End of Year

Well, It’s December 31st and I’ve managed to somehow ignore my blog for longer than I’ve wanted. For this I apologize and I promise to make a more concerted effort in the coming year to be more attentive.

For me, like all end of the years, the past few months have been a flurry of activity of holiday exhibits and work and, while I’ve made promises to myself over the years that I would slow down, I have not. Well, not to the level that some people close to me are happy with. This however has changed as of this past weekend.

You see, nineteen and a half years ago, when my wife was about to go on unpaid maternity leave I took on a part time job. This was supposed to be a temporary job, maybe a year or two. You know, something that would help us with the loss of her income while she was out of work. Maybe help pay for any unexpected medical bills or even help us save for a vacation. 

And this job did all that. 

Then, it paid for more vacations. And more food. And cars. And a motorcycle and a house. Then when my wife suffered a five strokes within a week, it became necessary again. It didn’t cover everything but it helped. We are just now getting out of that hole.

My body just can’t take working two jobs anymore. I’m physically worn out. I’m mentally exhausted and I can’t say that I’ve been fully rested in years. So I hung up my apron. No more waiting tables. It feels good. I can’t say we won’t miss the money but I can say my mental and physical state will be in a much better place.

Also, this past year, 2018, has been the least sucky year in almost a decade for me. I saw my daughter graduate from high school, move out of the house and into a dorm room at a college she chose and is putting herself through. I got to spend an amazing day with my mother at a wonderful museum after having a great breakfast and a nice motorcycle ride with her. I got to travel to Martha’s Vineyard and Point Reye’s California and work on two amazing Fresnel lenses with some amazing men and learn a lot from all three of them.

I also lost good people in my life. Which is always sad, but it helps a person grow. I’m still waiting on the growing part.

I’m doing a podcast with a great guy who is as funny and talented as anyone could ask for in a creative partner. I got to see my brother-from-another-mother not once but twice this year and we laughed and bonded like we hadn’t been away from each other for a minute. I wrote some blogs, I wrote some fiction. I edited works for other authors, all who I believe are more talented than I will ever be. I hosted a great horror reading in October with some wonderful local up and coming writers who have amazing voices and I hope to hear more of in the future. I also got to spend not enough time with some close friends during all of this. Friends I don’t get to see enough of, friends who I usually end up texting with or chatting with on the phone more than seeing in person. Friends who live only twenty minutes away but our schedules always seem conflicting so our only source of communication is through social media or phones. I hope now, with all my free time this will change.

Don’t get me wrong, this year has not been perfect. I’ve had my fair share of set backs and daily frustrations, but you know what, looking back now, on this tepid southern new years eve, none of that seems to matter. My daughter is home from college. My wife is enjoying her Christmas gifts and an early anniversary gift, our house is filled with the warmth of contentment that only happiness can bring.

Tonight my dear reader, I thank you for taking your time to read my blogs throughout the year and tonight especially and I hope you have the merriest and safest of New Years and that this coming New Year brings you all the happiness and warmth you can handle.

Have a great week.

Warmth in Cool

The cool air is sweeping down from the north and here in the south we are turning up our thermostats in an attempt to chase away the chills of the inevitable. If you’re like me, your fridge is as stuffed as you are and you’re quite happy.

This year, like most years in my household, we celebrated Thanksgiving in our own peaceful and tranquil way. A tradition we implemented years ago. A tradition I have strive to keep. A tradition I attribute to a youth spent either traveling to cities and towns to visit relatives and friends with all the stress and hectic craziness a family of six can inflict upon one another. Then in later years, after the divorce, celebrating separately under stress with people I didn’t know, didn’t want to know with even more stress. Later, the fights started amongst the adults, with us kids hiding in the basements of whatever house we were in or if it was nice outside, we’d wander off and try and find a safe place to wait for everything to blow over. Even later still, celebrating alone, in a junkyard with nothing but a campfire and some purloined cans of food from a local grocery store all the while swearing to myself that if I ever had my own family, I’d never allow them to go through what I went through.

Which brings me to today…

My daughter came home from college. Only for a day and a half. Enough time for two sleeps and a few good meals. Enough time to fill my heart with her love again. We talked, I made her food. We talked more. Watched television. I made breakfast. We talked. I made Thanksgiving dinner and she helped. We ate and talked and watched more television. We hugged and I lied to myself she would never leave home again.

The next day, we took her back to college and went home.

But she was still there.

At least the memory of her is. Her laughter still resounds off the walls. Her footfalls still echo on the stairs. Her perfume still lingers on the couch cushions. There is still the warmth of my only child filling the home I live in. 

In years past I felt that the spirit of Christmas had left me. And it truly had. However, after my daughters brief visit and the feeling of love, care and joy I had for her. Of how wonderful she has made our lives, well, I just can’t let that slip by. It has truly been a precursor of what I have overlooked in my life. Of how lucky I have been. 

My daughter, who made me a father, and made my family. Made my house a home. Made me thankful this Thanksgiving and has filled my empty tank of Christmas spirit to overflowing.

My daughter who brought warmth to my cool.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Happy Birthday Goose

         My daughters birthday was this past weekend. I was unable to spend the day with her. However, I was able to spend some time with her on the day after her birthday with her. We went for a ride on my motorcycle. First we went for lunch. Then she took me to visit her new job. Which was awesome. A custom popcorn place, where I bought a mega-size bag of super sharp cheddar cheese flavored bag of popcorn! Then we went to a mall where we walked around and visited a lot of stores and went to a book store and spent gobs of cash on books and movies. 

I spent most of the money. As a father should. Then I offered to make her and her college roommate dinner. So we stopped at a store for groceries. Perused the aisles and then a quick jaunt back to the dorms and I was cooking.

Forty minutes later, chicken parmesan, and fettuccini alfredo was served to some grateful and starving college kids. 

I was sitting on a futon making up stories for Emo Porgs and stuffed unicorns and wishing my daughter was still living at home. 

Which got me thinking to a time when I was first re-introduced to my mother after ten years of separation.

We were at a mall, she wanted to buy me some clothes and I was in a dressing room and she was handing me clothes over the dressing room door. I’d been trying on the clothes she’d been tossing me for ten, maybe fifteen minutes and I was getting tired, nervous and uncomfortable. Finally, I’d had enough and put on the clothes I’d been wearing and just walked out and said I’d had enough and didn’t like anything and there was nothing I wanted.

We all walked out of the place in silence.

I didn’t know then what was going on and I’m sure she didn’t either.

Now I do.

It was a feeling of loss and longing.

A feeling of wanting to show love and not knowing how to do it.

A feeling that a simple hug would fill. A feeling that the words “I Love and Miss you” would suffice. But those words are simply lost in the simplicity of the moment because that moment is so huge. So overwhelming.

It’s like looking into the Grand Canyon and not knowing what to do. But all you have to do is accept it. Just reach out and feel it. Hug it. Accept it and know that it exists. Then it will be alright.

My daughter has moved on from my life. Her life is her own now. I have to accept that. It hurts. But I will be able to enjoy our days together, our hours together and I will always be able to cook for her and she will always be able to enjoy my food that I cook for her and know that it is made with love from me and will be a part of her.

Have a great week.

The RMS Chimichangas

I should be flying to California right now. Or at least in San Fransisco as I write this. I should be getting ready for phase two of the Point Reyes Lens project. But I’m not. No matter the reason. Instead, I’m home… maybe for the best. After all, I did just wake up from a twenty-four hour nap. That is if you can call twenty-four hours of slumber a nap.

I’m fighting a cold. At least I believe it’s a cold. I don’t have a fever. I feel achy and I’ve a pesky cough and when I get hungry… I get hungry… like starvation hungry. Then I sleep again. The reason for all this? My daughter. Yes, I’m accusing her.

You see, last Sunday, her and her college room-mate and one of their classmates came up to me and said “Do you know how to build a boat?” 

I smiled and said “Sure. Why?”

Now, to be honest, I’ve never built a boat before. However; I am familiar with the principles and practices of boat building, water tight integrity, buoyancy, weight displacement and fabrication with assorted materials so manufacturing a boat for three college kids shouldn’t be a problem. “How much time do we have?”

“Well,” my daughter said…”It can’t be out of wood, it has to be done by Friday, and we can only spend twenty dollars and we don’t have a place to build it. Oh, and we don’t have a plan. Can  you help?”

“Let me see if I can use our work shop first. Also, do you ladies know anything about water-tight integrity? Buoyancy? Weight displacement? Or construction materials?” I asked as I sent a text to my supervisor asking if I could use our work shop and scrap foam and wood.

When I looked up from my phone the answer to my questions was written all over their depressed faces. “Okay…okay… look, don’t worry about any of that right now. First you need to come up with a plan for the boat. You need to find out how much you all weigh. That will tell you how much weight the boat needs to hold without sinking. Don’t lie. Now is not the time for being shy with your weight. Unless you want to sink. Then, you need to have a boat design. Come up with a construction timeline, working backwards from the launch date. 

My phone buzzed. It was my supervisor. His text read “No problem.”

“Ladies, we have a work space and materials. When do you want to get started?”

“4:00 this afternoon.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

That evening started the birth of what became known as the RMS Chimichangas. It took four nights and days of dedication on all of their behalf. Sawing, screwing, cutting, gluing, caulking, laying plastic and learning how to use the equipment. Table saws, ban saws, chop saws, drill guns and caulk guns. They were eager to learn and listen. No question was scoffed at and all questions were welcomed. I only had to show them once how to do something and then I would stand back and make sure they followed proper safety procedures so they wouldn’t do any harm to themselves or bystanders.

At the start of the project, like most people my age, I questioned their commitment to their project, but by day two, when they drug themselves in with only a few hours of sleep, sipping on coffee, no food in their stomach, doing homework on the car ride over from the college and doing homework during breaks in the building of the boat, I was starting to get convinced. 

By the end of the second work session, when we were cleaning up, the girls were looking at our progress, which didn’t look like much. Just the bottom of a boat with a large sheet of plastic that was curing to the bottom of the boat. “Look ladies, it doesn’t look like much now, we still have a long way to go, but, we’ve got the sides of the boat cut, the pontoons cut, and the plans are sound. If you want we can secure the stern gunnel on tonight and be that much further along tomorrow.”

The frowns of their didn’t quite disappear but they weren’t as prevalent as before. And, ten minutes later, the boat that just looked like a table before, looked much more like a boat. Excitement rose and we all left feeling better.

By Thursday, the outer hull was assembled, the interior plastic liner was glued in place and the inner hull was secured and holding the plastic liner to the out hull. Also, the three section watertight floor was in place and the exterior pontoons. The boat which was initially designed to hold 450 pounds of teenage college students was now designed to hold 800 pounds of humanity and not sink. Yes, they had over-engineered it. And I was quit proud of them. 

They spent the last work session painting the hull, the flag and making sure their home-made oars were in good order. They had their name, their costumes and all that was left was the race. We didn’t have time to test the boat for water tight integrity, but I was positive it wouldn’t leak, after all, in all my Naval training I’d never had a single water patch ever leak on me and I am not about to start now especially with my daughters reputation at stake. 

So we took some time and went over some boating basics, how to row with three people in a boat, stroke count, how to load the boat from land, from a dock, weight distribution, how to turn, how to get out of the boat, how not to be an asshole… okay, we didn’t cover that last one. 

In the end, I sent them on their way with my best wishes and the hopes that they would not drown.

They didn’t drown. They didn’t win. But they did win best engineered boat. 

They gave me the certificate. It’s hanging on my wall in my office.

I love those girls.

Have a great week. I just did. 

A Lens Retrospective

A little over a week ago I was packing my bags and getting ready to head to San Francisco, California. I wasn’t going to be there long. My final destination was North of there. A place called Point Reyes where a lighthouse is located. A lighthouse with a very unique first order Fresnel lens.

As I stood beside my bed filling my check bag with my Lampist tools, coveralls, hardhat and various other needed items I was filled with a need to not go. Not because I didn’t want to go. I love Lampist work. It is amazing work. Work only a handful of people get to do and the Point Reyes lens was built over 151 years ago and is a 24 flash panel lens with a pink pedestal along with an internal clockwork. Something I’d never seen in my life. Of course there are a plethora of other one of a kind features of this particular lens and I could talk endlessly about here and now but I wont. This is about my desire to not leave.

I didn’t want to leave because I hate leaving my home. My wife, my daughter and my life. What also made it especially difficult was the fact that it was my daughters last week at home before she left for college. A week that would be a whirlwind of activity of her. Packing, doing laundry, shopping, stressing, breaking down, worrying and just being a teenager needing her father. A father who was on the other side of the continent working on a 151 year old aid to navigation because it was an opportunity of a lifetime and no on can tell you to pass those opportunities up.

So I did my best to not break down. I stayed as strong as I could. I packed my check bag. I packed my carry on bag. I double checked everything. Then I went downstairs and cuddled with my family for as long as I could. My alarm was set for 0430. My flight was at 0700 which meant I had to be at the airport by 0600. All that meant to me was that I had to be out of the house by at the latest 0530. By midnight, we were all asleep. Happy and warm in the comfort of  warm family cuddles and hugs.

At 0530 I kissed my daughters forehead and brushed her hair with my fingertips and whispered “I love you and I’m going to miss you.” 

She murmured something unintelligible back to me and I left feeling I was doing the right thing.

There is a nickname for August in Point Reyes, it’s called “Fogust”. They even write it on the weather board at the visitors center. Which was closed when we were there because, well, we were there to take apart the lens. You know… construction.  The nickname didn’t deceive. It was foggy.

So foggy that we we didn’t even see the cows crossing the road to the lighthouse and almost hit them. Oh, I didn’t tell you? The lighthouse is on a National Park and the National Park leases the land to dairy farms and ranchers and the cows are pretty much free range. As are the mule deer, the suicide quail that run out in front of your tires, the coyotes and the feral cats that seem to be everywhere as well. The average speed limit is 40 mph, but in the fog, you best have cow insurance coverage. Otherwise, you’re screwed. Oh, and it’s an hour ride from the nearest town so you better pack a lunch while waiting for a tow truck.

The walk down to the lens is 308 steps at a 10 degree grade, at least, as well as two concrete ramps that are at least 150 feet long. My first trip down I thought my knees were going to pop out of my legs and dive into the pacific in protest. The view, what little I could see of it, was a 300 foot drop off of rocky death covered in ice plants and red moss into unseen crashing waves. “And the Lighthouse Keeper bounced four times before he hit the ocean.” a voice carried to my ears in the wind followed by laughter. My fellow lampists making a lighthouse joke. I laughed as well. Stories of how difficult life in the Lighthouse service is legendary amongst us and in literature. “Not after he stole and returned a government horse, drunk.” another voice said. Followed by another round of laughter. Then I added “The horse or the Lighthouse Keeper?” and another round of laughter. 

Gallows humor. It keeps our mind off our pain and on our mission. I’m 51 and the youngest amongst the gang. Hell, there are 6 certified Lampists in the country and I’m the only apprentice. I make 7. Only 3 Lampists are working. When I become a Lampist, I’ll be number 4. We have to have a sense of humor. For our work to save this history in a world that has lost its concern for the artisans who made these amazing pieces of art and machines seems very important to us and a growing number of others. Yet technology has easily replaced the bronze, glass and brass beasts that once protected the commerce and sailors with their prismatic beauty that Augustin Fresnel perfected over 200 years ago.

When we got to the bottom of the steps we didn’t immediately go into the lighthouse. No, that would be like skipping the prom dance and the after party and going straight to the hotel room. Instead we we went into the fog house, unloaded our gear, went over our initial preparations, got our assignments, got our cameras, gave directions to our carpenters which was great because normally we do our own carpentry and then and only then did Woody, our leader pull the lighthouse keys from his pocket and lead us to the lighthouse.

We fell in behind him. Lockstep. I being the apprentice was last in the house.

The pink pedestal was hard to miss. It is the only one of it’s kind and will soon be changed back to Lighthouse Service green. The three crystal clear, one-hundred and fifty-one year old beveled glass doors housing the brass clockwork and crank that lifts the seventy pound weight is truly an artistic truth to mankind’s endeavor at machinery, when I looked up I saw someone had turned the light on inside the lens itself. The curtains were still drawn covering the windows and the prisms from the lower-catodioptrics, the dioptrics and the upper-catodioptrics were light into the room above. Some of the cracked lenses were casting small rainbows here and there onto the curtains. Someone moved the curtains, the light was bounced and things moved. We stood there in quite retrospective. It was magical. I smiled. I pulled my phone out and started taking pictures.

I reached out with my hand and put my hand on a fan leg, where I expected to fell cold, hard cast-iron, I was greeted with cool brass. I looked up and saw shiny ornamental legs that belonged in a museum. They reminded me of scallop shells they were so beautiful. I stepped back to get a better view and that’s when I realize the entire lens was sitting on jacks. The chariot wheels were still there but the three lens jacks were also in place. Another first for me. Brass and iron no more than five inches tall each holding up over a ton of steel, brass, bronze and glass. I was aghast. I reached out and touched them. I had to. I’d never seen them in use, only in pictures.

Woody was talking. Tommy was talking. Jim was talking. I was absorbing. Absorbing everything. Trying to figure everything out. The jacks were easy. The clockwork, easy. The guide wheels, easy. The driveshaft, easy.

Then everyone moved upstairs. I followed.

This lens was not just a first for me. It was a first for all of us. It is the most beautiful I’ve seen. The most beautiful I’ve had the privilege to work on and the most beautiful to dis-assemble. But talking about that here and now is not the place.

Let me just say this, she is amazing, she is fragile, she is tender, she is secretive and she is as strong as she is lovely. I hope we all do her proud during this evolution of renovation.

Have a great week.

  

The Day Before

Tomorrow is my birthday. Yet today I celebrated.

I slept late, well late for me. Seven a.m. I drove my wife to work, on the way we stopped and I bought her breakfast. We chatted about this and that, nothing of importance. We just spent time together. Time we rarely get to spend together. Time that means the world to me. Because I’m basically a hermit and when I’m home with my family, after a certain amount of time, I retreat to my porch and spend time by myself, leaving my wife and daughter in the living room to watch what they want to watch on the television. One of the reasons for this is because I don’t find much worthwhile to watch on television.

After dropping my wife off at work, while driving home, I turned on the radio, classic rock, a Bob Segar song was just ending and the mandatory commercials started. Memories of my teen years flooded my brains. Awkward meetings with girls followed by even more awkward evenings with them. Late nights out with my pals on Lake Michigan or wandering the empty country roads of Wisconsin in beat up cars looking for trouble and never succeeding. Being disappointed by parents, teachers, police, politicians and just about every adult over the age of twenty-two we’d ever met, seen or heard of. Only one of my buddies at the time had college in his future, don’t ask me about the girls, we could barely tell them our names let alone ask them about their future. At the time, we lied to each other that we’d be together until the end all the while knowing the truth of our individual situations.

Slash’s opening notes to “Paradise City” drove a dagger into my youthful reverie and I was immediately transported to my Navy days. Specifically they early days when I was dating my wife. When she had introduced me to bands like “U2”, “The Cure”, “Bon Jovi” and many more. I on the other hand gave her tapes by bands with names like “AC/DC”, “Iron Maiden”, which she did not like, “Styx”, “Anthrax” and “Megadeth”. It took a few more years before I introduced her to my affliction for Jazz, but I eventually did.

By the end of “Paradise City”, I was parking the car in front of my house and this being summer, my teenage daughter was still sleeping. I decided to take the opportunity to enjoy the rare, tepid southern morning and have some porch time.

Around ten a.m. I entered my house and my daughter was sitting on the couch, eating her teenage breakfast off a paper plate with a  plastic fork. She was still wearing her pajamas covered in a fleece blanket and watching netflix on her phone. The contrast of my eighteen year old daughter compared to me waking up at eighteen on a haze gray ship in a compartment with forty-five half dressed smelly, farting, belching, half-men, half-boys, all sailor from around the country, that I’d experienced at her age did not escape me. I chuckled to myself a bit at this and gave her a list of chores she needed to do for the day and she readily agreed.

Around eleven o’clock my daughter and I went on an adventure. Actually, it was more of a quest. You see, she wants to be a film maker and while she has a video camera, it’s a bit old and it still uses tape. Meaning it’s not digital. So the transfer to computer can be a pain in the ass. We’ve been looking for a specific chord to transfer some footage she shot and the chords seem more elusive than the arc of the covenant.

So we traversed the wilds of thrift stores and pawn shops of the local town. We went to five places. Only one of which she’s been to in the past. The other four, well, those are places that I’ve been to and are considered a bit less palatable people of a gentle constitution. Hell, one place had  sixty inch flat screen television for sale for two hundred and twenty-five bucks. I almost bought it. Another place had brand new blu-ray DVD’s for a buck a piece. I bought three for my daughter. She wanted them and how could I say no, especially since one was a horror movie?

After four hours of driving, dozens of buckets of electrical cords searched, tens of merchants spoken with, several dollars spent we were hungry and tired. So we ate.

Throughout the entire overcast, rainy, never-ending shitty traffic, idiotic driver, fruitless searching, we chatted, joked and had a good time. What I’m trying to say I suppose is, we bonded.

We got to be dad and daughter. Father and Offspring. Mentor and mentee. Friends.

And that right there. Those hours…. those are the greatest birthday gift I could ever want in my entire life. Unexpected time spent with my wife and sharing a quick breakfast with her and spending time with my daughter doing something that may not have resulted in a tangible treasure but resulted in a treasure that neither time nor man can ever destroy.

Have a great week.