THE BEHINDER I GET

There is an axiom or observation, at least, that says, “The hurrier I go, the behind I get.” When I’m on the road, each day serves up its own menu. You figure out where you are, what needs to be done; and from that, what you are able to do. Then you go and do. Sometimes everything plays out like a situation comedy, ends happy and it’s time to go to bed. Sometimes it’s like a game show, full of surprises and change of plans. Each new day is different than the one before. Off the road it's waking up in the same place, with mundane chores that go along with owning a house and accumulated stuff. Days run together and you find yourself going round in circles. I’m one of those people who get hung up on one little, perceived obstacle and it unhinges me for days. I’ve got too much stuff. I want to organize a room but there is no place to put the stuff that needs be put away. Before I can put stuff away I need to move stuff in the basement. Can’t do that until I clear space in the garage but that necessitates finding space somewhere else. Eventually I realize the only true solution is to throw a lot of stuff away. But how do you do that when stuff is too big and heavy to do by yourself?  

‘The Behinder I get.’ By now I’m so ‘behind’ I don’t know where to begin. I just bought two pieces of wood, 1.5” x 12” x 8’, one Maple and the other Hickory. There is no place in my shop to put them. The wood rack is full and there is wood stacked on the floor. My office is staked full of stuff, some of it I haven’t used in years. I need to throw it away but then I’d have to go through it to be sure it really is junk and I don’t want to do that now. I’d have to go buy a new barrel for throw-away stuff. I think the dump is the answer. As much as I used to preach, ‘Reuse & Recycle’ I am now realizing the allure of the dump. I am several trailer loads away from creating an uncluttered work/living space. George Carlin did a great monologue on ‘Stuff.’ “Other people’s stuff is shit but yours is precious ‘Stuff.’ 

I am going to finish potting up flowers today. I still have ‘Saw-dust’ projects underway. If I let them get hijacked or derailed I really will be in trouble. Maybe I just need to buy a new barrel. I can put a lid on it and store throw-away stuff it in the back of my truck. There will be a day when I need the truck bed for something else and I’ll have no choice but hook up a trailer load of stuff and go to the dump. God Bless the dump; and everybody said, “G-B the D”

ANSWER THE BELL

When your Sunday night melts into sleepy regret, you can address the new day with courage and resolve or you can call in sick. There are a few hunter-gatherer cultures left but for the rest of us, we need a job. Then after years of dedicated industry, we grow weary of it all or the boss realizes that we can be replaced by an inexpensive, young person and you get turned out to pasture. They did that with horses that pulled old-time fire engines. Grass in the summer, grain in the winter and a dry stall, out of the weather; we should have it so good. When the fire alarm went off, old horses would jump up ready to go to the fire. They were old enough, with service enough to be retired but they still felt the need to answer the bell. 

Speaking for myself, I have grass in summer and grain in winter. I have a warm, dry stall and I understand that I’m not the man I used to be. Answering the bell has been redefined. I remember in 1989 when my job was newly created, my official job description was seventeen pages long with over a hundred detailed points. My current job description has plenty of wiggle room and only two points. 

Like the horse, we need purpose. Answering the bell may seem futile but it’s all the horse can do; it's all any of us can do. To be deemed irrelevant; the next step down is to be rendered expendable. The old horse needs a job, even if all it is, is listening for the bell. My job is, on the one hand, to live well; not a measure of material extravagance but of balance and relationships. On the other hand, my job is to ‘Give Back’. There are no ‘Self-made-men’. If you were pulled up by your boot straps, somebody else, lots of somebodies were lifting as well. The fact that you did what you could do doesn’t make you special. You were simply in the right place at the right time and you moved your feet. I feel an inherent need to give back, to be there when I can, when someone needs a lift, or a soft place to fall. If I were to reduce my life experience to a sound bite it would be; ‘What goes around, comes around.’ However old I may grow, I want to have my hands in that, ‘. . . coming back around.’

I go here and there and then I go somewhere else. I don’t call it traveling as that implies some kind of tourist connection. I’m not a good tourist, hate itineraries, not interested in organized tours, don’t want to lounge on the beach or by the pool . So I just go. I meet interesting people, take photographs, tell stories, make music and try to learn something worth remembering. That is my ‘Live Well’ strategy. When I get stuck in one place for too long I tend to internalize, ruminate on things that do not seem to bother anybody else. That’s what this little piece is about. I’ve been in Missouri for too long and I can’t wait to break out. 

BUTTERFLY EFFECT

“If we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.” By the end of the 19th Century, John Muir was a powerful voice for the preservation of wilderness areas in the United States. In large part, the National Parks System is the result of his efforts. From all of his books and letters, this is my favorite ‘Muir’ quote. His, 'Everything else' is often referred to as the interdependent web. If any point on any thread is disturbed, the rest of the web feels the tug and pulls back. The ‘Butterfly Effect’ is part of Chaos Theory but also speaks to Muir’s sensibility. It stipulates that in a Japanese flower garden, the air disturbed by a single butterfly will, weeks later, through millions of delicate interactions, influence the exact point of a hurricane’s landfall on the Carolina coast. 

I think it is the same with people. There is no way to know how today’s actions will be manifest on others, maybe strangers, later, maybe much later, maybe far away. It’s not too much to say, ‘. . . everyone I meet changes my life.’ Living in a constant state of flux, I can’t have lunch with you or watch a child feeding geese in the park without being changed. We feel that tug on the web and we push or pull back, just a little. They say that baseball is a game of inches. It’s not about the 400 foot home run. It’s the one inch off the sweet spot on the bat that turns a would be home run into a foul ball. I don’t know who all has had a hand in the shaping of my life but there are so many other fingerprints on my character and my experience that it boggles the mind. 

In public, from a distance, Mother Teresa and Nelson Mandela have touched my life but so has Timothy McVeigh. In private, up close, the names are not so familiar. Harry Klutz was a history teacher, a gay man in the 1950’s, the only adult in my life ever to tell me that I could do anything, be anything I wanted to be. Then there was Sgt. James Talbot, one of my superiors in the army. He said I was worthless, an embarrassment. I remember them both long after the fact, compelled to validate one’s view and dispel the other. Life lessons are about what to emulate, what to reject, what to embrace and what to avoid. They are usually prompted by someone who doesn’t realize they are being modeled at the time. I’ve discovered that it’s all a game of inches, a game of moments. Who falls under the reach of my little life is beyond me, I don’t really want to know but I do know this; you can not touch another life without being touched in return. The near misses and the home runs, they keep tugging at the web. I feel them in every breath.

SPRING THAW

In Kansas City, spring has sprung. I couldn’t leave town before mowing the yard and reprogramming the furnace thermostat. The miniature crabapple tree in the back yard was full of buds, ready to pop. When it does that you can’t see the leaves for the blooms. The choke cherry in the front yard leafs out first, then makes clusters of white blooms. They were ready to pop as well. I know cold weather isn’t finished with Missouri yet but it won’t be long. 

Michigan hasn’t made the turn yet. When I arrived last week, there were still snow drifts if the woods. It felt cold enough but it was heavy rain coming down. When the clouds dry up and shine prevails, the snow will be history. I drove up the lake shore, looking for photographs; spent a couple of hours in Pentwater. Back in ’83 when my kids were 11 and 9 we spent a week bicycling up the lake shore. The night in Pentwater was great, one of the best in my memory. The town was full of college kids and tourists with music coming out of every door. We stayed up late, ate pizza and slept late the next morning. The town had changed some but the deja vu thing was way-cool. 

In Ludington it looked like spring was in the wings. Grass was starting to turn and people were out raking yards. The jetty that leads out to the lighthouse is about half a mile walk and I decided to go out. Looking into the sun, I could see big, dark stuff on the concrete but couldn’t make out any detail. The ‘Ah-Ha’ moment shouldn’t have been a surprise. When winter storms wash big waves over the jetty, the water carries a lot of sand which freezes into the ice. From a distance, the ice is dirty brown and it is still hanging on. Mid April ice on the backside of the lighthouse had some sand on but you could still see some white. 

I”m doing some computer maintenance at the Apple Store today. I’ll get this posted before I leave. I’ll be on the road all day tomorrow, get back to K.C. in time to tear down the Art Show at All Souls Church on Friday. My photographs have been well received and I’m encouraged to do it again. I just have to come up with a plan, where to store all those frames. 

CAMP WHITE

I joined the Boy Scouts in 1951 when I turned 12. My brother Dave was 16 with the rank of ‘Life Scout’. He would earn his ‘Eagle’ badge in the next year. I was a ‘Tenderfoot’. Troop 219 was sponsored by the Hickman Mills Community Christian Church. John Lousier was our Scout Master but the ‘Mojo’ man was Shug Allen. He was a short, stout, middle age, blue collar man who knew everything. He knew things even my dad didn’t know. He was the consummate camper. He could camp in the woods, in the desert, on the mountain; he camped in all kinds of weather, any time of year. He stayed dry and warm, he ate well and the bugs left him alone. Shug’s son Jerry was already an Eagle Scout and one of my brother’s good friends. 

My first Boy Scout camping trip was in the summer. On Friday Jerry and Dave led us on a 5 mile hike to Walker’s Farm near the south end of what is now Longview Lake, east of Grandview, Missouri. By the time we got there Mr. Lousier and Shug had opened the gate, set our tents and bed rolls out and started a fire. All we had to carry on the hike was a back pack with lunch, a poncho and a canteen of water. For me, anything that could go wrong, went wrong. I needed help with every task and then I still screwed up trenching my tent, building a fire pit and got so dirty I had to take a bath in the creek before they would let me eat. 

By mid winter we were hiking a different direction, west on Red Bridge Road to Blue River Road then South. Again, when we arrived at Camp White our leaders had unloaded all of our supplies and had a big fire roaring in the cabin fireplace. Camp White was nestled in the woods on the bluff overlooking the Blue River flood plain. The cabins were frame construction on rock walled foundations with high windows and a dozen double deck, military bunk beds lined up around the walls. Two big tables with benches were in the middle. That would be our home base for merit badge projects and outdoor skill building over the rest of the weekend. At night we hiked along trails on the bluff and came back along the river, searching for animal sign and listening for owls. Me being the youngest tenderfoot, I got a lot of brotherly, well intended teasing. Naturally I was assigned a top bunk. When I climbed up, the mate below would shake the bed frame and hit me with his pillow, making my assent as difficult as possible. My struggles to get into the top bunk earned me the nickname, ‘Monk.’ They said I looked like a monkey swinging on a vine. The ‘Monk’ name stuck with the scouts but not at school.

Over time and into my memory, when I drive out Highgrove Road past Walkers Farm, I look down into the big gully where we pitched out tents and think about Shug Allen, the great fire builder. Down on Blue River Road I’ve searched for years, looking for some trace of Camp White. It was up a drive, in the woods, out of sight when summer’s trees were leafed out. In the winter, I wasn’t sure where to look and I was driving so not finding the bones of Camp White was a mystery that would have to wait. Last winter, by some stroke of coincidence, I noticed some rocks up in the trees as I was driving by. I slowed down, took note of exactly where we were and deemed I’d stop there sometime when the weather was nice and go for a walk. Today was the day. It took several drive-byes but the old pillars at the gate were still visible. I parked the car and started up through the trees. In recent years that strip of two-lane has been made into a parkway with athletic fields, off road bicycle trails and picnic areas. I crossed several bike trails, climbing up the bluff. The limestone and mortar pillars were still in tact with a steel beam across the space to keep 4-wheelers out. It didn’t take long to find the old, stone wall foundations. That was all that was left of the camp. When my scouting days drew to a close, I never went back. I have no idea how long it remained in use or when the buildings died. Few of the present trees were big enough to have been there when the camp was buzzing and the stone foundations were melting into the bluff like Mayan pyramids into the jungles of the Yucatan. A few shrubs and vines were starting to leaf out but visibility was good and trekking through the brush was easy. 

I only stayed a few minutes, long enough to search the remains of three cabins but it was like a time machine. Peeling back over 60 years came easy and I remembered the green and white paint scheme inside the cabins, the smell of wood smoke and coleman lanterns. I recalled the foolishness that stretched well into the night, after lights out. Shug let us have our fun but he was all business at 6:00 a.m. when we began the new day. You can’t relive those experiences but you can recall; you can reconstruct in you mind’s eye and it’s like peeking through a window, seeing yourself in an old, silent, black and white movie. There was a pillow fight and they were all after the little kid on the top bunk. He was yelling at them to leave him alone but in the dark he was loving every minute.

APRIL FOOL & EASTER

I made it through St. Patrick’s Day without wearing green, without being pinched. Now I’ve made it through April Fools Day without being made look foolish. I don’t know whether to feel smug or neglected. I tried to find some history, back-story for April Fool’s and there isn’t much. Chaucer (1392) made a connection between foolishness and the April 1 date in The Canterbury Tales. There was a Roman holiday associated with the vernal equinox that was mentioned but nowadays it’s all about pranks and practical jokes. 

I have been on both sides of the prank. In the Army, on April 1 one year, I got gigged because someone painted the bottoms of my boot heels green. It went unnoticed until an NCO walking behind me called me out. He was acting in self defense. By calling me out he became part of the establishment rather than part of the problem. Everybody had a good laugh and I cleaned up my boots with a wire brush and some black paint. That night I returned the prank on the guy I thought had so pranked me. Instead of making our beds in the morning, we folded sheets and blanket on top our ’S’ folded mattress, at the head of the bed. We were parachute riggers and we had access to all sorts of sewing supplies. I took a really big needle, some heavily waxed, cotton cord and sewed his 'S' folded mattress together. When he came to bed in the dark squad bay that night, his mattress would not unfold. He had to take his pocket knife to the dozen or so tightly tied stitches, in the dark. He got it and we were even. 

Pranks were not limited to special days. Every day was ripe for pranks. We had a motor pool guy who had lost his sergeant stripes for some alcohol related indiscretion and he was trying very hard to get those stripes back. In the process he was an absolute asshole, ratting on anyone who violated the least letter of any rule, alienating everyone in the unit. We had a wind dummy at the parachute loft that was made of canvas and stuffed with heavy felt padding. On parachute drops we might strap a parachute on the dummy and push it out before sending personnel. It was a check to see where the wind would take us. Someone, just saying; someone stenciled his name on the chest of the wind dummy. It went unnoticed until they pulled the dummy out on a training jump. The guy went ballistic, demanding an investigation. He was still a corporal when my enlistment ran out the next year and his name was still on the dummy. 

I like the story from Medieval Europe where the peasants were allowed one day a year to misbehave without fear of punishment. They could act out and mock the powers that be and get away with it. The rest of the year they were beaten and mistreated whenever the Lord of the Manor or his overseer felt like it. Easter is coming on fast and its history is just as convoluted as April Fool’s. The sunrise service, rabbits and colored eggs are remnants of pagan festivals associated with equinox and the resurrection of the Sumerian Goddess, Ishtar. I like the Mardi Gras connection. I go to the party but I don't to give up anything for Lent. I’ll give up plastic bottles for Earth Day.