Merry Christmas

Christmas Eve morn’, and I’m up quite early (4:00am), even though it is a day off. The house is quiet; I’m in the living room with the tree lit, some Christmas tunes on and a cup of hot coffee. My wife, and our dog are still asleep, and there is a glow of the outside lights coming in through the living room window. As someone once said, it doesn’t get any better than this. I do need to take the trash out, but that gives me a chance to check out the sky. Orien is still up, but he’s already moved far to the west. No moon, we’re at the half moon currently, but I don’t see it right now. It’s cold, dark, quiet and beautiful.


I love Christmas. As a kid it was Santa, snow, presents, another turkey dinner, the secret Christmas plans my brother, sister and I used to make, buying and wrapping presents, and of course opening them! Luckily I grew up in the ‘60’s, when toys were really cool. Green Ghost, Mouse Trap, the Playmobile, Multi-Pistol 09, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. stuff, chemistry sets, microscopes, plastic army men, Operation, Rock ‘em Sock ‘em Robots, Mr. Machine, you know, the list goes on. In a fit of childhood longing last year I got on EBay and now own (to the dismay of my wife), a Golferino!

As an adult I still love Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Christ. Anyone who doubts the reality of this could merely sit back and observe the change that slowly comes across the country at this time of year. I know, all the crap still goes on, but for a brief while it gets overshadowed. There are more smiles, more doors held open, more handshakes and hugs. For a while strangers care about strangers, friends and family begin to tell each other how much their friendships and relationships mean to them, and it comes from the heart. Look around and real miracles can be seen happening every day.

Personally, I have doubts that this all happens due to the proper mixture of primordial ooze and a flash of lightening, but I digress.

Back to Christmas. Actually, it’s nearly time to be off for Christmas. There are still a few things to help Santa with, food preparations for tomorrow, breakfast out with my wife, and I’m sure a few things that I’m not aware of yet.

So Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Time to have fun with photo's.
It isn't often that you come across a set of stairs like this one....
Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it.

Same ocean a few thousand miles away...
This is the way to see it. A goal worth working towards.

Not much to say about a self portrait.

No set of pictures is complete without including Hobie

the end...

They're Out to Get Us!

What started out as an innocent morning of surfing the net has turned into one of my nightmares come true. I woke up early, and put on the old AM radio to do some early morning listening. Luckily I caught the tail end of Coast to Coast (interesting, but not the same without Art Bell, Sorry George), and heard a new one. The Lennon Prophecy, John Lennon, not Vladimir (which is spelled Lenin, and that fact seems to escape a number of people).


Turns out John Lennon sold his soul to the devil for fame, which resulted in Mark David Chapman turning up twenty years later to collect payment. Yep. It’s all there, in a book believe it or not. That led to an internet search, which eerily turned up the following results, and Paul isn’t dead!

John Lennon was murdered by either the CIA, FBI, or the above mentioned. I decided to pursue the internet further, and by following links I came across other astounding facts.

Jim Morrison was murdered, and is alive raising horses in the Pacific Northwest.

An amazing number of rock stars died at the age of 27…some type of conspiracy here too. My research turned up an amazing and previously unrelated bit of information , they were all drunk/stoned, or drunk and stoned, at their time of death. With histories of drug and alcohol abuse, this made it much easier for the CIA, FBI, NSA, DSI, NASA, NOAA and the National Weather Bureau to load them up their chemicals of choice! (Except for Jim Morrison and Elvis, who are both alive).

The moon landing was a hoax, 9/11 was done by the government, JFK, RFK, and MLK were all assassinated by the mob, the Cubans, the FBI, CIA and others still yet unnamed. These are common every day well known facts. But, did you know:

The Illuminate rule the world and always have, and the Freemasons help.

Mr. Ed was really a zebra painted white.

Everything is George Bush’s fault.

The Middle Ages Never Existed….this is a new one for me, I guess between adult endeavors such as working and going to school I missed out on this one!

Denver International Airport (Area 52) has mural full of messages about the end of the world, 2012, has an underground maze capable of housing 5 million people, and will be the center of, you guessed, the NEW WORLD ORDER!

The Titanic was sank for insurance money. It really hit a blacked out ship that was there to be part of the rescue, as well as the California. This one goes on and on.

And this is just the beginning of the conspiracies going on. What isn’t clear to me yet is exactly why everyone want sto rule the world, and what it is about our everyday lives that is so interesting to the powers that be, but…that is probably another entry.

Look under the bed before you go to sleep tonight.

El Tour de Tucson 2009

Last weekend my wife and I went to Tucson to participate in the El Tour de Tucson. I had written in September about training and getting ready for the ride, and how I had forgotten how fun it is to ride. Well we did it, the 66 mile ride, and it was a blast. We have done the ride in the past, but it’s been a long time, and after this ride it was easy to see that it was way too long.

What hit me during the ride though was a simple thought. What a great country this is. I can’t think of anyplace else in the world where people voluntarily give up their time, money and effort to be a part of a huge fundraiser like this, and enjoy it in the process!

There were 8,200 registered riders this year, with the proceeds going to fifteen different groups. The tour was originated in 1983, and since it’s inception it has raised over $26 million for various charities. Now remember, this is just one ride, one weekend, in one state. It doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of American charitable work. Look at all of the breast cancer walks and runs, bike rides, marathons and half marathons, Iron man competitions, golf tournaments, softball games, for MS, Aids, Leukemia, ALS, local and national charities. I can’t even begin to guess what the number of participants and volunteers would be to cover this massive endeavor. Google American fundraising and take a look.

Our event, the 66 mile ride had a little over 1,200 riders in it. Lining up at the start we could see the Catalina Mountains in front of us, and it was a beautiful, warm morning. As start time approached they hoisted a basket on a crane above the balloon arch which was the official starting point. Various safety announcements and housekeeping items were being announced, with little attention being paid by the crowd.

Next, the National Anthem was being sung. You could see the wave of silence move through the riders as we all heard it, and within the first few lines of the song there was total silence in the entire crowd. And we were off.

Five hours and 66 miles of hills, up and down, smooth roads, roads made entirely out of patchwork, wind in your face and at your back, Riders from their early teens to their ‘80’s. Bikes of all types, mountain bikes, tandems, folding bikes, old and new bikes.Riders of every shape, size and description. People along the route cheering us all on with signs, claps, bells and whistles. Aid stations with volunteers to hold your bike, give you food, water, a smile and an encouraging word. Thanks from everyone along the route. Police and fireman along the entire route directed traffic and kept us safe. There was also the bike patrol along on the ride, to help out with any type of mechanical difficulty.

Reaching the end of the ride they funnel you along a street lined with barricades, and hundreds of people, again all clapping and cheering, making us feel like champions. You cross the finish line to more pats on the back and handshakes. Go collect your medal for taking part in the ride, and realize that you were just a small part of something great. Getting out of yourself by giving to others. What a way to spend a day!

Real Heroes

There was a show on Veteran’s Day that I wish most guys had seen. It should be required watching for men. “The League of Grateful Sons.” A lot can be probably be deduced from the title. You can find out more about this show by punching it into Google.


Hero is a word that has been so misconstrued over the last decade that it has very little resemblance to what it means. This comes from Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, “Hero, 1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.” A definition like this could be fairly upsetting to some who follow the post-modernistic route. In the words of my friend, Michael O. “Oh well.”

It pretty much excludes most people that have been written about and held up as heroes today; professional athletes, musicians, actors, politicians etc. Most heroes don’t talk about it. If you are hearing how heroic someone is from their press agent, TMZ, Entertainment Tonight, Oprah or Katy Couric, you know that you’ve got a phony in the works.

I grew up around heroes, and I almost forgot about it. It was a generation of heroes, and I ran into them every day. My Dad, my grandfather, my older cousins, the guys my parents knew from church, from our camping group, from work, and the other fathers and grandfathers on Laughlin Street, and the neighborhood.

I’ve met heroes at work. One was a B-17 pilot out of North Africa, and completed his 50 missions by the time he was 23. Another was a Marine infantryman; he made his way across the Pacific, and back home. One was a tank commander in Europe. I had a cousin that fought his way up the length of Italy, and another that was a bombardier. I’ve met men that were cooks, mechanics, sheet metal workers, medics, truck drivers, chaplains and clerks.

They served in the Pacific, in Europe, in Alaska, in Texas, Great Lakes Naval Center, Brooklyn, Chanute Field, Florida, and Oklahoma. Some enlisted, some were drafted, and some served at home farming, working in factories, taking care of the church.

I count it as a blessing that I grew up with men like these around me, to teach me, to lead, to set examples of how to live. More importantly than that, I am a Grateful Son.

Thank you Dad.

Surfin' the AM waves............

When I was a kid I remember radio being a blast, plain and simple. AM was the standard, and FM was something that we really didn’t know all that much about. FM was out there, kind of mysterious, it was kind of like the UHF on TV, which was channel 32 in Chicago. Weird stations doing strange things.

AM was where the music came from. The Beatles, Dave Clark Five, Herman’s Hermits, The Troggs, The Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, all the stuff that is heard on the “Oldies” stations now. And not surprisingly a lot of what I still listen to today. When I first heard it, it was coming from a small counter top radio, tinny, and a little scratchy.

There’s a station in Phoenix now, 1480 AM, which is playing a lot of that again. What’s really cool about it is that for someone my age (do the math!), hearing “She Loves You,” coming over the AM airwaves again is the way I first heard it. A little tinny, and a little scratchy, and there’s something calming about that.

Last week my wife and I, and Hobie (the best dog in the world), took a quick overnighter to Payson. A chance to get away for a day and spend some much deserved time with each other. I take a small radio with me (they used to be called transistor radios), and when I’m relaxing, I’ll put on the headphones and cruise up and down the AM dial, looking for something fun to listen to.

Payson has a station that was doing something I haven’t heard in years. They were running a buy, sell, trade show, where listeners would call in with what they had, or what they were looking for. It was one of the things that local radio stations did before going conglomerate. It’s nice to know that some of that still happens.

Listening at night to AM during the winter gives me a chance to pick up stations from quite a distance. Years ago there was an evening when I picked up KOMA in Rocky Point, Mexico. It would fade in and out, but it was there. I remember sitting on top of a cabin one evening, KOMA tuned in, listening to Sundown (Gordon Lightfoot), while watching the sun go down over the Sea of Cortez. That is golden.

One of these days I’ll go into my nearly career in radio. Forks in the road take us in different directions. Sometimes willingly, sometimes kicking and screaming. I was talking with a friend of mine recently who’s been in radio his entire working career. He pointed out that you can either be a jock, or flip burgers, it’s merely variations on the same theme. I ended up on the burger route, for the time being.

Dinner, Family and Friends

My wife and I had the pleasure to go out to dinner last week with friends. It was what going out to dinner should be, a nice comfortable restaurant, good friends that we have been much too long in spending time with, good food, and great conversation.


Going out to dinner should be like that more often. We are fortunate that we have some friends that we are able to do this with from time to time. But I’m sad to say that even for us it is the exception rather than the rule. Like most people these days we have a tendency to plan dinners out around convenience rather than enjoyment.

Food and restaurants are a huge part of my life. It’s the only work I’ve ever really done. I spent years in kitchens, starting out as a pantry person (if you know what that is you’ve been in the business a long, long time), and working my way through the hierarchy. I also attended culinary school, and was a Chef at a large Scottsdale resort for two years. In my present incarnation I’m the GM of a successful restaurant, part of a great local company.

But this isn’t a resume; it’s about dinner, family and friends. As well as the dinner out, we were at my sisters this week to celebrate my fathers 88th birthday, Happy Birthday Dad! My father and I share the same birthday, which has always made it a very special day for me. Again the nice evening was centered on a wonderful dinner made by my sister, being with family, and conversation.

Earlier in the week we were also at my wife’s parents, to celebrate birthdays, spend time together, share in family conversation and news. This one had different dishes prepared by family members. A great evening of food, conversation and fellowship. And as is right for an evening like this, there was an announcement of an egagement!
Dining is an art, very different from eating. Eating is fueling the body, dinner fuels the soul. It takes you back to shared, warm memories, provides new ones for the future to fall on, and involves you in the present.

While food was present at all of these gatherings, what was really going on was spending time with family and friends.

I’d suggest taking some time for dinner this week…..

Past, Present and Future

Past, present and future, I wander around in these time zones. As I grow older I find myself moving backwards in some parts of life, treading water in the present, and not all that concerned about the future.


A recent move to the past was the purchase a Sansui DR 5000 reel-to-reel tape recorder. It’s a beauty, and it works. Analog has a different sound than digital. Warmth is what is most often associated with analog. Music recorded through analog has a different sound, and feel than the same thing done digital. Luckily I have a beautiful old Sansui amplifier that will be powering it, and some great old Advent speakers to round out the system. Its main purpose is for self-recording my own music, original compositions and various covers.

There have been a few other acquisitions over the past year or so that have a tendency to drift towards the past. I love writing, and something that has made it more fun for me was the purchase of a couple of fountain pens. One has a fine point; the other has a medium point. I didn’t know that there is an entire community of fountain pen fanatics out there.

Fountain pens add a complete new dimension to writing. I pick up the pen and I can feel the heft of it. Varying your grip on the pen gives your handwriting a different look. Either leaving the cap on and moving it, or leaving it off gives the pen a completely different feel and form. Ink comes in various colors, and it has a slight aroma. There is also the ritual of filling the pen, a small ritual granted, but like all rituals it has a place and importance in the process. It takes writing back to a personal, emotional, planned routine. It also slows writing down, so when I use the pen there is more time to think, and plan.

I’ll continue down this path in the near future. One of my goals is to keep this blog readable, and I think a step in that direction is to also keep entries a little shorter. That’s todays plan at least, I’m sure it will change in the future.

Strange but True

There is a lot to observe these days. I’ll start with the Nobel Peace Prize, since that is the most recent bit of news to hit the wires. There is no doubt that this once respected award has pretty much taken a nosedive into oblivion. Barak Hussein Obama? The most accurate statement about him winning the prize is look at the illustrious company he is keeping as a winner, Al Gore (for publishing humorous books, and a comedy movie), Jimmy Carter another democrat who tanked the US economy, and gave away the Panama Canal, The United Nations…nuff said there, Yasar Arafat a terrorist in the middle east. I’d hate to see who didn’t make the cut some of these years.


Hollyweird and Roman Polanski have made their sterling impact on the minds of America and the world again. This is the guy who got a 13 year old girl loaded with a combination of drugs and alcohol, and then raped her. Thankfully a moral upright citizen like Woody Alan has come to his defense! And the rest of the list is accessible from this link

http://thekrays.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/free-roman-polanski-petition-signers-the-list-gets-longer/

Read it and remember it. What Hollywierd really respects is our pocketbooks, we are the ones who pay them. Let the signers of this petition know what you really think by not spending money on their works.

Remember Natalie Maines and the Dixie Chicks? She was the one who thought it best to tell their audience that “we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” She was amazed that people were upset with her comment, and let it be known by no longer purchasing albums or concert tickets. Has anyone heard of the Dixie Chicks lately?

Have a great day!

American Stars and Bars

A few thoughts on the new law in Arizona which will allow CCW holders to carry their weapons.

First off the law is being portrayed as "allowing gun owners to bring their guns into bars." Could be a little media bias there, because what the law says is that people who have a concealed carry permit would be able to go into bars, and restaurants ( this includes fine dining, etc, anyplace that serves alcohol), and continue to have their weapon with them, of course concealed.



There are a few things again that the press doesn't mention.

First, if the owner of the establishment posts a sign that prohibits weapons, it also applies to those who carry concealed.

Second, To get a concealed carry permit you go through training, firearm handling, the law and how it applies. It is also subject to a background check by Arizona DPS. Generally speaking people who have concealed carry permits are law abiding citizens who are choosing to take advantage of the Second Amendment (and remember, it is because of the Second Amendment that we have a First Amendment).

Third, 41 states already permit people who have concealed carry permits to bring weapons into bars and establishments that serve alcohol.....there hasn't been a deluge of crazed, drunk shootings across the country yet by law abiding citizens.

Fourth. The police usually arrive to collect evidence, not to stop a crime in progress.

Elephant Jokes and a Quick Note

Q: How can you tell if an elephant has been in your refrigerator?

A: You can see his footprints in the cheese cake.

Q: What did Tarzan say when he saw the elephants coming?
A: Here come the elephants.

Q: What did Jane say?
A: Here come the plums, she was color blind.

One of the first books I remember buying from the Scholastic Book Mobile in 7th grade was …..you got it, 101 Elephant Jokes. I wish I still had it, but don’t fear, as time goes by I’ll dredge more of them out of my memory. Shoot some my way if you have them!

Quick Note for the Day.
This is for Classic Rock Program Directors. Songs that sucked in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s still suck today..just because they are old doesn’t make them classic rock. Examples: Elton John and Kiki Dee doing Don’t go Breaking My Heart, Manfred Mann’s version of Blinded by the Light…the original from Springsteen rocks, Manfred Mann’s blows, anything by Styx. To be honest the last great rock album done was Darkness on the Edge of Town, by Springsteen in 1978, rock pretty much went down the tubes after that.

Decompression Time

Time for some R&R. School, work, church, life..it all adds up, and it was time to break away for a couple of days. Last week a friend and I headed up to Lockett Meadow, outside of Flagstaff for some camping, hiking and stargazing.


Being a desert rat travelling to the high country always brings a bit of trepidation with it. There are two things that have been drilled into my head from years of living in the desert. Will I be warm enough and will I have enough water. Not everyone in the world gets cold when it drops below 80 degrees, that seems to be a trait reserved for desert dwellers. So when I checked out the weather and found that that there was going to be a freeze warning in Flagstaff the night we were headed up I did a quick mental check list. Question one, am I out of my mind? Possibly. But, a couple of years ago my wife gave me a wonderful down sleeping bag for my birthday.



As an aside this leads to one of my all time favorite jokes.



Q. How do you get down from and elephant?

A. You don’t get down from an elephant, you get down from a duck!!!



Question two, is twelve gallons of water for two people, for one night really enough? Like I said, water is a great commodity to us here. (It was enough, even to completely drown the fire with).

Camping is one of my great loves. My parents started us out camping when we were kids, and I’ve been doing it ever since. I know a lot of people can’t relate to being outside like that, but I get a great satisfaction out of it. I hate to pack up and leave when it’s time to head back. I’m very fortunate that my wife enjoys camping as much as I do, and so does Hobie. She (Hobie) doesn’t care for the fire and being outside at night though. Her idea of a pleasant evening while camping is curled up on the bed in our pop up.

This trip Bruce and I tent camped. We did a great hike up into the inner basin, about 4 miles round trip, ending up at about 9,800 feet. Dinner that night was cooked over the open flames of a campfire, and that just about rounded out our day. We wandered into the meadow to see the stars. And there were stars, and planets, we could even see the swath that the Milky Way cuts across the sky. It’s sad to say that it is a strange sight to see that now. When we first moved to Phoenix you could see stars, and the Milky Way like that. No longer though.



A great trip, with a good friend, and back to life with gusto!

The Farm

My dad, got back from the farm last night, a very long awaited trip for him. The farm is in Middleville, Michigan, a small town in south western Michigan, population 2,721. Dad, who is going to be 88 this year, has been going to Middleville since he was a kid. We went there for weekends and vacations when we were kids.


Uncle Andy and Aunt Jerry, my Godparents, were the ones that we stayed with there. Going to the farm was always a treat, and one of my favorite things that we did. We lived in a two flat in the south side of Chicago, so going to the farm was both literally and realistically another world. Our backyard was probably about 30’ x 30’. Uncle Andy’s farm was about 350 acres.

We rode in the back of the pickup truck, played in the hay in the barn, watched as Uncle Andy milked cows, helped (at least we though we were helping) dump grain for the cows, named the wild cats, played in the shed, ran through corn rows, helped bale hay, shoveled corn into silos, picked ripe tomatoes and fresh sweet corn for dinner, visited other cousins, went to the lake, had fresh ice cream made at Uncle Sam’s dairy (Uncle Andy’s brother), had bonfires in the fall, played in the winter snow, took walks through the fields in the evening, where we would see deer, rabbits and pheasant.

Uncle Andy and Dad taught me to shoot and hunt on the farm, and it was where I first got behind the wheel of a vehicle, learning to drive his pickup in the fields. My dad let both my sister and I begin to drive on the back roads long before we were of age, but it was a start for us.

Sometimes my folks would rent a cottage at Barlow Lake for vacation, and we’d spend a week there. Barlow Lake was probably about 10 miles or so from Uncle Andy’s. This still counted as being at the farm, because it was so close! We learned how to swim there, how to fish, how to row a boat. Uncle Andy took some old cow bones and dumped them in the lake. Then he took us over there in a boat, and told us that they were Old Man Barlow’s bones….

Uncle Andy died in 1998, of Alzheimer’s. I didn’t see him the last years of his life, when he was in a home. The last time I saw him was when I was leaving Michigan after a short visit, to fly back home to Phoenix. He and Aunt Jerry made it to the airport just before the plane was going to leave. My folks didn’t think they would make it, but I knew differently.

I knew he was going to be there, and he’s still in my heart, and memory, and so is the Farm.

I’m into the blog for about a month now. Looking back I see that some of my ramblings are quite long, so I’m opting for some short thoughts at the moment:


It’s 2009, debit cards have been around for …conservatively 20 years now? How do I still manage to get behind someone in the checkout line that has no idea in the world what a debit card is, and how to use it?

I see Michael Moore has a new movie….why doesn’t he just go away, like Air America and Nova M radio did…( the HUGELY successful liberal talk radio networks) . And he thinks that the free enterprise system doesn’t work.

Here’s something really cool to listen too, Google the Bob Davis Podcast and tune in to some of them…

If you live in the Phoenix area, The Dignity Memorial Vietnam Wall will be at Phoenix Memorial Park, 200 W. Beardsley Rd. Phoenix, AZ. 85027 Thursday Sept. 17th through Sunday, Sept. 20th.



A Time to Remember, to Reflect, to Heal



That’s all folks…leave comments and tell your friends.

Back to the Fun

It was a great morning, so I took the bike out for a ride. It’s hand built and made in America, not many of those around. And guess what, it ain’t a Harley! Gotcha didn’t I. It’s a Cannondale, which alas, has moved production to Taiwan, another American Beauty leaving us. It makes it all that much sweeter to ride.


My wife and I are going to ride in the El Tour de Tucson this year, we registered today for the 66 mile event. With the ride date being just two months off I realized that it is time to get on the bike and go.

Bike riding has always been a blast for me. I remember the first one, with training wheels. Once they came off dad would give me a push down the sidewalk and away I’d go, for a few feet. But the distance got longer, and the wobbling got less. Soon I was riding.

When we moved from Chicago out to the suburbs it was time for a new bike. I was bigger and older (5th grade), and the distances were greater. That one was a red bike from Sears, just a plain old cruiser, but we put Ape Hangers on it. This was the bike that I used to ride down Nike Hill. Nike Hill was in the prairie behind us. One side you’d push your bike up, and the other side was a drop off. You guessed it, the thrill was to try and ride all the way down the drop off. I don’t know if any of us ever made it down the drop all the way to the bottom, but we had a blast trying. Nike Hill was one of the main reasons we learned to work on our bikes.

Then there was the blue Schwinn Stingray. Five speed, banana seat, gear shifter on the frame, hand brakes, this one was a ripper, and I swear I put thousands of miles on it. We made parachutes for them, a cigar box strapped to the back of the seat, large plastic garbage bag inside rigged up with lines. You’d pull the lid of the box open and the bag would shoot out, well, all out, and inflate. It didn’t stop or even slow us down, but we felt like we were driving dragsters down US 30, with Big Daddy Don Garlitz….BRING YOUR CAMERAS!

It could be a dirt bike too. There was a park close by, The Isaac Walton League Park. It was great, lakes, trails and woods, all in Homewood Illinois. We’d grab some sandwiches, ride the trails, fish for bluegill, and it was all thanks to our trusty machines. Sometimes we were the Rat Patrol, sometimes Tom Sawyer.

Bikes took me all over the place, both in my imagination and on the streets and trails. I forgot that and it became work for a few years. It was still fun, but it became more about the miles, time, endurance, equipment. I’ve done a century, and am glad, and I’m excited about doing a big ride again. But this morning I was a kid on a bike. It’s gotta stay fun.

Some Photo's for fun

Remember the Sabbath

Midnight, Wednesday September 2, 2009, and there is a Stephen King movie on. But it’s not the bewitching hour. Far from it as a matter of fact, although at one time I might have believed that it was.

I was getting ready to go to sleep a couple of nights ago, reading the Bible. I was in the book of Mark, and the passage I was in was Mark 2: 23-28. This is where Jesus and his disciples were passing through a grain field, some of them picking heads of grain, angering the Pharisees. They accused Jesus and his disciples of acting unlawfully on the Sabbath. Jesus replied to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.” (Mark 23:27).

This led me to Genesis, and a specific verse. Genesis 2: 2, “By the seventh day God completed his work which he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work he had done.”

A day of rest is nearly an unheard of concept in these so called modern times. Home phones, cell phones, work phones, Blackberry’s, I Phones, who knows how many cable news channels 24 hours a day, the internet, radios, Ipods, pod casts that can be downloaded, email, Twitter, Face book, blogs. Need I go on? And I’m part of it, almost impossible to disconnect. Heck, it’s nearly 12:30 am now and here I am writing this. That’s after getting up a 4:00am yesterday, putting in a full day of work, then a four-hour accounting class in the evening.

An acquaintance of mine who is a minister was in the restaurant today, and on his way out we briefly caught up on his summer. As our conversation ended, for some reason he bought up the concept of the day of Sabbath. His view is that God worked for six days, and rested on the seventh, enjoying the fruits of his labor.

My schedule doesn’t allow me to be off on weekends. My weekend is Wednesday and Thursday. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t have a Sabbath day. I can barely imagine, a day to rest, a day to be quiet, and a day to thank God for the blessings in my life.

I can read, write, play with Hobie, take a nap, visit a friend, play the guitar, write a song, spend time with my wife, and cook a wonderful meal for us. Any of the above, one of the above, maybe none of the above, I don’t know yet. But I’m going to enjoy a Sabbath day weekly. Can you? The real question is, can you, or I, afford not to? Not this kid.

Meatballs, Conrad and Cave Creek

My wife was out of town the other night, a quick trip to Sedona to spend an evening with her brother, who was vacationing there. I was left alone to fend for myself and Hobie the Rat Terrier. It was quite a night; we had our first monsoon in weeks. It knocked out the satellite, so I wasn’t able to see all of Grizzly Park, in which a deranged killer, and deranged bear seek out eight young campers. Probably the only time that one will be on the tele.

Hobie and I were having meatballs for dinner. Meatballs and marinara sauce to be exact.
Feeding Hobie gave me a flashback to 1974, when a friend and I were living in Cave Creek, Arizona. This was back when people didn’t know that Cave Creek existed. Donaldo and I had become gainfully employed restaurant workers at Joe Connolly’s Elbow Bend. Like most 18 year olds at the time as soon as we got our first paychecks we bolted out of our folks’ houses and rented an apartment in Cave Creek.

Our first place, a two-bedroom apartment behind the old Circle K was a whopping $160 a month, plus utilities. It didn’t take us long to tire of the high rent district, and we found a “cottage” behind the Herb Pot restaurant for only $100 a month. Now this was living.

Just down the road from us was The Maverick, a watering hole where a lot of restaurant workers headed at the end of the night. It was pretty basic, a slump block building, and inside a couple of pool tables, a shuffle game, plenty of cold beer, and a juke box, (which was my introduction to C&W music).

We’d walk down there after work, and Conrad, my cat would cruise down there with us. He’d hang out around the phone booth chasing moths that were attracted by the light. Stu, the bartender wouldn’t let him in...an age thing I think. When we finished up we’d head out, collect Conrad and head home, with him lagging a bit behind us. He never would keep pace with us.

Here’s where it all comes together. I don’t remember what minimum wage was in ’74, but it wasn’t much. To help stretch out our resources, we’d take home the extra spaghetti and meatballs which were a weekly special. Conrad developed a great taste for spaghetti and meatballs that amazed my mother once she found out. I still love them. That’s it, full story!

Autumn Approaches

An astronomer I’m not, but a stargazer yes. In Boy Scouts I was barely able to find and identify the five constellations that were needed to get my stars checked off for First Class. That was Troop 301, Homewood Illinois. Ben Prince was the Scoutmaster, and Bill Stiener was the Assistant Scoutmaster. That’s not today’s point, but it is good subject matter for the future. I had a blast in scouts, and only left because once I was 18 I was too old to stay.

Point being that I was up the other morning (I get up around 4:00am), and went out back to take a look at the sky. It’s one of the best parts of the day right now in the great southwest desert, cool, quiet, and at that time the sky still isn’t light in the east. What I did see was my old friend Orion, one of the few constellations I recognize. He was just coming up in the east. Along with Orion the new quarter moon was just coming over the horizon, and just below that Venus was shining bright. Nearly overhead were the Pleiades, which my friend Michael O. pointed out to me a few years ago.

If you’ve made it this far you could be asking yourself, great, what’s the point? Point is that it means autumn is on the way. There is a change of season in the desert. It’s subtle, and it’s happening now. Days are just a bit shorter, and the nights are cooler (really, they are, it’s only 95 now, at 8:30pm). The difference is most noticeable in the morning and evening; the light is softer and gentler. That harsh summer edge is slipping away, and along with it the most intense of the heat.

I also saw my first V of geese the other morning, which seems strange here. There are some geese that stay here all summer, a bit misinformed on the entire matter I guess. That first flight is another indicator of fall; it’s always good to see them. More flights will be following before long.
We don’t rake leaves, put them in piles and burn them at the curb like we did in Chicago. We’re not thinking about sweaters or long pants yet for that matter. There are cool mornings on the patio drinking coffee, and earlier sunsets from the same vantage point. Mountains seem to take on a purple tinge this time of year. In the desert the autumn moon is a little larger, the stars and planets are a little brighter and closer. There’s nothing like the autumn. It brings back great memories, and holds the promise of even better ones to be made.

We have an alien living with us, and we paid for her, and after a few days we also named her. She’s about a foot and a half tall, 24 pounds, hairy, walks on four legs, and occasionally stands on two. She doesn’t speak our language at all or understand more than a dozen words. Words that she does understand she does selectively. But the ones she knows, she knows very well. Walk, leash and sometimes sit. We don’t have a clue as to what language she speaks.

One thing for sure is we know when she’s hungry. Other than that most communications are a guess on our part. She doesn’t seem too concerned about any of it. We didn’t realize when we got (paid for, did I mention that?) her what we were really getting ourselves into. There are absolutely no regrets and lots of joy.

This little alien has taken over every aspect of our lives, and we’re grateful for that. She chases the quail and rabbits in our yard. Unfortunately for my wife she caught a rabbit after four years of solid chases. She (Hobie) was quite proud, and I got a call at work about “my dog.” A few months ago she saw her first cat in the yard. I only work five miles from home, and I’m surprised that I didn’t hear her otherworld howls, or my wife’s right behind that. Both the wind and large birds flying low make her very nervous. She takes off like a rocket ship when someone is walking their dog down the street.

An interesting habit she has developed is the 2:00am house walk. She sits next to the bed and begins a series of low grunts, moving up to slight woofs, and if that isn’t getting any response she moves on to a full bark. My wife and I both lie there pretending we’re each asleep, wondering why the other one doesn’t get up and do something. When I do get up, what she wants to do is take a short walk through the house. She likes to check out her toy box, cruise through the kitchen, look at her food and water bowls,(not necessarily eating or drinking anything), and then heads back down the hall, looking over her shoulder wondering why I’m not on my way back to bed.

We love her, and she loves us unconditionally. I thought I knew what unconditional love was, until God sent us this little dog. Now I know.

I’m sitting in my office, on this old cane chair, that has a too thin pad on it. My other chair broke, the nice leather one. I don’t remember when or why. Thinking of a chair takes me to Craig’s List, and I’m not writing but shopping.

So – but- however, sitting on this nasty, hard chair in the office/library/recording studio. Man o man, what a man I am, a renaissance man I am. It’s true, student, business leader, author, photographer, chef, sailor just to begin the list. My wife would like me to add husband to the beginning of the list.

I’m crowded in but comfortable here. Few guitars, electric and acoustic, amplifier, keyboard, harmonica, ukulele, bongos. A 25 year old aquarium (there is a full story in that one). Books, a lot of books, old and new, read and unread. Books on writing, music, history books, Beatle and Elvis books, books bout dogs, hey that’s cool – books bout dogs- could be a song in that! Hardy Boys books, the Three Investigators, Vietnam, USS Arizona, needles to say, I am a depository of a lot of useful information, a possible game show contestant.

Radios of various sorts, scanner, shortwave, high power AM, listening in on the world. There’s a lot going on out there, and I feel better if I know about it. A few different ways to record things, music, thoughts, interviews. Maybe if I had an old reel to reel recorder my life would be more complete. Or complicated. Can you buy tapes for them anymore?

Support gear for writing, PC, dictionary, thesaurus, pens, paper, books on how to write, get published, blog, start a website, just ready to bust out on it.

We could take a tour of the sports closet, but that’s also another adventure in itself, along the lines of the 25 year old aquarium. We’ll head there one of these days.

Back to the writers space. Up until now I was merely thinking of, reading about and planning to write, but I’ve found that in the office here I am. Writing that is. Truth be told it’s a matter of perception. In the not to distant past I’ve had a number of articles published. Letting it all hang out I’ve merely been on a sabbatical, collecting information and thoughts for the future, which has arrived.

And so, I take my pen in hand………………..