Alice

"How does one become a butterfly?" She asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much

that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar." Thank you, Constance, for reminding of this

"Alice and Wonderland" quotation.

As we get older we are less inclined to give up comfort for adventure. Risk becomes an essential element in the equation of living. No matter our political persuasion, we acquire things and become conservative. This may not be all bad. It could be nature's way of providing a stable nest, that roost to come home to. It is limiting though, a self imposed boundary, lines we are fearful to cross.

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They say there are one hundred hookers in Hollywood for every movie actress, for every thousand guitars sold, one might find itself on stage. The fear of failure overpowers the desire for success.

The worst word in the English language is "can't", can not, and the second worse is "won't",

will not. I am hoping that this New Year, 2011 that is upon us, will be a positive year, that our Resolutions will accept the challenges ahead, that we can shed our fears, find strength in ourselves and value in the friendships we have made. Maybe we can do it a little different?

Success

If you believe you can't soon enough you won't be able to. Faith is the beginning to everything. It is the second step that is most difficult, the allotting of time. So often we assign this task to others. The doctors make the appointments and we will be there. The television show we like to watch is at eight o'clock and we will be waiting. The alarm clock goes off and we will get up and adjust our day to meet the expectation of others. When I decided at fifty years old that I wanted to learn to weld I had to get up earlier. It is true that practice makes perfect.

Time becomes an empty vessel we are eager to fill. The trick to doing art is to rearrange the clock, reset your priorities and save time for yourself. Be obligated to it. A good friend of mine built a yacht and sailed around the world. He knew that this was a daunting task that few could achieve and demanded of himself only two hours a day. This is a discipline he made manageable

in small increments. Two hours a day, even when he didn't feel like it. Especially when he didn't feel like it. It is this beginning that is difficult. Once started his two hour dedication would stretch and I have seen him working by flashlight late into the evening.

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World of Imagination!

We had already had one Summer vacation, that

trip to Canada where I got voted out of my desire to see Disneyland. Boy, was I excited to have won this all expense trip for the four of us. It was not first class, nor even on an airline. It was a bus trip on Grayhound lines, rumbling along the

1000 miles or so from my small town to Los Angeles, California. I had never been on a bus and never dreamed of an airplane, never seen a freeway; we didn't have any in Oregon! California had everything and the bus was huge, way off the ground giving me a grand view! I got car sick or bus sick and threw up easily! I mostly sat at the front of the bus near the driver and that was a lot better and I felt so very important!

We stopped in Reno, Nevada for an overnight, my first time at a real Hotel. My parents saw the casino and did a bit of gambling while my brother and I stayed in the motel room and watched television. We didn't have a television and that was a lot of fun. There were three channels! The next day we would be in San Fransisco visiting cousins I had never met, a trip to China Town and rides on the street cars! I could hardly sleep!

Disneyland, YES!!!

It was the next summer that I went to Disneyland,

taking my whole family with me, my brother who was fifteen and my parents, the "older people".

This wasn't a planed vacation, in fact it was voted out three to one! We went somewhere every summer, usually small trips, camping at the coast or the nearby mountains, mostly the ocean though because of the mosquitoes in the mountains. Once in a while, maybe every third summer we would really go somewhere, a real vacation! Not often though because I don't think my parents really liked each other and the thought of being two weeks in a tent together was just too much. That's another story and

I will probably tell you more about it because it is all a part of this educational experience and the reason I never had a Senior Year at High School. A part of "my story", so to speak. So, back to being eleven years old. One night in early summer we were sitting around the dining room table with a great discussion going on where to go for a summer vacation. My vote was Disneyland! This was 1958 and Disneyland, that imaginative fairy tale place where anything could be

had just opened! I was so excited and did my very best to sell my family on this idea. I lost out to Canada, British Columbia and some old town that so wanted to be British called Victoria! God,

how dull could that be especially compared to Disneyland and California! I was disappointed

but offered a consolation prize in the form of a "Brownie Starflash" camera! It cost $8.95 and had a built-in flash attachment with blue flashbulbs! The deal included three rolls of film, 24 pictures each and I wasn't allowed to go crazy and take pictures of everything like we can do today with the digital cameras. Three rolls plus developing, that was what I was allowed.

Now I will tell you about the contest! In those days, in our town, you bought film and had it developed at the local pharmacy. They sold fancy cameras there, made by Kodak in USA and
Cannon and other upscale cameras made in Japan. These could cost as much as $600. in 1958!
They also sold my little "Brownie Starflash" for $8.95. One day in very early summer before we were even talking about a vacation, they put posters up all over the store, announcing a giant photo contest! This was a pretty big deal for our town, sponsored by Kodak, and Grayhound Bus
and Disneyland, the top prize was an all expense trip for four to that Magical Kingdom, and boy, did I have my eye on that! They had weekly prizes of inexpensive cameras and developing services and you had to win one of these to be entered into the "Grand Prize." Dreams of youth, I wanted that so bad!
But off we went to Canada and, really, it was a fun vacation and we stopped at a hundred places along the way. One such stop was in Vancouver Canada to "Stanley Park", a beautiful, walkable botanical gardens. I am not remembering all the details here but I wanted to go about "taking pictures" and my parents and brother wanted to do something else. At eleven years old I was allowed to go on my own, walking a park in a strange land. It was thrilling and I pretended that I was a famous photographer, stopping here and there to catch this and that. One photo, THE PHOTO, actually, I have posted here. This was truely a "Kodak Moment", you just had to be there at the right place and at the right time. I was standing on a stone bridge, looking below me at a creek that went into a little pond when these swans just came drifting by, under the bridge towards the pond. I waited quietly and just took this one photo but knew in my heart it had to be pretty good.
When we got back home I rushed to the pharmacy to get my film developed. No "one hour" stuff in those days, it was a three day wait. I had two "almost perfect" pictures, these swans and another one just of the stone bridge. I entered them both and waited!
Shortening this story a bit because it is getting very long, the swans won the show, best photo of the week and by August, the best photo period!!! Second best was a portrait taken with one of those six hundred cameras and the stone bridge, my other photo, won third prize!
Tomorrow I will tell you about Disneyland in 1958!