Back Then

In today's world, everything, everywhere, all the time, is recorded. Social media leads to instant global access, and just about every tool or appliance takes a picture or records a video. There are hundreds and hundreds of TV channels to watch, (which now have to be paid for) and we have instant access to untold tens of thousands of songs.

In the "olden days" that was not the case. I had a TV that got 4 channels and three of them were somewhat clear, but it didn't cost me $180 a month to watch either. As a matter of fact, I could buy a really decent used car all day long for that kind of money. If you found a car with 100,000 miles on it, and it was still running, chances are the owner would give it to you for free to get it out of the yard. If I had an eight track or two, they had 8 songs on them and I could listen to them over and over until the tape deck got hungry and ate them.  Same with those new and exciting cassette tapes.

Also, I left home at a pretty young age and probably lived in no less than 20 different apartments  between the age of 16 and my mid 20's. A lot of things got left behind or lost moving around so much and some of those things were pictures.  In order to take a picture, you obviously had to have a camera, but it was more involved than just that. You also had to know how to use it because film came from the store, had to be loaded into the camera, pictures taken, unloaded and packaged up and then taken to a little kiosk type store in some grocery store parking lot for them to send off somewhere to develop. Then it was back to the kiosk to pick it up and open the envelope with a lot of anticipation. You were never really sure of what you would find, under or over exposed, out of focus, not centered or film that just did not work out. There was no preview and keep or discard decision to make - each single push of the shutter button meant quite a bit.

So, when I come across pictures from my younger, nomadic, hit or miss picture taking past, they seem to make more of an impact than the on demand, instant, expendable nature that most of today's pictures do.

Anyhow, I came across these and thought I'd throw them up here.





First Beach, Newport RI. Someone got their hands on a parachute, another guy had a boat and voila, parasailing! Late 70's





Sun and Sand bar, early 80's.





Camping in CT I believe.





  Me and my older brother Bobby. Early 60's at Grandma's house.








 Another one of me and my brother Bobby. This was at his apartment in Newport. He's 54 years old now so this was quite a while ago.



My Friend Jeff's wedding. Sorry Jeff, I don't remember the year, but it was a long time ago.

 



 Same thing. Jeff tying the knot with his future ex wife Ann. There are a couple people in the picture who have since gone on to a better place.



And So It Begins - A Motorcycle Trip to Alaska

http://matoak.blogspot.com/

They say it's not how many times you get knocked down that matters,

rather it's how many times you get back up.

I'm up.



Significantly Insignificant

A host of stars framed by the night
Sat staring down past me
I slowly looked up toward their light
Wondering what they see

To them a speck on a sphere                                      
Hanging in the sky
I asked them to look over here

In unison they asked why
                                  
They gaze across ten billion miles
Anywhere they look
Toward the end of endless aisles
Their intention I mistook

They weren't intent on looking here
With all there is to see
Across the heavens was their goal
At all there is to be

The Passing

I hear a sound, it beckons me
A noise across the way
It draws me close to have a look
Then silence fills the air

I slowly turn to head away
With one ear slightly cocked
Again a sound; faintly heard
Now gone into the night

With a slow drawn breath I ponder why
Do others hear it too?
I float across the empty way
In silent journey's flight
 
gg

Merry Christmas!!

I woke up a little bit early and no creatures were stirring, not even a mouse. I decided it would be a good time to take a ride and maybe go get a coffee, so I headed to the local Dunkin Donuts.  This morning was the first time in years that it was actually open on December 25th, but the line of cars was wrapped around the building 3 times and out onto and down the street.  I don't have that kind of patience and headed across the street to the gas station where the coffee is just as good, cheaper, and you can make it how you like it. Of course the draw back is instead of being waited on by attractive young people who are genuinely happy to see me, I was greeted by an older gentleman (this is relative - I myself am an older gentleman) who had jowls so long that they were tucked into his shirt pocket to keep them out of the way.

There were only a couple cars at the gas station - one of them being a police car. As I entered the building, there was an officer looking at me and the first words out of his mouth were, "Holy shit!  This would be a great time to rob Dunkin Donuts."  Not exactly what I expected to hear from a uniformed officer on what can be percieved as the holiest of days for millions, even billions of people.

I had on a pair of untied boots, jeans, a leather bike jacket, a tee shirt, and a cap pulled down to my ears to hide my scruffy, uncombed hair.  I probably needed a shave too.  He had a gun.  I'm not sure how long ago it was that he had a psych test and whenever it was, I don't even know if he passed it, so I didn't waste any time getting my coffee and then getting on my way.

I think I'll keep an eye on the police news to see if there was, by any chance,  a robbery at the local Dunkin Donuts on Christmas day, 2010.

The Journey

A brewing storm in the distance,
Threw a raindrop down to me.
I let it run from my fingers,
To one day end up in the sea.

gg

Whispers

Trees marching through the forest,
In rank and file, silent journey.
Progress marked by age and eon,
Faces turned up toward the sky.

Groaning whispers floating ethereal;                      
Stories known too slow to tell.
Epic battles lost and won, tho
Attrition felt in silent, song drenched time.

Lest a visitor hear the chorus,
Dialogue escapes our mind.

Friends and family, foes and villians,
Attack the hard shield of their souls.
Brandished iron, fire and brimstone,
Time and detail bygones known.

Still forward, upward, outward headed,
'till facing where they'd been before.
A distant memory stirs within them,
A familiar place, a silent word.

Stopped not by man nor weary station,
Direction, purpose, time unknown.

Glenn


A poem about a venerable old growth forest that is very gradually growing and migrating. Maybe. Maybe it is actually about something else.

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http://www.poetry.com/poems/whispers/14451682/


September 07, 2010

daniel-e.-pitcher


This is a great poem, though I think that line 7 could be fixed, I felt like it was out of place. Maybe take out the though and put in a period. It is a very very good poem though. You are talented. Keep practicing your poetry. I can see wonderful works coming from you, and I would love to read them.

August 23, 2010

suzanne-c.-goudreau


10! This one is a masterpiece! Lovely, creative, interesting. (Still forward, upward, outward headed..beautiful thoughts!) Well achieved piece of art! Please keep writing! You have a lot of talent. Would you kindly rate (until the fold) ty

The Birth of A Poem

How do you write a poem? I don't know.  Is a poem created or written? I think starting is probably the hardest part, so I am going to write something here. I am going to write whatever comes to mind and write it as quickly as it comes to mind. No do-overs. Ready?

Like a falling bomb
barding my mind
caught in the race
killing time
fragile moments
caught with a stare
caught a glimpse of
you over there
looking at me
looking at you
looking at me
what do I do
my heart begins racing
the moment is here
the time is right now
my motive's not clear
crescendo of thoughts
splitting my mind
words spilt on paper
tend be blind


Well, it is what it is I guess.

I'll come back in a few days and re-read it, maybe try to make it into something, maybe leave it. I like the fact that it doesn't matter.

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Keep Your Mouth Closed When Traveling 120 MPH

In the end, when I jumped, I just did it.  You can't really prepare for it, it's almost like you are standing at the door and have an impulsive moment and then you're free falling. 

The jump master who I was supposed to jump with was sick that day, so they assigned a photographer to jump with me. What? Is that even legal? You mean to tell me that you've jumped plenty of times, just never with someone else's life in your hands? OK, that's cool I guess, let's go!

The plane ride to 14,000 feet was the fastest flight I ever took, I mean we were at altitude way before I was ready to be there.  Was I scared? I don't know.  Like I said, when you are at the door and the light turns from red to green, and you hear someone yell "GO", that's when you start figuring it all out.  I probably hesitated for a couple long milliseconds, weighing my options and knowing that if I didn't jump at that instant, I probably wouldn't jump at all .... ever.

You know how you feel when you lean back in your chair and it is just about to tip over, then you suddenly catch yourself at the last second?  I guess that is probably how it felt, but without catching myself for several minutes.

I always wonder if I would do it again.  I have already done it once.  I'll tell you what - I'll do it if you'll do it.  We can go together and you can jump first. Let me know.

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Boulder Creek California

Passed over head a copper dragon,

On a breeze of Redwood height.

Floating golden light to the carpet,

Shimmering thoughts filled my sight.

I recently took a trip out to California to visit my sister and also to drop off a birthday present to her. It's not that I don't like buying gifts, it's more like I just never go shopping, so it ends up that I never buy gifts. I usually put it off till it's too late and then, well, it's too late.

To give you an idea, the last time I bought her a birthday gift was approximately 30 years ago. At least I'm consistent year after year! Well, this year turned out a little different, I did get her something and then flew a few thousand miles to hand deliver it. Without going in to too much detail, I got her a replacement 1982 high school yearbook and had some of her classmates sign it. She lost her original one to a thief many many, many years ago. I guess I have 30 years to figure out what to get her next time.

Anyhow, the trip was excellent and we had a lot of fun. We did some things and we spent some time not doing anything. I took a lot of pictures, but to be honest, I don't really know how to display them here without just having a bunch of pictures posted. I did notice two things on my first day there: 1) There were a lot of signs, and 2) The trees were very tall.

Signs, signs, everywhere there's signs

Blockin' up the scenery, breakin' my mind

Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign

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Just Like It Was Yesterday

It was during the summer between the third and the fourth grade when we moved from the flatlands of Florida to the hills of California. I must have been nine or ten years old at the time and it was the beginning of the age where I found more sophisticated ways of getting in trouble. It was after the Kennedy assassination, before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon and during the Vietnam War.  A time of not only great change for our country, but also for me. The end of our cross country adventure landed us in La Mesa Village, Monterey California.

Those years were a very influential time in the growth of America and equally influential in this young lad’s life, who was just entering the double digit years old. Living in California put us right in the forefront of what was happening at the time. I spent a lot of time between family and scouts, camping at Big Sur and we also lived fairly close to the Monterey Fairgrounds. I was also able to ride my bike to Fisherman’s Wharf to fish, the Naval Post Graduate school to learn to swim in the outdoor, Olympic sized pool and down to the mudflats to learn how to smoke. The beach was also within a bike ride and that is where I learned about undertows and resuscitation – me being on the receiving end. One of my favorite things to do was to sneak out of the house, hop on my spider bike with the banana seat and baseball cards clothes pinned to the front wheel and ride down to the fairgrounds. On one of those occasions, I happened to be standing in the fairway, in front of the Ferris Wheel, with my short sleeved yellow and black striped shirt and buzz haircut. I think I had my back to the camera man, perhaps looking up at the ride. Well, a picture was taken that ended up on the front page of the daily newspaper, which ended up in my parent’s hands and we all ended up in the living room together. Everyone had a big laugh about how much this person in the picture resembled me, but of course it couldn’t have been me because I was home, grounded that day. Grounded for what, I really don’t remember, but I probably deserved it.

I used to go to the fairgrounds for the fair, but there was much more going on there. I was a little too young to understand the significance of The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, The Mamas & The Papas, along with others playing there. I could hear them from my house and as much as my young mind could comprehend, I knew it was something; there was change in the air.

I wasn’t that bad of a kid. I went several hours of our first day in Monterey without getting in trouble once. As a matter of fact, I think I went all the way into mid afternoon trouble free. But of course, that all ended as I decelerated from 40 mph to 0 mph in less than 2 seconds. I’ll explain. We were a family of eight kids, although I think at that time there were only five or so kids so far – still a handful. My dad and I had a discussion right before he left for work that went something like this:




"Glenn, I want you to stay in the yard and out of everyone’s way today."

"Yes Sir."

"And I want you to help your mother unpack."

"Yes Sir."

"If the movers need you to carry some stuff into the house, please help them."

"Yes Sir."

"But most of all, I want you to stay in the yard."

"Yes Sir."

Well, as he headed off for work I had another conversation. One of the movers was in the truck pulling out boxes and I went up to him and said, “My dad wants you to get my bike out for me right away”.

He said, “It’s way in the back, it will be a little while kid”.

“But he wanted you to do it right away so that I would have something to do”.

“Okay, okay, I’ll get it for you, hang on”. 

Out came the mover with a yellow stingray bike with the banana seat in one hand, and the handle bars in the other hand. He handed them to me and asked if I needed help putting it together. Uh, no, whatdoyathink, I’m a kid or something? I can do it. I really had no idea, so I stuck the bars in and grabbed the bolt in the front that clamps them in place and twisted that thing as tight as I could with my “Kid Fu Grip” – that and 10 years of pent up energy.

"Hey Bobby, let’s go find some hills" I yelled. My brother and I jumped on our bikes and off we went. Having come from Florida, even the smallest slope in the driveway was a big hill to us, so imagine how excited I was when I got out into the neighborhood. We had moved to La Mesa, Spanish for table top or something like that. What it really meant was there were a lot of very steep roads for a ten year old flatlander. I proudly brought my brother to a road I found that had a little slope to it and looked to him for approval because you could coast down this road without even peddling! He looked at me and laughed, then said to follow him, so I did.

As we coasted to the road he found, my eyes got wider and wider and my jaw sank lower and lower as we got closer and closer. I stopped the bike, straddled the cross bar and looked straight down Bergin Drive. When I say I looked straight down, I don’t mean the opposite of looking straight back, I mean the opposite of looking straight up. This was a kid’s dream come true. My brother told me that he conquered that road, and then he dared me to do it. I don’t think he really did and I know he didn’t follow me as I gave myself a little push start and headed down. Dare me? Yeah, right. I didn’t have a horn, or reflectors or lights, or even tassels on the hand grips, but I did have a speedometer. When I started going so fast that I was not able to gain anymore speed by peddling, I looked down at the speedometer. I was going 42 mph. I lowered my head, got into the tuck position and tried for 50 mph. That’s the last clear thing I remembered for the next 15 minutes or so, due to a curve in the road down near the bottom. It seems that my ‘Kid Fu Grip’ was not enough to sufficiently tighten the handle bar bolt. I heard that I turned the bars with my hands, but the bars were the only thing that turned, the bike kept going straight until it hit the curb. I went flying ass over tea kettle and hit the sidewalk chin first and blood started gushing everywhere.

A Navy officer pulled over and went running up to me and asked who I was and where I lived. I told him my name, which of course he didn’t recognize, and I told him I had no idea where I lived. We did not have a phone in the house yet, wherever the house was, so he scooped me up, put me in his back seat, pulled out a handkerchief and put it on my chin. We then raced off to the hospital. I ended up with five stitches in my chin and a fierce admiration for Bergin Drive, along with a scar that I can still proudly produce 40 years later.

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Logan

That’s Logan up there at the top of the page. He is a breed that is relatively rare, an Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog. The description and characteristics of that particular breed made him, in my opinion, the perfect pet. Logan was extremely good natured and playful – he thought he was a puppy for the entire 3 years that I had him. Having said that, he was no joke. You would not want to be the one coming in the house in the middle of the night, uninvited. He was a big, strong, 95 lb dog that would have your full and undivided attention the moment he asked for it.

He cost quite a bit to purchase and also needed airfare to get here, as he lived on the other side of the country. If I thought his purchase price and airfare were expensive, I was about to learn that it was just a down payment on him.  When Logan got here for the first time, we already had a cat, which towered over our toy poodle and the toy poodle towered over Logan. That all quickly changed as I suppose it would if you are a puppy eating 5 cups of food per day. He had a voracious appetite growing up, and among other things, was known to eat rocks. Among other things? Yes, other things. Over the three years that I had the pleasure of owning him, in addition to the dog food and snacks he ate, he also ate my couch. He ate my other couch and then he ate my other couch. About a month before he left, he was working on my/his fourth couch. He ate my rug and my other rug. He ate all the trim in the hallway where we kept him when he was a pup. He ate an ottoman and a sofa chair and 2 leather chairs and part of a coffee table. He ate 7 remote controls, 3 pairs of slippers, 2 pairs of flip flops, 2 pairs of sneakers and 1 pair of dress shoes and a Blackberry. And a wallet with everything in it. He also ate 5 bushes in the back yard. He ate socks, pants, shirts, jackets and loved eating rolls of toilet paper. He ate the cuff off of a leather jacket. Dish towels and wash clothes were another favorite snack of his. Over the years, I would estimate that he ate about $4.50 worth of change that I know of.

Out of curiosity I just did the math. If I break down the amount of time he was here into hours and divide that into his cost plus the loss he created, it turns out that he cost me 41 cents an hour, every hour, day and night, for the 24,192 hours he was here.

Oh yeah, he also ate a skunk.  Well, he didn’t actually eat it, probably because I intervened before he had the chance, but he killed it and I’m pretty sure that's what made it rain.  I heard a lot of barking out back in early May of last year and went out to see what the commotion was about.

  It was Logan telling a skunk that he was in the wrong yard. As soon as I got out the back door, Logan went into protective mode much to the skunks misfortune. A couple lunges and violent shakes of the critter and it was lights out. The last toss of the skunk from the dog had it land directly under my open bedroom window ……. Fbomb. Thoughts started racing through my head about the stench, I had to do something quick. I couldn’t go get the skunk because Logan might run into the house through the dog door, and boy did he stink. I couldn’t head for the house to shut the windows because Logan would head for the skunk again. I didn’t have to think about it for more than a second or two, because that is when it started raining. It started raining that evening, in early May, and did not stop for about six to eight weeks. I also know that it started raining around 8:30 PM because after I had locked Logan outside and bagged up the skunk, I raced to the local Pet Smart to get some skunk odor remedy for the dog. I got there at 9:02 PM, on a night that they closed at 9 PM sharp. Fbomb again. It would be several weeks before the smell issue was completely resolved at my house.

Well, due to a separation with my wife, coupled with my 11+ hour work days, I couldn’t keep Logan. He ended up going to a ‘no kill’ dog shelter to start a new life. The shelter is located in a residential area, in a raised ranch style house. The front hallway only had a knee wall, so was open to the living room as you came up a short flight of stairs. There was a couch against that wall, and to keep the animals from jumping on the couch and then into the hallway, there was an electrically charged mat on the back of the couch. I was warned several times not to touch it because it would really give me a jolt. I spent about 45 minutes there while they evaluated Logan for placement and at the end of that time, I just turned and left. I didn’t want them to see me get all emotional so I just headed down the stairs, with Logan on the couch, legs up over the back of it, leaning on the electrical mat, looking at me and wagging his tail. It reminded me of the time that I accidentally hit him in the head with a hammer (didn’t know he was standing next to me) and he just looked up at me and wagged his tail.

Take care Logan.

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Learning to Fish

When I was in my very early twenties, I took my very first commercial fishing job on a 90 ft., steel hull scallop boat. I was down on the docks before the trip and witnessed a sister ship off-loading a couple black bags to state troopers, which turned out to be the three parts of a belligerent guy that had *accidentally* got caught up in the hydraulic gear. Not an encouraging start.

I was young and naïve to the job that awaited. My older brother had secured a spot on the boat for me, and although I was excited to go out on the ocean for 21 days, it was with mixed emotion that I went, as it meant leaving behind a very special person in my life for that amount of time.

Groceries were loaded up and the holds were filled with crushed ice as I started to meet my 15 or so crew mates. There was Bad Bob, Wolf, Hollywood and the first mate/enforcer, a giant who went by the name of Bubba, among the many other interesting and suspect new friends I had. There was one guy who shared my name, but it turns out that was just an alias he chose to be known by.  There  were rumors that he was a wanted man down in Texas for a capital offense. I don't think many people really wanted to question him about his history or the strange tattoo on his hand.

There was a lot of work to be done, or maybe it seemed so to me, as I was the only greenhorn on the boat. I was introduced to the tool used to repair and replace the heavy steel rings on one of the 5 ton dredges, which was used to drag the bottom of the ocean for scallops. Seasickness was also described in detail to me and I followed along intently as I started to feel my mouth get watery and my stomach get  queasy as we were steaming across the dead flat, calm bay.

I had finished up busting my butt crimping those steel rings in place and headed to the galley where several other people were hanging out. We had left late in the afternoon and I was informed that the trip out to the Grand Banks would take about 30 hours traveling at 9 or 10 knots, so I sat at one of the benches that surrounded the galley table on three of its sides. There was a magazine rack attached to the bottom of the bench and I reached down and grabbed one, figuring I would kill some time before I got a little sleep. The magazine I pulled out was Penthouse. I stuffed it back in the rack and pulled out another, this time it was a Playboy. I figured that either I was reading one of those or reading nothing, so I layed it on the table opened it. The magazine flipped open to the centerfold, as I'm sure it had been opened to that page many times before. As I said, I was young and also in love with someone very special, so I felt some guilt as the magazine started to open.  That guilt lasted for the entire one second that the magazine was on the table and open in front of me.

The instant that it opened, I thought God was talking to me, and not in a particularly happy tone of voice.  Some things to consider; I was young, in love, a greenhorn, tired, it was a very heavy steel hulled vessel, ten knots, getting dark, and what I was about to look at. At the exact same moment the magazine opened, everything went flying horizontally across the galley. I fell over and there was a very loud, menacing, crunching and ripping sound that went right through me. We had hit a reef and come to a complete stop in the blink of an eye. I later learned that the hull ended up with a four foot crease and that a hole had also been ripped in it that was about the size of a cat's head. Everyone got up off the deck and there was a lot of yelling, running around and confusion for several moments before the engineer informed us that we were taking on water and sinking.

As soon as I heard the word sinking, my thoughts went to my brother. He had taken up residence in a little room in the boats forepeak, downstairs and near the damage, and he couldn't swim. I grabbed a life vest and bolted in that direction to find him. I admit, I was so scared for him that I had forgot to grab a life vest for myself, which turns out not to have mattered. The boat was perched and balancing on top of the reef, so it wasn't going down yet.

As the water (relatively) slowly started coming in the front of the boat, we started taking a slow nose down attitude and slipping off the reef. These guys were all seasoned offshore fishermen and got that 5 ton dredge off the boat and down the other side in a matter of minutes to help anchor us in place. The water was still coming in and the electrical, electronics and batteries were now submerged so we had no way to radio in for help, but we seemed to be stable.

We had a little time to kill and a bunch of us were starting to get hungry.  Although the galley was partially submerged we were still able to get in and grab some hotdogs and also some wooden furniture to make a fire to cook with. We brought it all up on top of the wheelhouse, got the fire started and were well into cooking, when we all of a sudden discovered another problem. The fire had heated up the steel roof deck and ignited the insulation and paneling below, so now we had a sinking vessel that was also on fire. Time to abandon ship.

Everyone got off the boat safely and piled into 2 life rafts, 7 in one and 8 in the other and we started paddling away. I think we were floating around for a few hours before a big yacht pulled up along side us. By that time, we were far enough away from our boat that it couldn't be seen.  The folks aboard that nice, dry, comfortable yacht, presumably packed with food, would not let us board. They thought we were pirates - turns out that recently (back then) down in the gulf of Mexico, there had been the same scenario a few times; yachters picking up people in life rafts who turned around and killed the crew and stole the yacht. I guess I couldn't blame them, the yacht owners that is. We did finally end up in a Coast Guard station on one of the islands off Cape Cod later that night. Of course they had very little food to offer as they were waiting for a food delivery in the coming days. I had one stale, white powdered donut to eat and then went to sleep on the dining room floor.

A few weeks later, I found a spot on another boat and actually made it out fishing. That was my first trip that I actually made it out to the open seas.  It was also the trip that I took my first wheel watch and the trip that I encountered my first hurricane out at sea, but that's a story for another time.

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