Thursday, May 19, 2016

Onion Rings and Orgasms

Recently re-posting old columns reminiscing my Navy days has started me re-reading and editing a lot of old columns in another attempt to put them coherently together… To maybe finally put together the long talked about book… The title long ago decided on while I was still in the Navy… "Levity in the Face of Nuclear Disaster"… 

There's certainly been a lot of both... Levity and Disaster 

A project started many columns ago and many times through the years… Always seeming to get stuck at the same point… It’s time to adjust the sails and take a new tack… Yes, the old columns will need to be re-read and edited… Yes, not all of them will make the cut… But for now it’s time to skip ahead… Time to write the chapter that ties all the old ones together and propels the project ahead… 

This is that column…

Looking back, it’s interesting how close my life has paralleled that title… There’s been lots of levity and more than my share of disasters… Recently sitting down to email numerous resumes in search of a summer work camp job and receiving various call backs… I was struck with a comment that has kept the wheels of my mind turning… 

Yeah, they could use some oil… Sometimes it’s noisy in my head… Sometimes that small quiet voice needs to scream above the noise…

Oh… The comment… Yeah… “Looking at your resume, it looks like you’ve accomplished a lot.” My reply… “Well, I’ve had an interesting life.”

Funny… I hadn’t really thought about my life in terms of accomplishments… I guess working death sentence hours for as long as I did… Making as much money as I did and now having so little to show for it… Yeah… I know… You know… Disasters…

A lot of mistakes were made… A lot of disasters… This isn’t the time to rehash them… A lot of wrong people were trusted… This isn’t the time to place blame… I opened the door and let those people in… Could better choices have been made… Certainly… But… Yeah, I know… You know…

So looking back while still looking forward… Accomplished a lot??? What is there to show for it???

Well, a lifetime of experiences…

I’m reminded of a recent conversation with my best friend of 45 years… “What a life, you’ve led”, he said…  

“It’s all about the adventure now”, I answered… “Hell, it’s always been about the adventure.”

Like a cat… I’ve certainly lived more than one life… A lot of lives have been squeezed into these 60 years… They’re recapped in the rest of the book…

Lessons… Oh, yeah… Lots of those… Good ones, bad ones, hard ones, easy ones…

Stuff… Well, not much of that… One of the lessons I guess… Stuff has always come and gone… Life’s lesson??? It isn’t about the stuff that comes and goes… 

It’s about what stays…

Life isn’t judged by how much stuff we have… I won’t judge myself that way… I can’t and I’ve let go of those who do judge me that way…

It’s about what stays…

The laughter and the levity… The love…

The love of my dogs… Though many have passed on through the years… They all passed knowing they were loved…

Family… Near and far… Blood and not blood…

A lifetime best friend of 45 years…

Shipmates I stood shoulder to shoulder with in my 20’s… Now scattered all over the country… Shipmates I trusted my life to and who trusted me with theirs… Shipmates who will always be brothers…

Many people cross our paths through the years… Some stay… Some are only there a season or two… Remember fondly the ones who came in peace… Forgive the ones who didn’t… And strive to be remembered fondly as well…

There’s lots of life’s adventures left to live… Lots more memories to make…

“So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning.” Job 42:12

The second half of my life is going to be pretty exciting if there's more adventure than the first half...

The last page of this book is still blank… The last pages of all our books are still blank… And we’ve all got the pen…

Write a good one…


Post Script… The title of this column??? Yeah, it’s got nothing to do with it…      

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