart parking lot, packed with dozens of other rigs, all of whom are now your neighbors (if not your closest friends). If you’re lucky, most of your fellow park residents will be courteous and not see your site as the perfect shortcut to the bathrooms, the visitor center, the picnic shelter, the hiking trail their friends told them about. You get the picture. This past weekend, we were lucky in that regard, although I suspect our site location – not close to anywhere campers might be interested in walking to – had much to do with that success.

Early evening view - 1st night

The weather was almost perfect for the last weekend in May – mid to upper 80s and sunny, though it was a bit breezy at times. However, the wetter than average spring we had (at least by Idaho standards) caused my allergies to interfere a bit with my enjoyment of being out with the RV. On the other hand, dealing with allergies in a scenic location, albeit it still miserable, is more enjoyable than dealing with allergies and still having to go into work.

While the park was too crowded for my tastes (to be expected as the holiday weekend usually marks the start of camping season here in Idaho), the weekend was enjoyable and relaxing but too short, as always. My wife may disagree, but I also think the packing up and hitching up to leave process went as smoothly as it ever has. (More so than our arrival as I again managed to forget something we planned to bring. I guess one of our trips isn’t complete unless that happens.)

Teresa and I also took the Tuesday after Memorial Day off from work so we could spend an extra day with her brothers before they began their trip home. Both brothers are into photography, so we decided a day trip was in order to see if we could find some location worthy of their cameras. (Plus, after driving the day before, who wouldn’t want to get back behind the wheel and drive some more?)

After a little thought, we decided to drive to Leslie Gulch, an area still fresh in our minds (at least in mine) as it had been mentioned a week or so prior in a local newspaper article as a worthwhile scenic drive. Leslie Gulch is located in Eastern Oregon just inside the Idaho border near the south end of the Owyhee Reservoir, about a two-hour drive (or thereabouts) from Boise. We ended up in a campground at the end of the dirt road, where we took pictures, had a snack, and met a couple from Georgia who seemed to know more about out of the way scenic Idaho locations than we did, and we have lived in Idaho since 2003!

Leslie Gulch offers up some
interesting rock formations

If you like out of the way locations with interesting rock formations, then Leslie Gulch is worth a visit. The dirt road in from U.S. Highway 95 is fairly well maintained (except, perhaps, in winter) and can be traveled in a regular passenger car, although a Jeep or Honda CR-V (or something similar) might make for a more enjoyable drive. The way in is basically also the way out, so there is also a second opportunity to capture any pictures missed the first time around or to retake shots with a little different lighting.

As I write this, Teresa’s brothers are somewhere between Boise and Western Wyoming. We enjoyed their visit and hope to see them again before too much time passes. I also hope they found some sights worthy of their cameras with which to remember their visit.

#161 - An Open Letter to My Son

On Tuesday, our son Christopher turns 18, that magical age at which all of us become adults. This past weekend, we marked the occasion with a party at the local bowling alley. It was a small affair; the neighbor brought her son and daughter, and two girls Christopher invited from school were also gracious enough to attend.

Christopher said he had a great time, for which I am thankful. It did, however, get me to thinking about what is next for him. I know what I hope for him, but I'm never quite sure what Christopher wants out of life or if he thinks about it much. It's always been a tough subject to discuss with him. Perhaps, like me, he expresses his thoughts better in writing. So, I thought I would try writing down what I hope for Christopher and ask him what he hopes for himself.

Dear Christopher,

In a couple of days, you will turn 18. It is a challenging time and also an exciting one. Most 18 year-olds are preparing to graduate from high school and head off to college or perhaps to working life. As you well know, though, your autism makes you unique in many ways from others your age.

And yet, observing you at your birthday party on Saturday, I see that you are in many ways much like other young men your age. You have a strong interest in girls, and you know a pretty girl when you see one, judging from the two you invited to your party. You also have an adult sense of humor, one that can even be a bit naughty at times. (Your mention of being in a "girl sandwich" did take me a bit by surprise, I have to admit.) So, in many ways you are a lot like your fellow classmates.

You do also have your challenges - sense of time and money, being able to process information and respond in a timely manner. The latter sometimes makes you seem deliberate and thoughtful. At other times, it can be maddening. I suspect that patience will always be a struggle for those you come into your life.

Speaking of your life, what does it hold in store? What do you want to do with your life? What will be possible? I think all of us (teachers, aides, even us parents) have sold you short a time or two in your first 18 years. We have all struggled to determine what you are capable of and what you might be capable of in time. At times, you seem very mature and capable of great things. At others, I struggle to  hold on to the idea of you being able to live a meaningful life. I used to tell people you were 17 going on six going on 30, such are the emotional and intellectual shifts I've seen you make.

You have expressed an interest in varying things, some of them right in line with what many other young adults are interested in - a wife, a family, a career. I don't know how many of these will be possible. I hope all of them. Regardless, I hope you will be better than I was at celebrating the successes and dealing with the disappointments you will likely encounter.

At 18, your whole life is ahead of you. I hope you are able to articulate your dreams and make them come true. Where you are concerned, I've always believed anything is possible. I've no doubt it will be harder for you to make your dreams come true. But I've also no doubt that you are capable of much, probably more so than any of us give you credit for.

Your autism will convince some, perhaps many, that the things you want in life are not practical or achievable for you. Do not listen to them unless you become convinced they are correct, but decide that for yourself. Do not let them convince you. Fight for your dreams but also recognize that you will likely have to work harder to make your dreams a reality.

I know I have been hard on you at times, but it is only because I can see the potential for your life. Deep down, I've no doubt you are capable of making your dreams, whatever they are, come true. If you are willing to work hard at it and not hold on to the frustrations will will most certainly encounter, all things are possible. Dream big! Work hard! Love fully! Live!

Love, Dad

#160 - A Different Take on Easter

Happy Easter, everyone! In the Christian world, Easter is the day when the resurrection of Jesus Christ is celebrated. At least that's the case amongst Christian adults. I suspect their children are more interested in finding out what the Easter Bunny brought them.

Easter has a different or an added meaning in our household. Two years ago on Easter, our family made the decision to stop consciously eating any and all animal products - no meat, no dairy, no poultry, no seafood. People who knew of my love of steak and five-meat pizza were sure this would be a short-lived experiment. They were wrong.

We are now two years into this change, and I don't think any of us has looked back. Does that mean we never slip? No, but we have done our best to stay on what we see as a healthier, more humane, more sustainable and less resource-intensive eating path. By and large, we have succeeded.

Recently, I finished reading an English translation of The Upanishads, one of the most sacred texts in Hindu spirituality. Throughout the text, I was struck by the many similarities between what the Hindu and Christian faiths believe and profess. I was convinced anew of the truth and the wisdom of the old adage "there are many paths to the mountaintop."

Toward the end of my reading, I was especially struck by a passage in the Taittiriya Upanishad dealing with food. These five lines spoke directly to the reason for our dietary change and served to further underline the validity of our reasons for that change:

From food are made all bodies, which become
Food  again for others after their death.
Food is the most important of all things
For the body; therefore it is the best
Medicine for all the body's ailments.

(Taittiriya II.2.1)

We have tried and struggled at times to reduce if not eliminate our intake of processed food, and it is to this effort specifically that this passage speaks. Thanks to economies of scale and highly efficient production methods, processed food is usually less expensive than the natural ingredients sometimes used to help make that processed meal. To me, something is wrong with that picture.

I believe healthy food is a basic human right. I also believe that people have a right to know where their food comes from, what is in the food they eat (GMO grains, hormones, chemicals, etc.), and how their food is produced (are livestock raised using humane or inhumane methods, for instance).

I also believe those who risk much to expose unsanitary and/or inhumane food production methods should be applauded. They should not be accused of a crime, as is fast becoming the common response across America. (Note the spate of so-called "Ag-Gag" legislation popular in agricultural states in recent years, including Idaho, where we live.)

Some of those considerations played a part in our decision to change how and what we eat. Some of the medical research also played a part (e.g., Dr. T. Colin Campbell's The China Study). Ultimately though, I suppose we made the decision because it felt like it was the right thing to do for ourselves, for our son, and for our planet. How could we go wrong? Happy Easter and healthy eating!

(The Upanishads - translation by Eknath Easwaran. © 1987, 2007 The Blue Mountain Center of Meditation. Published by Nilgiri Press.)

#159 - Technology - It's a Beautiful Thing . . . Sometimes

Technology is a beautiful thing – when it works. When it doesn’t, people are inconvenienced, businesses lose money, lives are disrupted.

A recent and minor change in the office where I work brought that notion home to me. The change – a simple battery – caused us to be without access to our internal computer network as well as the external computing world for about 30 minutes. No opening files from remote locations, no sending or receiving e-mails, no surfing on the internet and, because we have internet phones (voIP or voice over Internet Protocol), no incoming or outgoing phone calls.

Once the battery was replaced, regaining access was simply a matter of restarting our computers, reopening our e-mail programs and web browsers, and picking up where we left off. Except for phone calls, that is. This seems to be a problem every time there is some sort of change to our computer network, only no one seems to know where the reset button is for the phones (if there even is one).

Technology is a double-edged sword. It frees us and ensnares us. Thanks to technology, medical and scientific procedures and advances once unthinkable become commonplace. We can map the human genetic sequence and turn once major surgical procedures into outpatient surgeries with small or no scars. At the same time, a computer failure can cause large parts of a major city to lose power or potentially cause a nuclear missile to begin a pre-launch sequence. Because so many of us use e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter to communicate with friends, family, and associates, a technological failure can also cause us to lose touch with the world around us, albeit temporarily.

As I sit and wait for the telephones at work to resume functionality, I am struck by the thought that most if not all of us would be lost and completely unable to function in a world without the technology we take for granted. While our 18th and 19th-century ancestors were largely independent and self-sufficient, we are largely dependent (the objections of some notwithstanding) on one another and upon our economies of scale. Such changes are more efficient and perhaps make life easier, but disruptions are more noticeable and create more inconvenience on a larger scale.

Although they are never mentioned as part of the argument, I suspect such potential pitfalls lend credence to the suggestion (even argument) that each of us needs to occasionally unplug and disconnect from our electronic lives and plug into and connect with the physical world around us. Our e-lives allow us to reconnect with people and places we might otherwise lose touch with, but they are no substitute for the world that exists all around us. As The Police sang in their 1981 song, “we are spirits in the material world.”

#158 - The Perfect Rig

RVSue, a blogger who lives full-time with her two dogs in a 17-foot long Casita travel trailer, recently posted an entry detailing how she came to choose the type of RV she did. Her post resulted in an interesting discussion of rigs, and it got me to thinking about what constitutes the perfect rig.

Of course, there is no wrong answer just as there is no one right answer. One person’s “perfect” rig could be another person’s nightmare. That’s why there are so many different types, brands, and models. Different people also have different budgets and financial comfort levels, which is why you also see such a wide spread of model years still in use.

Other things will also dictate one person’s “perfect” rig  and cause it to differ from someone else’s. Those things include: the aforementioned budget, the desire for new versus used, floor plan and amenities, storage needs, and the type of usage.

That latter factor includes considerations such as: weekend use, extended trips, or full-time living. One must also consider whether the RV will spend most of its time in a full-service campground with electricity and water or camping off the grid. Staying in primitive campgrounds or even outside of campgrounds will require plenty of  battery power and likely some means of recharging those batteries, be it solar panels or a generator or some combination of the two.

We started our RV adventure with a 10-foot pop-up tent trailer. Once we added a dog to the mix, we decided we needed something bigger. The normal progression, so we've been told, would have been to a travel trailer. Not being normal people, we went instead to an older fifth-wheel. That rig taught us a lot about what we liked and did not like in terms of layout. So we moved to a different fifth-wheel (our current RV), which added some living space at the expense of kitchen prep space. Still not our perfect rig.

Now we have begun thinking about what comes next. This time, in anticipation of living in the RV full-time and hopefully doing some traveling, we are focusing on Class A motorhomes. (For those not versed in motorhome types, the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association has a page detailing the various types.) To narrow the focus further, we are concentrating on diesel motorhomes (for now) in the 33 to 36 foot range. We figure this will give us more flexibility than the larger rigs in terms of where we can go while still providing some of the creature comforts. This is roughly the length of our current fifth-wheel, so there is no need to adjust to having a smaller space (other than the major adjustment of living in a smaller space all the time).

At first, we were focusing solely on the Tiffin brand as it is made in Alabama (my wife’s home state), and it has a good reputation for customer service. Since then, we have added the Newmar brand to the mix. It, too, seems to have a good reputation, plus some of the floor plans seem to fit our desires and needs a little better than the Tiffin models we’ve seen. With either brand, we would be looking to buy used as we don’t have Donald Trump money or large government pensions to allow us to buy new, and we don’t really want to finance anything. We’ve worked hard to get out of debt, and we want to stay that way.

We’re still a couple of years or so from any change, so there is still time for us to decide to go a different direction. As we look, we see that no rig is perfect. One may have a well laid out living space but almost no kitchen prep space. Another may have a great kitchen but a tiny bathroom. A third may have a great living space and kitchen, but the TV is in a location where the best viewing angle is standing up at the opposite end of the RV. As is usually the case in a marriage, any rig we choose will be the result of compromising some of what we want versus what we truly need and will also involve some discussion of which shortcomings we can work around. (For instance, in some RVs, the lack of kitchen prep space might be alleviated with the addition of a rolling cart that can be used as a small kitchen island.)

The next couple of years promise to be interesting and exciting as we go through the exploration, examination, and evaluation stages as we head toward the execution of the purchase or the decision to something completely off the current radar. To use the old worn out cliché, only time will tell.

#157 - The Wave

We are all familiar with various types of waves - the wave hello and its cousin, the wave goodbye. There is also the wave off, as in "I'm okay; I don't need any help." It's sort of a way of saying no with the hand. Of course, there is also "the wave," that obnoxious thing fans do (or used to do) at football games. Then there is the Jeep wave.

This latter wave is one I was unfamiliar with - until we bought our Jeep in September of last year. The Jeep wave is a select wave, restricted to and shared between Jeep owners. But the Jeep wave is not for just any Jeep owner.

The Jeep wave is almost a subculture within the Jeep owners subculture itself. Grand Cherokee and Patriot drivers need not apply. The old Jeep Wagoneer is also excluded from the club. The Jeep wave is restricted to owners and drivers of Jeep Wranglers and Rubicons. Four-door versions are also admitted to the club since they simply look like an elongated version of the traditional two-door Jeep.

Much like the secret handshake said to be shared by Freemasons, the Jeep wave is a greeting, an acknowledgment between owners of the traditional Jeep style. I suppose it could be seen as a sort of knowing wink or telling glance. Perhaps it is a recognition that we were discerning enough not willing to settle for some other pretender brand or for one of the upstart Jeep models.

The dealer who sold us our Jeep was apparently not up on secret handshakes and rituals and was remiss in not telling us about the custom of the wave. As a result, i was a bit surprised the first time I encountered it. I simply thought it was some overly friendly driver or perhaps someone who thought they recognized me as I passed. I waved back but thought nothing more about it - until it happened again. And again.

Drivers of other types of vehicles do not wave as they pass. And apparently there are other Jeep drivers not versed in the wave. I notice this lack of protocol primarily in younger Jeep drivers, and I chalk their lack of observation of the proprieties to a shortcoming in their education.

However, I have encountered the wave often enough in the six months we have owned our Jeep to know it is not coincidental or a fluke. Actually, it is something similar to what I sometimes see amongst RV owners as they pass or in campgrounds whenever we are able to take our trailer out. I suppose a passerby might liken it to membership in some sort of cult. I simply like to think of it as civility.

#156 - I Came, I Saw, I Camped

Today was St. Patrick’s Day, ostensibly commemorating the saint who drove the snakes out of Ireland. In actuality, though, I think it is simply an excuse to add green food coloring to beer and get drunk. This weekend, however, we experienced a green of a different kind, the green that one begins to find outdoors as spring nears.

Over the weekend, we made the season’s  first outing with our fifth-wheel trailer. The promise of nice weather this past weekend (mostly delivered upon) made us decide relatively spur of the moment to hitch up the rig and motor about 90-minutes west to Farewell Bend State Park in Eastern Oregon.

Farewell Bend sits along the Oregon side of the Snake River and was the last river stop along the Oregon Trail. It’s a pleasant park that can get hot in summer and is often windy, making it less than ideal for tenters. During the winter off-season (through March), most of the sites are closed off leaving a handful of available spots all lined up like a mini RV park.

For our purposes, though, Farewell Bend was a perfect destination on two days’ notice. We had a chance to get the trailer out for the first time in more than five months and make sure some of the important components (refrigerator, oven, microwave, furnace) were in operational form. Because of the nice weather, we got to spend much of Saturday outdoors relaxing instead of glued to this screen or that or dealing with household chores or home project #47.

We also experienced yet again a phenomenon I marvel at every time I encounter it. Many of the RVers we’ve met have tended to be outgoing, friendly people ready to make strangers welcome at the drop of a hat. They certainly have done so on several occasions.

I do not include the so-called “weekend warriors” with broods of young children still at home in this category of RVer. These people often strike me as trying to cram seven days of togetherness and family activities into a weekend and often appear anything but relaxed. So I guess I can’t really blame them if they aren’t that friendly or outgoing when a stranger passes.

However, I have encountered such friendliness often enough to know it is a much more common occurrence in the RV community than it seems to be in the general population at large. We first experienced it not long after we bought our first RV, a 10-foot Jayco tent trailer. A private message sent to someone on an RV discussion forum led to us being invited into their full-time home on wheels and a discussion of several hours about full-time living in a motorhome.

This past weekend, my wife mentioned to the owner of one of the motorhomes near our trailer that the brand they owned was one we were considering a few years down the road. Next thing we knew, we were being invited to tour their wheeled home away from home and subsequently invited to join them around the campfire, That led to several hours of enjoyable conversation about favorite campgrounds, health, food, retirement, even skydiving.

They are the kinds of conversations that no longer take place in many neighborhoods. It’s as if we have taken the idea that our home is our castle to heart and created an imaginary moat around it to keep the outside world at bay. Neighborhood and residential developments have become so spread out that it becomes somewhat daunting and intimidating to meet neighbors, especially if you tend to be somewhat introverted, as I am.

Because an RV of any kind is much smaller than a traditional home, there is a greater tendency to spend at least part of each day outside. Therefore, the likelihood of interaction with other people is also much greater. The couple we spent several enjoyable hours with this weekend are people we likely would never have encountered if it weren’t for our common ground of RVing. If we lived in the same neighborhood, our paths might never cross.

This social aspect is one of the great things about the RV life. Equally great, though, is the possibility of obtaining complete solitude if desired. Especially in the western half of the United States, there are numerous places where one can get away from just about everything and everyone. That ability to be around people when desired and get away from people when needed is, to me, one of the greatest attributes of the RV lifestyle. It allows one to maintain a balance between the social and private self and to establish or restore a harmony between the human self and the natural world. I’m just not sure it gets any better than that.

#155 - Generalissimo Francisco Franco is Still Dead

A story on the BBC News web site reports that a group of devotees in India have frozen the body of their guru after his death from a heart attack. According to them, he did not die but moved into a state of Samadhi, the highest form of meditation. So they froze his body and will “wait and watch” confident that “he will come back,” apparently because the guru said he would.

I guess my question in this case would be – if the guru wasn’t actually dead, as his followers believe, when his body was put on ice, won’t the freezer finish the job? Not being much good at meditation myself, I also have to wonder whether such cold temperatures might disrupt the guru’s state of Samadhi and bring him back to some other state of consciousness. Namely, death. Hopefully they packed a good cold weather parka in with the guru.

Ashutosh Maharaj, leader of the Divya Jyoti Jagrati Sansthan (Divine Light Awakening Mission), has been in cold storage now for some six weeks. Reading the BBC story, I was reminded of the old running joke on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update when Chevy Chase would announce as his top story, “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead” or the occasional variation "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still valiantly holding on in his fight to remain dead."

The Divine Light guru reportedly led 30 million followers around the world. No word as to how many of them were consulted or agreed with the decision to serve up their spiritual leader “on the rocks.” I also have to wonder whether the divine light remains on when the freezer lid is closed.

At some level, I suppose this story also points up the need most of us have to believe in or hold onto something larger than life, bigger than ourselves. Me, I believe in a divine or higher power, but I don’t believe any faith or religion has a monopoly or even a clear understanding of that divine power or the higher truth it represents.

I certainly don’t think guru Ashutosh Maharaj is or was that divine power. To an outsider, his followers seem to have elevated him close to that level. Thinking more about this story, I am led to wonder whether the same sort of elevation might have happened in the case of Jesus. Perhaps he too began as a simple holy man and was elevated to divine status after his crucifixion by his followers, desperate to have something larger than life to hang their beliefs on.

I know Christians would say no and point to the Bible as evidence. I, on the other hand, have to wonder why so many accept the Bible and not some other holy text, such as the Upanishads or the Koran (or even The Book of Mormon). All were written or at least transcribed by men. Is it really inconceivable that, because of the politics or prejudices of the time, those authors/transcribers might have allowed their own hopes, biases, and opinions to color and influence what was actually set down upon the page? And which Bible? The Catholic version, with its Apocrypha? The King James? The New King James? The New International Version? (Was there an old International Version?) It’s all so confusing.

But back to guru Ashutosh Maharaj, he of the Divine Light. His spokesman (apparently, public relations is important, even after death – excuse me Samadhi) said the guru’s body did not decompose before being put into the freezer, even after remaining out for a week. That qualified as a “spiritual experience,” according to Swami Vishalanand. Actually, though, for those of faith, death itself would be considered a “spiritual experience.”

I don’t really begrudge the guru’s followers their belief that their leader will return. Perhaps that will illustrate the “awakening” aspect of the name of their sect. Until that happens, “Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.”

#154 - Thinking About Making My Escape

Here where I live, the weather experts (does that mean they used to be perts and gave it up?) are forecasting temperatures in the 60s this weekend. That has me thinking about escaping.

By escaping, I don’t necessarily mean running away from it all, although that has a certain appeal. Actually, I’m thinking about getting out of town for a weekend or even longer. We are lucky in that we have the home on wheels to be able to get away from civilization – or at least reduce our exposure to it – whenever our schedules permit.

The promise of warmer weather has me hoping we can make more use of our fifth-wheel trailer than we did last year. Right now, I think bookmakers in Vegas are laying odds of four to one against based on the fact that I have yet to complete my first year in my current job. That puts available vacation time at a bit of a premium.

Even though my wife occasionally have disputes over how to do this or take care of that when we are out with the trailer, those outings help me stay sane. I think I feel more natural, more myself when we are in a campground somewhere, even if all we do is sit outside and read or watch the sun go down. Whatever burdens I imagine I have seem to lighten, and there is an increased sense of peace and calm I feel.

I’ve written about this feeling before. I find it reassuring to know I still feel the same, especially as my ultimate escape plan (i.e., retirement) involves taking the trailer (or motorhome, if we have one by then) out for a weekend and never coming home. Actually, the plan is to trade a stationary home (referred to by RVers as “sticks & bricks”) for one on wheels.

Such a move will require some hard decisions about what to keep (very little) and what to dispose of (nearly everything) as well as explaining the decision to others who might question our sanity. Somehow, though, that seems part of the fun at this point, even though I know when the time comes it will be anything but fun.

The final decisions in that regard are still several years away. In the meantime, I look at prospective homes on wheels and dream (and perhaps drool a little if the truth be told). I read of the adventures of others (sometimes with a slight tang of envy). And I look forward to the day when it is my turn to make the leap and live out my grand adventure. Until then, I settle for mini escapes, weekend excursions that help revitalize me and help to (barely, some might say) keep me sane. How about you? Here’s to making our escape!

#153 - Balancing Between Today and Tomorrow

“Sha-la-la-la-la-la live for today / And don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow, hey”

– The Grass Roots

Finding the balancing point between what is and what might be is always challenging. How does one know whether he or she is making the right choice? Hindsight may be 20/20, but foresight and forward vision can be a bit blurry at best and myopic at worst.

One of the blogs I regularly read is currently in the middle of a series of posts that have a bit of a survivalist bent to them, looking ahead to dwindling oil supplies, hyperinflation, and a collapsing economy. Definitely not light bedtime reading. But is the author right? Are we headed for financial Armageddon?

I don’t know the answer to that question, and he admits he doesn’t, either. That’s the point. Not even the wisest of us has a direct line to the future, so none of us really knows what lies ahead. While the song by The Grass Roots may, on one level, seem a bit irresponsible, there is a lot to be said for living for today.

Today is all we can see and all we have any semblance of control over. That does not mean doing nothing to plan for the future. Nor does it mean not having any hopes or dreams to look forward to or live for. What it does mean is doing the best you can today to plan for the future without sacrificing the present and worrying about tomorrow if and when it comes. 

Looking at the world around me, I see that throwing money at the problems we face, as America is sometimes accused of doing, has so far not solved the problem. Nor has cutting spending to the bone, as has occurred in some European countries, done the job. As in all things, balance and moderation seem to be the key.

I’ve been accused often in my life of being a pessimist, but I am something of an optimist at heart. While I believe we face a variety of challenges in the years ahead, I also believe we can and will address them, whether it be through evolution, technology, divine intervention, or some combination of all three. Forty years ago, during the last worldwide oil shortage, many were forecasting gloom and doom. Since then, we have made great strides in alternative energy sources such as solar and wind, and I suspect further advances lie on the horizon.

I sometimes think about what the future holds for my autistic son. I realize that I will not be around for most of his adult life and will not be there to guide him through whatever lies ahead. Plans are in place to try to prepare for his future, but as what anything forward-looking, those plans are at best an educated guess as to what he’ll face and what he’ll need. At the same time, his parents hope and plan as parents for our own future.

I suppose the moral in all of this is to do your best to plan and prepare for the future you hope to see while also doing your best to live in the now (and not, as Jethro Tull once sang, “keep living in the past”). Metaphysically speaking, I guess I need to work on my sense of balance. Sha-la-la-la.

#152 - Where Did My Hour Go?

“It’s just another manic Monday.” – The Bangles

At this moment, I truly do wish it were Sunday (as the song continues). Not because Monday marks the start of another work week, although there is also that. No, it’s much worse than that. It is nothing less than what I am sure must be an insidious plot to make all of us automatons for several days while who knows what takes place. The plot of which I speak is Daylight Savings Time.

This weekend marked the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, that artificial extension of daylight hours originally intended to help conserve energy. Benjamin Franklin is said to have first proposed such a system so as to make more economical use of candles. The energy saving aspect is what caused Daylight Savings to be used during World War I and to be more permanently implemented during World War II. In the 1970s, the time frame for Daylight Savings Time was extended for additional energy savings during the oil embargo.

The period was later extended and codified at eight months in length, again presumably for energy savings. I’m sure it is mere coincidence that the eight month period of Daylight Savings just happens to coincide with prime growing and tourism seasons as opposed to those times of the year when we might truly benefit from an extra hour of daylight, the winter. I fully expect in the next few years that Daylight Savings Time will be extended once more, allowing it to run through Black Friday so that the mob of shoppers seeking out Christmas bargains can trample each other with an extra hour of daylight to run amok in. That’s only a few weeks past the current end date for Daylight Savings Time, so it would not require much of a change and could be made again under the guise of “saving energy.”

Now, don’t get me wrong. I like Daylight Savings Time as much as the next person. During the summer and early autumn, both prime camping periods, I can enjoy extra hours of daylight out in the RV. I like having plenty of daylight whenever I can take the RV out of town for the weekend.

What I don’t like as much is that first day of Daylight Savings Time, when we lose an hour due to the adjustment of the clocks. Yes, it’s in the middle of the night, when we are presumably sleeping. And yes, we get that hour back sometime in the fall. However, that first day after “springing forward,” I don’t like doing anything close to “springing.” Instead, I feel like a walking billboard for Night of the Living Dead, as my body knows there is something amiss, even if it can’t quite put its finger on it.

At the start of Daylight Savings Time, I feel sluggish and continue to feel that way for several days, until my body finally adjusts to the change. For those first few days, Daylight Savings Time (DST) becomes more like Sleep Deprivation Time (SDT). While later I will enjoy and appreciate the additional hour of daylight, right now, I just want my hour back so I can catch up on that lost sleep.

#151 - The Importance of Being a Dreamer

"I know that everybody has a dream / Everybody has a dream
Everybody has a dream / And this is my dream, my own"

- Billy Joel "Everybody Has a Dream"

I guess I've had a number of dreams over the years. Growing up, I dreamed of becoming a doctor. Then, when I learned how long that would take, I switched to dreaming of architecture (still an interest), then law. Along with the dream of becoming a lawyer was the thought I might someday go into politics - until I realized I wouldn't even win an election in my own family.

These are the dreams of what I would call real life - what I wanted to be when I grew up. There were also the dreams I knew to be complete fantasy - dreams of being a successful baseball player, even though I had no talent; dreams of being a singer/songwriter (I do like to sing and do still write lyrics, so maybe I haven't completely let go of that one); dreams of owning a number of television and radio stations, a pale imitation of which played out in my ten years working in radio and television; even dreams of being an acclaimed novelist (haven't quite let go of that dream yet). Most of these were part of my survival mechanism, I suppose, a way to cope with and get through all of the crap I felt to be going on around me.

Delusional? Perhaps. But I have come to realize that dreams are important to us in all stages of life. They are, really, the thing that keeps up going and makes it possible for us to get out of bed day after day. Even if they might never come true, there is always a chance they might, and that makes it possible for people to go on. They certainly made it possible for me to go on.

An oft-paraphrased quote from Karl Marx states that religion is the opiate of the masses. In some ways, I suspect our dreams are the opiate. They are what keeps us going when times are hard. They give us something to look forward to, to get out of bed for. It has been said that when we stop dreaming, we die.

So even at my later stage of life, I continue to dream. For the most part, my dreams have changed with age. I no longer dream of being this or of having that career. Instead, I dream of going places, seeing things. My dream now is of retiring and living full-time in a motorhome, traveling to see places I've never seen and people I haven't seen in a long time.

Right now, it looks as if that dream could well come true, and that helps keep me going. Plus, I still have dreams of writing that novel. If I can just find the discipline to sit down and do it. What dreams do you hold on to?

#150 - Degrees of Loss

We just got word today that the priest who performed our wedding ceremony died recently after a long illness. I don't know his age, but I'm sure Fr. David was several years younger than us. Today, I also learned that a couple we knew that had married a few months before us had divorced after 20 years of marriage.

Teresa and I were the first couple married by Father David, a wedding Mass he performed for us in September, 1993, not long after his ordination as a Catholic priest. Thinking back now, there are lots of little things that stand out from that day.

I remember what a nice (and warm) September day it was with temperatures probably in the 80s and plenty of blue sky. I remember being glad I was able to scrape together the money to fly my mother and grandmother in for the wedding. I also remember trying to squeeze us all into my little Hyundai Excel.

I remember that Teresa and I decided that, while we wanted the traditional church wedding, we did not want the thousands of dollars in costs or debts that so many seemed to be incurring in order to live that dream. In order to make our dream happen, Teresa bought the fabric for her wedding dress, found the pattern, and paid someone $150 (as I recall) to make it. You'd have been hard-pressed to realize the dress did not cost five or ten times that much.

The rehearsal dinner was another area where we were able to have fun and save money. We booked a local barbecue place just outside of town. Everyone ate off of foam green plastic plates with paper napkins and, I think, plastic utensils, and no one said a word in complaint. It was fun, it was tasty (and traditional, in a Southern sort of way), and it was affordable.

Since we had friends with military shopping privileges, we were able to save a bit on the beer and champagne as well. However, to this day it still pains us to recall the fact that much of the beer ended up being dumped out. I think if we had known that was going to happen we would have stayed at the wedding reception longer and had more to drink. We did, however, end up with five or six cases of cheap champagne that took us years to drink.

I remember us buying most of the members of our wedding party Three Stooges-related gifts. We played Asleep at the Wheel's "Curly Shuffle" during the little get together we held to distribute the gifts. I also remember the fact that my best man, a non-Catholic, had to "suffer" through a full Mass, with all of the kneeling and standing that entailed. It was sort of my revenge for driving six and a half hours to be a groomsman in his ten-minute wedding ceremony earlier in the year.
 

The happy couple with Fr. David

Teresa and I wrote our own music for the ceremony so as to make it even more ours. I still remember Fr. David being a bit nervous since it was his first wedding (as well as ours) and launching into The Lord's Prayer, not remembering Teresa and I had written a musical version for the ceremony.

Ours was definitely a DIY wedding. (We did, however, hire someone to make a cake and provide finger food for the wedding reception.) We even put together the wedding reception music tape. Both of us having slightly twisted senses of humor, so it seemed only fitting that the first song at the reception be Billy Idol's "White Wedding." He was right. It was a "nice day for a white wedding."

We lost touch over the years with Fr. David, as we have with many of the people who blessed us with their presence that September day. Some, like my mother and grandmother and Teresa's father, have died. Others have moved to various parts of the country and out of our lives.

Although I don't have an actual count, I'm sure Fr. David performed many more wedding ceremonies and Masses after ours, no doubt becoming more confident and self-assured with each one. Teresa and I, though, will always be honored to have been the first.

We've lost Fr. David, but we retain the memories of that special day. Godspeed, Fr. David. May you find eternal rest.

#149 - Where's the Fire?

“I feel the need. The need for speed.” – Top Gun

There must be quite a few fans of the movie “Top Gun” here where I live, judging from the way some of them drive.

I was heading into work this morning when a company van from a local pastry shop came barreling out of their parking lot and had almost reached the speed limit by the time they got onto the actual road. The van proceeded to pick up speed from there. I didn’t hear the air raid sirens or anything, but there must have been a four-alarm donut shortage somewhere. Either that, or the driver had already consumed a couple of days’ worth of caffeine and sugar.

On the same drive this morning, while driving a couple of miles per hour over the speed limit myself, I was passed by a truck going close to ten miles an hour too fast – in order to pass me before being forced to turn right. This even though there was plenty of room to merge behind me. I am happy to report (in a told you so sort of way) that, because of other slower traffic ahead, said driver never got more than three or four car lengths ahead of me. Not that I am vengeful or vindictive or anything.

What I don’t really understand is the day-to-day rush to get somewhere, usually to work, as if that extra minute (or even less) will actually make a difference. I get that there are emergencies that sometimes necessitate the need for speed, but does clocking in for work at 7:29 a.m. as opposed to 7:30 or even 7:31 really matter. Are there sales taking place with tiny five-minute windows of opportunity that justify or excuse the lack of courtesy or possible endangerment of others?

I’ve also seen people several cars behind me in my lane on a city street pull out into another lane that is about to become a dedicated left-turn lane, pass several cars, then cut back into my lane (sometimes blocking the left-turn lane while waiting for an opportunity to force their way back over). It’s as if their time or their destination is more important or more worthy than mine or the other drivers they’ve passed. News flash: in most cases, it isn’t.

Consideration of others seems to have disappeared, right along with rational political discourse and compromise. It all seems to correspond with the advent of the 24-hour news cycle and the always-connected world in which we live. Some people here where I live blame it on the California drivers who have moved here. I suspect the answer is not quite that simple. 

In our consumer-driven culture, we are under constant pressure to produce and consume. I suspect some of that has also leached into our daily activities. Many people seem to always feel the need to be going or doing (or going and doing), and they have scheduled their entire family’s lives accordingly.

Not being an urban planner, a psychologist, or even a law enforcement officer, I don’t have the answer. Nor do I know the solution. I do have a few suggestions, though, for those of you always hurrying to and fro. First, stop and smell the coffee before you drink it. Those extra few moments don’t matter much in the long run, but they might help you begin your day on a more relaxed footing.

Second, look at all of those planned activities on your calendar. How important are they in the greater scheme of things? Is your schedule so full it allows no space for the unexpected or for doing something spontaneous? If so, you have way too much on your plate and way too little time on your hands.

Finally, might I suggest you try approaching each day’s drive to work or to run errands as if it will be your last? Because the way you drive, it may well be.

#148 - Write Your Own Song

"You can write your own words / You can sing your own song
And it doesn't really matter if you're out of tune / Or if no one sings along"
- John Wesley Harding "Sing Your Own Song"

Next to Elvis Costello, John Wesley Harding is, perhaps, my favorite songwriter of the last twenty-plus years. Plus, he's written three novels. In other words, he's done the things I always told myself I wanted to do.

A part of me has always been into writing. I won't call it a passion, as there has always been some question about whether I'm truly passionate about anything. However, I have enjoyed writing for quite some time, even making a living at it during my years as a reporter and later as a news producer.

In high school, I worked on the school newspaper, writing editorials about book burning, gas rationing (it was the 70s, the time of the oil embargo), and the like. I latched onto writing as a way to be noticed, I suppose, something that didn't happen from being in marching band, and I wasn't coordinated enough or strong enough or fast enough for sports.

Writing also became my way of coping with the world around me outside my home, as well as the feelings and emotions inside me and my home. Because I have the discipline and dedication of a gnat (and at times the attention span to go with it), I never worked much on longer forms of writing, although I always told people I wanted to write a novel . . . one day.

Instead, I latched onto song lyrics as my outlet. It was almost like writing poetry, except I didn't have to be opaque or obscure or quite so metaphorical. Song lyrics were also good and inexpensive therapy. My lyrics, bad as they were at times, helped me to express and work through things I wasn't really comfortable sharing with others. As a result, most of the lyrics I've written have perhaps thankfully never been shared with others.

I began writing lyrics my senior year in high school, and I've never really stopped, although I have gone months at a time without writing a word. Forty years of thoughts, feelings, rhymes, and stories. Most of what I've written is utter drivel and not likely to be improved with age or revision, something I almost never do.

Yet, I keep writing. It keeps my mind and my imagination active. I've written enough words to probably fill two or three novels, although I don't think much of a narrative could be pieced together from them if all those words were combined. (An interesting experiment for perhaps another day.)

I'd like to think my lyric writing has improved with time, age, and possibly wisdom, but a writer of any genre is generally not the best judge of his or her own work. So, at the end of this post, I'll let you decide.

The song I quoted at the start of this post, "Sing Your Own Song," conveys the idea that we each of us should live our own lives, write our own songs, as it were, and not worry about what other people want, think, or say about it. It's the idea that each of us marches to the beat of a different drummer.

I've been marching to that different beat for most of my life. I'd like to think my drummer has gained a better sense of timing and rhythm over the years. I'd also like to think that drummer will one day help me beat out that novel I still hope to write. In the meantime, I'll keep writing my lyrics, even if "no one sings along." Here's the latest, based on no personal experience or person I know, yet it probably fits several people who have gone in and out of my life over the years.

Just One of Those Things

I see the crystal vision / Of places we once went
I know my indecision / Caused us to lose the scent
Of what we had
I know I should be sad
But I'm not even mad, it was just one of those things

I hear the distant echoes / Of songs we used to share
They seem to end in mid-note / Left hanging in the air
Reminders of
This thing we once called love
Not quite like hand in glove, it was just one of those things

We thought we knew where we were going
We hadn't a clue
Each day, the doubt kept growing
Inside both me and you

Around me, imitations / Of things we used to do
Are there reminding me of / The life I had with you
So long ago
Where did that feeling go?
I don't really know, it was just one of those things

We finally reached the point
We couldn't take any more
One of us had to leave
We both walked out the door

I know someday the memories / Will simply fade away
Well meaning friends no longer / Asking if I'm okay
Like something's wrong
We just did not belong
And when one day you were gone, it was just one of those things

No need for sad goodbyes, it was just one of those things

One day we'll look back on this as just one of those things

- All rights reserved, 2014 -

#147 - Decisions, Decisions

If you think about it, life is a series of decisions, followed by an occasional lull, followed by another series of decisions. Do I get out of bed? Do I sleep in an extra hour? Do I have oatmeal for breakfast? Do I wear plaid to work? (Hopefully the answer to that last question is a decisive NO.)

Those little day-to-day decisions are punctuated by bigger decisions that are often referred to as MAJOR LIFE EVENTS – moving, getting married, having children, changing jobs. As a result, the course of one’s life graphed out looks a bit like a sine wave or an EEG.

Recently, I was faced with a potential major life event. A company I had worked eight years for before being laid off last August called to ask me if I was interested in coming back to work for them. Seems they realized they had made a teensy miscalculation in the number of people they actually needed to adequately run the day-to-day operations of the company.

Deep down, I suppose some part of me felt vindicated that they had realized their “error” in letting me go. So I agreed to talk to them, not really expecting anything to come of the interview. To put it mildly, I generally suck at interviews unless I don’t feel I have anything to lose or don’t feel pressured to do well. One of those must have been the case because a few days later they called to offer me a position.

After a little back and forth negotiating (something else I’m not much good at), they agreed to pay me what I was asking. I prepared myself to return to what I felt would be a more stressful situation than my current job, even going so far as to fill out some preliminary paperwork and telling my current employer about the offer. Then I woke up and smelled the coffee, I guess.

A delay of a few days in getting some questions answered gave me time to think about the impending move. The more time I had to think, the more anxious I became about going back. On the other hand, could I really turn down what was a sizeable pay increase? I didn’t know, so I did what any married man would do – I asked my wife.

As I talked over the offer with my wife, she noticed that I started talking more and more like someone who had decided to stay and not change jobs. I wasn’t aware of it until she pointed it out, but my entire discussion with her essentially became me convincing myself not to accept the offer.

I realized that I was lucky enough not to need the extra money. My current position feels a lot less stressful than my former job. I know everyone’s name, and everyone seems to get along. Plus, they seem to like the job I do and sounded genuinely relieved and grateful that I had decided to stay. I think I was as well.

Would I make the same choice six months from now? Who knows? That’s a decision for another day that may never arrive, or perhaps it is part of one ongoing decision. That discussion, however, is a bit deep for this blog. Instead, I’ll just worry about whether to pour a glass of red or white wine when I get home tonight from work.

#146 - When Life Happens

For the most part, I guess you could say I lead a relatively low-key life. I’m lucky not to have a lot of drama in my life, and I try – sometimes successfully – not to let the little things get to me. However, like most people, I imagine, there are the little crises that come up from time to time. Such was the case this weekend.

First, the was my son’s crisis of not being able to play Minecraft on his computer. Apparently, this is not all that uncommon due to various upgrades people make to their copy of the game. The problem, though, comes when you try to find solutions. They seem to be as varied as the weather, and they are nearly as widespread on the internet as the number of web addresses in existence.

These solutions also seem to have nothing in common with one another. One “solution” will suggest deleting one file; another will suggest deleting a different file. The videos describing various problems and their solutions provide enough small screen viewing pleasure to fill a couple of days. Needless to say, my son’s issues have yet to be resolved, although I personally am leaning toward just getting rid of the game entirely. I suspect, however, I will not have the final say on that.

The other of life’s little challenges this weekend involved replacing a leaking kitchen faucet. It had developed a slow leak over time, but when the water started pooling on the countertop, we concluded a change was in order.

Deciding to replace the faucet was the easy part. Deciding what to replace it with was a bit more difficult. We went to Home Depot and found a faucet we liked, bought it based on the clerk’s assurance it would work with our PUR water filter, then got home to find it would not work, at least not with the adapter we had.

So we took the faucet back, got a refund, then started the search again only to find that all of the faucets we were willing to consider required the same kind of adapter, the one we no longer had. When all was said and done, we wound up repurchasing the faucet we had just returned, hoping we could get replacement aerator adapters from PUR without having to buy an all-new filter.

After that, it should have been a matter of simply returning home, disconnecting and removing the old faucet, and installing the new one. Perhaps it works that way on Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best. Of course, in the real world or at least in our home, things are not quite so simple.

Turns out the old faucet, in addition to leaking, had rusted at one of the bolts. As a result, the plastic nut holding that side in place would not turn. (Why do they use plastic anyway? If it is to prevent rust, they may need to rethink the design process.) All of my efforts only succeeded in deforming the nut to the point where it looked nothing like what it was.

Next, we tried cutting the nut to see if we could break it apart. No luck. So I got out the drill and drilled a bunch of holes through the plastic nut, always being careful not to drill through the sink, until the plastic was weakened enough to break apart and allowed us to remove the old faucet. When I came out from under the sink, I looked like I had either been out in a snow flurry or had a serious dandruff problem from all of the plastic bits in my hair and on my clothes. But I was determined to show that faucet who was boss.

In the end, a job that should perhaps have taken an hour including travel to and from the hardware store ended up taking in excess of three hours. Fortunately, aside from the lost chunk of my weekend and a sore neck from contorting underneath the sink, the job was accomplished with no real damage or injury. Another victory for the average homeowner.

Of course, my son’s Minecraft computer game issue remains unresolved. I wonder if the drill will help with that. Hmmm . . .

#145 - More Random Thoughts

I've been thinking a lot lately about writing, which means I haven't been doing much of it. Well, that's not quite true. I've been doing more song lyric writing of late, something that seems to come in starts and stops, much as it has for 40 years.

I think the writing has gotten better. After 40 years, it would have to improve, wouldn't you think? One thing it has done is gotten more introspective, I think. I've been writing of late about the things left undone, perhaps as a sort of purge as I begin to think about the things I hope to do as I begin to look forward to the next stage of life.

One of the things I hope to do in that next stage is travel. Deep down, I think I am a restless spirit. My wife and I both tell people we are nomads or gypsies and cite the fact that both of our fathers were truck drivers. I think I've always had an urge to roam. When I was younger, I saw moving as a way to break from my mistakes, to make a clean start, if you will.

In my previous life in television and radio, I moved seven times over a ten year period. I was not one for putting down roots. Now, after living ten years in the same city, I have an urge to move again, although perhaps not at quite the same pace.

There is one blog I read regularly that captures a good sense of the kind of life I am looking to lead. That blog, rvsue and her canine crew, captures the daily essence for me of life along the road less traveled (to borrow from the M. Scott Peck book of the same name). As Sue paints it in her word portraits, life is not always exciting, but it is always fresh and always real.

Sue's blog has, at last count, attracted in excess of one million visits. The figure is mind boggling to me, not least of all because this blog stands at roughly 0.02% of that figure. I'm not jealous of that success, but I am most certainly in awe of it.

Thinking about Sue's blog and mine got me to thinking about my rationale for numbering my blog posts. When I first decided to number my posts, I think I did so in order to see how far I had come, a means of measurement, I suppose. I've also come to see the numbering as a way of showing myself that I was writing something substantial, even if it wasn't always of great import.

Writing, although I see it as one of my talents, is not something I can easily sit down to do. The numbering became an easy way for me to measure production, I suppose, especially since I still can't make myself sit down to write that novel.

I am also coming to see the numbering of blog posts in a different light. The numbers are becoming to me something like stepping stones or mileposts along the way. Some travel blogs contain maps with numbers that illustrate where the author was at a given point of time. The numbers serve to allow the readers to visually follow along with the author on his or her journey.

I am coming to see my blog post numbers as serving a similar purpose. Subconsciously, perhaps, the numbers allow any readers to follow a map of my journey. I cannot post a visual map of my mind (it would be very messy, for one thing), so the numbers are as close as I can come.

One last number just came to mind. At my current rate of page views, I only need to write 59, 736 more posts to reach a million views. One down, 59,735 to go.

#144 - Thoughts on Success and/or the Lack Thereof

“Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention” – Frank Sinatra - My Way

Frank Sinatra (and by extension Paul Anka, the song’s author) was a lucky man. I imagine most of us have, at one time or another in our lives, done something we regretted or done something we would change if we could. Others of us probably have things we didn’t do and wish we had. I probably fall into the second category.

There are any number of things I wish I had done when I was younger or wish I had possessed the internal makeup and strength of personality to at least consider. Sometimes circumstances got in the way, but for the most part, it has been a weakness of character, a problem of me getting in my own way.

I am not, as the psychologists would likely attest, a Type-A personality. I have never been a go-getter or a take the bull by the horns kind of guy. If you use water as a metaphor, Type-A personalities would be akin to a waterfall or even a hydroelectric dam. I, on the other hand, would be more like a meandering stream, rolling along in no hurry to get anywhere.

In some ways, that approach to life has served me well. While I often get bored easily, I almost never get overly stressed about anything. So I don’t suffer from hypertension or ulcers or the like. Instead, I ride along a fairly even keel emotionally.

This does have its drawbacks. While an even emotional keel does keep me from becoming overly depressed (even when thinking about how much has turned out), it also keeps me from truly experiencing emotional highs. The argument could be made that in some ways I have missed out on life. There is a part of me that might agree with that assessment.

Not that I haven’t changed a little. It took a long time, but I am better able to appreciate the beauty of sunrise (when I can get up that early) or sunset. A few years ago, I would have simply seen it as another day. I wish I had developed such an appreciation earlier in life, but I don’t dwell on it.

The one area in which I do have regret has to do with writing. (There are some other regrets, but this is the primary one.) I’ve always enjoyed writing and always believed (erroneously, perhaps) I was good at it. Where I come up short is in the areas of discipline and determination. I don’t have the internal strength to make myself sit down and start writing.

Blog posts like this one and song lyrics, which I’ve written off and on for years, are different because they usually don’t take much time to complete. Even then, they aren’t something I can make myself sit down and do on a daily basis, even though I always have ideas running through my head.

All of this has me wondering how and why it is some people have the drive to attempt and succeed while others don’t. Where does that drive come from? How do parents instill that drive in their children? Can they do so or is there some genetic component we are not yet aware of? Why is it that success in school does not always equate with or lead to success in life? Then there is the more philosophical question of what actually constitutes success? I’m not sure I have an answer for that one.

I have reached a stage in life where my chances for advancement in the workplace (at least as an employee) rest somewhere between slim and none. As I draw ever nearer to retirement age, I shall hope to be more successful in the next stage of life.

#143 - Freedom, Escape or Something Inbetween

“I’ve got to ride, ride like the wind / To be free again”

Christopher Cross – Ride Like the Wind

Recently, a blogger I regularly read posted an entry that, among other things, touched on the idea of freedom and where each of us feels free. Many of the comments touched on much the same idea – most of them experienced such freedom when they were either in the midst of or in close proximity to nature.

It is an interesting question to ponder. In some sense, we are perhaps as free as we have ever been in humanity’s existence. At least in more developed nations, millions upon millions of people have the financial wherewithal to pursue hobbies and interests perhaps unthinkable one or two generations ago.

At the same time, we are perhaps as chained as we have ever been. We live in an increasingly urbanized and technology driven world, and those same millions are often chained electronically or financially to jobs and careers that demand much of their time, even when they are away from the office. In previous generations, most people were simply not able to take their work home with them, even if they wanted to. In the 21st century, many of us not only can take our work home with us, there is an unwritten expectation that we do so.

And so, we look for opportunities to escape for an hour, a day, a week. Many of us find that momentary escape through television, radio, video games, and the like. Others find their escape through more physical avenues, such as hiking, biking, working out in a gym, and so on. That’s escape, but is it freedom or simply the best we can hope for in our current circumstances? To me, it is escape and not freedom, but for now it will have to do.

I find my escape through my RV, a fifth-wheel trailer that I take out with my family every chance I get. Right now, it is an escape and not a feeling of freedom for me as I am unable to go whenever the urge strikes me as I – like most people – have to balance individual desire with familial and societal responsibility. I will say that I feel calmest and most relaxed (usually) when I have the trailer parked in some campground out of the city.

Part of what keeps me going, is the hope that one day soon I can take the RV out and not have to come back to a house or, as those who live full-time in an RV call it, sticks and bricks. It is, luckily, a somewhat realistic dream for me, unlike many, but it does require some things to fall into place or at least not depart too much from their current path. Among those are the continued somewhat relative stability of fuel prices, the continued availability of places to explore, and continued decent health.

It is certainly possible that unforeseen events will require an abandonment or adjustment in this dream of mobile freedom. If that happens, I’ll no doubt manage. Hopefully, I’ll also find a way to feel free.