Gone Hunting

Went squirrel hunting today.  I almost did not go.  With all of the rain that we have had lately it was just not worth getting out and getting wet for nothing.

Bill was here with us and when the sun was shining brightly here at the house, he asked if we could go hunting.  We grabbed our stuff and headed out.  About half way there I noticed a rain shower right over the place where we were headed to.  Went went through some almost too heavy rain to get there and just as we pulled up the rain cutoff like it was a curtain and we had passed from one side to the other.

Out into the woods and I hear Bill shoot.  I was hoping he had one on the ground and in the bag so to speak.  I went a little deeper in where I was hunting and saw two way up in the tree tops about a hundred feet off of the ground.  After a stalk of fifteen minutes I got one of the two.  I hear four more shots from his direction.  When we finally met up at the truck to head out for home, I found out Bill had three and I one.  One of our very best days of hunting together.

If you want a moral, or a teaching point, or even a life lesson from all of this, there is none.  Just a simple story of two guys who love each other and would rather spend a day in the soggy woods than sit inside and act like everything is alright when we know it isn't.

If you insist on finding the deep meaning in this entry then go ahead and try.  All I can say is you missed a magnificent tree while looking at the forest.  Or something like that.

Until next time.......................................

Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? Chicago 1969

I went to town today to get the mail.  While I was driving I was listening to Chicago.  Their song Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? came on.  Besides having a really long title, it is a pretty good song.  It got me to thinking though about time and how we make use of it in our lives.

We start off not having any concept of time at all except for what our tummies tell us it is time for.  Supper!  An then we are disappointed because it is milk........ahhhgiiinnn!  Come on Mom something different would be nice.  You know something like pudding?

Then it is governed by daylight and darkness and the monsters under our beds.  Yep you know the ones that make that scary noise when your trying to sleep.  That rattle and whistling noise from their nose.  Then there is the loud booms when it rains.  That's the really scary part when I am trying to sleep.  Wakes me up when it shakes the bed.

Then the seasons.  You know, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Spring.  Or if you were raised in the South, HOT!, Not so Hot, Kinda Cool, and Here Comes the HOT! Again.  Not complaining you know but can some one besides the menopausal grandmothers in the house be in charge of the thermostat for once.

Then we become aware of  minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, and centuries all proceeding at the pace of an arthritic snail, or trying to break the downhill flow record of a hurricane powered rain drop in the middle of a tornado.  Depending on whether you're expecting something good or in dread of something bad coming up, like pudding for supper again.

Then there is grandparent time.  You know, how time creeps by between visits, and yesterday-you-were-a-new-born-being-held-by-me-in-the-hospital-for-the-first-time-and-today-you-are-graduating-college.  If you don't get that it's okay, it is reserved for parents and grandparents and even we that are those don't fully get it either.  I think it is somewhere around Warp 10 or 11.

Some where along in there you find out your dying and time changes once again.  It becomes the most precious of all commodities, to be used wisely, conservatively, and slowly.  Oh so slowly.  You don't know how much you have and you really don't know how fast you're spending it, but you are so painfully aware of how you spend each and every second.  You have to decide to spend it in doing something that truly makes you happy, whatever that is, or you can sit numb and uncaring, in a near catatonic state, making all sad and miserable, achieving nothing of value, like happiness and good memories.

I know what time is now.  Am I going to share with you that answer?  Nope.  Part of each person's journey is discovery, and discovering what time really is, is one of the most important parts of that journey.  Does it change you?  I think it does in a way.  The discovery sloughs off the conventional thinking that, like barnacles on a pier, cover up what is really important and allows us to freely use what we have.  Wisely.  Slowly.

Honey! will you get away from that thermostat and fix me something to eat, and it better not be pudding again either!  Oh sorry not you.

Until next time.......................


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCVhoyEKYt4  (enjoy!)

A Compliment

There are things in life that catch us unawares.

Sometimes these are the good surprises that come our way like a new book autographed by the author.  Some times it is seeing old friends that throw their arms around you and hug you like it was yesterday and you were in love.  Some of the best are when you find money in a coat that you have not worn for over a year.

On the other hand you can get news like we received in January.

News that makes even the doc frown when they tell you about it.  News that takes forever to soak in and make its presence known fully and irrevocably as a fact.  It is soaking in that takes the time.  Even though I have known since before January that I had something going on that just was not good, it is still hard to say it out loud.  Especially to ones who do not know.

And the reactions that you get when you say three simple letters of the alphabet.  Although ALS has been known about for ages, few people actually don't know it by that name.  You say ALS and you get the blank stare like Huh?  Then you say Lou Gehrig's Disease and they give the wide eye recognition of what it is and then disbelief as it soaks in a little more.  All in the space of what, seconds?

There are times though, when no explanation is needed.  Comprehension comes instantly and forcibly.  A caught breath.  A slight tremble of the hand.  Eye contact made then lost, then made again.  Hand reaching out to touch an arm in an effort to comfort.  All the while the unspoken questions running through their head.  How long?  How are they dealing with this?  I want to know more but dare I ask?

This weekend I saw an old friend of some 50 years.  I am not for sure he knew but we told him any way.  His immediate reaction was, well, one I had not heard before.  "You know without that ear ring and beard you look a lot like your dad."  Wow!  he knew exactly what to say to make my day.

Thank you my friend for that unexpected surprise and compliment.

Until next time.................

Squirrel Woods

I just finished a book, Cogan's Woods by Ron Ellis.  If you hunt, have hunted, or even just want to know about hunting, this is a good book to read.  It perfectly reflected my philosophy on hunting but it touches deeper too.  Pick it up at Amazon if you are curious.

It tells from one man's memory about hunting with his dad.  The hunt seems to be secondary to the story.  When I hunt, especially now when I have to hunt alone, the taking of the game is not that important.  Yes, I would like to limit out at least one time or three in a season, but if I go and never fire a shot, well that's all good too.

Walking through the woods I get a sense of well being that no other place can give me.  I feel the presence, or at least I think I do, of people who have traveled this same land, looking at the ancestors of the present day trees.  Moving softly on the earth.  Eyes watching.  Ears listening.  Smelling the damp earth.  Making one self as invisible as possible.  Searching for and finding that mystical inner place of peace and rest.

I have had the opportunity to teach the oldest grandson how to hunt squirrels.  I have seen how he has matured in the woods.  Taking care to be a good steward as well as a hunter.  He can move quieter than I can and can see movement quicker than I can sometimes.  

We have built memories with each other that I hope he will carry with him for a lifetime.  Good memories of frosty mornings, daylight peeping over the ridge, and the forest coming alive.  I hope he will pass these things to the next generation.  I hope he can look at his child, and say something like, "When your great Papa took me hunting ..........."  or "Papa brought me here the first time......"  Mostly I hope that he can find the peace that I have found and make memories like I have made with him.

I also wish for him the joy of limiting out at least one time.  I know I have not gotten any where near my  limit of memories of us hunting, and I hope I never do.

Taps

I watched a show tonight with my Angel.  At the end of it, there was a military funeral.

Before I go on, let explain something to you.  In my family we morn but we do it in our own way.  There are tears shed.  There are shoulders offered and used.  There are memories shared and renewed.  We are solemn when we need to be, but we also smile and laugh and giggle about things that happened.  In this way we share our love and grief which makes the latter bearable and the former deeper.

I have attended military funerals.  I have heard Taps played on TV.  I have attended Memorial Day ceremonies where Taps are played.  Each time I am forced to try and control myself and block the deeply buried emotions that Taps dredge up.  Since having my stroke it is harder to control emotions.  They seem to hit like a tidal wave from somewhere near the bottom of my heart.

Tonight was no exception.

It is especially poignant now that my own demise is eminent.  

I have planned my funeral and I have picked out songs to be played.  In all of that planning, not once did I consider having Taps played.  I just don't think people attending would be over joyed to hear sobs coming from my casket.

But then again it might get people to wondering.

Until next time...............

Another Chance

I had a bad day yesterday.

It was not one that was so terrible that I could not not do anything physically.  It was one that I was a little down mentally.  For the first time since all of this began, I was frustrated and upset about inabilities that I already have.  This is not to say that I sat and cried or punched marshmallows until my knuckles were sore.  I was just down.

That may not seem a big deal, but in dealing with ALS I have to stay as positive as I can in attitude.  Not only for me but for others as well.  You may think it strange but I can feed off of others positive attitudes and feelings.  In other words, if I can make you feel good, it makes me feel good, which in turn helps me.

Today is another day.  Another chance to be happy and positive.  Another opportunity to make others happy about themselves.  Another day to live fully.  Another chance to tell my Angel and my family that I love them.  Another chance.

And that is all that I can ask for.

So what can I do today?  For one, I can live.  For another I can make you smile.  Now were is that bungee cord and rock..............

Until next time..............................

Quiet Places

I went to the woods yesterday.

May not sound like much to you, but to me, in my circumstances, it was a very big deal.  I was not in the woods more than a half hour before I got rained out.  The rain wasn't the really bad part.  It was the lightening.

Sure the rain was cold and the air temp not that high, so I would have had to watch for signs of hypothermia.  I would because I was alone.  I might have stayed out longer but lightening started up out of a thunderstorm cell that only grew in intensity while I was making up my mind.

Imagine standing upright in a forest that have trees up to a 100 foot in heighth, on wet ground, in the rain, holding a piece of steel and metal containing explosive charges.  Now tell me would you be standing there and not consider going home?

The great thing in this situation was I was actually out in the woods.  Somewhere I had not been since at least January.  The woods have always been my 'quiet' place.  One that I could retreat to and soak in the sounds and scents of nature and growing things.  If I am lucky, and sneaky enough, I might even see animals in the wild that most people only see pictures of.  The woods are my Walden's Pond even though I am no Henry David Thoreau.

I will go to the woods again another time, but it will not be the same.  They never are.  They change, even from on moment to another.  With the intrusion of man they change even more, but the change they bring about in man while infinitesimal but so profound as well.  I hope that you have a place like that.  If you do not, I hope that you can find that place before it is too late.

I went to the woods yesterday, and I am better for it.

Until next time.............................

Some Nuts Grow Up To Be Champions

I went down to the river today with the wife to see the flood waters.  While there I saw this tree.  I don't know how many times that I have actually seen this tree.  It is an old one for sure, and I have a reverence for anything as old as this one is.  Its girth would take three full grown men to reach around it.  One of its limbs would be a normal size tree.  There is no telling the number of generations of birds that have called it home.  It has stood where it is observing the seasons come and go and felt the winds in its branches.

Today was a little different though.  Today I saw not just a tree worth saving and venerating, but I saw a champion.  No really.  This is the State Champion Chinquapin Oak.  What that means is that after taking some empirical measurements it was determined that no other tree of this species in the State of Arkansas is as big as this one.

I am impressed.  Really impressed.  This tree has lasted several life times of men.  It is witness to all sorts of times and changes.  It has lived through wars as well as times of peace.  I am sure it has seen its share of romance and heartache being enacted under its limbs.  And if truth be known, I am sure that there have been more than a few dogs that it might wish had never come near it.

I will be cremated when my time here is done.  My ashes will be put into a biodegradable pot, mixed with potting soil, and a tree seed planted in the middle of it.  The tree will get some of its sustenance from me.  All that I can hope for is that the tree that I will become, will give shelter and shade to my loved ones for a few generations to come.  I may never become a champion tree such as this one but I can hope.

After all we both started out as little nuts.  It grew into a mighty good looking tree.  I just became a bigger nut.

Until next time.................

Storms and Rainbows

It is storming.  It has been for a while now.  I don't mind the storms.  I haven't for a long time now.  In fact I rest better with rain, and lightening with thunder giving the light show a standing ovation.

In a way we all have storms that rage out of the sight of others.  The deep doubts that we have, the tussle between right and wrong, good and bad, legal and immoral.  Even though there may be no outward sign of struggle, and debate over issues we all go through, there is no less of a storm raging within.

I am not saying that I am going through any internal debate right now.  The time for debating is nearly over.  I do look back at things that I have done or failed to do with a sense of dissatisfaction.  I could and should have been better at times in my life, but then again would I have become the same man that I am today?

I don't think that I would be.  It's an opinion but I think a correct one.  Without struggle we never know what we are capable of and how we can raise above the mediocre,  One the other hand, it shows us how far off the mark that we are.  We never know which it will be at the onset.  Only by seeing it through can we know how we do.  By hanging on to the strength imparted by the previous storm can we make it through the next.  In that sense I have been preparing all of my life for this storm and this moment.

I will have a few more storms left to go through.  I hope that in each, I will be better than the last.  I hope that with the rain the air is washed clean so that we all can see, for a time at least, how clear and pure our time here can be and be strengthened to see our way through the next storm.

Besides the best part of any storm is the rainbow that follows it.  The stronger the storm the more brilliant the rainbow.  That is something to look forward to, when in the mist of the storm we have doubts of making it through.

May your storms give you strength.

Until next time........................

Choose The Ice Cream

Since starting this blog I have been called an inspiration, a hero, remarkably strong and a positive role model.  The fact is, like most tags that people put on you, these are not entirely true of me.

I will admit that some of my actions in dealing with ALS may in some small way help others come to terms with their daily struggle.  Some have money problems.  Some don't have enough to eat.  Some lack shelter in the harshest of conditions.  If there is, to others, an inspiration in my journey through the rest of my life then so be it.  I am not setting out to be an inspiration.  Believe me I would have chosen something entirely different from this to give inspiration to my fellow man (and woman.  I don't need the label of sexist too).  I might have chosen to be the first to attain the highest altitude in a helium balloon lawn chair while drinking root beer floats without throwing up.  Maybe I still have time to do that.

I am no hero either.  Oh, yes my kids can see me in that role.   The grand kids as well.  After all who doesn't see their parent that way?  Well maybe not the abused and thrown away ones.  But there are one or two of them that call me Dad as well.  The ones who adopted me into their lives.  The ones that I was there for in a critical time, that made a difference in their lives at one moment in time.  I still don't see myself as a hero in that light either.  I did for them what any person would have done in the same circumstances.

I am not remarkably strong.  For as long as I can remember I have had doubts about myself.  While it is true that I am at peace with the ultimate outcome of this disease, I am scared to death about the journey to get there and how my failing health will affect the ones that I have loved the most in my lifetime.  I have to be strong for them.  I have to comfort them.  I have to love them more intensely now so that they can remember that love and have it sustain them when I am no longer able to express to them how much I care.  And I am scared that that one thing will push them away.  I am afraid that I will smother them.  That their life will be defined in my dying.  The life they live should be defined not by death but by the life they live.  One filled to the rim with love, laughter, joy, and beauty.  If I am strong, my strength flows from that desire.

Now that brings me to the last accolade, positive role model.  I can only wish.  I have made too many mistakes in life to be a role model.  I have one last chance to make it right.  I don't know how long that chance will last, so I have to make the time count.  I have to weigh carefully what I do and how I spend my time.  I choose to spend my time in doing productive things.  I choose to make memories that bring a smile to the lips of people.  I choose to do for my Angel.  Lastly I choose to treat myself better.  To do what makes me happy and possess, for a short time, material things that make me feel good.  If that is a good role model so be it.

One more thing.   I choose to treat myself to ice cream every day for as long as I can.

I hope that you do too.

Until next time.............

This Book

Books.

I have read literally thousands of books in my life.  Some more than once.  Some only once as the endings were too hard to take.  Very few have I ever started that I did not finish.

Some of my earliest memories are of reading and discovering what the words in the newspaper meant.  I then graduated to summer reading programs and books ordered through school.  My parents, especially my mother, encouraged me to read.  She never refused to buy a book for me nor to take me to the library to check out books on my own.

I have met great leaders and heroes through books.  From Alexander the Great to Harry S Truman (before some one says something the S in his name is not an initial.  It is just S.).  From Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, to CW 5 Novecel of the US Army and Medal of Honor recipient.  Come to think of it I met Mr. Novecel in person.

I have been inspired by Gulliver and his travels, by Dickens and his "Tale of Two Cities".  I have been there with Custer and his men at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  I have jump into space with the 101st Air Borne when they went "A Bridge Too Far."  I have ridden along with the men who flew in the B17's, B24's, and Lancaster's over Europe.  I have hunted with the Native Americans on the plains and mountains of the west.  I have frozen with Admiral Perry in the Arctic and Antarctic when he was in search of the poles and glory.

I have helped white wash fences and floated on the Mississippi with Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.  I have had adventures galore and never left my home.  I have known the joy of seeing places for the first time and having the joy of revisiting them again and again always with a different perspective than from the first time, but with no less awe.

Now I am living a very different adventure and one that is all too real.

I think that I could stop and put the book down now and not read the ending, in hopes that in not reading the ending, that the ending would not come to pass.  I know that is not realistic, but I can imagine it.

I know one thing,  I will not read this book more than once as the ending is just too hard to take.

Until next time.......................

Of Full and Broken Hearts

Wow, four days since I posted last.  Well life does get in the way sometimes and this past weekend is a prime example.  I just didn't fit in the time to write.  That's my fault.

The last two days of last week were hectic for us and then the eldest and her sons with the youngest girl came to visit for the weekend and time past so fast that it now seems some what like a dream.  I love the grands and the energy that they bring with them but I also like the quiet and calm that remain in their wake as well.  I guess that both are precious and both are preferred.  I know the hugs I got from the thirteen year old boy is most precious to me.  Most thirteen year old's, me included, would not be caught dead hugging some one much less their Papa.

We went fishing while they were here.  Got only two large brim.  I will have to go back to that place latter on and fish some more as it holds promise.  Actually were going for trout.  I will have to try upstream from the hatchery and see how well I can do next time.

Golddean got her new powered love seat delivered and set up on Saturday.  It is comfortable and quiet.  Nice sitting in it compared the recliners wee did have that the backs kept creeping back.  These stay put where you adjust them to.  They are comfy too.  We tried sleeping in them last night and they are fine for that as well.  Nice and comfy.  Yeah, I am impressed how comfy it really is.  Can you tell?

There are times that hearts are full and breaking all at the same time.  Yesterday and today has been like that for us and the family.  I will not go into details because it involves too many people and is too private to talk about.  Please, though, send prayers, good thoughts, and healing power to all of us.  We need it more than any words can express.

Thank you all once again for taking your time to read contemplate and comment.  I can only hope your life is fuller because of this blog.

Until next time...................