(This is the title of the book I am working on now.)

I have been on a 95-day cruise to Australia, New Zealand and a lot of islands.

A great way to start my 90^th year. I had time to do a lot of searching through my collection of ‘yesterdays,’ that I have storied in my brain. It reinforced my opinion that I am living a wonderful life. If anyone was ever blessed it has to be me. My life is filed with a family I am proud of, friends that understand what a friend is, and more adventure than I ever deserved.

In past comments you have told me you enjoyed my poems. It gave me joy. I know nothing about how you should write a poem, I just write what I feel in my heart. These are two that have been very significant to my mental stability if I have any. I hope they may speak to you too, even if just a little bit.

ATTITUDE

Changing my path

(I WROTE THIS IN 1979)

I HAVE TRIED TO LIVE BY IT EVER SINCE.

MY CREED

It is today, not tomorrow.

This is today, yesterday is history.

Every morning when I wake up it will be today.

I will start each of my todays with a positive attitude.

I will not criticize anything for it accomplished nothing.

I refuse to utilize my time at things that accomplish nothing.

Today has one thing in which I know I am equal with all others, time.

We draw life’s paychecks in hours, minutes, and seconds; no favorites.

Today I will not waste any of my given time.

The minutes I wasted yesterday are already too costly.

Today I refuse to use my time worrying about what might happen.

Instead, I’m going to utilize my time by working to making good things happen.

Today I am determined to improve myself.

For tomorrow someone may need me to help them.

I must work hard today so I will not be found lacking tomorrow.

Today I must accomplish something, and not waste any of my limited time.

Today I will do the things I should do.

Today I will stop doing things I feel are bad for me.

The end of each week I will be a better person than when it started.

My worth to myself and others is in direct proportion to the way I utilize my time.

Things in my world are not different.

I will not imagine what I would do if they were.

I will make my life a success with what I have now.

I will arrange what time I have to make the most of my talents.

I will take time for my people.

I will not wait till tomorrow to say, I love you.”

I will treat everyone I encounter in life as a true friend.

If I do these things, it will be a good day for me, and those around me.

I DID THE BEST I COULD. I HOPE IT WAS AS GOOD AS I SHOULD.

and,

I wrote this many years ago.

When I read it now, as I live my 90^th year, it seems much more relevant.

(I wrote this while sitting on the beach watching the waves rolling in.)

Patience is a Virtue

Hi there old salt.

Your kind of in-between, aren’t you?

Your face is smooth or nearly so,

Ah’ But your edges give you away.

Your swells peak up and break, gently.

They roll in, caress my toes, then disappear around my feet.

If I were to take you at your word,

I would run and fling myself into your embrace.

I would jostle your white caps and

Relax among your peaks and hollows.

But I know better than that.

Even as I watch, you are losing control.

You grow impatient.

I have noticed it at times.

Even like now when you are calm.

That upheaval of emotion that comes

Just when you don’t expect it.

That one breaker that is less controlled

Then all the rest, shows your impatience.

It does not caress my toes and

Then depart through the sand.

Ho! It grabs at my knees and

Pulls at me with fierce enthusiasm.

There is no need my friend for your impatience.

Think about it.

From you I have learned to be strong,

Without a show of force.

From you I have learned to be placid,

But never complacent.

In your depth I have had great joy,

And near death.

You have taught me to trust,

But never to rely.

I have learned what I do is important,

And what I would like to do stays insignificant.

No, my friend, be not impatient.

Two billion years ago I was created from you.

I would not deprive you if I could.

Yours is a millennium, mine but half a grain of sand.

Do not be inpatient,

We will be as one in due time.

Until then my friend,

 I will visit you as

 often as I can.

I have kept my word and I think

Due time is on the horizon.

The good thing is I still

Need binoculars

To see it.

TOMATEOTS

I have been absent from my blog for about a year. The pandemic caused some unsuspected turmoil in my world. I had four good friends and one family member die with Covid 19, and several others including me getting sick. We were vaccinated and recovered. The ones that died were not vaccinated. In my biological world that was very significant. Enough said about that.

Life is back on track for me and I am still writing books. I decided that it was time to write a book that had something to say of value to everyone, not just a few. From global warming to sex, there are 28 different subjects I believe deserve consideration. The title of the new book is, “How to live according to Grandpa. The Wisdom and Philosophy of Tomateots “. It is available now in paperback and e-books from Amazon, Barnes and Noble as well as Apple. It will also be an audio book by the end of January.

The best way I can tell you what it is about is to share with you what I wrote on the back cover. I hope you will read the book. I wrote it for you. It is the only book of the 18 I have written that I am asking the public to buy. It will speak to you.

THE BACK COVER PAGE

“We are presented with several million options during our life that we have to make a choice between. The choices we make create the way we see the world and establish how we live in it. The environment, which we have created for ourselves, is called our world. Everyone has a world that is unique and personal to them.

Of course, our worlds are based on assumptions that for one reason or another, we choose to believe and call facts.

We are sure that what we believe takes precedence over everyone else’s beliefs, and that can make our world a bit of a challenge to live in at times. I have decided to share my world with the rest of the world. Not to convince anyone that my world is better than theirs but to share some of the things that I found helpful for the world at large.

In my eighty-nine years as a well-educated wonderer, many of my assumed facts have been proven wrong. I see that as progress, a good thing. The challenge is to be able to accept that one of your lifelong facts just isn’t true. I have only a few things that I learned that have stayed true for me so far and have been stabilizers in my world. I think they can be of use to almost everyone and need sharing.

I am not writing this book to encourage you to think like me but rather to just think. There are things changing all around you. So many new things to learn. So many new places to visit. So many edges out there you haven’t walked on yet. No matter how intelligent you are, your areas of vast ignorance are greater than your areas of knowledge.

There is so much to learn that when you throw your arms up and say,” I know nothing.” It will be true, but it is ok. Every other human on earth is in the same situation, they just don’t know it.

We have robots with Artificial Intelligence (AI) far beyond any human right now that are working for us. What will happen when they decide we are too dumb and of no use to them? I believe this could be a greater threat to human survival than global warming. What do you think, and why?”

The book is an easy read and covers many subjects that we encounter in our everyday life. I think much about them. This book is meant to stimulate conversation and perhaps provide some useful tips.

Thank you in advance for your help in spreading the word. I WROTE IT FOR EVERYONE TO READ, NOT JUST A FEW.

First, I want to apologize for the long delay from my last Blog. I have a couple of reasons but no excuses. I had an adventure with the Omicron virus that wasn’t too bad, then I did a face-plant on a tile floor, in the middle of the night, that was bad. Thirty-three stitches and four weeks later, I was good to go – – so I did.

I was rearranging my office when I got home and came across something that I’ve saved for 50 years. It’s a very special letter. It wasn’t to me but rather from a son to his parents. How I obtained the letter is of no consequence however, what it says and the environment in which it was written are.

The year, 1943 (the world was at war – WWII), the age of the writer, 22 years, his country, Japan. His letter defines the word commitment. To some extent, every warrior in every war has made the same commitment to protect his family and country.

I can’t help but to tear up when I read the letter. I wrote a similar letter to be mailed if I didn’t come back, 60+ years ago. Fortunately, it was never mailed. I came back.

“Dear Parents:

Please congratulate me. I have been given a splendid opportunity to die. This is my last day. The destiny of our homeland hinges on our victory. I shall fall like a blossom from a radiant cherry tree.

I shall be a shield for His Majesty and die cleanly along with my friends. I wish that I could be born seven times, each time to smite the enemy. How I appreciate this chance to die like a man! I am grateful from the depths of my heart to the parents who reared me with their constant prayers and tender love. I am also grateful to my country which has been my home, my entire life.

Thank you, my parents, for the 22 years that you have cared for me and inspired me. I hope my present deed will in some small way repay you for what you have done for me. Think well of me and know that your son died for his country. This is my last wish. There is nothing else I desire.

I shall return in spirt and look forward to your visit at the Yasukuni shrine. Please take good care of yourselves.

We are 16 warriors defending our precious Japan. May our deaths be as clean and sudden as the shattering of a crystal.

My eternal love, …………”

I have nothing to add but a thank you for reading this. I think it applies to all who have given their life to protect their country. It applies to both those that didn’t come back as well as to those that did. All I can say is, THANK YOU.

How many times have you looked back at a missed opportunity and said that? I think most of us have more than once. A few years ago, a good friend of mine died. I called him Ronnie, he called me Johnny. We had known each other a very long time.

Over the years we made many plans for things we could do together as we collected our Social Security checks. Our planning included all the activities that we both enjoyed. Kayaking, diving, bike riding, fishing, and camping were just a few of the trips we planned. Then he got sick, and died.

My Creed

His death not only left a huge hole in my heart but also one in my life. My retirement, a few years in the future, was arranged in large part around all the adventures we had planned together with our wives. I took a close look at my life and wondered why we had put all these plans off for the future. I wanted to change my life so I/We could say, “I/We did.” Not we should of. Out of this, I wrote, “My Creed.” It has helped me in troubled/painful times. I read it to get me back on track if I realize I’m drifting off. Perhaps it can be of help to you also. I have copied it here for you to use if you think it is worthwhile.

This is today, tomorrow may never come.

This is today, yesterday is history.

Every morning when I wake up, it will be today.

I will launch each day with a positive attitude.

I will not criticize anything, for it accomplishes nothing.

I refuse to utilize my limited time doing things that accomplish nothing.

Today, I know I am equal with all others in our allotment of daily time.

All of us have the same number of hours, minutes, and seconds.

Today, I will waste none of my allotted time.

The minutes I wasted yesterday are already too costly.

Today, I refuse to use my time worrying about what might happen.

Instead, I am going to use my time to make things happen.

Today, I am determined to improve myself.

For tomorrow someone may need help.

I must work hard today, so I will not be found lacking tomorrow.

Today, I must accomplish/learn something, no matter how small.

Today, I will do the things I should do.

Today, I will stop doing things I feel are bad for me.

At the end of each day, I must be a better person than I was when it started.

My worth to myself and others is proportional to the way I utilize my time.

Things are not different.

I will not imagine what I would do, if they were.

I will make my life a success with what I have now, not what I wish I had.

I will arrange what time I have, to make the most of my talents.

I will listen carefully to others for they are but mirrors of myself.

I will not wait till tomorrow to say,” I love you.”

I will treat everyone I encounter in life as a true friend.

If I do these things, today will be a good day for me and those around me.

There are times when we feel something about our lives but we can’t seem to put our deep feelings into words. I have struggled with this in my writings. Even in writing my blog I find myself searching for the right words that I believe others will understand what I mean, when I use them. I have solved this dilemma on occasion by changing the format of the words I use.

I find, at times, I can express myself better in a poem than I can trying to talk or write about it. I have kept a copy of some of my poems that I have created over the years to express what I was feeling at the time. I am going to share a few with you. Perhaps you will identify with the emotion that produced each one. If you do, you will know more about me than you need to. But that’s OK. We’re friends.

I am including two from my collection, here, with no introduction. If they speak to you, I don’t want to slant them away from your world by telling you about my world. If they don’t speak to you, just enjoy. If you are an English teacher, please give me some slack on the format.

The New Path

You asked if I ever think of her,

I answered of course I do.

My mind wanders back to my past,

Where memories that are buried seem to last.

But worry not, my dear sweet lady.

For when I think of the present, I think only of you.

My reflections are both happy and sad.

A wonderful life together

That ended too soon.

I held her hand for hours

Until her last breath and her soul left the room.

How could I not remember her?

She was the core of my life.

For thirty-five years

She was both my lover and my wife.

But she is gone and no longer exists.

She said to me before she left

On this one thing I must insist,

Your life must continue forward

Grief must not stop you

Don’t fall behind, you must resist.

Love is everywhere, if you look you will find.

A life alone is not meant to be.

Find someone that is not like me.

Your memory will last, but I represent the past,

You’re on a new road now,

New faces, new places, new fields to plow.

Now, sweet lady, I am with you

And all she said has come true.

Mine is a new life, we’ll call it Act III.

And we will explore it together,

Just you and me.

Giving is Living

The alarm went off, I climbed out of bed.

 Was gunna take a shower,

But made coffee instead.

 It always helps, to clear my head.

Life is good, oh yeah, life is good.

Turned on the news to find out,

What politicians were all shouting about.

The same old thing, all still fighting.

 I decided to see if the fish were biting.

Life is good, oh yeah, life is good.

Went to the lake to get my boat,

Was grateful to see it was still afloat

Picked up some bait and put it on my hook.

Caught me some bass and a big Chinook.

Life is good, oh yeah, life is good.

I laid down my rod and took a look.

I had more fish than I could cook.

It was okay that I had more than I need.

I know others that have families to feed.

Life is good. Oh yeah, life is good.

Cleaned those fish, put them on ice.

Then filleted them out real nice.

Took um to some homeless, ready for the pan,

Gave them to a person who was the lead man.

Life is good. Oh yeah, life is good.

He gave them to some folks,

That were doing without.

They were so happy

You could hear them shout.

Tonight, we don’t have to do without.

Life is good. Oh yeah, life is good,

If we just do what we know we should.

Giving is living and that is true,

It makes Life good, for both me and you.

As much as I enjoy writing my blog, there are times when the neurons in my brain are on vacation and not much help in deciding what to write about. I have decided to share with you a chain of events that have been and are very important in my life. Perhaps you will have something similar in your life.

The year was 1897, and the Southern Ocean, circling the Antarctic, was doing what it is famous for. The waves were huge and the ship being tossed around was the Belgica. It was on the way to the Antarctic to try to be the first to locate the south magnetic pole. The ship became caught in the ice and held over winter. They didn’t reach the pole.

In 1898, the ship and the men that survived, escaped the ice and returned back to Europe. One of those men was a young sailor named Amundsen. He would later become one of my heroes.

You’re wondering why all that is important to me? In 1898, while those explorers were escaping with their lives from the Antarctic, my grandmother was giving birth to a son on a farm in Southern California. He was her tenth child and they named him John Reseck, later to become my father.

In 1911, Amundsen and Scott, another Antarctic explorer, had a race to the geophysical south pole. Amundsen got there three weeks before Scott. About an 800 miles round trip. The Scott party of four men were returning to their starting point which was a sturdy hut, were stopped by a storm which froze all of them to death, just 11 miles from the hut and safety. That was in 1912. The hut was left just as the men had left it in 1911, when they started their trip.

In 1958, I was near the hut with Dr. Miller, studying the nearby penguin colony as a member of a five-man team of biologists. We were the first sent by the USA to study the life in the Antarctic and its coastal oceans, when we got caught a storm. The storm collapsed our two-man tent and we had to take shelter in Scott’s hut or meet the same fate he and his men had just 46 years earlier. We slept on the wooden floor in our sleeping bags being extremely careful not to disturb anything. The hut is now protected from anyone. Only historians are allowed near it.

A few years ago, I was looking through a big book on the history of the Antarctic. I turned a page and there was a photo of me with my name under it. I was shocked! Then I became delighted. I then realized that this was a history book, and I was in it. Oh my God! Am I really so old that I am talked about in a history book? All of these emotions passed through me in about a ten second time period. I looked in the mirror and confirmed that I was old enough. They said that I was the first person to dive through the sea ice of the Antarctic’s Ross Sea. I thought about it. What a horror to be listed with those other men as being the first to do anything. I was delighted again.

One of the complaints I hear often as we strive to be as normal as possible in our pandemic mode is, “I don’t have anything to do.” After the house has been remodeled and the garage painted, what do I do now? We are told to stay outside if we are in a group, and keep a distance from others if we can. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. I have a friend that figured it out.

I received an email asking if I would like to participate in a beach clean-up. It fits all of the requested criteria. We would be outside and not close together for any length of time. I said ‘yes’, jumping at the chance to do something that I thought was contributing to the health of my world, which includes the world’s beaches, as well as my personal heath, both mental and physical.

It was great fun. We met at the beach at 6:30. One of my friends there was in a mechanical scooter. He needed a beach wheelchair that had big wheels which wouldn’t sink into the sand. The lifeguards had one he could barrow. I said I’d push him. The wheelchair acted as my walker, and away we went.

We were cleaning the main beach in Laguna. It was close to where we live. What a haul we made! I pushed and Rich picked up what we discovered with a three-foot tool that had a grabber on the end. We made a great team and what an adventure it was.

We found two shoes but they didn’t match and they weren’t my size anyway. We dug out a quilt and a beach towel which were buried in the sand. The most interesting item we found was a girl’s black lace bikini bottom. We looked really hard to find the girl, but no luck.

It was an extraordinary day. It was legal, safe, social, and a wonderful outing for us.

I’m sure you can come up with a day that is extraordinary to enjoy, if you close your eyes and let your mind wander. There are so many things in each of our personal worlds that we tend to ignore or just take for granted. Pick one and turn it into an adventure. Your mind and body will thank you.

I promised you at the end of the last blog that I would share with you, as I enter Act III, my continuing pursuit of a self-image. Without one you are invisible to yourself; you have no direction. The tendency is just to sit and biodegrade. I needed a process to prevent that from happing to me.

My father told me when I was very young, “Life is hard, but don’t worry, it will get harder. Just handle it. Never consider giving up.”

• 

• 

• 

I had a several self-images that had given me direction in my life. I was identified as a biology teacher, a diver, a martial art teacher, and even a bicycle racer, during different segments of life’s path. Each one moved me forward. When I retired and moved to Washing state all of that was left in the past. I had a new life in a new environment. No friends and no direction to guide me on my path forward. It was scary — the time had come for me to, “Just handle it.”

I made a list of all the skills that I thought I was still competent to do. Across from it I made another list of all the things I thought I would like to do.  I drew lines from one list to the other to see what would rise to the top of most skills to work with. Boating and the marine environment was the winner. That was good because I had a boat and now lived only a half mile from the harbor.

The second highest on my list was to volunteer to do something worthwhile. I had available the perfect solution. There was the Coast Guard Auxiliary unit in Port Ludlow, where I lived. I joined it and so did my wife, Sharon. Between the two of us, we worked 40 to 50 hours a week, for 18 years. We were “Coasties.” Then we retired (again) and moved back to California. Sharon wasn’t well and we wanted to be close to our family and doctors.

We weren’t concerned about self-image then, just her health. Her life path was narrowing rapidly and after a year, ended. I was 80 years old and needed a new image to carry me forward, as I had promised Sharon I would. I made new lists; they were much shorter than they were when I was younger. The container/body I lived in had many dents and damaged parts, but was still usable.

Two things topped the list. I could still write, (I had written two text books and two training manuals for the Coast Guard), and use my camera. I became a writer and a photographer. It has worked for me. Since then, I have written six books, and produced eight Photo posters in the last six years.

Technology is racing past me on a motorcycle as I now stroll down my life’s path with my walker, and I love it. When someone asks me something now, I raise my arms and say, “I know nothing.” The great part of it is there is so much to learn now, I can now identify as a student of life. My dad would be proud of me, I’m just handling it.

I refuse to give up. I will dance along my life’s path just as long as my container will hold all my parts together.

            All of my life I’ve been a Wonderer.  I wonder how and why things work. We are born wonderers. Everything we encounter is new. What a marvelous time that is for us. Watch a young anything and feel the excitement they’re experiencing as they see, touch, smell, and taste every new thing they encounter. I work at keeping my wondering active through empathy as I watch the children I’m privileged to encounter in my daily life. They’re in the process of deciding what they’re going to be. We have to be something, in our society.

            The years pass, the number is quite variable, and we become adults. Now we know everything we have to and move into the process of survival in a society that requires us to furnish food, clothing, and shelter not only for ourselves, but for the family that we’ve acquired along the way.  And to do that, you have to be something.

            In my world, I became a teacher. My father decided to become a mechanic – – that was his world. Like you, we both became something. (Think. Who are you? What do you call yourself, in your world?)

            If you’re lucky, the time will come when you can retire. We work hard for many years to reach this Act III OF OUR LIVES. A time to do whatever we want. It’s wonderful for a while, then a strange feeling creeps into our lives. Perhaps it’s the desire to still be productive in some way. Perhaps you’ll feel the need to become someone different from how you spent your life up to this point. Today’s technology is moving so fast that if you take a long nap, you’re left behind.

            My father, a master mechanic for 35 years, came to live with me at age 86. He’d been retired for 21 years and lived in a mobile home. He was deaf and just worked in his garden most of those years. I had a new Ford pickup and he was admiring it. He said “I’ll keep it tuned up for you.” He opened the hood and looked at the engine. He just stood there for five minutes looking it over. He turned to me with tears in his eyes, I’d never seen this man cry in my life as he spoke the words I’ll never forget. “I have no idea how this engine works. I won’t be of any help to you.” He turned and went into the house. I started to cry then. A proud, old man had just lost his identity. He’d lost who he was his entire life. He was now invisible.

            I decided that wasn’t going to happen to me. When it came time for me to retire, I was going to find myself a new identity. In the next blog I’ll share with you just how I worked at that.  

Each month Karin and I try to find something new to learn. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, just enough to keep our brains from forgetting what it’s for. It can be a new use of our computer, a new way to do things we already do – – just something to keep the neurons in our brains awake. That and exercise to keep our mobility working so we can keep moving are number one and two on our must do list.

I’ve read somewhere that running a mile every day will increase your life span. I tried it and I think it worked. I felt a lot older than I ever have and decided that I didn’t want to feel that old anymore and stopped running. Exercise is still top on my list but not to the extent that I feel old now.

We are on the move again now that it’s safer and things have loosened up. We both have our two shots and don’t mind wearing a mask if it makes others feel safe. I don’t understand those who refuse to wear a mask. They are so self-centered that they don’t give a (bad word) about how anyone else feels. I look at this as having a mental illness, or at least having a sociological disorder.

Karin just got back from a trip to visit her family in Missouri. She flew there but took the train home, it was a three-week trip. She’d never taken a long train adventure before. It turned into the adventure when the train didn’t show up in Flagstaff, Arizona. Her daughter, who lives in Flagstaff, drove her to Needles on the Colorado River where another daughter, who lives in Chino Hills, drove to Needles and picked her up and brought her home to Aliso Viejo, to me. Each daughter had an eight-hour round trip to get back home.

During the three weeks she was gone, I flew to Alabama for one week to visit my family. It wasn’t supposed to be an adventure but it turned into one when the plane couldn’t land in Denver due to weather. It was diverted to an alternate airport where we (a daughter was with me) were on the ground for over four hours yet weren’t allowed to leave the plane. The total time we were in that plane was ten hours. When we were finally cleared to fly back to Denver, we couldn’t get a flight to Birmingham. We ended up taking one to Atlanta where another daughter drove three hours to get us and three hours to take us back to Alabama. The total trip lasted 23 hours.

All I can say is thank God for daughters. Between Karin and I, we have five daughters and we needed four of them so we could just make a family visit. I kept reminding myself that even a bad day has good things to learn. I learned that my new hearing aids, which have no batteries and plug in each night to charge them, only last 18 hours, and when they die, I’m totally deaf. That was a good thing for me to know. Karin found out that you can never trust a train to be on time. We both feel much smarter now. Maybe.