On Death & Dying

One of the profound discoveries we all make as we get older is that none of us are going to make it out alive. I often tell people that I expect to live to be 120 and shot by a jealous husband. It’s a joke, son.

Somehow, I think we all know deep down that all that there is about our existence, falls into the knowledge that it is always NOW! No matter how much we want to believe differently, we come into this existence by ourselves and go out on our own. Oh sure, if we are lucky, there is someone there to help us enter into this world, and hopefully, there will be someone we love close to us as we leave this plane of the universe and enter into the next. This reality, in my opinion, is that we come in alone, and exit alone. That should not be a fearful event, but a cheerful event as we look forward to the next adventure of our spirit. I do believe that we are spiritual beings in the process of changing and experiencing this journey.

Yesterday I was reminded of that when I was suddenly summoned by the universe to contact my brother Mike. I soon found out that he was in the hospital. I had been unable to reach him or my sister-in-law, Liz due to the fact that all the telephone numbers I had were no longer in service. That alone gave me some angst. I finally sent Liz a message through a social network and shortly thereafter received a phone call. She informed me that Mike needed to be moved from the hospital in Cleveland to a rehab unit the next day, which was really a euphemism for moving him into a long care unit.\r\n\r\nI told her that I would meet her at the hospital to help in any way I could, and to see my brother, for what I was afraid would be the last time. My brother is thirteen years older than I am and was my hero as a youngster. I remember a time when he drove many hours from summer training in the reserves in Kentucky to arrive at home late at night. He was so tired that he fell asleep in the car in the driveway rather than come into the house to sleep. Been there, done that! He had bought me a rubber Indian tomahawk complete with feathers, as a present, He was probably 18-19 which would have made me five or six. I remember being so excited and felt loved

Mike, wearing his wife’s, Pat, wedding veil. He had a great sense of humor in his early years.

Seeing my brother in his condition had a profound effect on me. He was so angry at the world, his wife, Liz, the hospital staff and even me who he had not seen in several years. When I asked him for a hug as I arrived, he flatly stated that I was in cahoots with his wife, who he gave a stare of disgust and hate as we arrived. I soon realized that he was not the person I had previously known in my life. Although I allowed it to initially hurt me, I soon realized that the change that had occurred was a result of dementia, drugs, and strokes that had taken the brother I once knew.  How could I be offended or angry with this new person? I quickly gained my compassion and began to rebuild a relationship with an entity that was not my brother.

Since then I have had several revelations. What grandiose ideas do I harbor that would allow me to think that I could have caused this in any way and that I needed to release my emotional attachment to the past. I was there to make a difference.

My sister Molly had reminded me earlier, that forgiving oneself means to let go of the “hope” that the past could have occurred any differently. It is that hope that we hold onto so tightly that creates the internal pain. The more I remind myself of that understanding, the more content I feel.

I have been able to spend more time with my sister in the last several weeks than in over nearly fifty years. Tonight I had the great opportunity to record her voice explaining how my family came about and some of the best stories. I will be adding that recording to this autobiography soon.

Mom, Mike, Molly, James – 1982

Mike, Pat, Kathy, young Michael

Speak no evil, see no evil, hear no evil!

That visit caused me to pay attention to how I want my later years to pan out. Sometimes examples come into our lives to show us how we don’t want things to be.

My father passed away at age 83 from a stroke. My mom had sat down and written out her goals for the next ten years, the night she passed away in her sleep. Having worked in hospitals for nearly ten years, I had experienced death on many levels. No matter how intellectually we observe death, the emotional side cannot be swept under the carpet, nor depleted from our experience. The fact that we cannot make it out alive means we need to plan for the future before our memories fail and we become a different person than we knew ourselves to be.\r\n\r\nI can only wish that I go quickly, surrounded by loved ones. In the meantime, reason dictates that plan we must.

I Give You An Idea!

When I was in the giftware industry, along with two other investors, Molly McGregor and Barbara MacNeil, we purchased the equipment from a bankrupt company in order to gold plate metal. (Sprites and other giftware is a different story) I am not sure exactly how the bankrupt company came into my universe, however, it appeared at a time when gold plating was a valuable asset to Lambda Crystal.

I knew very little about the mechanics of plating anything, however, I understood the chemistry of plating, ions moving to an oppositely charged surface. What I needed was an expert on the mechanics to impart their knowledge to me at minimal cost.

Manifest into my life, an expert in more than just gold plating. I wish I could remember his name. All I know is that he was the grandfather of the owner of a company called Elmira Stove Works. He had developed the production line for gold plating the door fronts for wood burning stoves. He was 83 years old when I met him.

Each week, he would drive from Elmira to Fergus, Ontario, where I had built a new factory for Lambda Crystal on Dixon drive. I repeatedly offered to drive him over, pay for his fuel, reimburse him in any way, and his response stuck with me my entire life.

He finally said to me: If I give you a dollar and you give me a dollar, what do we have? Knowing that I was going to sound stupid no matter what I said, and totally realizing in my soul that I was about to hear a shred of wisdom from a person whom I kinshiply acknowledged as a soul mate, I uttered, “I guess a dollar”. He wisely looked through my eyes, and asked, “Now if I give you an idea, and you give me an idea, now what do we have?”.

I know, profound, eh?

That has stuck with me ever since. It is a lesson in more than humanity, it is universal. Think Universal!

 

Cutting Losses is Not Losing!

There are times in life that require new direction to be taken. The reasons can vary, however, I suggest that most will condense to not having fun any more. I have heard it said that laughter is one of the first things couples share. It is also one of the first things to disappear in a failing relationship.

It can happen when one person mentally leaves the relationship for myriad, rational reasons. The challenge in our society, which is based on an aging population, is that mores are changing due to longevity of life. To wed forever makes less sense than it did in the past. Once the offspring are out of the nest, the protective responsibilities are complete.

We become redundant at some point and continue living unfulfilled existence because we can no longer really experience all that life has to offer without sharing it with the same person year after year. I reason that it is better to cut the losses of monotony and spread wings to fly in all new directions.

Today, I was in one of my melancholy moods, thinking about what keeps me hanging around this dimension. It occurred to me that I am still having fun. When the day arrives that I am no longer having fun, then I will make a conscious decision to cut my losses and head into the next existence, willingly, and looking for the WOW factor as is said of Stephen Jobs on his transition bed.

Don’t Fight for Life, Live It!

Nature abhors balance, sameness, and the return to the way it was. If you think nature wants things to stay the same, watch the heavens where man cannot be blamed. The universe finds balance quite boring and will not tolerate it for very long.

It’s the same fight that has gone on in the universe, beginning with the Big Bang. Entropy wins! It is the second law of Thermodynamics. Order will always give way to disorder. Just experience your Starbucks coffee getting cold before you finish it. That is the way of universal nature.

How grandiose is man to think that he/she can subjugate the forces of nature to be under his/her total control, like the infant that thinks they were the cause of their parent’s illness and the pain of everyday life. Stasis is a myth created by man out of fear of the unknown. Nature could care less about global warming. The planet will survive long after our species has irradicated itself.

Man does have the gift of entropy to harness the energy of disorder to further his experience – beyond that lies only the insanity of doing the same things over and over and expecting the results to change.

The best we can do is tap into disorder to create momentary order. That is our destiny of existence, in my humble opinion. Why use our precious time to fight the inevitable? Rather, to live life as the observer of the universe and be an agent of change.

To get a better understanding of entropy, Watch YouTube.

To all those on Facebook who speak of the daily apocalypse that is being created by our elected officials, Ayn Rand warned of these events nearly 50 years ago. Her warnings fell on deaf ears then, and Facebook dramatizations are like pissing in the wind and trying to avoid the back spray today.

It’s What It Represents

I went to see Jeff Dunham last night in Kitchener with magnificent daughter, Mary.  She bought me one of the best presents of my life, wait for it…… a Peanut doll!  Why, you ask would a 65-year-old man want with a frickin’ doll? Easy…..it makes me laugh!

I have been looking back through pictures of me throughout my life and have discovered something amazing, I laugh a lot!  Videos that I have taken and posted in my biography have me laughing on the audio.  How cool is that! Isn’t that what we all want, happiness? If I can laugh a lot, I am convinced, I will experience more of life than if I don’t.

Thanksgiving 2013 – Canadian

Thanksgiving occurs on two different dates, depending on whether you are in Canada or the US. Canadian Thanksgiving comes first due to the simple fact that fall comes earlier to Canada.

Every year I have attempted to celebrate both holidays, for remembrance and to be able to have a reason to have two festivals of scrumptious meals. My favorite dessert became, over the years, a pumpkin pecan pie with chocolate drizzle and topped with coffee Hagan Daz ice cream. Ummm…

I made this pie for my family and friends in Raleigh, NC to celebrate my Canadian heritage Thanksgiving, October 14, 2013.

Restoring a 1934 Packard Twin Six

Opportunities will often come right up to your face and scream, I’m here, yet many people for whatever reasons, will miss out on some of the best memorable events.  My Dad gave me that opportunity and I jumped on it.

When I was fourteen years old, my Dad gave me the same proposal that he had given my two older brothers; spend the time restoring the 1934 Packard which had been sitting in the garage for some twenty years and it would be mine for $1.  Dad agreed to invest all the money it would take to restore it. It was my job to invest the time. It was 1962 when I started dismantling the car in the garage.

Now, 1962 was the beginning of the British Invasion.  At the time I was working, underage, at two jobs. I worked as a bowling machine mechanic, which meant being behind the machines, ready to spring into action when a bowling ball or pin became lodged and needed a little push.  For that service, I got to hang out with the real mechanic and learn about machinery.  At the same time, I worked the evening shift pumping gas (yes, in those days, an attendant serviced a car with gas, check the oil and washer fluid, clean the windshield, while smiling the whole time) and repairing flat tires at a Shell station next door to the bowling alley.  That job, my Dad didn’t find out about until I had to call him for help. Point being, that I was busy, even at fourteen.  I needed money to impress the girls, but as usual in my life, I was running out of time to do all the things I wanted to. Every available hour I spent in restoring that car taught me a lifetime of experience.

  • When dismantling something, keep the parts separate and label everything you can, because memory, alone, will not work in reassembly. The four bolts that held the front bumper on were all machined individually, which meant the same looking bolt would only thread in one spot.
  • Patience is vital. Letting bolt-release sit for days, returning each day to only apply more breaker juice.  Shearing off the head of a bolt that is threaded into an engine head block, made of solid aluminum, is not an easy, inexpensive repair job.  Thanks, Dad, for loving me…oh, and yes, also for the time I ignored the oil indicator light on the 1955 Chrysler Imperial and the engine seized at the side of the road, and you paid for the towing and the new engine as long as I put it in. And, oh yeah, my first car accident when I didn’t know what you meant by “pump the brakes on wet pavement”.
  • Some people are as thick as a brick. Dad had the Chrysler dealership in Akron complete the repainting of the exterior.  The guy that started stripping the old paint used a lye-based paint remover. He mishandled the material twice, putting him in the hospital, twice, with third-degree burns from the paint remover. The next guy took a sander to it and left marks that took hours to remove.  These were their best specialist painters. They finished applying 16 coats of undercoat, hand sanded between each coat, followed by 12 coats of lacquer that made the most incredibly deep shine. Come to think of it, I think Dad paid $800 and that was overpayment due to the hours the two guys racked up.
  • When something is right, you will know. The frosty spring Saturday morning that Dad and I drove to where the mechanics were prepared to start the engine for the first time in over 20 years.  Two old guys (about three days younger than dirt) had laid on their backs under the Packard, grinding the crankshaft, by hand, because in that engine, the crankshaft could not be removed for servicing.  It was a Norman Rockwell illustration right out of Saturday Evening Post or Esquire Magazine, this old wooden garage, tucked back under some trees, in what had been the repair shop area of Akron some fifty years prior. It was a frosty, yet somehow foggy spring morning.  My Dad insisted on stopping on the way into town at a small store to purchase two lead pencils.  He did not explain until we got to the garage their purpose. Imagine four old guys and my Dad, all proudly looking at this beautifully restored gem from a bygone era, and they gave me the privilege of starting it up. It was then that Dad stood the pencils upright, on the top of the radiator to balance vicariously while I, first, turn the key, and then push the start button on the dash.  I remember so vividly pushing the button and not hearing any engine noise. I was watching Dad, who was watching the pencils – they did not move at all, indicating the engine had been tuned perfectly.  I got out and could hear the hum of that 12 cylinder engine as it just purred into life resurrected.  Dad stood there with the biggest shit eaten grin as he just stared at that engine, along with the mechanics as they all pointed and smiled.  It was a fine day.
  • I think it was the following Saturday that Dad and I went to the auto registry office in Akron and he signed over the ownership to me for the mandatory $1 required as the minimum sale amount for a vehicle. I was sixteen and it had taken me two years to complete the total restoration of a 1934 Packard, Twin Six.  I had completely dismantled it and put it back together and it worked!
  • I can remember many a time when Pop was not home, John and our friends would push the Packard out of the garage and stand on the running boards, pretending that we were Al Capone gangsters. We would take turns pretending we were driving. What childhood fun!
  • I kept that heirloom until a guy walked up my driveway in Columbus, Ohio and offered me enough money to start my trek to Canada that summer of 1973 – but that’s another story, kids.

Prodigal Son Returns

I arrived in Raleigh, NC on Oct 2, 2013 at my sister’s house after a night on the road and twelve hours of final driving with the 5th wheel in tow. Exhausted, yet so excited to be back in the US and with family who love me.

Driving through Pittsburgh and headed to and around DC brought back so many memories of the past. I had driven the route for many reasons previously, having lived and worked in Fairfax, VA, having delivered expedite freight to the east coast, having attended Network 21 functions in DC, having taken the kids to Gettysburg, DC, and Virginia Beach. Great memories are always a pleasure to revisit.

Immediately upon arrival, sister Molly had no trouble coaxing me to retreat to the ocean to find grounding in the waves, sites and sounds of the beach. The two day time we spent together driving to and from the Wilmington area was amazing and calming. We spent more time in each others company than we had in over fifty years.  The sharing of memories of childhood, parents, siblings, friends, and kids re-ignited snippets of humor and tears which are always good for the soul.

Here are a few pictures; On the beach,

Sunrise with storm slowly arriving

Sis and I

My footprints in the sand, stay foolish, Steven Job’s says

Storm arriving

Beach cottages

Visit to aquarium

A DREAM COME TRUE

A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step, somebody, somewhere, at some time said.  I am writing about that first step on a journey that started in my mind, many years ago.

Tonight I sit in a 35 and a half foot RV trailer in a trailer park in Waterloo, Ontario.  The smell of campfire wafts through the chilled night air and reminds me of myriad times before in my life.  RV, by the way now stands for “Re-Creation Vehicle” as I start, not just a new chapter, but a new book on my life.

The speck of dust in my minds-eye started at some time when I was in my late teens and solidified by the US military to travel in order to defend freedom and the American way. The Army slogan at the time was, Join the Army & See the World.  How impressionable are teenagers to be sucked in by that crock?  Obviously, it made an impression on me.

Once I began traveling, anywhere outside of Akron, Ohio, it was impossible to bury that wanderlust. I love adventure, and travel will create adventure every turn.  Maybe I’m an adventure junkie of some kind, although I do not think I am alone in that longing, especially since I have canvased many people over the years who have told me that they always wanted to do what I am experiencing at this very moment.

Out of body experience as I thank the Universe for coming through for me once again.

If we want to believe that every Dream starts as a vision in the minds-eye, or that everything that surrounds us on a daily basis started as a thought in someone’s mind, then I am simply fulfilling what I envisioned over forty-five years ago!  Profound, right?

Many people say they will do such and such when they retire and then proceed to do nothing when retirement comes. I guess you could say, I am living the Dream. Awesome!

This is my new home and traveling mode of no fixed address.  When I say there have been many hurdles to overcome to arrive at this moment, that is an understatement. Most people become overwhelmed by the obstacles in their lives.  I have chosen to overcome the obstacles and enjoy the ride of life.