A Strong Foundation

A Strong Foundation
By John R. Greenwood

The photo above may appear average and unremarkable. Still, as I knelt there this April morning, the view reminded me of my personal foundation. Growing up in a small country village surrounded by a supportive community proved to be one of the most valuable contributions to my life. Whenever I begin to dissect what true happiness is, I inevitably return to my roots. Not simply family roots but those of my youth in general.

There isn't a day when I don't refer back to a face or story from my early life. Grade school classmates, backyard adventures, scout meetings, tree climbing, hay fort building, and visions of the old swimming hole all surface. When it's quiet with no outside distractions, I can visualize the endless list of people who strengthened my foundation. The obvious are parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and my dear sister. Then the surnames of the childhood families that added mortar to that foundation flow like water: Shay, Dake, Atwell, Davis, Gibbons, Cornell, Baldwin, Frasier, Hodges, O'Donnell, Rumpf, Panton, Lindahl, Bootier, Levo, Orisesk, Barney, Brown, Wheatley, Allen, Claydon, Gordon, Cote, Kahl, Sherman, Hall, Sesselman, Kostka, Bowen, Cline, Schwartz, Hurd, Smero, Koptula, Homiak, Pasmik, and Jones, all just a fraction of the mountainous collection of contributors to my life. I could fill pages with the names of people who've positively influenced me. Every day I channel an event or lesson I've experienced. Even the painful or uncomfortable ones have meaning and purpose in some remote way. How lucky I've been to have lived in the time and places that I have.

I saw that when I stood up and looked at my freshly painted foundation. Those names began popping into my head, inspiring me to write them down. As I write this, the gentle rain falling outside has given me a moment to ponder each name and attach a memory. It's an activity that I practice often and one that gives me immense pleasure. I know many people spend their lives searching for happiness via material things. Although a new car, exotic vacation, or motorboat can bring you short-term joy, the list of names above could only be obtained by growing up where stone foundations can still be found today.

Thank you, the 1960s and Greenfield Center, NY.

Relax? 

By John R. Greenwood 

You'd think it would be easy to relax after retirement, but there's a snag—the world has gone insane. Its wake has left me nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room filled with chocolate-laced grandchildren in rocking chairs. I get the same feeling I did when I was little, and my parents would have a good old-fashioned, no holds barred. All you wanted to do was bury your head under a pillow and wait for the smoke to clear. I find myself looking for a pillow a lot these days. Not one of those scrap-filled, overpriced ones the Pillow-Kook hawks, but one heavy enough to drown out the vitriol overrunning our daily lives. I worry I may never experience peace and quiet again. 

We should have done a better job for the generations filling in behind us. We label them as lazy and entitled, but we are the ones who sat back and let things slip away. We promised to clean up after ourselves and failed. We are the ones responsible for leaving the house in shambles.

I try to keep optimism at full volume, but the noise outside my 1/4 acre drowns it out. It doesn't stop me, but it slows it to a crawl. Even as I write this, I feel I'm leaning into negativity. It's spring, and the birds and greening grass are usually enough to put a little bounce in my step, but lately, all it takes are the words "BREAKING NEWS" to knock my feet out from under me. 

Writing is good exorcise, and early morning walks are good exercise. Put them together, and you have a recipe for relaxing. After using both tools today, I feel physically at ease, but I think I'll proceed with caution. 

I'm sure someone, somewhere, will have a problem with something today and feel the only way to solve it is with violence. As much as I'd like to keep a pillow handy, the vision of the Pillow-Kook makes me think I'd be better off with a weighted blanket. 

Sleep tight, America…

Daily Dose

Daily Dose
By John R.Greenwood

After a five-month writing drought, it felt good to hit the “Publish” button. The writing hiatus was a result of general neglect and lack of interest. Although I continued contributing to Simply Saratoga Magazine and an occasional piece to the Town of Greenfield Historical Society Newsletter, those events were scant and scattered. My recent writing has been reduced to emails, letters, and Facebook posts. A short face-to-face with my original writing mentor was a kick in the shin. It forced me to revisit my retirement dream of having more time to flex my creative writing.

After a short but important visit to Bedlam Farm (see previous post), I was reminded of the “use it or lose it” phrase related to writing. In the same way, the non-use of a weakened body part can render specific muscles useless, failure to exercise your writing skills can leave you lost and uninspired. That’s precisely where I wandered off to.

Jon Katz, who has spent his life paying bills with the help of a keyboard, suggested I re-engage my writing routine by jotting down and sharing short journal entries much like the post you’re reading here. It’s another toe-dipping way to re-enter the world of sharing via pad and pen(cil).

The posts may not flow like junk mail, they may drip in at a pace more in tune with the weekly supermarket promo, but they will come.

Maybe…

Hopalong Katzidy

Hopalong Katzidy

By John R. Greenwood

Bedlam Farm 

Author Clarence E. Mulford’s 1904 fictional cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy was rude, dangerous, and rough-talking. My real-life writer hero Hopalong Katzidy is polite and gentle as a lamb. He’s more like the 1940s television version portrayed by actor William Boyd. That Hopalong drank sarsaparilla and never shot first. Cassidy’s one-legged hop was the result of being shot in the leg during a gunfight. My Katzidy’s hop was a scripted attempt to improve his quality of life by removing a disagreeable big toe. 

When I read that my friend and writing mentor, author Jon Katz had made the difficult decision to have the big toe on his left foot amputated, I reached out to him. I knew he would not make a life altering decision without weighing all options and risks. My opinion would not be necessary but my support would be a given. 

A day or two after Jon wrote about his plans publicly, I offered my help on the day of his surgery. My only role was to meet Jon and his wife Maria at his home and assist in getting him out of the car, in the house, and into his overstuffed chair. Rather than a well choreographed ballet-like maneuver our version was more “Weekend At Bernie’s.” Still groggy from the anesthesia our patient was surprisingly giddy and even chatty. As I write this several hours later I’m quite certain the pain and seriousness has now sunk in. 

So why after months of blog silence did I choose my friends traumatic surgery as an impetus to put pen to paper? 

Its like a 5th Grade teacher pointing her finger at a ten-year-old boy and asking the question, “Why would you do that?” 

“Because Jon told me to!” 

My mentor, my nagging writing-group leader, my friend, my hero, my Hopalong Katzidy is a persuasive nudge. He hadn’t been in his big-boy chair more than 30 seconds before he was asking why I wasn’t writing more? Excuses only provoke him to hurl them back at you like a true friend should. Jon smothers excuses like a wet blanket on a trash fire. Jonnie Nine-Toes was not going to allow Johnnie Nine-Fingers to head back to Saratoga County without promising to hit the keyboard when he gets there. 

Jon’s support for my writing began with our Hubbard Hall Writing Group over a decade ago. His influence and that experience will last me a lifetime. As a connoisseur of larger than life characters that have crossed my path, Jon Katz is King of the Hill. 

This piece was written about him, for him with nothing but sincere admiration and respect. I wish him a speedy recovery so we can fulfill our mutual promise to spend an afternoon sitting in the backyard at Bedlam Farm, swapping stories about the good old days when we had all of our pieces and parts. 

This one’s for you Hopalong. 

Peace,

John (with an H) 

Click here to visit Bedlam Farm

Simple?

Simple? 

By John R. Greenwood 

It sounded simple enough. Retire from the daily grind of being a transportation manager and enjoy the easy life. No more sick drivers, broken trucks, or damaged products to cover, fix, or replace. I'd have 24 hours a day to sit at my desk and write. Well, things haven't worked out as planned. Yes, I enjoy life and all the benefits retirement has afforded me, but the easy part was a myth. The one thing I wasn't prepared for was the world deciding to turn upside down. Anger and discord between my fellow citizens have replaced the stress and strain of accident prevention and timely product deliveries. Nothing quells the desire to write about a simple home improvement project or anecdote about a rambunctious grandchild quicker than reading about a crazed lunatic bombing innocent people just for the hell of it.

What I've come to realize over the last three years is that life is only as good as you perceive it to be. You can choose doom and gloom or embrace dry feet and a cool breeze. Letting the daily news soak into your skin is unhealthy and will give you a headache. Mulching maple leaves or changing the oil in my truck have become my new happy places.

I still get up before the sun does. Enjoying that first cup of coffee has remained my favorite chunk of the day. I sip it slowly while watching Youtube videos of "Mustie1" reviving an old Volkswagon Bug, Jimmy "Diresta" forging a bowie knife from a leaf spring, or Jim Baird on an eleven-day adventure running the Bonnet Plume River through the Yukon wilderness. Living vicariously through the lives of others sometimes dampens the excitement of my own self-anointed achievements, like installing a new motion light on the garage. The point is we all have our own ladder-height successes.

The "simple" fact is decisions on what to do and when, what to do and for who, and what to do and how have muddled my once perceived life of leisure into a daily sorting of priorities and head-scratches. Writing has taken a backseat to almost everything in my field of vision. As I write this, my mind is in a dozen different places. I'm trying to decide whether to keep tapping keys or snap close the laptop, throw my jeans on and snatch up that leaf that just floated by the window. Years of living by the hands of a clock are hard to shake. Mrs. G. is struggling with the same dilemma. When you spend your entire adult life with guardrails and wake-up alarms, it's hard to adjust to having choices on which road to take.

I'm not complaining; I'm blessed to have options. Retirement automatically places you in direct contact with people experiencing the same emotions and facing the same weighted concerns. Grandparents subbing as occasional daycare or transportation providers is a common theme, as well as being a qualified volunteer for any number of competing organizations. Choosing who and how often you can avail yourself can be more difficult than sorting through sixty years of memorabilia trying to decide what to keep and what to send packing.

One activity has brought my wife and me some unexpected satisfaction after retiring. We both purchased Ancestry subscriptions and immediately began researching our family histories. We've found ourselves spending a lot of time in cemeteries. Because we've remained within a six-mile radius of where we were both born and raised, we are fortunate to have most of our previous generations interred close by. Along with locating the sites of long-forgotten relatives, we began the process of cleaning, restoring, and maintaining the gravestones of several of them. This pastime led us to dozens of unexpected discoveries within both families. It also became a therapeutic and rewarding way to honor our past. We follow the National Cemetery Administration protocol for cleaning government-furnished headstones and markers. You'd think spending time in cemeteries as you enter your AARP years would be unhealthy or depressing, but it has morphed into the opposite. Along with paying homage to family and friends no longer with us, it helps strengthen your appreciation for being alive to do it. The calm and quiet are just an added bonus.

I think it's time to end this long overdue post and go snatch up those few leaves that fell during the days it took to finish it. The temperature has dropped, and Thanksgiving is fast approaching. Soon the roar of snowblowers will replace the whining of leaf blowers, and there will be more time for writing.

Then again...

Before 

After