take various paths sky is door never closed sun moon aren’t doorknobs
I’m trying to create an option for all these doors in life. You’re inside or out, outside or in. Of late, doors have failed us more than the two-party system or marriages comprising only one person. We’ve been fooled into thousands of dualisms which the Buddha says is a bad idea. Nature has portals rather than doors. There are two vast cottonwoods near a creek and when I walk between them I shiver. Winding through my field of seventy-seven large white pine stumps from about 1903 I take various paths depending on spirit. The sky is a door never closed to us. The sun and moon aren’t doorknobs. Dersu Uzala slept outside for forty-five years. When he finally moved inside he died.
Doors by Jim Harrison.
I drove out to my workplace for the first time in a month due to construction on the workplace.
The last time I drove, I drove my car into the rising sun.
Today, I drove in the dark.
I take various paths to work as the light changes as the Earth tips.
The path is the same but at least seems different.
those nice bright colors greens of summers, makes you think world’s a sunny day
Kodachrome They give us those nice bright colors Give us the greens of summers Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah I got a Nikon camera I love to take a photograph So mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away
From the Paul Simon song, 1973, Kodachrome.
My Dad had a Nikon camera.
The Nikon F series was introduced in the early 1960’s and my Dad had to have one as he got all the new gadgets (including a Heathkit color TV that he built in the basement – it only took a soldiering gun and about 7 months of work).
That Nikon F series was a great camera and really didn’t get left behind until the digital era and it became one the best selling camera’s of all time.
With that camera, my Dad took a lot of pictures or slides as they were called back then.
A few years back one of my Nephew’s digitized all of my Dad’s slides and sent me the files.
Looking through all those photos I came across some snaps my Dad took of our family Labor Day picnic in, what I am thinking was, 1963, but thanks to a note from my cousin, it is 1964.
At least I am hoping it was Labor Day but it could have been the 4th of July.
I could write my Nephew and see if he still has the physical slides and can check the date stamped on the cardboard frame but then I might find out that they aren’t Labor Day and it mess up the writing of this post.
We were the Hoffman’s.
My Dad’s sister had married a Glerum.
And my Mom was a Hendrickson.
My Dad’s snaps show all of us, Hoffman’s, Hendrickson’s and Glerum’s (and it that a Lower in there as well?) gathered together at my family’s Lake Michigan cottage.
It has to be soon after my Dad bought the place as there is no deck yet in front of the place.
All the kids and all the Aunts and Uncles are all gathered in the small yard and short deck that was there in just our first summer.
After that, my Dad added more decks and rooms and then over the years as the Lake moved east, removed those decks and rooms until finally the place had to be moved back away from the lake and almost rebuilt.
We called it the cottage.
It was roughing it as much as my Dad wanted to rough it which meant there was only a stand up shower.
I look at the pictures and I see the all the nice bright colors and greens of summer and I can remember it all.
I can taste the food in the picnic dinner my Mom and my Aunt’s spread out.
It wasn’t so much a family get together as it was mob.
It wasn’t so much of talking and conversation as it was BUZZ and LOUD.
It wasn’t so much a relaxing day at the beach but a day of constant activity
There was something somewhere going on constantly.
Smell the sweet piney smell of the forest around the cottage and feel the spiky-ness of the sparse grass?
I can.
I was three, if the timing on all this works out, maybe 4, I’ll have to ask my brothers and sisters about this pictures.
For the next 20 years, 4th of July and Labor Day meant that everyone was coming to the Lake.
We would wake up early, too excited to sleep and at some point, we would walk down the two track to the road so we could see the cars first and run back yelling THEY’RE HERE, THEY’RE HERE!!
Our Grandparents would arrive and unpack their car and we would carry in various pots and dishes covered with newspaper and tied with string.
The main meal would be thick slices of ham on hamburg buns or something like that and the evening meal would be leftovers with focus being a big pot of my Grandma’s Chili or her hamburger, corn, noodles and tomato hot dish that we called goulash.
All the Aunt’s would bring a hot dish of beans or potatoes along with all sorts of salads.
One of my brothers said to me you know you are getting old when that three bean salad starts looking good.
Then there were the deserts.
My Aunt Wanda’s sweet rolls, which I remember would disappear before desert time as me and my cousins would dare each other to sneak into the kitchen and grab one.
Cakes, and brownies … and pie.
My Mom was known for her pie.
Blueberry, cherry and rhubard.
Blueberries that were purchased from roadside stands on the way from Grand Rapids.
Rhubarb from the Glerum’s garden.
My Uncle Bud Glerum could grow more stuff from less land than anyone we knew and we always shared in the bounty.
It may have been at one of these Labor Day parties that my Grandpa finished a big piece of my Mom’s pie and announced, “Lorraine makes the best pie.”
Family tradition has it that it was long, silent drive home that holiday for my grandparents.
Labor Day.
It was the end of the summer.
It was the real end of the year.
The real new year, not that one in January, would start in a week or so when school started.
Summers were long for us kids.
We got off in June and we knew that July and August were OFF.
And our summer ended on the exclamation point of Labor Day.
comfortable in your own skin, impossible to be underdressed
“He didn’t identify with fashion statements per se,” said Kevin McLaughlin, a co-founder of the prep wear mini-empire J. McLaughlin and driving force behind the re-envisioned heritage label Quaker Marine Supply. “But he set a standard and had an influence in that if you’re cool and you’re comfortable in your own skin, it’s almost impossible to be underdressed.”
Mr. Trebay writes: “Our industry rewards elegance and style,’’ said Mr. McLaughlin. “Jimmy took the reverse approach, based on a level of self-confidence.’’
Call it nonchalance, sprezzatura or swagger — that offhand assurance is a quality too little appreciated by contemporary fashion, where the benchmark of critical success is often looking overdressed, overthought, overwrought.
I took off for a weekend last month just to try recall the whole year
I don’t think I could be a part of any online enterprise that purports to celebrate word play and to recognize anyone who consciously uses words in way that causes joy just in the wonderful way something could be said and not give a shout out to examples wherever they occur.
Like I took off for a weekend last month just to try and recall the whole year.
With that in mind, I will mention Jimmy Buffett.
I am no parrot head and I never went to concert, but I enjoyed his music and his lyrics and applauded and aspired to his off work lifestyle.
The first song of his I remember had the line, “If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane“
I heard the line.
Then worked it out.
Then laughed and laughed.
It really is clever to the point that double meaning doesn’t seem to do justice to the wit involved.
I listened to his music.
It is really odd to say that I was having a bad work day yesterday, if having a bad work day working for a beach side resort is possible (end of the month reports), so I played Jimmy Buffett all afternoon while working bare foot in my home office.
That night, I heard of Mr. Buffett’s passing.
Felt bad for us but good for him and I hope he landed on beach somewhere (If there’s a heaven for me, I’m sure it has a beach attached) and I also was glad that I was playing his music that afternoon and I thought that had someone described the scene of me at home, me in my favorite ratty blue jeans without knees and barefoot, writing reports about how many people visited a web site to learn about staying at the beach, Mr. Buffett would have liked that.
So today I will think of his song, Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes and when I take my grand daughter to the beach this after, maybe I will try to sing it.
I can sing to my grand children but that is about the only audience that will listen to me.
At least, in the sand of the beach, I will scratch out the refrain.
If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane
As he sang, ““Only time will tell if it was time well-spent.”
Here are the complete lyrics to the song “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes.”
I took off for a weekend last month just to try and recall the whole year All of the faces and all of the places wonderin’ where they all disappeared I didn’t ponder the question too long, I was hungry and went out for a bite Ran into a chum with a bottle of rum and we wound up drinkin’ all night
It’s those changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes Nothing remains quite the same With all of our running and all of our cunning If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane
Reading departure signs in some big airport reminds me of the places I’ve been Visions of good times that brought so much pleasure makes me want to go back again If it suddenly ended tomorrow I could somehow adjust to the fall Good times and riches and son-of-a-bitches I’ve seen more than I can recall
These changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes Nothing remains quite the same Through all of the islands and all of the highlands If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane
I think about Paris when I’m high on red wine I wish I could jump on a plane So many nights I just dream of the ocean, god I wish I was sailin’ again Oh, yesterday’s over my shoulder, so I can’t look back for too long There’s just too much to see waiting in front of me and I know that I just can’t go wrong
With these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes Nothing remains quite the same With all of my running and all of my cunning If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane
If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane
You should aim to walk 10,000 steps a day “The first company that produced pedometers came up with the 10,000-step benchmark without any data, as that was considered an auspicious number,” says Lieberman. “Since then, plenty of studies have shown that steps a day is a reasonable way of measuring physical activity. As you increase your step count, you reap increased benefits, but it tails off between about 8,000 and 10,000.”
Hutchinson (Author of author of Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights? Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise._ agrees: “There’s nothing magic about 10,000 steps a day, but it is pretty good advice. In general, the best target is probably ‘a little more’ than what you’re currently doing.’’
How many steps do I make or take each day?
I am not sure as I got rid of my fitbit.
For some reason of carrying a tracking device by choice kind of got to me so I stopped wearing it.
I was also starting to obsess about it a little bit.
Besides, I always walk with my wife so I can ask her.
No Haiku For You 