My Imaginary Life-

No. Not that kind of imaginary life. Really. I hardly ever think like that. What I am writing about is what I imagine my life could be if I weren't caught up in a web of responsibilities and consequences from my prior choices. Life with sufficient resources to live as I choose, without considering the needs and wants of others.

It is not a life of opulence. I don't value bling. I don't long for big houses and expensive cars. Indeed, I dream right now of being in the desert of Southern California, living in my van. Wandering around those communities, exploring and just living slow and simple and at a very low cost. Why there? The winter temperatures range from good to manageable. The restrictions on just camping free are minimal. Resources and great empty spaces are near enough to each other to make it work.

This life I imagine is actually do-able, if I did not have the previously mentioned responsibilities. I have the resources to make this life real. I just choose not to do so, in order to care for those to whom I am committed. The people I love. I prefer to meet my obligations, but my mind drifts away at times to that [imagined] desert and a life of simplicity and much quiet.

I do not regret my life. It is pretty much what I have worked to accomplish. Still, at times my mind drifts off and I imagine my quiet camp near Slab City or somewhere near the southern terminus of US Route 395. Imagine. It is probably better this way. I have an imaginary retreat to which my mind can go when I find the consequences of my choices less than ideal. A Happy Place. A Laughing Place.

These imaginings are more valuable to me because I could do them, if I were to choose a selfish course and abandon my responsibilities. Life as a wealthy vagabond yacht owner might have greater appeal, but it is not achievable for most of us. Certainly not for me. I have a used van and camping gear. I am only a decision away from the high-end hobo life.

Therein is the value. I daily choose to remain and share my days with those I love. I choose to keep this way of life. It is a real choosing. It is not a real choice to abandon the yacht. I can't have one. To abandon a viable option is a real choice. I choose this life, and am happy in the choosing.

Most of the time. The rest of the time, I can imagine.

I do not trust my government-

It's true. I do not trust the government of the United States of America. Oh, I love my country. I served my country with pride. I have a special love for my brothers and sisters in arms, serving now and in the past. I love the ideals of America and I love the American people. I do not, however, trust the government.

I do not trust the governments of other countries, either. Indeed, I trust most of them far less than I trust my own government. However, I still don't trust my own government.

When I was growing up my government was drafting young men and sending them off to a foreign land to do military adventuring for reasons I still do not understand. Oh, there are a lot of reasons offered, but none of them mean anything to me. I grew up believing that my government wanted to send me away to die. I just did not find that to be a good relationship builder.

In spite of that I joined the Army even during the Vietnam Conflict. I did that largely to protect myself, but I was also proud to serve. You see, in those days they offered "guarantees" regarding training and assignments. I joined the part of the Army that dealt with nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, due to some personal flaws and tactical errors I never finished the nuke training. I ended up in supply. Supply people could go anywhere.

I was not disappointed when my tour took me to Germany. Not that such a situation was safe. It was not uncommon for a soldier to go to a non-combat assignment for a year or so and be then sent to combat to serve their last year. Vietnam could still have been my future. However, we finally decided that we had done enough of whatever we were doing there and got out of Vietnam. Before I had to go there.

As I said, I don't mind.

In those days you served a single tour in combat during an enlistment. That is all that was required. That is all they needed, because they were constantly drafting young men to throw into the mill. Lots of post traumatic stress to go around.

Today they keep sending soldiers back into the mill. No draft to refresh the pool. They grind them fine, these modern warriors. Men and women. Rather than screwing up a lot of people they just focus on screwing up a smaller number but being sure they are thoroughly ruined. Then they neglect them and throw money into protracting another set of wars that don't seem to be accomplishing anything.

Did I mention I don't trust my government? Can you imagine why I don't?

I recall a movie in which a character said, "Justice is the ideal. The law is what we live with." America, the Constitutional America, the Bill of Rights America, is the ideal. The government in whatever perverted form it happens to take is what we live with.

I love America. I even love our government. I just cannot trust that government. I am not convinced that they (those who govern) have my interests and the interests of my family at heart. I am confident I can survive their incompetence and corruption, but that is not trust. That is faith in myself and my capacity to survive. I would rather they be my partners and we could work together toward a brighter future.

Too much of what politicians do is just to seem like they are my friends. If they look right, they must be right, right? Con-men like to get you thinking the same way.

Secret wars, misrepresented wars, hidden agendas, and bridges built to nowhere are not the keys to my cynical heart. Keep in mind, previous generations of these current political creatures wanted to send me off to kill and die in a foreign land. Perhaps such are the ways things must be done in this world. If so, I will leave it to them to do it. I don't want that world.

It is probably too late for me. I may not be winnable, as a true believer in any political entity. I am probably not worth the winning, anyway. Uncompromising people of high ideals don't involve themselves in politics. Perhaps they can't. Fish don't fly (at least very far) for a reason. I have been lied to too long and too often to join the camp of some new pretender.

Still, I love America. Even an America that gives vast wealth to rich bastards who ruin the economy with their piracy, spends a fortune on blowing up a part of the world that already looks like it has been blown up, and rejoices in the pitiful projects that become necessary to take care of the broken veterans who were sacrificed to the machine, because the wealth is still being given to bastards and bombs.

God bless America. She needs it.

Valentine Failure-

It is most unfortunate for my wife that I am devoid of any inherent romanticism. I am simply not romantic. Oh, I have tried, and sadly failed. I feel like a chimp wearing a suit when I try to be romantic. It just doesn't fit, and it looks comical no matter how fine the quality of the suit.

I have a friend who claims he has no natural understanding of poetry. He just doesn't get it. Poetry has no meaning to him. It does not resonate with anything within him. I have to imagine that any poem he might try to write would be as successful as a poem as my failed attempts at romanticism are at romance. To the best of my knowledge he never even made the attempt.

It is not for lack of love for my wife. Indeed, that love has grown deeper over the years. Unfortunately, the way I have expressed that love was to stick to a series of generally crappy jobs to provide for her and the kids. I have done some very unpleasant things to make a buck, and generally have given every one of those dollars to her. Real love, but not romantic love.

Perhaps I tend to give up at things like 'romance' too quickly. I once waded up to my waist in a vile chemical ooze as part of my job by which I earned money for my family. I worked diligently until I dislodged the blockage and got the ooze running to the place ooze was supposed to go. My wife and kids didn't see me do that. I did it for them. Yet I have not managed to stick to the 'romance' thing long enough to even master a comical mimicry.

As a correctional officer I wrestled a guy covered in urine not once but twice in the same week. Well, two separate guys, but they both had pissed themselves and I had to wrestle them in the performance of my duty. Twice in one week. I did it because I love my wife and the family we share. It was very far from being romantic.

I have been shocked by high voltage electricity, exposed to way too many chemicals, acquired a disease that will remain with me the rest of my life, exposed to radiation, insulted and disrespected, all to provide for my family. I did it willingly, because I love my wife and the children that resulted from that love. It was my poem to them. My unromantic failed Valentine poem lived for them.

I have not given her much in the way of diamonds. Indeed, I don't see why they are valuable, or why it is important to own them. I gave her children, and the children have given us children, and they are much more valuable to me. I can write that here, but when I try to express such thoughts to her they fall flat. I don't know why. Perhaps if I were inherently romantic I would know how to do it right.

I ordered her flowers. Once. She loved them. Unfortunately, she is the one who pays the bills, and paying for the flowers I gave her didn't spark the same feelings as receiving them. Since I give her all of the money I earn, I don't really know how to do it in a better way. Take on an extra job so I have money for flowers? Great! I have to spend even more time away from her to buy her dying foliage! I have some trouble seeing the romance in that.

Quite simply, I am a Valentine Failure. A chimp in a suit. This blog is probably just the very most wrong thing I can do. I love you, Linda. I may suck at expressing it, but I do love you. Twenty years of wrestling drunks may not be a Valentine, but I did that, and more, for you.

Happy Valentines Day!

A Tribute to an Old Friend-

This past Monday, November 15, it became necessary to put our old dog, Bernard, to sleep. He was fourteen years old, and gray around the muzzle. He was arthritic, partially blind, mostly deaf, and plagued by a large tumor in his side. For all of that he still had some pretty good days. Dog days, but all of his days were dog days.

During the week before we took him in to end his life, he was unable to keep much down in the way of food and water. The tumor had invaded his insides to the point of restricting his stomach. Any future he might have would be an extended period of vomiting and protracted starvation. Though with humans we do not permit a more graceful exit, with dogs a decision can be made and acted upon.

And so it was.

He came to us, fourteen years ago, when my daughter brought a puppy home. I was not thrilled. From the beginning it was necessary for someone to take him out to do his duty, and I was often that person. Over the years the kids moved away, but Bernard stayed. And stayed. And stayed.

He was, for the most part, a good dog. He was a Beagle mix, but mostly looked like a generic hound in black and white. I considered him the first of a new breed, The North American Stupid Hound. He really was not stupid, he was just very doggy. He was also the perennial omega dog. That's the opposite of the Alpha dog. Bernard submitted to everyone else in the pack.

For most of his life I was busy. My job required a lot of my time, and what was left did not often fall to the dog. In spite of the lack of any significant attention, Bernard became increasingly devoted to me. I always thought he got a bad bargain in the relationship, but dogs are dogs and can't help that deep and unthinking devotion.

During this last year I have been retired. I have been increasingly available to Bernard, and that suited him just fine. Over the last six months of his life he was seldom far from me. Indeed, in the last month or two I could walk no more than ten feet from the end of his tether. Beyond that and he responded as if being abandoned forever.

I did not abandon him. I allowed him the dubious benefits of my presence most of the time. I was present as he suffered the last indignity, which was handled gently and compassionately by the vet and her assistant. I watched and kept my hand on his head as he breathed his last.

I loved that old dog. In spite of myself and my devotion to my own cantankerousness and seeming insensitivity, I loved that dog.

No, I don't want another one. They are messy, inconvenient, and restrict mobility. What's more, they worm their way into your heart. Then they precede you into death, leaving you with a void that need never have existed. No, I don't want another one.

Then again, life has taught me to "never say never."

Goodbye, Bernard. You were my friend.

Happiness-

Some time back I watched a television program in which the idea of happiness was examined. There was some argument for an inherited aptitude for happiness in humans. It was an interesting idea, somewhat supported by my own experiences in an impromptu laboratory. I have been in jail for almost twenty years now, an officer with the opportunity to observe.

I tend to have a significant degree of circumspection in my life. I examine it constantly, assessing and evaluating and contemplating. Perhaps even obsessively. While I can point to many periods and even more moments of contentment, I cannot point to extended periods of happiness. I can point to even fewer periods (and even moments) of ecstasy, but I don't think that very many of us expect to be ecstatic most of the time.

Having observed humans for quite some time, many of whom were going through some of the lower periods in their lives, I can informally conclude that happiness is an occasional experience, at best. This is not a bad thing. Those who framed the Constitution recognized that the pursuit of happiness framed our lives, not the realization. It is a state to which we aspire, and as a consequence of our efforts many good things happen.

Today I experienced happiness. I was shopping at Safeway, receiving periodic messages from the family visiting Disneyland. I observed a number of big, burly daddies with their daughters, and then stepped outside into the sunshine. I loaded my groceries into the truck, responded to a message on my phone, looked around, and realized that I was happy.

For some reason I was just happy. I cannot say why. I know I was not ecstatic. I know I was more than content. I was happy. I was happy that my family was having a good experience. I was happy to be alive. I was just happy. It was nice, and it has lasted through the afternoon. I am delighted by that.

I have reviewed some blogs, edited some photos and albums. I have been content, and even happy. I have realized (fortunately not for the first time) that I have a very good life. I also realized that, should my life end soon, it has been disproportionately good.

In the context of the world, I have been lucky. In the context of my Christian faith, I have been blessed. Perhaps other contexts might give me another word or two, but the essence of my observations today is that I am happy.

I cannot discount my recent decision to retire from Corrections. I get out of jail on February 5, 2010. This decision may well have opened my capacity for happiness. Jail is a hard place to live, and I can easily see forces contrary to happiness working there. Yes, that decision may well have liberated my psyche to be happy.

My hope is that my days may be long on the Earth. I am content in the belief that I have done some good in my life, and that I have executed my responsibilities with honor. I have known love and have loved others.

Today I declare that life is good, and that I have attained (at least for a time) a state of happiness. In this moment I can thank God and my fellow humans for all of the good I have known, and cast behind me all of the evil I have known.

Will this last? Of course not. Life and all of its elements are transient.

That is what makes moments like these precious.