passingwindagain

When in high school in California, and later as a freshman undergraduate at Wisconsin State University – Oshkosh, I was required to read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden for an American Literature class. The copy that I (still) have also contained Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience”. Since this was the fall of 1968, and it was Oshkosh, where the first semester was truncated by racial demonstrations and administrative and police over-reaction, the assignment was not without its sense of timing. Over the next few years, I would become pretty good at the Civil Disobedience part, but the theme and text of Walden has stayed with me: Simplify, Simplify, Simplify. Not that I managed to simplify my life; I wanted other things too, but the trade offs were always between the simple life, and the “other” life I wanted: home, family and “stuff”.

The last 50 years have been pretty good. Home(s)- check. Family, (special wife, three great daughters and now their families, complete with fine sons-in-law, and 8 grandkids, as well) check. Respect (great job and career, community service) check. And stuff, check, check, check. Nearing permanent retirement, I never imagined I would “quit” working, but now even modest job related headaches have me wondering – “why?” I find myself thinking about the simple life – a chair (the shack at Walden pond had three – one for sitting, one for company and a third for society), a table, a cup, a bowl and a spoon. Perhaps a rug on the floor – that should be enough. Perhaps I could go and buy some artists paints and a few brushes to paint a picture of “my” Walden, whatever form that takes. Of course, I could not buy the chairs and table, I would have to make those, and I would need at least some of my tools.

I think about my time of relaxation and leisure, as my mind races. Books I have not read, ideas I have not written about, places I have not been. A pond needs a boat. I have always wanted to build one, and a friend just gave me the forms to use in building a boat that I have always dreamed of – it is a simple one, pondworthy and true, a Rangely guide boat – called a “pulling boat” for it’s man powered oars. I see the Mother Superior in the “sport” seat reading her book, with me in the guide seat, rowing – on Moose Lake perhaps, or Golden Lake – or Walden Pond. I will build it. I will need time, and a place to loft it, my friend has a big shed, and if I stay out of his way, maybe I could do it there. And, it will take more of my tools. Because, after all, if my friend Thoreau (who by my reckoning would be called a nerd today) really wanted us to grasp his idea of simplicity, was it really necessary to repeat it three times?

I still want simpler, quieter, easier. We’ve worked hard, been through alot, The boat might just be the last big project. It fits the simple life – Jeff says no motor. But a 2 1/2 would be nice, just in case I get tired, or we get caught in the rain. We wouldn’t want the Mother Superior’s book to get wet.

rangely guideboat, built by Jeff Trapp, Madison and Manitowish Waters, WI

Junior high was pretty intense. Sometimes it all runs together, but alot of lessons were learned in those two years, as well as the year we spent in no man’s land, our freshman year, which was the last year of the old high school, and the year before they split us into two “campuses” north and south – in the same building. Sheer genius. One of those lessons has stayed with me, and surfaced numerous times as an explanation for part of the reason Iyam who Iyam!

One of our junior high teachers found a book that was a collection of essays and short stories. I remember it clearly, if not the title. It was a blue book with clouds on the cover. Honestly, I think it was a little over our heads, but he insisted that we each pick one of the entries and write about what it meant to us. I was close to last, so the picking was slim. My “selection” was an essay by Samuel Scudder (who I had never heard of) about his experience as a student of the great Harvard Paleontologist of the 1800’s, Louis Agassiz (who I had never heard of). The essay was grinding to read, because I just had no interest at the time in rocks and fossils. I read it over and over, trying to find something that related to my life or how I could apply Agassiz’s intensity to my life.

Schiller’s focus was on his observations of a specimen that he thought was thorough and complete. His examination by Agassiz consisted of relating those observations to the great teacher one on one, in an oral test. Agassiz shrugged off his detailed description with the challenge to “look again!” Schiller repeated this process over and over until Agassiz finally accepted his observations.

For some reason, that challenge has always stuck with me. Whether I am looking for an item that most closely fits a function I “need”, a principle or idea that where more clarity is needed, or a product or concept for a customer, I think I have the reputation of being relentless until I find the answer that is “just right”. In my woodworking, my approach has become more and more exacting, whether it is a piece of hardware that gives a client the function needed, one more cycle of finishing that gives a certain glow or protection level. It helps me learn, develop and be better. I am sure Agassiz would look at my results and often tell me to “look again!” but for me, I am satisfied that I must do a little more, and make the extra effort, because “good enough” mostly just isn’t.

Sneaking quietly into the backdoor of my life, my friend throws words at me, sending my thoughts careening off in other directions.  But I listen.  They come from a life of pain, and joy, and hardship, laughter and tears that we can understand. The wisdom comes from hard won victories, and sad losses.  Grounded in a faith and power that few know.   I know my friend, but yet I don’t.  When I think about a person sometimes in my idle time, I try to focus in one word descriptions:

tenacious

fragile

tough

kind

good

resilient

faithful

thought-full

forgiving

focused

loving

patient

impatient

talent

fear

confidence

 I grew up in the “Lake Country” of central Waukesha County, WI.  The area is known for a couple of things: Lakes and houses around the lakes and in the general area that reflect the effect of money.  As in cash, and lots of it.  Armour, Pabst, Valentine, Bush, Eschweiler, and many more  – are part of the history of the area. Country clubs, yacht clubs, there was a lot of recreation that generated a flow of cash.   Sailing regattas that attracted folks from other states.  As kids who lived in the old Merchants Plat addition of Oconomowoc, a neighborhood of 40′ lots with railroad track frontage, our entertainment from this was to go down the street and figure out how many different states we could count license plates from.  To us, they were just the people who made our narrow streets narrower and blocked our driveways on Sunday mornings with their station wagons and trailers.

For me, living a block from Lac La Belle, a 2700 acre gem of a lake that encroaches right into the city of Oconomowoc, it could have been a mile away, except for a couple of things.  I love to fish, and I love boats of all kinds.  Our old steel rowboat, part of my dad’s inheritance from his father was our entre’ to the world of Lac La Belle.  We didn’t use it much, and I think Dad eventually sold it for scrap one time when things were tight.

As a subset of the boats, I was particularly fascinated by sailboats, and the almost obsessive passion that their owners exhibited in getting to the lake, getting the boat in the water and getting after it.  Their basic principle was foreign to me, being a kid with a passion for the internal combustion engine, on the one hand, it seemed to be much ado about nothing, but there was one thing about it that even my trusty Encyclopedia Britannica could get me to understand: sailing against the wind.  In the winter, the crazies came out – the iceboaters.  This complicated things further.  With a 20 mile an hour wind, they could go from one end of the lake to the other in what seemed like less than a minute, hitting speeds of 85 -100 miles an hour.  But they could come back pretty fast too, again, against the wind.

The situation at home dictated that I would never really be accepted in the “inner circle” of Oconomowoc’s sail boaters, water skiers and lake people, so I became something of a contrarian.  Never let it be said that I was not willing to pick up an idea and turn it over and look at the soft underbelly.   I’ve always been willing to look at another opinion, or an idea that someone else may have  or even take the side of the obvious underdog – just because.

Long lost

Connecting

a soul

laid bare

swelling

confidence

happens

we slip

quietly

into

eternity

alone

There are places in your heart

There are places in our minds

Where you may go

Where we must go

..

Quiet places Quiet thoughts

When memories become

more than one can

absorb or make sense of

..

These are places unseen

They are not unknown

They are just unused.

Vacant and unoccupied

..

Quiet places where you are known

Your mind is free to wander

Leave all else outside

Indulge yourself in quiet thought

A friend of mine, from a time long ago, has told me that she is on a personal quest to “delight more in life.”  An admirable mission, at the very least, but for many of us, an uphill battle. You could use up a lot of energy on a task like that.   A lot of questions leap immediately to mind, the first, at least the one most immediately leaping around in my head, is the use of the word “delight”.  We’re not talking simple enjoyment here, we’re talking enjoyment with frosting and maybe some jimmies.  Delight is a word which can be safely used only by someone who is careful with syntax, as in the ability to be very specific, knowing when that word, and only that word, will do.  No others need apply.  It is about the arrangement and specific meaning of words as influenced by those around them.

More than a few years ago, I had an assistant who not only practiced the ancient wizardry of shorthand, but whom I could trust to take my dictation, regardless of mood and demeanor of the moment,  and turn it into legitimate prose.  As particular as I am about wordcraft in communications, that’s saying something.  I admit that there were times when her specific (and sometimes extreme) words were like fingernails on a chalkboard.  Did I sometimes feel the exactness was contrived?  Perhaps.  There were probably times when my old boss was annoyed when I took his handwritten memos and corrected the spelling, usage and general mutilation of the language (in red) and sent them back to him.  So, yes, I admit to occasionally making use of language to be a pain in the butt.

But, back to my friend’s quest.  I delight in her goodness, and in her impulse not only to improve herself, her life and the lives of those around her, but to make it a specific goal, which is, as all strivers know, the only path to progress.  After all, you can’t hit a target you don’t have.  “Delight” is a word that might scare people, though.  I could be threatened just by the fact that someone had the courage to be so sure of themselves to use a word that is so specific, and in that way, unusual. That person though, can look in the mirror and see a person of resolve and refined intent.   If I heard the word in a disengaged conversation in a crowded room, it would probably snap my head around.  I would want to know who was willing to put themselves out there in that way.

Overkill?  I think not.  It tells me that someone, and this person in particular, has made a conscious decision to not only find more joy in their own life, but to make her zest available to others, while not jamming it down their throats.   My goal in life is usually just to put the people around me at ease.  To handle their anxieties and discomforts while treating our differences in a civil way, without being burdensome or judgemental.  My personal delight is in putting friends at ease, doing things that might be unexpected or even better, make them wonder what I am up to.   Sadly I do not always succeed. For my friend, her personal delight in life will, I know, spill over and affect everyone she touches.   It ain’t wrong, it’s just different.

or, “The Day our Daughter Became a Man”

Ok, Ok, it’s not what you’re thinking.  I bought this cap in 2002 at Macalester College, the site of the 2002 Division III National Track and Field Championships.  It was originally kind of a salmon color, now faded to a pale – something or other, frayed and stained, mostly with my blood where I dropped something on my head or ran into something when I wasn’t paying attention.

I’m sure that if we had had a son or two, at some point I would have gripped them by the shoulders and told them it was time they became a man, and did heroic, manly things.  But – you just can’t do that with girls, and beside that, I was 300 feet away in the bleachers when the opportunity presented itself.

Let me set the stage: It is the finals of the triple jump.  16 start out, 7 to the finals.  If you understand the triple jump, you are way ahead of me.  Katie excelled at it.  She also ran sprints and relays, but she excelled at the triple jump, and to a lesser extent, the long jump.  On her first jump in the finals, she faulted.  (she stepped on the line or something)  On her second jump, she fell.

The whole family held our collective breath as she walked away, said something to the official, he nodded, and she gathered her warm-ups – and put them on.  Was she done for the day?  Being the dad, and having alot of the dad, and a little of the old ball coach in me, that was the moment, if I had been given the opportunity, I would have gone up to her, put a hand on each shoulder, looked her in the eye and told her, for lack of a better set of words, that it was time to be a man – you have one jump left.  They weren’t going to let a crazy dad on the track, or the infield, and her mother wasn’t going to allow it anyway.  So I sat.  And squirmed.  I watched her take a slow walk to the center of the football field which was in the center of the track.  She had the hood up on her warm ups.  She stopped, Looked at the ground, and stood there, for what seemed like an eternity.   She raised her head, flipped back the hood, and trotted to the start position.  She stripped off the warm ups, which if you haven’t seen a track athlete do it, is alot like the Hulk ripping his shirt off.  She gave the starter a nod.

Last chance.  One, two, three – or however many steps there are before she hits the board, were fast and true, one foot ahead of the other.   She powered off the board and literally flew over the sand pit to an almost perfect landing.  I don’t remember the distance.  You could look it up.  It was the best jump of her career, high school or college, and she still holds the record at Arrowhead HS, an athletic factory.  It was also her last – ever.  She got up and brushed the sand off of her (unnecessarily scanty, I thought) lycra suit and  walked over and claimed her warm ups.  I know she gave us a thumbs up somewhere along in there, but I’m not sure.

She was a little kid as a little kid.  We always called her Tiny but Tough. She had the T-shirt.  She wasn’t tiny any more. She had always had a competitive spirit and discipline to go with it.  We had been disappointed when she walked away from basketball, because she was very good,  but those choices were always up to the girls.  I’m always proud of the them. They’re all moms now, and good ones at that.  But they’ve all had moments where they became a man, and that has nothing to do with gender.  That’s why I still wear the cap.  And if somebody says it is time to retire it, they just don’t know the history.

I wrote this in 2011, and every time I read it, I find I still like it.  It is a little extreme for me, but sometimes I feel like I have to push back against those who take advantage of us.  Let me know what you think.

As I sit down to write this, we are a few days out from the capture and execution of Osama Bin Laden. It is apparent that the Pakistanis need some things explained to them from my perspective, because I am the guy that writes the checks.

A little history is in order. This is the guy that either gave the orders or gave his blessing on any number of attacks not only on Americans, but good people of every race and creed (including his own) over the past 20 years. Many died. They had families, dependents and futures. At the end of the day, it became obvious that we were going to have to go and get him. My father was not a profane man, by any stretch of the imagination. He was a quiet man who believed what he believed, and said little. He had a word though, for anything that just didn’t make sense – it was “bullshit”. That is the category where I put your claim that we violated your sovereignty when we snatched Bin Laden – Bullshit. Look up a picture of the burning towers of the World Trade Center, where 3000 innocents died that day, many trying to rescue others. That was a violation of national sovereignty. It is not about revenge, it is about cutting out evil at its root.

You have the audacity to harbor this guy and then shake your fist at us when we did what you couldn’t or wouldn’t for ten years. Enough is enough. Period. And by the way, about reducing our presence in your country to “minimum” levels. Consider it done, and we will do you one better. We’re gone, and the money is gone. As for your friends in Afghanistan, we got what we came for. Deal with what you get when we are gone. Deal with the Indians. See how your balance of power in the region works now.

Oh, by the way, the average of $2 billion we have sent you over the last ten years? Kiss it good bye. We have some folks we need to take care of. We have people starving and dying in our cities for lack of health care, proper nutrition and proper education. Somebody estimated that 80% of what we have sent you has been misappropriated or stolen outright. One thing we know, it didn’t go for intelligence.

The thing you have going for you is that we are not all the hard-ass rednecks you think we are. We are suckers for a starving child or news of a local disaster anywhere on earth. Oh we’ll still be there for that. You got caught with your pants down and your hand out. Deal with it. And deal with the death merchants of Radical Islam in your own way. And we will deal with them in ours.  Radical Islam whose apparent goal is to turn the rest of the world into that shithole that is most of the Middle East.

For the time being, we will deal with them with surgical strikes like the Navy Seals. I have a hunch your folks didn’t lift a finger when we got there, because you had more than a good idea what you were up against. We can come after you with 24 guys in a helicopter or drop one in your living room from 60000 feet, and anything in between. We have introduced you to the Navy Seals. We’ve got a few more groups who could probably have done the same job. Like the Rangers – they’ve been around since the 1750’s. They taught the French about light fighters in the Seven Years War. Then there’s the Green Berets, they can be a little nasty, too. There’s the Marines and the good old US Army. Those are the guys in Camo that buy your kids coloring books. We’re used to fighting guys who don’t play by the rules. You and the rest of the world have gotten too used to us playing by the rules. Now deal with it.

School was marked by some real difficulties. I had a terrible time with math and science. I couldn’t read music and eventually got thrown out of the band for ‘going solo because I couldn’t read music. I tested over the top. Always in the 98th or 99th percentile. That marked me as smart. My grades marked me as lazy. Teachers saw possibilities, sometimes, and I think John Koehn was the first to discover it, but through all of the other ups and downs, I could write. It started when I got to class one day and discovered that I had a short story due.

We had to read our short story in front of the class. We were a blended 5th and 6th grade, so this was only for the sixth grade. I was about halfway down the list to read the story that I hadn’t started. I started to write, feverishly. I had about 2/3 of a page done with two people ahead of me. I was writing about being followed by a shadowy figure, whose shadow I could see, but not the person. The shadow looked like it was about to hack me to pieces, raising and lowering its arms with something long and pointed in its hands. I knew I had to finish, but I didn’t know where to go. I had a lot of ideas, but only a couple of minutes. My last paragraph went something like:

“Suddenly there was a loud clatter in my head, a ringing, and someone was shaking me, was I dead? No, it was my dad, shaking me, and my alarm clock (which I didn’t and have never, used) ringing. I rubbed my eyes, blinked several times, and woke up” It had all been a dream. (the end) Everybody clapped when I got done reading it, and I got an A on the essay.

I figured out a few things that day. 1. I’m pretty good under pressure. 2. I can figure my way through almost anything. 3. I might be able to write a little.

My writing is still marked by that style. It often ends abruptly, maybe just to leave the reader wanting more, and maybe just for a little bait for the writer to write another day.