LDKBox

I woke up thinking that the house will be filled with family once again with the comings and going of an active household filled with grownups, teenagers, and the drama that the mix creates.  Ah to be back to normal again.  Or what I like to think of as normal.  Lots of activity interspersed with constant work.  How we got together socially is beyond me.  I should have been to tired.  What ever we were doing was hard work.  My jobs always seemed to have the strength of my back as the most needed requirement but it allowed me freedom of living an active lifestyle as a single man.  Adventure was always at my beck and call.

I continued thinking about some of the comments I had heard about the way that I treat life in general.  ”OK Kirk, you are always so positive.”  ” One can do what ever they want.”  OK, I do believe that…So I am an optimist…is that such a bad thing?  I have stood in some pretty deep shit in my life.  Many a time it was clear up to my knee’s.  Often literally if not figuratively.  When you only have a few things to offer in life you tend to do what is afforded you.  Since I was willing to work and to work hard for short periods of time that included  long hours so I could sit around a cabin with my friends recalling a hunting trip of the past while we are getting ready for the latest one in a cabin moved or constructed with our other wise free time because construction is only a few weeks of hectic hours and few months of boring yet blissful life.

I have often felt productive in my life.(although I really do not know what I have done that was so productive but I sure did feel that way) There were accomplishments that gave me strength to be what I am today.  I have flourished when I have worked hard.  I feel good about my abilities to do what ever it is at hand.  Turn on my mind’s MP3 player with a few tunes that go through my head as if I were in the recording studio.  Huh, funny I don’t know any of the words.  Yet the music is crisp and clear in my mind.  Maybe my hard work was the same feeling that long distance runners get?  Something about endorphins that build up in your body and give you a high after a long run.  I must have had endorphins building up in my body during the winter of 1987 while I was living in Alaska’s interior on the shores of the Yukon River.  How else could I explain how a man in his right mind would get on and operate a bald headed D6  dozer with no grousers on the ice of the Yukon River as a excavator digs at the river bank and shapes the shoulder under the water.   In order to do that I was required to work perpendicular to the excavator and the river bank and push the spoils out onto the ice away from the backhoe and the shoulder that the excavator was creating.  Not a bad job if it were July(of course a dozer would sink).  This was February.  That means it “WILL” be cold.  Not might be.  Not maybe.  Not could be but guaranteed and certified that it “WILL” be  cold.  Ya it must have been the endorphins.  Only a person who was high would do something like that I am sorry to say.

I guess there is a moral to this story.  If one is standing in shit up to there knees one must be on drugs!  That is it.  Work hard and develop a keen sense of those endorphins building in your body.  That numbing effect that allows you to be tired and continue to keep doing the same thing over and over.  Pick up the pail…Dump the pail. Return the pail. Fill the pail. Then start the whole process over again.  Admittedly each pail does produce the effect of one less to pick up so the job eventually does get completed.  Those endorphins(drugs) must be what it was that allowed me to work that hard.  No one in their right mind (not on drugs)would do such a thing.

With this week of the family being back together I guess I am going to go out and find those darn endorphins.  I need to get back into the whole drug scene again.  I kind of liked being tired and hooked on those endorphins building in my body.  I was working around family during  the days of deep shit as I recall.  Now that was a high.  I wonder if it was the endorphins or was it love of family?  I am not to educated or the sharpest tool in the shed and I read the New York Times to feel smart just to give you an idea of how high brow I really am.  LOL!  Yet, in retrospect and in looking forward to the days ahead,  I see that the drug of choice has always been love.  A deep seeded root-ball bearing tree of life that is fed by that wondrous new drug of choice….LOVE!  I am going to love my family like nobodies business this week.  IN fact they might have to stage a drug intervention.   I plan on over dosing with the boys, the daughter and the wife. Who said all drugs are bad?  Not me…?

Comments (0) Nov 15 2010

The start of my day consists of looking at the dog as I sit in my chair thinking about making the first cup of coffee for the day.   I manage to start the computer.  I reach over and release the dog from his little dog home and send him outside for the first of  many trips in and out during the day.  I don’t mind doing it but sometimes Ellen does get a little put out.  I laugh when she talks to the dog and she tells him how much she dislikes him.  Through it all the little dog is affable and completely unaware of any one in this house disliking him.  Poor little dog if he only new…?

With the dog in the backyard the house is mine to do with as I please.  Coffee will be ready soon.  The computer is up and running.  The words of the pages that I review fill my brain with images of the world.  I read much and feel smaller in the eye’s of the world each time.  Feeling insignificant yet knowing that I am important for some reason.  Ok, don’t  press me on this one….  I do feel important.  But in an insignificant way…?  Ya, there you go… that is better.

It appears that my  moods are getting better each day.  I surely feel stronger everyday.  I unpacked my truck yesterday from the Boy Scout’s weekend.    I completed it in one day.  I wasted most of the day procrastinating and still completed the project before Kellen returned from school.  It is three days in a row that I have made a post.  It is a record if my recent past is any barometer.  With better moods hopefully… will be better posts…?  I am thinking that the world will be a little more upbeat for me this year.  I know I like breaking records and with continued posting I could break a record every day.  See… something positive is already coming out of this.

Today I will repack for the next weekend of camping.  I will re-season the cast iron cookware.  Re-pack all the sleeping bags.  Wipe down all the camping chairs and place them in their individual canvas bags.  When I get done with each of these tasks it will be near a record.   Now that I am typing on my blog I am near a record.  When my life is one day  longer  I am near a record.  I am such a lucky fellow to be near a record.

Comments (0) Oct 12 2010

Since my son and I had such a wonderful weekend it was nice when I was informed by my wife that there would not be any school Monday.  It was a good time in the old house that night.  Kellen and his big talk about staying up all night because there isn’t any school tomorrow because of the Columbus Day holiday.  I was looking forward to spending the morning with my son unpacking our pickup truck of the camping materials from the latest Webelos weekend.  It would have been fun to go slow and discuss what happen when we used the items that we took along. Besides,  I could really use the help!!! Who likes to work alone?

Once all the camping gear had been unpacked,  cleaned,  and repacked Kellen was going to experience the planning stages of his first over night as a Webelo .  In two weeks my young son gets to over night with a Webelos partner.  Parents are invited to attend but are not discourage to choose to sleep at home.  It will be a good experience for my young independent son.  He wants to break out so badly from the clutches of his parents yet his actions actually show a timidity that is normal and healthy yet hehas a reticent  protective approach to all that is new.

So the next the next campout I get to attend the festivities but I will be sleeping in my own bed.  Returning to camp to over see Kellen pack up his gear from his recent over night.  Then I get to listen to his tales of the animals that they heard at night. Hopefully,  he will have frightened them as much as he was frightened.  He is growing so fast.  Why it was only three years ago that we started all of this with the Boy Scouts.  Lots of items have gone over the damn by now.  Some of it is retained and practiced.  Most of the moments are remembered , and some will be remember when reminded.  No matter how the memory forms the best thing that can happen is to have positive memories.  I see Kellen proud of his abilities among the other children.  It breaks my heart as much when it fails to meet his own standards as it does when he thinks that he has failed to live up to my standard.  I keep telling him to do what a willing and reasonable man would do.  Kellen does not do well with reason of the mind.  His reason needs a cause and effect.  If it does not “cause” him any down time of any sort he will disregard all reason.  IF his freedoms seem to be more regulated with less outside time and more reading and study time it slowly sinks in that his actions have caused him to lose his freedom and that “effects” him immediately.  That is when he understands reason.  Only after the effect has affected him.

Ya, that story was a good thought in my mind’s eye.  When everyone in the family slept in today because we all thought the school would be closed because of Columbus Day.   Well,  I guess I can chalk up our almost embarrassing tardy moment to my quitting cigarettes.  Because I do not smoke any longer my wife volunteered to smoke out side the house and not in the car when traveling. As she was standing in the backyard this morning she happened to hear the children walking by and she realized that Kellen needed to be informed  of school was not closed and advised to get up from his bed.  Poor Kellen… he has never been one to move to quickly in the morning… but this morning it appeared as if he was frozen in time.  Even as I signed him into school he was still walking in a fog.  I will endeavor to not allow that to happen to him to many more times while under my watch.  I felt terrible as he walked out of sight down the hallway towards his classroom to the teacher that already thinks that Kellen’s father is not playing with a full deck.  Yet, there was not a thing that I could do.  My little man is growing up despite my failings.  I think he will make it.

Comments (0) Oct 11 2010