A WALK TO REMEMBER

The dog days of summer are slowly slipping away. The morning sun doesn't hit the window until well after I am up and headed out the door. The evening chill has arrive before I even walk up the stairs after a long day at work. It seems as though darkness is stealing daylight hours like a clever thief, waiting until your back is turned to sneak in and snatch what little sunlight we have left in our meager possession. The secret is to take advantage of these waning hours and bear witness to the burglary of our summer days. I silently slip on my shoes and a warm jacket and stroll a few blocks down to the beach. Clouds stretch across the sky like a too-short skirt trying to cover up innocence. The sun sinks behind the hills to the west, casting a reflection on the ocean's surface that would nearly blind you if you happen to catch its glare in your unshielded eyes. I stand on the shore, ears filled with the pounding surf, watching my summer slowly slip away right before my eyes. Sea otters frolic in the waves as though they have forgotten school is back in session and there is homework to be done. A chill creeps into my bones as a breeze picks up. Here I stand. Watching a spectacular sunset, feeling the salt breeze on my face, the ocean filling my senses with the last taste of summer.

I wrap my shawl around my shoulders a bit tighter and turn to walk in the hard packed sand near the water. I take my time, counting the crab shells left over from the sea birds messy meal. I stop to watch the sky change colors, from the bright hues of orange and blue to the monochromatic greys and blacks. It is the summer sky changing from day wear into its tuxedo. Slowly the lights of Monterey begin to twinkle, a red one there, a blue one over there.. until the curve of the bay looks as though it has rushed to decorate for the holidays. I drift toward the lights of beach fires and a sense of melancholy sweeps across my back, pushing me closer to winter. I turn one last time to watch as summer slips into the southern hemisphere, stop and say goodbye to all that is summer. As I head for home, I embrace the fog that has crept in over the sea and look forward to the chill of an autumn sunrise.

PLAYING FAVORITES

Pick any middle-age man or woman and he or she can tell you, within three seconds, who their favorite teachers were in high school. Funny enough, it isn't usually the one that was their favorite when they were actually IN high school either. Oh sure, at 16, we all loved the hip, with-it, cool cat of a teacher that let us call him by his first name, told us stories about his girlfriend or wife, and let it slide when we didn't do a stellar job on our final paper. No. I'm talking about that teacher who we realized, somewhere between our 30th and 50th birthday, had made an impact on our lives so strong that we still carry the lessons with us today. I was blessed with a few of those along the way.

One such teacher was Mr. Lesko. I was lucky. I had Mr. Lesko from junior high all the way up until my high school graduation. He was firm, but kind. Caring, but private. Funny and polite. We knew our boundaries with Mr. Lesko. He let us be ourselves, but encouraged us to become so much more. He valued education and valued our futures as well. I trusted Mr. Lesko. But the biggest life lesson I learned in his class didn't come out of a book. I remember sitting in his Bible class where he would remind us over and over again, "Don't ever take my word for it. Don't ever think because a pastor said it or a teacher said it or the president of the United States said it that it is true. Study it for yourself. Ask questions. Go, discover truth with your own inquisitive mind and spirit. Ask God to go with you and you'll never go wrong." That lesson changed my life. That lesson brought me closer to my Creator. That lesson gave me a relationship with truth that exists to this day. So, thank you, Mister Doctor Lesko! You, my beloved teacher, made a huge impact not only on my earthly future, but my spiritual one as well. In that simple lesson, you gave me an education that has sustained me, and will last me a lifetime. You are blessed... and highly favored!

Ampersand one more thing...

Have you ever found words that just SOUND like what they mean? Take the word "sensuous." The way you pucker up your lips in that Ingrid Bergman to Humphrey Bogart sort of way. Go ahead, say it outloud. See? It sounds exactly the way it is meant. Sexy, slow, languid. SINNNNNN Shoooooe Usssssssss..... Hey. Any word that has "sin," "shoe," and "us" enunciated so perfectly has to be said - and often. I love words. Always have. True story that many of you have heard over the years, but it bears repeating (there is another word...repeating... what is "peating" and why would I want to do it over and over?).... I was in Mr. Kakazu's class. Fifth grade. All of my best friends were in my homeroom (someone wasn't paying attention when they made that class roster). I was a talker. Oh I know, that's hard to believe now, but truly, I was verbose. I loved words. And I would quite often use them, much to the frustrations of Mr. Kakazu. He had a favorite punishment he liked to dole out to those pesky kids that constantly interrupted his train of thought when his back was turned to us. He would keep track of how many "shhhh's" he had to give out and then, without warning, he would round us all up and send us out to the ping-pong table on the patio of our classroom, reminding us to pick up a dictionary as we filed past the rolling book cart on our way out the door. Then, we were ordered to pull up a chair around said ping-pong table and he would "assign" us our punishment.

I would get pages six through twenty, Robyn would get pages fifty-two through sixty-five, Hector would get... well, you get the idea. Fifteen to twenty pages of copying down each word in the dictionary and at least two of the meanings for those words. Oh how the other kids hated it. They would moan and complain and fuss and eventually plop into their chairs with a huff and a growl. I would ever so quietly, for fear of being found out, open my book and gleefully begin on my "punishment." In fact, I enjoyed it so much, the other kids actually would bribe me with their lunch time snacks, money, and their coveted markers used in hop-scotch. Remember those? The best ones were made from rabbits feet and that little chain thingie. Yeah... I collected all the bribes and would do their pages too. I loved this punishment! In fact, I got punished alot that year. I spent a huge chunk of my fall and early winter quarters outside on the patio in the Southern California Indian Summers, having the time of my life with words. It was all working quite delightfully to my advantage. Until Mr. Kakazu decided to ask my mother, in one of those completely unnecessary parent-teacher conferences, why on earth did I talk so much and was there any way she could help out with this because I was constantly getting in trouble, getting punished, and it was driving him crazy! My mother, ever the protective hen, demanded to know exactly what sort of punishment he was meting out to me. He told her, with quite some pride in his voice, of his very clever, educational punishment. When my mother stopped laughing long enough to dry the tears from her eyes, she told him that he had picked quite the reward for her precious daughter. She told him how we spent nights together, working crossword puzzles, and how I would flip through the encyclopedias at home just for the fun of it. (Yes children, knowledge used to come in well-researched, factoid bound things called books, not the internet). She told him that the most dog-eared, page-worn book in our house was the dictionary and that I would spend my Sunday afternoons with it on my lap, going through it like an investigator on the trail of a good clue. And the fact that he put the exclamation point on the punishment by sending me outside into the sunshine and warm breezes just made it all that more rewarding to me! I sat through that conference in horror. My mother, mi madre, my avenger, my protector, my partner in acrostics was selling me down the river. She told my teacher she had the perfect punishment for me... and then sent me out of the room while she shared this parental nugget with this, this MAN teacher! Sure enough, a few days later, I was back at my old antics - talking to my buddies, catching up on the latest cartoons, when Mr. Kakazu wheeled around, pointed his yardstick at me, and said, "You. Now. Take your chair and go sit in the corner of the classroom library." Wait. What? I gathered up my spelling book and a dictionary and he said, "No... just you and your chair. Over there. Back to the wall. Facing the classroom." I grabbed a book to read. "Nope. Leave the book at your desk. Just you. Chair. Sit. And don't talk." Oh dear God in the merciful heavens. Sit? In the library? Surrounded by books? And... you mean, just SIT? And be quiet? But... "No buts Missy. Just yours on a chair." (Yeah, don't you love fifth-grade teacher humor?). For the next forty-five... yes, forty-five minutes... I know it was forty-five because I counted each and every one of them... I sat. And I watched the class engage in delightful discussions with the teacher and each other. Hold up. THEY get to talk and you're punishing me for talking?? SO not fair. My mother had figured out my own personal hell. Sitting. Quietly. Not reading. Not writing. Not answering questions. Not talking. Just watching everyone else have a jolly good time... without me. I wanted to turn my chair around and stare at the wall. I wanted to count the holes in the asbestos-lined ceiling tiles. Anything but this thing of no talking, no writing, no reading. Seriously? Is there a more potent hell than this? Despite all the subsequent years of mother-approved punishments from my teachers, I still love words. Ampersand is another of my favorites. It implies so much..it is a fancy essss... it indicates there is "more" of something... it is a long word for a symbol that means a short word... it is a dichotomy. An enigma, irony, and oxymoron all rolled into one. Someone used it in a sentence the other day. I was impressed. You do know what an Ampersand is... don't you? I have a dictionary. I believe it is on page six.

WHERE'S THE FIRE?

Monterey has a stunning hook & ladder fire truck... a "6471 Truck Company it located at Fire Station #1, 2008 KME, Tiller Truck 3 Axles, Weight 78,000 G.V.W., 56 Feet in Length, Ladder extends to 105 feet, 1500 G.P.M. Pump Single Stage Pump, 300 Gallons Water Tank, 500 Feet 5" Hose" to be exact... grammar mistakes and all. Now, to be fair, they have actually used this truck at least once... to which the pictures on the city's website will attest... there was a raging fire downtown a few years ago that required the "ladder" part of the truck to be extended to nearly it's full length of 105 feet... well, maybe closer to 70 feet... but still... one of the photos shows the extended ladder (the truck barely fits on the street in front of the now-demolished building) in position next to a ladder leaning up against the building next door... hmmmmm. Seems like a bit of overkill, but I am not a fireman... with a new truck... that should probably be used every so often to justify its cost to the city. But far be it from me to complain about its usage. The firemen of Station #1 make sure that their hook and ladder 6471 is used every single day. They are on a mission. Each and every work day (I am not sure about the weekends because I am safely ensconced at home, away from the hubbub of downtown) this delightful exhibition of excess makes sure it winds its way through the downtown area, sirens blazing, going somewhere. Although I have heard nothing in the news or in the paper about needing a hook and ladder truck, still, it heads out of the station faithfully, every day, at the same time... I suppose they are conducting "exercises..." In case one of our multi-story buildings HAPPENS to catch on fire... at the top floors... which led me to count the number of buildings that would possibly actually maybe use this shiny red truck.

To be fair, we do have several hotels with more than two floors... and I am sure it would come in handy to have this wonderful piece of "Fire Apparatus" as the website calls it... should it ever be needed. But what I find amusing is the daily practice runs... you can set your watch by them. There they go again, sirens blazing, engines gunning, the proud firefighter sitting high on his perch, manning his wheel in the back, everyone in full gear, going to........ That's what I can't figure out. Oh to see them parked in front of Starbucks. Or maybe Red's Donuts. Or possibly at Safeway, picking up their groceries. But so far, all I can deduce is they take that big ol' puppy out for a run around the block, show it off, and take it back home and put it to bed. A friend of mine took her kids on a walk the other day. They decided to just walk by the firestation so they could ogle the big shiny red trucks. The entire crew came out to greet them, and proceeded to take them on a tour of the station. Not only did the kids get to climb all over the trucks, but they got to go upstairs to see where the nice firemen slept. And ate. And took showers. And relaxed. And and and... they got a FULL tour. Which leads me to believe that our wonderful firemen are bored out of their skulls. I guess I should be grateful they are not kept as busy as the overworked and underpaid California Conservation Crew firemen battling raging fires throughout our state. We are not living under a mountain of ash or watching altered sunsets made colorful by the existence of smoke in the air. But I am still curious as to where the hook and ladder goes every day at 5:45 pm... sirens blaring, engines roaring, with the little wheel room in the back manned by a very proud firefighter.

MUSCLE CAR

Ours was a used car. Mom and dad had no use for new cars. They weren't broke in yet. All the kinks weren't worked out. When the calendar showed my 16th birthday fast approaching, they went and bought something big. And powerful. Something their baby girl could handle. That's right. Our family car became a 1970 Dodge Challenger...light gold metallic with a 440 hemi engine. Oh yeah, the muscle car. With mag wheels. What on earth was my father thinking? I handled that baby like butter. And don't let me leave the house p.o.'d at anything. I could burn rubber with the best of them. Oh so many memories in that car. I was designated "cool" and became everyone's "wheels" when there was anywhere to be going. My baby took us to the beach, the drive-in, the mall, and even church. I always carried an eclectic group of friends in high school. Robyn, Matthew, Danny, and I were buds. We would cruise the strip in Hollyweird and pretend we were celebrities. We would pile into the car on a hot summer day, windows rolled down, boom box radio blasting on the console, and head down to the beach. Rides home were always interesting as we would maneuver to change into our street clothes, brush the sand from our feet, and keep tempo on the dashboard to the tunes of Van Halen, Queen, and the Eagles.

I will never forget the feel of the wind blowing in my long blond hair, seeing my best friends slumped against the door, sound asleep after a long day of surf and sand and music. Woven into this tapestry of memory is music, always music... and the sound of that powerful engine as I fought to keep it under 90 on the way home. As the years rolled by, that car was my companion on a lot of clandestine journeys. Stalking trips past a certain boy's house, stopovers at the local pool hall to try and beat the house video games, ditching church, stripping down to our hidden bathing suits, and heading for Huntington Beach and the pier for some serious boy watching. Trying to convince mom and dad that the sand was there from last week's trip and the sunburn was from hanging out on the church patio listening to Sister Dorothy tell us about her children. Memories were created in that car. Sunsets watched. Nighttime city lights twinkling in the distance as we snuck up to Chantry Flats. Education happened in that car. I learned how to roll the mileage back so dad wouldn't realize we had burned a whole tank of gas headed out to a mall 70 miles from home. Distance was covered at 66 cents a gallon as we all set out on summer time adventures. Mojave Desert. Disneyland. Huntington Beach. Santa Barbara. I think my dad knew of our escapades. He trusted the car to bring me home... and it did just that. Regardless of the day's activities, secrets, or mysteries, I always slept safe and sound in my own bed. Dreaming of tomorrows - and the places we could go in my 1970 Dodge Challenger with the 440 hemi engine and the mag wheels that could burn rubber.

Kindle Dreams

I've always had a love affair with books. Since I was a baby and my brother would prop me on his knees and read his science texts to me, I've loved books. It is the feel of them in your hands. The smell as you turn the pages. The joy of scrunching under the covers and reading by flashlight. I've loved books as long as I can remember. They've been my companions. My confidants. My lovers. My friends. They soothe, frighten, enlighten, and amuse me. I peruse free and used book shelves. I explore the bowels of my local library. I can read three or four books at a time and I don't worry about keeping the stories straight. It makes for interesting and sometimes confusing nightmares about espionage, romance, and science fiction all rolled into one huge subconscious free-for-all of a night. Which is why it is curious, even to me, after nearly two years of contemplation, study, and such that I broke down and purchased a Kindle. One thousand four hundred books can be stored in the palm of my hand. I argued with myself for a long time. I would miss the smell. I would lose the joy of turning a page. I would... but I finally did it. I got the electronic thingamagig and started downloading. Fun books. Word games. Mysteries. Romances. An entire Bible. Religion. Philosophy. Meditation. How-to.

And I read. I read on the bus to and from work. I read eating my lunch. I read before I go to bed. I read waiting for dinner. I read... well, you get the idea. I can finish a 300 page book in about 2 days with my Kindle. I'm not sure how. The page turning is seamless and, before I know it, I'm coming to the end of another book. I'll start six or seven books before I settle on the one that piques my interest at any given moment. And I can download free books from my library. And free books from Kindle. I feel as though my reading horizon has suddenly expanded. But you know what I discovered? A hidden benefit. No longer am I tripping over books already read, stacked in my livingroom, bedroom, and closet. No longer do I wonder where I left off or where I left the book I was reading. No longer do I lug around a heavy book, trying to figure out how to cram it in my tiny purse. Excuse me now. There is a dashing young gentleman getting ready to propose to an serial alien killer who knows how to chop vegetables and puree cats. And somewhere, there is a five letter word that describes all of that. There I go - mixing up my stories again. But hey, it makes for interesting dreams!

Cherry Red Dreams

There is a fever brewing in town. It's cherry red. It's ebony black. It roars in the heads of locals like twin cams on a tricked-out Shelby. Old men in khaki shorts with tube socks and sandals and expensive cameras pressed against their good eye are milling about. The privileged ones wear their shiny badges on a twisted lanyard hanging proudly around their thick necks. Guys with unlit cigars dangling from their lips and women with silly hats and ridiculous shoes traipse through the lobby of the convention center. All focused on the cars. The automobiles that remind them of their teenage dreams. The tricked-out Porches that can only be driven by the very rich, very foolish, and very fast circuit jockeys. Concepts. Ridiculous. One-of-a-kind. It is an auction of these fine specimens of Italian and German and, yes, even American ingenuity. No price tags. As they say on Rodeo Drive, if you have to ask, you probably can't afford it. But wishes are free. And dreams are plenty. And for a moment, on a sunny, breezy, summer afternoon, I too wandered through the maze of elegance, gawking at the things that go vroom... reliving the desires of my youth listening to the self-proclaimed experts expound the virtues of their favorites. Shelby. Jaguar. Mercedes. Porche. Not a Volvo or a Pinto in the bunch. I've caught the fever. I am there, amongst the serious and not-so-serious. I too will wish and dream and remember. I even have a silly hat to wear.

TOURIST TOWN

About 4 years ago, our economy started to tank. And you can blame whomever you choose to blame... This is not a political blog, so we'll steer clear of that game. But I mention it because, for the last four years, the summers here in Monterey have been dismally attended by tourists, creating a gaping hole in our local economy. But that seems to have changed overnight here in Monterey.

This weekend alone we have the Motorcycle Grand Prix - with BMW, Ducati, Yamaha, Kawasaki, and Ninja bikes flooding the town with a throb of their mufflerless bikes. We have the Reggae Festival at the Fairgrounds, with the dreads, the jerk chicken, and the steel drums of Jamacia in our back yard. The delightful smells of Gilroy's Garlic Festival wafts in over the hills, and down the street we can hear the soulful sax of our local jazz in the park Sunday thing going on. The Aquarium was rumored to have close to 13,000 visitors Saturday alone! Last night, we ventured out into the throbbing crowd and got a glimpse of the economy on the rise. A new art studio on Cannery Row got smart and made it an "art and coffee" bar, and they even closed off streets to accommodate the visitors milling about. Local police were busy 'escorting' the motorcycles to and fro, and the Jaegermeister girls were in full force... they really need to eat a sandwich or two though. We saw friends and neighbors in the mix, but mostly, tourists abounded with glee. We passed two ladies from Florida, shivering in the cool, brisk evening of a Monterey summer. We observed visitors from Holland trying to make sense of a local map. Even the otters were in on the tourist deal and decided to, uncharacteristically, frolic in the surf of the marina just for show. It seems as though tourism has hit Monterey all in one weekend. We ended our evening at a downtown pub, watching Olympics with the the other locals seeking a haven from the insanity. It was all fine and good until the skinny models from Jaegermeister walked in... with their whistles and swag. Now, I sit here in the midst of snatches of reggae and jazz, listening to five military jets taking off from our local airport. Ahh.. the noise of a tourist town.

A WARM SPOT

A couple of days ago, a friend of mine was bemoaning her astute observation that the birds were out to get her. She had gotten pooped on - and not in a "good-luck" sort of way, she had one dive bomb her on her way into her house, and, the weirdest event of all, a pigeon had flown into the front of her car... and was stuck between the radiator and front grill.... alive. And, did I mention, stuck? So she drove home. And then back to work the next morning. And then to run errands. And then back home. And back to work this morning too. All the while, the pigeon was tucked neatly, riding shotgun in the front of her car. I can only imagine the wind blowing through his wings... Today, at lunchtime, she went to check on her new travelling companion. And there he was, fit as a fiddle, snug as a bird in a grill... and the campaign to evict him from his, obviously preferred, mode of transportation began. First, the boyfriend dug around in the front of the car for awhile, trying to shoo him away. Then a very helpful elderly gentleman stopped by to see what he could do to help. And his wife got out of the car to see what he was doing helping this very attractive, young lady... Then the concerned citizens came by to make sure that someone wasn't trying to steal the pretty girl's car. Pretty soon a crowd had gathered. A couple rode up on their bicycles and ogled the misadventure of said pigeon. Two more ladies, obviously representatives from some animal rights organization hustled their way into the crowd to make sure the pigeon wasn't being maimed. And of course, I had to go out to see what all the fuss was about. There was the pigeon, obviously enjoying the attention, sticking his head out of the grill and pecking at any knees that came within pecking distance. It was beginning to look like they were going to have to dismantle the car to remove this new resident of Hondaville. When someone got a brilliant idea and simple pushed on one of the horizontal grills to open a space wide enough for the bird to squeeze out. He hopped on the ground, a bit disoriented... consider it.. he had ridden to Trader Joes, the mall, Target, home, and work for a couple of days... you'd be all turned around too! For a dramatic effect, he limped a bit and dragged his wing on the ground for a minute or two. Apparently not afraid of people, he let us all coo over him for a bit (ha... my pigeon humor). People were so anxious to help this weary traveler. They brought him a dog bowl of water. An additional cup of cold filtered water, some popcorn, and some crumbled up, day-old crackers... you know, the sort of things we carry around in our purses... He picked at the popcorn, casually perused the crackers, and looked at the water dishes like they were some form of torture device meant to keep him from satisfying his 3-day old thirst.

Someone finally got a brilliant idea and figured that birds like our dear pigeon probably were used to getting their water from the nooks and crannies in the sidewalks. She poured out the water and the bird was in heaven. Food, water, freedom. What more can you ask for in bird world? He hung around for awhile. I am thinking he kind of liked all the attention. The crowd dissolved back into everyday destinations and the bird just sat there, in front of my door, waiting for more of something. He finally gave up and flew away. Presumably to find another warm spot to sleep in tonight. I wonder if he'll choose a Lexus this time?

FLYING IS FOREIGN

I have this bird. He was free. Well, not in the sense that he was allowed to fly through the open skies and sleep where he likes. Free, as in, he didn't cost me anything. Well, not that really either. I mean, there are the food bills. And the treats. And the toys. And the cleaning up after. Hmm... Maybe he isn't so free afterall. But I digress. This bird is our pet. I know, not the most fluffy or cozy of pets. But he is ours. And he likes to make himself known. He currently resides in a wire cage in the corner of our bedroom. We leave the doors open and the top off. Apparently he doesn't think of freedom in the true sense of the word. Every so often, he'll fall out of his cage. Seriously. He'll go to move from one perch to another and literally "fall" out of the cage. He flutters about the room for a while, hits the wall a couple of times, and lands on the floor. Where he sits. And looks up at us with those big bird eyes begging us to come get him. Flying is foreign to this bird. He has toys too. Bells. Bells he likes to ring. At all hours of the night. So we have taken to putting them on the outside of his cage at night so he cannot play with his toys. He will climb to the top of the open cage, crawl over the side to get at his bells, and fall. He flutters about the room for a while, hits the wall a couple of times... well, you know - he's done this before. And we have to get out of bed, go find him, and put him back in his cage. He is quite content in his cage. And really hates it when he accidentally falls out of it. Which got me to thinking. How much are we like birds? We live in our cages... content to eat and chirp and play with our toys. Constrained and trained by limiting beliefs that the world is harsh or we can't make it or we're not good enough, fast enough, or don't have what it takes... So we are content to stay on our safe perch... and when we do manage to 'fall' into our freedom, it scares the beejeesus out of us and we flutter about and hit the wall a couple of times and give up... and we beg for someone to put us back in our cage. Flying is foreign to us. But aren't you the least bit curious? I mean, the top is off and the door is open! Spread your wings - fly - practice a few times... soon you'll learn to avoid the wall, find your rhythm and get the hang of the whole freedom thing.... and who knows what open doors and windows you might find in your adventures outside of your cage.