My World

The Cost of Hatred

Last night I was awake and decided that the only thing that I could do, without turning on the lights, was to watch a movie. It is a favorite of mine and I have seen it many times. It is called, “Cry Freedom” and it is the story of apartheid and how it was ended. It is about Steve Biko and the newspaper editor that finally introduced him to the world. Now the history of apartheid is not all that different from what we have done here. If it is possible it is worse than what our Native Americans experienced at our hands. If you add that, to the mix, the 300 years of slavery that the African Americans experienced at the hands of our forefathers, what we have done is scary In the case of African natives they were not only moved from the homes that they had established, but the were prohibited from being in the white mans land with out a pass. By 6:00 P.M. they had to be off the streets. Some of them began to agitate for freedom. Thousands were killed by the army.

The newspapers editor, Donald Woods, considered himself a liberal but he had the same blinders on that many of us have, regardless of what we like to think about ourselves. One day there was an uprising in one of the townships and hundreds were killed. Well Mr. Woods, put it on the front page of his newspaper. However he also put an editorial, on the front page about Steve Biko, accusing him of being a racist or as he called a counter racist. The next day a young woman came into his office and just let him have it. She told him that if he would meet Mr. Biko, he might get a better view of him. That person was,Dr. Mamphela Ramphele.  She made the introduction. They met outside of an old church in Mr. Biko’s township. By this point Steve Biko had been banned, by the South African Government. Under this law a person that was banned could not move farther then two miles from his or her home and could not meet with more then one person at a time. So the two of them sat there and began a friendship that lasted until Mr. Biko’s death. The first thing that Mr. Biko asked was, “have you ever been to an African Township?” The more time they spent together the more Mr. Woods learned about the real effects of apartheid on any human being. In 1962, a law was passed that, made it possible to put someone in jail without a trial. It took America until 2001 to pass such a law. I suppose that this law was intended, to be used against Africans, but some white men were also caught in this net. Now if they were burglars or rapists, or murderers they would get a trial, but if the were involved in the black consciousness movement, off they went to jail.

Many of the things that were said to justify this view of the world were things that I heard growing up. The blacks were lazy and they just didn’t work. There are a lot of phrases used to justify racism, but when you think them through, they just don’t hold water. The Europeans came to South Africa in the middle 1600’s. They took more and more land. They made it impossible for the African to find work. They couldn’t be farmers because there was no land to farm. Besides they had to stay in their own territories called townships. The women that the white population hired to be live in house keepers were supposed to be off of the streets by 6 P.M. That meant that they couldn’t travel to see their children in the townships. At one point Mr. Biko and Mr. Woods were walking in the street of a township. The kids were running around. Mr. Biko observed. If you are born into a township and even if you are smart or dumb you will will die here.

Mr. Biko was finally arrested for traveling outside of his township. He was taken to jail and by that evening he was nearly beaten to death. A doctor was called and after the examination, the prison officials asked only one question. Is it possible that he is faking? The doctor replied that a human couldn’t fake what Mr. Biko was experiencing. There was bad internal damage, brain damage, and his spinal fluid had too much blood in it. He said this man should be in a hospital. The told the doctor that they would take Mr. Biko to a prison hospital in Cape Town, over 700 miles away. They put him on the bed of a small pickup truck and started to go to Cape Town. By the time they got there he was dead. He was brought back to a mortuary in his township to be prepared for burial. Mr. Woods got Mrs. Biko and his photographer and off they went to the mortuary. While they were viewing the body they took pictures of the wounds. The in a few days Mr. Woods was banned. There was a formal inquisition into the death of Mr. Biko, the answer was that he died of natural causes and they could find no reason that anyone employed by the government could have caused the death. Donald Woods was trying to fly to England to show the pictures and publish the book he had been writing. Before he could board the plane the banning was in place. The police would show up to search for the book. They couldn’t find it because he hid the pages in a biography he had written on Winston Churchill. The book would be called, “Biko” and it is a biography of Steven Biko. A few weeks later he and his wife decided to get out of South Africa. The escape was incredible. But they got out and went to England. There he published his book, “Biko.” He had already sent 14 copies of the photographs to many people in Europe. Mr. Woods died in 2001.

What amazed me this time as I watched the movie was the incredible amount of work that the state had to go through to keep the races separated. It must have cost a fortune. It made me realize that legal hatred is so very expensive both monetarily and in the destruction of the hearts of the haters. For me, the other thing that came through this story is that the hatred comes out of fear.

We in America cannot take credit for the advances we have made in the area of civil rights, because civil rights are not human rights. Even if the law says you must be treated equally, your human rights demand it. In many parts of this country we continue to discriminate. Peoples lives are ruined. We don’t confine our hatred to just the African American community. We hate so many segments of the population. If you aren’t like, or don’t think like, the majority of the population you most likely be in trouble.

Peace, howie

The Emotions of Life
To be alive is to have emotions. It is part of our human heritage. The only way to avoid them is to deaden yourself to all outside stimuli. I personally don’t feel that is real living.
As the years drift by I become more and more enamored with my emotions and the feelings that I experience because of them. I think it started a when I was in my twenties. I was in a movie theater and the film I was watching was a serious love story. In the end when the guy and girl worked it out, I realized that tears were running down my face. Well, I knew that guys weren’t supposed to cry and I was terrified that people would see me when the lights came up. I tried to stop but the harder I tried the more I cried. The act of denying myself this simple reaction even gave me a head ach. After it happened a few more times I realized that if I just let it go then I wouldn’t get the head ach.
As time when on I realized that I had freed myself of the un-needed taboo. Of course then I would cry over many other things. In fact if I were affected deeply then I would cry. It was weird and some of my friends mentioned this to me. I no longer cared.
I saw people in the streets that didn’t know where their next meal was coming from and had no idea where they would spend the night. I felt a tremendous anger at the greed that made this a fact of life, and at the same time I felt joy in the act of helping. Joy is another emotion that I feel strongly, so of course the tears would begin to flow. By now it didn’t matter to me. I had found a way to live. It wasn’t the way that John Wayne would have lived, but it was my way.
I realized that what my father had taught me was correct. Life was about caring, trying to lend a hand, and trying to make the world a better place for all that live on it. Can I help was a question that I would ask ether openly or silently but as I began to understand what a person or a group of people wanted I found I could help on their terms. It became a joyous path for me. I got more and more involved in the community in which I lived.
Don’t misunderstand me; life was not all roses and moon beams. There were definitely times when I would fear a great many things. The time I confronted my draft board was terrifying. When I decided to take a freedom ride through the south there was a lot of fear involved, but in both cases I was committed. The more involved and the more committed I became, the fear would dissapate.  In both cases we won and that certainly helped.  But time and again I would find that I would be afraid of seemingly simple things. The first time I asked my wife out was scary and exciting. Our marriage and raising our children has left me with both fear and excitement. So many things about this experience have made me happy.
I have had my share of disappointments but all and all I was always able to find a way to make it alright end. See this whole thing is about a mindset. It has a lot to do with the fact that I some point I began living life one day at a time and then one hour at a time, and finally I realized that I could only live one moment at a time. The more I thought about it the more I realized that now is all any of us have. The better I got at it the less I felt disappointment, guilt, or envy.  Those emotions just weren’t worth the price we must pay. I am here and I am enjoying my life. I can hear what someone says and I can absorb it before answering.  I now know that most people act out of four basic actions. They are observation, feeling, needs, and requests. No I didn’t invent this list. Dr. Marshall Rosenberg came up with this list when he began teaching nonviolent communication.  At first I thought he was crazy, but the more I looked into my soul the more I realized that he was correct.
I am going to quote directly from him.
The NVC Process
The concrete actions we are observing that are affecting our well- being
How we feel in relation to what we are observing
The needs, values, desires, etc. that are creating our feelings
The concrete actions we request in order to enrich our lives.
The moment that I realized that this was true for me and at the same time I realized that it was true for everyone else. That meant that I could deal with everyone without subjecting him or her to words or actions that would hurt. That also meant that I could analyze what was happening and respond in a manner that was appropriate for the situation I found myself in.
This wasn’t something I was able to master in a moment. In fact it took me years of practice so it began to be a part of me.
For me that was the final step in leaving a life of pain, anger, hate, fear, guilt, and envy.   It seems that the more I study Native American philosophies, Buddhism, and many eastern religions I find that this form of thought is there. The members of these religions many not always practice these ideas but if they want they can find them.
Peace, howie.

What a Fine Mess This is

Every day, it seems, that our country becomes a crueler place in which to live. Please don’t misunderstand me I am doing well.  But, as I look around the country I see many upsetting things. There are the poor, the homeless, the abused children, the abused women, and the abused men. The reason that we have a government is to do the things that individuals cannot do on their own. For instance, caring for abused people is not something that can be done by individuals, teaching is an art; it is not something everyone can do. So our government has set up the Department of Education, we have departments of Social Services, and we even have a Department of Health and I must not forget the Department of Defense. We need to preserve our heritage, the natural beauty of the outdoors that we all can enjoy. So the government has set up the Department of the Interior.

Over the last ten years all of this has been attacked. Not because they are the wrong things to be doing but because they cost money. Well where does this money come from? It comes from the people. We call these taxes and here is where the problem arises. We all live in a country that puts great stock in money. We decide who is and who is not important by how much money they have accumulated. If you don’t have much money then you are just not as important as the person that has a great deal of money. Those that have money don’t want to give any of it away, not to the government, not to you or I. They just want it all.

As a child I was taught that if you worked hard you would succeed, and if you worked harder then others around you would do very well. Well that doesn’t seem to be true. The deck is stacked, the more money you have the more you are likely to get. If you only have enough to get by then your chance of changing your station in life is almost nonexistent, in fact at any moment you may slide right on down to the bottom of the pile.

Do not despair I am very close to getting to the point. Many of you have noticed that we have what we are calling a financial crises. This financial problem has been building for many years. It started about 12 years ago, yes that is correct, during the Clinton administration. Now I am not blaming this on Bill Clinton because there is enough blame to go around. The Republicans took control of the congress in 1994. They had a contract with America. They began disassembling the structure of regulation that held large business in control. This continued through out the George W. Bush administration, and here we sit up to our neck in trouble and I mean trouble with a capital “T”.

The problem came to light during the campaign for president in 2008. Our leaders were so scared that everyone including the candidates flew back to Washington to save the country.  They passed a bill called the Troubled Assets Relief Program. It had a catchy new name that many of you will remember. It was called TARP. The vote was overwhelming and they had saved the day.  Or so they said. However things got worse and by the time President Obama took office things looked dire. Huge corporations were on the verge of failure. They had been given close to a trillion dollars but the practices that got them in trouble continued. So President Obama went back to the congress and asked them to pass a new stimulus bill. It was also close to a trillion dollars. It also passed easily. Again the government identified companies that they considered to big to fail and bailed them out. Almost all of them were in the financial world, which included many insurance companies. Strangely enough they all this corporations gave a lot of money to people in the House, the Senate, and frankly the President. The money was pretty much just given to them. No new regulations were passed. When the auto manufacturers asked for some help they were publicly embarrassed and only then were they given the money in exchange for shares in their companies. We need to remember that the auto industry is one of the largest employers in the nation.

During this time the business world was hemorrhaging jobs. The numbers of jobless just climbed week by week. No one came up to give them money. They were left to live on their unemployment insurance and food stamps. It isn’t easy living on unemployment. People were looking for jobs but for every job opening there are six applicants. That means that 84% of people trying to work can’t find anything. At this point the latest figure that I have heard is that unemployment is running at 9.5%. Considering that during the last 70 years the percentage was about 2.5%, this should have made everyone very upset. Now if you weren’t unemployed, good for you, however many of you found that working conditions got worse, wages stopped raising, and why not, you weren’t needed. There were 6 people out there that would apply for your job if you quit or got fired.

As I am writing this, the loss of jobs has slowed down but companies are not hiring. They are not buying new equipment. They won’t negotiate with unions. They don’t have to. They are fat and sassy.  Now the important thing is almost no one is buying anything, not people and not companies. In a capitalist economy, no sales means no growth. No growth means that eventually it will fall down around our heads, again.  The level of unemployment will not go down and if fact it will slowly rise as the population grows.

About two weeks ago the Senate had a chance to pass a bill to extend unemployment insurance to the jobless. It failed because the right and, of course that fake Democrat, Bill Nelson, I am for sale to the highest bidder, said that they were afraid of adding to the deficit. They seem to have forgotten that people living on unemployment insurance spend almost every dime they get. Remember that no buying means no growth, and no buying also means that tax revenues will shrink, and that is without lowering taxes. One other thing that is important to remember is that unemployment figures come from the rolls of unemployment insurance. Since many of the jobless will loss their lifeline they will no longer be counted. The percentage of unemployed may actually look lower.

As you are reading this, teachers, professors, and general workers are losing their jobs. Even if you don’t have children this should concern you. Without an educated population we cannot maintain our place in the world order. Eventually the methods of production that we taught the rest of the world will be out dated and we will have to learn from others, if they are interested in teaching us. As an example, every time I call a company for technical support I end up speaking to someone with an Indian accent. I have nothing against India, but where are all those Americans that are supposed to know how to fix computers and other things. Remember the old saying, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and those that help us will want something in return. We certainly wanted something in return when we were the leading industrial nation in the world.

This same financial situation has spread around the world and most nations are doing the same things we did. In order to bail every one out we borrowed money from people that don’t like us very much. As their situations gets worse and worse they, God forbid, may want their money back.

At some point it would be helpful if, as a nation, we actually grew up and started realizing that in a nation with a few haves and a lot of have nots, things seem to go from bad to worse. If this concerns you, and I believe it should, then lets get behind the idea of helping people; lets make our government stop working for the people that pay them above and beyond their salaries.  Whether you want to believe it or not, we are all in this together.

Peace, howie

Summer Song

Love to me is like a summer day

Silent because there is too much to say

Still and warm and peaceful,

even clouds that may drift by,

can’t disturb our summer sky.

I’ll take summer that’s my time of year

Winter shadows seem to disappear

Such a happy season

That’s the reason I can say

That I love a summer day

I hear Laughter from the swimming hole

Kids are fishing with a willow pole

Boats come drifting around the bend

Why must summer ever end?

I hear Laughter from the swimming hole

Kids are fishing with a willow pole

Boats come drifting around the bend

Why does summer have to end?

The Best of Paul Desmond – Paul Desmond Quartet and the Modernairs

Every time I hear this song, and I listen to it a lot, I think of the summers of my youth. It was warm and sweet and we played around the swimming hole. We had a tire swing and although we didn’t fish we caught tadpoles. The sky in Los Angeles was very big and the clouds would drift by.

School would let out and we would have 12 weeks of glorious freedom. We played baseball, rode our bikes, but we always ended up at the swimming hole in the field just across the highway. When we were there the only sounds were the ones that nature created.

When I was 12 years old, school let out for the summer. We headed to the old swimming hole and we found the beginnings of Los Angeles State College. The swimming hole was gone. We were so disappointed. It was at about that time that we realized that things change. Sometimes it changes for the better but not always.

The next year we moved to West Los Angeles, new school and new friends. When summer arrived we took the bus to Venice Beach. It was warm, wet, but noisy and crowded. We had fun but it just wasn’t the same.

For the next few years I went to camp and became a counselor. It was warm and the sky was big. Clouds would drift by but is just wasn’t the old swimming hole.

That is the summer I remember. However, now I live in the State of Washington and now summer means so many different things. In spring the grass begins to grow, the flowers bloom, the pine trees spout new growth, and all the animals come out.

It rains a lot in spring and then the summer arrives, somewhere about July. What we are looking for is two or three days without rain. Sometimes it goes for a whole week.

It is more beautiful then the old swimming hole but, life is different and childhood is gone. I do live a peaceful life, and have a very good time, but I am an adult and find that I have other distractions.

As I said earlier, life changes, as we go from childhood to adulthood we will never be children again. Don’t get me wrong I don’t want to be a child again, but I would love to spend just one more summer day at the old swimming whole.

Peace, howie

Why we do it?

For those of us who are or were parents, do you remember the terrible two’s. I do as if it were still happening. Your child suddenly realized that he/she is an individual and can say no to you. If fact they begin to enjoy the saying of that very simple word. NO! NO! NO! Will it ever end? You think about it and decide that it may end but you aren’t sure. After a while and some loss of sanity you arrive at a truce.

You take a deep breath and say well I have survived it and boy I am going to think long and hard before I have another child again. Sure you will. Now the amazing thing about the terrible two’s is that it will repeat in a few years. You will keep your sanity this time, you have been here before. Not only does she say no but her vocabulary is such that she can say it with elegance. She has learned what buttons to push. Once again you begin to wonder am I going to make it. But you do. All is right with the world. You may even be thinking of having a second child. Yes you are. You are just thinking but you are having serious thoughts.

Finally you have that second child and you are so pleased. He is adorable. You cuddle him. You also get no sleep because he needs to be fed and, by the way, he doesn’t like it if you sleep through the night. You tell yourself, I have been here and can do it again. But just when he is entering the terrible two’s your daughter is becoming an adolescent.

Well adolescence is about the terrible two’s all over again. And this time you are dealing with a young person that can argue and win. You are not quite sure how it happened but they do win. Their ability to push buttons has reached a really subtle level that you really are not sure is happening, if you have time to think about it. And this time it won’t end in a few months, it may take a number of years. Now you are tired. Your nerves are sparking left and right. Once in awhile you find yourself siting a shaking. You find yourself losing your temper but if you are like me you don’t raise your voice or hit your child, don’t want to mess the child up for life.  Oh yes there is that great invention, the time out. Well the time out is good and bad. For the child it isn’t so bad. These days they have music, TV, and friends to text. But for you the house is quite. You are comfortable. You may even think that you will keep her in her room forever. Again I had to reject that thought.

Now don’t get me wrong we loved our daughters. But we didn’t expect the perfect storm to enter our lives. Now for just a second I want to remind you of your two year old son. He is just a treat. NO! NO! NO! I don’t want to eat that. By the time he is 4 he is arguing about anything and every thing. Your older daughter is still going though adolescence and you are going out of your mind. Just a word of caution, parenting isn’t for sissies. It is hard work. Oh in twenty years you may be proud of what you accomplished, and you did accomplish it, but you have to get there first. The population of the United States is going down because people are having fewer children. Instead of two, three, or four, they are happy with one. I know the scientists say this is because people can’t afford so many children, but I believe it is an attempt at sanity. Remember what Einstein said, “if you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result you are insane.”

Perhaps we are taking control back. Perhaps we can be happy with just one child, boy or girl. Perhaps sleeping is a good thought and coming home from work doesn’t have to mean entering the arena.

Peace, howie

The State of the Union

For the past week I haven’t written anything. I have been thinking about what is happening in this country and it is very upsetting to me. I know there are people here on My Space who agrees with me on this issue but we are few and the enormity of the task has me a little discouraged. I will take these items one at a time.

Of course there is the oil spill. Those of us that have been involved in trying to save our planet have been meeting a stone wall. It started with global warming and many people said that we couldn’t be the cause of the warming. Then the effects began to be seen. The ice caps are melting and the polar bears are dieing. We lose more and more species every day in every part of the world. But we continued on our marry way putting out carbon gasses and watching the temperature rise. But suddenly a catastrophe has taken place. British Petroleum’s oil spill is causing the death of many species of fish and coral. The oil has made land fall and is beginning to destroy vegetation and land animals. BP has put a solvent into the water to break of the oil but it is even more toxic then the oil.

Our government stands by and lets these criminals decide their own sentences. We should be involved and we should have every scientist that we can find working on this problem, but we just wait for something to happen. This will be President Obama’s Katrina. Yes he gives speeches but he does nothing. The same is true of our congress.

Let’s leave this problem for awhile and look at the political divide in this country. To begin with almost no one trusts our government. I don’t trust them and citizens on both the right and the left agree. Out of this lack of trust we are spawning very scary groups that want to take power. We have the Tea Bag party, we have more and more militia groups with weapons, and we are only one nut away from domestic terrorists. Now if the terror is caused by an American we don’t call him or her a terrorist but we call them criminals. But if they are from somewhere else we call them terrorists and are willing to suspend the constitution. I hope you haven’t forgotten the Patriot Act. It has attacked the Bill of Rights. It is still in force and once again our government is more then happy to let it stay in place.

We have had a financial breakdown of immense proportions and we still haven’t done any thing about the jobless or the homeless. But we can feel good because the people that caused this are doing just fine. Our government made sure of that. Once again our president has ignored the suffering of too many Americans. The right wing believes it is the fault of the progressives but they forget that it started during the Bush administration and almost everyone in congress voted for T.A.R.P. It was the beginning of the give away of money that we didn’t have; to the people that least deserved it. Then there was the stimulus package. It was pretty much the same thing. Once again we spent money that we didn’t have.

We have been fighting two wars for almost 9 years now and they are further adding to the debt. There is no end in sight. Our brave young people are dieing and we are not accomplishing anything. If I remember when President Obama was running for office he promised to end these wars. It is not happening. Our lead generals say the best we are doing is holding our own.

Then the State of Arizona passed a law that is racist, in nature, and over half of the American people are in favor if it. We stand by and don’t work on immigration reform which may have forestalled this law. The federal government complains but does nothing. Many cities are going to punish the State of Arizona, but this is not the job of the cities. They are doing this because they don’t see the federal government doing anything. Our federal government just stands by and watches it happen.

Next the State of Kentucky elected a member of the Tea Party to be its junior Senator. He has already made remarks that are racist in nature. At the same time the State of Texas has changed the history books to reflect political beliefs and not history. They equate Jefferson Davis to Abraham Lincoln. They ignore our seizure of large tracts of land from Mexico They ignore our treatment of Native Americans. Texas supplies the majority of text books used in our country.

If you read your history, while you can, you will see that this, in many respects, is how the Civil War began. Now this may not happen but our government stands idly by and watches. But what is happening is pitting local government against state government and state government against the federal government.

So what is to be done? We write blogs and editorials, people demonstrate. But it goes on and on. How can we stand by and let our country go down flames. Now this has left me depressed, as a person, as a parent, and as an American Citizen.

I have gotten very tired of the lies and the false promises. I can’t see myself voting for another president who will lie to get elected, and they all do, to serve the people that paid for his/her election.

And so it goes! howie

I Made It Back

Well, after more then 10 emails yesterday, MySpace has fixed my problem and I can read and comment on blogs again.

And so It Goes

My wife and I spent our first 60+ years in southern California. As I have said before I spent many years trying to escape the hordes of people that kept coming to join us. I remember the times in the 50′s when we wanted to have the largest population in the country. Well be careful of what you wish for. You just may  get it, and we did. California now has the largest population in the United States. After my time in Israel…. I wanted to live in a rural place. But, I finally figured out that no matter how far I moved the people would fill everything. One morning my wife sat up in bed and said, “that we could move to Washington State, and find what we wanted. We could also sell our incredibly over priced home and buy a home there and have no mortgage.  Well I just broke into a big smile. The other plus was that our oldest was living in Seattle so we could see her and our grandchildren. Well we aren’t crazy, OK my wife is not crazy. She suggested that we find a place where we could be close enough to visit and take them out for the day, but we didn’t want full time babysitting duty.

She flew up here and found a home in a place that was very rural and was on an island. We have three neighbors that we can see, and that is it. Our nearest neighbor goes to Arizona for the winter and on our other side is one of the wells for the mutual water company. No one is there except trees and this small well. Well this was perfect. Laws have been passed to make sure that the density of the island couldn’t grow. Well I thought I was in heaven. In fact I am in heaven.

We had over and acre of property on the side of a hill. No mortgage and a lovely back yard for the dogs to play in. We have a large lawn in front of the house. I am guessing that the evergreen, in the middle of the lawn is at least 100 feet tall. On the side of the house we have what we refer to as the back forty. This is another lawn leading into the black berry plants and then the evergreens.

When we first got here I tried to mow the lawns with a manual lawn mower. Well, I soon found that I couldn’t handle pushing it  up and down the  hill. We talked it over and finally bought our driving mower. I spent a number of years driving tractors and I loved this. Once a week I would go out and mow the front lawn and the two lawns on the side of the drive way. The next day I would mow the back yard. On the third day I would mow the back forty.

Now I only needed to do this from spring to winter. I enjoyed it. One day this winter my wife said that since we lived in a forest, we should let the grass grow as tall as it wanted to. I didn’t think it was a great idea but I listen to my wife because, she is usually right. Well about three months ago it started to grow and grow and grow. When the dogs went into the back yard they would disappear. I figured that in another few months it would be taller then we are. We had another conversation and this time I stuck to my guns.

What I was soon to learn was, that the mower couldn’t handle grass that high. So we began the great weed whacking. This is much harder then mowing and we both took turns and finally we had it to a level that the mower could handle. I went right out and began mowing the front lawn. It went pretty well, except for the times it stalled because it wasn’t made to work so hard. I keep dreaming of my Caterpillar D-10, for those of you that don’t know about tractors this is a tractor with tracks that is  about the size of a tank. Very few things could stop it. Strangely enough my wife said no. In fact she kept saying: No, No, and No! I finally caught on and went back to work mowing. It was hard work and in the mean time the back 40 kept growing as did the back yard. Two weeks later we began the great whacking. Frankly it was hard work and it took a whole week to finish it. Next came the mowing but, before I could start, it began to rain. When the grass is wet it just bends over and the mowing is just a waste of time. This went on for two weeks. That is what it does in the great northwest. I said that if I could get two days of sun I could go out and mow. Well last week I started in the back yard. I got about 75% of it done before the mower said no more. Then the rain came up again. So we waited until today. It seemed that we needed to do more whacking. So a few days ago I went out and continued to whack away. Today I took the mower out and began to mow the back yard. The mower wasn’t happy but it finally got the job done. There was a lot of stalling when the engine felt that it was being asked to work too hard. Ellen came out and she whacked and I mowed. Finally it was done. Well I was so excited that I made another typical Howie mistake. I went and began to mow the front lawn. That wasn’t bad so I decided to finish the two side lawns; again it was not too bad. Then I decided, and I have no idea why, that I would try the back forty. Now we hadn’t whacked and so when I started it didn’t go too well. The mower kept stalling. I think it said a few nasty things. Well here I am, three hours later. I still have a lot of the back forty to do. I suppose that I will have to get out the weed whacker and do what I should have done in the first place.

I love living here. It is really beautiful. It is a green as you can imagine. This is known as the Evergreen State. There are plants every where. I feel that I can stretch out and not hit anyone except an occasional deer, raccoon, possum, or bear. Not too many bears on the island. I tried to get the deer to eat the lawn but all the want to ear are our flowers, apples and pears. They just won’t buy into my plan. I was not dumb enough to approach the black bears. We also have squirrels and as many birds as you can imagine but they are only interested in what I feed them.

I thought I would just check in.

And So It Goes, howie

Do I Day Dream?

Well of course I day dream. It is all part of enjoying life. Those that don’t day dream are missing out on one of the great pleasures in life. I have been a dreamer all of my life.

As a young man I dreamed about being taller, stronger, a magnate for girls. I dreamed about being a great athlete and perhaps becoming a Brooklyn Dodger or a Los Angeles Ram.

I also dreamed about the books that I read. What would the world be like if only this were true, if the real hero always won, and if the world could really be fair? But mostly it was about what I wanted to be.

Now I still day dream. I will sit out on my deck and look at the trees, the water below and the clouds above and dream about just flying and being able to see it all. I dream about being in China, India, Southeast Asia, or perhaps even at the top of the world in Tibet.

I dream about a world where we don’t kill each other. I used to dream about living in a rural area, but now that this dream has come true. I dream about what I want for my wife, my children, and my grand children. I am not sure what they want but I know that I want them to have it. The grand children are easy. They will tell me over and over again. Every time it is something different.

I dream about what would have happened if I had continued to play my guitar professionally. That is one of my favorite dreams. I don’t want to be rich and famous but I want my music to effect people. I dream about my music entering their minds and making them, if only for a moment, leave this life and go where they always wanted to be. Since I listen to music almost all the time I am awake, or play my guitar, this is a dream that I have quite often. I see myself in a small club with the sound of clinking glasses and the only other sound is the music I play. I can also hear the people let out there breath when something really gets to them.

So yes I day dream a lot. I enjoy it and I will not give it up.

Sweet Dreams, howie

This is a test.

Just Some Thoughts

For the past week I haven’t written anything. I have been thinking about what is happening in this country and find myself very down.  I decided to try to write my way out of it. I know there are people here on My Space that agrees with me on some or all of these issues but we are few and the enormity of the task has me a little discouraged. I will take these items one at a time.

I must start with the oil spill. I represents so many factors of our country, economics, greed, and the inability to tell the truth. Those of use that have been involved in trying to save our planet have been meeting a stone wall. It started with global warming and many people said that we couldn’t be the cause of global warming. Then the effects began to be seen. The ice caps are melting and the polar bears are dying. We lose more and more species every day in every part of the world. But we continue on our marry way putting out carbon gasses and watching the temperature rise. But suddenly a catastrophe has taken place. British Petroleum’s oil spill is causing the death of many species of fish and coral. The oil has made land fall and is beginning to destroy vegetation and land animals. BP has put a solvent into the water to break up the oil but it is even more toxic then the oil.

Our government stands by and lets these criminals decide our fate and there own. We should be involved and we should have every scientist that we can find working on this problem, but we just wait for something to happen. This will be President Obama’s Katrina. Yes he gives speeches but he does nothing. The same is true of our congress.

Let’s leave this problem for awhile and look at the political divide in this country. To begin with almost no one trusts our government. I don’t trust them and both the right and the left agree. Out of this lack of trust we are spawning very scary groups that want to take power. We have the Tea Bag party, we have more and more militia groups with weapons, and we are only one nut away from domestic terrorists. Now if the terror is caused by an American we don’t call him or her a terrorist but we call him or her a criminal and we expect our courts to handle it. But if they are from somewhere else we call them terrorists and are willing to suspend the constitution. I hope you haven’t forgotten the Patriot Act. It has attacked the Bill of Rights. It is still in force and once again our government is more then happy to let it stay in place.

We have had a financial breakdown of immense proportions and we still haven’t done any thing about the jobless or the homeless. But we can feel good because the people that caused the breakdown are doing just fine. Our government made sure of that. Once again our president has ignored the suffering of too many Americans. The right wing believes it is the fault of the progressives but they forget that it started sometime in the late 1950’s with the invention of credit for the average American. I know that credit has been around for a long time. But by selling everything on credit and then giving everyone a credit card we had changed the dynamics. Everyone in congress voted for T.A.R.P., on both sides of the isle.  It was the beginning of the give away of money that we didn’t have; to the people that least deserved it. Then there was the stimulus package. It was pretty much the same thing. Once again we spent money that we didn’t have.

We have been fighting two wars for almost 9 years now and they are further adding to the debt, at a billion dollars a month. There is no end in sight. Our brave young people are dying and we are not accomplishing anything. Innocent people are dying and we are not accomplishing anything. In fact the incidence of terror is going up all around the world. If I remember correctly, when President Obama was running for office he promised to end these wars. It is just not happening. Our lead generals say the best we are doing is holding our own. If that is true why are we doing this? It isn’t solving anything, people are dying and we are spending money at an incredible rate, by the way this is also money that we don’t have.

Then the State of Arizona passed a law that is, at best, racist and over half of the American people are in favor if it. We stand by and don’t work on immigration reform which may have forestalled this law. The federal government complains but doesn’t do anything. Many cities are going to punish the State of Arizona, and Arizona is planning to punish these cities and states too. But this is not the job of the cities. They are doing this because they don’t see the federal government doing anything about immigration. Our federal government just stands by and watches it.

Next the State of Kentucky elected a member of the Tea Party to be its junior Senator. He has already made remarks that are racist in nature. Does anyone remember George Wallace or Lester Maddox. At the same time the State of Texas has changed the history books to reflect political beliefs and not history. They equate Jefferson Davis to Abraham Lincoln. They ignore our seizure of large tracts of land from Mexico. They ignore our treatment of Native Americans. Texas supplies the majority of text books used in our country. This means that generations of American children will get a right wing view of history. We have been lying about history for as long as we have been writing. However this is an attempt to convert the average citizen to a one side in the fight for the hearts and minds of the American People.

If you read your history, while you can, you will see that this, in many respects, is how the Civil War began. Now this may not happen but our government stands idly by and watches. But what is happening is pitting person against person, local government against state government and state government against the federal government.

So what is to be done? We write blogs and editorials, people demonstrate. But it goes on and on. How can we stand by and let our country go down flames. Now this has left me depressed, as a person, as a parent, and as an American Citizen.

I am getting very tired of the lies and the false promises. I can’t see myself voting for another president who will lie to get elected and serve the people that paid for his election.

And so it goes! Howie

Why we do it?

For those of us who are or were parents, do you remember the terrible two’s. I do as if it were still happening. Your child suddenly realized that he/she is an individual and can say no to you. If fact they begin to enjoy the saying of that very simple word. NO! NO! NO! Will it ever end? You think about it and decide that it may end but you aren’t sure. After a while and some loss of sanity you arrive at a truce.

You take a deep breath and say well I have survived it and boy I am going to think long and hard before I have another child again. Sure you will. Now the amazing thing about the terrible two’s is that it will repeat in a few years. You will keep your sanity this time, you have been here before. Not only does she say no but her vocabulary is such that she can say it with elegance. She has learned what buttons to push. Once again you begin to wonder am I going to make it. But you do. All is right with the world. You may even be thinking of having a second child. Yes you are. You are just thinking but you are having serious thoughts.

Finally you have that second child and you are so pleased. He is adorable. You cuddle him. You also get no sleep because he needs to be fed and, by the way, he doesn’t like it if you sleep through the night. You tell yourself, I have been here and can do it again. But just when he is entering the terrible two’s your daughter is becoming an adolescent.

Well adolescence is about the terrible two’s all over again. And this time you are dealing with a young person that can argue and win. You are not quite sure how it happened but they do win. Their ability to push buttons has reached a really subtle level that you really are not sure is happening, if you have time to think about it. And this time it won’t end in a few months, it may take a number of years. Now you are tired. Your nerves are sparking left and right. Once in awhile you find yourself siting a shaking. You find yourself losing your temper but if you are like me you don’t raise your voice or hit your child, don’t want to mess the child up for life.  Oh yes there is that great invention, the time out. Well the time out is good and bad. For the child it isn’t so bad. These days they have music, TV, and friends to text. But for you the house is quite. You are comfortable. You may even think that you will keep her in her room forever. Again I had to reject that thought.

Now don’t get me wrong we loved our daughters. But we didn’t expect the perfect storm to enter our lives. Now for just a second I want to remind you of your two year old son. He is just a treat. NO! NO! NO! I don’t want to eat that. By the time he is 4 he is arguing about anything and every thing. Your older daughter is still going though adolescence and you are going out of your mind. Just a word of caution, parenting isn’t for sissies. It is hard work. Oh in twenty years you may be proud of what you accomplished, and you did accomplish it, but you have to get there first. The population of the United States is going down because people are having fewer children. Instead of two, three, or four, they are happy with one. I know the scientists say this is because people can’t afford so many children, but I believe it is an attempt at sanity. Remember what Einstein said, “if you do the same thing over and over and expect a different result you are insane.”

Perhaps we are taking control back. Perhaps we can be happy with just one child, boy or girl. Perhaps sleeping is a good thought and coming home from work doesn’t have to mean entering the arena.

Peace, howie

Are We Crazy?

So last night I made the same mistake I keep promising Myself that I won’t make that mistake again. I watched the news on CNN and MSNBC. It was very annoying. You have got to wonder how stupid they think the American Public is. In fact I am wondering how stupid I am. And that is the point of this blog.

Every time there is an election, I go to the polls and vote. After all I was taught that if you don’t vote then you don’t have a voice. So after all these years, I keep voting and waiting for something to change, but it never does. What is the point of voting? Even when we elect the people that I vote for I don’t have a voice. It doesn’t matter who we elect, we get the same garbage. I know that I am somewhere to the left of the liberals or as they are now known, the progressives, but I keep trying to elect someone who will do what they say they will do. But it never happens. When will I catch on? I think I am there now.

This mess with the oil spill by BP in the Gulf of Mexico is just the latest example. In our economic system it is the job of everyone to make as much profit as possible, not money, but profit. That is what BP did. They didn’t install the proper safety equipment. Why didn’t they do that? Because that would have costs money and that would cut into profits. Because when George W Bush was in the white house he got the congress to get rid of most of the regulating bodies in the United States. So BP figured that they could save money and not have any thing to worry about. Until a few days ago they were right and I am betting that when the dust settles they will still be fine.

Our intrepid congress is holding hearings and everyone they question says it is someone else’s fault. According to these people there are three companies involves in this. They are BP, Transoceanic, and our old friend Haliburton. But I think there is a forth player and that is our government and we elected them. I helped elect our president, you know the man who said, “Yes we can.”

But I want to know what we can do. The old money firms on Wall Street, having messed up the economy royally are doing just fine. But the American people aren’t doing so well. The number of unemployed has reached an all time high. If you add in the number of partially employed the number goes through the roof. I know the Tea Party and the Republicans are very angry about this but both Democrats and Republicans voted for T.A.R.P. And once Mr. Obama was elected he helped the congress pass another bill to continue giving money to these same companies. Where were the needs of the American People when this was done? Well they were nowhere. Instead of talking about the unemployed they talk about the number of new people that have gotten jobs while the number of unemployed stays at just under 10%.  When will we catch on that 1 in 10 working Americans doesn’t have a job.

When Mr. Obama was running for President he spoke a lot about building alternate sources of energy and they are out there but so far the only thing that he has proposed is more off shore drilling. Its safe isn’t it? Apparently not! The strange part of his proposal is that there isn’t enough oil out there to change our dependence on others. He didn’t say this was a first step. It was just an idea. In California they have wind farms and they are neat. We can build more and more of them but no one is doing that. There is solar energy, expensive but not so if we do it in a big way. There are lots of other things we can do. But will we do it, not in my life time. There is too much money involved in keeping things the same as they are.

So here we are, going along and letting every thing go up in smoke and just watching. We do have power if we use it by not listening to the advertising and pushing for real people to run for office and then electing them. Just watch what will happen when the Economic Bill comes to the floor of the Senate. I am willing to bet you that the only way they will pass it is to remove regulation for the bill.

So let’s all stand by and watch as it all goes to hell. Have a great day.

Peace, howie

Love

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love: it is the prerogative of the brave. –Mohandas Gandhi

I know of only one duty, and that is to love. –Albert Camus

I read these two quotes and I start thinking about love. Why is it a duty and why are cowards incapable of exhibiting love?

It seems to me that without love life is very flat. There is no depth and there is not as much joy. Of course with love comes the possibility of pain. What if something happens to your loved one? What if you find that it is hard to sustain the love? These are just two possibilities that may be in the future for those that love. Love requires a lot of trust and work. There are moments when it gets fiery and scary. In the case of love between two people, sexual orientation has nothing to do with this; there is the fear of starting out. What if he or she says no? This is scary stuff and even more frightening what if he says yes.

Now we are talking about love between people but there is another love and that is for the world and your fellow human beings. Now this is fraught with danger too. Again it requires trust; trust that they will be willing to accept that love. Trust that those outside of your sphere will fight your love of the world, human beings, the animals, plants, and in general, nature. What if they are determined to destroy the planet or animals, pants, and nature? In the end this will destroy humanity. This is another situation that can become dangerous. If we look around this country we see the country divided and fighting over things that do not go to the soul of mankind. Once again a coward will back off and a courageous person will stand up and be counted. I am not suggesting violence. I am talking about will and desire. I am talking about the willingness to give an ounce of practice which is worth more than a ton of preaching. This is another quote I stole from Gandhi. Remember he was a man that moved a nation away from the most powerful empire in the world without any violence.

Now to the question of why it is our duty to love. If mankind is not to parish from this earth we must remember to love all people, animals, plants, and the very earth itself. We as a nation have been at war every day since the end of World War Two over 65 years. This is not an expression of love but rather it is an expression of greed and hatred. How do we get are people to support a war? We convince them that the enemy is hateful. This is not always true. People that believe in Islam don’t hate us but some people that happen to be members of that religion are committing acts of terrorism against us and many others in the world. But didn’t the Christian world do the same thing. What stands out in my mind are the Crusades. It was the belief of some Christians that if they didn’t conquer the world and remove the other faiths from the Holy City of Jerusalem they were not doing God’s will. This is only one example. It takes place over and over but we are more than willing to hate others and think they are evil and we are not evil. The end result is thousands of dead people. The world is never saved. That is why it is our duty to love. For those of you that are religious then check your holy books and you will see that is what you are commanded to do. Without love nothing can last.

Peace, howie

My World

I have been watching the oil spill and I am amazed that no one is mentioning why this is happening. Oh yes, they are blaming BP. Now I know that it is because there is a leak or three leaks on a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. But the real reason is that we, the American people have been asleep at the switch. There are regulations that should have protected us from the irresponsible behavior of BP. But in our infinite wisdom we just ignored them.

The question is why? Well we have felt threatened by the oil producing countries. John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barak Obama have all told us that we must protect ourselves from these countries. This has been going on for 60 years. It has always been just talk. Barak Obama has even suggested that we build more offshore wells. It won’t solve this problem and is silly. Drilling platforms have leaked all over the world. We need to stop using oil but no one in our government seems willing to stand up and pass legislation to make this happen.

We need to get out of our automobiles and use public transportation. We need to start really powering our country with non petroleum devices. Windmills, solar cells, and hydro electric power plants will do a lot to take care of this problem.

It is interesting that we won’t start doing this. We have some windmills and some solar cells, and even some hydro electric power plants. But we need to start building many more of these devices. People could do this. Ten percent of our work force is out of work but we are waiting for the economy to take care of that problem. If that is all we do then as people start making money they will start buying things and the cycle starts all over again.

Remember that, “he who has the most toys when he dies wins.” I find that very scary. Most of these toys run on electricity or oil and that just isn’t working for us.

Now I am not saying that they will just turn off the oil. But They could and that is the point. When we were an oil producing country we had the same power and we used it. These other countries are no different then we are and if they need too they will just cut us off or raise prices.

Why can’t we just go ahead and do it. Well it just isn’t in the interests or the large corporations that run our government to do this. In most cases all they care about is profit and they don’t care about making responsible profit. Money is money and they want all they can get.

Oh yes we will talk about it, and our elected officials will say that they will do something. But, they haven’t done anything for over 50 years. They may pass a law here and there but it won’t have teeth in it. Just like the law they are debating about the economy right now. It won’t do anything but it has a great name and that is what counts.

So I suggest that we go on our marry way and pretend that it will go away or our children will fix it.

Have a nice day.

Peace, howie

What I Dream Of

I have spent a lot of time thinking about my daughters. What do I want for them? Of course I want them to be happy, that is easy. They have grown into strong, independent women and that was our plan. They have taken such different paths to get where they are. I think a good portion of it is genetic.

My oldest has taken a path that reminds me of my own path and her actions are just as weird as mine were and are. I always thought that if she got through high school it would be a miracle but she did. She did well enough to get into a good university. She left home on the day after she graduated high school and enrolled into the University of California at Santa Cruz. She had a great time and got excellent grades. She graduated with a useless degree just like her father. She went to work in restaurants as a waitress and enjoyed herself. She met her husband and they adopted their first daughter, who was her niece, when her aunt died. She became a school teacher for two years. She raised her daughter for a few years and then had two more children also daughters. They are all exciting grandchildren and will give you a run for your money, any day of the week.

She and her husband have had good times finance wise,  and then bad times. But during all of it she continued to enjoy life and raise her children to eventually become strong, independent adults. They aren’t there yet but even now you can see it happening. She has chosen to be a housewife, and enjoys it. My son in law is a software designer. She reads a lot and, of course, like her father loves food. She can be a lot of fun to be around. Lately she has talked about going back to work. She is not sure what she wants to do but she is thinking and when she decides it will be right for her and her family.

My youngest is much like my wife. She is goal oriented. She decided that she wanted to be in the theater world and left her local high school to go to the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. She didn’t ask our permission she just took the train to the school and auditioned. The school was 40 miles away from our home. They accepted her and then she came home and told us what she had done. She had been acting in Community Theater for a few years and so we knew what she wanted, but the way she went about it was just what my wife would have done. She graduated with honors and decided to enter A.M.D.A. in New York. That is the Academy of Musical and Dramatic Arts. From Los Angeles to New York did not thrill me but I knew that to stand in her way would be useless, and my wife thought she was doing just fine. Just a quick note, I have learned that once my wife makes a decision, she is right, especially if she says she doesn’t know why. So we made the arrangements and went with her to New York and helped her get started. I thought that she would become an actress and that also didn’t thrill me. It would be a hard and uncertain path. But while at A.M.D.A. she earned money working as a set designer and stage manager. She decided that this was the part of theater that she really enjoyed. So after graduating, from there, she enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. It is probably the best school in the nation for her specialty. She graduated and moved back to New York and began working as a lighting and sound specialist. She did that for a few years and then joined road companies doing the same job. After a few years she went back to Pittsburgh and took temp jobs. She met her boyfriend there. She is now working at a bank, full time earning good money and is still with her boyfriend. She too is happy. Much like her mother she just keeps stepping forward to get what she wants. She too is a reader.

So now what I dream about is the future for my daughters. I am not worried about what they will do. They will both do what they need to do in order to get along. On the other hand I worry about the country that we live in. There is the political climate and they are both as outspoken as my wife and I are. But more importantly I don’t expect the country to get back to where it was a number of years ago. So if I could have anything that I want it would be enough money to assure them the lives that they deserve. Like many Americans they are both working hard. But that doesn’t mean it will get any easier.

I come from a time when every year there was more money and more comfort. This is what the 50’s were about. The 60’s were much the same, but starting in the 70’s wages, adjusted for inflation, began to stagnate and they are not getting better. That is why families need two salaries to just tread water. That is a 40 year period and we as a people are just becoming aware that we need to get along with what we have. So, yes that is what I worry and dream about.

So there you have it. My dreams are about my children and their future. I think most parents want the same things for their children. I don’t know that we will get it. But we have given them the best we have and we know that is all anyone can do. We have enjoyed raising them.

Peace, howie

Walk The Line

I sure hope that I have this right. It seems to me that the topic was “Walk the Line.” This is not as easy as it sounds. If you are me and are as crazy as I am then walking the line is not exactly easy. All my life I have been vering off the path. I kind of like it that way. Walking the line is like sitting on the fence. What you get form that is splinters. Now do get me wrong I have tried to walk the line but it was so boring. The world is an exciting place and just staying on the straight and narrow is just too boring. There are times when you have ver. Sometimes you need a big laugh. I always want a big, and I mean very big, laugh.

Now I know that some people walk the line, and I find them very boring. They have no sense of humor. Sometimes it is scary to find a person that can’t laugh at themselves. As human beings we do many strange and odd things. Most of them are funny. Some of those things I do on purpose. Now don’t get me wrong. I did get in trouble. But now matter how much trouble I got into I could always find some humor in it. It used to drive my mother crazy. She would ask what the matter with me was. I had no answer for her. Frankly she was already a little off center and I didn’t help. I don’t think I ever had an answer for her. She just didn’t see the humor in what I did. My sister understood and tried to protect me. I spent a lot of time in my room. When I would open the door there she was just sitting against the door waiting for me to come out. She really was a great sister. I loved her and she loved me. She was 2 1/2 years younger then me and thought it was her job protect me. She actually was very good at it. I love her to this day. She has finally accepted the fact that I am nuts but is still there when I need her. What more can you ask from a sibling.

Now there was the time that I rode my bike off of a bridge. I thought it would be fun. It wasn’t as much fun as I expected. The broken ankle was just not great. She was there and made sure that I ended up in the emergency room. I remember my mother showing up and asking what had happened. My sister spoke up and said that I was moved over by another bike. I am not sure my mother bought it but if my sister said it then it must be the truth. There was the day when I tried to help out by ironing my shirt. I turned off the iron and set it on the floor. Needless to say my mother wasn’t happy with the burn mark. It just went on an on. I think I was something special and should have been locked in a padded cell. But the bottom line was that I laughed all the time. It was contagious. My mother even laughed but only after setting a punishment. I moved out of the house when I was 18 and I think my mother was very glad. My sister and father missed me. Oh yes I forgot to mention that that my father liked to laugh and I was a a great source of amusement. Not everything I did was smart but it was funny. I still like to laugh and I still don’t think I walk the line.

Peace, howie



If Pigs could fly

I have put this off for some time because there are certain things that would happen if Pigs could fly. Many of you have been under a bunch of pigeons and got bombed. We pigs would do a much better job. Now we aren’t talking about hogs. That would be a real disaster. But pigs would be trouble enough.

No the expression, If Pigs Could Fly, has been used for many thing. For instance, if pigs could fly I would be dating Bridget Bardot. No frankly that doesn’t sound so bad. Of course my wife might get violent. Bridget Bardot is sexy as can be and that might be why my wife would get angry. NO my wife is beautiful and I enjoy having sex with her but would I really turn down Bridget Bardot or Jenifer Lopez.  See there are a lot of women that I find very attractive. Most of them are smart and beautiful.

No if pigs could fly perhaps the Mets would win the World Series. There are so many possibilities. The fact that pigs don’t fly is probably a very good things. For instance if pigs could fly then the tea party would win the next election. I would become the greatest athlete in the world.  If you could see me that would be ridiculous.  At 5’ 4” and overweight I wouldn’t do so well in most sports.  Now a lot of women think that I am cute and ifpigs could fly I would even be cuter. So there are good things and bad things about Pigs flying. Remember the bombing.

Just some thoughts that I have about an improbable topic.

Peace, howie

What is Out There to See?

On 9/11 my wife and I were in Sitka,Alaska. We had taken a cruise and were having a great time until we left the ship and saw the news. Our youngest was living in New York at the time and we spent the next two hours at a pay phone trying to reach her. We got through and she was OK. It left us very shaken. We continued the cruise and it was OK but everything was colored by what had happened. Some of the activities were cancelled but all we wanted was to get home. There were three more days to go and so we finished the trip.

Ever since that day we have wanted to go back but not on a cruise liner, we dream of getting back there and renting a jeep and taking off into the interior of this wonderful place. In some ways it says to us that this is how the Americas were before we started messing with it. Now we have done this everywhere in the world. We cover as much as we can with concrete. We fill every inch with people and then we look for green and we can’t find it.

Alaska is a place where we haven’t had a chance to mess it up. I know that we will do it but it will take a while because it is so large. Once you get to the interior you find unspoiled land, animals moving freely, and even Native Americans living the life that has been theirs for centuries. We met a teen age Inuit girl that ran a sanctuary for bald eagles and she said that as soon as the summer was over she would be able to go home where she could feel comfortable. She said that she felt like a fish out of water at the sanctuary.  She said that once the summer was over the birds would go free and be safe because the tourists would be gone.

We are not completely crazy and would do this with a group of friends and not in the winter. We want to sleep in the open around a camp fire. Since we don’t eat meat we could carry what we need and also graze. The one time we were there was on a day called Termination Day, the last day of summer and the beginning of the winter season. We watched glaciers calve and saw one small coastal town after another. It didn’t take to long to realize that they were all the same. They were built the same, had the same stores that sold the same things, and the people were there for us.

I have been fortunate enough to do a lot of traveling in my life and I know that once you get into the interior of a country where people are just living their lives and don’t speak our language, the fun and learning begins. That is what I want out of this trip. I want to see bears, I want to see clean rivers, and I want to see trees and grass. I don’t want to see any concrete. I want an experience that will not be available anywhere in a few years.

Now the question is will we take this trip? I don’t know. Money is tight and since we

are on a limited income that won’t change. But just the thought is enough. We can dream and we can discuss what we would do. We have planned and thought about it. It is fun and may even be better then the actual trip. But in the mean time there are our dreams and that is what makes life fun. Dreaming is free and lets the mind loose.

So for once I have stayed on topic and this is where I would like to travel. I don’t mind being alone. I actually like it and if for a month the only people that I saw were the ones that came with us that would be great.

Remember to love your dreams. They are one of the best things in this life.

Peace, howie

Am I Living the Life I Love?

I won’t lie and tell you that my life has always been wonderful. There has been a lot of angst, hard times, and pain. But if we get to the here and now, I am living the life I love.

To begin I will have to go back a number of years. I am Bipolar 2. That means that I can go from depression to mania. Mania is a condition where you are mad at everything and depression is a condition where you just don’t care if you live or die. It is a place where suicide is something to consider, and I almost did it. I was saved by loving people. This is a genetic problem and so I didn’t do anything to be this way and I also can’t blame anyone for how I got there.

There was about a 15 year period where I was just miserable and so I would have to say I wasn’t living the life I loved. Even among the best therapists it is a little understood condition and is usually treated as depression. You are given antidepressants which put you permanently in the mania cycle. Finally about 5 years ago I found a person that understood what the problem was and we were able to work it out using certain medications that evened me out. I don’t feel that I am living in a cotton ball or a fog. I just don’t cycle back and forth. What a revelation, what a great thing this is.

My goal is to live life in the here an now. I take each moment (now) as it comes and do whatever I do and then move on the next now. I am aware that no one voluntarily decides to do something that they know will harm them. I don’t and I spend a lot of time caring about people, animals, the world, playing my guitar, and anything else that strikes my fancy. There is no guilt in this kind of life. I will not do anything that will hurt another. What is there to feel guilty about? I don’t argue with anyone. I will agree to disagree but that is as far as I will go. There is great joy in learning from people that have different opinions then I do.  I have been studying a regimen of Non Violent Communication, as proposed and taught by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg. I have been a pacifist since I was a very young man. So this fits right in.

I meditate every day for about 30 minutes and I get great pleasure out of that. It is another way to increase the endorphins. I will say something about  endorphins later in the blog.   I have been doing this for about 30 years.

I have a great marriage to a woman that knows me better then I will ever know myself. I read all the time and have music going on most of my waking hours.

I hated my last job and so my wife and I sat down and figured out how we could live on her salary. My part was to become a househusband. Not bad, except for vacuuming. I was already doing the PTA and helping with the homework. I held my last job for 15 years and did a great job, at least according to my employers. They spent a month after I left trying to get me to come back. Now I was going through the bipolar thing and they had no idea what was going on. I didn’t either. But I knew that I was unhappy and so I did something about it.

I think that was my first step in realizing that if I couldn’t please myself then I couldn’t please my wife and children. Things were still touch and go but I was beginning to find fun in many things. They didn’t cost money, the only cost was thinking. I went up and down but I was getting some control because I was beginning to understand that if I could live in the moment then it would be over and I could move on.

I had dealt with a lot of pain and so about 5 years ago I went to my doctor and asked him for a place where I could learn to control the pain without narcotic pain management pills. He sent me to a clinic that I attended for 6 weeks, 5 days a week, and 8 hours a day. I learned that I could cause my body to increase the amount of endorphins that it produced. Endorphins are a natural hormone that the body produces when ever you have pain. It is sort of like our own source of morphine. So now all most all of the pain is gone. I was in such a good place that I was finally able to lose weight, something that I had been trying to do for almost all of my life and now I really needed to do it. I lost almost 110 lbs in about 18 months. I feel better my medical problems have gone away.

So here I am. I have been retired for 10 years and am loving every minute of it. My wife retired about 3 months ago and that has only made things more fun. Besides she is doing about half of the housework, except for the vacuuming. That is still my job.

So when I saw this topic I knew my answer and the only question was how do I express it and how personal am was willing to be. Most of the people here have heard much of my life story. So why not go further?

Have a great life, Peace, howie