theNoosphere.com - Blogs http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/ Taking Community to the Next Level ... Forums, Galleries, Blogs and much more en Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:51:14 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.thenoosphere.com/images/skilltest/misc/rss.jpg theNoosphere.com - Blogs http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/ The Safety Dance http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/91-safety-dance.html Wed, 10 Mar 2010 01:45:30 GMT Three weeks into training, I'm finally getting some distance out of my runs. Not a lot, but something that isn't embarrassing to admit. The first two weeks all I did was walk. Week One was 20 minute walks. Week Two was thirty minute walks. Week Three, walk-running. And my last run I did thirty-five minutes of five minutes walking/five minutes running. Went over two and half miles.

For those of you who have been following this blog since the beginning you may be wondering why the heck I'm starting out so slow. Marathon training is different than 5k training. Keeping the legs strong and healthy is far more difficult, and so my runs will be much slower, and over much softer ground. Increases at this stage will be pretty gradual. Ok, back to the point of this entry ...

So yeah, I'm finally working up to a decent speed and a decent time ... and then I get a cold. It's funny, but throughout the winter ... through the H1N1 scare of October and November, to the Incomparable Blizzard of December '09 and on into the No Really, This Time We Really Mean It When We Say Incomparable Blizzard of February '10 I hadn't gotten sick. Not a day. It wasn't until the Mild And Actually Quite Boring Days of March that I came down with something that knocked me off my feet.

So Week Four and I'm already in danger of missing a significant block of training. I guess since serious training isn't for a few months this is no big deal, but no one wants to stumble out of the gate. I'm anxious to see progress. I reluctantly skipped my run on Saturday (well not really reluctantly. truth be told I didn't even get out of bed that day) and today is another scheduled Run Day.

So, should I run? I'm not sure. I feel better today than I did over the past few days, but I'm definitely not 100% yet.

It's about 10 am so I have some time to decide. In any case, if I do get on the treadmill it will only be for a walk.

It's now noon. How bad could a half hour of brisk walking really be to a recovering sick person? How far back would missing today set me? Would it set me back more to walk when I still feel mildly crappy?

1:00 pm and I still haven't made up my mind. I think I'll walk it. I'll eat some lunch and see how I feel. Maybe I won't. I can always try tomorrow ...

1:30 pm. Ok, I'll go. I'll go ... yes, I'll go. I'll take some Advil first and see if that kicks in ... and then I'll go. If I don't ache too badly ... I'll go.

1:45 pm. I'm not sure if the Ibuprofen is working or not, but I'm heading down to The Mill anyway. Sometimes, you just gotta say what the heck. I've made up my mind. If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging.

Wish me luck. ]]> Henry http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/91-safety-dance.html Common Sports - Uncommon Games http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/neophyte/90-common-sports-uncommon-games.html Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:32:06 GMT Alone. Largely in the dark, with only the flickering light from our gas driven fire warming the ceramic logs and 55 inches of high definition art... Alone.

Largely in the dark, with only the flickering light from our gas driven fire warming the ceramic logs and 55 inches of high definition art providing a view into what is most often some far corner of the world.

Night after night I sit ignoring the phone, e-mail, text messages and two very persistent family dogs. I am left up, alone in my living room with Mary Carrillo, long after my wife has gone to bed.

If you think that sounds a bit destructive, you might be right. I have a problem. I’m an addict, a junkie, a freak.

My name is Bob and I am an Olympiholic.

Roughly every two years, for 17 straight days, I get wrapped up in The Games.

It is likely somewhat genetic, my addiction to this modern version of the most ancient of sporting events. My mother, a woman who really couldn’t give a tinker’s dam for sports, never misses The Games.

We watched a bit of everything. Gymnastics, ice skating, diving, alpine skiing, swimming . . . the list is long and varied.

I grew up on a diet of names like Mark Spitz, Dorothy Hamill, Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, Scott Hamilton, the Mahre brothers, Bart Conner, Kurt Thomas, Jim Craig, Mike Eruzione, Bruce Jenner and so many more.

American or foreign, it didn’t matter.

Before the internet, or cable TV (hey, I lived in the sticks), or the 24 hour news cycle, we were glued to our old B&W TV every night after dinner to see what these athletes would thrill us with that day. Tape delay wasn’t a dirty word back then. Even with the event hours over we had no clue the outcome so it was “live” to us.

Nor were we upset at missing some events. Often in those days, only the marquee sports got “face” time on American TV. Hardly ever would you see prime time coverage of things like Nordic Combined, Biathlon, Shooting, Crew, or Cycling.

Let me stop here for a second and get something straight, I am a football fan (for my Euro readers that is the American, strap on a helmet, three yards and a cloud of dust version of football). I spend a great deal of time from January to July waiting impatiently for my burgundy and gold clad heroes to suit up and get after it once again. My office is decked out in those colors, I try to write a blog about life routing for my team from Behind Enemy Lines and I die just a little every time they lose.

However, I never played organized football.

Never competed at the complex game in any way other than that sandlot, Bill Cosby routine sort of fashion where I was the bottle cap or a piece of glass in some plays drawn up in the dirt.

At just under 6’ tall and less than 170 lbs soaking wet, football hasn’t been an option for me since Jr High and that is assuming my mother would have let me play (which she wouldn’t and my knees thank her for that today).

The events of the Olympics, on the other hand, were a different matter. These were games I could do. Games my mother didn’t mind my involvement in. They were games that I often didn’t need to be overly tall or tip the scales at a certain weight in order to participate. Often, they were things I could do by myself which was important living 3 miles from town with 40 head of cattle my nearest neighbor.

In short, they were games for common guys like me.

I talked a bit about my swimming career previously during the Phelps coronation in Beijing a bit over 18 months ago but that was hardly the only Olympic event I sweated over. It was just the one I was best at.

Two years in baseball (although it is no longer played at the Olympics), two years in gymnastics, earned a letter in track and field, summer camp volleyball tournaments, archery competitions with the Boy Scouts, weight lifting in my basement, and winter vacations to the Rockies to “Ski Utah” (I dreamed of being Stein Ericson).There was cycling the C&O Canal and many nights on skates (granted, they were the wheeled variety but they were still skates). I tried wrestling for a few months and for a long time there was fencing with office mates over lunch in the grass outside the company President’s window.

I think this is the allure of The Games, the reason so many of us watch.

They are Our Games.

Modern technology has changed the viewing experience, of course. Now I know that Lindsey Vonn won the Women’s Downhill, Bode Miller missed a gate in the slalom, the four men of the Night Train have ended 62 years of frustration for USA bobsled and whole host of other results before I ever see the face of one Robert Quinlan Costas on my big screen.

Maybe it spoils the anticipation but you can’t tell it by me. I sit there, adrenalin up, heart racing, cheering for these people living their dream regardless of how much knowledge I have of the outcome.

You see, they are doing something great and win, lose or draw, they have earned a few minutes of my time with years of effort and sacrifice.

So here I am, three days past that amazing hockey game and the closing ceremonies in Vancouver.

Three days into a withdrawal from my addiction that will last nearly two and half years.

Three days closer to London 2012 . . . and my next fix. ]]> Neophyte http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/neophyte/90-common-sports-uncommon-games.html The Point of Know Return http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/89-point-know-return.html Thu, 25 Feb 2010 20:24:11 GMT I dialed the number. I could hear the phone ringing. This was it. If he picked up the phone there was no turning back. “Hello.” Here we go. Full... I dialed the number. I could hear the phone ringing. This was it. If he picked up the phone there was no turning back.

“Hello.”

Here we go. Full steam ahead.

“Hey Mike, it’s Hen.”

“Hey man, what’s up?”

Last chance. Make something up or you’re doing it.

“Mike. It’s been ten years. It’s time.”

Pause.

“No way in hell, my friend. But good luck to you.”

“Understood.”

And it was done.

I did understand, of course. Mike and I don’t live as close to each other as we did back then. And he’s married with three kids now. But he deserved the first call. He jumped into the breach with me ten years ago when I announced to the world I was planning on embarking on an insane, crazy journey of training for and running a marathon with no previous experience. He ran the long runs with me and kept me going when my knee gave out. He was at the starting line with me, and finished his marathon an hour and ten minutes faster than I did. He was a fellow warrior. I had to call him first, even though I knew his answer, because I knew once I called him I was actually going to do it. Mike, of all people, knew I would.

The next call was to my sister. Like Mike, she ran many of the long runs with me. She helped me survive a particularly bad 14-miler when I hadn’t hydrated properly and got the shakes halfway into the run. And even though she didn’t run the entire marathon, she did run the last ten miles with me. She had to be next. She immediately offered to run the last ten miles with me again, even after I cautioned her that I was planning on running them faster than last time. Of course ‘fast’ for me isn’t exactly fast for her.

And then, once my brother and sister-in-arms knew, I told the world. (Or at least, the four people who read this blog :) )

So it’s official.

***

Yesterday, I was at lunch with another friend of mine. Some time during the conversation I mentioned I was running another marathon. His response was not what I expected.

“Are you running the Marine Corps Marathon again?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve already registered?”

“No. Registration isn’t until April.”

And then he stopped and looked past me for a second.

At this point I realized he wasn’t trying to call my bluff.

“... You want to run it with me?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

I warned him that it will be tough. That it takes up a lot of time and effort and with four kids (he’s got four, not me) it would take some serious planning. I also told him that he should do it if he could. I couldn’t tell him exactly why, but I think he knew.

In any case, serious training doesn’t kick in until summer. Hopefully I'll be adding another name to the list. ]]> Henry http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/89-point-know-return.html The Storm Part V - Denouement http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/88-storm-part-v-denouement.html Sun, 21 Feb 2010 21:36:16 GMT And so the ground war, as quickly as it had started, was ending. There was no grand pronouncement signaling hostilities were over. There was simply a... And so the ground war, as quickly as it had started, was ending. There was no grand pronouncement signaling hostilities were over. There was simply a subtle shift from being prepared to mow down anything that moved to resisting that impulse. We’d gone as far north as the Kuwaiti International Airport, found there was simply no one left interested in a fight, and had ground to a halt. Then came the official word - President Bush had issued a cease-fire.

And a merciful cease-fire it was. We had executed Schwartzkopf and Powell’s masterful ‘left hook’ assault, a lightning fast westward flanking attack, to near perfection. We had outmaneuvered and surprised the Iraqi forces, and were in the process of decimating any that elected to resist. Most did not. Those that did paid a horrible price.

President Bush’s decision to cease hostilities just 100 short hours after the ground war began was not without controversy. Many of my own Marines angrily questioned why we’d come to this foreign place, trained for 6 months, only to stop short of solving the ‘Saddam Problem’ permanently? Why not push on, all the way to Baghdad, and finish the job? The Iraqi’s wanted none of us. The vaunted Iraqi military had proven to be a straw man incapable of mounting a real defense against us – militarily, we could have done anything we wanted. Seeing the shambles of the Iraqi Army in clear daylight, and recognizing the state of their morale, weaponry, fighting capabilities, and will to fight, you couldn’t help but be angry. Angry that these thugs lead by a tin pot dictator had invaded their peaceful neighbor, angry at the destruction, death, and waste evident every where you looked, angry that our own lives had been interrupted and in some cases lost in order to deal with them. And angry in the knowledge that we could’ve wiped the floor with Saddam’s forces 5 months earlier had we not been so cautious. I felt the same urges my Marines did – an ugly desire to punish someone for screwing it all up so badly for everyone.

But the truth is, the cease-fire, however personally dissatisfying it may have been to US Marines, was President Bush’s finest hour. At a moment of total and undisputed dominance, with all the weaponry of destruction at his fingertips, with a hated enemy under his thumb, he did the inexplicable. He lived up to his word. He followed the mandate of the UN resolutions. He did exactly what he’d promised he’d do. Liberate Kuwait, expel the invading Iraqi forces from it, and go home. And in doing so, President Bush proved his critics, in the UN, in ruling bodies around the world, and at home, wrong. I knew when I got word of the cease-fire that US forces would someday be back to this part of the world to finish the job. And seeing it happen just 12 years later, it would be easy to second guess the President’s decision. But the impact of a US President living up to his word, and demonstrating for all the world to see that there are nations which, possessing the military might and skill to dominate others, are capable of restraint, should not be underestimated.

It was the morning of 28 February when we got the news that the war was officially over. An exhausting week filled with surreal moments was to end with another one. My company had collected thousands of Iraqi POWs, and guarded them nervously for days. This had been no small feat. The surrendering Iraqis came to us eagerly, almost gleefully. They handed us leaflets, dropped to them from US planes before the ground campaign which promised in cartoonish color food, protection, and mercy from us if they surrendered, and a horrible death if they did not. They wanted to cash their checks. Instead of feeding and protecting them (we had no food and nowhere to send them), we herded them into groups of hundreds, packed them like sardines into tight clusters, and guarded them with a handful of Marines around the group’s perimeter. It was nerve-wracking and scary. Had they decided to rush us, there would have been precious little we could have done to stop them, save sending a few examples on their way to Allah. Slowly, we relinquished our guests to their new masters, Kuwaiti and Saudi Arabian military officials. I have wondered many times what the fate of those prisoners ultimately was, but given the looks on the Iraqi troop’s faces as they were handed over to our replacements, I don’t imagine it was a fortuitous one. What concern or guilt I felt handing off these prisoners to those they had oppressed I balanced with the memory of the crimes they’d committed against countless Kuwaiti innocents. They were about to reap what they had sown. I assigned no right or wrong to that reality – it was simply the way things were done there. We were alien to their culture, and judging what might occur to the Iraqis seemed wrong. So we handed them over and walked away.

The day the war ended seemed, from the start, different. Upon waking, there was one stunning and obvious change – the dense, choking, petroleum-laced fog that had hung over us for days, coating us with soot and making it hard to breathe, had lifted. The sun shone warmly upon our shoulders. Like a Hollywood happy ending to a feel-good movie, the Director had called for optimistically hopeful-for-the-future life-affirming weather, and gotten it. Of all the ‘damn I’m happy to be alive this morning!’ mornings, it remains the happiest of my life. All of the deeply-buried fears, of losing Marines, of not performing to my own expectations, of death or mutilation, evaporated with the steamy morning mist. Life was back. It felt so good. Relieved of our prisoner of war duties, we climbed into waiting 5 ton trucks. As we pulled out, headed to tent cities awaiting our arrival, we gave Kuwait and the devastation stretching as far as the eyes could see, one last hard look. Despite the still-burning oilfields in the distance, twisted metal of what had once been tanks and artillery peices, and countless prisoners being herded by their new taskmasters, something seemed different, almost hopeful. And as if God were some cosmic practical jokester, as we headed southward away from Kuwait, war, and the stress of a 6 long months, one last vision caught our eyes. There, one hundred yards away from us, dancing mystically in some inexplicable circle, were a horse, a goat, and a mangy sheep dog. I’m not sure what grand message God was communicating with this bizarre scene, I’ll only say I’ve never seen anything like it before or since. We watched the 3 animals and their strange celebratory parade until we could no longer make them out in the distance.

'Yes friends' the Universe seemed to be shouting, 'Whether 2 or 4 footed – it is good to be alive!'

The weeks that followed seemed to take forever. Getting out of the Middle East and home was a task as monumentally difficult as getting there had been. We’d returned to the tent cities where our journey had begun 6 months previously. We lounged on cots, listened to cassettes we’d listened to a hundred times since our arrival, and traded them to buddies for others we’d listened to hundreds of times. We PT-ed endlessly. Cleaned weapons over and over again. But mostly, we just waited. The return home came in fits and trickles. A couple of seats on a transport here, space on a cargo plane there. 1st Bn, 3rd Marines was finding it’s way home a few Marines at a time. We’d been in-country as long as anyone. We wanted out. Now. The wait was nothing short of excruciating. But finally, our turn came, and homeward we headed. I was tasked along with a squad of my Marines, with escorting our Battalion Armory home. I believe if they’d told us they had to box us up along with the mortars, M-16A2’s, and grenade launchers, we’d have gladly accepted.

The long flight back to Kaneohe, Hawaii is a blur to me. I don’t remember the route, where we stopped, how long it took. Nothing. I only remember having butterflies the entire ride back. I’d been married only a year when I was plucked from my happy, normal life in paradise and tossed unceremoniously into Operation Desert Shield. I’d received letters, and even had the chance to make a hurried, static-filled, desert phone call or two over the past six months. But basically, my loving wife had been little more than a memory, an ‘idea’, for half a year. The thought of seeing her again made me inexplicably nervous, almost queasy. The C-130 we’d hitched a ride back on hit the tarmac at Oahu’s Kadena Airfield and crawled to a stop on St. Patrick’s Day, 1991. As we gathered our personal effects, I stole a glimpse out of one of the cargo windows. There, in a sea of strangers, stood my beautiful wife Valerie.

I was home.

We drove to our base at Kaneohe Bay, traded our personal weapons for cold cans of beer they had waiting on ice for us, and were excused for the next week. I won’t regale you with boring stories of just how wonderful the return to civilization and all its comforts was. Suffice it to say that none of us truly appreciate what we have. Not really. The Lava Dogs of 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines had returned triumphant. We were ‘heroes’. We were lavished with awards and medals, paraded through the streets of Waikiki in front of adoring throngs. You couldn’t pay for your own beer or meal for months. And that was as it should have been. We had been through something, and in my mind, we were celebrating having lived through it as much as any particular military accomplishment. In the pauses between the celebrations, I tried to take stock of what I’d been through, and sort through what, if anything, it all meant. I thought a lot about Mike Monroe, my fellow Lt., lost in a stupid training accident. I thought about his family, and how seeing others return home from the Gulf must have made the agonizing hole in their lives and hearts ache all the more. And I thought about veterans of other wars, who’d experienced far more pain, suffering, and loss in the engagements of their generations and received welcome homes that looked or felt nothing like the glorious and thankful one we had.

An unwritten military rule is that those who ‘have done something’, don’t talk about it. If you ever meet someone in a bar who tells an amazing story of military heroism or war-time adventure, you can bet they never got within a hundred miles of harm’s way. Those that have, keep their mouths shut. Why? I’m not sure, but it’s probably because to talk about one’s personal experiences reeks of ‘self’. And ‘self’ is something the United States Marine Corps places a very low value on indeed. I hope, having broken that silent vow, that I told my little story with some humility, and that the unbridled affection I have for those that traveled along with me on my little journey, and for whom, I have undying respect, shone through in the telling. ]]> Boone http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/88-storm-part-v-denouement.html The Chronicles of Henry, Part II http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/87-chronicles-henry-part-ii.html Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:45:00 GMT It is time. I have to apologize, loyal readers, for leaving you all in the dark these past months. Lately, 40 has been rearing its ugly head in my... It is time.

I have to apologize, loyal readers, for leaving you all in the dark these past months. Lately, 40 has been rearing its ugly head in my direction. I hit The Big Four Oh in two months, and since my last entry middle age has assaulted me with more bad ankles, kidney stones, a broken wrist, and several yards of impassable snow. So I have reacted to this onslaught the best way I know how: Sit on the couch, eat lots of snack food and nap a lot. Sadly, none of these activities make for very good blogging material. Hence, my absence.

In addition to my lack of blogging, I have to admit mild depression has set in. I didn’t think 40 would bother me when the time came, but I guess it has a little. I blame my various recent ailments (and the snow) but whatever the reason, I have come to realize I am now beset with a full-blown case of Mid-Life Crisis. This has led me to consider how exactly to deal with said Crisis.

My first option, research indicates, is to find myself a young floozy and have a wild sordid affair in order to feel young and strong and virile. However, there are several sticking points one must acknowledge upon closer examination of the Floozy Option. First of all, I’d have to leave the house. Secondly, I’d have to find a floozy. Lastly, and this may be the most significant stumbling block, I don’t think my lovely bride would support this option for long. She’s pretty cool and understanding, but, well, that might be pushing the limits of her patience just a little.

The second option is to go out and buy myself a really expensive man toy, such as a completely impractical sports car, or better yet, a motorcycle. The Man Toy Option is slightly more doable for me than the Floozy Option, but there are still a few red flags that popped up when I considered it: ‘Expensive’ generally means … expensive. Also, I don’t know how to ride a motorcycle and I don’t really drive stick, so I’m not sure how much fun that would be anyway.

Another, more appealing option is to just start drinking heavily. This is an option I seriously considered, and may use as a fall-back plan. However, I am tabling the Heavy Drinking option for at least a few months, mainly because these days two beers gives me a hangover.

So, having eliminated all of the obvious choices, I had to dig a little deeper. It didn’t really come to me until my wife asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I knew I could ask for something pretty big this time, me entering a new decade and all. And for a long time I was stumped. It’s a lot of pressure to have to think of something worthy of so lofty a number, and I did a lot of stalling. Then a few days ago I was sitting on the couch, balancing a bag of cheesy poofs on my ever-growing mid-section, watching TV. I decided to rest my feet on the coffee table (as sitting on the couch with my feet on the floor had become an effort) and I noticed they plunked down on an old book of mine. With considerable strain, I leaned forward to see the title: “The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer” by Dave Whitsett and Forrest Dolgener. I hadn’t so much as cracked it open in quite some time, it having been ten years since I ran my marathon, after all. And then I realized, it’s been ten years since I ran it. Ten years.

It is time.

It hit me. I knew what I wanted for my birthday.

For the past six months The Beast has had me in its grasp. It’s been mocking me and laughing and turning me 40 and I haven’t done a damn thing about it. What I wanted for my birthday was to find The Beast, grab him by the Mid-Life Crisis and smack him right in the kisser. What I wanted was to trample the bad ankles and the broken wrists and the four decades under my feet.

What I wanted was to run another marathon.

It is time. I am going to run another one. And I’m starting right now. ]]> Henry http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/87-chronicles-henry-part-ii.html The Gospel According to Dorothy Boyd http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/86-gospel-according-dorothy-boyd.html Wed, 27 Jan 2010 03:01:07 GMT ‘I just want to be inspired’ she said.

As far as cheesy, pull-at-your-heartstrings movie dialogue goes, that single line from ‘Jerry Maguire’ says it all.

As I’ve wound my way through the twisting careening career paths of adulthood, I’ve developed an intense and illogical aversion to mail from the Social Security Administration. The periodic letters that show up unannounced in my mailbox detailing just how many hours I’ve toiled away at any assortment of lifetime jobs are vaguely disturbing to me. While my Federal Government’s official interest and pride in my productivity is heart-warming, those mile markers leave me feeling hollow and a little forlorn, a living tribute to my own career indecision.

I remember the school scrapbooks of my childhood. You know the ones your Mom kept for you – a historical record, in case you actually grew up to be the President, the next Merv Griffin, or someone equally important. They had a space for a bad elementary school photo, hair askew, snaggle-toothed smile, horrible yellow and brown plaid short-sleeve shirt on. They had pockets in which to document for the Historic Record one’s scholastic achievement in all its glory. History shows I seemed to have had a lock on the ‘Best Citizen Award’. Most importantly, the school scrapbook had room for a few crucial lines of breathtaking insight.

Year ____________
Teacher’s Name ______________
Best friend _____________
Hobbies ______________
When I grow up, I want to be ___________________________

Ahh. And there it was, and for all the world to see. I can remember agonizing over that single final line for what seemed like hours. What DID I want to be? What could I be? This seemed like a hell of a lot of pressure to lay on a kid? Perhaps I should outline the origins of the Universe while I was at it? My early predicted career choices were exciting, but not always so pragmatic.

A dinosaur.
An astronaut.
A cowboy.
A fireman.

By the time I reached 12 that last line was left inevitably, emphatically blank. I had no idea what I ‘wanted to be’. The entire consideration seemed alien and absurd to me. At a time of my life when next week was an eternity away, I aspired to nothing. I certainly had no plan to attain some fantasized and great future. I figured, someday, it would come to me.

When I was in my early twenties, adrift and floundering in a sea of collegiate confusion, my Dad said something to me that left me speechless. ‘I'm 60 years old, and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up’. Huh?? Intended to calm and comfort me no doubt, his statement instead rattled me. A career attorney at the highest ranks of the Department of Justice, a Colonel in the Marine Corps Reserves, uncertainty and indecision, of any kind, was incongruent with my rock-solid vision of Dad. Yet, he sounded like he really meant it. Was it really possible – to spend a career doing something you were really good at (and he was good at it) – and still have the kinds of doubts and uncertainty I’d felt my whole life? Apparently it was.

Fast forward to adulthood and the subtle and requisite pressures it demands. Raising a family, striving to be a dependable, decent husband and father, weaving a web of predictability and security, ironically leaves no time for ‘what I want to be when I grow up’. Years, decades slip by. Happy ones, but marked by the realization, immortalized by the occasional arrival of SSA letters, that I never filled in the last line of that scrapbook. I could have been an astronaut, a cowboy, a fireman, a dinosaur (though had that been a real option, I’d still have been spiritually torn – Brontosaurus or Triceratops?). I’d just never felt compelled to make a choice.

But something else happened along the way, as I traversed a series of career moves that were less conscious decisions than sudden curves in the river I chose to let myself be swept passively through. I realized it didn’t matter what I ‘did’. It mattered far more how I did it. This was decidedly different than the perspective, goals, and plans of almost everyone around me, but it felt true. It echoed another edict my father had shared with us, over and over, as kids growing up.

‘Any job worth doing is worth doing well’.

It was, along with ‘Don’t put beans up your nose’, one of the mantras of my youth.

‘Any job worth doing is worth doing well’. I’ve always liked that, I believe it, and since my Dad first said it to me, its become part of who I am. I hope it’s part of who I’m raising my kids to be. For 10 years in the United States Marine Corps, to the last 15 working for a progressive community healthcare system, it was the promise of forging something ‘exceptional’ that kept me waking up encouraged and ready to go to work. With more career years behind me than ahead, I really hope for only one simple thing. I’m comfortable knowing I’ll never wake with a certain knowledge of my personal destiny. I’ll never decide what I want to be when I grow up. And I’m cool with that. I only hope as I traverse the remaining years of my ‘career’, that I can make the journey with people who want to do amazing things, and spend every day trying to make it happen. And that I can be that kind of person to those, whoever they are, that I work with.

‘I just want to be inspired’ she said.

Me too Dorothy – me too. ]]> Boone http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/86-gospel-according-dorothy-boyd.html Barber part II : The things you learn, http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/85-barber-part-ii-things-you-learn.html Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:19:45 GMT when on the road. Go figure, at 59 years of age, Brad had never eaten at a buffet before. It took him a bit to get the drill down, but came away with... when on the road. Go figure, at 59 years of age, Brad had never eaten at a buffet before. It took him a bit to get the drill down, but came away with a generally good impression and heart burn form over doing it at the Golden Coral. I do tend to digress on this type of trip, and some how some mother nature found it’s way into the hotel room. It was truly a smoking room, and poor Josh was a victim of circumstance as Brad and I misbehaved in a way we don’t often do. We were back on the bikes at sunrise, again in search of food. Brad needs a counter for breakfast, but alas, all we could find was a breakfast buffet. Poor Brad…. I thought he was actually going to go into shock, but he handled it like a trooper. We were going to a party in the paddock that night, so I knew there was good food on the horizon. On the road again, the sky wasn’t lookin good at all, but we had less than 100 miles to cover, and were all use to riding in the worst rain imaginable, we’re from Florida. I had mounted an HD video camera to the bars, and had taken over an hour of video the day before, but was really lookin forward to the last stretch of road into Leeds Alabama. RT25 north of Vincent Alabama is an outstanding little stretch of road, and a real piece of heaven for us Fl flat-landers. As we hit 25, the skies opened up. Brad quickly pulled off to get his rain gear on, and I quickly stashed the camera. I borrowed it, and wasn’t sure how weatherproof it was, so I wasn’t taking any chances with it. Even with the rain, once we got moving again we were pushing fairly hard till we got stuck behind a car. Talk about raining on your parade……. no video, and crawling through the hills behind a car in a down pour.

The rain ended as we made our way out of the hills, and hit the huge gas station at the corner of the road leading into the motorsports complex. I was barely off the bike when I got a call from Michael, a clan member who had driven up in his truck. He had carried some of the camping gear to make it easier on us riding up. He was waiting at the camp site, no more than two miles away. We quickly found Michael, and started to unload. Amongst other things, he had my three man tent, and his three man tent. The plan was to stow all our gear in my tent, and I would sleep there, with Brad and Josh in the other tent, giving everybody more than enough room to sleep comfortably. Of course, Michael forgot the poles for his tent. Brad, never depending on anybody, had brought his small two man tent, but the floor was ripped in a few places. It would have to do, and instead, Josh would bunk with me, leaving Brad and his gear in his tent. Once we were set up, it was off to the paddock to say hey to Charlie, a club member that races a Triumph Thruxton He would be hosting the BB-Q tonight for other club members, and some German friends. After hangin for a bit, Brad announced he needed to head to town. He needed to pick up a bottle of MR Happy, also known as Jonny Walker, and catch some lunch. He and Josh headed out, and I started walkin around the paddock, checkin out the bikes, and talkin to the racers. Headed back up to Charlie’s, where I was served what he called a burger for lunch. They were actually minute steaks, nicely seasoned, and perfectly cooked. Washed it all down with a nice wine from the hill country of Texas, where Charlie resides. Hung with Michael a spell, but wanted to make a quick run down to the gas station. I knew how this night would more than likely go, and wanted to have drinks and some stuff to munch back at the campsite. After droppin off the provisions, I returned to the paddock to find Brad, Josh, and Michael there.

The last practice of the day was done, and Charlie’s guests we’re rollin in, as were the clouds. Severe storm warnings, and a tornado watch. Not what you would call the ideal weather for tent camping, but just fine weather for a BB-Q. I have to say, Charlie is one hell of a host, and the other guests who contributed with food made it complete. Two of the guests had just flown in from Germany the day before, and how they were able to smuggle into the country around 10 lbs of the special white knockwurst found only in Munich from what I’m told is beyond me. Even as the weather worsened, it didn’t keep us from having a grand ol time. Being a pretty good amateur weather man, I could see we had little time before we got slammed, so I put out the word to get ready for the storm. Within minutes, a light rain started, and it quickly got worse. Before we knew what hit us, we were getting hit with very high winds, and rain that you couldn’t see more than 25 feet in front of you. The majority of the people gathered under the main canopy holding it down, with Charlie, and myself under the canopy covering his race bike. Thank God Charlie is a big fella, because there was no way I wasn’t going for a ride trying to hold it down myself. Twenty minutes later, the rain had stopped, and skies were clearing. As people regrouped, we figured it was a good time to slip away, and enjoy mother nature…….

Things would down slowly but surely, and we finally headed back to our campsite just down the hill, hoping the tents were still standing. There were a few tents and canopies down, but not as bad I we expected. We had set up right on the tree line, and our site was intact. Brad being Brad has a thing for campfires, and insisted we go in search of fire. Both Josh and I just wanted to hang, and have a few Guinness mixed with Starbucks Double Shot. There looked to be a sizable fire about 30 yards away, and Brad strolled off. After about an hour, Brad was still gone, and I actually wanted to head down to look for him, but I was way to toasted to move. I said screw it, and headed for the tent……. Josh had the same thought. I’t couldn’t have been more then ten minutes of so, when a flashlight was shining directly into the tent. Somebody mumbled something and I yelled “ WRONG TENT BOZO”. I could barely here the person shuffle away so many people in the area were laughing. Don’t know how long I was passed out, but something hitting the tent woke me. Didn’t think a thing about it, and rolled over and fell back out. Again, I’m woken by something hitting the tent…. and then again. Then I recognized the devious chuckle……. Brad was back. I threatened his life once or twice, but he convinced me to give him the bag of donuts I had out earlier. I told I had forgotten to bring them in, and they were on the table, but he said there weren’t any left. “Pipe down, and go to sleep ya ol drunk,” and that was the last we heard from Brad. ]]> Pete http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/85-barber-part-ii-things-you-learn.html Barber part 1 : It’s a small wheel…… http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/84-barber-part-1-s-small-wheel.html Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:20:01 GMT A long road, and takes many turns to get where you’re going. October was such a great month when all is said and done. The schedule had but one... A long road, and takes many turns to get where you’re going.

October was such a great month when all is said and done. The schedule had but one event on it, the Vintage Festival in Alabama. Being generally smart in early prep for trips like this. I ordered tires, chain, and sprocket set for the bike in mid September. Of course, Mr Murphy was around, and the SNAFU that ensued almost kept me from riding up. It started with a wrong sprocket, which held me up a full week from starting the work on the bike…… 3 weeks to the event. Once the sprocket deal was straightened out, I installed everything. Taking the bike for a test ride, I have a severe thumping in the front end. Mr. Murphy shipped me a defective front tire. Call the rep, and he’s got another tire on the way, and should have it in four to five days………… 2 weeks to the event, and I have no clue on how the new brand of tire I’m putting on will be at speed, having not been able to do over 50mph with the bad tire. New tires shows, and do the swap out. As I’m setting up the wheel balancer, I notice I have a bad wheel bearing. Triumph has the bearings in stock, but they wouldn’t arrive till the day I was to hit the road. It’s a common bearing, so I go on line Friday night, find a place that had a set in stock, so I ordered them with overnight shipping. I’m golden, and then the phone rang. I got the order in too late for overnight……….Less than 5 full days to the event, and there’s no way I can ride 1500 miles on bad wheel bearings. I posted on the club forum late Saturday night about the dilemma I faced and how I would be driving the van up, and the next morning found three of the members offering to pull a wheel off their bikes and ship it to me Monday over night at no cost to me so I could make the ride up. A fine example of how tight knit of a group we have. I got to the shop Tuesday morning, and had gone to the back storage building and glanced a Bonneville that I had the engine torn down to repair. I walked up to Jeff, and mentioned that I wouldn’t have parts for over three weeks to do the bonnie repair, and could I borrow his front wheel. By 5pm, I had his wheel with my new tire mounted and ready to dial the pressures in. A quick test ride told me I was as good to go as I could be. Twenty four hours till the event, and all is well.

During the time I was waiting on parts, I fabricated a rack to hang a set of saddle bags over, and the bike was quickly packed and ready to go Tuesday night. The plan was to leave the house after work on Wednesday, and crash at Josh’s house. Heading up I75 to Sarasota, I quickly found that the bike became real squirrelly about 40 yards behind large vehicles. It was dam near uncontrollable while passing a tractor trailer. As I’m thinkin to myself riding was a mistake, it dawns on me that I had set my tire pressure for the Pirelli’s I normally run. I hit the next exit, and dropped the pressures to what Triumph recommends for the bike, even though that is normally too low. The squirrelly condition was gone, but the bike handled a bit lethargically. Hit the next exit, and went up a pound and a half on each tire, and VIOLA ! The bike felt as good as it ever did. Had a great night at Fuel Cafe' talkin bikes, and our plans for the trip in the morning. Stayed way too late, with the associated too many cocktails, and it made for a fuzzy morning. We met at a little place with the other riders in our group for breakfast at 6am. Two in the group weren’t club members, but I had met them before. From my clan, Brad and Josh were riding up. Brad had a tried and true rout on all secondary roads. I was lookin forward to hitting the little towns along the way, and quickly found Brad was on a different schedule.

Brad was on a tight time schedule being he doesn’t ride at night, due to having dark tinted prescription goggles. He expected to be about 20 miles from the GA / Bama border, around 200 miles from Birmingham. Stopping to take pics was not in the plans, but no biggie, it’s all about the ride. Pulling out on a steamy Fl morning, it was overcast through most of the state. We kept up a solid pace, but the two riders that were joining us for the ride up kept lagging behind. The rule was, if separated for more than 10 minutes, pull over and call somebody’s cell phone. At a fuel stop, Brad told Paul and Ron that this was a section of road he really flew on, and we went over the map. About 30 miles into the run, Brad and Josh were tiny specks ahead as I was stuck behind Paul who was still lagging, waiting on Ron bringing up the rear. I finally got a clear passing lane, and proceeded to slam it. Brad and Josh were no longer in sight, but I have a faster bike, so should be able to catch them. Running between 95 and 115, it took me almost 20 miles to catch them. At the next fuel stop, it had been over a half hour since I saw Paul and Ron in my mirrors. We all checked our phones, and nobody had tried to reach us, so we started calling. Fuel, a drink and snack, hit the head, and chain smoked for 45 minutes when we said the hell with it, we have to move on. We left messages on Paul and Ron’s phones as to where our next stop was, and we headed out. We never saw them again, and our next stop was where we were to stay for the night. Still trying to reach our lost boys with no success, we decided to push on another 100 miles being we had made great time. We rolled into a hotel parking lot as the sun set. We had done a little over 500 miles, were tired and hungry, quickly settled in and went in search of food. ]]> Pete http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/84-barber-part-1-s-small-wheel.html Weary and waterlogged……. http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/83-weary-waterlogged.html Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:12:59 GMT Wow, life has had me so crazy, I forgot to post this entry well over a month ago....... As the rainy season is on the downhill side of its 09 run,... Wow, life has had me so crazy, I forgot to post this entry well over a month ago.......

As the rainy season is on the downhill side of its 09 run, one can only feel that I haven’t been spending enough time on the bike. Between the training schedule, and the weather, I haven’t ridden with my boys in months. My last good ride was solo to school on the other coast, and what a trip it turned out to be. Don’t ya know it was one of the hottest days on record. I had a side stop at Mike’s house, and that’s when it started to go downhill. While heading out for lunch, his 70 Triumph quit on him, and I had to trek back to his house, grab truck and trailer to rescue his sorry arse. On arrival back at his house, the 74 Norton wouldn’t start, so we said the hell with it, and went out in the truck for lunch. Parting ways, I thought it would be nice to take scenic RT 1 a while. As I’m riding along, something hits my right calf. Not with any force, but enough to know something did hit me. I just kept on cruising along till a car pulls along side of me and the driver puts his hand to his head as if speaking on a phone, and then does the slash across the throat motion. A cell phone makes little impact on your leg as it falls, but disintegrates as it hits the pavement at 60mph. Phoneless and annoyed, I back tracked just for the sake of saying I gave it a shot. Stopping to use a pay phone, which are few and far between these days, I couldn’t deal with the heat any longer, and hung the riding jacket on the corner of the pay phone. As luck would have it, there must have been some fire ants on the wall, so once I put the jack back on; I got a bit of a surprise. God only knows what it is with me and bugs while on the bike. I pulled it back off, and said the hell with it, and strapped it to the back of the bike. At that point, all I wanted to do is get to the hotel, and hop in the pool. The ambient temp on the display of the bike was reading 102F. and even at 85mph, the heat was unreal.

The hotel provides free phone service, so a call to the house to let the Cindy know I was there was in order. I don’t know who the rocket scientist is who came up with dialing a 9 for outside lines was, but he should be slapped. Hit 9, hit 1, and it beeps twice, so I hang up. Seconds later, the phone rings, and the front desk is asking if I called 911. Lookin like a horses arse with the desk clerk is one thing, but having to deal with an annoyed Sheriff wasn’t in the plans for my afternoon. Other then the class being one of the toughest I’ve ever taken, the week was uneventful. The return trip was another story, with monsoon type rain for most of the ride, countless traffic accidents and bumper to bumper traffic, which prompted me not to ride there a few weeks ago for my last two classes of the year…… I hope. Now it’s time to focus on the up and coming riding season, with all the normal activities. It’s funny, being in the industry, I can still find pleasure in working on my bike. This year special care, and modifications are being done, as my group is heading to Alabama for the vintage festival in early October. It gives me some special challenges, as it’s tough to carry a cell phone and a pack of smokes on my bike, never mind clothing for 5 day, and camping and camera gear. I have a great custom look to my bike, and just hate the thought of it looking like a pack horse, so I have to do some moto morphing like none other. While the festival is the objective, we will be traveling mainly secondary roads, making many stops along the way. It’s a shutter bugs dream, as Brad has a nose for finding the oddest places, and people along the way. Last year, I shot about 850 plus pics, so doing 4 days of riding along with the races, an extra memory card is in order. I feel like a kid three weeks before Christmas………..

On a side note, I'm actually up to date with this blog now. Go figure....... ]]> Pete http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/83-weary-waterlogged.html The Storm Part IV - Line of Departure http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/82-storm-part-iv-line-departure.html Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:02:39 GMT Sitting in the pitch black Saudi Arabian night in a reinforced fighting hole, I pulled a set of night vision goggles from their hard plastic case and... Sitting in the pitch black Saudi Arabian night in a reinforced fighting hole, I pulled a set of night vision goggles from their hard plastic case and strapped them on. Shivering in the surprisingly cold desert air, I looked starward and watched what seemed like an endless cloud of US and British bombers stream like angry hornets north towards occupied Kuwait and on to Baghdad. I couldn’t help but silently ask ‘Am I really here, living this?’ It was just one of many surreal moments to come. As we listened to Armed Forces Radio and the BBC give the play by play to the start of Desert Storm, we glimpsed a cacophony of dancing flashes on the horizon, felt the ground rumble ominously as if mighty dinosaurs once again walked the Earth, and wondered what the experience felt like from our enemies vantage point. War was no longer an if, or a when. It was real, and we were now in it, a few miles down the road from whatever was to come. Of the possible emotions one could feel at such a moment, I remember the strange mix that rose up in me that night. Happiness. Relief. Resignation. Fear. We’d been living a purgatory of watchful waiting, worrying, and preparing for months, far from our country, our homes, our loved ones. The furious barrage we were watching unfold meant only one thing – resolution. We didn’t know what form it might take, but it was clear, this would be over soon. And that felt overwhelmingly good.

The daily drudgery of months past shifted into something approaching urgency after that January night. There was going to be no governor’s reprieve on the eve of execution. Shield had become Storm. And there’s no stopping a storm – it comes and does what it’s going to do. I saw a changing expression in the eyes of my Marines. We trained on, as we had for months, but now with a serious intensity that was palpable. There were no more internal debates to be held – right or wrong, war for oil or justice, peace vs. violence – it didn’t matter anymore. We were going, and there were only 2 possibilities. There was little horseplay now. Jokes and sarcastic mockery, the daily bread of the Marine infantryman, dried up. In their place came determination – that we would impose our will on our friends to the North, and that it would be us that would be going home in the coming weeks and months.

Our first months in the desert had been filled with isolation, quiet, and dread. That calm was now shattered. We were no longer alone in the sand. Instead, every day brought more activity, like a swarming ant hill before an invasion. Trucks, helicopters, endless supply trains brought hordes of reservist troops, ammo, and the essentials of war. There are no warehouses in the desert. So as Marines always do, we helped create them out of thin air. Engineers used massive bulldozers and earthmovers to pile up sand walls 20 feet high. Sand berms thousands of feet long formed square ASPs (ammo supply points), fortified with razor wire, machine guns, and fields of claymore mines should the unfriendlies decide they wanted to come after our supplies. It was an exhausting time. We were tasked not only with training for an assault on Kuwait, but with defending our desert turf should the maniac in Baghdad launch a preemptive attack. We conducted helicopter and ground-borne assaults on mock Iraqi positions complete with tunnels and mock aggressors. We were issued new gear – high tech gear we’d never seen before – an ominous sign since the only time the Marine Corps ever issues new equipment is when they intend to sacrifice you to the Gods. Laser sights and night vision devices for our M-16A2 rifles, AT4 anti-tank missiles (real ones, not the empty training tubes we usually carried), bunker-busting SMAW launchers, digitally-designed camouflage that helped make you invisible from the air, powerful targeting lasers to help guide new laser-guided air munitions to their destinations, even Patriot anti-missile systems became part of landscape.

If the hurried influx and dispersal of new equipment and arms didn’t convince us war was upon us, the launch of SCUD missiles in our direction and frequent chemical alarms sounded now on a daily basis surely did. Nothing was dreaded by my Marines more than the prospect of fighting in MOPP gear. Saddam had huge amounts of biological and chemical agents to throw at us via missile, artillery, or tank shell, should he decide to make that suicidal move. He’d used them before, on his own countrymen no less, and there was no doubt he might choose to use them again as a desperate final act. In 1991, Saddam’s chemical and biologic weapons weren’t a GWB fairy tale – they were a fact. With every poorly-aimed SCUD launch, or British FOX vehicle chemical alarm, we donned the hot, bulky carbon-filled chemical suits, big clunky rubber shoe covers, rubber gloves, and gas masks. Fighting in such gear was almost incomprehensible. Not to worry though – if our cumbersome chemical suits failed us – we each carried atropine auto-injectors with 6 inch needles to plunge into our thighs to help counter the effects of nerve agents should it become necessary.

And preparation for Hell was not limited to gear. Our bodies themselves were prepped. We received nearly weekly injections of various kinds, many designed to protect us (in laughable theory) against innumerable biological agents. We passed out untested medications, called ‘NAP tablets’, reportedly approved for veterinary use, but never given to humans previously. The tablets supposedly competed with the same receptors nerve and blood agents bound with, thus limiting (again, in theory) the potential effects of a chemical attack. Given that our previous training informed us as little as a drop of nerve agent on the skin was enough to kill an adult male several times over, we were skeptical. But we took them – because that’s what Marines do. Two years later, when I lost the use of one of my arms for a year due to a strange demyelinization process my doctors could never explain, I would wonder how much my exposure to untested drugs played a role. A whole generation of Marines out there have experienced similar problems, whether one calls it ‘Gulf War Syndrome’ or not, and whether or not it was caused by medications, exposure to nerve agent (I personally believe we were exposed) – this was the price we paid for being where we were when we were. In the grand scheme of things, I consider myself beyond lucky all I ever had to contend with was some physical ills.

On January 29th, Saddam finally made the kind of foolish move we’d anticipated him making. He sent a 3 pronged mechanized force southward towards our position, near the town of Khafji. My battalion was positioned about 10 miles west of the coastal road leading into Khafji when Saddam’s forces arrived. While some of our unit went forward to support the recon units defending that town, the rest of us were sent to protect the massive ASP just south of us. Arriving at the massive earthen structure, loaded with untold tons of ammunition and explosives, we were told to defend the position at all costs. Loss of the ammo supplies held there would have been devastating. We had only a single company of Marines – about 200 total, to defend a 4-walled square covering a square mile. We spent the night frantically placing machine guns, claymore anti-personnel mines (Vietnam era booby traps that use C-4 explosives to throw thousands of ball bearings in the general direction of the enemy with devastating effect – a truly brutal weapon), and doing our best to dig in for what was anticipated to be a morning assault on our position. We worked through the night, listening to the explosions from nearby Khafji as we did. It was a nerve-wracking 8 hours. As the first faint rays of sunrise dawned, we searched the horizon for the troops we were sure were bearing down upon us. We were not disappointed. There, coming from the north, were thousands of Iraqi troops coming at us in a brazen frontal assault. We couldn’t believe even Saddam was so brazen as to send his forces into what was certain to be a bloodbath. Captain Carretti passed the word to us, we were to open up with all weapons when he fired a green ‘pop-up’, a hand held flare used as a signaling device. The seconds ticked by as the silhouettes of the attacking Iraqis came closer and closer. Suddenly and inexplicably, the invading troops turned away from us enmasse. What were they doing? And then it came, mumbled words at first, then a chorus of excited shouts.

‘Camels!!!’.

We had spent 14 hours preparing for the slaughter of over 1,000 camels. They’d been an ever-present fixture from the moment we’d headed out into the desert. We should have recognized what we were looking for. But coming straight at us, it had been clear beyond doubt, they were Iraqis – their humps the head, their torso human shoulders piled with gear, and their 2 visible legs those of soldiers. Many times since then I’ve given thanks that we didn’t open up hellfire upon those poor camels. I’d like to say it was because I’d mourn the unfortunate loss of those beasts. But the truth is, I simply didn’t want to be forever linked to the Marine Rifle Company that would’ve forever been nicknamed, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, the ‘Camel Killers’. Thankfully, the great Camel Tragedy of 1992 was averted. The ASP was secure, and we returned to preparing for a more substantive enemy.

By mid-February, we had our marching orders. Our battalion had a mission, in fact, perhaps one of the most daring of all missions. On day 1 of the ground war, we were to conduct a helicopter-borne raid on an Iraqi Division Headquarters. We spent a week rehearsing the attack, over and over again. The more we heard about Iraqi forces in the area, the less we liked the idea. According to recon intelligence, the Iraqi’s had more artillery in the vicinity of the headquarters than the US had in the entire region. Recon reported that the entire area was surrounded by 50 foot wide trenches filled with diesel fuel which the Iraqi’s planned to ignite when attacked, then rain down artillery (perhaps with chemical agents) upon the trapped attacking forces. The only solution we had was to land right on top of the headquarters, putting the helicopters we were transported in right in the range of small arms fire – small arms fire more than capable of taking out our thin-skinned helicopters. We might not even survive the landing attempt.

Fortunately, only days before the ground war was launched, someone decided this was not such a great plan after all, and plans for the helicopter raid were scrapped. By that time, there was little time for the powers to be to devise a plan on how to best utilize 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, on D-Day. Our battalion, known as ‘Task Force Taro’ (after the purple root Hawaiians pound into their treasured native food – Poi) was to be split up, with each company being sent out as a support force. After all this time together, we were to fight, not as a battalion, but assigned to strangers. It was a bittersweet moment. Still, it sounded like a better deal than being served up as sacrificial lambs in some ill-advised helicopter assault debacle. And, we were getting lucky, my Marines, and the rest of Bravo Company, 1/3, were being attached to Task Force Ripper. We didn’t know it then, but we would be the tip of the spear that sliced first through the Iraqi lines and sent them scurrying like cockroaches out of Kuwait.

We said goodbye to our sister Companies. We were all heading West, part of the ‘left-hook’ maneuver that had an incredible mass of American forces picking up and moving 50 miles west to attack from a direction the Iraqi’s never saw coming. One company would go with Engineers to assist in blowing lanes in the 2 enormous Iraqi minefields that stretched for 20 miles and blocked our entrance into Kuwait. Another company would be assigned to guard Artillery units that would be supporting the attack. But my company, Bravo Company, would participate in the frontal assault – punching through the minefields, to the Al Burqan Oil Fields, and onto the Kuwaiti National Airport.

The night before the dawn assault, we were on the move. We loaded up with live ammo – more than we’d ever carried. Live grenades, M 203 rounds, AT4’s, sling after sling of M-16, M-60 machine gun, Bangalore torpedoes, C4 explosive, and every kind of ammo under the sun. Although we Lieutenants were supposed to carry only our service pistols, 9mm’s that would hardly serve as much of a defense in full battle, we issued ourselves M-16’s as well. Our training told us we were there to control our Marines, make battlefield decisions in a split-second, and use our radios as our greatest weapon – it felt more secure to have a substantial weapon slung over our shoulder. As we took on our new load, we shed anything on our persons that wasn’t necessary. Among other things, I buried a walkman, and two paperbacks – a copy of James Michener’s ‘Hawaii’ and ironically given how Custer fared, Evan S. Connell’s ‘Son of the Morning Star’. Somewhere out there in the Saudi Arabian sand, a couple of great novels await to be found again.

Somewhere around midnight, we loaded up into 5 ton trucks and began moving forward. Dressed in our carbon-filled chemical suits, we crossed the Line of Departure (the imaginary line of no return in Marine Assault language, the crossing of which constitutes the start of the attack). We followed the light of tiny green chemlights, left like a string of fireflies by the recon forces leading the way. We arrived at the minefields. There were no fiery trenches, there was no barrage of incoming artillery. Instead, for as far as the eye could see, there were anti-tank and anti-personnel mines lying right on top of the sand. The hapless (or perhaps disinterested) Iraqi forces hadn’t even bothered burying them. We could’ve tiptoed right through them with nothing more than a flashlight. Instead, engineers had blown great swathes through two great minefields, and marked the lanes with tape. We were through the defenses in seconds. Now the first early shades of grey and purple and red glowed with dawn’s approach. The day was here. We were on Kuwaiti soil and we were moving on the enemy. The trucks rejoined us on the opposite side of the minefields, and we mounted up again. We headed north, passing dead Iraqis, some on the ground, some burned to a crisp, frozen in a desperate but futile effort to get out of the armored vehicle they’d been caught in. It was grisly reality. We pressed on. Chemical alarms sounded, once, twice, then a third time. Each time, we would dive from the trucks, throw our gasmasks on, and wait for the alarms to subside. The thud of missiles came for the first time ever from our rear. We were getting close.

If I’d thought my trip to Southeast Asia had had it’s surreal moments before, I hadn't seen anything yet. Things were about to get ‘Apocalypse Now’ weird. There, in the distance, was a sight fit for the depths of Hell. The Iraqis, with no other reasonable course of action presenting itself, had set afire the Al Burqan Oil Fields. For as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but a blazing inferno and thick, choking black smoke. It looked like the end of the world. And I suppose, for many of our unfortunate opponents, it was. If the burning landscape wasn’t surreal enough, many of the Iraqi tank forces had sought refuge from our onslaught by hiding in the burning oil fields. That would be no salvation however, as our Cobra helicopter gunships were picking them off one by one with sidewinder missile strikes. We disembarked the trucks, and watched in utter fascination as the helicopter-tank battle raged right in front of us. To add to the bizarre sense of surrealism, I turned to find nearly out entire company of Marines urinating while they watched. Here we were, battle raging 1000 yards in front of us, fire and explosions keeping us company, and my Marines were taking the opportunity to relieve themselves. I don’t know why, but it was at that moment that I knew we would be okay. As the last few Marines completed doing ‘their business’, a Humvee approached. ‘Who the hell are you guys???’ shouted an unknown Major who was clearly perturbed by our presence. ‘We’re Bravo Company, 1st Bn, 3rd Marines!’ I replied with a smile. ‘Well – right now you’re the lead element of Desert Storm Lt., so I’d suggest you hold up here until the rest of us catch up!’. And so, we held up. And they did catch up with us – Marines from regular and reserve units from all over the United States, British troops as well, by the thousands. Soon were but one wave in a sea of allied forces heading North. And we were soon joined by another force – thousands upon thousands of surrendering Iraqis.

They came over the horizon like wayward children looking for shelter. They had abandoned their weapons, and approached waving white rags and shirts over their head. Many of them were smiling. Some approached us speaking English. ‘What took you so long?’ asked one of them, a kid who looked more like a college student than an Iraqi soldier. He shared that he had been living in the US for several years, in school, but had returned home for a visit when he was ordered into a truck on the street, forced onto it at gunpoint, and given a uniform and a weapon. He’d endured months of air raids to embrace our arrival. Before the day was over, my platoon of 35 Marines had gathered over 1000 Iraqi POWs. Almost all of them carried propaganda leaflets we’d been dropping on Kuwait for months – promising them food, water, and safety if they gave themselves up, death if they didn’t. Trouble was – we didn’t have food or water. We corralled them into tight groups sitting in the sand, and surrounded them with the handful of Marines we could spare. It was a scary thing – because anyone could see, had they wanted to overtake us, they could have done it in seconds.

These Iraqi’s though, wanted nothing of the kind. They knew they were beaten before the ground war even began. Like Sun Tzu’s ideal battle plan, we had defeated them before a shot was fired. Those that didn’t see that were either dead already, or soon would be.

We turned our Iraqi POWs over to reserve Marines who came up to relieve us, and pressed on through the burning oil fields towards our ultimate destination, the Kuwaiti International Airport. It was hard to know what to do. We had no real command, our Battalion leadership far behind us, and we weren’t even sure where the rest of ‘Task Force Ripper’ was.Von Clauswitz' 'fog of war' was more real than I'd ever imagined. So we just kept pushing forward. I was awakened after a few precious hours of sleep on day 2 of the ground war by my radio operator, a Lance Corporal. ‘Sir!’ he excitedly shouted, ‘Sir!!! The sun never came up – what are we going to do???’. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes, trying to solve the incongruence of the black of night I was observing, and the 10am time my watch was showing. ‘You’re right’ I said, ‘the sun didn’t come up. Now just exactly what do you want me to do about that son?” I asked. The burning oil fields of Al Burqan had belched so much black smoke, it was actually obscuring the light of a normal Kuwaiti morning. The sun never did come out that day. And by the end of it, we were covered in soot, oil, and ash.

The rest of the ground war is a blur to me. Wave after wave of surrendering Iraqis appeared. It was beyond comprehension as mass upon mass of them came over the horizon. It was a roiling sea of surrender almost impossible to comprehend. Before we knew it – it was all over. President George Herbert Walker Bush had, to everyone’s dismay, kept his word to the UN. We were not going to invade Baghdad. We were not going to exceed the authority given us by the UN resolutions. We had said we were going to liberate Kuwait, and nothing more, and that’s exactly what we had done.

Desert Storm, and 6 tumultuous months of my life, had drawn to a close.

‘You mean we’re not going to get to wade in our own blood sir?’ asked the most cynical of my squad leaders, Cpl. Mooney. ‘No Mooney. It looks like we might just get to go home one of these days.’

Soon. ]]> Boone http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/82-storm-part-iv-line-departure.html <![CDATA[Surviving the 70's]]> http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/81-surviving-70s.html Sun, 30 Aug 2009 02:08:41 GMT It’s a miracle I lived through the 60’s and 70’s.

As if Richard Nixon, Vietnam, mutually assured destruction, and really really bad fashion weren’t risky enough, I faced the daily threat of mass-marketed toys that could maim, wound, and disfigure. Mattel? Kenner? Hasbro? Whamo? Endless fun with just a hint of mutilation thrown in for good measure. The children’s playthings of my youth would never make the cut nowadays – but how dear they were to my heart way back when.

Toy’s of my childhood – how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

The Poisonous:
In the 20 years spanning 1960-1979, nothing said FUN like toxic chemicals and vapors. The Bubble Jet, a fancy water gun you shoved bubble-producing cyanide tablets into, was great recreation. Whether squirting the solution into a friend's eyes or mouth, or your own, chemicals meant good clean fun. When you bored of the toxic bubble fun, you could relax with a couple of puffs from your Fake Cigarettes and blow (or inhale) some artificial chemical smoke. If smoking wasn’t your thing, it was time for some Superelastic Bubble Plastic. If the fumes from the blob of plastic goo you’d place carefully on the short straw didn’t fry some essential brain cells, the psychedelic colors of the finished bubbles were sure to blow your mind. And there was always the classic standby, the Chemistry Set, always full of poison potential. ‘Hey Mommmmm! We’re mixing up an experiment! (ie…mixing every damn powder and solution in the set together)’. ‘That’s great Johnny. Just don’t be late for supper. Johnny? Johnny? What's that horrible smell?’

I find the smell of burning flesh intoxicating:
Once you'd worked up a healthy buzz from sniffing and snorting some of the good stuff above, it was time to get down to real business. If you weren't holding a steel rod at 373 Kelvin, you weren't having fun. I guess 'Red Hot Iron Poker' wasn't very marketable. Instead they called this fun-filled item a Wood Burning Kit. Designed for the youthful artiste to trace lovely designs in the smooth face of a virgin wood canvas, we found it much more fascinating and gratifying to see which of our sister's toys was combustible. The fun lasted until we ran out of things to ignite, or burned the hell out of one of our fingers. The Wood Burning Kit had the added benefit of giving off some more occasionally toxic fumes, a plus if the headrush from earlier fun had worn off.

One of the most memorable toys of my youth had the potential to deliver fun and 3rd degree burns simultaneously. Creepy Crawlers let you make your own multi-colored rubber bugs and reptiles by squeezing some liquid goo into a metal mold you then placed in an electrically heated bath of incredibly hot water. The mixture of high-voltage electricity, water, toxic goo, and blazing heat was intoxicating. I can't remember what the hell we did with the rubber bugs, but making them sure was fun. If you were really adventurous, you got the Incredible Edibles version which combined the above risks with ingestion of the finished (supposedly 'edible') product, creating a high-risk toy twofer. What a bargain!

For the girls, there was always the classic Easy Bake Oven, which delivered the potential need for skin grafts using only the power of a light bulb. But the little brownies were really good, which did help take your mind off the burns.

Finally, for the truly ambitious kids, there were Estes Rocket Kits. You spent weeks carefully assembling the model rockets, inserting the real solid fuel engine, and then painstakingly preparing your rocketship for blastoff. 3 weeks of work was over in seconds as your rocket blast off into the great beyond, usually never to be seen again. After a few launches, we naturally progressed to the next logical step - laying the rockets on their side and launching them down the street. We were among the most popular kids in the neighborhood. Finally, we'd tire even of bothering with the rockets at all, and would tape the engines to handy household items (like empty glass Coke bottles), and fire them off that way. Good clean American fun!

You'll put your eye out!:
We damn near did, on multiple occasions. Back then, the federal government was too busy alternating betweem idealism and corruption and fighting wars in obscure corners of the world to worry about what little kids were playing with. One of my elementary school playmates, Bonnie Higham, had one of her eyes put out with a dart thrown by her brother. As I recall, even for an elementary school girl, Bonnie was pretty hot, although it could be a little disconcerting to see her lovely little blue glass eye drift off in an unintended direction while the other one stared piercingly right through you. If the loss of an eye wasn't gamble enough for you, you could risk full-on skull impalement with the big brother of the dart, Jarts, more commonly known as 'lawn darts'. These bad boys were big enough to do serious harm, and were so tempting the adults usually absconded with them. Add in a little alcohol and adult klutziness, and you had a recipe for madcap fun or tragedy, depending on your luck.

And of course, we had that old suburban standby, the Daisy BB Gun. When we tired of shooting at squirrels, crows, and the windows of neighbors we didn't like, it was only a matter of time before we turned them on ourselves. Lets face it. We had it coming.

There were other less forboding weapons at our disposal. The Fli Back Paddle was a personal favorite. It made a great weapon with a nice stand-off distance, giving you a headstart should whomever you were pummelling in the back of the head decide to counterattack. It also offered the risk of it's hard ball slapping into your own face if you weren't careful, or the rubber band breaking, sending the projectile off God know's where, destined to break a family heirloom of some kind. If you wanted to take the hostility up a notch, you could call the Red Eye Ball into action. A modern day mace, its hard stubby prongs were nearly lethal when thrown at maximum velocity. Finally, a favorite weapon in many a childhood arsenal was the Johnny Reb Cannon, which hurled hard plastic cannonballs at those damn yankees with almost frightening fury. I wish I'd lived in a land of cotton.

I'll call your eye out, and raise you a blunt head trauma:
It's amazing any of us escaped our childhoods without traumatic brain injury. Even the most basic of toys in my day had the potential to maim. One of my favorites was the boomerang. Ironically, even then people knew that the boomerang was a traditional Australian hunting weapon, but you could still find one in your stocking at Christmas. It could take years to master the perfect boomerang throw, seeing it make its swift, sweeping, beautiful arc and begin to race back to you and its point of origin. It took only seconds to realize you had no idea what to do about it as it careened towards your head at 90 mph. Run for your life!

All of us remember the joyful glee of a slumber party pillow fight. So it was no wonder marketers of that era sought to capitalize on those misty memories with Sockem Boppers. The nostalgic rememberances of pillow fights past quickly faded as you were thrashed about the head and shoulders with a couple of thunderous right crosses from Brian Elkins, the big mean kid down the street. 'Knock Em Senseless Boppers' might have been a more descriptive moniker.

Sometimes, you didn't need anyone else at all to experience major head trauma. In the pre-rollerblade era, a common instrument of death known as the Strap-on Skate could be spotted on almost any sidewalk in America. After the hour it required to apply the strap-on skates to your Buster Browns or Keds, using your special 'skate key' to tighten them, you were in for the ride of your life. Everything usually went just fine, until you happened to hit a rock or stick on the sidewalk, at which point all bets were off. The skates had an interesting tendency to simply come off at any given moment. The only saving grace was that the maximum speed obtainable with skates on was about what you could muster at a quick walk normally. Fortunately, all kids of that era were urged to always wear their special protective headgear when skating. We called them 'baseball caps'.

Vehicles of Death!:
If you're going to ride to your death, why not do it with a really bitchin' set of wheels? That's my life philosophy anyway. Having the misfortune to have turned 10 years old on 24 April, 1972 P.B.W. (Pre-Big Wheel), I was robbed of the opportunity of sporting a truly stylish and functional ride. Alas, our vehicles were lame, and generally dangerous as hell. The most hazardous of them all was the ominous-looking Skat Skoota. A set of 4 wheels, with 2 plastic red footprint pedals, Houdini himself couldn't have successfully escaped its clutches. Besides, even if you did manage to traverse down the street on the thing without breaking your neck, you looked decidedly uncool doing so. Bummer.

Another classic mode of transport those days was the Hasbro Inch Worm. The vehicle itself was perfectly harmless. But if you were spotted riding the ridiculous thing, your safety could not be guaranteed. It could take until High School for your rep to recover. The only plus was the catchy inchworm jingle.

In fact, our choice of rides back in the day were so woefully inadequate, we were forced to create our own. In its lowest form, this might mean stilts made out of a couple of baked bean cans and some laundry cord. But my most memorable vehicular experience involved 2 childhood buddies, twins, David and Eddie Reynolds. Using plywood, and nails (lots of them), on top of a Radio Flyer wagon chassis, we erected a monument to transportation unrivalled to this day. We shaped it's side's like a lemon, even painting it bright yellow as the final glorious finishing touch. Carefully we hauled it up to the top of Larkspur Drive, which happened to be the steepest point in our neighborhood. Eddie, being none too swift upstairs (if truth be told) drew the lucky straw as our primary pilot. Into the lemon car he went. The fateful countdown began, and with a gentle push, he headed down the incline, gathering speed as he went. As our creation plummeted downward into the abyss, we suddenly realized our heady plan had but one fatal flaw. You couldn't steer a Radio Flyer wagon. When the lemon car hit it's max speed of 25 mph, it decided a 90 degree turn was in order. The plywood, nails, and Eddie Reynolds decided, however, to continue down Larkspur Drive. It was not a pretty finale. The lesson? We didn't need toys to be dangerous. It came naturally.

I both rejoice and recoil at the typical childhood activities we embraced back then. When my brother turned 10, he got an archery set and target for Christmas. We routinely fired real arrows at high velocity past each other's ears. Exhilirating, amazing, and ummmm....kind of stupid in retrospect. I'd never let my kids do likewise, but still wonder if they aren't missing some essential life training from the safety of their X-Box and Play Stations. I've shared with you the hazards of my youth. Next time, I'll regale you with tales of some of my favorite toys. Maybe if I'm really really lucky, you'll share your memories too. ]]> Boone http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/boone/81-surviving-70s.html Waiting on the Heal http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/80-waiting-heal.html Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:51:58 GMT Well, here I am outside my house, staring at the straightaway. It looks a lot longer than I remember. It’s hot outside. High 80s at least. And... Well, here I am outside my house, staring at the straightaway.

It looks a lot longer than I remember. It’s hot outside. High 80s at least. And humid as hell. I should go back inside. I’ve got a perfectly legitimate reason to stay off the road today.

Bah. Just take a step. Go forward. See what happens. I’m not breaking any records today. I’m not planning any heroics. I’m just going to go for a slow walk around the block to see if the foot feels any better …

***

It’s been a full ten days since I last ran. I’ve only run three times this entire month. Some time in late June I noticed a soreness around the back of my left heel. I tried to ignore it and run through it a few times but it just got worse, even when I slowed down to just two 11:30 miles. After a quick search on the internet I found what I was looking for: Achilles Tendonitis. The first thing I had to do was stop running entirely to avoid making it worse, or even rupturing the tendon. The past week and a half I’ve been limping around, icing the foot down several times a day, stretching, and waiting for it to not hurt as much. I bought some inserts to raise my heels and consulted my doctor, who tells me if I follow his advise I could be running again in as quickly as a month or two.

Mostly I’ve just been waiting, staring out the window at the road ...

***

I get about a quarter mile into the walk when the heat and humidity make their presence felt. My legs are already feeling warm. At least I’m not out of breath.

A half mile in I decide to take off my iPod. It’s just not comfortable anymore. My legs are starting to ache. A half mile in and my legs are starting to ache. Any last thoughts of going two miles today leave with those achy legs.

Now I’m walking up the hill, on the sunny side of my mile, a few hundred yards from my house. I’m drenched in sweat. My legs hurt. My knees start to complain. My heel hurts.

I curse the sun at my back and limp the last few blocks to my house. Once inside I chug down two glasses of water. The pain in my heel has subsided. I gingerly stretch it out and take a couple ibuprofen. Before going back upstairs I take one last look out the window.

There’s the road, waiting. ]]> Henry http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/henry/80-waiting-heal.html <![CDATA[Prelude to a 'Harry Potter' review]]> http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/viva-la-tara/79-prelude-harry-potter-review.html Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:33:06 GMT Being of sound mind and empty wallet, I generally avoid being sucked into the utter chaos of witching-hour movie premieres. However, when Harry... Being of sound mind and empty wallet, I generally avoid being sucked into the utter chaos of witching-hour movie premieres. However, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opened last night (i.e., verrrry early this morning), I simply couldn't resist diving headlong into the madness. I gathered a select group of my dearest kith and kin, and we set off on an unforgettable odyssey into an all-too-familiar magical realm: the local movie theater.

It seemed like hours of my life were squandered during the previews, wringing my hands in anticipation while my fellow Muggle moviegoers babbled incessantly from every angle. Inane thoughts began to emerge from my hazy, sleep-deprived mind; thoughts like, "They're making a G.I. Joe movie? Seriously?" and "Liam Neeson is kinda hot. I don't know why, there's just something about him." Just as I feared the late hour had consumed my last iota of sanity, I heard it: the familiar Harry Potter theme. The adventure had begun.

~

In the next post, you'll read about the following:
-How awesome the movie actually was.
-...yep, that's about it.
Thanks for reading :) ]]> Viva la Tara http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/viva-la-tara/79-prelude-harry-potter-review.html Funereality / We put the fun in funeral http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/sasparilla-gretsch/78-funereality-we-put-fun-funeral.html Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:04:16 GMT The cemetery is tucked away at the back of a dingy, tired neighborhood that houses the mostly black working poor of North Charleston. It must be... The cemetery is tucked away at the back of a dingy, tired neighborhood that houses the mostly black working poor of North Charleston. It must be strange for them, the slow, cumbersome processions and the faces staring out of windows, the inexorably inevitable march of the dead and the dying. They sit in their rocking chairs on the porches of peeling paint, rotting wood and rusty nails, sipping cups of lemonade, the kids playing tag in the front yards and the dogs on their bellies basking in the sun.

A mad whirl of dust and gravel follows the hearse as it makes its way down the windy ribbon of road that leads to the grave site where my cousin will be buried. Dead at twenty-two, he will be covered with freshly dug earth that will settle over time as the dust settles on my jacket and black dress shoes. The sun is behind a grove of old Willows whose shadows glide and twist and flutter in some exotic, indecipherable rhythm, ghosts out to dance as the day winds down. I watch a small group of earth-toned birds that jump and twitter and chase each other about and delicately perch on the drab gravestones and low tree branches. To my east the muddy Ashley River flows softly like a woman’s winter scarf, and cars and tractor-trailers scream by on a bridge that runs above it—a ghastly imposition in an otherwise idyllic setting.

*******

As I stand out on the deck smoking a cigarette and listening to the raindrops dripping off the roof, a familiar song wafts sweetly from a nearby Air Force Base. It is nine o'clock, day is done.

*******

My great-grandfather's wake was a lively affair with a large turnout. There was laughter and spirited conversations and everyone hugged each other and sturdily shook hands and patted each other on the back and kissed each other on the cheek, and there were unknown relatives drinking beer from Styrofoam cups in the parking lot, and I thought it odd, then, that there would be so much happiness at an event I thought was supposed to be solemn and dreary (at least, that's how it was in the movies). My mother told me that for some people, weddings and funerals were the only times they would see old friends and family, and that a funeral is supposed to be a celebration of life and the person that lived. I would learn later that not all funerals are like that, that it depends a lot on when and how the deceased, well, died.

Later, after the funeral, I got high with my cousins on the upstairs deck of my grandfather's home while the rest of the family were downstairs swapping stories about the old times. I went to my first funeral and smoked my first joint, all in the same day. I was becoming a man.

*******

The night after my grandmother's funeral I got drunk on the box of wine that she would never finish and my cousin snorted Oxycontin in her bathroom. He would be dead in less than a year and a half. I spoke at her funeral, as I would speak at his. I carried her coffin, as I would carry his.

*******

At my grandfather's wake, his daughter, my aunt, who had been estranged from the family for years, jumped on top of his body and wailed and clutched at his lapel. Everyone agreed that it was in poor taste.

*******

I made a couple CDs of my Nan's favorite music, Roy Orbison, Nat King Cole, Inglebert Humperdink, and her favorite song, "Only You" by the Platters. Well, it is "their song," her and my grandfather's, which played at their wedding in 1956. My nan was a lover of music, and even more so a lover of dancing. Even when her health began to decline and she couldn't walk on her own, nothing would make her giddier than getting up to dance. Her laughter, her smile vivacious and sincere, was a gift to all, indelible and infectious.

I made the CDs to play by her bedside, those last two weeks that seemed to stretch on for years, those last two weeks of sitting at the dinner table (where we had enjoyed many a family meal) with grim faces and talking to the Hospice representative about making her last days "comfortable," of the funeral arrangements and the buying of flowers and the well-wishers and the food they left, of the priest and his vestments and his rosary and the Last Rites and "Our Father, who art in heaven . . ."

From my Nan and my Grandpa I’ve learned all I know about love, unconditional love, based on sacrifice and commitment, the shared experiencing of good and bad, the willingness to surrender oneself so deeply to the other. They had a bond that was so strong it never broke, and never will. Through the worst, Grandpa stayed with her and cared for her, like no one else ever could, and she remained as ever, dignified and strong-willed. Their struggle is the struggle of all of us. They are the standard to which everyone else should be measured.

You learn a lot about people who are faced with the weight of the life lived and the life ending and all the regret and the guilt, the grudges, the past acrimony, the resignations and the acquiescence. The four siblings who who will be burying their mother and the patriarch who will be burying his life-long love. All with her in a hospital bed in the family room slipping further and further away, the throaty breathing, the dehydration, the open eyes staring at the ceiling. And Nat King Cole.

I got the call late on a Sunday night. My two aunts and my Grandpa were with her. Her breathing had become labored, so they sat with her, and held her hand, and my aunt played "their song" and then her breathing had slowed down and by the end of the song, had stopped completely.

*******

Standing there as the sun dips behind the Willows and the grave is being filled and people are shaking hands and whispering their condolences and I'm sweating in my suit and tie, my aunt, who had been "born again," asks me if I still go to church, if I still worship Jesus. She says, "you remember when you came to stay with us for the summer and you would highlight Bible passages during the services." I do remember. I was a child, then, and everything I knew was so crystallized, so well-structured and easily definable. There was so much that I didn't know, that I didn't know I didn't know, it was easy and logical to accept the stories I was told and had read, neatly packaged, sanitized for a child's consumption, and I believed them with all the fervor a ten-year old could muster.

*******

Arlington. The perfect rows that stretch on and on. Eternally.

*******

I walk back to the car, slowly, head down and hands in my pockets. We drive back down the dusty road from where we came, as the sun finally disappears behind the dark, looming trees I once loved as a child. ]]> Sasparilla Gretsch http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/sasparilla-gretsch/78-funereality-we-put-fun-funeral.html It’s a mixed bag http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/77-s-mixed-bag.html Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:39:48 GMT Yes, I’m still alive, though I haven’t posted in some time now. So much to do, so little time as they say. My actual quest to be able to ride many... Yes, I’m still alive, though I haven’t posted in some time now. So much to do, so little time as they say. My actual quest to be able to ride many miles in a day is still a priority, but little progress has been made. I’ve come to the realization that I’ll never be able to ride as much as I want until I retire from doing physical work. Some days are good, and some bad no matter what I do. It’s a mixed bag, and never know what to expect from my body. This past Sunday for instance. Rolled out, and did a solid hour on the slab (highway) at about 85 mph, and my hands were perfect. Met up with my guys, and lit out for a few hours of abusing our bikes. Somewhere in the third hour, like somebody flipped a light switch, the right hand went numb. Bare in mind that we were averaging around 95 to 100mph on the straights when this happened, so it wasn’t a good thing. We hit Solomon's Castle for lunch, and the hand was fine the entire hour and a quarter ride home after lunch. My guess is that at those speeds, I’m hanging on tighter then normal, and the angle of my wrist with the throttle that far open is causing the problem. I also know that with a change of bike style, I can ride forever. I will reach my goal once I can swing the price of a second bike for touring. Yup, I realize it’s never gonna happen on the Bonneville. The Bonnie will always be there for day trips, and just blasting around.

In the interim, there’s been all sorts of things going on. I attended the vintage festival at the Barber Motorsports Park, in Leeds Alabama. I’m not much for the bigger bike events, they tend to be Harley drunk fests. The Barber event on the other hand is all about the bikes, and the races. There’s nothing like a weekend of antique bikes to do a soul good. To watch WWII era bikes screaming around one of the nicest road courses is just a sight to see. Three Norton Manx’s on the track is a rare sight anywhere in the world.

I rode four hours in each direction to help a rider that went down when the SUV in front of him came to a sudden stop, and had no brake lights. His gear really saved his hide. He came away with a broken foot. Hey, at 64 years old, after flying through the air some sixty feet, it could have been far worse. To make it worse, it was his wife’s bike that they were picking up from a shop. I made the trip with tools and parts strapped to the bike, and had the bike back in shape in no time at all. Carl is a good friend, and very involved with the PGR . He does for so many, and people from around the globe pitched in with parts to fix Mae Lyn’s bike. Good Karma all around.

I’ve spent many a day with my guys, enjoying the riding, company, and great food here and there. We even did a camping trip in Okeechobee on some land owned by a members best friend. What a blast. We did more drinkin then riding once we settled in. Two of our hooligans even crashed a weeding at the local VFW. When they rode off, we didn’t think they were really going to go to the weeding, but on their return, they had a place setting, and a few weeding favors to prove themselves. As the season has wound down, my schedule has gotten crazy with training for work. A total of five trips, most of which are located in Ormond Beach, just North of Daytona. So, tomorrow morning I’ll be heading out on trip number four, only I’ll be riding this time around. We have a bike at the shop that is in the demo program, and needs 3K on it before we can sell it. It’s the bike most often used for Alaskan adventures, the BMW R1200GS. Once again, I'll be in the wind, naked and naughty. ]]> Pete http://www.thenoosphere.com/blogs/pete/77-s-mixed-bag.html