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A couple of months back, my long-time outdoor adventuring
companion (since 1977) tried to call me at my old job, and they
told him nobody by that name worked there. I hadn't told him
anything about my status, not knowing where to begin, and dreading
the possibility of a bad response. He called M and asked what was
going on, and after trying to evade for a bit, she realized that
he wouldn't give up, and she told him everything. After a pause,
he said it didn't matter; we've been close friends for too long to
let something like that stand between us. And unlike some who give
lip service to such testimonials, I knew he meant it. He and M talked for
two hours. When she told me, I was relieved. It is so difficult to
predict how people will react.
M and I had been talking about a fall hiking vacation together, so last
week I talked to my old friend, and he, M and I booked airfare to
all fly out to San Jose together the week of Labor Day, rent a
car, and do one of those loosely planned camping - exploring
vacations that we all like so much. We'll get to spend some time
with oldest daughter, since her med boards are done and her
classes don't start up until later in September. In fact, she may
join up with our little tour group. The last time we all
vacationed together was a few years back for a great week-long
wilderness canoe trip in the Boundary Waters of northern
Minnesota.
I was telling someone at work about things to do in the four
corners area since she is headed there this week with a church
group, and she commented that she hoped to see as much of the
country as I have someday. My old friend and I have been so many
places together over the years, all over the great American West,
covering all the mountainous areas of Colorado, New Mexico,
Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and California, and a lot of
other places to boot. But we started
traveling together in our early 20s and have only missed a couple
of
summers since. The thought we always had in common to spur us on was that we
didn't want to get old and say, "I wish I had done that when I was younger. Carpe diem, and you'll have no regrets.
Son has been thinking about what to do next, what with being
graduated and all, so with urging from his sister and my
affirmation, he's going to move out to California to stay with her
and look for work in mid August. I offered for him to come
stay with me and look for something here in the big H, but I
wouldn't have been keen on staying with my parents when I was his
age either. This is a good plan. And, if he hasn't found anything
by Labor Day, he can join our vacation tour group if he wants. We'll just
have to rent something big enough to haul us all around in that
week. If he's working, he'll have to miss the bus.
M drove down this weekend, and we took long bike rides both
mornings. I had worked on the bikes in the evenings last week to
get them in good shape. I disassembled all the components with
bearings so I could clean and grease them. Nowadays most high
quality bikes have sealed bearings, but these are the road bikes
we bought separately before we met when we first got out of
college, based on the recommendation of my old adventuring
companion, of course. M had a flat at one point on our ride
Saturday, but if you ride
bikes seriously, you prepare in advance by carrying parts and
tools. It only takes five minutes to pop in a spare tube and pump
it up.
We gave a cheerful greeting to every other biker, jogger, or
walker we passed and were almost always rewarded in kind. There's
something about being out on a sunny morning that affects people
that way. Or maybe it's just a certain kind of person who is
interested in being out early like that...
After showering, we drove down to the beach just in time for lunch on the seawall
Saturday, then soaked up the sun and surf for a few hours along
with all the other people.
It has been a really nice weekend.
I told the fellow where I gave the sermon last weekend that I'm
about ready to start writing again. I suppose I spend too much
time wondering about why we humans behave in such silly ways at
times, and even more so why others care so much about what their
neighbor is doing, but there are worse ways to spend your time.
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Happy Birthday to me. I’m older today than I've ever been before.
My best work friend took me out to lunch to celebrate. I was
reminded by someone else that unlike most offices, the tradition
is the one with the birthday brings goodies to share, so we picked
up a cheesecake and cookies on the way back from lunch. The
natives were hungry and soon sniffed it out.
After driving home last Thursday evening,
I spent my day off Friday doing errands mostly. I picked up the little
outboard boat motor, which was being repaired, had
lunch with a former coworker and friend, and bought and hauled some insulation board to
the lake to use under the deck roof to cut down on the radiant
heat from the metal roof. I finally
got to spend a few minutes in the pool after finishing mowing the
grass. M and youngest daughter had mowed a lot of it before the
mower broke down. Hard to keep all the machinery repaired from 200
miles away...
Youngest daughter’s friends started showing up Friday evening
around 7PM, and M cooked spaghetti for us all. Son came in
sometime after we old folks went to bed. We got up around 6
AM since he wanted to go fishing. He and I and one of the
visiting friends hooked up the wave runner and headed down to the lake. Unfortunately,
we forgot the gas tank for the little fishing boat, so they paddled over to the other bank
and I called M on the cell to bring the tank when the rest of
them drove down. I took off for an early morning joy ride on the
wave runner.
The lake is different every year, and this year perhaps more than
most. Last summer by this time, the lily pads were so thick in
most places you could almost walk on them. This year, the extended
rainy spell in June kept the water level too high, so I think many
of them drowned. Instead of lily pads, there is a flat green mass
of something stretching over vast areas. Other years, the water
hyacinth has overwhelmed all other plant life. It is as if the
plants are in a constant state of war with one another, fighting
for control. When it seems there has been a victor, mother nature
brings along a weapon of mass destruction to wipe them all out,
and it starts all over again. Caddo is an amazing ecosystem.
 The main bunch showed up within an hour, bringing the total
to nine, and we water skied the rest of the morning. After
lunch, two more showed up, and we took a little lake tour, with
son driving the big boat and M and me following on the wave
runner, occasionally stopping to jump in and cool off.
Half the group was skiing in the afternoon, and around 4PM,
we had an accident as son was preparing to pull the boat into
the boat house. One of the boys had a sudden bad idea and jumped off the back
of the boat with the
motor running and in gear, and he kicked the propeller. He knew
he had done something bad to his foot and swam over toward me at
the end of the boathouse. I told him to try and climb the ladder,
which he did, no doubt with help from a lot of adrenalin. I could see
his foot had a pretty deep wound, and I
had him hop up into the yard and lay down on the grass while I bound his foot up in a
towel and got him in the Pathfinder. Youngest daughter rode with me to the
emergency room. We thought to call 911 on the cell to have them
relay to the hospital that we were bringing someone in with a foot
trauma.
Although we were ushered straight into a treatment room, not a lot
happened for awhile. There wasn't a lot of bleeding, so they
tended other hurt people first. Things move so slowly in emergency rooms, in spite of what
you see on television. Every step of treatment is followed by a
time lag. Fortunately, the gash across the bottom of his foot
didn’t cut anything other than flesh. I was amazed at how much
fat is in that area when the doctor spread it open. Fortunately,
there apparently aren't a lot of important tendons and things in
that area. The doctor finally
sewed it up with 11 stitches. One of the kids jokingly asked if
he had to go to school to learn to sew like that, and he
deadpanned back that he didn't have any sewing classes. He said it
was really pretty simple, just a stitch and a square knot. We were
finally released at 8:30PM, after
3.5 hours.
The gang at the lake had already cooked burgers and eaten,
but we had to go back to pick up the wave runner, so they
stayed and we ate warmed over burgers around 9 PM. The wounded boy was
hungry and ate two. Son had to drive the wave runner down to
the boat ramp in the dark, but we loaded it up ok. We finally
got in bed after 11:30PM. I was exhausted and slept like a
rock. It is possible I may have snored even :)
On Sunday morning, I showed youngest daughter and her friend how to
set up my dome tent so they could take it with them on their two
week driving trip to California, which was to begin later that
day. Nothing like being prepared...
Next, I headed over to a town 60 miles away to do the
sermon for the Unitarian group there. I chose “Overcoming Our
Fears”. The guy who led the service was really
nice, and he seemed very interested in my writings. He had read
all the ones posted on the website for my home Unitarian group.
After the service, I headed for the city, stopping for a
Texas Burger and Blue Bell shake in the little town of Corrigan along the way.
It is very difficult to find a real milkshake anywhere these days.
What you usually get are those super-aerated soft artificial ice
cream imitation shakes. It was excellent, and I recommend the
place to anyone traveling through Texas.
I was relieved to
see my DSL was working for a change when I got back, but when I tried to get on
the web, it turned out my Earthlink account had been
deactivated, so I was on the phone to get things fixed again.
I just now got it working again. Ah well…
I’m supposed to give blood at work tomorrow. That
should be interesting.
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Considering that I am an introvert by nature, I've been
surprised by how lonely I become at times, here in this new
place.
It sneaks up on me and pounces when I'm not expecting it. Eating out, shopping,
recreating, or even just hanging
out in the apartment aren't much fun by myself. I miss everyone
a lot, but I especially miss M.
I think this was only the second weekend I've spent apart from
M since I moved here to the city. Just talking on the phone
gives me a temporary lift though. It's not as easy to find
people to do fun things with as you get older, since people tend
to center their lives on their immediate family activities. And,
unfortunately, a lot of people become pretty sedentary as they
age, preferring spending the evening in the recliner watching TV
instead of getting out and doing something. Path of least resistance or
something like that. Or maybe they're just tired.
Well, alone or not, I can't meet interesting people by staying
home, so I tried to find things to do for the weekend.
There was a free symphony concert at 8 PM Friday at the
Woodlands Pavilion,
about 20 miles from my place, so I decided to check it out. It
was a really pleasant evening, and the admission was free for
sitting on the lawn, which is where I prefer. Two ladies in
front of me were sharing a bottle of wine - I didn't realize you
could bring food and drink inside to "picnic". What a
refreshing idea at a venue that would normally charge $5 for a
bottle of water. The music was pretty good, Tchaikovsky's "Le
Voyevode" and Symphony No. 4 in F minor.
On Saturday morning, I rode my bike (I brought it with me after
my last visit home) for an hour and a half, on paved trails
trough the woods. This is really a great place for riding. There
are a lot more joggers, bikers, and dog-walkers out in the
mornings and evenings here than in most city neighborhoods. When
I got back, I cooled off swimming in the pool, then packed up
and headed for the beach.
After getting a burger for lunch at a place on the seawall, I
picked a spot and settled in on the sand. The sun and water were
nice, but after about three hours, I was toasted. As I
drove back toward home, the closer I got to the city, the worse
the weather got. Soon enough, the traffic backed up as it always
does during a thunderstorm. It was a nice day though.
Sunday morning, I went to a service of one of the local
Unitarian Fellowships, but it was too big for someone like me to
meet anyone. Maybe I'll try a smaller group next time.
I spent most of the afternoon working on a safety presentation
for work - my first opportunity to speak in front of a large
gathering of my coworkers. This morning, I made it interactive
and gave out prizes of tootsie-roll pops to those who
participated. A gang of engineers isn't exactly a hotbed of fun
and games, but they did well enough.
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The long weekend was a welcome time to relax. The every-day rain
pattern we had been stuck in for three weeks finally abated,
just in time. Like many other people all over the country,
we found a celebration complete with fireworks and live music to
enjoy on the 4th. This one was a bit unusual, since we attended
by boat.
The festivities included a parade of decorated boats, and a
contest for a festival queen. It turned out all the contestants
were local men in drag, hairy legs and all. Pretty amazing when
you consider that a sign on one dock along the parade route
proclaimed it to be the "Redneck Riviera." The winning
parade entry was a pedal powered paddlewheel boat sporting two
big British flags and other appropriate decorations, like a box
of tea, and the occupants in red coats and three corner hats.
When I drove back to the city on Monday afternoon, I was
welcomed by a big thunderstorm. Go figure...
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