The wonder of it all

Every few weeks we take the opportunity to Skype with our oldest daughter who lives in Minnesota.  What a wonder this technology is!  Here is how it goes...

There is my daughter sitting in front of the screen with our newest grandson on her lap.  Then there are three blurs flitting about, screeching occasionally, that will resolve (briefly) into one of our other three grandsons.  We try and make comments about each one IF they stay still long enough for us to see any details, what they're wearing, how they look, what they are trying to get us to see in a modern version of 'show-and-tell'.  Soon the nearly three year old is so wound up that he is literally falling all over himself and piles of brothers and the screech level approaches ear-splitting decibels.  After 15 minutes of this we are out of things to say and simply watch the mania for another 10 minutes or so and then we have to sign off!

But I love it.

I love the fact that when these boys see us on Skype it is instant pandemonium!
I love the fact that when these boys come to see us in person it only takes a brief while before they feel right at home!
I love the fact that, though it is a poor substitute for real, face-to-face communication it is almost like being right there.  We can have a conversation! (albeit punctuated by shrieks, yells, protests and proclamations - wookie dis!)

Yes.  It beats writing a letter and enclosing a picture.

The wonder of it all!

50 years of change...

As we will soon be reminded (ad nauseum) this month is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Democratic President of the United States.  I was 10 years old and in the 5th grade at Bellaire Elementary School in White Bear Lake, MN at the time.  Since MN is in the same time zone as Texas the event occurred right around our lunch time and we were in our classroom when our teacher came rushing in clearly upset about something.  He rolled in a television and turned it on and we watched history unfold.  There was an awful lot we didn't understand and the coverage was disjointed and truncated.  The thing that I remember most is that there were no commercials!  We finally had to go home since school was over and I am sure we watched the television for coverage of the event until it was time to go to bed.

Lot's of things have changed in the world in the 50 trips around the sun since that November day.  All of us alive have had a corresponding change to our age. (Duh!) We have lived during the administration of the following Presidents who succeeded Kennedy:
    Lyndon Johnson
    Richard Nixon
    Gerald Ford
    Jimmy Carter
    Ronald Reagan
    George H. W. Bush
    Bill Clinton
    George W. Bush
    Barack Obama

The Vietnam War
The Cold War
The Iran Hostage Situation
The Fall of the Iron Curtain
The Transformation of the USSR
The First Gulf War
The Rise of Terrorism
Desert Storm
9/11
Operation Iraqi Freedom
The Occupation of Afghanistan

During this time also the world turned to computers and have experienced the exponential change computers have brought to the world.  No one had a clue what the internet was when Kennedy was killed.

Only 50 trips... loads of incredible change.  What will happen next?

I feel like a bellhop in a busy theatre

In my job as a Firefighter I come across some weird 'cosmic' situations.  The other night was just such a time...

Around 0330 hrs we were toned to assist another unit responding to an adult family home.  We were called for 'elderly male, not breathing'.  This almost always results in a CPR call - I've done a lot of CPR over my career - and so we were gearing up to join a crew with CPR in progress.  The other crew arrived and just a minute or so later advised that we could cancel.  Dispatch had said something about DNR (do not resuscitate) paperwork being completed and it must have been true.  Let me say this - DNR paperwork was one of the best things to happen to the fire service.  Now instead of assaulting someone to the grave we can just confirm that their heart has pumped its final time and let them go in peace. 

Then, just an hour later the crew that had cancelled us at the potential CPR call was dispatched for 'immanent childbirth'.  They got the opportunity to welcome a new child into the world, albeit in 'fast-forward' mode.

So in the space of one hour that crew ushered someone out of the theatre (so to speak) and then ushered someone new into their seat.

Cosmic bellhops.

At your service.

Sic Transit Gloria

I have been struck lately by the thought of how things are always in transit.  Whenever I get frustrated by things at work I stop and realize that this isn't going to be my workplace for very much longer. 

All we are
    is dust in the wind
           dude.

Now it would be quite easy to make the step towards what is called nihilism.  Nothing matters, nothing changes, it doesn't matter what you do, how you live, what choices you make.  It will all come to nothing in the end.  Therefore (to quote that famous twosome)   Party on dude!

Interesting that Scripture says that we will give an account for every word we say!   Seems to go against that view that nothing matters, eh?

I am now the age I remember my grandparents being when I was a small child.  Time will pass and my grandsons will be sitting at a computer in the future and... you know, I don't know where they will be sitting in the future!  What I hope is that they will remember me with fondness, with a certainty that they were loved and cherished by those who went before.

I love reading Norm Maclean's "A River Runs Through It".

    "It is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.
     Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was
     younger are dead, but I still reach out to them."

Fortunately for me nearly all those I loved (and did not understand) are living and I still reach out to them.  Last quote from the famous twosome - Be excellent to each other!

Profundity and all that.

There are times in life when it would be nice to have a trove of profound thoughts and sayings stored up for use in the perfect moment.  All too often though, I find myself seeing the perfect moment slip by without so much as a word.  In fact I usually find profound moments in my 'rear view mirror' instead of coming attractions down the road.  Isn't that the real world anyway?  How many cringe worthy events can you recall where your profound comment was limited to 'duh?' or 'what did you say?'  I can think of four or five moments right off the top where I recall my comment or response with absolute clarity to the point that I can make myself blush!  Some of those events happened 40 or more years ago too!  Why don't I have great moments of profound wisdom rolling from my lips in that same dead light of clarity?  Perhaps this is why... I am not the one who gets to declare a thought or statement as profound.

Drat!

Perhaps this is also why we can appreciate poetry or music as the writer or composer has the luxury of spending quality time over the phrasing, tempo, metre and lilt. "If I had that kind of time, energy and expertise I too could compose a sonnet, write a top 10 hit, or have my work quoted in school papers everywhere."  Dream on buddy!

So I will have to let this blog scratch that proverbial itch and leaving it up to you, the reader, to decide if any 'pearls' escape to be quoted some day later on.

So here are a couple of pearls that I have found in birthday cards over the years.  My family will attest to the fact that I still have some of these in my possession!

"When it comes to friends you are a peach."  (Then inside the card) "Well, except for the fuzz and that 'butt crack' thing."

A Birthday Poem

"It's easy to smile
when your ship comes in
and your friends all like you a lot.
But brave is the man
who still can smile
when his shorts creep up in a knot!"

(And my all time favorite!)

[Picture of a rather portly couple in the kitchen of their home]
We've given up sex for eating.
(Inside the card)
Now we can't even get in our own pants!

Hope you have enjoyed my 'moments of profundity'.

I have.

A New Computer

Last time I tried to post something on this blog the computer I was using just didn't cooperate.  It finally stopped all together at the end of September.  It was off to the store and we came home with a new computer.  It is so much better.  Perhaps now I will be able to 'blog' a bit more regularly.

So.

Since my last post:

- I have turned 60 years of age.
- I have completed my 23rd year of full time firefighting.
- We purchased a newer vehicle than the ones we are currently using.
- We had a visit from my folks.
- We had a reunion of fellow alumni from VBC.
- This is the 40th year since I was in the 1973 EC.

So I am pretty sure that anyone who was reading this blog regularly gave up on me.  So here is hoping that I will be able to get this restarted.

No promises mind you, just hopefulness.

I like...can't write a thing in this blog... literally. What's wrong? I suppose I could put it all in the title..

The calm before the storm

In just a couple of days our calm and quiet life is going to be changed for 3 weeks.  Our grandchildren, along with their mother, are coming for an extended visit.  The grandsons are 7, 5 and 2... so now you can begin to appreciate how our quiet and solitude will be broken.  There will be games, there will be reading of books, there will be disagreements among them, specific chairs will be occupied "until you can get along".  Everything breakable from 4' on down is being stowed away or secured in a higher location.  What will get broken this time?

Don't get me wrong: I am happily awaiting this trial by child.  Once I lived this life and looking from the inside out wondered what life would and could be like.  Now that I now longer am living full time with little people I am on the outside looking in.  I am pretty certain I prefer it that way.

Today, at a church event, I saw a young father and mother with their 3 boys just a little younger than the grandsons I have described above.  Dad was holding the youngest in his lap and doing his level best to keep the boy occupied and relatively quiet.   I had a flashback to my days with similar goals and I smiled and (perhaps) shed a tear to two remembering my little guys and gals!  I loved having kids!

I also love having grandchildren.  But years have gone by since I had to live with them and so there will be a bit of an adjustment as I slide back into the 'higher energy level' required to make things work.  This is what I mean by 'storm'... a change to the pace.  I think it is a good thing that you have your children when you yourself are young.  Yes, it would be better to import the knowledge and wisdom gained by your parents like a mysterious computer transaction.  Yet the energy you can bring to the table helps you get through those times when your wits have abandoned you and you just have to outlast 'em. (or send them to bed!)

Bring it on!  I am ready. (I hope)

Death be not proud

Sorry for the ominous heading but it sprang to mind after what I learned this week.

On the first day of my last shift I read an e-mail from a fellow Captain in our department.  In the e-mail he announced that he had been diagnosed with a form of pancreatic cancer.  He assured all of us that it was not the kind that usually kills in 6 months or less.  Still his only optimistic line was that he may have 10 years if his aggresive treatment regimen was successful.  Now, this fellow Firefighter is 45 years old.  He has a young daughter.  He is facing a grim outcome with an open ended date.

Oh how this hit me!  I sat and quietly cried for a minute or two as the horror of it all sank in.  So sad.

As firefighters we see death almost every cycle we work.  Very often it is an older person who died after long years of life.  Sometimes it is a young person in a car wreck or perhaps some trauma like GSW or stabbing.  Occasionally it is a middle age person who, like my firefighter friend, received a life altering diagnosis some months or years before.  But the truth of the matter is that we will all see death because it is an inescapable part of life.  It isn't a welcome part of our culture and that is why we try to hide it away whenever possible.  Our elderly are neatly tucked into "Assisted Living" or "Long term care" or "Adult Family Home".  All of these are clean euphemisms for a very ugly process... because getting old and dying is so very often ugly and filled with body fluids and disfiguring events.  I understand it.  I get it.

So what am I trying to say?  There is comfort and courage to be found in the way faith faces this certainty of life.  I can't imagine life without it.

Meanwhile... I will pray for my fellow Captain and his family.  God grant him the strength and the grace to face what will surely confront us all.

Oh Dear!

I see that it has been well over a month since I last posted anything to this blog.  That is almost a guarantee that anyone who was reading it will give up on me!  But I find it very hard to write about the mundane events of everyday life as if it were something to write about!  Call me 'old fashioned' if you want to but it is very difficult for me to write something about nothing.

Beginning December 20th my youngest son and his wife have been traveling the world.  They have begun in South America, Peru to be specific and now, one month into their travels they are about to visit Quito, Ecuador.  I have really enjoyed their blog as they post regular pictures and events of their trip.  Combine that with a bit of Google Earth and viola!  I get to travel vicariously and don't even have to leave home to do it! 

Of course this past month found us putting up all the Christmas things, celebrating Christmas and New Years and now we are putting away the Christmas things.  Wait 'til next year!  So far this winter we have not had any measurable snow here in the Puget Sound and I hope sincerely to keep it that way.  Saw on the news yesterday that Chicago Fire had a big warehouse fire and with the temps at or below zero the water was freezing quickly!  What a mess!  Those poor guys and gals!  That was the kind of fire where you are not going to risk anyone by going inside but you know that you can't put the fire out from the outside so all you can do is pour tons of water on it.  Only in this case the tons of water quickly becomes tons of ice!  It encases everything and changes the weight of the building... ugh.

My own firefighting experience this past six weeks or so has been mostly taking care of flu patients.  Why is it that some people just immediately call 911 when they are throwing up?  You're sick!  Put on your stetson and man up!  Going to the hospital won't make it better and you will be miserable at the hospital just like you were miserable at home!  I guess some people just can't properly enjoy their misery unless they spread it around to others!  'nuf said.

No promises now about more frequent posting.  I'll just do my best.