Date:                           November 10, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0930

            I did not accomplish a lot yesterday.  As a matter of more accurate fact I accomplished just about nothing, but I will try not to allow that small fact stop me from boring the one or two people that might stumble on to my blog heaven.  I will, however, attempt to not delve into the dark dungeons of my opinionated mind.

            Our main chore yesterday was to mail a couple of letters.  For a retired couple settled into the sedated life of snowbird Florida this could be a moment.  For us it was not, but it needed to be done.  It was on our return to the campground that we noticed a collection of 8 or 10 egrets and herons in our campground retention pond.  It is worth noting that the retention pond is not retaining much water of late and birds were wading through a very wet swamp with barely enough water to cover their feet and certainly not enough to get their knees damp.

            I must admit that seeing a shallow pond surrounded by palm trees and blue sky is a beautiful sight.  Dot the wet landscape with a handful of white birds and one or two blue ones and the picture takes on a memorable tone.  It was this memorable tone and classic Florida landscape that I wanted to capture on my camera.  Connie and I hurried back to our campsite and I gathered my camera, my bike and headed off to pretend I was a photographer.

            The wind was blowing just a bit, or so I thought.  As a peddled down the street in our campground and made the turn toward the pond I was abruptly made aware of the fact that the wind was blowing quite a bit.  My old tired bike peddling legs found it nearly impossible to power my new bike forward.  The winds seem to push me back harder than I could push me forward.  I down shifted my bike, peddled a bit harder and pretended I was a Tour De France rider and leaned into the wind.  Camera flailing, legs pumping, and chest heaving with breaths of exhaustion I did make the pond pristine in its beauty and specked with the charm of long legged white egrets and heron feeding on what ever floated on the shallow pond surface.

            As I dismounted my ride and grabbed my camera for a collection of what I hoped would be awesome pictures someone must have called ahead to the lead bird.  In unison nearly every one of the idiots took to flight and showed me nothing but their tail fathers as they soared on the winds to ever increasing heights and well out of my camera’s range.  “Thanks a lot you pain in the butt birds.  I am too old to be breathing this hard just to snap a picture of an empty pond.  Do you have no compassion?”

            I was to realize the answer to my question was all too real.  They had no compassion.  I had no brains. And, my camera was to have few pictures.  I suppose if I were eating lunch in a secluded hideaway and some lumbering oaf came huffing and puffing on a machine toward me I might jump to the conclusion that this situation might lead to no good.  And I might opt to forgo any more lunch until the area returned to its solemn quiet.  Maybe the “bird brain” there was not in white feathers.

            I did get a few pictures although they were not quite as pristine has I had first imagined.  I did get to play with my camera.  And I did get some exercise on my bike. It was, by all thoughts, not a bad experience.  It even gave me something to add to my blog this morning.  It is not totally off the wall and probably will not anger anyone.  That is a pretty good combination.

            The moral of my story, if there could be one, may be that if you have the opportunity to capture one of life’s moments of beauty, do not let it pass with out making an attempt to accomplish the task.  As we have seen this morning you may not store away the memory that you had planned, but a memory will still me made and the beauty will live on in your soul.

20 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 9, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0830

            Connie and I have been at this campground in Florida for more than 4 months and it was not until yesterday that we had a real life picnic outside at our site.  It took us over 4 months to live like a camper at our campground.  It was not an elaborate picnic, but we had our Weber cranked up and the smell of cooking beef wafted through the campground and especially through our site.  This was not the first time we have used our Weber, for it has been a work horse this summer.  The part of this charcoal smelling, meat cooking, fresh air enjoying afternoon that made this a special picnic atmosphere was that we actually ate our creations outside at our picnic table. 

            This may not seem to be too exotic, unless you are living in Florida, especially in the summer.  We have learned that 90 plus degrees in the sweaty tropical climate of living on a sand bar is not the most conducive to enjoying the pleasures of outdoor living.  I must sadly admit that we have spoiled ourselves all to much by using our air-conditioning 7 days a week and 24 hours a day for entirely too much.  It is, however, how one manages to exist in the southeast if one is normal and a wimp.  We try to be the former and I am always the later.

            The last few days have been overly delightful in Florida.  The temperature has been in the high 70s to very low 80s with just the hint of a cool breeze.  Our air-conditioning has actually been off a lot more than it has been on and our windows have been open.  We even had our heat on once last week, just to cut the chill of early morning.  With this new climate environment we decided that we should move our bodies outside and enjoy the rest of our site.  We purchased some new lawn chairs, changed our table cloth to one that fit the season and spent all day enjoying the comfort of autumn in Daytona.  It would have been nearly perfect except that the Giants lost by 1 point, but that is another sad story for another sad meandering.

            Someday I should explain how we purchased our lawn chairs from an outlet store near Camping world.  Camping world was our first choice.  Where else would a camper go for camping equipment?  After some very disappointed realization that what Camping World had was made extremely cheaply and terribly over priced, we decided that our 60  mile drive was for naught when Connie noticed an expensive specialty sporting equipment store.  A few moments later we had purchased 2 very nice lawn chairs that were better made and cheaper than anything we could find at CW.  We mentioned this to our sales person and he looked as befuddled as we were.  How could they, a specialty shop, sell a product of higher quality for a lower price?  A price that was a good 20 per cent lower on a product that was made of quality metal and wood and no plastic.  Of course it was made in China, but than nothing is perfect.

            The hamburgers we great, reading as you recline in soft cool tropical breezes is nearly heaven and with our outside entertainment center we really do have the best of many worlds.  We may begin to enjoy the rather large lawn we have at our site and escapee from the confines of our bus.  We have even taken up riding our bikes again.  I guess it is true that as the heat and humidity regress the appearance of snowbirds does elevate.

            Time to go and enjoy another beautiful, pleasant day in Florida.

21 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 7, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0900

            Writing a blog is challenging as well as interesting.  I fear that those that choose to read my cerebral wandering find it much more challenging than they find it interesting on any given day.  And yet, here I am positioned in my “throne” as my lovely wife calls my chair and I am attempting to fill a page or so of my electronic paper with thoughts of a life that may not always be exciting and of much interest to the living world. I could ramble on with my wealth of hindsight knowledge and explain how the world we see unfolding before us would be so much better if they only did it my way.  I could explain how the life others live could be so much happier if they could only see their individual problems with the clarity and in-depth perception that I understand their lives to be.  Profundity is such an easy game to play. If only the world listened to me and valued my awesome opinions.

            There are many days when I get caught up in the wealth and depth of my own intelligence and can not help but share it with the world from my little soap box called “Travels with Aurora.”  Yesterday may well have been one of those moments.  Yet as I reflect on what I have expounded upon on my page of self valued opinions I can not help but place that moment into context of today’s environment.  Might I have said something that might at a future time be determined a flag as to the unstableness of my sanity?  There are, I would presume, many people that might wonder about the state of my sanity on any given day, at any given moment as it is.  It is a salient fact in today’s electronic world that once you have a thought, decided to share that thought and actually completed these tasks your opinions are open for the world to, at any time in the future, interpret and use as a base for their opinion of either you or your mindful meanderings.  Sadly today it may not be just your friends and family that are evaluating your postulations.

            It is from this sullen perspective that I start my blog this morning and after nearly half an hour I have progressed to absolutely nowhere, and with great aplomb I might add.  Writing a blog can be challenging even if not interesting, as I stated at the onset of this mornings offering.  I have far too many opinions on what is happening in our world to dare share them on a semi public forum.  My slightly extreme pacifistic liberal ideas are not always well received and seldom as fully understood as I had hoped they might be when I tried to formulate each sentence.  I may, at times, attempt to tweak an extreme opposing idea with literary sarcasm and usually accomplish irritation instead of enlightenment.  Thus failing in what ever my original desire might have been.  I should often apologize for my literary indiscretion, but that might mean I did not mean to accomplish what it probably was I so effectively did.  Poking an opposing political or social opinion in the eye is such fun and self rewarding sometimes.  I do realize that opinions are like some body orifices, we all have them. It is just that once I have gone to the trouble of formulating my own opinion I do so want to share my intellect with the world.  It is not that my opinions are always perfect, but they are always mine and certainly right.  That is until I change my mind.

            I have accomplished my goal of a page of thoughts.  You have now wasted nearly half an hour trying to figure out what it is I am trying to say and now I must go shopping for a present for my granddaughter.  That is really quite a bit to accomplish on any given Saturday morning.  I am off to Orlando in my shorts and short sleeved shit.  The sky is blue and the air is clear.  It is a bit cool today and may only reach the lower edge of the 80s, but I think we can adapt.  I still have my opinions, I still have my advise and I still think I have my sanity all of which I will, I am sure, attempt to share with you on a future visit to blog world.  Writing a blog is challenging and sometimes interesting and so very often a good means to waste an hour or so on a beautiful warm and breezy Florida morning.  Go forth and opine.

23 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 6, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

1000

            Previously I expounded on the pleasures of being a retired old duffer and the pleasure that can be found in the simplest of chores even cooking dinner.  The result of our endeavor was, indeed, all that great and worth remembering.  It was also the path to the presentation of the gourmet meal that will complete the memory in our minds.  Having the time and inclination to make the dinner meal a chance to become a memory is even a greater pleasure.  Being retired allows me to slow down enough to find these moments to enjoy.

            It is this slowed down aspect of life that was to lead me to my daily excursion into my blog world.  Having nothing important to do can cause a person to think and sometimes it can make a person think too much.  My thoughts were meandering into the realm of daily news or what ever that thing they present of TV as news really is.  It was not the specific story that was being presented, but rather the questions these events might ask of society and the health of society that caused me to ruminate a bit.

            Yesterday, the story that fueled my interest was about the house of murder in Ohio.  It was not a question, in my mind, of how a human can be that sick. For we all know that happens all too often.  It was, also, not a question of right or wrong.  There is never a right when one sick human takes the life of another and then repeats that horrific act.  The question that arose in my mind was how society can allow this to happen.

            How does a man entice multiple victims into a killing field located in the center of a large American city?  How does this happen and go unnoticed or not investigated.  I think this yells about the ills of society much more than it speaks of the ills one mind.  One mind was obviously sick and crying for help and yet society ignored the travesty that was being preformed right in front of its collective eyes.  We, as a society, seem destined to not become involved with our neighbors.  We seldom even know who our neighbors are or what they are doing.

            I was going to expound deeply and profoundly on this ill of society until I happened onto the news of the day yesterday.  An Army officer walked into a processing building on a very large Army post and killed 12 people and wounded over 30 others.  This act of terror happened on a secure United States military post.  The terrorist was allowed to infiltrate a large gathering of soldiers fully armed and bent on causing great havoc and destruction.  He seemed to do this in broad day light, dressed in full uniform and with little effort.  And yet my question is not about the total lack of security.

            My question, again, is about the status of society.  How do we allow an eighty year old feeble woman to be hand searched and embarrassed at a public airport?  We accept that we all must remove shoes in order for us board an airplane, yet we somehow allow a man to walk on to a military post armed and dangerous with little obvious thought.  It would seem, I my mind, a bit more dangerous to wave a “trained killer” through the security screening on a sensitive military installation than a it would be to allow a family to comfortably board a public transportation facility.

            I will not pontificate on my views.  I think there are many questions we should be asking ourselves.  But, they are questions that we should be asking ourselves and not fussing over how someone else might phrase the inquiries  We need to think about finding the root causes of the many ills our society is exhibiting.  I truly feel that none of these questions, much less the answers, are being postulated by anyone in the modern media or existing government.  Society needs to collectively and individually be a lot more reflective on more than the face of the problems and search for the causes of the societal manifestation of failures.

            There is a scene in “Patch Adams” that takes place in a mental health hospital where Patch Adams is asked to count the fingers on a fellow patient.  Patch answers 4, of course and the patient goes ballistic because the answer is so wrong.  He tells Patch to look beyond the problem to the answer.  Sometime have a person hold up his hand and you count his fingers.  Look beyond the “problem” or his hand and look for the root cause problem, or beyond his hand.  You will find your eyes blurring a bit and soon 8 fingers will appear.  I feel we, as society, need to look beyond the problem and find a few solutions.  But then I have always looked outside of the box.  I am afraid that I feel right now there are few solutions contained in our societal “box.”  Maybe we need to follow the advice of the mental patient in Patch Adams and not continue looking for our problems and concentrate more on searching for a few solutions.

24 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 4, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0900

            The life of a retired full time RVer can elicit stories of adventure and exploration that might make anyone enter into the realms of jealousy.  A cavalier wondering attitude of new horizons and new explorations might await the lucky people that live this life every morning and every day of their enviable life.  This can be true, but if you bothered to read the blog dated yesterday you might realize that reality is also a passenger on this bus of adventure.  Some days the sun is hidden, the clouds are gray, and the riders on this enviable bus are in a funk.  And yet, here we are fully enjoying the life we live and not yet willing or desirous of giving up the dream we are living.

            One of the pleasures of getting a bit older and not having mundane daily required chores to accomplish is that you can make a simple obligation as extraordinary as you wish.  A task that is performed by most people day after day can, if one wishes, takes on the mantle of adventure and can be a source of wondrous memories.  What, you ask, is he trying to say?  It is simple; actually, Connie and I cooked dinner last night.

            Now if I were to stop there the story would be told but he memory would be lost.  And, we all know that I do not sit in front of my laptop each morning just to keep a fact filled log of mundane daily happenings.  I would rather spend an hour and fill a page with long overly wordy descriptions of what it is we do all day aboard this bus on any given day.

            As I stated, Connie and I decided to cook dinner and, as usual this started with a conversation that went something like this;:

“What would you like for dinner?” 

“I don’t know what would you like?”

“What do we have and what would be easy?”

“The cupboards are empty so we can either have nothing or go and get something, so what do you want?”

            I am sure that most of you can visualize this exchange and see that it really has no good ending.  We decided finally to venture out on an adventure and see what materialized.  I felt like having some bay scallops and we had some left over whole wheat noodles.  With some imagination we might be able to find a dinner out of that if we could find some scallops.  Since we are near the ocean this should not be a big problem and off we head on an exploratory mission. Luckily we just happen to know about a fresh fish market just a bit down the road.

            We arrived at the market hungry and anticipating the pleasure of choosing the freshest and most tender bay scallops available.  The market had a wide variety of fresh fish, and some stuffed crabs which we purchased.  The problem began when we found that Daytona Beach does not seem to have fresh bay scallops.  They have a lot of very large ocean scallops, but we had decided on finding the smaller bay scallops.  What do we do now?  The conversation begins, somewhat like the one before, as we attempt to rethink our dinner menu.  After some pondering, some long salivating stares into coolers packed with fresh fish and an in depth discussion we purchased the afore mentioned stuffed crab and a beautiful salmon steak.  Now what do we do?

            On our way out of the parking lot and as we headed home we rearranged our menu and decided on a new gourmet feast for the evening.  Sautéing salmon in garlic butter and layering it atop some noodles may be fine, but it was not what we hungered to have for dinner.  A bed of fresh vegetables, ala Joe Aiello, some Italian seasoning and a baked salmon steak sounded much better.  It was time to head to the local grocery and search for the freshest garden produce and, of course, a nice bottle of white wine.  The only sad or negative part of our story is that Daytona Beach is not the center of gourmet cooking and as such we were relegated to doing our produce searching at the local Publix store.  Not a bad thing, but a minor glitch in our adventure.

            By the end of the day Connie and I had purchased all of the needed elements for a wonderful gourmet meal of steamed salmon cooked on a bed of fresh squash, zucchini, red and green peppers and tomatoes.  All of this was sautéed first in bath of olive oil and garlic.  For a wine we had a bottle of Blue Nun wine, our wedding dinner wine.  The vegetables were succulent and tasty and the salmon literally melted in your mouth. The stuffed crab augmented the meal with savory elements of spice and delicacy. And we balanced the meal with those leftover whole wheat noodles cooked in sun dried tomatoes.  It was an elegant meal that any chef would have been proud to present.  The colors, the aroma, the balanced presentation and the blessed taste were all out of this world.  It was special.

            The point of this story is not that we managed to cook a gourmet meal of which to be proud, all though we did.  The point was that Connie and I spent nearly a whole day planning, shopping and preparing an evening meal.  We shopped for fresh food, local produce and succulent fish.  We stood side by side as we sliced, diced and sautéed our meal together.  It is form this we will manufacture memories and it is form this that a message should arise.  When you are retired it may be easier, but we should all take a few moment so to slow down and take time to enjoy the simplest of daily chores. It is from the sharing of time with your loved ones that fond memories materialize.  Of course a dinner of steamed Italian seasoned salmon on a bed of sautéed fresh vegetables served with a wonderful bottle of wine is nice also.

26 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 3, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0800

            It is the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and I am sure we all know that means it is Election Day as directed by our constitution.  If I were a little less apathetic I would care that I don’t care.  I am what I am and I could care less about a governor in Virginia or New Jersey.  Nor could I care a wit about the 23^rd congressional district in upstate New York.  And, yet the “news media” seems to think these far off lands of postulating prophets should be of some interest to me.  In this statement are two very wrong assumptions.  The first is that the clowns that masquerade as  news reporters on TV are really interested in the news and the second is that they think I care about anything on a cloudy, grey, miserable day in Florida.

            The travel agent said it was “The Sunshine State.”  They lied.  The sun must be on vacation, because it has not been visible for at least a week.  Well, maybe a couple of days.  We are in Florida and it is supposed to be sunny every waking hour of every day.  At least that is what the brochure said.  I would like to tell you what we did yesterday, but it all seems like a grey fog to me now.  Or was that the weather?

             I Know that I am probably not eliciting much sympathy from anyone crazy enough to read my blog, but I had to cry somewhere and my laptop is very accommodating.  I pout, it whirs the sound of a small fan and neither of us are too much the worse for the ware.  In a few years I will revisit my blog remember the passionate self pity I was feeling on this day and, either, commiserate or laugh.  In either case I hope the sun will be shinning.

            It is time for me to rejoin my world of excitement.   I will forgo the travels through news boredom as the wonks attempt to tell me what to think about a farmers vote in upstate New York where the size of this year’s apple is more important than the legacy of a nation political party.  I may dive deeper into the book I am now reading, the biography of Albert Einstein.  It is a book that causes my brain to feel exhausted more often that not.  The author speaks of the theory of relativity as if he thinks I understand it.  Grasping the concept of hitching a ride on a light beam may be exhilarating, but it also causes me to say “HUH” a lot.  The book is interesting in the way it attempts to explore how the revolutionary theories were conceived in the mind of a person who always was just a step out of “the box.”  Einstein fought against the normal practice of nearly every aspect of life, including how he problem solved physics laws and accepted rule of science.  He thought in pictures instead of words or facts, not ever allowing a rule or law to deter him from perusing an avenue of thought.  If you do not box yourself in by accepted rules you may not be erroneously directed to a fore gone conclusion.

            The sun is still hiding, my book is still waiting and I have now bored you enough.  If you wish, please go vote.  If you don’t wish to trudge off to the polling place stay home. It really will make little difference anyway. As a wise sage answered when questioned about his party affiliation:  “Are you a Republican or a Democrat?”  He answered: “Today, what difference does it make?”

PS The wise sage was Ty in the movie Maid in Manhattan

27 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 2, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0800

            I hate it when DST leaves us and we have to set our clocks back an hour.  I would gladly give up that silly hour of supposed sleep for an extra hour of light in the evening.  Watching the sun set at 5:30 is wrong and it is only going to get worse.  I miss day light savings time already.

            Connie and I got up early to start or sojourn through the ether of philosophical science and religion as we headed off to church and a NOETIC Science lecture.  It was to me a mind trip that some might find a bit extreme in its diversity, yet I found profoundly similar in actuality.

            The church service was in Deland, FL and was a celebration of All Saints Day at the First Presbyterian Church.  A simple church located in a university town with a wonderful minister of music.  The service was a requiem mass by Rutter including the monthly celebration of communion.  I could not begin to describe the beauty and depth of passion produced by this 40 plus voice choir and 8 piece orchestral group under the direction of a master of Christian music.

            Intertwined in the choral presentation were most of the trappings of a normal Presbyterian service without the presence of a sermon.  Yet as we prepared to leave the over 90 minute religious experience I feel we had had a more meaningful message delivered to our hearts than normal.  The inclusion of the celebration of communion while experiencing a requiem mass orchestral arrangement seem to enforce the dream of resurrection and rebirth felt by all Christians at some philosophical level.  Our hearts and souls had been reached by word in the choral experience, by sound in the orchestral enjoyment and experience in the communion celebration.  It was a very meaningful Sunday Service and one that will remain on our heart’s and soul’s memory for a long time.

            We left this service with a resounding “WOW” in our hearts and headed to the Deland library for a lecture on NOETIC science and the frequency keys of the Rosslyn Chapel.  It was a presentation by the local chapter of the IONS in Deland.  If you are unaware of the meaning of NOETIC science you should read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol and let your fingers do dome walking through the fields of Google.  That is how Connie and I found ourselves parked in a library parking lot, rather full I might add.

            I will not attempt to recap the lecture.  It dealt with the Templer Knights, the Rosslyn Chapel and access to alternative dimension and worlds through portals or gateways that might be unlocked by certain frequencies at certain geological sites on or earth.  One of which might be the Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.  I will not begin to argue in favor or against this point of view, nor would I be so presumptuous as to evaluate its validity.  My wife and I attempted to approach the lecture and discussion with an open mind and desire to learn.  This seemed chore enough at times.

            The resounding feeling of enlightenment that I felt was the total similarity of these two so very dissimilar messages.  It was a message of a new and better dimension available to us as we are delivered on the waves of musical frequency.  It was the fact that in order for us to have the power and strength to obtain this level of transportation we would need to cultivate positive energy and deflect negative energy.  Or as our NOETICS lecturer told us “We should treat others as we wish to be treated.” 

            Our day of diverse theological and philosophical investigation was not nearly as broad as we might have imagined.  If we were to change a noun here or there, add or extract an adjective or adverb now or again, or modify the tense of a verb we could have carried on the same conversation in either group.  And yet one group would, I am sure, not ever be invited to the other to a meeting as a guest lecturer.  It is in this statement that I feel exist a myriad of troubles and problems.  How will either group meet at the portal or gateway with the proper energies or love in their hearts if they can not treat each other as they would each like to be treated.

            It was good Sunday, maybe not a great Sunday.  We enlightened our minds, fed our souls and ate Chinese. That is not a bad day.  Sadly, all of our football teams did loose, so it was not a perfect Sunday.

28 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           November 1, 2009                

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

0745

            It is another day in the sunshine state and another day at rekindling by efforts at keeping a daily blog.  To those of you that have joined me in my thought wandering I must verify some information.  It is, indeed, 7:45 in the morning and I am actually up and kind of motivating.  All though that may seem to be against my nature, it is a reality. It is Sunday and I have a sermon and a lecture to attend. Today I will be investigating a spectrum of thought that will spread from Christian theology to Noetic Science.  It should be a fun day.

            Yesterday, Connie and I ventured to one of the main drawing points of Daytona Beach.  It was a very large flea market.  I hope the fleas found something to buy, because we found nothing.  I am seldom in the market for fleas nor do I value over priced garbage being presented by people trying to rip off an unaware, under educated public.   Can you tell I don’t like flea markets?

            We did walk up and down far too many aisles, view far too much junk, and get run into to by far too many geriatric, impolite, Neanderthals.  How can you be in a hurry to view junk?  And it was, sometimes, smelly junk at that.  It was a good simple source of exercise.  We must have walked over 2 miles, at least. I told you it was a large flea market.

            To off set the lack of enjoyment found at the over priced selling of mildewed junk we drove to the local Friendly’s for lunch.  The day was beginning to improve almost immediately.  It was, however, the day of Halloween eve and, as such, most of the parents in Daytona Beach had decided to take their little goblins for a lunch and an ice cream at Friendly’s.  To our chagrin, they had decided on doing this just 7 minutes before we decided we needed some spoiling after our trudge through flea market hell.  This meant that our waitress was very busy, our food was a little slow and the room was filled with “Do I have to eat that?” and “You are not going to get your ice cream if you slap your sister again.” sounds.  It was an enjoyable diversion from our morning excursion.

            It was after our slightly late lunch that I stumbled onto one of life’s little known but highly understood axioms.  “Life looks better through an empty sundae glass.”  A fact and truth that will, I am sure, ring honest for most people.  As I sat there I did realize that this truth of life does work more effectively if it is your own sundae glass.

            With spoon in hand as I dug for the last drip of fudge covered strawberry ice cream, life did seem a bit better.  My tummy was not barking demands for sustenance,  my taste buds were enjoying the slay ride of cool flavors as I ingested each strawberry covered, fudge mixed teaspoon filled excursion into ecstasy. Life did seem a bit better.

            I did realize that no mater how delicious the sides of the sundae glass seemed, striped with brown fudge and clouded by melted ice cream, that there was always just a little more enjoyment just a bit out of reach at the bottom of the glass.  There would always be little more pleasure that might always be just out of reach but always in my mind awaiting the next sundae glass delivery of hot fudge heaven filled with new pleasures of ice cream and sauce. 

            I was also aware that my pleasure might, soberly, appear to be nothing but a dirty dish to someone not observant and empathetic of my perspective.  It would not be until they had received their own “Happy Ending” delight that they could attempt to understand my new life truth.  It was my job to attempt to understand the tenant that my pleasure was, indeed, an element of someone else’s pain or work.  It was to this end that I tried to lick the sides of my glass clean, realizing that I could never fully understand another’s position of turmoil.  And getting a cramp in my tongue attempting to reach the very bottom of the glass would not really erase the feeling of angst they might experience. 

            It was, I decided, my view of my life that seemed a little bit better when viewed through the bottom of my sundae glass.  Pain can not be shared because we can never fully understand another’s perspective and personal weight to the feeling fueling their hurt.  An ice cream sundae, on the other hand, is nearly universally a pleasure.  As I licked my spoon and slid my glass away, I felt I had learnt quite a bit this afternoon.  But I did realize that someone would have to wash my glass, and to them I send my sympathies and a wish that they too will soon enjoy a Happy Ending Sundae.

29 DAYS to EMBARKATION

Wfdo2@wfdo2.com

Date:                           October 31, 2009

Location:                    Daytona Beach, FL

1000

            Time flies when you are having fun.  It tends to flee away even when you are not having a great deal of fun, also.  For those of you that have stumbled on to this meandering of words and thoughts and have had the pain of visiting previously, you should realize that it has been over a year since my last posting. I have no good reason for that fact, either good or bad, so I will not postulate any lame excuses.  Let it be entered into the record that my aged mind and body has for what ever reason and fact not  posted a blog entry for over a year.  Be it good, bad, or of no interest to anyone other than me it is still a fact.

            The last year has been has been a Dickens’s type of year for us as I am sure it has been for everyone.  We have had good times and we have had times that are not the best of experiences.  My wife and I are healthy and safe, and as such, feel our lives are quite normal and on the plus side of the scale of being.  We can not, however, say that for all of our family and friends. Those of you that need our prayers, I hope know, are in our prayers and will forever remain there. Those of you that feel you do not need our prayers are also in our thoughts just because we love you.

            The last year has taken Connie and me from Mississippi to South Carolina to Florida by motor home. It has taken us to Buffalo and Boston by plane.  We have seen family, friends and business acquaintances.  We have laughed, cried, been angry, disappointed and lived a normal life.  Like the weather we have clear days, cloudy days, days of rain and some days we just hid in seclusion.  It has been quite a normal year.

            We are not workamping, a very long and boring story.  We are not doing NOMADS projects, another boring story.  And we are planning a 10 day cruise for our 25^th anniversary, a much more enjoyable tale and the reason I have opened my blogging file one more time.  As the sailing date nears, the 1^st of December, I thought a running blog on our adventure might be fun and enlightening for our own enjoyment.  If you wish to vicariously enjoy our coming adventure, please feel free to join my large fan club of blurry eyed blog readers.  If this bore the ever lasting out of you, why have you read this far?

            The drama of the year gone by will remain in the past as we prepare for an eastern and southern Caribbean cruise on the SS Noordam from Holland American out of Ft Lauderdale.  There will, I am afraid, be sad days and happy days as we progress toward our day of embarkation.  The sad days I will try to report and the happy days I will try to share.  I hope that our happiness will in no way cause you to think we do not share in your sadness and pain.  But, if in an instant we can help you share a second of our joy maybe just a tiny bit of your pain will be lightened.  We do not presume to be able to remove your hurt, only to remind you that you too will enjoy the pleasure of life’s good side when fortune again blesses you.

            Having brought you all up to date and given you absolutely no information I am ready to progress to our forth coming hedonistic romp in paradise aboard the SS Noordam.  The day in Daytona Beach FL is, right now, bright, sunny and portending 80 plus degrees of warmth.  We are getting ready to get ready to start readying ourselves for our cruise, but first we have an ocean to tend and a flee market to explore.  We will be in St. Thomas for our anniversary.  I will be enjoying a very special dinner in a very special dinning room aboard a very big ship with a very special person in a very special dress.

I am counting the days until we sail and for your edification it is:

30 DAYS to EMBARKAION

Date:                           October 11, 2008

Location:                    Horn Lake, MS

1000

Oct 11, 2008

As the day illuminates Connie and I are about to embark on a new adventure at the Audubon Point RV Park in Horn Lake, MS.  This is not our first time as new workampers, but we “Yankees” are in a new environment in the Deep South.  We have been further south, geographically, but I feel we are to enjoy a new realm of southern philosophy and living as we venture forth.

We are, already, enjoying the warmth and acceptance that has been afforded us as we step into the life of a southern charm.  Many questions will be asked and answered as we investigate the pleasures and adventures of working in Mississippi for the winter.

I am sure it will be, at least, interesting.

            And so begins my new BLOG as posted on the Workamping Web Site.  It is a lot smaller and much truncated, but I am sure that my loyal reader, or readers would expect that this cerebral meandering would still fill a page or two of typing frivolity and not be limited to just a few short sentences of BS.  I will attempt to not disappoint you.

            Connie and I have, indeed, arrived in Mississippi and are about to begin our winter’s adventure as workampers at this RV Park.  We have left New York to allow it to enter into the doldrums of winter and ventured to the edges of the Deep South to find new adventure.  The finding, I am sure, will be easy.  The enjoying may need some encouraging.  As I stated in my opening WK BLOG, “Many questions will be asked and answered as we investigate the pleasures and adventures of working in Mississippi for the winter.”  Come along with me for the ride and the adventure.

            Our summer was, as most of you are well aware, spent at The Grand Island KOA.  It was a Tale of Two Cities many times. It was “The best of Time . . . . .  “  It was, most meaningfully, near our family and that managed to balance any other emotions, or frustrations, that we ventured through.  As time marches on we will, hopefully, accentuate the remembrances of the good things that spending the summer on Grand Island allowed us to enjoy.  One of which was having a pop-up camper parked behind us for the summer.  That was a very well appreciated gift from our campground manager.

            Many of the frustrations we dealt with this summer were economy induced, and as you read or listen to the morning news I am sure you do not need me to “rehash the hash” as my wife says.  The economic stress felt by all families was well evident at our campground.  There were some busy days, but over the season the campground business was down over 50%.  Remember that Election Day is  a scant 3 weeks away and changes do need to be made.

            Many of our frustrations were centered around this home we call Aurora.  To quickly summarize:  We had a bad fuel pump, turbo thruster valve, and we had to have her towed off our lot at the KOA, where they broke our entrance steps.  We had a new alternator installed in Nashville, and we are now licking our wounds, both emotionally and financially.  Living in an RV is not cheap, especially when she has a penchant for the repair shop. 

            Aurora is now located in a very new and spacious campground just outside of Memphis, TN.  Yes, our address is Mississippi, but we are less than 5 miles form the border of Tennessee and less than 10 miles from downtown Memphis.  The area that we are in is very new and upscale.  It is a prime example of the growth and expansion of the past few years as the Yuppies of center city have moved to the suburbs along with their chain restaurants, boutique shops and large malls. We are just on the outer edge of the Memphis expansion south.  The campground is very new and little expense was spared in the initial development.  It will be interesting to watch as the slumping economy and financial stress of 8 years of Bush’s economy are played out on the retirement investments of the owners of this park.

            For now the sun is shinning, the temperature is warm and new adventures begin tomorrow as we actually start our work assignments.  Connie is going to be working in registration and I am going to be involved in outside maintenance.  It will be a very interesting challenge to see if our “Yankee” personalities can fit into the southern mold of a workampers.  I am sure this story is nowhere near over and that many new chapters are just over the horizon.  Wish us well and, maybe even say a little prayer.

Have a nice day, Y’all.

Date:                           August 18, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

1000

            Another week of our tenure at the KOA has receded into history and we are still trying to make plans for the winter.  Being a free life styled full timer can be very taxing on someone that is not the world’s greatest at making plans.  I do know that we are going to be on the east coast or maybe the west coast.  Of course there is always the chance that we might be in the desert in Arizona or mid Texas someplace.  Having so many options can be a challenge.

            Yesterday we received a call from a past NOMAD team mate and he implored that we think seriously about coming to Phoenix and work at the UMOM facility there.  It is under going some major changes and he thought that we might love being in on the growth process.  We have also received a note form another team member that wants us to come to Florida and join a team that will be working on building new church in Umatilla.  All of these plans sound great on some level and yet we have not the slightest idea which way to head this beast when we do decide to leave New York.  Life is an adventure and it is great to have choices.  It may be confusing, but it is great.

            We also have a phone meeting scheduled with Sally Phillips on Wednesday.  Sally was our campground manager in Santa Cruz at the Monterey KOA.  Keep your hats on; you never know what we are going to do.  By the way, we are also expected to be in Stone Mountain, Georgia for the fall and maybe winter of this coming year.  That is if they ever get their collective heads together and decide what and where they might need us.  Boredom is not an option.

            This week end we had a Family Olympics competition at our KOA. It was in honor of the profession competition masquerading as an amateur gathering in China.  Ours was much lower key and I hope more meaningful.  Each family received a score card with a list of events to be completed and scored on the team’s own honor.  They had to do things like walk or run, bike, visit Fantasy Island and jump on our jumping pillow.  The secret was for families to play together and enjoy each other.  The plan worked extremely well and many of the families took it upon themselves to personally thank us for our efforts.  It was cool to see families enjoying each other’s company.

            At our awards ceremony, which was not really an awards ceremony, we gave out prizes for participation.  It was kind of mystical how every team seemed to win something and it was never relevant to the score that they tallied on their submitted score cards.  We still had many smiles and happy athletes and that is really what we were attempting to achieve.

            As one family was leaving the hall with their bundle of prizes I told one of he little competitors that there was a secret connected with the whole Family Olympic weekend.  I explained to him that it did not matter what the final score was on the score sheet.  It was more important that he had had fun and that he had spent the weekend playing with his whole family in some new games and athletic endeavors.  He kind of looked at me like I was from the planet GAGA.  His father smiled and thanked me full heartedly for the effort we had placed in making this a wonderful weekend for him and his family.

            There were families with smiles, families laden with prizes and a recreation team very satisfied; it was a good weekend.  It was a busy weekend at times but it was a good weekend.

Wfdo2@msn.com

Date:                           August 11, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

1000

The rain of a wet New York summer is pelting our home as I gaze out my window into the grey funk of a depressing day.  It is a mystery how Mother Nature can mimic your inner attitude by her manifestations of weather.  Yes, I must admit that there is a bit of rainy funk clouding my perceptions of life at this very moment.  I am not sure if the weather is placing me in the doldrums of a self imposed depression, or if life has presented that to me on her silver platter.  No mater what or why, life seems to be full of clouds this morning.  I can only hope that the weather is better in your world.

            Our summer is coming to a slow but eventual end at the Grand Island KOA.  I would be less than honest if I tried to tell you that everything went just as well as we had planned and hoped it would.  It has not been a bad summer, but it has been less than it could have been.  The economy has been against us as we attempt to serve within the travel and summer enjoyment industry.  Families have been hard pressed to find enough money to pay for camping, food, entertainment and gas for their vehicles.  This fact of economics 101 has been very evident in the business at our summer home.  Budgetary restraints and reality has caused the KOA Corporation to cut back on expenses and the first area of sacrifice seems to be customer services.  At least as we see it from our narrow minded perspective.  It is difficult to justify spending money on a customer experience whose returned value is not shown on a business ledger somewhere.  Accountants can sum up camper nights, income per camper night and expenses related to such, but they do not see, nor can they evaluate the smiles on a child’s face as they hand mom or dad a new memo pad that they just made themselves in Arts & Crafts.  Nor can a corporation evaluate the value of the returned smile of happy parent as they receive the treasured gift.  Smiles and hugs do not appear on the balance sheet.  It is a sad but true reality.

            As Connie and I sit in our self imposed funk of grey depression we are attempting to make plans for our winter and the portending summer that lurks on the horizon.  Where that will take us is still to be determined.   One can only hope that it will be into fair weather and brighter days.  We are fair-weather people and at this geriatric age I refuse to apologize for that attitude.  It is not that we demand fair weather for ourselves, all though we do enjoy it.  We would rather find a manner in which we can help direct other people to a few moments of bright sun and warmth in their lives.  It may be a craft made that can be shared or a newly repaired door on their home.  In either case we, truly, just want to make their lives a little bit better for the honor of allowing us to share a few moment of their life with them.  We are not interested in finding that that value did not tally on a ledger someplace, nor are we waiting for a superfluous amount of pats on the back.  We simply desire to be of use to someone and to be appreciated by them for the effort that we graciously offer.  It is a simple wish, but one that is increasing difficult to achieve.

            The clouds have gotten even thicker, the sun has retreated even further into a sequestered hiding place and my mode is all the greyer as I finish my daily blog.  We have made no permanent decision on our future plans, but I have updated my blog, such as it is.

            If life, or the weather, has you in a grey funk or if you are wrapped in the warmth of a beautiful day, either internally or externally let us know.  Maybe we can share a new cure for “Grey Funk.”  Often a single ray of blue sky and warm sunlight can illuminate a new perspective.  Any new perspective, right now, might be a good thing on a rainy day, on a clay rock in the m idle of a river, which is really a straight, between to great lakes.

Wfdo2@msn.com 

Date:                           July 26, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

1400

            It is a cloudy Saturday afternoon at the Grand Island KOA and Connie and I have just finished our morning chores which consisted of providing our campground with a pancake breakfast.  It is a time to meet and greet all of the adventurous people that brave the morning air and threat of rain to enjoy our offering.  Until we arrived here I did not know that I could cook pancakes on any type of a regular schedule.  I have learned that I can flip a fry cake about as well as anyone.  The customers have been very kind and pretend to enjoy the breakfast.  They even stop to thank me on their way back to their site, sometimes, complimenting me on the tasty breakfast.  Actually, Connie does all the work in mixing the batter and all I have to do is pour it out on to the griddle and flip the cake halfway through the cooking.  I gratefully take their compliments anyways.

            This morning I had an experience that I must pontificate on just a bit.  I know you were expecting no less.  If you have spent much time reading my prior blogs you are quite aware that I often do just that.

            There are many cabins that surround the pool area where we have our breakfast.  It is in these wooden denizens that we often have families set up house and enjoy the experience “camping” at our KOA.  The cabins are little more than a wooden tent, but seem to be very popular with many people.  They are not cheap, but they are popular.  In two of these log houses we have family gathering this weekend of some 12 or so people.  These huts have beds for 4 people each so it must be interesting sleeping arrangements.  Most of the occupants are young and I am sure quite able to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag or such.  It is the interaction with some of the young boys that inspires my blog today.

            After breakfast my wife let me know that there was a lot of noise coming from the men’s room and requested that I investigate.  The boys from the afore mentioned cabins had already made their presence know to all staff members at the campground by racing their skateboards up and down the sidewalk in front of our Rec Hall and by being less than pleasant in the swimming pool.  It was now to be my opportunity to interact with the group of young dark skinned full blooded boys.

            As I entered the shower room there was a lot of noise and inappropriate behavior being exhibited by this group of very over energetic young fellows.  I had previously had a few talks with them about using proper behavior and safe actions around public areas and was, by this time, not full of patience and calm understanding.  In a rather gruff and very adult voice I kicked the lot of them out of the restroom.  One poor young fellow asked, with a slightly fearful look his face, if he was going to be allowed to finish getting dressed.  I told him that if his behavior did not immediately improve I did not care if he went running naked into the parking lot.  He decided to quickly regain his proper composure and soon exit the restroom fully clothed.  His other companions had already gathered all of their belongings scattered to the four winds looking for safety.

            This is not an odd situation, nor an unexpected event in a campground.  Kids will be brats at times and often those times are at a campground.  It was in reflection that I feared that these kids might cry foul.  I was an old white man yelling at a group of black kids.  In so many times in our society a clamor of racism might swell up from this situation.  It did not this time, but the fear that it might did cloud my mind for a moment.  I was not acting in a racist manner, but that may not be the deciding factor many times.

            It was at this time that I realized that it was not the thought of racism that entered into this situation until my fertile imagination entered a reflective state.  It was not a racist urge that prompted me to act.  It was the simple act of inappropriate behavior that spurred me.  Mischievous boys are not bound or fueled by color.  They are fueled by unbridled energy and the need to test boundaries.  These young gentlemen had learned my boundaries this morning and if they viewed them through color sensitive lenses that was their choice. Both the boys and I know that by the way they quickly obeyed me that they had been caught on the other side of a fence of proper behavior that we both understood.  Proper behavior and actions are not color relevant nor should the enforcement of those rules be color selective.

            I do not know if the world changed this morning.  Race relations have not been improved nor damaged by my morning experiences.  I did notice that, in my behavior, my actions are most often directed by deep rooted feelings of fairness and expected proper behavior, not color tainted bigotry.  I also realized that deep within my unbiased soul society has placed a fear that I might be governed by inappropriate racist behavior and that I must be aware of that ill.  It is sensitivity that an age of inequality dictates.  We have made strides, but the dream is not yet a full reality.  I also learned that honest enforcement of rules is seldom a problem and is accepted by both the enforcer and the violator.

            It may not have been an epiphany of knowledge that I experienced this morning, but it was something to think about as I cleaned the dishes and wiped off the griddles.  And now, you too have walked through the cobwebs of my mind.

Wfdo2@msn.com

Date:                           July 23, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

0900

            Another busy weekend and another series of longs days at the Grand Island KOA are behind Connie and me and it is on to the living the life of a retired full timer.  When we are enjoying the “activity team” assignment it is difficult to call this work, but at the end of a busy weekend we do feel a bit exhausted.  This weekend was no exception and it has taken us a couple of days to return to whatever normal might be considered.  After our short work day Monday we spent most of the rest of the day trying to find our tails.  They were dragging somewhere behind us and we needed a bit of down time to see if we could elevate them to a regular buoyant position.  It was a chore that we did finally accomplish.

            On Tuesday we are supposed to be in the beginning of our “weekend” except that my lovely wife has a penchant for helping out and volunteered to cover for our park manager at the days “Color Time” activity.  What a nice lady.  I got to stay home and catch up on house chores.  Yes, I do help out around the house on occasion.  I may not be a great help, but I do my miniscule bit and it allowed us to go and play the afternoon away.  Even old geriatric retirees need a day or two of play on periodic occasions.  It is from this sojourn that my morning diatribe will emanate.

            Even on our time off we were doing “work” as we ventured out to accomplish some of shopping needed to replenish he supplies we used over the last weekend at the campground.  This is not a major burden to us and we needed some personal replenishing of our larder so it was not a big sacrifice to us.  We headed out on our shopping rounds and planned a visit to an Old Country Buffet as a treat to us for all the hard work we had accomplished over the weekend.  We were very successful on many levels.  We found most of the supplies we needed and we found an Old Country Buffet, all though it was not the one we had originally planned on attending.  It seems that the sign was still on the building, but all of the insides were someplace else.  Bless Sackie, she found an other place for us to fill out tummies and we arrived just minutes after most of Buffalo arrived to enjoy the over abundance of food.

            It is a shocking revelation to watch the amount of food that is consumed at a buffet by we Americans.  This Old Country Buffet was located in a shopping plaza that is not at its top in performance.  There are some stores located I in the plaza but it is not, obviously, one of the most popular shopping destinations in Buffalo.  This restaurant was, however, a very popular food destination and we actually had a slight problem finding a table at which we could eat.  The tables remained full and occupied all the time we were there and we did not notice sign of declining patrons as we left.  Plates were traveling up and down the aisles from table to buffet counter in a constant parade of over weight and under exercised food revelres.  I must admit that I also, probably, fit in that category.  At least, the eager food revelers did get some exercise as they trudged from their tables to the troth.

            After our foray into over eating, at least on my part, Connie and I decided it would be a nice thing to walk off some of our calories at the nearest mall.  We were in the market for an apron to use at the arts and crafts activity at the campground and we felt we might find something at a mall.  We were kind of wrong, but not totally.  The point at which I am headed is that we found one apron in the mall and it was a rather large mall.  There is just not the demand for aprons in today’s world.

            What does this have to do with the way the world turns, you ask?  It seems that we do not have the “at home” cook mentality in today’s busy world.  Why would you need an apron if you are not going to cook?  I sadly remember the picturesque scene with a mom standing in the kitchen, apron draped around her with steam and the aromas of a fresh meal filling the house making it a true “HOME.”  Today we do not see that scene and anecdotally we do not seem to need stores to carry aprons to sell to those picturesque statues of virtue and Americana.  We have become a country of fast food, buffet stuffing over weight Americans.  I have to believe that somewhere there is a connection between the lack of tables at a buffet and the lack of aprons at the mall.

            As Connie and I strolled off our evening meal at the under shopped mall I could not help but pontificate to my wife the failings of America as I saw them.  Somehow, in my simple mind, I was making a connection between over weight and under exercised buffet attendees and the lack of aprons in American malls.  I think that if you take a moment to reflect you will, at least, understand my weird foray into tangled logic. You might even find, deep in your logical mind, a stronger reason to support my postulations.

            Connie and I did have a good meal while eating with a few hundred of our closest friends from Buffalo.  We did, wisely, decide to walk off a few of the calories we consumed at the buffet troth.  And, I did get a subject on which I could fill a page or two on my blog.  It was a pretty good day in reflection.

Wfdo2@msn.com

Date:                           July 15, 2008 

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

0900

            It is not raining in my life this morning. If that statement is as non informational as it seems, you may need to read one of my previous post.  Having given you that information, it is truly a beautiful day on Grand Island.  At least meteorologically it is a bright blue morning with the hint of a cool breeze bathing me in comfort as I sit before my PC this morning.  Metaphorically things are also calm and clear, but maybe not as pristine as Mother Nature has provided on this day.

            Our weekend was much slower than we might have desired.  It was still a bit busy at times and fun to interact with the families that did brave the high cost of fuel and camping to enjoy the pleasure of fellowship of each other on a somewhat pleasant weekend.  We did have a storm come through the campground that blew an awning off a class A motorhome just across the street form our Fun Center and at one time I did see my wife chasing a rather large umbrella down the street in a driving rain storm, but it was mostly a pleasant weekend.  It can be exciting to see how wet a person can get in a very short amount of time when the heavens open up and dump buckets of rain water on everything.  I was wisely inside and under cover as all of this excitement unfolded and managed to remain much dryer.

            It was interesting how everyone that did brave the short torrential downpour managed to quickly get back into the spirit of having fun and enjoying the most available entertainment once the excitement of flying umbrellas and awnings was over.  They were involved in making tie dye t-shirts, and around here that is important.  As long as I could stay ahead of the pools of leaking rainwater on the floor of our Fun Center, and the campers could find a cover under which they could dip their twisted and knotted white t-shirt to make colorful twisted designs of art, life was good.  Life may have been a bit damp, but life was good.

            On Sunday we had our weekending pancake breakfast which can be a bit hectic.  This weekend we had a campground manager trainee as our able bodied assistant and things seemed to be progressing quite well.  On Saturday he had also been our server and odd job assistant and Connie and I had both enjoyed meting and getting to know him.  He has much experience in running and owning campgrounds previous to his entrance into the world of KOA and it was, at least, interesting getting to see his vigor and energy as he enters a new career at the borderline age of early retirement.  On this morning our pancake breakfast was not being too stressed and he was just filling in until he had other duties to perform.  Actually as the early morning unfolded we had our supplies prepared for a busy morning and by the near end of the first hour we had but one customer.  We were not overly stressed.  As such, Pat decided that he could be of much more value reporting to his next assignment a bit early and not just conversing with us.  We could not help but agree and wish him well as he headed to the reservation desk to spend the day.

            Guess what happened the moment he disappeared from sight.  Of course, everyone in the campground decided to show up for breakfast prior to leaving and making the drive home.  So, Connie was running everything else as I flipped pancakes as fast as was humanly possible.  The rush of customers did not last a long time, for the campground was not all that busy.  But for a moment or two we were not really sure which way was up or down.  The customers were very patient and tolerant; they all did get their plate of pancakes, eventually.  And, we managed to stay almost even with the demand.  We managed to keep some of our sanity and by days end we felt like it had been a pretty good day.

            As I started this entry, it is a nice day on Grand Island and we are still staying ahead of the demand.  Connie is sequestered in the laundry room, I have had a long chat with one of our neighbors about nothing and everything, and I have just finished my blog for the day.  I hope that your day will be or has been as successful and productive.

Wfdo2@msn.com

Date:                           July 12, 2008 

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

0600

            Yes the time is right and this just a test.

It is your turn to tell me how the weather is in your life.  Please drop us  note at the e-mail address listed below.

            Have a great day.

Wfdo2@msn.com

Date:                           July 11, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

0830

            I awoke this morning to the sounds of pitter patter on our home.  Yes, it was raining in my world and sadly in my life.  Metaphorically, it is not a tumultuous storm in either my life our in my world.  But, it is still a drizzly day.

            Do not fear.  I will not bore you with a stroll down self pity lane.  Nor will I spend a lot of my valuable leisure time regaling my misfortunes of life.  In reality, nothing is as bad from someone else’s perspective as it may seem from yours.  And, if we are honest, most people really don’t give a damn about your stubbed toe when they are lingering over a broken heart, or what ever.  Have I lost you yet?

            As I said, I awoke to a bit of rain in my world this morning.  That may be a good thing.  Connie and I took a much needed escape drive along the Niagara River, which is really not a river, and could not help but be alarmed by the seemingly over dry lawns in dire need of water.  This morning that cry for moisture is being addressed, I hope.

            A slight aside, if I may.  The Niagara River is not a real river because it is a connection between two large lakes:  Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.  As such this stretch of fast running and bountiful supply of water is truly a straight.  So in actuality, the Niagara River is really the Niagara straight between the two Great Lakes of Erie and Ontario.  Are you not a bit smarter now?  You’re glad you read this.

            On our slow path of escape yesterday, Connie and I stopped at the Silo for lunch.  It is a real silo located along the above mentioned straight and serves an adequate lunch.  The prices are a bit high, but we arrived just after every other tourist in the state and had to wait in a long line to order our haystack and hamburger.  When we left, the line seemed just as long as when we arrived and people were still waiting to reach into their pockets and pay 5 dollars for a mediocre hamburger.  I guess they can charge anything they want.

            The best reason to stop here is the offering of lunch beverage.  They make a $2.99 milkshake.  So what you ask.  It is a real milkshake, made with milk and ice cream, real ice cream.  They add a little syrup for flavor and many scoops of real ice cream.  Needless to say, I always have a strawberry shake.  Connie was even tempted today and finished a 16 ounce chocolate shake.  I promised to help her finish it if she could not handle the full cup of rich dessert beverage, but I noticed that as she deposited her cup in the proper receptacle it was very empty.  They are very good and, almost, erase the shock of paying too much for too little food.

            After lunch we decided that home was not the direction we needed to pursue at this time so we headed up along the shore of Lake Ontario.  Not a big adventure, but a beautiful reprieve form yellow and frustration.  The day was sunny, the lake was glistening and it was nice to enjoy the beauty of rural New York.  It is a beauty that we may take for granted at times and today was not to be one of those times.  It is not the dramatic beauty of the stark desert surrounded by towering crags of the Rockies, but there is a subtle beauty of rolling lush green filled with tress of every type.  Oaks, maple, and other deciduous giants are mingled in with the pine evergreens that will for ever hold there shade.  It is a relaxing beauty and a beauty that can be missed even if you are enjoying the exotic charm and majesty of other areas of our country.  It was a good drive.

            As we were slowly enjoying the charm of upstate New York we passed a small hidden campground located along the lake shore.  As we passed my lovely wife said that friends of ours stayed at that camp ground and, maybe we should go look just for fun.  A quick U-turn on an isolated road and slow entrance into the park found us sneaking up on grandma and her grandsons playing at a swing set.  Yes, our friends do live here and the grandparents we babysitting. 

            Sometime it is great to take a little detour in life and see what may be down the road not normally traveled.  We had a great afternoon catching up on old news, new news and plain old gossip news.  When we left we may have felt a little less sorry for our selves and we had a smile in our hearts to break the clouds of rain that had been forecast for the day.  Friends can heal more wounds by being friends and not doing anything than all the self pity in world can accomplish in an eon.

            It is still drizzling both metaphorically and in reality, but Connie and I are now very aware that if we should ever be driving along route 18 on the shore of Lake Ontario there is a welcome mat waiting our presence and that is a warm comforting fact.  So if you are driving down a sullen lane in your life and you see a side road that leads to a friend’s door, slow down, make the turn and someone’s life will be brightened.  Out of almost everything a little good can be found.

Date:                           July 8, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

1000

            It is a few days after our Nation’s birthday and Connie and I are just now beginning to catch our breath.  It is a lot of work to be the activity team at a very busy campground on that campgrounds busiest day of the year.  It is a lot of work, but at most times it is also a lot of fun.  Yes, working 14 hour days, dealing with some customers that are less than happy, and almost ignoring your visiting family can be fun; sort of.

            Our family came to visit us for the national celebration and the thank-you that they received is that w put them to work.  There were times, this weekend, that they were our saviors.  The extra pair of hands, extra smile and even the extra pair of legs which might be assisted by crutches came in very handy.  During our 2 very popular morning pancake breakfasts they were invaluable.  As is the way with “decent people” everyone pitched in and success was but a foregone conclusion.

            A slight aside, as you might have expected if you are a regular reader of my intellectual forays into blogging, I must tell you a simple story about part of our weekend.

            It was Saturday morning and I had been flipping pancakes as if they were actually good to eat and the word had gotten out.  We were to do more business this morning than we normally would do on a full weekend, or two mornings.  The people were very patient and we were serving them as fast as I could pour a, sometimes, very strange shape of batter on the grill and let it “bake” for a moment and flip it once to toast on the reverse.  I would then place it on a plate and Beth would run it to a table of hungry campers who would devour it.  The system worked quite fine.  Our family was helping out, for free, and Connie and I were almost keeping up with the demand.  It was frantic, fast and demanding, but the customers were pleasant, the weather was fantastic and the time was on a rocket sled streaking around the clock.

            During this constant onslaught of hungry campers our housekeeping team came in for their breakfast.  Normally they arrive during a very slow period in our morning and receive their free breakfast before they trudge on to make our restroom facilities as clean as is humanly possibly.  This morning was not to be the normal.  When they arrived it was very evident that it was not only not slow but it was bordering on disorganized ciaos.  I was running around like a chef with is head cut off and so was every other member of my family, even some on crutches.  I apologized for my inability to serve them, but promised that just as soon as I could their breakfast would be coming up.

            Now at this point they could have done one of many things.  They could have had a seat and taken a very well deserved rest. I realized that if I was this busy one can only imagine the amount of cleaning they had already done to serve this overflow crowd.  If they had chosen they could have stood over me causing me some stress and frustration waiting for their morning breakfast as soon as I could flip a cake their way.  They could have walked around the group campsites and look for lost change as some other work kampers had done previously.  Instead they decided to pitch in and help me catch up with this maddening crowd and help alleviate the stress under which we all were now trying to perform.  They just pitched in and worked at making our job easier.  The whole activity team was the better for their efforts, both the paid members of our team and the drafted unpaid members.

            Are these not the wonderful souls we all wish to meet as we travel through life?  They were willing to shoulder a little more burden to help lift the weight off of fellow team members backs.  They are an example, of the true worthy souls we meet as we travel around this country.  They are willing to be an additive contributor to the aid and benefit of their fellow man.

            Is this the end of the story? Of course not, why else would I have spent so much time getting to this point?  It seems that after they had help to remove some of our stress and provided a glimpse into the value of their individual souls a fellow housekeeping team member yelled at them.  They were chastised for helping someone else.  It was, according to this Neanderthal, not their job to help us.  The fact that, at that moment they had nothing they could do was not relevant.  They could just walk around the group campsites and look for dimes or something.  That would really impress this crowd of over charged campers to see a bunch of yellow shirts walking around like a pack of vultures accomplishing nothing except lining their own pockets with the pennies that accidently fell from someone else’s.

            Our morning went on and was very successful.  I still need to get to our visiting guardian angels and again thank them for their assistance.  I am sure I will try to apologize for the stupidity and unthinking of the slugs that inappropriately accosted them.  I am also sure that you might guess which of these team members I would choose to make an attempt to assist in any future moment.  I do know which of these team members have a soul and heart of which I can find reason to compliment.

            Offering assistance should never be wrong not should it be a source of rebuke.  But when it is I can only hope that you heart is warmed by the appreciation of the people you aided and that the sounds of the unearned chastisement fall on deaf ears, or you can at least consider the source.  Your soul has been enriched and your character has been duly recognized by the person that you assisted or at least by the God that you worship.

Date:                           July 4, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

0815

            Happy Birthday America.  I will not spoil this festive day with by ever so valuable opinion of where or how our country is doing.  I wasted enough time on that the other day.  I will not even expound on the fact that the real birthday of our country has already past and very few people even cared to celebrate it.  Look it up, we are celebrating the announcement of the birthday today and not the real event.  What I would like to rail about this morning is the inability of me especially to predict or plan anything that is affected by the weather.

            Yesterday was the beginning of our campground’s celebration of the 4^th of July.  It is also the, hopefully, beginning of a bit more activity around this place.  To get the long weekend off to a celebratory start Connie and I decided it might be fun to offer our campers a make shift snack shop upon their arrival. We had practiced this on a previous weekend and were planning on having “Grand Island Steamers”, Connie’s new name for steamed hotdogs, and assorted other snacks available on the porch as the weekend revelers arrived.  We planned on having music blaring and an ambience of festivity surrounding the registration area as our weekend visitors arrived.  It sounded like a great plan.

            When I woke up, yesterday, the weather did not seem to want to assists us.  The sky was bleak and foreboding and the sound of constant pitter patter was splashing off our motorhome.  I figured that standing in the rain to sell a hotdog was not going to be much fun and I figures that few people would really want to eat a hot dog from a soggy rain soaked bun.  After consulting my fabulous PC and broadband card I decided that a large line of nasty weather was coming from Michigan and the experts were predicting a steady onslaught of rain and nasty weather all day long.  It was supposed to last at least until early evening.  Bummer, this is not a good thing.

            Being the management mentality I am I asked my wife if we could change the plans just a bit.  Instead of being outside in the rain in front of the store, we could set up in the Fun Center and offer our fun to the campers in the confines of a dry recreation hall.  After she looked at the weather forecast and the radar images she agreed.  It was now our work to place new posters around the campground and set up our new make shift snack bar in the protective covering of our recreation hall.  This sounds like a pretty good idea and very intelligent on our part.

            As we were preparing the area for our hotdog steamer, cheese warmer, we also were offering nachos, and placing our sodas and candy bars on the counter the skies opened up.  It not only rained it became a torrential down pour.  Boy, did we feel smart.  What a great idea!  We were protected, the campers could find some dry solace to their weekend and we could sell them a hotdog.  What a smart idea we had had.

No sooner had we made our final electrical connection, placed our package of hotdogs in the steamer and placed our concessions on the counter, then the rain stopped.  It just turned off as quickly and abruptly as it had started.  Well this was not a bad thing.  It had been predicted that is was going to go through these horrendous storms all day and we were prepared.

Well, it did not rain all day long.  It did not rain half the day. It did not rain again.  Our well conceived plan had just been laughed at by Mother Nature.  There is one thing in life that you can plan on and that is that you can not plan on the weather doing anything it is supposed to do.  We still ran our snack bar.  It was far from a rousing success.  We did not get terribly wet, but than nether did anyone else in the campground who found much better things to do than come and visit our little respite form the torrential downpour that never arrived at the Grand Island KOA.

I am not looking for sympathy.  I am sure that you are not offering any.  I just wanted you to live vicariously in my life for just a few moments.  And, maybe feel the frustration of attempting to plan anything that can be dependant on Mother Nature doing what she has been predicted to do.

Have a great 4^th of July.  Don’t look at the weather channel before you make your plans.  They have no idea what is going to happen and will lie about it just to keep your attention.

Date:                           July 2, 2008

Location:                    Grand Island, NY

1000

            Sipping my morning coffee and preparing for another day at the Grand Island KOA I can not help but think about the winds of change and how they are so often ignored.  We each awake every morning to a new world and yet we think that we are just continuing in the same rut in which we fell asleep the previous night.  On a simple scale this may be true.  We are still living the life we were yesterday, we are still, hopefully, with our partner with whom we spent the previous day, and we are still the same person.

Yet, everything has changed.

            One morning we wake up and we are no longer in a stick home in Bath, we are on an Island in the middle of a straight of water that connects to of the world’s Great Lakes.  And, we are living in a bus.  When did it all change?  We awake on a morning and turn on the news and a black man is running for president, gallon of gas is nearly $5.00, and we are mired in two wars in a land that most ff us can’t find on a map.  And, oh yes, our president and country’s leadership lied about the reasons we went to war and now most of the world looks down their collectives noses at us for the hypocrite we a have become as a country.  When did everything change?

            The winds of change are tumultuously blowing every second of every day, yet we seem to ignore the shifting sands of reality as we plod along in our simple little lives.  Then we awake one day and everything has turned to ka ka and we wonder how it happened.  When did everything change so drastically and why did not someone try to prevent it from getting this messed up?

            I do not have answers to these questions.  I do not know if anyone does.  I do think it is an area of thought we all should visit and contemplate on the real ramifications.  Political maneuvering and posturing does affect you and every person on this earth.  A failure form Texas did wonder into the White House and now we are watching the world, along with this country, pay the price for failure of our electorate.  It maters not if he was elected or illegally appoint to office the failures of the Bush administration is, and will for the duration of our lives cause pain and trauma to us as a country and as individuals.  Yet there are still 1 in 5 or more people that still support this idiot.  A trashed constitution will survive over time it is the people that are ruled under it that I fear are going to suffer.  Now is when everything is changing.

            The winds of change are rustling through our lives as we sip our morning coffee and watch our “reality” TV show.  I know not how to redirect the blowing chaos to a more proper direction.  I know not even which proposed leader would best lead us in that effort.  I do know that if we set idly by the continued tempest of changing winds will lead to a very different world and I am not sure it is a better world.  I wish I could advise you on how to attempt a mid course correction.  Maybe if I can just get you to notice that we are, indeed, in the midst if a tornado of destructive changes I will have accomplished a small bit of my effort at corrective direction changes.  If I fail, you can continue sipping your coffee, watching your soap operas, and complaining about the price of eggs.  But, I will fear for the world that we are leaving for your children, and grandchildren will show the dastardly effects of the winds of change that blew through our lives.  The next door family of Stella and Mary will be much less traumatic than inability of our children to buy a loaf of $10.00 bread or purchase enough of the $20.00 a gallon gas to get to work so they can make the balloon payment on their mortgage.

            I know not where I planned on going with this diatribe.  I know not, even, if this is a worth while expression of my time.  I do hope that I have caused someone to think and maybe they will cause someone to think and maybe they will find a way to redirect some of the winds of change that are blowing through our lives right now.  If something does not change than nothing will change, and I am not sure I like where we are and where we are headed right now.  We need a changing wind, I am not sure we need the winds of change that are storming through our lives right at this moment.

            I have vented. I feel now better. And, now I must go live my life after I finish sipping my morning coffee.  Have a nice day! ?