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I know I had made a wish for a Happy New Year in my previous post but today is the first day of the year that we get to live that wish.  I am excited!!  I know…why is he in such a good mood?  Oh, I don’t know… maybe it is because I am lucky?   or maybe it is because I have been blessed?  or maybe … this is the way it is supposed to be?  You know what?  I think it is all three and I will tell you why through the course of this post.

Lucky…?  Ya, I would think so.  I lived through a farm accident involving a PTO, tractor, and loose clothing.  I lived through a traffic accident in which everyone went to the hospital by ambulance and I walked away unscathed.  There are to many construction accident stories to recount so I won’t even go into those but you get the idea.  I think these all had a commonality besides me being in them.  I think angels would be the common denominator.   Angels come in different forms.  My little brother Karl, was my angel the day of the farm accident.  What would prompt a little boy to shut off the PTO at exactly the right time to save his little brother?  I say an angel did.  I say an angel was with me when I was held upright while all around me was turning, toppling, or smashed in the traffic accident.  I say an angel was with me each day of my work keeping me safe as I go through the daily grind.  Oh sure…everyone tries to be safe.  No one tries to cause an accident.  There were those times when you have to wonder…. hmmm… that could have been me.  Yep, it has to be angels.

Blessed…?  Ya I would think so.  I am still here am I not?  Without regard to the aforementioned accidents there are other things to give thanks for as well.  First I was blessed to have been born to a loving family on a farm in Iowa.  another lucky?  Possibly, but this is more than lucky.  This is a blessed event that I will give thanks to God for the rest of my life.  I was given a life to learn and grow in a safe and loving environment.  I was shown how men act.  I was shown how friends are treated.  I was also shown how friends were made.  Ya I am lucky but I am blessed as well.

Yesterday,  I met with the Rockhill’s,  now from Virginia,  who were married almost 39 years ago in Kansas with me and several other high school friends in attendance.  Rex, my former classmate, and his wife, Pam,  came to town to visit with me and my wife.  We talked, laughed, and hugged.  Although we have never met in person since the wedding day I felt no change in the intensity of the friendship that once was.  Here was a friend who had reached out to say hello.  It was warm, refreshing, and the way it is supposed to be.

So yes,  I am lucky!  I have to many lucky stories to NOT know that I am.  Yes, I am blessed as well.  I thank God for that very thing each day!  But the way it is supposed to be,  is something that I am most appreciative of on this date.  It is another sign of what normal is becoming for me.  It is not the old normal.   That will never be again.  I am living a new normal. Meeting a friend of 40 plus years and having coffee with them for the soul purpose of saying hello, wishing each other well and being happy is a new normal that I relish.  This is the way it is supposed to be is it not?

Comments (0) Jan 01 2010

I never go back to my old posts to find a repeat of an old topic.  I rather like the idea that my posts,  although by the same author each day,  give a life to my blog to which a constant growth can not only be discerned but expected by the readership of this blog.  So,  if a loyal reader happens upon the same topic and I have a tune that is slightly different it most likely is because it is the same song just a different verse.

I never go back to  dates in time.  I tend to remember a moment rather than a year.  So if I have different dates than what it really is I confess that now.  Accuracy is not as important as the feeling that it imparts.  And I have a feeling for a moment in my life almost 40 years ago that will bring new meaning to me soon since I am going to meet a schoolboy chum, teammate, and great adventurer for the first time since his wedding day.  Over the years we have spoken by phone upon occasion.   I think we have exchanged cards plus recently we have been doing the email and Facebook thing.  Rex has a twin brother Randy.  I have been in correspondence with him by email.  Rex and Randy had a rather large family and becoming entrenched in the family fun for the few moments that we did have…. was and is a treasure for me.

I never go back to  Larchwood, Iowa without thinking of the grade school i attended in that town.  It was a brave new world for me.  It would be a far cry from the country school education with the same 27 kids that I went to Kindergarten with.  It was a congregation of kids from four towns.  New people and names to boot.   It was here that I first met Rex.  On the play ground with he and his brother,  Randy.  I could see the family resemblance but they did not look like the Klien twins, who were practically identical.  They lived on a farm with a large family and a Grandpa that would later come to class and talk to us about how things were after the civil war.  Grandpa Rockhill  was in his nineties when he spoke to our class.  He was an interesting old man.  My remaining Grandfather had died in 1962.  My mother’s father died before I was born in the 40’s.  So Rex was someone that I wanted to be around.  He had a grandpa, a large family, lived on a dairy farm what was not to like?

I never go back to track team memories but my upcoming re-union with Rex has brought them to the fore.  In watching my young son Kellen run it brings to mind my own athletic prowess on the tartan turf.  It was in Lester, Iowa that this memory starts.  Every boy in the class is wanting to make the team.  Because of that fact it was necessary for the coaches to seperate the wheat from the chaff.  They set up a mile run that had to be completed in 8 minutes or less.  Anyone over the 8 minute mark would be cut from the team.  My son often asks me why he is the slowest runner in his class.  My answer is always hopeful but usually lacks any real enthusiasm for I know that the need for speed will not be an inherited trait passed on to my son from my gene pool.  Needless to say,  I did not make the cut that day.  But Rex did.  I remember that he and his brother Randy were pretty fleet of feet back in those days.  Some where along the track season Rex was going to compete in the 220 yard dash and he spoke to our  Coach and said, “Next year I am going to run a 27 second 220 yard dash.”  He was running in the 29’s then and I remember at the time thinking, “Boy I wish I could run that fast.”  I never did run that fast but never lost the hope to try.  That is what I want for my son.  A friend who helps him never lose hope to try.

I never go back to memories to change a defining moment.  Rex is a part of my defining moment on the road of life.  He and I had similar dreams as to what one can do upon graduation of high school.  We both partook in a little meeting held by an FBI agent in one of the school job fairs that we attended.  We filled out the forms and awaited a response from the FBI.  Rex and I were both offered jobs with the FBI.  Rex decided to take the job in Washington and I chickened out.  I instead went on to college.  Only later to drop out of school when my need for speed left me a second string football player who was never going to become a professional.  I wonder how it would have been had Rex and I gone together to start a new adventure.  It was a short time after arriving that Rex met and married his wife from Kansas in Kansas City.  I traveled with mutual friends, Stan Leuthold, Ruth Johnson (who later married), and Pamela Bunte (who I later married)to attend his wedding.  None of the travelers is still married to their respective fiance’ almost 40 years later but Rex still is.  He never looked back and his adventure continued.  He sought out and obtained a job as a policeman.  He held that position for enough years to retire.  Little did we know what we as couples were headed into as we flowed down the river of life.  The currents of the river of life pulled us to different shores of the same river.  Our lives have had a separation of physical self but my excitement for meeting up with a long lost friend cannot be measured.  I look forward to our meeting.  I hope that this will be another moment to be remembered as one that can never go back.

Comments (0) Dec 31 2009

A friend of mine had an uncomfortable day recently.  At least that is the import of a recent post on a popular Internet site.  Making a decision to leave a job has ramifications to your economy, health, and emotional state.  I completely stand behind my friend in her decision to leave her job.   Although I have not had a personal conversation with her nor have I had any other communication other than the Internet site already mentioned,  it would be my best guess that this decision was not made without some considered thought prior to her action to leave her job. 

Of  course that brings to mind the comment that I made to her about leaving her job.   I told her that she made the right decision in so many words.  I also told her that until I married my wife Ellen I had quit every job that I ever had.  Very few of them took a lot of thought when I made the decision to quit.  I remember telling one boss from years ago that I would stay until it was not fun any more.  Considering that the job was as a hired man on a farm really does place me in a rare bunch.  I enjoyed working on a farm.  I did not mind the smells, dust,  or bugs.   I do draw the line on critters but if I left them alone they left me alone.   As I look back on it there was a whole lot of work.  Physical demanding work.  The kind that makes a man of my age cringe as to the energy that it took to do all of the things that were required of me.  I still managed to sow a few wild oats and I do not think that I was ever late or quit early because of those wild oats days either. 

That brings to mind my thought that the right decision does not necessarily need to be made after considered thought.  I spent 18 months working my tail off and had a good time everyday.  Sure there were things that I did not like to do.  Doesn’t every job have those individual quirks?  I went ahead and did them because they needed to be done.  One has to make a decision as to what is fun and what is not.  That last statement is the way that I judged practically every job that I quit.  When it is not fun….Stop!! 

I wonder how much different my life would be if I had employed good judgement in my life instead of the fun doctrine?  Did good judgement lead me to Alaska after I quit a job in Minnesota?  No… I had $1000 dollars, a wife, and my Dad’s car(I left the car in Iowa).    So we decided to move l to my sister’s house in Alaska and get a job.  I did not have a job..mind you… just that I would get a job(OH,  how I love the positiveness of youth).  How about the time that I did not take a job.  Now that was some good reasoning.  A fellow that knew my sister thought that I would be a good candidate as an apprentice plumber.  With the idea that after apprenticeship… I would be able to handle the plumber’s retail store while this individual would concentrate more on his mechanical contracts with other building contractors.  I remember telling my wife that I did not see myself as the guy that wants to go and clean out someones toilet.  It turns out that this plumber became a major mechanical contractor in Southeast Alaska and he wanted me on his team to build his little empire.  I turned him down and ended up being a dirt head in  building site excavation  and road construction.  Bouncing on iron in inclement weather for weeks at a time in a construction camp often north of the arctic circle away from friends, home, and family.  Yaaa buddy…I sure was having some fun.  ?!!! 

Now that I have retired from all of that fun I must admit that most everything would have been different in my life had I used good judgement in making those life changing decisions.   Sure I could have applied myself in high school and actually learned Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus.  I could have beat both Bill Gates and Al Gore in designing a computer and the way of the Internet.  But that did not happen.  Good judgement or not it is what it is.  I certainly have made a lot of mistakes along the way.  Those mistakes are the moral fiber of which I support my life as I live it now.  Those mistakes got me to this point. 

Now don’t go thinking that I am all that…please consider  this…had I done all the right things what would be different?  Let us look at what wouldn’t be… if I had done all the right things and made good judgements.  Well…? I wouldn’t be writing on my blog.(readers, quit applauding!!) I guess I could live with that.  Hmmm..let me think…I wouldn’t have a son named Kellen.  OK..that it!!  I wouldn’t change a thing in my life if it means that I would not have Kellen.  That would mean that I would not have Ellen.  That would mean…well… it would mean that it would be different.  For every bad decision in my life there are a multitude of decisions that were good.  I cannot in good conscience conceive the thought of changing all of the blessings from the present because a bad decision made in my past was changed.

Comments (0) Aug 16 2009