Haven't Been Around Awhile -- Life Happens -- But We Shouldn't Go Backwards

Sorry, I haven't been writing for my blog for quite a bit of time. The only thing I can say is that life is happening.

And obviously there have been some changes to the blogging software that are quite obvious to me as I try and type this missive.

Anyway, I do plan to get back to this blog. There is a lot happening in my life and a lot happening in life around us all. Some of it good and some of it not so good -- not just in my life but, it seems, in many other people lives.

I've had some good news in my life about photography but not enough to say that I can now make a living as a professional photographer. Still, I have had opportunities arise that look to be promising.

On the other hand, the job market in general -- and for some of my skills in general -- looks less promising. Let's just say for now that out-sourcing is taking its toll on a lot of us with high tech/computer skills.

I certainly believe that is no less due to the politics and policies of quite a number of Republicans, especially a couple who are running for Governor and U.S. Senator in California (Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina) -- I personally call them the quintessential "out-sourcing Queens" since that seemed to be their policies as CEOs of their former corporations. I cannot see them changing if they are to become elected officials.

My fear is that if they are elected, they will push to implement policies that only further erode the middle-class in America and will send too many better paying jobs out of this country. So you can only expect to see an increase in unemployment if Whitman and Fiorina are elected and manage to influence economic policy.

I've written about the "dismantling of the middle-class in America" in a previous blog. Unfortunately, the newly charged "Tea Partiers" in America (and quickly embraced by the GOP) -- many of whom are middle-class -- seem to be blind to what the GOP will do to make it harder in this country to either aspire to become or remain a member of America's middle class -- let alone that old American dream of becoming wealthy.

How unfortunate that these "tea partiers" do not envision how far their economic lives will be set back by allowing the GOP to revert our country to the policies of GW Bush.

Unfortunately, they are misplacing their blame for our current economic straits. The hated "economic stimulus packages" and tax policies that have gotten us into this economic mess did not come out of the current Barack Obama abminstration.

Those policies were put forth and enacted during the Bush administration. But people's memories, unfortunately, are very short and they want to blame the current administration.

The other thing people do not seem to understand is that correcting the course of a large economy such as ours takes time to reverse that course. There is a certain amount of momentum that needs to be corrected that does not happen over night.

In fact, it would be lucky if it happened over just a couple of years and really takes more like nearly a decade to change.

So think about it: The Bush policies have had several years to influence our economic situation. And where are we? In the midst of the most difficult recession this country has seen since the Great Depression. Why nobody wants to blame GW Bush administration for this economic disaster puzzles me.

People seem to want to blame Obama for what he inherited from the failed policies of the GW Bush administration.

How unfortunate that people do not seem to understand the difficulties of this country's economic momentum and misplace blame for an economic disaster that was created by the GW Bush administration.

The real shame is that the voting public now wants to go back to the failed policies of the previous administration before a course correction can even begin to happen under the new administration.

Frankly, I'm prepared -- but not happy -- for the worst.

My biggest disappointment is that most American really just don't pay proper attention.

Sometimes Things Really Do Change for the Good

This may be a bit late but I had to think about it some. So please bear with me.

Memorial Day came and went. We spent it like a lot of other people: Relaxing, some barbecue pork back ribs, and a movie.

That doesn’t go to the feelings I have about Memorial Day. I’m a Vietnam vet. I went over when I was 18-years-old and spent nearly two years there.

I came home from Vietnam in February 1969. During the years I lived in Washington, D.C., I made it a point on each Memorial Day to visit The Wall – that is the Vietnam Memorial with the names of brothers and sister who died or went missing during the war.

Since I’ve moved to the San Francisco area I can only go there in my heart, which I fervently did on that day.

I’ve also noticed a change across the country on Memorial Day over the years, especially in recent times. It seemed that for so long and beginning about the time of the Vietnam War the holiday was all but forgotten.

Then the change came about shortly after the beginning of the Iraq War. People started paying attention and honoring veterans and those fallen in the conflict. This also has been the same for Afghanistan.

It certainly is a stark contrast to how those of us who served in Vietnam were treated and remembered.

A Million Gallons Here And A Million Gallons There: Now We're Talking About Some Real Oil

The Gulf oil spill continues to dominate the news, and with good reason.

It seems that every effort by BP to stem the massive deep-well oil flow gets stalled. The perception is that BP really doesn’t know what it is doing. Yeah, they got a cap in place on the Deepwater Horizon well this last week but oil still flows into the Gulf.

The major issue is that BP put profits above safety. They apparently knew the risks drilling so deep in the Gulf. Still, they just went about business as usual and didn’t worry that there might be a massive blowout let alone put any thought into disaster planning.

BP CEO Tony Hayward even admitted the company couldn't handle the crisis. "What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit," he said.

Before that, with foot firmly in mouth, he added insult to injury by declaring that the spill is not a problem because the gulf “is a very big ocean.” Then he goes onto add that “the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest."

Let's not forget the various corporate finger-pointing about which particular company – BP or a myriad of sub-contractors – was to blame and drew the ire of Congress. It really was kind of comic to watch but I wasn't laughing. More than anything it was pathetic that no one wanted to take responsibility.

Now there is news of a criminal investigation. I'm not sanguine that anything will come of it, let alone indictments or convictions.

Why should I, over here in California, care? I remember the 1969 oil spill in the Santa Barbara Channel. While much smaller by comparison to the Gulf blowout I think it is still relevant.

Is There Any Getting The Best of Bullies?

I read a lot these days about bullies in schools. It is not heartening news. Many of the stories have tragic endings. It saddens me.

When I was growing up I had many encounters with bullies. Since I changed schools often in my childhood I became a target of bullies.

I think I was generally a target because I was new, but also because I grew rapidly as a child and usually was taller than anybody else in my classes. It didn’t matter that I was match thin, I still was perceived as bigger, so to speak.

So bullies came after me.

Over the years, for me there are three particular encounters with bullies that stand out.

The first was when I was in the second grade in Long Beach – about 7-years-old at the time.

A girl and I had befriended each other in the school playground.

Now, you have to understand, that young boys and girls at that age generally are not friends or companions. Young boys seem to have an innate hatred, scorn or just plain contempt of young girls. Sounds like "eyew" or "yuch" come to mind.

Nonetheless, I didn’t have a problem playing with girls at that age. It probably was because my closest companion in general at the time was my sister, who was a year younger than me.

I remember the girl, Sharon, and I met daily during recess and we’d talk and laugh together. We even made make believe homes in the sand and pretended we were married. Call us precocious. Maybe we just wanted to feel the affection neither of us felt at home.

There was a third grader in the school yard who seemed to think of himself as lord of all the kids in his grade and below.

Even Back-burner Dreams Can Bring Rewards Later In Life

Last week I noted that there have been two constants in my life: music and photography. Certainly music was a much bigger constant.

That does not diminish my love of photography and how much it has filled my life. However, until my early 20s photography seemed to move in and out of my life.

I read a lot of comic books as a young boy. Advertised inside and sometimes on the back covers of comic books was an “opportunity” to sell Cloverine Salve and earn credits to use to redeem products from their catalogue.

When I was 10-years-old I sent away to try this “opportunity.” I got the box of salve a few weeks later along with the catalogue of items I could work for. The only thing that interested me was a camera.

We lived in Mt. Baldy Village at the time and it turns out that the salve worked pretty well on mosquito bites. So I easily sold all the cans in the first box and sent away for a second box. I needed to sell about 3 boxes for enough credits to claim the camera.

It took awhile longer to sell the second and third boxes but I did and before the summer was over I received the camera in the mail. It wasn’t much of a camera. Mostly plastic parts, it wasn’t the highest quality camera, I’m sure.

Shortly afterward we moved down the hill to Ontario. With the camera, I was a big hit with the girls in my neighborhood who loved to play fashion model and pose for me. I shot a few rolls of film and convinced my parents to get them developed.

I vaguely remember the square 2-1/2”x2-1/2” black & white prints of these young girls posing provocatively in their swim suits. I gave most of them away to the models. They loved them.

Chasing Dreams Sometimes Isn't What We Expect

I just finished watching “The Rookie,” the story of Jim Morris who got a chance to live his dream of being a major league baseball pitcher long after he had given up on that dream.

It is one of my favorite movies and chokes me up every time I see it.

It got me to thinking about my dreams.

I talked about some of that regarding my journalism career in a previous blog.

While I had dreams and aspirations in journalism that may not have been fulfilled as I had envisioned in college, nonetheless I don’t feel that my aspirations were truly unfulfilled. Those dreams were just fulfilled differently than I had perceived as a young man.

I’ve learned that life’s dreams also are not narrow, at least for me.

There have been two constants in my life since I was a child: music and photography.

Ambitions Are All in How We Perceive Them

At the recent college reunion, my old dorm-mate, Ken, said one thing to me that stood out: “I had bigger ambitions for my career.”

Ken works for a small daily newspaper in Arizona. He has written a few big stories and won a few state awards for his reporting. Nonetheless, he feels a hollow sense of accomplishment in his career. Ken also says that things at his sheet aren’t looking good and he fears the future.

To me it is a shame to fear the future. I’ve been there but not at this point in my life.

I face an uncertain future even now but not with fear.

Certainly, my journalism career didn't end up as I had hoped while still a starry eyed college student. Quite a number of my college classmates went on to very illustrious careers with some major publications. Yet, there were many like Ken and me who never got close to our lofty ambitions.

I started my career after college at a small weekly newspaper with a news staff of two. We did everything – the reporting, writing, photography, editing, layout and even paste-up.

A few months later I landed a job at a small daily newspaper in Orange County, CA. Before six months had passed I had the flagship beat and held it for a few years.

My city editor, Stan, was extremely old school – he had worked for the Los Angeles Hearld Examiner when William Randolph Hearst was still alive and kept his hand on things at his publications. He held us mesmerized with his stories of those old days in journalism.

I feel privileged that he was my first city editor and remember him fondly.

Remembering a Trusted Companion

You may recall my blog about picking cotton in Arizona as a child and that we were there because Dad had committed a crime in California and was on the run.

We stayed in Arizona for about seven months. Eventually time ran out for Dad. The local police gave him a choice, be locked up and face an extradition hearing or voluntarily return to California and surrender. It was early spring 1957. He chose the latter.

When we got back to California my Mom found a woman to take care of us.

It was typical of Mom to farm us out somewhere when taking care of us seemed overwhelming to her. This time Mom said she couldn’t take us with her where she had found a new job. Turns out it was a barmaid job at a lodge on Mt. Baldy. Part of her pay was a room in the lodge and she couldn’t have children stay with her.

The woman she left us with lived alone and seemed pleased to have me and my sister around. I remember Mrs. Devonshire very fondly.

A widow in her late 40s or so, she had a nice place in Chino. I even had my own bedroom. Best of all, she treated us with love and kindness we had rarely known.

The town was quite rural at that time and Mrs. Devonshire’s nearest neighbor lived about 100 yards down the road. On the other side of her property was a huge vacant lot.

Taking a Long Walk Down Nostalgia Lane

This weekend I am getting together with some old college classmates and unlike depictions I’ve seen in many movies I doubt it will be filled with angst.

It is the 50th anniversary of my university’s newspaper and to honor the event the Communications Department organized a reunion of all its former staffers.

I haven’t attended any school reunions. As for high school, that wouldn’t happen since I’m a high school drop-out. I seriously doubt that class reunions are organized for junior colleges. And my university was so big and fragmented that a class reunion would be very unlikely.

So a reunion of the university newspaper’s staffers on a historic anniversary is probably the closest things I’ll get to attend a real class reunion.

My class was the class of 1977. We actually had a pretty good class.

The Sciatica Saga Continues

The sciatica remains and probably will continue as a part of my life if not for years to come at least for weeks or months ahead.

At this point the worst seems to have passed – for now. Still, this has been the most challenging malady I have encountered in my life.

My wife, Kerry, says she cannot imagine what I’m going through. She is sympathetic and believes I’m in agony because she has seen me endure pain without complaint in the past. This pain is beyond anything from the past.

I feel old and I’m not old. I also feel betrayed by my body. I think that this may be a time for a major lifestyle change and I’m researching my options.

My chiropractor is optimistic that it will continue to get better. Yet, each day is different. I can go a day or two without taking more than one or two pain killers. Then I have a day and night like last Tuesday when I took four pain pills through the night just to get through.

Dealing with another crisis

I haven't abandoned this blog. I've just been dealing with yet another event in my life: Sciatica.

I've been taking the past couple of weeks to continue recuperating. I'll be back at the blog again in the next couple of weeks. So please stay tuned and check back soon.

Just bear in mind that this has been a very challenging malady and extremely debilitating. It is difficult to sit for very long at the computer.

In them old cotton fields of Arizona

In an earlier blog I talked about how long I have worked in this lifetime. It got me to thinking.

Poverty defined my childhood. I cannot remember a time when we were not on welfare or I and my siblings were not wards of the state living in foster homes.

My father and mother were both alcoholics. Dad seemed to have trouble handling responsibility and Mom I think was just a party girl. Nonetheless we lived a pretty hand to mouth existence.

Mom was a high school drop out with limited job skills. Dad, well Dad, let us just say if three strikes had existed during my childhood he would have died in prison.

If a tree falls in the forest is there Passion?

While I watched a movie this morning there was a conversation about passion. It got me wondering: Do I have passion?; Have I ever been passionate about anything?

There is the passion that is loving someone else. Certainly I love my wife and feel passion for her.

But that is not the passion I’m questioning.

Some would say I have a passion for photography. Others would say I have a passion for music. Both have been in my life since adolescence. Certainly I love my photography. Certainly I love music and playing music.

Sometimes I think I am passionate about photography and music. Other times I am not so sure.

So another question comes up: Is there anything in my life that I have been passionate about?

The Few. The RIFed. The Lucky?

Monday arrived after my few days of recuperating from a massive dizzy spell. I only had a couple more days on the job.

I checked my emails to get caught up and listened to a few voice mails. Nothing was urgent.

I always got in earlier than anyone else on my team – and for that matter anyone else in my department. It was a trade-off I’d made a long while back so that someone from our team was on-site and available to our customers in the early morning hours. I also got to go home a little earlier.

Frankly, I kind of enjoyed the solitude of the early morning in the office. I seemed to get a lot more done during that first couple of hours than I ever did the rest of the day. There just were not any distractions at that time of the morning.

What a Way to Go Out

In June, we’d received the news that the take-over of our company was complete. So at this point everyone was on pins and needles waiting to see what happens next.

Nearly a month had passed since the announcement.

It was a Tuesday and just another day for me on the job. Had a few calls that morning from customers about problems, worked on a recurring issue we were having with the software, and had some chit-chat with some friends about the future.

Lunchtime came and I headed off for the cafeteria. While standing in line to order I suddenly felt dizzy.

I had experienced something similar a few months earlier. At the time my doctor suspected a transient ischemic attack (TIA) – in other words a minor stroke.

The Dismantling of America's Middle Class

Before I get too far into this blog I don’t want anyone to think that I’m a depressed potentially suicidal individual.

Yes, I have had my moments in the dumps. But generally I am a pretty optimistic guy. My catch phrase in life is: It’s a good life and someone has got to live it.

Still, I can’t help but feel down these days.

The daily news doesn’t help. The government pummels us day after day with more sour numbers on the economy. It is questionable whether the federal bailouts have helped anything, especially in light of the Wall Street fat cats and banking moguls still getting huge bonuses.

Those Old Alarm Clock Blues

I wrote this a few weeks before I got my layoff notice. I still think it is appropriate.
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There goes the alarm clock again: Same time, another day. It goes off the same time every day, except Saturdays and Sundays – unless I forget to turn it off. Still, there it goes. Insomnia has kept me awake most of the night so I’ve really been laying here anticipating it.

Most of the anticipation is dread: Dread about the commute; dread about parking; dread about walking into my cubicle yet again; dread about seeing my boss; dread because it is my life and I’m not very happy with it right now.

Late Life Crisis: First Blog

Last October I turned 61. I'd just been laid off from my job of 11 years a month before that birthday. Still, I really don't know what I want to do when I grow up.

I was thinking about some of my past, remembering things from all phases.

I think I might have had a mid-life crisis -- I married a woman 15-years my junior; I quit my career-job in journalism to go to graduate school; I earned a living as a busker (street entertainer) playing banjo and eventually played solo in clubs; my young wife divorced me; I dropped out of graduate school to join a band and go on the road.