Realizations while in Banff. #1

The white puffy clouds float by overhead in a sea of brilliant blue sky.

Our spirits, like the lofting black peaks around us, seem to be reaching/searching for the tranquility of that vermilion sea.

The raindrops falling gently on our upturned faces are proof that it is really there, and not just a dream.

Peace, tranquility and love are all around us, as the trees sing their songs, and their leaves do a dance to the wind.

Our very souls are revived and we realize that the entire Earth is alive around us. Even as I hold your hand, the trees are growing, the ocean is rising, and the continents are moving.

We are blessed to be part of this incomprehensible scheme which we try so hard to understand.

Perhaps some time in the future, the eagle soaring through the sky above will explain it all to us.

Until then, we must cherish what we have and care for it, as well as each other, the best we can, never forgetting in our hearts the big picture and that we are an important part of it.

 

Realizations while in Banff. #2

As I look out at the forest on the other side of my window, I realized there is a similarity between my life, and probably yours also, with the life of the trees.

There are young ones that are all green and bushy and very much alive and older ones that are straight and tall with no branches on the trunks as they reach for the sky but still have a lot of green at the top.

It seems the tree is really alive only at the top and has forgotten all the life it had growing up. I think we sometimes forget our past and don’t give it the credit it deserves.

Like the trunk of the tree, our past is our foundation – without it we would have no future. We are living the life our past has trained us to live. There is almost nothing we do today that we did not learn to do in the past.

It is true that the only things that will be difficult in our future are the things we have not yet learned to do in our past.

Today is your past for tomorrow, strive to learn something new every day – so your future will be more interesting than difficult.

 

Realizations while in Banff. #3

On our drive from Canmore, Canada, to see the Columbia Glacier field in Jasper Park, we encountered more tour buses than I could keep track of. It seemed every place we stopped there were at least 40 people milling around that were either coming from, or going back to, one of the 60 passenger buses.

They were always in a hurry because the buses didn’t stop very long at each place and everyone wanted their spot at the railing to photograph the views. Most of them were from faraway places and were as amazed at what they were seeing as we were, but as I sat and watched them fighting for their spot at the rail, I had mixed emotions.

First I was irritated when they pushed in front of me, but as I watched them at all the places we stopped during the day, they didn’t bother me anymore.

I was happy for them to be able to travel here and share the beauty with me. I was sad for them for not having the time to just sit, like Karin and me, so they could absorb what could not be seen, but only felt, for that is what creeps into your soul and is life changing about this place.

The photos I have taken will remind us, and show others, where we were, but only our inner-self can feel the communication we felt with nature, as we sat quietly on the benches around the park, and will have with us for a lifetime.

 

 

 

Have you ever given much thought to why you are who/what you are? Why you are in the line of work your in? Did you follow your passion or was the job just there and you adjusted your life to fit it? Why you chose the friends you have? What is it about them that makes you want to keep a friendship with them? Many people never ask themselves those questions. When we really think about them, and are honest with ourselves, it can be rather scary.

Where did you get the ideas to do the things you do? It is said that there are no new ideas, and everything you do has been done before by someone-some place-at some time. When we are born we have no idea what we want to do, somewhere along the line we have to get an idea that we act on and that becomes our path to whatever/whoever we become. Where did your idea come from?

Who we are is a good question because it has three answers for each of us. We are the person we think we are, (our own self-image, love it or hate it, it’s your choice). We are the person others think we are, (to them it’s their guide as to how they treat us). It only stands to reason that the person we really are is somewhere between the other two. Our self-image is what we strive to maintain and nourish with the choices we make in life. My mother coached me as I grew up, choose your friend carefully. Don’t judge them by what they say, but rather by who their friends are, because your friends are a mirror of who you really are.

As I meditate on my own life I realize many people set me on the path that led me to my computer to write this blog. There was the man fishing in the surf when I was five years old, and very excited, and frustrated, because I didn’t know what kind of fish I had just caught that set me on the path to be a teacher. I wrote about it in my book, (Life, according to Grandpa – The Fish).

A few years later five unknown boys narrowed my path to the ocean and an unknown news photographer made a mistake in an article he wrote. His mistake took me on an unrelated side road that totally changed and refocused my path in life for a few years. I returned to my original path because I realized that it was my passion and made it my freeway to a life worthwhile, and more fun than anyone deserves.

These people, (and many more), were my guides/inspiration that kept me on my path, and are responsible for who I am today. I wonder when and where I will meet my next guide and where he/she will lead me. There are so many doors in life that I have not yet opened and I’m excited with the expectation of what lies ahead.

I was fortunate, (1958), to walk with Sir Edmond Hillary on a hike in the Antarctic, and I vividly remember his words, “To rest is not to conquer”. I have not rested since that hike, and have no plans of resting in the future.

As I was watching and listened to President Trump give his speech at Arlington Cemetery today it brought back memories which I had buried somewhere in my memory archives, and pushed them to the front of my brain. I had to ask myself, why do we have wars? Everyone seems to have their own opinion based on their background. To me the reasons for most of the worlds’ wars fall into conflicts to do with territory, religion, and fear.

Looking even closer, most conflicts have to do with fear. We all have fear of being forced to lose any of these, our territory, our religion, or our freedom. We don’t want to lose anything we have, and fear not being able to get anything we think we need.

The country leaders treat war like a game. They decide what moves we must make to mitigate these fears. The militaries are pieces that move where the leaders tell them, like pieces on a chess board. It’s a giant board game to the ones orchestrating it. The difference is people suffer and die playing it. So why do they volunteer?

Why do we volunteer to possibly lay down our lives so the leaders can play the game of war? The answer is simple, fear. The soldier is driven by fear, not for themselves, but for the ones they love more than themselves. The families and friends that are at home. Who else is so important to them that they would put themselves in harm’s way?

They don’t hate or fear the enemy in front of them, they fight because they love and fear for the ones behind them. When the fears are alleviated, enemies become friends. We Americans are friends now with the Japanese and the Germans, who were once our greatest enemies. We don’t fear each other anymore.

When I take my walks late at night in the solitude of the darkness, things that I normally am able to suppress, seem to float back into my pondering, and I realize I don’t cry for the dead; I do, however, cry for the ones that were not part of the game and bore the suffering caused by it.

The wives that never had a hug from their husbands again, the children that never knew the love of a father, the parents that grew old and died without their son/daughter there to take care of them and say goodbye to, and the ones that came home and were severely handicapped the rest of their lives. These are the ones that truly suffer from wars. I still cry for them.

 

It was over, VJ Day. Japan had surrendered. There were people dancing in the street and singing songs in the park. I was 10 years old and running around with my friends, having a grand time celebrating, when I heard a car screech to a halt behind me. I turned around to be devastated – my dog, running behind us, had been run over by a car. Being an only child and spending a lot of time on our farm with no one else around, my dog Patsy, was my best and loyalist friend. In an instant my happiness had been torn from me.

She writhing in pain as I carried her broken and smashed body to my house a block away. She was beyond repair and died in my arms before I arrived home. I was crying all the way, I could feel her pain. When I reached home, my mother and father were as overwhelmed with emotion as I was. We cried together. Patsy was their second child. She had been with us since before I could remember – she was my sister.

My mother asked me when she died. I told her a few minutes before I got her home. Then she said something I never forgot, “We can be happy it was fast and she didn’t have to suffer long.” Only a mother could bring joy to such a situation. It was a lesson that was filed away in the back of my brain, and I thought forgotten.

Seventy years later, unfortunately, I had cause to remember it. My wife was fighting cancer. She reached the stage where she collapsed one morning. The 911 respondents admitted her to the hospital and the doctors told her, and the family, that there was nothing more they could do, except keep her alive hooked up to machines. She said, “No more treatments, let me go. I’m ready.”

We did as she wished. The doctors unplugged the machines. It took her three hours to die, as the family stood at her bedside, and I sat next to the bed, holding her hand.

I could hear my mother’s words from the past, and they gave me comfort in my world of loss. I was truly thankful when the machine finally flat-lined, and I kissed my wife goodbye on the forehead, that after a year of struggling, she was no longer in pain.

I planed a trip to the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, to visit some of the friends I left behind when I moved back to California after living in Washington for 23 years. I was asked, “Why are you doing that?”

My off-the-cuff answer was, “I don’t know, I just want to see them again.”

Their reply was, “They are not part of your life anymore, why spend the money and the time to go back?”

I just said, “Because I want to.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.

When I arrived in Port Ludlow, where I had spent those 23 years I saw 13 different people and still missed some. I only had five days. One day I drove down to the harbor where I had stored my kayak and ate my lunch. By myself, sitting on a bench, looking out at the placid water, my mind wandered onto the question. Why am I here? This isn’t my world any more.

Why would I buy a plane ticket to Seattle, rent a car, and drive over here? Why would I make such an effort to see people that are no longer a part of my active life? I looked out at the bay and told it, I do it because they are my friends. Then the big question, what is a friend?

In my world, (and I realize I am speaking only for my world), a friend is someone that I trust, admire, enjoy being with, and I consider to be a “good” person, (whatever that means). I have friends I have known for 65 years, and I have friends that I only had contact with for a few days. As I sat looking out over the harbor I realized I had over a hundred people I called friends and wondered if they considered me one of their friends. I hoped they did, but I still hadn’t answered the question of why I was here.

It suddenly became crystal clear. I needed them. They reminded me of how good my life was, and still is, because of what they taught me during some segment of my life. They and all the other “friends” helped to guide me on the path I have taken in life that has made me who I am today and who I will become tomorrow.

My visiting is a small way of saying “Thank you for being my friend”. There are a number of my friends that have left us and are no longer available to visit with. I talk to them when I am walking late at night. I sit on a bench to absorb the beauty of the sky over my head, and I thank my invisible friends for sharing their new home with me and for reminding me that possibilities are as unlimited as the Universe.

It is then that I realize that all my friends are still a significant part of who I am.

Karin gave me the trip to Death Valley as a Christmas present. We waited till February to take it so we would have the right weather to survive it. I had driven through it before on my way to Las Vegas. I wasn’t impressed. I saw it as a desolate landscape that stretched for a hundred miles and not much more. This trip definitely proved me wrong.  This trip was only three days, one day to get there, one to explore, and one to drive home – It’s a seven hour drive.

Death Valley is a place to EXPERIENCE, not just visit. If you just drive through it you can’t absorb its vastness, and the extraordinary geology that engulfs you, as you negotiate the roads that the park has placed in all the right places to make it visible to us. I had fun on the trip because Karin and I always have fun together, but the terrain is not fun – However it seems to seep into your very persona, and I’m sure it will stay with you for the rest of your life. Go with someone you can have fun with too.

There are colors protruding out of the mountains that are incredible.

John at the lowest place, -282 feet, and Karin, doing what she does best, having fun.

Karin lived in France for a while – She got good at it. She is teaching me. I love it.

Notice the hikers in the lower left corner. We weren’t able to do that, my walker said no!

It’s fun looking at the rocks and trying to find an image. What do you see?

 I don’t know what it is, but it sure looks mean. I’m sure it was protecting us.

 Daddy and mommy rock out for a walk, with the two kids and a few friends.

Life is good, but you have to look for, and see, the wonderful things around us.

First, I would like to apologize for neglecting my blog for two months. There is an old saying that life is what happens to us as we are making other plans. I have found it to be very true in my life. In the last two months, I have had, with my friends and family, four hospital stays, one major move from one house to another house, one clearing out a room in my house so I could rent it. On top of that we have to throw in Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and just general living, like doing the final chores of publishing my two new books. Life is always so much more interesting than just living. There was one thing that happened that I would like to share.

On my lady friend’s birthday, I took her to Catalina Island to show her where I had spent a good part of my younger days working my way through college. I promised to take her to the best place on the island to have lunch.

The trip to the island was fun. We saw lots of dolphins, a whale, and the seas were calm. When we got there, we walked in the town. I was using my walker as I knew we could be walking around all day long. There’s only one person on the island, I know really well, that is still alive from those days – the barber, Lolo. So, the first place we went was to the barbershop to say hello.

We had a nice visit and then I told Lolo that Karin and I are going to the Country Club for lunch, and he replied, “No you’re not.”

I asked him what he meant, he said that the Country Club was no longer functioning. I said “Poopoo, (or something like that), I wanted to take Karin to the very best restaurant on the Island, it’s her birthday.”

He said, “That would be Mount Ebby. I will call them and see if you can get in.”

He called them and got a machine that said they would call him back. We waited 20 minutes and they never called back, so he called again. They still didn’t call back, so Karin said why don’t we just go there and wait until they have a table. That made good sense to me; I asked Lolo where is it, and how do we get there?

It turned out to be the Wrigley Mansion on top of the hill, and I couldn’t walk there with my walker. Lolo said, “No problem” and handed me the keys to his golf cart. Karin and I got in the cart and had a great ride up the mountain to the Mansion. Just before we got to the gate a taxi passed us. When we got to the big steel gate that had a sign on it which said “No Public Access”, the taxi was driving through so, of course, I just followed it in as the gate closed behind us.

We drove up the road to the mansion and parked our golf cart at the end. We got out and holding hands walked into the patio, saying good morning to a couple of maids that were pushing laundry carts around, and then walked into a beautiful big room, through an open door, into the Mansion. No one was around so we walked into and through another fantastically decorated room and could see, through the windows, a few people eating at tables out on the veranda, which was looking over the town of Avalon.

Walking out onto the veranda, we were greeted by the head waiter who looked up and said, “You look familiar.”  I replied, “That’s very possible,” thinking I might have known him in the old days when I lived there. He took us to a table that was set for two, where we could overlook the entire town.

We had a wonderful relaxed lunch. Looking over the beautiful town of Avalon. We spent two hours just enjoying lunch and me telling all the stories of my work days as a young man. While we were there another couple came, looked out onto the veranda, but there were no available tables, so they left.

As we left we wandered through a couple more incredibly decorated rooms, looked for a bathroom, found one, used it, and then got in our golf cart to go back down the mountain, two very happy campers. We got back to Lolo’s barbershop and returned his golf cart keys, thanking him profusely for a wonderful afternoon. Then we wandered through town to the casino. We came to realize that the mansion had been turned into a very exclusive hotel, and that the meals served there were for the people staying there. The couple that came and looked out were probably the ones that were supposed to be at our table.

It just goes to prove that if you act like you belong some place, no one will question you. It was a wonderful day. All because of Lolo, his golf cart, and the taxi that just happened to pass by at exactly the right moment. I would call this true serendipity.

 

 

 

 

 

It was early in the morning when Johnny opened the front door of his new house and stepped out for the first time to see where he was going to be living. It had been dark when he arrived with his father last night, from their farm in the hill country of Montana.

He was a strong strapping six-year-old farm boy and this was his first trip to a big city. The family had moved here from their farm because the dry seasons had wrecked their crops and they had to sell.

He was dumbfounded by what he saw as he stood in his new front yard – which was all cement. Every house as far as he could see down the street had a cement yard, and all of them looked exactly alike. He went back inside the house where his mother was finding places to put things away that the family had brought with them from the farm.

“Where are all the animals, and the bushes for the rabbits to hide in? They were my friends and now I’ve lost them and I have no friends.”

His mother explained to him that he now lived in a city not a farm, he would make new friends with the other children that live in the city.

“But the animals and all of the trees and bushes were my friends.” he said, and ran into his new bedroom, crying.

The next day he asked his mother if he could walk to the park she had told him about at the end of their street only two blocks away. She said there were trees and bushes in it, and that he might meet some other children to play with there. She told him he could go, but not to talk to any strangers that were adults, only to the children that he met.

Off he went excited about meeting new friends at the park. When he reached the park there was no one there. He had tears in his eyes again as he felt the starvation of loneliness creeping over him. He laid down on his back under a giant eucalyptus tree. Wiping the tears out of his eyes he looked up and saw the sunlight filtering through the leaves – hanging from the gently swaying branches – restlessly moving back and forth in the wind – he could hear the tree’s song as it was orchestrated by the wind – and watched the leaves as they moved like dancers on a stage to nature’s own orchestra.

“I hear you talking to me, Tree, do you want to be my friend? How long have you lived here? You’re so big I bet it’s been a long time. I’m new here.” The tree was still moving gently in the wind, so Johnny told it all about the farm he had lived on. After a while, the wind stopped and the tree settled into a quiet resting mode.

“I think you want to take a nap, Tree. Is it okay if I come back and talk to you every now and then? You’re the only friend I have now, but I promise even if I make other friends. I will still come and visit you.”

When Johnny got home, his mother had lunch ready for him and he said, “Thank you.” Picking up his sandwich he started to eat with the enthusiasm of a happy six-year old.

“You seem to be in a better mood today,” his mother said. “Tell me about the park.”

“I found a friend that lives there and I can visit him whenever I want.”

“Maybe he won’t be there the next time you go, so don’t be disappointed if he isn’t.”

“Oh! He’ll be there. True friends, just like daddy always told me, are the same everywhere – always there when you need them.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

649 words

There is a thing called “Flash Fiction” that is a written piece that tells a complete story in more than 600 words but less than 1200 words. This is not easy to do. This story is 750 words, and I’ll leave it up to you if you think it works or not.

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Kent opened his eyes when his alarm went off and looked up at the ceiling in his bedroom. Just like the rest of his life, it never changed.  Every morning it was, get up, go to the bathroom, brushed your teeth, make the coffee, and watch the news on TV, while you ate your oatmeal, to see who was killed in the world while you slept.

He put his oatmeal in the microwave oven, got dressed in his overalls, and sat down to eat his breakfast. His mind was blank. He had nothing to think about. He lived alone and never socialized because he was very hard of hearing and consequently he tried not to put himself into a position where he had to talk to people -he couldn’t understand them anyway. At work in the fields, digging potatoes or picking whatever was ripe to be picked at that particular time is where he spent most of his life.

He hurt all of the time. His back hurt, his knees hurt, he was too hot in the summer, and too cold in the winter, but he never complained, it was his life and he was lost in it, he saw no way out. He didn’t watch TV very much, the news depressed him and the other programs showed people being happy, and he couldn’t identify with them at all. They depressed him too.

His only dream was of being happy. “I wonder what it feels like to be happy.” He had no idea. It was his only wish, his only goal, to be happy at least once in his life before he died. He saw no chance of it ever happening – only more of the same, day after day, year after year.

He walked to work in the field. His old car had died a year or so ago. It was only two miles and he was still able to make it, but it did seem a lot longer than two miles, as he walked home after hours of bending, digging, and carrying the containers of goods to the trucks.

“If I could just be happy once, so I would know what it feels like, it would be so wonderful.” He had said so many times to himself, as he did the long walk home, anxious to take his pain pills so he could sleep, and be able to do it all over again the next day.

One day on the walk home. He stopped to buy some more aspirin at the store in the gas station and decided to spend a dollar on a lottery ticket. He had never done that before, he knew he would never win because he had never won anything in his life. So why waste the money, but he did it anyway.

It was two months later when he was eating his oatmeal in the morning, watching the news, when the commentator said that the person that won the lottery had not come forward yet, and they gave the numbers again and said that the ticket was bought in a gas station. Then they gave the name of the gas station. He jumped up. It was his station.

He ran around looking for the ticket and finally found it, and sure enough it was the winner. OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! I’M THE WINNER! – It’s wonderful – I actually won something. His whole body was shaking. He was crying, he couldn’t breathe. He was laughing. I’m happy. Oh my God! I’M HAPPY. I’ve won the lottery. This is fantastic.  He sat down in the chair, he was crying, he was laughing, HE WAS HAPPY.

It was a week later when the foreman wondered where Kent was, he hadn’t come to work for a few days and decided to check on him. Kent was never late, and had never missed a day at work before. He was a very dependable person.

When he reached Kent’s house, he found the door unlocked but nobody answered when he knocked, so he went inside, only to find Kent lying in his bed with a smile on his face. On the table next to the bed was a note.

The note said, “I have accomplished my life’s goal. My impossible dream to be happy before I died has come true. I now have experienced happiness beyond belief. I could never be this happy again. The money I have won would only cause me problems, rob me of my happiness, and I would lose this feeling. After careful consideration, I have made the choice to make my dream come true and die happy. “

There was a hole in his forehead from the 22 pistol, on the floor beside the bed.

 

It isn’t very often I find something that is beyond the perception of my senses. Until now only two things were on that list – they were the oceans of the world, and the stars over my head in the night sky, when I am fortunate enough – to be in a dark place. They are both beyond my psychological and spiritual comprehension. Academically, I understand each of them, but that knowledge seems to be the least of their ability to affect my life. They both have always made me have feelings very deep inside me – which I can’t explain – but I definitely feel.

I have now added a third item to my awe-inspiring list – the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I just took my first visit to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I’ve been to the South Rim and thought it was wonderful but the North Rim gave me the same inner-calm feeling I get watching the waves roll in from points unknown and wash across my bare feet in the sand – then disappear into mother-earth only to rejoin the sea again over and over for the next thousand years. The North Rim is truly spectacular.

Looking over the edge of the North Rim I get the same kind of internal quietness that I get watching the stars on a dark night – there is something quieting for the inner self watching the night sky and seeing light for the first time that was created millions of years ago.

I have tried to find words to convey my feelings and I can’t. I feel totally insignificant, and yet at the same time, very proud, fortunate, and important to be a part of such a wondrous phenomenon we call the universe.