Oh, the places I have gone.

Some people never stray far from their place of birth.  Some people travel the world.  In my life, I am somewhere in between.

Some people work for the same company for 50 to 60 years.  On my desk, I had taped a newspaper clipping from probably 30 years ago. This was a short paragraph announcing the death of a waitress, a woman who had worked at the same lunch buffet for 50 years.  This lady's life has stuck with me for all these years. I know no details, just that she worked and stayed at the same place for over 50 years.  I am impressed by her perseverance.   

I have worked for at least 20 different companies in my career.  I am not content to stay in one place. I think I looked for good management and perfection in my work.  I discovered that perfection is hard to find when you work for humans.  We are imperfect. We all make mistakes. I would roam from job to job, never really knowing what I was looking for.  Am I unstable?

From an early age, I had wanderlust.  I love to travel.  I have been to all four corners of this great country.  Well, I have touched all four corners.  Oh, the places I have gone. 

I have been to New England, in Buffalo, New York. We traveled to Toronto, Canada, to see the CN Tower. I have traveled to Utica and Rochester, New York. I have been to Assateague Island National Park in Maryland, driven into Delaware, and touched the cold Atlantic Ocean. I have been to Philadelphia and toured the historical Independence Hall. 

I have been to Florida (Panama City) and touched the warm waters of the Gulf.  I lived in New Orleans for ten years while growing up.  

I was born in California, left for twelve years, and went back before I turned twenty.  In San Diego, where I lived off and on for 30+ years, we ventured across the border to Mexico.  I ventured downtown in Tijuana. 

I dipped my toes in the Pacific Ocean. I hiked in the forest mountains of the High Sierra. I seem to have found my purpose, my raison d'etre.  I am a poet, a writer, an observer of life.  I try to find purpose.  I refer back to the poem I posted on this site.  Grounded  (https://ponderingdave.blogspot.com/2025/05/grounded.html), and it kind of explains my current mental state. I am looking for meaning. I think this blog is that pursuit.  

I am looking for something to leave behind for my kids and grandkids.  Something that says, "I was here. I meant something. I did something."  

    Someone asked me over this past weekend how my retirement was going.  I mumbled something vague that things were going well, but truth be told, after all these days, I really have only accomplished a fraction of what I wanted to accomplish.  

    Sure, I have been relaxing, reading a stack of books that I have collected over the years, and some new ones, too.  I worked a part-time job at the local historical museum, which was a great opportunity to learn a lot about local history.  The area has had a human presence for 12,000 years.  This is important to me.  I want to belong to the human race. I want to matter in some small way. 

     When I was pursuing my post-baccalaureate studies in history, our professors explained that history must be studied from the perspective of its era.  We should NOT place modern sensibilities on the actions of the past.  But while working at the museum, I became aware of the modern concept of "radical empathy". It bothers me that the word empathy -a very good feeling to have- needed to have a modifier. The idea of understanding the feelings and motivations of a culture or historical time within their own frame of reference is an important way to understand the history.  Adding a modifier to empathy taints understanding of history and distorts knowledge of those events.  

    I enjoyed my time at the museum.  I thought the administrators were very passionate about the preservation of the history of the area. I was struck by the fact that there were very few noted historical buildings in the area.  Current recorded history goes back to 1805 when Lewis and Clark first rowed to the Columbia Cascades.  White settlement started in the 1840s and flourished in the 1850s and 60s.  There are very few structures left from those days, for a variety of reasons. 

     One main reason is that in the early 20th century there were forest fires that came through and burned some of the existing structures. There was also a flood around the turn of the century (20th).  Also, there was a desire, or thought to upgrade all that was old.  There was so much that has been lost.  

    

 

 New Year's Resolution to clean my desk and tidy up my office papers

Notes from my desk:

Something I wrote in 2014.

 On December 5th, 2014, I took my wife and kids out for dinner and a movie.  It was her birthday, and she decided that all she wanted was dinner with her kids. Then we would go see a family movie.  

After dinner, we went to see "Big Hiro 6". My kids have become, like many other kids their age, into gaming and superhero movies based on comic books.  

 We stayed after the credits to watch an animated short video starring an animated Stan Lee and one of the characters from the movie.  My daughter was happy that she got something extra from the movie (langnaipe, if you will).  I was disappointed, not with the entertainment, but by the fact that my kids look to superheroes in this world.  

All I have ever wanted for them was that they be the heroes of their own lives.  Why can't we all just be the heroes of our own lives? 

I wrote this last year, but forgot to hit "Publish".  

The Seventeenth of August

This song was going through my mind all day yesterday.  That one line, 'the seventeenth of August' is very significant to me.  That day is my mother's birthday.  (1934) 

I have written about her before on this blog.  But last August 17th would have been her 91st birthday.  She died too young (2011, at 77).  And I have so much regret and guilt.  I should have taken better care of her.   

 "And as I rode out through Galway Town
To seek for recreation
On the seventeenth of August
Me mind being elevated
There were multitudes assembled
With their tickets at the station
And me eyes began to dazzle
And they're going to see the races"