The Evolution of an old man in retirement

By Dan Barber

May 31, 2014 marks the first anniversary of my second and final retirement. I think that my wife, Diane, has adjusted to me hanging around the house all the time… at least she hasn’t kicked me out yet.

I spend a lot of time with my 3-year old grandson, Mason, because he lives just across the street from me and it seems the two of us are the only people around who have nothing special to do or places to go. My daughter and wife figured that they could kill “two birds with one stone” by sending us both to the park.

Mason and I have some very challenging conversations. His latest quest is to try and find the answer to everything! His favorite question is “why.” I realize that he is just trying to learn, and it is fun watching him learn new things… for example he just learned a new phrase, probably from his mother. He told me that his dog chewed up his box… I repeated the statement in the form of a question… “Your dog chewed up your box?” He replied, “Didn’t I just say that!”

Mason has been after me to teach him how to play baseball so we borrowed his brother’s baseball bag with glove, helmet, baseballs and bat to take to one of our frequent trips to Knott Sky Park, just down the street from our house… this had to be done while his brother was in school. The first lesson lasted probably 3 minutes because Mason has the attention span of a 3-year old. I will let his t-ball coach next year try to teach him the fundamentals of baseball, if Mason can be torn away from filling up his ball cap with dirt or trying to catch any number of lizards or insects he spots. Watching little kids playing t-ball is fun especially as a grandparent who isn’t embarrassed by the antics of a grandchild… because grandchildren are a grand-parent’s revenge on their children.

When my granddaughter, Kaitlyn, played t-ball she felt that it was her duty to play every position on the field at once… she would even try to chase the ball after she hit it. She is now an accomplished fast-pitch softball player who in fact can play every position on the field, but not all at once.

Today marked a milestone in developing Mason into a swimmer. I got him to put on his “muscles” (water-wings) and got him to trust me that he wasn’t going to drown if he let go of my fingers. Luckily, he was pretending that he was a puppy today so I explained to him that puppies know how to swim automatically so all he had to do was kick his feet and paddle his arms like a puppy would do to swim. He can now paddle around the pool without anyone hanging on to him… next step will be to wean him away from his “muscles.”

Two more of our grandchildren will be visiting us for a week, our paternal twin grandchildren Holly and Joshua will be arriving Sunday. Those two are soccer players. I will be happy to take them to the park and set in the shade while they run back and forth kicking the ball… grandpa is too old for such activity.

In retirement I may have evolved into a big playmate for my grandchildren, and the mind is always willing but the old body rebels against such nonsense as trying to throw a fast pitch ball so a granddaughter can take batting practice, or running at top speed after a 3-year old who finds it hilarious that grandpa can’t catch him.

Diane says I take too many naps…

Instant gratification is a fleeting experience

By Dan Barber

Well the results are in and as promised in last week’s blog, here’s the diagnosis… there is nothing technically wrong with my brain, apparently the symptoms are all in my head!

That being said, I can continue on sharing my life’s lessons or utter nonsense for a while longer.

During my career I had a short span of time where I participated in an effort in trying to figure out how to deliver quality of life to residents at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center here in Twentynine Palms. My boss was the chairman of the Quality of Life Council at the base. After a lot of effort, we came to the conclusion that we can’t deliver quality of life because we couldn’t order people to be happy and there wasn’t enough money in our budget to make everyone truly happy. Only an individual can determine what gives themselves “quality of life” or happiness.

Anyone who has children can probably relate to the expression, “I’m bored, there is nothing to do”… My favorite response to my children and grandchildren is, “what kind of “board” are you… pine, oak, cedar…?” My 19-year old Granddaughter, who recently received that retort from me for probably the millionth time, regarding her complaint of being bored, thought it was “cute” in a tweet to her friends about how her Grandpa still answers her boredom complaint.

With my children, I discovered that they were probably happiest when we lived in remote or rural locations with no distractions of video games, or multiple TV channels to choose from or high priced amusement parks that touted themselves to be the “happiest place.” My children were creative enough to come up with ways to successfully entertain themselves.

As Navy brats my children experienced a lot of moves… and each time they complained about having to leave wherever they were at the time because they “liked” it there. The favored comment from them about the new duty station was, “there will not be anything to do there.” In Puerto Rico they discovered fishing, snorkeling and sea shell collecting. They learned how to properly open coconuts and to avoid the scary looking large blue land crabs that seemed to run in packs and scare the “begeebers” out of them and their mother… I too thought they were creepy.

When we received orders from the warm climate of the Caribbean to the coldness of the Aleutian Islands at Adak, Alaska, they complained, even I thought that there wouldn't be anything for them to do there. However, this place was probably their most favored place to live and in fact was one of the most remote places on earth… almost at the end of the Aleutian Islands.  They soon discovered fishing, hiking, Tundra Berry picking and their favorite… snow sledding.

After Adak, we headed for the Mecca of the U.S. Navy… San Diego, California. Probably for the first time in their lives they discovered large parks, museums, malls and other pre-teens searching for something to do because they were bored. But after just one short year I once again received orders sending me to the middle of the Nevada desert. To hear my kids complain about having to leave civilization to move off into the wilderness you would have thought their world came to an end.

In Nevada they found other friends some of whom became life-long friendships and when I retired from the Navy and moved back to “civilization” in my old home town of Rowland Heights, Calif., that really ticked them off because they had to leave Fallon, Nevada and once again move to a strange place.

Of course they knew about Rowland Heights, but it didn’t hold the same feelings for them as it did for me. They knew they had grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins who lived there… but they never had, they just visited once in a great while. They enrolled at John A. Rowland High School and attended until my work took me away from there once again. We lived for a short time in Wrightwood, Calif., before we finally settled in to our current home since 1992, in the “Wilderness” of the Mojave Desert of Twentynine Palms, California.

My children all thought that since their home was wherever Mom and Dad lived was good enough for them…they all still live near us. Our daughter lives just across the street from us with her family, one son lives just on the other side of town and another lives about 2 hours away in Mohave Valley, Arizona on the Colorado River with his four kids. My daughter also brought along a friend she met from Rowland Heights. She also lives in the neighborhood with her husband and children… My daughter and her friend each have five children each we have big parties with lots of noisy kids.

Yes, instant gratification is fleeting, but making really good memories takes time and will last forever.

Why tear down the old to build the new to look like the old?

By Dan Barber

The other day I was a bit concerned about being embarrassed with an out of control freaking out because of my claustrophobia, while being locked down and pushed through an MRI machine. The nice person at the Radiology Department check in desk even asked me if I thought that I needed to be sedated… I thought about it but decided that since I drove myself to the appointment, I’d better, suck it up and pass on being drugged to avoid being held against my will. After all, the purpose of the MRI was to have my head examined… I didn’t want to give them any excuses for detaining me!

To calm my nerves I picked up an architectural magazine in the waiting room where I was instantly drawn to a story about a developer who was building “retro” farm house homes.

“Retro” a modern word for making new stuff look like old stuff… It makes sense if people like to live in houses in Southern California that look like the old-fashioned ski-huts in the Bavarian Alps and they want all of the houses in their development to fit with the make believe ambience. My family and I once lived in a house in San Diego that had upturned roof eaves in an attempt to make our house look like we lived in Japan, but the mood was ruined with the hodgepodge architectural styles of the neighborhood.

My first home with my wife, Diane, was basically a screened in porch perched atop a platform about ten feet off the ground. Because the place was also nestled in with some trees we referred to it as a tree-house. We had no need for windows because we were living in Hawaii, but we did sometimes get chilled when the temp dropped down to 72 degrees with the gentle breeze off the ocean. The place was on a small farm owned by an old Japanese couple and just across the highway was a beach that sometimes in past years was washed over by tsunami waves… ergo the purpose of living 10 feet off the ground. Everything about this place made perfect sense… it was on the beach in Hawaii, and Diane was a surfer, so no need to put on airs. Today, the sensible planning commission in Hawaii would probably not approve a “Retro” re-production of this perfect place.

But it also makes sense that community planners wouldn’t allow a large chain hotel to build a large building in our desert community that would look more at home in a New England village… Retro Spanish made more sense for our Southwest Desert Community of Twentynine Palms, but of course a large military Quonset hut would also blend in well out here.

Retro can be applied to a lot of things… Now that my wife and I are retired we combine our many medical appointments with shopping trips and dining out in the Coachella Valley on a regular basis. After one such outing the other day we had lunch at a Retro Diner at a shopping mall that was considered modern back in the good old days of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

I suppose Retro is comforting because it takes us back to those “good old days” when life was simple and made sense on a warm Hawaiian beach.

But if this rambling doesn’t make sense, then maybe having my head examined does. At our next medical/shopping/dining out trip in Palm Springs I’ll find out and let you know.

Pay attention to the little things because they can be huge

By Dan Barber

I thought that I had a goal once… a goal that would have destroyed me and the ones that I love if I had achieved it. Fortunately I discovered the path towards that goal was fun, but the goal itself was not really my life’s purpose.  For a long time I thought that I needed to have someone write a script for me to have a personality or purpose. 

I discovered that I have a whole team of writers giving me purpose. My entire family is the team who gave me my personality and purpose. I am very grateful for that discovery. My destiny was and is my family, they will give me immortality if I can leave them with good memories and maybe some of life's lessons that I have picked up in the life I live. 

I like being referred to as Husband, Dad, Grandpa, Brother, Uncle, Cousin, Nephew and Friend. 

I get a great deal of enjoyment, as most old men do, when they can brag about the accomplishments of their family members. 

One of those accomplished nephews passed away not long ago, and every time I think about him, I get emotional, but I have to write this. Kevin was not only a valued family member but he was also an exceptional human being. He was a quiet and unassuming young man who counted hundreds as friends. 

He had Hispanic friends, Asian friends, Black friends and White friends... I know this, because at his grave-side service at the Rowland Heights cemetery where he was laid to rest there were teenagers for as far as I could see of all races represented gathered there to honor him. It could have been the funeral of a celebrity, and in a way it was... the hundreds of kids there adored Kevin and what he represented to them. I was and still am extremely sad at his loss, but at the same time I remain extremely proud of my Nephew for the love he gave to others.

He was an exceptional young man... a good student and athlete who loved the barbequed ribs and stuffed mushrooms that I prepared a couple of times at family get-togethers... I always recall the joy I had of watching him devour those ribs and mushrooms whenever I prepare them now.

I just learned something else about Kevin from his father recently. My brother told me that Kevin told him that even though he was of mixed race of Caucasian and Mexican he considered himself to be an American with Mexican heritage... not Mexican-American. Kevin was proud of his mixed heritage and I remain proud of him. I believe the message he wished to spread was to be proud of who you are, not what others think you should be. That was a message I learned from an 18-year old kid... so I guess I am still able to learn.

As I stated in an earlier blog, if our heavenly reward is to relive our life experiences over and over again as if it was the first time, then Kevin is having a great time, because he has a lot of wonderful experiences to relive. Also, when I'm gone from this life, I will be repeatedly watching him eat ribs and mushrooms that I prepared for our family get-together.

Young man, I miss you dearly.

When will someone figure out how to charge us for breathing?

By Dan Barber

Everyday I read about a new tax or usage fee for any number of things an imaginative thinking person can dream up. Remember the law school student who championed free birth control for college students? Can we blame her…she is just a future lawyer learning to get her professional expenses paid for by someone else.

Some geographic areas have such gross pollution it has caused severe lung disease for the people who have to live in those areas. I will bet that insurance companies calculate how much to add to the health insurance of individuals who live in those polluted communities.

I recently read that a vacuum technology is being developed to suck out the pollution from the air. I don’t put much confidence in this idea, but I’m sure someone somewhere is plotting to add this new technology development to our utility bills… along with the fees added to those bills to tear down and clean up all of the nuclear and coal fired power plants so they can be replaced with hundreds of square miles of solar power fields in the deserts, and thousands of wind mills dotting our landscapes far from the line of sight of populated centers.

In California every summer oil refineries are required to reformulate gasoline to meet regulations that were set by environmentalists/politicians designed to reduce the pollution caused by gasoline powered vehicles. This change which coincidentally, happens just before the Memorial Day weekend, hikes up the prices on a gallon of gas. The Memorial Day weekend also marks the traditional “road trip” vacation time for many. Has anyone noticed that this hike never seems to go down at the end of the summer season?

Bad weather along the gulf coast of the U.S. can also increase the price of fuel when a refinery is hit by a hurricane… a refinery fire will also boost up gasoline prices. There are also the cost increases caused by refinery closures due to scheduled or unscheduled maintenance. To help maintain California’s roads, bridges and pollution control standards, this state’s drivers also have the privilege of contributing a combined 55 cents per gallon for local, state and federal taxes. Then we have to worry about the gasoline cost increase caused by the cost of a barrel of crude oil being charged by the OPEC nations, even though our crude is probably being sucked out of U.S. oil fields.

Yes, I understand that we have to pay for the infrastructure that delivers a service to consumers. I pay a monthly “ready to serve” fee just to have water service hooked up to my home… that is in addition to the actual water I consume. I chose to live in the relatively pollution free Mojave Desert, so my water can be a bit expensive.

All of California is suffering a water shortage, at this time, so the price will again increase for everyone. Probably the biggest water utility in California is Los Angele’s Department of Water and Power (DWP). Currently a court battle is going on between the city of Los Angeles, the DWP and the employees’ union. It seems that officials have lost control of the oversight of a $40 million fund set up, and paid for, by the customers of the DWP to “improve relations between the DWP and its union.” Normal people could view this fund as a “slush fund” normally used to pay bribes to corrupt officials. The union boss charged with control over this fund has refused to release any of its accounting records. From what I understand about this mess, the union contract allows this official to keep those records locked up from public oversight. No one in this fiasco has yet gone to jail, but if the customers of the DWP refuse to pay their bill, I’m sure they will have their water or power disconnected by a union employee of the DWP.

There are many homeowners in the suburbs of Los Angeles who also pay their Home Owners Association (HOA) fees which is charged with keeping neighborhoods aesthetically appealing according to the developments theme. Because of this, many homeowners who would like to replace their expensive and thirsty water consuming lawns with fake grass are prohibited from doing so because it would not fit in with the plan of keeping everything the same in the neighborhood. Those homeowners who have brown lawns from a lack of water can face the wrath of the HOA officials.

In recent years however, a new industry was born with the crash of the real estate market in Southern California… an industry of creative individuals who maintain the lawns and swimming pools of the many foreclosed homes in those HOA controlled neighborhoods. This important industry was needed to help keep lawns green, mowed and trimmed and to abate a potential mosquito infestation in those now mostly empty neighborhoods.

People also now happily pay their monthly entertainment budget to watch television in their own homes which is fed to them via cable or satellite dish technology. I too pay this fee so I can watch the 3 or 4 channels I regularly enjoy out of the hundreds available on my TV.

Folks are eager to purchase fragile and expensive portable telephone/internet/email/entertainment and electronic game devices to carry around with them so they won’t become bored with not having something to do in their free time. This portable technology is constantly being improved and updated, so people will camp out on a hard sidewalk for several days just to have the honor to fork over more money to buy the latest device with a discount for signing up on a two-year contract.

Yes, I am a proud owner of a high tech cell phone that I can use to monitor my social media sites, send text messages, check the latest weather report, surf the internet and to find out where I am located anywhere on this planet; take video or still photos of the surrounding scenery… In addition, I can ask the nice robot lady where I can get a cup of coffee or maybe find the nearest bathroom. However, I’m technologically challenged so I mostly use my portable device to make and receive phone calls. I would like to get rid of it and buy an inexpensive “plain old no-frills” cell phone from our local convenience store, but my wife said no! Apparently she can track my whereabouts when I’m carrying my “high tech cell phone!”

It is only a matter of time before someone tracks me down and figures out a way to make me pay a tax or fee for breathing clean air out here in the desert! Maybe I’m already paying that fee on my electric bill!