Rambling Josh

I’ve known for quite some time that it is time to stop doing something that I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember, but I’ve kept doing it. No, it’s not chewing my toenails, those reside the greatest anatomical distance from our mouths for a reason. It’s baseball.

As James Earl Jones said in the movie Field of Dreams, “The one constant through all the years has been baseball. Baseball has marked the time. This field, this game, it’s a part of our past. It reminds us of all that once was good and it could be again.”

I was 17-years old when my Mom and I went to that movie at the Crosby show hall. It left us both teary eyed, but being 17 I wasn’t comfortable with being teary eyed in public yet so I was quick to blink back any remnants of emotion before the lights of the theater were able to expose me.

Things change. I’m in the twilight of my 40s, quite comfortable with getting teary eyed in public, and although playing baseball still reminds me of all that once was good, for me, it won’t be again. So it goes.

I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to be teammates with my son the past few years, and thankful I am still in good enough shape to sort of look like a baseball player out on the field. But with Jackson shipping off for Air Force basic training the end of August, I’m fairly certain he won’t be around here to play ball next summer.

He’s ready to see a bit of the world, so we will set ourselves to the parental task of soaking up what remains of his time here in Rapid City.

As he has been my sole reason for digging out my old glove and suiting up the past few years, I am certain this is the end of the line for this game…time to put it in the past. I was better in the past anyway. Weren’t we all?

In the distant past, I occupied one of the top few spots in the batting order, where I was expected to contribute consistently to the team. In the present, I languish near the bottom of the order where little is expected, contributions are inconsistent, and more often than not, nonexistent. On the field, who you were offers very little solace to who you are.

The epitaph on the tombstone hovering over all that once was, and my parting words to those strapping 20-year olds that have been kind enough to allow a spot for the “old man” in the lineup the past few years, “As you are, I once was. As I am, you will one day be.”

In sports, as in life, enjoy each season you get to the fullest of your ability, so that when you cross that line for the final time you can look back with the satisfaction of knowing that you gave it a good go and you left it all on the field.

We humans form emotional attachments to many things, automobiles, animals (both stuffed and sentient), lucky socks, and sometimes, whether they like it or not, other humans. Like many of you, I had a teddy bear when I was growing up that I apparently was quite attached to. His name was CBS.

Apparently, I had an attachment to one of the three television networks our rabbit ears were able to pull in as well. There is a vast amount of “things” that have came and went into and out of my life over the years, but I still have CBS. He’s in a trunk in our basement, along with a few other things that have managed to hang around from my youth.

Of all the emotional attachments that have formed, deformed, and detached in my life over years I never expected a campsite to make the list.

I spent two weeks holed up off the grid in our camper in a lovely little secluded campsite in the Black Hills. I’d probably still be there, but I still have some responsibilities in need of my personal attention in the civilized world. So it goes.

Before I uprooted the camper from the site it had dutifully occupied for two-weeks, I took a stroll around the site to bid farewell to all that had kept me company. Abraham Lincoln once said that a bore is someone that relieves you of solitude, but does not replace it with company. The campsite was “boreless” with company and solitude a plenty.

As I strolled amongst the trees that had offered me shade during the day and softly sang in the evening breeze I swear I saw their evergreen boughs slump and their crowns dip as if to say, “ahhh you’re leaving?”

The little stream that was a constant companion offered accompaniment to a farewell song…“The Parting Glass”…the song I used to sing to the cabin each time I prepared to depart. Yeah, I sang to the cabin, it sang to me too, before it lost its voice to a wildfire.

Perhaps the cabins parting has opened up emotional attachment space within for other places of solitude? That’s what the chipmunk suggested as it thanked me for the peanuts and pistachios. Wise little fellow.

The campground has about eight campsites, and even though I didn’t visit with the many people that came and went over the two-weeks I was there, I often wondered where it was they came from and where it was they went when they left.

Introverts aren’t uninterested in others, and indifferent to their comings and goings, we’re just quietly curious from a distance, and only get close enough long enough to possibly borrow something of interest from your life to ponder and potentially write about. That’s how we say thanks. Thanks for allowing solitude in a world that is so often so noisy.

So as the days of summer creep steadily towards the days of fall, I find myself hoping to attach myself to all that that place gave me once again for just a little while. Just a little while. Sometimes that’s all it takes.

Hope your summer is progressing slowly and has been sprinkled with a bit of solitude and a bit of company.

On June 8th, 1996 Dawn and I were united in marriage at a destination wedding in Webster, South Dakota. As this was before Google, we had to rely on our own research to guide our decision on which lavish location we were going to drag our friends and loved ones to bestow upon them the honor of witnessing the beginning of our marital union.

We chose this destination for a few reason, Webster is Dawn’s hometown, it is in close proximity to where a large portion of her large family resides, and I wanted my upstate North Dakota family to have a chance to get out of the hustle and bustle of the city and experience some relaxing small town hospitality.

That day seems closer in memory than 25-years seems like it should feel, good days are like that. On that day, Dawn was 24-years old, hitching her wagon to a much younger man. If you are going to hitch your wagon to someone, hitch it to someone younger. They don’t know where they are going, but they will get there fast.

At 23-years old, I thought I knew for certain where I was going. Looking back, I know for certain that I knew very little. I guess what I did know at the time was enough for then, enough to woo my classmate, my math tutor, my friend, into becoming my girlfriend and my wife.

Like any journey, we both brought our share of baggage along for the ride. Things we thought we needed, things that were ours, things that were given to us, things that we had learned from the lives around us. Things that sometimes we found ourselves peering over the top of to try to see one another.

25-years later, many of those things have been left behind, and what remains we are able to reach across rather than peer over. We know each other…for better and for worse…in sickness and in health. The questions that Father Leonard Savelkoul asked us in front of our family and our friends. “Do you…?”

We did, and we continue to do.

We are both pulling the wagon, it moves a little slower nowadays, but the direction is more reliable. 25-years ago I probably would have confidently orated upon the final destination of our journey. Now I know that that is largely unknown, and for that matter, largely unimportant.

The author, Robert Pirsig, once wrote that it is often more enjoyable to travel than to arrive, and that when making good time, the emphasis should be on good, not time.

So, we shall continue to travel, we shall strive for good, and the destination shall be what it shall be in its own time.

June 8th, 1996 was a good day, and we are forever grateful for all the good people that came from far and near to celebrate our day. Some of those people have since completed their journey, their destination is known, but they move on with us each time we ponder and celebrate our beginning. So it goes.

Sometimes it seems as though the blinking cursor on the white page of the Microsoft Word document sitting empty before me on my computer screen is taunting me. Like a pompously impatient finger tapping silently and quietly whispering, “Well, well…here we are again. What do you think you can manage to pull out of that little brain of yours and place upon the void that stretches before me today?”

Sometimes, thankfully not too often, the answer is, “I don’t know?” I don’t know what to write? I don’t know what to say? I don’t know what to think? Over the twenty or so years, I have been teaching it has gradually gotten a bit easier for me to say, “I don’t know” to my students without feeling like a complete sham.

None of us can know everything about all things at all times. We are all knuckleheads in a few areas…some more…some less. Yes, Google has the answers, but it takes one of us human types to appropriately apply that answer in a useful way to the particular situational enlightenment and guidance we seek here in the real world. Whatever that is?

Over the past few weeks, and in the few weeks to come in the month of May, many students have and will pass into what is colloquially referred to as the “real world”. The realness of this world that young people are transitioning into today seems a bit harder to objectively identify than the real world us “elders” found ourselves in many moons ago.

I suppose this shaky and shifting ground of realness makes it even more important to have, or attain, the capacity to humbly and authentically embrace not really knowing some things, or at least not really knowing some things for now. Provisional truth…true for now given the best available evidence.

Vigilant skepticism of where, and from whom, that “best available evidence” is paid for, produced, and presented by is of course prudent and wise while traipsing through the real world. Skeptical because you want to know the truth, not because you want to believe. Someone once said, “The truth doesn’t need you to believe it, the truth simply is.”

Maybe the real world is real in different ways for each of us? Maybe there is a common real world that each and every one of us must stumble into at some time or another? Maybe I’m not sure what I’m talking about? Maybe that blinking cursor finally got to me, finally pushed and prodded my fingers to type things the rest of me knows nothing about?

I don’t know? So it goes.

What does the real world need from each of you graduates? I don’t know? Maybe start with kindness and civility and see how this real world gig plays out? If that doesn’t work, try it until it does. What else do you have to do now that you are not being forced to shuffle from room to room at the ring of bell anymore?

As Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, “The place to change the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”

Congratulations graduates, welcome to the real world. You’ll do fine…or you won’t…it’s mostly up to you.

Happy May. Along South Dakota Highway 79, somewhere between Buffalo Gap and Hot Springs, just inside a stretch of barbed wire there sits an old two-horse trailer with wood panel sides on the edge of a pasture. Old horse trailers, barbed wire, pastures…nothing out of the ordinary along most any stretch of highway in the Dakotas.

I’ve driven by this point of interest several times over the years on my commute to Chadron, Nebraska, where the powers to be are kind enough to let me teach at Chadron State College.

What makes this old two-horse trailer, which obviously hasn’t held two horses or been trailed for quite some time, any more interesting than any other such? Painted in white on the faded wood panels of this particular trailer in worn but quite legible all capital letters is, “WE DON’T RENT PIGS”.

As I said, I have driven by this statement many times over the years, and many times, I have wondered what prompted or necessitated one to feel such a statement needed to be made known to all who may pass? “WE DON’T RENT PIGS”…curious?

Beyond the statement about a half-mile up a long gravel driveway, a ranch sits back against the hillside. I assume they raise pigs, but from the road much of the view of the ranch is obstructed by a thick grove of pine trees, and since I have no sense of smell, assumption is all I can go on. So it goes.

What would provoke someone to say, “Enough is enough. Junior, gather up a can of white paint, a brush, and drag that old two-horse trailer down by the fence line. It’s time we take a stand and make a statement.”

As they stand defiantly in front of their canvas of worn and faded wood, Junior asks, “Daddy, what are we stating?” Daddy ponders thoughtfully for a moment and with a flurry of his arms states, “WE DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BORROW OUR BELOVED SWINE TO ANYONE FOR ANYTHING. NO EXCEPTIONS. NONE! DON’T EVEN ASK!”

Junior gazes at the two-horse trailer, tilts his head, squints his eyes, scratches his head and says, “Daddy, that old two-horse trailer ain’t got room enough for all those letters and words and punctuations and exclamations.”

Daddy gazes at the two-horse trailer, tilts his head, squints his eyes, scratches his head and says, “I suppose you might be right. Howsabouts, WE DO NOT BORROW SWINE TO PEOPLE?” To which Junior replies, “Still too much words if we want them big enough for all those people inquiring about pig rental to see our statement from the road.”

Daddy says, “Well I’m at a loss, go fetch your Momma, she’s good with saying a little that means a lot.” Junior comes back a few minutes later, a bit out of breath from the run to the house and back, and pants out, “Momma says she’s too busy for such things, but she gave me this note.”

Daddy peers at the note and reads aloud, “WE DON’T RENT PIGS…boy, your Momma has always had a way with words.”

So, in my mind, that’s how it all came to be. In that same mind, questions remain about who was attempting to rent a pig and why? You can write that story.

When we last “spoke” my brother and I were being sent to our rooms for eating vegetables. “Eat your vegetables…eat your vegetables…eat your vegetables…” was and has been the adult mantra to youngsters seated around dining room tables or TV trays since adults, kids, and vegetables were invented.

I guess the emphasis is on “your vegetables”, once they are on “your” plate ownership of them has been transferred to you and you are now allowed (forced) to eat them or no dessert…no cartoons…no whatever it is that you hold near and dear to your wee little heart.

Adults in their odd adult world with their arbitrary adult rules making life difficult and more confusing than necessary for the slightly deranged and mildly confused little ones they’ve found themselves responsible for. So it goes.

So yes, those particular vegetables were not ours, they were not on our plate, nor did they grow in the soil of any of our kindly kin. In the adult world that would technically fall under the realm of theft. I shudder to think of what they do to vegetable thieves in the hoosegow.

When our mother, a lovely woman that did not deserve the degenerates bestowed upon her, told us through clenched teeth, “Go to your room and think about what you’ve done, and don’t come down for NOTHING” we listened…for once. Well, we sort of listened…as usual.

We went to our room, we didn’t come down for NOTHING, but very little pondering of repent or anything resembling thinking passed through our mop heads.

Mom came up to our room to check on the progress of our regretful thinking an hour or so after her order of not leaving our room for NOTHING. Might have been an hour, maybe two? Could have been 5-minutes? Kids have a warped concept of time and most anything else that exists in that before mentioned “odd adult world” that we never asked to be a part of.

Mom got to the door of our room and began to say something along the lines of, “I hope you two have…” but she abruptly stopped mid-sentence and stood with a confused and disgusted look on her face.

“What’s that smell?”, she said. Jarvis, sitting by the open window trying to catch a breath or two of fresh air, helpfully pointed to the Star Wars garbage can next to the desk that was placed in our room by lovingly delusional adults that hoped we might use it for homework and other such nonsense.

“You said we couldn’t leave our rooms for NOTHING”, I stated, glancing up from my Sergeant Rock comic book. All those vegetables, the excitement…pressing matters presented themselves, and I did not shirk orders given by my mother through clenched teeth.

“You could have left your room for that” she said with the bewildered look of someone that is wondering what she has done to deserve such things in life. All this fine print in the adult world. What’s a kid to do?

In a defeated, and sort of sad tone, she simply said, “clean it up” and turned to leave. I’m sure grabbing a six-pack of Tab and walking as far as a six-pack of Tab would take her crossed her mind.

Later when dad got home from work, we heard mom explaining the entirety of the day’s events to him. All the grisly details. We didn’t get in trouble. I think they felt that having to go through life as we were would be punishment enough.

Now you know “the rest of the story”. Pass the carrots.

I decided to venture into the Ramblings archives for this week’s column. “Pass the Carrots” appeared in the Burke Country Tribune on Wednesday April 5th, 2006. Much has changed in all of our lives since then, some good…some bad. So it goes.

It seems to me if you’re contemplating beginning a life of crime, April 1st would be a good day to give it a go and see if it’s really for you.

Rob a bank, get caught, the judge asks if you have anything to say in your defense, you simply reply, “April Fools, your honor.” The judge smiles, shakes his head, says, “You really got us on that one,” slams the gavel down, “Case dismissed.”

I guess I should have taken that into consideration when I decided to start my short lived life of crime. But since gardens don’t sprout much in April, the “April Fools Defense” wouldn’t have gotten me very far.

Apparently dirt covered stolen carrots had more appeal than the clean, peeled ones Mom had in the fridge. Or somehow had better flavor than the ones we were “allowed” to pick from Grandpa Fritz’s garden. Whatever the reason, Jarvis and myself did it, and we got caught.

The garden we chose as our first “hit” belonged to Blanchard Lein. Separating his garden from his house were some thick bushes that would provide good cover for our crime. Jarvis was loading up on carrots and I was enjoying some peas, when I saw someone coming down the path from the house.

It was Blanchard, and he didn’t look all that pleased to see us getting our recommended daily allowance of vegetables from his garden.

I told Jarvis to “run” as I took off, but when I turned to see how close behind me he was I saw him standing there like a deer in the headlights in front of Blanchard. I could have kept running, but Jarvis knew where I lived, and would more than likely share that information with Blanchard, so I stopped and returned to the scene of the crime.

Jarvis was standing there with a handful of carrots behind his back, unaware that his tiny eight-year-old frame wasn’t concealing the impressive bouquet of carrot tops behind him.

Blanchard asked him what he had behind his back, to which Jarvis slyly replied, “Nothing” as he dropped the bunch of carrots behind him. Maybe if he had been wearing bellbottoms he could have gotten away with that maneuver?

We were busted, caught green handed I guess you could say. Blanchard herded us off to his car, and since our house was only a rutabaga toss from his, in about five-seconds we rolled into our driveway. Jarvis and I jumped out as the car rolled to a stop, made a dash for the house, ran upstairs, and hid under the blankets of Mom and Dad’s bed. They would never find us there.

We heard Blanchard filling Mom in on what her boys had been up to, and telling her if it were up to him we should spend a few hours in the county jail to teach us a lesson.

Thankfully it wasn’t up to him, and after she somehow found us, Mom settled on making us apologize, and sent us to our room. I learned a valuable lesson that day. Always work alone.

A few years later the FBI mistook Blanchard for tax evader, Gordan Call, and busted down his hotel room door to apprehend him while he was on vacation. Jarvis and myself felt bad for him…really we did.

Pass the carrots.

Giving credit where credit is due has most likely been a major tenet of being a decent human since the dawn of human realization that being decent was the golden ticket to their prospects of surviving and thriving amongst other humans.

In that regard, a sure way to miff other humans is to take all the credit for something positive that wasn’t all your doing, or worst of all, wasn’t your doing at all. This failure to give credit where credit is due will quickly distance you from the helpful and willing assistance of others.

If you are the boss, or someone deemed important for whatever reason, some relegated to your circle of selfishness may tolerate this social taboo, but it will most likely garner mere compliance rather than genuine commitment from those that choose (or must) remain associated with you for whatever reason. So it goes.

On the flip-side, taking all the credit for a major debacle that wasn’t all your doing, or possibly not your doing at all, is often regarded as downright heroic and espoused as “taking one for the team” or “falling on the sword”.

Very little of what we accomplish in life is entirely accomplished with our own steam. Many people, many circumstances, and a load or two of dumb luck have more than likely provided some measure of the fuel that has moved us down the tracks towards our accomplishments.

Be grateful for that fuel, be gracious in your use of it, give credit where credit is due and that fuel will infinitely regenerate for use by yourself and other decent humans.

The importance of the credits that roll by at the end of a movie became much more apparent to me recently with the release of the movie Nomad Land. When the movie ended my wife and I sat quietly in the back of the theater as people shuffled out, and waited for credit to be given to someone we know. Someone that we have watched diligently move towards that which moves her and that which she finds meaningful.

As “Camera Department Assistant: Sierra Ellis” rolled by my eyes unexpectedly got a bit misty and I quietly choked out, “there she is”. There she is…our daughter, one name rolling by amongst the names of many, getting credit for the things they did, the individual things that positively contributed to the collective.

It was a banner weekend for the Ellis ladies. Sierra rolled in the credits of a successful movie, and a photo Dawn took won first place in the Amateur/Hobbyist division of this year’s Dahl Mountain Photo Exhibition here in Rapid City.

As an exemplar member of the “decent human” tribe, Dawn was very quick in making it known that the credit she was given by the Dahl Fine Arts Center for her photo did not belong to her alone.

Grateful, gracious, and giving credit where credit is due. Roll with it. Who knows how far it’ll move you?

Whenever my good friend Paul asks, “what do you have going on the weekend of….?”, I can generally be sure that he’s asking because he needs me to dust off my athletic training bag and help him provide sports medicine coverage for some sort of athletic event. Or, he wants to meet up for a stogie and Guinness at the cigar bar downtown, or, more often than not, both.

There are not a lot of people that I would willingly work 40 hours over three days with, and by “not a lot of people”, I pretty much mean just Paul. By “work” I mostly mean sitting and talking nonsense until an injured athlete is in need of our services. Or so they think.

Generally, the nonsense outnumbers the need for our services by quite a large margin, but when we are needed, we are needed “now”, and needed to perform as medical professionals in situations that range from the mundane to the emergency. Mostly the mundane. So it goes.

We do understand that the mundane to us, the minor aches, pains, strains, or mystical maladies presented to us are anything but mundane to the athlete experiencing them. Thus, they are all treated with the same level of professional care and understanding.

It’s the level of mocking buffoonery after they’ve departed that varies dependent upon our assessment of the seriousness of the injury, or claim of injury. Yes, we are certified athletic trainers, medical professionals dedicated to attending to the health and wellbeing of athletes, and we do that very well.

“But”, yes I know they say that a “but” basically erases the good that was stated prior to it, but I believe in this case it is not only justified, but necessary for general maintenance of one’s sanity.

Yes, we are medical professionals dedicated to attending to the health and wellbeing of athletes, and yes, I believe Paul and I do this very well, but…but we are only human. Immature humans that share half a brain, but human just the same.

Humans that in order to maintain some semblance of sanity in the midst of a three-day wrestling tournament with no endpoint in sight must resort to juvenile jocularity. Not as a last resort, but a first and foremost resort.

I blame it on the fluorescent lighting, poor music selection by the announcer, and being in constant close proximity to the passion of some of the coaches. By “passion” I mean sheer unbridled looniness.

I respect them. I don’t understand them, but I do respect them, and it is obvious that there is a massive amount of love shared between the coaches and their wrestlers.

This year’s South Dakota State Wrestling Tournament was also historical in that it was the first year that there was a girl’s division. There always has to be a first, and these young ladies' will always have that honor.

As the father of a strong daughter, I found myself overcome with tremendous pride for each of these girls for putting themselves out there and pursuing something they are passionate about. An accomplishment that will positively trickle into many areas of their lives in the years to come.

Passion, professionalism, unbridled looniness, and juvenile jocularity…all in a day’s work.

You happy? Winter heard us yammering on and on about the mild temperatures we’ve been having, the taunts of wearing shorts in January, the musing aloud that you haven’t had to pull the sweater’s out from the storage tote under the bed. We always know it’s going to happen eventually, but it’s nothing you ever get used to.

They say that Tibetan monks can sit in the snow wearing nothing but a thin robe and meditate their way to bodily warmth. A simple exercise of mind over matter. I’d hazard a guess that their minds, and thinly clad bodies, have never been seated over the matter of a sub-zero winter in the Dakotas?

I am always amazed at the way livestock and wild game stoically face whatever weather comes their way. Even our pampered black lab doesn’t seem to pay any mind to the elements. He waits patiently for his walk around the neighborhood, while I stuff myself into various layers of winter clothing. This gives him the opportunity to fill up a bit more on water so he doesn’t risk running out of identification before we make the full loop.

He’s about 13-years old, bum hips and pert near stone deaf, but he acts like a young pup when I start getting my walking shoes on. The mind is willing, but the physical reality catches up to him before we make the first turn at the end of the block. So it goes.

I often wonder why our ancestors came here, or at least why they stayed after the first winter? I understand the allure of the “free land” that was offered in the Homestead Act of 1862, but there was a tremendous amount of fine print on that brochure.

I suppose once you’ve gambled everything you own on the prospect of making a better life for you and your family, you can’t just call it quits because you lost a toe or two to frostbite. We have ten for a reason.

Speaking of evolution…Happy Darwin Day…keep evolving my friends. I bet if our ancestors knew what they were migrating towards 60,000 years ago (give or take), they would have stayed put in balmy old Africa. But us human folk are driven to move, driven to see what’s over the horizon, driven by the thrill of exploration, driven to slowly wander away from those that annoy us.

I’m not an evolutionary biologist, but I bet that annoying life force sucking vampires were often the catalyst that prompted others to move a little further up the river, over that next hill, across to another continent, and finally…the Dakotas.

It started with TukTuk 60,000 years ago (give or take). Several of his tribe mates just couldn’t stand the loud manner in which he chewed his toenails (TukTuk means “loud toenail chewer” in our ancient tongue), and they couldn’t bare another telling of his boring stories around the campfire.

Especially the one about him bringing down a sabretooth tiger with a spear from a distance of 100 paces. Everyone knows that TukTuk couldn’t hit the savannah if he fell out of a tree, and he falls out of lots of trees. You try sitting in a tree while you chew your toenails.

Everyone knows full well that Rocko is the one that brought down the sabretooth tiger, but he likes TukTuk’s sister, so he let him believe it was his spear that hit the mark. Rocko regretted this decision, as he soon found out she chewed her toenails too.

Thankfully this male propensity to do stupid things to try and gain the admiration of a female never caught on.