LDKBox

As is my habit I tend to read blogs and news articles during the early morning hours.  Recently,  I have been introduced to some bloggers from my home town that has broken me of the habit of  reading the headlines of the New York TImes.  Now I go to the glimpses of moments in time from other bloggers such as myself.  Often times these blogs evoke happy and sad moments.  The happy memories make you feel good and the sad memories are bad because it usually involves pain and suffering.  The latter is unavoidable,  using a blog to impart a feeling of loss or suffering is good therapy for the healthy contributor of the blog.  It is also good therapy for this reader.  At least that is my story and I am sticking to it.

Having met recently with a classmate I have been reticent to post on the meeting because of my inability to post pictures of the lunch date.  My wife is at CES(Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas this week.  She is the webmaster in this blogger’s world so that is not going to happen until she gets back from Vegas,  but I am looking forward to posting the meeting and how much it meant to me to have been able to spend time with such a great couple.  I will save the gushing for the real post but suffice to say “ecstatic” only touches the tip of the bountiful harvest of feelings gleaned from the long awaited meeting.

But getting back to reading old blogs…The memories that these recent blog sites bring out in me when I am perusing their archives gives me fodder for future posts.  I certainly am not going to write about the early years since not much was said about those times.  Grandpa Erickson died before I was born and Grandpa Hage died when I was approaching 10 years of age.  No memories of them …really…?  Lots of Aunt and Uncle  memories.  I am thankful.  Cousins on both side of the tree are in abundance.  Farm life…oh yes!!  Looking back it was wonderful and I lived through it.  How …?  Lucky would be the first thing to come to mind.  Blessed is the last thing…I know!!!

I am slowly working towards some subjects that are of interest to me to add to my post count.  There are important people in my life that have made a difference to me.  None of the important people would be considered famous but that does not mean that they are of no less import.  I met a Supreme Court Justice in Juneau in 1973.  He was famous in Alaska.  Pretty good athlete but was on the way down hill physically.  You know the type… the body’s spirit was more than willing but the body’s engine had lost a lot of compression and  could not get a head of steam.  Even though he made court rulings and made an effect on the life of Alaskans he really had no effect on me.  Hmmm ..Let’s see…? slow, short and old?   I am now of that same condition albeit not short… he still has no effect on me other than to marvel that he was still “able” at his age.

So… maybe my life was not full of famous people…. do I consider it bad?  No!   Would I like to hang around Tiger Woods these days? He famous these days.  Not a chance!!   He didn’t do anything that I didn’t do or attempt to do.  I cheated on my first wife.  I spent twenty years hating myself.(so will Tiger!)  I made phone calls to women.!?  I stayed out late and partied!!  But I did not have children and I did not have any money.  Which,  in retrospect,  is probably why I did not do worse things.  It always cost more money than I had.   Mitch Album wrote a book about his meeting with a man who got old and died.  He spoke of the way that this man had lived his life and his involvement with that man.  The story brings out the good things in this not so famous man’s life.  That is what reading blogs is about for me.  Bringing out the good things on the not so famous.  I have lived a life that was full of bad things and I should have known better.  I had a lot of not so famous people to use as a guide.  Even though I choose a life that may have been less than stellar I had wonderful not so famous guides with which I could have used to guide me along the way.  It is with these memories that I will,  in future posts,  start writing about the guides in my life.  All of them are not famous but some of them may be infamous.  Time will tell,  when I write(read) them the “riot act”,  on my blog.  HA!

Comments (0) Jan 09 2010

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