A Break for Thanksgiving

I write this poem for a friend a few years ago.

"Aubade of Autumn”

by Mark A. Davis

The vigorous, crisp, softness of the harvest,

A bounty bought to the table ripe-ready.

Rocks were fought,

Equipment rose up in protest,

Ox and horse struck against the hand of the master,

And the dry heat of deep summer

Plotted to ruin, rot, raze, the tender branches,

The tender buds, the tender fruit.

Inferno and gust, drought and machine,

Earth and kine in concord

Fought the course of the master

(The master whose plan said the seed will grow,

The vine will produce its fruit)

And so it is at the rich table rounded

With stews and fragrant vegetables,

Their aroma thick in the air,

A lullaby to the senses,

We gather among friends

With friends and embrace with

A word of Thanks.

Samuel: An Awkward Moment

I've decided to write this story as a series of vignettes. Follow along, and feed-back positive or negative is welcome. This story will have adult themes/language on occasion. Call it PG-13. Also, the introduction has been altered to correct a few inconsequential setting details. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

February, 1994

Sam's hand plunged into the ice chest whose ice was not melting and grabbed another beer. He had lost count and he could care less. He had three sheets to the wind, as the pirates would say.

He staggered his way back up the steps of a little cabin in the middle of nowhere. He and his buddies were celebrating something. He didn't really care what at the moment. He was tired of drinking beer, but he couldn't drink whiskey without several under his belt. An open fifth was on the table in the kitchen so he made his way over to it. If he didn't know what a hangover was before tonight, he would know in the morning. He took a pull from the bottle of cheap whiskey and chased it down with an even cheaper swig of beer. The party was nearly over anyway.

Some of the boys decided to head back into town to pick up someone's girlfriend. Sam was at least smart enough not to try to drive anywhere himself.

“I think I'll just stay here and drink,” he said quoting a familiar Merle Haggard lyric, “I mean I'll crash here, man, if you don't mind.”

“No, dude, you need to sleep it off, man. We'll be back in a couple hours.” Brian took Sam's keys without him knowing it. He didn't want Sam dying tonight. They had always looked out for each other. Good friends do that.

The boys took off and Sam, bored with drinking and getting drunk, pondered the results of this binge of drinking. Laboriously he calculated the volume of liquid he took in and multiplied by 30% the amount of liquid he evacuated. “If dehydration caused hangovers, then damnit, I'll drink a bunch of damn Dr. Pepper so I'll even it out.” He cussed a lot when he drank. He drank more and more now that football and basketball seasons were over and his senior year was racing ever more quickly to its end.

At about 2:30 in the morning the door to the cabin creeped open as Brian, his girlfriend, Donny, and two other girls slipped in. They had a fresh supply of drinks- girl drinks, and it was apparent the cabin was about to be transformed into the “Love Shack.”

Sam had climbed up to the loft and had fallen asleep with his beloved 2-liter bottle of Dr. Pepper close by. The motion and pressure of the pretty girl who had ascended to the loft and was now straddling him woke Sam up. Surprise showed in his eyes as he asked, “Who are you?”

The girl replied, “The girl who's gonna fuck you, that's who.” And with that she laid down upon Sam and began to kiss him. Sam thought that this was a whole lot easier than he ever imagined. Losing his virginity, that is. He had not carried that condom in his billfold in vain.

He became aroused, despite the large quantity of alcohol he had consumed that night, but something held him back. He couldn't articulate it. Not to her or to anyone. He couldn't do it. It wasn't right. It seemed as if time slowed down and he was watching this scene unfold from outside his body. He and this young woman, naked to the waist, on this mattress on the floor. The words slowly dripping from her lips and the sloppy kisses that followed. The theater of the surreal continued when he imagined, one right after the other, his two options and their effects on his immediate future. The one, while visually and imaginatively gratifying to him, left him spilling his seed through a broken, heat damaged condom into this girl whom, he imagined, was not on any sort of birth control, had recently ovulated and was as fertile as South Dakota's black soil. The other scene, which played out in a similar fraction of a second, did not "end" so happy as the first, but did have him graduating high school sans the prospect of being a father years before he was ready.

Below them the moans and grunts of the two other couples rose to the loft, while the girl, who had exposed her breasts for naught, was dealing with the rejection of her body, and it was a fine body by most folks account. Awkward doesn't begin to describe the moment. Thankfully, it was just a moment. Sam, astoundingly sober now, sat up and leaned back to the cabin wall, while the girl- did she ever give her name?- made her way to the ladder and climbed down. Sam thought she looked shocked, like this had never happened to her before. Sam didn't know who was more shocked. Everyone else left him alone for the rest of the night. It was a long night.

Samuel

Samuel: Bloody Alley

I've decided to write this story as a series of vignettes. Follow along, and feed-back positive or negative is welcome. This story will have adult themes/language on occasion. Call it PG-13. Also, the introduction has been (will be edited ) to alter a few inconsequential setting details. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

August, 1991

"Ready..."

A whistle chirped loudly in Sam's eat. It was his cue to rise from a prone position, gain footing, and run to meet another boy running full speed ahead in a drill known, and for good reason, to this group of boys as "Bloody Alley."

Fate would have it that he drew a senior, and not just any senior, but Gary Schooley. Gary was a kid who transferred into Sam's small rural school from South Dakota. He was built like the granite mountains that pierce the sky in the Western part of that state. Gentle as a lamb off the football field, though. Gentle as a lamb.

Sam was sure of only one thing, and that was that he and Gary would collide. Two things, actually. It was going to hurt like hell, too.

The chirp of the whistle signaled a lightning fast response in Sam's nervous system. His only hope was that he reach Gary before he reached full speed. He had been carefully watching the other boys. Two steps after the runner got the ball was two steps too late. He was going to have to be fast, and he was going to have to hit him on the move.

His cleats dug into the dirt of the practice field and, like a gear meshing with another gear, he propelled violently toward Gary with out slipping. One small victory, he thought. His lithe frame accelerated towards the ever enlarging "87" on Gary's jersey. The ball was extended and Gary opened his arms to receive the hand-off. Just as his arms began to close around the ball, Sam's helmet made contact with Gary's arm. Sam drove his feet into the ground as the impact, like a collision of tectonic plates forming a new mountain range, caused them both to straighten in a upright direction. The greater mass belonging to Gary overcame Sam and they made their journey back to the earth from which they sprang. But Sam noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

"Ball!!!, Ball!!!, Ball!!!" Thirty-five young men shouted simultaniously. Sam had not only done the impossible, but he had knocked the ball loose from a senior who had notoriously sticky hands.

Sam tumbled to the ground with the weight of a six-foot three-inch senior pressing him ever firmly to the ground. A mad scramble was about to ensue. There was no thinking. Sam scrambled out from under the massive upperclassman in the direction of the bouncing oblong ball. He pushed his body upward just enough to let his feet gain traction for a five yard leap.

It was enough. His fingertips touched the laces, and he pulled the ball un his chin just as Gary pounced on top of him. The whistle chirped again. Sam's fellow tenth-graders were amazed. The seniors were pissed off. The coach, well, the coach noticed a kid with some hustle in him . "He's too scrawny to play with the big boys. They'll kill him. Hope he gets bigger by next August." the assistant said to the head coach after practice.

Sam laid on the ground for a few moments after Gary rolled off. His ears were ringing from the earlier contact, his neck muscles were racked with pain, and his lungs felt as though they might burst. The pain was real and intense, but so was the feeling going through his mind. "I just tackled and knocked the ball loose from last season's best receiver!"

Sam spent a lot of time on the sidelines that season.

Samuel: To the River

I've decided to write this story as a series of vignettes. Follow along, and feed-back positive or negative is welcome. This story will have adult themes/language on occasion. Call it PG-13. Also, the introduction has been (will be edited ) to alter a few inconsequential setting details. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

June, 1990

"Sam!" a boy's voice called out again, "Sam! I think it's over here!"

The two boys scurried over a rise and looked down to see an outcropping of rock hanging out over the river. They looked at each other and grinned. No one had to say a thing. They were about to get wet. This spring was late in bringing the warmer temperatures that brought the local waters up to proper swimming temperature, but this would do. Off went their shirts and shoes and then began the short, silent test to see who would go in first.

Sam, after a split second of deliberation, rocked back on his heels and took off with a sudden burst of energy punctuated by a piercing yell. A rebel yell. His body sailed off of the bluff, and accelerated at 9.8 meters per second squared toward the cold waters of the Buffalo River. Time slowed down, it seemed. The yell enduring Sam's entire plummet into the water. Flailing arms and legs full of energy and without a moment's hesitation in them dancing their way to the water below in a raw and strange cadence that makes mothers wince and father remember.

This leap of forty feet lasted scarcely over a second. Sam's rebel yell was still piercing the valley in an ever softening echo as the spray from his awkward leap kicked back high into the air. His feet dug deep into the gravel bottom of the river, and he made a second leaping motion. Only this time he was in search of the air that he had recently expelled from his lungs. Sam had hardly sucked in a fresh supply of oxygen when he let it back out again with a loud whoop.

Brian was still standing on the outcrop looking down in amazement at his friend. "You knocked the river dry! I'm coming!" Brian disappeared momentarily and then proceeded to mimic Sam's descent, yell and all.

It was a good way to celebrate the end of their eighth grade year.

"Ya know, Brian," Sam began as they hiked their way back to their camp, "I want to live like this forever."

Yeah, man, me too!"

"I just can't understand why my dad never wants to go out and do stuff, ya know," he added with a vocal pause, "like this. He just sits on his ass all weekend and watches baseball or football or basketball. If he likes sports so much, why the heck doesn't he play something. It ain't like he's old or something yet."

"I don't know, man. My dad is always saying, "Brian, lets go do something." but I'm kinda tired of doing stuff with him. I mean, it's like a miracle that we got to come out hereby ourselves this weekend."

"Well, at least he wants to be with you. Sometimes I think my dad wishes I was grown up and gone already. And to be honest, I starting to wish that, too. Crap! It's getting dark and we haven't set up the tent yet!"

And like that the two boys were sprinting the 1/4th of a mile to their campsite. Racing the sun. Racing the sun.

Samuel

This is the introduction to a larger story. It will be published in serial.

Samuel was nearly in the drive of his barber when he, almost without thinking, flipped the indicator light of his very sensible car off and accelerated past the entrance. He felt relieved. He also felt like he was neglecting a sacred tradition. He had maintained this monthly ritual for the last 15 years. For those 15 years he had walked into the same nondescript barbershop, placed himself in the same chair at the appropriate moment, and pickup up where he left off the last time he was there. He hadn't told the barber what to do to his head since he couldn't remember when. He really couldn't remember when.

Today Samuel would keep his $11 and his just-starting-to-look-shaggy head of hair for another day. Maybe longer. Maybe much longer. He vaguely remembered an old Crosby, Stills, and Nash song. Or was it Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young? He couldn't say for certain. He hadn't listened to his old records and CD's in ages, or at least as long as he there had been passengers in the back seat of his car. This he did remember. His older child was nine two months ago. His listening pleasure consisted of the two chatterboxes in the back seat mixed with either Morning Edition, All Things Considered, or Fresh Air on the way to or coming back from somewhere. He was always going somewhere.

This morning he ventured down to a local coffeehouse and ordered his standard drink, an Americano. His hope was that the exceedingly hot bitter black liquid inside the recycled paper cup with a lid and a stupid red straw sticking out of it would help clear his mind. The red straw just nearly altered his mind enough to wreck his intended goal of mind-sweeping that he was so intent on engaging in. He prayed silently that he would not be dropped in on by a friend or neighbor. God must have heard Samuel's prayer. He recognized no one in the little coffee shop. His coffee was very good, by the way. Rich but not overpowering with a subtle complexity most putzs wouldn't appreciate. Samuel did know his coffee even if he didn't exactly know what was going on.

What had he became? He quickly figured his age. He was an LP. Almost. 33 and 1/4th years old. One more month and he would spin at that beautiful, magical speed of 33 and 1/3rd RPM. Aside from being an LP, and feeling nearly as obsolete, Samuel calculated that he had became the shmuck from so many of the movies his wife loved. "I"m bored with life, disappointed with myself, I don't recognize myself in the mirror," his list got longer, "I've got no hobbies that I do and no guy friends to do them with, and little, if any, respect from virtually anyone I contact on a regular basis." He thought of how the shmuck from the movies always founds someway to redeem himself and get his life back. If only real problems could be sorted out in 90 minutes. He didn't feel like he was in a date night comedy. He thought his life more closely resembled a Coen brother's film where some psychopathic drug cartel boss sums up a man's life two minutes before he coolly liquifies his vital organs with a single blast from a 12 gauge shotgun. If only his life were that exciting. Getting a coupe de grace execution by a guy with fucked-up sense of principles didn't seem life too bad of a way out at this point.

It was that that he wanted. Out, that is. Out of the mendacity that his life had become. He used to be human, he thought. He used to laugh, have fun, exercise, read, jam out in the car. He didn't know what he was now but he was pretty sure that he wasn't the same Samuel he was 15 years ago. Pretty damn sure, really. He was ready, he thought, to take a step on a journey whose end he could envision. The most troubling thing was, while he did have an idea of who it was that he was searching for, he had no conception of what the road back to himself looked like. If he did, he might not have taken a step. He would have gone to the barber like the shmuck he had become.

1st Thing, Poet, Have a Plan

A few weeks ago, while chasing down my highly irregular garbage man, I spotted a t-shirt on a neighborhood walker that caught my attention. It read, "A goal without a plan is only a dream." I let that thought sink in throughout that day and visualized its application in several areas. Specifically it brought to mind what happened in Joplin. What would we do if a natural disaster of that scale happened here? Would we be helpless, waiting on someone to rescue us? What if that someone was in need as much as we are? I had intended to write a blog entry on that angle, but I'm afraid that is putting the cart before the horse. Let us look at the plan itself first.

A plan is a great thing that is often greatly maligned. Some folks are intimidated by a plan. They think that a plan is nothing more than an overly complex way to do something. Other folks believe that plans get in the way of living "in the moment" They like the uncomplicated, easy-going lifestyle that allows for spur of the moment decision making. G.K. Chesterton once wrote that poets never go mad, but mathematicians do. He isn't saying that poets never go mad because they never plan and mathematicians do go mad because they are calculating their lives away, but rather that poets note the logical progression of things and duplicate that in their art and lives. They see the plan before them. They study it. They synthesize it. They produce based on the model they studied.

My kids came up to me early this spring with the desire to have a tree house. We've got a great backyard for it with several large trees and a gently sloping terrain. The mental wheels began turning. A tree house with a zip-line entry and fireman's pole exit. I didn't go out haphazardly and nail a bunch of lumber to the tree and tell the kids, "Here ya go!" That would be a plan for disaster. First, I studied the trees in my backyard and selected the best one for the job. Unfortunately, the tree I selected decided otherwise and died this spring. Not all is lost, though. For standing close beside it was a tree now know as Plan Bee. Plan Ay is scheduled to become fire wood, and Plan Bee has been trimmed for its new tree house.

So what does my plan look like? I designed the tree house on a paper plate. I'm no artist, but I did manage a rough sketch of the tree and what I wanted the tree house to look like. I also estimated how much lumber, bolts, and other such supplies I will need to complete the project. Right there in #2 pencil on a 5 cent plate is a plan for my kids' tree house. I've heard of folks drawing up house plans on a napkin so I'm sure that my paper plate will stand up to scrutiny at the liars' table.

In my garage I have a factory service manual for a 1992 Range Rover. Thankfully, the Range Rover is gone, but I did keep the manual as a reminder to carefully consider any vehicle before laying down the cash for it! Back to the manual. If you were to look through that manual, some 1000 pages, mind you, you could see a plan for that vehicle. Every major part of the car is exploded to reveal the little parts that make it up. The book tells you how to remove, repair, and re-install each of these parts in detail. This is a big, complex plan. But, when you get in tune (forgive the pun) with the manual, you can locate the part you are having trouble with and get it repaired by following the manufacture's plan.

Plans can range from the super simple to the overwhelmingly complex, but they both accomplish the same thing: they get you to your goal. When you think about it, taking the trash to the curb is a goal. In order for the trash to get from your garage to your curb requires a plan. Someone has to go to the garage, open the garage door, drag the barrels to the street, return to the house, and shut the garage door for this to happen. This is a task so simple that we don't write out the instructions. We simply decide to do the task and perform a series of steps to that end. This task went from dreamland to reality by following a series of logical steps in a pattern, or a plan.

If plans work so well for simple tasks, why do so many people have trouble applying them in other areas of their lives? People find themselves in all manner of trouble without the slightest clue as to how they got there or how to get out. As I said earlier, having no plan is a plan for disaster. With the trouble that God promised us we would have just by nature of being human, I don't need to compound matters further by inviting tragedy into my life as a result of poor or no planning. You wouldn't take off on a three day hike without a first-aid kit or a map of the area, so why do people journey through life without a plan to deal with emergencies or something more than a general idea of where they are heading?

There is no getting around this. You will have something happen to you (or someone you love) that you won't see coming. What do you do? The problem doesn't matter. Your response to it does. Can you get to money fast? Do you know where your important paper work is? Can you get to a place of safety? Do you have a place of safety? A good generic term for what I'm referring to here is insurance. Whether it is traditional life insurance policy, or getting your family to a place of safety, the problem is the same and it can be asked the same way- Do you have insurance?

When we were kids, my brother and I would make fun of the victims of smaller tragedies- especially those of the more ignorant variety whose domicile was a trailer park. Whether it was a tornado, fire, or ice-storm their inevitable response to the reporter's questions ran along this theme, "We couldn't believe it happened to us" and "I just don't know where to go for help." Not to excuse the fact that my brother and I were being quite tacky in our reaction to these people's problems, the fact remains that (1) anticipation of trouble seldom enters some people's minds, and (2) without a plan for trouble, its arrival is a debilitating event. People are stunned, unable to collect their thoughts, and handicapped by confusion. They are vulnerable. Very vulnerable.

Lesson number 1: have insurance in the form of life of one sort (a piece of paper that says your death gives money to your family), life of another sort (a skill set and equipment that helps keep you and your family alive in the event dog turds hit the fan), trouble of one sort (cash at hand to deal with storm damage, A/C, car, or plumbing failures), and trouble of another sort (you or someone in your household gets sick, you have a car crash, or house fire).

This type of planning comes first for a reason. A catastrophic event that might be assuaged could turn into something that totally upsets the way the things I address below turn out.

Where are you going? I mean, where do you envision yourself in 50 years? 30 years? 10 years? As my neighbor's t-shirt said, "A goal without a plan is only a dream." Am I dreaming that I'll be the president and CEO of my own business with a life membership to the country club and a vacation home in Aspen? The question this scenario begs is, "How are you going to get there?" If I'm too busy playing golf at Cedars and spending the capital that needs to be used starting my business now, I'll never be skiing with the rich and famous on Colorado's most exclusive slopes.

The best way to think about this aspect of planning is to start at the ultimate goal and work your way back. To get to Z, I'll need to stop by Y, but not before I go to X..... You get the picture. Call it reverse engineering or long range goal setting, it all works the same way. You set a goal and work toward it. You monitor and adjust along the way. You don't make compromises on principles, and you don't let the unexpected catch you unawares.

An example of planning for the long term might be something like an international vacation. Few people have the luxury of being able to travel across the globe on a whim. We have to plan and think forward for a long period of time to make this happen. What is it going to cost? How much do I want to be able to spend while I'm there? How do I get a passport? Does my health insurance cover me overseas? How long can I stay? How long am I going to save for this trip? I'm sure this is just the tip of the ice burg as far as those questions are concerned but the point is made. This trip is going to require a lot of planning in order for it to come to pass.

When a person has made the decision to pursue that goal, a road map of sorts needs to made with the end destination being the fruition of the trip. The first stop on that journey might be to the Post Office and an application for a Passport. Next, you might set up a savings account with an automatic deposit from your paycheck. Towards the end of that map you might have steps like making arrangements for your plants and pets to be watered. At each step along the way you get closer to the goal and can check the small steps you take along the way off of the road map.

This same method can be applied to any goal I can think of. Lesson number 2 is exam yourself. Answer the following question in regard to these areas: Family, Health, Passions, Education, Career, Travel- What do I want in the area of _____ XX years from now? Exam each of these areas in your life and decide what needs to be done so that you can achieve that goal. Break the journey down to small steps and begin checking those steps off in a steady and orderly fashion. Don't cheat! Especially on those goals you set for your leisure. If you need to save money for it, save the money! A vacation or third car that you have to borrow money to go on or get is an exercise in foolishness. You'll resent ever committing to either down the road when the memories of the trip dull or the car needs work. As my friend Lawrence says, "There is no such thing as buyer's remorse when you pay in cash." When you borrow, the same cannot be said.

Also it is must be stated that a good way to burn out on using planning is to begin too much too fast. I listed six areas where a person could use planning in the long run and many more catagories useful for preparing for emergencies under the term insurance. Taking it all on right away is comparable to jumping into the deep end without knowing how to swim. Even among your goals you should proceed in an orderly fashion. Beginning with that deep down desire to pick up your new Corvette in Bowling Green, Kentucky and ending with finally getting that life insurance policy is down right goofy. Take care of your insurance type stuff first, and begin planning for the long term stuff as they appear in terms of priority. My Passion for a new Corvette is overshadowed by the need for a Healthy body.

Like the Chesire Cat said to Alice, "If you don't know where you are going, it really doesn't matter which way you go."

The Awakening

No, this entry is not critique of Kate Chopin's famous work of the same name, yet the plot line does have some similarities. One big exception is that at the end of this story I don't stroll out into the Gulf and drown myself to punctuate my frustrations against a patriarchal society.

What I'm speaking about here is an awakening of affections- those things that I have loved in the past and put away for one reason of another. Now there are things for us all that we leave behind, and it should be that way. I loved Lincoln Logs and Play-Do as a child, but they have little appeal to me today. There are other things that we do that give us deep satisfaction that we need to hold on to. They give us an outlet for stress, produce higher levels of pleasure, or just give us time to reflect on things. Our high speed, low drag society has taught us to go faster, and stay at it longer with the end result being whole generations of men and women burnt out, stressed out, and deeply dissatisfied with their lives. This should not be.

For instance, one of my favorite playtime activities as a child was to go out into the woods and walk around by myself. I would think about things, create stories, act them out, and sometimes, just climb up on a tree and sit there for hours. It should come as no surprise that I still love to go out into the woods alone and walk around or sit for hours. I don't create narratives and act them out anymore (perhaps to my own demise), but I do find, and probably for the same reasons now as it was then, that it provides for me deep satisfaction and a level of pleasure that all the Cappacino-Chunky Chocolate frozen yogurt in the world could not gain for me.

This last year has been one that has allowed me to notice those things that provide deep satisfaction to me. It is a constant battle to fight against a worldly system that would have me working sun-up till sun-down and hours into the night, eating terrible food, and missing out on any occasion to renew my mind. All of these things are contrary to scripture. Yes, man was cursed to work by the sweat of his brow, but our society doubles that curse with the poison of greed. And what is the world's fuel for all this work? In the South ( it's no accident that the Bible Belt and the Diabetes Belt wrap around the same folks!) we have the convenience of fried foods and buffet restaurants. I, ashamedly, have spent an inordinate amount of time at those fronts-for-the-Mexican-drug-cartels that permeate the landscape of NWA, eating refried beans (mashed beans with pig fat added), queso and chips (fat/corn/fat combo), and other "Mexican" delicacies. It has taken it's toll upon my body and given the drug cartels a way to launder the money from the other scourge that they are responsible for (Full disclosure- I have no evidence of this. It is only a theory, but with the ATF sending guns to Mexico, I don't think it is too far of a stretch.) So we are working too much and eating too much what else could go wrong? Oh, we fill up what remains of our time with stuff (George Carlin had a good skit on "Stuff"). I find my time wasted with poor planning, pleasing other people, and other people wasting my time. Some of the time, I can't do anything about other people wasting my time. I am learning, though.

Getting it Back

A couple of years ago I bought my wife a new stereo for her birthday. It had an iPod dock. You know what comes next. One orange iPod Nano with a lot of empty space on it arrived at our doorstep not too long after this. I had always liked music, but its expense, changing formats, combined with the demands of family life left me pushing music to the fringes of my life. I spent a few nights transferring what was left of my CD collection to the iPod and began to enjoy good vibrations in the house and even out and about again.

About the same time that this was happening my hippie friend Steve and I ventured down to Mulberry Mountain to catch the Harvest Fest. It had been years since I had gone to a concert so I was really excited about it and was not disappointed. There is just something about live music. You'll never, if the band is worth a hoot, hear "That Song" that way again.

In the succeeding time I have found new favorites and, with the lovely 20/20 vision that hindsight offers, missed quite a bit of good stuff too. The White Stripes, my favorite band, played out their entire career before my re-awakening to music. They played their last concert in 2009 while not announcing their break-up until February of this year. The Black Keys played the 2010 Harvest Fest, months before I even knew who they were. Oh well...

The point is I've got a decent library of music on my computer and iPod and I'm enjoying listening to great music during those moments that I can steal away.

As I alluded earlier, my body is not in its best condition. On the positive side the fact that at one time I was athletic has left me with a body that doesn't look too bad. I am not egregiously obese, maybe 15-20 pounds overweight. Looks can be deceiving, though. I had lost the stamina that I once had. My strength was diminishing and my pants getting tighter. The facade was about to fall. With this in mind I joined Cardio Studio about three weeks ago. What a difference three weeks makes. I'm running at least 1.5 miles and giving my body an orderly workout five times a week. The stamina is returning along with the strength and my pants are fitting better. And I feel better. I feel more like I did 10, 15 years ago.

Music is a done deal. Physical conditioning, a work in progress and progressing well. What is left? I want a Jeep. It has been 15 years since I've had a removable top Jeep. I've had a couple of Suzuki Samurais since then, but as they are a bit under-powered for daily driving activities, they could never fill that void. Why a Jeep? It is one way I can get out into the woods and tour the back country in a relaxing, reassuring manner. For this desire to come to pass I am waiting for God to move while trying to follow his instructions on handling money. When things look impossible or just really stinking hard, I've learned not to give up hope. So here's to an '03-04 Jeep Wrangler, lifted a little, slightly taller tires, traction aiding devices, and a tank full of petrol!