Picky, Picky

I was asked a question recently that I know for a fact had it been another time in my life I would have answered much differently. The question was whether or not I thought I had any business being selective, or as the questioner put it - picky . My reply came without hesitation - yes I have every right to be selective or as they put it picky. In truth there is always a choice in everything we think and do from turning left or right to saying yes or no.

I didn't always believe that. I'd bought into a story that I have no choices in life, that long ago everything was written out for me in the vast cosmos of the universe.  Now we all know that I'm not smart enough to know the answers to all of life's questions and I certainly don't claim to know whether our lives are all about free will and choice or written down in stone fate. However, and this is one of those places I find myself using a word I often have difficulty with, I believe, in fact in my world I find I have to believe, that I along with everyone else has only choices in their lives and they make them even when they don't make them.

The whole subject came about because I posted on Facebook that I've decided to sign up on an online dating service and stated that I've set my goals at what I believe to be a rather lofty height. Now some may argue that any woman in her right mind that might be of those high qualities and fine standards likely doesn't have any business being with me and there could be some validity to that I guess but still one must at some point draw a line in the sand so to speak. So, though I know that many folks will call me shallow the line I choose to draw begins north of the photographs of women, fine individuals that they may well be, who remind me of my great aunt. Say what you will the truth is that we all draw lines even when we claim not to.

So as I was going to sleep last night I was thinking about a book I've started reading by a Dr. Joe Dispenza titled "Becoming Supernatural" which if I understand correctly talks about how we ultimately end up limiting ourselves beginning at the earliest of ages due to outside influences and also how we might overcome those limits. For me the subject rings true since I understand something about at least some of my younger days. Being told that I had no business thinking I was special was one message I remember hearing loudly, often and without words that might confuse the meaning. In the end I gave in to the words of others who were, I believed in those days, to be wiser than me mostly because they were older than me. Those words and others not unlike them came my way time and again until they were the drum beat that could be heard from within in those moments when everything else went quiet. And then the day came when I quit questioning the truth of those words and found myself living a life that wasn't special in any visible way. I had in truth been brainwashed into mediocrity and for those around me in those days that worked just fine because they believed there was nothing special about them and their lives either.

To me an interesting fact is that although the message of being nothing special is very often told to young and old alike not everyone accepts it as a truth and thus do what they can and what they will to live lives beyond the standards others try to impose on them. I realize that I was never that strong and so in the end I became one of those who simply tried to blend into the background, accept whatever came my way and simply do my best to stay out of the way.

Looking back on my life I have come to realize that I spent my life doing the things that I thought were expected of me. I didn't act on my true feelings when I was reclassified as 1A for the draft and so entered the Navy willingly because I didn't want to go to Vietnam for oh so many reasons. In doing that I was simply doing what I believed was expected of me by others. When my days in the Navy were over I went back to my parents home instead of doing what my gut and my heart were telling me to do simply because that was what I believed was expected of me. In short order I went to work and soon enough found myself a woman who said she'd marry me not because those were the actions I truly wanted to do but because they were things I believed were expected of me.

Then...

Many years later I arrived back in Phoenix from a music festival in Tucson to find what had only days before been a place I called my home now nothing more than a house with only the dog to greet me at the door. Truth be told it wasn't totally unexpected but still the emptiness that accompanied the realization of what had happened left me shaken to the core. It was a feeling that would not leave me for many years.

In my case at least it's true that you do what you know to do and so once everything was over and done with when it came to the standard divorce which it would seem in the norm for much of our nation these days I found myself doing exactly what I'd done all my life which was following some imaginary map I'd made for myself which of course included seeking out another woman to include in my life because obviously I couldn't be known as single which would indicate, in my mind at least, that I was less than what I was "suppose" to be. Not knowing how else to go about it I turned to the internet and AOL's Love site. I met some nice ladies but the truth was I was simply grapping at whatever came my way. Then one day I met up with someone who seemed too good to be true. Of course in the end she was which sent me into a very dark place and the questioning of everything I'd ever thought I believed in.

Many years later and unquestionably far closer to the end of my life than the beginning of it I've come to realize the lies I was told and I'm finally beginning to recognize my truths. We all have them you know. The truth is I don't have to be like everyone else and I can set standards for me and others that very likely won't match with someone else's. I have every right to believe I am special and unique because quite honestly I am. Then again so is everyone else.

Those days of being told I was no one special still wander through the hallways of my mind from time to time; they don't echo nearly as loudly anymore which says something about me having grown a bit. These days though I admit that for me staying humble isn't such a bad way to live my life even if at times I'd love to puff myself up just a bit. Truth is I do have the ability to go off on visions of grandeur with precious little to back me up. Still, that being said I've come to believe that whether "you" like it or not I am special.

So, I've decided to get the ladder out and climb up on that tree to pick from just as high up as I can get. I am going to be picky and I'm not going to apologize for it. In the end all it takes is one but in this case you can bet it's going to be "the one" or none at all.

LSD and Me

                Things hadn't been going all that well for me for a damn long time. Long enough in fact that I couldn't really remember when it was that they had been going good. When I stopped to think about it I was pretty sure I didn't even know what feeling good actually meant for me anymore. My life had become something that I couldn't even begin to comprehend and nothing going on around me was making things the least bit easier for me. I was at the very least stuck in a life I had no desire to be a part of and there wasn't a door or a window that I could see to crawl, walk, run, jump or anything else that one might be able to do through. From my perspective I was plain and simply screwed and that was just about the most I could say about the whole situation.

                If anyone would have been the slight bit interested or for God's sake cared to any small degree I could have told them they'd put me in the wrong place. I was so misplaced it wasn't even funny and I guarantee you I sure as hell wasn't laughing. I didn't want to be in Dam Neck, Virginia learning about Nuclear Electronics so that I could be on a nuclear submarine for the next six years. Hell no! If I was going to have to be in the Navy I was supposed to be at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center and I was supposed to be singing with the Blue Jackets Choir. And if I was going to have to be in their military then the way I figured it I should have been in Canada and removed from the whole Vietnam War thing instead of where I was.

                But I wasn't in Canada and I wasn't in Chicago but I was in Dam Neck, Virginia and I was looking at becoming some sort of whiz bang kid that knew a whole bunch of stuff our government and the Navy I was a part of didn't want anyone knowing about. Now let's be honest here. That was pretty cool for a kid from a little town in Wisconsin who when someone asks where it is you have to tell them about a vacation place that includes something called the Ducks to give an approximation of its location. I mean there was Top Secret questioning of folks and everything just to make sure that I could be there. Honestly, how cool is that? The thing was there wasn't a damn thing cool about it as far as I was concerned.

                Growing up in New Lisbon, Wisconsin with a population of twelve hundred on a good day and more bars than grocery stores didn't lend itself to providing a well rounded perspective of the world for a kid heading into something loosely termed adulthood. What little I knew and thought I understood about the outside world came from the nightly TV news with Walter Cronkite. There wasn't a daily newspaper in my world and no one talked about what was going on "out there" though to be honest with you I wasn't all that sure where "out there" was. In short to think that I was someone equipped in any way, shape or form to walk out into a world that included the sixties and the Vietnam War is to believe that Santa Clause really did give me that bicycle for Christmas.

                So let's be honest about all of this, I didn't actually start out a prime candidate for much of anything no matter what the Navy test scores claimed to indicate and worse than that even if those test were right I didn't feel like I was part of anything special nor did I deserve to be part of anything special. And deserving had everything to do with everything. Our instructors were telling us that our class was the best ever and that they were rewriting the tests because we were doing so well. Hell, I wasn't even studying all that much and the stuff they were putting in front of us wasn't all that complicated if you just stopped and thought about it for a second or two. So no I wasn't feeling all that special because I knew the truth about me.

                Dam Neck, Virginia was one of those problem you never even stop and consider if you're not me but soon enough I came face to face with something that was maybe more significant in importance for  me than the fact that I didn't want to be there. Did I mention there being more bars in the town I grew up in than there were grocery stores? Yeah, and I mention this once again only because they were bars with real beer. The problem was that what had suddenly become my own special little piece of purgatory had beer which from an early age I had not been discouraged from avoiding but in this case it wasn't real beer. Well, not real beer in the way I understood beer. It was that 3.2 beer which I would come to find out I'm actually allergic to if getting kicked out of a bar and cleaning up after myself in the barracks is any indication. Mom and Dad hadn't encouraged my drinking but they hadn't discouraged it either and the truth was I'd come to like beer but by beer I mean the real beer and not the stuff that they suck the life out of before they bottled it.

                To say I was not content with my life is to say I wasn't content with my life. I didn't want to be in the Navy, I didn't want to have to think of being in the Navy for six years and at this particular moment in time I sure as hell didn't like that the best I could get to take it all away for a moment was 3.2 beer.

               

                He was from Iowa and that's the best I can tell you. He was in my barracks though I'm not sure he was in my class. None of that was important mostly because he was one of those guys I secretly wanted to be like. He was cool if you could be cool in a Navy school sort of way. He also as I would find out was the barracks supplier.

                As God is my judge I can't remember how it all came about though it wouldn't surprise me if it was something to do with me bitching about how there was only 3.2 beer and how that just wasn't right and all of how I get when I get when I get like I get. I'm sure there was more to the whole thing but in the end he said that he had something and I might really like it if I was interested.

                Honest folks, I'm a coward in my humble opinion. I might think I've got a whole bunch of courage right there inside of me but the truth is that unless I can see there ain't no blood involved I'm probably not your guy. What my friend from Iowa was offering me went outside my parameters of what was acceptable within my life. I'd been taught, hell, it'd been drilled into and through my skull, that you follow the rules no questions asked. From the hell and brimstone that was thrown at me on Sunday mornings to the people of that little town that seemed to walk the straight and narrow to my parents who would accept nothing less I was not one to wander off into the realm of drugs. For God's sake they throw you in jail for that sort of stuff!

                He said it was called Green Apple which I really liked the sound of. After all I was all about the Beatles and there was this apple on their label and James Taylor had recorded this really great album with them and so what could be the problem? If you want to know about how I figure things out in life there's a real insight.

                There it was in his hand; this green tablet and nothing more. I'd heard about LSD and for some reason I thought there should be something more to the whole thing. Just a pill? Really?

                "You've never done this before right?", he asked.

                Hell no I hadn't ever done that before. I hadn't ever done a shot or slept with a girl and you're asking me if I've done LSD before?

                "Nope" was my very, very honest reply.

                "Maybe you should take a half tab the first time" he said.

                Half tab he said, that was cool, wasn't that cool? Yeah, half tab sounded really cool and I was going to be really cool too because I wasn't cool right now and after this nothing else would matter because I would be cool. I'd done some Green Apple and damn I was cool!

                Truth be told the next thing I knew I didn't feel cool at all but instead scared shitless knowing I had a half tab of Green Apple in my shirt pocket. In my mind everyone had seen and everyone knew and I was so screwed that nothing I'd ever do would make it all right.

                As it turned out the MP's didn't come to arrest me for procession. No one seemed to notice. The only one that had a problem with it was me.

                It  was little more than a leisurely walk from my barracks to the Atlantic Ocean and the guy who'd given me the Green Apple had suggested what I should do is go down to the beach and take it there. With my paranoia it made perfect sense and so off I went.

                Gentle waves and grey skies were my palette as I sat down on a mound of sand some distance from the shoreline. As I recall the beach was empty which helped tremendously as I stuck my hand into the pocket of my shirt and pulled out that half tab of Green Apple. To this day I can't tell you whether it was a feeling of curiosity or just a simple "what the hell" that found me placing that pill on my tongue and then swallowing.

                Sure I'd heard the stories about LSD and bad trips and all of that. No I didn't have the first idea of what was going to happen but the truth was that had been the reality of my life up to that moment. I had never known what was going to happen and this was nothing new.

                It was fall and cool but not so cold that just sitting there in my dungarees was uncomfortable. I sat there thinking that something should happen the minute I swallowed that pill but it didn't. The truth was I didn't know what to expect and so I sat there watching the ocean as the waves came rolling in to the shore one after another in some sort of measured cadence. I waited and I watched not knowing but still feeling the cool ocean breeze and watching the waves come marching in one after another after another.

                Were I to tell you the ocean is alive you might understand but I suspect not in the way that I came to see it. As I watched the sea came alive with colors in ways that didn't seem like colors. The tops of the waves began to sparkle though there was no sunlight. They glistened and shined in a way that I couldn't begin to explain and I was completely mesmerized. In the years to follow I would see wonderful and beautiful visions more than once but I would never see something that has stayed with me like the colors of those waves that day.

                For whatever reason, to this day I strongly suspect it was my innate paranoia, I decided it was time to head back to the barracks. Yeah the waves were still beautiful and all of that but someone might realize that I was enjoying myself way too much and then there'd be hell to pay on my part according to my thought process.

                The walk back to my barracks included walking by other dormitories. Three story dormitories as I recall with the very basic dormitory architecture. Blank red brick walls and rectangular windows. And that was what I was looking at heading back to the place I called home.

                Whether I was consciously thinking about anything in the moment or not I can't say but what happened next was something right out of some cartoon from the way back days. I was looking up at the dorm windows when the window literally changed into the sort of comic faces that I remembered from my younger days. The thing was they were laughing at me in that huge cartoon way that only windows that have come to life could possibly laugh at me. What had only moments before been such an enjoyable moment had now become something that seemed to be telling be that everyone knows and I will be severely punished for my indiscretion.

                In the end nothing happened because of my actions that day. I never decided to give my "friend" any money for more little green pills and nothing more was ever asked. Not many days/weeks after that I would be sent off to the fleet rather than remaining at a school to learn about the latest ways to, depending on your view of things, protect our nation or destroy the rest of the world.

                Though I didn't realize it at the time what I later came to believe to be the truth for me at least was the fact that having spent time at Dam Neck taught me things I would have never have come to realize otherwise. Even though I had thought that the Navy wasn't the place for me my experiences there solidified my beliefs and would never waver.

                Whether or not it was factual I believed that I had been forced into my reality with no options. I detested feeling that way especially when I was watching others around me seemingly sliding by and avoiding all together something that I had thought was a responsibility. Perhaps most of all I detested the fact that I'd come to realize that I hadn't been smart enough to realize there might be options other than moving to Canada.

                Sitting there on that beach watching those waves rolling in all sparkling with colors that seemed to surpass the colors of the rainbow showed me something that I hadn't thought was a truth for a very long time. I came to understand that there truly is beauty in this world if we will only stop and look for it.

                Walking back to the barracks that day taught me something else that I have kept with me, they are laughing at me whether I know it or not.

                I'd never change my day with that half tab of Green Apple and I would never do it again. You see although I don't doubt the dormitory windows might very likely turn into caricatures and laugh uncontrollably at me once again I fear that I'd not see the tops of the waves glistening with colors untold.

                I have to believe there's beauty in this world that dances on the tops of waves and not just a bunch of  dormitory windows laughing at me.

That Church Pew and Me

               

                Once upon a time in another life I remember sitting in a church pew listening to a pastor talk about God and how folks perceive him and all of that. Now I'd grown up in a world where I'd come to understand the only right way was the preacher's way and if you went to thinking differently well it was the train to hell for you and it had greased rails to go with it. But this fella was talking about how each and every one of us see God in our own way because it's the only way we can. To this day I remember that and I do my level best to use it not only when it comes to God and religion but all those less serious things like when I go to starting to compare myself to someone else and then there's politics which are a whole separate religion unto itself.

                In the end my perspective is mine and I'll never be able to see through your eyes to see what you see. The way I see it the information that I can come up with is filtered first through others filters and then through my life filters and the conclusions I come to are as often as not based on what others might consider faulty logic but none the less how I perceive the world and if you're honest with yourself how you perceive your world as well.

                Right now, in this moment, it's obvious that pretty much the whole of this nation is seeing a future that likely will never happen and yet the panic on the parts of many has already set in. Each in their own way is seeing doom and gloom. And though I for one don't see the doom and gloom that many others are predicting I'm not naive enough as to not acknowledge that this nation has been through hard times in the past, some of them damn hard times, likely will be again and still in all has come out the other side if not the better for it then at least somewhere close to alright. And yes it takes time, it always takes time, memories are often longer than we wish for them to be, but they do fade and things do change and sometimes they even get a little bit better.

                I want to believe that this nation is set up to argue and bicker back and forth and in the end to come to some sort of agreement where ultimately no one is truly happy but everyone is agreeable with what's been accomplished. In the end we each make up our own story about how we got what we wanted and everything will be alright because honestly that's pretty much how we live our lives, we make up stories that work for us and we keep moving forward.

                Sitting there that Sunday morning on a wooden pew listening to a man I called friend tell me something I'd never thought about before, something I'd believed I wasn't allowed to think about, changed my world. In a very real way it let a whole lot more of that world in and I will always believe that's been a good thing though honestly at times it does get more than a little maddening. I admit to not liking to have to come to the realization that I'm not the only one that might be right or worse still that I might in fact be wrong.

                Then again no one really wants to find out they're wrong and the damn shame of it is that we all always find out we're wrong to late. We suddenly realize there's no "Overs!" in this game of life we're involved in. We've done what we've done and it can't be taken back no matter how much we want to. We're stuck in the reality of our latest choice and sometimes that really sucks. No matter how much we want to believe the world is some other way than the way others tell us it is we want to believe it's different, it really is different or at the very least could be different or should be different if only...

                Sometimes folks do try to step back from what they think they're seeing all around them and take a second or third view of what they think they see right in front of them. Sometimes they realize that perhaps they're standing at the foot of the mountain and maybe if they're willing to make the effort to walk to the top of that mountain there just might be a different view from what they've been believing was the only view there was. And yes it is a fact that it's only sometimes and sometimes folks look out and around or only in one direction or even back down the trail they've just walked up but in that moment their perception can't help but be changed if only by admitting to themselves that there is another perspective. And accepting that reality changes everything.

               

                When I was a kid growing up in a Lutheran Church in New Lisbon, Wisconsin the pew I sat on most every morning was hard, damn hard, and damn uncomfortable for more than merely the impatience of a youngster who was being forced to wear a buttoned up shirt and bow tie.  Those mornings were hard because the God I was looking at was holding lightning bolts and telling me he was going to use them on me if I even thought about thinking something other than what I was hearing from Pastor Rose. He was going to strike me down and I was going to be sent to hell if I didn't think and yes I'll use the vial word, believe, what I was hearing.

                Most mornings I couldn't get off that pew and away from it all quick enough.

               

                The day came when I was a freshman in high school and my English teacher gave me an assignment to write about Bertrand Russell. I had no idea who this man was but I was suppose to give a report on him and so I knew there was no way I'd get a halfway decent grade if I didn't do at least a bit of research which of course wasn't one of my strong suits but still I had to do what I had to do. Now you have to understand that this was 1964 and Bertrand was still alive but there was more than a little information on him in our little public library and so I actually went to work researching him and it truly changed my life. You see, he was an atheist and New Lisbon didn't have any of them as far as I knew. As far as I knew everyone went to church on Sunday and that was that. In the world I grew up in the pew you sat in on Sunday morning was pretty much either Lutheran, Bethany Lutheran (which I'm still not sure what that's about), Baptist or Roman Catholic (which brings up a whole family history thing that I won't go into here). In my world it had never been that complicated, you went to church on Sunday morning with your parents, you went to Sunday School after that and then you collected your sister, went to Red's Bar and collected your parents and then you went home to a meal that mom had put in the oven before we'd headed off for church. Simple right? Nothing to think about in those days. My view of the world was crystal clear. What's to be confused about?

                So now my mean English teacher who as a child had survive World War Two over in Europe in some place like Hungary or Yugoslavia or someplace and telling us about goulash that I'm not sure she should have been telling us about was telling me to write about this Bertrand Russell guy and the minute I went to that catalog file to begin researching this guy my life takes what you might call a U turn.

                Books pulled from the shelves, sitting there on the table in front of me, and I swear the first thing I read is that this guy is an atheist! What in hell is an atheist? Wait, this is a mistake, there are Lutherans and Baptist and Catholics but atheists? How can that be a religion? God's honest truth is I didn't know there were folks like Islamics and Buddhists and though I think I had an idea that there were folks that didn't believe in Jesus who were called Jews I wasn't really clear on all of that so there was massive confusion in my world sitting there in the New Lisbon Public Library. I was rather certain that I didn't know anyone who didn't believe in God but then here I was being introduced to someone who says they didn't. To be honest with you there was a bit of pure panic that came over me in that moment because I was pretty sure that library was sitting way too close to my church and I was pretty sure those lightning bolts hadn't just somehow disappeared.

                In the end I did a report on Bertrand Russell and I have no idea what sort of grade I got though most of my grades were in that C range plus or minus a bit so you can figure that report wasn't much different. The thing is it changed my life in a way that nothing since then has and so I guess if I were to have to give it a grade I'd have to say it was an A plus with two big thumps up.

                It started me on a journey that has lasted a lifetime. I've found myself contemplating God everywhere from the middle of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic seas to the ponderosa pine forests of northern Arizona and I've yet to come to grips with it all. The one thing that I guess I've learned through all of this is that I don't do well at believing whether it be about the big things or the not so big things. And maybe because I find it so hard to believe I want to think, and I'm sorry yes believe, I look at things just a little more than those fortunate ones who believe and leave it at that. After all from my perspective believing in something can end up feeling a lot more comfortable than that day in that public library when I came to realize that not everyone believes in what I was expected to believe in. Let me tell you that there was one uncomfortable moment in my life.

               

                I don't have the answers for the world, the nation, my loved ones or for that matter even for myself but I have come to the conclusion that I know a thing or two about a thing or two. Plain and simple the truth almost always isn't the truth we decide to believe whether you like it or not. Then there's one more thing that I've learned and that's that perception comes from perspective and thus changes with longitude and latitude. Jimmy Buffett might tell us the lower the latitude the lower the attitude and Lord knows I do wish it were that simple. I tend to want to believe that the higher the latitude the better the view.

                That little boy that sat on that pew all those years ago staring up at a God throwing lightning bolts and hearing how there was only one way has gone away forever. He went away one day in a library in a little town in New Lisbon, Wisconsin and as would be the story of the rest of his life he'd never come back. Some might say he grew up but the best I can say is that I got older and did my best to keep on thinking just a bit. Sometimes it's hard and the truth is I admit to not being smart enough to know when I fail miserably but I do keep trying to look beyond what's popular in the moment. In fact I even try to look beyond what's been popular in more than just the moment.

                I sit here today realizing that some things in my world would have been so much easier if only I hadn't done that assignment all those years ago in high school. The truth is that even though I've not had an easy time of it I thank that teacher for giving me that assignment because maybe, just maybe, for the first time in my life I opened up my mind just a bit to other possibilities. Believing is easy, thinking brings on questions and believers don't like or want questions. These days I work hard at questioning.

                That little boy sitting on that wooden pew wanted to believe in most anything and everything he saw and heard. As the years went by he came to understand that though most beliefs may not be lies they're likely not truths either. As often as not they tell a story and the story that gets told comes from the perspective of the storyteller and the storyteller is always just retelling the story.

                So I guess what I want to tell you is that I hope you enjoyed the story and hopefully you got something out of it but never forget you're reading it from my perspective which turns into your perspective. About the only truth I think I know is that perspectives change even when the story stays the same. Good luck out there.

Still Learning

              For crying out loud it was only twenty dollars so what's the issue?

          Yes I realized too late that I'd left the box sitting on top of the community mailbox where I get my mail at. I was just pulling into the resort where I was going to do my gig when it hit me that because I was so focused on the check I'd gotten from performing I'd left the guitar strap I'd just bought and gotten through Amazon sitting on top of the mailboxes some eight miles from where I now found myself. First thought was, "You idiot!" which is probably rather accurate though I'd just as soon blame it on age or the excitement of getting paid for what I do. My second thought was that, "You know, someone is going to see it and just drop it off at my place." Because I live in a small mobile home park I figured that what with the space number on the address and all someone would just walk it over to my place, drop it on the door step and everything would be fine. I mean after all that's what I'd do.

          Of course you already know the rest of this part of the story, yup, the box was nowhere to be found when I got back some two hours later. As is my nature I rationalized all of it to where I figured either someone was waiting to get it to me when they saw my car in the driveway or they were waiting for the next day when they would give it to the postal worker and my package would find its' way back to me. So having been a couple days now and no evidence of the package that I'd taken out of the mailbox and setting on top of the mailboxes while gathering the rest of my mail and then mindlessly walking away without it I've come to the conclusion that the only way I'm going to get my guitar strap is if I order a new one and then remember to take it with me when I get it in the mail. Then again I suppose I could go down to the local music store and buy one but then let's be honest, where's the story in that?

          Anyways the tale of the, let's call it what it really is, stolen guitar strap got me thinking about some things which if you know anything about me won't surprise you.

          I don't know about you but my default mode has always been to trust and believe in other folks. To this day it is difficult for me to think that others aren't simply by nature good and honest and caring of others. And yes after a lifetime of being proven wrong I have come to accept that the rest of the world doesn't have my best interests in mind or even anywhere on its' radar. The thing is that just because I realize the truth of that it doesn't mean it's gotten into my lifestyle, my way of thinking, my view of the world and the people in it.

          Yeah, when it comes to getting taught what the world is like I got handed a story line that found me smack dab in the middle of a fantasy world that I'm still fighting with myself to get out of. You see the lesson I learned about the rest of the world was that they were the good and right and though I don't remember the word ever being use the superior ones to me and a whether I liked it or not the primary goal in my life was to simply accept that reality and never, ever question it. The message I got was that I wasn't as good, bottom line and for God's sake don't dare to ask questions.

          The sad truth is that I bought into that lesson. 

Do Over!

               I was and still am for that matter most comfortable when I don't have to think about things. I want to believe I enjoy my life and my world the most when I can just put everything on auto-pilot and ride the ride so to speak. In my lifetime I've avoided confrontation perhaps mainly because when I was much younger I was not permitted to share an opposing point of view. There was no room for another chair at the table that had a place card saying alternative opinion, there was only the truth of the grownups and that truth would not be questioned. It would take me a very long time to come to a point where I am willing to state my opinion not expecting it to be the only opinion and more significantly not the only right opinion.

                Some that read this will recognize the name Arbin York. Mr. York was the high school basketball coach when I was a kid and by the time I was in high school though he was not my basketball coach he was my U.S. Government teacher though I don't recall if that was the exact title of the class. I don't think I ever recalled much of anything from his class even though I was there for every class, must have passed the course because I didn't have to take it over and for the most part came away glad when it was behind me. And with that being said Mr. York left me with something I've held on to for some fifty years now.

                One day during one of his classes he stood there before us and spoke some words that I still believe were prophesized by a man I'm fairly certain didn't consider himself a prophet. To this day I have no clue why of all the things he said through those classes that this one statement would be forever etched into my mind I have no explanation but because of his words I have watched and waited over the years always wondering just how prophetic he might have been. His proclamation hasn't come to pass as of yet but I sense that the time is getting closer.

                "There will come a day within your lifetime when there will be another revolution within these United States. I won't see that day but I believe before your generation passes on you will see it come to pass. It will be a revolution which will find the middle class of the United States fighting, perhaps even on the streets, against the lower and the upper class."               

                Even though I can say there's been a time or two in my life where I could see the writing on the wall in my own life the truth is I don't fancy myself a seer or a prophet or the like. I still retain much of that tendency learned long ago to allow the "grownups" to proclaim what is right or wrong and keep my thoughts to myself. I actually find it uncomfortably comfortable to simply pad my opinions with enough space that if confronted I can easily wiggle out of them. After all the lessons learned early are lessons retained for life even when you find yourself growing out of them. And with that said I find myself once again in that classroom with Mr. York and I find myself agreeing with him more today than ever before.

                For all I know this country has been as screwed up and maybe even more than it is now for ever and the honest truth is I can't say one way or another mostly because I didn't want to think about it back then. But the thing is I want to think about it now and it bothers the hell out of me mostly because I have opinions, I mean I have real opinions of my own, about what's coming and I keep hearing the echo of a long ago school teacher in the back of my mind.

                It wasn't all that long ago that I was introduced to the concept of tribes when it comes to folks aligning themselves with one another. I'd never looked at the world in those terms mostly I suspect because I've viewed myself as not only something of a loner but also as someone most folks didn't really want to get to know all that well so why bother. So when I was introduced to the concept of folks aligning themselves into tribes and thus standing at a distance from others not in their tribe I really got to thinking about not only the people in my world but those I see and hear about across this nation and I realized we really do have a problem. And no I'm not so foolish as to think that this is something happening just now because I get it that it's part of the reality of being human. But what it did do for me is make me realize that what I so naively thought of as one nation of folks trying to live together isn't much more than a whole lot of tribes with each tribe trying their best to become the top tribe. And tribes can mean trouble.

                Tribes are a reality for a human beginning with the day they enter this world. Some tribe affiliations will never change, family for instance, but others will come and go. Some will be highly limited like your best friend and those others that you allow into that circle of friends to the church you go to and the schools you've been a part of to the person you love and the tribe you create because of that love. Then there's those other tribes you wander in and out of while at other times you find yourself locking arms with. Religion is one tribe that binds a whole lot of folks together and politics is another. Both can be equally misguided and destructive in their own ways and sometimes in conjunction with one another.

                And so it is with what this nation is presented with currently. Tribes are joining together and tribes do not like being questioned. And with that being said I will tell you that anyone who will stand up tall and proud and say that the folks that will most likely be heading the Republican and Democratic presidential tickets come the fall of 2016 are the best this country has to offer really does need to be feared. Why this entire nation didn't stand up and scream for a "Do Over!" right from the start I'll never understand. Then again the real truth is that none of it will matter all that much when you consider that the vast majority of those running for reelection this fall will be walking right back into their old offices and not much of anything will actually change. Sure there'll be someone new at the top but the fact is it goes way, way deeper than that and in the end pretty much no one wants to talk about all the business people that have their hands in this whole mess. No one wants to talk about how totally broken the whole process really is and how none of those folks sitting in those positions of power have anything close to our interests in mind because we don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars to give them for a speech or millions for their foundations. Nope, they're damn lucky if they can even get a twenty dollar bill out of us and even I ain't stupid enough to think that will get me a call back.

                It's comfortable not to look at the whole of the problem. It's easiest to point at one person and say he or she is the problem and/or the solution. It gets a whole lot harder when it gets closer to home and we start looking at those other politicians and what they're really all about. So we will not look deeper but rather we will join into our tribes and simply say our tribe has said this person is the best we have to offer and that is the person we will support. We will be comfortable and after all that's all the more we really want, well, that and not having to think for ourselves.

                This nation is in trouble, big trouble, and it's coming our way on a whole lot of fronts. Something is going to have to happen that very likely isn't going to be comfortable for most anyone. In this year of elections the tribes have become disturbingly obvious in that they really do only want what they want. The R's have decided, the D's have decided, the L's have decided, the G's have decided and the only thing left it be decided is very likely nothing at all. There will be no place for those like myself and once more discontent will mount if only just a little. But that is the danger, that low simmer that builds toward boiling, and then one of these days this nation may find itself coming face to face with the words of a man who taught government to a bunch of high school kids in a little town in Wisconsin a lifetime ago.

                Then again this is only my opinion and I was taught a very long time ago to keep my opinions to myself.

Perspective

         

Perspective

          I’ve found I’ve lost my interest in Facebook recently. I’ve told myself I’ve had some great times with Facebook sharing my thoughts, commenting on others posts and sharing posts that sometimes I agreed with, sometimes I didn’t but was always interested in responses to. However recently I’ve found myself putting some distance between Facebook and myself. In part I know it’s had to do with the current presidential race but there’s been more. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until this morning as I was reading another comment by someone who shared their experience of shopping in a store and seeing someone else shopping there and carrying a holstered handgun. The person posting said they talked to the manager of the store and was told the company policy permits such a practice. The person then stated they would no longer shop at that store which of course is their right. For those with tender constitutions I apologize ahead of time but for me reading that post was the trigger that finally assaulted my sensibilities beyond recovery.

          Now before you jump to the conclusion that this is all about gun control please know that it isn’t. It’s about more than that for me. It's about the way Facebook has come to shape my view of the world around me. I suppose it’s about perspective in my case and feeling that there appears to be a lack of it these days pretty much anywhere and yes I admit that it’s my perspective from an extremely minuscule sampling source. And still it is how I’ve found myself reacting to much of what I read on my Facebook page.

          What has prompted something of a reset within me this morning comes from a lifetime of trying to believe in much of anything but I suppose as much as anything trying to believe in people I have found myself surrounded by through the years. You see I want to believe in “people” more than most anything in my world. I’ve held “people” on pedestals pretty much all my life. The thing is I just don’t seem to see much of anything for a return on my investment and that demoralizes me more and more by the day. When I look around there just doesn’t seem to be a point of light to lock my sights on and aim for and so I find myself feeling that I am drifting even more than I am comfortable with.

          This morning I was reminded of a time when I honestly thought that Rush Limbaugh was the next coming and I wasn’t alone. In those days you would have found me on the job site with headphones on and listening to what he had to say by the hour, soaking up his “wisdom” as if I were sitting at the feet of some great prophet sent to save us all. Interestingly enough that period of my life was also when I was doing my damnedest to find God and in a way I was pretty sure the two were somehow connected. In my mind God and Rush would make it all better but in the end, for me at least, neither ever did and so there came a day when I took off the headphones and put down the bible.

          When I read that post this morning I found myself suddenly viewing some things from an entirely new perspective and to be honest with you I found myself feeling just a bit insulted by someone I’d likely never meet. You see I suddenly saw myself being the person wearing the handgun in that store and that person had seen me. So why should I feel insulted you might ask? For me it is the simple fact that this person saw a gun and only a gun. They took their insecurities and attached them to an inanimate object while never for a moment considering the person wearing the gun and yes I get it that many folks will insist that there’s something wrong with a person feeling the need to wear a gun in a public place but I would submit to you that there’s something wrong with a person who finds themselves needing to change a part of their normal everyday life because of a totally legal situation. From my perspective I’m reminded of driving on the highway and seeing a motorcyclist drive by me wearing a holstered handgun. Were that to happen to this individual would they stop driving on that highway?

          It seems to me that at this point in time extreme is the new moderation, knee jerk reactions to any and all incidents is the new norm and I’m feeling a really ugly undercurrent that if you’re not with me you’re against me. A middle ground is now looked upon as perhaps the most dangerous place one can find themselves far more often than was ever before the standard.

          My reset this morning has to do with guns only because it was the thing that seemed to finally congeal so many topics that I’ve followed over past months and years through so many different sources. It could just as easily have been politics or religion or which bathroom a person can use. For whatever reason the subject was guns and I found myself insulted because I could have been the person wearing that gun and someone would have assumed that because of my legal action another person found themselves somehow at risk.

          Perspective is something isn’t it? Had that person wearing that holstered gun instead been someone wearing a three piece suit and carrying a handgun inside the briefcase they were legally carrying because of their concealed carry permit the poster would still be shopping at the store they are now so traumatized by.

          I put down my headphones and my bible a long time ago because I came to believe that there is more than simply this right or that wrong and nothing in-between attitude. Yes there is right and there is wrong but there really is a middle ground that societies need to strive toward rather than childishly stomping their feet and saying this is the only way. In my world, for me, Rush Limbaugh eventually became a joke even though I was listening to him every day and maybe even twice on Sunday. There came a moment when something caused me to hit my own reset button so to speak. There was something about all of it that no longer made sense to me and so I stepped back and to this day I’ve yet to take that step forward again. And just to make myself clear it isn’t only about a radio talk show but about several things that today I feel I drank the Kool Aide on.

          Perspective never comes from what we focus on but rather from what we are willing to step away from for a moment so that we can see more of what there is to see. That can be a scary thing for untold reasons unique to each individual. The truth is we all like our own comfort zone and stepping beyond that brings about feelings of insecurity that we don’t much care for. So when we see someone doing something that we’d never consider doing we find it easiest to proclaim their actions wrong and ultimately in some instances intolerable.

          When it comes right down to it these days I’m not sure that perspective is something that most people understand because in the end it takes a bit of thinking and I don’t think folks like having to think for themselves all that much. Back when I was wearing my headphones I’d listen to Rush but I’d also listen to NPR news and wanted to tell myself that for the most part somewhere in the middle there was something close to the truth. I guess in those days it was my version of watching both CNN and Fox and then trying to find a middle ground. Whether I was coming close to “the truth” or not I have no way of knowing but I guess I did come to find my truth which ultimately really is the more important thing. The rest of that is that I’m willing to admit that I’m not sure I know the truth nor that I ever will but in certain select situations I know my truth which seems to help from time to time. With that being said I know that my truth influences my perspective and in the instances when I believe “my truth” is affecting it I do my level best to step back away even further from myself to examine what’s going on. And so it was with the post that prompted all of this.

          I can imagine that feeling the need to wear a gun in public can be defined as a type of paranoia by some while others might just as likely call it simple prudence. Likewise I can imagine that feeling the need to no longer frequent a store because a customer at that store has been seen wearing a gun could be called a form of paranoia as well by some and prudence by others. In the end the person who was seen doing nothing illegal will continue to shop at that store and think nothing of it while at the same time the person who saw the law abiding citizen walking through the store now feels compelled to no longer shop at that store and must now find another store to shop at. 

          And all the while my mind wanders back to the motorcyclist wearing the gun that passed me on I-17 as I headed north to Flagstaff; I’d sure hate for that person who decided to no longer shop in that store to be my navigator on what would have to be their new route from here to there.

But it never really works that way does it?

          There’s no way for me to determine whether I’ve lost perspective or the rest of the world has. How do I know that I’m the only sane person in an insane world? The truth is I don’t know, still, knowing that I don’t know counts for something.

          For me I’ve realized that the faith I always wanted to put in humanity was misplaced. That’s not to say that there aren’t individuals well worth believing in but for the most part humanity may well be a lost cause whether anyone wants to hear that or not. The dogmatic adherence to this belief or that belief will be the downfall of us all. Whether there is a way for all of us to take off our headphones or not I can’t guess but I do know that if we don’t we will ultimately find ourselves trying to find another store to shop in and another route to where we want to get to and neither will be what we thought we wanted in the first place.

          We can each of us choose to stay in our nice little comfortable world and view the outside world through our own set of prescription rose colored glasses or we can step back and take a second look, a look that we were convinced would show us nothing new or different, and simply try another perspective.

          And with that being said this writer will likely reset any time now so be aware and don’t forget to use a little perspective when you can.

A Cup of Coffee From the Past

          It was 45 plus years ago when a yellow school bus pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant outside Devil's Lake in Wisconsin.  The door swung open and out stepped and/or tripped or slid a group of high school music students who had spent the entire day competing at the state music competitions in  Madison, WI. We were giddy from the emotions of the day and the long hours that we'd put in getting there, waiting, performing and waiting for results and now the long ride home.  We had been awarded a first for our madrigal and we were the rulers of our world in that moment.  And I for one needed something I'd tried only once before and so when the waitress came to the booth and asked if I'd like a cup of coffee I somewhat nervously said, "yes". Then she asked if I wanted cream and sugar and I didn't have a clue so I just said, "No, black is fine."

 Most of you may not understand but in the world I grew up in to sit in a restaurant at my age and order a cup of coffee felt like a statement of independence and maturity for me like nothing I'd ever before felt while others all around me were ordering up their sodas.

When that cup of coffee arrived I took a sip, perhaps a bit quicker than I should have, and to this day I can remember the aroma coming from that cup, the heat of the cup on my lips and that black liquid slightly burning my tongue as I tried to look all grown up and casual like I did this all the time. (I'd only tried coffee once before and it was my folks standard Folger's made on the stove top in a percolator. Years later I'd learn that brewing coffee by that method is probably the worst way you can treat a cup of coffee.) And that's when the full taste of that cup hit and for a moment I found myself wondering why I had ever drank anything else.  There was an almost actual texture to it and I could hardly get enough of this black liquid gift from some other universe that I couldn't imagine existed.  I wanted to somehow get as much of this liquid gold as I possibly could and keep it forever.

Of course soon enough that cup and a second had been drunk and we were back on the bus for the final leg of our trip back to the little town of New Lisbon and my mom's percolator coffee. There are moments in everyone's life that awaken new possibilities and though I had no idea how it would happen I knew that one day I'd find that cup of coffee again.

And that's how the search began.

Months later I found myself driving by my old girlfriend's house in Mauston, Wisconsin when from behind a car flashed its' headlights, I pulled over and stopped to see what was going on, and a red lipped, red haired, blue eyed angel walked up to the car and asked what I was doing. A bit of conversation and I found myself following her car to a white ranch style farmhouse just outside town and into the living room and a couch.  She asked me if I'd like some coffee and I said yes and that's how I found myself watching a most peculiar for me scene unfold as she pulled out a pan, filled it with water and set it on the stove to heat.  The water boiled, she reached into a canister, pulled out a handful of coffee grounds which she promptly dropped into the pan and I watched in total amazement.

"You're making coffee?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said, "Cowboy Coffee."

The water turned darker and darker until she pulled the pan off the burner, took a glass of cold water that she poured into the brew and then poured the contents of the pot into two mugs.

I still wasn't much of a coffee drinker and I'd sure never seen it made like that so my hesitation was real but what was I to do?  I'm standing in front of this red lipped, red haired, blue eyed angel and she's just made me a cup of magic coffee.

Who's to say what effects how we experience certain things in our lives?  The moment, the surroundings, the time of day or night, the people we're with or not with will all add to or detract from the experience and how we remember it.  And when I took that first sip I was forever hooked on Cowboy Coffee and the girl that shared it with me for the very first time. In the end it would be the only time she'd ever make me coffee but I will forever remember all of it and at times wish that I could have just one more evening with her and her coffee.

Over the many years that have passed since that night there have been countless cups and mugs of coffee drunk from the streets of Athens, Greece and Nice, France to the galley of a World War Two commissioned Navy destroyer to coffee houses from Charleston, South Carolina to Phoenix, Arizona to camping trips and campfires to countless job sites but never has there been a cup of coffee that left the impression on my memory that those two cups have.

Once upon a time I decided to go on a search to try to find and duplicate those memorable cups of coffee.  I read up on how to properly brew a cup of coffee and I'd buy all different sorts of roasts and blends of coffee beans that I would grind and pour into my drip maker hoping that somehow I'd rediscover that magic.  And that's what led me to Arbuckle's coffee and a French Press coffee maker.

Now I readily admit that I'm not the most patient man in the world.  Truth be told the microwave can be too slow some days so going through the process of properly grinding the beans and then doing what you need to do with the press are not things that excite me.  When I want a cup of coffee I want it and I want it now.

But for some reason this morning was a bit different and I found myself willing to take the time and do the little bit extra to make what some will tell you is about the best cup of coffee you're going to get.  And so I took out some bottled water, poured it in a pan and turned on the heat to bring it to a boil. I took the lid of my brand new French Press coffee maker and set it all beside the stove.  I opened up a bag of Arbuckle's coffee, set the grind to a bit more coarse than what I normally use, poured some beans in the grinder and turned it on.  Water's hot so pour it in the coffee pot to heat it up then pour the water back into the pan, dump the coarse ground coffee beans in the pot and add just enough water over them to cover.  Let it all set for 30 seconds and then add the rest of the water, put the lid with the plunger on and wait a couple minutes before I push down on the strainer/plunger and now I've got it or at least I hope I do; about the best cup of coffee I could possibly make.

The aroma as I pour the straight black coffee into a cup stirs an unexpected  memory of a booth in a restaurant in Wisconsin.  I take a first taste of my latest attempt at re-finding a long ago memory and I find myself standing in the kitchen of a farmhouse just outside Mauston, Wisconsin.  And for just a moment I see a red lipped, red haired, blue eyed angel standing in front of me watching for my reaction.

I take a second sip, imagine I'm looking into those eyes from so long ago, and I smile.