58 years ago

Update.--May 8, 2009, someone pointed out a mistake in my calculations which I've updated. It doesn't change the idea.

At about 6:00 pm September 4, 1949 I came into this world. I was one of about 100 people who also came into the world that minute, 6,000 that hour at 6-7 pm, and 144,000 that day. Sounds kinda' small if you look that the whole of the day in the world that particular day 58 years ago. But to my parents, I was just one, their one, and the third child in their family. My sister born a year plus earlier and my brother born six years earlier were there to greet me at home.

I don't remember any of my early years. My first memories are from about 1953-54 when we lived in an English country estate before moving onto base housing at Sculpthorpe Air Force Base where Dad was stationed. We lived in Bardon, Garvestone, Norfolk, England. It was a four-story stone house built about 400 years ago. It had no electricity and Dad wired the first floor to add baseboard heaters and kitchen appliances.

I remember the youthful freedom on the estate, just open space. As time will tell I need open space where I live. My current home where I've lived over 20 years now, has a view of the entire southeast horizon overlooking the Narrows Strait and Tacoma Narrows Bridges. I keep my curtains and windows open to let the light and air into the place and I can always see out into the world. When I worked in an office without windows once I realized I'm mildly claustrophobic - why I hate backpacking, I can't sleep in tents.

It's been an interesting 58 years. I lived in England and Germany for half my life before I was 14 years old. To see older Europe in my youth was great. Beside Bardon, in Germany we lived in a small town outside Frankfort, the only Americans in a town of a few hundred people on the top of a hill surrounded by a national forest. We had to catch the school bus at the bottom of the hill and had our afternoons were spent playing in town with the other kids and in the forest.

I lived in Aurora, Colorado in the early to middle 1960's, when it was almost entirely a white middle class suburb of Denver than a city of its own. Aurora Central High School was a bike ride every day before I got a 1961 Studebark Lark for a car as a teenage driver. I learned to drive in a VW in the rural roads in the country east of Aurora, a short 15 minute drive from our home. It was the safe neighborhood where I watched the riots in big cities and the war in Vietnam on television, the first time I ever watched television.

After my service in the US Air Force (1969-73) I used the GI Bill to get a BA and MS degree in Geography and join the US Geological Survey (1978). I spent the next 27-plus years as a hydrologic technician and hydrologist in Oregon, Arizona and Washington. I thoroughly enjoyed my career, especially the work - including Mount St. Helens in May 1980 shortly after the eruption - and the field and office staff I worked with and who worked for me the years I was a supervisor. I had a major dislike and disagreement with management, which lost me a career opportunities into senior management to do more and better stuff.

I regret the choices losing the opportunities but I don't regret the choices fighting and sometimes offending managers. Most I've met in my career are horrible as managers and forget they're people just like the rest of us. I only had one boss whom I both respected and liked. They're rare, and yet, I always had positive evaluations from those who worked for me and had numerous recommendations to become a senior manager. It's just, like my my brother, I didn't play office politics, so I lost.

Since my retirement in December 2005, I pursued my longtime hobby as a serious photographer. I hope to continue to learn and do better, to capture and produce better images, and to develop it into a small personal business. I hope to continue my interest in my photography projects, especially a photography guide for Mt. Rainier NP. I hope to continue to have my health for my life interests in hiking Mt. Rainier NP and travel for my photography. And I hope to continue my other interests in life on my Website.

It's been a good life so far, and I'm luckier than many people, especially to be financial ok and physically healthy to have the time and resources to do what I want. I couldn't ask for more from my 58 years, and the future is still there.

To my brother Greg

My older brother Greg passed away August 21, 1991. It was an eventful day all the way around, as I realized later. He overshadowed me throughout our lives. He was 6-plus years older, the first born. Our parents put almost all their love into him and his future, the rest going to my sister with some scrapes for me, until that day, and afterward I wasn't much beyond a card now and then. His death took the life from our Dad, who passed away just over 3 years later.

We were like the plants. He the bigger noticeable one with all the life to show. I the one finding life on the edge and eventually asked to leave at 19. It wasn't either of us who caused this, it was our Dad who made those decision about our importance in his life and the family, and my Mom who followed Dad. That's all. In our twenties we had our own lives, work and families, but as we grew into our thirties, we broke through the divide our Dad created.

We found being brothers was what we missed and let it almost slip through our lives, never really knowing the other one. Greg was the career one in our family, rising to be CEO of AMC Theater Company before being ousted in a buyout he negotiated. He learned about corporate politics the hard way, and one on his own again, he lost sight of life, to die a few years later from the wear and tear of life. And that's the sadness of it.

While he was a two-pack a day smoker and an alcoholic, he was smart and wise in many aspects. Sadly not with his family. It seems he followed what he learned from Dad, and his three kids turned out very similar to us three, but they're doing far better now as we did. That's life, you cope and get on with it, or decide something else to do.

Anyway, I salute him every August 21st. You see it was the day I bought my 1991 VW Vanagon Syncro, and drove it home to hear the news on the answering machine. The first drive was to the airport to fly to Kansas City for the funeral. The second trip after coming home was to the ocean near Westport south of Aberdeen. For a reason.

We travelled a lot in the world, but Greg never saw the Pacific Ocean. He came close once when he went to LA to negotiate the buyout deal of AMC with the new company. He couldn't find the time to go to the beach and stand there to see the ocean. He always expressed regret about that, so I took some flower from the service to place them in the ocean, and watch them float out to sea. It was all I could think of to do to give thanks for him and being his brother.

You see for many years our Dad tried to make us compete with each other on his standards. We broke from that when he was living in Gunnison, Colorado. He loved living there in the country. His family didn't, so after 2-plus years he returned to Denver and then Kansas City for the family. But I could see it in his eyes and heart, he didn't want to leave Gunnison. While I praised his success, he praised my freedom.

He was locked into our parents. I was set free but mostly disowned. We found our friendship to talk about life, something I haven't done with anyone else. We were totally different but found we were also so alike. I miss him. And I think of May 25, 1997, the day we reached the same age in our life. I'm still here and he's still in our hearts.

SS United States

I read an article in USA Today about the 1950-60's passenger liner, SS United States. I've been watching the process of the potential rebirith of this great ocean liner, long before the day of the cruise ships of today. Why write about this ship?

Well, I was a passenger twice in this ship's history. We lived in England from 1952 to 1955. Since my Dad was an officer he had the choice in 1955 of flying him and his family back to the US or taking a ship. He chose the ship, and so in 1955 we had a 5 days trip on the SS United States from England to New York City, where we unloaded Dad's Austin Healy 100/4 and picked up our new Ford Victoria sedan, and set off cross country to Idaho.

We spent four years in Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, a place in the middle of the desert I wouldn't wish anyone live. After that Dad had the option for another term with "career potential" there or take an overseas assignment and retire at the end of it. He chose the latter and we spent 4 years in Germany. He got his last promotion in a transfer and agreed to retire in October 1963.

The trip in 1959 to Germany was interesting. We flew the whole trip from Idaho to Germany in a USAF troop transport (prop) plane converted for flying families. We stopped several times including Nova Scotia and Scotland to refuel before reaching Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany. We spent one year in local (off base) housing in a small town where we were the only Americans, and the last three years in military housing in Wiesbaden. When Dad retired, he was offered the choice of flying home or taking a ship. And again, he chose the latter.

So in October 1963 we took the trip to LeHarve, France. We had to change trains in Paris, cross Paris in a taxi past the Eiffel Tower to another train station to catch the specific one to the LeHarve port for ship passengers. This time we had an upper deck suite. And it's one trip I remember, spending 5 days at sea, sometimes boring but in the end a lifetime experience I wouldn't have changed. Few people these days have the experience of a transAtlantic trip, especially on the SS United States, the world's fastest ocean liner.

I'm saddened it's not going to be refurbished and put to sea again, but there's always hope. And I have my memories.

I am first a Geographer

I got to thinking about who I am, something we all do occasionally in our life. We all like labels, mostly to others to explain who we are, or want people to perceive us, and what we do in our life. It's about our being and doing. And we like to explain it to ourself, to assure we know ourself and ensure we're ok with ourself and our life. Or at least I do and notice many people do. And the reason for this thought.

Well, I am, first and foremost, a geographer. I'm not necessarily one of those professional geographers, who you know as professors at universities or some "expert" on world events. And while I have BA and MS degrees in geogaphy, and have used it throughout my career in the US Geological Survery, I never understood how many people don't realize the importance of knowing geography, when it often very simple to use in many task in work and life.

To me, however, geography is how I think, and how I see the world. I'm one of those people who's mind works spatially and in mental maps. I got this revalation when reading Edward Hall's book "The Dance of Life" years ago. Everyone's mind works in a fundamental way, it's basic operating mode, such as words, music, math, tastes, physical movement, interpersonal communications, intrapersonal communications, artistically, spatially, and so on. It's why our education system fails, because it fails to teach to other modes but only those who work in words or those who can translate words to their modes.

I see the world spatially. I translate everything to visual images or maps. I translate maps to visual images, directions to pictures, and places to mental images. Once I go somewhere I remember the trip by the images of the places, roads, etc., that are visual clues to going there again or remembering the route. I rarely remember an address but I'll remember the place. I can't tell you how to get somewhere but I can describe the route you take.

After being a geographer first, I'm a hydrologist second. It's what I did for 28 years with the USGS, but studying, researching and understanding rivers are a part of my psyche. I like rivers. While there were days of doing field work where I was tired of either the cold and rain of the Northwest or the heat of Southwest deserts, at the end of the day I enjoyed just being in the world next to a river. I also enjoy fly-fishing, just to be there. I rarely catch fish, but it's not about really catching fish that matters, it's about being there.

Two events in my life emphasized my innate sense of connections to rivers. The first was a trip and the second a book. In December 1975 Linda and I took a trip from Sacramento, California to Bellingham, Washington to attend graduate school at Western Washington University. It was a period of extensive severe flooding throughout western Washington and the Skagit River was well above flood stage. I was awed by the power of the river and the stupidity of people living in a floodplain.

This later became my original thesis topic, but failed three-fourth of the way through it as I learned about the Skagit River valley people. The second was Alan Watt's book "Tao: The Watercourse Way" which describes Taoism with a river. The image has stayed with me and something I realize if I ever can understand the image in the smallest way I can begin to understand being a Taoist. It's the adage, if you can understand it you can't describe it, and if you can describe it then you don't understand it.

After being a geographer and a hydrologist, I'm a photographer. This is a outgrowth and expression of my visual mind. Photography is the outward expression of my mind through my eyes with film or digital images. I realize I'll never be a professional photographer, the drive and motivation aren't there to pursue it to the fullest extent required by professionals, but I am serious to produce the best images I can, or try to at least - attempts and failures included. I know this for several reasons.

First, much of the technical side of photography doesn't interest me, the depth of knowledge and experience for fine art photography. This requires extensive time that I want to devote to other interests. Second, it requires patience and perservance, and for the same reasons I don't have the interest to stay focused through the many problems for small, incremental improvements I don't often see or understand. Third, it requires focus on a theme or project. This I'm working on, and may be the avenue to overcome my problems to be a better photographer.

I've explained my history in photography and my view of being an ordinary photographer, which is mostly being a serious casual photographer, meaning I focus my photography on the field side, something I've done since I started in 1969, and now in my new life, aka retirement, I'm working on the serious side of photography with the production side.

Series Introduction

I decided to add another series to my blog here. It's My Life in Stories (MLS). Why? I don't really know, except some of it is simply to wander around my life and tell the stories I think are interesting, make a point, and whatever cross the synapses from the past worth a column. I've generally lead an ordinary life, like almost all of us, with some exceptions when life offered some wonderful or outstanding moments I would like to share. I'm writing this partly because my brother and father never did say much about their life, sadly because my brother was extremely smart and my Dad lived through the depression in Kansas along with a 23 year career in the military, a lot of knowledge of and experience from the past died with them.

And now I'm down to one sister and Linda (ex-wife). So, I decided to just think out loud and wander around my life. All these are true events or experiences in my life as best I can remember, but as I've read we don't actually remember our whole life, only snippets of information which we use to write a new version every time we want to remember it or it erupts into our consciousness by accident. So, these will also be an evolving story, as each chapter is written and updated as I remember them.

The stories aren't in any particular order or connected, so you don't have to read them sequentially. Hopefully, they'll be interconnected by the threads in the fabric of my life and being. You'll see, starting in chapter one, they'll be written with three different time frames in mind. My life literally hinges on one small event on December 24, 1968 and the following months, described chapter one when I went from being a 19 year old kid, to life enlisting in the military through basic training, and life beyond basic training.

Everything in my life can be seen through my eyes and memory in these three periods, glasses with which I saw the world and myself, and I see myself in hindsight. Every story has these three layers of experiences because they're still me, just at different times. We've all been there, trying to remember who we were as we look back, but I'll try to show who I was then looking forward. We're all naive then, and hopefully, I try to show that too.