I have lived long enough that I have experienced the death of loved ones and strangers; some expected, almost welcomed, the end of a long painful journey. Other times; tragically, unexpected their death felt like a blow to the side of my head with a sledgehammer. I know that birth and death are part of the life cycle, what we do with the time we have between these two points is our story, our life song, the thread we add to the collective tapestry of life we share as a family, a community, a country.
I grieve today, inconsolable because I can’t figure out how to help those that lose their life and those that are left here to try and find peace and happiness and a reason to hold it together and live their life, to finish adding their thread into the tapestry of life.
I had a neighbor, his name was Gino, you couldn’t find two people more different, we weren’t the same age, he had served his country, sometimes he had long hair and sometimes he played loud music at what seemed like inappropriate times. I mowed my grass too often and edged it trying to bring order to my life.
It was one of those nights, Gino played loud music all night long, it blared from his small house, the bass shook my windows and pulsated in my head; I got to hear the music of his generation, it was unfamiliar and unappreciated. Whenever this would occur, I would go over to Gino’s house the next morning with a plate of cookies, knock on his door, and give him a plate of cookies. The first time I did this I wanted to wake him up, but with a gift so he couldn’t be mad at me. And never too early, my too kind and loving wife had to bake the cookies which she willingly did every time and without questioning her husband’s deranged approach to making friends and influencing people; cookies. Who doesn’t like warm cookies?
I knock and I can hear a crashing of furniture and Gino comes to the door, eyes bloodshot and tired, he looked weary, not just a sleepless night, but the cumulative fatigue of someone that is carrying a burden for too many and too long.
“Good morning Mr. Torres.” He always called me Mr. Torres; I assume because I looked so much older and I mowed and edged my grass every week. He was always polite to me. I hand him the plate of cookies and tell him the same thing I have every time, “I just want to tell you that I appreciate your service to our country.” I am usually pretty good with words and long winded to a fault. But, with Gino I just gave him cookies. I didn’t know what to do, how to help, or what to say. I turn to go.
He says, “Thanks man! Tell Mrs. Torres her cookies are the best.” I again start to leave and he says, “Mr. Torres, sorry about the loud music last night. I lost a friend…a fellow veteran…he committed suicide yesterday. And I had to honor him. I needed to let him know that I won’t forget him. We were probably a little too loud. Sorry man!”
For the first time, we talked for a bit more and he told me things about his life, his friend’s life; things that explained the pain I could see in his eyes. It is the pain of too many experiences in life that can’t be explained or processed and stored neatly into a box; it can’t be fixed by cutting and edging your lawn. Like rats in a box trying to claw their way out, some experiences and the resulting memories and pain can’t be soothed and calmed with time or pills or bottles of elixir, not even cookies.
As I said, I have lived long enough that there have been others I could not help, people I could not reach, words I could not say, people with a life story that reached out; and I am left frustrated and angry at myself and the world that we stigmatize mental health. Whether it is Simone Biles that has an Olympic come apart, or the lonely elderly locked away, the homeless, veterans suffering PTSD, or the depressed feeling alone with an ocean of people surrounding them. We need to look around and offer kindness, smile, say hello, bake some damn cookies and shove them in their face. I don’t know. I wish I knew what to say to those that are carrying a burden for too long.
And so today I am going to play loud music and honor a man, a veteran that I could not help, and to honor those around me that suffer. I remember words about “comfort those in need of comfort” and I so wish I knew how to do that better.
But for now, if I show up at your house and shove cookies in your face, thank my too kind and loving wife, and just know that it is my way of telling you how much I appreciate you. And if you come by my house and you can hear my music up way too loud; just know that I am trying to honor a veteran, or a father that passed in an untimely manner, or a brother that left this world way too young.
Okay, I am on another adventure with the in-laws camping at Maroon Bells in Colorado. We call it camping, but it is nothing close to how I used to camp. Apparently, what I do now is called glamping and I am not even sure if it is legal in Utah. Since this COVID thing hit and people have been locked up for months, RV sales and rentals have skyrocketed. RVshare reported a 1,000 percent increase in nationwide bookings. The camping industry is anticipating 46 million Americans will take an RV trip in the next year. Dyrt, the equivalent of Yelp, lists 44,000 public and private campsites, has 500,000 reviews of those camp sites, has raised $7 million as a startup, and now has 30 employees.
I bought my camper on April 9, 2020 since then I have slept in it 31 nights, camped in seven western states, been to Combwash, Capital Reef, Goblin Valley, Great Basin NP, Lake Tahoe, Flaming Gorge, Mancos State Park, Marron Bells, Silverton, and Jackson Hole just to name some of them. I am sure I have seen at least 45 of the 46 million people that were supposed to camp this year.
But, my camping has gone to glamping because life happens and things that I used to easily do now seem harder and slower and frankly I need assistance and creature comforts that I used to scoff at with complete disdain. Let me give you some examples.
I used to be happy when it snowed, I would take my trusty shovel and clear my driveway and maybe my neighbors too. As I got older the snow seemed deeper and somewhere along the line, I decided that I needed a snowblower. Eventually the neighbor fell off my list, and I was put on the old people list and now I use a tractor to clean the same driveway. But if it’s a big snow, I am completely content to wait for a week before going to the mail in hopes that it melts, or Bubba comes by and digs me out.
When I was a poor college student, I bought a hibachi and couldn’t wait to get it home and try it out. It was awesome; if I used an entire bottle of liter fluid I could roast one wiener at a time; after some time, I decided it was just easier to marinate the wiener in liter fluid. As I got older and had more mouths to feed, I bought my first outdoor grill with a real propane bottle. I was never so happy; oh sure, the neighbors were usually nervous about my grilling skill and conveniently had a water hose at the ready. Finally, I got old enough to have hair growing out of my ears, which my too kind and loving wife insists is pour personal hygiene, so she routinely sneaks up behind me and plucks them. But being that old, I wanted a grill big enough to be mounted on a flatbed trailer like Terrill has. Okay, I am ashamed to admit it, I had grill envy. I succumbed and I bought a huge smoker that basically lets you put in an entire cow at one end and out comes baby back ribs, burgers, and wieners out the other end. The propane bottle is delivered with a truck.
Well as I got older, somewhere along the way I went from camping to glamping. When I was younger Turbo and I used to back-pack in 10 miles, sleep on the ground, eat a bologna sandwich and jerky and I could go from laying on the ground to standing like a gymnast dismounting the beam without making old man noises. But time passes, Turbo went camping in doggy-heaven and I awoke with a few more aches and pains, so I put a camper shell on my truck which made it possible to have a mattress and falloff the tailgate into a standing position without any old man noises or bad words. Then I boiled water in a single pan and added dried food that had the texture and taste of something you might scrape off the floor near the food bar. Later, I bought a pop-up camper so I could add a stove and sink. Now I have a camper that has a toilet, air conditioner, heater, stove, pop outs and I have to take a generator with me. Really? And you call this camping? What the heck happened? I live in a cave and can start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, I eat raw meat, I taught Jerimiah Johnson how to be a mountain man and now I have to ask the campground host which campsite has water, electricity, and sewer hookups. Yep. The times are a changing. I expect that soon I will just put virtual glasses on and pretend like I went camping all from the comfort of my big over-stuffed chair. I don’t know if I will take my in-laws in my virtual camping experience as their mere presence inhibits my ability to swear, smoke cigars, drink beer, and play cards for money.
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.” Some of life’s best advice comes from movies like Cool Hand Luke. I am in the communication business, but I am having a harder time understanding what people are saying to me and I don’t know if it’s my hearing or I am just getting dumber because I am watching too much TV.
One of the benefits of writing is newspaper column is that I get fan mail once in a while; occasionally some of it is actually nice. You have to be pretty thick skinned to be a writer since everybody is always watching for grammer and speling mistakes and now days people are fact checking what you write. Like I am ever going to let facts get in the way of a good story. Hell, I invented fake news about the time Al Gore invented the internet. Bubba dropped me a line the other day…
Deer CaveGuy: We bin reading yer colmm these last few munts and I kin see that yer just as ignert as always. I didn’t laugh at yer article about bull riders. It warnt funny. If I thot you wuz in yer rat mind I come up thar and kick yer Behind. I wuz all far’d up to come down thar and kick yer Behind but momma sed I cudn’t becuz “life was like a box of chocolates and that yu wuz a nut in a box of mints.” Besides, since dad retard at age 65 he needs me around to help with fixin the bob-war fence and such. And, mom’s stayshun wagun had a flat tar the other day and thatz all I git to drive. I tryd to clene it up sum fer momma but it wuz dirtiur than our farm truk witch smells like a pig pen since that squeeler got lose and pooped in the back. I put a smellee air freshunur in it butt it makes momma sneeze. We did just bought one-of-dem farn trucks from Japan and it werks reel good, it doesn’t even burn any ol’ like the ol’ truck. You still have that cushy gummit job with the BLM? Put in a guud word fer me if they nede a new hand to help right their plan for Bares Ears, you know I pretty much poached that hole area and know all the best spots fer fishin two. Yer cuzn Bubba from Dove Creek.
You know that texting was invented some 25 years ago back before unlimited text and talk plans were available. Back then you were limited to 160 characters per message and there were no emojis. There are nearly 8 trillion texts sent globally every year. And I am doing my best to stay up with technology and have even traded in my flip phone. To this point in my life I thought Bubba was hard to understand but recently, my grandson, we will call him Dean to protect his identity, sent me a text the other day and I am still trying to figure out just what he wanted.
Gramps, do u DM IDK if u do IMO u should cuz IRL you got to…JK but really dude LMK so I can reach you. But if you don’t NBD I mean NP, probably NVM its just that ICYMI your letters take forever and they are long TL;DR. I can’t believe you still write letters I am ROFL and SMH but TBH I am NGL I do like to get them. But TBF when you write about your dietary disorders TMI!!!! TTYL dude and remember YOLO so lets hang out soon…. G2G…luv ya D
My too kind and loving wife said that it is the holiday season, and I should be happy. My first reaction was to say bah-humbug mind your own business.
There is a good deal of pressure in America to be happy. If you are not happy, then by golly you better get happy. If you must, go see a counselor, advisor, life coach, therapist, or take a happy pill. Do something, but don’t sit around being unhappy, unless doing that makes you happy.
I mean for reals, America was founded upon the principle of happy. The Declaration of Independence clearly ranks happiness up there with packing guns and 27 other complaints against King George III. Thomas Jefferson wrote “they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
However, it is important that we understand that we are not entitled to happiness, only the pursuit thereof. So, if you are an American there is a certain amount of pressure to be happy or at least pursing it. We went to war and gained our independence just so we could pursue happiness.
But what if you are inherently moody, grumpy, mean, ornery, or chemically imbalanced? I am probably all of these at the same time; certainly, some of my friends and relatives are. My too kind and loving wife never is; she is either happy or very happy…or taking a nap…which makes her happy.
Adding to this problem is that everyone has a different definition of happy. The last self-help book I read, and I have read them all, told me that I wasn’t really happy, that I only thought I was happy. That didn’t make me happy. But that got me thinking if I think I am happy but I am not, why couldn’t I be unhappy but really I am happy.
In 1964 Harvey Ross Ball invented the “Smiley Face”. First, with a name like that how could he be happy? He invented the smiley face for an insurance company and was only paid $45 dollars for it; that is all he ever received for it. I’ll bet that didn’t make him happy. The Smiley Face puts pressure on us to be happy. There it is staring at us, taunting us, demanding that we be happy. Don’t worry be happy. Worrying is one of my strengths. I am pretty good at guilt too. I worry about things that can never happen. Sometimes I even combine them because I feel guilty for worrying.
Think of all the famous smiles. According to one art historian the coy Mona Lisa smile represents a, “visual representation of the idea of happiness.” And what about Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat, in the book Alice In Wonderland; the last thing that disappears is the cat’s smile; don’t you find that odd?
How can I be happy. As soon as I retired my retirement lost all my money. Honestly, I couldn’t make an omelet with my nest egg now. I am trying to get my too kind and loving wife a newspaper route, so I don’t have to go back to writing for money. It makes me feel so yucky.
I told my too kind and loving wife that I wasn’t happy because COVID ruined everything, inflation has made it so I can’t afford my Pepsi, social security is going broke, the housing market has collapsed, and the only happy people are the CEO crooks that get raises for laying off the workers.
They have done studies and people that use metrics (they are probably not happy because they are studying metrics) have come up with enough statistics to show what happy people do and where they live. One of the happiest places in the world is the Netherlands. I point out that prostitution and marijuana are both legal there; but I do not offer any opinion as to whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship.
So here I am trying to be happy. I think I am one of those people that can’t be really happy unless I am unhappy. This is probably left-over trauma from teachers yelling “wipe that smile off your face Mr. Torres”. My entire upbringing was that way; if it feels good, stop it. If it tastes good, don’t eat it. If you’re having too much fun quit it, remember all the suffering in Paraguay. So, I am conflicted…I want to feel happy I would even like to feel merry, you know with Christmas and all.
I decided I need some help. Google tells me to stop chasing happiness because too many people connect happiness to the achievement of certain goals or aspirations and that I should practice looking inwards…build my self-esteem…and be present.
I decided it was time for a change so I decided to do something about it. I wasn’t sure how to look inward, so I looked in my belly button and found a Cheeto. That seemed like a good start. Then I bought myself a present, scratched through all my goals and aspirations like exercise and reading a book a week, and I quit chasing happiness by taking a nap in my big, overstuffed chair. Happiness can just find me but I hope she doesn’t wake me from my nap.
The best thing about living in San Juan County are the people and the landscape. Being retired has some perks, it’s not all about predicting the weather with my hip. I wake up and can’t remember what day it is, so I call it Saturday. The only day that is a workday now is Sunday. I had no idea it took that many meetings to run a church. I was pretty content to show up for church, complain about the speakers and how hungry I was, and go home and watch the game.
Sure, occasionally I would try out for the church choir, but I can’t keep time, know nothing about rhythm, apparently, I am tone deaf, and can’t read music all of which make the choir director suggest in no uncertain terms that perhaps the building maintenance department would be a better fit. I volunteered once to play Stairway to Heaven on my guitar which I had memorized for a contest when my chosen career path was Rock Star. It is the only tune I know that talks about heaven. The Bishop wanted to meet with my too kind and loving wife to help her help me.
But I was talking about people and landscape and got sidetracked. This is exactly how my too kind and loving wife and Editor feel. They both keep trying to focus my efforts into something of value and I love them for their efforts but that is like telling Jello not to wiggle.
I have an old friend, and in this case, I don’t mean we have been friends a long time, I mean he is older than me and I am old, so if you do the math he is going to fall into the “old” category. We will call him Paul, but you can call him John, Ringo, or George if you like. He is 85, but is in excellent shape as he hikes, bikes, and eats rights every day and somehow can hike and explore like Lewis and Clark and jumps around from rock to rock like a monkey.
Paul offered to act as guide and take me somewhere in San Juan County and look at some rock art that I had never seen before. Allegedly, there is a Spanish horse with a Papal ferula (staff the Pope usually packs around) so he has me interested because me and my too kind and loving wife often debate about whose ancestors got here first. I assure her that my ancestors were robbing and plundering long before hers were.
He was shown this rock panel by Kent Frost, Daniel Boone or Porter Rockwell I don’t remember because every time he told me the story it changed a little bit, and because I can’t listen for more than five seconds, and because I am already starting to think about what I am going to say. I filed his ramblings in my brain under pioneer stories, that is where I put all the stories my too kind and loving wife tells me about her ancestors when they invaded or discovered this country, depending on who is telling the story.
We head north from Monticello for a long way, but I am pretty sure we are still in San Juan County. I am a little worried as Paul keeps talking and giving directions, but it is hard to tell which it is. I listen closely, not sure if it is fact, fiction, or memories that got jumbled up with some other memory. “Well, I think there is a road near here that goes sorta parallel to this road, but it doesn’t really look like a road, and if you follow this road, there are some cool potholes the size of a swimming pool, but don’t fall in because it is too steep and you won’t be able to crawl out and probably you will die, and the buzzards will eat you because as far as I know, no one ever goes out there, but anyway the Spanish horse is really larger than you might expect and located in this canyon that is really hard to find and there is only one way down, and Oh yeah, we should have turned back there about a mile.”
Eventually we park precariously close to a canyon edge, and I can see the Blue Mountains to the south and we get out to start our hike. I have running shoes and an old running shirt on. He has a backpack, two waters, first aid kit, two walking sticks, map, and a satellite phone. He looks at me in dismay and remarks, “I thought you said you were an experienced hiker?” He doesn’t wait for an answer and is halfway down the trail with his miniature dog Foo Foo, Zippy, or Zappy, I can’t remember which. I am scrambling to find some Hi-Chews to throw in my pocket in case I have to spend the night.
We zig and zag and have a few false starts as he tries to remember the easy way down through a slot that is hidden by shrubs and rocks. Occasionally, we cross a old well weathered track, and he turns to me and says, “That is probably Jim’s track. I know people can get good at tracking, but I could never imagine being able to identify the man’s actual name using just an old, weathered shoe print. I respond “Jim????” He replies, “Jim Muhlestein, he hikes all over the damn place.” Well, that would have been my second guess. I turn around to my too kind and loving wife and say with complete confidence, “That is Jim’s footprint.” I don’t explain how I know this.
After miles of meandering with Paul and Foo Foo we finally arrive and sure enough there is a Spanish Horse larger than life up on a cliff wall with a Papal ferula and a sun, moon and star pecked into the rock.
I am so please as this is proof to my too kind and loving wife that my ancestors were here robbing and plundering way before hers.
I am really quite beside myself this morning. After my run, I hopped in the shower and went to grab the no-name shampoo that you can also use to clean the garage floor with; but it was gone. So I started looking around and found myself surrounded by my too kind and loving wife’s cutesy fruity bottles of shampoo and soaps.
I know I shouldn’t let my curiosity go, but I did need to wash my hair so I grabbed a bottle of some purple stuff called Sauve Shampoo – Lavender. First, I am always suspicious about shampoo that is colored trying to clean your hair. But, the bottle of Lavender claimed it had “Passion Flower & Vitamin B5″ and that it “maintains natural health and shine of normal hair.” I liked the sound of that “passion” stuff, so I decided that might be the one for me.
But then, I started wondering if I had “normal” hair. So decided to study my options and looked at the other bottles in the shower.
I picked up the “NEW VO5″ it said that it was “IMPROVED” and was called Vanilla Blossom. It claimed you could “Lose yourself in a fragrant field of sweet vanilla, honeysuckle and chamomile.” I was getting so excited thinking about “sweet vanilla” that I decided I had better check and make sure the door was locked. The bottle claimed, that it “revitalizes colored hair.” Well this got me a little concerned because I didn’t know exactly what color of hair it revitalized. So I read the directions, “wet hair, lather and rinse thoroughly.” Sounded easy enough.
Then I spotted the Thermasilk Heat activated shampoo. It said that it “volumizes and improves condition of fine or limp hair.” Apparently it is “activated by the heat of your blow dryer or curling iron” or a blow torch if you operate one of them at work. For men, size counts, so volumizing sounded like a good thing!
But, I was really in a pickle. I didn’t know if I had “normal hair, colored hair, or fine or limp hair.” So I just used a dab of each of them.
I felt pretty good about my decision until I saw another bottle called Clairol Daily Defense Shampoo. It claimed that it “Protects from everyday stress.” Well, my too kind and loving wife is always saying that I am too stressed so I added a dab. I could almost feel the stress float down the drain as I was lost in the fragrant field of sweet vanilla, honeysuckle and chamomile.
I don’t normally use four shampoos in one shower so I decided I had better condition my hair. Fortunately, I found a bottle of Pantene Pro-V and it didn’t say anything about fruit or avocados so I used it. Besides, it must be serious stuff because it says “Pro” Daily Treatment Conditioner, for fine hair. Well I think my hair is pretty fine. And besides it says, “condition your hair all the way to the tips, without weighing hair down. You get hair that’s so healthy it shines.” Well I kinda wanted shiny hair, besides it seemed that heavy hair would give you a head ache. Maybe, this is why my too kind and loving wife always has a headache.
I decided to continue my walk on the wild side. I grabbed a bottle of St. Ives Invigorating Apricot Scrub with Soothing Elder Flower. I like to eat apricots as they keep me “regular” so I thought this was probably a good one for someone my age. I just wasn’t sure where I wanted to start applying it, because it said that it, “Gently exfoliates dull surface cells to reveal flowing, fresh, healthy skin.” I wasn’t sure what “exfoliates” was…I mean it sounds like a medical term. I wasn’t even sure that it was legal to “exfoliate” in Utah. However, since I was in the privacy of my own home, I figured it would be hard to prove that I had been exfoliating by myself so I decided to push the envelope and get exfoliated in my own private fragrant field of sweet vanilla, honeysuckle and chamomile! I re-checked the door.
I was feeling pretty good after lathering up and exfoliating for some time, but there in the corner was one last bottle; Smoothing Shower Scrub. I wasn’t sure if it was to be used to wash the tub or for use as a personal hygiene product; but I was feeling a little fruity anyway and the “Tangerine Spice” was more than I could resist. Besides it said that it “cleanses and polishes skin” and I thought after my being exfoliated I might want to cleanse and polish things a bit as that would remove any trace of the exfoliation that I participated in…just in case it was illegal.
It was time to get out of the shower and leave my fragrant field of sweet vanilla, honeysuckle and chamomile. I was feeling so darn pretty that I just couldn’t help myself. I grabbed the Clariol Herbal Essence Styling Gel. Who wouldn’t die for “extra hold for shape and control.” I wasn’t sure if it was panty hose or hair gel, but the “Mallow Flower, Rose hips and Clover in mountain spring water” sold me and I added some of it to my hair too. And you know, I felt better just knowing that “the Fresh Herbal scent invigorates the senses.” Really, it made me go quite mad. Besides, at my age anything that can invigorate usually requires a prescription and is obtained at the pharmacy.
