Ageless emotions awaken

Time and again

Bodies crumble and minds deteriorate,

while emotions are ageless and timeless.

With a breath, you awaken mine;

witness, now, your creation rising from the wine-dark sea ....

--vwsd

Somewhere over the rainbow

One song among the timeless

A very few songs have a quality that gives them life for decades, possibly, maybe, even forever. A person who once listened to this song, posted here today -- August 6, 2009 -- made the following comment about it: "Timeless, in a time when songs come and go like the rain."

I agree, and for anyone who missed the 1970s, this song pretty much explains the best of that decade. This song is "Layla."

Today, August 6, happens to be the birthday of a certain, very special, young lady. Instead of a rendition of "Happy Birthday" to note the occasion, I decided to offer this song, one of the most beautiful from the rock and roll era, as commemoration of her arrival upon Earth.

"Layla" originally was performed by Derek and the Dominos, who were Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle and Jim Gordon. Although not a member of the band, Duane Allman played guitar on a number of songs in the group's one and only album. The piano and guitar work in the second half of the piece is exquisite.

On this version, only Clapton is present from the original cast. It was recorded on June 28, 2008, at the Hard Rock Calling Festival at Hyde Park in London.

And, to the young lady whose birthday we observe, I make this toast: May the year be a ride upon a rainbow to the place of your dreams.

Another Lake Superior message

The young lady of whom I speak sent me a video featuring still photographs of Lake Superior. Although it is not my birthday, I welcome her gift and convey a very sincere thank you. Some might recognize the first lighthouse shown as Split Rock Lighthouse, the same landmark in Minnesota I used for illustration in a post last week. I also am nearly certain the "black rocks," shown in other photos I have used from Michigan are present among these stills.

The song accompanying the photos is "Dante's Prayer," performed by Meav of Celtic Woman. The music and the photos seem to go very well together.

Lupus in fibula

Why not? Since I was a tourist for a brief time, here are three photographs from my excursion. There are no crashing waves to see because the Manitou of Lake Superior gave me perfect weather. The first photo is, without a doubt, one of the most recognizable sites in Minnesota. It is Split Rock Lighthouse on the north shore of Lake Superior. I have much the same photo as this from my only previous visit to the site. I was 11-years-old at the time, so it has been a while. When I think of it, my photograph from then might be "superior" to this one. The next photo shows a view from atop the lighthouse. The final photo is of Gooseberry Falls, which lies down the road a few miles from the lighthouse. The falls consist of three or four levels or tiers, of which this is the upper. If you are curious to see the panoramic view, pop the photos to their full size.

I believe I need to work for a while longer

This is the wolf's tale of the past few days.

I rented a kayak and did a bit of paddling around a Lake Superior inlet for a few hours. I have hundreds, probably thousands, of hours in a canoe, but these were my first in a kayak. I still prefer the canoe for anything short of going over waterfalls, and to those who do such stunts, I say, get a life.

I fired 100 rounds for fun from my Colt 1911 Gold Cup Series 70 pistol (the best of the 1911 line) at nondescript targets -- plastic bottles on land and water (please, do not chastise me), at rocks, at targets attached to dead trees. And, to those who tell me to get a life, I laugh at their naiveté.

I sat on rock beaches and on sand beaches. The weather was perfect, with temperatures in the 60s; with high, billowy clouds, thunderheads at times, always visible, both white and dark, but almost always with sunlight present.

I jumped from a boulder into 25 or 30 feet of water and sank to the bottom, opened my eyes and looked at the light above. I drank water from the Lake. I mixed water from the Lake with brandy (sorry), and drank a salute to those who have loved the Lake before me. I slept for a while on a warm, sandy beach, and I dreamed.

I think the Manitou of the Lake welcomed my arrival by shutting off the rain that had fallen during most of my drive there at the instant I first came within sight of the "big water." I think it displayed its anger at me for my departure by unleashing an absolutely torrential rainfall just as I stopped to take a last photograph from the final ridgeline before the Lake is gone from view. The rain was so fierce I could not see to drive for 25 minutes and, when it lessened a bit, kept up with an off-and-on onslaught for 50 miles distance from the Lake.

I believe I need to work for a while longer before adjourning into an absolute Sanctuary. It was most difficult to turn the car around and to return home. There is nothing at home. There is nothing in the past. All that exists is in the future. The future is work. The future is a woman who has an instinctual sense of what it is to be a lady, and who wishes to be one. The future is a house on a hilltop or, maybe, on a shoreline next to big water. The future is beauty in art and music and literature. The future is a refuge for wildlife. The future is opposition to the socialists now in power in Washington, D.C. The future is belief and faith in the strength of my own right arm -- nothing more, nothing less.

Here endith July 2009 ....

One more from Dokken

Farewell, to the band known as Dokken, for a while, at least, but not until taking the time for one more song. This piece is entitled, "The Hunter." It seems to me this song demonstrates that stage performances are designed for the eye and not for the ear. View this song as the band performs it with heavy metal guitars, percussions and antics. Then, view it again, and imagine how it would sound to the ear if performed with the accompaniment of soft guitars and, maybe, a piano, and sung in a gentle voice. With only a few variations, it would then become a love song.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages."

William Shakespeare
"As You Like It" Act 2, scene 7, 139-143

Never again, a long, cold winter

Two waves; two songs; one vision

Fine, you have your wish come true now. I am out the door Monday morning (well, by late morning, anyway). I will drive north, destination unknown. I will look for seclusion. This will be short. Maybe time with a canoe paddle in my hand; maybe not. Maybe time with a Colt 1911 in my hand; maybe not. I anticipate a return by Thursday evening. I have done "blind jaunts" such as this in the past, and not once have been disappointed in the outcome.

In the meanwhile, here are two more photographs taken of two different waves on two different days smashing onto the same rock on a Lake Superior shoreline. Perhaps, what appears to be a leaping spray of water really is a Manitou rising from the Lake. The location where these photos were taken is known as the Black Rocks.

Joining the two photos are two more songs from the band known as Dokken, "Alone Again (Without You)" and "In My Dreams." Don Dokken, of course, is the lead singer, while Reb Beach is lead / rhythm guitar in "alone" and George Lynch -- a genuine master of guitar strings -- is the guitar soloist in "dreams." I love this rendition of "dreams." I love any rendition of "alone."

Where my heart dwells

Lac de Superior or Nadouessious

These three photographs obviously are not mine. Never in 1,000 years could I take photos as remarkable as they are, but, thanks to good fortune, I stumbled across them. Although it might not be easily recognizable at first glance, these three photos are of the same point of land on Lake Superior. Most remarkable of all in the sense that I stumbled onto them, these three photos show the precise, exact and specific waters off the shoreline of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in which I learned how to handle a canoe on "big water" -- on Lake Superior.

I learned how to ride with the waves and atop the waves, how to use the waves rebounding off boulders to make my way along a rocky coastline on a stormy day, how to slip and slide my way past the waves, and, most importantly, how to feel as one with the water and the wind and the rocks. I shudder simply from thinking of it, from the memory of it -- trepidation turning into confidence and then into exuberance.

There only have been two things I have real, natural-born, instinctive talent at, neither of which is a particularly practical or an everyday useful sort of skill. One is handling a handgun at any range, in any light, in any weather, in any circumstance. The other is handling a canoe in any water, in any light, in (almost) any weather, in any circumstance.

The chapter heading here, incidentally -- Lac de Superior or Nadouessious -- is taken from a reproduction of a French map of this region published in 1719. This was Lake Superior, or the lake of the cut throats, the lake of the Sioux, who were about to be pushed south and west, and who already had been replaced by the Ojibwa on the northern shores.

Summer flies -- why, oh, why can't I?

Isle Royale

An island known as Isle Royale lies a few miles offshore from Minnesota on Lake Superior, but is part of the state of Michigan. It is a national park. It is wild and beautiful, with moose and wolves among the notable occupants. At about 45 miles long and nine miles wide, it is not a small island. There are many trails to hike but, personally, I think it preferable to explore by water.

The first video posted here was created by some folks who used kayaks to cruise the waters around the island. The music accompaniment is "The Bridge," by Bradley Joseph, a piano and orchestral piece which might be a relief for those who during the past few days have taken the time to listen to heavy-duty rock, Minnesota style, in the form of the Vixens.

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

The second video posted here is "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." The Fitzgerald was an iron ore carrier that went down with all hands during a storm on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975. For those not familiar with Lake Superior, the gales of November, with the seasons in change, are legendary for their ferocity. Winds reaching 80 miles an hour and waves running 25 feet in height were reported the evening the Fitzgerald was lost.

While the video features a song written and sung by Gordon Lightfoot, there actually is considerable footage of the Fitzgerald both atop the Lake and resting on the bottom. Also present is the actual radio transmission between the Coast Guard and another ship, the Arthur M. Anderson, which had been trailing the Fitzgerald by about ten miles and whose crew had witnessed it disappear from the radar screen.

The Fitzgerald had departed Superior, Wisconsin, with a cargo of 26,116 tons of taconite pellets consigned to Detroit. The ship encountered increasingly heavy weather, and sank in Canadian waters about 17 miles from the entrance to Whitefish Bay and safety. There were 29 men aboard who died with their ship that evening. The exact cause for the sinking continues to be debated even now.

Metamorphosis & Notre Dame de Paris

If the photograph seems to be a bit weak in a technical sense, this is why: It is a digital photo of a slide being shown on a makeshift screen. Not too bad, when that is taken into consideration, right? The exact location of this photo is not necessary to know, but it would be safe to assume the water in the background is Lake Superior and that the photo was taken atop a minor league mountain by a minor league photographer named Fram Actual. It also would be safe to assume that the top, as well as the bottom, of this "large hill" is closely associated to the photographer in question. Neat view to wake up to in the morning, is it not?

A new identity merging with an old

I do not know who among you have read Franz Kafka's masterpiece, "The Metamorphosis." I do know I have been going through that transformation since at least January.

My metamorphosis is not like the one experienced by Gregor Samsa, other than beyond what might be recognizable through the natural advent of age. Mine has been exclusively internal, philosophical, having to do with the senses and with perception, if you will, at least in as much as a battle has ensued between an old order under siege by a new and unblemished persona.

My inner self wants to remain a Marine forever and wants to exist in White Anglo Saxon Protestant male theology and political dogma forever. It wants to stand on a mountain top and shout defiance and challenge to any who dare to threaten it. (Yep, pretty typical male ego at work there.) These elements have been in conflict with new concepts that not many years ago would never have existed in my life because there was no Internet, no blogs, no person-to-person connection between worlds distant not only in miles but in thought.

I have had a personal computer since 1985, probably before some of you were born. Back in "those days," I could have bought a new car for the same amount of money. That is how much I was willing to pay to gain a foothold in then-new computer technology. So, this has not been a sudden process. No detail is necessary here, only a reminder that what is new to some is part of the old to others.

Only a few years ago, my life was set into a track that was leisurely and in which I was reasonably content, if not actually happy. But, fate intervened. The curse of modern life, commonly labeled as a divorce, led to more than the dissolution of a marriage. As I have written before, my Sanctuary/Refuge atop a hill vanished along with the marriage.

As implied, even before divorce, the last few years of marriage consisted of a life routine, somewhat dull and based on avoiding the world as much as possible. No love, no new experiences, no challenges. To repeat myself, as I said a few days ago: ".... life is experience and the object of living, to me, should be to collect it. This is a given. My own interpretation of my own words is that we are the sum of our experiences; and each experience, whether good or bad, is of value to the formation of the whole; and we should be grateful for it."

It was comfort and conformity in exchange for learning and experiencing.

Thanks to a few individuals who frequent my page, I have been in a position to know more about how people live and think in countries other than my own. Reading a textbook or a novel does not help in this sense. Watching a travelogue on television or listening to news broadcast from other countries is near meaningless in this sense. Only real people convey emotions while they tell their truths and explain their thoughts as they understand them. This allows me to grasp how narrow my field of vision has been during the past decade or thereabouts.

Still, sadly for me, sometimes I think I might be the last romantic on earth. Everyone seems to be overly concerned with material goods and the personal accumulation thereof, most of these goods being little more than toys, or, as is the case with the new inhabitants of Washington, D.C., fixated upon radicalizing traditional America. Sadly, too, for practical reasons, I do not think there ever will be a house atop the hill from which the view above is shown.

In any case, thanks to a few individuals who talk here and who write their own posts on their own pages, while I still do want another castle on a hill, I do not want it for a while yet and no longer am bitter about losing the one I did have for a few years. Once, back then, I was ready to spend all my days roaming rooms and running woodlands. Now, I am curious once again. I want to learn more about what is beyond my own world. There is much out there to learn.

What? There is more to life than rock & roll?

Magdalena, who lives near Warsaw in Poland, regularly posts music on her page. A few weeks ago, she presented the performance that I have now "borrowed" from her and listed below. I knew absolutely nothing about this song or the show it came from, but I thought the music and the vision and to be lovely and irresistible beyond words. To discover more, I turned to a popular source of data these days, Wikipedia, of Internet fame. Here is the description found there:

"Notre Dame de Paris" is a French-Canadian musical which debuted on 16 September 1998 in Paris. It is based upon the novel, "Notre Dame de Paris," by the French novelist Victor Hugo. The music was composed by Riccardo Cocciante and the lyrics are by Luc Plamondon.

Since its debut, it has played throughout France, South Korea, Belgium, Switzerland and Canada. A shorter version in English was performed in 2000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and a full-length London production, also in English, ran for seventeen months. Popular songs from the show, such as Belle and Le temps des cathédrales have also been translated into Belarusian, Catalan, Czech, German, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian and English.

"Notre Dame de Paris," according to the Guinness Book of Records, had the most successful first year of any musical ever. The score has been recorded at least seven times to date (2007): the original French concept album, which featured Israeli singer Achinoam Nini (aka Noa) as Esmeralda was followed by a live, complete recording of the original Paris cast. A complete recording of the score in Italian was made, along with a single disc of excerpts in Spanish from the Madrid production.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_QoESuLBLQ&feature=player_embedded

Music & mystical thoughts pass this way

The going & coming of Fram Actual

Fram Actual has returned from Kansas, the land of Dorothy, to Minnesota, the land of ex-wives, without much to say other than the sky is blue.

It gave me an eerie feeling to stand on Kansas soil on Memorial Day morning since I had an ancestor killed there in 1867 by a war party of Sioux and Cheyenne, led by a fellow named Pawnee Killer. My ancestor was in the 2nd Cavalry, out of Fort Sedgewick, with a patrol of 11 troopers and a Sioux scout. Possibly, the twilight zone does exist, but that would be too long a story for this evening. We shall leave it at that for now.

In other late-breaking news, Fram the First presented Freyja with a 24-karat gold Thor's Hammer on Sunday as a token for his proposal of marriage. She accepted it, commenting that any guy who has been following her around for 30,000 years or thereabouts has earned his way into Folkvangr, and to sit by her side in her hall.

I ran across a version of the Guns N' Roses song, "November Rain," that is spectacular as a video, but no longer can be considered unique since nearly 32 million have viewed it.

Perhaps it was the "rain song" combined with speaking a few days ago to a friend about a canoe trip, and later recalling being storm-bound for a day but, in any event, I awoke from a dream last night in which I was crossing an endless lake in a thunderstorm. I could feel the sting of the wind and the spray from the waves on my face. Black and gray clouds passed over me, fleeing from the storm as I went toward it. I was happy in my dream until my sleep was interrupted.

At the time of the actual trip, our group was storm-bound from travel on Lake Superior, but the weather was not so violent as to prevent me from battling out, onto the lake, and surfing the waves back in, shouting into the wind, then running with it. Thunderstorms are heaven-sent for the right person in the right place at the right time. I was happy on my lake until I was exhausted.

Back to the music: "November Rain" -- great song; great band; great voice, great guitarist; great video. I have listened to it/watched it ever so many times since I arrived home Monday evening. It was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep early this morning, and the first sound I initiated a couple of hours later after a ringing telephone had jarred me from sleep. There is enough time for reality tomorrow ....

In case you are in the mood for musical fantasy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBoLc9vxac&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siBoLc9vxac

Etienne Brule, a 17th Century chameleon

Following the shadow of Etienne Brule: Much of the magnificence of the Lake Superior shoreline still exists today as it did yesterday.

He hunted and found a fantastic intangible ....

Today, I "hired" a fellow to write something for me. Bruce Catton was a journalist, a historian and a pretty remarkable guy. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his books about the Civil War. He was one of the founders of American Heritage magazine. He enjoyed writing about colorful characters. One of the characters he mentioned in one of his books was Etienne Brule, a Frenchman who came to America in 1608 at the age of 16. Brule spent more than 20 years wandering and exploring the wilderness. He was a chameleon of the first order and, undoubtedly, his contemporaries thought him to be more than a little queer. Basically, he saw the world for what it was, not for what other people told him it was. Meet Monsieur Brule.

By Bruce Catton

Etienne Brule .... had better luck. He hunted a fantastic intangible, found it, made the most of it, and vanished at last into bloodstained legend, his final thoughts unrecorded. He wanted to get to the fabulous back-of-beyond -- to discard everything he had been taught in seventeenth-century France and find out how it would go with a man who followed total loneliness into the loneliest forest on earth -- and he did precisely what he set out to do, which is more than most men ever do. The result was something he had not foreseen. Discarding civilization and making himself total uncivilized, he nevertheless dragged civilization after him, which is why no one today can go where he went and see what he saw. By escaping into the wholly primitive, he helped to destroy it ....

The interesting thing about this is that Brule himself begged (Samuel) Champlain to send him into the wilderness. It had bugged him, and it drew him on to a mutual catastrophe .... Brule saw something far beyond, and it was this far-beyond that he wanted. So away he went (in 1610 at age 18) -- up the Ottawa River, over Lake Nipissing, down the French River to Georgian Bay, along the coast to the pocket where the land runs north-northwest again to Lake Huron, which is deep and wide and blue and cold and deadly -- and he was the first white man to see any of this, the first to escape entirely from the tight limits of Europe, the first one free to explore himself under the guise of exploring a new land. This is very strong wine. It is much as if, today, a man landed on the moon and found the gates of fantasy wide open, with an enchanted garden waiting to be entered; if he went in, he might die there, and he knew this perfectly well; but as a young man, he also knew the final value of life better than the old do, so in he went, and there he died, and if he could have come back afterward, he would not have undone any of it ....

Brule had many adventures, obscure and apparently pointless. He wandered all over the high country, getting into Lake Superior and coasting along its magnificent and deadly shores, seeing the copper country .... and going to the great harbor that lies under the long sand bar behind which Duluth now climbs the hills to breath-taking beauty ....

He went back to the Huron country and turned south and east; got into up-state New York and was caught by a party of Iroquois, who prepared to torture him to death and began pulling out his beard by the handful, just to give him a foretaste. Brule threatened them with the wrath of the Great Spirit; at which moment, in the most unbelievable story-book fashion, a thunderhead that had climbed the sunny sky unnoticed exploded in a great blast of bumping noise and blinding fire, so that the Iroquois were suddenly converted and tried to atone. They untied him, gave him a big dinner, and sent him on his way with their best wishes.

He kept going .... and returned to the high country, where he lived here and there. It is easier to say this than it could possibly have been to do it. He was not just living among the Indians: he was living among an all but infinite number of different tribes of Indians, some of whom felt this way, while others felt that way. Make friends with one tribe, and you make enemies of another, and your life is poised on a knife edge, all the time. Also, the Indians had taboos, superstitions, and social codes that nobody knew about, and a man could lose his life if he pushed too hard against any of them.

For years, Brule played the game very well; that is, he stayed alive and had exactly the kind of life he wanted to have, becoming -- as happened afterward to many another man who wandered away from the settlements -- more Indian than the Indians. He seems to have disconnected himself completely from all his old ties. The English fought the French, and Brule did not know which side he was on, going with the English for a time and then at last picking up the old threads again with the French. In the end, he managed to make a fatal mistake in dealing with the Indians; if he could forget that he was a white man, they could not, and at last -- in a Huron town called Toanche, whose site is lost in the gloom of wilderness prehistory -- the red men found that they were mortally tired of him. They clubbed him to death, and then, according to legend, they ate him; so, in 1632, his story ended forever.

Music Note: Listening to Bob Seger ....
Specifically, "Against the Wind" ....
Some lines from: "Against the Wind:"

And the years rolled slowly past
And I found myself alone
Surrounded by strangers I thought were my friends
I found myself further and further from my home
And I guess I lost my way
There were oh so many roads
I was living to run and running to live
Never worried about paying or even how much I owed
Moving eight miles a minute for months at a time
Breaking all of the rules that would bend
I began to find myself searching
Searching for shelter again and again
Against the wind
A little something against the wind
I found myself seeking shelter against the wind

Well those drifter days are past me now
I've got so much more to think about
Deadlines and commitments
What to leave in, what to leave out

Against the wind
I'm still running against the wind
Well I'm older now and still
Against the wind

I am a star, I am blue & I wish I knew

Russell, Dopey & Fram not only talk the talk, they walk the walk .

In next week's coming attractions ....

I keep forgetting to mention that my life experience includes a couple of roles in movies which, in all probability, you might have seen. The first was in "Dances with Wolves." I could not handle the day Kevin Costner was running around naked, so I went into town and had a few beers. I thought I performed my role of illustrating fierce loyalty and devotion with elegance. I am certain you saw this in me, too. And, my death scene. I was brilliant, was I not?

I greatly preferred my role in "The Gladiator." Did you notice the photograph of me, alongside of Russell Crowe and his horse, Dopey? I was disappointed with the photo (you can hardly see me, low in the center right, watching out for that idiot horse's big feet), and I did not get a credit in the movie. But, I did lead the charge through the woodland when Maximus ran his cavalry into the ranks of the Germans. You had to have seen me there. I am out in front of everyone, even in front of Russ and Dopey. Was I not brave and fierce? And, I pose a mystery within the movie. While saving Maximus, did I die, or did I not? Movies are peanut butter for the imagination, are they not?

Some serious, some not; figure it out ....

On my (actual) father's side, I have two cousins who are clergy, one an attorney, one a doctor (a shrink, no less) and one who is married to a foreign diplomat and has lived in exotic places. It should be evident that I am the only one among the group who does not think I know everything.

On my mother's side, everyone actually works for a living.

My mother still lives, but in a distant city. I telephone her two or three times a week. She spends some time telling what she knows, and a great deal of time explaining to me what she does not know. She would fit right in with CNN, Fox News and cable television in general.

Is there anywhere to surf in the Mediterranean?

Is it possible to eat French grapes, as well as to drink them?

One way to guarantee I actually accomplish these things I have been writing about is to start betting me real money that I will not do them. I never, ever lose that sort of bet, and I always collect.

I am a "being-in-itself," I think, in accordance with Jean Paul Sartre's definitions. (How is that, Katy?) That is, I do not separate myself from nature.

I am wanting for my mind to take a sabbatical so the rest of my body can enjoy itself for a while.

Sometimes I wonder if I am entering the proverbial "mid-life crisis," however, I shuffle that thought to the side because I am relatively certain that I have been experiencing one approximately every three years since I was 15. Right now, my crisis is to find an explorer whose helmet reads, "no fear," and who is capable of being as excited about life now as she was when she was around 20 for about 20 hours out of the day. Do you notice that I sometimes repeat myself? I especially would appreciate the company of one who could teach me how to play the guitar, with a minimal charge for lessons.

Women always have been more important than men, in most ways conceivable (yeh, yeh, I know what I just wrote), but few younger ones seem to realize it. Young women, as Kelly, TheChicGeek, mentioned a few days ago at her blog, have no idea of the power they have over young men. The time approaches, I think, when it will be essential for young women to display their power intelligently rather than randomly. Take control, until partnership truly develops. As a civilization, more races than one are in progress. In the meantime, I will hunt, if you wish. You teach, until there is no more need for hunters, and we will be the better for it.

I can cuss with the best of them, and there have been times when I have gone nose-to-nose with another to see who would run out of expletive-deleted words first. I also go along with profanity when it is used in a colloquial sense in speech or writing. But, profanity in ordinary, typical, day-to-day conversation annoys me to no end. (OK, honestly, it angers me.) There is a time and a place for everything, including cussing, but casual conversation is not one of them.

Fine, now another revelation that I did not particularly want right now, but since I was asked: I have been officially divorced since July 9, 2007, and was separated before then. The anniversary of my marriage was July 10. How is that for down-to-the-wire timing?

To do it or not to do it ....

One of the reasons I want to learn more about depression is because I have known four people who have committed suicide, all adult men: One over a woman, one about money, one for why I cannot guess because I hardly knew him, and one a very good friend who was a great success at everything he did except find happiness. He was a natural leader, handsome as John Wilkes Booth (well, I would hope everyone can visualize him), university educated, intelligent, a talented newsman, a guy who would literally give the shirt off his back, but, a heavy-duty drinker with a few other problems.

I might have seen that one coming if I had been in his neighborhood, but he had moved to Florida and our contact was down to a few emails and a few telephone calls a year. I do not understand why any of them did it and, since I cannot ask them, I would like to learn from those who have considered it or even come close to it.

By the way, he was the "dummy" in the Lake Superior canoe dump that I have written about, so at least I was around to save his sorry butt once. On the river canoe dump, he was in the second canoe that rescued my fishing gear. No guilt here, but questions that never can be answered, that I wish could be.

Music Note: Listening to Boston ....
Specifically, the first album: "Boston" ....

Some lines from: "Something About You:"

When I was younger I thought I could stand on my own
It wasn't easy, I stood like a man made of stone

But there was something about you
I want you to know
It brought a change over me
It's startin' to show
I've got this feelin inside
Gotta have ya, have ya, ain't no good to hide

Following ancestors & "versing" the river

Before reaching the Mediterranean, there was this.

Fram the First was an avid tourist ....

Sometimes it is a bit embarrassing to admit ancestors were less than perfect, but eventually it is best to reveal the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Fram the First was less than perfect. There, I said it. Now, we will move along to the next item on today's agenda.

What? You're asking me in what way he was not perfect? Oh, I suppose I can tell you.

He was with a group of guys who raided Sarzana way back when. Yes, they did the usual amount of burning and looting. What do you expect Norwegians, Swedes and Danes would do after being cooped up all winter in an era before the age of televisions and personal computers? A guy can practice his swordsmanship only so long before going a little goofy.

What? Yes, fine. I'll tell you everything. They thought it was Rome they were sacking, not Sarzana. So, they got lost and were a little confused. They were only a few hundred miles off course. No one is perfect, you know. They still came home with a ship full of gold and Italian girlfriends, didn't they?

And, yes, before the Mediterranean and Rome ... I mean before Sarzana ... they did do a float up the Seine River and they did do a little damage in Paris. So what? That's what guys did back then to earn a buck.

Was Fram the First involved in any other mischief, you ask?

I will have to look at his other travel journals before I can answer that question. I'll get back to you.

Swim with me where the river flows deeply ....

The moment has arrived. Not since I was a college boy have I tried expressing myself in verse. I am not certain if this would qualify even as free verse. Probably not, but it at least tells another true tale. Think of this as a story told in column form, rather than in paragraph form.

A nearly identical event to this had taken place only a month or two earlier on Lake Superior. The "dummy" on that occasion was in the second canoe on this trip. After this, I banned liquor from my canoe trips until camp was set for the night. Two strikes were enough.

The canoe spills,
not by accident,
but by drunkenness,
and down the river we go.
I love it,
and swim with the current.

But dummy cannot swim.
The other idiot, me,
did not think to ask.
He is under, then up, choking.
He grabs the rope I trail behind,
clinging to it for his life.

I know I am smiling.
I should not be, but I am,
I am one with the river now.
I catch the canoe and pass it
and grab onto it, pulling, towing.
The current finally is cut.

I slap dummy around and curse him
after I get him to shore.
He laughs,
too drunk to know he has been a whisper
from watery, meaningless death,
from killing the both of us.

The other canoe rescues my fishing gear.
I had known my priorities,
and tied my own life vest to it.
I lost my grandfather's sweatshirt, though.
It still rests, I know, beneath fast, deep water,
one with the Escanaba River now.

Music Note: Listening to a classic rock station on the radio ....

("Wheel in the Sky" by Journey is playing)

Who would guess their descendants would be cousins? & "the great battlefield tour"

Family details can be an absolute mess ....

I am fortunate in the sense that I have had relatives who devoted a considerable amount of time delving into genealogical records. One of my father's cousins traced the male lineage (young ladies, do not blame me for that) back to the 1500s. If you want the precise date and location, tell me, and I will pull out my copy of his papers and check.

On my father's side, I have a direct ancestor who fought in the Civil War. Meanwhile, moving on over to my mother's side, I have three non-direct ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Now then, who has the edge in that competition, indirect ma or direct pa? (All wild-eyed northern boys, by the way.)

Another absolutely, positively fascinating element (at least, to me) in this maze is on my mother's side of the coin. One of those ancestors who participated in the Civil War did so only briefly before becoming a volunteer in a militia unit riding against the Dakota in the wake of the 1862 uprising in Minnesota. At this time, I should like to mention that I have a relative married to an individual who carries Dakota blood, as well as another relative whose spouse has French-Canadian/Ojibwai ancestry. Beyond that, I have been a participant in an Assinaboi initiation ceremony, have sat in a few sweat lodge ceremonies and been among the honored guests at a wacipi. This simply is to say I have extended family members among the Native American community, and am aware of some of their customs and beliefs.

Back to the story before I forget it. This 1862 rider of vengeance later returned to the regular U.S. army cavalry. He did not last long. He was among troopers killed on a patrol in Kansas by a party of Sioux and Cheyenne in 1867. (The Seventh Cavalry on a search and destroy, with George Custer in the lead, discovered the bodies.)

The element which makes the events uniquely special to me is that I visited the exact site (no more than a few meters away, at the most) of his death during what I designated my "battlefield tour." Have you ever stood on the ground where an ancestor went down fighting nearly 150 years ago? Then, scarcely before you have taken another breath, wondered if the ancestor of a modern-day relative might have done the killing? Ain't life a mystery?

Maybe I should have signed on as a deckhand ....

Whether you know or not, it snowed in Minnesota on Thursday. I had about six inches of heavy, wet stuff to throw from my driveway into my neighbor's lawn. He does not care, since his boys build forts and caves in the heaps of snow. Here is a glimpse of my neighbors. Sorry, Diva. (I already told her this one.)

On one side, my neighbor is 97. She still shovels a path through the snow to her mailbox by the street. On the other side, my neighbors have two little boys (nine and four), who frequently are trying to sell me things, mostly stuff from their dad's garage. I usually buy it. Real bargains. A dime here, a quarter there. Is there more to these stories? Never mind. Write the endings yourselves.

Now, where was I? I certainly have a tendency to drift off topic.

Snow. And, cold. (Three degrees Fahrenheit above zero this minute.) Winter has returned to me again and, again, I have become immensely bored with it. The last time this happened was during the winter of 2000-2001. (Time flies when most of it has been spent in the same routine, as mine has, for a couple of years now.) In February 2001, I briefly toyed with the idea of flying to Florida for a week of sun and whatever. I was within the punch of a keyboard button to close the deal. But, I did not.

I decided, instead, to save the money and to spend it (and more) on a "decent trip" that summer. In May, I took an "unpaid sabbatical" from work, departed Sanctuary/Refuge and left on a driving tour (the aforementioned "battlefield tour") that ranged from Canada into Mexico and lasted until well into October.

Much camping with many nights under the stars, a few good motels, a few bad motels, much canoeing, much brandy, some days spent walking and some nights spent sleeping on old battlefields from the days of the "Indian wars." Too much tequila, dancing and a bar brawl across the Rio Bravo del Norte in Ciudad Juarez. (We won; locals, including me, against outsiders. Weird, hah? You fit in where you fit.) Too much money spent on gasoline and potato salad, many historic sites seen, kissed the Alamo, a great sun tan and uncut hair bleached blond once again by the sun -- well, you get the picture. Free Bird.

This is the most beat-up by winter I have felt since then, and I continue to wonder if this, again, will be the year of the traveler. (Do not panic; I think I may have passed beyond the bar brawl stage of life.) Greece and the "wine dark sea" of Mediterranean waters linger on in my mind.

I think if I could be age 18 again, I would skip the Marine Corps, skip college, skip newspapers and a few other distractions, and sign on as a deckhand on a Great Lakes ore carrier. Once upon a time, after an hour or so of drinking beer and mingling with a group of Great Lakes sailors in a Lake Superior waterfront bar, I was asked "what ship I was from." To me, that was an enormous compliment, and another occasion of fitting in where you fit.

Music Note: Listening to 38 Special ....
Specifically, "Live at Sturgis" ....
("Hold on Loosely" -- wanna dance?)

Riding the "Superior" surf & chasing girls ....

"When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;"

John Keats
Some lines from: "When I Have Fears"

Racing & canoeing have one thing in common ....

I would consider myself to be a "sort of" stock car racing fan. I watch a few races on television during the course of the season, and one of the items on my "bucket list" is to see a race at Talladega in Alabama. Better track than Daytona, I think. Race speeds there once topped 200 mph (that is as in miles-per-hour) until political correctness caught up with racing and restrictor plates to limit the speed to around 185 mph became required there. The single lap speed record at Talladega is 216 mph.

When I first started watching stock car racing in the 1990s, "my driver" quickly became Ernie Irvin. He skipped his high school graduation so he could drive in a race. Reminiscent of my own youth, but I at least attended the ceremony before heading out for Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie (that's in Minnesota for you far-awayers). Never mind why. Ernie was a California boy, by the way, and had the words, "No Fear," painted on his helmet. He retired from racing after a pair of near-fatal crashes.

This has been the long way of leading up to the subject of conquering one's own fears. A young lady asked via email how I overcome fear when canoeing on Lake Superior. This was my answer:

How girls, women, ladies, do it (overcome fear), I have no idea. With guys, it often is peer pressure. I'm not just talking about little boys, either. Liquor often has something to do with it. Showing off for girls frequently enters the picture. (Yep, right, I'm not just talking about little boys, either.) How does one master fear when there are no peers, no liquor, no girls around? By doing, but by studying and practicing on gentler ground (or water) before doing the real thing.

When I arrived at a newspaper on the shores of Lake Superior in mid-winter and mentioned that I could not wait to get a canoe into the lake, one of the reporters wrote my obituary as a joke. I learned that the children of a very prominent family had drowned in a canoe accident at some ridiculous date like 1910, and that had done it for canoeing on the lake in that region ever since.

I have to admit, Superior is big water, and it did make me nervous simply because of its sheer size, its rapid changes of weather and waves, the unpredictability of winds, its chilling water temperature, not to mention the looks of doom on the faces of people who knew of my plans. Cutting to the chase, I first launched my canoe on one gray and cloudy day in April, with a stiff wind and three- to four-foot swells running -- much larger than any I had previously encountered with my canoe.

I went out about a half-mile offshore and lay down in the canoe. That is a Native American maneuver, as reported by an early Minnesota fur trader. Lie down to distribute your weight evenly, and allow the wind and the waves to carry you to safety. Lying there, it appears as though the waves will come down into the canoe and right on top of you. They don't, but it is an "interesting" position in which to watch them. Within 10 minutes, I no longer had any fear of the lake, and I began to "play" with it.

I learned how to surf on the waves with my canoe, how to run with the waves, into them and parallel to them. I took my canoe into the sheer rock cliffs, and learned how to gauge the rebound action of the waves off the cliffs, and to navigate beside the rocks without smashing into them. I could not have done these things without having considerable practice behind me on small lakes and in rivers. Inside of a few hours on a single afternoon, I had fallen in love with Superior, and the lake had become "The Lake."

Plenty of respect, yes, but no fear. I recall one time when, within the span of five minutes or so, gentle swells had become five- to six-foot waves. And, there was no wind. The reaction to an earlier storm 150 miles away had reached my side of "The Lake" without warning. “She, The Lake,” is a living entity, and always requires her lovers to treat her with respect, as well as affection.

Within a matter of months, it was not unusual for 10 or 12 others to join me on weekend canoe trips on "The Lake" or on area rivers. The newspaper-types among us sometimes wrote our own obituaries for entertainment bravado and competition at our evening campfires. Some boys forever will be boys ....

How can a guy chase girls if ....

I have no consistent pattern to exercise. I'll do it for a few months, maybe a few years. Then, I'll stop doing it for a few months, maybe a few years.

Sometimes running has been the primary drill. I've never been a fanatic about it. I'll do it for a mile, three or four times a week, and maybe work it up to five miles before I say enough is enough and take a break. When I was a smoker, it was not unusual for me to begin the run with a cigarette in my mouth.

Only once did I belong to a gym. That lasted for a little more than two years. When I started, I did four routines over the span of about 15 minutes, and then spent 45 minutes visiting. By the time I said enough is enough, I was up to 20 routines lasting two and one-half to three hours, three or four times a week. It is amazing to me why any of us often turn a simple activity in a time-consuming, complex, ritualistic near-addiction.

Normally, my idea of exercise is to do a few pushups, a few sit-ups, a few other odds and ends over the span of about 20 minutes, five or six days a week. I have no desire to replace California's governor, either politically or in the movies.

Why do I mention this? Because, tomorrow I resume my exercise routine again. My last pushup or sit-up was the week of Thanksgiving. Three months is enough of a break this time. Besides, how can a guy chase girls if he cannot keep up with them?

What if the word verification system fails?

I tried leaving comments at a couple of blogs on the other side of oceana maximus Monday evening, but the word verification system was not working for me. Either that, or a few people were telling me to get lost all at the same time. Anyone else ever experience this sort of problem? Any suggestions?

Tuesday evening ---- it's all better now ....

Instead of music ....
John Keats ....
The entire poem: "When I Have Fears"

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; -- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

20,000 leagues under the sea; well, almost

"Let's toss a bumper down our throat
Before we pass to heaven,
And toast: 'The trim-set petticoat
We leave behind in Devon'."

Harry "Breaker" Morant
Some lines from his final poem

Diving was a single chapter for me

My voyage across the sea of blogs drifted over a diver the other day, which is to say, a "scuba diver," as in the underwater type. To make things more interesting, this diver was British but underwater in the Red Sea. Such an experience must have been a real treat for an aficionado of the "silent world."

I'm not certain how many people don scuba gear during their lifetime, but certainly it must be an ever-increasing number. I bought my first tank, used, and a minimum number of accessories, while still in high school. Working around rules comes easy for a teenager (at least, it did for me), so I did not take formal training until college. There, a physical education class provided me with the path to eventual certification. One-half the instruction was in a classroom, the rest in a pool. One dive was in a sort of muddy lake. I already was well practiced in muddy lakes, but never had worn a tank in a pool.

My experience expanded with a three-week class provided by the U.S. Navy. The Navy frequently feeds Marines and hauls them around, always doctors them and, sometimes, teaches them useful skills. That instruction included classroom, pool and the most-amazing Pacific Ocean. I could tell you a couple of stories, but ....

I never really got back into diving when civilian life rolled around until a friend of mine said he would like to try it. I broke out my old high school gear and bought my first wet suit. We both lived on Lake Superior at the time. (Well, not on, rather, next to.) Within a matter of a few weeks after his introduction to the underwater world, he was buying the gear and had signed up for instruction.

We did do a few fascinating dives, including some on shipwrecks off Isle Royale. My ears never did like depths much below 20 or 25 feet, and during this time I also starting having inner ear problems. Consequently, other than infrequent warm-water snorkeling and occasionally dumping a canoe, my under-the-water time pretty much ended.

I really did not miss the underwater experience after I left it. Like "they" say, I'm glad I tried it, but it was meant to be a single chapter in my life, not an entire book. To be honest, other than exploring old wrecks, I found diving in inland lakes sort of boring after a while, and I never seemed to be at the right place at the right time to try anything else.

My friend, who learned how to dive with my gear, continues to be an enthusiast. When he married, he convinced his wife to join him, and they have made a Caribbean trip to explore the underwater world there. He also joined a dive club, bought a dry suit and partakes in a few excursions below the ice of Lake Superior every winter. Diving, for him, became more than a single chapter.

Music Note: Listening to Boston ....
Specifically, "Don’t Look Back" ....
(My all-time favorite band)

The price of romance might be high ....

But first, cold water prepares one for California

I did a lot of swimming while I was in California. The water of the Pacific Ocean was pretty cold, but I was prepared for it. Anyone who thinks the Pacific Ocean is cold ought to try a Minnesota, spring-fed, gravel pit. Now, that is really, really cold water, and I grew up in it. And, even before California, I'd dumped a canoe a couple of times in Lake Superior. Try holding a rope between your teeth and swimming ashore in "The Lake," towing a canoe filled with water and an idiot hanging onto it, dodging mini-icebergs along the way. (There he goes, sidetracking again.) "The Lake" has cold water, but I think the old gravel pit has both it and the Pacific Ocean beat. By the way, most old gravel pits are great places for moonlight parking, too.

Some of my California swimming was close to shore. Some of it was 90 miles off shore, give or take. Either way, if I would have known at the time great white sharks liked to prowl the California coastline, I probably would have stayed in Minnesota. Well, not really. Who spends any time thinking about sharks, anyway? I saw live sharks and dead sharks, cute sharks and ugly sharks, smiling sharks and sinister sharks, and I didn't give any of them a second thought. They really weren't very frightening. The ones I saw, that is. It's sort of like, "beware the ides of March."

Pretty obvious, isn't it? I've got California, especially San Francisco, on my mind. Or, is it princesses, divas and contessas I have on my mind? Or, is it something else altogether? With those questions hovering above us like ethereal spirits, it is time to wind down the exercise.

The Ideal Couple: Episode III

Moving to San Francisco and wearing flowers in my hair? I don't know about that. Maybe I'll just head down there long enough to find a princess or a diva or a contessa, and use my powers of charm to convince her we should settle down on neutral ground. Not in San Francisco. Not in Minnesota. Concentrating once more on great romances in the wonderful world of motion pictures, but this time not just movies confined to San Francisco, one possibility would be for us to find a peaceful, middle-class town and to live our lives as normal, ordinary, the-kind-of-couple-you'd-want-next-door people. People like Marge and Norm Gunderson.

Remember "Fargo?" You betcha. Great place to live, and it's a hotbed of entertainment up there in Fargo, Nort Daakotaa. I saw Don Dokken actually live on stage up there last summer. What's San Francisco got that Fargo doesn’t? And, isn't it preferable to be "up there" instead of "down there?" I'd even be willing to change my name to Gunderson if I found the right princess or diva or contessa, or reasonable facsimile thereof. Maybe she would want to become a sheriff. You have to confess, there is something compelling about a woman wearing a badge. Just check out Marge.

I'd even make breakfast for my contessa. Ya, you betcha.

I suppose I must admit that it would be possible some very few young ladies would soon grow disenchanted living in the midst of potato and sugar beet fields, and yearn for a more glamorous, adventurous existence cruising the highways and byways of Europe in the footsteps of Jason and Marie in "The Bourne Identity." Yes, I suppose members of the fair sex might prefer that to the simple life of touring the badlands, hunting antelope and visiting the grounds of General George A. Custer's last duty station. I suppose Europe would be ok. Sometimes, to win a princess or a diva or a contessa, a man must compromise. All right, we'll do it your way, but you have to drive.

It costs how much in euros? Well, I suppose, if you say so.

With apologies to Geoffrey, here ends the new Pardoner’s Tale -- except -- maybe -- for an epilogue tomorrow to complete a circle.

Music Note: Listening to (and, again, sort of watching) Queen ....
Specifically, "Live at Wembly '86" ....
(Wish I would have seen them perform live .... little late now)