How high are the mountains, how wide is the sky, how narrow are the lanes?

  from Somebody's Father

Living in the west is usually a great experience. When people come to visit our office they are totally blown away by the mountains right out our door. To be really honest it is stunning to see the mountains rise up right against the city. While we are at about 4500 feet a 12,000 foot mountain still means 8,000 feet of what appears to be almost straight up. I guess anyone from a place without mountains would be impressed. Even if you come from a place with mountains like California, these are so close to the city they seem bigger.

    Also in the west is the low humidity. Of course that means less rain, more irrigation and very few of the days where sweating provides no relief from the heat. Low humidity also brings one other amazing thing. The last few days we have had almost perfect blue skies from east to west, north to south. My office window is perfectly positioned to see the highest mountain in the area with 180 degrees of beautiful blue skies.

    Another western thing is our love is our cars and given a lower population density we glory in our roomy freeways. But, not so much right now in our town. They are rebuilding 25 miles of freeway and by my calculation my exit is right in the middle of the project.

    But you have to give them credit, they have tried very hard to minimize the pain and suffering during the 3 year construction project. The project is 14% complete and every day is a new adventure as they continue to move the traffic from one side of the road to the other.

    They seem to have settled the traffic on the West side for about 5 miles of my commute and on the East side for the other 3 miles. Now you have to understand they have made the road a bit wider (10 feet or so) but they now have 6 lanes of traffic (three in each direction) where three lanes were just a few months ago.

    Bottom line: the lanes are not large size or even medium size. I drive a little Prius but sometimes it seems like the lane is 6” smaller than my little hybrid car. Needless to say I always stay in a side lane so I can’t get caught between two trucks. This nightmare scenario has played out for me in the past when I occupied a center seat from Boston to Salt Lake sitting between 2 people who could only very kindly be described as “generous”. I didn’t like it on the plane and am pretty sure I wouldn’t like it on the freeway.

    So, every day I enjoy the beautiful mountains and the vast blue sky outside my office window, with bookends of terror on each end as I commute 9 miles through the ever changing landscape of construction.

Walking- It isn’t just for fun any more

    I don’t remember when I started to walk. I am pretty sure I was there but no remarkable memories are recalled. There is some anecdotal evidence that I must have been very enthusiastic about the effort since some family members referred to me by the nickname “horsepower.”

    However it happened, I did get to the point where walking has become one of the joys in my life. As far back as I remember, walking is something I can do well. I can remember being 3 or 4, slipping out of my bed at home, sneaking out of the house and walking the 50 or so yards over to my Grandma’s house. I knew she would be up, even if my mother wasn’t. At that early age walking gave me independence at least equal to, if not greater than, the independence I later felt when the first driver’s license was in my pocket.

    Growing up on a farm gave wonderful opportunities to walk. Everything is so open on the farm. From the house to the “bottom” of the home place was a half mile of wide open fields. When I was little, sometimes I would be sent to get the dairy cows and bring them to the barn to be milked. This would mean walking to the field where they were, finding the one farthest away and encouraging them to head up the lane to the dairy barn. It easily was a half mile round trip on a good day. I didn’t appreciate the joy of walking (in fact I may have been known to complain from time to time)

    As I got older moving sprinkler hand line was one of my big tasks. I was good at it. After all, it is just walking, picking up a pipe, walking, putting the pipe down and walking. No great mental effort required (except to keep the line straight) and lots of walking. A great combination for me.

    Now, when I look at my Dad having trouble walking, worries come into my mind. I remember my Great-grandmother in a wheelchair and my Grandmother in a wheelchair when we went to visit her as I was older. I have to face the possibility that I may have problems walking as the years continue to pile up. Some days my legs hurt, sometimes they even wake me up. So, I worry.

    There is a very positive side to this “hyper sensitivity” to everything leg related. I have discovered that if I get out and exercise every day, my legs hurt less. So, I push myself to get out, even on those days I would rather stay in bed for just a little longer.

     I don’t know how many years I will continue to have the joy of waking with my sweetie up the shady canyon trail, along a beach in Hawaii, or down into, across and up out of the Grand Canyon, but I am not taking one day for granted.
--Somebody's Father

And now...a few words from Somebody's Parents (AKA somebody's father)

Blogging and NPR Pledges
This is pledge week at our local public radio station. It appears that the preferred technique to solicit funds is a very technical process called “guilt”. Today’s afternoon drive time guilt message solicitation was from the “This American Life” host Ira Glass. Ira’s piece pointed out the fact that 9 out of 10 NPR listeners do not pledge to the station they enjoy.

    He has decided that NPR was going about it all the wrong way. He said his new plan was to just be happy with the current one supporter in 10 by reducing expenses to 1/10 their current levels. To illustrate he called the newspaper in his home town of Chicago and ordered 10 papers offering to pay for one. Obviously that didn’t fly, so he concludes that more people need to pledge to NPR. He conveniently gave the phone number to call and pledge your financial support at the end of his piece.

    Someone close to us has requested an increase in the rate of blogging. They even threatened to withhold their witty, imaginative and entertaining blogs as “hostage” until others delivered new blog entries. Obviously, they could develop a career as a NPR pledge shill if they weren’t totally invested on the path to become an attorney. (similar but slightly different career paths)

    But as I do with NPR near the end of the pledge drive when I cave and pay up, I have buckled under the social stress and pressure. Here is a blog entry. There actually may be others tucked away in my keyboard if I can just find them.

    So for the rest of you, get with it and BLOG. While you are at it, you better pledge to your local NPR station as well. Sophisticated entertainment like “Wait, wait, don’t tell me” doesn’t come cheaply you know. (Well maybe it is cheap, but there is an unwritten obligation)

    I only wish the my actions were motivated by my altruistic desire to blog and not the intense guilt heaped upon me by some unnamed “bacon” blogger.