Treatment

   I look into the steely eyes of the Oncologist as he is saying, " Usually the cancer follows down the nerve. So we are going to have to run the radiation down along the nerve. It will go deeper than normal. Which means that you will probably have burning and blistering in your throat as well as losing about 2 1/2 inches of hair around your ear, including your beard that may not grow back. You may get your salivary gland back on your right side after 4 or 5 months."

   I look closely at the Doctor and smile. Trying not to laugh as I am reminded of a co worker of mine from Albany New York when I was growing up. I sold gas at a gas station that was full service. My co worker was Bob Hornsby a crusty old middle aged man. His favorite saying was. "Ya Cock- Knocker Ya!" I want to say to the Doctor, "Ya Cock Knocker Ya!" It's funny what runs through your mind at very crucial times of your life. I was a goofy sheltered 16 year old when I met Bob Hornsby and was pumping gas when it was 33.9 cents a gallon. Women wore mini skirts and Bob taught me all about beaver shots when you were cleaning car windows and that some women knew exactly what was going on and liked it.

   I walk through the vault door of the radiation and lay down on the cold steel table covered with a blanket. I lay my head into the cradle while they snap the molded mask over my face and snap it in place, securing my head to the table so I can't move. They tape the bolis to the right side of my head. The table slides into place under the multi heads of the radiation machine. There is a green centering light that crosses the mask to give them true center. The table stops and the green light outlines my entire face like a computer image and disappears from the reflection of the main head. The machine clicks and whirs and all the attendants leave the room and close the vault door. The machine goes silent. They say you can't feel the radiation but every time the radiation starts I have a tingling sensation just below my right ear. I begin my mantra to pass the time. "Om Mani Padmi Hum. Om Mani Padmi Hum."

   "Wumpf, Wumpf, Wumpf," the sound of the rotors of the flight to life echo from the roof of St. Mary's Trauma Center. It is across the street of St. Mary's Pavillon where I get my treatment. It's strange because I instantly recognize the sound of the Flight to Life from my Ski Bumming days. I always watched the birds take off from the top of Snowbird Ski Area in Little Cottonwood Canyon of Utah. I knew that seriously injured skiers where transported to critical care hospitals in Salt Lake City. I never thought about the birds delivering the injured skiers to the hospitals. Maybe it was because I never ever thought about my mortality. We literally skied places where if you missed a turn you would fall and die. We never let that into our minds. No time for the fear!

   I have fear these day's. Will I be O.K. ? Will I be cured? Will this reoccur? "Om Mani Padmi Hum!" I bring my mind back to center as the table shakes and I know the session has ended. The attendants appear as the heads spin and whir above me and I am let out of my medical bondage.
I will return tomorrow as today marks half completion. Just as I know I will complete my writing projects, each and every one and find joy and satisfaction in the challenge,

   I head home to my loving family who welcomes me with open arms and love and it does not escape me that I am the luckiest man in America!

   Today's Songs

Can't Find My Way Home," Allison Krauss

"Why Worry," Dire Straits

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7no9Ak2uSrQ&sns=em

The Healing Sessions

  I listen to the sound of the train whistle in the distance and my heart is full of joy. There was a time in my youth when I was an errant vagabond, when at that sound I would shiver in loneliness. I was young vibrant tall strong and empty lonely in my soul and in my heart. The world was at my command and my oyster and I was empty.
   These days, perhaps because of my age, to use a worn out analogy, my cup runneth over. I listen to the sound of the trains off in the distance pulling the cars full of coal through the yards of the Grand Junction Terminal and I find happiness. Happiness in home, my life, my writing, my place in it and my direction. It is funny how the years have changed my perception in the same sound. I quietly close the door to our massage room and look forward to the healing session about to occur.

"Lavender," Marillion

Reality, Once Again Rears Its Ugly Head

   Reality bites it creeps into your fantasies and to your writing dreams and says, "Get a job!" I know many writers, write novels when they are commuting on subways, and trains. I am working at scheduling my writing early in the morning. It lends to a clear mind and good work. My work is physical and I find it difficult to write after a full day of work. It doesn't mean that I haven't sat down at the end of the day, relaxed and found myself working well at something. However, I think if I wanted to let myself dream and go, I would prefer to work at research and fleshing out my Historical Work on a more full time basis. I suppose that it is my job to make it happen. It is my reality right now. So the advice I would give to myself is that if you want it to happen that you should buckle down and work harder at making it happen.


     On the bright side my work on Out of America is progressing well. My Chapter, Ford's Porch was a 1200 words when I opened it up and it is decent. The rest, Children of a Greater God, and the opening Chapter, which needs to be rewritten to include a perspective of what my Heroine thinks of the main character, needs to be totally redone. Unfortunately, from a personal perspective, I have no clue what that was. I guess that is why they call it fiction. Invent it and make it real. Sell it so to speak!


   The very best part of being in Grand Junction is that the Real Estate Market with The University becoming a real University and not a State College the growth is tremendous. There is a wonderful opportunity in investment right now. It is possible to leave the area with increased assets by investing in local Real Estate. All of which takes time away from any kind of writing schedule with working full time. A juggling act for sure. I guess that is where you set and make your priorities in life. I want to try harder to move writing to the fore front of the list. Happy Writing and Trails to You.

A Cute Little Song
 "Delirious" Luka Bloom

Aspen Colorado City Limits ( The Cross Roads Blues)

  If you use all available outward means, as well as  your natural abilities, to overcome every obstacle in your path, you will develop the powers that God gave you- unlimited powers that flow from your innermost forces of your being. You possess the power of thought and the power of will, utilize to the uttermost these divine gifts.

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda

    I was a young man with many unhealthy obsessions, extreme skiing was one of them, not to mention several others. While it has made for living an extremely hard life, (Sometimes) it is the grist for extremely good literature.

   Our home in Battlement Mesa is finally set to close on Friday the 20th. It has been a long and difficult sale. Stressful to say the least on all of us, our plans for Oregon as you have seen have been temporarily put on hold. I have way too much inventory to sell and we just could not down size so quickly. Seven years of being relieved from our ball and chain of a bad investment in real estate  in Colorado since the economical debacle a few years ago, especially living in Gas Land. Home of gas drilling in Western Colorado. We lived in the boom or bust region and it went bust. Leaving our local economy in the Pits, no pun intended, well maybe a little one. We are leaving the safest neighborhood in America. It would have been a wonderful place to raise children, the Gas Company donated a new fire house, larger than in most cities of New York. They donated a new health clinic and new middle school. All of this was done for the express purpose of drilling ten gas wells within the town limits. There is currently a controversy over directional drilling. It is drilling a multi-well head in different directions from the same head. I do not have anything against progress, but Drilling and Fracing under suburban homes seems to me to be a recipe for disaster. When it comes to the rape of the land and the safety of the surface dwellers for the sake of gas in the ground, I draw the line on reason.

   It was premature of us to think that we could liquidate a large house, sell my inventory from my plumbing and heating business and move across country with a geriatric golden retriever all in one fell swoop, without the use of a semi and incurring large expenses. The move to Grand Junction, Colorado, the gateway to the West, has always made sense to us. It is the home of the Colorado National Monument and some very beautiful walking parks.

   I have vowed to redouble my effort to bring my short story collection, White Dreams, and my unfinished novel, Out of America, and my research on my Historical Novel to fruition. The Historical work is the life and times of the people inhabiting Arapahoe Basin Ski Area through the winter of 1978-1979, their hopes, their dreams an their struggles. I have no doubt that the owner Joe, bought and built the mountain with the intention to sell to whatever company owned Keystone the larger area down the mountains and retire in Montana. What I would like to know by interviewing all the people there at the time was what where their hopes, their dreams, and where have they gone an what have they done with their lives since, and how did they feel about the mountain. Did they love it as much as I? What did they feel when it was sold? There is a greater underlying truth that still evades my perception. It is one of those obsessions that have made for hard living on my part, but as I have said it makes for great literature.

   We are settling in to our new little home. Soon I will develop a good writing routine and the stress of the move will be over. I have a lifetime to continue this quest. So over the next year, if we stay here after liquidating all our top heavy possessions, look for snipits of my short stories and chapters from Out of America. It began as a tragic short story (of course) titled a Terribly Bitter Ending. Another obsession, that has blossomed into a a Romance Novel of love, commitment, joy, and the personal fulfillment of unrealized dreams, and the triumph of one man against the odds. I will probably show the end chapter. It's Never Over Until It's Over first. The work is set in the 1989 World Alpine Skiing Championships of Beaver Creek, Colorado.

    Rome was not built in a day and writing careers don't happen overnight. They take years to establish. I am not foolish enough to think I will have overnight success. I know successful writers who have spent years at their craft and faced multitude of rejections. The most intriguing rejection I have ever received was for a story I wrote about a ski bum character. The rejection said that your central character has no obvious means of support. Really, that was the whole point of the story, that you sacrifice a lot in life to pursue a career of an extreme ski enthusiast.

   Now down to some serious writing and blogging. Spring has sprung in Western, Colorado. Yes I can go and see the Metropolitan Opera broadcast live in a theatre near us. Good to be back in Civilization!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Beau and Murph















Beau in his PJ'S

What is the Monument?

   The Colorado National Monument is a part of the National Park Service and is located near the city of Grand Junction, Colorado.  It hosts incredibly spectacular views with deep canyons carved into the limestone and granite-gneiss-schist, rock formations. It is desert land high on the Colorado Plateau, with pinion and juniper forests on the plateau. You can watch golden eagles, desert big horn sheep, coyotes, and red tail hawks. Rim Rock Drive winds along the plateau with magnificent views. The Book Cliffs are the largest flat-topped mountains in the world, the Grand Mesa awaits your viewing enjoyment. Some activities are road biking, hiking, horseback riding and scenic views, with a visitor center on the west side containing a natural history museum and a gift shop.

   The Monument Canyon, which runs the entire width of the park, and includes rock formation such as Independence Monument, the Coke Ovens and the Kissing Cousins are some of its main features. It has been recommended to Congress for designation as a wilderness. The monument includes 20,500 acres (32 square miles).

   The beauty of the Monument is unsurpassed in its grandeur and breadth. It is truly a unique place on Earth.

A Song from the surrealistic rock group Yes from the 1970's.
Roundabout
"Roundabout" Yes
 
Go out on a walkabout.
Enjoy the American Wilderness!