The Journal Turns 45!

For the first 20 years of my journal, I wrote in Mead college-ruled notebooks because it was the first format assigned by a tenth grade English II teacher.
For the first 20 years of my journal, I wrote in Mead college-ruled notebooks because it was the first format assigned by a tenth grade English II teacher.

Many of my readers will recall that I have been writing in a journal for most of my life. September 5, 2023 marks the 45-year mark. As I thought about this anniversary, I began to think about breaking it up into various periods, a kind of lifelong chronology of my writing.

1978 really was a different time. No internet. No cell phones. No air conditioning in schools (at least not in mine.) The top five television shows were Laverne & Shirley, Three’s Company, Mork & Mindy, Happy Days, and Angie. I watched the first four, but I have no idea what Angie was. We must have liked another show on another network, because I even watched the intro on YouTube, and I’d never seen even a single second of that show.

Anyway, the journal got started as an assignment for English II class in tenth grade. The first thing I wrote was the date on the second line of the first page, “Tuesday, September 5, 1978,” in a handwriting that might best be described as resembling Comic Sans.

So, what might the epochs of Richard’s journal be called? I’ll take a stab at it.

1978-1980: The Innocent Age. This was a time in my life magnified by the drama and innocence of being a mid-teenager, unspoiled by the crush of adulthood, yet with a  decidedly distorted perspective about life. I felt emotionally isolated, but also thought it all revolved around me and my feelings.

1980: The First Writing Group. I took a creative writing class in eleventh grade, and decided I was going to be a brilliant novelist before I turned 18. I wrote a lot, but it wasn’t very good. I got my girlfriend and my best friend interested in writing, and they joined in, sometimes giving each other writing assignments or challenges.

1981: The Chatter Box. By this point in my writing, I was doing a daily writing dump. Anything I could think of went on the page, and while it kept me disciplined and literate, it was emotionally empty, often falling back on a sense of humor I culled from M*A*S*H reruns and Peanuts comic strips.

1982-1983: The Dark Age. By the time I was a freshman in college, I thought of myself as a deep thinker, and honestly, I kind of was. I listened to a lot of music with deep lyrics, and cobbled together an elementary philosophy. As a result, there were many nights I didn’t write anything at all in my journal. Two important deaths, both college friends, happened during this period, but I breezed over them in my journal with a kind of arrogant nonchalance.

1984-1985: The Days and Nights of Private Drama. By the time I was 21, in the summer of 1984, I was starting to express real feelings about my life in my journal, including a very powerful sense of loneliness. It was a valid expression, since I was alone in a lot of ways during that period.

1986-1988: The Bridge. I started dating a fellow journalist in the summer of 1986. It started with late night breakfasts and sitting out under the stars on a bridge over an interstate.  She and I were both young and not very good at being in relationships, and if I had listened to her, I would have heard she wanted out, and if I listened to myself, I would have heard that I was into someone else more than her. It was a hard breakup, but it needed to happen.

1988-1989: My Time in Exile. I tried to move to another state to be with that girlfriend, but when it didn’t work out,  I moved back to Oklahoma. It felt both like I had been exiled, and that I was living in a self-imposed exile.

1990-1991: The Second Writing Group. Three other journalists and I got together every other Friday night to trade short stories and novel chapters. We were all writing well during that period.

1991-1992: The Season of Hollow Soul. I dated a beautiful, young, creative, and at least somewhat troubled fellow journalist during this time. We were only together a few months, but I was really in love. The k. d. lang song Season of Hollow Soul came along just then and became an anthem for our break-up.

1993-1998: I Flew Away. During this period I was flying all the time. Airplanes were cheap to rent, and I had disposable income and spare time. My journal is full of fun entries about flying.

1999-2000: The Third Writing Group, Robert’s Frost. I briefly, and with difficulty, dated an endocrinologist who told me she wrote poems and stories, so we formed a writing club called Robert’s Frost. It was her, me, and four other writers I knew. We all wrote some pretty great stuff for the short time we kept it going.

2003-2004: The High Road. Abby and I met and fell in love, and my journal is all over it. She even wrote a journal for a while. Our first vacation was called The High Road, but that very phrase ended up describing our whole relationship. We got married in October 2004.

2005-2015: Diamond Days. For a while, one of our web pages was called Diamond Days, and was an expression of how happy our lives together were. We loved being married, we loved traveling together, and we loved each other. The journal, and, by then, this blog expressed that without doubt.

2016-2019: The Fourth Writing Group, Open Mic Nyte. I started attending an interesting group in 2016, and open mic venue at a local coffee house. We all read, sang, performed, or showed our art, and it was amazing. I wrote all kinds of great stuff during that great period, and often read passages from the journal itself, and I wrote about the sessions in my journal.

2020-2021: The Isolation Journals. My friend Mackenzee crafted some poems during the early pandemic under the heading of The Isolations Journals, but I like that title enough to steal it. During this period, we all faced the difficulties and missteps of the pandemic, and this period marked a sharp decline in my wife’s health.

September 5, 2023: Abby died in March 2022. The journal has it all there in black and white, but it’s not easy to look at those pages. But I am still writing.

Here is a strange truism about journal writing that has not served us well: I wrote things in my journal in tenth grade that would have gotten me arrested and/or medicated 25 years ago, 15 years ago, or today. If anyone in today’s social network scene posted some of the stuff I wrote back then, the schools would go on instant lockdown.

That seems like a reasonable course of action, but the truth is that has the effect of driving self-expression underground, where it festers and builds instead of being expressed and dealt with, and I wonder if that is a contributor to more violent trends now than in 1978.

And it’s not that I was broken and violent. We all have broken and unsettling thoughts and feelings when we are inundated by the cruelties, and hormones, of teen life, and we can deal with them, or we can bury them.

Finally, today I finished my current journal volume, number 56, and tomorrow will start the next one. Question: what can I do to amp the creativity in the next one?

Starting 1998, I wrote in 4-inch by 8-inch hardback volumes, and made a point to let myself be messier and have more fun.
Starting 1998, I wrote in 4-inch by 8-inch hardback volumes, and made a point to let myself be messier and have more fun.

The Second Year of Grieving

My wife Abby sometimes looked like sunshine itself to me.
My wife Abby sometimes looked like sunshine itself to me.

I recognize that I have never experienced grieving the death of a spouse before. My wife Abby died 18 months ago, and I am finding my second year of grieving her death  to be harder than the first.

I miss her more than ever.

Losing her wasn’t as hard as watching her lose the fight. I was there for her every day, but aside from loving her and advocating for her care, there wasn’t really anything I could do to make her well.

One of the best things I have going now is my relationship with the community. It has purpose and remains positive. This image is from a recent Friday night. I was working a football game and over my left shoulder I hear, "Richard!" I turn to see these three kids, who wanted me to take their picture. It's such a great feeling to be a part of that scene.
One of the best things I have going now is my relationship with the community. It has purpose and remains positive. This image is from a recent Friday night. I was working a football game and over my left shoulder I hear, “Richard!” I turn to see these three kids, who wanted me to take their picture. It’s such a great feeling to be a part of that scene.

When I was 14, I read in The Book of Lists that the top two most stressful events in a human life were divorce, and the death of a spouse, but I had always questioned the validity of that assertion since I imagined the death of a child, especially a young child, would be the worst.

On the other hand, paindoctor.com gives an updated list, with a stress index number assigned to it…

  1. Death of a spouse or child: 100
  2. Divorce: 73
  3. Marital separation: 65
  4. Imprisonment: 63
  5. Death of a close family member: 63
  6. Personal injury or illness: 53
  7. Marriage: 50
  8. Dismissal from work: 47
  9. Marital reconciliation: 45
  10. Retirement: 45

I know other people who are currently grieving things like divorce or the death of a parent, but they haven’t expressed it to me in obvious terms. I can understand this. It can be hard to admit that something outside ourselves has taken something valuable from us – that feels weak and vulnerable.

And of course theres always room for self doubt.

Sad songs make me sad, but happy songs make me sad too, since so many of them were about us.

I talk to Abby sometimes. Usually it is just to say that I miss her.

What do I miss? I miss our debriefs at the end of every day. I miss her hand in mine as we slept. I miss the hope of another adventure down the road with her. I miss her laughter as we watched movies. I miss bringing her Braum’s vanilla milkshakes and Sonic burgers. I miss her “I love you” every day and every night. I miss saying “I love you” to her every day and every night. I miss the smell of her hair. I miss that she was proud of me and the things I accomplished. I miss her telling me every day that I looked great.

I miss you, Abby.

Someone told me once that if I never took another picture in my life, this was enough. I have to say I love this image every time I see it: my wife Abby walking through the trees at sunset on a late-spring evening, her Chihuahua in her arms and another curious dog at her heels.
Someone told me once that if I never took another picture in my life, this was enough. I have to say I love this image every time I see it: my wife Abby walking through the trees at sunset on a late-spring evening, her Chihuahua in her arms and another curious dog at her heels.

These Aren’t My Memories

In 1998, just before switching to smaller notebooks, I wrote in my margins all the time. I love this style.
In 1998, just before switching to smaller notebooks, I wrote in my margins all the time. I love this style.

I was digging through a journal recently, and if I am completely honest, it was to find out when I had sex with someone that year. I didn’t find that, but I came across some extraordinary notes.

May 11, 1998…

“I’m tied of ice chest boyfriends.” ~Lisa, who was hitting on me at the time.

The most suffocating fantasy of all: the white picket fence.

The biggest imagination gap: self image. Look at yourself!

May 12, 1998…

What makes greatness? Only the struggle of the human spirit against nature, against each other, against ourselves, can make us great. Let greatness come about on its own. Yet I yearn to capture it!

May 18, 1998…

I must remember to keep expanding. My diet can always be better. I can always take better pictures. My words can always say more. I can always fly better. I can make more friends. I can forgive you.

Where are you tonight? … not in my arms.

May 19, 1998…

(In the margin) All this waits inside me. Some day we will take hold of each other and this will all come pouring out.

Does she have any idea of the depth and complexity that resides behind these oddly innocent blue eyes?

I am emptied by my honesty.

Decoy wine and decoy not wine? I see what you did there.
Decoy wine and decoy not wine? I see what you did there.

Alarming similarities between Anaîs Nin and me:

“I am unable to move from journal to fiction,” and, “I copy the pithiest aphorisms into the diary.”

June 5, 1998…

Her shallow indifference to my life was never enough to separate my quixotic fantasies from her real self.

Last night was a parade of stereotyping and sexism. Donna was our master of ceremonies.

I don’t despise who you are. I despise who you think you are.

“That was very sexy.” ~woman who watched me lick the salt off a margarita glass.

Your lies are of no interest to me, even if they are just lies to yourself.

June 10, 1998…

Mary drew the dull-orange rag from the pocket of her filthy blue overalls to wipe the mist of sweat from her forehead. The rag was dirty from engine grease, and made a black steak across her brow. Her face had been pale years ago, framed by almost-black shoulder-length hair, but the sun and age and violent unhappiness had all taken their toll, mixing her coloring to a greyish tan, peppered by by grey hair pulled back onto a pony tail.

Who is she? What does she fear?

Last night I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep, so I sat in my camp chair on the deck for a while. It was cool and breezy and amazing.
Last night I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I sat in my camp chair on the deck for a while. It was cool and breezy and amazing.

How Many Life Lessons by 60?

Eye-catching wisdom?
Eye-catching wisdom?

I’ve been cooking on this item for six months, hoping to get “60 life lessons I learned by the age of 60,” but I guess I haven’t learned that much, because I topped out at 50.

  • Every day is the best, because it contains all your great days within it.
  • Every day is the right day.
  • Looking bad in the eyes of strangers doesn’t matter, and I don’t really look bad in the eyes of my friends.
  • Healthy anger is constructive, but it can turn on you.
  • Resentment only hurts you.
  • If you have nothing to say, don’t say anything.
  • Beans are the best. They are good at every point in their chain of existence; they are good for the environment, they are good for your body, and they are good for the soul.
  • No one is inherently evil, no matter how awful they seem. No one is irredeemable.
  • “Evil” isn’t a thing, it’s a perception. It is WAY too easy to call something evil, like cancer or Nazis, but those examples and a million more are just a point in the evolution of the universe.
  • It’s too easy to misunderstand the world because we mess up the words that go with it. “Mexican” isn’t racist, for example, because Mexico isn’t a race, it’s a nation, and “Mexican” is a nationality.
Is it art just because it's not very clear?
Is it art just because it’s not very clear?
  • You can’t defeat something by hating it. It will just hate you back. Try understanding it.
  • If your friends tell you during your crisis that, “If you need anything, anything at all, just let me know,” it means that they don’t understand what they are promising.
  • Saying “you are in my thoughts and prayers” is seldom even the case. Saying that is a fashion statement, not a real expression of empathy.
  • “True friends hold you accountable for your actions.” I held someone accountable once, and at first it seemed like the destruction of the friendship, but not long after that, she told me I was right, and thanked me for calling her out.
  • Silence does not imply or infer guilt or siding with oppression, because most conversations deserve thought and reason, not impulsiveness. I do NOT make exceptions to this idea because of the urgency of current issues.
  • Did I block you? Boo hoo. I blocked you because you suck.
  • Entertainment is pleasure, not art.
  • War will always be with us, and “We’re not here to do the right thing. We’re here to follow f*cking orders!”
Know who and what to love.
Know who and what to love.
  • Violence sometimes seems like a very clear answer until you imagine that violence wielded against your loved ones or children.
  • There have been many instances in which a group will be accused, and held liable, for how they are perceived, not how they are. In that moment, it is your responsibility to stand against that.
  • Your responsibility to be ready for the fight never ends.
  • Marriage is as good as you make it. We made ours, and rebuilt it every day, and it was great.
  • The absolute best move when someone does something dangerous, stupid, or annoying is to be nice to them.
  • Hold the door for people. Thank people when they hold the door for you.
  • Expressing anger and hopelessness about humanity does nothing to improve it. Express hope, and ideas to make it better.
  • Tracers point both ways.
  • “IF” is the word in the middle of life.
  • Our possessions own us, not the other way around.
  • If what you are doing isn’t fun, you should be doing something else.
  • Procrastination, no matter how much you claim you enjoy it, makes the task more difficult in the end. Thus…
  • Just do it.
  • Make that dream into a reality. Whether it is “Doctor” in front of your name or bicycling across Europe, no one is going to hand you these things.
  • Your insecurities are lying to you about vulnerability. Being vulnerable can bring your heart and mind to new levels.
  • Get up and move. Walking anywhere, anytime, is better for you than sitting.
  • Listen to your wanderlust.
  • He/she is just one person. There are 8 billion more.
  • You decide what is true and meaningful. Don’t bet bullied into someone else’s ideas about the true nature of it all.
  • Touch heals, which is why broken people don’t touch you them touch you them.
  • Hard work at every level is honorable.

It will take you where you're going, whether you're going there or not.

    It will take you where you’re going, whether you’re going there or not.
  • If you did everything you dream about doing and wish you would do, you’d never be bored again.
  • Creativity in any form is the high point of human behavior.
  • Words and how you use them make a difference. Well-crafted words and sentences command respect, and poor language damages your image and credibility.
  • Manners matter, especially in the 21st century full of incivility.
  • Standing up for what you think is right can be an asset, but be sure your really are right.
  • It’s so hard to be honest, especially when many around you are in love with your own dishonesty.
  • Try actually listening, instead of just waiting for your turn to talk.
  • No one ever said, “That $29,000 helicopter ride was totally worth eating all those stale Burger King french fries.”
  • Nobody ever said (or will say), “I sure am glad we put all those oil wells in the Grand Canyon.”
  • Make your bed, hang up your coat, contain and eliminate the clutter.
  • Know what among your possessions is really valuable, and what is really just garbage, and act accordingly.
  • Dress up; I mean professional attire. If I were a boss and you came to me for an interview in shorts and a t-shirt, I won’t look twice at your resumé.
Washing your hands is pretty basic, but many people don't.
Washing your hands is pretty basic, but many people don’t.

All About Rotary

Today was the swearing-in of officers and directors, so we all posed at the front of the room. That's me in the back on the left, wearing the Rotary necktie Christine Pappas and Shirley Mixon brought back for me from their recent visit to Australia.
Today was the swearing-in of officers and directors, so we all posed at the front of the room. That’s me in the back on the left, wearing the Rotary necktie Christine Pappas and Shirley Mixon brought back for me from their recent visit to Australia.

As of today, I am your 2023-2024 Ada Sunrise Rotary President.

It honors and amazes me that I was elected to do this, since in some ways, I don’t really see myself as an adult, and never have. I know I do an adult job, was a good adult husband, and I behave as an adult in the community. But me as a civic leader? Wow.

Robert Greenstreet reads from the Constitution of Rotary International during an Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center. Robert was the Rotarian who first invited me to join three years ago.
Robert Greenstreet reads from the Constitution of Rotary International during an Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center. Robert was the Rotarian who first invited me to join three years ago.

Rotary International is what’s known as a “service organization,” meaning we exist to provide enrichment to our community. The motto of Rotary is “Service Above Self.”

My fellow Rotarians and I usually meet at the Aldridge Hotel in downtown Ada, but Friday we were at Pontotoc Technology Center due to the Aldridge being closed this week.

Dr. Leah Dudley discusses the upcoming Fireball Classic event during our Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center.
Dr. Leah Dudley discusses the upcoming Fireball Classic event during our Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center.

Ada has two Rotary Clubs, Ada Sunrise, and Ada Rotary, and either of them merit a look if you are interested in joining. I have friends in both clubs, and they are both full of good people who welcome me.

Suzanne McFarlane is a fixture in Ada, pictured Friday at our Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting at Pontotoc Technology Center. For decades Suzanne has been at the center of the Back to School Basics program.
Suzanne McFarlane is a fixture in Ada, pictured Friday at our Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting at Pontotoc Technology Center. For decades Suzanne has been at the center of the Back to School Basics program.

So what do I want to do as Rotary President, and how would I like to lead? I would like to have more guest speakers on topics like health, fitness, the environment, diet and exercise. I would also love to bring in more guest speakers in the creative realms like artists, poets, authors and musicians.

Dr. Christine Pappas flashes her inextinguishable smile during a conversation at our Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center. Christine and I have been friends for a long time, but being in Rotary together has made us even better friends. I'm always glad when she's around.
Dr. Christine Pappas flashes her inextinguishable smile during a conversation at our Ada Sunrise Rotary meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center. Christine and I have been friends for a long time, but being in Rotary together has made us even better friends. I’m always glad when she’s around.

I am a champion for issues like donating blood, and even at today’s meeting, I encouraged us all to donate.

Of course, the bottom line of leadership is to lead through example, so I hope to work as hard as anyone in our Rotary Club, and, by extension, have as much fun doing it as anyone in the club.

Outgoing President Dr. Ashley Durham presents Dwight O'Dell with the Ada Sunrise Rotary's Rotarian of the Year Award at our meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center. We chose Dwight unanimously; he is the guy we lean on when we want to get something done, and he always comes through.
Outgoing President Dr. Ashley Durham presents Dwight O’Dell with the Ada Sunrise Rotary’s Rotarian of the Year Award at our meeting Friday at Pontotoc Technology Center. We chose Dwight unanimously; he is the guy we lean on when we want to get something done, and he always comes through.

So if you have ever been interested in joining a civic club and Rotary looks like a good fit to you, email me, or just come by one of our meetings on a Friday at 6:45 a.m. at the Aldridge and find me, and I’ll introduce you. We would love to see you!

This year's Fireball Classic medallion is impressive. The event is slated for July 4 in Wintersmith Park in Ada.
This year’s Fireball Classic medallion is impressive. The event is slated for July 4 in Wintersmith Park in Ada.

Our DNA in the Dust

It is with a sense of amazement that I admit I am about to turn 60. That means that I moved into the Adams Center Dormitory on the campus of the University of Oklahoma 42 years ago.

Adams Center, the dormitory where I lived from the fall of 1981 to the fall of 1983, sits as a pile of rubble. Photo Courtesy of Carey Johnson.
Adams Center, the dormitory where I lived from the fall of 1981 to the fall of 1983, sits as a pile of rubble. Photo Courtesy of Carey Johnson.

42 years is something to ponder. The world has changed so much in that time, as have I. That’s the reason I think it’s a mistake to do anything permanent, like get a tattoo or have a baby, when you’re 18. What on earth was I into when I was 18? Hi-fi stereo? Camaro vs Trans-Am vs Z280? Melissa?

Wait, wait, wait. Before you go off on me for advising you when to have children, yes, I know tons of happy people who had children at a young age, including my late wife Abby, whose daughter was born when Abby was just 19.

But with health care improvements and increasing lifespans, I happen to think it’s a smart move to wait until you settle into adulthood before you take on parenthood. According to healthline.com, for example, “Experts say the best time to get pregnant is between your late 20s and early 30s. This age range is associated with the best outcomes for both you and your baby. One study pinpointed the ideal age to give birth to a first child as 30.5.”

But back to my younger days: the two things that remain in my life that I loved in 1981 are writing and photography.

I thought of all this because one of my college roommates, Carey Johnson, who at that time we knew as “Chip,” sent me a couple of photographs of the dormitory where we lived, Adams Center, and the strip mall across the street from it, Stubbeman Village, being demolished.

Adams Center was a complex of four red brick towers that, along with Walker Tower, dominated the skyline of the south part of the OU campus. Stubbeman Village was right across the street to the west.

Help me remember, Norman people: Stubbeman Village had two restaurants:  Mr. Bills and Pinocchio’s, the Half Acre Food Store, a video game arcade, and a movie theater, where my friends dragged me to see the terrible animated sci-fi fantasy Heavy Metal. Later that same year, my first girlfriend Tina took me there to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. What else was in Stubbeman Village?

I was doing a lot of changing and growing, and screwing up, in those days, and while some of the friendships I forged remain to this day, others I carelessly squandered in my arrogance. I was moody and mopey and hard to get along with (please don’t mentally say “and still are”), and I took college much less seriously than I should have, so I didn’t really get enough out of it.

One thing I did manage to create and nurture in college was my love of writing and photography, which have become some of my strengths as the years have passed. During my time in college, I remember that I couldn’t wait to get out of journalism classes and go do some journalism.

But now, the buildings where our young lives were lived, fun was had, and mistakes were made, are dust. I like to think that some small of us, maybe just traces of our DNA, remain in that dust.

Stubbeman Village lies in ruins next to the rubble of the Adams Center Dormitory at OU. Photo Courtesy of Carey Johnson.
Stubbeman Village lies in ruins next to the rubble of the Adams Center Dormitory at OU. Photo Courtesy of Carey Johnson.

Bookstore Days

I recently came across a YouTube video about the demise of Borders Books, and it sent me down memory lane about my bookstore days in the 1990s.

I photographed one of my best friends, Jamie, at Hastings in the 1990s. We were all sorry to see the demise of Hastings.
I photographed one of my best friends, Jamie, at Hastings in the 1990s. We were all sorry to see the demise of Hastings.

My friends in Norman, Oklahoma, and I would often meet for lunch on Sunday, then pick something to do in the afternoon. Much of the time, we would make a grand tour of the bookstores in Norman: Hastings, Borders, Barnes and Noble, and, in the mall (remember the mall?), Waldenbooks.

We browsed for hours, almost like in a library, though we almost always bought something.

I don’t know if it sounds bombastic or pretentious, but my first stop was usually the philosophy section. I was absolutely entranced by the idea of reading the world views of brilliant minds, both contemporary and historical.

Once in a while a couple of my Norman friends and I would drive up to Full Circle Books in northwest Oklahoma City, often paired with a stop at Akins Natural Foods nearby. Full Circle is just the right combination of coziness, impressive selection, and employees who love reading.

I don’t want to leave Ada out, of course. Many of us loved going to Hastings in North Hills Center. One of my closest friends, Jamie, worked at Ada’s Hastings for years, and I was always glad to see her there.

Ay, there’s the rub. As with everything else in the 21st century, reading has been transformed by our electronic devices, and not always for the best. I don’t want this to sound like a post mortem for reading. Some of the best people I know love to read, and would rather grab any book one their shelf than watch or listen to anything on their smartphones.

Hastings and Borders are gone, swallowed up by e-readers and bad business practices, but somehow Barnes and Noble is still around.

Not too make people know this yet, but I am finally getting my book together about my life with Abby, so a final question might be: would you read it in print, or would you rather see it on your smart device?

I happen to think that reading, especially reading actual printed books, is one of the best ways to enrich ourselves and those around us.
I happen to think that reading, especially reading actual printed books, is one of the best ways to enrich ourselves and those around us.

The Persistence of Memory

I haven’t had a huge amount of time off in the last few weeks. Today is Monday, and while I often have Monday off at my newspaper, that’s the day I teach photography, so it’s not really a day off. I write this on a Monday, and as it happens, this was the only day my newspaper could arrange for a gym for our all-star basketball game, so I’ll be covering that this evening.

I try to fit projects into the gaps and cracks, but often enough I get inspired by something else, from the weather to sunsets to brilliant conversations, and today was no exception: as I was cleaning out and archiving files in my iCloud drive, I came across this photo:

This is a Google Maps screenshot of my first girlfriend's house.
This is a Google Maps screenshot of my first girlfriend’s house.

I’d been looking around Google Maps for this and that, and why I thought to navigate to my first girlfriend, Tina’s, house, I don’t know.

Still, it brought back a spitload of memories, mostly positive ones, about my time with her and this house. She and I dated from the middle of my junior year in high school until the end of my first year in college.

Of course, the rabbit hole of Google Maps lead to the rabbit hole of my own journal.

I first went to Tina’s house in November 1979 because Tina stopped showing up in class, and I found out she’d been in a car crash. I helped pick glass out of her hair.

I can picture the inside of the house: the dark, seldom-used living room on the right side of the photo, the kitchen and dining room in the middle, and the den on the left side. Tina’s bedroom was at the back on the right, and it had bright red shag carpet, and she had a bright pink velour bed spread. A trio of shelves above it displayed her Smurf collection.

There were a lot of long goodbyes on that front porch, winter and summer.

Since I wrote in a journal, she gave me a copy of Jay’s Journal (since debunked as Mormon propaganda), which I read cover-to-cover in a couple of days.

We woke up February 9, 1980 to find a foot of snow on the ground. I walked to Tina’s (one mile in the snow) where her mom and siblings joined friends for pizza, then session after session of snowball fights.

“I never had so much fun in my whole life. We were rolling around on the grass when I saw an airplane fly over, so I yelled, ‘air raid,’ and we both ran and hid under George the bush,” I wrote later that year.

In October 1980, she had an operation on her elbow. My journal doesn’t say why, but her arm was in traction with a drain tube in it. I have no recollection of that at all.

On another occasion, we were horsing around and I dove out that front window, breaking one of the panes with my heels. I wasn’t hurt, and had to buy a new window pane, but I remember that moment perfectly clearly.

She considered Dan Fogelberg’s Longer as “our song,” though I did not. I took her to see Fogelberg in concert in Norman in early 1982.

She worked at a toy store in the mall.

She had an older brother and a younger sister. I don’t remember much about them. Her mom and dad were divorcing at the time, but she and I stayed in the margins of that as much as possible.

As far as I know, there are no photographs of us together.

Here is an image I made in September 1980 at my high school's "trike races" event. On the left is Jena Owrey, who was always sweet to me in school. I have lost track of her. In the back on the right is Jeff Glenn, my college roommate who killed himself a couple of years later.
Here is an image I made in September 1980 at my high school’s “trike races” event. On the left is Jena Owrey, who was always sweet to me in school. I have lost track of her. In the back on the right is Jeff Glenn, my college roommate who killed himself a couple of years later.

Till, We Meet Again, or Tine After Tine

The early peach tree varieties on the patch are blooming now. We almost always have a late freeze, but even if we do, we might have peaches, plums, cherries, all three, or none at all. Even when I don't get fruit, tending my orchard is very satisfying.
The early peach tree varieties on the patch are blooming now. We almost always have a late freeze, but even if we do, we might have peaches, plums, cherries, all three, or none at all. Even when I don’t get fruit, tending my orchard is very satisfying.

My first tiller was named Tilly, of course. It was the smallest gasoline-powered tiller available.

Abby decided the new (2020) one’s name is Tyler.

I tilled a nice patch for the garden yesterday, which was tougher than before since I did not get a garden in last year.

I expect to till it at least two more times before I get anything planted, especially to dislodge all that stubborn Bermuda grass.

Choppa choppa dig dig.
Choppa choppa dig dig.

Get Well Soon

My social media fans might have seen that I was sick the past week. I was pretty sick with what was probably influenza, or “flu.”

Someone asked me recently why I thought toilet paper got scarce at the start of the pandemic, and upon giving it more thought, I sort of settled on the idea that most people don’t really understand terms like influenza, flu, virus, and infection.

Anyway, I am almost entirely recovered from whatever it was, and returned to work this morning, just in time for the temperature to drop into single-digits. Zing!

You can picture me like this, your humble host, or you could picture me like I was earlier this week, which was pretty much the same, only not as dressed up, and with a fever.
You can picture me like this, your humble host, or you could picture me like I was earlier this week, which was pretty much the same, only not as dressed up, and with a fever.

Why Would This Be Fun?

Should I cut the red wire or the blue wire?
Should I cut the red wire or the blue wire?

I did some man-caving in the garage tonight. After walking the dogs and taking trash to the curb, I set out to see if an old 23-channel citizen’s band (CB) radio was working. When I discovered it was not, I decided, quite organically, to take it apart. Part of me says I was scavenging for parts, but the other part was just having fun learning about how radios were put together in the 1970s.

As an aside: one thing I explored on my recent drive to Kansas City for Thanksgiving: where is the CB radio scene these days? I deployed a magnetic-mount antenna connected to my Uniden Pro501HH. I didn’t really expect to hear anything, but was surprised that the chatter was almost continuous through my whole drive, and I discovered that CB radio is mostly populated by noisy, inarticulate, lonely people who are on the verge of mental illness. How much of this parallels the real world and/or the comments section of pretty much any hot internet topic I don’t know, but it was unsettling to say the least.

Most two-way radios, including CB radios, can be modified or programmed to transmit a “key up” tone, which is sent at the beginning of a transmission. At the beginning of this clip, you can hear the “key up” tone is a screaming child…

 

But back to tonight: one oddly satisfying thing in my disassembly is trying to unscrew stubborn screws. When they don’t budge, I lean into the handle of the screwdriver, push and turn. When I finally get that little “pop,” as the screw unseats, it’s like a tiny victory.

In the end, I have little to show for my effort except the fun of piddling and a pile of parts.

This is the fruit of my labor: a proud pile of junk.
This is the fruit of my labor: a proud pile of junk.

Thanksgiving 2022

My cousin Lori Wade and her husband Bill Wade invited my sister Nicole Hammill, her husband Tracey Hammill, and me to join them for Thanksgiving at Lori’s home in rural Platt City, Missouri. We were joined by Lori’s father Wes on Thanksgiving Day.

My cousin Lori, my sisters Nicole, and I pose for a photo in Lori's living room.
My cousin Lori, my sisters Nicole, and I pose for a photo in Lori’s living room.

The last time we joined Lori and her husband was when Abby and I drove there in 2010.

Lori, Nicole and Tracey take their turn in front of my camera.
Lori, Nicole and Tracey take their turn in front of my camera.

I made the six-hour drive on Wednesday before the holiday, with my Chihuahua, Summer, in the back seat.

Summer was nervous and sat in my lap early in the trip, but settled into the back seat for most of the drive to and from the Kansas City area.
Summer was nervous and sat in my lap early in the trip, but settled into the back seat for most of the drive to and from the Kansas City area.

I asked Bill, an avid hunter and gun enthusiast, if he owned an AR-15, and he did, so we took it down to his range and did some target practice, which was very fun.

Tracey and Bill's brother Kyle reload a magazine for Bill's AR-15. The weapon is chambered in .224 Valkyrie.
Tracey and Bill’s brother Kyle reload a magazine for Bill’s AR-15. The weapon is chambered in .224 Valkyrie.

At my urging, Lori brought out a box containing her father Wes’ Canon FTb, a popular single-lens-reflex (SLR) camera from the 1970s. I have a very clear memory of seeing Wes about to photograph the Thanksgiving table at Grandma Barron’s house in Independence, Missouri when I was in junior high, and thinking it was the coolest thing I’d even seen. I asked him if I could look through the viewfinder, which he let me, and I was smitten with the idea of one day owning such a camera.

This is my Uncle Wes' Canon FTb camera from the early 1970s. Big, heavy, and solid, it was made at a time when cameras were meant to last a lifetime.
This is my Uncle Wes’ Canon FTb camera from the early 1970s. Big, heavy, and solid, it was made at a time when cameras were meant to last a lifetime.

I gave the camera a quick look, and it appeared to be in pristine condition, and everything still worked fine.

Your host holds his uncle's Canon FTb. Wes is still alive, and joined us for Thanksgiving dinner, but he hasn't made any photos with this camera in at least a decade.
Your host holds his uncle’s Canon FTb. Wes is still alive, and joined us for Thanksgiving dinner, but he hasn’t made any photos with this camera in at least a decade.

Lori seemed genuinely happy to be our host. She looked great and was so glad to see us. She cooked for us, and it was all delicious.

Between eating, conversation, and taking care of five dogs (Lori and Bill’s two Newfoundlands Sailor and Scarlet and their old retriever Riley, Tracy and Nicole’s Labrador retriever Dauphine, and Summer the Chihuahua), none of us every turned on a television, and only sparingly looked at our smartphones.

One rare occasion for using my smartphone was to show a photo of my wife Abby, Nicole and Lori in the same spot 12 years ago.
One rare occasion for using my smartphone was to show a photo of my wife Abby, Nicole and Lori in the same spot 12 years ago.
Lori and Nicole proudly pose in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.
Lori and Nicole proudly pose in the kitchen on Thanksgiving Day.
Uncle Wes and Tracey, Nicole's husband, sit for a few minutes with Summer, my Chihuahua. I was proud that this little dog got along with all the bigger dogs so well.
Uncle Wes and Tracey, Nicole’s husband, sit for a few minutes with Summer, my Chihuahua. I was proud that this little dog got along with all the bigger dogs so well.
Nicole and Tracey show off their retriever Dauphine's manners for Uncle Wes.
Nicole and Tracey show off their retriever Dauphine’s manners for Uncle Wes.

Lori seemed to have a great time being the gracious hostess, and put very amazing meals in front of us the whole time.

A steaming turkey sits on a cutting board.
A steaming turkey sits on a cutting board.
Bill places the turkey on the table.
Bill places the turkey on the table.
You either love Brussels sprouts or you don't. We all do, especially roasted like this.
You either love Brussels sprouts or you don’t. We all do, especially roasted like this.
Our uncle Wes is seated. Behind him are Kyle Wade and Bill Wade, our cousin Lori, my sister Nicole, and her husband Tracey.
Our uncle Wes is seated. Behind him are Kyle Wade and Bill Wade, our cousin Lori, my sister Nicole, and her husband Tracey.

I Don’t Need Surgery

I thought for a bit about how to illustrate this entry, but as I was doing it, I also needed to illustrate my column for tomorrow about COVID-19 vaccination, and had some interesting outtakes, including these two tiny water droplets clinging to the tips of two injection needles.
I thought for a bit about how to illustrate this entry, but as I was doing it, I also needed to illustrate my column for tomorrow about COVID-19 vaccination, and had some interesting outtakes, including these two tiny water droplets clinging to the tips of two injection needles.

Why is not needing surgery news? In succinct terms, I was grimly beginning to think that my achy breaky left shoulder was going to need work.

I already had a minor piece of surgery this summer, and while it was easy and painless, part of me says that I don’t want to be the guy whose health falls to pieces rapidly after his wife dies.

As a matter of fact, I have no recollection of injuring it, but am very sure it started bothering me on the very day Abby died.

Today I saw the same shoulder guy that looked after Abby’s shoulder (the left one, of course), and after an examination and a couple of radiographs (okay, fine, x-rays, which they actually aren’t), he told me I probably did not have a torn labrum like my sister did last year, but some osteoarthritis in the joint, and inflammation in the  surrounding tissue. He prescribed a course of oral steroids, and physical therapy.

Despite this and the fact that I am less than a year away from turning 60, I feel I am in top physical shape.

After my needles illustration was done, I fiddled around a little with water droplets from the needles. If you've ever had an influenza or COVID-19 vaccination, or injected yourself with insulin, this is the size of needle they use.
After my needles illustration was done, I fiddled around a little with water droplets from the needles. If you’ve ever had an influenza or COVID-19 vaccination, or injected yourself with insulin, this is the size of needle they use.

Green Day

Wake me up when September ends

An unexpected rain yesterday dropped about three quarters of an inch on us. This is a morning image of the crepe myrtle in the front yard.
An unexpected rain yesterday dropped about three quarters of an inch on us. This is a morning image of the crepe myrtle in the front yard.
  • After a summer that got browner and hotter from the end of June through most of August, our patch of green got some unexpected – and sometimes unforecast – rain.
  • The Shoffner family reunion was this weekend, and I went Saturday.
The Shoffner family trades stories and secrets Saturday afternoon in Sterling, Oklahoma.
The Shoffner family trades stories and secrets Saturday afternoon in Sterling, Oklahoma.
On the way home from the reunion Saturday, I stopped to photograph this gorgeous Catholic Church in Sterling, Oklahoma.
On the way home from the reunion Saturday, I stopped to photograph this gorgeous Catholic Church in Sterling, Oklahoma.
  • Our hosts Troy and Rachel had portobello mushrooms on hand to make as veggie patties, but I had a longish drive home so I didn’t stay for dinner, so they sent them with me, which I made for my last two meals, and which were delicious.
Portobello mushroom caps sizzle as I sauté them for lunch today.
Portobello mushroom caps sizzle as I sauté them for lunch today.
  • I washed my wallet. It was probably time to replace it, but I was super annoyed with myself for throwing those jeans in the washer without checking the pockets first.
After washing my wallet, I decided to replace it, the first time in maybe 15 years.
After washing my wallet, I decided to replace it, the first time in maybe 15 years.
  • I traded a pistol I didn’t like for one I think I will like, the Ruger LCP-II in .22lr. It didn’t do well the first time out; I think I have a bad magazine, since rounds kind of pop up and strike above the feed ramp and won’t feed. I ordered two more magazines, so we’ll see.
I heard good things about the Ruger LCP II in .22lr. Except for a flawed magazine creating a couple of issues, it seems like it will be a very fun pistol to shoot.
I heard good things about the Ruger LCP II in .22lr. Except for a flawed magazine creating a couple of issues, it seems like it will be a very fun pistol to shoot.
  • I just finished teaching a really fun photography class. We made lots of great photos and had tons of “aha” moments.
Classmates Stephanie and Cara share images as we shoot at the Pontotoc Technology Center two Mondays ago. I think I gave them the tools they need to be better photographers, and we all had a great time.
Classmates Stephanie and Cara share images as we shoot at the Pontotoc Technology Center two Mondays ago. I think I gave them the tools they need to be better photographers, and we all had a great time.
  • The fall sports season has started, and it’s kept me busy, including a super-fun evening covering the Ada Cougars at Ardmore Friday. The drive down there was brimming with rainbows, which I chased a bit.
I took several stabs at photographing this rainbow Friday night on my way to Ardmore to cover a football game. This is nice, but I feel like I should finesse it more. I'll work on it.
I took several stabs at photographing this rainbow Friday night on my way to Ardmore to cover a football game. This is nice, but I feel like I should finesse it more. I’ll work on it.
It has become a bit of a tradition to have my picture made with my good friend and partner in crime Courtney Morehead.
It has become a bit of a tradition to have my picture made with my good friend and partner in crime Courtney Morehead.

Today is also the 44th anniversary of my journal.

My students and I had beautiful light for classes in August.
My students and I had beautiful light for classes in August.

Returned to the Fold

Decades ago I was a member of the Ada Amateur Radio Club, listed as Ada ARC. I let my membership lapse about 20 years ago during a time when the club fell into neglect.

This is a snapshot of me at a meeting of the Ada Amateur Radio Club. In my right hand is my first dual-band handheld transceiver, the Kenwood TH-79A, with a long BNC-whip antenna a fellow member was letting me try. The phone on my belt was my first cell phone, which I got in January 1997, and which only lasted a couple of years, so this photo was from that era.
This is a snapshot of me at a meeting of the Ada Amateur Radio Club. In my right hand is my first dual-band handheld transceiver, the Kenwood TH-79A, with a long BNC-whip antenna a fellow member was letting me try. The phone on my belt was my first cell phone, which I got in January 1997, and which only lasted a couple of years, so this photo was from that era.

Yesterday I was listening to a local amateur radio repeater, one I use and monitor all the time, and heard several “hams” mention that their meeting would take place at 6:30 at the college, and that the parking lot construction was finished, so parking wouldn’t be a problem.

“I should go to that meeting,” I thought to myself, “and join the club.”

Ada ARC has long since been replaced by the Pontotoc County Amateur Radio Association (PCARA), and though I have been a licensed amateur radio operator since 1996 (callsign KC5TFZ), I have never been a PCARA member, so I applied and was accepted last night.

I bought the Icom 2350H in the late 1990s when it was discontinued, and have found it to be one of the most robust and reliable electronic devices I have ever owned.
I bought the Icom 2350H in the late 1990s when it was discontinued, and have found it to be one of the most robust and reliable electronic devices I have ever owned.

In the same way that photographers like to ask you about your cameras, and shooters like to ask about your guns, ham radio operators like to ask about your radios, which, last night, they did. I told them that I have two dual band Icom radios in my Nissan Juke. The 2820H below the climate/audio panel is set up as a scanner on the left side, and my primary transceiver on the right side, while the 2350 in the center console is set up like a VHF scanner on the left, and a UHF scanner on the right, programmed to monitor police, fire, EMS and storm spotters around the area. The Icom IC-V8000 is a high-power 2-meter transceiver in my Nissan Frontier 4×4.

They all informed me I should have bigger antennas, but my current setup is about right-sized, since they all seem to have solid signals while being short enough they don’t bang on the garage door frame when I pull into the garage.

At the end of the meeting, I invited anyone who was interested to join me as my guest Friday morning at 6:45 at the Aldridge for Ada Sunrise Rotary. Some of them seemed surprised to learn that there is a 6:45 in the morning.

My Icom 2820H is shown configured for split uses. The left side of the radio is set up to scan my most important public safety frequencies, and the right side of the radio is set up to operate in the amateur band.
My Icom 2820H is shown configured for split uses. The left side of the radio is set up to scan my most important public safety frequencies, and the right side of the radio is set up to operate in the amateur band.

A Visit from a Red-Headed Stranger

I had a very welcome visit today from Abby’s daughter Chele, her husband Tom, their son Paul, and their gorgeous golden retriever Samson. They grabbed a couple of pizzas on the way in, and we had a great time.

One of the many gifts Abby gave me in our years of marriage is love of dogs, and I was able to meet Samson, Abby's "grand dog", today.
One of the many gifts Abby gave me in our years of marriage is love of dogs, and I was able to meet Samson, Abby’s “grand dog”, today.

After Abby died in March, Chele and I spent a week kick-starting the big clean-out, the process of changing our home into my home. We set aside several plastic bins of items that Chele considered sentimental or valuable to her, with the intention of storing them here until Chele and her family moved to the Dallas area from Baltimore, which they did a month ago.

In the intervening months, however, I went through many more items, especially family documents and photographs, and loaded more plastic bins.

Anyone who knows Chele knows that she is the person you want on point on Thanksgiving day when it’s time to put away the leftovers. No one is better at “fridge Tetris” than she is.

Despite this fact, we only got a fraction of the bins and boxes loaded into their truck.

I anticipate traveling their direction before too much longer, though, with my truck loaded with more bins and boxes.

One thing I’d really like to do on my next trip to the Dallas area is visit Founder’s Plaza, DFW airport’s hot spot for airline spotting, which is interesting to me both as a pilot and as a photographer.

It was great seeing Chele and her family again, and I’m glad I finally got to meet their wonderful dog Samson. Samson got along with my dogs, and we all had a great time.

Tom, Chele and Paul pose in the front yard today with their gorgeous dog Samson. Not everyone likes or even gets along with their in-laws and out-laws, but Abby's family and I have always been close.
Tom, Chele and Paul pose in the front yard today with their gorgeous dog Samson. Not everyone likes or even gets along with their in-laws and out-laws, but Abby’s family and I have always been close.

Bringing Dead Tech Back to Life

This is an array of some of the old garage sale/thrift store/Ebay handheld scanners I have around the house. About half of them work, but getting the other ones to work is an intriguing rainy-day project idea.
This is an array of some of the old garage sale/thrift store/Ebay handheld scanners I have around the house. About half of them work, but getting the other ones to work is an intriguing rainy-day project idea.

In a household clean-out that seems never-ending, today I reached down under a 14-hole cubby cabinet in the sewing room to find a plastic cube bin that appeared to contain something technological. After carefully vacuuming the spiders and other sketchy-looking stuff from it, I started pulling things out. Included were…

  1. A Sony FM/casette Walkman
  2. A Coby MP3 player
  3. Three unused wired earbuds
  4. Two well-used wired earbuds with earhooks
This is the Sony cassette Walkman at pretty much the pinnacle of development. I think it's a very neat-looking piece of hardware.
This is the Sony cassette Walkman at pretty much the pinnacle of development. I think it’s a very neat-looking piece of hardware.

I don’t know anything about the cassette player, except that it’s nice-looking, like a stylish piece of tech from the 1990s near the peak of its evolution. But I do recall the Coby MP3 player, which Abby used for years at work, mostly to listen to audio books while she worked. Before that, she used various CD MP3 players, and after that, until she retired, she used her smartphones.

I turned on the Coby, and it seems to be working fine. It plugs directly into USB, so I put it in my laptop and saw it contained one of the books Abby was hearing right around the time she retired.

When you turn off the Coby MP3 player, it’s display says, “Bye Bye!!

This Coby MP3 player of maybe 2005 vintage still works just fine, and will hold 1GB of music. I also found its teensie plug-in boombox, which only needed a new AA battery.
This Coby MP3 player of maybe 2005 vintage still works just fine, and will hold 1GB of music. I also found its teensie plug-in boombox, which only needed a new AA battery.

Collecting and playing with aging technology is one of my interests, though I don’t exactly know why. It’s very fun for me, but to what end? Part of me thinks it has to do with the galling idea that capitalism/mercantilism is selling us the same thing over and over, with the entirely hollow and somewhat immoral idea of taking our money.

You own a VHS video cassette of Gone with the Wind. Then you own the DVD of Gone with the Wind. Then you own the Blu-Ray of Gone with the Wind. Then you own the rights to stream Gone with the Wind. You have basically bought the same product four times.

Another area of old tech I think is fun to collect is old police scanners, shortwave receivers, and amateur radio transceivers. Some of them work, and some of them don’t, and some of them are becoming less useful as communications becomes more integrated with digital communications and  the internet. But there are still some neat radios out there to collect, try to make work, and even use while I still can. And one of the best things about that is that they cost nothing: you can sometimes get this stuff for $5 at a yard sale.

In their heyday, these two scanners, the Radio Shack Pro-2004 (bottom) and the Radio Shack Pro-2006 (top) were the best you could buy, costing nearly $1000 new. I was able to fix the 2006, but the internet informs me that the 2004 is a hopeless case due to bad soldering during its production run. Too bad I wasted $15 on it on Ebay.
In their heyday, these two scanners, the Radio Shack Pro-2004 (bottom) and the Radio Shack Pro-2006 (top) were the best you could buy, costing nearly $1000 new. I was able to fix the 2006, but the internet informs me that the 2004 is a hopeless case due to bad soldering during its production run. Too bad I wasted $15 on it on Ebay.

Surgery Virgin

Trigger warning: stop now if pictures of stitches or scars bother you.

Updated June 28 to include a photo of the scar with the sutures removed.

I haven’t had any surgery of any kind since I was 17, when I had my upper third molars (“wisdom teeth,” whatever) removed. Before that you have to go back to 1968, when I had my tonsils out when I was just five.

Yesterday I had a teensy basil cell carcinoma on the left side of my neck excised. Basil cell is the most common cancer in the world, and one not likely to metastasize, but there was no real reason to ignore it, so I had it taken off.

I thought it was teensy, about the size of a dime, but of course, there are more cells than you can really see on the surface, so a skilled dermatologist will dig around and get it all, so I was a little taken aback when I removed the bandage this morning to see two inches of incision and 14 stitches, more than I’ve ever had anywhere (the previous record being five stitches in my chin after a bike crash when I was 11.)

By the time my wife was my age, she’d had many of the standard removables removed: hysterectomy, thyroidectomy, cholecystectomy, and full mouth dental extraction and dental implants. She still had her appendix, both lungs and kidneys, and her scruples. A friend of mine, Wayne, had a kidney and pancreas transplant this spring, so wow, I really am a surgery virgin, and would like to keep it that way.

It doesn’t really hurt, but it does itch a bit, and I wore a bandage on it at work to spare my coworkers and the public from thinking I was among the undead, and as a result of that bandage tugging at me oddly, I put tension into my shoulders and back, so that hurts a bit.

This is a very minor surgery, but it's new to me.
This is a very minor surgery, but it’s new to me.
This is the scar the day I had the sutures removed.
This is the scar the day I had the sutures removed.

Vacuuming a Vacuum

For some time now I have noted that my vacuum cleaner, a wedding gift from Dorothy in 2004, wasn’t picking up things like yarn bits and threads like it should. I don’t know how long this has been going on, but a while.

Yesterday when I spilled a huge amount of dirt and dust from an area rug on the bare kitchen floor, I decided it would be easier to vacuum it up than to sweep it. When I ran the vacuum over it, though, it didn’t really do the job, so I upended the thing to find the beater bar wasn’t spinning.

I disassembled it to find that the belt was broken, and as it happened, I had an extra belt hanging on the handle.

While I had it open, I noted that it was super-filthy inside, so I got a smaller vacuum and vacuumed out the vacuum.

When I put it back together today with the belt in place, it was like a brand new machine. I vacuumed the living room until the canister got full, about a quarter of the way across the room.

I find this episode personally embarrassing, since I should have realized long ago – although I don’t know how long ago – that the belt was broken.

In the end, though, I’m glad I got it fixed, because I am getting rid of a huge amount of household filth.

I hate to think how long this deep filth has been lingering beneath me, but I am glad to finally be getting rid of it.
I hate to think how long this deep filth has been lingering beneath me, but I am glad to finally be getting rid of it.

“Dear Abby”

Abby walks down to meet the neighbors on beautiful summer evening. I love this image.
Abby walks down to meet the neighbors on beautiful summer evening. I love this image.

I had lunch in Ardmore yesterday with Abby’s daughter Chele and her husband Tom, who were in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to look for a house, as they are moving there from Baltimore in July. It was great seeing them, and we all hope their move puts them on the north side of the metro area so meeting for lunch regularly like this will be this easy.

Later, one of my longest-time friends Jamie and her husband Ian came by to get my six-burner propane grill, an item Abby was super-proud to have brought home to me, and one with which we made some great meals. But I don’t use it any more, and Jamie and Ian will, since they entertain all the time.

The six-burner propane grill sits in the driveway in April 2020.
The six-burner propane grill sits in the driveway in April 2020.

While they were here, we poked around in the garage for a while, where Jamie decided it was just too chaotic.

This was the scene earlier this week in my garage.
This was the scene earlier this week in my garage.

Jamie plopped down on the garage floor and started organizing.

It doesn't really show, but Jamie did tons of organizing, including freeing up shelf space to eventually hold stuff I want to keep. She even offered to help me host a garage sale.
It doesn’t really show, but Jamie did tons of organizing, including freeing up shelf space to eventually hold stuff I want to keep. She even offered to help me host a garage sale.

In the mean time, Ian got interested in a console radio/phonograph that Abby had purchased years ago as a piece of furniture, and was able to get it to come on and receive one very close radio station.

Ian was able to get the this pile of vacuum tubes and dust mites to tune in a radio station.
Ian was able to get the this pile of vacuum tubes and dust mites to tune in a radio station.

Last week in my cleaning efforts, I found a 1/4-size Moleskine notebook with journal entries by Abby from March 2004 until the day we got married in October 2004. The notebook itself was mostly empty, so I decided to use it to make notes about what our marriage was like in the form of letters to her … “Dear Abby.”

I was also aware that she’d written more journal entries than these. After Jamie and Ian left, I did some more cleaning, and found a ½-size hardback journal with entries in it starting on January 31, 2003…

“I’ve started dating Richard Barron. It is so great it’s scary.”

Yes, it was, Abby. Yes, it was.

As I was contemplating all this, the song My Tears Are Becoming a Sea, by M83, shuffled past, and it fit so well.

“I’m slowly drifting to you
The stars and the planets
Are calling me
A billion years away from you
I’m on my way.”

I miss her today.

Abby and I pose for a self portrait on the anniversary of our first date, January 17, 2004. It was on this occasion that we decided to get married, and it stands as our engagement day. "One year with Richard," she wrote. "I met Richard at his apartment. He had candles, wine, and a gift for me... great romantic evening."
Abby and I pose for a self portrait on the anniversary of our first date, January 17, 2004. It was on this occasion that we decided to get married, and it stands as our engagement day. “One year with Richard,” she wrote. “I met Richard at his apartment. He had candles, wine, and a gift for me… great romantic evening.”

Two Chances of a Lifetime

Now is the time for Team Blackout to start planning for two solar eclipse events.

An annular eclipse will pass across the United States October 14, 2023, and a total eclipse will pass across the United State on April 8, 2024 just two years from today.

This map shows the path of the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse.
This map shows the path of the October 14, 2023 annular eclipse.
This map shows the path of the April 8, 2024 total eclipse.
This map shows the path of the April 8, 2024 total eclipse.

I plan to be in the path of both of these events to photograph and enjoy them. Abby and I met with my sister Nicole and her husband for the Great American Eclipse of 2017 (link), and it was an amazing experience.

Now is your chance to plan a road trip! Who’s in?

The most unusual item Abby and I photographed in 2017 was the Great America Eclipse, which we saw with my sister and her husband in our mother's hometown of Park Hills, Missouri.
The most unusual item Abby and I photographed in 2017 was the Great America Eclipse, which we saw with my sister and her husband in our mother’s hometown of Park Hills, Missouri.

Why I Don’t Want to Be “That Guy”

A vial of cyanocobalamin, vitamin B12, a syringe of B12, and some B and C vitamin tablets sit on my bathroom counter tonight.
A vial of cyanocobalamin, vitamin B12, a syringe of B12, and some B and C vitamin tablets sit on my bathroom counter tonight.

Today would have been my wife Abby’s 72nd birthday. Since she died just ten days ago, I’ve had a ton of stuff to do, and another ton of stuff on my mind.

I shared my thoughts about her birthday on Facebook, saying, “I promise I won’t be that guy who gets all nostalgic with every holiday and anniversary, but this one snuck up on me…”

Almost everyone told me it was okay to “be that guy,” or be anyone I want, as if I was telling them I wouldn’t be boring them with endless moroseness or tedious old news, but the truth is I was saying it to myself.

I don’t want to be the guy who was crushed by grief over my wife’s death. I want to be the guy who gets up in the morning and sees the sun shining a little brighter because she was here with me for nearly two decades. I want to be the guy who smiles more and says hello more and does a better job because of the love Abby and I shared.

I am also hearing (and seeing via technology) a lot of people asking me if I am okay. Yes, I am okay. I am not numb or dead inside, and I have no sense of regret or unfinished business. It is true that my body is responding to this process, and I am feeling an uptick in the little things, like tendonitis in a few of my joints due to my job and my age, and I recognize that big emotional changes are indivorceable from physical changes. “The body knows.” I am responding as I always have, with heat, stretching and exercise, and Tylenol when my jaw clinching gives me a headache.

So, I am taking care of myself. I am busy and optimistic. I am eating and sleeping. I am talking when I need to talk. An aside to this is that tonight I decided to use Abby’s prescription injectable vitamin B12. (I got really good with needles in the 1990s when I was giving myself allergy shots.) I don’t think I am vitamin deficient in any way, and I believe that diet is always the best way to address potential nutrient deficiencies, but the B12 is already in the medicine cabinet, and it won’t hurt me to use it.

So let me leave you with this heartwarming story of love to the end: when Abby was in nursing care, I visited her every day. When she was well enough, I’d pile her into a wheelchair and we’d go for a stroll, sometimes with Summer the Chihuahua in her lap. Sometimes she would ask me for a Coke, a drink she associated with growing up. On one occasion, the vending machine was out of Coke, so I went to the corner store to get one, where I found a bottle of Starbucks’ frappuccino, which I often brought home to her, and bought it, too. When I rounded the corner coming into her room, her smile was irrepressible, and as she drank it, she looked so happy. “This is so good,” she told me. That was about a week before she died.

Sometimes all we need is a little something that helps us feel good.
Sometimes all we need is a little something that helps us feel good.

The Comfort of Chatter

Most of the people I’ve known over the years have had the habit of having a television on from the moment they get up or the moment they get home from work. My wife always does, but when asked why, she only ever said, “It’s background noise.”

I kind of piled an odd collection of old and new handheld radios together recently to remind me to charge all their batteries in advance of storm spotting season.
I kind of piled an odd collection of old and new handheld radios together recently to remind me to charge all their batteries in advance of storm spotting season.

I find the chatter of television utterly distracting and irritating. Never mind that the actual content is usually insulting to our intelligence, the side-chatter it produces when you are not watching it is almost unbearable.

One of the real evils of television is the way advertising it produced and presented to be louder and more attention-getting than content. In the broadcast world, this is equivalent to having a huge red banner flapping in the breeze above a car dealer’s lot, or a brightly-flashing sign by the highway at the casino.

The result, for me, is distraction driven close to madness. I hate that chatter.

This is the barely-working Realistic Pro-2020, a 20-channel analog scanner from the early 1980s, which I bought a couple of years ago on Ebay for about $10. I like old scanners.
This is the barely-working Realistic Pro-2020, a 20-channel analog scanner from the early 1980s, which I bought a couple of years ago on Ebay for about $10. I like old scanners.

I also know tons of people who keep broadcast radio on at all times in their cars, regardless of content, usually at levels too low to actually hear and enjoy the content, but too loud to converse over. I despise that as well.

But I’m not necessarily pure. There is one form of chatter that I enjoy and appreciate, though many, like my wife, hate it.

American 689, level at two five zero, light chop.

I’m 10-8, 10-19.

2224 is 1 and 2 to Mercy.

Engine 680 is on the scene. 501 is command.

KC5TFZ monitoring.

Even if none of this chatter yields a news story or other amazing tale, I still find myself digesting and processing all the things I hear on my boxes: crimes, flights, fires, cures, lives saved, persons jailed, information traded; people touched in one way or another.

I have storm-spotted, both as an emergency operations volunteer, and as an amateur radio operator. I have had many discussions with air traffic controllers about this altitude and that waypoint. So once in a while, if you are lucky, you might hear my voice in the chatter.

Though we have a P-25 compatible digital scanner at our newspaper, I am still able to monitor many important public safety communications using older analog radios.
Though we have a P-25 compatible digital scanner at our newspaper, I am still able to monitor many important public safety communications using older analog radios.

The Ring of Truth

I spent the evening with my wife Abby at Ballard Nursing Center watching Super Bowl LVI. She and I have shared every Super Bowl since we’ve known each other. This one wasn’t very good, and the pageantry surrounding it was even worse. We turned to conversation.

“I lost one of my travel rings Friday,” I told her. “It probably came off when I was covering basketball at the Ada Cougar Activity Center.”

“I used to find rings inside gloves,” she told me, noting that we both have slender hands, and when it’s cold, our fingers shrink a bit and tend to remain very slick. I told her that it was just a $10 ring, and that it was just an object.

I came back home and let the dogs in, then gathered all the trash to take to the curb. I donned a pair of my work gloves and … hm. What the? In the right glove was the ring I thought I had lost on Friday!

In the center is the $10 "travel ring" I though I lost this weekend, and the gold rings on either side are rings Abby thought she had lost, but which I found in the floorboard of our Nissan Frontier while I was looking for her lost purse, which turned out to be not lost at all.
In the center is the $10 “travel ring” I though I lost this weekend, and the gold rings on either side are rings Abby thought she had lost, but which I found in the floorboard of our Nissan Frontier while I was looking for her lost purse, which turned out to be not lost at all.

A COVID-19 Journal

This is my rapid COVID-19 test from the evening of Jan. 16, 2022, indicating I am positive for the virus.
This is my rapid COVID-19 test from the evening of Jan. 16, 2022, indicating I am positive for the virus.

Day 10, Monday, Jan. 24, 2022, final report: This is my last entry about this illness. Although I am still experiencing residual symptoms, especially nasal and chest congestion, I believe I am through it. It’s been days since I had any fever.

I had a worse case than many of those around me, and there is no telling why that might be the case. On the other hand, I never felt that my life was in danger, nor did I ever feel compelled to go to the emergency room.

My case is an excellent argument for the use of masks in public, since I was probably contagious for several days before I was aware I was ill, but I masked the entire time.

How does the vaccine fit into all this? I was vaccinated before the omicron variant appeared, and was probably protected from the previous variants.

Day 9, Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022: I managed to sleep until 10:30 this morning, all on the living room couch, which, for unknown reasons, seemed to accommodate me better than the bed right now.

No fever today, and I am eating, but I still have that nagging cough, and I still can barely speak.

For the first time all week it was nice out, so I walked the dogs, and that went fine. While I was out I saw Mike next door. I kept my distance. He told me he was about to take his daughter Jen to the emergency room in Shawnee because of “some kind of crud.”

When I am legitimately better, I am going to clean, clean, clean. The reason I can’t do it now is 1. Cleaning send  clouds of filth into the air and into my nose and lungs, and 2. The head-down posture required for things like scrubbing a sink causes a mucus shift in my chest and sinuses, which often triggers a coughing fit.

Day 8, Saturday, Jan. 22, 2022: I slept the whole night, only interrupted by a couple of coughing fits, after which I was able to go right back to sleep. I was also able to eat a real meal today. I weighed 150 pounds this morning, compared to 139 pounds two years ago when I had the flu. Directly comparing them isn’t very useful, but at least in terms of “how I felt,” I was legitimately sicker when I had the flu.

My cough is mostly productive, and my voice has returned about 5%.

I think today was a step in the right direction.

Day 7, Friday, Jan. 21, 2022: As the day turned to night yesterday, it seemed like my cough was getting more productive and, despite the 100-yard walk to the mailbox that made me a little woozy, I hoped to get to sleep earlier and try to make up for a very sleepless period.

By about 1:30 this morning, I started having very intense dreams about being congested. To my surprise, with no warning or even nausea, I found myself running to the bathroom to throw up, which I did three times, and I was such a mess. I also had to clean up the mess in the hall where I hadn’t been quite fast enough to make it to the bathroom. It’s not like me at all to have gastrointestinal symptoms. I guess this is another thing we are finding with this pandemic; it is a very complex and dangerous disease.

Day 6, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022: It was very hard to sleep last night, despite taking a bunch of Benadryl, which makes me drowsy. The trouble both nights was that if a lied down and actually went sleep, not long after that a hugely uncomfortable coughing fit hit me hard, over and over. I ended up kind of propping myself in the corner of the couch and dozing off. If I wasn’t in a hard sleep, I could feel the coughing attack coming on and could either chase it out of my chest with a big glass of water, or by coughing it up before it got too terrible. Either way, I was up and down in a half-sleep doing that about every 20 to 30 minutes all night.

Day 5 supplemental: At around 4 p.m. while trying to talk to the dogs, I discovered that I have lost my voice. I also discovered that my throat was getting sore, and the mucus was looser. I don’t know if that’s a stage of the disease, random chance, or me doubling-down on the expectorants, but it is nice that I have a more-productive cough, which hopefully keeps me out away from any kind of pneumonia.

Day 5, Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2022: My recovery seems to be on hold. I don’t have any fever today, and I have yet to experience body aches many of my friends have described. But it seems to have settled in my chest. I am breathing fine, but I have a nagging, frustrating cough, such that despite medicating myself with tons of OTC meds, woke me up repeatedly last night. By about 4 a.m., I gave up and turned on some Netflix. I got a grand total of maybe three hours of actual sleep.

Once last night and once this morning, I coughed so hard I actually did blarf, but it wasn’t from nausea or GI, but that the muscles of my diaphragm slammed so hard it actually forced a little bit of food up.

Exactly zero appetite.

Day 4, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022: My symptoms are hanging on tight as a tick. Several people who had the omicron variant recently said they had a nearly identical set of symptoms, and they all said it was “like the worst head cold you ever had.”

I can still taste and smell. I woke up in coughing fits a couple of times last night and nearly blarfed from coughing so hard. My ribs hurt from coughing.

Since I have no appetite, I made a deal with myself that I’ve made with Abby a bunch over the years: even though it doesn’t sound good, what if I put some scrambled eggs in front of me? Turns out, they were great.

I had a very rough cold that was just like this in 2005, the week my dad died, and I felt so apologetic that I couldn’t stop coughing on the plane when Abby and I flew to Florida for his funeral.

It’s still early in my isolation, but except that I can’t visit Abby right now, I am enjoying it. The dogs are great company, and I use whatever energy I have to take on little projects around the house. I am also immersed in entertainment.

Day 3, later in the morning Monday, Jan. 17, 2022: Jamie called to ask me if I needed anything. For some reason, her genuine concern sort of shook off a layer of denial for me. After thanking her and hanging up, I worked myself into a legitimate panic attack which, in my current state, I mistook for shortness of breath. I laid down and put a fan on myself and tried to sleep, with Summer the Chihuahua on my lap. A minute or two later I thought I should call Abby and tell her I love her incase I died right then. I talked to her and she sounded good, so I was able to calm myself. As of 1:15 this afternoon, I am not dead.

Day 3, early morning, Monday, Jan. 17, 2022: I seemed to sleep all night long, but woke up feeling weirdly weak and dizzy. I am still coughing. No fever. If there is a bright spot, it’s that tooth paste and coffee smell and taste like toothpaste and coffee.

It might not last, but on Day 3, I could still taste and smell coffee.
It might not last, but on Day 3, I could still taste and smell coffee.

Day 2, evening, Sunday Jan. 16. 2022: A friend on social media saw that I couldn’t find a test kit and dropped one in our mailbox for me this evening. I took the test and it was positive. I have COVID-19.

Day 2, Sunday, Jan. 16, 2022: I was able to sleep in, and slept well. First temp was 98.5ºF. Cough sounds and feels ugly, but not very different from a cough that might have with a cold.

Day 1, Saturday, Jan. 15, 2022: I felt fine for much of the day, but by afternoon, I started thinking my chest congestion was becoming more significant. By around 5 p.m., I was running a fever hovering around 99.2º F, but no additional symptoms. My nose was less runny, but my chest remained congested in just about the same way it does once or twice a year when I catch the crud. It is a nagging nuisance, but I don’t feel any difficulty breathing, and I don’t feel any rattling like I did two years ago when I had the flu. Update late Saturday night: I still have my sense of taste and smell.

Prior to day 1, I felt fine except for a runny, itchy nose completely consistent with hay fever for about three days. It was very windy some of those days, and I covered several grass fires for my newspaper and got into the smoke. I masked the entire time.

At a photo/interview op Friday, the Ada Police Chief Carl Allen told me, “Don’t have a stroke, don’t have a heart attack, don’t get in a car crash, don’t fall out of a tree. There is no room for you in any hospital.”

I am not currently in possession of a COVID-19 home test kit, so I may go to town for one tomorrow.

COVID-19 numbers nationwide have been soaring, with a seven-day new case average of nearly 800,000, but fewer people than ever seem concerned or wear masks. The current dominant variant of SARS-CoV-2 is the Omicron, which is reportedly much more contagious than previous versions, but also notably less severe.

I got the Moderna COVID-19 vaccinations on Feb. 24 and March 26, and a booster vaccination on Aug. 23.

I have been in a hospital setting most of the time for the last six months, since my wife Abby was critically ill, then in long-term care. I have always masked in those settings, but I am certain that my risk was elevated by this.

My overall health situation is that I am 58, physically active at home and on the job, am not diabetic or obese, and tend to eat very healthy foods. My blood pressure is well-controlled, and I don’t have any important underlying medical conditions.

Sadly, I will not be able to visit my wife until I am fully well.

My second dose of Moderna-made coronavirus vaccine goes in my arm March 26, 2021.
My second dose of Moderna-made coronavirus vaccine goes in my arm March 26, 2021.

Interesting Times

When I feel like I am getting into a creative rut, I sometimes turn to the rather large cadre of work I have created in my journals over the years. Just in the last few days, I picked up a journal from 2002 and read in it some, putting little Post-It® notes on the pages with notes like “Kay said she loved me on the phone,” or “OU practice light gun,” about getting the control tower in Norman to use the signal lights as I climbed out on my way back to Ada in the Cessna 172 I was renting all the time back then.

These notes are from 2001-2002, right around the time I tried to date Lisa, and about six months before I started dating Abby.

I love it when she says my life is better than hers. I could listen to her voice for hours, but not for days.

Misty told me, “We’ll never forget these endless nights on the balcony.” (We shared a balcony at my apartment.)

Balcony party, early 2000s.
Balcony party, early 2000s.

Laughed and laughed all night long with Kay online, both of us joking that we’d meet in Joplin tomorrow at midnight. Such tender feelings for her. I adore her.

Wayne is playing Quake III Arena on my computer and Misty is contemplating cutting her own hair.

In Norman, I decided on Thai food for lunch. It’s the anti-Ada. Excellent volleyball later on in a clear afternoon with Misty and two kids from across the street. We ended up on the balcony in the warm night air, trading stories.

I called Kay after her computer crashed, and listened to her go on about the stupidest stuff, captivated by the way her voice trails off and the way she pronounces her Ps.

Jamie called to tell me about getting run over and breaking her hand getting her friend’s car out of ditch.

Ten years ago was dirty and pure. It was just before Pam in the middle of the whole MP infatuation thing. In a way, I miss those times, and in a way, I know I never want to do that again.

I saw Anna (not the Norman one) at the store, and as I left, I thought, “I can’t believe I ever went out with her,” and I’m sure she was thinking the same thing.

Ostensibly for Cinco de Mayo, I took Wayne and Misty to Norman for dinner with the gang. Thea cooked and did a great job, and everyone laughed and had a great time.

Marilyn has been trying to set me up with someone named Amy. I called her today and asked her out, and she said, “I don’t even know you!” Why even try?

Instant message with Kay tonight…

K: I’m sorry, it’s not you. I’m just very mellow tonight.
R: If I were there, I would brush your hair.
K: I wonder why my husband never thinks of that.
R: Some guys are hair-brushers, and some guys aren’t. You are a great person and a great friend.
K: Thanks. I haven’t felt worthy of it in the last few days.
R: You have my permission to sleep well and wake up in a positive mood.
K: I’ll do my best. Thanks for cheering me up.
R: I love you. Good night.
K: I love you.

May 15: So much emotion arcing between Kay and me tonight. We admire each other. Today in an email, she said, “that’s why you’re my idol.” I’ve never felt closer to her.

Kay called to say she wouldn’t be online tonight. In some ways, she’s my defacto girlfriend. I probably talk to her as much as anyone, including her husband. Maybe it’s just as well that she lives 450 miles away. Or maybe if she lived close, this relationship wouldn’t exist. Sometimes I really hurt for her.

“It feels like I’m fighting God, that God hates me.” ~A

She wants her love life to be like a book, but it’s not a good book.

“When I wasn’t looking, you became my closest confidant.” ~Kay, May 29

She’s spending the evening with her husband, and it feels like she’s cheating on me.

“Have I said ‘I love you’ lately?” ~Kay, June 4. She called me four times today, and during the last one she said, “That’s why you’re my mentor, my hero.”

June 8: Jamie and I laid down together on my futon, where she slept for an hour while I read Quiet Days in Clichy. I could feel her body unwind as I held her. Afterwards, I could smell her on my clothes.

June 11: I had an excited message from Kay. I called her, and she was excited because she had processed her film from class. “I wanted to tell someone,” she said, “but no one cares but you.”

Women all around, all out of reach.

D told me that “kids suck.”

June 17: A told me she masturbated six times yesterday.

Kay isn’t who I think she is.

June 20: K and I just talked and talked and talked. She told me it was no accident that she calls all the time, and she really likes “talking to someone who has something intelligent to say.” I told her I hope I was a good listener. “I hadn’t really thought about it,” she added. “Maybe that’s why I like talking to you so much.”

I have a spotty acting career that included being in my next door neighbor Wayne's send up of James Bond, Montana Max. In this March 2002 scene, Max is about to break my neck at the end of a fight scene.
I have a spotty acting career that included being in my next door neighbor Wayne’s send up of James Bond, Montana Max. In this March 2002 scene, Max is about to break my neck at the end of a fight scene.

Kay, why didn’t this happen to us nine years ago? She is so much on my mind. I seriously doubt she understands the depth of my feelings for her. After all, what woman ever has?

“Your scrapbooks?” I told Kay, “they’re your style!”
“Ugh,” she said. “Can I have your style instead?”

June 27: “Kay, you can’t dispute what I am about to say. You were adorable in junior high.” …followed by the sound of a frustrated sigh on the other end of the phone.

She called me later on the phone in a foul and furious mood, repeatedly referring to herself as “stupid.”

“And it would be better if I could just go home and go to sleep,” she said, “but my husband will be there, and I don’t want to explain to him why I had a bad day. So you’re getting it all. I’m really a bitch on days like these.”

July 23, 2002: “You know why I like being with you?” Jamie asked. “All my other friends are noisy. You’re quiet.”

I ran into Allison, another woman who I asked out but wouldn’t go out with me.

July 31, 2002: Looking at my logbook, I realize yet again what a shame it is that I’m not flying much any more. Years ago it was so easy: the keys to the Cessna 150 were in my pocket, and Vera sent me a bill every month at $30 an hour. I practically had no choice but to fly a couple of times a week. Now, though, scheduling is a pain, and it’s more than $60 an hour for the Skyhawk. My flight instructor and the airport manager both haven’t flown in years.

I was flying a fair amount during this period.
I was flying a fair amount during this period.

August 3, 2002: At last I got my biennial flight review in the T-34. I didn’t fly especially well, but it was only my second hour in the model. Its splendid handling and power are easily offset by its awkward control layout and ergonomics. Still, it was a joy to fly.

Kay called me “Sweetie” on the phone today. Later she was online only long enough to tell me she was pissed off at her husband and “wasn’t handling it very well.” I re-read her December 1994 letter about how much she is in love with her husband, but she never says that about him any more. For the first time, I heard her use the phrase “seven year itch” to describe her marriage.

Wayne and Misty decided to move out.

It was that week that I got an email from a mutual friend that Lisa, a long-time hard crush for me, was divorcing, and that became my primary focus.

Kay called and told me she felt “protective of” me.

“Lisa was in my arms tonight!” ~Journal, August 11, 2002

In the middle of an my emotional conflagration, in the middle of the night, there is a knock at the door. It’s Jamie, who is a mess. “I just needed a few minutes with somebody sane,” she tells me, and I am secretly amused by the irony.

Kay called and listened to my self-indulgence for about 45 minutes. Sometimes I don’t understand what she gets from “us.”

September 16, 2002: I certainly haven’t been a Buddha these last few weeks. My thoughts are all over the place, in other times and other’s hearts.

Great flirting with Kay on the phone. Very affectionate. At the end of the conversation, she said she loved me.

A called in her usual funk of dissatisfaction. Jamie called in a miasma of heartache. The comfort of tears, and the night.

When asked to pick one word to describe me, W said it was a tie between “intense” and “passionate.”

Kay on the phone, miserable with allergies. A on the phone, miserable with a toothache. Richard (me) on the phone, miserable with self-indulgence and ingratitude. Lame is too lame a word to describe it.

This chapter sort of ends in October 2002, when I took a trip to Caprock Canyons in Texas, then just a month later, a longer trip to Utah.

This was my apartment in 2002.
This was my apartment in 2002.

 

Euphoria

Journal, March 1997…

“You sounded really euphoric on the phone,” she said.

Alone in the four-seat Cessna Skyhawk, I climbed quickly to 4500 feet to find a very special layered sunset. I did a couple of hard-breaking power-on stalls, and handled them perfectly, then headed back for my required three night full-stop landings to remain current.

I fly in the pursuit of perfection.

The sky awaits.
The sky awaits.

National Pickle Day

Robert wears a pickle suit and holds "The Pickle" in downtown Ada, Oklahoma today.
Robert wears a pickle suit and holds “The Pickle” in downtown Ada, Oklahoma today.

Our long-time photographer friend Robert visited today, both to see Abby, and because today is National Pickle Day, and he brought The Pickle.

Wait, “The Pickle”?

Robert balances The Pickle on a rail of our front deck this afternoon.
Robert balances The Pickle on a rail of our front deck this afternoon.

Well, it’s a long story, and I haven’t talked about it much because really, it’s not my story. The Pickle has been on television and in newspapers, and, as pickles go, it is famous.

The Pickle wears the fifth iteration of a case. When it was first "pickled" in 1984, it wore a Seal-a-Meal bag, but as it became famous, it got a series of new enclosures.
The Pickle wears the fifth iteration of a case. When it was first “pickled” in 1984, it wore a Seal-a-Meal bag, but as it became famous, it got a series of new enclosures.

Abby enjoyed her visit, for which Robert dressed in a pickle costume. He brought her flowers, and said she looked good.

Robert photographed me visiting Abby at Ballard Nursing Center, where coronavirus restrictions have forced us to visit through a window. Abby looked and sounded good.
Robert photographed me visiting Abby at Ballard Nursing Center, where coronavirus restrictions have forced us to visit through a window. Abby looked and sounded good.

As always, Robert and I did photography together.

Robert holds the pickle while we visit Abby today.
Robert holds the pickle while we visit Abby today.

Abby and I were glad to see him.

Your humble host photographs Summer the Chihuahua this afternoon.
Your humble host photographs Summer the Chihuahua this afternoon.

Chapter Ideas / Titles (from the blue spiral notebook)

How can winter be coming again?

Everything in tenth grade was blue and grey.

“The pain comes in waves. Soon they will wash me away.” Did Anna write that in a letter from Puerto Rico in 1983? I want to know, but I don’t want to reread those letters because I was such an asshole to her.

Do you know where I am?

With Tomorrow / Last Goodbye

“Swirling toilet of despair.” I can still taste the despair.

Was I really standing here with her on her front porch, asking her to go steady with me? I can remember every detail from that day 47 years ago. But did it really even happen?

“I put out your hand just to touch your soft hair…”

With her covering the scene of a shallow grave

Saying goodbye in the snow

Old Land / Driving through Saint Louis

The Pain Unbearable

It’s broken and I don’t know if I can fix it.

You can’t have your hand back

The trust of a child

Movieland

“When the winds of forget-me-not blow…”

“As of this moment, I am a stranger. I never existed. I’m gone.” ~Love letter revised eight years later.

Ice

All we really have is ourselves

The Bridge / first hug / the moon

Vamoosa / power plant

Killing time

Flag Day

Ben Casey

Swing set talk as the storm approached

Heart of Glass / Single Wish

Forever

Mismatched socks

Still Return

Driving music

“Hey, you’re that girl!”

Moving away

October fight

“Cover the ground with ashes…”

“My love will keep you warm.”

“I didn’t think it could hurt this much,” ~K, journal, November 1983

I bought a super-cheap box of cassette tapes to send single songs to her.

Somewhere in the distance, so far and separate that it shouldn’t matter, the horn of a freight train sounds as it crosses slowly through the city. They go slower now, to stay away from limbs and things.* On nights like tonight, it’s nice to walk. All the words and images inside are the same, just twisted around in circles. But since there is no one here at all, I’ll have to make do with the materials on hand. So it won’t just do to walk on this night. You see, there’s nothing out there at all any more. And it isn’t that tonight I roll in teardrops, for it seems that freedom too has escaped me. And it doesn’t help to close my eyes, for I still see the the same things, since there’s nothing there to see anyway. My hand scratches silently along, the air gets colder, and the days get shorter.

“Whipping wind whispering songs of silent seclusion…”

There are those of us who spend their whole lives waxing rhapsodic about autumn.

“It never worked.” Holy, crap, did she really just reduce our two years together to three words?

I don’t want to write.
I don’t want to itch.
I don’t want to feel useless.
I don’t want to seem like a burden.
I don’t want my eyes to itch.
I don’t want to make anyone hurt.
I don’t want to forget.
I don’t want to lose myself.
I don’t want to throw up.
I don’t want to burn up.
I don’t want to grow up.
I don’t want to break a leg.
I don’t want arthritis.
I don’t want to bite my tongue.
I don’t want to shake.
I don’t want to be forgotten.
I don’t want to ache.
I don’t want disease.
I don’t want to be hungry.
I don’t want to be mentally ill.
I don’t want to be in an asylum.
I don’t want to cough.
I don’t want to be an asshole.
I don’t want to seem insensitive.
I don’t want to lose touch.
I don’t want to lose face.
And I don’t want to lose you.

* My college roommate’s brother lost his lower leg when he walked across the tracks and got caught on something as the train arrived.