Music is my only mistress.
She loves only me, or so I dream
Quirky, and fickle
Loyal to no-one…,
playfully enticing anyone who hears
She changes with
a whim of a beat,
a pluck of a string,
the strum of a chord,
the resonant timbre of a note,
the rap of a snare
the joy of harmony
She runs from my welcoming arms
to the open arms of yet another,
a tramp of magnanimous proportions.
Weeping for some, enrapturing others,
floating thru their senses like a wisp of smoke,
its tendrils gently weaving their way into my soul
leaving me awash with the audible nectar of the gods.
She has had her way with me,
casually discarding my tingling senses,
the brilliant notes fading… Once again I am cast adrift, jaded.
Wait! She returns, flooding my fretful heart with a brilliant burst of radiant sunshine, warming the frozen catacombs of my ravaged soul with the healing flow of musical energy. She loves me once more! I am complete…
She tortures me with her passionate outbursts, enticing me with her subtle tonal nuances, leaving me longing for just one more note, one more chord. I’ll threaten to leave without looking back, while her nails dragging down my back, wanting more of me…
Nay, I’ll leave when you are finally done with me, when the silence and emptiness signals the end of our passionate embrace. I must go…
Music, my love, take me to the place where I yearn to be. That turbulent, yet somehow peaceful place, that lies deep within my soul. I will never be sated, nor will I ever stop loving you… ever.
I’m hoping that the New Year brings much promise. Being pessimistic by nature, I don’t expect too much, but I do have a cautiously optimistic view of 2009. I will turn 54 this year, and I am starting to feel the ravages that time, and my previous endeavours have wrought upon my psyche and my physical being. I am much more mellow than I was in my squandered youth, because I finally grasped that I could not sustain the level of effort that I was once capable of. When you push, hard, for 30 plus years, you start to learn the wisdom of choosing the battles that are vitally important. It took me until my late 40’s to come to that realization. In retrospect, I should have focused on my core values and taken time off to retreat from the hubbub of daily life to re-orient my life, and re-establish my goals.
There are several elements necessary to balance out your individual perspective on life, and where you are going with it. The first element is the core, which is knowing who you are, and having the courage and the confidence to go forth in the world and interact with your peers. Your core must be formed around the values that your family taught you (if you are blessed with having a good one, as I was). Growing up in a family unit, you realize that you are part of a functional group, and each person has their responsibilities to contribute. If you don’t, then someone else in the group has to pick up the slack of the non-contributor. A healthy family will work together seamlessly, contributing unselfishly to the common goal of the group. (A common goal is also a key component of the core). When the family unit is disrupted by the illness of one, the family comes together and takes over the duties of the sick, and the caregiver. A self healing system, one that if nurtured, can be passed down thru generations.
Needless to say, if you are not blessed with a perfect family unit (and of course, who is) you will have to witness various breakdowns of the system. We are human, built with countless quirks in our individual natures, so these breakdowns are bound to happen, even more so in large families. This is where the elements of compassion, and the love of your family, can bring you back into equalibrium, and thereby balance your core. Over time, each member of this mini society will have their own crisis, and each crisis will be unique. These crises can bring chaos, or they can be handled in an compassionate and caring manner. It is up to the leaders of the family to guide the fellow members of the family thru these difficult times.
The problem is that there is no formal school to teach parents how to handle these crisis’s. My lament to my fellow parents was that children did not come with an instruction sheet! I now realize is that I had the opportunity to learn the right way of doing things since I was already part of my own family, and I did not learn while I was part of it. Of course I picked up a lot of good habits that helped me have a rudimentary idea of what to do (Because my parents were a good example of what to do). But I am still dumbfounded on how something so complicated as children is left to parents who are nearly incompetent to ascertain the correct way to handle the facile mind of a child (let alone the troubled mind of a teenager). The “perfect family” does not exist!
So, going back to the core. It is a compilation of what your parents infused in you, and the experiences that you learned on your own. Who you are, and who you will become, is the sum of your experiences, and (most importantly) how you adapted to the challenges you meet along the path of life. You will fail, and you will succeed. The ratio of wins to losses is what most people keep score on, but it is much more important to consider this, Mother Nature has built in to each and every one of us the ability to adapt to changes, to allow us to survive. When you rake the leaves, you get blisters first, then you get callouses. Our psyche can take a beating too, but here is where it pays to keep a strong core. Your psychic core will overcome abuse of all kinds, as long as you have built your foundation (core) on solid ground. It requires a confidence borne of knowing yourself intimately, and having a value system burned in your soul to be able to figure out what is right and wrong. Another gift from your parents.
After the core comes the next critical element - Determining and developing the talents that you were given. First you have to find out what talents you are blessed with. The next step is to obtain the necessary knowledge to help you refine your skill set, and test your abilities against your peers. This experience helps you to see how you can contribute to the world in a meaningful way.
This is where the rubber meets the road. Up to this point you have expended countless hours in the quest of knowledge, now is the time to utilize this in a gainful way. That is what makes you want to get up in the morning and go to work, knowing that you are making a meaningful contribution, and the money helps pay the bills too!
My Personal Epiphany
I look back to the mentoring that I got from my mom & dad, which was to work constantly, and hard. I understood what my unique contribution was to the family unit. Since I was the youngest of four children, I was left alone more, so I used that time to read anything that had pages. I lived vicariously thru the adventures of the many authors of many fine works. But alas, I had to climb out from behind the protection of the family unit, detach from the fantasy world of books, and enter the outside world. I had several jobs that I thought were enough to keep me happy, but I had not yet found my passion. I floundered for 5 years before I had to tear myself away from the comfortable job, and go on a sabbatical. Nice thought, but when you quit the job, you don’t have money.
My parents tolerated my search for a couple of months, but then became more forceful in assisting my search for a job. I did not realize it at the time, but their pushing was very necessary, because I would have stayed in that vegetative state for the rest of my life! My older brother was the supervisor of a construction jobsite on the other side of town, and he offered to introduce me to the owners of the companies that were constructing the condominiums, in the hopes of obtaining a good job for me in the trades.
I went just to escape the constant nagging of my well meaning mother who wanted to see me using my brain for a change. Well, I ended up scooping up the big clods of mud that were flung from between the tires of the many cement trucks that were driving up and down the road constantly. Not real hi-tech work, but I did have a strong back then. I kept this up for a couple of weeks, and finally got bored with the whole thing, so I just decided that I did not want to go back. My brother was pissed at me, because he was now without a good worker, and he probably would have to hire someone else to do the same work.
When he asked why I did not come to work that day, I told him that none of the business owners were interested in giving me a job, so why should I come back? He told me that his boss was asking where I was! That surprised me, because up to this point there was no commitment from my brothers’ boss to have me work full time for him, just a couple bucks on the side. I was surprised that his boss wanted me to come work for him, and I was secretly pleased that I had made a noticeable contribution to the jobsite. Bam! I had a job, and they liked what I could do! That was all it took for me to get off my posterior, and start feeling like I was a part of the working world again!
I found out that I had a lot of skills that I had learned from my Dad from working on the many projects around the house. If it were not for those projects I would not have had anything to contribute at all, so I really have to thank my Mom and Dad for giving me what it took to get this job. I became very passionate about this job, and contributed all that I knew to the company. When my brother left on a two week vacation, I was left in charge of the jobsite! I was in control of all of the trades that were on the jobsite. There were electricians, carpenters, plumbers, telephone guys, excavators, landscapers, siding guys, carpet guys, garage door installers, painters, and the condo owners who were moving in, all on the jobsite simultaneously! I was the “go to guy” for any, and all questions, and I thrived on it!
My personal self worth was fortified by so many people needing me, and I loved being the co-ordinator of this marvelous dance! I was only 24 years old, and had no more experience that being a camera repair tech for 5 years, and a do it yourselfer. I had now graduated to the big time! It was a heady experience! Finally, I figured out what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Construction was a booming business at the time, and I loved seeing the tangible result of the effort put forth every day. There is nothing like driving down the newly paved road surrounded by 36 new condo’s, knowing that you were instrumental in getting them ready for people to move in. I was finally contributing! i can’t tell you what that did for me! I met my future wife during those times, and so many other good things happened to me during that time that were all a result of finding my purpose, and the confidence that comes with that!
In retrospect, I see that I was fortunately surround with other hard working souls who shared my passion for construction. I have gained from the synergy that these fine people have shared with me. I have learned much from this school of hard knocks, more that I could have from any college in the land. Even though I no longer work in the trades, the experiences I learned in that all too short period of time served me well. Forged in the crucible, I quickly was able to gain traction. My previous jobs did not utilize my abilities, I was just like a car with a powerful engine up on jackstands. The rubber had yet to meet the road!
Thanks for listening!
JC
PS - Tip for the Day - Surround yourself with hard working people, and work just as hard or harder than they do, and just watch where you end up!!!
Next Installment - Guiding and controlling the power
Old Tyme cars are cool!
Well, I got started on my Tumblr blog, and wrote about a page of info, and the computer decided to lock up! I love my PC…not!
So I will do it a paragraph at a time, which will take longer, but oh well!
See you next time!
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11-16-08
I’m back again!
I wanted to share some of things I did while I was growing up. My Dad had a huge influence on me during my formative years. Looking back, I can see how he cultured my thinking. He passed away on December 24th, 2000. He was 86 years old when he left us. I remember not liking him very much when I was a teenager. He was always pushing me to do thing I did not want to do. I guess that is what most Dad’s do.
I was a lazy kid, and since I was the youngest, I got away with a lot. I was a bookworm, reading anything that was in the house, voraciously. There were always Readers Digest monthly books, which contained some good humor, and all kinds of medical articles, like “I am Joe’s liver”.
There were articles on famous people, and stories of real heroes, brave firemen and policemen. There were stories of regular people like you and I, saving peoples lives in all sorts of terrible circumstances. Wars, burning buildings, shipwrecks, tornadoes… To me these stories were really inspirational. These were real people, pushing themselves to race into a burning building with no regard for their own safety, just a single minded drive to help someone else.
But I digress…Dad would have chores for me, and so would Mom. Dad chores were to clean out the dog pen (I’ll leave that to your imagination) every day. Take out the garbage on Fridays, and help him on the endless projects that he was working on around the house. We would prepare the house for the onset of winter, by taking the furnace apart and oiling the bearings, and tightening the belt. We would vacuum the inside of the fan, and clean out the burners. Then we would shut off the power to the outside air conditioning evaporator and hose the leaves and cottonwood seeds out of the unit, and wrap it up for the winter to protect it.
Next was the leaf raking, which was a project that we would undertake each weekend during fall until all of the leaves fell to the ground. We didn’t have just a couple of tree’s, but about thirty to fourty good size tree’s. I was not very atheletic, so it was pretty hard to keep up with my Dad, because he was a tough old bird. I would always get some good blisters on my hands, until I saw the wisdom of using gloves. We used to rake them in piles, and burn them, which I enjoyed. The burning leaves smelled good! But then the city decided that this was not safe, and we were forbidden to burn leaves.
There is a specific way the Campbell’s rake leaves…never leave one behind. Under the bushes, and even the low growing myrtle had to be raked out. No stone left unturned was my dad’s hallmark! He had one of those old Parker leaf sweepers that would cut a swath of 40 inches wide on the lawn. Not a bad device, but you had to cut the lawn real short before the leaves covered the grass, because the sweeper was almost impossible to push when the grass was long. Trust me, I know!
We got smart and bought tarps to lay down in the back yard and raked the laves on top and dragged it up to the front yard where the city would come by and pick them up if you left them on the curb. Then Dad bought a mulching machine and it would turn the leaves into a fine mulch that you could put down in the flower beds. You still had to rake the leaves into piles, but then you could roll the mulcher to the leaf pile, which if you were smart, was right next to the flower bed…
My Dad was the inventive type, who loved to come up with a solution to a problem. One day as we were raking the leaves into the mulcher, he had a brainstorm. Why don’t we take some of that dryer vent hose, and adapt it to the suction end of the mulcher? He promptly went up to the hardware store and bought the parts he thought would do the trick. The concept did work, but the mulcher did not have a great deal of suction. Today, you can buy that mulcher at at Sears with the same kind of hook up. He used to drive me nuts with that stuff, but after a while I started to notice some of the goofy idea’s he had were pretty cool. He would try to involve me in helping him make some of these things in our shop in the basement.
Another one of his pet peeves was the squirrel climbing up on the birdfeeder and emptying it out. So my Dad, Mr. Inventive, would come up with all kinds of goofy things to keep the squirrels off of the feeder. His most effective one was the feeder that he put a upside down serving tray below the feeder, to foil the squirrels attempts to jump up on the feeder.
Dad would sit at the kitchen table, looking out the window to the back yard where the birdfeeder was located, having his snack of smoked cheese and crackers. He also would have a Carling Black Label beer (one of his customers) and watch the squirrel jump on the tray, and slide right off, because it would tilt when the weight of the squirrel was on it. The birds would have no problem when they sat on the edge of the tray, because they were so light weight. Dad would chuckle, and go downstairs for about 45 minutes to rest his back by laying on the hard family room floor. Then he would go back at the leaves until it was dark.
The home we had was custom built. It was “finished” in 1963, and we moved into it that fall. My Dad prepared the front yard, brought in topsoil, and had sod brought in to roll out like a carpet for a beautiful lawn. But before the sod was delivered, Dad had another brainstorm.
The trench that was cut in the yard for the sewer and storm sewer lines was filled back in by the construction company, but it was still soft to walk on. So up to the hardware store he went, and made himself a device to hook up to the garden hose that he would shove into the soft ground and it would take the loose soil, and turn it into mud, and it would sink in to the trench. Dad would fill the trench back up with soil, and do it all over again, until the ground did not sink in any more. Then we could lay the sod. actually that was not my job, since I was too small to help, but my brother Mike was the laborer on that job, and a dirty one that was! The lawn did turn out nice, and that trench never sunk in at all for over 30 years! I guess Dad knew what he was doing!
We would burn logs in the winter in the downstairs fireplace, just because Dad liked a good fire. So to support that passion, we had saved all of the lumber that was cut down when the house was built, and let the cords of wood dry out for a few years until it was ready to split. That was another of our tasks. I was not very good at splitting the logs, but I stacked the split logs the way Dad liked them to be, with spaces to dry them out. Dad would take the axe, and swing it time after time to split the wood. If there were some really stubborn logs, Dad would get the sledge hammer out and a big chisel that we would take turns driving deep into the log before it finally split. Then he would go in the house, and grab a beer, and after he had a long pull of of it, he’d hand it to me and told me I had earned a sip. Of course I took a big slug, since I was parched from sweating so much, and he would put his hand out for the bottle, and I gave it back. He always let me finish the rest. I liked the fact that he shared that beer with me, because it made me feel like I was doing something worthwhile, and to be old enough to drink a beer with my Dad felt kind of cool. We would stop from time to time, and pet the dog, who was dying for us to let him come out of the pen and play with us.
When Dad did not have anything for me to do, Mom’s chores were many. First things were to clean the bathrooms twice a week. We had two full baths and one half bath. The girls did their bathroom, and my brother and I shared the duties on the mens bathroom. Then there were the floors to mop. The kitchen had to be mopped once a week, and the hallways upstairs and downstairs had to be mopped as well. The upstairs had to be vacuumed, and all of the bedrooms and the den needed cleaning too. Dusting was a big deal to my Mom, but fortunately for Mike and I, we were able to leave that to the girls. (I know, that was chauvanistic, but those were the times) Then there was cleaning the windows. Mom would follow you around the house, on the inside of the window pointing to a spot I missed on darn near every window I did!. There were a lot of windows, let me tell you.
I also had to bring in the milk from the milk chute as soon as I got home from school, and put it in the refrigerator. On a day off of school, the milkman would drive up to the house, and I would run out and get the milk from him. His name was “Tiny” and he knew both my Mom and Dad. He would offer me a ride around the block if I would help him deliver the milk. Well, I was not of much help, because he would give me a small box of chocolate milk, and I would sit next to the blocks of ice in the truck, and enjoy the “air conditioning”, while Tiny did his job. After I had polished off the chocolate milk, Tiny would have made it around the block, and dropped me off at the house on his way back thru. Mom would be waiting at the door with a smile on her face, and wave goodbye to Tiny.
When I was going through my adolescent rebellious years, I still worked around the house. but I had some time to pursue some of my other teenage hobbies. I would play my records on the family stereo too loud and play the same songs over and over again.
I bought a bass guitar of of a good friend, and worked on mimicing the great bass guitar players of the time like Paul McCartney (I had the same style guitar as he had) and Led Zepplin, Yes, Iron Butterfly. But I had no one else to play with, so I sold it to someone else. I was singing in the school glee club, and I used to sing harmony with a bunch of guys that were good acoustic guitarists. They gave me the bug to play guitar, so I bought one off of a girl at St. Augustine Acadamy, and started teaching myself to play. My sister Katie wrote me a song, called “my fine curly towhead”, and we tried to collaborate on making the song work. Unfortunately, I was not very good, and once again I gave up on playing an instrument.
Well, that’s enuf for now! More to come soon!
Next installment will be on the Campbell way of painting a room.
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