Dancing With Danger

THERE WAS A TIME when traveling evangelists would preach their “End Times” sermon at every revival meeting. Usually it was on Friday night, after serving up free hot dogs to all the kids they could round up. It was a surefire way to ensure strong stats for the evangelist’s marketing efforts; not that some of them actually needed real numbers to prove their pulpit power.

The problem became that we had all heard the End Times talk so many times that we had become desensitized to the alarm of it all.

“In psychology, desensitization is defined as the diminished emotional responsiveness to a negative or aversive stimulus after repeated exposure to it. It also occurs when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked in situations in which the action tendency that is associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary.” —Wikipedia

I’m typing this on a Friday afternoon, the sky is dark and there is an eerie calmness outside. Forecasters are once again painting maps in hot colors spelling weather doom. Storm chasers are in position, dopplers are doppling, and we Okies are once again awaiting what could be the Big One, just as we did a few days ago. I hate to say I’ve become desensitized, but I’ve become desensitized.

We Okies joke about our homeland’s fickle weather and shifting tectonic plates. We tend to have fun poking fun at our weather-persons and their giddy anticipation over building storms.

Please, don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful that we have the technology we have and those who are enthusiastically dedidcated to keeping us “4-warned” “ahead of the storm” etc. Goodness knows we’ve seen enough storm destruction, mayhem, and worse to make us cherish all efforts to keep us “weather-aware” and safe.

It’s a love/hate thing—with the weather and the meteorologists. Now that we are seeking adventure in a tiny, shiny, aluminum house on wheels, hail and lightening are our archenemies. So while I love the spring rains, as long as there is a “chance” of severe weather, our little Bambi has to stay in her shelter. And as one of our local weather-prophets said on his TV weathercast just last night, “In Oklahoma, in May, there is always a chance…”

It’s been a few days now since I started composing this post. The storms blew through, the sun came up the next morning and the sky seemed more clear. The grass and trees seemed more green, and Oklahoma is still on the map. Now another weekend is approaching and with it the warning of impending severe weather, and we have weekend travel plans.

I feel like a fourteen year-old boy again. Do I go to the dance even though the evangelist warned that the “King Is Coming” any moment now, and he is bringing wrath for fourteen year-old boys dancing too close with fourteen year-old girls?

I can envision pulling our little hail-pelted Airstream home and the roads being lined with all the weathermen, weatherwomen, and old itinerate preachers saying, “We tried to warn you! Verily, verily, we tried to warn you.”

Spending The Kids' Inheritance

Last fall I wrote this: I HAD A DREAM,  a post about why it seemed wiser to have money in the bank than experiences on the open road.

Today this is sitting in our driveway.

It seems wanderlust got the better of frugality. Or, in the words of John Muir, the naturalist, author, and environmental philosopher:

“The world is big and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark.”

— John Muir

So we picked up our tiny, little Airstream in Springfield, Missouri, and set out on our maiden voyage. The event was marked with a custom poster our son designed for us and framed for our “kitchen” table.

We spent our first two nights alongside the Grand River below the Pensacola Dam in northeastern Oklahoma. . 

Next stop, Shawnee, Oklahoma, home of the Grand-Girls. It took them less than a minute to make the Bambi their own.

These three are optional accessories.

Bambi? It’s not a moniker the girls gave her. “Bambi” is the model name. From the Airstream website:

Nimble. Agile. Some would even say adorable!

The Bambi trailer has always been a favorite among Airstreamers. First launched as a 16-foot single-axle trailer in 1961, the Bambi’s genesis was a proactive response to a nationwide trend. Americans were looking for shorter, lighter, more fuel-efficient automobiles that lacked the power to pull a heavy trailer.

Today, we apply the Bambi name to all single-axle Airstream travel trailers. Their immense popularity isn’t just because of how they look: they’re easy to tow and incredibly versatile, proving great things really do come in small packages.

Occasionally, I’ve had one of those “What the heck have we’ve done!?” moments. But mostly, we’re ready for the next weekend, the next adventure. So many have graciously, and I assume sincerely, offered their driveways as a road trip stopping over place. Be careful. We might just show up.

Stuck in Lodi

IS ADVENTURE ONLY FOR THE YOUNG? Is it important to be on some sort of quest no matter our age?

Harper, Stuck. A few years back.

Stuck in Lodi again?

In my last post I started with a quote from Tom Sawyer: “There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” But what about grown men? Should we metaphorically “play in the street” from time to time?

Stuck in Lodi again?

Guys are pretty good at seeking adventure vicariously. Show me a little league ball team, soccer team or Pop Warner football team and I’ll show you at least one guy living the athetic dream through his kid. Not to cast stones though; every time one of my two sons would sit down at a set of drums I was sitting there too somehow. Is there an age limit on picking up a pair of sticks?

Stuck in Lodi again?

I don’t know about you, but I find it easier and easier to create lists of excuses: I’m not as young as I once was. Too busy. Don’t have the money. Prudence is a virtue too. (Isn’t it?). Folly is for fools. And on, ad nauseum.

Stuck in Lodi again.

I hear old guys talking about having earned the right to “coast” for awhile as if that were virtuous. To state the obvious: if you’re coasting, you’re going downhill. It can all start with just coasting. Then before you know it we’re:

Stuck in Lodi again.

But being stuck isn’t just for old guys. Amen?! There is an abundance of young people glued to impractical worldviews, bad relationships, unfulfilling jobs, distorted self images and unrealistic expectations. Not all, but some, at least some of the time are:

Stuck in Lodi again.

There I go again, throwing rocks without proper credentials (as in, “let him who is without sin cast the first rock”). Recently I went to my doctor for something called a “Welcome to Medicare Wellness Visit.” Sort of like an annual physical. I was poked proded and interrogated. One of the questions was, “Are you having feelings of depression?” My response: “I wasn’t until this all started.” Nothing quite says “you’re stuck in the senior spiral” like a mandatory “Welcome to Medicare Visit”.

Oh Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again.

Maybe the thing that most keeps us stuck is fear. “Stay in the harbor where it’s safe.” “You go ahead. I’ll watch from here.” A few words on the subject from Seth Godin:

I’m listening to a speech from ten years ago, twenty years ago, forty years ago… “During these tough times… these tenuous times… these uncertain times…” And we hear about the urgency of the day, the bomb shelters, the preppers with their water tanks, the hand wringing about the next threat to civilization.

At the same time that we live in the safest world that mankind has ever experienced. Fewer deaths per capita from all the things that we worry about.

Risky? Sure it is. Every moment for the last million years has been risky. The risk has moved from Og with a rock to the chronic degeneration of our climate, but it’s clear that rehearsing and fretting and worrying about the issue of the day hasn’t done a thing to actually make it go away. Instead, we amplify the fear, market the fear and spread the fear as a form of solace, of hiding from taking action, of sharing our fear in a vain attempt to ameliorate it.

Stuck in Lodi again.

If you’re old enough and/or if you have refined musical tastes in southern rock, you know of Creedence Clearwater Revival, the epitome of the genre. And probably by now the tune of the CCR song, “Lodi” is running through your head. It is a song about a musician, one of the struggling, starving kind, trying to get unstuck, but clearly it’s about way more than that, that Lodi is more than a town on a map. Like Fogarty says in the first verse: 

“I guess you know the tune.
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again.”

Lodi

By John Fogarty
Creedence Clearwater Revival

Just about a year ago
I set out on the road
Seekin’ my fame and fortune
Lookin’ for a pot of gold
Thing got bad and things got worse
I guess you know the tune
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

Rode in on the Greyhound
I’ll be walkin’ out if I go
I was just passin’ through
Must be seven months or more
Ran out of time and money
Looks like they took my friends
Oh Lord, I’m stuck in Lodi again

A man from the magazine
Said I was on my way
Somewhere I lost connections
Ran out of songs to play
I came into town, a one night stand
Looks like my plans fell through
Oh Lord, stuck in Lodi again

If I only had a dollar
For every song I’ve sung
Every time I had to play
While people sat there drunk
You know, I’d catch the next train
Back to where I live
Oh Lord, stuck in a Lodi again
Oh Lord, I’m stuck in a Lodi again

How do we get STUCK? Maybe it starts with just settling; as in: settle for less than what we might have hoped for; and, as in: settle down—become comfortable, secure, boring even. I really like the ad series that’s playing right now about the Settlers: “We’re settlers, that’s what we do, we settle.”

If you haven’t seen it, click and watch.

So what’s the answer to not getting stuck or getting unstuck? It’s not a simple formula that’s for sure. You can’t read a book and solve it. A large donation to a TV evangelist won’t do it. A political messiah is useless.

The answer is a paradox: to find yourself, you have to lose yourself. And as far as I can tell you have to actually live it out; experience it, to even begin to understand it.

“Those who try to gain their own life will lose it; but those who lose their life for my sake will gain it.” —Jesus. (Matthew 10:39)

I’m sure sometimes, maybe, “Lodi” or the Wilderness can be a nice place; for a time, but I wouldn’t want to get stuck there

Playing in the Street

“There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy’s life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure.” The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

I feel sorry for so many children today. Maybe they don’t sense the oppression that I believe they live under, especially now as the days begin to warm and grow longer.

One of the privileges of senior adulthood is that you get to talk about the good old days whether anyone cares or not, listens or not, believes you or not. Let’s start this way: back when I was a boy…

We played in the street. We crawled through broken windows exploring empty buildings. We waded the banks of the Arkansas river. We rode our bikes to the little gas station on 71st street to reach into the icy water of the pop box for a bottle of Grapette. The days were full and lasted until after dark when we could hear someone’s parent summoning him home.

This photo of our Grand-Girls and some of their friends reminded me of those times. I am so glad they live in a town, among great friends where they can play in the street, where they are not limited to living adventures only through TV shows and a game on an iPad.

I do not claim to be a poet, but I like to dabble. A while back I took a challenge to write a poem about the street where I grew up. Here it is:

ON QUINCY STREET

On Quincy Street south of seventy-first
A portal stood seen just by boys and girls
The lack of dreams by which adults are cursed
Vice versa saved the wonder of this world.
Quincy to kids as an oyster to pearl
A treasure trove and innocent eyes to see
Princess, Prince or King; not a one a churl
Creating as those who are completely free.
In the venues diverse like the old oak trees
The rock path that leads to the river’s edge
Where grade and pace caused many a skinned knee
But some shed blood strengthens the secret pledge.
The sign at the head of Quincy reads, “Dead End”
It should have said, “Path that adventure tends.”