A Day in the Life of Chaos

In a previous blog I mentioned some people that have passed that helped to make me who I am as a person.  I hope this is mostly for the better and less than for the worse.  I thought I would take a moment to write a few recollections about some of the people I have known and continue to know and what they meant to me.  It is interesting I suppose that the majority of the people noted are father figures.  I think in the life of a young developing man male figures that pay them attention and give them a sense of worth are very important.  My father had a similar impact on the life of one of my friends.  With my father’s encouragement and guidance my friend made it through the university and found direction in his life.  I truly believe my father was critical in his progression.  Regretfully I am not sure I have ever held the same significance to a person in life aside from my son.  That said, often we never fully understand the role our actions play on the lives of others and few circl

The first time I remember confronting death was as a child.  My mother took me to visit my paternal grandmother and grandfather in a Los Angeles suburb.  It was the kind of place that the original boom California generation moved to as a relief for what central Los Angeles had become. I was twelve years old and my memories of my grandfather were limited as we had moved north to Alaska when I was two years old.  I had only seen him a couple of times since then and those memories were clouded in the fog of early youth.  Memories colored by photographs that likely don’t recall but simply recreate a memory that had left the mind or been buried within its deep recesses.    My grandfather was debilitated.  He sat in his naugahyde recliner with a blanket wrapped around him watching reruns of Bonanza and Big Valley.  He was suffering from brain cancer and his time was limited but when you are young, and have no concept of death, time seems to have little finality.  For a young mind, Gra

When I was 12 I started to date Italy.  It was really more of a blind date, I never knew her.  I traveled there with my parents as part of a grand European tour.  The kind that sent us blasting by train from capital to capital and recalled the seminal movie of European tourism, If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium.  At one point we spun the dial and landed in Rome.  It was a chaotic place compared to the other grand European cities I had seen.  It was also ancient.  London was wonderful, Paris grand.  Vienna was regal but only in Rome did I feel like I was stepping toward antiquity.  Monuments a testament to time and civilization stood in stark contrast to the lines of traffic and the occasional modern building.  I don't remember a lot from my time there but I do think it was a taste of my future.  I remember horns honking, Vespa's whizzing by and the smell of diesel in the air.  I remember my father's frustration as he struggled to pull flimsy luggage carts over cobble