Why are we in a Big Hurry?

By Dan Barber

Each morning on my 8-mile commute to work there are many vehicles speeding along passing me. But it seems that when I arrive at the traffic light those speeders are setting there waiting for my arrival. Also, I’ve noticed on more than one occasion that we all arrive at work within seconds of each other. Why waste that gas and risk a possible expensive speeding ticket for just a few seconds of time.

If speed is their need, they might want to consider that all of us are speeding along on the same path and we will all reach the untimate destination eventually, some will arrive at their final destiny sooner than others… I would prefer to reach it much later in life.

I used to have that need for speed. Before I reached the age of 18 I was one of those traffic violators. I received a letter from the California Department of Motor Vehicles telling me that if I got one more ticket for speeding I would loose my driver’s license until I reached the age of 21… as a 17-year old kid in California and not having a license to drive was a fate worse than…death?

Well maybe it’s not that bad, but since that DMV warning, I tried to become a very responsible driver. In the 40 plus years since, I’ve only received one speeding ticket. Perhaps the older we get the slower we get. I recently asked Diane, my wife, to “hurry up,” so we could get somewhere, she replied, “I am hurrying!” That struck me as very funny because she was moving real slow… my new pet name for her now is “Slo-Mo.”

I guess the kids now are just the same as kids have always been… they want everything right now, or as I call it “instant gratification.” It seems like just yesterday when I was sitting on my grandparents front porch thinking that my life was about to be over because my Mom and Dad were moving us out of grandma and grandpa’s house in Omaha Nebraska to a new home in Council Bluffs, Iowa. But when you’re 5-years-old that 5 mile distance might just as well be as far as the moon is from the earth.

During a cross country trip once, I took my wife and children by the old neighborhoods I lived in as a child. Everything seemed really small. When I was a child and had to walk to school in the Iowa snow it seemed to take forever. Actually the school was only about two short blocks from my old house. We then drove the 5 miles across the bridge over the Missouri River to my old neighborhood in Omaha… everything there also seemed really small.

I guess when we are small and believe that we are the center of the universe, everything is bigger, better and everlasting. But when we travel at the speed of life to our eventual destination we come to learn that we are not immortal, but just a speck in the infinite universe traveling on a planet that is speeding through space along with our galaxy at nearly 830,000 miles per hour, and with the earth spinning at the equator at around 1,000 miles per hour and orbiting our sun at more than 660,000 miles per hour.

Maybe it would be a good idea to slow down and enjoy the majesty of our existence while we still have the time.

What is Rattling Around in Your Head?

By Dan Barber

I have stuff rattling around in my head constantly… I can be easily distracted which causes me to sometimes take a little longer in accomplishing assigned tasks, so I apologize to my four or five followers of my Saturday Morning Post blog for being late, or sporadic with my posting. And please forgive me if I am repeating my self, or becoming abstract in my thoughts… I am starting to do that more and more these days.

I think the older we get, the more we start thinking about the “after-life” or the hope for one. I do believe that we have an after-life, or a “forever-life”. A few years ago my father was being kept alive with medical devices. My mother, along with my siblings knew that he didn’t want to continue living like that so we decided to have the hospital turn off the equipment and let our father pass.

For a few weeks after that action I worried about my part in the decision until I dreamt that I was having a conversation with my Dad and I asked him, “If we can bring you back to life, do you want to live again?” He said no, he added “I am able to relive the joyous moments of my life all over again as if it were the first time.”  After that I was able to find peace in the knowledge that my Dad was having the, “Times of his life” in his Heaven.

Many years ago I thought it would be a good idea to write a science fiction story about some ancient alien beings that created a device to gather all knowledge that would never be lost and these alien beings would be immortal if only in memory, or “knowledge”. The title I thought about was the Gathering of Data… or the acronym G.O.D. I thought that a good way this device could use to collect the data would be to implant a soul into every living thing or being. So upon death, the information could then travel back to the creators to be downloaded into the Gathering of Data… told you I had weird stuff rattling around in my head… Now whenever I watch the “Discovery” or “History” channel on TV, some of the stuff aired rekindles some of my ideas that I once had about my story idea. One physicist, Stephen Hawking, claimed on one of these TV programs that nothing can escape a black hole, not even knowledge… I thought well there you go, the Gathering of Data!

The more I wrote my science fiction story the more I thought about the need for a conflict. I decided that to create a conflict, the Gathering of Data would download the information from the recently arrived soul and then send out the recycled and hopefully blank soul to other living beings to gather more information. Here is where the conflict starts… some of these souls, weren’t blank, they retained some memories from their previous lives or even the memory of being with the Gathering of Data… GOD!

Recently, I had another dream. This dream involved my grandmother who passed right after my daughter was born. I remember the day my grandmother died. Earlier in the day she sat in a lawn chair holding my infant daughter while watching me work on my car. Later that night I got a call from my Mom telling me that my Grandma had died.

I dreamt that I was viewing my Grandmother in her death bed with a person holding a baby next to the bed. It was like viewing a painting through thin gauze, but my Grandmother was moving and the person holding the baby was comforting her by telling her that this was the resurrection of life.

So you see I know that we have an after-life or a life-forever… enjoy your today-life, and please forgive me if you believe I am being blasphemous… I do believe!

Pay Attention to Your Life

I believe that if one sells their soul for fame or fortune then they will eventually have hell to pay… whether you have faith or not, our history shows us that this statement is true.

There are those who obtained what they thought was very important to them only to discover that it caused great pain.  Perhaps they reached the pinnacle of their life early and then had to live on for many years on the downside of that high to the end, always missing what they once had.  How many once famous people have recognizable faces but seem to be adrift because no one cares about them anymore because their talent burned itself out, or they no longer have a purpose in people’s lives.

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 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 give me my personality and purpose. I am very grateful for that discovery. My destiny was and is my family. Our children and grandchildren give us our immortality if we can leave them with good memories of us and life lessons that they can pass on to their descendents. Only then will the memory of us will live on long after we are dust. I like being referred to as Husband, Dad, Grandpa, Brother, Uncle, Cousin and Friend. But with some of the grandkids living just across the street one of the titles can be exciting. There is currently a television advertisement on when a little boy cries out “Grandpa”… that startles me every time, it will wake me from my nap quicker then anything because I think that something has happened with one of the kids and they are seeking my help!

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 we need to create as many good experiences as we can right here on this earth. Don’t drag dreadful experiences to the grave with you because wouldn’t it be hell to have to relive those bad memories for eternity?

A very smart young lady that I know told me that it is very hard going through life being angry all the time… it is much more fun to be happy.

I was once required to attend a self awareness seminar at my work several years ago… the one thing that I can still remember from that experience was the question that was asked..."at the end of your life do you want to say I wished that I had spent more time at work, or more time with loved ones?"

In my work I have to read and watch a lot of news. I can see the hurt, that perhaps well meaning people, can have on others because they are trying to push their own values on to the masses. I see politicians trying to twist the truth around to fit their needs.  I thought that I had one way of looking at things once until I happened to have a hate spewing (self-proclaimed) Marxist professor for a required Sociology Class and a quiet and very polite Political Science professor directly following.

Because of the type of job I have some people ask me what my political leanings are, I reply it depends on the issues. I do know that some of the news that I digest each day makes me feel really sad. Sometimes I get angry, and sometimes I can’t help but think how some very smart politicians can think that the masses are really stupid.

I see conservative pundits every day bad mouthing “public employees”… I am a public employee, most of my adult life I have been a public employee. First serving in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and now working for the Department of Defense as a civilian employee. I tried working in the private business world. But quickly found out, in my case, that private business owners sometimes aren’t very loyal to employees. Working as a “public employee” you work for the public, and for the most part the public is very grateful for the service that is provided to them

I recently read in a liberal leaning newspaper that a mock congressional hearing was held by a former house speaker and her only “expert” witness was a law student who wanted the government to pay for her birth control. Many people took this seriously and became really upset about it… or at least is seems they are really upset... maybe it is just an act.  My thought was “o boy” I can’t wait to see how the late night comedians handle this one. But of course if they did anything with it or not, I wouldn’t know, because I can never stay up late enough to watch.  I imagined that the lines would go something like this… “Apparently the law students at Georgetown law school are learning how to screw people, and like a good lawyer they are just trying to get someone else to pay for the malpractice insurance.”

Until next time, pay attention to your loved ones, think for yourself and be aware of the lessons others are trying to feed you...and live everyday like it is your last day… one of these days it will be.

What beholds our future?

By Dan Barber

Every week I read a lot of news from many sources, and from the news that I read this week I would like to make a prediction.

I predict that a new technology will be invented within the next year and shortly thereafter will be made available to the public, and because of the clever marketing of the company who owns the new gadget, people will camp out on hard sidewalks for a week or more just so they can be the first person in line to buy this new miraculous ‘doodad.’

What kind of prediction is this you might ask? Not much of one, because we see this scenario in the news quite often.  What isn’t in the news is that the ‘doodad’ has become obsolete almost immediately because the same engineers in the same company who created ‘doodad’ has now come out with a new and improved ‘widget,’ which the company’s marketing folks will convince hoards of people to pitch their tents on Main Street so they may have the honor of being the first person on their block to replace the old ‘doodad’ with the new ‘widget’… am I boring you with this story? I’m certainly bored.

Some technology is really great.

When I was returning home from Vietnam, I needed to call home from the Philippines’ to let my wife, Diane, know that I was on my way home and would be there in a couple of days. The call only took a couple of minutes, but cost me nearly a quarter of my weekly “tax free” income of a Navy second class petty officer in 1972. We didn’t have the convenience of free calling cards or cell phones with unlimited minutes. 

A massive improvement in communications was just appearing on the horizon.  Pay TV (cable) was a major source of debate between politicians, and the broadcast executives representing the 3 national networks, and the Federal Communications Commission.  Public meetings were even held so the average person could let their feelings on the subject be known. See how that has worked out. 

We can now sign up for “cable/satellite” TV, the Internet and our home and cell telephone service all with one company!  Because of the new technology of cell phones you can even save a bit of money by not having a landline phone at home.  The monopolistic telephone companies can no longer charge us whatever they can get.

Now my wife can talk to her sisters and cross-country friends on her phone for hours, or until the battery dies, for just one low monthly fee of just a quarter of a week’s pay. I also have hundreds of channels to surf through on my big flat-screen high-definition TV while at the same time surfing the World Wide Web on my cell phone, or any number of new thing-a-bobs I might be willing to camp out to buy at any number of big box discount department stores. But because of where I choose to live, I would have to drive for nearly an hour to get to one of those big box stores… a fact I am rather proud of.

To the horror of those network television executives back in the late sixties, because of all this new technology I can record what ever I want to watch, even out in the middle of the Mojave Desert without a 100’ tall TV antenna, whenever I want to watch it… and I can even fast forward through commercials.

Sometime in the future those unsightly telephone, television and electrical transmission lines that scar our landscape will be a relic of the past when every newly constructed building, development or home will be required to be self-sufficient with its own power source from a combination of solar, thermal and wind power. Perhaps some other new source of power will be discovered and put into use. Also, the kids can also create their own TV programming, filmed of course in front of a large mirror with their latest edition of a smarter cell phone with a video camera application and broadcast those programs world wide, via the latest social media program.

This can only be possible if the “public utility” companies, energy companies and governments can figure out a way to get out of the way of each other and let it happen.

What are you going to do when everything is gone?

By Dan Barber

My horoscope read today that I needed to write… Well here is another entry to my blog spot on my philosophy, right or wrong, it’s my thoughts on the mystery of life.

I just read an article about how the web split in 2011.  First we had the World Wide Web (WWW or web)… but now we have applications (apps) and the “old fashioned web.” In an earlier post I babbled on about my phobia about computers and the new definitions of every day words that used to mean something else, but now have a different meaning altogether… like backup, server, crash, hacking, cracking etc. Language has been evolving ever since our first caveman lexicographer starting calling a rock something else besides “rock” when they discovered that they could use the rock for cracking nuts, it then became a “nut cracker.” Then an industrious clan educator painted a picture on the cave wall to educate others in the clan how to use a rock. Our very first dictionary was actually a “Pictionary” and some Anthropologists and some Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) researchers have spent their entire careers trying to figure out what our ancestors were trying to say with these Pictionary’s. 

Now we need a dictionary to tell us what acronyms mean… the Navy has had one of these dictionaries for years… I keep it nearby on my bookshelf at work. I work at the Naval Hospital Twentynine Palms (NHTP) on the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC)… in military speak it would be pronounced as Nav-Hosp 29 Palms at the Mac-Cack-See… in texting it would probably look like (NHTP@MCAGCC).

Now everywhere I look people are holding their various communications devices and typing away with their thumbs in an acronym language that is totally foreign to me. My teenaged granddaughters are constantly pecking away at their cell phones instead of talking on them. I think the funniest thing that I ever heard involving acronyms was in the Neil Simon play “The Odd Couple” when Oscar said (paraphrased) “It took me a half hour to figure out that FU on the note that you left on the fridge that said, ‘need milk FU,’ meant Felix Unger.”

When I signed away two years of my life on a contract to get a cellular (cell) phone, I told the young sales girl that I only wanted a device that I could make and receive phone calls… I didn’t need a camera, the cell phone screen was too small for me to watch TV, I didn’t need to send or receive e-mails, and I didn’t need to know where on the earth that I was positioned at any given time… although at my age my family might find that particular “app” handy when I get lost while taking a walk in my neighborhood.

Our Southern California electrical power supply utility company just announced the other day that they were going to have to cut off power to different areas of our community for several hours so they could make repairs to the electrical grid. In our local community underground chat room, people were in an uproar over what were they going to do without power… no cell phones, no television, no lights, no computers! “How are we going to be able to charge our cell phones, read our book apps on a dead reader?” Perhaps we should not be so ready to do away with print newspapers or books… all you need to read one of these at night is a candle. A fire in the outdoor fire pit would be nice while star-gazing at our pollution free desert sky is a possibility, face-to-face conversation with family or friends is could be a positive experience… no batteries or charger required.

Maybe the Inca’s and Hopi Indians, and even the “web-bot” app have it right about life as we know is about to end in 2012… What are you going to do when everything you do in your everyday life is gone?

The Ingredients for a curious mind

By Dan Barber

Now that I have some age and maybe a little bit of wisdom, I can look back on my life with wonderment and with some disappointment. However, I would never change a thing even if I could, because if I were able to go back in time to correct some mistake I made or change some decision, then everything that I now know would be gone, and everyone who I love could possibly disappear from my life.

I take that back, since I wrote that statement some months ago something horrendous happened to my family, something that I never dreamed would or even could have happened… the one thing that I might go back in time to try undo would be to tell a loved one that everyone loved him and we would go to any length to protect or help ease the pain and to please don’t give up on us.  Perhaps the lesson that we learn from a painfull loss is to express our love and support to our loved ones now… show them that they are important and loved. One of the most important things is to show them that we are supportive and not judgmental.

Life is a mystery but simple… it only gets complicated when we continue asking questions that there are no answers for. I tried in my simple minded way to explain this in an earlier post… we should live everyday as best we can, because no one ever comes back to explain what awaits us after we die… or have we failed to listen and learn or trust what we have been told or experienced? I believe that I mentioned this in an earlier blog, but it might be worth repeating here. I met my wife in California but learned a couple of years after we were married that our grandfathers were buddies back in Nebraska when they were children. I confirmed through the census that they lived within a couple of blocks of each other in Omaha at the same time. Was it fate that I would meet my wife because of some mysterious connection between our grandfathers?  Or have we always been connected in previous lives and continue to get back together in reincarnations.

I also mentioned in an earlier blog that my Grandson explained to his Mother one day when he was 3-years old that he died before when he was 8-years old and when he woke up she was his new Mommy. And he insisted that he wasn’t in family photos before he was born because at the time he was dead.  Then there is my other Grandson who mysteriously taught himself how to read before even starting kindergarten. He is still reading at an advanced level and can complete his math homework in a very short period of time. His Dad says that he looks at the math problem on his homework and calculates the problem in his head then writes down the answer within seconds. This grandson considers the work that he is given at his school is beneath his abilities and calls it “baby work!”  Was this child born with the intelligence to do his school work assignments with ease, or was it a learned ability carried forth from a previous life?

I believe that all of our loved ones who have passed on are still with us… and if we pay attention can still sense their presence.  When I was a child and we had assemblies at school for some award I received or some program I was involved with I could always tell that my Father was there just by hearing his distinctive cough… it was always very comforting to me when I heard that cough, I’m still listening for it.  My Grandfather was always gardening or watering his garden with a garden hose by hand, which is something that I do today, and he is always there with me telling me “atta boy.”  He was also always painting something or refinishing furniture so the smell of fresh paint or varnish is always very comforting to me.

All of this is solid evidence that my loved ones will always be with me.  Yes it does hurt when they pass on, but if we truly have faith that they will always be with us but at the same time believing that are in a way much better place for them then the pain is much less for those of us left behind.  When my father was on life support and my siblings and I had to ask for that support to be terminated because we knew that it was our father’s decision, still left me feeling bad about it for a couple of weeks until I had a dream where I asked my father if he could come back to life would he? His response was no… he was having way too much fun reliving the experiences in his life as if it were the first time. That dream… if it was a dream…made me feel much better.

I hope that when it’s my turn to pass on that my loved ones won’t mourn my passing, but celebrate my life instead, and be happy for me, because I plan on realizing a life-long dream of finding the answers for the true meaning of life and maybe having the opportunity to relive my happy experiences… especially moving back into the Hawaii tree-house my wife and I lived in when we were first married.

I have not been to church on a weekly basis in a long time, when I was a child I attended every week, until after services one Sunday I purchased a soda from a machine located in a community center next to the church. A stern looking lady told me that I would go to hell if I drank my soda. I sucked it down because I was thirsty, I don’t believe that I broke any of God’s commandments… at least I hope not. 

My belief in God didn’t end on that Sunday… but my belief in what adults told me about what I should or shouldn’t believe about God or the church did.  On the rare occasion that I do enter a church, I wonder if God is seeing me there, and I know that He is, just as He is seeing me watching the wonderful sunrise that He created.  I don’t have to be in a ‘man-made’ church to have a conversation with God I can have a conversation with him everyday in the temple that he built called the universe.  Everyday I thank God for my life, my children, my grandchildren and all those who I love.  Scientists have explained that the Universe was created in a big bang, but they have yet to explain what sparked that big bang.  I do know that one day the ultimate truth will be revealed to everyone.

In the mean time, I would recommend that everyone should strive to live a happy life and treat everyone kindly, always offer your hand in friendship, not in hate.

I saw it written somewhere that laughter is exercise for the soul… I think that I will watch a comedy on TV and get some exercise.

Life is an adventure

Life in the Navy was an adventure… during my career it seemed that time just moved so slowly, but after 20 years it didn’t seem that bad, but what has really whizzed by since then has been the last 22 years since I retired from the Navy.

I think that everybody complains about some of the duty stations they’ve been assigned to and then can’t wait to get orders to another assignment. But, when the transfer is completed, they wind up missing the duty station that they just left. I found out that regardless of the duty station, whether it’s a great place or crappy one, when you leave it you’re going to miss it. 

What I discovered that when I returned to a crappy place that I thought I missed… it was still a crappy place, and it wasn’t the place that I missed, it was the people that I knew at that duty station that I missed. I discovered that a place does not make a community, people make up the community.

I spent 20 years pretty much being homesick for the community where I grew up. When I retired and moved back to that community I discovered that I had very little in common with anyone in the old neighborhood. My childhood friends moved on in their lives with family and new interests, just as I had.  I then realized that I became homesick for the Navy.

Fortunately, I was able to get a good job back in a military town… Twentynine Palms, Calif. When I moved here it felt like I had come back home. My neighbors were either retired military like myself, or they were active duty, or they worked at the base. There is nothing like the camaraderie you have with your co-workers, and in a military town your neighbors.

I see young people coming out here to the desert for duty, and if they don’t have a family or a car there isn’t much for them to do except hike in the desert… which they probably do as part of their training at the base. Many of them try to stay fit so they run, play sports and run some more. If they have a young wife, they might get involved with other young couples. One night my wife and I went to the drive-in to see a movie here in our town, which is probably only one of a very few drive-ins left in the United States.  We saw young couples and young families arriving before dark to get set up for the movie. They had brought their pot luck dinners to share with each other and later to enjoy the movie together… as a community. That took me back to when my family and I would get together with our friends at those crappy duty stations… we might have a potluck dinner then play board games or cards because the duty station didn’t have English language TV. Or we might all get together to go camping somewhere.  One time we even caravanned up through Italy and camped on the side of the road at night. We got to share a great adventure by visiting Taormina, at the Messina Straight, Pompeii, Naples and Rome all during a four day road trip.

Out here in Twentynine Palms you can pretty much tell where a retired Marine lives… if they don’t have the National Flag and the Marine Corps Flag flying on a pole in their yard, you just have to look at their garage… if the door is open to tell that they were a Marine… a place for everything ship-shaped and squared away. On the other hand if your children followed you out to the desert to live near Mom and Dad, then they need someplace to store all of their stuff… so in my garage, there isn’t any space to put anything else… I have to carry my golf clubs around in my truck because they won’t fit in my garage.  My wife and I are now way to old to try and ride a bicycle… yet we have a half a dozen of them stored in our garage. When our kids moved out we made them take their beds with them… but now they are stored in our garage.

My Grandfather was a Marine for maybe two years, but the discipline he obtain in the Marine Corps stayed with him for his entire life. His garage was always squared away. Oil was not allowed to drip from any ones cars who dared park in his drive way.  Weeds were not allowed to grow in his lawn or around his prize roses.

When grandpa was working, his shoes were always spit shined and his suits neatly pressed and his tie tied with a double Windsor. Come to think about it, after he retired his gardening clothes had to also be pressed, and his work shoes shined.

Life in the Navy can be measured in duty stations… during this time we were here… then this other time we were over there.  We think that we missed the disco 70’s altogether because we spent most of that time overseas somewhere or moving to or from a military base in the states.

There were, movies and TV shows that came and went that I am just now discovering in the discount video bins at my local super duper discount stores.  Some of the fashions that were around in the 70’s also seemed to come from the clown acts of the circus… Big shoes, Neon suits and Big Hats…  We did witness a streaker at a ball game on the base in Sicily in the early 70’s… the guy didn’t run very far until he was apprehended by the base security officers.

Our two sons had no idea what TV was until they were nearly 3 and 4 years old. We arrived at my parent’s house after being picked up from the airport following a trip half way around the globe. The TV was tuned to some program about cave men fighting dinosaurs. Our oldest son became very upset that those cavemen were going to hurt the dinosaurs.

Back in California I was stationed at Naval Air Station Miramar… now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.  We were close enough to be able to drive up to Rowland Heights on the weekends to visit family there.  We found a great house in Poway, not too far from work at the air station.  Then the news came that Diane was expecting our third child… on Friday the 13^th of August 1975 our daughter Kimberly was born at a civilian hospital in Escondido, California. Now we could mark our duty stations by where our children were born… Brian at Oak Harbor, Washington; Christopher at Naples Italy and now Kimberly in San Diego.

The Navy wasn’t satisfied by just leaving me alone to work at Miramar; they decided that I should go to North Island Naval Air Station.  Not too far from Miramar, but a mess to have to drive through during rush hour traffic in San Diego.  We decided to move down to Coronado to be closer to work.  We found a relatively cheap house to rent while waiting for Navy housing.  I saved money by riding my bicycle back and forth to work at North Island, and when we were finally assigned base housing in San Diego I learned how to use the public transportation system so I wouldn’t have to drive in traffic and to save money on gas.

With almost ten years of active duty behind me, I decided to enlist in the Navy Reserves and go to school full-time on my GI Bill and Weekend drill pay.  I quickly learned that I needed to make a bit more money, because we no longer had health insurance, which was badly needed when our daughter broke her collar bone when she fell off a swing and then a short time later she came down with pneumonia and had to be hospitalized.  I got a job at Beckman Instruments in La Habra, California. A short time later my old scout master and brother-in-law’s uncle introduced us to the union so we could get a job on the back lot of Disneyland.  Tim went to work on the cars of autopia and I went to work checking the air pressure on the tires of the Monorail train... of course I had other duties, like trimming the tree branches away from the monorail track and cleaning stuff off the track that patrons threw there during the day.  I made good money doing this, and really enjoyed working in an environment very similar to the military.  Disney has a dress and grooming code for employees…I had no problem adapting to those rules with my ten years of military service.  My children really liked the fact that Dad worked at the coolest place in the world, especially when I would drop them and their Mom off in the morning before I would report to work… after I got off in the afternoon, I would scoop up some very tired kids from a bench by the Small World attraction and load them in the car at the employees parking lot.

My shop and the parking lot was just behind the Small World attraction… the only drawback about working in such a location was the “It’s a Small World” tune… many years later it is still embedded in my brain!... I think that I should get disability compensation for such an injury.  Now that I’m old the “

Happiest Place

on Earth can really PISS me off!  You have to pay a huge admission fee to stand in line for two hours for a two minute ride.  But of course you can make a reservation for that ride and report later in the day.  If I wanted to take all of my grandkids to Disneyland I would have to get a second mortgage on my house to buy the tickets.

Thank goodness that my wife made me reenlist in the Navy so we could retire with a pension and inexpensive medical coverage. We are happy with our life… we have our children raised and we get to see our grandchildren quite often… I don’t think that we will ever move again, we have found paradise and the grass isn’t greener here on the other side of the hill that I have to mow, because we don’t have any grass here in this beautiful desert.  The air is clean, we are in small town America where it isn’t over-crowded and everyone knows everyone else and it’s not possible to have traffic jams in town unless the Marines schedule one at the Main Gate to the base… which they do most every morning now that we have terrorist threats to worry about.  We also have a couple of Little League fields where I can sit with my neighbors, friends and family and watch my grandchildren play ball.  My wife, Diane, and I can literally walk out to our back yard and explore the vast Joshua Tree National Park’s hiking trails and sites… life can hardly get any better.