Late December Saturday

Late December Saturday

It hadn't snowed in the last few days, but it had been cold. The temperatures recently had been hard pressed to exceed 20 degrees on any day and that had only been by a degree or two. I slipped into my old Toyota that Tuesday afternoon, cranked the engine and started my commute up the road toward my place of work. I was glad that the snow was gone for the moment and that the roads were again easy to drive, albeit coated with the salt rime that was common on Ohio roads in the wintertime. I pushed a cassette tape into the car's player as I started my drive, anxious to hear the last chapter or two in the talking book I'd been listening to for the past week. It was a thriller and the most exciting part was just beginning to unfold. There was this girl, you see, and she had went and... Well, I won't go into it right now. Suffice it to say that she was in big, big trouble and I was extremely curious to see if she was going to get out of it. Or not. Most of the time in most of these kind of books the protagonist or co-protagonist does escape. You expect it and enjoy discovering how the author manages to save him or her. But once in a while you get surprised and the character meets their doom. It always keeps you on your toes while you read one of these books to try to figure out if it was one of those kind.

I was rooting that it wasn't.

About the half-way point on my ride to work the talking book finished and I placed the tape back in its container. I was smiling, so you can probably guess which way the ending of the book went, can't you? But instead of starting another talking book right then and there, I decided to instead just relax a bit and enjoy the rest of the ride. As I motored along I thought about the just-past weekend and the drive my wife and I had taken on that Saturday.

To set the stage for the ride on Saturday you need to know a certain fact. And that is that the week before, we had received a Christmas card from my sister-in-law in California. In it she had included, as presents for us, a CD containing Christmas music and also a gift certificate for a box of chocolates. The candy the certificate was for was made by a company named See's Chocolates which is well-known throughout the western United States and is based in Los Angeles. I considered it a bit odd to receive a certificate for something that was difficult to obtain where I lived, but took it as a small eccentricity of the lady who sent it. Her heart was always in the right place but her head was probably a bit California-centric. So, to figure out how to get our candy I looked online to see if there was anyplace within a day's drive where I could redeem the certificate. I soon found out that the closest outlet for See's Candy was a seasonal kiosk at Beachwood Place Mall in Beachwood, Ohio. We'd considered sending the certificate to my brother in California and not trying to redeem it locally, but finally decided that, since the weather on Saturday was fine, we'd just take a drive up there and redeem it ourselves.

So Saturday afternoon after grocery shopping we hopped into the Honda and pointed ourselves north by northeast. The weather was nice – sunny, dry and cold. Easy driving. We chit-chatted as the miles went by and soon found ourselves in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland on Cedar Road just off I-271 and about a half-mile from the mall. We looked ahead and saw a line of cars waiting to make the left turn into the mall parking lot and realized that an appreciable percentage of Cleveland's population had decided to do the same thing! Of course it was the last weekend before Christmas and I guess a lot of people weren't quite done with their holiday shopping.

After several changes of the traffic light we finally made the left turn into the parking lot and found a spot to put the car. It was a bit of a hike to the main entrance of the mall, so we entered from one of the closer anchor stores which happened to be Saks Fifth Avenue. We enjoyed looking at the Christmas decorations and the shoppers scurrying about in this upscale department store. One sight caught my eye as we were passing through the cosmetic department. One of the cosmetic counter girls was applying some makeup to a customer as we were passing. The counter girl was striking – about 6'2”, slender as a whip, dressed in black top, black tights and black miniskirt. She looked as if she'd just stepped out of the pages of Cosmo or Elle or some such glamor magazine.

But of course I wasn't REALLY paying THAT much attention!

We found the kiosk after making a few wrong turns and redeemed our certificate for a box of mixed chocolates. After wandering around the mall for a while doing some window shopping and being looked down upon by the snooty shop girls and guys, we found ourselves in the food court. We peeked into the various food vendors and decided that none of it looked terribly appetizing at the moment. I made a suggestion to my wife that we might stop at a Mexican restaurant for a late lunch close to where I used to work in Twinsburg. It wasn't too far off the route home and she agreed that it sounded OK to her.

We left the crowded mall through Saks again and, before going out the door I stopped my wife and pointed to a display of purses. “I wonder what these guys cost?” I said to her.

She shrugged, so I picked up a little one, about the size you could put a couple big apples in and casually glanced at the tag. Of course it was either a Gucci or a Coach or something like that. The tag said $490. I carefully placed it back on the table and tiptoed out of there wondering at the kind of people who could drop 5 C-notes on a teeny purse.

Definitely no one I was familiar with.

We found our car out in the north 40 acres of the parking lot and headed down I-271 and I-480 until exiting at one of the Twinsburg exits. I decided, since we were in the neighborhood, to take a look at the office where I used to work before being “downsized” back in 2001. It was still there and the sign on the front still said 2000 Highland Road, but the company name was Verizon now instead of Alltel. We drove through the parking lot and noticed a very large addition being built onto the rear of the building. Several stories high and appeared to be the area of several football fields. It appeared to me that the depression in the economy wasn't being felt too much at that office. I left the parking lot feeling strangely disoriented. I'd spent the better part of 20 years there and the place felt as foreign to me as the dark side of the moon. It looked very much the same as it did before but it felt strange and cold. There was nothing there that felt warm or welcoming anymore.

We ate our late lunches at Marcellitas and they were good; as good as I'd remembered them being. We took the longer, more scenic route home from there, driving through Hudson on Darrow Road, turning west from there on 303 and going through the Cuyahoga National Park and Peninsula Village before hitting I-271 again and following it to its terminus at I-71. Then south on that interstate until Burbank, Ohio Rt. 83 and back home in the early dark of a late December day, the stars shining down from a frigid sky.

Seeing the old places where I had worked and spent those many years was bittersweet. A considerable portion of my life had been spent traveling those roads, eating in those restaurants and working in those now melancholy feeling offices. I remembered old friends and old enemies, bosses I loved to death and ones I considered monsters in human form. I remembered the weather I experienced making that long commute over the decades, the warm spring nights, the booming thunderstorms that sizzled in my path. And of course I remembered the black ice nights, the near-blizzard drives where my knuckles were whiter on the steering wheel than the snow flying by out the windshield. I remembered the near half-million miles I spent going to and from the place.

But mostly I remembered the many friends who I had to leave when I was so unceremoniously ejected from the life I had grown so used to over the years. The guys and girls who I'd shared the years with.

I thought about them on the long drive home, the ones I still keep in contact with and the ones who've dropped completely off my radar. Of course I've made other friends since then, many of them as close as the ones I had in my Alltel years. But there will always be a place in my heart for the folks who were with me on the long ride through the various incarnations of Alltel, from my first days with Mid-Continent Telephone, through Systematics and the period of merger and becoming Alltel.

And for all those friends from the past, the Mikes and Marys, the Freds and Susans, the Daves and Michelles, the Hermans and the Ottos and all the rest, I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

May you remember our good times together with as much joy as I do.

Cruisin' to Coz

Cruisin' to Coz

Bill and Judy’s Cruise Log 2010
Aboard the good ship Carnival Inspiration

7/7/10 Wednesday

We got up at home around 1:15 a.m., ate a little something and hit the road by 2:00 a.m. We ended up getting to the Columbus airport WAY too early, but that’s a lot better than getting there too late. We noticed a TSA agent (Transportation Security Agency) riding in to work in the parking shuttle bus with us and ended up seeing LOTS more of the “blueshirts” at the airport. At times it looked like the TSA guys were outnumbering the travelers. We checked our bags in and they ran through the x-ray machines before being put on the belt. We went through the security checkpoint later when the time was closer to our departure time. For the security check, any metal went into the baskets to be put on the conveyor belt along with your shoes and your carry-on luggage. As an aside, I didn’t wear a belt to make the security check quicker. Bad idea. I’ve lost a little weight and my pants were continually trying to fall off! You were then in the “secure” area of the airport on the concourse. You thought you were done with security, eh? But no. Uh-uh. No way. When we lined up to enter the airplane, some of our carry-on’s were selected for further hand inspection by the TSA and some of us lucky travelers were selected for pat downs. And yes, I was one of the ones selected for the pat-down. Lucky, lucky me. And it was a VERY thorough patdown, too. The agent was friendly though even if I did feel like I was on “Cops”.

We drank some coffee and shared a muffin before leaving Columbus and eventually flew a Boeing 737 to Atlanta and a Boeing 717 from there to Tampa. Had a mix-up when we got to Tampa and the free shuttle to the hotel we were staying at couldn’t find us. (More likely we were standing in the wrong area.) We ended up taking a taxi to Howard Johnson’s on Dale Mabry Street. After checking in and stowing our bags we went to a Thai restaurant right next door to the motel and had lunch. We both had Pat Thai. Very good and excellent service! Later in the day we had supper at the Longhorn’s on the other side of the hotel and had a decent steak there. We walked to the K-mart up the road during the day to buy some fingernail clippers as I had forgotten to pack any and had torn a nail somewhere on our journey south. We stopped at a Sonic drive-in (they have outdoor tables, too) when walking back to the hotel and drank a Cherry Limeade. Mmmm…good! I think we stop at a Sonic on every vacation, so this just continued the string. Pretty hot out, too. Typical Florida in the summer, I guess. We signed up for a ride to the docks at the hotel desk when we arrived. When the transport came the next day we paid for the trip out to the docks and also the one back to the airport after the cruise. We napped at the hotel after our walk and were asleep by 10 p.m. It had been a LONG travel day!

Some impressions:

Both flights down were pretty smooth – mostly clear skies all day.
A stewardess (flight attendant nowadays) on the second flight had a “III” tattooed on the back of her neck. Spent some time trying to figure out why. Should have probably asked her. Probably none of my business.
The Atlanta airport is HUGE. Found out it was the largest and busiest one in the WORLD! It’s the hub for AirTran and Delta and there were LOTS of those planes around. To get from one concourse to another you went WAY down on an escalator and got on a FAST underground train that stopped at each one.
Had a really big dude sitting across from me on the second flight. Not only big-big but so tall he brushed the top of the airplane cabin when he walked. He was miserable sitting there in his too-small seat and looked it.

7/8/10 Thursday. Embarkation Day.

We sail today! After over 130 days waiting, today was the day!
Up at the motel at 7 a.m. and breakfast at Denny’s across the street as the continental breakfast at the hotel was about gone when we got there. Dale Mabry is eight lanes wide at that spot, so we had to hustle even at the light to get across. At 11:30 the shuttle for the docks arrived and we took the ride out there. To get to the docks in Tampa you have go to through downtown Tampa. The ship looked HUGE as we approached the docks. Very, very impressive! The embarkation went super smoothly. Everything is choreographed so your travel from station to station and finally onto the boat was quick and painless. The cabins weren’t ready until 1:30 down on the lower decks (still being cleaned from the previous occupants who arrived earlier that morning) so we were sequestered generally on Lido and Promenade decks. We ate lunch at the Brasserie Buffet while waiting for our cabins. The food seemed pretty good. We were finally allowed on our cabin deck – Riviera – at 1:30 as promised. The cabin was cool! Small as advertised, but quite functional and not claustrophobic at all. And clean as a whistle! The luggage was delivered outside the cabin between 4 and 5 p.m. We wandered around the ship and settled on the Lido deck near the pool for a bit and ordered one of the “Drinks of the Day”. Fruity concoction (with the proverbial umbrella) of this, that and rum. Tasty. Soon took a walk-around tour of the boat with a friendly young female crewmember. Saw what was where and forgot where it was about as quick. Took some pictures.
Ate supper in our assigned dining room, the Carnivale. We sat at a table for eight, as we wanted to meet some of our shipmates. One couple was from Georgia and one was from North Carolina. The S.C. ones were Judy and our ages and the other couple from Georgia was older. They had been friends for many, many years, but this was their first cruise together. The other couple at the table was younger and from Florida. Ate shrimp cocktail and lasagna that first meal with melting chocolate cake for dessert. All fairly good – the cake exceptional. Our table had two stewards handling us, both I believe from Indonesia. The female of the pair was very cute! Our tablemates seemed quite simpatico and we looked forward to seeing them for the rest of the dinners on the cruise.
When we returned to the cabin it had been turned down. On the bed were our two chocolates and a towel seal! We went to the Paris Lounge (we’d go there a LOT during the cruise) then. They put on a lot of activities there. We watched Speed Trivia, Bingo, Cha-cha Dance class, Game Show Star and, for the evening capper, the Welcome Aboard Show with our Cruise Director Paul. Lots of singing and dancing and fun!


7/9/10 Friday. At Sea Day.

We got up around 8:30 a.m. Breakfast was at the Buffet – normal buffet breakfast food. Went to “Fun Ashore and Fun Aboard” briefing with our Cruise Director Paul. Funny and informative. Watched the ice carving on the Lido stage for a while and saw it was going to be an American Indian head in full headdress. Went to the talk “Do’s and Don’ts of Port Shopping”. Both talks were mostly sales pitches to buy at certain stores on Cozumel. I went to the gym today and did a half-hour on the treadmill and some back extensions. The gym on the ship was of medium size and seemed to get a lot of business. It was attached to the spa whose choices were, of course, for an extra charge. The water of the Gulf was smooth today and we didn’t have much ship motion to contend with. I slept quite well last night, the bed was very comfortable and what sea motion there was made good sleeping – like rocking gently in a cradle. Most of the time so far you’d hardly know you were on a boat! This was “Elegant Night” in the dining rooms so we cleaned up and dressed up before dinner. I had lobster tail and shrimp (two servings!) and Judy had prime rib. Had a nice conversation with the three other couples. It’s been hot and sunny so far and the water of the Gulf is a pretty blue color – a bit hard to describe – a deeper blue shading to a darker aqua? Something like that? Sapphire? Closer, maybe. Saw the captain and his executive officers on the Promenade Deck all decked out in their dress uniforms with the gold stripes on the sleeves. Judy and I had formal pictures taken of us with various backdrops on Promenade Deck. Had cherries Jubilee for dessert at supper. Good. Also ate cold Strawberry Compote and stuffed mushrooms for appetizers. Also good. Wanted to try new and different stuff and got the chance.
We stopped in the casino for a few minutes later on so Judy could get a free lanyard to wear her sail-and-sign card around her neck. While there we threw a few dollars into the slots. Lo and behold I hit a jackpot on a Haywire machine and banked $100!
We then went to the show “Shout” at the Paris Theater. Very energetic! Lots of singing and dancing. The boat was noticeably a bit “bouncy” tonight during the performance. I later noticed that the Paris Lounge, being in the bow of the ship, was always a bit bouncy. We walked around the outer deck a bit later in the dark. It was cloudy and no stars were visible. It was so nice to stand there and feel the breeze in your face and hear the sea hissing by the hull down in the dark. Then we went to an “R” rated comedy show at 10:45 at the Candlelight Lounge in the stern of the ship. It was good, but I’ve seen better. We felt like the oldest couple in the room. Back to the cabin around midnight – long day coming tomorrow.

Impressions from today:

It’s a LONG climb from R (Riviera – 4) deck where our cabin is to L (Lido – 10) deck. We used the elevators a LOT (shame on us!).
People on the ship: Cruisers - @ 2600, Crew - @ 900. LOTS of folks on this tub.
Everything onboard is geared towards generating more money.
Turndown service is VERY nice – towel animals and chocolates every night. Excellent work and excellent staff. I can’t stress that enough.
Staff and crew are cleaning the ship all the time. We notice and we appreciate their efforts.

7/10/10 Saturday. Cozumel.

We got up at 7:30 as we were approaching Cozumel, Mexico, and watched a bit of the docking procedure. We had breakfast, again, at the Brasserie Buffet, then went back to the cabin to put on our swimwear. We got off the ship around 9 a.m. We shopped at the Costa Brava shops near the dock for a while then grabbed a cab and were off to Nachi Cocom Beach Resort. Nachi is a very nice place! Immediately upon arrival we were given two lounges under our own palapa (thatched roof umbrella-shaped shelter from the sun) and our drink orders were taken. I ended up drinking two Margaritas fairly quickly. (A side note: I’m not much of a drinker. The Margaritas were really, really strong, the sun was really hot, it was early in the day and I got wasted really quickly. Then a bit ill for a day or so. Have to remember that on future trips!) Judy and I shared some nachos and salsa before lunch, which was quite good. We then ordered our lunches and I got grilled grouper which was outstanding! Judy got mixed fajitas, which she enjoyed with the exception of a very hot pepper that was lurking in her meal.
The water in front of us was gorgeous! Clear as glass and a beautiful aqua color shading to a darker blue a bit further out where the reef started. I got into the water a few times. Its temperature was perfect (I’m running out of superlatives here) and I bobbed around out there for a while. The salt sea allowed me to float effortlessly and that was fun. Next trip I’ll definitely go snorkeling! Judy’s not much for beaches so she stayed under the palapa most of the time we were there. There were only about 50 people at the resort, so it was NOT crowded at all. They stop their reservations at 100. The sand is grittier than the powdery stuff we’ve seen on other beaches and is a bit hard to walk on. Or was that another effect of the Margaritas? After lunch the staff guy returned to ask if we wanted any dessert. Judy declined and I, still being more than a bit drunk, ordered mine in Spanish by saying, “Uno helados de coconut, por favor”. The waiter looked at my wife then back at me and said, “Uno?” I said, “Si. No helados por mi espousa” and he smiled and went for my coconut ice cream. Which, incidentally, was GREAT!
We left Nachi around 3 p.m. and taxied to downtown San Miguel, the city where the cruise ships dock on Cozumel. We bought some t-shirts and stopped into Carlos and Charlies. This is a bar/restaurant that’s quite notorious as a party place. The music was VERY loud and, for early afternoon, the party was in full swing. Most of the people in there were young and drinking like crazy. We enjoyed watching the antics of the wait staff and the college-age kids bouncing around the bar. Guy came to our table and stuck balloon hats on us (for a tip, of course). Others cruised by wanting to take pictures of you and other stuff for tips. We had 7-ups, since we didn’t want any more alcohol. They serve the drinks in 2-foot-tall glasses. The décor there was lots of primal colors, old license plates, posters and all kinds of this-and-that on the walls and ceilings. While we were leaving they’d built a conga line from all the drunken kids in the bar and the dancers, as they danced out the door into the sun and then back inside, were given shots of tequila squirted from a bottle as they passed a point. The kids were having a ball! I was a bit concerned about going in there as a female friend of ours had her daughter’s money stolen by a pickpocket while there a couple months earlier, but we escaped with what we came in with and were happy about that. We grabbed a cab back to the dock where the Inspiration was docked and bought a few more souvenirs. We returned to the ship around 5-ish as we didn’t want to miss the departure and were iffy on the time difference between ship time and Cozumel time.
We had supper in the Carnivale Dining room again. One of our tablemates, Bill, was celebrating his 75th birthday that night and we congratulated him and ate some of his birthday cake! I didn’t eat much of the dinner as my stomach was still in rebellion from the Murderous Mexican Margaritas. We then went back to the cabin to rest a bit from our outing.
Later that day we went to the Paris Lounge again for the show. That night it was a magician and a comic. Both were pretty good and the comic was a lot better than the previous one we’d seen. Back to the cabin at 11:30 and to sleep. We were now heading home.

Impressions:

The other tablemates across from us were also born in ’46 and ’47.
Mexican vendor sayings: “Cheaper than Walmart!” “Almost free!”
Most of the Mexicans we ran into seemed fine. All the ones we saw were working hard at their jobs to make a living. Most of them looked like they had a LOT of Mayan blood in their heritage.


7/11/10 Last At Sea Day.

Up at 8 a.m. Felt a BIT better but not near 100%. Shower and dressed and we went to the Mardi Gras dining room (the other big dining room on the ship) and had a sit-down breakfast for a change. We sat with seven other new people at a big round table. One of the girls sitting there was from Ohio and we had a good conversation with her, her husband and most of the other tablemates. Had Eggs Benedict and they were very good. We left there and stopped at the casino to play about $25 between us on the slots (we lost) and to cash out my bank from the previous trip. Got counted out $100.25 in cash! We then picked through all the photographs we’d had taken of us and bought four of them. Then it was back to the Paris Lounge for our disembarkation talk from the Cruise Director Paul, which was funny and informative. We then stopped at the Ship Shops (stuff is always cheaper the last day!) and bought a couple more T-shirts and a refrigerator magnet. Then we returned to the cabin and did most of our packing, along with filling out our duty form. We stopped and watched a towel-folding demo then at the Paris Lounge (of course) and took a quick tour of the galley at 4 p.m. It was HUGE! It sits between the two main dining rooms (logical), the Mardi Gras and the Carnivale. We ate our final dinner with our tablemates and the food was unfortunately so-so. Took a picture of our cute little table steward. She said that most of the crew worked 6 months on the ship (7-days-a-week), then 4 months at home. Went back to the cabin to finish packing and placed our luggage outside our door for overnight pickup. Went walking around the ship then on the outside and watched some flying fish pop out of the sea and fly away near the bow of the ship. They are quite small, minnow-sized. But they really do fly!
We went to the Paris Lounge that night for the last time to see that evening’s show. It was Latin-themed and had lots of feathered costumes and Latin music – Ricky Ricardo stuff. Still oodles of energy from the singers/dancers. As an aside, I’d only grade the performers as high-end amateurs, though. But they did try really, really hard and that made it OK. Then it was off to the Candlelight Lounge for the last “R” rated comedy show. This was the second comedian we’d seen at the Paris Lounge the previous day and he was in his element now. Funny as hell! Back to the cabin around 11:30 and asleep by midnight.


7/12/10 Disembarkation Day.

The ship docked back in Tampa around 6:30 a.m. this morning. Judy had been popping up out of the bed since 3 or 4, peeking out the window and watching the lights of Tampa Bay slide past, listening to the changing sound of the ship’s engines as it approached her dock. Breakfast, again, at Brasserie. Sat on an outside deck and admired the Coast Guard tall ship, The Eagle, that was docked right next to us off the stern. Then we grabbed our carry-on stuff and went to the Promenade deck to wait for our disembarkation number to be called. They called it around 10:30 and we went down to deck 7 and left the ship. We found our luggage quickly and proceeding through customs was no problem at all, just had to wait a bit on the lines. We walked across the street to the ground transportation place and got our van to the airport.

Then we waited.

(The following is an account on how things can go wrong, even on a great vacation. We suffered some but we’ll remember this trip for a LONG time. Read on if you dare.)

We’d anticipated a long wait at the Tampa airport. Our flight wasn’t due to leave Tampa for Atlanta until 5:45 p.m. with an arrival time of 7:18. Then the connection to Columbus would be at 10:15. So we were prepared for a long wait. We’d gotten to the airport around 11:00 a.m. We sat around and read in the main terminal for a while, then ate lunch at an airport Burger King. We then went through security and arrived at our concourse a bit later and settled down to wait some more. We had supper there (Pizza Hut mini’s) around 5 p.m. and waited some more.
That’s when our flight was postponed the FIRST time due to thunderstorms in Atlanta. Then it was postponed AGAIN. We boarded the airplane around 8 p.m., sat there a bit and were ordered off as it was STILL storming in Atlanta and we STILL didn’t have permission to take off. It looked as if we were going to miss our connection in Atlanta to Columbus, so I talked to the booking agent at that time and he said he couldn’t get us into Columbus until Wednesday… and that was just a maybe. He checked his computer some more, then said he could get me into Dayton from Atlanta the next morning (Tuesday) if I was interested. So we RE-boarded the same airplane we were in before and finally got off the runway around 9:30 p.m. The flight was fine and we got to see some of the nearby thunderstorms from the air, which had been tormenting Atlanta. It was spooky seeing lightning at night from an altitude. We landed at 10:44 p.m. and taxied to a spot at one of the gates at a terminal. We arrived at that spot at 11:00. Then we waited. The captain came on the p.a. and said they were having "some trouble” with the skyway (the extensible tunnel they attach to the plane’s door). Still trouble at 11:15. More at 11:30. Still no-go at 11:45. We’d been sitting at that gate for 45 minutes waiting to get off the plane! Us passengers were about ready to revolt and the crew was looking like they were willing to join us! Finally they decided that they couldn’t fix the skyway and we taxied to a new gate. We deplaned at 12:00 midnight! One hour and 16 minutes after we’d landed. The pilot said on the p.a. that he’d never seen such a screwup in his 29 years of flying. So… We’d missed our flight to Columbus and our assigned flight to Dayton from Atlanta was at 8:55 in the morning. It was midnight. Too late to really go find a room somewhere. So I found a comfortable (?!?!) spot on the floor, Judy tried to curl up on a couple seats and we attempted to spend Monday night at the Atlanta airport. Please note that there are a LOT of hours to spend from midnight to 9 in the morning. It was cold, noisy, uncomfortable, bright and as far from a good place to sleep as I’ve ever seen. Judy got about 15 minutes of sleep and I may have got an hour in 5 to 10 minute increments. Horrible, horrible night. We got up (?!?!) around 6 a.m. and got some coffee and a Danish when the coffee shops opened. Off to our new departure gate around 8:00 (on another concourse, of course) and on the airplane around 9:15. We took off on time and got to Dayton as planned. We then had to rent a car, one-way, from Dayton to Columbus. Then we retrieved our luggage (which had flown on to Columbus without us earlier that morning), retrieve our car and drove home.

We arrived there around 3 p.m.

And thus ends the odyssey of Bill and Judy’s first cruise.

Impressions, thoughts and conclusions.

So how was it really? Was it worth it? Was it fun? Would you do it the same way again?

I’d say it was definitely a good vacation, maybe even a great vacation. Was it worth it? I wondered about that around 3 a.m. while sleeping on the floor at Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, the biggest and busiest airport in the world. But I’d still have to say yes, definitely worth it. I mean, how many times would our luck be that bad on another cruise? Fun? Yes, for sure. Lots of good times. Would we do it again? Sure! Not a doubt in my mind. In fact, it’s about time to start thinking about the next one!!

High points:
New friends. Wonderful ship’s staff and crew. Very nice accommodations. A beautiful ship. The nice weather was a plus.

Low points:
The food was OK for the most part but nothing extraordinary. The entertainment was a touch amateurish. The horror of missing a connection and its consequences.

Final conclusion:

Start booking our next one soon!!!!!

Affinity

Affinity

While recently reading a magazine I ran across an article about migrating some of your banking business, or perhaps all of it, to a credit union, and how wise that movement might be. The article explained how you'd probably get a better return on your money and how the rates for loans through a credit union were lower than you might get at a bank. It went on to say how easy it was to join a credit union these days as the affinity clause that was necessary for a credit union to exist was generally stated so broadly that it could easily include a lot of people. And how each credit union had different affinity requirements. Some required you to be an employee of a certain company – or in the family of an employee of that company – or a former employee. For others you had to have been a sailor or family of a former sailor. Or an airman. Or a marine. Or... Many different requirements for membership but all fairly broad and fairly inclusive. The article went on to stress the point that there were many credit unions out there, pretty much one for anyone interested in them and that they would fit almost anyone's lifestyle.

That concept of affinity was demonstrated this weekend, at least to me, by two reunions which I attended.

On Saturday evening I attended my 45^th high school class reunion. Going to your high school class reunion is, for a lot of people, a very stressful occurrence. People worry about all kind of things prior to attending and fret over what their former classmates might think of them. They worry about their weight. They agonize over how prestigious (or not) their jobs are or had been. They fuss over how many divorces and remarriages they've been through and how many ex's are still out there. Some men are abashed by their loss of hair. It's amazing the amount of things people worry about. And, to be quite honest, I used to fret a bit about some of them in years past too. But I don't do it any more. Or at least not much. I've reached an age where those concerns just don't mean much any more. My hair isn't going to go back to it's dark brown state by itself nor is the balding spot at the top of my head going to fill in magically. I'm not going to lose a bunch of weight just in anticipation of seeing old classmates. My work history is pretty much a done deal at this time – a number of my classmates are already retired.

I'm just not worrying much about it anymore. So I decided to just go and enjoy myself. Just as I am.

And what do you know?

Almost all the rest of my class did the same! The rich classmates and the poor classmates and all of us that occupied the ground in between looked... well... we all looked pretty normal. I don't believe I saw any expensive suits that evening. And the women didn't seem, at least to my eyes, to be wearing any high-fashion ensembles. And let's face it. We're all at that “certain age” now and most of us in that bracket aren't trying to impress anyone anyhow. There's a whole lot of “been there – done that – got the tee shirt” mentality. What I did notice there were people who wore nice but comfortable clothes and were more interested in renewing old friendships and catching up on what everyone was doing.

And I realized that, no matter what road each of us had traveled, how diverse each of us were in our lives, we were all a member of the affinity group called “Class of '65”. And yes, to be honest, some of my class had taken very different paths in their lives than others. Some had become important people, politically, financially, even on the world stage, doing work that you might have possibly heard about in the news. Others heard a calling and chose the clergy and had a flock to care for. Still others did quite well in businesses large and small and had become the local aristocracy. Or at least what passes for it in these parts. Probably a larger majority had remained close to home and had manned the clerical, technical and manufacturing businesses and had made comfortable livings. Lots of us had raised kids, served on boards and committees, volunteered in a myriad ways and performed various civic tasks, large and small, acknowledged and not.

Some of us had gotten into trouble. Most not.

And an alarming number of us had passed on.

But no matter how far we had gone or how grand we had become, we were all, for all time, the “Class of '65”. We all held that link. That bond. That anchor to the past.

And most of us held that affinity in fond regard.

The theme of affinity continued that weekend as my wife and I attended her family reunion on Sunday afternoon. My wife's mother was ninth out of 14 children, so their reunions are generally very well attended. The original 14 are about half gone now and the ones remaining are getting up in their years, so it's not surprising that a lot of them don't make it to the reunion. But their children and the next generation are quite plentiful and a lot of them do show up. Along with their spouses, their boyfriends/girlfriends, and so on. There were probably 70-80 people who attended this year's edition.

I always like to attend her family's reunions. It seems that all the women who bring dishes to the gathering really know how to cook, and that know-how shows in the scrumptious offerings that end up on the serving tables.

Good eats and lots of familiar faces. I'm such a sucker for good food!

Family. Probably the seminal iteration of all affinities. Whether it's the nuclear family – mom, dad and the kids, the extended family including the uncles and aunts, nieces, nephews and cousins, or the super-extended modern family which also includes the 2^nd, 3^rd or more marriage spouses, intendeds, companions, friends and all the other variations of relationships. It's all the affinity called family.

I looked around the room at all my wife's relatives and marveled to myself on the diversity of their lives. How very different we all were from each other. Even a lot of our last names were different by reason of marriage. But through us all ran the common thread of what we all liked to refer to as “the original 14”. That nuclear family, raised on a farm and tempered through the crucible of the great depression was the cornerstone and lynchpin through which all of us in the room were connected.

Our affinity through family.

It was a weekend for reflections on connections. A weekend for laughing, for touching, for hugging and for possibly shedding a tear or two.

It was a weekend for appreciating our friends and our family, our histories, our yesterdays and our tomorrows.

For enjoying the affinities that touch our lives.

Almost Summer, 2010

Almost Summer, 2010

I like to play a little game with myself and wait until the last possible moment to install the two window air conditioners in our old house. Wait until the warm weather forces me to stick 'em in the windows. See how long I can go before I gotta do it. It's a bit of a bother to install them, too, one down in the living room and the other in our bedroom, as they're heavy and I need some help from my son with the big one downstairs. I'd have put central air in this century house, but the way it's built made that option unrealistic and way, way too expensive. So we put in window units in the summer and take 'em out in the fall.

The last possible moment arrived last weekend, my little game ended and I finally had to acquiesce and install my window air conditioners. I was feeling smug that I'd gone this far into Ohio's hot weather before I had to do it, using the window and ceiling fans to keep us cool, but it was getting to the point where some extra cooling was becoming necessary. Necessary for two reasons, actually. First, it was getting warm, even for me, and staying that way into the late evenings when we were going to bed, making sleep more difficult. Second, the wife was giving me “the eye”, telling me non-verbally to cut out the procrastination and my little game and put the doggone a/c's in the windows for goodness sakes.

So they're in now and our bedroom is much cooler. In fact, almost too cool. The wife likes it best to sleep at night when the air temperature has descended through cool and nippy and is beginning to approach frigid. At least it feels that way to this hot-blooded participant. As my partner Patrick and I say at work when the office temperature is too low: “cold enough to hang meat.” Yep, that just about describes it. So I just snuggle a little deeper under the blanket and make sure my ears and nose are covered up to prevent possible frostbite.

Well, at least it feels that way to me!

***

Got a chuckle while I was working out at the gym the other day.

My wife purchases our gym membership through payroll deductions where she works. Our membership at a gym here in our hometown was coming up for renewal and she had the choice of three gyms for the upcoming year. One was the gym we had belonged to for the past couple of years. One was a health facility attached to the local hospital and was way out of our price range. The third was a place we had belonged to before our present gym and it was a few dollars cheaper per month. For that reason and a few others we decided to switch. The “new” gym has new ownership and has done some revamping of the equipment in the gym. It looks nice and has a good assortment of machines for most exercise regimens.

So, since I work evenings, I've been going to this gym for the past couple of weeks during the day. It's quiet then as there are few members working out at that time of day. There is a television on one wall of the exercise room and it seemed to be eternally tuned to a country/western music channel. Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to be critical of a particular genre of music, but I've never really been a big fan of c/w music. Not even close. I'm fond of bluegrass – lots of banjos and guitars, but most “cowboy” music (as I call it) leaves me cold.

However...

I was pounding away on the treadmill the other day and noticed that the c/w station was again on. I wasn't paying too much attention to it. I had my mp3 player plugged into my ears and was rocking along with some classic rock and roll when I happened to glance up at the tv. Shania Twain was gyrating and dancing on the screen to one of her songs along with a half-dozen other great looking ladies. It was very pleasing to the eyes. At the same moment, Dire Straits was rocking along on the mp3 player with “Money for Nothing”.

I watched the video.

I listened to the rock.

I was at once amazed at how well the video was matching the rock in my earphones! There were those country chicks dancing away to the sounds of Dire Straits! I started grinning and the steps and minutes and miles on the treadmill just melted away while I enjoyed the rock music and eyed the videos on the TV. I'd discovered the secret to watching c/w videos. Just plug some great old rock 'n roll into your ears and groove away!

***

My wife and I are into the final countdown before our first cruising vacation. If my numbers are correct, we have 23 days before our big ship pulls away from the Tampa docks and lumbers off south toward Cozumel, Mexico. To say we can't wait would undoubtedly be an understatement. I've been talking to the few folks where I work who've “been there, done that” and have been wringing their memories for their experiences on their cruises. All things look good. I've printed out our packing list and we're finishing purchasing the final “this and that” that we may need “on the boat”. Of course we'll forget something. But that's the fun of it, isn't it?

Won't be long now and it'll be time to pull out the luggage and start filling them up.

***

Patrick, my partner at work, and I were talking a couple months ago about our favorite comedians. We found out that we were both big fans of a man named John Pinnette. We'd heard routines of his in the past and considered them very funny. We decided to check on-line to see if he might be appearing somewhere nearby and found out that he was headlining at Pickwick and Frolic in Cleveland. So we purchased tickets to go see him. After asking around, there ended up being six of us going up to see him: Patrick and his wife Rhonda, my old friend Chuck and his wife Pam and my wife Judy and I who went.

We met at Fat Fish Blue restaurant in downtown Cleveland last Friday and had dinner before going over to the comedy club. This restaurant specializes in Cajun/Creole cuisine and was a favorite of my wife and I as we'd eaten there in the past when going up to the big city and watching the Cleveland Indians play. The six of us enjoyed our dinners and drinks, then wandered over to the comedy club about two blocks away.

John Pinnette was, as we had expected, very good. We all got our share of chuckles, guffaws and belly laughs as he recounted this and that from his apparently hilarious life. He is an extremely gifted funnyman and I'd recommend him to almost anyone. I was surprised at how clean he works compared to some of his fellow stand-up comedians.

It was definitely a night to remember.

***

So, in case you hadn't noticed, summer officially begins in six days.

Let the fun begin!

Late Spring Ruminations

Late Spring Ruminations

Today was a warm one. Mid-80's or thereabouts. Warm enough to make you believe summer is approaching, if not already here. Late May.

About time, I guess.

I've mowed our lawn 3 or 4 times already, the quick-growing grasses of springtime, along with ten to twelve kinds of weeds common to my lawn, succumbing to the whirling blade of my power mower. It's nice to see trimmed green around the house again instead of the grays, browns and dirty whites of not that many months ago. Not to mention the cold.

It pleases the eye as well as the soul.

Across the street we're experiencing a resurrection of sorts and not just the normal springtime rebirth. Or you might even say a Phoenix is arising from the rubble. We've lived our home for over 30 years now and, for all that time, the residences in the neighborhood have remained mostly the same. There have been some remodelings and some repaintings and maybe some small additions tacked on here and there. And a lot of shuffling of owners. But the basic edifices have remained the same.

An interesting feature of my neighborhood is that one of the homes across the street, an older one, has been a half-way house for a dozen or more years. I'm not positive as to what was half-way about it. Perhaps it contained criminals who were learning how to adjust to life “outside” prison/jail walls and were doing so in my neighborhood. Perhaps it was men from mental institutions going through the same adjustment. I don't think we really knew the exact source of the men who lived over there. All we knew was that they were all men and they all were in some sort of transition. And all we were sure of was that they were good neighbors, as odd as that sounds. They were quiet and peaceful, they handed out candy on trick-or-treat night during Halloween, their lawn and hedges were trimmed properly and they caused no trouble to any of the neighbors. If you didn't know the circumstances, you'd never know that house contained “half-way” people.

Good neighbors.

Sometime last year the house became vacant. We noticed that fact when the curtains disappeared and the blank windows faced the street. Not much later a crew came and pulled all the siding off the house exposing the old clapboard and beams. We assumed that they were going to remodel the old place and we kept an eye over there. We assumed the half-way men had either graduated into full-time civilian life or had been transferred to another domicile.

The house sat that way quite a while, its exposed walls and blank windows seeming to cry out for help until some months ago when a demolition crew arrived and tore the house down. It was in some ways sad seeing it transition from a full 2 and a half story house to a rubble pile and then to an empty hole in the ground. That took approximately a week.

The empty hole sat there a month or two until a crew arrived last month and began laying block in the hole, building a basement for a new house. Day after day and week after week we've been watching this new house rise from the ground across the street. We've since learned it's a Habitat for Humanity house, the organization that provides housing for lower income families that are willing to invest “sweat equity” in building their new homes. HH started in 1976 and has built over 350,000 homes around the world providing more than 1.75 million people with safe, decent, affordable housing. You may remember Jimmy Carter in the television ads about HH homes swinging his hammer, pounding in nails and helping build them.

The house is really starting to look good now. They've finished the roofing shingles and have recently installed the siding for the house. We've also seen lots of people involved in putting it up. I'd guess that some of the helpers belong to the family that are going to be our new neighbors.

It's taken a while to get it up. I believe that most of the labor has been donated and volunteered. I do know that a lot of the materials and supplies have been donated. There's a sign to that effect in front of the house. I also know that there has been a LOT of hammering and sawing going on over there for the past few weeks. Looks as if it won't be long until it's finished.

It's going to look nice, too, and it'll be pleasant to see an end to the construction noise.

Although a remodeling of the old house would have been, to my mind, preferable, there was obviously something wrong with the structure that necessitated it's demolition. Asbestos? Foundation deterioration? Something else? In any event it is nice to see another home being erected in our old neighborhood instead of an empty lot being left as is. Empty lots always remind me of a bad tooth being extracted and a replacement implant or bridge not installed. An unwanted vacancy.

And when the work is finished and the new neighbors arrive, I hope they are as comfortable and happy in our neighborhood as we've been the past 3 decades or so.

* * *

Had a bit of a scare recently. Let me tell you about it:

A few weeks ago I'd been feeling a bit “poorly”. A little of this and a little of that. Aches, pains and maybe a bit of a shortness of breath here and there. Some stomach grumbles and nausea. It wasn't real bad but it was off-and-on annoying. I thought it might even be some bad ham I had eaten. I had a doctor's appointment scheduled previous to my recent problems and, while I was there, I mentioned that I was a bit under the weather. He zeroed in on one of my complaints and said, “Shortness of breath, eh?”

And scheduled me for a nuclear stress test.

He did this not only because of my age (I guess) and my recent problems, but because of my family history of heart disease. My whole family's had cardiac conditions. My mother passed away at 52 from a heart attack. My brother passed at age 42 the same way. My father had quintuple bypass surgery a decade before he passed away and my youngest brother suffered a heart attack a few years ago and presently wears a pacemaker/defibrillator.

So I've been living under a genetic Sword of Damocles most of my life.

I've had stress tests before but not for some years. This time the idea of the stress test creeped me out immensely. My symptoms increased dramatically after the doc scheduled the test and the stomach nausea jumped in intensity until I thought I would be sick almost daily. My old nemesis Anxiety had me in it's clutches and was shaking me like a dog shakes a rat.

I was miserable.

All too soon the day of the test arrived. Once again I read the prep sheet about what I had to do before arriving for the test. Line 2 said “no food for at least 4 hours before arriving”. So that's what I did. I woke up, cleaned up, took my morning meds and headed over to the hospital. No food.

The test went about as well as I figured. I was feeling miserable, hungry, anxious, sick to my stomach, my heartbeat was fluttery and I was unable to walk on the treadmill as far or as fast as I probably should have. Plus the diabetes meds I took that morning without any food had brought my sugar quite low and added low sugar jitters to the whole mix. The cardiologist in attendance made several remarks that sounded negative to me after the test. Especially when he said, “I guess it wasn't bad ham, was it?”

I went home feeling even worse. I was sure that the next call from the doctor would be to schedule me for a heart catheterization and stent insertion if necessary. With my family history? I figured I was the next thing to a goner.

I called the my doctor's office the next day and inquired about the results of the test. The nurse replied that it was much too early for the results and that they would call when they came in.

I suffered some more.

I work second shift and, about a half-hour before I was to leave for work, the phone rang. It was my doctor's office.

A cold sweat formed on my forehead and the phone trembled in my hand as I shakily listened to the voice.

The nurse said, “The doctor has gone over your test results and wanted you to know that he saw no problems. He said you were quite out of shape, though, and needed to really work on that.”

And, just like that, my symptoms disappeared. The nausea. The fluttery heart. The this-and-that which was troubling me so much. All gone.

I went to work feeling like, as they say, a million dollars. I had beaten the genetic claymore mine that had been aimed at me since birth.

At least so far...

Since that great news I've rededicated myself to losing weight and being much more physically active. I've lost some weight since then and my glucose numbers are down dramatically. And I'm feeling better. A lot of pluses. Of course I'm not counting the muscle aches and pains from activity after lots of non-activity.

I really feel I was given a second chance.

My wife says I'm over dramatizing. And she's probably right. But I'm still glad and thankful for the good news recently and am happy to be able to start working on my health again more proactively.

Because one day the news won't be so positive and my prognosis won't be quite so good.

But not this day.

Not yet.

And for that I'm thankful.

Two Koans

Two Koans

Koan number one:

The Sound of One Hand.

The master of Kennin temple was Mokurai, Silent Thunder. He had a little protege named Toyo who was only twelve years old. Toyo saw the older disciples visit the master's room each morning and evening to receive instruction in sanzen or personal guidance in which they were given koans to stop mind-wandering.

Toyo wished to do sanzen also.

“Wait a while,” said Mokurai. “You are too young.”

But the child insisted, so the teacher finally consented.

In the evening little Toyo went at the proper time to the threshold of Mokurai's sanzen room. He struck the gong to announce his presence, bowed respectfully three times outside the door, and went to sit before the master in respectful silence.

“You can hear the sound of two hands when they clap together,” said Mokurai. “Now show me the sound of one hand.”

Toyo bowed and went to his room to consider this problem. From the window he could hear the music of the geishas. “Ah, I have it!” imagined Toyo.

The next evening, when his teacher asked him to illustrate the sound of one hand, Toyo began to play the music of the geishas.

“No, no,” said Mokurai. “That will never do. That is not the sound of one hand. You've not got it at all.”

Thinking that such music might interrupt, Toyo moved his abode to a quiet place. He meditated again. “What can the sound of one hand be?” He happened to hear some water dripping. “I have it,” imagined Toyo.

When he next appeared before his teacher, Toyo imitated dripping water.

“What is that?” asked Mokurai. “That is the sound of dripping water, but not the sound of one hand. Try again.”

In vain Toyo meditated to hear the sound of one hand. He heard the sighing of the wind. But the sound was rejected.

He heard the cry of an owl. This also was refused.

The sound of one hand was not the locusts.

For more than ten times Toyo visited Mokurai with different sounds. All were wrong. For almost a year he pondered what the sound of one hand might be.

At last little Toyo entered true meditation and transcended all sounds. “I could collect no more,” he explained later, “so I reached the soundless sound.”

Toyo had realized the sound of one hand.

Koan number two:

A Cup of Tea.

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era (1868-1912), received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen.

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!”

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

Koans are, if you didn't know before, an important aspect of Zen Buddhism. Zen promotes a very different way of understanding and dealing with ordinary reality. One of the more baffling aspects of Zen to the Western mind is the practice of Koans. Koans are teaching tools used to break down the barriers to enlightenment. They are a method of training the mind in order to achieve the state of Satori. Satori is also a difficult concept to explain in a few words. It is essentially the goal of all Zen meditation and can be compared to the term enlightenment or insight into the nature of reality. These two concepts, Koan exercise and Satori are the central aspects of Zen.

A Koan, when literally translated, means “public document”. It refers to a statement made by a Master to a student of Zen or a discussion or dialogue between the Master and the student. The purpose is to open the mind and perception to the truth. Koans are questions or riddles designed as instruments by the Zen Master to aid the student in finding the truth behind the everyday images of reality.

How do they work?

Koans are not rational questions with final linear conclusions. They are designed to open the mind that has been closed by habitual responses to the world and reality.

To explain: Our perception of the world is clouded by, first, the habitual responses that we are taught by society and secondly, by the habit forming creation of our own selves or ego's. In our everyday lives we develop ideas about reality and possibilities that our peers verify. We accept these “laws” as immutable on the basis of their habitual occurrence and certification by society. For example, scientific authority states that there is a law of gravity and that time is linear and proceeds from one second to the next. These “truths” are bolstered by schools, society and our peers until they become unquestionable fact. Changing them becomes almost impossible within the framework of conventional society.

The purpose of Zen Koans is to upset or dislocate the mind from these habitual ideas of reality and open the mind to the other possibilities and, eventually, to Satori or knowledge of reality.

The Koan works at various levels and on various stages of the student's progress in understanding Zen. At its most elementary stage the Zen Koan is intended to question what the student takes for commonplace reality and to question that which is seen to be logically impossible.

It is designed to open the initiated mind to possibilities beyond the rational. Zen master Dogen said that in order to perceive reality we must “drop mind and body”. The Koan forces the student to face this type of thinking.

In trying to answer the Koan, the student will come to a mental “precipice”, as it were, where all methods and procedures of accepted thinking no longer function. The purpose of the Koan is to shove the pupil over the precipice into an area of experience that is completely new. To critique ordinary reality and to force the mind into other areas of understanding. That is the spiritual reality that the Zen master is attempting to guide the student towards.

When you're given your first koan your mind cries out, “This is nonsense. It is meaningless.”

But when you really start to think about it and meditate on it for a substantial amount of time, you begin to get glimmers and shadows of what the master might be trying to lead you to, to get a vague feeling of the direction you must travel. And, like young Toyo, you might find the sound of one hand. Or, like the professor, you might begin to realize what has to be dropped or discarded before an understanding of what you're after can be achieved or realized.

To gain some insight to this process, I'd like for you to do the following.

Take your favorite teacup from your cupboard and set it on the table. Sit down in a chair in front of the cup and examine it closely. Note its color, its shape, its solidity. Now close your eyes and keep them closed. Imagine you have just brewed a cup of your favorite tea, whether that be a delicate green tea or a robust black pekoe. You've just poured that brewed tea into the cup and sat it on the table. You recall the process of preparing the tea, how you either opened up a tea bag and steeped your boiling water onto it or how you measured out the precise amount of leaf tea into your steeping ball and have let it sit in the teapot until it was ready to drink, then you poured it into the cup. You've sugared and lemoned your tea (or not) as you usually do. The tea now sits on the table in front of you, steam rising from it and the odor of tea is perfuming the air. You are thirsty for the tea and it now sits before you.

You reach out and touch the teacup. You feel it's contours, its smoothness or roughness. You feel the warmth of the tea within the cup and the weight of the liquid in the cup. You feel the weight of the tea shift within the cup as you raise it toward your face. When the cup is raised in front of you, you bend your nose slightly toward the cup and smell the warm tea odors rising from the surface of the tea, the scent both invigorating and familiar. Your face can actually feel the steam arising from the cup, bathing your face with fragrant aroma. You raise the cup to your lips and take a small sip of the tea.

Did you smell anything? Did you taste anything? Did you feel anything, even a little bit?

Do it again tomorrow. And again the day after. And again. And again.

One day you will be able to drink tea from an empty cup.

And on that day you will take your first baby-steps on your journey to Satori.

Heavy Thoughts

Heavy Thoughts

Have you ever noticed that when you are starting to do something or, even when you're contemplating doing something, roadblocks seem to magically appear in front of you? The path that seemed smooth and self-evident when you first started contemplating it suddenly has developed bumps and trenches. The small details suddenly growing large teeth and claws.

For example:

I am overweight. Plump. Husky. Plus-sized. Big-boned. Suffer from “Dunlap's Disease, where my belly done laps over my belt. Fat, to use the vernacular. My wife prefers to use the word “heavy”, but I think that's too gentle. Am I way, way overweight? I don't think so. There are lots of folks around me that are bigger. Heavier. Fatter. But yes, I could benefit from losing 50 pounds or thereabouts. As could, sadly, a large percentage of my brother and sister Americans.

It goes on easy. The weight, you know. The extra piece of pie after supper last night. The fast-food meal you ate because you were tired of your own cooking. The candy bar you bought from the machine at work because... who knows why? The chocolate candy jones you seem to have developed.

You know what I'm talking about.

So the fact that I should lose some weight is beginning to set heavily on my mind from time to time and I end up telling myself that I should do something about it. And the fact that my wife is on a Weight Watchers program, has been for over a year now and is actually losing weight, only acts as more of a goad to me. A constant reminder of what I should do.

As an aside, congratulations to my steadfast wife for her earnestness in attempting to be “less than what she was”. Having your accomplishments set before me daily surely must eventually seep into my hulking male consciousness as a “good thing”, a goal to be attained.

So I think about what I must do to lose weight. Sadly, thinking about it and doing it are very different. Thinking is easy. Doing is hard. The cold facts are these: You must either take in less or exercise more. Think about it. That's all there is. All boiled down in one sentence. Intake less or exercise more.

I just saved you a fortune on diet books. You may thank me when you can.

Now, on to the roadblocks that litter this road to weight-loss bliss.

My life is filled with enticements and temptations almost everywhere. (Let's focus on the dietary ones for the moment, OK?) They whisper to me daily, calling my name with scents of chocolate, the aroma of frying meat and onions and the succulent perfumes of a thousand savory scents. They kiss my olfactory nerves with smells of freshly baked bread, pies and cakes, fruit jams and jellies, cinnamon pastries at the malls and a million kinds of freshly-baked cookies. They entice me constantly with the proximity of their availability and the reasonableness of their costs. And they spear into my eyes and hammer into my ears from every venue of advertising, from the TV and radio to the omnipresence of the Golden Arches on, what seems like, every street corner.

Have you ever thought about how many holidays and occasions in our lives which have food as their lynchpin? Think about it. Most of them do. Go through the calendar.

New Years. Dinners and buffets, drinking and parties, snack tables and appetizers.

Valentine's Day. Candy. Lots and lots of candy. Dinners out with your spouse.

St. Patrick's Day. Drink-em-ups and beer. Corned beef and cabbage.

Girl Scout Cookie Time. Cookies. ALL KINDS of cookies!

Easter. Candy and chocolate. Family dinners.

Memorial Day. Barbecues and family get togethers.

The fair. All that yummy FAIR FOOD.

Independence Day. Picnics and more barbecues. Drinking.

Labor Day. More picnics and cookouts.

Halloween. Candy. Parties.

Thanksgiving. The granddaddy of food holidays. Groaning dinner tables and belts being unbuckled to allow more gorging.

Christmas. Holiday feasts.

Then think about all the other chances throughout the year to eat something “extra” such as birthdays, anniversaries, reunions, visits from relatives and friends, vacations, “Date” nights, movies, candy bowls on desks at work, buffets, ice cream or strawberry socials, fairs and carnivals,

And lets not forget the “Food Network” on our televisions where they talk about and show food 24 hours a day. Their chefs are now celebrities and their names are known to millions. Rachael Ray. Ina Garten. Paula Deen. Bobbie Flay. Giada. Cat. Emeril. Mario. Tyler. And they're all about FOOD.

Then there's the “deals” you see and hear about that seem to be everywhere. I have a fistful of 2-for-1 coupons from McDonald's sitting on my coffee table at home right this minute. (Coffee table – another food reference!) I don't even particularly care for McDonald's, but... Two for one! What a deal! How can I say no?

And have you noticed how MANY commercials on TV are for food? They're unescapeable.

But trying to eat less is VERY different than trying to quit smoking or quit taking drugs. To do those things you have to QUIT doing them. Quitting meaning stopping. NEVER doing them again. But with food, you CAN'T quit. You just have to eat less. It's MUCH, MUCH harder than quitting. As an ex-smoker I speak from experience on the difficulties of quitting any kind of drug. But just easing off? Tough!

Lord, give me strength.

On the other side of the coin, exercising more isn't just a piece of cake either. (Notice the food idiom. You just can't escape them. )

My situation is even more aggravating than having a successful Weight Watcher for a wife. Her brother, my brother-in-law, used to be a body-builder and now owns a couple of gyms. He IS Mr. Exercise! You look in your dictionary under healthy muscular super good-looking dude and there's his picture! Yikes! I even stopped by his gym last weekend and asked for some tips on how to strengthen my back, which has been giving me some grief recently. I even kissed his ring hoping that some of his physical charisma might be magically bestowed upon me. I figured: strengthen my back = exercise more = lose weight. Simple, eh? So I followed through on some of his exercises today when I was at the gym. Felt OK when I left there. But now at ten o'clock? My back is presently barking at me like a rabid pit bull. Sure, I guess it's just muscles that haven't been used with any real regularity sounding off. But they REALLY hurt now. When I get out of my chair I walk like a 90-year-old man. And feel like it!

None of this is easy, my friends. None of it. Of course, nobody said life was easy.

But it is proving to be interesting.

Oh, I forgot. We're going on a cruise in a couple months. Food opportunities 24/7. You don't even have to get out of bed. Just call room service and food will appear at your cabin door. Wonderful, wonderful cruise food.

Lord, lord, lord will the blessings never end?

This I Believe

This I Believe

As I was watching the news recently, shaking my head over the way things are nowadays and stifling an urge to scream at the television, I was strongly reminded of the character Howard Beale in the motion picture “Network” and how he so succinctly stated as he stood before the TV camera, soaking wet and with madness in his eyes, and shouted, “I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!” Howard Beale was suffering from depression and insanity, but his message was delivered loud and clear.

Remembering that great performance, I think it would benefit us, during this time in our nation's history, to again revisit those famous words:

Please repeat after me...

“I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this any more!”

And what exactly am I mad as hell about?

I'm angry about the yawning division between the two major political parties in America. I'm angry and mad as hell about the impossibility of the left to see the viewpoint of the right and of the right to see any aspects of goodness from the viewpoint of the left.

I'm angry about the rants, the rabble rousing and the petty viciousness of some of the so-called media when they accuse the “other” side of everything from criminal behavior clear through to satanically-inspired acts. And I absolutely hate the brain-dead followers of these bile-spouters who parrot those words and further the hate.

And I'm DAMN mad about those folks who say I'm not a good American, or even just inferring it, because of the particular viewpoint I endorse at a certain point in time. Just because I'm a proponent of viewpoint “A” doesn't mean I'm not a good American or that I can't see the possible good portions of viewpoint “B”. Or just because you are opposed to that viewpoint vehemently also doesn't make you a bad citizen. Could you possibly see, at least a little bit, where I'm coming from? If so, I'd be happy to listen to your viewpoint and to examine its positive aspects.

It's called compromise, folks, and it's been the backbone of this country for over two centuries. Believe it or not.

I earned my stripes as a good American years ago when I gave up four years of my life and served my country in the military. Along with thousands of other men and women over the years. Other people proved their membership in the “good American” club by volunteering at the local level – coaching little league, knocking on doors to collect donations for a charity, serving in poorly paid positions in local government, donating their time and money to worthwhile causes. Others volunteered their time serving positions in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, becoming a Big Brother or Big Sister, officiating in Special Olympics, working as school crossing guards, delivering meals to shut-ins, driving people to the polls on election day.

And let's not forget performing their civic duty by voting their consciences on election day.

All these activities demonstrate a person's affirmation of the American ethic. All these pursuits help make us Americans.

Good Americans.

But adhering to inflexible positions by our politicians, even when examining the opponent's viewpoint would likely illuminate more positive aspects for solutions, is ludicrous and dangerous. I find it extremely hard to believe that the adage “it's my way or the highway” is beneficial in any regard. In my eyes that's not American behavior.

I believe that almost all people who go into politics originally do so wanting to do good. They want to make things better. They want to “right the wrongs” and make their community, state or nation the best that it can possibly be. Unfortunately, I feel some who started with this commitment are corrupted by the temptations that seem to surround our elected officials. But the majority, perhaps the vast majority of the ones that still serve, are still trying to do their best. Still trying to steer the ship of state into beneficial waters. Some of them under terrible pressures to do otherwise.

I applaud their courage and their convictions whether I agree with their particular solution to a problem or not.

Perhaps I'm more of an optimist than I ought to be. Perhaps I'm also a very naïve man.

I recall a piece of writing I read a long time ago by one of my favorite authors, Robert Heinlein. It was entitled “This I Believe” and was delivered to a radio audience in 1952 during an interview by Edward R. Murrow. I'd like to believe that the precepts stated in it are still alive and well in this year 2010, well over a half-century later. I'd surely like to believe that.

I'd like for you to also read those words that I fervently believe are still true.

“This I Believe” by Robert A. Heinlein

"I am not going to talk about religious beliefs, but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them."

"I believe in my neighbors."

"I know their faults and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults. Take Father Michael down our road a piece --I'm not of his creed, but I know the goodness and charity and lovingkindness that shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike; if I'm in trouble, I'll go to him. My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee -- no prospect of a fee. I believe in Doc."

"I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town say, 'I'm hungry,' and you will be fed. Our town is no exception; I've found the same ready charity everywhere. For the one who says, 'To heck with you -- I got mine,' there are a hundred, a thousand, who will say, 'Sure, pal, sit down.'

"I know that, despite all warnings against hitchhikers, I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, 'Climb in, Mac. How how far you going?'

"I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime, yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest decent kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up, business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news; it is buried in the obituaries --but it is a force stronger than crime."

"I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses...in the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land."

"I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones."

"I believe that almost all politicians are honest. For every bribed alderman there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all, doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true, we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies."

"I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River."

"I believe in -- I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings, from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history."

"And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown --in the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability....and goodness.....of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth, that we always make it just by the skin of our teeth --but that we will always make it....survive....endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes, will endure --will endure longer than his home planet, will spread out to the other planets, to the stars, and beyond, carrying with him his honesty, his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage --and his noble essential decency."

"This I believe with all my heart."

I think Heinlein expressed, with words vastly better than anything I could conjure, exactly what I'm thinking.

In any event, just keep in mind the fact that a pendulum swings both ways. When it reaches the apex of its swing to the left (or to the right), it always returns to the center.

And the center is where most of us live.