A Square Peg...

The question posed was about TV shows of the 1960's and early 70's, my teen and young adult years... who never missed what shows? Which shows were favorites and which were duds?

Overall, I just can't relate...

Growing up in America, I was certainly aware of, but not a fan of, mainstream TV, which was pretty much all of it. Mostly it made me feel disconnected, like someone who doesn't like ice cream. People would say: "I love that show! or such and such is so good!" and I was silently numb, feeling like the guy who is picked last for the baseball game that he doesn't want to play in anyway.

All through High School, I spent most of the evening hours in my bedroom looking through a microscope at a much smaller world and listening to AM radio. That made me happy and gave me a good excuse to avoid the TV room with my folks and Lawrence Welk. Sitting on my bed reading each volume of the 1956 World Book Encyclopedia over and over, trading barbs with my best friend two houses away over a telegraph system we put together, lines buzzing from window to tree to garage to tree and down into my friends window.

My real hot button? Long lazy summer days spent alone on several hundred acres of pristine Virginia woods at my Grandparents place, clearing new growth from the ruts of old stagecoach roads that permanently scared the land, superhighways to the West, now silent of their squeaking wheels and the labored breathing of large animals. I felt them there, the ghosts of the past, now buoyed by cool breezes under the high canopy of live Oaks, populated by choirs of birds...just us, exhilarated, celebratory, and yes, feeling very much connected.

That place was my church. God lived in those woods.

Swim Forrest, Swim!

My next door neighbor and I were sitting out back looking at the lake when three of our mutual friends showed up. I questioned aloud: "I wonder if anyone ever swam across it?" Well, one thing lead to another, one beer to the next, and before I knew it, he and I were in a swimming competition while our three friends stayed warm and dry on the bank. They jeered and yelled out nasty remarks about how we couldn't swim worth a damn and probably couldn't even catch a tadpole for lunch if our lives depended on it. Some friends they turned out to be.

Susie Evert No pictures of your swim across the lake Uncle Hugh Maverick Haller?

Hugh Maverick Haller Just envision a speed boat...

Susie Evert Yeah yeah! Faster than speed lighting! huh? LOL

Nick Patten did you make it across the lake? and by lake do you mean swimming pool? not to doubt your swimming prowess ...just asking

Hugh Maverick Haller It's more retention pond than lake, full of toxic runoff and alligators. But my new neighbor doesn't know that so I made sure that he won the coin toss and got a ten second lead. I didn't bother to see if he made it, mainly because I went back up to the deck. I knew there was only one beer left.

Hugh Maverick Haller I wouldn't get into that shitty water if you paid me.

Susie Evert Thats what I was thinking about how gross the lake must be and what about alligators? I'm so gullible!

Nick Patten the old 10 second lead get the new guy to jump into alligator infested toxic water trick heh? it's a classic....well done sir, well done

Hugh Maverick Haller In this picture the four of us were laughing as we watched his slime covered head moving away from us as fast as that man could swim.I don't know if that was a large stick or an alligator drifting his way.

Cyril Collins Spoken like a real Manatee

Dad...

My father had a massive heart attack when he was 64. Surviving that wake-up call, he uncharacteristically paid attention when the doctor told him to stop smoking, stop working and to take care of himself right now, or die. That kind of talk can get your attention, as it did for him. He quit his law practice in NYC, quit his three pack a day cigarette habit that turned the ends of his fingers brown, and moved away from New Jersey traffic to North Carolina coastline. For the next two years he learned how to fish the surf and walk a ten mile loop between two prominent piers every day. Although he did ramp it up again after that and was the driving force behind incorporation of the town of Pine Knoll Shores, serving as mayor for two terms, he stayed healthy. When death came knocking again at age 89, he was ready to answer the door, and did.

We never hugged or said: “I love you.” A handshake was what fathers and sons did back in those days, and that was OK. But sometimes little things matter the most and we both enjoyed sending each other bad limericks.

Dad wrote:

An amoeba from old Potawatomi,

Was beset with recurring dichotomy,

She split and she split,

And after a bit,

She observed: “There's a hell of a lot-o-me!”

I responded:

An old salt went fishing most days,

Catching fish in incredible ways,

The fish he was gleaning,

Were like ovens: self-cleaning!

And most days he caught just fillets!

A lazy old man form The Shores,

Wraps his dog round his neck while he snores,

Sitting up on the couch,

With a dog-induced slouch,

He feigns sleep to avoid all his chores!

In this increasingly disjointed world, while I pretend to be an adult in charge, I miss my Dad's stable, reassuring, wise council. And if he's out there, looking over my shoulder, I just want to say to him out loud so he hears me clearly: “I love you, Dad.”

Are You Happy?

If someone asked me: “Are you happy? Happy with your life right now and the path you took to get here?” My answer would have to be “yes”. But I never had a plan. I just started driving toward an unknown destination, taking exits that felt right even if they were left. What else can you do if you never know what you want to be when you grow up? Right now, at age 66, I still don't know. So I look at it like a Zen thing, it just is what it is and I just am what I am. And that's OK with me. Certainly I envied many of those along the way who knew, set a course and plotted out a map to where they thought they wanted to go. But even with those people, so many had to deal with roadblocks that took them in an entirely different direction. Life intervenes. I've long embraced the belief that things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work out. And no looking back with regret. Whatever could have happened, did. And now that I've traveled these many unplanned miles, I've come to a place of perspective. A big yardstick in our culture is money and certainly I'm a lot less wealthy than I had expected to be at my age. But that is balanced by my surprising lack of concern. My real wealth is in the many things that have nothing to do with money. I'm not known for being an expert in any field, I'm no guru of anything in particular. And yet, I'm a very successful person and I know it. That's what matters, that perspective. I didn't arrive at this spot on a map by design, I just bumbled into it as I lead a happy life, every mile along the way...happy because I choose to be...and that is a choice we can all make every day.

Rebirth...

One foot after the other, I spent plenty of time looking down at the cracked earth surrounding much of Wichita Falls, Texas while doing a lot of running there in the early 1970s. The countryside was more flat, open and dry than any I had ever experienced growing up in the Northeast. Western movie stuff, and great running country, mile after mile of flat solitude. Tumbleweeds caught in barbed wire fences leapfrogged with the occasional dead coyote draped across jagged lines, slain leaders intended to remind his clan that like the Native Americans themselves, they were no longer welcome here.

One fresh coyote, a traffic fatality that appeared unexpectedly on a morning run, lay peacefully in a fetal position at the junction of blacktop and scrub, allowing close inspection. Seemingly undamaged, lost in the dreams of eternal sleep, he became a mile marker for me. I knew when to turn around on a five-mile jog. But, like this picture, the thing that interested me the most was the new life he gave to that split, parched landscape. In the course of daily runs over the next three weeks, his body was consumed and scattered by the vultures, carrion beetles, and varmints who appreciate a good dinner with the dead... but his head itself, never moved. Dull, useless eyes, skin stretched and cracked like the surrounding earth, revealing bone. The remains of a right eye stared up at the blinding oven, the inescapable burn blistering down, as new life clawed its way out. One delicate purple wildflower sprouted from a hollow eye socket. It seemed to please that tattered head as his lips melted away, leaving only a double saw of grinning teeth leering with joy at his own beautiful rebirth, punctuated by that one perfect flower.