Maiden Voyage: Happy Endings October 25, 2015

So where we left off, Suzy had delivered me back to Louise and I headed south from Violet Hill with plans to overnight in Mountain View as the last stop on my way home to Shirley.

Having checked-out several RV parks online, I’d selected one along my planned route and headed there. But when I arrived, though the office was open, no one ever came to the desk… and there were no instructions for self-check-in.

Also, there was some sort of (very large) ‘demolition fire’ consuming the remains of what had once apparently been a (pretty big) structure, smoldering right across the street… making it unpleasant to breathe and taste the air.

Thus, having spent 20 minutes of daylight doing nothing and wanting to be tucked in before dark, I called the second RV park on my pre-selected list to get exact directions to their location and got a friendly recording telling me to leave my number for a call-back.

That’s when it suddenly dawned on me that in the time I’d spent waiting and doodling around, I could have been half-way home… where I would not have to attend any of the tasks necessary to bed-down comfortably in an RV park for one night. And that the only reason, really, that I wanted to stay in Mountain View was to meet a friend for lunch the next day… which I could still do, by driving back in my car, even if I went home that night.

So I did, feeling rather gratified that I had proven everything I needed to prove to myself, about my own capacity for extended travel, capability to solo-RV and about my vehicle… sweet Louise… which I now knew from first-person experience to be steady, reliable, easy to maneuver, mechanically sound and uniquely comfortable to my pragmatic ideals and eccentric tastes.

I slept rather well in my homebed that night, though a part of me missed my traveling berth. Sometimes life feels like having to choose between rich-creamy vanilla ice cream and deep-dark-chocolate mousse… and knowing that you can have as much as you want of either, but only one at a time…

This cozy corner in the combo living-room/bedroom of my petit-rv serves as my audio entertainment center, office and dinner table.

It was wonderful to shower in my own sticks-and-brick bathroom, and pull clothes from my large/spacious closets, and get dressed in the luxury of my almost-enormous bedroom with the window-wall overlooking the broad back deck and yard full of autumn-gold trees. Still, there is nothing more convenient than having ‘everything you need’ literally at your fingertips… thus, my tug-of-heart.

Which was what I pondered, at length and in depth, as I headed back to Mountain View that Thursday morning, only this time I was driving my Tib (2008 Hyundai Tiburon); thinking about how much I enjoy my mobility and the great medley of things (projects, events) that I am at my liberty to choose to do and am sometimes blessed to share with friends.

Miriam, who I was meeting for lunch at Jacks Fishing Resort & Jo Jos Catfish Wharf where she works, has been on my ‘friends list’ since 2010 when we met doing advocacy work with a law-reform organization. A vibrant woman with a deep love of family and devout relationship with God, I have always admired her tenacity, forthrightness and pluck.

It had been some time since we’d chatted face to face, and it was good to catch up. She and her husband are doing well, her work keeps her busy and she has not much been involved with advocacy stuff for a while, she said. She asked about several of our mutual advocacy-friends, some of whom neither of us had seen for quite some time, but we shared what we knew. And we had a great time just chit-chatting about various of our mutual interests, such a the health benefits of good nutrition and the amazingly beneficial properties of various herbs and essential oils.

Lunch, by the way (I had the Seafood Platter with breaded deep-fried catfish, shirmp, and clams, baked potato, cole slaw, hushpuppies, baked beans, green tomato relish, and homemade tartar sauce), was beyond delicious. Possibly the best clam strips I’ve had since childhood visits to Howard Johnson’s…!!! Everything – including the beautiful waterfront view and convivial service – was absolutely wonderful and definitely goes on my list of ‘great places to eat’…!!!

I also learned that I could have gotten an RV site there, at the fishing resort, instead of going home the previous night… and have stowed this info for ‘next time’.

Which is where my meandering journal shall pick up with the story of my great adventure at the (amazing!) Workamper Conference  last week (10/20-22/15) while staying at the Dam Site State Park & Campground in Heber Springs, Arkansas.

Until next time, a bushel and a peck of happy (((hugs))) ~Christine

————————–

Intermezzo October 12, 2015

My Maiden Voyage lasted six days. I have now been home for twelve and wow… what a lot has happened during this time. Thus, though there are still a couple of episodes of my debut adventure yet to be posted, I thought it would be good to chronicle what’s been happening on my homefront.

Starting with the here and now, eldest son Adam posted something on Facebook this morning:  How sound (resonance, frequency, amplitude) levitates a droplet of water.

Of course the fact that sound-waves have a direct and observable influence on matter is really old news, ie: singing notes of a certain pitch and volume shatter glass. But I mean, wow… some of the scientists among us learned how to LEVITATE one form of matter (water) with sound. And the implications are tremendous… especially when considering that the human body is about 55% H2O…

Anyway, a lot of the last twelve days has gone to catching-up on all the stuff that didn’t get done for several weeks, respective the sudden and long-awaited opportunity to take my Maiden Voyage. Yesterday, I began autumn clean-up in the back yard.

My backyard, April 2015.

This is what ALL of my several raised-beds looked like as of yesterday.

By yesterday, the scene was not so bucolic as above.

For one thing, my recovery from death last January definitely put a hitch in my slow but steady giddy-up. For another, the whole death experience provoked me to reflect and introspect on what I (me, myself) really and truly want to do (see, experience, enjoy) with the here-in-now moments of my life, now that all five of my darling grown-up children are charting courses of their own.

And I realized that, while gardening and landscaping has always been a passion of mine, it has also been a family (many hands make light work) activity. And now, as more and more of the physical labor is mine alone to do, no matter how much I enjoy the doing of it, I do not wish to do it ALL of the time.

Eldest son Adam and me at the airport the day he flew-out for orientation with his new employer.

Which brings us to what has taken up much of my time these past twelve days… That my darling eldest son Adam has accepted employment out of state… In Austin, Texas, to be exact.

About which we are all elated, thrilled and overjoyed for him to be exploring this tremendous opportunity… and have been busy sorting out how things are going to work around here after he moves.

One bed (of many) weeded, planted with bulb-sets, mulched and watered.

All of which and many other details of daily life have filled all of my days so far this month… but I gotta tell you, it sure did feel good to get my work-gloves dirty yesterday. (((hugs))) ’til next time…  ~Christine

Maiden Voyage: Camelot October 6, 2015

The second leg of my debut as a solo RVer had initially envisioned a visit to Lexington, Kentucky, but plans changed and on Monday, the morning of September 28^th, Louise and I headed south.

As we did, I thought (just as I am thinking right now) that I feel somehow awkward – kookie-strange and weird – anthropomorphizing a mechanical vehicular means of transportation (ie: an ‘inanimate object’) as if it were human.

Growing up with a FoMoCo engineer as my dad, such tomfoolery was not warmly embraced… although neither were we a dull sort, but none of our several vehicles had names beyond manufacturer, make and model.

Thus my grandfather (my mom’s dad) drove a ’49 Ford Sedan and called it , simply. the Ford.

1949 Ford Sedan: My grandpa and grandma bought one of these new the year that I was born, and it was the first car I ever “drove,” sitting on grandpa’s lap, when I was 4 or 5.  Photo courtesy AlfvanBeem – Own work. Licensed under CC0 via Commons

My dad’s auto of choice was a ’57 Thunderbird.

I remember riding in my dad’s 1957 T-Bird. Wow… would I love to have a ride in it now…!!! ~Image courtesy Auto Trader Classics

But neither of these automobiles ever had any people-flavored nicknames, and growing up with this (unspoken, inculcated, memetic) predisposition tends to amplify it as ‘the norm’ – which of course it is neither normal nor abnormal for one to give a pet-name to a car, toaster, poodle, pony or computer… <smile>, but simply a mannerism of expressing a dimension of one’s own personal countenance.

And in the ‘why & wherefore’ of all-things-considered, boiling it all down to one (spectacular <smile>) reason for doing the dance I’ve begun, it is to explore those dimensions of ‘me’ that I intuitively know to exist but that have, for the past half-century, played second-fiddle to doing certain — like being a mom and having a career — and that now there are some other things that I would like to do.

Thus in the hopes of inspiring this ‘new and improved’ state of creativity in myself, I am purposefully doing things that are NOT ‘normal’ for me… like dubbing my 2002 Great West Van as Louise -and- giving myself permission to totally ‘go with the flow’, change plans mid-stream and even tell someone off without feeling even a teeny niggle of second-guessing guilt…!!!

Because the circumstances that culminated as my revised route could have caused me anguish. For one thing, I put a lot of thoughtful energy into formulating any plans I make, and this trip certainly was no exception. And there were others who were half-counting on me to be in Lexington for a day or two. So when events went counter to what I’d envisioned, it was unsettling to have to re-make plans midstream… Especially when, from my perspective, there was no ‘good’ reason that the change had to happen and was simply the result of a professional colleague doing something quite mean-spirited.

And usually, when I encounter stuff like this I tend to just let it go.. brush the dust from my sandals and move on.  This time, however, as my friend Vicki (with whom I was backyard boondocking)  became aware of what had transpired being a forthright advocate of justice for all, she said to me: “So… did you call her on it…???”

Thus I shed my political-correctness and told the unpleasant woman to go bag it… and bottom line, it felt good <smile>, kinda like I started resonating in harmony with a new frequency <smile> as I re-thought travel plans for the balance of my first roadtrip.

Bidding Vicki a fond fare-thee-well mid-Monday-morning, the drive from St. Louis to Poplar Bluff seemed a reasonable distance (150 miles) to travel in one day and I wanted to get comfortably settled into a site before dark so I could just kick-back, relax and the enjoy comforts of my roving home.

As I got closer to Poplar Bluff I googled RV parks, looking for one with WIFI and full hook-ups, and a place called Camelot RV Campground was right on my path

And I must say, I believe that King Arthur himself would have appreciated the comfortable accommodations I found there. I mean, the woman at the front desk was friendly and attentive. Registration was quick, instructions on how to connect with campground WIFI were explicit, and directions to my site, #17, and how to exit in the morning were drawn-out for me on a map.

Settling in to a site takes a bit of doing. First, you park as level as possible. Then you go around the vehicle unlocking the lockers that have the stuff you need to hook-up. All of which, really, is pretty simple – once you know how. And it is not a steep learning curve <grin>.

But it does take some thinking and developing a process that works to make sure certain things get done, like plugging in to shore power, turning the propane on, connecting the tank-dump (sewage and gray water) line to the in-ground receptacle and opening the valves to let stuff flow.

Also, if the campground has cable TV, you hook-up your coaxial. And Camelot did indeed offer this free amenity, but I was coaxial-less <smile>… and even if I had thought to bring one along, probably wouldn’t have taken the time to figure out how it works… because there are a lot of various coaxial connector boxes and disconnected cables inside one of the aft cabinets which I know somehow relate to the TV installed overhead in the cab of the van, but at the moment I have nary a clue about what is supposed to connect where in order to get the TV to work…!!!

Which is not a big deal for me really, as I have no television (cable, satellite, public air waves) at home. Paid subscriptions just got too expensive for my pension-budget, and once the public airwaves went digital, my entertainment and news have all come through the Internet. Thus my keen interest to overnight at a campground with WIFI… (aka: I LOVE Netflix) and this proved to be my only disappointment.

Connectivity was intermittent and slow., making it impossible to watch even a 3-min Youtube, although I was able to get some email sent — but even that was touch and go. Had I planned on staying more than overnight at the park, I would have had to ask if this was the norm, or if something was amiss. But since I was ready for an early beddtime, it didn’t seem worth the effort.

What did seem worth the effort — and resulted in one of the most sublime moments of pure indulgence – was waking-up from an evening nap and cooking brown rice at midnight without thought or concern to whether my late-night movements were disruptive to my sleeping son or daughter who rise early to go to work…

Thus I listened to the radio, turned lights on and off, washed dishes and did whatever I wished in the privacy of my own little gypsy cabana… and abiding the principle that “my liberty to swing my arm freely ends where your nose begins” with respect for others camped nearby, I could just simply be myself….

Wow… What a hoot…!!!

7am breakfast of brown rice, scrambled egg and fruit juice kicked-off my departure routine. Then, after the kitchen was tidied and my bed made (all of which took maybe 10-min.) the 3-way refrig which had been running on shore power since I checked in, had to be switched off because I have not yet had the ‘coach battery recharge while driving’ issue redressed. Thus on this trip, while in transit I used a standard ice-chest when shore power was not available… which was most of the time.

Then the roof a/c and/or exhaust fan(s)  are shut down, turned off, curtains are un-snapped from front and side windows, decorative items (like my Mickey & Minnie Mouse Chinese Lantern that hangs above my aft table when I’m not tooling down the road)) and various electronics are stowed with items essential to navigating the day’s journey provisioned for easy access from the driver’s seat.

Outside, as electricity and sewer lines are disconnected, cleaned and stowed, lockers must be closed and locked, tire pressure and fluid levels checked, and a walk-around of the vehicle, making sure to bend over and look underneath and cast an eye to what’s going on up-top, confirms that everything looks the way it should.

Most time consuming of my exit protocol was flushing the black-water tank… which had (as I am told many RVs do) a bit of a nasty odor which we first noticed when the kids and I drove Louise home after purchase.

Son Adam substantially mitigated this problem en-route by pouring a bag of ice down the commode. And then, after we got home, daughter Shawna and I took Louise to a local park for a picnic, and while we were there we dumped the tanks… which I hoped would completely resolved the issue.

Alas, it did not. The annoying odor, though less intense, persisted. And so this time I was determined to give the tank a really thorough flush, pouring whole buckets of water into the toilet with the trap propped open, so that any residual sludge would gush through the system and out the drain. And for all of the rest of my journey home, the offensive odor ceased to exist…!!!!

And so you have the highlights of my first solo night in an RV park… 72 hours into my debut adventure with several more days yet to go. Thanks for the pleasure of your virtual ride-along company… and if you’d like to know more about what I do beyond roving in Louise, I am proud to share the happy news that I am again in print with The Municipal… in the October 2015 edition, find me on pages 24-26.

Until next time and the story of the third leg of my first adventure as a Home Ranger…… (((hugs))) and happy travels to all… ~Christine

Maiden Voyage: Lift off. October 2, 2015

My first excursion in Louise was like cruising the universe on a rogue moon.

Having quantum-leaped free from the gravitational jurisdiction of my native solar system, Friday last I set course for St Louis and the flux was on <smile>.

Aiming to be off the launchpad between 8am and 9am, completing the pre-escape checklist took a bit longer than anticipated, partly because I kept thinking of specialty tools that would make life more comfortable at all of the little stops along the way.

The item last grabbed at 10am as I shared mega-hugs with eldest son, Adam, was our family’s old campfire-soot-stained 8-cup percolator.

“You know, that wouldn’t be here for you to take if I hadn’t rescued it from Sassafras,” he chided.

I smiled at him, over my shoulder, reflecting backward with uber warm-fuzzies on the last time the percolator was used, on a family camping trip, fifteen years ago, to a nook in a cranny of the Ozark Mountains that we named SassafrasWilds.

Then finally, with the turn of a key and the engine purring like a quick-witted tiger on the prowl, five years of hoping, dreaming, wishing and navigating through the passage of my off-springs’s young-adulthood and my liberating emancipation from the work-a-day world to that stage of life we call ‘retirement’, I was cruising.

Wow… What a hoot!!!

Time of arrival at friend Vicki’s abode, where I was to backyard boondock for a couple of nights and which the google-gods calculated to be 346 miles north-northeast of my start, was estimated at 3pm to 4pm.

In fact, according to Louise’s instrument panel, we logged 354 miles portal-to-portal, with no digression from route. And for those (like me) who care about such things, Louise got just a hair over 13mpg on this first leg of our journey, which was all on U.S. Hwy. or Interstate with many long and sometimes steep grades.

Coupled with my penchant to ‘take things slow and easy’ (average speed was 60-ish) and my self-awarded liberty to stop whenever the spirit so moves me, actual travel time was 10 hours… which included 1 stop to check tire pressure and fuel-up right after leaving home, and one to refuel along the way, plus several to just to get out of the driver’s seat, have a snack, stretch my legs and take a potty break.

Truly, for me, an enchanted way to travel.

Chumming with Vicki – who I met at a conference which she coordinated in 2011 — was grand. Our friendship was seeded by our respective independent advocacy work on issues pertinent to social justice, professional accountability, individual equality, civic well-being and family health — my personal role in which has mainly been that of journalist: reporting on programs, events and activities being forwarded by various organizations that, in my cultured opinion, deserve to make print, and sometimes volunteering as the communications director or public relations person with organizations that are doing what I see as critical work in the fostering of healthy, happy, vibrant communities.

In this instance, my test-run with Louise included piggybacking my penchant for advocacy with my desire to travel and visit family and friends. To find out, experientially, how capable I am to maintain the pace requisite multiple consecutive days on the road, including the doing of routine operations (like dumping the tanks and hooking-up shore power) plus the daily housekeeping of my mobile mini-mansion, while at the same time driving upto to 300 miles a day -and- doing the things that I actually want to do.

Thus for two days Vicki and I dug into the subject matter of the organization she now serves as president: Women Against Registry, aka: WAR.

Our first task was to draft some written copy for new brochure to succinctly articulate the organization’s purpose which, in a nutshell, is to insist that society look at and do something about the harm being done to whole families and most especially to young children, by laws that were – with the best of intentions – intended to protect everyone.

A tenet I personally find to be too true in too many aspects of our great nation’s justice system today.

Thus a good measure of the time that Vicki and I shared – reaching back to include several months of email correspondence — was given to detailing plans for an envisioned conference that we’ve lovingly dubbed JAKE, which stands for Justice, Accountability, Knowledge, Equality… and which to us, sorta says all of everything about what we want life to be all about for everyone, all of the time… just and fair, with each of us accountable for our own actions being grounded in an understanding of the complex dynamics of social interaction and thus resonant with the quality of respect amplified by the tenet, “Do unto others what you would have others do unto you.”

So, there you have it… <smile> Phase one of my weeklong test run went great. Louise operated fabulously well on self-contained systems from Friday morning through early Monday afternoon, when I checked in for our first night together in a real RV park… my experience of which will I shall elaborate upon soon….

Until next time, (choose to) be the peace, love and joy that makes the world a friendlier, happier, healthier place for everyone… especially yourself… because you (and all of us) deserve it. (((hugs))) ~Christine

Maiden Voyage… September 23, 2015

It has been a very long time since my last post here. To catch-up on where I’ve been (ie: my death <no shit> and resuscitation back in January of this year) take a look at my long-time professional homepage gozarks.com

At the moment, I’m preparing for a new adventure. Given all continues to move happily forward as it has these last several days, I will be taking my mobile mini-mansion gypsy cabana, aka: 2002 Great West Van Classic Supreme Elite (nicknamed ‘Louise’ in honor of my middle name because this ride is all about me <grin>), on her debut run.

Thanks my darling adult kinder,  2 1/2 weeks ago I became the owner of this wonderful vehicle and the recipient of a whole bunch of moral support for me to follow my dreams. And for the last 5 years, all I have been plotting and hoping and planning and wishing to have is a little motor home, so that I can travel around and visit with family and friends that I have not seen in forever or, in some instances, never met before…!!!

So for since we returned from (near) Corpus Christi, Texas, where be purchased this stellar vehicle from Ron Hoover RV & Marine (THANKS!!! Y’all are great!!!), I have been busy testing systems, outfitting, provisioning and getting things ready to go on this first run.

And yesterday, thanks to my eldest son, Adam, the water leak that had me concerned was diagnosed as a crack in the filler hose that attaches the potable water inlet to the potable water tank. Though I do want to get this fixed, it is not an immediate concern and is fine to travel as is.

We also checked the electrical systems and found that everything is working fine, EXCEPT that the engine alternator is NOT charging the coach batteries (which we were told when we purchased, but wanted to confirm). And while I do want to get this fixed as soon as possible, since the generator, 12v, shore power and propane systems are all working fine, this is not an issue that will keep me from traveling this week.

So tomorrow I will do the final load-up of clothing, computer stuff and provisions, and continue double-checking systems, so that Friday morning between 8 and 9 am (Central Time), Louise and I will be heading north (about 300 miles) to St. Louis, Missouri, to visit for a couple of days with a friend.

And depending on how well things go on the 1st leg of this journey, I will decide whether I am best to head back home, or go on to Lexington, Kentucky for a day or two.

Ahhhhhh… sweet mystery of life…. (((hugs))) ~Christine, more about me at About Me !!!

enemies February 23, 2012

 The following came to my Inbox compliments of Simon Black, author of Soverign Man, who (if you take what he says at face value) makes a good living out of telling people what’s wrong with government, the economy, health care, the media, banking and finance, foreign policy, etc., etc., and so on… and then selling them his version of ‘the answer’.

Please, do observe:

The war you won’t hear about in the media

There’s a war going on that you’ll never hear about on the nightly news.

This war poses, by far, the largest immediate threat to you, your family and your future well-being.

And provided you take no action to protect yourself, this war could very well alter the quality of your life forever.

But this war is not being fought against some unseen enemy on the far side of the globe.

This war, dear reader, is being fought against you.

You are the enemy.

Your way of life is the enemy. And your belief in your freedom to live that life as you see fit is in the cross hairs of a government desperate to maintain the status quo.

Your freedom is being destroyed. But it’s happening slowly so as not to stir the masses hypnotized by their TV and video game lifestyle.

During the collapse of an empire, freedom doesn’t disappear in a blink. As we can all see by the events around us, it disappears very slowly. Little by little, laws are enacted that remove it.

One day, there’s nothing left.

That’s the point at which people will wake up and start to freak out.

The goal of this message is to make sure YOU are not one of those people.

[sales pitch removed]

To your sovereign freedom,

Simon Black

Word-crafted rhetoric, homed to an invisibly transparent purpose, parsed with precision pronouncements all pitching to do one job: Sell a product.

Simon has something he wants you (anybody, somebody) to purchase. He wants to trade something he has for something you’ve got. 

His singularity is motivating you to ‘buy’ and he is using every manner of logic and persuasive (gravitational) cunning to pull you across his event horizon, punctuating each participle to stress every adverb that will help close the deal. 

Such is the distilled essence of all that we call ‘capitolism’, which — some would say — is the backbone of healthy free-market economies and the bedrock of global prosperity and peace. So, we wonder, why does Simon chronically tell us ‘how bad things are’ and blast us with info about why things are not working, and then offer to ‘sell’ us his ready-made solution for precluding such woes lest they befall us, ‘the enemy’, ourselves. 

That is, if Simon really does have a solution — a better way of doing things than free-market exchange — why isn’t he giving (yes giving) all of us a free lesson in the subject-matter. Why isn’t he — having (supposedly) found ‘the way to a better life’ — explaining this passage, step-by-step; handing out ‘maps’ out of the goodness of his heart? 

Does it matter…???

What do you think… Lemme know. 

“America: Love it or fix it…”

(((hugs)))

consequences January 28, 2012

Tthe men in my life — from youngest son to eldest chum and everyone in-between — are entertaining.

So much, it seems to me (as I have supposedly ‘matured’), of the strife and discontent we (and especially the male of the specie) endure is the cataclysmic consequence of (what a long-ago lover called) ‘old cows in the ditch’.

Ghosts of memories of experiences invisibly forgotten, yet emotionally resonant throughout every nano-second of life, provoking life-quaking vibrations which ‘autonomically’ compell self-destructive, reactionary ‘out of control’ 4-F behavioral mechanisms.

And that the only way out of this ‘feedback loop’ is by self-inflicted epiphany, involving a total, soul-searching and brutally honest assessment of personal accountability as the major contributing factor to the immediate circumstances of one’s own life.

Yet this, it seems, is the bridge to the other side of the looking glass that folks are ‘afraid’ to cross, because even in their ‘unknowing’ they still somehow intuit that once they start living life through this new lens, things will never be the same….

Things will change…

And they have so little reason to ‘trust’ in themselves and so much shored-up ‘distrust’ of others that the only change they are capable to envision is (always and redundantly) for the worst, and so they cleave unto the ‘known’, self-imposing abstinance from making any change at all and, in so doing, self-perpetuate all the ‘problems’ which have forever and persistently plagued them.

And there is no ‘magic pill’ to cure his dis-ease, just the trusim that “to get what we’ve never had, we must do what we’ve never done.”

Home to roost… June 19, 2011

My previous rant about “The Power,” addressing the insidious and sublime ‘police state’ mentality and how desensitized ‘we the people’ have become to the unfathomable perils of it, came home to roost here in Arkansas yesterday. But please, let me start at the beginning.

Yesterday, my daughter Shawna and I treated ourselves to a concert-outing. (See poster at right.) It proved to be a pleasant and entertaining ‘family style’ event. Our whole time there, people were smiling and happy. Kids frolicked on an improvised waterslide. Folks visited. Music played. And the sweet-cool evening breeze off the White River bathed us all. Even my daughter ‘had fun’ (and you know how persnickety teenagers are)! For your enjoyment, I have posted a few photos, below.

But sadly, as I hear tell, after my daughter and I headed home, around-about 10pm the local constabulary pulled-up two patrol cruisers in front of the stage and shut the whole shin-dig down. As I understand it, this action was taken resultant of complaints about ‘noise’.

Now I can’t say how loud things got after we left, but while we were there the music was loud enough to be appreciated and not so loud that you couldn’t hear yourself think. And it was, after all, a music festival.  A place where one might expect the drum-beats to reverberate.

I also confess that I have no knowledge about what (if any) ordinances exist in Baxter County that limit the decibel of sound one may issue forth from one’s own private property. And I stress here that this was a private event, accessible only by purchase of a ticket, presented by an independent promoter at a private campground at an ‘end of the road, way-out-of-the-way’ location.

I also don’t know who the people were who filed the complaint and I don’t even know for a fact that a complaint was filed. Everything I know about what happened after Shawna and I left is hearsay… though it all comes from trusted sources. 

Still, no matter the facts what I do have is common sense, a strong understanding of what is fair, right and just, and a growing outrage over what ‘we the people’ are subjecting ourselves to in the namesake of ‘doing something good.’  I mean, what are we doing (as a society) when we use ‘police power’ to treat a bunch of harmless, fun-loving families like they are  rowdy-punks having a destructive kegger in somebody-elses woods?

Where are the ‘rights’ of the people who peaceably assembled to enjoy the music? People who were all there voluntarily… who chose to be in a place where people were celebrating… where NO ‘harm’ was being done and no ‘crime’ was being committed. Who honors their rights and those of the musicians who came to perform?

If you are even a wee bit concerned about this, please call the Baxter County Sheriff’s Office ( 6/20/11 CORRECTED: 870-425-7000) and politely ask what ordinance was violated by the folks at the Arkansas Family Music Fest held near Old Joe, Arkansas, on Saturday, June 18, 2011. Then please, let me know what they tell you. In the interim, enjoy the photos…

 

 

 The crowd gathered on lawn chairs and snacked from coolers as the musicians played on stage.

 

 

One of the several band that entertained during the music festival.

Folks mixed-and-mingled throughout the event.

 The improvised waterslide was an absolute favorite with ALL the kids (young and old)!!!

And there were even totally awesome souvenir T-shirts…

And as already mentioned, my daughter (that’s her, second from the right, with the folks at the Monster Energy Drink booth) had an excellent time.

All in all, it was an event about which the whole community SHOULD HAVE BEEN PROUD!!!!!!!!!!!!

My fellow Americans… Where are you?  

BirthDays March 2, 2011

If I had gone to our state capitol today, in the hopes of addressing the membership of one of the various legislative committees who are considering bills which — in my self-esteemed wisdom — deserve critical attention, then I would not have shared breakfast and conversation with my daughter. Reason enough, it could rightly be said, for not going. But the issue to me is bigger than that.

Today, I am 62.

Thus, in my self-esteemed wisdom applied to me, I have arrived at a new benchmark. The beginning of a time in space where I get to more freely choose those things that will fill my present moments. And, with my children now predominately at the helms fo their own lives, my business obligations all satisfied, a comfortable roof over my head, a reliable vehicle to drive and the benevolence of a tidy Social Security pension, the expanses of what I may if I wish to do with my time are, perhaps for the first real time since I was twelve, seemingly limitless.

This is an odd and wonderous place to be, the liberating sensations of which wash over me like warm effervescent tides of sunshine and smiles.  It is a lovely place of mind to simply be. No ‘pressure’ of any great magnitude to ‘get things done’. Not that there isn’t a ‘to-do’ list — which I know is a double negative, but serves the point well. Because there is and will always be a to-do list. Its rigors, whether consciously chosen or memetically engendered, are assigned from our first breath of life.

Knowing this, when posed with a meaningful and substantive equation to resolve — such as ‘what do I want to do with the rest of my life?’ — my solution is simple. I ask myself “What will I be doing the day after all the ‘problems’ are resolved?” And of course the operative ‘problems’, generally speaking, constiute a whole lot of different things and are usually respective of the circumstances immersing my moment-to-moment reality.

At one time in my life, for about ten years, the ‘problem’ was how to steward our family resources to make sure all the bills got paid, that we had a comfortable home, reliable transportation, nutritious food and suitable clothing while homeschooling four children and being the (hopefully) loving spouse of a disabled person.  That decade resounded with a series of life-quaking problems, such as arriving home from work one day to find all four of our children (then ages 9, 7, 5 and 3) ‘missing’ from our home and yard while their dad slept on the couch and, when awakened, had no idea where they were.

It was a revelation for me to come to grips at that moment with the inhibiting constraints of my husband’s disablilty.  The ‘problem’ was real and huge. That instant of cognition added a heaping of ‘new tasks’ to my to-do list, some immediate and many long-term.

Thankfully, the children were quickly found playing at a neighbor’s. And I resolved in that moment for everyone’s sake that my husband — whose dysfunction is predominantly cognitive — must never be left alone with reponsibility for our children ever again. Thus, until we divorced some years later (by that time our eldest was 18 and our youngest was 12) I was effectively a single-parent ‘head of household’ for a family of six. And trust me, there were many problems.

But always there was this vision of what life would be like ‘after’ all the problems were resolved, and a yearning for some sort of blissful meadow of contentment to prevail in my life and, to whatever degree it is in my power to affect it, in the lives of all others… all of which comes with its own set of problems. Such as, for example, the crossroads I am camped at now: Taking stock. Inventorying my ‘to do’ list. Assessing what is (and what is not) truly important to me… Asking myself, somewhat obsessively, ‘what do I want to do with my time now that I am more free than I have ever been as an adult to make the choice…??? 

And the truth of the matter is that I just don’t know yet…

What I do know is that I don’t want the rest of my life to be a recurring processional of things I have already done, which brings me back to the legislative hearings I did not attend. For better or worse I have been doing my bit as a ‘good citizen’ to uphold my civic duties for over forty years. And, respectfully, over the passage of time I have done this with increasing vigor. But now I have arrived at a break-point and before I take another step forward I need to assimilate, digest and ponder which direction I really want to go…

Which is exactly what I am doing and, as with the choice I made this morning, this path of ‘not’ doing is feeling pretty good…. except for the part of me that still feels a duty to share what I’ve learned about all of this stuff over the course of the last 62 years, in the hopes of making life better, easier, simpler and more satisfying for everyone, every day.  So I’ll have to see what I can do about that… (((hugs)))

Whew… June 28, 2010

The last 5 days have been enormous.

We arrived home about 2 hours ago, somewhere around 1:45pm, having set out from Shawnee (Shawna was delighted with the name), Oklahoma, around 8 this morning.

The drive the day before (aka: Sunday), leaving Magdalena around 7am, brought us 600 miles closer to home by the time we stopped. And that evening (which was only last night, but feels like a week ago), we dined at a marvelous Chinese buffet where Shawna had octopus for the very first time. (Note: She liked the tentacles but did not care so much for the head.)

Backtracking further, the day I wrote my previous post (June 24, aka: last Thursday), was the day we arrived in Magdalena, New Mexico, and for a scant 68-hours (aka: 3 nights and 2 full days), soaked up the ambiance and culture of this sacred (a term I do not use lightly) community which pokes its head up through hard-scrapple terrain like a cactus blossom in the arid mountain plain… all of which I’ll say more about, later.

Fastforwarding back to (almost) the present moment, by 2:30 this afternoon, sweet Shawna (who drove the entire trip, shy only about 200 of the roghly 4000 miles — incident free, I am thrilled to announce) had our chariot unpacked of luggage, technology, snack box, cooler and assorted trinkets gathered along the way, was showered, had donned fresh clothes, text-messaged at least 6 friends, posted 2 notes to Facebook, made plans for the night and was out the door to check in with her (previous) employer to see if a spot still existed for her to come back to work.

Also by 2:30, I had turned on both of my desktop computers and started downloading emails: 6oo+ to one account, and about 50 to the other. Also, I noted that the house was not cooling down from the humid 80-degrees the thermostat read when we turned the a/c on… a circumstance which had not changed even an our later, just before I started this note, and so I called to get myself ‘on the list’ of our local heating & air folks who will (thankfully) be able to come check things out tomorrow.

Which is fitting, somehow, to come home to the routine nonsense of life. The maintenance, repairing, maintaining, and outfitting of a home, which — so long as one owns one — never ceases… except for spaces of time such as indulged for the last three weeks, which have in every dimension perceptible have been sheer bliss and pure enlightenment…