Nibbling at the edge of my mind is the notion of not deliberately doing any of the things that enrich my life for the last time. I’ve decided to just save some of them up for the those times I might really need them. Instead, I’ve decided to think in terms of “the next to the last” Thanksgiving dinner; the “next to the last” deer hunt; “the next to the last” camp out; “the next to last” trip to Diamond Lake; “the next to last Christmas; “the next to last” cross country trip. It sits better on my soul than “the last time” sits.

Of course, if the history of mankind is the blueprint for our individual lives, there will be a last time for each of those things that enrich our souls. But, I think I’ll seek comfort from looking for new things to do and places to go and see for the first time.

The new term “Bucket List” grates on me a bit, but we all understand what it means. I think it’s time to postpone some of those “last time” activities and trips and list a few things to do “for the first time.”

Hmm…the train trip from Sumpter to Prairie City might be a good place to start. And I feel the need to trace the Oregon Trail through Oregon and Idaho. I’ve never boated from the dam on the Owyhee Reservoir to the head of the lake. And there’s always Rogers Fishing Lodge on Vancouver Island.

Now, just as soon as the next novel, Abiqua is done…

Blessings on all of us.

Rod

At the ripe old age of fourteen, I was smitten by a girl with long, shiny brown hair and a sweet smile. She lived upriver from our place, so I had the joy of riding as her seat mate for eleven miles and thirty some minutes from our school to my bus stop. The ride home each school day was something I really looked forward to.

When she asked if I would like to go to church with her, I decided I would indeed. After several Sundays, I remember the preacher, who was really on a roll, asking if anyone wanted to be saved and blessed by Jesus. My girl friend (I thought of her that way by then) took my hand and led me down the aisle. And so I was saved…from what I was still not too clear about, but if she thought it was a good idea, I did, too.

There I was, a brand new Christian with a pretty girl friend. I felt like I had life by the tail. But to my chagrin, when we next met in church, she was sitting by a young man, and it wasn’t me. And she took to riding the bus as his seatmate, not as mine. So, being fourteen and embarrassed and confused by feminine wiles, I became a Christian and then stopped going to church in just a few short, jarring weeks.

I sort of put that memory away until last year. I was fishing with a couple of old classmates when one of them (I won’t spill the beans as to whom) asked if I remembered her. He said she had asked him to church and had gone to dinner with him a couple of times.

I played it straight, by which I mean I didn’t laugh when he said he was going to church now, but she wouldn’t go out with him anymore. He said he couldn’t figure out what was going on. I wanted to tell him, but I was afraid he might be angry if I told him that here she was, some sixty-four years later, still vamping for Jesus.

Amen

Rod

As I listen to the news and see TV coverage of the behavior of our radical groups, both on the Right and on the Left, I think I have a hint of what it must have felt like in the years leading up to the American Civil War…or as some like to call it, the War Between the States.

In “Not Before Midnight,” the FBI characters bemoan the lack of help from city police in apprehending and holding people accused of breaking the law. I thought at the time it was a simple, true representation of the attitude of many FBI agents and law enforcement officers. The novel is just fiction written as honestly as I can, but fiction nonetheless. The characters are not “real” in the sense of living flesh and blood.

One old friend from high school days complimented me by treating the characters as real. Consequently, I’ve been removed from her Facebook list of good guys. And recently, another old friend sent a ranting message that implied I was some kind of dimwit for not buying in blindly on the notion of global warming and hatred of the President.

And just like that, I became aware of how deeply effective the divisive stories in our news actually are. By gollies, I don’t think I’m far off the mark when I say we are choosing sides, just like Americans did in the time leading up to the secession of our Southern States.

I have the faint hope the division remains within the scope of news stories and political and personal rants and tweets. I fear for all of us if it does not.

In the meantime, I admit to a small sorrow for the loss of old friends.

Rod

We’ve been feeding the hummingbirds this summer. As close as I can tell, my yard is the territory of a really fast little guy with a ruby throat who loves our gladiolus blooms. We hung a feeder with rose colored water, but my “main” bird seems to prefer real nectar. As does the tiny gray female who hangs out somewhere nearby.

This is the first year we’ve really had steady hummingbird visitors, and I’ve gotten more interested in reading about them and their migration to Mexico. (A side note: The articles I’ve read tell me not all hummingbirds leave for Mexico in winter. In milder climates they might never stray more than twenty miles from their birth nests.)

But to get on, the hummers in the Southeastern area of the US actually fly across the Gulf of Mexico non-stop. To make this journey, they gorge themselves to increase their body weight by fifty to one-hundred percent, stoking up to make the long flight. I understand that, but what amazes me is the force in their nature that urges them to take off and fly to Mexico, a place they’ve never seen before. The only explanation that makes sense to me is the theory of genetic memory.

It also leads me to think about the possibility of genetic memory in other species, especially in human beings. Might it be a clue as to why it pains me a to toss away perfectly good containers? Sitting on my kitchen counter is an empty can, a shiny can used for canning peaches. I’m know I’m going to put it in the recycle bin…eventually…but in the meantime it seems too valuable to simply toss away. I’ll try to think of some good use I can make of it.

And I wonder, could my urge to keep and use containers be caused by genetic memory, a memory dating back to the ancients and the creation of containers for the portability of water, food…and maybe fire? I keep wondering if these early containers released human beings from the seashore and riverbanks to explore areas out of reach until then. The value of such containers must have been immense.

I also wonder if another hint of genetic memory can be found in children riding in shopping carts who visually snare someone as though they know them from a earlier time. I’m not sure, but I find the possibility to be very intriguing.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to look for evidence of human genetic memory. If anyone reading this would like to share more clues as to human genetic memory, I’d love to hear about it. (Ready to fly across the Gulf?)

Rod

I sometimes wonder if OCD is part of my makeup. Or should that be, as one lady explained to me, CDO? What would that be: Compulsive Disordered Obsession? Might work. For now I’ll just settle for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Anyway, I find reason to think I have some fairly harmless obsessive forms of behavior. For example, without thinking about it, I might sweep the crumbs off the kitchen table into a napkin and deposit the crumbs in the waste basket…even if the table is in someone else’s house. (I think I have managed to embarrass my wife a time or two.) And I certainly clean the tables in restaurants if they need it. (My desk is a different matter entirely. It has jet age decor: everything at my finger tips.)

I will admit to wanting the dinner plates, the saucers and the desert plates all lined up according to size in the dishwasher. Much, much faster to unload that way. I also like all the teaspoons in one spot in the dishwasher with subsequent utensils all bunched together in the appropriate bins. That also makes for much faster unloading. I’ll stop my description of loading the dishwasher right there. I’m sure you get the idea.

And back in the days when I carried book matches, if I needed a match, I always took the right one in the front row first followed by the one on the left side of the front row. Subsequent use of the matches followed the same pattern. I guess I have this unconscious need for balance. Balance is good.

I have a theory about all of this. I think I was born left handed, but Ida Troop, my grandmother and Wanda Troop Collins, my mother kept forcing me to use my right hand. I can still hear them saying, “It’s a right handed world.” Maybe my mild OCD behavior is simply a way of asserting control of my life in spite of Grandma Ida and my mother. Maybe.

I’d love to hear any other theories readers may have.

Rod

C.S. Lewis, a giant Christian intellect, had this to say about people who want to instruct us in how to lead our lives:

“Of all the tyrannies a tyranny exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

In my early life we called them “do-gooders,” a term I really didn’t understand until about thirty years ago.

I’m afraid I’ve quietly endured social engineering by “do-gooders” for too long. Using the tactics of the pedophile, the media, college professors, radical students and politicians have collectively groomed us into a state of passive acceptance of downright invasive rules that govern our lives at the expense of our liberty.

Think about the list: mandatory seat belts; no smoking areas including parks and doorways, (and some would include our homes); motorcycle helmets; no jokes (a freedom of speech issue); no “hate” speech; legalized pot (without regard for it’s health risk); child labor laws that prevent kids from picking berries or beans; attempts to outlaw soda pop; rants against religion (as if that isn’t hate speech); sanctuary cities; attacks on plastic straws; attacks on every economic activity in American from fishing to farming; no sugar; no fat; no carbs; and higher and higher taxes. (This is just the “short list.” Add to it as you please. And please let me know what you’ve added.)

As my old friend Alex Lafollette said, “Those people stay up late at night thinking of ways to spoil my fun.”

What am I going to do about it? Object, and object loudly. Write about it. Write my political leaders. Cancel my newspaper. Vote for the party that best protects my liberty, and my option to choose how I live.

Which party is that? I’ll let you work it out.

Good luck, Rod