HAPPY NEW YEAR

Mickey Mantle played center field for the New York Yankees: he was awesome. Fast as a deer, a switch hitter, he was a league leader in both home runs and batting average. His reputation off the field was just as prolific except it went to alcohol and fast women. He was the golden boy of New York. From 1951 through 1968, the Mick was the face of the franchise. He lived the philosophy, Live Fast, Love Hard & Die Young. Both his father and grandfather had died in their early 40’s and Mick believed that he would follow their fate. But he didn’t die young, he suffered the aftermath of old, sports injuries and lingering alcoholism well into his 60’s. After two failed liver transplants, there were no more options.  His last public thoughts were shared with a reporter shortly before he passed in 1995. He said, “If I knew I’d live this long I’d have taken better care of myself.” 

I saw Mickey play once in 1951 when the Yankee’s send him down to their Triple A farm team, the Kansas City Blues. He needed more seasoning with the bat and making the move from shortstop to the outfield. The company my dad worked for had a promotion night at the ball park and there were several hundred of us; sat in the upper deck on the first base side. When Kansas City players came up out of the dugout I could look straight down on them, see the cleats on their shoes and the trademark on their bats. I thought I was in heaven. 

My mom and I listened to almost every Blues game on the radio. I think it was her passion for the game that rubbed off on me. I was a K.C. Blues fan from the start but the chance to see Mantle play made it even more special. For weeks, the radio announcer pleaded, “. . . if you want a chance to see history in the making, get on down here to the ball park and see Mickey Mantle play. It won’t be long, he’ll be back hitting homers with the Yankees and we’ll not see him back here again.” The next week, he was called back up to New York. I got to see him play. He went 2 for 4 with a single and a double; scored both times he was on base. He was 20 years old, I was 12.

“If I knew I’d live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” I think all of us, had we known what lay ahead might have changed a thing or two. That was a key theme in the 1985 movie trilogy, Back To The Future. They couldn’t do anything different that would interrupt the time-space continuum (change history.) The smallest, most insignificant change might chain react and send history off in an unpredictable, maybe disastrous direction. If Mickey had taken better care of himself, he might have only been great rather than legendary. Who knows how that would have played out? It might have spilled over into other stories and other lives. In a stretch of imagination, it might have even given me a subtle push in one direction or another which could have sent me down another path. 

Sometimes I have nothing better to do than ruminate on my laissez faire (let them be - leave it alone) life style. Had I worked harder, smarter, I might have been a great success. Success after all is about ambition and the realization of goals. It is a destination and you know when you have arrived. Happiness on the other hand, I believe, is about discovery, one after another, like links in a chain. It can stretch out across a life-journey or repeat itself in little circles, in simple ways, with no other value than the glow of the moment. My hopes and dreams have all been small and shortsighted. I'll have a New Day resolution for January 1, but I'll have another one for the 2nd. like every other day.  I have a friend, a consultant to CEO's and Board Directors; he tells them they have to rediscover the joy that brought them here if they want to overcome adversity. Big corporations and little individuals as well; whether it's a ten year plan or getting through the day, stacking stones or skipping them out across the water, rediscover the joy that brought you here.  

I love quotes; I save them. Garrison Keillor, popular radio personality said, “I was always afraid that I would have an ordinary life and I wanted my life to be extraordinary. But that’s what we get, all of us, an ordinary life: and that’s good enough.” With regard to Mickey: If I'd have known that I would be this happy, I might not have worked at all.

MERRY CHRISTMAS BABY

If you don’t like Christmas music, then you don’t want to listen to the radio. Every station is dialed in on Christmas. I’m more in the spirit this year than any time I can remember. My righteous friends want it to be all about the baby Jesus but it’s about a lot more than religion. People have been celebrating this time of year since they figured out moon cycles and the four seasons. I can hear Nat King Cole on the radio in the kitchen, “. . . and so I’m offering this simple phrase, for kids from 1 to 92, although it’s been said, many times, many ways; Merry Christmas, to you.” This is the Christmas I’ll celebrate and remember. 

Life is pretty good. Mine is long enough that I truly know the difference and young enough I still think about the future; the music is a gentle push in that direction. This holiday is for kids and people who remember what it was like. We haven’t changed that much, just a little tattered around the edges. I remember rushing home from work, packing the car with food and presents; with kids in pajamas who would sleep while I drove through the night. The next morning they were ready for breakfast at Granny’s, then play in the back yard while I caught up on sleep. Now it’s them on the road, coming to see me for the holidays. Music on my radio has turned to Chuck Berry and “. . . run, run Rudolph, tell Santa he can take the freeway down,” 

Winter in Missouri isn’t like it was when I was a kid; not like Michigan winters when my kids were kids. I gets wet and cold here and it may snow but you can’t count an anything but nasty. I spend as much time in Grand Haven, Michigan as I can; any season, any reason. I’ll drop in at “Coffee Grounds,” day or night and they know me, remember that I take a toasted “Everything Bagel” with butter, a large decaf and that I’ll set up shop at the table in the window. It snows there, you can count on it. People come and go and nobody talks about the weather; they eat a scone or a muffin and drink their coffee, talk about kids and pets; talk about detours on the highway and the economy. I sit at the window and write about whatever comes to mind. Summer will come in good time and people will dress for it. Sandals and shorts will be in order at Coffee Grounds and the tourists will return, the beach will be crowded and the river channel will be full of power boats, idling their way out to the big water. Elvis just called in and it’s still Christmas season with, “. . . Merry Christmas, Baby; you sure do treat me nice. . . . feelin’ good tonight, got music on the radio. . . want to kiss you, underneath the mistletoe.” I am in a sweet Christmas frame of mind. 

LAKE EFFECT

Last night I went to a pot-luck, family reunion with friends, honoring great grandparents who spend their winters now in Florida. They’d come back to Coopersville for Christmas. Great grandpa and I were the only old men there and we sat on the fringe while young moms passed their babies around and their men huddled around chips & dip, arguing football and politics. I’ve known GG Pa for a long time but haven’t seen him in a while. We’ve had good conversations but last night, all he wanted to talk about was how wonderful, warm Florida was and how awful, cold Michigan is. He was obligated to several generations of descendants, had to be there and couldn’t get his head around the idea that I was there by choice. It happens every year, somewhere; somebody condescends on snow and cold, in favor of January golf and sun tan lotion, somewhere else. I don’t try to defend winter any more. I spend a lot of time in the South and they shiver in the summer heat, just at the thought of winter up North. They think I’m nuts but southerners tend to think that of everyone who lives north of Atlanta anyway. I don’t love being cold or snow down my neck but I dress appropriately and it’s not an issue. I just listen and nod, shake my head now and then and look for a chance to change the subject. 

It had snowed all day and the temp never got out of the teens. I spent the day in Grand Haven, taking care of auto license and bank business. The wind was whipping in off the lake with more snow in the air than on the ground, close to a white-out. I holed up in my favorite coffee shop, waiting for the wind to lie down. Got back to the house just in time to strike out for the pot-luck. It was still snowing when we got back to the house but no wind. The forecast called for 4 to 6 inches of lake effect so I swept off the deck railing and figured to check in the morning to see how much actually fell. 

I love lake effect snow. When dry, frigid, arctic air plunges down out of Canada, Wisconsin freezes. When the same air heads east, across Lake Michigan, it gathers up moisture and warms up just a little. Then, over Michigan’s land mass it cools off again, condensation and “Voila” Lake Effect snow. It comes down soft and slow, like teenagers sneaking in after curfew. I remember back in ’97, we woke up to a foot of lake effect. Snow was  walled up 6 or 8 inches, maybe half an inch thick on the power lines; looked like a curtain except it was on top of the wire. Once the sun hit it, it collapsed in seconds. This morning would be overcast but the sun was in no hurry to rise. I stepped out on the deck and there was a riff laid up on the rail, 4 to 6 inches, just like the forecast called for. Winter’s not so bad after all. It’s December and I’m ready for a change. Autumn was great with all the color and balmy afternoons. I’ll be ready for spring before it comes but for now, snow crunching under my feet and lake effect snow sounds just right. 

JUST WORDS

Nelson Mandela died on Thursday. He was sick for a long time and we knew it would come but you don’t feel the weight until it falls. I know how to play with words and sometimes I say something worth hearing but I’m a lightweight. There’s nothing I can say about Mandela that will not be said better by someone else. Maya Angelou; she is for real, today read a poem in tribute to him. Titled, “His Day Is Done.” she alluded to the sun and the fact that it can not avoid its own sunset. But she left the window open for someone, someday to rise up and usher in a new morning. Nelson Mandela was born into an ugly, unforgiving world and he helped change it. Somebody had to and it fell to him. 

I felt a sense of loss when Jacques Cousteau died, back in 1997. He helped change a world where the sea was our sewer and life there was only worth the assets we could strain out of it. I wondered, who will fill his shoes? No one could take his place but lots of someones picked up his cause and we moved on. I felt the same loss when Ray Charles died, in 2004; two days after Ronald Reagan. In a climate of political fervor and national pride, Reagan’s passing overshadowed Ray Charles. But a decade later, Ronald Reagan is just another dead president whose performance and ideals have lost their luster. Ray’s music still lends comfort and courage to those in hard times. I knew we would get another politician but who would give me something to believe in? Nobody took his place but the music is still lifting us up. 

I know that nobody can fill the void left by Nelson Mandela and I feel the weight. But there will be others to  champion the poor and disenfranchised, and their journeys are just beginning. Decades from now, you will be able to pull up Angelou’s poem and it will touch hearts as it did today. I identify with Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Noble Laureate who said, “I write as much to understand as to be understood.” So I write down my little words and I read them again, to myself, and it’s alright. I am ready to move on. 

THANKS

Last year, 2012, I was able to celebrate Thanksgiving twice. Canadian Thanksgiving comes in October; I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia for that and made it back to U.S. of A. the next month for the American version. People who know me know Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, it’s no secret We celebrate our heroes birthdays and anniversaries of famous battles and other conquests but TG isn’t about a hero or a great victory. I suppose there is a historical precedent, loosely timed with harvest time. Our tradition alludes to Pilgrims who were struggling to survive in the New World. It wasn’t new; there were millions of citizens  already residing there, in a culture that had been self sustaining for thousands of years. But they thought they had discovered something new and were migrating by the boat-loads. 

The story has been tweaked to make those European immigrants appear competent, self sufficient and independent but we all know better. They were in trouble and native people had to provide nurture and material support. You might say it was the first evolution of welfare in the USA. But story has it, they celebrated their good fortune with a great feast and thankfulness. Being of strong religious beliefs, they attributed their survival and freedom to their creator. In that tradition, hundreds of years later, we stop for a long weekend before the Christmas season to take stock of our good fortune, to share our blessings and be thankful. I understand the hyperbole that surrounds Pilgrims and their righteous destiny but the idea of universal gratitude flies on its own wings, above politics or religion. 

Yesterday we drove down to Iberia Parish, on the Louisiana Gulf Coast, known for its islands. Not typical islands with beaches and tides, they are dome shaped hills that cover thousands of acres, rising several hundred feet above seal level in a land formed from river sediment. A 200 ft. hill here is as noteworthy as as a 14,000 ft. mountain in Colorado. There are no hills in this flat land along the Gulf of Mexico except for the “Islands”. Over millions of years, primordial salt deposits have been squeezed into upwellings or domes. 

We went to Avery Island, where the McIlhenny family has been mining salt and making Tabasco Sauce for the last 150 years. We walked through the factory and visited the Company Store. The farm itself tills only about 400 acres and the peppers they raise are all used for seed. Peppers for the sauce are grown in Mexico and Latin America. They are blended into a pepper mash, aged in oak barrels for three years before they can be turned into Tabasco Sauce. They use exactly the same ingredients and process they did in the 1860’s. I’m sure the McIlhenny family, who still operate the business, hands on, are thankful today for not only their good fortune and the rewards for their industry but also the nature of salt domes and the chemistry of capsaicin. Yesterday, in the gift shop, if your purchase was over $25, you got a free, one gallon bottle of the original, $41 per gallon Tabasco Sauce. So, we have two gallons of sauce that we didn’t have to pay for and a t-shirt, hot pad and wine bottle stopper that cost enough but I think we came out ahead.

Farther down the coast is Weeks Island. It also had salt mining but is better associated with the Weeks family and, “Shadows-on-the-Teche.” Shadows is a Greek Revival home that was built in the early 1830‘s by planter David Weeks, for his wife Mary. They had a 2000 acre, sugar cane plantation on Weeks Island. She was so isolated and depressed there that he built a townhouse for her, closer to civilization on Bayou Teche. The village, then city of New Iberia grew up around the smaller, Bayou Teche plantation of David & Mary Weeks. For over a hundred years and four generations of Weeks, the residence was archived with family furniture and belongings, and over 17,000 documents that chronicled the history of that family and the region. It is now owned and operated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is designated a National Historic Landmark. 

Our tour was not only interesting but unusual in that all of the rooms and grounds were furnished with the actual possessions owned and used by the Weeks family. They were the most affluent family, with the biggest and best of Antebellum, New Iberia. But even the high and mighty have troubles. Mosquito netting on all the beds bore witness to inconvenience and health issues. If you chose the nets you gave up any relief from the heat as a breeze would not make it through the netting. Shortly after the mansion was completed, David died of tuberculosis and his son, age 19, took over operation of the sugar plantation. Only five of eight children survived childhood. After seven years, Mary remarried a wealthy judge but kept control of the Weeks interests. After the Civil War, she negotiated a working agreement with former slaves and the plantation continued to prosper. 

No photographs inside the house but outside, around the grounds you can take all the photos you like. There were little kids on the tour and they gravitated immediately to an ancient Live Oak tree in the back yard, just up from the bayou. I stood patiently for what seemed a very long time, waiting for parents to snap their own photos and for kids to figure out how to get down, off the giant tree trunk. I had plenty of time to think about being grateful. First, there is some money in the bank to back up my credit card. I was thankful for a great education, a curious, unquenched imagination and an appetite for new information and understanding; and where would I be without hot sauce? Everything would taste like white bread. I was thankful that all the people working for the McIlhenny’s had jobs and that the sun was shining. 

They were still milling around and climbing on the tree. Live Oaks hold green leaves all winter, dropping their leaves gradually all through out the year so there is no significant leaf fall in autumn. I thought about how thankful the Weeks mush have been. They enjoyed the greatest privileges that wealth could provide. I was thankful that our economy doesn’t depend on slave labor any more. There was evidence in the archives that the Weeks treated their slaves better than most, with some degree of respect and mercy but then, how do you paint a smile on slavery? Then I thought about hot, running water and tooth paste. I thought about not knowing anybody who had suffered tuberculosis, or typhus, or the pox and I felt grateful all over again and it spilled over, right into the photograph I finally got to take.

A few hours later, we were at the Blue Dog Cafe in Lafayette, feeling thankful over stuffed mushrooms and shrimp au gratin. Still, if the high and mighty have troubles you know the down and low have even more. I’m so lucky and grateful not to be so down or low. The world is not as harsh with us as it used to be but we still exploit each other in the name of ambition and liberty. We don’t like to admit that we are as wicked sometimes as we are generous others. We don’t look in the mirror until we look just like what we want to see. The pursuit of personal wealth and a collective responsibility for each other both stem from the same freedom. We talk about it all the time and I’m thankful that conversation is going on. 

MORE SAWDUST

I spend enough time on the road or away from Kansas City that while I’m here, I want to do something that I can’t do on the road. My wood shop in the basement is as good and important kind of therapy for the psyche as my early morning swim routine. I have been in Missouri now for about two months and it’s almost time to leave again. I need to wrap up the table I’ve been working on. I have critics who needle me, “Aren’t you finished yet?” I have to remind them that the wood for the project had been waiting patiently in the rack in the basement for over five years. I’ve only been sawing, sanding and waiting for glue to dry for a couple of months so it feels like Mach 2 to me.

My (in progress) kitchen table is starting to look like a table. But since there are no plans other than in my mind, when a problem reveals itself that wasn’t anticipated I have to let it cook on a back burner until I have a flash of insight or a slow cooked solution emerges. I had a flash yesterday and there are a couple of wrinkles, slow cooking on the back burner but I’ll be in Louisiana for Thanksgiving and I need to spend some serious time on the table before I go. 

I have a source for quality Cypress lumber in a little town southeast of Jackson, Mississippi and I’ll be stopping there on the way back. Buying Cypress has become sort of addictive and it’s hard to drive by without loading up the back of the truck. The toughness and durability of the wood is matched by ease of working it and its sheer beauty. 

It will be several months before I get back to my wood shop so I need to get this sawdust appetite abated. I should be in the basement now instead of typing away upstairs. But that’s an addiction too and they all need to be fed. 

DOE-RAY-ME

My mother played the piano and she was a mainstay in the church choir. Both of my brothers played in the school band, one was a professional musician all of his life. I started horn lessons the summer before seventh grade but a car accident changed that; hit my face on the dashboard, broke teeth and cut up my mouth. So much for horn lessons. After I healed, it was too late for that year and the next year I would be a year behind my classmates. So I’m not a musician, not even close. Music is very mathematical, disciplined and my aspirations ran in the opposite direction.

I started paying attention to popular music when Chuck Berry gave us, “Johnny B. Good” and  Buddy Holly, “That’ll Be The Day.” But that was teenage pushback, and adults just wanted it to go away. But it didn’t go away and we didn’t go back to Guy Lombardo or Benny Goodman and it’s been rockin’ ever since.

My listening habits have moved through stages. First it was rock & roll, then I discovered jazz. Country came and went. When the Nashville sound took over I was already moving on to the blues. I’m a StoryTeller. I used to be a teacher but to spend a career doing that, you need to be a story teller. Naturally, I like music, songs that tell a story. Who’d-a-thought, a decade ago, that I’d pick up a guitar and try to figure it out. Now days I make the disclaimer; still not a musician. I don’t play the guitar, I play with it. I don’t sing, I just tell my songs over simple chords to suggest a melody. My mother would think it a miracle. My big brother would have been proud. I search the internet for lyrics and chord progressions I can handle. There are hook lines and clever phrases out there we all recognize, even if we can’t name the song, like “. . . nothin’ ain’t worth nothin but it’s free.”  I plug them into the stories when there’s a fit and it works. 

Yesterday, I helped a friend move a bookcase. She bought it from another friend who is moving and we had to take it apart, bring it down on the elevator, cross the street and load it in the back of my pickup. Then it was a ride across town, do the elevator thing again up to her condo and put it back together. On the way, she took a CD from the sleeve on my sun visor and slipped it in the player. I have several CD’s that I’ve put together from my I-Tunes collection. After four or five songs, she said, “This is great stuff; where did you get it?” I told her and the song changed to Helen Reddy doing Don McLean’s, “And I Love You So.” She hummed along through the first verse and we were stopped at a red light when the chorus began to unfold. When it went to the last line, somehow I knew she was going to sing along so I accompanied her. “But I don’t let the evening get me down, now that you’re around . . . me.” The light changed and I started up the street. She poked me and called me an “Old Devil”. “I didn’t know you  can sing.” Helen was in the right key for me and I was able to carry it. I told her, “Don’t judge a book . . . right?” Now she’s going to want me to sing again but I’ll tell a story instead, maybe one with a melody.

SAWDUST

My dad was a Tool & Die maker. Tool & Die would be to Machinist as Doctor is to Nurse. It was back in the old days when a machinist-apprentice was assigned to a seasoned, journeyman tradesman, a mentor. After several years of learning the trade, demonstrating skills and knowledge, the apprentice could be elevated to Journeyman. He could do almost anything with metal. They used mills, drills, lathes, grinders and polishers, not to mention trigonometry and physics to make steel or aluminum parts to a tolerance within .0001 in. He was very good at what he did. But his passion was for working with wood. Around the walls of our garage were wood working tools and the space was multi purposed. When he was making sawdust, the car lived outside. It was a clever way of saying, “I’m making something out of wood.” without going into detail. I’m sure he had his reasons: the thought of turning me loose with power tools would have been scary. But he ran me off when he was busy and never offered to show or teach me how to work with wood. I got the message. In high school I skipped over wood shop after all, I had no business making saw dust. 

Fast forward to the day when my own sons brought home bread boxes and step stools they made is their shop classes as school. They made me proud but also aware that it was something I missed out on. Anticipating a time when I’d invest in tools of my own, I knew there would come a day for me to make sawdust. Fast forward a bunch more years, my basement is full of woodworking tools and the floor is covered with sawdust. Over a decade, I started with a table saw and a chop saw, then had to build a work bench. I got a sander and a drill press, several cabinets for supplies and hand tools. Then came a jointer and a planer. I had my dad’s old router and router table; still worked fine but was small and under powered by today’s standards so I got a bigger, stronger router. I needed another work bench, several more sanders, a biscuit cutter, (for gluing pieces together.) I have more clamps than I can keep track of, built a couple of racks to stack lumber in and I’m in business, for now. I’m sure there will come along a project that requires another, new tool and I’ll have to go get one. 

Now days, I swim early, then do breakfast, then time to write. Sometimes I need a nap before lunch. With three wood projects underway in the basement I’ll have to get after the “sawdust” soon. The cypress, kitchen table is about half finished and I’m experimenting with making Lincoln Log toys, for holiday and birthday presents. A friend is using my tools and space to make some shadow boxes for his fiancé and it’s a crowded place. 

My learning curve for woodworking has followed about the same trajectory as with my guitar. I keep good company and pay attention, then I go home and either make noise or sawdust, depending on the venue. I’ll take a class now and then, inching my way along, getting better but not in great leaps or without mistakes and sometimes blunders. Bad noise from the guitar is one thing but sawdust is another. By now, sawdust talk is really about sawdust, not clever conversation. The more you shape wood, the more you leave on the floor and I’ve been shaping a lot of wood lately. Never one to make Neat & Tidy a priority, I have to go there in self defense. Dust and chips literally get in the way, make the floor slippery and create a fire hazard. You can buy expensive, sawdust extraction systems; high powered vacuum with ducts to route all the dust into a collection bin. I don’t have one yet so I spend as much time sweeping and running my shop vac as I do anything else. 

A friend of mine who had been retired for a few years told me, “If you have any big plans, do it right away. Don’t take time for granted.” We were both teachers and he knew I’d understand, “Find something that is challenging, something with room to learn and grow.” The stuff that comes out of my shop lacks the precision my dad would have required but between wanderlust, my guitar and what to do with all my sawdust, I am forever challenged and I am not taking anything for granted.

"EL SOL"

     Have you ever wondered what it is about sunrise and sunset that makes us stop and gaze, stop and feel not quite so civilized, somehow less important than when we had control over something? I was up early, on the road just as the sky went gray in the east.  On the interstate, tail lights ahead of me were obscured in the glare of all the head lights coming at us on the other side. To the left of those head lights, just off the highway, 80’ to 100’ trees were thick against the horizon. Occasionally, when the trees were not so tightly set, there was a flash of orange/red and it was gone; after all, I was stretching the speed limit just to keep up and all I got was a glimpse. 

     So you pay attention to the driving: you have to do that or you get too close to the semi squeezing on your left or you don’t notice brake lights flashing, several cars ahead. You drive. People all around me have made a conscious decision to bypass New Orleans; stay north of Lake Pontchartrain on their way to Mobile or maybe Tallahassee. I’d be getting off soon, turning north. I stay in the truck’s shadow for what seems like an eternity. I wonder, what happened to the guys up in the fast lane; I don’t need a semi with an attitude just two feet off my shoulder. Somebody get out of this guy’s way. At least the day was dry; no spray coming up off tires and no thump-t-thump of wipers, smearing the glass because nothing would have slowed them down. We would still be racing up the road and I’d have done better to sleep in, to go later in the day. Traffic eased and the truck rolled on, leaving me with space, nobody in the fast lane. I glanced across the median and the sun was topping the trees. Three quarters of “El Sol” was nested on top of those dense treetops. In just a mile, another minute, I’d be able to see a clear, defined space between sun and trees and my day would be delivered. 

     When the air is dry, low humidity, the sun turns bright, white/yellow, shortly after it clears the horizon and you can’t look right at it. On humid days, with haze up high and fog hanging on the bayous, the sun comes up wearing a red/orange shirt and you can gaze right at it for as long as you like, the same with sunset. Just a few weeks ago I was on the beach, Lake Michigan, for sundown. One of my favorite places, I have lots of photos from there but I keep going back. The day was windy and clear, high pressure, high sky. I was hoping for some haze and an orange sunset but it would be white/yellow, right up to the last few minutes. I waited, like waiting on water to boil, for the sun to sink down and nest behind or beside the light house. My patience paid off. The sun turned orange and the sky behind it went red. The edge between them was sharp and clean. I got several good shots in those last minutes, then I let the camera hang on its strap and just watched El Sol sink into the lake. 

     Driving east on Interstate 12 it came to me and it was easy: everything should be that easy. I know why we stop and gaze, stop and feel small; why the sun on the horizon moves us like it does. It's then, for just a few short minutes: if you like the metaphor, we can stare straight into the eye of God. We've been conditioned to look down or away for fear of burning our eyes. Something primal about it, mysterious yet comforting. The fact that someone is waiting for you to call or come through the door is irrelevant. Sun rise, sun set; we really do take it for granted. El Sol neither rises nor sets, it just hangs out there like it has for billions of years. It’s people who go in circles, on a planet that revolves and rotates in circles. We study the science and master the math but you don’t have to be educated or even smart to wait patiently with the naked eye for the horizon and the sun to close the gap. Then: there it is and there you are.

FRENCH QUARTER +1

The French Quarter is a great place to hang out. Hot & steamy or with a damp chill, the place is a reality show with characters ranging from Mormon missionaries to pierced and tattooed rebels; from tourists flaunting their hometown sports team logo to local street musicians; each one looking to the other for something they can take home. There’s a break in the early morning when last night’s derelicts run out of fuel and melt away, and the working class reclaims the new day. It’s a brief lull in the dance, like an intermission between acts. Shakespeare said that all the world is a stage and that we are the actors; and no place is that more apparent than the French Quarter. 

So I walk and look for anything that stirs my imagination. I studied storefront doors with their heavy chains and monster pad locks. In this world of tweets and cyber security, the Quarter it’s still the middle ages with old world chains and pad locks. It’s as much about a message as it is about security. “We are closed. The street may belong to you but what’s behind this door does not. Mind your own business.” By midmorning, an ordinary person has turned the key and taken the chain inside. The door opens and they turn on the music. We are welcome to come inside and trade dollar-bills for a t-shirt or some hot sauce. In front of St. Louis Cathedral, the mystics have set up their Tarot card tables, waiting for the first tourist to have their fortune told. They sit together and enjoy a chat, a cigarette and finish their coffee. One lady noticed my “Michigan” baseball cap and asked if I was a Michigander. I said I was and she confessed she was too: from Auburn Hills. It would have been rude not to let her know where I called home: “Grand Haven,” I said, before she had time to ask. “Have a good one.” She smiled a genuine smile, not normal for panhandlers and such and came back, “You too.”

Restaurants that serve breakfast were starting to open and I wanted to try one that was new to me. Walking on Charters Street, I noticed a simple, hand painted sign over the door of a hole-in-the-wall place: Fleur de Lis Restaurant. My server, Ophelia, had a great smile and her eyes were smiling too. I noticed as I was waiting that she moved quickly yet gave her customers an undivided attention. Thru the window, in the kitchen, the cook Chris was busy. A tall guy with big arms, he could have been playing drums in a band the way he was moving food. My french toast was sliced thick and a little crunchy, I was happy. Everybody working in the Quarter has to smile and be what you want them to be: it’s just the way it is. It’s a hard place, often the smiles are shallow and mask something darker than you want to know about. I got the feeling that Fleur de Lis was a good place and it’s people were the real deal. Next time you’re on Charters Street, stop in, try the french toast and leave a good tip. Tell ‘em Frank says “Hey.”

FRENCH QUARTER

When I go places I don’t call it  “Travel.” I’m not a traveler, as that suggests a “tourist” connotation. I go simply because I want to, and I can. There is something about being in motion, seeing things go by that meets a need. Besides the motion, I like to discover new places and make new friends, so I go. Never been one for itineraries or tours, I usually go by myself, interact with working people and learn by doing rather than from programs, brochures or being told. I can’t think of anyplace I’ve been that I regret the going and I’ll never get to all the places I want to see. But then there are other places where I’ve been, where I keep going back, again and again: like the French Quarter. When I talk about New Orleans I assume that others have been there and know what I’m talking about. I can’t imagine a civilized adult who can drive a car or find their way to an airport who hasn’t been to the Big Easy, The Crescent City. It was founded of necessity, in a terrible location, a swamp where everything either floods or sinks. The Indians thought the white men were nuts: imagine that. But that’s another story.

This morning I got up early and went down to the Quarter while the tourists were sleeping in, while the drunks were still strung out and before the heavy chains and pad locks were removed from storefront doors. I had my camera, always looking for good lines and edges, looking for rich colors, taking advantage of low angle light that you only get, early and late. People were coming to work, sweeping, hosing down sidewalks and cleaning windows. A trash truck was making it’s last stop, leaving barrels clean and empty for the French Market. The unofficial measure of success for business in the Quarter is how much trash they haul off at the end of the day. Then you know, the day doesn’t end until just before the next one begins. I was there this morning on the bubble, the start of a new day. 

There are homeless people: some by chance and others by choice. By day they blend in; part of the atmosphere. They usually find a place to crash for the night, out of sight, often together with a dog for safety. One night, walking to my car from a jazz club on Frenchmen Street, I noticed a big roll of cardboard behind the iron fence in Washington Park. In better light I made out six feet sticking out of one end. This morning, walking Decatur Street; couldn’t mistake the human form on the sidewalk, wedged up against a wall. He was young, on his back with a black beard and his mouth open; one arm arched over his head. Nobody would lie down like that: somebody got him up and out of the street but left him there. 

They all have a story but nobody seems to care. Today’s sidewalk hero may have had a bed somewhere, just shut down before he made it home but either way, it’s a hard way to go. When I was little and later when I was grown; when someone had bottomed out, whether we knew their story or just thought we knew, my mom would set everything straight. In her soft, patient voice of authority she would say: “There but for the Grace of God go I;” then look me in the eye and amend, “and you too.” I took it to mean that even the best intentions can take you to a bad place, and if you are in a good place it’s as much about being blessed as it is about you. I watched him long enough to see he was breathing alright, then a little longer just to be sure. His story was a mystery to me but he was somebody’s son, somebody’s brother, somebody’s friend and I wasn’t his judge. 

LIVE MUSIC

My big brother sang and played guitar. When I was 13 or 14, he would take me along on summer nights to the Ace of The Highway, a truck stop up on old US 71 Highway, at the end of Prospect Ave. Pretty soon, some of his friends would show up; we would feed nickels into the juke box and drink coffee until our money ran out. It was a short drive, down by the lagoon in Swope Park where we sat on the curb, under a street light. Guitars and mandolins seemed to magically appear. There was smoking and joking, sometimes a beer to pass around but there was always music. We sang the songs we had been listening to at the Ace. Hank Williams, Little Jimmy Dickens, Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb: we sang them all. “Pour me another cup of coffee; for it is the best in the land; and I’ll put a nickel in the juke box; and play the truck driving man.” A few years later, he was playing rhythm guitar in a country band, playing sleazy little beer bars down in Cass County. I got to go with him a few times; had to stay on the band stand where they could make sure I wasn’t drinking any beer. Old ladies, must have been in their 30’s came up and teased me: “Hey sugar boy, where’s your guitar?” I wouldn’t pick up a guitar for another 45 years but I was hooked on the music. I’m a story teller and I use my guitar. I don’t play it, more like, play with it. I can’t sing, just tell my songs: gotta be a story in there somewhere. And, I love real, live music.   

After I got out of the army there were rock & roll shows but the trend was going to big names putting on a full length show: the first one I saw was Peter Paul & Mary at the Municipal Auditorium. I still sit and listen to street performers; drop a dollar in their jar, ask ‘em about chord progressions and who they listen to. Records and CD’s are great but there's nothing like a live performance. The music itself may be more perfect, coming out of studio but the chemistry of the moment is not there. Anything can happen at a concert. My son and I went to see Bonnie Raitt at Sandstone. Everything was going great;the seats in front of us were unoccupied and we thought we had it made. In the last minute, as the band was coming on stage, two women with huge hats came down the isle and we knew from a distance, exactly where they were going to sit. The show was great but it was shift left and shift right all night long, trying to get an unobstructed look at the stage. It was a great concert, nothing but good memories.

Then, a few years later, when he was at University of Michigan, we stood for an agonizing hour, waiting for Ike Turner {who had lost his mojo} to finish. He was opening for Shemekia Copeland, who we really wanted to see. He kept begging the audience to call for more and he just wouldn’t quit. When he did, Shemekia was late getting started. Three songs into her set, the sky opened up and it poured. We would have stood there in the rain but the wind blew rain under the canopy. When smoke and sparks started arcing from the lights and amplifiers, they stopped the show. Even with great performers, things go wrong. 

A few years later, my other son and his wife took me back to Sandstone on my birthday. James Taylor played for almost three hours, plus an encore. After the band left, the crowd stood there and kept cheering to a dark, empty stage. Five minutes later, James came back out without the band, played and sang solo for a while. I had hoped to hear my favorite J.T. song but it never came up on the play list. Then, sitting with with one leg hanging over the edge of the stage, he did a familiar finger roll and began: “There is a young cowboy, he lives on the range; his horse and his cattle are his only companions. He works in the saddle and he sleeps in the canyons, waiting for summer, his pastures to change.” My favorite song: Sweet Baby James. I waited all night for it; thought it was over and then there it was. After all, sometimes it doesn’t get any better. 

Last night I went to Meijer Gardens, in Grand Rapids, MI to hear Lyle Lovett & The Large Band. The grassy, amphitheater only seats 2,000 and the sound is perfect. My companion was Nancy, who I met in 1973, she shared a play pen with my daughter Sarah (sisters by other mothers) when our families got together. We sampled grapes and smoked salmon, cheese and crackers. I’ve been a LL fan for decades and the old music was blended in with the new. A warm summer afternoon had mellowed out and this evening couldn’t have gone better. He has way-too-many hits for them to play all my favorites. He talked to and with the audience just enough, saved my favorite song until near the end. It made me remember the James Taylor concert so long ago. LL didn’t disappoint: “If I had a boat, I’d go out on the ocean. And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat. And we could all together, go out on the ocean: Me upon my pony, on my boat.” All I had was my smartphone and the shot is fuzzy. If you haven’t noticed; cherries still have pits and s*#t still happens but this life is pretty good.

THREE LITTLE FISHIES

“Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool, swam three little fishies and a mama fishie too. Swim said the Mama Fishie, swim if you can . . . and they swam, and they swam, all over the dam.” Back in 1939, a few months before I was born, the most popular song on the radio was “Three Little Fishies.” My mom got so tired of hearing it she shut the radio off every time it played. My uncle was 13 or 14 and he sang it just so she would yell at him. When I was little, he taught me the song and told me to go sing it for my mother. She sang along with me. It didn’t bother her any more but she told me the story. It was hot summer and she was uncomfortable. I was kicking and moving around, just about ready to be born. It didn’t take much to ruffle her feathers. 

After the verse, the chorus goes; “Boop boop, ditem datem whatum choo, Boop boop, ditem datem whatum choo: and they swam, and they swam, right over the dam.” In the second verse they leave their mother and swim out to sea. In the third, they are scared by a whale and swim back over the dam. It’s a fun song. 

This summer I went fishing for halibut, out in Cook Inlet, Homer, Alaska. The water was deep and the fish were big. When I had a bite and started reeling my fish in, I started singing “3 Little Fishies”. It takes a long time to get a 30 pound fish up 200 feet from the bottom and I had time to sing all three verses and the chorus. The little fishies I caught never made it back to their mother; they are frozen in my freezer and we’ll have a fish fry one of these days. 

I know some other fishies; three little ones and their Mama Fishie too. They live in St.Clair, MO. and belong to a swim team in Washington, MO. They really know how to move it up and down the pool. Their Mama Fishie is a friend of mine. I’m in Ohio now but I had breakfast with them this morning (French Toast.) Next time I’m in St. Clair I’ll get the guitar out and we will sing the whole song.  

JUST PLAY THE GAME

A month ago I was in Seward, Alaska. It occurred to me that I was only a month away from a birthday but when asked, the familiar, comfortable, waning 73 still felt right. This morning, reading a silly birthday card, I had to reboot my odometer. I’m 74 now but birthday was just another day. Weighing days has always been less threatening than years. So I’m only a few days older than I was the other day. Still I take advantage of any excuse to celebrate almost anything so birthdays are great. Wouldn’t it be great to live well, deep into the 21st Century and set a record for birthday candles on a cake? But the whole idea there is “...live well.” Longevity by itself is just a yardstick, an empty vessel that can be filled with anything.

Back in the early 80’s, teaching school and coaching, I had a friend who helped me with my wrestling team. We looked a lot alike and many people thought we were brothers. He was more animated, more outgoing and his energy was certainly a boost to our program. Ray used an expression when referring to people who experienced failure or misfortune: “Better him than me...” You could count on hearing it several times a day. If I suffered a screw up or setback he would laugh when he said it: “Better you than me...” One night, after a wrestling match, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was 39. 

I might acknowledge it with a nod but never used that phrase, it was his. After his passing, when the situation was right, it would occur to me that had Ray been there, he would have defaulted to the “Better him . . .” remark. I could almost hear him speak the words. It still happens; when someone gets bad news, his words scroll up in my mind but in all this time they have never crossed my lips. I try not to be superstitious but it would feel like a curse and I don’t want to tempt fate. When something breaks or I lose money on a deal; when I’m sick or my best plans go to south, I remember there will be another day and that things work out. It’s been a life lesson: Don’t take comfort in the fact that you dodged someone else’s bullet. It was never about you. The other half of the lesson is, “What goes around, comes around.” I’ve conditioned myself to play the cards I have and be grateful that I’m in the game. In college, my mentor had many favorite quotes. One I remember best is by Branch Rickey. Rickey broke major league baseball’s color barrier in 1947 when he brought Jackie Robinson up to play for the Dodgers. He said, “If you can’t afford to lose, you can’t afford to play.” The lesson I took there is cliche but never the less: it’s not about a destination, it’s about the journey. I want to win but win or lose, I want to play. 

So I”m 74, still in the game. I have over over twenty seven thousand wake-ups My car has more miles than that and it’s only a couple of years old. Twenty seven thousand wake-ups doesn’t sound like a lot but but naps don’t count and it takes a while to get there. I put a lot more stock in wake-ups than I do in years or birthdays. It’s one of those “Bird In The Hand . . .” things. Wake-ups are within your grasp. You get a day to play with, to take as far as you can or let it slip away in winks and blinks until you don’t know where it went. You just take stock and be glad; you fall asleep and maybe dream something that isn’t too scary, maybe leave you with a smile. 

I had a happy birthday. Friends and family remembered and wished me well. I broke bread, spent the afternoon with a friend and we went our own ways. Today is a new day and we’ll see where it goes.

GREAT AMERICAN PASTIME

I had been in Alaska for nearly two months and it was time to start thinking about the road home. The fish had either been consumed or in the freezer, a ton of photos were in the can, had seen so many bald eagles they didn’t draw a second glance. All that was left was to have dinner with some friends, get a good night sleep and pack the truck. The difference going back was that I wasn't pulling a camper. I didn’t have my bed on wheels; foraging every night for a place to sleep. The first 900 miles retraced the original route but after that it took a long, low swoop through British Columbia and the Canadian Rockies, down into Montana, not knowing how I’d find my way back from there. 

With just a few days left, the weather was balmy and we went to the ball game. Alaska has a Baseball League with six teams. It’s a developmental league for college athletes who come north for the summer and live with sponsor families. Anchorage has two teams, the Buc’s and the Glacier Pilots. They were playing each other; when they do that they take turns being the home team and last night the Buc's had the home dugout on the 3rd base side. We had box seats, behind the 1st base dugout. 

There were several young women next to us who took fan enthusiasm to a new level. They knew all the players by name, where they were from and kept up a stream of chatter and encouragement. "Hey Collin, you can do it." "Come on guys." "Yea, yea; alright." Directed at the players, but it would translate more accurately, "Hey boys, look up here, look at us." I had a movie flash-back, deja vu moment. It was Bull Durham, all over again. The hometown girls were putting a rush on the new boys in town. It reminded me of an old Jack Lemon movie. There was one nice looking girl and her friend who was on the south side of way too many calories; they just loved baseball. They liked all the Blue-shirted Pilots and in particular, the Buc’s. #33, a tall kid named Collin from California.  None of the players looked up or showed any sign that they were listening but the girls kept it going without a rest.

In the end the boys in blue won 8-5 and they were happy, high 5’n and fist bumpin’. The girls transitioned straight from baseball to their smart phones, texting, thumbs a blur. All the way down the stairs and out to the parking lot, they never looked up. I played in college but there were no hometown cuties behind our dugout, just a couple of old guys smoking cigars, with clip boards and stopwatches. I think there should be a Summer Texting League for young women. Junior High boys could cheer from the bleachers and of course the girls would ignore them. 

GOOD OLD DAYS

I slept in a bed last night; didn’t wake up once. Sometimes I wake up not knowing where I am, what day it is, even what year it is. It is a short lived revelation and when I rediscover myself it’s hard to believe I’m really that old. This morning I knew exactly where I was and age, well, it is what it is. Yesterday was a driving day, south across Wyoming to Colorado’s front range. I’m still taken with the images of old, abandoned buildings, snow fences and hay fields. Something about the way they say, “People come and go and they leave their things behind.” It’s hard to find natural settings that haven’t been touched by civilization, even if it’s just a high flying jet’s vapor trail. We leave things with repeating patterns, hard lines and straight edges and somehow, they assimilate and look almost natural. I take photographs, and right now I can’t resist snow fences and hay fields.

Dr. Martin Strand is a retired, surgeon who lives in the hills above Denver. He has stories that challenge the imagination, unraveling both the noble and the dark side of the Human Journey. He and his wife Joan are my hosts. They fed and entertained me, sitting on the deck, sipping wine, watching hummingbirds arc and dive around us. I knew Martin a very long time ago, when we occupied adjacent lockers in high school, sat next to each other in history class and made small talk across the lunch table. We weren’t best friends but we laughed at the same foolishness and shared a common path, life was pretty good. I was standing at his front door when he called my name. I turned to see him coming across the drive, behind me. After 56 years, the short, red hair had given way to a shock of white hair sweeping down over his forehead and the way our bodies evolve over half a century was evident but I recognized my old classmate without reservation or hesitation. We’ve been in a loose, informal mode of contact since our 50 year class reunion, six years ago. He didn’t attend but he was located and has contributed to the class news letter that grew out of that celebration. He had made a standing offer that any of us who might be passing through, to stop for a visit: and here I am.

I’ll turn east, across Kansas today and I’ll sleep in my own bed tonight. But the short visit and warm hospitality will not dull or diminish soon. There is something empowering about reaching back in time and filling in empty space with fond memories and good will. Martin and Joan will be heading out to Iceland in the near future, about the same time I take off for Michigan and Ohio. I added a few extra miles to be here and it has been more than rewarding. Our culture is hard to resist. It’s so easy to slip into old, predictable ways but I think it’s something Martin and I can agree on; these are the good old days.

TRUCKSTOPS

Sheridan, Wyoming: 6:00 a.m. and I wake up maybe a minute before the alarm on my smart phone jingles its  “Wake Up!” How do I do that? Did it the day before yesterday too. But then sleeping in the truck cab is a lot about waking up, often. You scootch around like a puppy, making a nest on your dirty clothes and then you sleep for a while. After a while, you need to straighten out or stretch and collide with the steering wheel or the brake pedal and you wake up. It’s a closed loop that keeps repeating, until your alarm goes off and the sun tells you, “It’s a new day.” In between wake-ups, you get some sleep. I don’t recommend it but sometimes it’s the best option. I feel better when I think about the five or six dollars a shower costs and the six or seven hundred dollars I didn’t spend on motels between Soldotna, Alaska and Wyoming this morning. 

I pulled in at 10:30 p.m. last night; took an hour to decompress, do house keeping and get to sleep. In the morning, when you walk, bleary eyed, into the truck-side desk, you are just another driver who needs a little TLC, a shower and coffee. I’ve never been poorly treated or found a dirty shower at a busy truck stop. So here I am, a couple of days out of Kansas City, sitting in with professional drivers, doing correspondence and journal before looking for that coffee and moving on down the road. 

Today I’ll make Denver and go visit with a guy I haven’t seen since high school. Martin was a quiet, unassuming kid who always had his homework done and didn’t hang out much with the cool clique. We graduated and you know how that goes: scattergram all over the world and by the time your 10 yr. reunion comes around, some of the players have dropped off the radar. Martin was out there somewhere but none of us knew just where. By the time the 50 yr. reunion rolls around, somebody with persistence and desire keeps looking, checking old sources and finds most of those rolling stones. Martin had spent the past 40 years as a Trauma Surgeon in Emergency Rooms in California and Colorado. He didn’t attend the reunion but we did locate him and continue to keep in touch via our class news letter and e-mail. He is a seasoned traveler and we have many common interests. Now that the sun’s high enough that I won’t have to deal with it in my eyes, it’s that time.

DOROTHY, WE'RE NOT IN KANSAS ANYMORE

I’ll be crossing the border in an hour or so at Sweet Grass, Montana. Spent four days and nights with Canadian wilderness but once you get back out onto the plain, it’s just watch road signs and keep between the lines. The Cassiar Hwy. frames you in a remote setting and it’s certainly worth the drive. But my overall impression is that it was oversold, overrated. I had some really, really high expectations. The countryside and scenery were awesome but views were mostly obscured by roadside forest. 

The drive from Prince George to Banff was a pleasant surprise. It puts you back in touch with civilization and the views are rich. It’s first cutting time and hay fields were either in wind rows or dotted with big, round bales. I got started taking photos of green and gold hay fields against mountain sides and blue skies and couldn’t stop. Jasper, Alberta to Banff was through their national park with it's wonderful, ice field-scenery. The nuisance of swarming tourists, strategically placed gift shops, roads clogged with rented motorhomes is the price you pay to be there. Maybe that’s how you transition back into the consumer culture.

This trip is for the most part, in the can. I need to drive the last few legs, finding ways to make familiar sights and uninspiring views, inspiring. Marcel Proust said, adventure doesn’t require travel to exciting places, just seeing with new eyes. So I’m dialing in new eyes for the rest of the ride. 

CASSIAR

Yesterday I woke up in a six-bed room at a backpacker’s hostel in Whitehorse, Yukon. Everyone spoke English, but not their native tongue: very civilized but then it’s a big city as the Yukon Territory goes. By mid afternoon it was time to get off the AlCan Hwy. and head south on Route 37, the Cassiar Highway. If you want to get away from the hustle and shopping mall mentality, the Cassiar is where you go. Young people here remember when their first rate gravel road was paved over, not all that long ago. About 450 miles of highway were added to northern British Columbia’s remote, pristine wild country. 

Within a half hour, I drove into a burn area. Several years ago the fire took out vast region along the northern B.C. border, southwest of Watson Lake, Yukon. When I reached a high point where I could look out, especially to the east, the blackened trunks of spruce and cottonwood stretched for as far as I could see. New cottonwoods were waist to shoulder high along the roadside and in wetlands while fireweed created a visual blanket on the forest floor. I always liked fireweed but it was a neural, text book sensibility. Fireweed fixes nitrogen into the soil rather than taking it; making it a pioneer in the ecological succession of upended environments. On the outwash plains of glacial streams, fireweed is plentiful but this was different: about how it got its name. In the burn area there was a feel-good feeling, all about starting over; new beginnings, and I’m a sucker for “New Beginnings.”

It’s still the summer season and I”m far enough north that days are long and sunset really, doesn’t happen. The sun just gets lost, wandering around in the west and then you realize it’s gone. Still, it won’t be dark for several hours. I stopped in Dease Lake for gas and wasn’t impressed: not a friendly face or a kind word so I drove on. As I drove I noticed that the scenery was getting better, I was losing light and the sky turned wet. We were getting into taller, older forest and it was harder to see out so the frustration with not getting great photographs was just that. I did a little dance with a she-moose and her calf. Able to slow down and slip up on them, they were walking in the road and didn’t really want to go back up into the bush. When Mamma went for higher ground, the calf turned back to the middle of the road and moved away. We did that little 2-step for quite a while. Mamma kept up with us along the ridge line and finally coaxed the little one through some running water and away from the menacing man with a camera.

This morning I woke up at Bell 2 Resort. I got here just about the time I needed my headlights (11:00p.m.) Nobody up and everything dark so I pee’d in the bushes, brushed my teeth off the tailgate, rearranged the cab and tucked myself in for the rest of the night. My alarm went off at 7:00, same time the coffee shop and gas pump open. So both the truck and I are full and ready to go farther south. It’s sunny and I’m full of great anticipation for photographs today.

Bell 2 Resort is a world class resort, tucked away in a truly, get-away niche. Misty, my morning host, sells gasoline, brews coffee, deals in delicious cinnamon rolls and deals out information with a smile. Jillian, who covers the restaurant and their boss Sally were going over the grocery order when I came in. They get two deliveries a week, from hundreds of miles away. Sometimes they get what they order and sometimes it’s a surprise. The resort is booked ahead for over a year with most of the visitors coming in from Europe. They feature Steelhead fishing in the summer and in the cold season, skiing virgin, powder snow with a helicopter ride to the top of the mountain instead of chair lifts. The coffee and cinnamon roll were perfect and I didn’t have to dig too deep to cover that. I didn’t ask how much a room and skiing cost and I don’t think I will.

EXIT

I used to work at Exit Glacier, a volunteer at Kenai Fjords Nat’l Park, Seward, Alaska. I got a small stipend and my boss expected me to be at work on time but it’s not kosher to call oneself a Ranger if you are in fact, a volunteer. Volunteers wear a brown uniform with a baseball cap instead of the gray and green with the Smokey Bear hat. It was great duty and the friends I made there have made me rich in that category. 

I’ve been in Alaska over a ;month now and seen most of my Ranger friends, seen bears, moose, orca and eagles; caught fish , fried fish and eaten fish, even bought a sack full of trinkets to take back. Today is my lsat day in Anchorage, tomorrow I’ll be back in Canada with a very long way to drive. Someday, not too long, I’ll be somewhere else thinking again how time flies and it’s time to leave new friends and far places with nowhere to go but home. I know chasing down the road won’t last forever but then, I only have to make it through the day. Then, if I wake up again, I’ll get another day.

TERN LAKE

Yesterday I stopped at Tern Lake: at the junction of the Sterling & Seward Highways, on the Kenai peninsula in south Alaska. I’ve taken photographs there before and anytime, every time, rain or shine, snow or blow: it’s an awesome place. Vertical slopes, tundra above and wetlands below, you know it’s special even when you don’t know why. There are bears; there are always bears and they’re always special but yesterday was not about bears. On a sunny day the water sparkles: reds, golds and browns of the marsh highlight mountain greens. Up in the chutes, snow still crowns the valley. But clouds were low and it was windy yesterday. All the trees, even the grass waved down the valley under the wind, still I had plenty of time. 

Clouds and wind didn’t promise much  but I stopped simply because I could. I knew with patience, something good would follow. Other cars stopped but only to roll down a window and click a picture, then move on. I was the only pedestrian, walking the shore line. There were birds out, over the lake but too far, even for my big lens so I was studying ripple patterns on the water. Something flashed through my field of vision and I looked out from behind camera. A medium size bird was hovering, not a hundred feet away. My companion in the car, with binoculars and bird book identified the bird, all the birds, as Arctic Terns; why not . . . it was Tern Lake. 

Terns are sea or shore birds, depending on where you find them; famous for marathon flights from the far north to the far south of the planet, and back again with season change. Sometimes confused with gulls, they are more streamlined with unparalleled acrobatic talents. Standing on the lake shore, I was witness to that aerobatic display. They were nesting in the wetlands, away from the the parking lot but food is where you find it and they were looking everywhere. Wind conditions were just right: their swoops, hovering with abrupt stops and intricate changes of direction were entertaining at the least, spell binding at best. Comparing Gulls to Terns is like comparing Pigeons to Swallows. 

I took over a hundred photographs, knowing most of them would be blurred or out of focus still, the more frames you take the better chance of getting a really, good one. There must have been a dozen good shots, a couple of really good ones and one that left me slack jawed. There, just a few feet off the water, working the air like Peggy Fleming worked the ice in long gone Olympics; the Tern was frozen in time and space. When I was a child, I’d tell my mom that I would trade places with any bird, if I could just fly. When she reminded me of all the human attributes that I’d have to give up I would relent, grudgingly. Watching the birds at Tern Lake yesterday, I relived those childlike emotions and aspirations all over again; Deja Vu. 

I LOVE AIRPLANES

I love airplanes. That includes little paper planes that you fold from a sheet of notebook paper right up to the Space Shuttle, and everything in between. When I was a kid, like 6 years old, a guy flying a Piper J3 Cub ran out of fuel and made an emergency landing in the field next to our house. I didn’t see it coming but out of nowhere, there it was rolling to a stop not a hundred feet from our back porch. It was yellow with high wings and a little tail wheel, no bigger than a donut. When he realized he was running out of gas, he shut the motor off and glided in. He was climbing out as I got there; asked me where my dad was. I pointed toward the garage but Dad was already stepping over the fence into the tall grass. 

We had a couple of gallons in the mower's gas can but the pilot said that would do just fine. He offered to pay but Dad told him no, the excitement was worth it. While he was pouring gas, I looked inside. There were two seats, one in front of the other and not room for much else. I asked if I could go for a ride and he said we’d have to wait until another time. He picked up the tail and turned the plane around so it was pointed up hill, fooled with the controls and stood beside the motor as he pulled the prop through. We were all huddled by the fence when the engine sputtered and he jumped inside. He revved up the motor and the prop blast made all the grass behind him wallow in the wind. 

The little yellow plane bounced through the grass a ways and turned around, pointed down the slope toward Blue Ridge Rd. Dad said, “He has to take off into the wind.” I asked why but the answer was lost in the excitement and the noise. It was a bouncy takeoff and on one bounce the plane just didn’t come back down; it stayed up. The pitch of the engine changed as it flew up and away, just like in the movies. Clearing the power lines and the road, he turned north and was soon out of sight. 

It never occurred to me that I might become a pilot and life never took me that direction. But there was a time when I jumped out of perfectly good airplanes as part of my job (U.S.Army) and then just for fun as well. There is a saying among pilots; “Any landing that you walk away from is a good landing.” The same could be said about parachutes. I got the parachutes out of my system and I know why you have to take off into the wind but I still watch airplanes with the same eyes I first saw the J3 Cub.

Today I was taking photographs at Lake Hood Airport, Anchorage, Alaska, the busiest sea plane base in the world. Planes, mostly single engine, taxi across and down the far side to the east end of the lake, then roar up the chute with water spraying out from under the pontoons. As they gain speed the size of the wake and the pitch of the engine tell when they were about to lift off. Then when they landed, it was like rolling to a stop on a bicycle. Smooth and easy, no strain, just a touch of the brake and put your foot down before you fall over. They stretch the glide out until the pontoons kiss the surface, kicking up a fine spray mist and then settling; the airplane becomes an airboat. 

I have a favorite airplane. The J3 Cub is special but I’ve grown up and so has my taste in aircraft. After WWII, the De Havilland Co. from Canada, built a single engine work horse to supply the needs of bush pilots in the Great North Country. The DH2 Beaver flew equally well off wheels, skis or pontoons. The U.S. Army used Beavers as light transports from the 60’ through the 80’s. We jumped out of DH2’s on both military and sport activities and they won me over, straight out. Both strong and reliable, they can carry 6 passengers or nearly a ton of cargo. Now, most of the surviving Beavers live and work in Alaska. When I see one come up off the water I flash back to another life and it's still good. I must have taken a couple of hundred pictures. 

Too soon to go home, I still wanted to hang around so I stopped at one of the Flight Services. They fly freight and passengers all over the state. There were 3 Beavers at the dock along with 2 Otters. Otters are the next De Havilland generation after the Beaver: bigger, stronger and more efficient but they’re sleek, don’t have the throwback, retro look of the Beaver. They were loading one for a cargo flight to a remote destination, only reachable by air. The load included a 75 hp. outboard motor, a double-stainless steel deep sink, two 45 gallon barrels of motor oil, a fair size satellite dish and several large coils of electrical cable: too much for the Beaver. Then a party walked out from the office to the front Beaver, 4 or 5 guys with duffle bags, fishing rods and tackle boxes, climbed in and took off for a fishing rendezvous somewhere I can only imagine. I watched ‘em take off, climb into the sun and as I had to look away they banked away and I heard the engine change from a whine to a rumbly kind of thunder, just like in the movies.