I Love TOMTOM!

   The last memory I have of travelling in a big city was New Orleans in the late '60's in my VW bus.

Pretty scary to be down in Southern States at all during the tumulus riots and protests of that era.  I was a Western boy from a small town in Oregon and we just plain didn't hate anyone!

   The freeway system over New Orleans is a spider web of raised roads with 60 mph speed limits and off ramps it seemed every thirty feet.  You get skilled at reading the green sign boards fast or you get lost.

   I can get lost in Portland, our "big city" only 100 miles from my home town.  The same 100 ramps as New Orleans and decisions that need to be made while travelling fast, sandwiched between cars.  Certainly not the time to get the map out!

   Port Townsend, the nearest big town to Nordland, Washington was across State Lines, right through Portland, into Vancouver, off the main route to Seattle and driving through the heavily forested Olympic Peninsula was where I was headed.  I would need Oregon maps, Washington maps and a good sense of direction.  Me?  hahahaha!  I can get lost in my own town.

   I am not a 21st Century kind of guy.  I don't own a cell phone.  I could get along just fine with a well trained horse who knew its own way home.  I admit I own a "BlueRay" but don't admit that I know how to use it or what it really does.  It has been sitting in the same place for two years and has a little blue light that tells me it is powered up, attached by a cable to something.  It won't talk to me, ask me questions or guide me in any way in an attempt to understand it.

   TOMTOM is different!  She, (I actually programed her to sound like Marilyn Monroe!) tells me everything!

She asks me where I would like to go! and tells me how to get there.  She is wonderful.  Gives me tons of advanced warning that my next decision will be to turn left or right or just veer one way or another.

   "Go straight for 37 miles and then turn left"  She is brilliant!  I have no decisions to make for half an hour and I can turn the radio on!  I don't want to miss a single word from Marlyn!

    I found two radio stations, both talk radio, and, of course both politics!  One left leaning and one right.

I get balance that way and conformation that the craziness of Oregon politics extends into Washington and satisfaction knowing the whole world is nuts!  We are not alone!

   "In two miles turn left"  By now I would do anything Marilyn asks of me!

   At the beginning I was nervous and without complete trust.  How could she know where I was all the time?

Would I dare stop for a cup of coffee?  What happens if I have to pee?  I thought seriously to stay on the route.  I was afraid of detours.  I could maybe just pull to the side of the road and pretend I was "checking my tires"? A radiator leak maybe?  No, I wanted coffee too and I was hungry.  I left on this trip at 4 in the morning and now it was after seven.  I saw a sign for food and pulled off the freeway onto a little side road without Marilyn's permission or guidance!  I got my breakfast thinking, where has she gone?  Does she know where I am?  I certainly didn't have a clue.

   I started my little truck and instantly there she was!  "Redirecting, please wait".

   Marlyn, well TOMTOM anyway, was my guardian angel and knew where I was all along!  She was waiting for me!  Love and devotion, she never left me at all.

   She tells me at two miles, the one mile marker, 200 feet and 40 feet and then what the next decision will be.  She knows everything!

   When you get to where you are going, now, can you imagine this!  Marlyn Monroe says, "You have reached your destination!"

   No, Norma Jean, you made it all too easy!  We will do this again, maybe another place, a different destination, who knows? maybe all the way!

   I love my TOMTOM!  and she does nag!  If you go over four miles faster than the speed limit she will turn

red! and a little faster then she will blink!  She knows the speed limit and how fast you are going! And the time of arrival!  She is so clever, not a dumb blond at all.

 Early morning sunrise on Puget Sound

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2:30 AM!!!

Well, now I have done it.  It is 2:30 am and I am wide awake, here in my shop office drinking coffee.
I have strange sleeping habits I admit.  I go to bed when I am tired, haven't yet learned that napping ability.
My wife works graveyard shift from 3:30 pm until midnight so she is not here to entertain me or keep me awake with chatter.  Television puts me right to sleep and my body says if that is where I want to be I might as well go to bed!  Last night that was 6 pm!  Then at 2 am there was a gentle knock on the door!
     "Jerry, I can't find the dog!"
     "Tuxedo" is actually my daughter's dog.  So I will tell you that story.
Jane and I were married for over fourteen years before we decided to have children.  Getting married was one thing and having a family and a ton of responsibilities was something else entirely.  I had school to finish, a house to build, things to do.  We met by accident on a train in Italy and really only knew each other for three weeks before we got married.  Well, this was the sixties, that should explain it all.  We had discovering to do, more travel, more adventure, more getting to know each other before we wanted children.  Then there was the other problem.
     The flight from London to Portland, Oregon is about 16 hours and Jane sat cross legged the whole way.
She was stiff and sore upon arrival but otherwise okay and we were pretty excited to see each other after three months of letter writing and only one phone call.  A week later we were married!  No immigration hassle and paper work in those days.  A week later she was in the hospital and almost died.
     That deserves a chapter in itself and I will tell it later.  $2,500 later (think $25,000 in today's money!)
with no insurance of course, she was safe and out of the hospital.  No one knew anything in those days and we were just married, right?  So she gets on "the birth control" and a week later she is back in the hospital
with more blood clots!  Again, inches from death.
    So, having a baby fourteen years later was a huge decision, not really the fun of saying "okay, let's do it."
There were huge risks involved.  She had to, "administer" would be the word, heparin twice a day because
warfarin taken by pill would affect the baby.  These are shots injected in the stomach area twice a day which she did herself for the entire pregnancy.  She was black and blue all around the mid section, looking like I might have beat her up!  "Maybe this will work," the doctor said, "there is some risk and it may affect the baby".
     All during this time I did what I do, I built things.  My mind of course is racing, what if this and what if that?  I built a changing table.  I built a rocking horse.  I built a bed and a storage box for toys. I built a set of alphabet blocks all the letters from exotic hardwoods inlayed onto oak blocks.
    Nine months later, "Jennifer" arrives, healthy, ten fingers and ten toes and I am the proudest, happiest dad in the world!  It is funny, having children.  My daughter is certainly her own person but I can see her mother in her and maybe a little too much of me!  As she grew older she developed my wanderlust, my sense of adventure. an urge to travel, always after that expanded horizon.  A genetic curiosity to discover what is on the other side?  This comes with an aversion to being tied down.  My daughter, the traveller and she did it more and bigger and better than I ever did.
    Europe several times, teaching for over a year there somewhere, and she was in Africa in the Peace Corps.  She would do what I did, come home and work for a year, save her money and take off!
    About four years ago she realized that this was going to be a continuing life style unless she could find something to hold her down.  That is when she found "Tuxedo", three months old, a mix breed dog.
He looks ferocious but he isn't.  He is a mix of Pit bull, Rottweiler and Mastiff and now at 128 pounds he is a big boy!  For now Jennifer is in Texas (another chapter to be told later!) and "Tuxedo", so named because of a white single spot on the chest of this otherwise black dog, is in my care.  And now he was missing!
    My yard is fenced and cross fenced, all ornamental iron work, both beautiful and meant to contain my daughter's dog and keep out the uninvited.  Somehow he jumped the damn fence!  How in the heck did he do that?  What excitement goes through a dog's mind?
    So I am up now and I found him quickly, tail wagging and the most thrilling expression on his face!  He had his own adventure!  I will be discussing this with him when it gets light.  We will walk the fence line together, dog and man, talking about "things",  the dangers of the real world, the need for adventure.  We will talk about poetry and love and the necessity of boundaries.  I will explain to him the best that I can, that responsibilities are also valuable.  He is a good dog and will listen intently, looking deep into my eyes, but he can't stop wagging his tail.
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When we were very young...

     When I say that I would return to my youth in a heartbeat, well, I think that I should explain that a bit more.  I was not a girl chaser so it was not that.  I have always thought that it is more significant to make love a thousand times to one woman than a thousand women once.  It is not the carefree lazy days I miss.  I am retired and I have too many of those now.
     I miss the strength of my youth.  When I built my house I was working at the local cannery, the night shift,
twelves hours at a time.  I did that and built my house!  My last term in college I took 27 credit hours, that is like two full student's full of work AND I did those same hours at the cannery.  I got all "A's" and one "B"!
Oh I wasn't that smart.  By then I had realized that the professor's didn't really want you to learn anything, certainly not enough to get sidetracked on any issue.  I knew they just wanted me to spit it back at them and that is what I did.  There have been classes where I got "C's" where I had learned far more.  By my last term in college I just wanted to finish so I just did what was expected and got better grades for it.
     When I was young I could lift huge beams, just put them on my shoulder and walk up the ladder.  I have no strength like that now.  The strength of youth is replaced by wisdom but I am not sure it is a fair trade.
Wisdom comes with caution and a particular loss of adventure.  The horizon of life should be huge in your youth.  I have travelled a thousand miles with two dollars in my pocket.  I would go to Europe on a whim and like a rich man, stay for six months at a time.  No agenda, no itinerary, just an amble, pausing as I liked.

This is the little MG I crashed! I told that story yesterday.

    I was a virgin to everything, all was new and exciting and mysterious.  There weren't the evil drugs in those days and people were not so self destructive.  It seems that people were happier and friendlier and not so suspicious and cautious.  I bet I have hitch-hiked 100,000 miles in Europe, as far North as the reindeer go in Norway to the Southern areas of Italy and everywhere in between.  People were friendly and curious and would take you way out of their way and always feed you and offer a place to stay.  It was a time without suspicions.
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Serendipity

is one of my favorite words. It is viewing the world and instigating your search with your eyes wide open. Not to be confused with being easily distracted or settling for less, it is the discovery of something you were not looking for. Life should not be a preordained straight line from birth to death. We are able to visit the side road amusements, to travel trails uncharted,
expanding our horizons in this quest for whatever it might be but we so seldom do it!
I think we get tricked into the things we do. I don't know why anyone would ever want to go on a cruize ship? These are not "Love Boats" nor the passenger ships of the last century with their open decks and just cables between you and the ocean. These are floating cities with glass between you and the water, packed in like sardines, just you and six thousand others! and with television sets in the cabins! "Tours" are the same, guided and safe and predictable, offering us a taste of we don't even know what and allowing us to chat amongst ourselves, viewing the world from the inside out. We have lost our sense of adventure and see life in thirty minute episodes complete with commercials! Serendipity requires the ability to jump ship.