Veteran's Day - 2013 #1

As Veteran's Day approaches I find myself thinking a lot about the time that my friends and I spent in the military. While I was in New Jersey my grandson had show and tell and one of the things that he took was a picture that I had sent of the U.S.S. America one of the three aircraft carriers that I deployed on to Vietnam. He asked a lot of questions about what an aircraft carrier was like and I realized that I have never really talked much about life in the Navy period to anyone. Additionally when I ran a race in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago and looked across at the Golden Gate Bridge it stirred memories of my first deployment on the U.S.S. Oriskany and our passage under the bridge when we left and when we returned from Vietnam. I had already been toying with the idea of a post as a tribute to my friends who served and those things kind of firmed up the idea in my head.

For some reason we never talked much about the military when we returned. I mean some of us who served together and had shared experiences did from time to time but never often and never more than superficial "remember when" conversations. I taught Social Studies for 28 years and many years I taught U.S. History and I never taught the Vietnam War. Even when I taught World History - Asia the last couple of years that I taught I glossed over Vietnam and didn't teach the war. After I left teaching it really struck me as odd that I was able to avoid the topic for so many years. What I found equally odd was the question, "Why"? 

The Sixties was a crazy time to grow up. We were a country in turmoil for many different reasons, the Vietnam War being just one of them. My friends and I didn't pay much attention to it because it seemed so far away and had no bearing on our day to day lives. We went to school and we played sports, participated in scouting, and generally didn't give it a thought. I think when it first hit home for me that it could affect me is when we had a former schoolmate and member of our track team killed in Vietnam. All of a sudden it was more real and we could put a face to it. We still didn't spend time worrying about it because we were in school. Then we graduated!

Several of us went to college straight from high school and we had student deferments that kept us off the draft board radar but we had friends who either didn't go to school or didn't stay in school and eventually we started having a very personal connection to Vietnam because our friends were going. Eventually for different reasons we all left school and entered the military in one branch or another. I have written before about the five of us who enlisted in the Navy together and went to boot camp together so I won't dwell on that here but even with the same enlistment date and boot camp graduation date we all didn't end up in Vietnam.

Back to the why? I never discussed it because I was never sure how I felt about our role there. I never made up my mind enough to take a stand and argue or defend one position or another. I honestly say now that I think that Vietnam was a mistake and that we never should have been there. I also think that it was a war that our government never gave us the opportunity to win. I was angry for most of those years over not just the tragic loss of life but also the lousy way that a significant number of Americans treated Vietnam Veterans. I found all of that anger really coming to the surface again when the Vets from more recent wars were coming back and being hailed as heroes no matter what their role was or even where they served. I found myself getting angry again because of the way we were treated upon our return. Should I resent the way that current Vets are treated? Of course not. I'm happy that the country has changed their attitude towards veterans and gives them the respect and recognition that they deserve. The anger came from the fact that you can't undo the way that the veterans from my war were treated. The anger is pretty much a thing of the past now because nothing can be done to change the past and there have actually been some attempts to make up for it. But you can learn from the past and maybe that is why our current Vets are being treated so much better and that's a good thing.

Here are some pictures of just a few of the guys who served; some were friends before we enlisted and some became friends who we met during our service. Maybe by next Veterans Day I can track down pictures of some of the others.

 Top Left - Left to Right Ted, Fred, Unknown, Dana and Rob. Top Right - Rob

Bottom Left - Dana on the right at graduation parade. Bottom Right - Clarence

Top -Friends from home - Randy and I met up when our ships were both in Subic Bay in the Philippines at the same time.

Bottom Left - Al who saw serious combat in Vietnam. Bottom Right - Dana aboard the America

We made some close lifelong friends when we served. Top - Ted with Pete in Memphis. Bottom Left Dana with Dave (Grimey) in the Philippines and Right - Back right Smitty and front Dana and Joe when we were promoted to 3rd Class while serving with VA 23 aboard the Oriskany during our first Vietnam deployment.

We served in all of the branches and all over the world. Top left - Johnny in Okinawa or Vietnam. Top Right - Bill in Vietnam. Bottom Left - Elson in Germany and Bottom Right - Dana in the barracks at Naval Air Station Lemoore where I was stationed when we were not deployed on a carrier.

As I said, those are just a few of us who served from our circle of friends and I hope to find pictures of some of the others for a future post.

October Fall Racing

I managed to run three races in October in spite of the fact that the first one I had scheduled, the Jersey Shore Half Marathon, was canceled due to the government shutdown. My first race was the week that I returned from New Jersey, I ran the Cheese and Wine 5K in Riverbank, a ShadowChase Running Club event. Like all of their events it was well organized and well attended. I was surprised that there were more hills than I expected but I'm coming to believe that if you expect hills then you won't be disappointed when there aren't any. While I didn't see any wine or cheese it was fun running in another town I had never been to.

Some Colorado race pictures from Robert and Gerald:

The second race that I ran in October was a 10K in Berkeley that I decided to run after the half in New Jersey was canceled. It was a beautiful day and had an unusual finish in that we finished on a horse racing track. As a matter of fact our entry included admission to the horse races after our race but I didn't stick around for them. I was ready to head to the house after the results were posted.

And they kept racing in Colorado as well.

Pikes Peak Road Runners Fall Series #2

I ran my final October race at Donnelly Park in Turlock. I used to run at Donnelly after I would visit my Dad so the park has a special significance to me. I didn't anticipate ever running a race there but the Turlock Triathlon Club sponsored a Halloween themed race there the "Move Your Bones 5K". I had been sick with some kind of stomach bug for a couple of days and almost decided to not run. I decided to go and see how I felt and after warming up I felt good "enough" to do the race. It was another beautiful Fall day for racing.

And Gerald continued to race in Colorado as well at another Halloween themed race. The Creepy Crawl 5K in Palmer Lake.

Hopefully the pictures give just a glimpse of the beautiful Fall racing season that we have experienced so far. I'm looking forward to racing in November.

Yosemite National Park - Day Trip

This past weekend I decided that I was going to take a day and go to Yosemite. The recent government shut down that resulted on closures of all of the National Parks among other things made me stop and think about how easy it is to take the parks for granted when they are always there. It's a little over two hours to drive to Yosemite from where I live so there is really no excuse for not visiting once in a while. I did go a couple of years ago with a nephew and his son and we went to Tuolumne Grove to see the sequoia trees. It was a good day trip but we didn't go on into Yosemite Valley. This trip I decided that I wanted to drive into and see the valley and drive to the park one way and home another to scout for future visits.

It was a beautiful day and I got a chance to take some nice pictures of the Fall colors, some of the landmarks and some deer that were right next to the road. Another thing I took some pictures of was the burn area from this past summer's Rim Fire. I kept thinking over and over that the question isn't, "How did so much burn"? The question, at least in my mind is, "How did they stop the fire from burning it all"? What an amazing effort went into fighting the fire and saving so much that was in its path. My hat certainly goes off to the firefighters. I don't want to put a lot of pictures of the results of the fire here because it doesn't take much to demonstrate the destruction. Here are just a few.

Here is a map that they posted at various locations showing the size of the fire and it's location in relation to the park.

It was a beautiful day that started with a beautiful sunrise at the house.

It was funny while I was driving and walking in Yosemite the same question kept popping up when I saw something or decided to stop and take a picture. The question was, "What would Chase see"? Chase is my grandson who always makes me appreciate things that we see when we hike or even just hang out in the neighborhood, no matter the season and no matter what part of the country they live in. His excitement is contagious and his sister Haley has the same infectious joy. So I tried to make sure that I looked at everything the way that they would look at it if they were there. Here are some of the pictures that I took.

While a day is certainly not enough time to see everything or even a fraction of what the park has to offer it is a good starting point so I can do research based on what I saw and what I would like to see in future visits. It was definitely a day well spent.

Thoughts on Fall and Books

Even though I have already had several posts about Fall I'm pretty sure that this won't be the last. Even though I have previously written that there are things that I love about each season, there is still no doubt that Fall remains my favorite for so many reasons. For that reason I keep coming back to it.

While growing up a lot of my life in Southern California one thing I always felt was missing was the changing of the season. Since living in Northern California I have been pleasantly surprised with the distinct seasonal changes. We have Fall here in the Central Valley too.

Fall at the Ranch

I'm 65 years old and last weekend I went to my first corn maze. It was interesting, we were given a map and checkpoints that we had to find. When we found them we had to use a hole punch to punch the appropriate location on the map. I was surprised at how long it actually took to do the maze that was shaped like the San Francisco 49ers Quarterback. My niece, a grand nephew and I went. The good news is that we were all smart enough to carry water.

I've said before how much I love reading and I am fortunate that I have a lot of time to read. I really had a lot of time on planes and in airports when I traveled to and from to New Jersey. Here are the most recent books that I've read.

I found Crichton's book at a used book store in Modesto when I was killing time just looking around or as my father-in-law Sam Stout used to say, "pinging". I have read many of Crichton's novels and I enjoy reading about travel so it seemed like a good fit; as it turned out I did enjoy it for the most part. I finished it in New Jersey and needed another book and bought Running the Rift at the book store in Clinton on the visit I blogged about earlier. I finished it in an airport and had to buy something else to read for the remainder of the trip. While I enjoyed the book very much, it dealt with a dark subject so I decided that I wanted something "light" to read next. I found The Happiness Project in an airport bookstore. Books are one of the few things that they can't inflate the prices of in airports where you find yourself a captive consumer. If you don't believe it just price a bottle of water at an airport after they don't allow you to bring any through security.

I digress. I really enjoyed reading, The Happiness Project and would recommend it to anyone looking to generally improve their outlook on life. Lord knows we have all the help we need making our lives less happy if we allow others to influence the way we think or act. This book is the authors blueprint of how she tried to focus for one year on being more happy. Everything didn't work and she wasn't always successful but overall the project had a positive effect on her and others in her life. 

One thing that she wrote on page 97 of the book really struck a cord with me because my daughter and I had just been discussing how fast the kids are growing up. "The days are long but the years are short". That pretty much summarizes in a nutshell why I want to continue doing this and possibly other blogs so that I can share what I can, while I can. Some other things that I she wrote that I made note of are:

page 108 - "I realized, happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory".

page 112 - "...the absence of feeling bad isn't enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good".

page 128 - "...I could probably make myself like it better if I tried, but I don't like having to try to make myself like things. I want to spend more time on the things that I already like". 

I could do an entire post on each of those quotes and may someday but that is for another time; I just wanted to share enough of the book to give you an idea of what it's about.

The other two books in the collage are novels, one a novel about Vietnam and the other a quick read by Stuart Woods. It is only in the past year or two that I have been able to bring myself to read about Vietnam in either fiction or nonfiction but that is also a subject for future posts.

I hope that anyone who is reading this is enjoying Fall as much as I am.

Family & Fall in New Jersey #2

Without a doubt the best part of this trip was spending time with family. Considering how crazy busy their schedules are with school, activities, work and day to day life I am always amazed and grateful for the amount of time and effort they put in to doing things to make sure that my visits are eventful. I'm usually worn out when I return home just from watching them juggle daily life and add in extras for my benefit.

The first night I got there I spent time reading to the kids and it was so much fun to see how much they enjoy books. I learned to love books from watching my Dad and Mom both read all of my life. I know for a fact that my daughter, Stacie loves to read and she certainly watched her mother and me read her entire life. She has passed that same passion for books and reading on to her children and it is great to see.

I think of all of the students I had in 28 years in the classroom who didn't like to read or worse, couldn't read and I am grateful that my grandchildren share my love of reading.

On the Saturday that I was there we had a full day going to my Grandson's soccer game and then after everyone napped, going to the nearby town of Clinton to walk around, take pictures and what else, visit the Clinton Book Store. Then we ate dinner at a riverside restaurant. It was a good day.

Chase's Second Year Playing Soccer

THE TOWN OF CLINTON, NEW JERSEY

Clinton Book Store & Waiting for a Table

Playing and eating always play a big part in my visits. A couple of things I make sure to have on my Fall visits wherever they live are my daughter's apple crisp and my son-in-law's chili. Two winners and two traditional Fall dishes at least for us. 

AND EATING

Another thing in common with Papa - Love Ice Cream!

Here we are looking at Haley's art work at the Post Office. Cool thing about small towns. 

Finally, no trip back east would be complete without this at least once. It was a great trip and in the big picture the race cancellation was minor.