my river

I love my river walks, but it pisses me off that it's name it will forever be associated with Gary Ridgeway. The Green River.

new places to walk

I keep finding new places to walk. The other day I saw a couple walking down a road leading to the other side of the Black Forest park in Renton. Yesterday, after I crossed over the Ft Dent bridge, I cut under the tracks and went over to check it out. Nice walk! and it followed the train tracks for a long ways. Maybe some Google Earth satellite photos can show me where I came out at the other end.

Fooey. I wanted to draw a line showing my route, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. Oh well. The Naches Ave SW road towards the top of this photo is actually blocked off, and it's only for hikers/walkers. The part I walked was between where it says Monster Rde on the left, and curving up and around to where it comes out of the forest going down towards SW 7th St.

You may get a larger image by clicking on the photo.

"how about I come over to your place and I kick your butt"

from another brother, Pat R:
"28 years ago, I was passed out lying face down on the floor of a dingy apartment I was living in in Ballard. The phone started ringing. I came to and picked up the phone. It was Dad.  He asked me if I was going to the AA meeting we had talked about the night before.  I had no idea what he was talking about. He said I agreed to to go an AA meeting with him.  In my blackout the night before I had no memory of the conversation. I told him the same thing I had been telling myself for years.  I said, 'Dad I am not going to drink or take drugs anymore because I've had enough and I can't stand it any longer but I am not going to any dammed AA meeting.' I had never been to an AA meeting before but I wasn't going to stoop to that level of needing help. 'I could do this on my own', I told him. Dad said, 'I'll tell you what, how about I come over to your place and kick your butt to a meeting.'  I could tell by the tone of his voice he was serious and he would do just that.  I let him take me to a meeting that day.  After the meeting, I remember looking at Dad and saying, 'Those people are just like me.'  It has been almost 28 years now and I have not taken a drink or used drugs in all these years."

Vise grip

from my brother, John R.(I chose to sign this John R. because I didn't want to write the whole name for some reason, and 'my brother John' sounded like he was a Monk or something)

Vise grip
"I remember Dad taking me to see Uncle Bill G in the home he was in those last days. It was wierd because 1) I'd really never been in a place like that before and 2) Dad was going to be in that state in awhile. Uncle Bill was lying in the bed and looking like he was on his last days for sure. Dad was talking to him, and it looked like he was aware of Dad being there, and maybe he understood him...not sure. Then Dad introduced me to him. I told him it was nice to see him and I told him my one memory of him was his vise like hand shake...he kinda looked up at me...held his hand out, and I shook it...and wow, what a vise! I blurted out 'you're still there huh?' I swear he had a small smile on his face, looking me right in the eye.
Uncle Bill died the next day."

meandering thoughts, while walking

Walking in the rain this morning... When it's have-to-use-the-umbrella weather, I actually get more exercise. No stopping to take photos. I was tempted to pull out the camera a few times, when I saw these large raindrops on bare tree branches and such. My kind of images. Closeups!  But with the pouring rain, holding the umbrella, etc, no way.
Tri-focals! I knew the day would come, and it has been a little easier since I've been wearing bi-focals for quite awhile anyway. But it's still a challenge. I've been juggling three different pairs of glasses for several years, and that routine got very old! I liked what happened yesterday when I was reading in the front room, and Inday had a basketball game on. Something exciting happened, and when I looked up from my Kindle, the TV was in perfect focus! Yeah me!

not very scholarly

I got an A- in Asian Art History. The Professor arranged for four Chinese scroll paintings to be put on display at the UW Burke Museum, and our Final was to study the scrolls and write a paper. He wrote on my paper "not very scholarly, but you've got a good eye!"

gauguin again

I really did enjoy the Gauguin show. One of my favorite painters is the Norwegian Edvard Munch, and Gauguin's canvasses remind me of Munch's work. Not very 'painterly' in some ways, but I feel both painters are good examples of Expressionism. The colors underlying colors with Gauguin make me wish I could see a Munch original right now. That's reminds me...a friend and me were sitting in a cafe across the street from the Munch Museum in Oslo, waiting for our bus, and drinking some beers. We saw our bus go by. Oh well. Me being a lightweight drinker, my friend held up his forefinger to order one more beer. The waitress brought two more, so I drank another beer. We missed the next bus also, and my friend ordered another beer. TWO more beers...and on it went. The thumb counts as one and the forefinger in Europe makes two... Oh well...

Hey you! Individual!

That's what the Drill Sergeant yelled when he saw a young recruit doing his jumping jacks out of synch with the rest of the group. Made me smile...
--------------------------------------
Thinking about "individuals", I saw the Gauguin show at the SAM with Bob and Mike yesterday. From my FB entry just now: "Thank you Bob and Mike...the Gauguin show was super! The colors in his paintings were amazing, and I was surprised by the detail in his woodcuts. I didn't realize how much he had worked in wood. I like how he incorporated Polynesian motifs into pieces like his paintbox. I enjoyed the show so much that I decided to renew my SAM membership, which had expired. They gave me credit for the day's admission...yeah me!"

sierra gold and cream

56 Chevrolet Belair, 2-door hardtop, sierra gold and cream...
Living in "the Projects", waking up in the morning and looking out the window.
Gone. Repossessed. Hard for a 14 year old boy...

quiet time

I love this quiet time of mine, these early morning hours when I have my just-right cup(s) of coffee, check my favorite websites, watch the cats napping, look at the fireplace, read the paper, and look for the changing light outside for nice sunrises, anticipating my walk...Early Sunday mornings are my favorite because of the silence, even when they are drizzly and gray like today. It's different from a hike in the forest, but still peaceful. The distant sound of some planes landing at Seatac, very few cars, some geese? honking as they fly overhead, ducks landing in the river water, a breeze...

living room

One of my favorite morning walks is the Black Forest/Springbrook Trail in Renton. The Black Forest trail skirts a small lake and marshy area before merging with the blacktop covered Springbrook Trail, and that trail follows a small creek south towards Grady Way. A very pleasant walk, with lots of water fowl, a lot of green... More often than not though, I end up doing a u-turn when I get close to one particular road underpass. A homeless guy sleeps there at night I think, and I usually decide to make a detour. Not because I feel threatened or anything, but because I feel like I'm walking through his living room...

Pasayten Wilderness

We were hiking along a stony ridge on the Pacific Crest Trail in the Pasayten Wilderness area. The fog was so dense and the hill so steep that we could see the tops of fir trees poking out of the fog bank/clouds out to our left as we walked along. Quiet, no conversation, just walking. There were small birds, dark in color, swooping in and out of the white mist in front of us, appearing and disappearing like magic...

the Good the Bad and the Ugly

My friend and his wife had invited me over for dinner at their first house, a little cottage in Edmonds. When I entered their house, the front door opened into a small entryway, and I found myself looking at a poster of Eli Wallach. I turned right and looked into the living room. On the opposite wall was Lee van Cleef. When I walked into the living room and turned left, there was a third photo, life size, mounted on the far wall...Clint Eastwood! The Ugly, the Bad, and the GOOD...

classical music

I've been listening to Classical King FM a little more lately, ever since I made a donation and became an official member of "listener sponsored radio"... No more guilty feelings, no more thoughts of being a free-loader. I wonder though if I'm listening more now because I like classical music, or is it that I'm just cheap, and "I paid for it"?  

my face hurt

"I've got blisters on my fingers!" - John Lennon. "My fingers have turned into icicles!" - me...this morning, walking along the river in 30 degrees. I HAD to go out and walk when I saw how beautiful it was! The low angle of the sun, and the wonderful colors and shadows. I had to walk, and I had to take my camera. It doesn't sound that cold, but with the damp cold we have here in the NW, it's Cold! Even my face hurt. A very different experience from when I was standing at a bus stop once in Boulder, Colorado. It was also an early morning, it was dark, it was snowing, and it was Zero degrees! But the cold there was a Dry cold, and with my coat, hat and gloves, I was comfortable. Here, not so much...

old man walking

I would see him walking, early in the morning, usually when I was driving to work. Over the years he started slowing down, his walk slowing to a shuffle. One say, the cane appeared, and I remember silently cheering him on..."hang in there old man!" Eventually, the one cane became two, and he slowed down even more. His face was getting what I thought was an angry look. I learned later, a few years after he stopped walking, that his name was Phil, and the look on his face wasn't anger. He just didn't want to stop walking. He was my Hero, and I still miss him...

farting in the bunker

Robetrt Schroeder, from Long Beach, NY, was drunk, in the middle of a sandbag bunker in Vietnam
the whistles of rockets flying overhead were gone
the whistling sounds were ok, whisltles meant the rockets were passing us by
we did not like the sounds of "whump!"..."Whump!"...that was the sound of rockets hitting nearby
phfffft! the sound of a fart
laughter
"stop that man!" from a new guy, the rest of us laughing...
phfffft! the sound of a another fart, and an "I'm sorry, I can't help it" from Robert
"stop that man!", more laughter, and the rest of us telling the "stop that" man to shut the %$# up!!
darkness inside the sandbag bunker, waiting for the "alls clear" sirens
phfffft!

duck families

I'm looking forward to my morning walks this Spring, and this season's new baby ducks. Last year I was watching two groups, two families with 4 ducklings each, wandering around nibbling on the ground. As the two groups sort of merged, the little guys moving around here and there without a care in the world, the parents were watching them, and me. A duckling from one group ended up with the other family, and that family started moving off in another direction. I heard a sound come from the second family. The little duckling's head popped up, and it scooted back to it's own group.

Walking along the same area a few days later, I noticed there was one family with 5 ducklings, and the other family had 3 ducklings. Later on, I came across the same two groups I think, at two different places along the river, and one family had 6 ducklings and the other one had 2 ducklings.

invisible

An older fisherman's wife was selling fish on one of the sidewalks leading down to the waterfront. My wife, who was Korean and spoke no Japanese, would tell me what she wanted in English. I would translate to Japanese, telling the fish lady what we wanted. The old woman refused to acknowledge that a white guy was bartering with her, and talked directly to my wife in Japanese. Back and forth it went, sort of in a circle, old woman to wife, translation from me to wife, wife back to me in English, and me in Japanese back to the old woman. We finished our transaction, we got our fish, and the fisherman's wife never once looked at me. It was like I was invisible...

nightmares

I remember an episode when I was 15 and a half, hearing a commotion in another room of our house, and finding my father on the floor after a drinking friend of his had pushed him over some furniture. I kicked the man out of our house that night, and my mother told Dad about it the next day. That was the last day my father ever drank alcohol.
I remember the routines, when Mom would give me a dollar and say "Chuck, go to the store and buy some pop." We would all be happy. Dad was stopping his drinking, again. And we were all going to get a little glass of pop.
I also remember a dream I had when I was around 27 years old...Dad started drinking again! That dream had been coming to me during the night for over a decade, and I had been suppressing it.
I never had that dream again.

I did it again...

I did it again. More than a few times, before picture-taking took over my morning walks, I would return home hungry, and almost dizzy from the exercise. I would forget how early I got up, and I would head out for my walk forgetting that my last food was 3 or 4 hours earlier. With another windy rainy morning today, my 30-40 minute walk was brisk (the camera came out only one time), and I did it again... 

bubbles popping

My original plan when I started this blog was to write every day. Today is the 16th of February, and my last post was 4 days ago. Oh well. My life goes on, with, and without these entries. Memories keep popping up in my mind like bubbles, and I'll resume recording them here soon...

it should be!

I've always envied good writers, those who just have a way with our language. A perfectly turned phrase can be a thing of beauty. I just remembered using a word once when I was talking to a friend of mine in Boulder, and asking her "is that a word?" She said "I don't know Chuck, but it should be!"

the Goat Lady

Karin, the Goat Lady, lived in the woods behind my house on Lopez, and in exchange for goats milk, I let her keep her goats in a small pasture I had across from my house. One day she told me about the glowing light coming out of my house when she walked by at night...my little black and white TV, which I watched mostly for sports and news. This was in my Chuck-the-box-maker days, and a few days later I gave her a small hinged box I made out of walnut. In it was the plug from the TV. I gave the TV to my niece down in Seattle...after I attached a new plug.

"Easy Does It", the Head goat. Photo by Pat Reinholz

love-hate

I remember saying that I had a love-hate relationship with Japan when I lived there, but I didn't feel comfortable using the word 'hate'. Sometimes I would substitute the word 'dislike' instead. The memories of previous readings, or historical news programs?, must have been in the back of my mind. Anyway, I've always enjoyed 'historical fiction' with fictional characters, and sometimes real historical figures, woven into their story lines. I've read real life accounts of the Bataan Death March for example, Iwo Jima, and any number of POW stories. I'm still watching 'The City of Life and Death', but I can only watch it in 15-20 minutes spurts, it's that powerful... John Raab, who is depicted in the film, was a "German businessman who saved more than 200000 Chinese during the Nanjing ..." He was recalled to Germany in 1938 because the Nazis objected to him helping the 'enemies' of their ally Japan. In spite of his efforts to help the Chinese people in Nanking, he was ostracized because of his Nazi connections towards the end of his life.

I hate phones

My brother showed up at my door on Lopez Island one day, and when I opened the door, he pushed past me and started looking around for something. He located a black cord and started following it, hand over hand, until he located my phone. I had it buried under a bunch of House Beautiful pillows in an old cabinet. He held up the phone, and told me "Chuck, you already live way the hell up here in the San Juans. The least you can do is answer your damn phone!"

icicle fingers

These cold winter mornings are so beautiful when I get out early for my walk. The only problem is that my focus now seems to be more photo-taking more than actual walking. I may have to start a whole separate exercise routine. And my fingers turn into icicles by the time I return to my car, even when I'm wearing gloves!

chinese movies

Chinese films are my favorites right now. I'm currently watching "The City of Life and Death", a black and white movie released in 2009, about the Rape of Nanking. It's so powerful that I've only been able to watch it in spurts. I'm a quarter of the way into it, and an actor I watched recently in what I would call a Chinese "chick flick" has already been killed off. Damn! He's very good, and I was hoping he would escape and become a Resistance fighter or something...

chasing the sunrise

This is the first entry for "crlazlo meanderings". I was inspired to write this blog by a free book I got for my Kindle awhile back called "Hidemi's Rambling Volume Two". It brought back memories of my year in Japan as an English teacher, and her struggles of being a musician took me back to my "box-making" days. I bought and read volumes 1 and 3, and I am now catching up with her current blog.
This morning was one of those "chasing the sunrise" days. The golden glow and low angle of sunlight at that time of the day gives us so many beautiful colors and shadows. I will never tire of these early morning walks of mine here in Tukwila, but I anticipate amazing things when we live in Cebu...watching the sunsets over the mountains each evening through our 15 foot windows...and in the mornings walking over the skybridge and going up to the viewing area of the Crown Recency hotel next door...the sunrises over the water to our East...
Also, my walks, hiking, snorkeling...