A Day in the Life of Chaos

  Navarone Playset When I was a young boy in the 1970’s, my  dominion was the carpet.  Between its 70’s shag fibers thousands of battles took place as my soldiers spread out in endless formations.  Bit by bit my mother’s Kirby vacuum would suck up small pieces of them.  Guns, knives, hats and scarves.  All would disappear in due course.  I treasu red my toy soldiers.   From America I had knights, cowboys, Indians and Civil War soldiers.    Green army men who would occasionally do battle against the prized Nazi’s a young friend of mine had.   His name was Shane,  and he had the best toy sets usually obtained at Christmas.   My favorite was a small mountain fortress with cannons sticking out posing as the fortress in the film "The Gun’s of Navarone."   He also had an Alamo play set filled with Mexicans and Texans.   Hamley's Regent Streat, London One Christmas morning in Alaska I awoke to find a giant playset my father had created for me.  Ever the architect he had constr

There is something that happens inside a parent as their child grows and they realize they don’t need them as much anymore.    In truth it should be seen as success.  “Spread your wings little one… fly!”, is the refrain I thought would echo in my brain.  My son is growing older.  He is nearly 21 now.  Sure he needs my money to survive but aside from that the dependent ties of a child are becoming thinner.   As a parent I must shift from the role of ruler to advisor.  The wise council that may or may not be followed and honestly may or may not be wise.  Every parent has a different way of confronting this issue and some never do.  My grandfather never stoped calling my mother “Baby Sally.”  I think in her parents minds she was always a little girl and never transitioned to adulthood.  My wife’s parents seemed to have accepted her growth yet every time she returned home she was still their girl and they took her under their parental wings as they had always done.  Despite bei ng of

Very young Patrick There is a land far to the north that in many ways seems disconnected from reality.  When you live there it is like living on an island and news from the outside comes in snip-its that leave you at times questioning your involvement with the rest of the world.  It is a magical place and I when I first came to know it,  the largest city was still developing.  Many roads were unpaved.  Television was primitive.  There were only three networks and shows would come up on tapes from Seattle with a two week delay.  Try to avoid a Monday Night Football score for two weeks!  The town was so news starved there were actually two news papers.  How many cities these days can boast that? The people that lived there were as disconnected as the place.  They seemed to all be running from something and everyone had a different and unique reason for their flight.  Somehow in the self imposed exile there was company among strangers.  Everyone seemed to revel in being different, be

David Hockney's "Pearblossom Highway #2." As I cross the mid-point of my life and move toward third base I always find myself wondering where is home?  These thoughts have recently come brilliantly to the forefront as I not long ago made contact with a distant cousin who is in the oil industry.  He lives a life of wandering that makes my own seem humble.   While Texas is his home his journeys carry him to Russia, Egypt, Oman, Yemen, Kazakhstan and East Africa.  Oh the old saying, "Home is where the heart is." has a certain ring to it but does it really mean anything?  As human beings we associate experiences with places and they color our minds in a collage of memories.  For some these are all close to home and for others, they span the world.  I often wonder if those that never lived a vagrant life are more satisfied?  They must feel so connected to the place that they live.  Like it is a part of them and they a part of it.  Are they happy with this or do th

As we grow old we can't help but notice the effects on our bodies.  Age is not kind.  The young body is viewed as the ideal, the old body is the result of living life.  It is like an old car.  It is no longer shiny and beautiful, it doesn't run as well but while taking longer, it still gets you there.  It is almost as if we are a product.  When we are born we are wrapped in the cellophane of our mother's womb.  We enter the world free from blemish, our minds have yet to be written and our bodies yet to be scarred.  Like an annual growing from a seed we seem so free from declination.  Our flower has yet to bloom and our seeds have yet to fall.  When we do flower, in our minds we reach perfection.  As a father I remember the day when my son scarred himself for the first time.  The beautiful product once protected by plastic was no longer new.  The problem with aging is that for many of us, our bodies change yet our minds never do.  While we collect life experience and wisdo

In life there are sign posts everywhere.  They lead us in so many directions that explain the paths and courses our lives have taken yet often, we never see them.  They are like mile markers on a highway, nearly invisible unless you actually decide to open your eyes.  Freud would make you look into the subconscious to understand the conscious but I don't believe you need to look that far.  I think you need only look at the way we live our lives. There is no path into our own lives as descriptive as the one exposed when you have a child.   How we raise our child and the attitudes we take are shaped by our parents in so many ways.  Even when we try to correct the mistakes our parents made in our own lives, we find that those mistakes inadvertently have a direct bearing on our children.  Human beings seemingly by nature are prone to the negative.  I am not sure why this is but it most certainly is.  When we reflect upon our own lives, for some reason the negative always seems to ste

There is a beauty to the innocence of a child.  It manifests itself in so many ways however if you don't look for it you might miss it.  The sad part is that over time, the innocence disappears as the child ages, corrupted by the world around them.  Sometimes I wonder, if there was a way you could take a generation of children and keep them away from any adult, is it possible that they might develop free from prejudice?  Would color be unimportant and sex be invisible? When a child is young they see a different world than an adult does.  Any question is based not on assumption or judgment, simply curiosity.  When a white child sees a black man they simply wonder why the person is a different color.  When the child sees a gay couple they wonder why it is different than their parents.  They are not passing judgment, there is none to be made.  They simply want to understand.  When my son was born I held him in my arms.  I cradled him and looked into his eyes.  I told him he could be

Everyone has a different definition of what friendship means.  It is a concept nearly as complex as love.  True friendship is something I have spent my life searching for like a prospector looking for a seam of gold.  Growing up I was fortunate to have lived in one place.  I developed a couple friends that I shared almost my entire youth with.  We were neighbors and in many ways brothers.  While connected to my familiar environment I always felt myself reaching to a world beyond.  Those were the days of letters and I eagerly wrote to pen palls I made around the world.  I had friends in Germany, England, Sweden and the Philippines.  I actually ended up marrying my friend from the Philippines but that is a long story for another time. There was something special about learning from other people in seemingly exotic places.  I discovered different points of view and a feeling that while far away, peoples thoughts, dreams and desires in life were very much the same.  It instilled in me