Nobody ever said this would be easy. . . Now

(About the picture- Even if it is an accurate representation of how my mind still feels cluttered at times, even writing on a laptop, I would never have so much distracting me from my coffee.)

There are times when writing is easy. An idea just pops into my head. I start writing, and before I know it, I have something finished that can be published in this little blog. Maybe someone, maybe even you, will eventually read it and smile.

Other times, writing is real work. It reminds me of every time I sat down to attempt a writing assignment for my high school or college classes, or a small piece for my high school newspaper. An hour later, I would still have a blank sheet in front of me, and many crumpled-up failures in the wastebasket. One difference now is that I do not have to waste any paper with what turns out to be one more unsuccessful attempt.

Currently, my life seems to be in a high state of confusion and flux. Being in such a constant state of change can be beneficial in writing.

Or not.

Good writing is a fragile balance; a process of managing turmoil with tranquility. (Where did that come from?)

I seem to be in a flow of weirdness that will not allow good writing at this point. If you know me, you will know and understand why this could be. Eventually, the weirdness will sort itself out a bit, and maybe some of it will make it into a piece here in some way or another, once I work my way through it.

Sometimes there is just too much grist for the mill.

More bumps in the night- Now and Then

The night creeps in, again.

Why is that anyway? During the day, I am fine. Life is as it is, and I go with the flow. Then the sun goes down.

And I start to doubt everything again.

Have I done all I should do? If not, will I get a do-over? Will I then know what I should have done or how to do whatever it is I am still fretting over? Who will tell me? Will anyone care one way or another? Will anything I do even make any difference, anyway?

Life gets funny at times. Is anyone laughing?

All of this self-doubt will disappear at sunrise.

I hope.

If you have not already guessed, I have self-esteem issues. It seems pointless. It seems to be a lifetime affliction. I have been better recently, but that is during the day. The night focuses on doubt. It focuses on those other bumps in the night, the ones I am only aware of in this quiet time. 

Like many others I know, I had excellent teachers early on in learning to doubt myself, in the person of my parents.

My father was the one who first raised doubts about my looks. He told me I was funny-looking, like Alfred E. Newman funny-looking. Later, he would amend that to say that I looked like Ernie on the old Sixties sitcom My Three Sons. Of course, I wanted to look like one of the more normal sons. You know, the handsome ones.

I was confused. I did not think Ernie looked like Alfred E. Newman at all, so how could I look like either of them? Even though I knew the logic was flawed, I bought the premise.

My mother was not as obvious in setting me up for self-doubt, but she had her own impact on me, nonetheless.

She made me wonder why I ever pursued education beyond high school. Throughout my early school days, my teachers had told me that college should be my educational goal. So, my goal had always been to go to college like my brother and sister had before me. My mom thought that it was all a waste of time and money. Go to a trade school, she would tell me. Avoid the disappointment of failing.

Why?

You could fail. You are not like them.

Oh, so that means I am not smart enough to go to college?

You get the drift. I wonder if she told my sister and brother the same thing.

Avoiding failure by aiming too low was a central part of her message. I do not blame her for imparting her fears to me. She had to get it somewhere. Her parents, no doubt, influenced her as much as she did me.

At some point in the early college days, I was doing fine. Then my wife at the time had an affair and dumped me like so much trash. Like a hot potato. She could not get away from me fast enough. And who was it that got her going in ways that I could not? (I have to be vague. This is a family blog.)

The guy that I lost my marriage over was someone who literally reminded me of a way too tall and skinny version of Ernie, from My Three Sons. Throw in the weirdness of Alfred E. Newman, and you have him.

The irony was not lost on me, either.

The one thing, or maybe the two things, that I learned from this earlier time in my life is that none of those imposed limits on me were valid. Not then, and certainly not now.

I have learned from attending class reunions that there were many (a few at least; there it goes again) young ladies in my classes then who may have wanted to know me better. Again, I am being purposely vague. Maybe things would not have gone very far, but I never gave it a chance back then to see how far anything might have gone.

Then there is the matter of my self-esteem after my divorce. This divorce messed with my head for five years. I thought I was done. I lost the will to even try to find anyone new. Now, I look back at pictures of myself from that time and literally do not recognize the person in them as “me.”

There was a picture of me from about the time I was still married, and I thought I looked fairly good.

Then, just a few months after the divorce, there was that same guy in a tuxedo at my sister’s wedding. I had totally forgotten about this and didn’t even recognize that guy as me. Who was I then that I had no clue how I looked?

It was all needless, and I regret the time I lost not knowing who I was because of the filters others imposed on me. I regret not getting to know those around me then, who may have wanted to get to know me.

I regret that until more recently, I did not know myself.

She was playing real good, for free- Now

The harpist sits at her table outside. She is there playing and smiling at people as they come inside to get coffee. There is nothing set out yet for donations, although a basket sits on the table near her, covered with a colorful piece of fabric.

There are only a couple of people sitting there within listening distance. Most people walking by or coming into the coffee shop don’t acknowledge seeing or hearing her, even though she is hard to miss. Occasionally, she smiles or says hello to people she recognizes.

She stops playing and rifles through the covered basket. She removes a few dollar bills and sets them on top of the fabric cover. She sets the basket down on the sidewalk near her feet and resumes playing.

Even with that basket, which makes her intent more obvious, people still ignore her for the most part, though a couple return, having gotten some change from their purchase. They bend down to drop the money into her basket. She smiles, thanking them.

Inside, where I sit, the classical music on the coffee shop’s audio system never stops. I only hear of the harpist for a few seconds at a time when the door opens as people come or go.

On prior visits, I have smiled at her, and she has returned the smile. On those days, I felt I was already too late to stop long enough to listen. There are always so many things to get to, and this is usually my first stop.

Today, as I am leaving, I stop and sit at one of the tables outside. The song she plays and sings, “It ain’t me babe,” has always been a favorite. I had not heard her sing it before.

When she finishes, I walk over to give her a couple of dollars. She thanks me. I tell her I have seen her and briefly listened on other occasions, coming or going, but never stopped long enough to really listen. I thank her for the music she plays. I am surprised that my voice cracks a bit. I guess the song affected me more than I thought. Or there may be other reasons. Turning away, I tell myself I will have to stop and listen again soon.

As I walk away, she starts again, playing real good, for free.

What are those bumps in the night . . . – Now and then

Everything is magnified at night.

Noises that at any other time would go unnoticed turn into threats in the middle of the night.

What was that noise just now? It has to be nothing. I run through my internal data bank of known sounds, trying to categorize what we have in here that would make a noise like that. Or since I can’t recognize it, I hope it is outside. 

As I do this, the memory of the sound gets harder to recall accurately. Maybe I was half asleep when I heard it, and that is why I can’t categorize it. I convince myself that it was nothing. If it really is something, the security system will alert me. Of course, at times, the security system has gone off for no known reason. When this happens, it is almost always in the middle of the night. Of course.

A stray thought about past insecurity can remind you that that insecurity may not really be that much in the past. It is just harder to be sure at night.

Is she still OK? What if she isn’t breathing? Would I recognize that in time? Loved ones’ health issues are magnified at night.

Don’t even get me started on my own issues. I go back over everything I have done in the day, mistakes and regrets included. There are times that this can go on for hours, destroying the rest of my night.

If my day was good, I try to spend an equal amount of time on the good things as I do on the not-so-good times. When sleep just does not happen, I much prefer to dwell on the good things in my life. There are many things I am thankful for, and thinking about these is a much better way to go through the night.

When I was little, and it was time to sleep, my mom would sing to me. The official title of the song is: “Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra (That’s an Irish Lullaby).”  After she sang it, I knew I would be OK through the night. Simpler worries, then compared to now.

Maybe later, or it could have been at the same time, my father would always chime in with, “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” I may have been too young to know what bedbugs were, but I am sure worry about bedbugs occupied at least a few sleepless nights.

I know things were not always OK back then. But others were in control, so it always seemed OK. Now I am the one in control, and I am at times overwhelmed. Why can’t I turn this stuff off so I can sleep? 

What is it about all of these bumps in the night?

I call shotgun!!!- Then

I steer my small Ford pickup to the side of the road and shut off the motor. I open the door and stand up. As I do, my border collie, Scooter, jumps down next to me, panting with tail wagging, ready to run. I bend down to remove the leash, and she is off. At first, she trots, her nose down scanning for something only a dog would find of interest. Her run meanders in long, slow curves out and away from where I stand watching. I sit down again and close the door to the truck.

Hearing the door close, she stops momentarily and glances back at me. Suddenly, she takes off, her legs a blur through the sparse grasses, herding imaginary quarry; running and cutting to first one side and then another.

And as if responding to an unspoken command, she turns towards the truck, running full speed, back to me. I expect her to stop, but she keeps up her all-out run, launching herself at the driver’s side window, which, lucky for both of us, is open. I lean back at the last second as she lands awkwardly in the seat next to me.

She always gets shotgun, but not usually with as much flair.

Goodbye old friends, revisited- Now

I walk out towards the end of our back yard, past our small pond, which, until the last hard freeze, still was home to a few wild guppies. These are also known as mosquito fish, and they do a surprisingly effective job of controlling the local mosquito population. During a hard freeze in December, the surface froze and remained frozen for several days. The guppies can take some cold. They survived last winter, but this is not last winter. I could see the dead fish through the opaque ice cover. Maybe some are still hiding in the muck at the bottom.

I stand at the base of one of our dawn redwood trees, the branches now bare for winter. It is about the tallest tree on the property, with the possible exception of a magnolia out at the street. A nearby coast redwood may eventually overtake its cousin.

In the distance, I am surprised to hear calls from a hawk for the first time since the removal of two trees from a neighboring yard. These had been nesting trees used by hawks ever since we have lived here. As tall as our trees are, they are not suited for the hawks to use for nesting. I had seen one briefly land in the lower branches of the dawn redwood, but only on rare occasions when hunting something in our yard.

Our neighbor told me that he removed the two trees because the owner of the house over his back fence had complained that one of them was dropping branches into their yard. That house is quite far from the fence. I have been back there recently looking for one of our cats. Their yard is completely overgrown, and it is hard for me to imagine they would have noticed if a stray branch had landed there from a tree well into the next yard.

I hear the cry of a lone hawk again, and looking up towards the openness of the yard next door, I still expect to see those two trees. The sound of the hawk makes it harder for me to look. With the trees gone, it is so empty. I wonder if the hawk even recognizes the area or if it is as confused as I am.

It is probably easier for me. I can choose not to look, at least most of the time. It is harder for the hawk. He may not only be searching for his old nest tree, but he could also cry for his lost mate. He will not find her.

A few days after the tree removal, we found two separate hawk wings in the yard, evidence of an unknown trauma.

As I return to the house, I hope he will find a new tree to nest in and eventually find another mate. I wonder if the new nest tree would be near enough to us so we could still hear them calling in the distance as they hunt food for their young. Part of me hopes they choose a spot much further away from here. 

It is no longer safe here if it ever was.

My Best Man, wasn’t one at all- Then

When I met Linda back in high school, I never would have guessed that she would be my best “man” at my wedding.

I brought a small tenor banjo to school one day, which had belonged to my father when he was a kid. I had just refurbished and rebuilt it, and was learning to play it. Linda approached me to see what it was. I played a small bit of something I had made up. I let her hold it and strum a bit. I had the impression this was the first time she had ever been so close to any kind of string instrument, or to anyone who could pretend to play one. I got a picture of her in the yearbook. When she signed my yearbook, she mentioned that day. We were friends, and that was enough for me. But, talk about gorgeous. What was I doing with her? As much as I thought I was out of my league with some other girls back then, I was totally comfortable with her. We quickly became very good friends. But. . . There is that “but” I always dreaded.

One day, I went to my locker, and inside was a folded letter from Linda. This was a very intense letter, describing how she was interested in getting to know me, but that it would have to remain a friendship. I just did not do it for her as boyfriend material. And, “How does a person tell someone they love them as a friend?” I guess that way worked.

I still have that letter. It was the first time anyone had ever used the “just friends” phrasing with me, but it was also the first time anyone ever told me they loved me as a friend. At the time, I was more than happy to have her as just a friend. High School relationships almost always went “bust” very quickly. But friends, they could last forever- or a long time anyway. I only wish I knew what happened to her. It felt right to ask Linda to be in my wedding.

After my wedding, I found out that my brother was hurt that I had not asked him to be my best man. But then he hadn’t asked me to be his best man when he got married earlier. I never even thought of asking him. Linda had seemed the perfect choice at the time; although I am sure having a woman as “best man” raised a few eyebrows among relatives and friends in attendance, and maybe also my wife-to-be.

I know that Jeanne did not care for Linda. It is funny that she felt threatened by Linda, yet she was the one who later became unfaithful to me. When Jeanne and I later divorced, Linda was extremely helpful in talking me through my feelings. There were a few visits I made while she was still living at home with her parents. I remember sitting with her out on her deck, talking about Jeanne, how we had been together, what we did, and what we did not do. How Jeanne acted around me or others. I know I must have cried a bit. Linda was there for me. I almost let myself believe there might still be a chance for something more with Linda, but that was not to be. She now had a very detailed idea about what her perfect mate would be, and I was not close. Eventually, she met her perfect match and married- after a couple of near-misses, and a delay or two.

Originally, Linda had written to ask if I would be part of her wedding, since she had been part of mine. It felt right. She asked me if I would be willing to play guitar and sing at the ceremony. Her chosen song was “You’ve Got a Friend.”  I was still a relative novice guitarist at the time and had not sung solo anywhere, let alone while I played the only accompaniment. Of course, I wrote back that I would be happy to do it.

What was I thinking?

As I worked on the song, I got to a point where I felt comfortable sending her a cassette recording of me playing and singing, just so she would know whether she really wanted me to do it for her wedding. She responded that she loved it and couldn’t wait to hear it in person at her wedding.

A short time later, I received another letter from Linda saying that the wedding was “OFF.” She knew I was still working on the song and told me maybe someday I could perform it just for her. 

I had the impression they had some things still to work out before the wedding. I can’t say I was totally disappointed. Even if I had gotten to the point where I felt comfortable playing it in front of people I knew, I doubt I would have been able to get through it without losing my composure. I knew it would have been possible with enough practice. My idea had been that if I had problems doing the song live, at least I would have a taped version to play. My debut as a wedding singer never happened, though.

This was around the time I met Judy.

Of course, being in a new relationship was all I had on my mind then. It was interrupted by receiving in the mail what was obviously a wedding invitation. Before I opened it, I told Judy who it was from, and also about my previous promise to play and sing at her wedding. I opened the invitation. There was no mention of her having asked me to play and sing at her wedding.

Judy and I went to Linda’s wedding. I remember before we drove to the Bay Area, Judy asked if I wanted to bring my guitar, just in case. Not that I would have been ready to do the song, I said, “No. She didn’t mention it. I shouldn’t mention anything, unless she brings it up.” That wedding was the last time I saw Linda. She moved somewhere; I was never sure where. After a short time, she stopped responding to letters. Then, one was returned with an expired forwarding address. I sent a letter to her at her old home address, where her parents still lived. I never got any response. I do not know what I did, or if I did anything that may have upset her. Clearly, I could not have done enough to make her upset with me and not remember what it was? That is sad; to have that good a friend, and just have them disappear.

But, like the song says, if she ever were to try to contact me, I would be there. At the same time, I know that after close to 30 years, it will never happen. I guess I have to learn to let certain things go.

This is a tough one, though. I am still trying. 

Twenty-Thirteen? Be gone!- Now

I am not one to make resolutions at the New Year. I figure, if a change is worth making at all, it might be better to make it while the reason is still fresh in your mind. If you wait until an arbitrary date to start, even if it is a special date, why bother in the long run? Especially if it is a health-related resolution. Just do it. Get a head start on the procrastinators.

What I have done in the past, instead of a resolution, is to challenge the upcoming year to take its best shot at me. I believe that twenty-thirteen was the time I made that challenge. The prior year had had its bad times, but I made it through with all mental faculties intact. I figured I might even have been made stronger by the challenges of twenty-twelve. Well, it may not have been such a good idea to challenge twenty-thirteen after all.

From my health to the health of my loved ones, this last year took its best shot at me, and at her. I came out OK in the long run. The jury is still out about her, but she is hanging in there, fighting as if her life depended on it. And it may.

The rest of the family had taken a hit in the last couple of years, and it continued in twenty-thirteen, but in a way, no one could have foreseen. A hit to my family is a hit to me, no matter who or what is the cause.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom last year. At a time when I was reeling from several hits, I gained a good friend who has already provided many valuable insights about the weirdness life can throw at you from time to time. I hope to be able to pay this friend back in the future, but I hate that this would mean she would need that help. So, I send her positive energy. Maybe it will help keep the weirdness under control. Maybe it will help both of us.

Twenty-thirteen, be gone and good riddance to you. I will never challenge the New Year again. Sometimes the universe hears you, and you end up with more than you bargained for.

On writing now vs. then- Now and Then

I remember from my school days, both high school and college, all of the time starting writing assignments, having to face that empty page. That empty page has so much promise; if I can only find the right words to fulfill that potential. Usually, back then, I failed miserably.

I would try. And I would fail. And I invariably would think that just having tried hard made it OK that I had missed the point of the assignment. With writing and for other subjects too, it was easy to rationalize the results. I was so close. I could have done better if just a few things had been done differently. I never would have admitted back then that I had simply not done an assignment well. Maybe I just needed a better pen.

I heard the examples of what my peers had written for the same assignment I had done. After hearing their papers read aloud, or having read them myself, I would come away thinking, “Where did they learn to write like that?”  I knew I had been in the same classes with most of them earlier. Where had I been when they learned to write so well?

For one writing assignment in my high school Advanced Placement English class, we were told to choose a current song we liked and explain what it was about. I already knew by then that my being in this class was a total mistake. Being here assumes that you already have the basic and even more advanced writing skills mastered. That would be the “advanced” part of the course title. Somehow, the people at that particular switch must have fallen asleep, allowing me into this class with no real writing skills. That was never more apparent than with this particular assignment.

My teacher told us about the assignment and read us a sample paper from an earlier class. My teacher raved about this paper as one of the best he had seen in any class he had ever taught. I think I knew before he started that it had been written by my brother.

For this paper, my brother had chosen “Why Don’t We Do It in the Road?” by The Beatles.

“Why don’t we do it in the road?

Why don’t we do it in the road?

Why don’t we do it in the road?

Why don’t we do it in the road?

No one will be watching us

Why don’t we do it in the road?”

And repeat. . . And repeat, and done.

I have to admit it was a really good paper. And it may have been a really good example of what this teacher wanted. For me, it made achieving success in this assignment particularly unattainable. For one thing, I did not have his talent. And also, for all the praise my teacher gave my brother for this gold medal moment in his teaching career, I knew the truth.

My brother had not chosen the song because he knew he could nail the assignment with his interpretation of the deeper meaning of one of the Beatles’ shorter song ventures. My brother chose that particular song because it was so short. It mattered that it was short because he had waited until the last possible day to even think about doing this paper. He did have a bit of talent to turn what, for me, would have been a disastrous failure into a victory.  

My teacher did not know this, though. He presented this example as if my brother had spent long hours on multiple days getting everything just right. In reality, it had taken him less than half an hour to create this masterpiece of high school writing. I worked on my paper for an interminable amount of time, and still barely passed. I envied my brother’s creative ability to some extent. But I knew I had creative abilities in other ways that he could never touch back then, or even more recently.

And now that I am in somewhat a forced retirement, I am taking writing a bit more seriously and I find that I enjoy it. I like that I can create something out of a blank page and an idea. I like that it can be about any subject that interests me. And I like it even more that it will not be graded by my old Advanced Placement English teacher. Thanks for trying, Mr. Thomas.

Re-established Interests- Amateur radio

Saturday, June 6, 2020

Somewhere back in time, shortly after meeting my wife Judy, I told her that I had always wanted to be an amateur radio operator. This was in part due to one present from “Santa” when I was a kid, a cheap pair of walkie-talkies that worked fine if the two users were still in normal hearing range of each other. In other words, they didn’t work at all. But they did receive an amateur radio operator somewhere in the neighborhood. “KC6DNQ calling CQ 10 meters . . . Kilowatt-Charley-6-Denver-Norway-Quebec calling CQ and listening.” I wanted to know who this was, but more what he was trying to do. What was CQ 10 meters, and why was he calling it? My father was a bit savvier in his earlier years, knew this was an amateur radio operator, and the next Christmas gifts included books on radio theory and Morse code, required to get a novice amateur radio license. It took many years to get up the nerve to take the course. And it took a bit of a nudge from Judy.   

Back then, Judy commuted by bus to a hospital where she was a physical therapist. She heard from one of her bus-mates that they would be offering a novice amateur radio class at the college soon. I signed up. I had always shied away from trying this before because of the code requirement. It was only a five-word-per-minute test you had to pass, but starting from zero words, it might as well have been 100 words per minute.

There was also a theory portion. That was easy because I was more interested in that part. In the end, on test night, I just barely passed the code portion. And I remember I only passed because I was able to hear part of what had been sent and guess the rest. More important to me than how I passed (barely) was having my amateur radio ticket. And I got it before the FCC dropped the code requirement, a distinction that was important to me because I wanted my license before that requirement was scrapped, and I would always know my I received my license when that was still required.

For the most part, I never had time to devote to the hobby since then. I had noticed that most of the amateur radio hobbyists I met then were retired. I was barely 30 then. But now I have the time, and I am more or less retired.  

Anyway, earlier I dug out two of my radios (three if you count an old CB radio, I bought the day of my Technician test, that was doctored to work on the ten-meter band (as in CQ 10 meters). I actually was able to talk to someone in the Philippines back then. But I am rapidly remembering, there is no such thing as a cheap walkie-talkie. Who knew?

Back then, things were quite active. The people I knew in amateur radio were retired. Judy suggested at some point that maybe I would have more time for it when I retired. Oh well. It turns out she was correct about that. But, so far, everyone is gone, retirement age or not. I have only sampled a couple of the two-meter “repeaters,” as they are called, but they used to be very active on the VHF frequency range. Now the only voice I generally hear is the repeater ID.  

To hear anything at all, I had to operate on two of my Alinco radios, a DR600 and a DR1200. Frequency memory was maintained by a battery for those back then, said to last for five years. It has been more than twenty years since I had used either of them, so both batteries had to be replaced, a simple matter of ordering the tabbed batteries, removing the case of the radio, and locating the place on the circuit board where the batteries lived, unsoldering the old one, and soldering the new one in place. It should have been easy, but remember it is me and my technology issues I am talking about. That, and I find my hands shaking to be an additional issue at times. (Oh, and this- When soldering on, it is very important to always remember that the hot end of the soldering gun is not a handle. I won’t ever make that mistake again….)   

It turns out not all tabbed batteries are the same. The tabs on the new batteries were nowhere near as good as the old ones, so I found it easier to solder wires to the circuit boards, run them outside the case, and then solder the batteries to the ends of the wires. One patient is recovering nicely. It is too soon to say what may have gone wrong with the second. Not that I need two radios. I used to keep one in my car and one at home. That isn’t necessary. I am happy enough that one of them works again. And the only reason for that is that this was an old interest of mine, and now that Judy has died, I have been checking into the hobbies from my past that still interest me. 

Of course, that isn’t the end of the story. I heard a discussion about the main repeater I use switching to “digital” mode soon. Of course, digital is a new technology for radio, and my old ones won’t do that, much like when TV broadcasting switched to digital, it required upgrades to viewing apparatus. At the moment the switch is made, I would not be able to hear anything at all if the signal were digital and my radios were unable to process it.

OK, I admit I had to get a new Yaesu FTM-400XDR radio after almost burning myself replacing those batteries. It is digital-ready, and instead of batteries to hold the settings, I can write the settings to an SD card, as used in many Smartphones today.  

In my defense, this is one of my few vices.

I also have a new 10- to 12-meter radio and an antenna to be delivered soon. I can already use a segment of the ten-meter band. And what about the 12-meter band? That may be why I would be upgrading my license again.

After installing the radio and antenna, I plan to be calling CQ on 10 meters myself. “CQ 10 meters- This is N6WII; November-6-Whisky-India-India calling CQ . . . And listening . . .”

(Note that the call letters listed here are both mine. N6WII is my current call, and KC6DNQ was my original Novice call. The call letters of that first station heard on my Christmas present walkie-talkie are currently in use, and I decided I should not use those in this piece, although I will always have them stuck in my head.)