Candid Camera

I wish I could paint but I'm dismal at it...I have to use the paint-by-numbers in order for anything to remotely represent something recognizable. Beauty is in my soul but it sure is hard to get it out of me.

I watch musicals because I love to see graceful people dance, but me...I have two left feet. Gene Kelly can belt out, "Gotta dance!" and my feet starts tapping to the rhythm but that's as far as it goes. I can sing a little (on key too!) but after years of playing guitar with my small chubby fingers, I can only manage about fifteen chords so my repertoire is very limited.

How can I express what is inside of me? I searched and tried and failed and finally found something that captured what I wanted to say...yes, by Jove...you've got it! Just point and click! Thank God for the camera.

Now I can't match Steinbeck's Travels With Charley but I've had my own adventures with my Minolta.

Setting: Yosemite Valley
Year: a dozen years ago maybe
My age: none of your business
My weight: definitely classified
Literary type: non-fiction with just a tint of literary license
Time: an hour before sunset

Let me set the scene for you: I am standing in a verdant meadow with my zoom lens and eye fixed on Bridal Veil Falls. I am focused on one thing...capturing beauty, nothing else matters at the moment. My friend is standing by my side watching me take the picture and begins to move a healthy distance away.

friend: "Um, Helen, I hate to disturb you but you are about a foot away from a hornet's nest."
I made no comment and kept on clicking. Her voice rises in urgency as she ponders whether I am deaf as well as blind.
friend: "Did you hear what I said?"
me: "Yes" (I am still looking through the view finder and clicking away)
friend: "Don't you care?"
me: "I'll care right after I get this shot."
Silence reigns--my friend is musing whether I am insane too.
me: "Is the hornet's nest to the right or left of me?" I asked not bothering to glance around: I'm still glued to my Minolta.
friend: "It is to the left of your left foot."
me: "Good, I'll make sure not to move there."

Now I hear the buzzing sounds...four more shots and my roll is finished. Now I raise my head and notice my surroundings. Sure enough the hornet's nest was right there and the little buggers didn't seem too happy with me. For five minutes I was rooted to the spot like Mount Rushmore and now I high-tailed it like greased lightning.

Was I so cruel as to leave my friend behind? No way--she was the runner and I was weighted down with a ten pound camera case.

What was the happy outcome? Well, I captured the shots I wanted and my friend who thought I had totally lost my mind became fascinated with photography. She is now a first rate photographer. Isn't amazing what God will use to grab people's attention?

Love Gives Life

Love gives life to everything.
Hate devours itself.

Good releases everyone.
Evil imprisons itself.

Faith believes for everyone.
Fear implodes on itself.

The world is vast for what is right
and narrow for all that is wrong

GANDALF

Ancient order, tales untold
One of the nine--leader bold
Quick to anger, quick to laugh
Wise in counsel, stifles wrath
Elves’ advisor, Strider’s friend
Frodo’s mentor, Saruman’s end
Glamdring’s owner, Shadow-fax tamed
“Mithrandir” Elves have named
Middle-earth’s flame, Arnor wields
Mordor’s darkness, hope to shield
Balrog’s terror, old man’s might
Fell in shadow, rose in white
Third age over, mission done
West is calling, joy has begun

FARAMIR

Faramir, faithful son
life almost over before it’s begun.

Greater wisdom than brother had
favored by Gandalf made your father mad.

Passed the test where Boromir failed
to give up the ring, your father railed.

Pride the portion of Denethor
fanned into flames by Mordor.

Faramir’s love could not quench the fire
his life salvaged from his family’s pyre.

Raised up to be Aragorn’s friend
Stewards of Gondor coming to an end.

EOWYN

The darkness has passed, the frost over.
Gentleness wins, hardness blows cover.

Faramir’s love has defrosted your heart.
Eowyn, you will have a new start.

Say goodbye to roughness and Rohan.
You will be a princess in Ithilien.

No longer a shield-maiden you will be
but a healer loving all beauty.

ITHILIEN’S GLOW

Proud maiden with heart of stone
Faramir’s love did much atone.

Winter is broken by the Spring
with all the promise it can bring.

Despondency with all its gloom
couldn’t force its way into your bloom.

Raven back and golden hair
mixed to the delight of Gondor's stare.

May your laughter mingle so
adding joy to Ithilien’s glow.

Make Them Laugh

I envy my brother because he has perfect comic timing. He remembers jokes he learned in high school. I'm great as an audience member because I am very empathetic but I can't tell a joke for the life of me. I'm just not wired for it.

At family gatherings he's cracking us up and I can't even remember the punch line a few minutes later because the words and the order get all jumbled in my mind. If I do deliver the joke in right order then I miss the timing and there's no pizazz. Life is just not fair sometimes!

What I lack in the joke department I make up for in imagination because I think like Gary Larson. Alas, I still mourn the loss of The Far Side, don't you?

I'm very visual so if it looks funny than it is funny to me... I still laugh when I watch I Love Lucy, Perfect Strangers, Laverne & Shirley or Home Improvement.

Now my sense of humor has caused me some embarrassing moments because slapstick is funny even if someone gets hurt and that someone is me. I've done my usual trip, flip (wipe out on water skies and ripped my shorts) and hard landings. Besides a few bruises the only thing that really smarts is my pride and the swift kick to my ego.

The problem with me is that the lines don't get embedded in my memory...the pictures do. Someone can bring a box of candy to the office and tempt me with sweet confections and I start laughing. Co-workers back off thinking I've lost my mind but at that moment I can picture Lucy and Ethel stuffing bonbons in their cheeks and down their blouses.

See how dangerous it can be to be me? If I had been born two hundred years ago I would have been put in a padded cell but since I was working and living in San Francisco at the time...I was pretty normal, considering.

Name That Tune

There I was with little tykes all around me abandoned in the sheer joy of the last day of school. Not a sigh on the air; I was smiling too. Out of nowhere I started to hum a tune...and then broke out audibly with a "ha ha ha...you and me," and caught a few curious glances from parents. I put a lid on the singing and my brain started to work on the song. Where in the world did it come from?

"Teacher, what are you singing?" a first grader asked. Beats me, I thought. Then as fast as white lightning came the knowledge that I had been humming one of my dad's favorite tunes...Little Brown Jug. "Umm it's just a song my father used to sing a long time ago," I replied lamely.

I could tell that the boy was eager to hear the whole song but I was not up to recital. The parents of my first grade class are kind and understanding but I don't know if they would tolerate me singing..."ha ha ha--you and me--little brown jug how I love thee!" especially at a Christian school. I know I am unorthodox but I have some sense of decorum.

Crazy how certain tunes can come out of nowhere like that and almost crucify you. The last time I heard that song I must have been nine or ten. I remember how my dad loved to belt it out especially after he had a swig or two. When he drank he was very happy...no moody blues with him and of course the song got lodged in my memory.

I remember that he used to sing military tunes too. My mother found out the hard way when her three year old son came home from play one day singing..."You're in the army now! You'll never get rich...you son of a b----! You're in the army now!"

Ah yes, fond memories. After my mother lectured my little brother she turned on my poor father and told him what for.

You never know what you may sing when you're tipsy or what song your child will have seared in their subconscious...so beware, be very aware the next time you are tempted to hug that little brown jug.

Sleepy Hollow

I turned around and noticed the sun dipping below the horizon. I checked my watch in the vanishing light. It was almost 6pm. The sign said clearly that all the gates would be closed at sunset. Great, I thought! I had spent too much time lingering around the literary corner of Sleepy Hollow pondering over the graves of Hawthorne, Emerson, Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott.

I yelled to my friend and we both got in the car. We headed for the main entrance but the gate was locked. I began to sweat. I swerved to another gate and found that it was also locked.

"Why do these things always happen when I'm with you?" my faithful friend opined. I didn't reply because I was too busy praying under my breath. "Dear God, please let us get out of here! I promise I won't visit anymore graveyards for a long time."

My imagination was already taking over and I wondered what it would be like to be locked in a cemetery overnight. With a name like Sleepy Hollow I expected to be decapitated by the Headless Horseman before morning's light. In a flash my fear was no longer based on a character from a Washington Irving's novel but on Tolkien's Black Riders...

NAZGUL

Deaf to laughter, blind to cheer
Famine’s hunger, drunk on fear

Hell’s own offspring, living undead
Pursuing the nine, mission of dread

Clothed in darkness, shivers up the spine
Deeds of evil, poisoned wine

Made of nightmares haunting our dreams
Extinguished light, phantom teams

Shrieking menace, forever fell
Vacant goodness, putrid well

Hideous cries, consuming hate
Sauron crushed, death thy fate

A shiver ran down my spine. A rising hysteria took hold of me and I wanted to scream aloud, "We're going to die!" Now my fancy filled in nine back riders trying to overtake my car.

"Oh good!" my friend's calm voice penetrated my momentary insanity, "The last gate is open!" I left Sleepy Hollow with deep gratitude and trembling heart. It was enough of a close call to extinguish any desire to visit old graveyards for at least the next few years.

In Praise of Fathers

I want to warn everyone right off that this is not a PC blog. If manhood being torn down and fathers ridiculed in sitcoms are more to your taste than please avoid reading any further for you are in danger of being traumatized.

I happen to be one of those rare birds who does not think that masculinity and femininity are the same thing in spite of all the gender bending and blending going on in our society; that giving a truck to a little girl and doll to a little boy are not going to change their natures. I say exuberantly with a dash of rebellion...viva la difference!

I want to honor all fathers on this day of days because I am unable to thank my own father. I lost him when I was thirteen and time has not lessen the ache. He was part of "The Greatest Generation" and fought in WWII, the Korean War and also worked behind the scenes in Vietnam. His grave marker has all three wars engraved on it; he was awarded two purple hearts.

I understand the pain this day can cause for some people whatever the reason...there are no perfect fathers yet don't we all have baggage and still strive to do our best?

In an age where euphemisms, semantics, and PC control our world: where unclarity in definitions can give birth to muddled thinking--I prefer another time to draw forth a tribute to fathers. I could not have put it better than Rudyard Kipling's hallmark poem...

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

LOVE IS TRUE

Everything I love
has something true in it.
I cannot love a lie.
I may be deceived by it
but I can never love it.

CONDITIONING

Testing comes in the heat
not the shade.
Cowards are formed in retreat
not the raids.

Patience comes by waiting
not by chance.
Strength comes by climbing
not happenstance.

Faith works in valleys
not on the hills.
It is fed by love
not by the thrills.

THE STRUGGLE

The struggle builds the muscle.
The strain brings the gain.

It takes strength to live right.
It’s so easy to lose sight.

The path of least resistance
will always have insistence.