During a dull meeting

Sitting here at my desk at work listening in on a conference call with some folks from here and folks from California. My phone is on mute because it's unlikely that I'll have anything to say, but they pay me to do this.

Outside my window is the northwest side of Portland, Oregon. There are the ritzy West Hills but mostly I see part of the largest forested city park in the nation, sensibly named Forest Park. When I was in college, just before I was married, I lived in a wonderful house near the edge of that park. I lived in that house when I met my wife, Debbie.

Few people want to hear an old guy get all philosophical so stop reading here please.

Overall I'm a very fortunate person and except for a few momentary lapses I've felt that way my entire life. Wasn't born rich, not at all, but I had a good loving home, plenty to eat, lots of friends and fun, and good health. I loved being a kid, a teen, a young adult and so on. Without angst my life has been fairly uninteresting. Living much of my life in small town and rural southern Indiana doesn't add much interest either.

Sure, I had some struggles. From about age 16 to 23 or so I got into the muscle car, factory job, beer and party scene. Did some street racing, drag strip racing, learned to work on my own car, had a sponsor, drove cars for pay for others, and loved it. I still love muscle cars, though I don't own one. (My favorite personally owned car is now very rare and worth over $100,000.)
I always liked girls and women in every way. I had many worthy of lots of respect in my life and my general respect for women grew over the years. I think that working with nurses for many years increased that even more. And I am, I think, generally a pretty nice guy and not scary to look at. So I was lucky enough to date many women and to feel comfortable around them. They were at time a mystery but never beyond understanding.

Then dawned the age of hippies. Sold the fast cars, bought an old VW (many, in fact, one after another) quit my high-paying job because it supported the Vietnam war, and went to work in hospitals (ER tech, OR tech) for many years. The pay was less but the rewards were huge and the challenges great. And for a guy who liked women it was like having a job in the best place in the world.

Oh yeah, mixed in with all this was that f'ing war, which is much like the present war: Old men sending young men off to die for nothing. Anyway, we had the draft back then. I was healthy. They wanted me. I tried to tell them that I was deaf, gay, lame, whatever. They didn't buy it. So it was Canada, jail or the Army Reserve. I did the latter. What can I say about this? It was six years of being ruled by dimwits and scumbags during active duty times. But here I am, alive, stable, and glad of it.

Back to that hippie thing. There were types...city/town hippies, college hippies, political hippies, Earth hippies, traveling hippies, artsy hippies, pot hippies, acid hippies, and so on. I started as a townie but rapidly moved to the Earth/traveling/pot hippie type. I drove and hitchiked all over the nation and into Mexico and Canada. It was great times.

After a little crisis I landed in central Florida working in the OR of a big hospital in Lakeland. Lived there for a year wading around in swamps with my fine dog Butterpup, going to parties and flea markets, dating, and dealing with the roaches, heat and tourists. But then I took a long, slow trip to the West, left Florida and for some reason (?!?!?!) moved to Indianapolis.
But I continued to visit the West, Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Oregon, California, as often as possible. Then it hit me: Why not move West? Brilliant. I applied for jobs in seven western states, got hired at the VA Hospital in Portland, and here I am.

I love mountains and canyons, waterfalls, big trees, wild weather, snow, cold, wind, silence, self reliance, hard hiking, and more. It keeps me alive.

Enough for now.