2012-Anxiety

We are standing on the edge of 2012 and I got to say, there is a lot of anxiety about it. Anxiety is just fluff unless there is some meat to it, some reality to go with our anxiety, and it looks like there is some of that to support our worries. A lot, as a matter of fact, like a whole herd of it.

The economy is starting to crawl out of the mire, unless of course, the European market tanks, which it probably will, sending us back into an even deeper tail spin. There's some good news for people struggling to keep or even find a job.

How about another earthquake like the one in Japan that we all got to see whole towns get slowly washed away. Like it was some bad NFL film in slow-motion, only this one was real.

Lets not forget the election of a new president or keeping the old one. You get two people pointing their fingers in the exact opposite direction and BOTH are telling the truth, at least a part of it is true, and its up to the voting public to figure out what part. That just makes the elections in November kinda sporty.

Of course you have to add in those wacky Mayans and their calendar ending on December 21st, symbolically meaning the end of the world. Couldn't it also mean they may have just run out of paper? Hmm? I mean, how far should they have carried out their calendar? When is too many days enough days for everyone to get the idea?

Add to all this the polar caps are melting and polar bears may become extinct; well there ya go, enough worries for all of us. So, what do we do?

We just need to love each other.

Yep, love. I said the 'L' word. This from a guy who thinks the use of a 2x4 along some of our politicians heads would be really good about now. We link arms and love each other. Now, if you know me you would know I am talking about love like god kind of love but what about finding that president of Iran a good woman? Huh? Bat-crap crazies need love too. Or all those Ayatollahs-have them find a woman that will peel her scarf away from her face long enough to give that guy a wink and a smile and he will forget all about being friends with the Al Queda-guaranteed.

How about when we get stressed, we call a friend and say "Hey, its me. I'm stressed." How about if we share that? Then the friend comes over and they sit outside and drink some soda and talk about crap? Or we take a kid who's dad or mom is over seas, divorced, dead and we go to a ball game, a burger, or just to Costco and they ride on the cart while we push?

If we are at the top of the food chain financially, it isn't far or even hard to fall to the bottom. Those at the bottom or in the middle can attest to that. It doesn't take a lot to stumble and hit bottom. The difference between me and that guy holding the cardboard on the corner can sometimes be tracked to one bad choice-that led to a second, then a third.

So what else can we do? Well, actually, that could be enough, oh, wait. We need to do one more thing. We all need to send President Ahmadinajad the link to E-Harmony. Hey, it could work.

Windows

It's early Christmas day. I couldn't sleep. Actually, the two dogs woke me. Sometimes, they need to climb up on the bed and curl up on the corner. Of course each weigh about eighty pounds and they take up more than the corner. Somehow, we all wind up back asleep, at least for awhile. This time, however, they got me up, wide awake, walking the quiet halls and kitchen, looking out the window, overlooking the street and the front yard.

A year ago, there was a different tune-a different dance. We were all running this time last year with the thought of one of our own so far away and yet was able to come home. A new grandchild on the way. We had jobs an fairly free of illnesses. This year was so much better?

So, I stood there in the kitchen, looking out at an empty street with random decorative lights, frost on the lawn-quiet. It wasn't so different. The same lawn, the same random lights, maybe a different neighbor or two, and our own was home, but still pretty much the same.

I don't want it to be the same.

There is a line in the movie, Miracle on 34th Street  where Santa is talking to the store manager about whether he really exists. The manager, if you remember the movie, is a sad sort and wanted everyone to be as sad as she was. She had trust issues, like the rest of us. He told her he was symbolic for hope, peace, there's a chance of a better life in this rough time some of us live. Nice, but how do you tell someone who lost a child, a home, a job-"Hey, Santa says there is hope, peace, there is a chance a better way. Thanks for listening. Have a good day under that bridge with your mental illness."

Yeah, you don't. Unless--there is. Unless there is actual hope, peace, a chance at both. Funny thing, as I found myself getting older, both of those elements weigh heavily with me. We opened our presents last night and I got a package of socks. Not just any package, a dozen white socks!! Now, right now, if you are a man, particularly a middle-aged man and you heard that present, you are drooling a little out of the corner of your mouth. I sat in a chair in the back and watched the rest of the family, particularly the grand kids open some of their stuff. I watched their parents. I like watching people-no not from an alley with binoculars. I use to do that-not anymore.

What can we be content with? How about being known for who we are? With all our garbage and issues; with all our baggage and our cabinets full of lotions. What if we were accepted-just the way we are? How would that change the running for the brass ring?

The tile floor in the kitchen was cold. I like to turn down the heat at night so little icicles form on the ceiling. I got a drink of water and walked back to bed, trying not to stub my toes on anything. Have you ever gotten up at night, half asleep, trying to take care of business without waking fully, only to stub your food on a chair, bringing you way beyond awake? Well, thinking about doing it does the same thing. Anyway, I crawled back into bed, pushing one dog out of my spot where she found my body heat had warmed it to a nice temp. She grumbled and then moved back to the foot of the bed.

Sometime in the next day or so, go stand at a window before dawn and take a look outside. See if you see it. See if you want to see it.

Merry Christmas.

T'is the Season to be a Ninja!

There are few things I do right. There are even fewer things I do well. But when I have to go shopping and  its this time of year-shopping alone,  I'm like a ninja!

Yesterday, I was able to slide into the mall, access my predetermined target, and egress the zone, arriving back to my car and pulling out on the street in a total time of fourteen minutes! I was like a F-15 Strike Eagle, covertly arriving at a back, not well known parking lot, hitting the door and sliding inside. Sometimes, when I am walking, and truly in the zone, I am flying at low altitude, in and out of the racks of clothes, flying my mission well under the radar.

The ninja (yes, ninjas fly Strike Eagles-geez) slid passed the elderly couple as they approached the front door to the store, hitting one of the other doors while simultaneously, reaching into my pocket, finding some change-any change, and plopping into the red bucket operated by the only witness to my parking, the Salvation Army Bell Ringer. I bought his silence and his gratitude with whatever landed in the pot. He was now on my side.

I walked quickly, yet silently, my Asic-gels making me almost invisible to normal ears. Then, the first problem.

I had to pee.

Mentally, I had predetermined that was going to be an issue. Its always an issue. I'm fifty-three. It is just a precursor to my future in life.

I mentally suppressed it. Besides, the nearest restroom did not appear in my vision as I moved  like a panther through the men's section and the bushes just outside were, well, just outside.

That's what a ninja would do-use the bushes or mentally suppress it. I had a mission and I was going to complete it.

There is a fairly well known law of shopping for women. If you land close on the purchase, chances are, you will win. What I mean by that is, for example, if she wants jeans and you get her something close to what she wants, like in the same color spectrum, she'll be happy. Why? Because she gets to take it back and go shopping and get something she really wanted and it probably won't be jeans. You do it enough times, she will come home with a new bedroom set. That's when you know you went too far.

I'm not going to give you all the facts of the mission. There is some deeply classified stuff I can't share. I won't share. We shopping ninjas are a very closed mouth group. We pass down our lore from generation to generation. My son, for example, already pees behind bushes, not at his own home. For the rest of you, the best I could suggest, the only real help you have-

Shop on line.

As for the rest of the ninja warrior shopping crowd remember-

'Domo shitsu aragato wasabi'
I would like fries with that

The First Week of New Choices

After watching and actually participating in the melee that was Black Friday, I've noticed we all now have hit a lull in the frenzy. There is this time right after that experience, that settles for a moment all things, right before we swallow hard and strap on our backpacks and head out again.

Except we don't have to.

Something, over the years, has caused us to go bigger, better, faster, whatever. We want that thing or this thing , the green one or the red one. Then, after the heroine is in the mainstream, we lose our craving and our desire for those things we were beating our drums to get. Of course, we had to buy the drum first-the red one.

I know, I know, its easy talk for a middle-aged guy to say. I've had my run. Get out of the way old man and let us have our shot at that 32 inch on sale in the meat department at Walmart. There is something terribly wrong with that picture. Its kind of like making that heroine deal in the dirty restroom of a old neighborhood gas station, only the rump roast is on sale.

What if the kid gets only three presents instead of ten? What would happen? What if your partner gets you a bag of socks and underwear-something we, as men, always seem to need but never buy for ourselves. What if everyone comes over for a game of yard darts and cinnamon rolls and really good coffee? I got to tell you, I can't remember last year's presents. I do remember one of my three kids was in a war zone.  Priorities.

What if, for Christmas morning, we got up and went for a walk-a long walk, maybe in a park, early so the morning colors were the most vibrant? What if the family down the street, whose single mother just had her hours cut, wakes up with a fully decorated tree on her front porch and not only some well needed presents for her kids under it, but something for her?

What if that kid at school you teach at wanted to buy a gift for his dying grandma, but didn't have the money and he comes in the next day and you give him a wrapped gift, tellingl him someone must have overheard his conversation because you found this in your mailbox with a note on it to give it to him (high school kids are pretty gullible).

Look, I'm not saying we shouldn't get caught up in the wave of free enterprise; we're 'Mericans forcrissake! But with that said, no one knows the true cost of where we live like us. We take care of the world and who better to take care of our own other than us? And here is the fun thing-you feel like you just won the lottery.

I don't know, maybe not. Maybe its all just a stage and we're the players. Oh, but what a play!

Just a Quick Note about this Weekend

It is Sunday of Veteran’s Day weekend and I’m sad-despondent-a little angry-whatever the magic word is for the three day weekend coming to an end.

I understand that I should be grateful about having a job, being able to earn money, have insurance, all that stuff. That’s not what I’m talking about. Anyone working would probably be having the same thoughts to some degree. The weekend, a calm, soothing, rainy weekend in Phoenix (sunny warm day in London or Seattle) with some soft music playing and two dogs laying their heads on your feet, kind of gives you a good feeling that you don’t want to go away. But there was something else.

Last year, our son, brother to my daughters, newly married husband to our daughter-in-law was not here. He was about one third of his way through his second tour of the Sand Box. This time, he was an advisor in Iraq’s beautiful city of Basrah. There was a lump in our lives that was missing.

This Veteran’s Day, he was home.

And we all danced.

There is a guilt feeling to not be happy, to not express happiness when so many families have lost so much or have people away. I had to think about this letter before I posted it. The answer was clear.

That’s why they went, so we could-dance. Americans are happy, caring, loving, sacrificial people who will give up their lives so some people can experience what we have. That-is called love by the way. So, it would be wrong to do anything else, to honor those veterans, living or dead, with anything other than a good time feeling, a party, a celebration, a quiet morning with a good cup of coffee and two dogs asleep on your feet as long as in the back of our consciousness, we know who wrote the check. My son and those like him purchased this day for us. It’s not about politics or 20% off at Kohls, at least not with these people.

So from now until the day we leave this planet, when we find one of these guys, thank them for the day, whether it’s a good day or not, it’s our day to make what we want with it.

Time to Start Running

Okay, Halloween is over and t'is the Christmas Season. Actually, according to Walgreen's, Christmas started back in August. I can't write much here because, well, I have to start running. I won't stop until the day after Christmas. That's just the way it is, but, I have made some decisions. See if you don't agree.

• Our family adopted the idea, a few years ago, to go out on Black Friday. Sure, it was fun once, maybe even twice, but now its getting up at 0-butt-crack of pre-dawn to go observe the Free Enterprise system at its annual birth. The Occupy's would crap baby kittens if they saw this. I said I can't write much because my new thing is to read the Black Friday press 'leaks' about what is for sale. Supposedly a big secret. Yeah, right. Hey, if it saves me ANYTHING I'm all for it.

• We are having Thanksgiving back at our house. Seventy-five hundred people are coming over. I'm thinking name tags would be nice, just on the grand kids. I don't give a hoot about the others. As long as they put the toilet seat down and take home the crap they bring, we're good. I do need to learn to 'let it go' so to speak. My motto at work is be the kelp-you know, ebbing back and forth with the tide. Go with the flow. Toilet seat, that is goin' with the flowin', oh, and don't miss either. Its a big target--hit it!

• This year, like every year, we are in charge of the turkey, I am forced--FORCED to buy a free range, organic free turkey from the foo-foo market. They're like three dollars more a pound then Jennie-O's. As a matter of fact, those bad boys are on sale for fifty-five cents a pound this week!! Why, tell me why, am I not buying one of those--I am this year. Yep! I saved the hand woven crate those free rangers came in last year and I'm going to put the Jennie in that and sneak it in the house saying so all could hear "HEY, HERE I AM WITH OUR VERY EXPENSIVE ORGANICALLY MASSAGED UGLIESTBIRDONTHEWHOLEPLANET. LOOK, I CARE WHAT YOU EAT SO I SPENT ALL THIS MONEY ON A THING THAT WE WILL ONLY BE EATING FOR 12-17 MINUTES BUT TAKES US SIX DAYS TO PREPARE."  Yeah, I timed it over the last few years. Thanksgiving, actual eat time, is only that long. That didn't even include dessert. That is right before the two hour clean up.

• That leads me to my next item, clean up. Everything is throw away this year. I don't care what the environmentalist say, paper products smeared with turkey and gravy decompose faster in the landfill. I swear. I want clean up to be less than one hour and only one run of the dishwasher. AND if you brought it, you're taking it home. There are just two of us living here now and I don't want your rhubarb pie. I don't want your homemade pumpkin pie either. Those are never as good as a store bought anyway. When you figure in time to make and then the applied eat time as listed above, the return is crappy. If it was a mutual fund, there would be a sell order on it.

• This year we, like last year, picked names in our family for gift exchange. We also shrunk the amount to spend, with a grand kid  exemption. I am bringing back the gift coupon idea which is always labeled as cold or uncaring. No, its perfect! Because if you buy actual stuff, your amount includes tax. You always have to count the tax-what is the final bill when you buy that pair of socks? $9.99 listed is not the final price. It's $10.87. You short your gift exchanger out of $.87 cents worth of crap. Bad form I say. Give the Gift of Pureness. Besides, you can get them on line.

These are just a few of my main points. You might have your own. The bottom line is to make a bottom line. Have some standards. Draw the line in the sand so to speak. But, just make sure you are nowhere near the entrance to Walmart when they open the doors at 3:00am. You might get trampled.

Ohhhh, that would be worth getting up and seeing!!

This is what I want in our next President

We need to really sit down and decide what we want to see with regards to the upcoming election for our next tribal chief of this here United States. The next few months, the folks here and around the world are going to be buried with debates and news accounts of what those running for the top office want us to believe about them and why they should get the nod and the keys to the little black briefcase with all the codes.

None of that is important.

Look, we need to focus on the real meat and potatoes of the job and what we really want to see from the supreme leader. If you think about it, they will tell us what we want to hear then carry on with whatever they want to do. Sure, it might effect the world economy, jobs, national security, none of that is the crux of the matter. Below, are some of what I think are the real important aspects of our presidency that we have not seen in recent memory. We need a president who models a life like ours. Here are the character traits and modeling of the man or woman who I want in the White House. Go on, tell me I'm wrong.

I want a president who will eat off a paper plate. Not one of those Chinet paper plates that are reinforced and are so strong you can have soup on them and they won't break. I'm talking about one of those real flimsy ones that you can buy seven thousand of for a buck-those kind. And he or she is eating a chili dog, a really big, nasty, chili dog. As a matter of fact, they eat a lot of chili dogs. They really like chili dogs.

I want a president who will wear some other color than white for a dress shirt. Come on, mix it up. If its a woman president, step away from the business suit. You're not a man, you're a woman! Its okay to be a woman and look like a woman with your finger on the red button. Both need to be shopping at Target, maybe even something from those big tables at Costco.

I want the next president to have a barbecue grill on the grounds some where. Nothing fancy, there is just you and your spouse and maybe a kid or two. You don't need some big built in. Something on wheels like a Thermos or a nice Char-Broil, couple of burners and maybe that side burner for your beans. You wouldn't even have to chain it to a tree. If you have the family over, you set up a folding table with some folding chairs and eat outside if the weather is nice. And that Marine standing guard at the door, make sure he has something to eat too-oh, don't forget the guys on the roof.

While the grill is heating up, I want to see the president flip a Frisbee or a ball for his dog. Take her out on the south lawn and really let loose. But I don't want to see them using those ball throwers either. You've seen them; they're like a sling you put the ball in and fling it. That way, you don't get dog slobber on your hands-GET DOG SLOBBER ON YOUR HANDS! And I don't want to see any rare breed of dog, something no one in America would have or afford. I want them to go to the pound and pick one out. Get one with some meat and character to it. Maybe one with a half missing ear, or bull-legged. Then give it a real name, like Mitch or Buckethead if its a boy or Margret if its a girl. We, the people, don't need you naming your dog to make us feel good. We know all about political correctness and naming your dogs Liberty or Freedom. Those are dorky dog names. Don't do that.

I want to see the president, sitting in the oval office, sitting at the desk that so many presidents have sat at, with a cup of coffee. Have you ever noticed every time we see the president sitting there, there is nothing on the desk? Come on, a nice Sumatran black in a mug. This is where dorkiness is cool. Have the mug with your kid or grand kid's picture on it, like the ones you get at the fair. How about working through lunch, sitting right there at your desk, signing some bills, having your chili dog on a paper plate and a soda. Sure, you're eating on an antique. So, use a coaster.

I want to see a president that will drive himself somewhere. Put the Secret Service in the back and you take the wheel. I am sure we couldn't get away with not driving the big limo, but maybe sometime, take the '98 Buick Electra out for that meeting with the Jamaican Prime Minister. That would be cool-tossing the keys to the valet and telling him you'll only be a minute.

I want a president who will be the first one to respond to a national catastrophe, Like the hurricane in New Orleans or flooding in Vermont. We don't need some big Show and Tell thing where the governor is walking the president around showing what everone is doing. Everyone knows what is going on. We can see it on TV. I don't even want the governor to know the president is there. I just want the president to show up in boots and jeans, a t-shirt and a John Deere ball cap and start filling sandbags. Someone looks over at him and says "Damn, anyone ever tell you you look like that guy, what's his name?"

They smile and say "Nope, no one ever did." And they just keep filling bags. And you do it for hours, not for some photo op. You are there filling a need-and sand bags.

I want a president who isn't afraid to say out loud what they are thinking inside. Like when that Iranian nut job talks at the U.N.; wouldn't it be great if the president followed him and merely said while he points at the Iranian guy, "That guy right there is bat-shit crazy!" And then they sit down.

I would like to see a president stop his motorcade (if he's driving the Electra he can just pull over) at an ATM and use one-and only get like $20. That's all he really needs for the day. Its not like he's buying lunch for anyone other than himself. OH-WAIT- what if he goes through a drive through and pulls up, orders, then asks his driver, "Hey Pete, what do you want, come on, I'm buying." That would be cool.

While he's throwing the ball for the dog, the president is drinking their favorite beverage and using one of those cozies, you know, those foam things to keep your drink cool. It's old and beat up and from some trucking firm in the Midwest.

Maybe on a nice night, we see the President sitting on the second story balcony, in a lawn chair, with their feet up on the rail. We never see anyone on that second story balcony.

Yep, I would vote for a president who was like this. They are regular people. Like my neighbor only in a nicer and bigger house. The other stuff will take care of itself. At least we would know the guy or gal driving the wagon is one of us; flawed, tempered, human. They aren't some figment of someones imagination. They are just like us, trying to make life a little better for the rest of us. That's all.

Just a little better.

Band of Brothers with Moves Like Jagger

I like the music that's out now. I am a big country music fan. But there is music out now that is pretty good with actual lyrics you can hear-one, I never really pay attention to and two, with age, is increasingly hard unless I turn my head. We had a real dry spell with rap with artists who were swallowing their microphones and, unless you were fourteen, couldn't understand what they were saying.

My older brothers have moves like Jagger as the jaunty tune says. When the three of us go to weddings, we form a small herd, have a nice, aged, beverage, and wait for our song-Shout. Then, we are called to the dance floor like the aged left-handed pitcher of twenty years, being called out of the dugout to save the last inning of the World Series; like George Blanda driving the last five minutes of the Super Bowl, throwing the touchdown pass then taking his forty-seven year old leg and kicking the field goal.

We're like Stormin' Norman.

The crowd doesn't know we've been carbo loading for these events for the required forty-eight hours before and two of us are wearing knee braces. We've talked seriously about whether or not we should do Depends or just double up on our underwear. We come from the darkness and the crowd circles and we bless the wedding. No, really, marriages have the possibility of being a train wreck without us dancing to Shout. Shamans from all over the world write us and ask us to come. If only Arnold and Maria had us at their wedding, they'd still be married and opening a food kitchen somewhere.

But the Band is getting, well, old. I'm the youngest at fifty-three then you got the other two at sixty-two and sixty-five. The brother at sixty-five is in better shape then the other two. He is fighting age with hammers in both hands. We go to weddings and he never leaves the dance floor. Makes me tired just watching him. He doesn't listen to the lyrics either. None of the brothers do. We can't do that and concentrate on not getting hip-displasia. If we fall, we ain't getting up. Its a survival thing, but every once in a while, some words come through that are simple, concise, to the point, and sometimes will make us snort corn out our nose.

You got artists like Lady Gaga and Katie Perry leading the way. It's funny anyone can make a zillion dollars off the the various forms of the words yeah...yeah or hey, hey, hey the latter of which always has to be said in three's. The Band, if nothing, is hip, we're in the groove; in the know; we know what's shakin'.

We know that ...yeah tonight baby... means that something is going to happen tonight. Why can't it happen during the day, when we're awake? We're with you, we know-as long as it happens before nine. See, at nine, its bed time, sleepy time. Maybe that's what they mean. Oh man, bed with cold sheets and a good book, unconscious by nine-fifteen. Oh, yeah baby.

Then you got ...locked up like Lindsey Lohan...which is just a reminder to live a good life instead of one with the constant threat of DUI's and cavity searches. Frankly, when that song comes on the radio, you can't help but tap the dashboard of your Audi (when you're over fifty, you buy Audis).

Sometimes, just because its old doesn't mean its washed up. The great philosopher and money manager, M.C. Hammer with his classic, Can't Touch This causes the listener to ask 'touch what?'

What Katie or Lady should think about is maybe replacing such enigmatic word combos as ...fill me with your poison... with ...passion burns like never before.... Both seem to require a series of antibiotic booster shots. But we need to keep it real. Music listeners are smart people, we know what is true and what isn't, come on.

No twenty-five year old believes they are a tiger she wants to tame and if you are over forty-five, you are tamed. You just want to curl up with a good book or find a comfy chair with two fingers of Jack Daniels (black label of course) and an old John Wayne movie.

Lyrics like ...all night long...have no application to the older set unless we're flying high cover for a patrol in the Sandbox, waiting for our granddaughter to be born, or are having a serious discussion about the number of trips to the bathroom during our sleep cycle. And for the young, come on, who are you talking to? We use to be young once. Nothing has changed. When your talking about all night long, nothing goes past thirty minutes and then you're just like the rest of us, forming a drool pool on your pillow and developing that slight snore that is cute at twenty-four, but at fifty-four causes your spouse to leave you brochures to sleep clinics on the counter.

So, take heart my young friends. We're as good once as we've ever been. The old warrior stock, that is at least twenty years ahead of you, have your back. Just help us up off the dance floor if we go down and can't get up. Lend us a hand or maybe two, get us back to our chair, pat us on the back and thank us for coming out of the dugout, then check your watch. If its nine, call us a cab, will you?

I'm Beginning to Miss It

I'm beginning to miss it. Actually, I've lost it some time ago. It comes and goes but as time passes, it mostly has faded. Over the last ten years, it has wandered away, and sometimes I find myself looking for it, trying to revive it, spontaneously trying, most of the time in vain.

I remember, probably like every other living adult, where I was when I heard. I was riding my bike to work, west on Indian School, making the eight mile trip to my new high school after I had retired from twenty plus years in law enforcement. It was a new school year, part of a very long year dealing with not only a career change but my wife's cancer. Over my headphones, on a local country station, they started with 'there was a plane crash....' which changed to '...there was another plane crash....' It was the start of an incredible journey for all of us. Some, more than others. Unbelievable crippling, pain of loss and incredible, near-panic fear of trying anything to contact loved ones, only to find the phone lines were down.

Then another crash into the Pentagon.

I remember I couldn't peddle fast enough, trying to get to school to turn on the television in my room.

Then another crash into a corn field.

I miss it. I miss what happened after. I remember thinking about calling my family. The three kids were in their late teens and already knew about it and Joni was going to school. Writing this, I don't remember if we cancelled school or not. I don't think so. I think we tried to teach. If we did, I know it didn't work well.

I miss what happened-later. After the fires were out and the smoke cleared. Once we, collectively, could start thinking clearly again. It was funny. It was different then, I think, every other nation on the planet would have done it differently.

We turned in, on ourselves, and what counted most to us as humans, as Americans. I don't remember any drum beats, any chest pounding. I never saw a foreign flag burned in protest or a foreign embassy overrun and trashed. Maybe it happened, memory fades, but I don't think it did. I still, to this day, don't know how to spell Al Qaeda and just let Spellcheck fix it.

I remember sleeves being rolled up, flags, oh the flags-everyone had a flag out. There was even a house in our neighborhood that was vacant and someone jockeyed one on the front porch. Commercials on TV had them. Country songs said it all, asked it all.

And we prayed. Not only for those that died, or their families who were left without them, but I heard prayers for those that flew the planes, their families, their loved ones and friends, that they may see someday with clear eyes and their hearts may someday be turned.

Now, I write this the night before the tenth anniversary. I am tired and worn, no thanks to the last ten years. All three of my children are married. My only son survived two tours to the Sand Box. There are four grandchildren here, just getting back from taking two of them to the Scottsdale Quarter to let them play in the un-chlorinated fountain, which, I am sure, will generate some type of strep thing in their collective throats. The site was not there ten years ago. The parents of some of the other kids, were, by the looks of them, children themselves and don't have any real feelings about what the sunrise will bring tomorrow.

For some, it will be just another day. Someday, as with all significant days in the human run, the memories will fade and time will wear away on the mind and heart. Healing takes place and the young and parentless find a way through the days and grow to be parents themselves. But if I close my eyes hard enough and think long enough, I remember those weeks and months after that day. I remember crying, not with sadness but with so much pride of having been in the same career of those that ran the opposite direction. I think about that and realize every cop, every fireman, every person wearing a uniform was represented so well that day. Even those who didn't stand a watch, American people, for months, helped each other just to cope and reached out to each other and loved. We loved well those months after.

'...the greatest of these is love.' A guy wrote that in a letter a long time ago, told to him by someone else. That's what we do so well, we Americans. Almost to a fault some would say. '...the greatest of these is love.' Hmm, not sure I could ever find fault with that. Today, as I wake to a new day that happens to have a special significance, I will dwell on those words. They seem to work.

Always.

Heat Advisory--Really?

This last week in Phoenix has been a little warm, like the seventh level of friggin' Hell warm. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I am getting older, my hands swell, and sometimes I find myself turning my head to hear what someone is saying. But I also think its because it is actually getting warmer. It also seems like this year, unlike years past, professional groups like the news or some new governmental agency, has spent a bunch of money to put out these 'Heat Advisory' warnings you hear on the news, radio, even read them in the paper-the next day, which makes great sense.

I haven't seen rain at my house during daylight hours this year. So the two times I have seen wet sidewalks when I woke up, could be from sprinklers. Oh, sure, it threatens a lot. The clouds build to the north and east an threaten everyone, just not here. I've lived in this valley all my life. I know exactly where I was when we hit the all time back to back days of 121 and 122 degrees, shutting down the airport and finding people lighting candles in church for their air-conditioner. I was in a motor home, monitoring a wiretap of a murderer's home and the A/C in the motor home burned up. So, really, I was in a metal box with no ventilation, balancing an unbalanceable check book. Yep, good times. But here's the thing, I didn't need anyone to tell me it was hot. I knew it was hot. I live in Phoenix for Christsake! Having someone telling me "Hey, uh, well, be careful, drink water, stay inside--its hot outside," kind of seems, well--dumb.

That must mean there are people out there that wander outside and just keep wandering, I guess, kind of like someone in Buffalo, New York during a lake-effect snow storm. "Oh, look honey, its snowing! Let's take the kids, pile into the car, and go look at Christmas lights!" Okay, I get it; they deserve to be thinned from the herd, but do we have to spend tax money on it?

Look, this is Arizona. Summers in Arizona, especially central and southwestern Arizona is just a place you don't necessarily want to be without a completely filled swimming pool that you can carry on your back. As a matter of fact, you don't want to be anywhere except in a cool mall or the rank darkness of a movie theater, moving from movie to hiding in the restroom until another movie starts, to another movie to hiding in the restroom to another movie, until the sun goes down. We had a low temperature the other day of 91 degrees. 91 DEGREES FOR A LOW! Who does that?

Yeah, I know, I hear it all the time-"Well, you just don't know what cold is like. This feels so good." Okay, then take a bottle of water with you if you're out in it. If I was in New York, near Buffalo and it was snowing, I would travel-if I did travel, with a blanket, jackets, gloves, a fire place, a sleeping back, food for a month-all the things the natives travel with. I wouldn't need someone to get paid to tell me "Hey, ah, its cold outside. We have a 'Cold Advisory'. Wear your Mukluks."

Nope, don't need that.

So, if you are coming to Phoenix or have been relocated by your company to Gila Bend, halfway between Phoenix and Yuma, there are two things you need to know the answers to. 1) Who did you piss off to get re-located to Gila Bend and 2) where is the movie theater?

There, there is your heat advisory. Now, put butter on your popcorn and find a quiet row.

This is one of my favorite pictures!

This is one of my favorite pictures. I've used it before and with this blog, I think its totally appropriate to use it again.

I am sorry for the lateness of this blog. You see, here's the thing. I think my secret love is writing. It would be wonderful if I had a one room cabin up on the Olympic Peninsula, overlooking Puget Sound wearing a big sweater, a pot of chili on the stove, and this computer, cranking out stuff, the gooey stuff that makes writing my crack. I would find myself standing in the door way with a mug (not a cup) of hot coffee, watching the morning rain and the deer family in the front yard. But until then, I need to make a living, so I teach high school and actually, I'm pretty good at it. The last few weeks have been a little busy, requiring my attention and causing full fatigue with no juice for writing. Nights come and my favorite time, bedtime, which usually brings some quiet reading in cold sheets, has been ending with me opening the book and then falling asleep with it on my chest, not a word consumed.

We got kids last week.

Yep, for you fans getting this in Turkestan and the Yukon Territories, who have been keeping me afloat with your Kindle purchases, allowing me to get cheese on that occasional burger, thanks and yes, its high school-right in the middle of the peak hormone cycle for a human. They cry and laugh at stuff that usually isn't even a complete thought. They walk off without their gym bag, leaving it in the room. Don't you think you would feel you are missing something, like a forty pound gym bag, with all your dirty laundry and football helmet in it? Nope, you call the young boy back in who is walking down the hall to his next class, which of course is in the next building over in the opposite direction, once you notice the bag and have him come back and get it. "Oh yeah," he says as he sees the bag you are pointing at. You are sure he would have wandered out to practice after school in his practice gear minus the $130 helmet. You want to be there when coach asks him wear his helmet is and he shrugs his shoulders. You know he actually walked half way out to the field not realizing he didn't have it on his head until some mentioned it.

High school kids, especially these guys-sophomores, are fun to watch and mess with. They're clumsy, hormonal, testing, and unfortunately, with some-sad. Home life is anything but home life. We get a ton of kids that are refugees. Their stories make you cock your head to one side and say 'huh?' Makes you want to go out and kiss anything American.

This being Sunday, tomorrow is week two. Usually the first week students are getting settled, schedule changes, their lost, loads change, whole classes disappear then re-appear as something else so its pretty useless to actually teach anything the kids will be measured on. The worst ones in the group, however, are the teachers.

You got to understand something about teachers, we do love our job, love maybe being a little strong of a word. You would have to at least like it to do it for so long when the job is attached to so many crazy decisions made by people who have only seen a classroom thirty years prior when they were young or in a magazine. I guess that's the way it is with most jobs, we promote or hire or vote for those that seem to sound good, but who have never walked in the shoes of those they lead. Of course, that's our fault. I feel, like most teachers, any one of us could fix the problem with the American education system (still the best in the world) within four months if we were given the chance. Actually, its not a chance we need; we have the chance. We just need the energy. Yep, don't have that.

So, I think I will just keep with the pace I'm at. I've been asked every year if I would go into Administration and after watching those guys do that job, I am convinced I would rather disarm IED's in Afghanistan-at night.

So, as you send your children, grand-children, nieces and nephews out into the fray, we are ready to receive them. Oh, and at the end of the day, we'll make sure they have their bag of laundry.

Signs of our times

There are some signs out there that I am not sure we either need any more, ever needed, or that beg the question if we want them at all. Here are just a few.

'Unleaded gas'. Do we still need this one? We haven’t sold gas with lead in it for about 150 years. It has become a habit to call it that. I remember when we needed to tell the difference between leaded and un-leaded at the gas station. When cars came out with catalytic converters, if you put lead in the tank, something exploded or melted or crapped on your shoes-something. Today, every car has a catalytic converter unless you’re driving an old De Soto from Havana. Even those cars can take unleaded. Let’s quit paying the poor guy in the paint shop for those six letters and just call it ‘gas.’ And really, if you pull into a gas station, do you really need to be reminded its ‘gas’? Maybe if you were that woman who bought the ‘hot’ coffee at McDonald's and then spilled it on herself and sued them because it was, well, hot.

“Walk-in’s welcome’ in front of a palm reader’s house/business. Really? Are there that many people making appointments to have their palms read that you really need to buy a can of red paint, a four by eight sheet of plywood, write those words on it and prop it up on the sidewalk in front of your house? And frankly, how many of us drive down the street and see that sign and say ‘Oh, yeah, that reminds me, I need to stop and have my future told by some total stranger who wants to charge me $30 cash, visa or MasterCard, to tell me I am going to meet a handsome stranger who is going to make a difference in my life?

Tell ya what, I will predict your future right now and save you the $30. You will meet a handsome stranger (their momma thinks their handsome despite the scar that goes from their forehead to their jaw and their lazy eye) and they will make a difference in your life because they are the bag boy at Fry’s and they put the milk on top of the eggs you were planning on having for dinner.

'Home Cooking'. Do I really want to go to a restaurant where they say this? Does that mean they really don’t cook the food in the back but at someone’s home and then ship it to the restaurant? Of course not. It means there is a bed and a small TV on a night stand in the corner behind the walk-in freezer in the back and the cook sleeps there because he was kicked out of his house for drinking shots of rum while being ‘inappropriate’ with the cat. Do we really want that? I think not.

And like the picture at the top of this blog, do we all really live in a neighborhood that has slow children?

My favorite-the plastic cover on my new lawn mower had stenciled on it in about a dozen places ‘this bag is not a toy.’ How many parents give their child that item and say “Hear you go son/daughter, go play with this. STAY away from the hot coffee though!” Any adult who does that needs to be thinned from the herd. Wait, I forgot, there is that woman with the hot coffee from McDonald's.

I guess there are those people out there that need this.

Look, I’m just making some observations here. I guess we just need to be reminded that there are some among us who need a little help—a lot of the time.

Peace in a Small Town, Day 7, last day

Day 7-last day

I wish I could report this morning the Bad Boys were found eating some more of Mrs. Johnson’s award winning roses, but I can’t. I think they have moved on to the next cycle of deer life; having wives, kids, finding a place to stay in the woods, staying out of the cross hairs of anything with the word Remington on it. The town, early this morning, is bustling with people loading up their Range Rovers and moving on to the next town or state.

So, how does a Grand Lady clean herself up when she is overrun with people and vehicles so thick they are lined up in both directions as far out of town as one can see, double parked, overflowing her trash cans, and generally taking up too much room on the sidewalks? How? She rains on them; rains on them a lot. I mean a lot of rain, hard, pelting, sideways, in a confined space, on all of them, soaking them and making them cold.

They were running to their cars, under over-hangs, getting back on their motorcycles and Caravans and pulling their soaking wet Maltese’s in to the cars with them. There, they stayed for hours. A large supply of them gave up and left even before the fireworks.

Maggie’s Kitchen closed early yesterday. They sold out of the smoked brisket and pork shoulder along with their burgers. The boss went home to take a nap and a shower.

The fireworks in this town are probably one of the best in the country. The town fathers had shortened the show due to budget. This town lives on tourism and we all know that is down. They have to cut their school budget this year by 10% which is now into staff. When you only have 200 students in a K-12 program, that can be a whole grade level. It was obvious the show was cut back. They had large times between rockets, trying to stretch the show to match the music they synced it to via the school’s KURA radio station. Still, it was incredible. The echoes off the mountains could be felt as well as heard.

I guess that’s just part of the cycle of life; like the Bad Boys. We want that memory, that time when all things seemed right with the world; that perfect moment when we cut out a place in our brain just for that image. Then, we spend the rest of our life trying to find it again.

We never do.

This town is terrible, please don’t come. Stay away. Those pleas are from someone who has done just that, cut out a corner of the memory bank and tried to capture and keep that image as a real event. It isn’t. It was once, but now its gone. I need to let my grip go.

Time to make new images and memories. There are more to come, more Bad Boys, more Mrs. Johnson’s roses, more Bries, more walking in a small town eating some ice cream while sitting on a bench, watching the Meadow Gold truck make its delivery and counting that as the high point of my day. You just got to look. Some new images will be from here, but I have to allow the old ones to go or I will be sorely disappointed-every time.

Maybe, if we are lucky, the Bad Boys will have kids. They will teach them the ways of the world in downtown Ouray. They will show them how and when and what to do.

And the rest of us, while we sip our coffee on our breathless walk up a street at 7700 feet, will smile at the sight of the new kids on the block and store that image for a day when we need to remember; a time and a place.

Peace in a small town-July 4th

July 4^th

The town stirred awake well before sunrise. Actually, being at the bottom of a valley with cliffs 5-7000 feet above us, not seeing the sun until 8:15 is the norm here, let’s just say whenever the rest of the world was having a sunrise, many of the locals were up and prepping for their Grand Lady’s big show.

Two Ouray city trucks were out putting the final cleaning prep on Main. One, changing out all the trash can bags, tying off the bags and throwing them into the back of his pick up, the other following behind, watering all the flower pots that lined the street and the moss filled hanging baskets from each street sign and light post.

Frank, the owner of Maggie’s Kitchen and the author of one of the best burgers ever eaten in the free world, was sleeping next to his smoker, parked in the street. He stayed with it all night, tending to the fire box with pieces of hickory while the pork shoulder and brisket slowly cooked since about 5 yesterday afternoon. Hickory smoke has been wafting into our room all night. Its like we’re camping only on a sleep number bed.

At the other end of town the BPOE Lodge is prepping for the big barbecue after the 10am parade. The Elks will be serving ribs, burgers, and hot dogs. Is there really anything else anyone should be eating today? Oh, wait, Frank’s slow cooked pork.Cardiologists are all on vacation today-or here.

Early this morning, starting about now, is the Ouray Volunteer Rescue Team’s fund raising breakfast, just before the start of the 10K. The Ouray team saves people from themselves every year. The pass between Ouray and Silverton is very susceptible to death. You drive off the road, you don’t hit anything but air for about 700 to 1000 feet. Its straight up and down and the one time in your life you probably want to not wear a seat belt, hoping to jump or do something circus-like on your way down. These guys repel down and pull you out, at least enough of you so your family can have a funeral. They are all volunteers and live off the donations of everyone. Their breakfast is a mainstay for the 4^th. Most of the team are up a good portion of the night cooking-with the help of cold beer and Jack Daniels. Their blood shot eyes and slight whiff of stale whiskey breath greets you in line why you get your eggs, bacon, hash browns, pancakes, toast, fruit, juice, and coffee you can stand a spoon up in. The food is okay but the cause is just. It’s a good time to buy another shirt that talks about bringing a GPS so you don’t have to eat your friends.

At 10 today, the parade starts. At its point is the color guard made up of four old war horses from another era. They usually give the younger of the four the American flag, he would be the stronger and can hold it for the whole length of road, about three hundred yards. The four wear their uniforms from another time. They try to march in unison but have a tendency to slide out of step every so many yards. That doesn’t bother anyone and the entire length of this small town people stand on their feet and clap. Some salute, wave flags, and cheer.

Its been so for well over 230 years.

Enjoy.

Peace in a small town-Day 6

Woke up early this morning with a craving to walk. I got up and made a pot of joe and wanted to spend time with the Grand Lady and the God who protects her before she needed to turn and take care of the needy tourists today, the eve before the celebration of her country’s birthday. The town began to fill yesterday like a bucket under a waterfall, which this town has. There was a stream of cars coming from both ends. I wanted some alone time with the two of them, before the fray started.

It was just the three of us and a cup of good coffee that I knew wasn’t going to get me around the horn before it was empty. That was okay. We just walked and talked, looking for the Bad Boys but knew they were too smart. They got out of Dodge before Mummy and Daddy and the six kids, three with runny noses THAT NO ONE IN THE FAMILY WANTS TO WIPE walk down the street and into the clothing store where they proceed to touch everything. Yep, the deer are smart.

Some of the locals were out this morning, starting their yard watering and sweeping off the stoops, putting up flags and bunting. Tomorrow, July 4^th, is huge here. The locals celebrate their country’s birthday like it’s the first one. There will be a parade here in town complete with an old fire truck, the Synchronized Dog Walking Team, clown cars, the Ouray Youth Dirt Bike Club, and a water fight. Yep, they seal off highway 550 and arm two parties with fire hoses and the first one to get knocked over loses. At the end, there is a fly over by something of the military. Two years ago you had to be looking because they were moving so quick, they were in an out of the valley before the sound reached you-very cool. I think 300 years ago, in Scotland where my ancestors are from, they had kind of the same thing, only they used axes.

I walked by the Artisan Bakery. They were working, but wouldn’t be open for another hour. The owner waived. I waived back, tipping my nearly empty coffee cup.

I continued north, back up Main. Meadow Gold was making an unusual Sunday delivery to the Backstreet Bistro. They won’t open until 7:30. The locals know that but no one told the tourists. They’re standing outside its door like a methadone clinic waiting for it to open to get their morning fix of coffee.

Last night, O’Brien’s Irish Pub was partying late into the night. Its an Irish pub so that is to be expected. Our room however, was right next door. I am guessing most of the locals hit it early and then went home and to bed before nine, leaving the place for those people. We had our balcony door open so we could clearly hear the drunk chicks. “No, I told him I don’t want him, but he just don’t listen. He said he’d get a job when he gets out of jail and that I should wait. He says he loves me-whoo hoo!” I’m sorry, but isn’t it the drunk chick that always starts the problem in the bar? Think back to all those times. It was a woman who started it. “What are you looking at? Tommy, TOMMY, put that beer down and listen to me, this guy was looking at me. What are you going to do about it?” All Tommy wanted to do was to enjoy his cold beer and maybe watch one of the three games on the flat screens around the bar. But, nooo, now he has to carry out some title fight with some guy he really has no beef with, just to please a woman he wasn’t too fond of in the first place.

Two of Ouray’s Finest sat in their patrol cars right across the street. I mean we’re here, and if any of you inside go sideways we are going to rain down on the lot of you like a Mexican sombrero on a Frenchman kind of close. You start something with two police officers the size of sycamore trees five steps away, you deserve to have stitches. About 2am, the drunk chicks finally went home. “Whaaaduyoumeanweeeregoin?idonwannaleave—wait-Igottapuke.ohiloveyoubaby-kissme.” I was just thinking-wouldn't it be funny if she woke up with her head shaved.

I'm just saying.

Justice served.

Tomorrow, the Grand Lady puts on her formals and presides over a party that is taking place in thousands of towns just like this. There are thousands of clown cars in parades across the nation, probably not too many synchronized dog teams, but maybe. One thing I can tell you, there isn’t one synchronized dog team in a parade celebrating freedom in ANY other country on the planet. Nope, not one. There isn’t a fire truck with the Grand Marshall being a 21 year old marine, sailor, airman, or soldier who just came home from the sandbox, sitting next to the 17 year old Miss True Value princess, nope, not one. There isn’t a country that will wear their nations flag or flag colors as shirts, lapel pin, hat, flag tucked into a hat, scarf, dog wear, or strapped to the back of their Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Not one. Two-hundred and thirty-five years ago, a bunch of dead guys had sealed themselves in a room on an upper floor of a building in Boston and had decided to lay it all on the line. Everything they had and known they were saying wasn’t enough unless it had freedom attached to it, including their lives.

Enjoy.

Peace in a small town-Day 4--I think

The day started, like I said yesterday, with a sunny, bright, and very blue morning. Of course morning doesn’t start here until about 8:17 when the sun finally creeps down the western slopes and hits Main.

Deer weren’t seen until sunset when on the night walk, about 6:30 on 2^nd Street, between 4^th and 5^th Avenue, tucked under a tree across from the Spanger Bed and Breakfast a young buck was eating the fresh cut grass of the front yard across the street. It was late, he was alone and wasn’t part of the Bad Boys but the deer were here, in town, and eating whatever they found.

The town is starting to fill with people. Most of them don’t belong, you can just tell. They move from store to store with no sense of purpose or care. These people need to pass a test before they come here. They really do. If the world was to look at these people, I think the world would be embarrassed for the Grand Lady. She is gracious with them, gentle in fact. The men wear black socks with dark tennis shoes and some of the funkiest hats ever-they don't fit. Picture your fathers wearing clothes that are just embarrassing and then walking in public with YOU from door to door. Some are even wearing those sunglasses that clip on to their black horned-rimmed and flip up and down. I even saw a husband and wife (I assumed they were husband and wife because, oh my gosh how bad would it be if they were dating!) with funky hats, plaid shorts, black socks, and flip up sunglasses. The great trifecta of nerdom. These are the ones where a pay box at the front of the city needs to be in place-just for them, but lucky for the people who need their money the town is more forgiving.

Kind of an odd thing to report, the Meadow Gold truck made a late delivery last night. Usually, they are early morning. I watched them from our balcony. Huh, interesting. I'm wondering if the mayor knows?

Crows are interesting here-or are they Black Birds? I am sure there is an ornithologist or a podiatrist, or some other specialist that could tell the difference, it really doesn’t matter. They’re big. That’s all I want to say-big. Like carry off your little Maltese dog with the pink collar big. If you are a circus worker, you would want to weigh yourself down with something. These guys sit on fences just waiting for you to leave your dear old frail grandmother unattended. Actually, I think they are a critical part of the circle of life. Anyone here walking a Maltese, needs to have it carried away and become part of the food chain.

Last night and this morning-Saturday I think it is, I walked the back alleys. Best part of this town is found in the alleys. You get to see into people’s homes, especially at night, and look at their stuff. Oh, come on, you would all do it if you were here. Its not like we’re peeping toms or something. You just want to see what the inside of their house looks like, especially if its from 1888.

We went in to Ridgeway yesterday and stocked up for the 4^th. Ouray’s Duckett Market will be closed on Sunday and again on Monday for the holiday so we found a nice place in the larger, more commercial, but dramatically less likable town to the north. This is where you go to actually work and earn a long term living. Its not as creepy as Silverton, you don’t mind being there after dark. We ate at the semi-famous True Grit Café named after the iconic movie filmed in Ouray and Ridgeway in 1969. Supposedly, John Wayne’s hat is still hanging in the Outlaw Restaurant and Bar in Ouray. The restaurant has posters of every movie Mr. Wayne was in and some were even signed by some of the actors, just above or below their name on the playbill.

Speaking of Silverton, we might go there today. I was saying earlier how creepy it is. If we go and survive, I will give you a report.

Well, off to watch the sun rise over the valley. Brie was out walking, carrying her leash in her mouth, waiting again for her master to hurry the hell up with his coffee at the Backstreet. She was patient but definitely wanted to run. At least she won’t get carried off by a crow.

Peace-Life in a small town-day 3 and start of 4

It rained most of the day with some pretty good winds. The Meadow Gold truck was still able to make its delivery, parking in the middle of Highway 550 and hand carting the goods in to Ducketts. UPS and Fed Ex parked next to them and made their deliveries into the Ivory’s Trading Company and a small one to the Silver Nugget Restaurant.

Speaking of Silver Nugget, they have the ‘Miner’s Breakfast’ for $7.50; pancakes, sausage, two eggs, toast, hash browns. Who the hell can eat that much food, except the guy I was with. Incredible. Also at the other end of town, for $10 you can have the all you can eat breakfast buffet at the ‘open for breakfast’ place. We didn’t see a name on or near the sign so that is now its name.

Brie, the vizsla, that is a cocoa colored version of the weimaraner, was walking with her owner this morning, carrying her own repelling leash. It was coiled and tied and she carried it like it was the newspaper. Her boss went in for coffee and a bagel at the Backstreet Deli and Brie sat outside, putting her leash down and waiting for master to return.

The Links, up on 8^th Avenue and 4^th Street have their wild squash starting to sprout behind their house, next to the flume that carries the water from Cascade Falls through town. There was a small doe munching on some of their wild daisies next to the road, just under the ash tree behind them. She checked me out, finding I was no threat since I was sucking air so badly climbing the street at over 7700 feet, then she just went back to eating.

The sun just topped the ridge line to the east at about 8:17 this morning. Sun is now starting to warm the valley, a valley you can walk and touch the east and west wall to over a cup of joe. We might head out of town to the north towards Ridgeway and see what shops are there. This is a place you can lose time in, if you don’t work here. Sometimes, I find myself counting the nights we've been here, having to start from the beginning of the trip. When we get back, the world will be spinning fast enough. It’s good just to take a time out and get off the carousel for a while. Aaaaaahhhh.

Peace-Life in a small town-day 2

The search for the Bad Boys of Ouray, the three young bucks traveling together and causing havoc to gardens throughout the town, have yet to be seen this morning or last night. However, Dr. Loundren and his two-year old lab, Becky, were out for their morning walk. I wasn’t quite sure who was walking whom. Becky seemed to want to go one way and the good doctor had another agenda. When I turned down on 4^th Avenue heading back to Main, it looked like the good doctor was losing.

Several biker groups were working their way through town yesterday, semi-big biker town, Ouray is. I’m not talking about your gang bikers, I’m talking about doctors and engineers using some of their extra bucks to buy a $40,000 Harley and leathers to give them that Bad Boy-living to ride, type appearance. They still stop at the Billy Goat Gruff Beer Garten and drink their pints of some beer no one can pronounce. That gives them away. The Rolex’s don’t help.

If they really were bikers, they’d be drinking Bud out of a can and collapsing the empty container on their foreheads-or their friend's forehead.

Maggie’s Kitchen ran out of Coke in both nozzles yesterday and the Diet Coke was broken. Anyone who bought a Coke and was standing there ready to fill up their cups was out of luck. They just needed to drink something else, no refunds. Now, some of those bikers might have asked for a refund; they didn’t get what they paid for, but in every life sometimes we come to a point where our Diet Coke or regular Coke lives take a change and we have to drink the orange Fanta-deal with it. We don’t want to drink the Fanta. Its been years since we’ve even had that Coast Guard orange drink and we thought we had matured over the years as well as we’ve taken on the battle of the waistline, high cholesterol, and just shear bulk, but now we have to deal with a curve ball of life. So, we push the bright orange button, just enough to put enough in the glass to take a sip. And there, to our surprise, is pleasure, like those orange ice cream bars we had as kids. Full of sugar and flavors of days long ago. So, we fill the glass, minimize the ice, and after lunch we go back and top it off again, just a little for the walk, you understand.

The owner of Maggies sent a runner, a young boy about fifteen, to get more soda syrup for the machine. It should be on line tomorrow; no word on the Diet Coke. That one might take longer. The quarter pound burger was every bit a half a pound. The French fries had that light sheen of oil on them, you know the kind, allowing the salt your heart needs to adhere to it when you take the lid off the salt container and pour it on.

Our travel team decided they liked the chicken sandwich there so much, we went back for dinner, finding myself arguing with my own brain about whether to get the grilled cheese or the hot dog that appeared to be the size of a small man’s femur. I went with the dog. Good choice. I asked for a Diet Coke, thinking maybe the lad made it back with the syrup or a new button and was politely directed to the table next to the dispenser where I found Coke products in twenty-four can cases. I helped myself. I never saw the boy they sent to get the syrup. That is what I call improvising.

It rained in the afternoon right after a hurricane wind storm stirred everything up. The temperature dropped at least fifteen degrees in about fifteen minutes.

We missed sushi night at the Cascade Deli last night, although I’ve never heard of sushi with roast beef. Oh, well-when in Rome.

There are things to buy here as well. T-shirts with quick, sharp sayings like a picture of a line of silhouetted backpackers and a caption Take a GPS, it is embarrassing when you have to eat your friends; tin signs you hang up somewhere in your house like the Ten Commandments for Cowboys, with a commandment which reads don't take another feller's stuff; coffee cups of every size and shape and animal. Nothing says office décor like a moose coffee cup.

We’ll see what day three brings. The day is starting with a clouds. Something guys like me from Arizona go out and light candles too. It could rain the rest of the week and I would be a happy camper. The rest of the town would cry and frankly, the grand lady we call Ouray would suffer, so no, I guess I don’t want it to rain, but maybe just threaten. You know, you don’t always have to shoot the suspect. Sometimes, just as long as he can see in your eyes that you would and could blow his head clean off, is all it takes for him to put down that 32 inch flat screen you caught him coming out of the window with.Somehow, tie that metaphor with the rain and you will get what I am trying to say.

Justice served. Now, my friends, its time for some more coffee and to see if Dr. Loundren is still being walked by Becky. I hope he gets home.

Peace-Life in a small town-day 1

It has been two years since I’ve been to this town-two years since I have walked the small town streets of Ouray, Colorado. We arrived yesterday afternoon, coming in from the traditional south end from Silverton. Silverton is scary. Don’t ask; it just is, especially after the tourist train leaves, heading back to Durango. More about that later.

Stay with me and I will walk you through a week of trivial living that can be so valuable and so precious that we can all walk away feeling a little better about this rock we live on. Today is only the first day in this town. She and I need to spend time together and get re-acquainted.

We’ve been coming here for years, usually around the 4^th of July; however, to me, the best time is in June, before the tourist come. Its quiet then. The end of June and the start of July, its picks up. That’s when the tourists arrive, crap in the street, then leave.

She likes her tourists, Ouray does. She is gentle to them and welcoming, even if they don't return the favor. She needs what they have to live and gives back what they don’t know they need, whether they want it or not. She knows what we need and she will openly give it and if we truly look, we will find what we, ourselves, didn’t know was missing-peace. I just wish there was a box at both ends of town where these people could just come, deposit their money, then move on.

Okay, enough with the mysticism, back to the town-Day 1. Do you have your coffee? Breakfast bar or cereal? Sit back and feel, just a little, of this place that is accurately called the Switzerland of America.

The town hadn’t changed since the last time we drove in. This place is the county seat and yet doesn’t have one traffic light. The town fathers mean for that to be, although they did put up little plastic signs in the middle of the streets where there are painted crosswalks. Modern control devices which resemble those little plastic guys you can buy at Home Depot and put out in front of your house to warn drivers to slow down, you have kids.

After we unpacked, we walked Main Street which is also state highway 550 connecting Durango to Silverton, Ouray, Ridgeway, Montrose and I don’t care beyond that to the north. Many of the businesses last year were for sale, causing us to fear that the recession was going to run over this town like a freight train. Many of the old Silverbacks who had worked those stores were tired and wanted to retire to Boca Raton, moving to someplace that didn’t get 275 inches of snow each year.

But new blood picked up the slack, people that can handle a few winters and maybe bring in some 21^st Century technology to help with business. When you are using a cash register that you inherited from your grand-pappy, its time to upgrade. I was happy to see most of the stores, either moved to different store fronts or were sold and changed all together. A True Value moved into the Mercantile location. The sharp smell of paint and potting soil, along with a new NCR 4500 highlighted the place. They got rid of camera film that had expired in 2008 and replaced its spot with a paint mixer.

After dinner, it was time.

Every day, I walk the town, early in the morning, and at night. You can cover this town from tip to tip, all four corners, on two cups of coffee. You start with one from your apartment, and restock at the Artisan Bakery on the south end before you head to the east side. They painted the Antler Motel, a key location for the next book and where our hero will meet Bucket Head, the motel owner's mastiff. But the painting was a long time coming. On these walks you look for these things but also, you look for deer.

They live here, in town. The last few years, I have found three brothers, or maybe they are deer’s version of homies. They were seen together, young, small racks, eating flowers from Mrs. Johnson’s prized roses. The Bad Boys of Ouray I called them. I didn’t see them on the night walk and will advise you daily of their appearance. I am assuming one of these years, maybe this one; they will no longer be a part of the story, having moved on to doing deer life somewhere else in the Rockies. However, I did find, up on 6^th Street, the farthest street to the east (streets run north and south and from 2^nd Street to the west of town to 6^th Street on the east and avenues run east and west starting on the south and moving to 10^th Avenue on the north) two young deer, does.

They were eating the wild daisies and grass and stopped and looked at me in the twilight. There was no fear in their face. They had seen this image before. Actually, they took three steps towards me but were distracted by a passing car. Maybe they wanted to say ‘hi’ up close, see what I had in my pockets to eat, or let me scratch that itch behind their ears. I would have done it. Or, maybe they wanted to kick my ass-not sure. I will withhold a label until I know more.

This is a town that we all wish we lived in, if we were true to ourselves. It is a place where a guy tosses you his keys to his car and lets you borrow it for a day-based only on your word. Windows are left open and doors, for the most part, unlocked. Not that there isn’t crime here; there is. According to the Police Blotter, a section of the bi-weekly Plains Dealer newspaper, Mr. Donaldson’s car was caught running a stop sign at the corner of 7^th and Main where he was pulled over and given a warning. Especially at this time of year, with all these tourists, one must be careful and frankly, with the little plastic things in the street warning drivers to slow for crosswalks, you would have to think that driving and flagrantly running a municipal traffic control device should be at the top of everyone’s caution list.

Justice served.

This morning’s walk was wonderful. The air is cool and the sun we will not see for a couple of hours due to the fact there is a 13000 foot mountain in the way. The cool breeze and the shadows again make me feel welcome. I will leave you now, the Artisan is open and they were making fresh crescent breakfast sandwiches. That is a priority. Until tomorrow.