Out Walking

Out for a stroll. Something I try to do daily. Taking in the changing autumn colors before the rains return tonight. Such a unique feeling or vibe in the air that in my opinion, the other seasons fail to offer. I would happily accept ten months of autumn with the other three seasons split up between January and August. I'd be very ok with missing out on summer extremes. A yearly snowstorm or two (minus freezing rain) would be ok for photography purposes.

The trick or treaters had better start arriving soon as I'm struggling with resisting temptation. 

Carry On

A guy walking past me downtown, singing a cappella, the old Kansas song from my youth, 'Carry On Wayward Son' and me wanting him to sing another verse. 

• A day away from work giving me the time during daylight hours to partake in three of my favorite activities these days .... lunch, bookstore and record store browsing. Senior discounts at both and one that I needed to ask for as there were no assumptions, which always makes my day.
• All this activity took a toll. I left home feeling like I was 25. Returned home feeling much older than my current upper sixties-something.   
• At the record store, it feels like the owner/husband wants to charge full price while the other owner/wife wants to give me the senior discount. I always wonder if my senior status is causing a slight rift in their marriage. 
• Came across a record today that I've always wanted on vinyl because of its cover photo .... priced at $156, I left it where I saw it. A true record collector would have taken it home.

Tempted but in the end, walked away. Just can't bring myself to pay the asking price. Why is it buried in the bins and not displayed on the wall of expensive records? Such an iconic photo in my mind. 

I've always thought that the people making jazz recordings from the 1950's and 60's had the best sense for cover photography. 

Fantasy Land

The latest dream .....

One where I was depositing into my savings account, a check for 14.2 million dollars that had found its way into my hands. 

Who or where it came from? .... A mystery now that I'm twelve hours removed from dreamland.

Why is my dream world always such a fantasy land? 

Maybe it's all just a reminder to deposit the $71.44 check I have stashed away upstairs?

Or just maybe, my sleep world was making the quick (and accurate) calculations that 14.2 million is the equivalent of what 71.44 was worth a few years ago. 

Diamond Dreams

It was 5-5 in like the eighth inning when I fell asleep. 

I awoke hours later thinking that the Blue Jays had scored three runs in the 13th to win. 

Apparently, the knowledge of the 3-run 13th was part of my dream world.

I checked to make sure of the outcome only to discover the game went scoreless from inning nine until the bottom-of-the 18th when the Dodgers walked off with a win after home run. 

So where did this bogus knowledge originate?

And why the hell would I be dreaming about either of those teams? ..... 

I am moderately anti-Blue Jays and incredibly anti-Dodgers.

I'm a longtime Yankee fan

Rules of Life

One seemingly 100% chance of occurrence or rule in my life (Didn't they used to call these sorts of things, Murphy's Law?)  .... If I put on a clean shirt, within six hours I will spill, splash or drip some form of grease, oil or miscellaneous fluid on it.

Fifteen Minutes

A co-worker came up to me today .... an old basketball playing buddy from years ago who I don't get the chance to talk with much these days.

In the ten to fifteen minutes we talked, we relived a great deal of memories .... mostly stories about old teammates. Some who are also old friends, some not so much, those mostly due to their selfish style of game. 

I've concluded that basketball, more than any other sport or recreational pursuit, is the greatest activity to have twenty-five-plus years of stories wrapped around it.

All the people involved that came and went, stayed briefly or for the long term.

Names and faces long forgotten suddenly brought back to life through stories, myths and memories.

It was the ritualistic gathering of all sorts of souls with one common interest. 

Most abandon it after they leave high school, but we were holdouts.

We went until the acceptance of the reality of time .... and fully (or partially) functioning body parts .... dictated differently.

And most of us probably suffer from the illusion that we could still hoop, because we see it still in our dreams, if only we could remember where and when to show up. 

Record collecting might be a close second. 👴 

Of course, those activities are where I've spent most of my time over the years.

I wonder sometimes how it all ended for each of us.

Looking back at an age 40-something given day .....

I could still play that day ..... and tomorrow and the day after, etc., with no noticeable decline in physical ability or enjoyment.

And it seems like if I could play yesterday, I should be able to play tomorrow and the day after and the day after that into infinity right?

Because we were just talking hours of time and each day is just a few more hours and why can't we just keep on?

So how did the day arrive when it was decided that we had nothing else to give to the game?

(Is this making any sense?) 

With the progression of time in minutes and hours and no sudden identifiable wall to run into along the way, why did it have to end?

And now I think that each passing moment probably held some miniscule and unmeasurable amount of decline and the science and mathematics of it all both saddens and fascinates me. 

As I recall, my tipping point was one evening, walking out to my car and into the winter night, after an evening of hoops, soaked in perspiration and shivering through the drive home. 

That deep chill stayed with me long after.

It wasn't an aching back, a pulled muscle, ten consecutive missed jump shots, or anything like that.

I just didn't want to experience that cold again.  

The next game night came along and I just stayed home ..... and never returned.

For a year or two after, I'd receive encouraging phone calls and messages to come out. 

My response was always: "Maybe next week."

But next week never happened.

Except in dreams that still occasionally materialize and often haunt me.

Believe Me

 I was looking at a website and a list of new album releases coming up and thinking to myself: "I've never heard of any of these people."

A website that just a few years ago would still list a few familiar names.

But apparently something has changed and the old names have vanished.

I started thinking, I wonder if my parents had the same experience, let's say maybe 1972 .... Hmmmm Neil Young, Van Morrison, Bonnie Raitt, Steely Dan, The Who, Little Feat ..... "Who are these people? What happened to the music of my youth?"

And now the music of my youth, which seemingly still had the tiniest of toeholds just two or three years ago .... enough to make an occasional appearance on a new releases list ..... seems to be totally gone and forgotten.

And I was reading about John Lodge from the Moody Blues passing away which I what led me in this direction.

There was a time that I remember when all these names were young and their new music was highly anticipated and exciting and you'd hear it on the radio and people would talk about their favorite radio stations ......

        ...... and everything feels so much different now.

And I lived through those years which still felt at least acknowledged and remembered not that long go. But suddenly feels in the online world, more like a lost time and was it really all that significant?

         ..... and believe me, it was!!! 

The Long Way Home

Two hundred yards away from home after stopping for a DQ dilly bar to calm my pre-Yankee game nerves, but not wanting to attempt a left turn and deal with the seemingly never-ending line of oncoming cars from both directions, so opting to cut that volume in half, I turned right for a quick trip through the neighborhood across the street and to eventually end up with a right turn situation .....

Except that somewhere along that "quick trip" I missed a turn or street and ended up navigating a maze of lookalike streets, avenues, roads and drives with names I failed to recognize and that I'd never traveled before, unsure where I was or what direction I was traveling in before finally stumbling onto the main road I had intended for all along (at least I hadn't bumbled my way into a different town or Seattle or Canada), but now a mile and a half away from home and dealing with the middle school release traffic and its speed limits and student walker crossings slowing everything down and creating gridlock and with melting ice cream in the passenger side of the car.

And I sat there waiting to move and suddenly had waves of memories wash over me of ninth grade basketball and a road game where my school team had visited this very middle school, I was now stuck in traffic in front of ..... and how we had prepared over the previous week back then in 1971 to deal with their star player, the much feared "Bardosi" who I got to know a year or two later in high school and turned out to be a really nice guy  ..... and the news I heard a year or so ago of his passing. 

And there's so many little things that connect us in life ......