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.

A Life Re-Thought

 

 

Thanks to the comments of a friend who found herself so stressed she actually wrote about it on her Facebook account I am rethinking my perspective on all the emotions I feel (or not).

 

In my world my mother was the champion of guilt with her constant accusations that I wasn't making this person or that person happy or that I made this person sad or I hurt that person's feelings.  And I bought into it to a toxic level which as I've learned is never totally cleansed from one's soul after the damage has been done. You think I'm kidding? I still remember in basketball games when even though I had a shot I'd pass the ball just so no one would get their feelings hurt. Yeah, the truth here.

It took a lot of years of wondering why alcohol wasn't numbing me enough to make things better (I can't think of a better oxymoron sort of situation in my world than that one) to get me to think maybe it was something else and I should look for other options in all of this. That's when something totally alien to my past life experience happened and the thought was shared with me that I am the only one responsible for my feelings and that in the end I have no power over others to make them feel any way they do or don't want to feel in the moment. Damn, talk about a heavy message man.

 

And just that quickly I was released of a burden I'd never been able to carry.

 

Trouble was it came with something called responsibility for self and that's maybe a bit more than I'm really ready for in this life or the next for that matter.  Still, the game was afoot and my job became the task of changing a life nurtured and grown in a Midwest world of chronic grey and a societal attitude that one shouldn't expect too much and flip it over on its' backside big time. And truth be told that task has not always been so easy to the point that there are times when slipping back into those old comfortable shoes has been real simple to do. And even as I think about it all I know the pull that those soft, sullen, low hanging grey clouds can bring to one and wrap him in the once non-responsible world of bliss I once knew.

Of course there is another side to this and that's the one where someone, say me for example, decides that the only way to get seriously into this personal responsibility thing is to take it on full on and believe that ultimately I'm the only one that can do it for myself.  So the plan is to see to it that I build this wall that surrounds me and if everything goes according to plan in the end I shouldn't need anyone so that's going to take care of everything and I'll just let everyone else worry about themselves and I'll see to my own sorrows and joys without the complications. And you know it can work if you've got the right bricks and mortar to start with so to speak.

It's funny how "the best laid plans" can often times go sideways on one. If I had to guess it would likely be because they weren't the best laid plans in the first place but rather actions taken in a moment of pain and anger and confusion and despair and all I want is to bury everything away some place where no one will ever see it or sense it and I will never again have to deal with it. Of course if anyone understands the basics of fermentation it isn't only beer, wine and sauerkraut that become changed because of being left in the dark to stir and stew for time. The good cooks understand that there comes a point in time when the lid must be taken off and the pressure released or the consequences can be less than desirable.  As an example once when my then wife and I were trying our hand at wine making the principle of too much pressure raised its' ugly head to us.  Do you know that there's nothing you can do with a popcorn ceiling once it's been changed from white to wine red.

Lord knows you think you're doing the best not only for yourself but for everyone around you, just keep your distance and no one will get hurt, especially not you. But in the end it never works that way because as the rest of the world goes on its' way with or without you the simple truth is that you don't. And so all that rather toxic baggage that you shoved away one day starts doing its' thing and you find yourself hearing the voices.  As you begin to notice the others moving on and away from you the resentment begins to creep in, the resentment that you thought you'd gotten rid of but never did, and you hear the voice asking why they don't care and why they don't come and find you and save you. And the voices go on and the only solution you can think of is to add more bricks and mortar to the wall.

 

Even in the building of the tallest wall I suspect that one will always add either a window, a back door or a secret escape tunnel just in case. No matter the rest there is something or in the end there is little more than insanity.

 

 When the first crack in the wall appears there's confusion. How in heck did that happen? I had everything figured out . This can't happen. Most accurately this doesn't happen, not to me at least.  Oh sure it can and does happen to others but not to me.  Besides, I'm happy in a morbid sort of way.  No one to bother me. I'm the only one responsible for me and my feelings and so I don't need anything else. I came up with this plan right in the middle of that part of my life where everything in my life was falling down and when things are falling down you're suppose to build it all back up but build it better and stronger and higher and see to it it never falls down again. And still there's that crack and worse yet the black paint is starting to peel off the inside of the window I painted over and that back door refuses to stay closed like it use to and what am I suppose to do? Then one day because the truth is you never truly wanted things to be the way you'd made them that escape tunnel mysteriously begins to generate a vortex that ultimately draws me back out into the world I always wanted to be in but didn't know how to once again be a part of. So without really knowing there I am and believe it or not every now and again there really is sunlight and some pretty awesome sunrises and sunsets and all the rest.

There's nothing simple or easy about all of it no matter what some might want you to believe. The truth is you step back out into a world that wasn't all that different than when you left it but that isn't the point. The point now is that you are different and you know it and no matter whether you want to acknowledge it or not there is no way you can ever go back because you now know it is you yourself and only you that chooses to make yourself happy, joyful and filled within.

To those who still do not understand I ask a favor of sorts; keep thinking that the only way you can find your happiness is through the actions and non-actions of others. Of course it will be a strain on the rest of us but we understand and once truly free we never have to buy into your drama again. Think about that for just a while if you will and who knows what could come of it.

Amour and the Veggie Aisle

 

I stopped at the local grocery store the other day to do my "man bringing home food" thing that I do when the only thing staring back at me from inside my refrigerator is a can of some sort of despicable beer that I never did like in the first place and I wish they'd never given to me but I had to take it because sometimes, well, I'm just too damn nice for my own good.  Up 'til that point I was totally capable of surviving on a few stale crackers, the scrapings from the bottom of a peanut butter jar and a decent can of beer.  And yes, in case you're wondering, the lack of decent beer was the motivating factor.

 

I keep promising myself I'm going to get better at some of this stuff, I always mean it and I always fail.  First things first was the beer aisle and then picking up some creamer for the coffee though I can drink it straight but a touch of cinnamon or peppermint does me just fine too. And dang if they don't have a sale on my favorite frozen pizzas.  A dozen eggs and some frozen home fry potatoes and let's get some southern style while we're at it.

 

Oh, that's right, I'm here to try to eat better so maybe I should head over to the produce aisle.  Oh dang, there's the meat aisle and I should get some hamburger 'cause it's quick and easy and I like it and I don't have to eat a whole bunch of it all at once and, aw heck, just pick up some hamburger and get over it.

 

The produce aisle is in sight and I'm pointed directly at it which is where I thought my intended destination was when I walked in.  I put my head down, keep my eyes on all that green and push the cart for all I'm worth.

 

The first stop is off to the side where they keep all the packaged lettuce and spinach and ready to serve coleslaw that doesn't have the cole or is it the slaw?  You know, the stuff that mom use to mix up in that green bowl of hers.  I remember the mayonnaise being dumped into the bowl in big spoonfuls and then I seem to remember some vinegar, sugar, pepper and a good shot of horseradish to finish it off.  Stir the cabbage and carrots and all the rest together and then throw it in the refrigerator until it all got cold.  Well, that's how I remembered it and what I was looking at that said coleslaw sure was missing more than a little in my humble opinion.

I've never been able to figure out which way to go, bagged or whole, so usually (unless I'm feeling abnormally daring and pick up real, honest to goodness heads of the stuff) I grab a bag or two of the hearts of romaine and a bag of spinach figuring that I've more or less got about as much as I'll use before it all goes bad.  And the truth is that it almost always does go bad.  And every time my thinking is exactly the same as I dump the brown and juicy bits of vegetation inside that plastic bag into the trash, "Well, the tamale lady came on Wednesday" or "I didn't have time to do the chicken for my salad" which is always a lie because quite honestly I almost always have more than enough for anything and everything including making a salad with chicken for the next day or "I don't want to bother with chopping all that stuff up," which is as close to the truth as it usually gets but on the other hand I turn right around and throw some long grain brown rice in a pan of boiling water and when it's done throw some shaker parmesan cheese on it with a big helping of soy sauce and call it lunch.

I'm pretty sure I'm the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of anything close to healthy eating habits but you should believe me when I tell you my intentions are truly admirable.  No really they are, but the  results are always little more than business as usual and highly disappointing.

So here I go and it's hard to starboard into the islands stacked high with bananas, apples, oranges, tomatoes, garlic, grapes plus a multitude of other things and stuff that I'm really not all that sure about.  And to port there's shelves full of broccoli crowns, red lettuce,  jicama, snow peas, bell peppers of all colors, purple cauliflower if you can imagine such a thing and so much more.

The thing is I suddenly realize I'm in a part of the store where it appears guys don't normally venture.  Heck, the beer aisle was full of them and over in the meat department there were plenty of guys and some with gals going along picking out this and that.  But not here, heck I don't even see any guys off on the side manning the cart while their women pluck the garden's gifts and bring them back to their personal ships of treasures.  No the fact is that everything I see spreading out before me tells me this is the domain of the female and the only way to venture forward is to screw up my courage, put one foot in front of the other and steer my own personal ship of treasures ahead into uncharted waters.

Stay to starboard, stay small and maybe you'll survive.  In another life and in another time long ago I'd experienced taking the helm of a US Navy destroyer both in calm seas and in times when you couldn't see the bow of the ship for the water cascading over the bridge as we slid down one more wave into a trough that would ultimately lead to us trying to climb up the wall of the next wave as its' top came crashing down on us.

I noticed I was gripping the handle of the shopping cart a bit more firmly than normal.

It seemed the only logical thing to do was to find a safe port and venture out on my own away from the relative security of my wire mesh ship of treasures. And so I did.

 

There was no question in my mind that these women were intent on plucking from this well lit indoor agribusiness garden only the finest for their families and themselves while all I was interested in was grabbing a bunch of broccoli and if it had some brown on it so be it because I'd just cut that part off.

And that's about the time I found myself losing focus on what I was there for. I mean in an instant my thoughts were quite literally jerked from lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes to something far less accessible and far more tantalizing.

She comes in from my right and seems to be looking for the very same broccoli I hadn't been aware I was thinking about. She stretches out beside me to pick up a bunch of perfect broccoli crowns and then straightens up never saying a word. And then she's gone but her scent remains. A scent that sends waves of inner emotions and desires through me.

The green onions are a must and as I take up my station another woman stops to scoop up green beans right beside me. And as she leaves her scent remains. A freshness lingers that I'd forgotten and suddenly realize how very much I've missed.

Another woman, another scent, and inwardly I sigh that sigh of the lonely. I feel I'm so very close to that which my memories tell me was all that was good and right and which now, in this moment and place, is so very far from my reality. I silently curse my fortunes, bag up  a bunch of bananas, and head for the checkout aisles.

 

I suspect it's one of those urban myths of sorts but I swear that even in the days of "Happy Days" the Fonz once made reference to going to the vegetable aisle of the grocery store to meet women.  I'd be lying if I said the thought never crosses my mind when I make my way through that part of the store.  Maybe while reaching for a green bell pepper I'll hear a feminine voice say how she so likes them on a freshly tossed salad with just a splash of vinaigrette or how she has this amazing recipe for stuffed bell peppers. In my mind that could be the very beginning of something so very special and magical and wonderful. And in my mind she would smell the smells I've just walked away from. She would smell fresh and pretty and, well, she would smell like a woman.

For all I know the vegetable aisle might very well have been the Fonz's Holy Grail of dating but not for me. It is however a place I both love and hate to venture into simply because there's more than just potatoes and watermelons and cantaloupes waiting for me.  There's memories of wrapping a towel around her after she's bathed. There's memories of her gliding past me as she slides into the car while I hold the door. There's memories of dancing close. There's memories of her and me side by side on a couch and her head on my shoulder.

The scent of a woman is something one does not easily forget.

Penny Loafers in the Snow

“I sure wish I’d worn something more than this,” I thought to myself as I shoved my hands deeper into my letter jacket. And though the letter jacket was made with wool for the cold and a decent lining it wasn’t made for the temperature I was subjecting it and myself to just now.

Walking along the side of the road my shiny brown penny loafers didn’t offer much in the way of protection from the elements either.  What with the Levi blue jeans and the white cotton socks nothing below my waist seemed to be fairing all that well just now.  And even though I was walking along the edge of the road for the most part there was just enough snow here and there that I ended up stepping in that was now making my feet all that much colder.

The moon was shining and there seemed to be more stars in the sky than I’d ever seen before.  The cold of the night just seemed to make all the light from the heavens above just seem brighter.  Folks like me knew that tonight wasn’t what the natives called cold but rather it was pretty much a touch on the brisk side.  I was a native and I knew how cold the nights could get this time of year and so what wasn’t maybe more than fifteen or twenty above zero wasn’t really cold but in the moment it was damn brisk for sure.

I’d driven this stretch of US 12 & 16 countless times since I’d gotten my license some two years ago but I’d never walked it.  From New Lisbon to Mauston it was seven miles and I was never sure of whether that was from city limit to city limit or center to center.  But no matter I was doing my best to figure out how far I was from New Lisbon and a warm bed just now and as near as I could figure I likely had a good four miles to walk yet.

There isn’t really any place along that road that you can get a good long look in front or behind you but I was certain of one thing that Saturday night in December and that was that there hadn’t been any traffic on the road my whole walk and there didn’t look like there was any coming any time soon.

And so I did the only thing I could do, I just kept walking away from Mauston and toward New Lisbon all the while longing for the warmth of the car that had taken me there.

 

“Hey, you want to go to Mauston to the dance with us?”

She was an old girlfriend who very honestly it still hurt to look at or think about to any large degree.  Thing was in a school as small as ours you saw everyone pretty much all the time.  She’d gone on to doing other things with other folks and so had I but still there was a history with us and even if she’d gotten past it I certainly hadn’t.  So when she asked of course my first thought was that maybe, just maybe, she wanted to get back together with me which was something I sure hadn’t seen coming.

“Who’s going?” I asked hoping I didn’t sound too eager.

“Paula gets to use the car and so we were going to go to the dance in Mauston and I was wondering if you wanted to go along.”

“Yeah, sure, I don’t have anything else I’m doing so that would be great.” And now I was likely sounding a bit too eager but for all I knew there was a chance and a chance was more than enough when it came to the ladies and me.

“OK, it’ll be fun.  Meet us at 6,” were her instructions and then she was gone.

The next twenty-four plus hours took an eternity what with all the thoughts running through my head which at the time was the head of an eighteen year old male which is almost never a good thing.  The thought of getting back together with that blonde haired beauty was almost too much for me to imagine though imagine I did.

This was the girl that I had stood on top of that old dam across the Lemonweir River right in the center of all the while watching the water flow from somewhere I didn’t know to somewhere I wanted to know and singing to her. And though I don’t know if it would have ever made any difference in our relationship the fact was she never knew about that pathetic attempt at hoping somehow she would hear me and would know my heart.

But just now she was asking me to a dance.

Finally it was time to meet up and head out to the dance in Mauston which was something new for me.  Oh, I’d been to plenty of dances since I’d gotten my driver’s license as soon as I’d turned 16 but they were all in Hillsboro. 

And the truth was I was a bit apprehensive about going to Mauston especially since my chosen wardrobe in those days revolved solely around my letter jacket.  I was as proud of that letter jacket as I was of anything I called my own and I wore it with pride every place I went. Nothing had ever happened that might have suggested I shouldn’t be advertising where I was from and the like but still Mauston was a place I wasn't fanot so much for the town or the people but because they were almost twice our size and we could never beat them in anything we played against them.  To this day I wake up in cold sweats thinking about having to face that left handed throwing Bob Smart but that’s another story. And still as I left home that day I remember feeling a bit hesitant about going though I couldn’t put my finger on just why.

It took only an instant for me to understand loud and clear that this trip to a dance was not about “us” getting back together again since seating arrangements worked out to her and Paula in the front seat and me in the back.  If there was one thing I’d learned over my years as designated driver to the dances the only way something, anything was going to happen was if she was sitting next to you.  And in this case I was sitting very much alone.  Oh I did my best leaning forward and sticking my head in between their shoulders but it did me no good and in the end I settled back for the brief seven mile drive.

“Dang that heater works good,” I remember saying at one point.

To be honest with you the rest of the evening was and still is a blur only because we no sooner got there than I found myself alone.  I had no clue where the girls had gone and the fact was I didn’t know anyone though I recognized several of the guy’s faces from having gone up against them in football or basketball or baseball. 

I had dated a girl from Mauston the past spring and summer and part of me hoped to see her there while the other part dreaded the possibility.  She was the girl I’d made the right decision about and always wished that somehow I could have made the other choice with.  You see when on that fateful night I had kissed her and said no she’d not taken it well at all.  A few days later a letter was delivered to my house from her and that was that.

In the end the night was a complete waste for me in whatever way one can imagine a wasted night being.  From my perspective I was alone in enemy territory with no options evident to me.  I couldn’t even go up to a girl, ask her to dance and then ask her out for a burger and a Coke because, oh yeah, I didn’t have a car.  All the while my letter jacket seemed to be drawing more attention than I was comfortable with.  And still I wasn’t willing to take it off.

And that’s about the time I decided to go looking for the car since I sure couldn’t find the girls.

I knew where we’d parked, I knew exactly where we’d parked, and I was thinking that maybe the girls had found a couple guys and I’d find them in the car.  Yeah, that’s what happened, they met a couple guys and I’d find them out in the car.  I didn’t have to bother them, I just wanted to make sure of where my ride was.  I walked out into that December night only to find the space where the car had been parked empty.  Nothing.  No one.  Empty as empty could be.

Walking back inside I figured that they’d be back soon enough and everything would turn out alright.  So I’d just wait for them. And that’s what I did, I waited until the gym was empty and the band was packing up their equipment and I waited just a bit more.

When I was younger I’d had an aunt and uncle who lived in Mauston but they’d since moved on and the only other person I really knew there was Dawn and as a prideful eighteen year old male I sure wasn’t about to go knock on her door in the middle of the night.  So I started walking away from Mauston and toward New Lisbon.

 

“I sure wish I would have worn more than this,” I said to myself yet again.

“One foot in front of the other and stop thinking about how the toes are starting to smart just a bit.  It isn’t that much further and once you get to that hill by Walker’s place it’s all downhill anyways,” was the sort of dialogue I had going with myself now. 

“Yeah mom’s gonna be pissed big time but the important thing right now is to just get home.”

 

I’d given myself over to watching my feet as much as anything.  One step and then another. I knew it wasn’t like I was going to die out there or something but it was damn cold and I couldn’t figure out for the life of me how I was in this spot anyways and so I kept watching my feet when I wasn’t looking out ahead of me or behind me.  For all I knew the girls didn’t know where I was either and so pretty soon they’d be coming along. I could hope if nothing else.

The night was truly brilliant in the brightness of the moon and the stars and the snow truly did shimmer and shine.  Even in those days I wasn’t opposed to admiring those sorts of sights which likely is why I didn’t notice the car coming up behind me.  I was looking at the stars and the moon and thinking that I was getting closer to Walker’s place with every step.  The combination of ice and snow and gravel all crunching under my feet were the only sounds I was concentrating on as I wondered how I’d gotten myself in this mess.

The car passed by me slowing down as it did.  The brake lights came on and then the backup lights as it rolled back to where I was.  Stopping next to me I opened up the passenger’s door and felt the blast of the warm interior heat escaping past me.

The driver didn’t say anything at first and I stood there not sure what I to do.  He seemed to be studying me as if he wasn’t sure if he was going to give me a ride into town or not.  And I sure didn’t recognize him so I couldn’t just blurt out that I was glad to see him and thanks for stopping for me. It was one of those moments when you just stand there hoping for the best but figuring the worst is about to happen.

“You play basketball for New Lisbon don’t you?” he finally asked. “You’re a starter right?”

“Yes sir I do and I am,” I replied.

“Well, hop in and let’s get you home.”

With a very genuine thank you I jumped in and closed the door.  The warmth of the interior of that car was almost too much but I wasn’t about to complain.

“I go to most all the home games and I thought I recognized you.  Not sure I would have stopped otherwise.  How come you’re out here in the middle of the night walking along like that?”

I told him what had happened and he just nodded his head.

Walker’s place went by in a flash and then we were in the middle of New Lisbon between the old post office and the Times Argus building. He let me out, I thanked him and said I’d look for him at the next game.  He smiled, said OK and drove off.

If mom heard me get home I never heard about it.  Maybe having just turned eighteen put a different perspective on our relationship for her.  I walked upstairs, went to bed and though I did wonder what had happened to the girls and my ride that was about it.  I closed my eyes, went to sleep and in a few short hours was up and headed to church.

 

I never asked the girls about that night in Mauston and they never told me what had happened.  It didn’t matter mainly because the one real reason I’d gone was because I thought that maybe, just maybe, something old would be made new again.

 

It was my senior year in high school and I’ll always believe our basketball should have been better than what it ended up being.  We were never bad but we were never that good either and it always puzzled me.  True our center had gone through this growth spurt and what some of us took for granted was at times a bit of a challenge for him when it came to moving side to side and the like.  Our forwards were both, in their own ways, fine high school basketball players.  The one was almost hard as nails and could jump like gravity didn’t concern him.  The other had been my best friend and as far as I was concerned he was as good as they come.  Besides, as the point guard the one thing I always knew for certain whether I could see him or not was where he would be on the court.  Our other guard was a year younger than the four of us but he was as tough as they come, quick as greased lightning and when he had the chance as good a shooter as we had.  We were good or so I thought but it seemed that in the end there were a lot of other teams that were better so our record sure didn’t end up looking that good.

 

It wasn’t until much later that I ever stopped and thought about that night walking home in the cold and snow from Mauston to New Lisbon that it hit me. I never saw the man that gave me the ride home at one of our games.  He’d said he recognized me as a starter and that he went to most all the home games and yet when I looked for him I never saw him. 

In looking back on it all I have to be honest and tell you I sometimes wonder what really happened that night out there on US 12 & 16 just about halfway between Mauston and New Lisbon.

A Fly Rod and Life

For the first time ever the fly line did exactly what I thought it should do as it looped backwards in a long folded arc and when I swept the fly rod forward with the rolling of my wrist I knew without seeing that the line with the small popper attached would follow the trajectory I had intended for it.  And so it did.  I watched as the line sailed forward following the direction of the tip of the pole and began to fall gently on the surface of the water.  The brown line stretched out away from the boat and directly toward the right side of the lily pad where I’d just seen a swirl on the surface of the water.  The red bodied and yellow feather tailed wooden popper came to rest exactly where I’d aimed.  And there it floated as I admired my skill at casting with a fly rod.

“Not half bad,” I thought to myself, “for being self-taught.”

How many times had I watched folks like Curt Gowdy or Jim McKay standing in the middle of some Colorado or Montana or Wyoming river fly fishing for trout and wondered what it would be like to pull out yards and yards of line, create that long loop and manage to drop the lure right where you wanted?

Well, now I knew.

The popper lay there motionless exactly where I’d seen what I was certain had to be a bluegill that had just sucked some hapless insect off the surface of the water.  It sat there for seconds and more seconds as I waited for what I knew had to be the perfect end to a perfect cast.  And I waited some more.

The problem with being self-taught in any expertise is that far too often you don’t really get all the little things that go along with making the big thing look so easy.  You know those little nuances that have been learned over years of trial and error and figuring out what works and what doesn’t.  When I watched this guy or that on television throwing their line out at their target spot it always seemed to me that no sooner had the lure landed than they were setting the hook in whatever it was they were fishing for.  It never occurred to me in my earliest of teens that what I was seeing came from hours of filming and then editing to get the exciting stuff out there on the air while the rest of it lay on the cutting room floor.  There would be cast upon cast until finally there was the one that landed just so and drifted past that rock where that rainbow was just waiting for its’ next meal.  It was all those other attempts at winning the prize that I never saw and thus came to believe that they were simply that much better than me. 

I’d never be that good.  I’d never be able to read a river like they could.  I’d never make that perfect cast to that perfect spot.  So why was I even trying?

But just now I’d made what I’d swear was the perfect cast to the perfect spot.  I waited as patiently as I could with nerves on edge and muscles taunt for that swirl I knew had to be coming.  And I waited.

There were just about enough things that I was doing wrong in that moment as any kid who thought he knew it all and then some could have been doing wrong.  For starters I probably shouldn’t have been out there in that slough behind Rothe’s Ice Plant in my father’s boat.  I shouldn’t have been standing up in that 14 foot aluminum boat with a 5 horse Johnson motor and trying to become an expert fly caster.  And I sure shouldn’t have had my father’s split bamboo fly rod with the South Bend automatic reel out there in the middle of the water backed up by the dam just northwest of 80 on the Lemonweir River.  I had raided my dad’s tackle box, sneaked out the door with his fly rod and reel which I’d never seen him use, pushed the boat off the bank of the river and paddled out to an opening in the lily pads maybe fifty yards from shore.  It was there that I was doing my best to become an expert fly fisherman and having zero luck.

On that warm summer day I was not alone on this particular piece of the Lemonweir River.  Some 100 yards off to the west was another boat with another fisherman standing up in their boat and casting not a fly rod but a good old casting rod and reel. Even from this distance it was obvious it was the sort of gear you used to go after the larger fish in this river, the walleye and the northern pike in particular though a bass might be found on occasion.  From the glint of the lure being used my guess was it was something metal and that almost had to mean they were using a Daredevil of one sort or another.  And that meant only one thing; they were looking for Northerns. Oh yes I had spent hours in the back of Robinson’s Hardware Store studying the array of lures all neatly packaged and organized and I was confident I knew my lures even from a distance.

From this distance I couldn’t be certain who the other fisherman was but I had a pretty good idea.  Even though the town was small by most anyone’s standards the fact was I didn’t, nor would I ever, know all the folks living there but sooner or later I’d hear something about just about everyone.  In this case I was pretty sure that the fisherman (these days the term fisherperson seems to be the acceptable description) almost certainly had to be Gertie.  One thing I knew about her was that she was a fisherman but I’d also heard other things that didn’t really make a lot of sense to me but because they were said in hushed tones I was fairly certain there was something “bad” about her.

And that’s how it was in that little town, in that impoverished county, in that state and most of the nation in those days.  If a person was somehow different according to those around them then there was going to be problems and nothing anyone did was going to change that.  The looks and the whispers would go on and on and in the end I’m not so sure that even the strong could truly survive.

I went back to my fly rod and the popper I’d thought I’d so expertly laid out there for that pound plus bluegill that I knew was circling somewhere just beneath those lily pads and right under my lure.  I twitched the line ever so lightly causing the popper to dance on the water just a bit as if injured and ready to be Mr. Bluegills’ next meal.  Nothing happened.  So it was called a popper for reason so let’s see what happens if I give it a short, sharp tug.

“Gullup,” is what I heard which  pleased me but ultimately seemed completely unimpressive to that state record bluegill I knew had to be lurking out there and was only there to taunt me.  And taunt me it did as again and again I cast to this spot and that spot out there around those lily pads and every time the same result, nothing.

I was certain I’d heard my dad say something one time about Gertie being about the best fisherman there was out there on the Lemonweir and I’d finally worn myself out enough that I was thinking I needed a new plan but I had nothing.  Maybe I could row over to where she was and if she was as good as my dad said she was I might get some pointers and before you knew that state record bluegill would be mine.  That’s what was going through my head as I sat there more than a little frustrated and watching back over my shoulder to see Gertie casting and reeling her lure in over and over again.  She kept at it with an obvious purpose as if she knew that sooner rather than later that river would give up one of its’ treasures from beneath the waters’ surface.

I didn’t know her and being young and not knowing someone older than yourself and wanting to just go up and talk to them was not done I had been told time and time again and in fact it could be a very dangerous thing to do.  You didn’t talk to strangers no matter what and that was simply that.  And so I didn’t give in to what my gut was telling me which was to hoist up my anchor and just row over to her, introduce myself and ask her how I was supposed use this fly rod and the popper out there at the end of my line.  Somehow I knew that she would know and I would be the better for having asked and learned from the expert.  Still, she was the unknown and for me that meant danger.

And so I sat there anchored in one place while behind me Gertie would take an push an oar and turn her boat one way and then the other oar to shift slightly the other all the while working with the little bit of current that was in this bit of back water.  She was slowly working her way toward the main channel but she was in no hurry.  There was this patch of lily pads to cast to and around and there was that old log that had made it to this spot in the river that needed more than a little examining with her Daredevil.  And she would cast, wait a moment and then begin to reel the lure back to her with a quick twitch of the pole this way and a jerk of the pole the other.

“I should go,” I thought to myself and grabbed the rope to pull up the anchor.  I wasn’t going to catch anything today and I wasn’t going to go ask Gertie if she could help me.  She was getting closer now anyways and I was probably in her way so I really should go.

She’d drifted within thirty yards of where I’d been trying my level best to coax the new state record bluegill from when I turned to look at her.  She was wearing bib overalls with short hair and wearing a ball cap.  Women didn’t wear ball caps as far as I knew.  And so now I knew for certain that she was different, that the whispers had something to them and I probably didn’t want to get too close to her.

I sit back and grabbed the oars to head for the safety of shore when suddenly I hear her grunt and her pole suddenly dropped toward the waters’ surface.  She pulled back and the water erupted twenty feet out from her boat.  The battle is brief and somehow amazingly efficient as I watch her reach for her net and with one hand on the pole and the other on the net she lifts the Northern Pike out of the water and into her boat.  Today I would say it was all very businesslike and nothing like the sorts of fish versus fisherman I’d seen on television.  But in that moment I didn’t have words for what I’d just witnessed.

And almost as quickly she lifted her catch up out of the net with the lure still in its mouth and her fingers in its gills.  She held it up to me, this young boy who was afraid to even come close to her, and standing there in her overalls and baseball cap she smiled at me.

There are so many moments in life you wish you could relive and maybe, just maybe, you might do something different.  That was one of those moments when I wish the prejudice and fear that had been placed in me by a world of simple people with unfounded fears and prejudices of their own might have been replaced by a courage I couldn't find within me.  But the truth is I know I wouldn’t have done anything different.  I would have done exactly what I’d been programmed to do when faced with something or someone different and that was to row back to the shore as quickly as I could and find the safety of solid ground and believe that I was safe.

My path never crossed Gertie’s again.  I never saw her on the river and I never knew what she did in her life.  I do seem to recall that she got a photograph of her and that Northern Pike in the local newspaper as I would that summer with a sucker I caught just below the dam that was almost as big as me.  But mine was a sucker and Gertie’s was a Northern Pike in that four foot range and everyone knew who the fisherman was.

The fly rod and the reel now reside with me and the truth is I’ve never caught a thing with it though I cherish them dearly.  I love the memory of pulling out the line and first with a large swing of the wrist and arm and then smaller, more gentle ones, I would work the line and the lure as close to my desired target as I possibly could.  The flow and the rhythm and watching the line curl up and out only to softly, almost silently fall out and away from me on the waters’ surface.

Still more than that I love what that fly rod taught me all those years ago though it took me a very long time to understand what I’d been taught.  I learned that those moments to learn, to experience something new in my life, to drop my defenses and take a chance, to let go of my fear if only for a moment come seldom at best.  To have simply smiled back at the woman wearing the overalls and baseball cap, holding her catch up to me and smiling at me might have broken down walls that would instead remain upright and strong for years to come. 

I never knew the real story of Gertie but I came to understand that the things that had been whispered, whether I understood what they meant or not, didn’t matter when it came to the person.  I could very likely have learned a lot about fishing from Gertie had I only rowed over to her when my gut told me it was the right thing to do.  Yeah, I might have learned a lot about fishing and maybe a bit about life as well.

Dad said she was the best fisherman on the river but that smile as she held that fish up for me to see said she was a whole lot more than that.

The Man I Thought Had Died Speaks

I'll be honest with you, I really wish I was one of those sophisticated, educated and experienced folks who writes for a living and knows just how to put all the words together. I'm not and I'm never going to be but I do have stories to tell, moments that touch the very depths of me. The truth is that in those moments when I am left with tears in my eyes and a humbleness within my soul that begs the question whether or not I am worthy of such moments I sometimes hear a voice that softly speaks to me and says it's alright to share. To be honest with you I worry about that voice and so more often than not I keep those moments to myself.

But there are times when I don't.


Why do you end up where you end up? What is it that finds you one day staring at yourself and wondering how in hell you ever wound up where you are?

The good Lord knows I could point fingers in just about enough directions that it would take a NASA engineer to figure out where I was really pointing. And in the end that might not be even close to the real reason for most all of it. Life happens and that's about as much as can be said most often. You do what you do and sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

And yes I do know what I'm talking about because the simple, unvarnished truth of it all is that it didn't work out for me. I missed the mark so many times that I'm pretty sure that even the powers that be stopped counting. There were road signs along the way that literally glowed at me and yet I ultimately walked, sometimes damn near sprinted, right on by them. Why? Now that's the question isn't it?

Life happens and the only thing I know for certain is that it can't be viewed forward but there sure seems to be a hell of a good view through the rear view mirror.


In days now long gone he'd been a farmer. Nowadays I know that's what he'd still call himself but the truth is he isn't. These days he's a man who's been retired for a few years and when the winter comes to the Midwest he and his bride of 52 years travel south to Arizona and a timeshare in Scottsdale. And that's where I met him several years ago. And that's where I came to think of him as a friend. I'd missed him and his wife a year ago and I'd heard that he'd had some health issues. The truth is I'd heard he'd had a stroke and that was as much as I knew. In fact the way the news came to me I thought that he hadn't made it. There was no way that I knew of to figure out the truth of it all and so as this season of the "Snowbird" came into being again with no sightings of them I thought the worst and accepted it.

She was taking some things out of her car as I was passing by and it struck me that she looked familiar. The number of people I see week in and week out has left me realizing that there's a whole lot of folks out there that look like other folks and then she called out, "Wally".

"Oh my God it's her!" I thought to myself.

I find myself thinking that I'm so proud of her to come back here on her own and all of that when she invites me in and says that he'd love to see me if I have the time. Do I have the time?!!? Yeah, I have the time.

And that's how I found myself talking to a man I thought had died.

The funny thing about it is that as he told me that at one point he just said it was time to let go and move on but he didn't. I'm not sure why but that's when we began to talk about some of the things that, when you get right down to the bottom line of everything, really matter. The things that we all do tend to gloss over and yet are so much of the honesty of life. We talked about what he has come to realize matters, really matters, and how the rest is just (my words here) fluff and distraction.

To hear this man who'd likely always depended on little more than himself as he turned to his wife with tears in his eyes and talk of how he'd come to realize how much she meant to him and how much he loves her for who she is and what she does each and every day for him was humbling.

And when I told him that I knew he'd do the same for her if things were different I will never ever forget how he looked right at her and said, "Yes I would." And there could be no doubt about the sincerity of his words.

I listened and I did my best to take in what I was hearing from both of them and I know that I've already lost much of what was shared. Still, what lingers for me is what came toward the end of our conversation; the feeling from both of them that so much of what we always tell ourselves is important simply isn't.

I read something from Willie Nelson about how one is happy in their life. I'll paraphrase very poorly but admit that this is how I took what he said, "If you want to be happy in your life then be happy in this moment for this moment is all you have. If you are happy in this moment then you are happy in your life."

We think we need to be this or that and we need to have this and that and if only we can have this other thing over there then... And yet what I learned today from a man who thought he was dead and the woman standing beside him is that what you really need is each other.


Over the days and weeks to come I'll be blessed to have moments when I will sit and talk with the two of them again. I will do my best to listen.