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.

Homecoming

Tomorrow is a Sunday. Our son is set to arrive home from war tomorrow. Iraq is still a war zone, deadly, dangerous-dark. He went there-twice. Tomorrow, he gets off a plane and the first human he is going to be allowed to touch is his wife, Tara.

I will hurt anyone that gets in the way of that moment. Only those two know the true cost of their separation after only a month of marriage. They spent their first anniversary on almost the exact opposite sides of the world. If you went any farther, in any direction, you started to head back home.

The world is filled with drum beats and chest beating when it comes to justice around the world. Men-and now, unfortunately, women too, experience this. I say unfortunately only because the contamination of war now touches both sexes when it comes to the fight, at least for Americans. We need to beat our chest and sing the songs because on game day, we need to shelter our fear and put on our game face. It's the game face that sees us through the times when fear is right there, just below the surface. The idea of old men and women in nice suits sending the best and brightest in to the throats of the Dragon doesn't calm the nerves.

But many times, we need to step out and into the wake of war. That is just Man being, well, man. But no one knows the value of peace, like those that stand or have stood the watch while we sleep-no one.

Sgt. Williams voluntarily escorted his virgin team into the throat of the Dragon and brought them home again-to their children and families. He will say goodbye to them today or tomorrow and probably never see them again.

They're alive. That's his gift to them, and he being alive is their gift to him--and Tara--and us.

The drum beats on.

It always will. That is Man being man. Until God comes to us and qiets, with the palm of His hand resting on the drum head, we will forever send our children into harm's way. People around the world, who have never been free, thirst for what we have. My little boy was willing to risk it all to make sure his team got there and back to accomplish this goal.

Not bad.

When he is old and grey, his grandchildren on his lap and they talk to him about whatever young grand kids talk about, he will look into their eyes and smile, stroke their face with the back of his wrinkled hand. It is this moment, this time, he bought for them and millions of others. Only he and his love know this price. Funny thing, it is men and women like this who, in their ancient years, would, without hesitation, do it again.

Oh, what a place we live.

Father's Day

The picture is of myself and my two older brothers, Silverbacks all. We were at my nephew's wedding, holding, of course, the appropriate dram of the sainted martyrs who have crossed the bar before us. Ahhhh fatherhood. You get the three brothers together and there is no greater team on planet Earth, nor are any three funnier to be around. We laugh until we cry over stuff that no one sees humor in.

I only heard from two of my three children yesterday, Father's Day. And that was wonderful. More about that later. There is also an old fighter pilot saying when they would cross from water to land. They would report their position by radioing their feet are dry or vise-versa if they were leaving land back to their carriers-their feet are wet. Again, later on this as well.

Unfortunately, this day, for a lot of people, is a reminder of what wasn't. Dads who weren't there, chose not to be there, or who were there and were abusive in ways that would make Saddam blush. For those individuals who suffer from this form of victimization, I can only say, it doesn't ever have to be the same with you. It can change-with you.

How do I know? Because I have seen the other side as well. I have seen men who have come from such upbringings and have become fathers themselves, good fathers; caring, loving, devoted dads. I have seen men who have adopted children and raised them as if they were there own. My own father did such a thing. I have seen men stand in as fathers, with no obligation or requirement to do so, stand in place of the empty role of father.

"Well, that's great, Mark. That's fine for you. What about the rest of us who don't know how, when, what thing this or that we should be doing? What about my anger? Hmm? I have anger issues and, well, I just can't."

Bull.

You know what is right and wrong. You know what is good and evil. You know. The tough part for men is owning their screw ups. But, this could be the greatest thing you ever show or teach your children, daddy's ownership of self. Because if the kid sees you own and confess and ask for forgiveness of them, they are then able to learn how to give forgiveness and eventually-needfully, own and forgive themselves later in life. And we all need to know how to do that.

Being a dad is hard, especially if you do it well. You're tired all the time. You are sore in places that shouldn't be sore. Your focus on seemingly mundane issues rather than those things that give you status and position. And we won't even talk about our bowels-my dad's #1 question whenever any of us were sick-How are your bowels? "Uh, dad, I was hit with a baseball. What does that--"

You get my meaning.

Nope, I only heard from two of my children on Father's Day. My two daughters made me a FATHERS breakfast! All the fatty good foods and sweet waffles a father could want. My son, however, didn't call. That was wonderful too. You see, I know my little boy. I know he would have called if he could. He couldn't call me and that was the best news all day.

There are no phones on the transport plane I was sure he was on, coming home from Iraq. He left Iraq and went to Kuwait and then they pointed their plane west and followed the sun.

At 1:30 in this morning, the day after Father's Day, he called from Maine to wish me a happy-if not belated, Father's Day. I went back to sleep three hours later knowing he could walk home if he had to.

His feet were dry.

Happy Father's Day to those who are standing as fathers. You have a noble, Biblical, Herculean task. Aye, ti's a good day.