Sacred Time before Dawn and two Sleepy Dogs

We are coming up on a sacred time and place in the next two weeks.

Its the morning of Thanksgiving, along about a half hour before the sun comes up. That's about 5:30 Phoenix time to be exact. The house is quiet, the dogs get me up, we all go out to get the paper, pee in the front yard, and come back in for our coffee. The dogs like theirs with cream and Spenda, much like me. They have no thumbs so they share from my cup. We do a quick walk and ball throw, breakfast for them, then they go back to bed.

I have work to do.

About 6, after a quick second cup, I begin the assembly of Thanksgiving. As tradition has it for the Williams men, we start our prep time with a wee dram of some fine scotch. Its not much of a tradition, actually, I kind of just modified one of my older brother's lead where he drinks some of the cooking sherry he uses when he makes the stuffing. A hit for the celery and carrots, a hit for the cook. Easy peasy. The only time he ever drinks it is Thanksgiving so the bottle is about half empty and about seven years open on the shelf. Me-well, if you're going to drink in the morning and its not under the 7th Avenue bridge with two guys named 'Moby' and "Hot Fork" sharing a bottle of Thunderbird, you should be drinking some good stuff.

Problem is with all the kids grown and the actual celebration now over at someone else's house, custom has it the home team makes the turkey. That would leave me with mashed potatoes, about twenty pounds worth. That means standing at the sink skinning and cutting them up for the big pot. Clearly that is not something you need to get up at the butt crack of dawn for. Furthermore, if I sleep in and then start the aforementioned program, that just seems wrong, like I AM either Moby or Hot Fork.

And there is a decorum to marry what you drink to what you are building. For example, turkey or ham and their preparation are always married to the whiskeys-American, Scotch, or those bastards on their own island-the Irish. You also are allowed to mix these whiskeys since they are all, well, whiskeys, especially at O-Dark-Thirty. Drinking glasses are of course optional. Vegetables and their associates, cranberries, may be prepared with either red or white wines. Dessert pies are assembled with coffee and Kahlua, pastries are created and made with anything an Italian general would drink after they surrender. The heavy carbohydrates like rolls and potatoes (yams or russet) take on Southern Comfort, bloody Mary's, and if your Russian or from anywhere in the Ukraine or the island Baltics you have your vodkas and ouzos. Beers are reserved for our friends with South American cultures and anyone in a union.

So, it could just be me, the paper, a couple of drowsy dogs, and a bottle of seventeen year old scotch I stole from a dear friends wake. Its okay, he would have been proud I did so.

I wonder how it would go in my coffee?

Crap, Will, what do we do now?

The new movie, Gravity, is out. It takes us to one of those 'Oh, shit' days in a person's life. I don't really like to swear when I blog or write. I think it can cheapen what you are writing. But there are, sometimes, just the right combination of blue words that are short, sync, and to the point like no other. Sometimes, one or two of these bad boys says it all.

They are usually understated, these statements of exclamation, sometimes carried along with words you hear long shoremen use. Your space ship blows up and you simply say "Crap, Will, what do we do now?"  or "Houston, we have a problem," In reality, there are a many of them we have all heard.

Tom Hanks has a couple-" I will see you on the beach." from Saving Private Ryan, or the movie Silverado where the bad sheriff answers the man's question of 'What's goin' to happen now, sheriff?" with the line 'Hide and watch.' Or my favorite line, which happens to be from a book, where the hero is dying and he looks up at the bat crap crazy female mass murderer and says "Come here and fight like a man, you bitch."

We each have our own special words. My former supervisor could use the F-bomb in every part of the sentence, including the direct and indirect object. At gift I just proudly used in Looking for Indianola.

So, as we enter this holiday season, remember your coupons, don't park in a handicapped slot unless  you have a sticker, I don't care if you will only be a minute, and watch our mouths around everyone.

Actually, its all good if you just say it with a smile.

The Other Bucket List

There is this whole ‘bucket list’ thing people do, things they want to do before they "kick the bucket." Fun things, accomplishments, facing fears and smiling at those fears, those kind of things.

What about a bucket list of things we absolutely never want to even touch before we die? A bucket list of things that we want to avoid-at all cost. Yeah, you gotta think about that one, huh? And you can’t pick things like stomach cancers or some slow debilitating disease. We don’t have choices on those. They just show up. I’m talking about things we can or can not chose.

Like going to a hookah bar and smoke something. This was some new trend my son’s generation came up with and I hope it dies with the baggy pants. Why would I want to go put my lips on a pipe that someone else had their cankered covered lips on? And what exactly are we smoking that can beat a good $5 cigar from Tony's on Central?

I don’t want to ever be in a bar fight. At my age, I would have to cheat. I would have to do something early in the fight, some shock and awe thing, or I would die. If I missed, if I wasn't fast enough, I can’t call time out and hope they honor it. Besides, what is there to get so ramped up about that a good scotch couldn't settle?

I don’t want to ever go to a rap concert, although rap is dying out and being replaced with something else. I can tell it would be too loud and they wouldn’t have single malt scotch. They would have blended which is just wrong and everyone there would be wearing their baseball caps sideways. That just bugs me.

I don’t want to go to watch the Olympic Games, at least not pay for the tickets. If someone gave me tickets, I would probably go. The best seats are always my couch. “But it’s the Olympics,” I can hear the pleas. If I went, I would want to go to one of the minor competitions, like something between the country of Georgia and Guam. I would want to try to make them feel good about being from there.

Along those same lines, I don’t want to ever go to a Super Bowl. Still the best seats are in my house, but also no one really watches the Super Bowl except for the commercials and they don’t have those at the game. Just really expensive hot dogs.

I don’t want to go elk or deer hunting. I don’t mind others who like that, that’s fine. But I’m in this whole fairness season of my life and just think sniping an elk at three hundred yards with a bullet that makes no noise before impact is cheating. Now, I would go and even orchestrate a trip to hunt elk under the rules that you have to sneak up on them and slap a “I 

 NY” bumper sticker on its rump before it could tear me in half with his rack of antlers.  Or even paint balling one with bright orange paint.  It would be even more of a challenge if we did all this to a momma grizzly and her cub. There could be some good times there.

I don’t think I will ever vote for the State Mine Inspector. Not unless I know the person. I will always leave that box unchecked.  

Body waxing-really? Who came up with the idea of slathering on medicinal grade wax on a hairy part of your body, imbed some gauze in it, and then ripping it off once it hardens? Now, I know some men are right out of the Planet of the Apes series, but that's why they made safety razors.

This is just some ideas. You probably have your own. I am sure they will change like the wind but this isn't a bad start.

Some things just don't change.

Decades ago, when it rained, boys in their black Converse would take their Forestall class carriers to the flooded gutter, the wood island, holding eight penny nails for radar and communication antennas. Boys would ease the two feet of two by four pine from their father's last project and in the midst of the downpour and occasional lightening strikes, and while the shoes filled with warm dirty water, the boys would play until the keel of their ship hung up on the shallow sea.

Fast forward thirty years and the boy has grand children. His shoes are Asics instead of Converse, instead of tube socks he wears, well, tube socks, and his carrier has graduated a foot to a Reagan class complete with rusted nails along its gunnel's for Phalanx anti-missile defense, causing the depth of her keel to sit a little lower than her predecessor. But rain in the gutter and a simple board has become the imagination of thousands of boys-no matter their age.

Storms are rare in Phoenix. Deep gutters are even rarer, especially deep seas that move a ship to just before being swallowed by the city's underground. Only thing missing is a Wienerschnitzel Coke.

Oh boy, here we go!

I think there are several things that rise to the top of the creamy soup heading in to this time of year, this time of year being the Christmas season. Yes, you heard me, the Christmas season. Look, as soon as Walgreens and Costco put out the Nativity and Santas’ that look like gnomes, it’s time to break out the sweat shirts, wool socks, and we can all stop shaving our legs. I don’t care if it is still so hot outside you get butt chaffing, ‘tis the damn season and we need to be ready for it, like it or not!!!

Like I was saying, a couple of important things this time of year. First, set a budget you can easily break without losing sleep. Every year, sometime around 2:24 and 2:37am, I start waking up in a cold sweat worrying about whether I paid the power bill or overlooked them when I bought the “Johnny Rockets, Ghetto Commander Action Troll Dolls—‘as seen on TV’.” If you have a budget that you have room to bend a little like day old pasta, you should be fine.

Another item is boundaries. Somewhere around Thanksgiving, people start bugging us like left over cereal milk left in the front seat of your car. Once you break that thin seal of slime on top, the odor of the true contents waft over you and you are smelling it for a week. Set boundaries. Just say no, to anyone who wants to visit for anything over a forty-eight hour window, especially if they smell like stagnant milk left in a car. If they’re nice, then play it by ear, but don’t force it. Find them a nice Motel 6 nearby and arrange a visitation schedule. Allow them to bring food to the dinner. Better yet, just have them give money.

Pet your dog.

Practice singing Christmas carols with the wrong words. Then, when you’re standing in line at Starbucks, you crank out the wrong lyrics. You have, in just those few seconds, set a course for those around you for the rest of the day. They will have that tune you created in their head for the rest of the day, maybe even changing your lyrics into their own. Sometime late in the afternoon, they will look up the real lyrics on this here computer because they forgot them. Now that is seasonal fun!!

Remember, songs, dog, boundaries, and breakable budget. If you do, you should be fine.  

God is a playful God

God is a playful god. He really is. God LOVES to play.

He loves Rascal Flats' version of Life is a Highway and to drive fast on the freeway to it with the top down. He loves pasta with a cream sauce. He invented Mexican food, the chimichanga, the margarita, the mild salsa. God loves fresh air and to run sales on air compressors and purses on the same weekend, causing couples to discuss which store they go to first for Saturday shopping. He loves it when I pretend I'm a pirate, or when we drink scotch together-he loves that.

So, when there is a concern about a reservation blowing up on this trip I'm on, He knows it taps red buttons all over my control room board. He decides to, well, play. The picture above is the view from the place we are staying in on the island of St. Lucia. We will spend another week at this place we were here two years ago. The small cove a thousand feet below is the actual resort. That was suppose to be where we stayed. Until Dad decided to turn down the new George Strait song He was listening to and play with his little boy.

He and I have an agreement. I will fight to listen and trust him if he promises to never stop teaching, holding, standing with, and never--ever leaving me. We are doing pretty good. But this one is just a smile producer. I would like to think if I was a dad and could do this, I would have thought of it. Being God, He has that advantage. Instead of the really really nice villa we were thinking blew up and the reservation got so messed up we were going to be in a tent on the beach selling my underwear for canned rations, He found this shack of a view--a little higher on the hill. It consists of two buildings, terraces, its own pool, and that crap of a view.

Yep, you need to be careful when God decides to play. The smile it could produce sometimes causing cramping around the cheeks.

"I mean to take you in Ned, dead or alive. What'll it be?"

It’s funny when you put an old man on a horse. When you put an old man who use to ride, who could ride a horse, saddle a horse, and you take him down to a tropical island and give him--a horse. Today, Shan (without a w) finally came through with the horses we were supposed to ride Monday. Shan turned it over to Nick, who turned it over to Joseph who turned it over to---------------. A Rastafarian shrouded, barefoot man with at least six ‘I’s and two ‘Y’s in his name. I called him ‘Boss.’

There were five of us, two Americans, two from England, and Boss. Boss rode with his hair in a rasti head knitted cap of green and black and red stripes, a pair of Miami Heat shorts and barefoot.  The horses were not large, except one, a quarter horse named G-Man. The woman from England got him. The two from England were concerned about their rides, the man never wanting to do anything other than walk. He had never ridden a horse before today. He was a nice fellow. Quite content to walk the ninety minutes and talk about the Olympic Games. The Americans, well, we watch movies like True Grit, A Fist Full of Dollars, Silverado, Broken Trail, and a handful of others. The Americans were not east coasters either, nope. We were from the southwest where deer and antelope roam. Where you ride your pony around barrels or dare them to buck you off, or-and I say this with all seriousness, like you’re in front of the Light Brigade! Sure, I picked a British regiment and sure, all but two of the six hundred in that famous poem during the Boar War died. It’s a damn metaphor. Stay with me here.

My pony was named—Silver.

Yep. You can see it coming, can't you?

Boss takes us out and down two beaches, devoid of all life. No one on these beaches except us. You could land a plane and take off again on these things. The idea was to allow us to run. First, he turned to the proper Brit who was sitting properly with her arms out and back straight. Just like she would have on a fox hunt. Boss looked at the man who waived off the run and then he turned to the woman who properly began to cantor—just like a fox hunt, riding up and down in the saddle—arms out---proper.

Then it was my turn.

Every American boy I grew up with wanted to be a cowboy. Some did. Some pretended. Some adopted parts of that role, wove it into their lives and memory and tucked it away for, well­-days like today.

The reins were too short to tuck into my teeth-I tried, allowing me to reach for my pretend six-shooter in one hand and shotgun in the other as I rode towards the fictional bandits headed by Robert Duvall and his cronies. When Boss looked at me and waved his arm for me to go, I could feel Silver, aware of someone on his back who maybe had some brass and wanted to run. I am also sure my new friend thought he might get lucky and toss his rider. somewhere on this abandoned beach. Sorry, that is the dream of every trail horse.

With some heeled encouragement and a light spur of the reins and my best, guttural ‘Yeeaah’ Silver shot like a rocket out of the gate at Del Monte. The last words Boss said that I could hear before the two hundred yard, on the beach, in the surf run was finished was a weak ‘not so fast’.

He never heard my “High-O Silver, away!!!” Yep, you know I had to.

We got to the old fort, passed the houses on the beach, the burned out bar, and the apartment complex with no power. We looked out from the ramparts over the throat of the harbor of St. Johns and then turned the horses for home. You could take your hands off the reins and they would find their way back. Two hours of an hour and a half scheduled ride.  Island Time again. We dismounted and took some pictures, thanked and tipped Boss and then headed back to our prospective lodgings.  Before I left, I walked back to Silver, who was eating grass along the curb. He lifted his head and I scratched the bridge of his nose. Our brown eyes looked at each other, still measuring each. I thought for just a minute the horse, if he could, might have said.

“You, you still have some brass.” It made me smile.

I whispered in his ear, so no one but my horse could hear, “High-O Silver, away.”

St. Johns and Island Time

We went into the capital city of St. Johns yesterday. Not to be mistaken for the island of St. John, this one is where they park the cruise ships. Our taxi, spelled on the island- ROGER, took us there. He told us that’s how we are to spell the word while here and I am not a person to argue.

St. Johns is just like a port town. It lives for the tourist. No tourist, shops are shut and boarded up. Not a lot of natives on the island need a Rolex watch or a $28 bottle of fifteen year old Glenlivet. 

It was sad, really because our ROGER dropped us off right at the throat of the dock where the cruise ship was disgorging its load of passengers. We didn’t want to be associated with the ship, we didn’t want to be one of them, but in fact, we were. We moved away and into the streets as soon as we could, finding a small area of crooked doors, curry smells, some water-like substance running in the gutters, and mangoes spread out on dirty towels on the sidewalk hoping a passing tourist would offer a few cents for one.

Bob Marley was blaring everywhere. I was thinking the locals figured that’s what the tourists wanted to hear, when in fact, most of the tourists couldn’t tell you who Bob was.

Hemingway's Grill, one would hope, somehow would beg the question that the great writer spent time on this island and I think he did. Just not at this restaurant since it was founded in 1986 according to the sign. But it offered a great overview of the intersection where the two worlds-island and everyone else, met. A grilled cheese and tomato sandwich and a view of the street with all its sounds, smells, Marley, and of course the Kino Palace Casino were on full display.

The Kino Palace is not a palace. Not sure it was even a casino. I realize if it was airlifted and placed in downtown Phoenix, it would be entered only with a tactical team in Kevlar and safeties off.  Here, its where you go to play Kino, drink some rum, smoke something and enjoy the day.

In the Caribbean, there is definitely island time. For example, as I write this, I am sitting on our second floor patio. Across from me is another building with its second floor stairwell, a circular stucco structure, facing me. I can see it from the bottom to the landing on the second floor-solid stucco. The man started two days ago to paint it. He started on one side and worked his way around from the bottom to as high as he could reach. It wasn’t high enough and, with about two feet to go on the bottom, he ran out of paint in the tray.

That was two days ago.

Island time---no problem.

Rain

Today's message will be a little short. Apparently, while I was first mating the Zorro yesterday, I got SUNBURNED ON THE BOTTOM OF MY FEET!! Hmm Should make walking fun today!

It rains during the night here. Convenient for the tourist industry, unless you have tourists from Arizona who, with the threat of rain or a down pour like to skip through the water puddles naked. Just before dawn, it came in and washed the grounds free of the sins of the day before.

I'm not a bird fan unless you count a bird that can carry away small dogs or loud obnoxious children, but the birds here are on the edge of coolness. Small guys with flaming red feathers, yellow breasts, feathers that stick up straight out of the top of their heads. Birds that say 'CAW'. Birds that can say that are birds from the movies that you hear as you cut your path through the jungle on the way to the lost palace.

If you want to come to the Caribbean, I can recommend this place. You have to be ready to relax. A lot of us say we can do that, but it is not our nature. Drinking rum punches helps. Walking on the beach helps. Writing from a quiet patio with a cup of joe helps. But it is a focused effort.

Maybe skipping in a water puddle......

Sailing with Cap'n!

There is only one way to see a Caribbean island, in particular, Antigua. That is with Cap'n Nash aboard is twenty-two foot boat-Zorro.


Open sea, the boat bending to the wind so you are sitting in your seat actually standing on the seat across from you due the list of the boat. Wind, spray, chop of the waves, all added up to wanting to scream out something with the word 'arg' in the middle of the sentence. This was the only way to do this land justice.

As we cruised the coast, large catamarans passed us with loud music and people dancing on their deck. Like it was a mission to go from here to there, where ever there was. Ours, well, after the first cove, I could feel myself relax and after some snorkeling and more coves, I could feel myself composing a letter in my head to my boss, telling him I fell and broke my back in three places and would not be back to work---ever.

Cap'n Nash, or 'Cap'n' to his new close friends, even allowed me to steer. The man had to set anchor and this little boy got to take the helm. "Aye aye Cap'n," I said with a very good English accent and a tip o' me cap with just the index and thumb fingers. I even had a twitch developing in one eye like it needed to be covered with a patch.  I did so well, he let me moor it coming back. Standing at the tiller, mist and spray in my eyes, my hat turned backwards, awaiting orders from Cap'n standing on the bow, fearful of doing something that would put him in the water and absolutely no ability to turn and get him. Fearful images of the boat sailing off until it hit something solid to stop it, like the gulf coast of Texas.

It was a grand day. Sailing like I'm sure some ancient ancestor of mine did when they went across  Saguaro Lake. 

The tranquility of rum

 

There is something about rum that causes religion to make sense. A rum punch for example, is or should be the drink one gets before they enter the Christian heaven. Christians can drink, so that applies. Rum is the base, the foundation-the catalyst of what is all that is holy and just. If there is a way to get the world leaders, who piss each other off, to sit on a beach chair under a cabana shade, with a fresh rum punch from the Coconut Grove in Antigua, within fifteen minutes there would be hand-shakes. Within thirty minutes, there would be back slapping and laughter. After forty five minutes, the two parties would be singing songs from each other’s country and making fun of their own country’s policy on endangered species.

 But…..

If you were to drink rum straight, without the flavor of a ‘punch’ whatever the hell that includes, what would that look like?  I talked about Kenny Chesney’s song yesterday. I didn’t talk a lot because I still needed to do some critical research about rum, of course. What would the difference be between rum punch and it being served neat? I set about doing the research and discovered that world peace could be obtained via this liquor.

While sitting on my beach chair, trying to write/edit two books, I came to the conclusion that life without this drink is life without, well-peace, tranquility, freedom, did I say peace? The trick is the little spice crap they sprinkle on it. It could be black tar heroin- this spice, a combination of nutmeg, cinnamon and something else,  but if black tar heroin tastes like this, they need to legalize it!

Now, about the horses.

You might remember I mentioned Shan, my new found friend, we met on the beach wearing a used red t-shirt and a flotation device, was going to bring horses today. I met him on the beach and gave him $50 for a deposit for the $120 horseback ride—today. Sure, I met him on the beach and sure, he looked like someone holding a cardboard sign on the corner of the freeway and the Camelback off ramp, but there was something.

Okay, so those of you making bets the horses weren’t going to show up, might still not be able to collect. Shan’s boss, Nick, showed and said they had the wrong date. We rescheduled for Thursday. So, we have to postpone the collection on bets until later this week, unless you had pretty tight bets holding to tight accounts of who shows or doesn’t show.

Okay, so tomorrow’s mission is to sail with Cap’n Nash and see the world from under. I’m banking this white boy will have first and second degree burns on his white body, totally justifying medicinal island recipes.

That just means more rum. I’m working not only its political benefits but medicinal benefits as well!!!

 Gosh I love sacrificing myself for God and Country!!! 

Kenny Chesney may be right

We left Miami with a send off by the Russian cab driver. As least I thought he was Russian, or maybe from Georgia, or Slovenia or someplace that sounded, well, Russian. Actually, he was from Brazil. I was close. As we dodged in an out of traffic, my hand firmly gripping the overhead hand rail and noticing the turn signal, a unique instrument often used for signaling lane changes to warn other drivers you are thinking about moving into their occupied space, had cobwebs on it, he talked about his migration to the United States and about his dead father, which he started to get choked up over. I have no problem with that and would love to have spent time at a bar talking about Dad-dom but at the present time, I really wanted him to focus on the fact he was twenty-five miles over the speed limit, looking at me in the rear view mirror while talking, and answering the phone, of course speaking in Russian.

Sunday, yesterday, was a walk to the store. It was about a half mile away and in a building that made Costco embarrassed. Walking there, and then starting the walk back, carrying bags of groceries like we just hit the UNICEF station at the Syrian border. We would have made it back too even if it wasn't for Cap'n Nash pulling up next to us and wanting to take us back to our compound. Cap'n Nash might be his real name. It might be the name he goes by here so he can entice customers to go sailing with him. It might be his alias he is using because he speaks English with almost no accent and I am sure he is on a witness protection program out of Chicago. Nice man, fresh start, who cares if he worked for the mob as "Johnny Two-fingers Milligan."

Today the sun is out. That picture above, that is one beach of many beaches in Antigua, a poor country based almost exclusively on tourism. Too bad. Someone, could come down here and make a killing shipping 'organically grown tropical fruit' to restaurants in the US. The stuff is falling from the trees here.

I met Evelyn yesterday and Jenny today. Evelyn is about fifty, maybe a hundred and fifty. Its hard to tell. She has one semi-functioning tooth in front on the bottom. She was walking the beach with her jewelry. I will buy something from her. She needs me to buy something from her. A five dollar anything could feed her for a while. Jenny is a grandmother of eight. She was set up with a rope line outside of the Coconut Grove Bar (more about that religious place later) with colorful shirts and dresses hanging from it, along with the same jewelry Evelyn was selling. She is a grandmother of eight and when I told her I had four with two more on the way and we haven't unleashed our son and daughter in law yet in to the baby making world, her eyebrows went up. She was impressed. Family is huge down here.

This afternoon we wait for Shan (proper spelling of the name in the islands). Shan is the guy we gave $50 cash to and are banking on him showing up with horses for an hour and a half trail ride this afternoon. Even if he doesn't show, all I can say is "Well done Shan, well done."

So it begins

In the summertime, people travel. Unless you're coming from a cold climate, like London, when you travel in the winter time and you migrate your very white body to the Caribbean, once owned and operated by your monarch and now, they just kinda pay homage to them. If you're an American, you travel in the summer because that's when you have the coupon for.

If you want, you can read along for the next two weeks as I walk you through our migration to the islands once owned by the Caribs, who were a delightful people who fancied cannibalism.

I will tell you about such characters as Shawn, the guy who can sell ice to Eskimos who lined up horse back riding---after he gets his $50 cash up front. Did I tell you his office is the beach? Sure, take bets as to whether the horses show up or not.

Then there is Cap'n Nash. You would swear by his non-accent, he was a pediatrician from Detroit. He runs a sailboat and lined up a 'three hour tour.' Did I say his office was on the beach as well. Its okay, he had a business card.

Then there is the Russian.

Or the Haitian.

Both cab drivers in Miami who make the trip from the airport to the hotel on South Beach every bit as much of a pucker factor as Thunder Mountain Railroad ride at Disneyland.

So, hang in there if you are truly bored, grab a diet beverage, sit back and I will walk through the trip as best as I can tell it.

Not Just another Day

Memorial Day is the advertised weekend before the kick off of the summer. Its ads in the newspaper includes anything from pork ribs to mattress sales and include trips by families to the beaches of this great country, its lakes, grandmother's house, or the neighboring watering hole.

It has nothing to do with any of these things.

It is the day of the dead.

It is day we have chosen to stop and remember those who swore an oath to protect and defend the United States, its constitution, and the people within the borders and our interest outside our own borders.

This week, in Phoenix, we lost a fireman and a police officer within twelve hours of each other and unrelated events. I could easily make fit the idea that Memorial Day was for those two as well.

They swore the same oath.

I think I've said this before, but the ones who have written the ultimate check on our behalf want us to go to the lake, the beach, and grandmother's house. They want us to celebrate what they bought. Kinda like that present under the tree/menorah we bought and can't actually wait until the person we bought it for, opens it. We want their approval. We want them to look at us and beam with joy at the gift. It cost us three extra shifts at the saw mill, we sold our stamp collection, we downsized our living expenses-

we turned to the night sky and raised our open hands and simply said 'Send Me Lord.'

So, we each got a package to open this weekend. It is a swell present. We each will love it because it is what we want to make of it. The price? Fugitaboutit! You can't take it back or exchange it. Its priceless. The greatest gift, in the greatest country, by its humble servants who just want to see us smile when we open it, and maybe, between the burnt hot dogs, the zinc oxide on our noses, and the dog Frisbees, we can find a minute to look into the night sky and simply say-

'Thanks.'

Do Our Lives Count?

Twenty years into the future

They walked down the leave strewn path around the park and small mall. The man wore a ball cap with the Detroit Tigers logo on it with his pure white hair trimming the bottom edge of the navy blue cap. He had on a zipped up sweatshirt and a pair of dress slacks with some off brand white tennis shoes. The slacks were covering some calf-high support socks that helped his aged heart circulate the blood back up out of his legs. The problem was, it made his feet cold. He was also carrying his wife’s purse. When her arthritis acted up, she couldn’t close her hands and grip anything, including her own purse.  When they were younger, she use to carry big purses, of bright colors—big enough to carry shoes in, maybe a sweater and so colorful, her husband joked for years about the purses being rescue beacons the Coast Guard could see for miles. But as the years progressed, the heaviness of it hurt her shoulders.  Over the years, the purses got progressively smaller and more subdued in color.

But not that subdued.

He didn’t mind helping her. He never minded carrying his wife’s ‘luggage’ he would call it to his friends. He had been doing it for the last decade, or has it been two decades? He had lost count.  At his age, he always lost count.

She was wearing a light sweater and slacks to match. She wore gloves because her circulation was not getting any better and her hands were constantly cold. She had a cotton scarf around her neck and an ear ‘cozy’ he called it around her ears, a headband skiers used. The cold wind would bother her ears.  She would often stuff chunks of cotton in them to help keep them warm when the two of them went out. He made her wear the cozy because when they went into a restaurant, she would pull out the cotton, if she remembered she had them in, and place them on the table. Chunks of cotton, sitting in his wife’s ears, now sitting on the table they were going to eat on, bothered him.  The thought of ear wax made him squeamish even though his wife, as well as himself, were always impeccably dressed and clean. When he was younger, there were times he would shower three times a day, but the ear wax thing bothered him.   It always has.  Clowns bothered him as well. Not a lot else bothered the man, but ear wax and clowns did. Ear wax in clowns’ ears was beyond comprehension. 

They loved to window shop or go see a movie and then go and sit in the window seats of one of the restaurants or near the splash pad area in the center of the quarter and watch people and their children play in the water. She would drink an iced tea and he would drink a diet soda. The sugar wasn’t good for his stomach, even though he overlooked the sodium. Sometimes they would go an hour without saying anything, then she would say something. It was always her that started the conversation—always.

They just knew.

They got married when he came back from Vietnam. They met when he was a math teacher at an inner city school and she was  a counselor.  He stuck his head in her office, a random decision, and asked if she had any gum. She frowned and then went into her side drawer and pulled out a pack of Beemans. Thinking no one else in the world liked the black licorice taste. He has been chewing it ever since. She always carried a pack in her ‘luggage’.

 They walked down the sidewalk, looking at nothing and seeing everything. It was their grandchild’s graduation from high school. They had some cards and a present to buy.

Now, in the twilight years of their lives, as the young people passed them on the sidewalk, listening to their headphones or texting on their cell phones, they were oblivious to the old ones who seemed invisible to them, sometimes a little irritated as they had to change their own course on the wide sidewalk to navigate around the slower, old people. If the world Author could have whispered in the old one’s ears, the words would have spoken about the person just walking next to you—was treated successfully for cancer by a former student of yours. The young man on the skateboard, who almost ran you over, was the grandchild of a student who was pregnant and wanted to quit high school, but you encouraged her to stay and finish. You never knew it but she then went to community college and was one of two mothers who graduated in the same class as their children from ASU. But the words were silent. There were three more at that small mall, who the Author would be able to speak about the old ones’ influence.

 The two moved down the walk and found a table on the patio of a bar that specialized in the couple’s favorite food. He pulled out her chair and helped her sit down then went over and stood in line, getting her favorite, orange chicken and white rice. He got the same only without the rice. It was the same order they’ve had for decades. There they sat and ate, watching the world move around them. There were others like them, hundreds even in the mall, but the two just sat and ate and watched, occasionally commenting and pointing about inane things. They were happy, just the two of them.

The world was a better place for having known such as these.

 

 

Easter and that damn list

Easter morning is different, if you allow it to be.  It’s the days leading up to it that are fleeting.

Supposedly, the High Holy Days of the Christian faith happen this weekend. And yet, I didn’t think about it much until halfway through the Good Friday night service.  It was just something else on the calendar. Something else I had to do this week—grocery store, laundry, mow the lawn, oh yeah-Friday night at the church and then Sunday. What do I have to bring to the lunch on Sunday? Back to the store.

It was just something else on the list of things to do.

But it isn’t.

For those of us out there that might feel the same way, here’s the thing—it’s okay to feel that way. The God that we celebrate is not disappointed in us. We do that to ourselves. He already knew about our inability to focus before we did, and yet He still  adores us.

For those agnostics or atheists among us, it’s okay. No one is going to beat you up, at least not on this web page.  Sometimes, if we certified Christians were honest, a lot of us feel the same way. The idea of us having it all together, all the answers, our lives all sorted, the world is smoother for us, is a, well, mostly a lie.

We cheat, struggle, lie, kill, suffer, divorce, die, just like everyone else. We have been infected with the same terminal illness everyone on this planet is infected with. So what?

We believe in something that happened two thousand years ago, actually-it was set up since we started living on this rock.

What if…

The story of the carpenter’s kid was true? What if he grew up, became a rabbi, had a few people following him around a crappy part of the world for three years, his death witnessed and documented?  So, what if, just what if---the rest is true?

The problem with this story isn’t the story, its us who read the story. We think in order to be a ‘good’ Christian, we need to fall on our faces, live a clean and pure life, never make a mistake, and when we do, we beat ourselves up, preferably in front of a thousand witnesses to show our piousness. If we’re lucky, God will have pity on us and take us in, after first scolding us and shaking his god finger at us. We are just lucky to be accepted—we should just be grateful we got God on a good day.

The problem is two fold, that’s not what God thinks of us at all and it has absolutely nothing to do with anything we do. He would even say that was 'Bull' (Yes, my God uses that word, usually followed with the ‘S’ word but I wanted to be pious).

Here is the truth—he adores us.

He knows our issues before we do. He knows we will not only trip, we will fall like a friggin rock. We will screw up, apologize, and do it fifty more times before the week is out. And yet, when we speak, He holds his hands up to the angels, silencing their singing because he wants to hear what we are saying. We bring Him joy, even in our poopy pants. He smiles at our attempt and failure. It isn’t us that stands ourselves up again after we’ve fallen, but the hands of our Dad. He brushes off our clothes, wipes our tears, points us down range again, and sends us off to make another attempt at this life. He is so proud, so in love with us, we can not fathom such a love. 

He does not want us to feel guilt beyond what guilt is designed for, to draw our attention to our spirit telling us we might want to look at what we are doing and see if this is what we really want to do. He does not believe the person that suffers publicly more than anyone else is, in fact, more Christian. Actually, He knows it to be the opposite. There is no list He is keeping on us, no tally of wrongs. That sheet has been shredded, destroyed. “What list?” He would respond to our “Yeah, but….” comment about how screwed up we are. That bill was paid, on a nob of a hill outside an ancient city.

So, here we are at Easter in 2013. Eggs, bunnies, candy, and paisley colors. Fathers attending the one church service of the year, breaking out their one suit and painful shoes because their ‘suppose to.’

You can hear Dad use that word again—that compound word that I believe, and I think there is Biblical support in the minor prophets to back me up, is His favorite word. I think on this day, this one day, He doesn't care what you wear, only what your heart says. He only wants to celebrate the gift he gave us. What if you wore a Hawaiian shirt to church? What if you wore shorts? How about if you didn’t shave or shower? Would Dad love you any less? He can’t. It’s not in his character. There is nothing you did, are doing, or will do, that will make Him go away. He can’t. Once He's in, he's in. He sees you perfectly, just the way He made you. All you have to do is accept it.

He is drawn to our voices. He loves us like a Dad is suppose to. Totally. 

Dare, just once, to believe, and pitch the list.

Happy Easter

The Ball Cap

I never thought I would ever say these words, but in 'my generation' we knew how to wear ball caps. As long as ball caps have been around, there is a way to wear them. Not taking anything away from my son or sons-in-laws, ball cap wearing today rides the fence and has taken on some new looks. There is an important aspect of this we need to be aware of.

The way you wear a cap, especially older men-like me, means something.

Early this morning, while running on the beach towards North island Naval Air Station, I passed a man. He was an old man, at least mid to late seventies-maybe in his eighties. He was walking in the opposite direction, away from the air station. I noticed as I ran by him, he had on a San Diego ball cap. Men his age, who wear ball caps, say something about who they are, just by the way they wear it.

But there was something else.

First, whenever you pass an elderly person on this island, you always use the word 'sir.' It just is natural here. You never know who you are talking to and every last one of them deserves the word. This is a warrior village and some of these people are retired warriors. There was the cap this man was wearing but there was also the man that was very telling.

He walked with a bad limp, like the hip replacement worked on one side but not on the other or he was waiting for the other to be replaced as well. He was walking like a man who, in years passed, probably ran this beach in the morning before his morning flight mission, although he might of been a surface warfare man-the guy was just too big to drive a plane. Even at his age, he was still tall, over 6'2". He could have been a commander of a ship, maybe a cruiser, or even a carrier during Gulf War One. He was on the bridge when he got word of a sonar 'ping' of an unknown target about five miles out. He would have calmly called 'general quarters' and as the bridge crew made ready for a fight, a young seaman would have walked over to him with the old man's battle cover. He would have looked at the kid and simply shake his head. the seaman would have stored the cover where he always stores it, thinking the same thing he always did 'the old man never wears it.' The man would have his ball cap of the ship's moniker on its front, just like the 'SD' he wore today. He would have pulled it off and adjusted it once, just like he was hitting an approach shot at Augusta, a nervous habit just before he gave the first combat order.The bill of the cap properly curled the way caps should be curled.

The old man walking down the beach had a squared away jaw, white hair, and steel blue eyes. His skin was mottled from sun exposure and age. He was an old man now. We see them everywhere, walking down the center of the sidewalk, taking up the entire lane. We get frustrated because we want to pass them but can't squeeze by on the right and the left has people coming towards us.

Sure, this guy could have been an insurance salesman from Topeka. He might have been nowhere near war and the only gun he ever touched was a gold embossed hunting rifle his great grandfather willed him from their estate in Nantucket.

But this place is holy ground. Men like that don't like it here, at least this part of the beach, so close to a warrior village. Something happens to them, and they turn back before they get close to the fence separating the base from the world. This man I passed, I felt, knew the launch codes to the cruise missiles on his ship as well as where the hole in the perimeter fence he and his buddies used to get down to the beach, bypassing the guards at the gate. I had to test it.

I made the turn and ran to see if I could catch him. In the predawn light, I could see the silhouette shuffling up the beach. The distance from the running part of the beach and the water started to narrow and other runners were up and down the beach. The old man, of course, was right in the middle of the space. As I came up behind him, I began to pass on his left. I called out as I began my pass 'by your leave sir.' His response was automatic and telling-'carry on'.

Apparently, he was not an insurance salesman from Topeka.

A new walk through an old bar

Some time, I think it was around 1944, a young naval aviator, after having a few drinks, hopped up on the wooden bar in the Del Coronado Hotel on San Diego's North Island-and danced.

It was war time. The bar was a welcome rest for crews coming back from the war in the Pacific. It wasn't uncommon to have officers and enlisted, their uniforms sometimes covered with the soot of fires faught from battle, days worth of facial hair, and dirt under their nails due to lack of clean water on their ships, finding some leave time and heading for heaven on earth.

Why this young aviator (dare never to call a naval aviator a 'pilot') was in the bar was uncertain. He was a squadron commander of Black Cats. But they were out of Alameda. No one remembers why he was here. It could of been for a thousand different reasons.

Some how, he ended up at this bar.

Sixty-nine years later, I find myself sitting here too, sipping a very good scotch. It seems appropriate to drink a fine scotch at a place like this. I was by myself, also appropriate. I tried to imagine the time, the smells, the feelings, of the young men, maybe dashed with a few pretty girls. The aviator was more than likely drinking beer, good cold beer. When he was on station in the Pacific, the beer was as cool as the air temp. Good cold beer, laughter, no one trying to kill you, all seem to lead to a condition allowing this young man to decide to, well, dance.

I looked down on the edge of the bar, carved to allow you to fold your arm across your leaning chest comfortably on the edge. There were marks and dents in the wood. I smiled at the thought that maybe one of them was from this young man's  heels scuffing the edge as his friends cheered him on to hop up and do whatever a drunk aviator does on a bar after a few beers-before life falls in on him again. I figured the bar would have been refinished a dozen times since then. But still, the mark was there, somewhere, it was just hiding.

No matter. I was close enough.

So,  three chairs from the end, with a good drink, I sat and watched, imagining the dance; the bar tender probably drying a glass and shaking his head; his friends, laughing and clapping, and with some hope the aviator keeps his clothes on.

Good form Dad. I raise my glass to you, almost seventy years late.

Author’s Foreword

You are about to crack the spine, or perhaps the digital spine, on the third in a series of books. Looking for Indianola is part of the Emancipation Series. It started in 2007 with Emancipating Elias, and was followed in 2010 by Holy Ground. I love this series like marmots love sunning themselves on an open Colorado highway, with nary a truck in sight to rain their day. This is important, I think, because an author should probably like what he or she creates. Oh, this additional point does make me smile—this series, compared to other series you might have read, is a little—different.

It has no lead character, threaded from one book to the next. That makes it pretty different for a series.

With each book, however, I tried to take a different look at our common hunger in the human soul to be free, to be somehow—emancipated. This is not a freedom from taxes or pain or loneliness. As long as we live on this rock, we’ll be susceptible to all three of those big dogs. But if I’ve plied my craft at all well, you will find yourself in the very fiber of the characters I’ve written. It is art and honesty to give dignity to those who aren’t even sure themselves that they warrant it. So, I’ve tried to honor you. I really mean that. I see all of us, in these pages and I have tried to bring honor to our pursuit to live the best we know how in the midst of our struggles. There is a saying about authors that we write what we know. Now, that doesn’t always apply. I haven’t recently been blown up or shot, turned into a wolf, or been flown to another galaxy. But I have paid taxes; I have known pain, both physical and emotional; I have tasted death, literally; and I have known loneliness. I have known days when I wanted to just walk away, convinced I would never experience the life others appeared to enjoy.

I have also danced like I didn’t care. I have cried with tears of joy. And I have pointed a gun at another human and told them I would really appreciate seeing their hands before I blew their head clean off their shoulders, thank you very much. All of us have walked at least part of this same path in our lives.

Looking for Indianola is the third book in this series that looks at, well—us. Some of the characters are strung in cameo roles from book to book, causing you to remember that old friend from a prior novel. But mostly, they are stories of common people— our people, and their pursuit at slogging through the scene in their tapestry that presently has no design or identifiable order. Eventually, if we allow ourselves, we learn as students so eventually, we get opportunities to become the teacher. As a dear friend once wrote to me “…only in retrospect can you see an unseen hand moving disheveled lives along a perfect course.”

The Emancipation Series is just what it says. We get to watch our loved ones, and sometimes a neighbor, or strangers we’ve never thought two seconds about, and see ourselves in them. And as we watch the dignity and honor of a life that never expected or gave credit to such a hope, we get to imagine that we too are being given such dignity, delight and honor. We find ourselves in unsuspecting characters that are surprisingly heroic, loving, caring, funny, vulnerable; as well as, compulsive, overweight, near-sighted, envious, and often in conversations with themselves.

Sit back in a soft chair with comfortable light, your favorite beverage on the table next to you. Welcome your dog to sit at your feet, and if you must, allow your cat to fall asleep on the back of the chair. Turn off the television. And start your own journey.

Enjoy the trip.

Mark J. Williams

Author

Valentine's Day is a Weird day

Valentine’s Day is a weird day.


It is a day we show that special someone, you care about them, maybe even love them-whatever that means. So, like a math formula, it is also a day to be reminded of those that don’t love us, broken loves, fractured marriages or relationships, and for many it is a day we would rather leave to pass us by then spending a small fortune on a stuffed bear and chocolates that no one’s waistline needs.

But maybe, just maybe, we can try to look at it from a different angle.

It is actually a day when a bunch of years ago a priest named Valentinus decided to stand with the poor and sick in the catacombs and sewers, marrying them in the faith of the new religion with the threat of bat-crap crazy Nero putting him to death. They killed him on February 14th so the story goes. He just couldn’t leave his people. He, it is said, loved them even unto death.

Hmm. That sure is different than a fuzzy bunny, bear, or those teddy things from Wal-Mart and who, by the way, are those little skivvies for? But I take a rabbit trail.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. If we really want to show love, we need to be ready to write a metaphoric check. And it can be expensive.

You see, an old man taught me once a long time ago that Love-is a sacrifice word.

You can’t love without sacrificing. You can’t love without there being a cost. Anyone can do the romantic stuff. Who couldn’t spend a weekend at a ski lodge drinking hot chocolate, eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, and wearing those skivvies from Walmart?

How about holding your sick father’s hand while he’s in the hospital—for weeks. How about listening to your child scream in pain day after day while undergoing chemo? Or experiencing a miscarriage? What about sheltering your aged parents while they travel the last few months of their lives, all the while calling you names and berating you for what you are doing simply because they don’t remember who you are?

What about—looking over your shoulder and catching the glance of the man who is scourging you with thirty-nines strokes? You lost count somewhere around fifteen, knowing full well his life is about to be changed dramatically for the better because you let him do what he is doing?

People talk about loving with a happy heart. Well, the Guy who wrote the definition of love would call bull on that. There’s nothing happy about some of our love. There is joy but that also does not involve a happy skip down the street. It’s okay to love and hate the act of the love. It’s okay to sigh heavily, before you get out of the chair and join the fight. It’s okay to drop the always applicable ‘F Bomb’ just before you run into enemy fire looking for those last two soldiers who didn’t make it back in the wire. It’s okay to want to run, hide, scream, cry, wish, pray, and yet when the sun rises, we still find ourselves standing in the game. We might have even left the game for awhile, but something pulled us back. Love is that powerful.

That’s the metaphoric check. That’s the cost.

So today, love well. Look over your shoulder and find those hateful eyes and know your actions in the next few seconds will change those eyes you meet from hate and fear to compassion and contriteness.

That’s how strong that word ‘Love’ is.