08 28 11 I Love Dogs

I love dogs!

I have a special place in my heart for dogs. I feel that a lot of them have a special place in their hearts for me too. It is a close knit bond between us that over the years seems to have grown.

I don’t know what it is, but when I know there is a dog near me, they consume my attention. They bounce around and drool and bark and whine and lick themselves in many peculiar places, but none of that matters to me. I am consumed with their presence, and if they are anywhere near me, then I will do whatever I can to pet them. I can’t help it. They just seem to need a good petting.

Usually when I am aware of a dog near me, I break out in a heavy smile, and breathe in a deep sigh. They have placed a spell on me. I am a dog person, plain and simple. Even now, when I can’t see them, I can sense they are there, wagging their tail with their tongues hanging out, just waiting for someone to tell them that they have been a good boy or girl. It seems that they crave attention, and I am more than happy to oblige.

I know that there are many people that just don’t feel this way about the canine family, and I will never understand their state of mind, nor will they probably ever understand mine. It is just a difference that we have.

We have lived in this same house since 1986 and we have had a handful of dogs along the way. Our first was Barkley. I used to call him “My Barksey Boys”, and he would smile at me when I got home from work, and walked out back to let him off of his runner. I can still see him smiling and shyly looking down at the ground as I came up to him. He was such a good boy. They all were.

He was a husky/shepherd mix that lived to be 17, and when he left, I had a hole in my heart.

Then there was my Bubby Boy. Fletcher, our beagle. I used to tell my wife that I was pretty sure I loved him more than I did her. She said that she felt the same. I couldn’t blame her, he was just so damn cool. Snoopy could never hope to be as cool as he was, not even close. Sorry Mr. Schultz. He was our poop-a-doo, our bubbazess, our doo doo, our little Popo. He graced our lives for ten years. It was ten full years of a closeness that only he was able to bring us. He was the meaning of “Companion” complete. He changed my life, and I thank him for it.

The love that our dogs have given us is unmatched and unique. Whenever I have felt down, they were there to cheer me up. Whenever I was happy, they were there to share my joy. Whatever my mood, their love and devotion never swayed or faded or changed. They were always there to offer their unconditional love.

We have two dogs right  now, Deena and Coco. Coco is a husky/black lab/Shetland pony, and Deena is a hair omitting skinny curly tailed lady husky that lets us lives with her. We are fortunate that she hasn’t gone up on the rent since 2008. Coco is just one of the happiest dogs I have ever had the privilege of getting to know. She has filled my heart with so many pleasant and wonderful memories. Just her demeanor is so uniquely care free and happy. She is very protective though, and our house is her castle. She is a sentry at the gate, and I truly believe she would guard it to the end. Thanks Coco.

The cats, well, that is another blog post in itself. I love my cats, but my dogs consume my attention. There is just something about a cold nose and a warm lick that starts my day off on the  right foot.

I realize that everything we own is loaded with drool, and smells like a wet dog, and everything we wear is plastered with canine mohair. All I need now is an electric Zoot , and Benny and the Jets would be banging on our front door, along with Candy and Ronnie.

I love dogs, and always will. Their innocence and unabashed loyalty makes me feel somehow complete. I pity the person that tries breaking into our home with the two we have now. I just pity them.

There is only one thing that gains my attention like the presence of a dog. Well, I should say there is two things, well maybe three, ok, there are a lot of things that feel the same. When my wife smiles at me, the voice of my grandson, a hug from my son, and the sound of a puppy barking. Smile. See, I am smiling just thinking of it.

Puppies rule and I am a complete sucker for them. When I used to be able to watch them, I would smile and laugh uncontrollably. They still have the same effect on me now whenever I hear that cute as hell little puppy bark. I can just picture them hopping and falling over their own little oversized puppy feet. I can not explain it. ‘they are just the cutest damn thing in the world. A bundle of excited joy that seeps its way into my heart, and fills my soul with a smile. Thank you god for puppies.

As the old title of the animated movie stated, “All Dogs Go to Heaven”. I can’t imagine any other place where they would fit in. Nowhere.

I told my grandson Jack that all of our dogs that have gone to heaven are up there, running in a meadow, chasing butterflies. I could tell from the pause that he was picturing it. So am I.

08 18 11 All Grown Up

When I was a kid, I always wondered what on earth I  was going  to be when  I  grew up. Just the thought alone scared the crap out of me. Was I prepared to  grow up? Was I prepared to take on the responsibilities of growing old as I grew up? Who in their right mind would ever give a mixed up kid like me permission to grow up? Who in their right mind would ever think that I would ever make a good older person? How was I going to convince anyone that I was a good candidate for an adult? I didn’t even know how to drive a car. I couldn’t even get a girlfriend. I didn’t have a job, or a wallet, or a checking account. Heck, I didn’t have any money pretty much all of the time. I couldn’t even figure out what I wanted to pretend to be after I grew up.

I never thought I would ever get married. Just the thought of it scared the heck out of me. Married? Me? How could I think of getting married when I had all of this other kid stuff going on? Couldn’t you see I was busy worrying about zits? Priorities People!

How could I start feeling like a grown up when I was stuck in kid mode?

Every ounce of me screamed to be able to stay a kid forever. Maybe even longer than that. I can still remember asking my mom and dad if I could live with them until I died. They both smiled and assured me that I could. I thought we had a deal, and now look at me. Thanks a bunch guys. Smile.

. The thought of having to grow up and start smelling like an adult. The thought of having to shave every day, and wear suits and ties and shiny shoes and other articles of old people clothing and wash my own underwear and pay my own bills with money that I had to earn all by myself. Are you kidding me? It was just too much for my adolescent mind to wrap around.

 It all seemed so weird and out of reach. I just couldn’t comprehend any of it. I wanted to be a kid and have no responsibilities like a kid. I wanted to be taken care of forever. My parents had done a good job of it thus far, what was another 40 or 50 years? I mean, really. It’s just a snap of the finger. Besides, I still had a whole bunch of kid stuff left to finish up. I mean there was baseball, and skate boarding, and basketball, and junior high dances, and ice cream cones, and penny candy, and swimming, and hide and seek, and cub scouts, and tree climbing, and ice skating, and sledding, and bicycle riding, and summer rec, and a whole bunch of other kid stuff that I can’t remember right now. I am getting dizzy thinking about all of the stuff that I forgot. Couldn’t you see just how busy I was?

I used to think to myself, “Please let me continue on my merry little kid way a little longer. I promise to be good. I won’t be a bother, and I promise to eat all of my squash. Just kidding, I hate squash. I will even clean up my room once a week like I said I would. Ok, ok, umm, how about twice a month? I will mow the lawn and rake the leaves and take the trash.“

Funny thing is, I do a lot of that now, And I am a grown up, or at least I play one in real life. Shrug.

I still feel like a kid. I still have a lot of the same thoughts that I had when I was a kid. I stillsmell the same as I did when I was a kid. “sniff”, well, maybe a little different.

All of the anxiety I had about growing up, all of the fears I had about growing up, all of the worries about growing up, they all came and passed. Heck, I didn’t even notice most of them as they came screaming by. I guess the progression of life caught up with me. Clever crafty cunning little bugger, this life thing. Before you know it, it is happening to us all, one after the other. There isn’t much you can do about it either. At least there wasn’t much I  could do about it. It is what it is, and for the most part, it will be what it will be.

I never thought I would see the end of my childhood, and here it is, thirty plus years later. What in hell happened? Where did it go? Who put me here? How did I get here and who are these other people around me pretending to be adults? How did my hair get so gray and who put the floor so damn  far away? I want my money back! Oh ya, another thing, how did this beautiful woman become my wife? She must have me confused with a grown up.

Who is responsible for turning me old? Can I go back to kidville? Who stretched my skin out of shape, and put these lines in my face? Why does my back hurt all the time, and why can’t I see my feet? I want my mommy!

I just had to say that for effects.

Did it work?

I still would like to meet the people who thought I would make a good grown up.

 I would like to ask them just one simple question. What were you thinking?

08 15 11 Inspiration 365

It is funny how people come into your life, and then, with the blink of an eye, they are gone. When the dust settles, it is the ones that are there, standing beside you that matter the most.

This past year has afforded me some amazing relationships. I have had the luxury of meeting some rather incredible individuals. My inspiration this past year is from them, as well as from many of those who have been in, and remained in my life.

Each day that goes by, I realize that most of my positive influence comes from my mom and dad. It is through them that I see all the wonder that this life has to offer. Their inspiration through the course of my life is something that I have overlooked, I have taken for granted, and it is also something that has never waivered nor slightened one bit. It has always been there for me to see when I chose to see. It has always been there for me to build my life around, when I chose to. It has always been the center of who I am, when I chose to acknowledge it. It has always been there, and I am all the better for it.

I have talked in length about my family, and how important they have been, and continue to be to me. I am blessed, and that is something that I no longer take lightly. There are so many people in the world that have not had the love and family surroundings that I have had. If there was some way in which I could give them all a small slice of the pie, I would in a heart beat. This family thing is something that everyone should be able to feel for at least one moment in their lives.

So many positive things have happened to me this past year. I realize it now as I look back over the past year. The positive things are wrapped in a whole bunch of positive people. There really are these kinds of people wherever you look, but you have to remember to look. It is that easy. Seek, and ye shall find. It is a simple recipe really, just add life.

Through all of my moments of despair and torment and wishing that I could jump off of the train that I was on, I found strength to hold on and ride it through. This strength has come from family and from the others that have been put in place this past year.

She will not take any of the credit, and perhaps that is what I admire the most about her, but my first VRC Rep Leona is at the top of the pile of incredibly motivating people I have had the privilege of meeting. She is the spark that I seek. She is the drive that I crave. She is the mentor that has led. She is most of all, a friend, and I am lucky to have her in my life.

I have met many visually impaired people this past year. I had no idea what wonderful and inspirational stories surrounded people such as these. An incredible group of folks that have become amazing people, not in spite of their handicaps, but in a lot of ways, because of their handicaps.

I am the first blind person that I had ever met. I never thought of the blind. I never understood what it meant to be blind, even though I lived my life as a half blind person. I just never really sat down and thought about it. It didn’t affect my life, nor did it ever cross my mind. Selfish? No. I would say ignorance mostly.

I could go on with this blog post forever and a day. I am a fortunate man today. I know what it means to be blind, and I know what kind of people make up the blind community. I am blessed to finally have my eyes open today.

I have so many people to thank over this past year. I have so many people to idolize. I have such an exciting path ahead of me, and that is a lot more than I can say compared to the complacent life I was heading down these past several years.

There are going to be many twists and turns and hills and valleys along the way. I know this. I also know that I will not have to go through them alone.

After all of the crap and meaningless fodder washed out to sea this year, I am left with a fresh smooth beach. I think I am going out to make some tracks in the sand.

Have a great day everyone.

08 09 11 Remember?

Remember?

There was always something to do when I was a young kid. The neighborhood where I grew up was taming with an endless array of activities that always seemed to exhaust my endless energy, even when I had my Red Ball Jets on. Smile.

With my two older sisters and one older brother, we spent countless hours either inventing games to play, or relying on the old fashioned ones that had been around for generations. Oh ya, I can’t forget my little brother. He was always there too. Blond headed little bugger. Smile.

One of the most favorite activities was hide and go seek. Our neighborhood on our street was perfect for the game, and there were a thousand points to find a great hiding spot. The only thing was if Buddy, the kid from next door, was the one who was, “it”, you didn’t stand a chance of reaching gooze before he did. He was just too damn fast. I can remember playing that game into twilight, until you could barely see. Such fun.

We also had our share of ball games as well. From football to basketball, to baseball, we had a ball.

There was a farm at the end of our street, and they had a cow pasture in behind our house where we would play baseball. Honest to God, we used to use the cow flaps for bases. Of course they were dried out, and light to the touch. You could actually pick them up and hurl them like a Frisbee. Can you see me smiling?

I can still remember my little brother Scotty, after he would hit the ball, he would run around the bases backwards. Yes, he was a leftie. They just do things differently I guess. I remember his blond hair glistening in the afternoon sun as he rounded third and headed for second. I am smiling again.

One day when I was around 8 or 9, the owner of the farm, Walter, brought a dump truck full of sifted sand and dumped it just on the other side of the three rail fence that ran up along the side of our driveway. It was instant heaven as we started trying to dig our way to China. What fun we had that first summer with the sand pile. It was simply awesome. We had quite a good collection of Tonka trucks and so did our neighbors, the Merriman’s. The sand pile was quickly turned into Little Falls Community Sand Pit as we plowed and graded and hauled and built a city within the pile. My sister Terri was the first tenant of the pit to install a Tupperware in ground pool for her sand estate house. She always was a show-off.

Every year, Walter would haul down a fresh load of sand to replenish our wonderful world of imagination. I drove by the house a few years ago, and you could still see patches of bare sand around the trees.

I would dare to say that I had it really good as a kid. It just seemed so naturally perfect. I always had a bike to ride, a sled to slide on, a ball to hit or throw, a kite to fly, and I could go on and on.

Things just seemed much simpler back then. No electronic gadgets to hamper the imagination. No computers to defrag. No cell phones to worry about charging. It was just easy simple things that made us who we were. Character building came from what you did, not what you had. I hope some day we can go back to those values and experience the whole package once again. There is just so much more to life than a hard drive, or an app, or a USB adapter.

Give me the days of building tents out of blankets on the clothes line, and I will show  you a happy bunch of kids. Sliding down a twenty foot hill of grass on a cardboard box. Flinging apples a hundred yards from the end of a long apple tree branch for hours and hours. Smacking rocks from the street out into the field with a baseball bat. ?Spinning in circles on a rope hanging from the tree in front of the house, until you were so dizzy you couldn’t stand up. Digging holes in the snow until it was too dark to see. Sliding out on the hill under the moonlight until Dad whistled for us to come home. No matter where we were, we could always hear him whistling.

Remember? It wasn’t that long ago you know. If you try really hard, you can still feel and smell the sounds and the noise and the whole experience of just being a kid, plain and simple. They are still locked up inside of me and come bursting out every once in a while. That’s the best part, when for a split second, you are completely consumed with the same feelings that you had as a child. Exactly the same. It really is quite amazing.

I think I must have rode back and forth up and down my street about 428 thousand times on my bike. I can still hear the back tire squeal as I laid down a wicked awesome J-Bar with it. I also remember asking dad about a hundred times if he could buy me another back tire. It was a Schwinn Sting-Ray. I can still see it, banana seat and all. I am pretty sure it was green.

Yes, I am sure it was sparkly green.

08 07 11 Save As

Save As

“Document one, Microsoft Word, print, edit.”

I have heard those words spoken a lot these past few months. They are the words that my screen reader, Jaws, reads to me when I open up a new blank Microsoft Worddocument. I have opened up a ton of new word documents lately

I have always loved to write. I remember the first real piece that I ever wrote. It was in 2^nd grade. Mrs Johnson had the class write a short poem, and I wrote about our dog Scruffy.

My dog Scruffy is one year old.

She is small, but strong, and very bold.

She has a little bed of her own,

And when she gets up, you can hear her groan.

I remember it like  it was the day after tomorrow, and I can still see her face. I can also still hear my mom screaming when she used to go up the street and roll in cowmanure at the Stevens farm. That wasn’t what caused her to scream. The thing that caused the reaction from mom was when  Scruffy used to get into the house after, all covered in the stinky poop, and make a bee line for the living room where she would run and dive under the couch.

Someone could write a country song  about this. I smell a hit, ha-ha. I think that those screams of my mom are also one of the things that is still orbiting the planet along with all the other hardware up there.

Side note, it has just started raining. We need the rain. I hope it rains all day.

I used to have a hard time getting past the voice of my screen reader. I was always consumed with his voice, and not the content. I have moved past that for the  most part now. I know he is talking to me, but I seem to slide past his digital monotone voice and am able to gobble up most of the content now. It is my concentration level that causes me grief now.

When I am reading articles, or letters, or basically anything, I tend to wander off on any number of parallel tangents as I am reading. Some of them are not so parallel. I hear a certain word, or a phrase, or just think of something else, and I am off and running. I feel like the dogs in the Pixar movie, “up”, when someone hollers,”Squirrel!”, and the dogs lose all focus.

I can not seem to stop my mind from wandering.

See? There it goes again.

I don’t really mind my mind wandering. Usually it runs back to happy times. At least I would like to think that it runs to the happier stuff most of the time.

. I have done a lot of recalling this past year. From my earliest recollections, to an hour ago, my thoughts and memories never seem to rest. Even my dreams seem to run here and there.

I have never had as many vivid dreams as I have this past year. This morning I woke up with Coco the dog, barking at Charlie the wood chuck,andfrom that point, until I finally got up, I had at least three very real dreams.

I never hardly ever used to remember my dreams as frequently as I do now.

I love to write, and wow, did I ever lose focus just then. Smile. I am currently working on a series of short stories of my mobility lessons from this year, and I hope to keep working on those until I have compiled enough of them to maybe try and get published. We’ll see.

I also have several childrens stories about Jack and his grandparents home. Those stories take me away as I write them. They are such vivid tales that have come alive inside my head. I am right there as I write them, and it is truly a wonderful feeling.

My writing has always been able to take me away from here to there, wherever “there” is. I don’t ask questions, I just sit down, and buckle up.

I wrote in my last entry about traveling through the state in my mind. My writing takes me on those  journeys as well. I hope I am getting good gas mileage, because the miles are adding up.

One of the pieces I submitted to one of my writers groups was about the wind, and dancing a lifting tune in my mind. One of the group members told me that she thought I wrote a lot about the wind and flying. I could not disagree. She told me that it was, “pretty cool” that I wrote about flying and breezy stories.

All I can think of right  now is the Lynyrd Skynyrd sond, “the Breeze”. I keep blowing down the road.

Non-parallel tangent detour.

I have written a bunch of poems, and they usually wrap themselves around my loss of vision and the trials and tribulations of said loss. Some of them are dark and gloomy, and some of them are light and fluffy. They are all me though, and I have to keep writing them for my own reasons. They are who I am, and I welcome them into my life.

I guess you could call writing a form of medicine. For me, it seems to scour my mind for fragments of my life, and gathers them and collects them in a nice and neat little basket of me. Through my fingers, it is sorting these tidbits one by one.

I hope I have enough hard drive space.

Now, let’s see. I need to hit control S to save this. So let’s hit these two keys and see what Mr. Jaws says…

““Control S, Save As Dialog,File Name, Edit Combo, Document One, Alt Plus N.”

There, now, what should I call this one?.

08 01 11 Picture It

Picture It.

One thing is for certain, I have done some traveling in this glorious state that we call Maine. I have been from here, to there, and back again. Usually without a map, although there are times when I wish I would have put the male ego on hold for just a quick second.

I have driven around the mountains, and I have ridden through the plains. I have seen the coast, and have looked upon the mirrored images of some of the most beautiful lakes that God has to offer. The coolest thing is that all of these things are in a place called home.

From Lubec, to Rangely, to Kittery, I have loved every minute of it. I have not been as far north as I would have liked to, but I have seen the peaks of Katahdin touch the face of the heavens, and it was, in fact, heavenly. It sure was an amazing site to see snow on the peaks of her majesty late into June. I will never forget the site.

Nor will I forget the site of “Oh My Gosh” corner up north of Kingfield. The first time I rounded the corner, I could hear myself under my breath say, “Oh My Gosh”.  It is the corner heading towards Eustis when you finally come face to face with Sugarloaf Mountain. Unbelievable is the best word I can find to describe it.

There are so many routes that I can travel in my head. Like I said in my last post, I have traveled from “Skowhegan to Farmington a thousand times in my mind. I can picture every turn and bridge and hill and frost heave. The trip will remain with me forever.

Likewise with Jackman to Bingham, or Belfast to Rockland. Newport to Bangor on the I. If I have to travel these trips in my mind, I will be a happy man.

So many things I have taken for granted over my existence. So many things I have just overlooked. We all do I feel. It is just so common place that we become blind to the beauty and forget how lucky we are to live in such a wicked cool place. We are blessed.

I travel to our destinations in my mind now. I do not have the luxury of overlooking anything. I can see the old exempted railroad bridge in North Anson. I can see the bridge to Campobello Island. I can see Mount Washington from a ridge in Skowhegan. I can see the new Narrows Bridge in Bucksport. I see the Wire Bridge in New Portland. I see Mooselookmaguntook Lake from The Height of the Land in Oquossoc, and let me tell you, it is just fascinating to remember. From the Belfast Bridge to the ride along the Kennebec down through The Forks, I would not trade the memories for anything, well, maybe a big old bag of Hershey kisses?

Nope, no way, that doesn’t even come close.

I can see it all.

I have always been able to map things out fairly well in my mind, and I thank God now for that gift. I am left with a clear vision of the beauty that this state has flooded my brain with all these years. It is a wonderful memory to see. A sight that I will go to my grave with.

From the fire red and orange blueberry fields off from the airline, to the sea gulls lining the public Warf in Rockland, to Smalls Falls in Madrid. It is all inside me, and I hope it finds its way inside all of us who have seen.

I can see the pier at Old Orchard Beach from Pine Point. I can see the light house at Wes Quoddy Head. The red and white stripes are forever burnt into my mind. I see the wall at North Gorham where I finally dared to dive off when I was 7 or 8. I see Sebago Lake through the trees driving to Long Beach. I can still smell the sun tan lotion.

I see downtown Augusta from the Kennebec bridge. I can see the swans swimming in Deering Oaks Park in Portland with the little hmodel house sitting on the tiny island. I still can see the old wood post and cable guard rails on Route 1 heading down east. A trip back through time for sure.

I wish I could tell my Grandson Jack what I see, but it is just as good to tell him what I remember. He will see, in time. He will hopefully understand that what he is seeing, I am also seeing, just from a different perspective.

Let’s take a ride, you and I. I am picturing a trip from Brooks to Dixmont. The hills roll long and high. The land is country farms with plush meadows with winding brooks curving through them. The road winds up high, and then dips down fast. There is an old farm on the left that sits on a hill. Surely it is a gift from God. It is breathtaking. It is a jig saw puzzle. It is a post card for sale in the general store just over the next hill. You know the one on Dixmont corner?

 Can you picture it?