Viewing Wild Life?

I quickly glance, while rounding the bend entrance to Mud Lake, seeing no boats in the grass flats, hellish stumped shore lines or in the larger pond area. Perfect. “I’ve the place to myself”, talking while no one can hear. 10 o’clock parades a full sun and cloudless sky reflecting deep blue upon smooth surfaced waters. I’m content to watch ripples my boat motion makes as they drift onward towards shore. Slowing the motor again I scan for other fishermen. “Not a one”, I ponder shuffling my legs picking up my rod dangling a 6 inch pre-baited artificial lime green worm. But that’s not to say I’m alone.

Down throttling allows an array of sounds to invade my solitude. There’s a breeze humming distant cedar, grey birch and red maple tree tops while equally hissing the three foot tall shore line marsh grasses. Readily a glistening speck of red denotes the presence of a singing red wing black-bird weightlessly perching on top of bending grass-now this bird darts to another stand of tree limbs and stumps just 15 feet further away towards the hills. Faint ripples 30 yards off begin the constant water marks of an otter cutting its way across my bow as a second follows close behind. And the Giant Herron is now lifting its way 25 feet above the shinning, dazzling water as it reflects sunlight into diamond sparkled beams of light. Frogs, crickets, grasshoppers and locust tune in randomly while occasional fish ‘pop’ the waters surface near and far. No, I’m not alone. But really, does Nature ever leave any one, place or thing alone?

I’ve spent many days, though not enough of them, often paddling this water shed located on the North-Western side of Lake Bonaparte. This place is known as Mud Lake. If you think of a very large pond with a stream beyond it you’ll have a close to true visual of this place. Basically, Mud Lake is the outlet for the Lake itself. It’s name, Mud Lake, I’ve always thought was simply born from the shallow waters held here along with the presences of it’s’ completely flat, mud bottom. Some days, like today, I arrive around 10ish not expecting to do much but fish and boat until I’ve sense enough to leave-sometimes I can stay all day, well into dusk or later. And I’ve always viewed local wild life seen here as spectacular features of every visiting moment -today is no different. I watch as I fish.

I’m remembering a recent study done at the University of Florida which found Mockingbirds can recognize the features of people who have or do threaten their nests. In this study, (http://news.ufl.edu/2009/05/18/mockingbird/). several people walked menacingly close to a nesting site of Mockingbirds while recklessly moving their arms towards their nests. The birds remembered these people in the following days as they approached their nests and responded by ‘dive bombing’ the people who had done so while allowing those people who had not threatened the nests to peacefully walk by. In just one day, in just a few minutes, these Mockingbirds imprinted people’s faces within their memory so as too recognize the peaceful from the dangerous. All animals are born knowing, or with the ability to learn, how to survive- how to delineate the safe from the dangerous. “So”, I ask myself, “I’ve been coming to this spot on this Lake for, oh, 55 years-do I assume the wild life here ‘knows’ me by sight?” If I had a ‘bottom dollar’ I’d bet on it. Heck, the Heron can live 23 years; the loons 12; the ospreys, now high above me, can live 26 years; white gulls 28 years; the black birds 15 and owls, hawks, eagles can live on as well. That’s a lot of time to see me each year as I venture these waters here.

I laugh now as the Great Blue Herron slowly sweeps his way from the far side of the pond and lights easily upon a branch not more than 10 feet from me. “Now why”, I ask, “Would you pick a place this near me?” Two of the otters thrashing yet 20 feet from my boat I quiz: “Why are you so nearby as well?” Loons swim equally as near teaching their baby how to fish: “And you too”, I continue “You’ve got the whole Lake to fish-?” For the first time in my Life I realize I’m not the only one looking here. Heck, if this natural place was thought to be a zoo wouldn’t it be me who most represents something in a cage? Here I am held within my limited boat space encapsulated as such with comparatively little  ability to move about: I don’t fly; can’t walk on water (not gonna try it); I don’t swim, well, not like a fish or like the otter can. My thoughts heighten as I imagine numbers of birds, insects, fish, perhaps bears, coyotes, even moose now reportedly roaming these hills, to be watching me as I binocular spy my surroundings. “Truly”, I ask, “Should I be charging these critters admission to see the ‘Man’? I’m wondering now how the echo of my laughter sounds to all those who have come to see ‘the Man’ yet again as I work to catch what most here make a smorgasbord out of daily.

I’m leaving Mud Lake for today much differently then I have ever left this place before. I’d never thought of the owls thinking I hadn’t shaved in 12 hours. I can sense the Herons thinking if they eat another fish today they’ll bust while watching me for hours trying to catch just one! I can hear the group behind me now as I motor out of sight, well not out of the eagles’ or hawks’ sight, but anyway this is what I hear:

Herron-‘I can’t believe he’s using a green worm today?-That’ll never work!”

Otter- “I’m trying to herd fish his way but he really needs to try swimming”

Owl- “Fifteen fish to his right-can’t he see anything?”

Otter- “Yeah, I know, I know. What happened to his tail anyway?”

All- “ Well, he’ll be back-he always comes back.”

See you guys later and, by the way, I say out loud with a backwards glance, “How do you like my new hat?”

Franque

The Gal I Had To ‘Have’!

I often worked as a musician until 2 AM in the morning-the regular shifts being 40 minutes on,twenty minutes off every hour, 9PM until 2 AM most nights.  The Senators, a band I Worked in at Ocean City Maryland, often found ourselves in diners at about 2:20 Am hoping to eat french fries, fried onion rings and shakes-the typical ‘healthy’ fare for  young lads in their early twenties. Our lead singer’s name was Rich. He had a smooth, almost golden if you will, voice much like Frank Sinatra’s and he had an ‘air’ about him that was hard to miss. We entered a diner this morning with Rich no less on his ‘game’; people there took notice of our band and of  him as we came on in. A waitress, slender, somewhat tall, with medium to long straight black hair, viewing dark eyes power driven by her whitened olive colored skin while featuring a body meant  to last came up to our table. ” What will you have?” she asked  without an intentional focus on anyone within our group. “I’ll take two of you!” came Richards’ reply followed by an-others:” I’ll take three!”  I’m not gonna talk about the rest of that night.

That’s how it was back in ‘wasville’. All of us guy friends often went around ‘on the hunt’ never knowing we were being ‘hunted’ as well. Attractions ruled the day. It was all about the new guitar, the new song ,book, strings ,gig coming up or sometimes about the new band member. But most often it was about the ‘new’ girl. She could be a new date, new acquaintance, another guys new girl, new girl singer, the girl on this months magazine or even the ‘new’ girl on TV. Nothing  matter much but for two key ingredients: ‘girl, and ‘new’- that about summed up our joviality’s and favorite moments back then. There’s nothing like being in your early twenties. And it is incredible, looking back now as I can at this time in my Life, how miraculously old a guy can feel at the age of twenty! 

It surprised me during my mid-forties I could be so taken by the image of a female. I thought those DNA structures within me had long been ‘put to bed’. But there I was, so stricken by the mere appearance of this lady that my very thinking’s failed me at first sight of her. Her name, as it turned out, was Henryetta-a strange name the likes of which I’d never encountered before or since. But should I offer my apologies to Shakespeare here or do we agree?- her name didn’t matter one iota to me upon seeing her. She was sleek, perfect in each manor, moving through and about her space as if on air. She glided before me, full bodied but not overly so and her skin had a sheen to it beneath the sun as I’d never seen before. There’s a time, often a time, in each man’s life when he recognizes attraction and it is said this ‘time’ only takes  just a fraction of a second to become discernible to the viewer. Simply put, on first sighting, Henryetta was the gal I needed most in Life, and I knew it.

It was horrifically disappointing when I realized  upon first meeting her I had failed.  I had  used all my training, all of past experiences with gals, my best behavior woven by educated histories with other such past loves in a fashion as to have attained my goal of  bringing her home.   I don’t want to let out too many ’secrets’ of men but to say ‘I bagged her’, ‘got her in the sack’, ’scored’, ‘nailed her’, ‘got to home base’, ‘bingo’ and ‘10′ would encompass all things I didn’t achieve upon first meeting Henryetta.  And I knew it, I knew just when it happened as I watched her gaze slip away from mine upon our first meeting. Seeing her go was as if to watch the wind move about the air so effortlessly, so softly but decidedly moving away, out of my sight. Now, from this moment,  she was set in my mind as my only goal in Life; my time was ,from here on, only meant for planning-careful planning for the moments of our next meeting.

I’d waited a week before arranging our meeting in such a way as for it to look as if it were accidental, a mere happenstance of cosmetically arranged timing . Of Course I’d practice my  lines, body language approaches and jesters during the last week leading up to this second ‘chance’ meeting between us.  And I should take a moment here to apologize to my wife who must by now, reading to this point, be filing divorce papers as you read.  I’m certain my wife had no idea how obsessed I was over Henryetta back then but this is my story so, well, I’m writing it. Here I can only offer in defense of my attractions Henryetta’s amazing beauty, her stylish movements, hard to get attitude and apparent knowledge of  World ambiances. So I knew I was to ‘meet’ Henryetta for a second time-I would arrange this ‘meeting’ and I couldn’t wait.

The day  of my second’ chance’ encounter with Henryetta finally arrived. Instantaneously I was no less prepared as I had been  during our first encounter to reap a successful exchange and to hold her in my hands. But this was not to be.  It’s quite shocking for me when I plan as much as I had for this ‘goal’ of mine to not achieve my intentions. Hey-I wrestled for 10 years of my life and only lost twice( in the regular season) to the same guy!-I hate to lose, O.K? I don’t care if it’s a tooth pick I’ve lost, I hate losing  it. Everything in Life is personal to me. Not ‘getting’  Henryetta  here was not acceptable. I know she’d taken every ‘line’ I’d put out there, ‘hook, line and sinker’ as they say, but still she vanished and was gone without even a backwards glance, without even a sly smile suggestive of days yet to come. 

So it came to be that I told my  buddy about Henryetta.  I took him  to her favorite hang out and he , without much ceremony, indeed without much effort even, ‘bagged’ her.  S0 it  became increasingly clear to me at that moment: God really hates me!  My life had become a joke I had heard in high school:  a fellow has the worst life ever known to Mankind but when he dies he finds himself before God. “God”, the man cries, “Why me? Why this Life?” Then he hears it :” Because you piss me off!”.  Really for my buddy to be  holding this girl in his hands right before my eyes, well, this just wasn’t right, not fair, no way can do, not possible but there ’she’ was in all her glory. Man, that was tough to take.

 In the days that followed I had to find a way to deal with the injustice of it all and I came to this: Henryetta was one FISH I just wasn’t meant to catch!  I’d showed Greg the very spot she liked to hang out- he’d simply cast out, hooked her, bowed his rod and brought her  into the bottom of our boat. In my defense( your Honor) I offer that Greg, this fishing buddy, was once a professional fisherman and still to this day, I suspect, holds specific skills and tendencies these types of people most often possess when it comes to fishing. Still  I entertained this thought as we rowed back in to shore that day:  does this mean if we were Native Americans in the same tribe that his family of three children would be fat and happy while my family of three would be eating wood bark?…….

Anyway Greg ate Henryetta that night. Of Course, this only added to the ‘injury’  and to the just plain ‘wrongness’ of  it all. Heck, I could’ve been eating her!  But remarkably Greg remains to this day too ‘chicken’ to visit my Lake to go fishing-He knows I’d ’smoke em’ there on fishing. Na-not really. If I had to guess he stays away so at least some of my fishing pride can stay intact.  I should thank him for that.  

Franque

Falls’ Reflecting Referrals

Each Season in its own right has a power like none other.  The Winter can captivate the Soul in a home bound infused yearning if one has wandered so far in Life that they now live outside  their own sense of center, from their own sense of Home. Spring spirits ones’ thinking into the Future: into harvestable hope, fantastically planned full yearnings as well as expectations bountiful with growth, reaping and accumulation. And Summer? Ah, Summer. Summer is a time of rest. It is a time of stewarded confidence relaxing upon the green stability of endurance-surrounded by successful Life now grown to the objective nurturing of its’ intended beneficiaries.  But Fall, perhaps most of all, is keen to keep us in touch with the greater good of each cycle. Fall perpetuates, by way of reflection, through each Season now gone by and, likewise, through each Season yet to come. Fall masters each Season as it mirrors each by its’ memory and by its’ presence. Fall has it all.

Grabbing by hand the withered leaves of last weeks greenery’s crumples a part of yesterday before our eyes. These brittle leaves flake as a breath mentioning broadcasts of yet another Spring and of yet another Season of growth. The Winter may hide this intention from hurried, freezing footfalls but the echoing sounds these make preserve our understandings of our fertilized Earth. How often can we hold in our hands all of the  the past, present and future? Then again, maybe we always do, right?

The Nature of Fall is the true nature of us. Dying as we grow our past is left behind beneath our visions of our Future. Fall encapsulates each encounter and process we experience while tramping a way through a short spectrum within limitless Time. And while doing so we all hate to fall down; there’s nothing worse than feeling the anguish of a twenty month old who stumbles and takes it ‘on the chin’. And then there is the anguish of any adult who may fall, if not physically, then in so many other ways-spiritually, emotionally or mentally. The fright of failure is so real for us during any of these moments- but we all can get up. Again the child will walk, forgetting their fall of moments before; soon, hopefully, an adult will ‘right’ themselves and begin again. And as so we each reflect, young and old alike, the Earth bound process of ever falling and rising:  as a wave of people within the ocean of Life, we rise, and we fall. This is the echo of Life-the one heard as we kick through underbrush of beige toned woods or step upon  dampened side streets beneath harvest moons.

No doubt the big chill of Winter is coming as the long Summer days, now cut in length by half, sub side below star filled, cooler nights. Now is the time of transition. This time, the time of transition, is the ‘Time’ of us. Never ending and always beginning. We each simutaneously reflect our past and our future just as Fall does of each Season. This is why I love Fall: it’s much more than just the soften tinted landscapes fluttered by countless butterflies and flocking birds- it’s the mirror Fall makes for each of us to see in and through. And although the Seasons need no capitalization I think it an affront to their purpose in Life not to do so.

I’ve posted, hopefully for your reflective enjoyment, a fall bulletin board I’ve presently done in my Library. And oddly, it features a Mylar back round of golden tones reflecting leaves I’ve constructed along with the help of Sandy, a current reader of this blog, made of sequined material backed by iridescent paper. I call it: Reflections.

Franque

Reflections

OPEN HOUSE FOR HALLOWEEN

'Halloween spelling'

Each should post one thought, one experience, one known of experience, one opinion or one belief about Halloween, Spirits, Witches, Souls, Ghosts, or any other relavant subject!

‘This posts for You’, Us and Them…….

This is a current bulletin board I did for YA/Adult services -

Franque

Grandma Franque Saves the Day(with help)!

My Grandma Franque lived on a Dutch Elm lined street in Des Moines Iowa. Her storied house nestled between others much like hers as the houses all rowed a paved road in front. I’ve many memories of the chicken coups and gardens filling the back yard there. And, no less in number, I’ve memories of her property sporting a ‘bear tree’ I climbed as a young boy along with the front porch of her house I was so ‘brave’ to jump off of onto the green lawn waiting below. Grandmas’ house was a home away from home in these days and best of all she always had a homemade cookie waiting for me in her cookie jar. Luckily she lived a long life and for all of my young adult life  I knew her as being ‘old’. But even back then, as a child and I’m thinking she was in her sixties, I thought her being old as well. But, as I grew, I learned to think of her in other ways.

My Grandma was always one to be ‘talking’ to Spirits. Usually, as I recall, she would talk to her deceased Husband, Franque, from time to time. And she didn’t go into a closet, private room or ‘special’ place to do this ‘talking’ either. No, she’d just be sitting, standing or walking to wherever and all of a sudden she’d start talking away with an invisible associate. Today you’d think her either a candidate for earning a billion dollars on late night TV or, on the other hand, perhaps one who should most likely be comforting a padded cell. But this didn’t matter to my family or relatives-Grandmas ‘talkings’ to us were normal fare for any afternoon or evening gathering. Mind you now, she talked out loud-sometimes even during a TV shows most important part- which could be annoying, but, never-the-less, out loud it was. This meant, and I think sometimes conveniently, any one near her knew what was on her mine as well as on the ‘Minds’ of several invisible others.

Now it’s relevant to mention she lived during a ‘Time’ one might consider historically to have been a renaissance period of the seance- during the early 1900s people were not only populating our beaches with empty bitters bottles but also gathering at parties, at kitchens, perhaps even in darkened basements, in the hopes of contacting the dead. I’ve linked two articles of thousands about the history of seance-one placing the decline of this type of spirituality around 1888 while the other goes further into the time period I’m speaking of with regard to my Grandmas’ Body Lifetime.

For certain my Grandma lived in an exciting period of Spiritual exploration-a period experienced by various peoples full of interest in ‘channeling’. The great Houdini only added ‘flames’ to the explorations of the impossible during this period, a period embellished by seemingly miraculous findings and many fraudulent claims as well. Here’s one ‘claim’ I and others have heard as being true:

I only know my Grandmother and others were attending a party I remember being told was located just down the street from her House in Des Moines. I’d gather this was a normal party of no particular purpose as hard working couples gathered to relax and share the evening. Having no computers or even TVS often encourage this type of ‘odd’ behavior as people got to actually know their neighbors by meeting with them at parties-no, I mean it, it’s true! People back then left the house! Anyway, sometime during this night, my Grandmother stood up and exclaimed she and anyone who would go with her had to go back to her house right then and there. Her house, she exclaimed, was being robbed at that very moment! How many left with her I don’t know. But I do know they caught this would be robber ‘red handed’ so to speak that very night, there, in her house, attempting to rob it!

Now, first off, the events I just told you about I consider particularly bad luck for the would be robber. It’s bad enough to have to scope out a house, break in to it, and search around for something of value while being unseen and oh so quiet. Now he’s even got to deal with the dead! See? It seems kind of unfair. I mean we have police right? Should a robber have to deal with a bunch of ‘Spirits’ too? Still, I don’t think he’d get off in court claiming Divine interference-no way. Secondly, this is a good time to tell you a story from my family I know, as it was told to me, to be true. Other family members may have heard this story as well and they may post more on this story in the comment field.

Franque

http://www.crystalinks.com/seance.html

http://www.harryprice.co.uk/Seance/http://www.harryprice.co.uk/Seance/seance_intro.htmseance_intro.htm

Engines ‘In Tune’-Halloween

Charlie worked with me for two years as my Assistant store manager here at the Oaks Mall in Gainesville Florida helping me run a store owned by Hoffritz. Think of a retired policeman who is easy to be around, jolly, beer bellied from eating ice cream, pistachio I believe, middle aged as I was, relievable along with all the other basic Boy Scout qualities you can think of and you have him in your ‘sights’.  I trusted this man-he was insightful and accurate on all accounts.

Hoffritz is an upscale cutlery store featuring a patronage  who I can only say was sometimes ‘not so much’. We had to keep all sizes of band-aids on hand. Numerous hands were cut while opening our knives, swinging our swords, (I remember a sword dropping breaking an entire display case), feeling the edge of the blade to see if it’s sharp, handing open blades back and forth or while swinging nun chucks wildly. Sure, it was our job to warn or stop people from hurting themselves or each other. But why take the best part of our job out of it when these people were so intent on showing us what they could do? Mostly, Charlie and I thought these daily self inflected manslaughter’s pretty funny. (This did come back to ‘haunt’ me recently when a friend showed me a neat new pocket knife and I cut my hand opening it!)

Charlie often joked about his ‘bad luck’ in Life and it’s true his wife, Lois, was now a quadriplegic after slipping her foot off the brake petal and landing it on the accelerator while waiting for a passing train. Certainly this situation was toughest for Lois but each had lost some options along the way. One day, while conversing between band-aid applications, he told me this story:

‘Charlie and Lois found them selves up in Georgia one weekend searching for his long lost Grandfathers’ grave. They didn’t have much to go on-just the towns name and basic vicinity of his Grandfathers’ Homestead. Still Charlie thought, being an ex-policeman, he’d be able to interview people in this rural area and learn enough to find his Granddads’ burial place. But nothing worked out. Saturday passed by without them reading the name they searched for on any of the hundreds of head stones they read among several different grave yards. Sunday passed as well and with a heavy heart Charlie took one last late afternoon drive upon yet another unknown rural road. Driving up a hill his car stalled. Charlie nearly had a fit thinking now he’d be stuck with Lois in ‘Nowheresville’ with no car, nothing. (Before cell phones, can you believe that?) He told me he pounded the hood of his car and bent over it in despair-this could be quite serious with Lois in the car- and then he looked up.

Before Charlie, to the right of his car, was a grave yard up a small hill. He was certain he hadn’t checked this grave yard out before. Thinking he was stuck anyway till someone came by he ventured up the hill. He stepped over a small wooden picket fence to read his Grandfathers name on the first head stone he saw. He said he thought the World was spinning for an instant as he stood there still trying to fathom his luck. He walked back to the car and sat firmly inside to tell Lois what he’d just found. He turned the key; His car started. Charlie and Lois drove home.’

Charlie was still driving the same car when I knew him: it never before or since that day stalled.

Franque

Spirits in the Night

( Please be sure to enjoy reading the various comments on this post-I find them interesting and I think you might also. Again feel free to ‘chime’ in on the comment fields of all the posts.Thanks_Franque)

I hadn’t done much with the spirit world in my Life by the time I was 21. I hadn’t studied actual case studies of human encounters with ‘Spirits’; I hadn’t attended lectures about the so called ‘Spirit World’; I hadn’t glued my ears to radio shows discussing the pros and cons of taking financial advise from those beyond the grave. I had, however, watched as a young lad, oh, about one million fictional TV shows involving every kind of Spiritual World interaction any human being might have on the planet. I liked the spooky, scary if you will, and ever expansive possibilities these shows presented to the viewer. I enjoyed thinking about endless Time, Life, as well as unspoken communications between the dead and the living.

Regardless of my past interests, I don’t think any of my actions have ever, even to this day, made me a professional on the subject of Spirits-not as, say, my ex-brother-in-law who now holds a Degree in Parapsychology might be thought to be. No, I was your average run-of-the-mill sci-fi/fiction reader and TV viewer up until I was about the age of 21. That’s when a single experience changed, convoluted, reorganized and inverted my sense of reality just as a bucket of sub-degree water splashed on a face might wake a person from a sound sleep. And in many ways I think now, looking back at my Life before this experience, I was, in fact, in a sense, sleep walking through my Life.

I slept soundly upon a mattress placed on the floor of a porch which hung over the Saint John’s River in the town of Astor, Florida. My Life was good. I homed here in the winter months with my cousins, one then in the service there, while returning to the NYC area during the summer months to play guitar professionally at various clubs located in that area. Astor living was an easy time of catching fish or crab while working in a local bar as a clean up man as well as mopping store floors at night. Life was loose, care-free and I was young and strong. This is a good combination to ask for by the way should you get the chance to live an eternity. Anyway, with no worries, I fell this night asleep just as any other night-soundly, peacefully, completely.

I first  noticed I was seemingly rising above my mattress , the porch, passing through the ceiling of our house, and then being  suspended in the air above the homestead. ( Hello…anyone down there have a ladder?) I could clearly make out the River to my right as I faced north-an inverted direction from the one I’d been sleeping in. Suddenly my hand was grasped by an outstretched hand protruding from the likes of which you can not image, but I’ll try. The Man, obviously so with a long beard of wispy but certain white threaded qualities, was huge in stature. If I had to guess I’d put this man’s size at about 50 yards in length. And we began to move.

I noticed we flew, hand in hand, through what seemed to be clouds which now passed faster and faster until my eyes opened to see the living room of what was still at that time part of my Parents house on Long Island. I was facing where the thermostat should be, the one I’d known for 20 years, but this thermostat was different in kind and in shape. Most curious to me in this ‘vision’ was the fact that the adjustment mechanism was now easy to move in a circular fashion rather than being like the old one I knew which hurt your fingers to push left or right. Then we flew again.

My next ‘stop’ on this journey seemed to be nothing but the sound of my recently born nieces’ voice  constantly calling for her mother, my sister, again and again, over and over in my mind, ears, within my whole self. I could not shake the sound of her calling and never did that night until waking the next morning. This audible ‘vision’ seemed so real I sat down and wrote my sister a letter explaining what I had heard the night before as I slept. This was early Fall, I cannot recall this exact time period, and soon after the months pasted by as I worked, laughed and played as any 21 year old on ‘top of his game’ might.

It was Christmas time before I took it upon myself to make the long journey home to visit my parents on Long Island for the Holidays. I’d actually forgotten, actually put it out of my mind, about my eerie night of ‘flying’ by the time I reached my childhood home. It was only when I chanced to see the thermostat on the wall of my old home that this memory came to ‘roost’- not as a chicken might but perhaps as a 20 ton missile might when landing upon my brain. There, before my eyes, was the exact thermostat I’d seen in my ‘vision’-I kid you not! This was astonishing to me, hard to believe at best. My feet felt frozen to the carpet. My mouth hung suspended as my mind labored there alone trying to connect the possibilities of the moment and view. But there was more to come of this-much more.

In days it was time to visit with my sister. It is my recollection that she, indeed, received the letter I’d written about me hearing her daughter calling her name that one night, now a night several months past. And she regulated this night to be part of the same morning she had awoke  to find her daughter having a severe allergy attack, her daughters’ first one of Life I believe, and subsequently having to rush her to the hospital. Again, I stood still while taking a step back inside , inside within my Spirit, while listening to the story my sister had to tell of that morning.

What are the chances you could ask? Me? I didn’t even ask. I’d lived it. I’d lived moving through time and space with a being larger than the one you are thinking of now. I’d lived seeing a thermostat in place which was impossible for me to do so at the time I did it. I’d heard my nieces’ voice as if sounding from a 300 watt amplifier at a distance of more than 1600 hundred miles. Or was it? “That’s right”, I had to tell myself, “I had flown there-I was there-It was easy to see and hear the objects and people there.” “It’s not a problem”, I’d tell myself. And it’s not a problem unless you don’t believe in the many layers of Life we exist within. If you, like me, were or are to this day ‘sleep walking’ to these realities than this event is a huge, splash in the face wake-up call.

I know you want to know, like I do, who or what was the huge man I traveled with. Unfortunately, he didn’t leave a card, slipper, extension number or even a book, say, Gulliver’s’ Travels. Nada was left but this story. That’s not to say I haven’t hoped, even preyed, this might happen again. Heck years later I’ve even on one occasion left my window open at night thinking this might help the matter. Ha! This shows, even to myself, this experience was so vast in its’ nature that, even after experiencing it, I can’t ‘wrap’ my arms around it. Who really could? Not me, and I’ve been there. I just thought this Halloween season was a good time to tell you. So, I did. Oh, and more thing: Perhaps I should say: “Good Morning!” and Happy Halloween!

Franque

Images for Keeps

Yosemite National Park certainly has its’ share of bears, towering peaks, falls, elevated Lakes, grasses, hiking paths and, today, traffic. How odd to think of this Park as having stood for so long without many visitors but for animals and Native Peoples. Still, no matter how long a car jam or how hot the day, immensities this park has dwarf any sense one might gander of being hemmed in or stuck in place. Just as the Grand Canyon is vastly larger than any imagination, even when being viewed in person, Yosemite contains itself in such a way as to wrap any viewing person within a velvet blanket of sensory response. To be here is not just a ‘trip’- it’s not just a ‘visit’: to be here is to never leave in part. It is as if when visiting here one gets to touch ‘forever’.

My family had survived the mandatory ‘Bear’ videos and slept well within the parks’ tented camping ground with few bears wandering around us at night. Oddly, however, both my wife and I awake in the morning with the sense that we each had felt a bear inside our tent the night before. These types of thing happen here, especially when one family member can not part with their candy and brings it into bed with them….OMG!!! How do any of us survive, children and parents alike?

Soon we march upon mountain trails upward to ice chilling water pools with flowing falls. Did you know that people with canes, in wheel chairs and with four prong walkers can climb better than you can? I didn’t either until I took this one ‘difficult’ climb, but they can. I’m thinking we need to review the ‘handicapped’ parking scheme but, anyway, the bears of the night before are easily forgotten while hugging the side of mountain next to a 50 foot vertical drop. Who cares how many people almost twice my age, hampered by various conditions of Life, pass me on the way up as long as I’m on the inside hugging rock? For sure I don’t.

But with miraculous beauty as a back drop often the unexpected settles upon you without a sound-landing within you as a breath. We set our sites on an unknown to us destination termed ‘Soda Springs’: a scant hours drive away in the park followed by what looks to be an easy mile walk. Once there yellowed morning sunlight reflects off the prairie floor surrounding our sides to seemingly limitless distances as we walk. It is only fitting butterflies should abound with insects of many kinds squatting numerous flower tops and bent grasses. Our foot falls beat together sounding much like a family of one entwining a way  upon this dirt beaten path as the open wind briskly combs and uncombs our hair while brushing  by our necks.  I’ve a sense now of immense practicality, care, awareness and of adventure. Following children trust I know a way I’ve never been. “But” I muse “this is a National Park after all, how dangerous could this be?” Looking downward now  “There was that Bear though” ponders my mind….I scan our surroundings  again as we alone head into the prairie before us.

There is ahead a wooden bridge of sorts- once upon it about twenty steps fall before we reach the other side. Underneath this bridge runs a clear, perhaps invisible, stream bottomed by slate rocks. The  rocks look smooth, somewhat evenly edged with some obviously  deeper than the ones appearing to rest just beneath the rippling water’s surface. The only other people in sight are leaving as we drop our carries and take in this pristine broadcast view.

Above us on a small rise stands an old, weathered four foot high wooden box type structure hanging a sign: “Soda Springs”. We each rush up and around this structure finding  an entrance yielding  a view of a small but discernible bubbling spring of water, bubbling as if from a hose almost, along with a tin cup tied by a rope hanging nearby.  Drinking this water is shocking-it’s absolutely delicious and naturally carbonated. I can’t believe it. The past hike makes it better than anything could be. We each take turns and drink our fills.

The sun is higher now and it is as easy to slip on swimsuits as it is to slip into the water streaming before us. Laughing immediately ushers from each of us as we find the bottom often to be 5 to 10 feet deeper than we think it is. The water is cold and so clear our eyes can not discern the depth we’re about to find ourselves in as we gingerly step from one rock ledge to another. Here we stand as a family, laughing, chatting, smiling and then an odd thing happens.

I’m not certain who notices what first but now we all are in silence as a solitary man riding a smallish horse followed by a mule team with loaded sacks on each side pounds upon the wooden bridge. I ponder the ‘mule team’ borax commercials I’d seen as a kid-this seems just like that image. Starring I see his head turn slowly, deliberately our way and I immediately wave. But he does not wave back. Instead he rights his view before him and continues silently onward towards the western hills far off. Soon he’s gone as if never there; I am so thankful he had just been here-it seems a glimpse into what has always been: a man alone in the wilderness akin with working animals, sweat and the day’s length while toiling with the seasons of Life. How cool is that? I do wish he would have waved but I suppose it’s really us who perhaps don’t ‘fit’ in? I can see in a sense this is his world in his time-not so much ours. But I’ll never forget his image. He gave me that, and no matter what, that I’m keeping.

We trek back later- our packs lighter, our spirits high and me with an image never to forget.

Franque

Breezes in Time

It’s Friday night at Bo Diddley Square-the center of downtown Gainesville, Florida. The intersecting 3 foot high brick walls form rectangles supporting green grass centers with occasional trees. Walkways connect the grass areas beneath a night sky of light clouds reflecting a half moon light. I’m happy for the cool breezes as they glance and seemingly dance upon both my eyes and ears, each seeing and hearing the Irish Jig music now being played live on stage before a crowd of about 200 hundred people. It’s a time to feel free: the cost is free, the breeze is free, the sky, moon, clouds are all free. No thing harbors my mind this moment with flashing reminder sticky type notes that can on some other occasions interrupt my thinking’s. It’s ‘all good’ as a Holiday or day at the beach might be-time to soak it in.

The Irish music combs over three tunes all sounding much a like while creating an ever present under toned rhythmic current running now through my toe trappings and swaying sides. Our crowd meets each measure of music congruently as seating about in every type of chair or lying on quilted blankets softly spun about by children doing cartwheels of hope. Irish dance etiquette is displayed on stage next to reeling musicians harping on fiddles, Irish kettles and pipes. And all is harmoniously combining with each gentle, persistent night breeze as if God was snoring upon us or perhaps as if Mother Nature herself squeezed billows now slowly ushering almost a blanket of wind upon us.I’m hearing now underneath the breezing music our voices reminiscent of skied geese flock sounds, chattering sparrows perching for the night or of moonlit ocean beach waves as they sound from the darkening shores beyond sight.

A women, I’m guessing about 35, is ushering by our grassy square dressed in a pumpkin colored matching spandex type top and bottom. Oddly, this outfit does her well for looks as I follow many eyes now following her disappearance behind stage right. Quickly a young girl is approaching not quite my wife and me but the mother sitting just in front of us. Her eyes and body language are pleading for perhaps and extra ½ hour, maybe a ‘sleep over’ or some other privilege and her Mom is now taken away from the music for a second to consider. She’s nodding as the young girl runs away in a laughing step. Dale, my wife, and I predict the next few moments as the young girl returns to her Mother, wiggling and giggling, now receiving money being pulled from a highly colored, red, orange, leafed patterned fashionable bag. I’m catching the Mothers eye as she follows her daughter now running away across the combines of people here. “We knew she’d come back”, I smile her way. “Oh gosh,” the Mom continues smiling, “She always does-Isn’t it something!” We all are enjoying laughing this scenario.

It is “something” I’m thinking. It’s something how a moment such as this can pass so quickly and still last a life time in memory; It’s something how many senses of ours can multi-task at once weaving a cognitive appreciation in our minds and spirit of ever lasting endurance. Again a breeze hits my face as if to erase that which now will always be a part of me. The breeze guides me here again up tempo to each new beat now marking the moment.

Now it’s our time to leave. The week is long and legs, backs even butts get tired! But we’ll come back-we always do. We will come back here kind of like the Mom said of her daughter: “She always does.” Let’s hope so…at least for a while. Walking to my car I’m thinking how my children are grown and ‘gone’. They’ve gone on their way-they may come to visit but they don’t really “come back” anymore- not like the Mom’s young daughter will ‘come back’ to her tonight. And it’s alright. I think Dale and I are laughing now as we approach our car knowing our ‘kids’ won’t be back but they never really leave either. Our minds fancy them hearing our lives as we do during moments like tonight. There are lots of good reasons why grown children can’t come back. But every parent learns one reason is they never really leave, not inside, not in spirit, not even for a moment as the running girl of tonight left…. a couples children are as tonight’s’ breeze-here, there, back but never truly gone from them.

Franque

How Remote Was That?

Nothing that controls 1/3 of our waking hours as a TV Remote does should be called that. How can it be ‘remote’? What? Who made up this name? I haven’t a ‘Clue’ but here’s my guess: 1) It was positively Mr. Dingbat with 2) Exceptionally no education in3) The location of the Lost Continent? Do I win now? But if it is a ‘Remote’ then there’s this: “And now, it is my pleasure to introduce, the remote, President of the U.S!”, or “A remote hydrogen bomb exploded today over Nagasaki”. How about headlines reading “A remote plane landed on our house today…” or “The now on coming visible tsunami may be remotely related to your safety.” How would that be?

Calling a ‘Remote’ remote is like calling your Wife a Past Girl Friend. “I now pronounce you Man and Past Girl Friend”.  Oh I’m certain some guys have tried this while having affairs but I don’t think this type of word assignments are usually accepted as applicable. See? It doesn’t fit: nothing about a Remote adds up to being so-no way can it add up to remote. A Remote just isn’t. That’s all I’m saying. Think about how it is when you can’t find it-then you know how ‘remote’ a Remote is. So game on-if not called a ‘Remote’-what should it be called?

A few proper names for the ‘Remote’ come to mind, one of which we do use in our House from time to time. Now I’m not talking about the names we might call a ‘Remote’ when it ‘goes’ missing-can’t print most of those here. ( And this brings up another thought here that nothing ‘goes’ missing by the way-nothing can go to a spot called ‘missing’. Items may become missing, lost, no can find senor, absolutely no idea where, but nothing ‘goes’ there-just trust me on this.) Now, to get back, I’m talking about good, sound, respectable names for the ‘Remote’, names the Human Race could be proud to have thought of. Some name that might ‘mark’ Time sort of like BC or AD does: “Remember the days back when this was called a Remote? Where were you then?” Yeah, I’m thinking there’s a chance here for someone to make a difference-a chance to change a word we use every day which is , well, a stupid name, to something more meaningful: “she’s not my Past Girl Friend-she’s my Wife!” better.

Not long ago my wife and I came up with just such a name: ‘Power Stick’. And, back in the days before a million TVs per household, TIVO, or multiple ‘Remotes’ it was fun to fight over this item, the ‘Power Stick’. Tactics like misplacing the ‘Remote’ where only you could find it were popular back then.  It was quick, easy and nothing spectacular to accomplish ‘burying’ the one ‘Remote’ under several couch pillows, perhaps storing it in the freezer or even out in the yard if you really didn’t want the channel changed. Of course people could get out of their seat and manually change the TV channels but mostly this artful function has been lost to Man through the evolutionary process over the last twenty years-yours truly not excluded. So hiding the ‘Power Stick’ , in most cases, usually worked at least until half time.

So this is it. It’s your turn to become famous, maybe sort of. The TASK at hand is for you to come up with at least one better name for the now so called ‘Remote’. The QUESTION at hand is are you a comment looking to happen by way of posting your ideal name for the ‘Remote’ or are you just gonna sit there and hope it turns up by any name under your pillow, beneath the bed, outside your house or in the freezer? It’s your call-I’m calling you out.

My name= I’m sticking with ‘Power Stick’.

Franque

(I purposely left out the part about now having 4 TVs but seemingly 24 different remotes collected over the ages now all scattered about the house?-So too the ‘remote control’ terminology-way too close to ‘remote’ and boring at best!)