The Best Way to Finish a Monday

Beauty in the eye of the beholder...


It is good to travel with friends...

A different route home last night meant I was in the right place at the right time to take dozens of photographs of hundreds of geese in an industrial pond. I had to speed to the next intersection to turn around, but it was worth it.

For some time, I have been considering the way human energy and natural energy can combine into something unexpectedly beautiful. This is a radical leap for me, a fundamental shift in philosophy. I have always considered human interference in the natural world as vile defacement of a grand work of art. As if in answer to my recent ruminations, the geese, the water, the buildings and the light combined to provide something truly beautiful.

The spontaneous purchase of a digital camera (that I certainly could not afford) turned out to be a great idea. I have taken many beautiful photographs. I post the good ones on my blog but save the best ones for myself. I need some technical training to enhance my skill with the camera and the digital media, but I believe I have at last found a way to capture the ordinary magnificence of the Kansas landscape.

After I had drove away from the birds floating amid the reflective geometric shapes, a spectacular sunset presented itself within the frame of my windshield.  I captured a deep orange sun column and a mysterious twister. The photos of the sun column turned out too good to post, but the twister needs to be shared. I suspect it was a rare appearance of the tornado that carried Dorothy to Oz.


A few of the magnanimous Canadians who graciously shared their pond with the enormous crowd of migratory "others".


The way to Oz


Another day in paradise...

Beginning the Final Year

Trumpeter Swans in Wabaunsee County 1-2-2012

The Mayan long count calendar ends on the winter solstice of this new year. Everyone has heard this information and many speculate the world will end on that day. Everything eventually comes to some manner of conclusion but unless human beings succeed in dealing a death blow to the earth with weapons of mass destruction, the world will still be in existence on December 22, 2012. It is a bit worrisome to learn that Iran is threatening the West with blocking the Strait of Hormuz. The United States of Corporations has gone to war over far less provocation. I do not think we are going to escape our collective karma as easily as the world coming to an end. The human species owes a infinite number of amends.

When I finally ventured forth into this brand new year, I came across a wonderful surprise: five swans in a small farm pond just down the road. I had never seen swans in the wild in my entire life. I backed my car up a quarter of a mile when I realized my camera was in the car.


A bevy of swans.

The birds effortlessly explored the small waters, continually making companionable noises. I do not understand why some human beings fail to recognize that animals enjoy their lives on this planet as thoroughly as we do. The only wild swans I had ever heard of were trumpeter swans and, as far as I knew, they had been hunted almost to extinction. A quick google search proved that trumpeter swans have been sighted in over half of Kansas counties in recent times. Great news, and what a way to start the year.

I Heartily Disagree with Things My Mother Said

"If you can't say something nice, then say nothing at all." Nooooooo, no, no, no, no! This is the worst advice in the world. To not speak up against some things is a major crime and at the top of the list is bad service, like clerks/waiters/nurses standing around discussing personal lives instead of taking care of the business at hand. Overhearing the nurses' social klatch at their desk while waiting for something only a nurse can do is infuriating. Sullen waiters and flirty clerks who would rather chat with their coworkers are surely business liabilities. But I will not be the one who speaks, though. My mother taught me well. I might desperately need a bed pan, and no one wants to know what angry waiters do to the food before it arrives at the table.

"Beauty is only skin deep," my mother said. She forgot to add, "But ugly is to the bone!" If she had just given me the entire truth on this one, I think we would have found common ground.

"It is always best to tell the truth." On the surface, this seems to be foolproof advice. Most everyone agrees that truth is always the best policy, until faced with one of those delicate social dilemmas. I would never tell a radiant new mother that her child is the ugliest little baby I have ever laid eyes on. In fact, I hope the expression of surprise and revulsion does not show in my face. Merely offering congratulations is a time honored, neutral social response, and for good reason. Everyone needs a gracious way out of a tight spot. The need has always been there and always will be there.

Any time I stray into those subjective areas of beauty, good taste, or appropriate manners, telling the truth as I see it is not the best idea. The internet is full of "Walmart Weddings" photos. In such a case, if I cannot say anything good, then I say nothing at all. Mom was not wrong all the time.

Truly, Times Are Hard

Friday afternoon at 17th and Gage, Santa Claus turned the corner in front of me. He was driving a beat up roofing truck, ladders rattling in the overhead racks. Either driving that rig is cheaper than the magic reindeer, or the old boy is holding down two jobs in this economy.

Catch-All and Crumbs

I celebrated another birthday, one far past the expected half-way point. It is always time for reflection when another year ticks off and all the things I had hoped to accomplish in life are yet another missed milestone. Sometimes I get angry at the way life escapes in the daily grind, the constant minutia and minor disappointments, and the way we certainly seem to be at the mercy of everything out of our control. I understand it is good that we wither and eventually die. If we just cease to exist, then it was hardly worth the trouble. But if we carry on in some manner, then I assume we awaken in fresh bodies, in fresh dreams. Not that I am ready to give up on this journey just yet.

I recently lost the ring with my mother's diamonds. It slipped off my hand one morning between the couch and arriving at work. It could be in the house, in the prairie, in the car, or in another dimension for all I know. It is a particularly poignant loss of something I had never in a million years thought I would be so careless as to lose. Like my parents, it is gone from me and there is not a goddamned thing I can do about it. Is that not just the perfect metaphor for our lives here? We are born but none of us can remember asking to be born. We live at the mercy of forces far out of our control - disease, natural disaster, genetics, politics, luck and calamity. We have intentions, but some force thwarts us. We are minding our own business when bad luck (and good luck) strikes. Then we die, whether we are ready to go or not.

There are a few things we can control in life. Last week, on my way to work, I was speeding in the left lane, almost ten over in a 65 mph zone, so it was not as if I were holding up traffic. The person behind me flashed for me to get out of his way but I was not ready to change lanes yet. I had to get closer to my exit. When I did not immediately clear the way, the driver behind me continued to flash his headlights and to speed closer to my tailgate. Apparently, the fool expected me to instantly slam over into the slower lane for no other reason than his insistence. Do I not have the same rights on this road as he does? The flashing indicated the driver was quite agitated and as I was approaching my exit, I attempted to grant the fool his wish, but it meant slowing down to fit between the slower cars on the right. As soon as a space became available, before I could merge right, the fool sped into that space so he could give me the finger. Of course, I replied in kind. It was an old white guy, in a black Cadillac Escalade. I think he was in a suit. It made me laugh. Based on his car, his clothing and his attitude, he has likely had his way all of his adult life. I was glad to be of service in reminding him that he does not rule the entire world and that he is not the boss of me. Ginger is. But the whole thing was mildly depressing. Almost six decades on this earth and I am still giving people the finger? Really?

In looking for my ring, I have scratched through all of the nooks and crannies in my house, my car, and the prairie between the house and the barn. I have found little items, pieces of broken jewelry and bits of junk, even rocks I picked up in my travels. Every item reminds me of something, of someone, of some place. Some pertain to my life stories, the ones I hope my children will recall long after I am gone. I know they have forgotten every story as soon as I told it, the way I forgot almost every story my mother told me about her life. Now I wish I could remember every fact and detail.

I wonder what goes with us when we leave this life. Upon my death, will I remember things like trading the great all-American insult with a fellow commuter? Will I see into his life and understand why he felt his travel on the shared highway was more important than mine? Will I suddenly see and understand where and why I lost my mother's diamonds? Will I remember the stone I carried home from Jackson Hole, Wyoming the summer my kids and I went camping in Yellowstone? Will I understand that my life, though it was merely an extended string of minutes and seconds of nothing great and nothing tragic - just a regular lifetime - was more than the sum of its parts? Will everything, every single second, be revealed as something profound? What if my only lesson was to refrain from giving the finger to jerks?

Maybe a Merry Christmas for Ginger...

Could you in good conscience sell these young, healthy horses to the slaughter house?


More of the herd that narrowly missed starvation and just missed the slaughter house.

There are fourteen horses that were allowed to almost starve to death before intervention could be legally initiated, but eventually the horses were taken away from their owner. They were fed, given medical attention, and brought back to health. With the slow grind of justice, this took over 18 months. Then just this week, the Sheriff ordered all the horses to be removed from the boarding facility before tomorrow, or the kill buyer would take all of them to the slaughter house. What in the hell is wrong with human beings?

The good news is that all of the horses have a home. One of the horses has a home at Spirit Creek, I just do not know which one it is yet. There is a dappled palomino, a brood mare who has likely been pregnant most of her adult life, who seems to be destined for Ginger's kingdom.

Maybe by Christmas, certainly before the end of the year, there will be another horse in the pasture.


She has lost her figure from having too many babies but hey, I am not in such great physical shape myself!

Parenting Duties Officially Concluded!

Thursday afternoon, my son completed the last final exam required to earn his college degree! Congratulations to the Unabomber for hanging tough until he succeeded! It it truly a red letter day.

I believe this signals the conclusion of my minimum required parenting duties. Though I have never doubted my son is superbly capable to do anything he wants in life, I have worried about him since he was a baby. A born athlete, he crawled for a week or two then switched to his natural rate of travel: high speed. Whenever I took him any where - shopping, day care, doctor's office - I had to hold tightly to one of his limbs or maintain a handful of sturdy clothing at all times or he would dart into traffic.

He wrecked every mode of transportation he has ever ridden or driven, starting with a toddler ride toy. He sat on it and pushed with his feet. The seat was maybe four inches off the ground but he found a way to make it dangerous. When he skidded over a large crack in the driveway, he crashed, landing on the point of his chin. Later, when a thin vein of calcification could be felt in his chin, the doctor said my son must have had a hairline fracture.

He rode a skateboard under a car, miraculously without injury. His father almost crushed him letting a car down off a jack. My son fell fifteen feet out of a tree. He skinned half of his face in a spectacular BMX bike wreck. He wrecked his first car in the first week he drove it. He totaled that car on the gravel roads a couple of weeks after it was repaired. He wrecked his second car on the same gravel road. When I saw the way the car was situated in the ditch, I marveled over the power that prevented the car from rolling. (His third car was a 1987 Cadillac - 3000 pounds of heavy metal to keep him firmly on the road.) Needless to say, I have actively and consistently campaigned against my son owning a motorcycle.

Almost from the beginning there were regular phone calls from the school. He was always too busy, too talkative, too much of who is he is to fit quietly and easily into the uniform square pegs the school requires. I always told the school that he has a right to be who he is. Luckily, there were teachers who clearly saw my son, recognized his potential and genuinely liked him. In the classrooms of those good teachers, he was a brilliant student. If any gifted student makes it through the American public school system with any originality, any spark of creativity, any love of learning left, it is thanks to those precious few stellar teachers.

But now, at long last, he is a free man - a college educated free man - an athletic poet with a tremendously creative mind. The only thing he must do now is ENJOY!