California Dreamin'

Some time between Henry Ford's Model A and the construction of the Lincoln Highway the American Road Trip was born.

This is the third year in a row we have hit the road.

Last year it was Yellowstone and Montana.


The year before it was along the Oregon coast to the giant redwoods in California, and over to Crater Lake before heading home.


This year we are headed to Southern California.

The trip is a little different this year. Brenda isn't going, so it will be a guys' trip.

Isaac has been on a Christian youth retreat for the past week in Florida, so it will be good timing for he and I to talk about our faith.

The initial reason for the trip was a desire on my part to see my dad before he attempts a world speed record on a motorcycle. he has had a custom bike bult that burns nitro fuel, generating 400 horsepower. We will watch him streak across the Mojave Desert, and hoping he survives.

I plan on also seeing my mom near San Diego.

Other than that our plans are pretty fluid. We might head straight home if we get homesick, or we might swing through Yosemite. Who knows? Perhaps we'll even swing as far east as the Grand Canyon, though that would lead us on through Utak and Idaho, adding about a thousand miles to the trip.

I spent my childhood in California. It was rural then. Bean fields, orange groves, the countryside filled with scrub oaks and mesquite.

Now it is all city, and I don't find it that pleasant a place.

Everything is packed and ready to go. I've had the van checked over and it seems to be in pretty good shape.

Isaac arives at Portland International Airport at 9:30 tonight. We'll tuck him into bed, and I'll move he and Jeremiah to the van about 5:00 in the morn, and off we go.

What I really look forward to is a chance to spend a lot of time, up to two weeks, with my sons, and a lot of time pulling off the road to enjoy beautiful sights, a little solitude for prayer.

I've got several posts drafted so the fonts and such are the way I like and it will make posting easier if I choose to do so.

I plan on taking a lot of pictures.

Road trips have changed over the years, and this one will be unique, I'm sure.

Talk to all of you soon!

Community

The thrum of a powerful engine drew my attention from the man in the 1940 coupe I was talking with. Another muscle car had pulled up for the classic car show.

It’s our annual General Canby Day, a highlight of the year.

I helped guide scores of classic cars find a parking place on 5th Street or Grant Avenue. This part of our Independence Day celebration was started by my friend Bob Cryder and still takes place in the street in front of where he once lived.


His widow was there. She is one of those large, mothering types who endlessly deals out hugs and smiles. She looked wistfully at the house that wasn’t hers, and never was.

Shortly after Bob died she sold the house. During the refurbishing an overheated sander and its sack of sawdust caught fire during the evening and burned it all to the ground. They rebuilt the house exactly like the craftsman style house that had been there, but something about it said “I’m young, I’m not the house you knew.”

It was a lot of fun. I stood in front of William Knight Elementary and watched folks go in for some pancakes while I joked with car buffs about their fine rides.



After several hours working the car show, I cast my vote for the judge’s choice award (a really sweet 1961 Volkswagen van that simply made me feel good).

I visited the booths and met with friends, neighbors, students. It is one of the joys of teaching within the town I reside. I’m a minor celebrity to kids and their parents who seem a little surprised that I have a life outside the classroom.

I love this town. It has grown to 10 or 14 thousand (depending how much of the surrounding rural area one calls our community.

I love running into people I know. Folks from church. Folks from businesses where I shop. Former students and their parents. The kids always seem shocked to see me outside of the classroom.

I wandered around the booths.

Enjoyed a little blue grass.

Watched Jeremiah toss dimes into glass containers and win a silly little prize.

It is a good feeling to know people, have them know you.

It is a good feeling to be good to people... to compliment near strangers... pick up a stray piece of trash because one feels the town is yours.

I caught up with my lovely wife and her mother, and I went and fetched Jeremiah. We picked out a spot to watch the parade.

I love being a part of a community. That is a large part of why I love my church. There are a lot of better reasons for going to church... a place to center oneself spiritually, a place to go to pray, a place to be held accountable, a place to learn, partake in communion, worship... But the sense of belonging is important to me.

I’m not wise enough to know who is saved and who isn’t. I have been giving this a lot of thought lately as I am about to go down to meet my dad before he does a life-threatening stunt that could put him in the record books (I leave next Tuesday, early).

I think a part of being a citizen of heaven will be a little like being a citizen of Canby. I think part of the joy of eternal life will be belonging. I think the internal smile that lifts my heart when I greet the firemen and police officers I know, or getting the knowing smile and nod from the veterans from the local American Legion as they lead the parade,
or chat with a parent who tells me how a former student is doing in college is... that internal smile seems to be one of those good things that seem to be a gift from Him, from God.

I suspect that those clean emotions we have, the feelings which seem so very right, are echoes of the divine. And as such, I think, perhaps, it is the sort of thing we will feel in Heaven.

So, those people who don’t seem to be able to connect to people. Those who are completely self-absorbed, self-centered, are they capable of giving enough of themselves, of even of seeking help, partaking in the eternal communion?

Everything about my faith... everything about the theology of Christianity is about love.

Love God, love others.

It was a great Fourth of July... a great General Canby Day.

It was a day of community, of helping others, loving and being loved.

I love this town.

Confusers

Since I teach technology, and I blog, I'm at my confuser, I mean my computer, frequently.

It's a pretty handy tool, toy, and time waster.

"Well, Curious Servant, what do you do with your computer?"

I suppose the first thing I do is check, read, and send email. My dad is in Thailand and this is certainly the cheapest way to communicate with him. It's also a quick way to send little notes.

By the way... I believe in a certain etiquette in sending emails, so I follows these rules:

1. Short! Keep it short. People want to skim emails... leave the clever analogies, metaphors, illustrations, and anecdotes to blogging.

2. Keep it to one topic. If I need to cover several items, I make it a list or send multiple emails. Do not write paragraphs which move from topic to topic. This will help folks who like to sort email by topics and keep my message focussed for future reference.

3. No chain emails. Some folks like to do this sort of thing. I don't. This is my thing, so I don't tell others who send me such stuff that I delete it without reading them. That's what I do with spam, and I don't want to hurt their feelings. I'm just not into lucky emails, chances to win, or a believer in electronic petitions.

What else do I do with my technological window? I suppose after email is the news. Sure, I still read newspapers and magazines, but for brief tid bits about what is going on, it is the internet. There are several news sources for me.

1. Fox News. I find their writing terrible, their bias shows frequently, and they have rather superficial coverage, but it is quick, and pretty responsive to new developments.

2. CNN. Another quick source, but without the glitzy pics and other features.

3. The Source. Often I follow up a story by doing a little investigating myself. I will Google businesses, cities, all sorts of background info to find out more about a story than what I read. Once I found what I knew would have been a great investment... so much so that even borrowing the money would have been a smart move. My wife talked me out of it. Ah well... I'm really not the investing type.

4. Opposing views. I will often read what the other side has to say about something in order to get a clearer idea about a topic. Especially over heated topics. sometimes when reading about events in the Middle East I read Al Jazeera. They certainly have a clear bias, but they do report on topics western media does not, and frankly, they have some pretty good coverage.

Astronomical Picture of the Day

APOD is simply cool.

Here are some of my favorites over the past year:

A Blue Crescent Moon from Space

Mysterious Spokes in Saturn's Rings

A Mysterious Hexagonal Cloud System on Saturn (This one has me puzzled)

A Visit from Atlantis

Looking Back at an Eclipsed Earth

Shuttle Plume Shadow Points to Moon

Dust Sculptures in the Rosette Nebula (I've collected hundreds of nebula pics)

Sombrero Galaxy Across the Spectrum

Analemmas: Ukraine - Temple of Zeus - Of The Moon - The Tholos - Ancient Nemea - Mars

And today's: At the Edge of Victoria Crater (Go for it, you cute little robot!)

Bible Gateway

What a great reference tool! It is much faster than using one of my concordances, and give me the tools needed to reference scripture for blog posts.

Aside from the internet, I use computers quite a bit to create videos, music, and odd pictures.


I had an internet account in 1992 at Portland State University. I told a friend:

"The internet will never amount to anything."

I admit, I was wrong. At the time it was clumsy (the only browser I had available were Gophers, and the Mosaic came along and it got easier), and I believer there were only 350 or so sites available (mostly university catalogues, bulletin boards, and government sites).

I use computers a great deal for work... organizing my lessons, saving documents, writing proposals, keeping track of events and kids, and grades and all sorts of things.

But what I like to do the most is think with it. I use it to think out loud... to talk to myself and let folks like you listen in on my odd little ramblings.

I use it to pray "out loud" for myself, my family, and my friends. I use it to connect odd ideas together and to hone my writing skills.

And sometimes I just let myself ramble, like I am doing right now. It's a powerful tool, one that opens the world to new ideas, fresh information. It may well be the most democratizing force in the world today.

But, it also takes up a lot of my time... which reminds me... I've got to go check on Jeremiah now. Isaac is on his way to a Christian Youth convention in Florida right now, Life, and Mom's at work.

So enough of staring at this glowing screen for now... I've got to get back to being a dad.

It’s Not The Hilton...

Note: This post was begun a couple of weeks ago (up to the point I begin writing about Smith).

I succumbed to curiosity yesterday and learned all I could about Paris Hilton. I learned that the celbutante doesn’t appear to have any talent beyond hiring good people to represent her.

I don’t normally follow such stories, but there seemed to be so much noise about her lately I thought I would check her out.

If you are like me, then perhaps you need a little background info. She was on some sort of reality TV show which permitted the luxury hotel heiress to demonstrate her inability to function in blue collar settings across the nation. She has had the usual celebrity tabloid jucies about sex, drugs, and fame available for public consumption with the exception that apparently much of what was written about her was true. She is in the news lately because she has been tossed into jail, released by the local sheriff for medical reasons (with strong suspicions of preferential treatment), and then thrown back in jail because of the furor (in a special jail which some say once again provides further suspicions of preferential treatment).

Apparently she was dragged weeping and screaming for her mother from court. From what I gather this is the end (hopefully) result of several police stops she received while driving on a suspended license (for driving under the influence of alcohol).

She is distraught.

Things have been a little bumpy for us lately. Brenda has been having a difficult time coping with the challenges of caring for her mother and our sons. Her frustration level builds and builds and builds and she explodes. She feels guilt, and a little frustration over her behavior and then... the phone rings. It’s her mom wanting her to run to the store again for the fourth time in two days, her schedule and the kids and her husband place competing demands on her time, energy and sanity and her frustration level builds.

She is distraught.

It seems absurd to compare Brenda’s challenges to the self-caused anxiety of a spoiled pop tart.

It might also seem absurd to compare Brenda’s challenges to those who suffer greatly in the world. There is the woman vainly batting flies away from her dying child. The man seeking his family through the scattered debris of a tsunami or suicide bomber. Or the man who lost his employees, his business, and all his children... Job.

About 30 years ago I read a story about a man who had some difficult experiences. It is probably apocryphal, perhaps fictional, but it still makes an interesting point.

Jedediah Smith was a mountain man who traveled throughout the west, acting as a scout, trapper, and all around explorer.

A newspaper man was taking notes about one of his great adventures. Smith was permitted to run away from his captors by running through a gauntlet (two rows of men with clubs). He told the reporter how he managed to escape, naked, from the natives. He ran, and as his enemies caught up to him, he killed them, and crossed the Rocky Mountains. He told of how he killed a deer, fashioning boots and a cloak.

The reporter was amazed.

Smith paused. He began to talk about the trolleys he had heard about in New York. How a man might be dependent on catching the right trolley to get to work on time...

“Now, if that feller misses that there trolley thing, he might miss gettin’ to work on time. If that happens, then he could lose his job, lose his only way of feedin’ his family.

“I would guess that for a man who missed that trolley, he would be in a pretty bad fix.

“I’m not sayin’ that what happened to me weren’t hard... but I’d reckon that for that feller who missed his ride to work, it might feel just as bad.”

Brenda has been distraught for some time. I haven’t been feeling the same way. That does not diminish her feelings, her point of view.

Today’s news is about Paris’ relief in being let out of jail. Part of me sees her as a spoiled socialite, but I think I can understand her fears and tears. This must have been the most traumatic thing that has happened to her.

I really don’t care much about her life, it isn’t the sort of news I find all that interesting.

There was a picture in National Geographic some time back of a legless fisherman who was carried to and from his boat each day by his wife. They weren’t bemoaning their lot. It was simply life.

Some folks run the gauntlet, some carry their spouse, lose a child... others miss a bus, spend a month without a butler.

What matters with our struggles is who we seek for solace.

Now for the real hard part.

This isn’t God’s world. It isn't a nice place. It isn't the Hilton.

We have sullied it with our sin, our self-centeredness. With those choices comes the real prince of this world, The Prince of Darkness.

I tend to see things rosier than they are. But it is a mistake to ignore that we are opposed in seeking what is just, good, right. We are encouraged to seek strength in our Lord. It isn’t a guarantee that we will be rescued (none of the apostles were), but it is a guarantee we will be given the strength to endure.

Planning

A few comments readers have left on this blog lately have given me a great deal to think about.

Am I wrong to consider that the best thing for Jeremiah is for us to find a group home situation for him?

Is this an abandonment of my child or the greatest chance he has for fulfillment and a richer life?

Are we looking at what is convenient for us, or are we truly giving him the chance to be happy in seeking his own path in life, as limited as that may be under the watchful eyes?

I’ve given much thought to the idea of family. Perhaps my view of it is screwed up.

I’ve reason to suspect my point of view. First, readers I respect have obviously different views than mine. Readers who seem to agree with me also share my American outlook. Is this a cultural bias? That people are happiest when they seek a life of their own... the whole biblical thing: "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." Ephesians 5:31

Or am I rationalizing, using the Bible to justify a point of view?

Is this loving?

I think it is. At least it feels that way... For I love Jeremiah deeply, I’m willing to give him anything. And I think that being as independent as possible, being able to go to the movies when he wants, being able to choose what job he takes, learning to handle his own finances, being as much independent as possible, might make him happier than a life where his mother and I keep him in a bedroom and take him places we choose.

But I may be wrong. I often am. Perhaps my view on this is screwed up.

I am driving down to Southern California in a couple of weeks. My dad is doing something stupid and I told him I would come and watch. he has had a motorcycle built, a custom job, from the frame on up, and he is seeking to set a world record. The crazy old fart (70) is going to sit on a nitro fuel-guzzling 400 horsepower bike and streak across a dry lake bed.

I just paused in writing this to watch Jeremiah wipe a tear from his eye as the aged Rose in Titanic has dropped her diamond necklace, the Heart of the Ocean, into the North Atlantic in memory of Jack. I went over to him and gave him a hug.

Where was I? Yeah... my dad.

I’ve feared him all my life. I have difficulty respecting him because of the choices he has made, is making, and probably will always make. Frankly, the real reason I am driving a thousand miles to see him is because I think that he hates getting old so much that he would rather get killed attempting a world record than continue as a 70 year old man. so I am going down there to buy him a beer, have a conversation with him, let him know that I love him and I worry about his salvation.

He wasn’t much of a father to me. His taunts and ridicule as I grew up, his open mocking of my desire to learn, his explicit discouragement of going to college, even of finishing high school put me into a series of jobs that I was not suited for.

My two boys and I took our dog, Rocky on a walk this afternoon. There was an occasional bit of light rain, but beneath the canopy of the woods we hardly noticed. I told them that I wanted them to come with me to California. I explained the purpose of the trip, and a general idea of where we would be on each day of the week and a half trip.

Jeremiah is excited to go. Isaac has reservations.

I told them about how I feel about family. That it is important to keep in touch with family, to visit them when we can. That we can have a guys’ trip, eat junk food, stay up late, do all the stuff that Mommy usually wouldn’t let us do.

And throughout the conversation, as we walked through trillium and blackberries, past douglas fir and giant leaf maples, I kept thinking about what my kids mean to me and what is the right thing for me to be doing with them.

As I prayed with Isaac last night at his bed, he asked me to anoint him with oil. something that I do sporadically. So I did.

And it all confuses me. I do so many things with and for my children that I wish my father had done. I kiss them. I hug them. I pray for their future mates, wherever they may be, that they are godly women who will bless their lives.

And I feel a tightness in my chest when I think that my father is a selfish man who worries that people are after his wealth... all I want from him is a kind word.

I read once that during the Roman Empire a man could disown his natural son, but not an adopted child. The philosophy was that people have little choice about who is born into their family, unless they are adopted.

I chose my children and I pray, I truly pray, that I will make choices for my children that make them happy, healthy.

My dad’s dad was adopted. It’s a sad story. He was a good man. His step sons got drunk and beat him to death when I was in the third grade.

I’m adopted.

I followed after my birth parents, who did many selfish things, and I was headed for a life that was quite lost.

But I got adopted.

I was introduced into my adoptive family by Jesus. I was adopted into a heavenly family, God’s family, my adoption fees paid by my big brother, paid by His life.

So I’m feeling a little mixed up. My feelings for my children, my feelings for my father... Conflicting feelings over Jeremiah’s future, Isaac’s reluctance to go with me on this trip, even mixed feelings about this blog. Planning my parenting. Planning a trip. Planning my week.

But it’s my journey. It’s surprising I don’t get called to task for things more often than I do.

God bless all!