What this inauguration means to me

By definition, inauguration means commencing a new operation or practice. In its procession to power, this administration rallied around two key concepts--Hope and Change. Too long, our country has been hostage to fear, greed, and criticism. Throughout history, these formidable Horsemen have rendered mighty empires to shriveled semblances of their former selves. Hope is: the American Spirit can be wrested from these daunting foes. Change is the process that will bring about this freedom.To begin this governance by looking backward and finding place to lay blame for our current state of affairs would find us still trampled by the hooves of these Beasts. Change dictates that we proceed along a new avenue. That way is marked by hope that we rekindle values that brought America to prominence as the desirable model for Democracy. America achieved greatness when she wielded considerable ability to sacrifice, perform hard work and apply herself persistently to troubles besetting her close to home. Choosing this presidency signals to me that Americans are ready to embrace again the values and ethics that made us a powerful example to the world. I do not regard President Obama as radiant savior. Instead, I deem our choosing him as leader, a gesture that faith exists in our political system. This inauguration signifies there is hope we can draw together and overcome the forces that have insidiously grabbed hold of our spirit and being. My belief is that when we draw together to solve the troubles inflicting our neighborhoods, towns, cities, districts, states, we will go forward to a nation the world can look upon as a guide to climbing out of the hole we have dug ourselves into. As certainly as Hope can provide the beacon, her sister virtues can bring about a new approach. Faith can supplant fear; Charity can overcome greed. These three virtues are cornerstone to worldwide religious thought and spiritual practice. My hope is that this administration can bear witness to ushering in of a renewed Spirit restoring our great nation to being beacon to the world.

Now for a brief interuption

Sorry for the interuption folks.
I am working on a story that will be posted as a Water Story. This one is fiction. So I do not get to dig it out of the recesses of my memory and simply transcribe it. This one takes some inventing as I draw it up from another part of my brain that uses other than memory circuits. This process involves sitting and reflecting time, then putting musings into words. After it settles a bit I go backwards and check how it is flowing with the tale I want to tell. So far, I have got two days into it. Not a lot of finished work has come out. But, I find it necessary to break off at times to let the froth cook and see what emerges. In the meantime, feel free to browse through some of the backpages, that are posted. When, this current project looks like it is finished, it will appear here. Or, I may just keep posting updates like this.

Shark Tale

Tales of sharks were common around West Coast Florida. Sighting were rare. Most stories came from fisherman who found their prize sport fish attacked and half eaten before landed it. By the damage inflicted it was obviously a shark attack. There had been no local stories of sharks attacking humans. There were always plenty of shark teeth to be found on local beaches. It seemed every beachcomber had an extensive collection. For all the talk and lore, I had never seen one landed.
One day my brother Karl and I accompanied Drew back to his house, a few houses up the bay. We cut across neighbors front yards. About half way there as we crossed the Graham’s property, we spotted a sizeable fish in the water. We walked out on a nearby dock to get a better look. It was a shark. It was still and obviously dead. It had a three deep wounds on its side no doubt inflicted by a boat propeller. Each gash cut down to internal organs. We decided to haul our find out of the water. We secured a piece of rope and waded out to the large carcass. Very warily, we attached the line to its tail and pulled it to shore. We asked Mr. Graham if we could haul it up a limb so we could get a picture. He agreed and helped us hoist it tail end up to a large horizontal oak branch.
Next we got a camera and took several pictures of us three boys surrounding our catch. We were careful to turn the wounded side away so that anyone looking at the picture might glean we were rugged fishermen. Later Mr. Graham provided a copy of our picture to the Sarasota Herald Tribune and Journal. The next day’s issue showed our prize fish in the sporting section. All three of us were even mentioned by name. We felt proud and much bigger than our size. We tempered our swimming in those waters a bit and kept our activities to boating. Soon we got a chance to go out. About a week later Mr. Graham called and demanded we haul our shark away from his property. It was raising quite a stink. We got hold of a boat, rowed over, cut down our shark and towed him out to the middle of the harbor. There we offered a a small ceremony to this beast as he drifted down into the depths after we cut him loose.

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Haven’t Learned a Thing

By the time I was twelve I had become quite proficient at swimming. I not only swam in the warm waters of Florida’s bays, but had gotten over my aversion to coolness of swimming pools. I could dive in and swim many lengths of the pool without a rest. Breathing, stroking, and pacing were becoming second nature. I felt quite at home in water as long as it was temperate. I had yet to venture north of the Florida border and taste cold northern waters Some of the fresh water springs in Northern Florida were too cold for my liking. I seemed to becoming a reptilian creature. Unfortunately my brain functions were slightly on that level also.
In the summer of my twelfth year, I attended a month long summer camp. The attendance fees were bartered by my dad in exchange for a large wooden canoe. We were put up in cabins with boys of the same age. My cabin held ten twelve year old lads and our counselor. The canoe my dad provided was large enough to hold the whole cabin load of us along with our counselor. It became apparent to us that our counselor had a slight fear of water. He always acted nervous out in the canoe. We never saw him swim and maybe he could not. Feeling our full measure of adolescent meanness, we devised a prank for him. We figured that on one of our trips out into middle lake, we would in mass abandon canoe and leave our counselor to fend for himself getting back to shore. We all figured we could make it back swimming. One day we got our chance.
We got out in the middle and on a pre arranged signal, all of us jumped out. We swam away in glee as our counselor was yelling at us to return. . We proceeded back to our docking area. About halfway there, I noticed by full length jeans were becoming waterlogged. The heavier they got the more arduous swimming became. I began worrying that I might become exhausted. Before I got completely worn out, I remembered something from water safety class about removing your clothing. Apparently I had dismissed the lesson about not going in water in your street clothes. I began peeling my pants down my legs. I only got them as far as knotted up around my ankles. There they acted like small weights.
Without use of my legs, II was being dragged down. At a few feet depth, I hit bottom and had enough spring to propel my self back to the surface. When I broke surface, I took a hug gulp of air. As I descended again I kicked furiously to free my legs. After a couple attempts one leg got free from its ankle restraint. Using my freed leg I could kick my way to the surface. After another huge gulp of air , I descended again and freed my other leg. Having both legs free, I could now resume my swim to shore towing my pants with good lifesaving water rescue technique.
I changed course and instead of heading to our dock, I headed to the nearest one--the dock of the neighboring Girl Scout camp. I noticed no one around there and realized I would be coming ashore in my under shorts. Rather quickly I hit their beach, looked round and saw the coast was clear. Gathering my pants in a bundle, I stealthily ran across their compound through the woods to our cabin. That night our cabin was restricted and lectured at great length concerning our stupid mean spirited behaviors. We lost canoe and water privileges for the remainder of summer. We all felt cheated by the consequences of our actions. It was only many years later did I come to and understanding concerning the narrow escape with possible drowning I had encountered.

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Oh Yah, I can Swim

By the time I was I third grade I found waters that were not to chilly to jump into. Although the Gulf still seemed cold, waters in Osprey bay and its surrounding creeks, estuaries, and bayous were luxuriously warm. Not only that but the bottoms were soft mushy mud that felt good to walk on. Mud flats held no grassy sections that could hide crabs, fishes and other denizens that might devour small boys. Also, even at the end of the dock facing the shore, waters were not over our heads. Here we could jump in and pretend to swim. The whole summer that year, I learned how to paddle forward as long as my feet could occasionally touch bottom long enough to catch breath and rest. Perhaps for a few strokes, I could even be swimming.
With the advent of fall, we stopped going in the water. Because of the amount of time I had spent in the water including many short periods when I had my feet off the bottom and my posture almost approaching a float position, I considered myself an accomplished swimmer. I attended a short swim lesson session that taught us how to float and hold our breath under water. I could hardly wait until the next summer when I would join the kids who jumped off the dock on the deep side facing out of the harbor and swim under the dock to the swallow side where we could stand on the bottom.
The next spring my first chance for swimming came with the first warm weather. I was enrolled in Cub Scouts and once a week went to our Den Mother, Mrs. Langer’s house after school to engage in scouting activities. She had a pool and on the first hot day we all changed into trunks and gathered round the pool. Each boy was polled about his ability to swim. When asked, remembering the strong fluttering I had done the previous year, I answered. “Yah, I can swim.” Mrs. Langer accepted my answer and let me join the boys in the deep end. The depth where I jumped in was eight feet and it did not have a soft muddy bottom. I found the water not so buoyant and was not able to stay up in the float position. I let myself sink to the bottom, went into a crouch and sprang my legs open propelling me to the surface. There I captured a big gulp of air, fell back into the deep and sank back to the bottom. Hitting it , I again went into a crouch and sprang to the surface again. I repeated this for quite a while not making any headway, but not getting exhausted either. I was too embarrassed to scream for help and just kept bobbing up and down.
Finally, one of the scout leaders sensed I was perhaps in trouble and asked me “ as I shot above the surface, “Do you need help getting to the side.?” As I took in a big gulp, I nodded affirmative and went back down. On my next ascent, I was grabbed by strong hands and lifted out of the pool. I was grateful for the help but was ashamed to admit, how much I needed it. I just acted like I had been practicing a new water acrobat routine. Inside, I was determined to give swimming pools a rest and confine my swimming activates to the safety of Osprey town dock with its soft muddy bottom where I could stand with my head out of the water.

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Adjusting to Water

Warm baths seemed nice. It was comforting to immerse in liquid that was near body temperature. If water was too hot or cold, it lacked comfort, and I probably wailed if subjected to it. Extreme air temperature seemed easier to take than extreme water temperatures. I do not remember venturing into water by choice while we lived in Michigan. At age six we moved to the Gulf Coast of Florida. Even though folks referred to Gulf of Mexico waters as bath like, I did not find them so. My first attempt into entering those waters probably occurred at my grandfather’s house. He owned beach front on Casey Key. It seemed adults liked the idea of escaping hot air by going into Gulf waters.
My first venture out into water, halted as soon as my toes hit liquid that I could tell was much colder than blood. I see myself in shorts up to the bottom of my ankles in seemingly frigid water, shivering and hunched over for warmth. I was being encouraged to quickly get in, and advised, “You’ll get used to it.” I saw no sense in getting used to freezing to death. So I took the slow approach and tried to inch my way to deeper waters. Every step seemed grueling and painful. It seemed to take a long time and I had to guard against cold waters splashing on the upper parts of my body, that were not yet subjected to being immersed. Even though it felt like the parts immersed were indeed “getting use to it,” I could see no benefit of continuing this strenuous task. For me, sweltering air was not that bad. I recall finding enough relief from heat, by the time I reached knee depth in water. Then I turned and ran out, fully satisfied with my water experience.
After several attempts I finally managed to get fully immersed. It seemed shocking at first and eventually I did get used to it. The water did not become warm, but I could stand it. The only thing that made it bearable is the frolicking that could take place in this liquid buoyant atmosphere. However, the chilling effect was not yet finished. The next painful phase emerged when I came out of the water. The cooling effect of water evaporating off wet skin immediately hit me. The only relief came from dunking back in cool waters. It seemed incredulous that something so cool to get into now provided semblance of warmth. Surely, I had entered an upside down world. Now it was important to have towels and dry cloths near at hand to cover up quickly so that my body could return to the comfort of blistering heated air. I quickly learned to prefer the cooling effect of sweat evaporating off my near naked body than go through this arduous cooling method.

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Water Stories: Earliest Memory

My earliest memory of water I do not remember. I must have been floating in a sack of water before I was born, since that is what humans do before they emerge. It was probably warm and dark, maybe even comfortable. After that, I do not remember specifics, but I feel that my earliest sense of water is that it was unpleasantly cold. Probably it first consisted of being bathed by my mother. Air was quite a bit colder than the warm moist environment I come from. Then, I was assaulted by something liquid and more chilling. It was not pleasant. Being bundled in swaddling clothes seemed more preferable than being immersed in fluid that was even the slightest bit colder than my body temperature.
Little did I realize that water could get much colder. In fact, it could lose so much of its heat it stopped being liquid and turned solid. That provided my next memory of water--that of ice. I only have the slightest vision of my sister Karen, sitting out in the middle of the lake with our dog. Next to me on the shoreline were my parents who were raising quite a commotion yelling at Karen to come back. Whatever message they were conveying to her, it only caused Karen to stand up and wave back in greeting. The dog just stood there wagging its tale. I could not understand what the fuss was all about.
I did know that the ice would support the weight of many grown men who would go out to the middle and harvest ice. I could not understand why my parents did not go out and fetch Karen, It would certainly have made more sense than standing on the shore and yelling. It did not seem to be working. Eventually Karen must have got tired and returned to shore. Once they she was grabbed in an embrace and my parents seemed relieved. I had no idea that Spring ice held danger.
I must have intuited that it was not worth venturing out onto the ice. I have no memory of making that trip alone for the next few winter we spent in Michigan. After that we moved to Florida and ice was something I did not have to contend with for quite awhile. But it still took some time before I discovered water’s refreshing qualities.

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No Story tonight.

October 2008,

Dear Reader,
There will not be a story tonight. In the morning, I attend a servsafe class. My day begins at 8:30 AM and lasts until 5:30 PM. In my job as receiver of foodstuffs, I am required to have training in the method of handling food properly to prevent spread of illness. I was given a text to read tonight in preparation for tomorrow’s class. I will take it to bed with me and likely shortly fall to sleep. This weekend I intend to have an outdoor fire and hope that will prompt another fire story. In the meantime, stay warm.
Sincerely,
Baba Rob

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Got the Picture?

Yesterday, when I arrived home. I set out on an assignment to find nice photos showing the autumnal colors in their glory. The sky was overcast, and bright sun was not present. I went off hoping that sun would burst through for even a moment to illuminate the fall splendor. Shortly after pedaling away on my bicycle, a slight mist developed. Through out my ride, hard rain threatened. With out sun to cut through the mist, long range landscapes were not possible. I captured a few close views on my digital camera. As rain increased I headed home to download pictures. I felt this may be the last chance to view autumn leaves this fall. The rain and wind managed to dislodge a bunch of leaves. If it did not turn mild and quiet, the images I got would have to make do for addition to my blog.Arriving home, I used Photo Shop to crop pictures that I hoped to post on this blog. Three went up. I felt slight disappointment that what I posted seemed rather small and did not do justice to reality I viewed. I worried that the last chance had gone and colors were past their peak, never to return till next fall. This morning dawned bright and clear again. Though there were some bare patches on trees and many leaves were blowing around on the ground, sunshine lit up the hillside. I cruised around looking for more opportunities to gather shots. Today's posting will reveal what I found. Too bad, my little digital camera has no zoom lens. I hope the pictures I provided give a sense of the outstanding beauty, covering the Finger Lakes region.

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The Hills Are Ablaze: On Assignment

On the way to delivering Natalie, Alex, Liam and Ella to their train in Syracuse we noted that the autumnal colors were likely at their peak. All the hues present in a fire were shining form the hillsides as we passed. The past few days have been unseasonably warm no doubt ripened final colors into leaves. By the time , I returned home clouds came over and a stiff breeze sprang up. Leafs are blowing off their perches. Likely a cold front is moving in and this may be the last chance to capture the radiance emitting from the hillsides.
I picked up my digital camera, am heading out on my bicycle in search of a brief sunny interlude to highlight this radiance. Hopefully I can capture a suitable image. My hope is to post it on my blog in lieu of a daily story. Any way, an older slogan holds that a picture is worth over a thousand words. So I better get out and see if I can put those thousand or so words into a digital image.

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