RIDING AMTRAK

For our honeymoon Celia and I took the Amtrak train from Eugene to Seattle to visit her older daughter in October of 2000.   Over the years that followed we took it three or four more times to Seattle.   It was always an adventure and usually never on time.   The trip from Eugene to Seattle involved 9 stops, including a 20 minute layover in Portland to switch trains.   Since the rail lines are own by freight trains, such as Union Pacific and Burlington Northern/Santa Fe,  Amtrak had to yield to freight traffic and sometimes that involved sitting on a siding waiting for the freight trains to go by.   It usually was a six or seven hour train ride depending on stops for freight trains, which is about the same amount of time it takes to drive it.   The big difference was no stress from driving and the biggest thrill was looking out the train window and seeing all those poor souls stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the Tacoma/Seattle freeways.  

SILENCE

Sometimes silence can be my best friend.   One of the first things I do in the morning is turn the radio on to get the latest news and weather report.   After about an hour of hearing all the negative things humanity is inflicting upon it's self it's time to turn it off.    Just the sound of the wind, rain, birds and the frogs at night can be enough for me.   A trip to the city with all the traffic, construction, and other noises makes me just want to get back home ASAP.   

I will never forget when Celia and I were in Costco years ago when she was getting a hearing test when an older man left his hearing aids off to have them cleaned.   As he walked off to do some shopping he said out loud--SILENCE AT LAST!

THE ASHLAND POET

Every year during the week after Christmas my family gets together in Ashland for a few days to celebrate the holidays.  My son and his family come up from South Lake Tahoe, my daughter and her family come down from Portland and their mother comes down from Salem.   One evening this year my son, his wife and grandson Connor were kicking a soccer ball in the park near the center of the city.  I was off to the side watching when a young woman walked by me asking how I was doing?   She may have been 40, well dressed and did not look homeless.   She was carry a bag of poems and asked if I would want to buy one as she was trying to collect enough money to buy a pizza for her boyfriend and her self.  I became a little suspicious, but I asked her to read one.   The poems were written on brown paper that I think was cut from brown paper bags.   She took one of the poems from the bag and recited to me.   As she started it reminded me of my loss of Celia and brought tears to my eyes.  I don't recall all of it, but it started out--searching in solace for what we've all lost.  Not hearing those haunting sounds, not alone in our souls...  I do have the little brown papers of the poems but find it hard to read.   I told her it reminded me of the loss of my wife, she was very sympathetic and gave me a second poem.  I gave her $20 in hopes she would buy the pizza and hopefully not drugs as she walked off.    In some ways she made my day and I hope I contributed to hers'.  

 

MY DOG JACK

It was a late November afternoon in 1989 when I was about ready to leave work at the Cottage Grove Ranger District office and go home to a little house I rented on Lynx Hollow Road north of Cottage Grove.   No sooner than I started packing up my things to head out the door when a woman that worked on the road maintenance crew came up to me asking if I would take a puppy they picked up walking along a forest road where it was beginning to snow.   She knew I had just put my old family dog Corky to sleep because of health issues.   She said she could not take the dog because they already had some dogs.    So I went home with the little black puppy that looked more like a cub bear that I named Jack.

There was a storage room in the back of the house where I left Jack during the day with food, water and a partially opened window as I went off to work.   When I came home at night I let Jack out in the back yard and he had free range in the house at night.   One wall of the storage room had unpacked boxes of items from the house I sold in Gold Beach in 1988.   After a few weeks I noticed Jack was in a corner of the storage room as if something had been bothering him during the day.  One day I saw a wild cat jump in through the opened window and discovered she had a litter of kittens in one of the boxes.   Jack had become accustomed to this wild cat coming and going as she raised her kittens.   Later I discovered the after birth in the box where she had the litter.   The wild cat and her kittens left the house to live in the barn behind the house and roam the nearby fields for rats or other small varmints.   In 1991 I bought a house in south Eugene in order to allow my two children to live with me on a part-time basis while they were in high school and their mother was considering moving out of the area.   Jack was two years old and I constructed a fenced yard with a dog house where he stayed when I was working in Cottage Grove.  Over the next few years Jack went on many hikes, backpacking trips and in the Fall of 1997 went on a  cross country car trip with me to visit a sister living in Indiana.    When Celia and I bought a house in Cottage Grove and got married in 2000 Jack became part of the family.   Jack was susceptible to seizures and in 2005 we had to send him over the Rainbow Bridge due to failing health.  

      

THE ICO"S OF AGING

The Issues, Concerns and Opportunities (ICO'S) of aging can be many, some good and some not so good.  Much depends on how well we took care of ourselves in our younger years, family history, the relationships we maintained over the years and the new relationships we develop.  

With old age and living alone comes a sense of freedom limited by health issues and financial means .  One big side effect of living alone is loneliness.  Over time one becomes stuck in their ways and the thought of finding another partner seems unfair, not practical and slowly fades away.   What Celia and I had together can not be replaced.   Over 20 plus years we grew together, respecting each others routine and accepting the lifestyle we both developed.   That does not disappear abruptly after her departing this world over two years ago, but over time somethings change and I get into my own rut.   Hard to imagine another woman putting up with me now at this stage of life.

Like Katherine Hepburn said, " men and women are not meant to live together, just occasionally visit."

SECOND ANNIVERSARY

Today is the second anniversary of Celia leaving this world.   It still seems like yesterday.   In many ways she is still here in this house with all her decorations, furnishings, paintings and other things she cherished.    It still feels like home to me.    Family and friends are still my greatest support, especially friends who have also experienced the loss of a loved one.   They have given me much emotional support that I will always cherish.   One thing for sure, love never dies.  

THE END OF A LONG WINTER

Yesterday I made the drive to Eugene to close Celia's credit union account and distribute the remaining funds to her two daughters.   On my return trip I left the freeway at Creswell and drove east on Cloverdale Road, then turned south onto to Sears Road which goes along the eastside of the Coast Fork of the Willamette River all the way to the Row River Road east of Cottage Grove.    There was only one other car on the road during my drive.   It was the first real spring-like day this year with green fields, cattle grazing in lush pastures, old logging equipment in a field now overgrown with blackberries, the old Hemmenway Dairy now with vacant barns and the other scattered farms along this 12 mile route.  Driving this route was like going back 30 years when I worked for the Forest Service on the Cottage Grove Ranger District with all the log truck traffic delivering their loads to all the mills in the vicinity that are gone now, the smell of the manure from the dairy, and the many Sunday drives that Celia and I made on this road when we lived in Cottage Grove, especially to the Cloverdale Chapel on October 7, 2000 to get married.  Yesterday was a good day and I do believe this long winter is over. 

CELIA AT THE CABIN

 This picture was taken on 2/5/2011 at the cabin where Celia did many of her paintings.   She was taking a break and enjoying her favorite can of beans.  My kind of woman!

LIVING ALONE

 Living alone has its challenges and benefits.  Trying to keep order with the day to day chores can be more than one person can handle at times when living in a remote setting where there is a yard and house to maintain, a water collection system to operate during the wet season and keeping the place warm using firewood during the winter.   In addition,  there are 20 acres of forest land to take care of which provides an escape from some of the other not so enjoyable tasks.    A routine is important to keep loneness at bay, but there is always time to reflect back on what life was like when there was the two us here to share in the daily rituals of life.  In many ways there is still the two of us here.  

 Living alone is nothing new to me.   Except for times when my children lived with me in Eugene, I spent a good part of 14 years living alone before Celia and I took up with each other in 2000.   Over the 20 years we were married many habits and routines were developed and they are hard to break.   For now I do not see myself moving to some strange place as long as I'm in fairly good health and have the support of family and friends.   Who knows what tomorrow will bring?  One thing for sure, the price for love is grief.  

 

THE RESTAURANTS OF EUGENE

When I lived in Eugene from 1991 to 2000 on East 26th Avenue, just a block off south Willamette Street, I could smell the different foods being cooked in a variety of restaurants up and down Willamette Street.   Depending on which way the wind was blowing  I could smell the grease from McDonalds a few blocks to the south or the smell of pastries from the bakery to the north.   It was very tempting in the evenings to just let my nose lead me down the street to whatever appealed the most.   There was everything from fast foods, pizzas, Italian, Mexican, Thai and the Glenwood restaurant serving American dishes, especially a good place for breakfast.   The Italian place was within a block and every Tuesday night it was all you could eat spaghetti night for the price of the first plate.    One of my favorites was a Korean place in the corner of the Payless Drug Store, which is gone now and replaced with a Market of Choice.   It was operated by a Korean family serving very authentic dishes and spicy.   Sometime after meeting Celia in November of 1997 we went to the Korean restaurant along with my son.   Celia decided to put some hot sauce on her dish and started violently coughing.   We had to pour water down her to quench the cough.   In the years that followed I think we ate at almost every restaurant in Eugene.  One of our favorites was the 19th Street Grill, which was close to where she worked at the Olum Child Development Center on the U of O campus.  It is now a McMenamins restaurant and on a few of our trips back to Eugene over the 20 years of our marriage we would stop at what we still called the 19th Street Grill and reminisce about our early days.  .   

         

THE LOSS OF AN OLD FRIEND

I received an email from Judy Barceloux, the wife of my old friend Alan Barceloux, informing me he passed away August 12th. Alan had been fighting stage 4 lung cancer for the last five or six months. Alan and I had known each other going back to our days as Boy Scouts in Willows, California in the late 1950's. We had many adventures together exploring the Mendocino National Forest during the summers in our high school years, including backpacking through the Middle Eel Yolla Bolly Wilderness Area. We spent some early mornings hunting ducks and geese in the rice fields south of town during the winter months. In 1966 Alan enlisted in the Air Force for three years during the Vietnam war at the same time I was drafted into the Army for two years. In the Fall of 1969 Alan and I shared an apartment together while we both attended Lassen College in Susanville, California under the GI Bill. Later he attended Chico State University then took over the family auto parts business of Baceloux Brothers Auto Supply in Willows and worked at the NAPA Auto parts store in Orland until he retired. No doubt we drank our fair share of beer together over the years. We kept in touch by email and in many ways Alan was like a brother to me. Whenever Celia and I were visiting family in Chico we would enjoy a meal and have a few beers with Alan and his wife Judy. RIP old friend!

8/16/2022

EASTERN OREGON

Eastern Oregon has always intrigued me with its vast open country, insolated mountain ranges, high desert, small communities and less people.    I think back on all the places I was fortunate to see in my travels through eastern Oregon, including the Steens Mountains, Alvord Desert, the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, Lake Owyhee, the Mahogany Mountains, backpacking in the Strawberry and Eagle Cap Wilderness areas, just to name a few.   Celia and I looked at houses in Joseph, but after giving it serious thought decided not to thinking our children would never come visit us.   We even considered buying 40 acres of high desert land for sale outside of Dayville.   Not sure how that would have turned out, probably best we landed where we did.    

This picture is looking south across the John Day Valley toward the Strawberry Mountains.   

PREVENTING PARKINSON

 Parkinson's Disease is the fastest growing neurological disorder in the world.   In the U.S. it has increased 35% in the last 10 years and expected to double over the next 25 years.   Research has shown the use of trichloroethylene (TCE) used in many household cleaning products might be one culprit with increasing cases of Parkinson's.  The other is the chemical herbicide Paraquat used in agriculture.    In short, these chemicals get into our bodies killing good bacteria or microbes.   Basically, microbes make things that go into your blood to the brain, so what you eat feeds microbes.   

Parkinson Resources of Oregon (PRO) had a virtual conference today on nutrition and the gut-brain connection presented by Dr. Heather Zwickey.   She stressed the need to avoid inflammatory foods, such as dairy, meats, sugars, and produce that have been grown with pesticides and go more for a plant-based diet, mostly with organics vegetables, nuts, herbs, etc. 

The second speaker was Dr. Caroline Tanner presenting a public health approach to preventing Parkinson's.   Parkinson's can be caused by pesticides, polychlorinated biphenyls, head injuries, chlorinated solvents, military service ( agent orange), age, welding/metals, physical inactivity, and air pollution.    Constipation, sleep disorders, anosmia, anxiety, depression could be the prodromal stage of Parkinson's diagnosis before any symptoms start showing.   

The dilemma is can we change our diet, behavior pattern, and environment to prevent or slow the progression of Parkinson's?    

MY MUSICAL BACKGROUND

 As a young child, I don't remember much music is the home. With 6 children my mother didn't have the time to, and maybe not the interest to promote music appreciation with us.   I don't even remember a radio being turned on

In grade school, it wasn't until the 5th or 6th grade when some students had to buy these red flute instruments, called tonettes, and learn how to play them.  Our class was not included as we were considered slow learners.   On rainy days when we could not have P.E. classes outside, we had to go to the basement and dance to the songs of Pat Boone.   It was horrifying having to ask a girl to dance and then proceed to step on her feet a few times while trying to dance.  

 In my junior year of high school, there was a choral class first thing in the morning in the gymnasium.  Not sure how I ended up in the class.  The first day each student had to hum to a note the teacher played on the piano.    When it was over six of us boys were told to sit up in the bleachers, do our homework, don't cause a disturbance and you will get a C grade in the class.  We were considered tone-deaf. 

As the years went by most music I listen to was country-western or folk on the radio of whatever vehicle I was driving while doing farm work.  Most of the country-western music was about how some woman left her man and his tears were flowing in his beer, not the most upbeat.    During my two years in the Army most music was at the beer garden or EM (enlisted man's) club where they were playing songs dealing with the Vietnam war while we could not consume the beer fast enough.   

When Celia and I were living in Cottage Grove we got involved with a group of people in Eugene, many retired teachers, some musicians that needed people to form a band to play at retirement homes.  They were willing to teach us less fortunate people with no musical talents.    They even provided instruments and taught us how to read music.   Celia picked the flute and I the saxophone.    We did not become masters at it, but it filled in for what we missed out on in those early years.    

CAREGIVING

Today was the monthly caregiver's Zoom meeting facilitated by Parkinson's Resources of Oregon.   This organization has been a lifesaver for me offering advice, virtual conferences, and the monthly support meetings with fellow caregivers.   It is a way to listen and learn from others taking care of a loved one.    We can compare notes on health issues related to Parkinson's, share ideas, remedies and at times vent our frustrations.   In many ways, I have learned more from these people than the medical professionals we have dealt with, and at no cost.   

At some time in our life, we will all be called upon to be a caregiver to aging parents, a sick spouse, or a child.   

THE RAT TAIL MYSTERY

Today Celia discovered a rat tail in the house.  Our cats are noted for their rat-killing abilities outside and have been known to leave certain parts of the poor critters at the sliding door to the outside deck.  I guess it is a way for them to show their appreciation of us and wanting to share their good fortunes by providing us with a morsel for our pot of swill.   How the rat tail got into the house is a mystery.   Most of the carnage takes place at night when we leave two cats outside to do their dastardly deeds and one cat stays indoors.  On colder nights we bring all three cats indoors.  We know there are critters in the walls and they have scratched their way through the sheetrock in one place, which has been plugged up with steel wool, pending a complete repair job one of these days.  We have not witnessed any critters running about in the house or seen anybody parts before the tail appeared today.   So far we have not found the remains of the rat with the missing tail, time will tell I guess.

A Valentine Story

 This event happened when we lived in Cottage Grove from 2000 to 2006.  Don't remember the exact year.  

While sitting in the pharmacy section of the Cottage Grove Bi-Mart, waiting for a prescription refill, I was in deep thought about the issues of the day.   I happened to look down the aisle and noticed a good looking woman browsing through items on the shelves.  Being a married man, guilt was my first reaction for looking, then I realized it was Celia, my wife.     

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Daily Grind

 Usually up between 4 and 5 am after a night of wild dreams about still trying to get through high school or wondering where I left my old dog Jack.  Probably need to cut back on those sleeping pills.   Next challenge is getting a fire going, pot of coffee and running the cats out of the house after feeding them.   By 7 am record the rainfall from the last 24 hours.   For this November we received 6.26 inches, almost making the 30 year average of 6.83 inches.   Going into December the next 7 day forecast is for more freezing morning fog and temperatures not much over 40 degrees.   Sure does not help with the mental outlook during these times of isolation.   By 9 am I help Celia get ready for the day and quickly thereafter it is lunch time.   It is either left overs or a pot of soup put together in the morning.    The daily exercise program consists of walking down to the wood shed to keep the fire going or patching potholes on our gravel road when I drive down to the mailbox at the highway.    Once or twice a week drive to town for groceries, prescription refills and replenish the beer supply.    The daily chores of washing clothes, and some sort of house work is never ending.    By 3 pm it is break time as I sit in my old easy chair that Celia wanted me to get rid of years ago.   Time to read a book, think about how my ancestors survived winter on their farm in the Ottawa Valley of Ontario in the 1800's and usually fall asleep for an hour waking to notice it has turned dark outside.   Time to feed cats, make dinner, watch news and learn all the great things mankind has accomplished for the day.   Hopefully to bed by 9 pm wondering what kind of dreams are in store for the night.   

Better throw another log on the fire

Twenty Years ago...

Today Celia and I celebrate 20 years of marriage. It all started November 1, 1997 when my dog Jack and I were hiking Buford Park outside of Eugene. I noticed a trail party work crew sign pointing to a side trail that I usually never took. Out of curiosity I turned onto that trail not knowing it would change my life. There I met Celia where she and some others were cutting invasive species, such as blackberries and scotch broom. They were members of the Friends of Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah. I made the fatal mistake of handing her my business card and telling her I was available, to work with the group that is. A couple of weeks later she called me about a work party that next weekend. I ended up joining the group where we worked as volunteers until moving to Douglas County in 2006. Celia was working for the University of Oregon Olum Child Development Center and at times I would work for University Housing doing landscape work as a contractor. Our favorite place to meet up and have lunch was the 19th Street Grill. On one of these lunch dates, I told her she was like an old shoe, meaning she was comfortable to be with. She accepted it as a compliment. Thinking back some women might have just got up and left. We were married October 7, 2000.

Communications

 How many of you remember picking up the phone and hearing the operator ask, “number please?”   Usually this was on a party line and sometimes you could hear the neighbor talking and had to wait for them to hang up before getting your call connected.   If the neighbor tied up the line too long sometimes mom had to interrupt and tell Mabelle down the road to stop hogging the line with her gossiping.    By the late 1950’s they came out with the rotary dial phones on private lines and there was no more dealing with the neighbors.  

My first summer job with the Forest Service in 1969 was at the Hilton Spike Camp Guard Station on the Modoc National Forest.    One of our first duties was maintaining the phone line between the guard station and Manzanita Lookout.  It took a few days to clear the fallen branches and trees from the line and splice it where it had been broken.   This line connected two phones that had to be cranked in order to make it ring at the other end.   The lady on the lookout used it whenever she needed us to bring her a load of water or haul her garbage off.   It was used once to report a lightning fire to us since it was after office hours and she was unable to call the dispatcher from her two-way radio.   The problem with this system was not hearing it ring when nobody was near the phone.  The two-way radio system was more reliable, but everybody could hear you all over the Forest depending on your location.    At nights the lookouts could talk to each other over the radio on a social level.  This reminds me of a story a lookout on Hammerhorn Mountain told us when a friend and I spent a night there in 1962 while backpacking through the Yolla Bolly Wilderness on the Mendocino National Forest.   He told us a recently young married couple were the lookouts on a peak to the south of his location, I think called Black Butte.   He said they had left the base set radio transmitter lever on and during the night many of the other Forest lookouts could hear the heated commotion after the lights went out.  

Sometime in the 1990’s cell phones came into use.   Through my credit union in Springfield I got my first analog cell phone in 1997 for free from Verizon with a monthly cost of $20.   When everything went digital they informed my phone had to be replaced and they sent me a Motorola phone, again for free and still $20 a month.   I believe this was in 1999, not sure, but I still have this phone with the original battery.  Took a while to learn how to use it and never fully understood all the functions available on it.    A few years ago I took the phone into the Verizon shop in Roseburg where the people there had never seen one this old.    They checked it out and got it programed for caller ID, call waiting and showed me it could receive and send text messages.   They tried to sell me a new smart phone where my monthly bill would be increased to pay for it over time.   I declined in fear of never learning all its functions and besides my old Motorola could do all the basic things I needed.    When we had our land line phone disconnected four or five years ago we got a second cell phone for Celia.  It is the flip type phone and more complicated to use than my phone.    Our monthly rate for the two phones is $54 with a limit of 700 hours.   Our old land line phone was about the same amount per month and did not include long distant calls.    Now we never leave home without our cell phones.  

How did we ever survive in our younger days riding our bikes down country roads, getting flat tires, crashing into the ditch and getting bruised knees with no way to call mom?