Best Wishes And Prayers

I would like to take a moment and send my prayers and best wishes to my spiritual leader Ramloti. Who is back in the hospital in San Diego, suffering from a small bowel obstruction. He just recently underwent surgery to have his appendix removed with a small portion of his intestine. All of which I’m sure has been very painful and life threatening.

I ask my guru Paramahansa Yogananda, and his lineage of guru’s to bless Ramloti in his hour of need and to deliver him for his mission that our Lord has prepared for him in Crestone, Colorado and the Haidakhandi Universal Ashram. May he regain health and strength and be restored to his leadership role.

Om Nama Shiviya.

Sincerely, Albert Bianchine

You May Send Your Prayers And Wishes To:

info@babajiashram.org.

If I Had My Life To Live Over

"If I had my life to live over I'd like to make more mistakes next time. I'd relax. I would limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual trouble, but I'd have fewer imaginary ones. You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I've had my moments, and if I had to do it over again, I'd have more of them. In fact, I'd try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day."

Jean de La Bruyere (1645 - 1696)
 

Free Brownie Wednesdays. Walk-Ins Welcome. Doctor On Premises

I am a child of the 60’s, so when I see a State Trooper, a Local Sheriff, or even a well dressed Security Guard with a Badge, several things automatically run through my mind. Where is my pot, and or pills, how easy is it going to be to get them stuffed down my pants, who was the last person near my glove box, and what could they have possibly put in there? Do cars even have glove boxes any more? The last bit of paranoia comes from my good friend Captain Zooms, who once left a big bag of leafy green summer of 72’ pot in my car. New York State was not amused upon its subsequent discovery on my drive home from his house. Lucky for me, the State had just relaxed its possession laws and my Judge knew my dad. My sentence as a middle class white boy in the 70’s was to write a ten page term paper on the cause and effects of smoking marijuana.

Nothing in my experiences and the attitude of average Americans who smoked pot in the 1960’s and 1970’s and later became parents and proponents of “Just Say No” has prepared me for the legalization of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in the State of Colorado. When you look closely at the ads and all of the concoctions, names of the products, the potency and purity, and regulation of the products, it can blow you away. 

I am not, nor will I probably ever be a card carrying member to a dispensary. First of all, I pride myself in being clean and sober for over twenty three years. The price of my excessive consumption in the sixties cost me dearly in both emotional and legal consequences. All is well that ends well, so they say. 

My paranoia from the sixties is deep rooted and not easily dispelled. In the last few insurance applications that I’ve filled out, were smoking questions about cigarettes and other substances. Will the dispensary someday share it’s files not only with the government, law enforcement, and the insurance companies? Will your insurance rate go up because you smoke your prescription? If you eat it, will there be a difference?

I live in a small rural part of Colorado. I am blown away by the number of dispensaries open. The incredible advertisements of giant buds tinged in gold and brown in the local magazines is surprising. There are Franchise Dispensaries popping up with wild topical creams, cookies, candies, and brownies. Ads like $35/ for 1/8, no appointments necessary, doctor on premises fill the newspapers.

Do not misunderstand me! I have spent too many evenings of my life in a bar eying the bottle of Bombay Gin (my particular choice of personal deprivation) on the shelf. So I know what prohibitionists felt like when the Bar Signs went up in their neighborhoods. It’ s all too new and funny. It’s like a Saturday Night Live Comedy Skit. The local dispensary is advertising free brownies while the newly opened hot dog joint next door shows big pictures of plates with giant dogs and chips brimming over. This is obviously in case you stumble out of the “clinic” into the streets with the munchies!



The next famous movie quotes will probably be, “ Of all the pot joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.” “Here’s looking at you, kid!” --- Albert Bianchine

Welcome To The Dream Academy

"You have been doing a great job, Al. I’ve spoken to Don and I know it wasn’t part of your employment package, but I have arranged for The Company to pay for half of your ski pass. We’ll finance the other half and take it out of your pay. Oh! By the way, here is a pager, nothing happens around here until later in the day, so go ahead and go up on the mountain early, get some first runs in the fresh powder and if anything happens, I’ll page you,” said, my then Property Manager.

This must be some form of a joke, I thought. No employer awards their employees, retroactively with a ski pass, not previously negotiated, tells them to go skiing when the snows come. I had turned from a well trained ski bum into a chubby middle aged Italian working man. Out of shape for skiing completely, there was no way I could even pretend to have a good season.

“By the way, I designed a ski conditioning program at the Aspen Athletic Club when I was the manager there. It is patterned after the Denver Bronco’s Football Training Camp, but it is geared for skiing. Perhaps you’d like to join the club and get in ski shape. We have a corporate membership and there is a discount off the regular price. It makes membership affordable.”

Was I dreaming? Had I really died and gone to ski bum heaven? There is the fittest woman athlete in Aspen, a power lifting champion, a western conference racquetball champion, that had the envy of Arnold Schwartzenegger for her calves, the respect of Phil and Steve Mahre(Olympic ski racing brothers) for her rock hard abs, giving me permission to go skiing everyday and she’ll call me if she needs me. All I had to do was to get in the best physical shape I’d ever been in by following the most advanced ski conditioning class in Aspen, Colorado.

That worked very well for me in my downtown Aspen apartment. I lived across from the Main St. Bakery, with their outrageous designer coffee and brownies, just down the street from Benjamin’s Deli and their homemade Matzo Ball soup.

I was able to arise early mornings, work on my short stories, then take a walk through our 8 commercial buildings in the downtown core and perform the repairs on my list from Kathy. I would reserve a spot in ski conditioning, before 9 am.

The weeks of training unfolded and I progressed in my athletic development to a fit and trim ski athlete. Everyone commented on the new man.
Ski conditioning concluded with the award of t-shirts. “I survived ski conditioning at the Aspen Athletic Club, Aspen, Colorado.” I wore my new shirt proudly, along with a new wardrobe and self-confidence.

When Aspen Mountain opened up, true to her word, Kathy provided the coveted ACRA All Mountain Ski Pass for all three mountains, Aspen Mountain, The Highlands, and Snowmass, (a fabled fourteener, with the infamous wall as it’s centerpiece.) I commented to my associates that I was in love, not only with the mountains and new terrain, but with this woman who had arranged it for me.

I have always become obsessed with the powerful women in my life. It all began with my first grade teacher, Ms. Ossendot in 1960. I was learning to print in pencil on those large pieces of paper with the big green lines on them. I was already dreaming of 1961, because I realized that you could turn the paper upside down and it would still be 1961. Anyway, I refused to stay with in the lines, another malady that would haunt me throughout my life. Ms. Ossendot made me stay after school until I reluctantly wrote between the lines. It also set a deep consequence and reward issue in my young mind. After school that day, I got to ride home in her yellow rag top Volkswagen Beetle, with the top down in the sunshine with the prettiest teacher in school.

Misbehaving had its rewards. A pattern I was to repeat often, culminating with my boss Kathy at our annual Christmas Party. She was in an Emerald Evening Gown and looked beautiful to say the least. I, feeling quite sporty in my new tight fitting jeans. I remember kissing her hello on the cheek and walking past her. I could have sworn that she looked approvingly at my small ass. It’s funny how things between men and women are often misconstrued. Years later, she denied looking at my ass. She maintained that as an expert on physical conformation, she was looking for my ass. It however, gave me the courage later that evening while at her home when she asked me to help remove her cowboy boots, (her new Larry Mahan leather boots that even Vagisil down the boot wouldn’t help slide off,) to become brazen and to get a little frisky. It all ties back to my failure at staying between the lines. I thrive on skiing out of bounds. I don’t like ski area boundaries, other skiers, and authority in general. It has been a great hardship in my life, except for stepping past the employer and employee relationship with my boss, Kathy.

The trilogy of Aspen Mountains are beautiful, as wonderful as it is to noodle up Walsh’s, where the Paragliders take off from Aspen Mountain, and drop down into the big open bowl called the Wall at Highlands, or to slip out of bounds into the backside of Highlands.

My calling has always been that of Utah. I love Colorado and all its Ski Areas, but Utah is to die for, (literally.) I took my vacation and my new super in-shape athletically fit body and drove there. I remember starting to herring-bone up Brighton Mountain, to get to the out of bounds, and ski the chutes through the trees with 18 inches of new snow, a feat that had always caused me great trepidation and physical distress. I practically ran up the mountainside and dropped down over the lip and cranked off 50 big arcing powder turns before I realized just how great of physical shape that I was in.

Isn’t it funny that sometimes the greatest times of life is when no one else is there? I had none of my friends with me, no one to show off for, only to know that I had just accomplished this utterly fantastic feat of physical prowess for myself. It also made me realize that I had spent a lifetime alone on the mountains, and that I didn’t want to be alone anymore. For the first time in a long time, a woman respected me for my sobriety and the obstacles that I had overcome to achieve it, for my physicality, and the time and patience I had put in following her program to achieve it.

I had laid a lot of things to waste in my short life, but her gift was not one I could let go of. I did not want to become another lonely old man in a ski town, with his skis and dog and a P.O. Box that said Aspen, for the sake of my own vanity. Something had changed. Perhaps it was this girl, who snuck up to the Cowboy Corral in the dead of night on Christmas Eve with a lantern, her Stetson hat, and a bag full of ribbons and bells. She climbed up and silently laid across the backs of the 2 ton behemoth Percheron team of Sid and Sam, (the brothers).

She would spend hours on that snowy Christmas morn braiding the manes and weaving in the bells without a betraying jingle to be heard. She would surprise the Cowboys and their guests with a hitched up and jingling sleigh to take them to the restaurant for their Christmas Dinner.

Perhaps it was the look on her face when I presented her with the Lady of the Lamp, a sculpture from my artist friend Elfie of Vail. Whatever it was, suddenly skiing and the endless turns of deep and steep powder meant nothing to me even being in the best physical shape I had ever been in. I cut short my ski vacation, (an unheard of act in my former life.) I returned to my quaint little Aspen Apartment to pursue the love of my life. I have never looked back. All I have to say is, “Welcome to the Dream Academy!” --- Albert Bianchine

P.S. Be sure to check out my friends blog; www.thepennymogul.blogspot.com

God Is The Boss, Francis

"By practicing reverence for life, we become good, deep, and alive."

--- Albert Schweitzer

I was visited by an old friend the other day walking along the Rio Grande Trail through downtown Aspen. I had just passed the Aspen Art Museum on my way to the John Denver River Sanctuary, passing a stainless steel 30ft artist’s rendering of the “Last Tree.” The Rio Grande Trail is a beautiful scenic trail that skirts along the river and opens upon a small meadow by the river. There are large boulders with many John Denver song lyrics carved into them. It was there among the yellowing aspens that I sensed it, that very faint trace of the dampness of winter in the air. My good childhood friend came to me. I looked up and saw him hiding in the scrub oak turning red along the base of Red Mountain and the multi million dollar mansions that exist there. The Aspens’ turning gold along Smuggler Mountain, one of the last working silver mine, that made Aspen the Silver City. How I used to wait on his arrival with great anticipation in Albany, New York. The fall season is different in the East because of all the hardwoods to be found. In the Adirondacks, the Berkshires, the Green Mountains, and White Mountains, you will find an array of reds, yellows and golds. It signaled to me the coming of winter and my sport of choice, skiing. I imagined all of the hats that I have worn over the years to pursue my great love of the sport. How it has been my refuge through my trials and tribulations and how whenever life of the world got to me, I would simply choose another mountain to learn and ski.

It had begun simply for me in the early days. My grandfather filled my head with dreams of the Adirondacks and the beauty of them. I quickly made friends with the other skiers in my class. One of those friends was my good friend, Frank Thompson who has become “Captain Zooms” in my stories. I, a shy retiring bookworm, who found great solace in learned knowledge versus outdoor activity, was immediately attracted to him. He was already a ski technician and worked with skis and understood ski hardware. He turned me on to my first pair of jet foamed form fitting ski boots, called Strohlz, and my Rossignol Strato 105’s, they were 215 cm’s long. “My steel beams to hell,” I called them. My boots were purchased for me by my high school girlfriend Sandy.

Frank’s room was a classic of ski posters and equipment leaned up in every available corner. One particular poster of a buxom woman in a tight fitting yellow Bogner ski outfit, unzipped to her navel exposing her abundantly large breasts, she was exploding through this incredibly awesome mogul field, and the caption read, “Keep those tips up.” It was a K2 ski poster. I thought he was the coolest kid in school. He was a real rebel where I was the nerd. Other posters, like the infamous Solomon Ski Binding Poster that said, “Solomon, Deliver Us From Premature Release.” These have all become great collector items. Frank became my ski mentor, and mountain teacher. Every available evening, weekend or cut day from school was spent chasing snow flakes and sunsets, until at a very young age, I took a year off from college, to pursue my dream of being a true ski bum, (I wish to write, Every Ski Bum’s Bible, a commentary of all the things you need to give up in life to pursue that dream.)

The culmination of that dream was skiing in excess of 150 days at Arapahoe Basin, which at the time was the highest lift operated mountain in North America. I had arrived. The steep, the deep, anti everything that corporate society stood for. No material hang ups or needs with a true disdain for the Corporate Whores who would sell their soul for the almighty dollars. I considered myself the self appointed King of the Mountains. I knew every inch and every skiable trail in America. Many places in America that I had skied were not accessible by lifts and had to be climbed. I was young, “no problem.” I conquered and truly loved every one of them.

Every year my friend that first trace of the wet dampness of winter would arrive and I would gear up for winter. In the early years we would leave Albany on Sunday to ski the mountains of Vermont, a state that I came to love dearly.

Francis’s mom, Bea Thompson, was a devout Christian and practicing Catholic. Her greatest concern was for our almighty souls and redemption from sins, she was sure that we were committing. Her concern included where we would attend church on Sunday if we were skiing. We were quick to allay her fears by informing Bea, that we attended Mass on the Chapel on the Mountains, every Sunday. We justified our lie by rationalizing that God invented Mountains and they were places of awe and inspiration since the days of Moses and we were somewhat of Biblical Characters ourselves with long hair and beards. Modern day Prophets if you will, we attended the almighty church of the high mountains. Our justification was dashed one particular Sunday Morning when Frank and I dressed in our White Stag ski sweaters tight fitting ski pants with our brightly colored ski jackets were confronted by Bea Thompson in her large blue terry cloth robe on her snow covered concrete steps in suburban Colonie, New York as were fastening our skis and poles to the roof rack of Frank’s Tan Dodge Dart. (Algernon, named after the Book Flowers for Algernon, yes it had push buttons on the dash to shift instead of a typical stick or automatic shift lever.) We had to face down the wrath of Bea who had found out about our lie, that ski areas did not have chapels on them. Like Moses, delivering her edict to the infidels who were worshipping the false gods of gold they had wrought, she stood with her outstretched blue terry cloth arm raised in accusatory fashion delivering a divine message straight from the mouth of our Lord himself. The cold chilly air crackles and rings in my ears to this day as she yelled, “God is the Boss, Francis!”

I have been more fortunate than most and have had the ability to build a tremendously successful Plumbing, Heating, and Electrical Service Business in perhaps the richest Ski Town in the world, where the occupants ask questions like, “Is it the biggest, is it the best?” How wonderful that I who took a year off from my pursuit of an Industrial Engineering Degree to go skiing in 1973, could be designing and installing mechanical systems in multi-million dollar commercial and residential building in Aspen, Colorado, owned now by exclusive Billionarie Industrialists.

During my early tenure as a property manager, before opening my business, my job was to decorate 8 of the most prestigious Commercial Buildings in the downtown core of Aspen with Christmas lights and decorations. My then Supervisor, (now turned Wife) and I decided to change the drab white lights on all the trees and buildings to brightly colored Salsa Lights, The red, blue, green, orange, amber lights, tightly woven from all the trees in front of the buildings, and hung along all the rooftops, literally set the up tight establishment of the Aspen Town fathers on their ears. I was summarily crowned the “The King of Lights,” in Aspen Colorado in 1994, in a ceremony presided over by our entire Property Management Team, which has since become the most prestigious Property Management and Real Estate Company in Aspen and the Entire Roaring Fork Valley. I was presented with a tin foil crown and in a mock ceremony became the King of Lights of Aspen, Colorado, by my boss and future wife.

So as I stand among the Words of “Annie’s Song,” and “Rocky Mountain High,” and listen to the gentle waters of the Roaring Fork River cascading out of the pristine mountains of Independence Pass, I can’t wait to be with my new best friend, Kathy Duncan, my wife, and to proceed with our plan to move to Friendly Street in Eugene, Oregon and pursue Symposia Living Arts, our new “New Age” business together.

Aspen, and business took its toll, and when I was at my lowest ebb, having lost the thrill of the freedom of the mountains and traded it in for the pursuit of financial success that installing multi million dollar, heating, plumbing, mechanical, solar and snow melt systems, in homes in excess of 25,000 square feet could bring to our business. My wife again rescued my soul. On a recent trip to Oregon, we stayed at a lovely suite at Belnap Hot Springs over looking the beautiful Mckenzie River. We laid awake at night and listened to the babbling of the river as it makes it way out of Crater Lake and down from Century Drive and the Three Sisters Wilderness. My desire to climb and hike and even to ski again, rekindled by the healing of a medicine man, who through massage, mild rolfing, and energy work made whole my broken spirit and body in a small cabin across the waters of the mighty Mckenzie. The wonderful treatment of the waters and long walks through the exquisite gardens, rekindled the poetic dreamer in my soul.

We spent time at the ocean and traveling through the city of Eugene. I was struck by the beauty of the city and its people. All former hippies like Kathy and I. [I have a difficult time in gasland where I now live and work even though I live in perhaps the most beautiful Stonewood Grande that overlooks incredible mountain vistas. My trouble is I don’t really relate to (Gas Speak), it is like (Double-Speak from George Orwell’s 1984, where Ignorance is Bliss.) I hope to soon sell my home next to the (Gas) Fire Station, built next to the (Gas) Middle School, just up the road from the (Gas) College, in (Gas) Battlement Mesa, that is run from the Talking (Gas Head) town fathers who took (Gas) millions of dollars to allow the (Gas) companies to drill, (Gas) wells, 10 to be exact within the town limits.]

On a walk along Bastendorf Beach in Oregon with Kathy I remember skipping stones and broken clam shells into the lull of the surf between the waves. I recall pretending to be casting my Crown of reigning Mountain King, (self-appointed) and my Crown of reigning King of Lights of the City of Aspen into the sea. They do not serve me anymore. I wish to pick up the Crown of the King of Literature that my wife has designed for me through Symposia Living Arts and spend the rest of the days of my life, walking to the University of Oregon (for poetry readings) the Nature Food Store (The Kiva), and the Fair Grounds( where we hope to hold massage courses for working on horses.) I will live simply in a small house on Friendly Street, design a working recording studio, and be a Friend to the Common Man. I finally understand what God was telling me years ago on the Summit of the Continental Divide and Arapahoe Basin when I asked,” What do you want of me?” The answer was as clear as the sound of the rumbling avalanches off the Palavachini into the Evergreens of the Arapahoe National Forest when God said, “Be a teacher.” I chose to ignore the edict and to worship my own Golden Calf. I plan on smelting it down and build Yert’s and Lecture Halls with the money for the education of young people. I’ll wear the smock of a teacher, the beret of an artist, and the cloak of a golden mountain poet king. The words of Bea Thompson echo in my ears louder than the Roaring Fork River of Aspen Colorado as I wait for my new best friend, Kathy Duncan so we can skip a few stones across the waters. “God is the Boss, Francis.”

Cry For The Species Equus

I got it straight from the horse’s mouth. Our chestnut mare Tahoe was laying on the ground in a stall at our rescue ranch with the winter sun shining on her face. She was too weak to stand for very long periods. I was attending to her with a very heavy heart. We were in the process of making the decision to euthanize her, and I was stroking her face.

“Hey Albert,” she said with her big brown eyes. “If horses are God’s gift to man, why would man treat them so badly? Why would they take the best years that we have to offer and use us up until we are spent, and then turn us out to the auction barns to be purchased by the killers? You know, it’s alright. I am tired, and I don’t have the strength to go on. I’m ready to let go. It is time.”

The scene has replayed in my mind a thousand times, especially each time that I helped another abused or dying horse move on. The answer has never come. The question still remains imprinted into my minds eye. I search for the answer. Not long after laying Tahoe to rest, both Kathy and I re-read Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, but our broken hearts found no solace. We only found a greater unanswered question in her words. Why would man mistreat beasts of burden so poorly and carelessly?

I spent many days backside at the Finger Lakes Race Track in Western New York State in the early 1980’s. I witnessed broken down thoroughbreds from Saratoga and Belmont with their front legs in ice buckets so that they would be able to run on arthritic and sore legs. I watched the blue goose (a horse ambulance) pull up to down horses with broken and shattered legs to remove them from the track so that the next race can begin. They were all former champions, and if you ever stood backside at a race horse barn when the bell rings and the gate opens, all the thoroughbreds are lined up with their chests pressed against the stalls ready and willing to run.

Willingness in animals shouldn’t be construed as a license for abuse. If you own an animal and it makes a living for you in any genre or form, then you owe it to them to treat them with the respect that they deserve. They at least deserve a dignified procession to the grave.

There is no genre of the horse world that is immune from it. I have had to protect my wife from barrel racing horses that were so stoved up and sore that to merely touch their flank they would try and kick her head off. She would still attempt to massage them so that they could run for their pretty little barrel racer.

I vividly remember the first time that my fingers slipped over the hair ball like protrusion on the nuchal ligament of a dressage horse that had been surgically altered. The purpose of the alteration was so that he couldn’t raise his head. I thought it was a spasm until my wife informed me it was a common practice to cosmetically correct conformation in some competitive circles. You snip the ligament at the base of the skull and it prevents the animal from standing with it’s head too high. They show better!

The American Mustang is standing in pens by the thousands as I write. They have nowhere to run. They are stuffed back to back and side to side. Collected by the thousands by the BLM, they are standing in urine and feces soaked surrounds with no chance of adoption. The economy has tanked, and no one is there to adopt them. They were supposedly rounded up because of the damage they are doing to grazing lands. They should inherit the earth, not the cattle that man wants to raise on it for their bloody thirst for meat.

My only answer came from our rescue quarter horse Sage, who we found in a barn full of miniatures, in the back dark recesses with sore and arthritic knees. One warm summer day, I was standing in the middle of one of our fields. I was watching a mother eagle teach her eaglet to fly. She would let it soar and when it got just far enough away she would give a shrill whistle and it would whistle back, then return to the nest. Sage walked up to me, stood alongside of me, and wrapped her neck and her big bucket head around my neck in an embrace. As a man, I have never been touched greater by animal husbandry.

Sometimes late at night, I’m ashamed to admit, that when I’m drifting off to sleep and my mind replays all the beautiful animals that it was my mission to bring to God, I cry for the species Equus.

Life's A Beach, Not A Mountain

The sound of waves crashing on the shore has always been an elixir for me. A respite, a repose from the craziness that is my life. My high school friend “Captain Zooms” and I discovered the joy of the ocean many years ago on a vacation to Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard. We rented a catamaran and went sailing and wind surfing. Cruising inches off the ocean on a wind surfer, and lying out over a raised pontoon is all consuming. I have loved the ocean, and everything about it since that time.

I have learned well from mountains and the wilderness, especially at 14,000 feet in elevation. We are only temporary visitors at the summit, sometimes only for minutes at a time. Some climbers never summit at all.

Touloose, my life long ski companion and I have skied all over America, although we had never heli-skied with one another. We decided that on our last big ski vacation we would ski the Little Cottonwood Canyon of Utah including The Wasatch Powder Birds in Snowbird. On the day that we registered, it began to snow heavily and continued for the entire week. One to two feet of fresh powder fell every day. Our hopes dashed every morning by a call saying the weather was too bad for the helicopter to go up, even though the skiing was awesome on the mountain.

On our last morning at Snowbird, the sun rose over the peaks and burst across open snowfields filled to capacity with light, airy Wasatch Powder. We could here the Wumpf! Wumpf! Wumpf! of the Powder Bird helicopter heading into the pristine wilderness of the back country. The heli-ski run was never to be taken and we were only visitors there for a very short while.

Casting my fate to the wind has been a mantra of mine. I have enjoyed the freedom of going where I wanted, while living modestly. I started this pattern at a very young age and whenever I had more than a few thousand dollars saved I would spend it on an adventure.

When I hear the news today, my heart goes out to the unfortunate factory workers and civil servants who bought the dream of owning a home and retiring from their 40 year commitment with a pension. I am truly heart broken for them in their loss of the great American Dream. They gave up their youth and some of the best years of their lives. They get Na Da. Nothing, not even a job. No pension, no golden watch and fob. “Sorry, can’t extend unemployment benefits for you. We used the money to bail out the greedy bankers and to pay their bonuses for being the best and the brightest.”

I would like to lead a revolution of change. They say that if you really want to change, begin with yourself. I have both the desire and will power to make the change. We could all learn to make a change by putting more love into our hearts, a necessary self lesson for the change to begin.

Life is a Beach, not a mountain. I have always thought that Society had it figured all wrong. You should be allowed to experience life in the pursuit of your dreams for the first 1/3 of your life. The 2nd third of your life should be in pursuing financial security for the next phase. The last 1/3 should be in the pursuit of artistic endeavors that contribute to and enhance society as a whole.

I want to spend the last 1/3 of my life at the ocean. I will spend my days sailing, playing, and staying a while. The Great American Oil Spill has turned up the heat and the desire to enjoy the waters that are still around the bend from destruction. There still are pristine beaches in Oregon, and I want to go there and walk on them with Kathy, my wife, and have long talks and even longer writing sessions.

I write the best documentary of the mountains when I’m not living in them. Melville, who wrote lovingly of the sea only wrote successfully after he had left it. I want to make my final 1/3 of life the most powerful of all. I will work in the arts and bring about the change that I hope for America.

Kathy and I have begun the design of our retirement years. We have incorporated as Symposia Living Arts Inc. We will be promoting the Healing, Literary, Culinary, Visual, and Performing Arts. It simply is our time to shine. --- Albert Bianchine