An Apology.

Apparently Local Radio isn't available outside the United States. A reader flagged this for me. I apologize, sympathize, and empathize that you can't hear it. It's a shame, but apparently the lawyers have spoken.

Tropics Radio

I would like to do a quick shout out of thanks to the folks at www.feedspot.com . They are a Google reader replacement that allows you to aggregate your feeds. Welcome to the readers who follow me over there.

 

Tropics Radio

Just after I got here I pressed the search button on the rental car’s radio and there it was, Local Radio. You don’t get Local Radio in urban areas. They’re more interested in serving a large metropolitan audience, with carefully proscribed "demographic content targeting" by an out of town “broadcast consultant” who usually has more data than sense.

Here in my corner of the tropics I found Local Radio has an amazing listenership of nearly 40% of the audience at some point during the day. On one shopping trip it followed me through all my stops practically uninterrupted. It’s in cars, stores, restaurants, homes and offices. Take that you urban slicing demographers! Local Radio does it by playing a range of music that has an appeal to a broad swath of the listenership. That appeal doesn’t mean they haven’t done their homework. Certainly the demographic in my corner of the tropics skews to over 40, but the listener results show a significant audience under 40 as well.

 

My interest in Local Radio is through a curiosity born of a former profession, and a keen interest in the local people themselves. The format of Local Radio is called “True Oldies”. They might call it that because they play Beatle’s music. From the dusty depths of memory I recall Paul McCartney saying something to the effect of, “ …you know you’re getting old when you hear your music in elevators played by The Strings Unlimited”. Now that may not be exact, and my memory might be wrong (it happens sometimes), but I think you get the general idea. Local Radio’s format is 60’s and 70’s with occasional dips into the late 50’s and early 80’s. The music programming is from a syndicated program supplier called “The TOC: True Oldies Channel”. Your host all day, Scott Shannon and his producer Beaver Cleaver!

It’s the music of my childhood, adolescence, and early adult years. The music that had me singing along, rocking along, dancing along, and generally getting along with the early parts of my life.

Everyone’s life has a soundtrack, and Local Radio seems to have mine. Like life, the music of Local Radio crosses genres, from Beach Boys, Beatles, Chicago, Elvis, Frankie Valli, Janis Joplin, Motown, Herman’s Hermits, Neil Diamond, Gallery, Rolling Stones, CCR and even some Disco. At one point I even heard Frank Sinatra. They take requests, do theme weekends, some light social commentary, and in general are quite pleasant to have around. They help to keep me company on those late nights when I’m trying to turn a phrase, parse a thought, and generally trying to enjoy my chosen craft of writing. More than once a “plot thought” has been inspired by a piece of music from The TOC.

Local Radio is more than the music. It has fishing reports from Captain Skip Bradeen “on the charter boat Blue Chip 2”. Several times a day he reports by phone on fishing conditions, fishing tips (slack off the reel at night), and local charitable events. He has sponsors that he mentions, if he has interesting clients on board, and where other captains are getting bites. This morning he referred to the clear tropic sky as Windex Blue. Then there’s Captain Slate’s Dive Report. A daily look at water conditions for snorkelling and diving. There are history vignettes about local points of interest, highly abbreviated local news, local and marine weather, and some low budget local commercials.  

It’s the local commercials that give me a solid feel for this place. Mostly they’re restaurants, Andy and Dave’s garage (for over 70 years), car dealerships, bars, pawn shops, marinas, real estate agencies, Rob’s 24 hour car wash in Marathon (across from Burger King) where he always “leaves the lights and water on”, Travis Bennett “…your gentle dentist at Mile Marker 103…”,  and well, I think you get the idea. Most of them are voiced by the proprietors themselves (Daniel from the Banana Café in Key West is my personal fave), or local announcers.

The whole package reminds me of hometown radio when I was a kid. We got fishing reports throughout the day on weekends, marine weather, hyper local commercials voiced by the station’s announcers, and music you could sing along to. It was a time when the city where I live had an economic focus on fishing and lumber, and everyone in town worked in those industries or the supporting businesses. Now my local radio at home has no marine reports, no hyper local commercials, and nothing much I can sing along to. My home city grew up and lost its local focus to try and be a “world” city, and it succeeded. The only cost was its Local identity. A few years back I totally abandoned local radio in favour of tapes, CD’s, and now satellite radio. At home local radio has become homogenized with similar formats and national chain store commercials, being broadcast across corporate media chains that, except for the all traffic station, made it irrelevant to my life.

Local Radio seems unpolished, and I like that. It seems like its run by people who care but know their limits. It doesn’t sound corporate. Local Radio is the perfect sound for this place because there isn’t much of a “corporate” feel to anything. There’s a “billions served” place a few miles south, the red headed burger girl and the King have stores a few miles north. There’s even one of those green mermaid logo coffee shops.

There’s not much else colored corporate here, and I don’t hear advertising for corporate chains. Maybe corporate people don’t feel right in this place. There are a lot of individuals here who are wary of outsiders who aren’t tourists. This place shows skepticism towards change, and it’s a good thing too. There are severely limited natural resources. The land is crushed coral, with mangroves, palm, and pine trees. The highest natural point is 15 feet above sea level, and one local joked with me even that was man made. At its widest point it may be half a mile across. A lot of people came here to get away from the one size fits all “corporate” influence in their lives. I think Local Radio helps play to that. Local Radio here is unpretentious, like the locals I’ve had the privilege to meet.

That’s why I like Local Radio; it knows its customer base is the listener, not the advertiser. The advertisers show up because the listeners are there, but Local Radio needs that organic link to the audience to bring in the money.

Here in the small market, the argument of syndicated programming versus locally employed DJ’s can be raised. That argument goes away when you fill other air time with short features, newscasts, and community oriented columnists. Captain Skip Bradeen mentions many local events and causes during his reports.

Local Radio seems to remember that the audience matters, it doesn’t seem to care for the advice of data heavy, micro slicing, demographic spouting, over paid consultants who don’t live here. Local Radio trusts its gut to get it right.

So Local Radio is what I’m listening to, here in the tropics.

 

BTW – if you’re interested in listening to Local Radio follow the link and click on “listen now”:

http://www.themixtrueoldies.com/index.html

 

 

What Time Is It?

What Time Is It?

 

Don’t ask me? I gave up wearing a watch months ago. Here in the tropics there’s a whole world of time difference, it's an entirely different temporal reality. An hour’s drive north of here, where the ugliness of humanity begins to show itself, marked and disciplined time begins again. For those who care about such things it’s also known as Eastern Time.

In my part of the tropics it’s tide time, sun time, and night time. I once heard this place referred to as a drinking town with a fishing problem. I can’t disagree. It always seems to be 5 o’clock, though I personally like to wait until after lunch. Meal times are flexible, but I have yet to enjoy beer with my morning eggs. Somehow it doesn’t seem right to enjoy a cheddar and mushroom omelet with a beer.

Time morphs with the sun. Sometimes I’ll be sitting watching the mangrove islands while intermittently reading and writing. The whole visual definition of the islands change, and the sun imbues them with color, depth, and texture. I fail to note the passage of time because the view moves through time with me. There is only the moving sun, and the passage of tides to give you any sense of temporal motion.

The world outside doesn’t exist if you don’t want it too. You have to go in search of it. There are TV’s in the bars, but they are, inevitably and predictably, locked on sports channels. The only TV’s I’ve seen tuned to news are the ones in Radio Shack and Kmart, and even then I never… 

 

… saw anybody standing around watching.

Sorry, I got lost there for a while. A great white heron is wading through the shallows in front of me and for a few minutes I just lost track. I’m learning to allow for sufficient “distraction time” in my day. I can’t expect to get much done, so I don’t.

Every few days I make a trip into “town”, such as it is. That means driving about five miles up the road to a small collection of strip malls that are the commercial “centre” of my tropics town. I get beer, groceries, and occasionally gin.

The only acknowledgment I make to the passing of time involves a very large martini made from Boodles, vermouth, splash of bitters, and a fresh lemon slice. I’ve heard scurvy is a constant threat in the tropics. I don’t have martini glasses so I use a big wine glass. I sip it down as the sun goes down. The sun plays against the clouds over the Atlantic, painting the ever changing formations in whites, oranges, reds, and gold’s. It’s a passive and natural drama that inspires and challenges me to describe, so except in the most general terms I don’t.

Every day I have chosen to acknowledge the unusual passing of time with a toast to God, as painter. It’s the best way I’ve found to salute the very nature of time here in the tropics.

 

Flip Flop Nation

Flip Flop Nation

Usually footwear is not my preferred choice of topics. My personal footwear choices revolve around shoes and socks. Always have, even as a kid. I played road hockey in dress shoes. They were just more comfortable. Many years later I had a mentor who suggested that appropriate footwear should fall into two categories, comfortable, and sturdy enough in case you need to run for your life.

In my career and personal life I always kept that in mind, so much so that an unconscious habit formed in buying shoes. In my later career I wore tactical boots that were waterproof but breathable. They laced right up the ankles to prevent me turning an ankle on slippery ground or getting in and out of my truck. Over my many years, there were cowboy boots, ankle boots, brogans, running shoes, rubber boots, loafers, and assorted walking shoes. Whatever my day to day adventures required at the time.

I never quite got the whole sandal and flip flop thing, especially on airplanes. In case of a need to vacate a burning airplane, who are the people that get hurt the worst? Not the ones with their shoes on. They’re the ones having to carry the others through burning fuel and sharp objects. By that time the flip flop wearer’s feet are so badly damaged they won’t feel comfortable ever showing their feet again. Same thing in the workplace. Do you think it’s a good idea to wear sandals while changing out the fat in the deep fryer?

Suffice to say that except for the beach I rarely go barefoot, and even then it’s usually in a pair of aquasox. I have an extra excuse now. Any wound to the foot of a diabetic can be deadly. There has been a spike in a disease that’s found in the water here. If you catch it, the area around the infection site (usually an existing wound) begins to turn purple and as it spreads you feel like you’re on fire from the inside. 

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/11/07/3737183/clarification-deadly-seawater.html

What started me on this post are the flip flops sitting next to my new office chair here in the tropics. This is not my first pair. Years ago I bought some really cheap ones to use as shower shoes when I traveled. They dried quickly and kept me from picking up any foul foot issues. I threw them out last year when they had seen their last journey. Here in the tropics flip flops are great for around the house. I splurged on this new pair by spending $3 at Kmart.

I make sure I wear them when taking out the garbage and recycling. All these little lizards seem to choose just anywhere to relieve themselves, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a door, wall, or the middle of the garage floor. The lizards and other creatures have no sense of etiquette. It’s like it used to be, before we trained the dog owners.

So my flip flops have come in handy. I don’t wear them when I go out. They are impossible to drive with. Back in the middle of the dark ages when I was learning to drive, my instructor (from a real driving school!) put his foot down on the topic. He described quite eloquently what happens when you need to do an emergency braking maneuver, but you can’t get to the appropriate pedal because your footwear is tangled up and halfway off your foot.

However, here in the tropics I’ve found it’s a better experience when you can feel the world beneath your feet. So when I’m in the office, I spend most of my day barefoot, and to the chagrin of my neighbours, shirtless. Though there is a bit of “pot” and “kettle” at play with that. As soon as I get back after being out, I find the relaxation is quicker when I take off both shoes and socks. Somehow being barefoot allows me to get back to my “quiet place” just that little bit faster.

Sadly, it’s also quicker for the little bloodsucking insects to take advantage. For some reason they only like my right side. I got here two months ago, and got devoured, but only on my right side. I had allergic reactions to most of them. Thank all the good powers that be for Benadryl anti-itch cream! I had one bite on the back of my neck (right side) that grew to quite the size, almost as big as a boil ready to be lanced. Within three days it was gone. The little critters love my right ankle, the top of my right foot, and the back of my right knee. After two weeks of gorging on my highly prized blood, they backed right off. If I wore shoes and socks I probably wouldn’t have had this problem.

Maybe it was nature’s idea of a tropics hazing, because now I’m down to a couple of bites a week with very little swelling. Or maybe there’s something in my blood that killed them all off.

But you’re still wondering why I wear shoes and socks when I go out in the tropics? The tropics are a beautiful place, but the words of my old mentor will never leave me, the bit about running for your life. These parts of the tropics have critters that hide and bite and sting the unwary. It also has critters that carry guns, have nasty dispositions, and don’t like getting caught with a load, be it pharmaceutical or human. I may be one of the only guys in running shoes, but I’ll be the first guy to find cover.

I’ll leave my flip flops for safely enjoying life at home, here in the tropics

Getting Used To The Tropics

Getting Used To The Tropics

“And so you’ve come to the Tropics, and heard all you had to do, was sit in the shade of a coconut glade while the pesos roll into you…”

                       From “The Tropics” – Bertie Higgins/Sonny Limbo 1982

Well the pesos aren’t exactly rolling in. The only thing rolling in is the tide. And that suits me just fine. For a northern boy there’s a lot to get used to. Punishing sun that’s rough on people and machinery, salt air that’s corrosive and disfiguring, and humidity so intense that you break into a shirt ruining sweat just thinking too hard. There’s wildlife that’s quiet, and in some cases would like to kill you for no other reason than you’re alive. Some of it comes in glorious colors, like the iguanas in neon green. I’m used to wildlife that only picks a beef with you if you scare it, or get between mama and the cubs.

Here it lies in wait.There are the little lizards that you find in the drawers, on the walls, underfoot, under a door handle, or in your bed. I am not going to stoop so low about commenting on lizards in my bed in any other context.  That would be crass.

Speaking of neon green iguanas, I got a fright when I walked out of the Radio Shack up at the K-Mart mall. I just walked out the door and there was a four foot neon green iguana with spikes on its back suddenly running across my path. It had been sunning itself and I wasn’t looking where I was opening the door. That was a quick lesson in always looking where your next step lands.

The birds are vastly different. Graceful Great White Herons, curved bill White Ibis’s, Pelicans, Ospreys, and Vultures all make appearances over my new office chair. I consider a visit from the Pelican a real treat. In flight they remind me of old flying boats. I can spend an hour watching the Great White Heron hunting in the water in front of me. I had an Osprey explode out of the pine tree next to my office chair. Like an arrow it flew straight to its prey about 70 feet offshore in the shallows. Frightening and majestic at the same time. Seagulls are one third the size they are at home. The Vultures you will often see soaring over the roadways, looking for the easy meal. They usually don’t have to wait long.

I have yet to see any of the deadlier creatures. I am hoping to make it to the end of my time here as sighting free as possible. Though they are cutting back a bunch of overgrowth out by the highway so there may be some displaced critters slithering around somewhere.

The people have a whole different system of marking time. The morning means the afternoon, the afternoon means tomorrow, and tomorrow means eventually. It’s frustrating to be at the mercy of a different temporal marking system. Now don’t think I’m picking on these folks, I’m not. It’s the way they are, and eventually you get used to it. Heavy emphasis on eventually. And even at that you don’t understand until you yourself realize that you have occasionally lost hours at a time just “being”. Time seems to move according to a coconut clock.

That’s the only term for it. I have no deadlines here, either real or imagined. Getting lost in the sun dappled sea, staring at the small mangrove islands just off the coast of where I’m staying is commonplace. I never intend to lose time, it just happens. It’s somewhat like taking an unexpected nap, except when you wake up you know you haven’t been sleeping. I no longer find it strange that more “alien abduction” stories come out of the south. I’m not really a believer; I’m only putting forth an alternate explanation.

Getting used to the tropics also means getting used to looking at other worlds. Except when the moon is full, the skies are so clear you can see back in time just by staring at the sky. The great line from 2001: A Space Odyssey always comes to mind, “My God, it’s full of stars!” As a city dweller at home I can see some stars, the really bright ones, but the grand landscape of space is denied us mostly due to light pollution. It’s hard to inspire your kids to great explorations when you can’t expose them to the true size of a universe sized landscape. It’s no wonder they find greater inspiration in a TV and a hand controller.

Driving poses some challenges. There are three kinds of drivers in my neck of the Tropics, the ones in a whole hell of a hurry to kill themselves, and those who are in no hell of a hurry at all. The third kind, like me, are trying not to have any contact with the other two. The first kind are usually in large domestic pickup trucks, the second kind usually in full size domestic cars. Both kinds usually wear a hat. I was heading up “the stretch” to Florida City one afternoon when a whole line of us was passed, on the right, by a guy in a big black Dodge pickup. We were all doing about 65 in a 55 zone. Now to understand this you must realize that “the stretch” is only two lanes wide with a grass shoulder and a turquoise concrete median. Did I mention the pickup had the guy’s business name, number, and logo on it? And to top it off we all got to the first stoplight at the same time. In fact his lane choices were so poor in town that I passed him when he got stuck behind some folks turning right. I think they were turning right, nobody uses turn signals.

I like the short hand they use for directions. Oceanside or Bay side? It’s like being in Hawaii, Diamond Head or Ewa? The whole Mile Marker thing is a godsend to tell people where you are, and so you know where you are. The first two digits in an address are the Mile Marker, and the last three digits the address within the mile. Simplicity itself, so long as you know which direction is ascending and descending.

The clouds here are spectacular. They are the clouds of childhood. Well, not my childhood. I grew up on the west coast where clouds come in flat, thick gray sheets and hang around for weeks on end. Here you can see never ending shapes and textures. At sunrise and sunset they come alive with colour and drama. The sky changes every few minutes. If you don’t like it now, wait 10 minutes and a whole new tableau will open up before you.

You get used to expecting less, and expectations in general get modified. I don’t expect to watch TV because I don’t get TV here. There’s no cable where I’m staying, and I'm too far from a major city to pick up anything off air. So it’s the local radio station with its mix of 60’s and 70’s “oldies”, whatever's on the iPod, or the mix of silence with ocean sounds and breezes keeping time in the background. 

Internet is expensive. I’m using a $70 4G LTE box and buying 10GB of data at $90 a pop. There is regular internet in people’s houses, just not where I’m staying. So I manage with less because I expect less. Less being vastly relative when you’re used to 400GB a month for $75.

I’m so busy getting lost in time I actually don’t miss my old ways of information gathering. Though to be totally honest I gave up on TV news delivery about a year and a half ago. There isn’t really a need to catch the news here. The news I care about involves the weather, fishing, and diving reports. Every day here is timeless, but it also goes by too soon. So to spend any of that time at the “content whim” of corporate media driven more by a tiresome consultant’s “suggestions” for content with a negative emotional hook, would be wasteful in the extreme. I’ll take the local radio with music I can sing to and that revives mostly pleasant memories, the iPod with its personality of the eclectic shuffle, and the stars.

I’ve had to give up some of my old dietary ways. I have had to convert to eating more fish because it’s cheap and fresh here. Or the sandwiches from Chad’s that are the same size as a Prius. For snacks it’s fresh apples, strawberries, or cut veggies. There’s a pizza place I really like though their small size is 12 inches as opposed to 10 inches at home. So a “small” pizza is good for two meals. However there is also a great BBQ place that has the best ribs this side of Corky’s in Memphis! Beer is much cheaper. There's a mostly local beer called Key West Sunset Ale that has captured my affection, though my legendary love for Landshark lager is also indulged. Every night involves a sundown ceremony of a Boodle’s martini and red, orange, and gold clouds. Can’t get Boodle’s at home, and so my home is the lesser for it.

I’m getting used to being isolated. I’m in a very quiet and gated community. A lot of people here use electric golf carts to get around. Everybody waves at you as you drive past them. I’m not used to that. I’m used to the car horns of morons who can’t read the Yield sign at the roundabout in front of my apartment, or the terminally deaf motorcyclists who seem to think that their demonstrated virility rests solely on the noise coming out of a muffler. So I’m trying to get used to the sounds of gentle and soft. 

It’s an adjustment. One that takes a while. One that takes understanding. One that is not entirely unwanted, and not overly difficult to make.

And so I’ve come to the Tropics…

Traveling Alone In America

Traveling Alone In America

Over many years, as both a child and adult, I have spent a lot of time travelling in different parts of America. Washington, the state not the political entity, Oregon, California, Hawaii, and Nevada. Once I placed an adolescent foot in Arizona as I straddled the border, and a time zone, on the Boulder Dam. It’s always been fun, entertaining, and eye opening. In fact I met one of my first girlfriends on a two week bus tour of California and Nevada. All of those places, and some of the people, from the cities to the mountains to the country fields to the desert, inspired me to write in my personal journal about how each of them affected me.

However, this time the journey was very different. In the twenty four days I was on the road, I passed from the Pacific Northwest coast that is my home in Canada, to the very tip of the southeast point of the Continental United States. That’s a long distance in miles/kilometers, but a very different journey in terms of landscapes, peoples, and cultures. Leaving the lush rainforest of my home, to pass through the mountains and ranch lands of Wyoming and Montana, to the sparseness of the central plains, and down through America’s breadbasket, to the welcoming arms of Kansas City, a surprisingly wonderful Memphis, steamy New Orleans, and the tropical Florida Keys.

Nearly everywhere I stopped the vastness of the land, and the kindness of her people, couldn’t help but strike me as being more than I had hoped, and more than I had expected. Keep this in mind, most people’s sightings of America and her people are on Television shows, through books, and news media, as was mostly mine.

What I found was not the media induced landscape I had been raised to see. America is not as “sick” as their many ads for pharmaceuticals would have you believe. In fact most of the people I had the great honour to deal with looked very healthy, and for the most part happy. At the very least, America is not a nation under siege. The negative emotional hyperbole of corporate media notwithstanding, America seems to do quite well in its day to day life.

The Wyoming and Montana “Territories” were huge, empty landscapes that spoke of cruel winters, and tough lives. The gates that could be lowered across the highway during winter storms were a sobering reminder that people can easily get lost and not be found until spring, even on a four lane Interstate highway. The South Dakota and Iowa landscapes of farms and the long distances between settlements spoke volumes to me about hardiness, and lives lived with a vast difference to my suburban upbringing. My playmates lived next door, or down a paved street. Here the nearest neighbours are miles away down dirt roads in summer, and heaven knows what in winter. This is an isolating land for her people, and I came to have what can only be described as an outsider’s glimpse of why this part of the country has so many individualists. They can’t rely on “others” as we in the cities might, for “others” are too far away. In this part of the big country something as simple as an ambulance or fire truck can be many miles away.

In that realization comes a perspective about the difference of perspectives. On the gun issue alone one can see a need for protection in a land that very much would like to kill you. It’s nothing personal as it would be with people, it’s more the universe couldn’t really care if you are on the land or not. The land was here before, and will be long after. The food chain of the native creatures themselves insist on surviving, even if they threaten man’s endeavours to conquer the land, the coyotes, and bears, and snakes, will have their toll. The urban/rural divide raises its head. I myself come down on both sides of the issue, but I think if the zealots who scream their views at each other were to come and sit in each other’s chairs for a few days; the discussion might progress in a very different and civil manner.

The unexpected wonders I found in Kansas City. A staggeringly huge war memorial, the renovated beauty of Union Station, a museum dedicated to a musical form I have long loved, and a baseball museum that brought home the unexpected emotion of just what the staggering cost of institutionalized racism really means, and it sobered me.

Memphis brought me face to face with a musician I had loved since childhood. Not in the extreme “fan” way, but more as a symbol of a boyhood longing of wanting to be able to sing the way he sang. To spend a few moments thinking of a friend, now lost to us, who loved the music with all his great big heart. To have a massive plate of ribs that defies my ability to describe, and to have a burger and a beer in the blues club of a master. To get a hand car wash in a neighbourhood where I felt out of place by my colour, but was by no means uncomfortable. The people were kind and friendly, and in many ways knowing. With sadness I missed a museum that I very much wanted to visit. I wanted more context of the civil rights struggle, but they’re closed on Tuesday.

New Orleans was more a delight than a disappointment. The seedy and tacky frat party atmosphere on Bourbon Street, gave way to the wonderful galleries of Royal Street. A morning walk through the French Quarter showed me more than I could have seen had I gone in the evening when the streets would have been crowded with revellers. The food of the Quarter was sublime, and the wonderful beignets and café au lait at Café Du Monde will always define such things for me. I have to go back for more. Their coffee might be available by mail order, but not the experience of the icing sugar and the humidity.

Having the opportunity to view the Great Plains, the Continental Divide, the Ozarks, the Gulf of Mexico, Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, Little Big Horn, the aviation museums, Graceland, and even Wall Drug, left me with a feeling that iconic America still lives.

This was a road trip taken alone. The reasons are many and personal, and they will mostly stay that way. When I got home I felt lighter. Some of the many “grets” and regrets of my life had been silently dealt with while I quietly steered the car. 

For those of you who might wonder about the difference between a “gret” and a regret, it is this. A “gret” is a negative thought or emotion that you have forgotten, or intentionally didn’t want to deal with. That “something” whether it’s an unreturned phone call, a bill payment, a badly dealt with relationship breakup, or having said something you didn’t mean but that came out of your mouth anyway, or conversely saying the wrong thing to cover a very real thing. A “regret” is when you have that same thought or feeling over and over. Your own quiet guilt trip. Whichever they might be, or what they become, they all hang like little one ounce weights on your soul and you carry them with you, always, until you get some subconscious time and distance to let them deal with you. We all carry our own share of grets and regrets. They are a part of what helps to make us human. If you don’t have them you are either lying to yourself, or need professional help.

When I returned from this trip I didn’t have the chance to properly process all I had learned, seen, experienced, and felt. Within a couple of days I rushed back to work in what would turn out to be the most horrendous year of my many years of employment. A management change can have the most unforeseen results when you move from a collaborative and mostly inclusive style, to an arrogant dictatorship. It would culminate in my eventual retirement. A move that was made more to save my life, to seek long term treatment for high blood pressure (190/90) on the day I left work) brought on by dealing with vicious and small minded arrogance more than anything else.

That is why I am so long in finishing up the story of the cross country journey. I used to laugh off the idea of “being in the wrong head space”, but I get it now.

My personal journeys can now continue, but at a different pace, and in different ways. I can now devote more time to the importance of having a life itself, rather than the life of racing towards imposed deadlines that, in retrospect, really meant less than nothing. 

So this life changing road journey is done, but there will be more. I can’t help myself. My life has always been a big adventure. Even going to the grocery store can be an adventure, if you look at it as more than a chore.

Enjoy the day, and stay tuned, the best is yet to be written!