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

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

When I started this post I had to think back as to when I had last posted.  It was a few days before I went into heart surgery and although I have not re-read the post(yet…I will after I complete this blog post) I think I was very tired when I wrote it.  Of that I am almost positive because it seems to have been the subject of most of my complaints the last year or so at the very least and almost three years if we count the cancer treatments.

Boy,  what a turn of events.  I have five days of my life that I cannot account for.  Five days of rather life changing experiences of which I will never know.  I don’t get to experience the pain of the saw cutting into my  chest.   Not unlike the moose hunts of Alaska’s interior on the banks of the Koyukuk river in years past.  The doctors used an electric saw.  I used a hatchet and a hammer.  Both were quite effective.  I am glad my doctors choose the electric saw.  Hammer and hatchet would be a little messy.

Before I had surgery I was planning on attending my 40 year high school re-union.  After my heart operation I knew that I had to attend my forty year  re-union.  I had been given a second chance and I must  take advantage of this opportunity to relive past times and past friends.  Well,  I can say that the re-union was a wonderful evening of conversation, hugs, and laughter.  I shook hands with every one.  I was happy to see every one.  I think every one attending had a wonderful time.  I am sorry that many were unable to attend because of previous commitments.  Class of 1970 mark your calendar in the year 2015 same time and same place.  It was voted on and approved.  I look forward to it and I confess I most likely will have a little hand in it because my life long friend, Ruth Johnson,  volunteer to help coordinate the next reunion.  Hopefully she will do it all on her own but I am stating now that I am willing to help.  All you have to do is assign me a task.

I think … after I had a lot of time to consider the evening of the reunion the item that I lamented on the longest were the people that were not there.  I thought of the people who had made previous commitments.  I thought of the people that could not attend because of work commitments.  I thought of the people that had more important things to do.  Some of those important things would be living and making it.

Then there are those that attended despite the fact that life had not been kind.  We all have our stories.  I was saddened to hear of Arnie Van Voorst and his wife and the flood damage that they had sustained recently.  Not one mention came out of Arnie.  He was all smiles and laughs.  He always did have my respect because he was smarter than me.  I knew the first year that they moved to Inwood that Arnie was smart.  IT would appear that he is a hard worker as well.  He looked so healthy and happy.  I am glad for I would want it no other way.

I could go on and on about everyone I talked with on our forty year high school re-union.  I could possibly return to this subject again and again for my blog purposes.  One thing I do know is that the longer I wait the better the story will become.  I have always been one for a good story.

Comments (0) Sep 17 2010