Category Archives: Life as we know it

Experience

I have fallen into the bad habit of watching football every Sunday. Especially the 49ers, who are my local team. I don’t consider myself a fan of football although I do have a general idea of how well the 49ers are doing during the season.

Anyway, they played early yesterday and I didn’t watch the game. We went for a walk and happened upon a parade. That’s another story.

Later I found out that they had won in dramatic fashion at the last second. This morning, Sepi was watching the news while I was half asleep. I heard the TV say that they were going to show some highlights of yesterday’s game. I thought that might be interesting so I started to perk up. Right about then Sepi turned off the TV. For a moment I was annoyed but then I realized that I really didn’t care that much and it all started me thinking about the experience of watching football on TV, which led to thinking about the experience of, well, anything live.

Live theatre or live music comes to mind first, but live Veteran’s Day parades would qualify as well. We ‘do’ things. Why? For the experience!

Now that I am retired, the large block of time that used to be dedicated to work, which is to say, supporting myself and my family, has been freed up. Now I am able to use it for more – or different – experiences.

The value each of us gets from those experiences varies. Missing out on the experience of the football game is not a big deal for me, especially since it was replaced by the experience of a nice walk on a sunny day that happened to coincide with a parade. Serendipity experience!

Thinking about writing in the last couple of months I have kept coming back to wondering why I am doing this. I have gotten a few new readers and they have given me very positive (and gratifying) feedback. That’s nice!

This started out as a tribute to Zach and keeping his memory alive is starting to dovetail into keeping my own memory alive. 10, 20, 50 years from now, who will care about my experiences? I still have all of his diaries but I haven’t read any in years now. Mom has a whole bookshelf full of journals she kept on the many travels she went on with Dad. What to do with those is a decision we children will have to face sooner or later.

A few years ago, Mom got out a diary that my grandfather had kept on a trip he took from Denver to Southern California. I found it interesting for a number of reasons but mostly because it gave an insight into the kind of person he was. He died when I was a pre-teen and we did not see him very often so we were not close. In fact, my recollection of him is as a rather remote figure.

So, I hope my writing here will interest someone in years to come. They might be looking for a different experience!

Daylight Savings Time

Have we just gone to ‘Savings’ or ‘Standard’ time? I don’t know and I don’t really care. It’s 5:30 in the morning and my body thinks it’s 6:30. The time change screws me up twice a year and it pisses me off every time. The TV news always makes some reference to having ‘another hour of daylight’. That’s so stupid I can’t believe I’m commenting on it. The length of the day (or night, if you prefer) changes throughout the year because of the actual physical characteristics of the planet we are living on.

There are plenty of reasons for humans to have a time system that we can all agree on but changing it twice a year is a relic of days gone by. Let it go, folks! Nowadays, we have work from home, we have 24 hour TV, let’s all be adults and deal with each day on it’s own terms. I mean, really, how many people are checking whether the sun is exactly overhead at noon?

I have seen more news items indicating that Americans are coming to their senses on this. Most of them say the proposals are for permanent ‘Daylight Savings Time’. So, whatever was ‘standard’ 100 years ago is now not standard. Whatever. Get it done Congress!

Sometimes I think I should research my own writing on a topic before going off. What’s the fun of that? The tag cloud has at least one other entry for ‘time change’. You are welcome to wallow in my ranting if you like, dear reader. At least I don’t have to go to work this week so maybe I can recover sooner.

Fleet Week

I looked up my post from this time last year when I focused on the Blue Angels flying team. It’s an iconic phrase from my youth seeing them at Moffat Field in Sunnyvale. They’re coming back to SF this weekend but I thought this year I’d take a different slant on it. My current phrase is ‘war machines’.

We’re a little better tuned to the neighborhood this year and so we’re more aware of the Navy ships docked at the cruise ship pier and a couple of other places along the waterfront. We’ll probably go and tour at least one of them. We’ve seen a few sailors along the Embarcadero. They have all been scrubbed clean and in their natty uniforms. I made eye contact with a couple and smiled. They smiled back.

I really don’t want to be ‘that guy’ and I don’t hold anything against any of them personally. (How could I? I don’t know them at all.) But . . .

I want to ask them if they ever think about the core function of the organization they are a part of. It’s about killing or frightening people until they submit to your dominance. The US military does a lot of good things but never forget their main purpose.

The Republican candidate for President has been sounding increasingly unhinged lately. When I read about what he is saying, I can’t believe that he has the level of support that he does. I’ve reminded people that he got 73 million votes in the last election. That’s more than any candidate ever except for Biden.

Who are these people? There are even some in this liberal enclave of San Francisco! Like the sailors, they are probably nice on a personal level. Why do they support this jerk? And, to circle back around to my original topic, why do they support the gigantic sums we, as a country, spend on our military?

As a parent of a first responder, I am particularly sensitive to the adulation given to our military. ‘Support our troops.’ Color guards and flyovers at football games. The core purpose of these things is to destroy. Police and fire men and women are in our home towns actually protecting us from danger. I am aware of the many problems we have in America with policing. I’d still take a police officer over a soldier. At least the training for a police officer is not focused on killing people.

So, if we go one of of these ships, we’ll be nice to the sailors. There’s nothing to be gained by getting in a fight with a worker. I’m sure the ships will be very interesting from a technical standpoint. I’ll try to focus on that part.

Innovation

. . . is quite the buzz word here in the (self-proclaimed) tech capital of the world. I won’t cast judgment on those who work in the industry. By all accounts it is keeping San Francisco from becoming nothing but a tourist town. That’s another topic.

I was doing a crossword puzzle this morning and the clue was ‘Postal area’. The answer was ‘zone’. I thought that was interesting since the US hasn’t had postal zones since the introduction (innovation!) of Zip codes in the 1960s. It struck me that that is an innovation that is wildly successful. No one thinks twice about it and it just works.

I have a vague memory of watching a TV show many years ago. It was probably the ’60s. I think it must have been ‘What’s My Line’ because the guest turned out to be the inventor of the Zip code system. When he was revealed at the end, there was some ribbing about it. Maybe that was the schtick; I wasn’t sensitive to such things then, but I certainly got the sense that mainstream America thought Zip codes were another one of those newfangled things we could do without.

On a tangent, thinking about innovation and game shows of the ’60s, I remember that a common prize on those shows was an ‘Amana RadarRange’. When the contestant won it, there was the usual extolling of its virtues. It all went over my head. Even as a science-oriented person in, say, 1965, I couldn’t comprehend how an oven could be like radar. Of course, now I realize they were talking about a microwave oven. I suppose somewhere someone did a thesis on the moment that product became mainstream in America. I’m going to let it pass. Clearly another innovation success story, though.

Retirement party

Trying to write after a long layoff . . .

I get ideas – usually in the small hours of the morning – but translating them to written text has been extremely difficult. Is it writers’ block? I don’t really consider myself a writer. I would like to write more. I think I write well. I don’t think I am a ‘writer’.

I spend a lot of time at work on a computer. At home, I actually have a decent setup but there always seems to be something else I should do. I keep thinking I will use that early morning good energy time to write. Someday . . .

And someday may be approaching. After Sepi and I made the decision last January that I could retire, the actual date has crept closer and closer. Jon at work got me a countdown display that shows days and hours (and minutes and seconds!). I keep it on the Stage Manager’s desk for anyone to see. I believe it’s on 41 days today.

Yesterday at work was an annual event honoring the members of the orchestra who are retiring. Surprisingly to me, I was included in the celebration. Esa-Pekka made a little speech during the concert in which I was called out on stage for applause from the orchestra and the audience.

After the show there was a gathering with food and drink in one of the backstage rooms. Michele got up and said some nice things about me. I then spoke briefly, thanking my crew, Michele and Tim but forgetting Sepi. I found that I got rather emotional doing it. I really love the orchestra. They all appreciate what we do.

I really do consider it the pinnacle of my career. It’s a hard job but being part of the team that helps a great orchestra make great music is very satisfying.

After many years of hiding it, I let the cat out of the bag to certain members of the orchestra that I like to play music. I was reluctant to do that because I know how good these musicians really are. I’m not even close to their level. To a person, though, they have been supportive of my music making.

Lately, a common question I get is what am I going to do in my retirement. I say play more music. Then I say write more.

70

I turned 70 a couple of months ago. It’s completely freaky to be referring to myself as being that age. I suppose that because I still have hair, most people I tell are amazed. They say I am well preserved for that age. I tell them I’m rotten inside!

I was a freshman in high school when the Simon and Garfunkel record ‘Bookends’ came out. It had the hits Mrs. Robinson, At the Zoo and Hazy Shade of Winter on it but it also had some different tracks that didn’t make much impression on my 14 year old self: Save the Life of My Child was a strange story about someone’s child jumping off of a building. Voices of Old People was recordings of old people talking about nothing in particular – I thought. Then there was the Bookends Theme, with the line ‘ . . . how terribly strange to be 70.’

That line has been rolling around in my head for the past few months. I don’t know what Paul Simon – then not even 30 – was referring to specifically, but it sure resonates in me now.

I get to have lunch with a group of stagehand friends every couple of months. Everyone in the group is retired except for me. The first question I am asked when I see them is, ‘Are you retired yet?’

So far, the answer has been no but that will change this year. While the Symphony Stage Manager job is tremendously rewarding in some ways, it is very stressful and I decided that last years’ Christmas Holiday programming – always the hardest month of the year – would be my last. My friend and colleague Jim J. finally retired last fall at the age of 75. Many of us thought he should have gone sooner. Not because he couldn’t do his job but because we all recognized that sometimes the body doesn’t work the way it used to. And sometimes that happens with little warning. I’m ready to enjoy life a little before it’s too late!

I think about my friend and former band mate Tim I., dead from prostate cancer at the age of 59. I’ve had my PSA checked every year since then. So far, it’s still very low.

I had three surgeries last year under general anesthesia and one more (skin cancer) under local. It’s time to not take anything for granted.

Eight

Eight years today since we lost Zach.

It’s still early afternoon here in California as I write this. At this time on this day eight years ago, Zach was riding his bike around the LSU tailgate parties visiting with friends.

It’s a measure of how far I’ve come that I had to look up the date to make sure I had the right one. I get the 14th and 15th confused for some reason. Zach was killed on the evening of the 14th. November 14, 2015. Many of us got on an airplane the next day and were in Baton Rouge less than 24 hours after it happened.

I had a resolution for a long time that I would not mark Zach’s death date but instead focus on his birth date. On the whole, that hasn’t worked very well. This year is the first time I haven’t been counting down the days to November 14th. I will take that as a good thing.

I’ve averaged about one or two crying jags over Zach per year in the last 5 or so years. Sometimes a photo of him comes up on the screen saver and I have to catch my breath.

No one else in the family has mentioned it and, aside from this post, I’m not going to bring it up.

Sepi and I came down to Mom’s today. We usually come on Sundays but because of a quirk in my schedule, my only option this week was today, a Tuesday. All the way down here I kept thinking the traffic was weird for a Sunday. Somehow, my confusion over the exact date of Zach’s death seems related. My work is very stressful and I think of retirement often. I also know Zach would have something interesting and useful to say about my work situation.

Naïveté

Memories . . .

I remember a warm day, the smell of pine, sun on canvas. I was at Camp HIgh Sierra with my Boy Scout troop. I was a pre-teen, 11 or 12. I had never been anywhere without my family before.

So the memory that inspired this post was really not any of those things, although I am sure they were all there. It was going into my tent, probably after lunch since it was full day, and finding a nice neat turd on my sleeping bag.

I remember that there were three or four other boys there, laughing at my predicament. I remember wondering how it could have gotten there, what animal could it have been. I don’t remember much about the environs. Of course, it was the high Sierra, probably 4 or 5 thousand feet elevation, among the pines. Whether there were wild animals around was the subject of some debate but, regardless, something had gotten in and pooped on my sleeping bag.

I think I knew enough to know that it wasn’t a human turd but beyond that I was clueless. I think the best explanation seemed to be a that it was from a raccoon. That raccoons are night creatures was not known to me.

Of course the other boys in the tent thought it was hilarious. I remember thinking that maybe I could reach into the bag under the turd and fling it out of the tent. The sides were open and it seemed possible in my desperation. Why I didn’t go get a paper towel and pick it up remains a mystery. Maybe there were no paper towels in the bathrooms. I certainly remember a major aversion to touching it.

By now, gentle reader, you will have realized that it was a prank. The ‘turd’ was a bit of plastic. After 10 or 15 minutes of hilarity, it was revealed to me by the perpetrator. I don’t remember anything about him or any of the other boys who were there. There were no other incidents like that during my time at Camp High Sierra.

I was an introverted, bookish boy. I don’t remember why I joined the Boy Scouts, I remember the troop met at the church parish hall so there was some connection there. I went to Camp High Sierra twice, each time for a week, in the summer. It was the only time I did any serious work on merit badges. Merit badges, for those who don’t know, were the raison d’etre of the Boy Scouts. One started out as a Tenderfoot and rose through the ranks by earning merit badges. The really cool kids had a sash to put their badges on. The top of the heap was an Eagle Scout. I didn’t get enough merit badges to merit a sash.

At Camp High Sierra, somehow, I learned to do what we called ‘lanyards’. Lanyards were these long skinny multicolored plastic things that could be woven into shapes. Ironically, there were no merit badges for ‘lanyards’. Or perhaps that is telling that that is what I spent so much time on. Anyway, I made a kind of a key fob that I still have. It’s all that’s left besides memories.

Diaries and legacies

I’ve kept journals – diaries if you will – for many years. I remember writing some diary-type things even in high school. I don’t know if I digitized that writing I could go look but if I did that I wouldn’t write this post. I know I purged a lot of paper from that time when I moved in with Sepi.

When I was about to become a father, I started writing a journal more seriously. I suppose I thought it would be something that my children could go back to and find interesting. In fact, all of my kids did read the accounts of the day of their birth. We had some interesting discussions of that back in the day.

Originally, there was a journal for each child but it eventually devolved into general journals of my life. I’ve gone back and looked at some of them over the years. It can be troublesome emotionally but I am glad I have the option to revisit those times if I want to.

Zach, as readers of this blog know, kept a diary regularly during his time in Baton Rouge. I have read some of it with the range of emotions one might expect. A couple of entries I have shared here. I have tried to be sensitive to the privacy of the people mentioned so that is a significant limiting factor.

I know Mom has journals. The ones I’ve seen are travel journals but I suspect there may be other more personal diaries. The travel journals take up about 6 feet of shelf space. When will I – or anyone else – read those? I haven’t asked Mom about what purpose she felt in writing originally. I think it will be the same as me: it’s just something I do. If it has value to later generations, then that’s a plus.

I used to do a lot of photography with an SLR camera. Now that I carry a different camera with me all the time – we generally call it a ‘phone’ – I take pictures of this or that but don’t spend any time thinking about the longer term. Why did I take pictures before? Why did I haul that big camera with me everywhere? I took pictures of people gathering to memorialize the event but I also took ‘art’ pictures. Why? Now that everything is digital I’ve saved everything carefully in my hard drive. Mom has another 6 feet of shelf space dedicated to photo albums. With few exceptions, they are untouched. When she passes and her house is to be sold, who will take them? Who will take the journals? Do they have value to her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren? People outside the family?

Getting back to journals, I hope that my children and grandchildren read my writing and feel that they can know me in a new way.

When Zach was killed, we were faced with the issue of what to do with his things. More importantly, our relationships with Zach were no longer dynamic. Memory became the only relationships we had. I see his journals and this blog as a way to keep a person alive. Of course, it’s not the same but it’s all we have.

The Blue Angels part 2

Well, I went upon the roof yesterday to watch the Blue Angels. I didn’t have to be at work until 5 and the show was from 3 to 4. I thought it would be dumb to not use one of the benefits of living where we do. The weather has been warm – really warm, 85 in SF – but I thought  the breeze would come up and the fog would come in as it usually does at the end of the second hot day so I put on my work clothes instead of the shorts I had been wearing. Hot and still it was on the roof. Hmmm . . .

We got up there early and saw something called an ‘F35 demo’ which was one military jet flying around and doing some interesting things. I wondered if that was the same type of plane that went missing a couple of weeks ago after the pilot bailed out. Later, at work, someone told me the US has spent one Trillion dollars! on developing that airplane and it can’t even do some of the things its predecessor can do. It does a lot of things: it flies fast, it flies slow, it goes straight up, it hovers. Whatever.

Just before the BAs came, we saw the BA support plane fly by a few times. It’s a C-130. The C-130 is a four engine prop plane that’s been around forever. I built a plastic model of one when I was about 12 so I thought it was cool.

Oh, yeah, there was a flyby of a United 777. That’s a big airplane after looking at little military jets. No barrel rolls or flying straight up but it did some cool things. It was interesting how quiet it was compared to the war machines.

Eventually the Blue Angels appeared in the distance. There was a group of four plus two others who did kind of solo stuff. The main group came up from the bridge along the waterfront but suddenly one of the soloists came from behind Telegraph Hill. Right. Over. Our. Heads! Ho-lee shit!!

I tried to get some pictures but taking pictures with a cell phone in bright sunshine is highly problematic especially when your subject is traveling at 500 miles per hour.

So, the Blue Angels did all the things that I expected. The flying was amazing. After about ten minutes, I found myself in tears. I still don’t know exactly why. Maybe it’s that humans can do amazing things but it’s too bad so much has to be for the purpose of killing other humans.

We left early because the show had started late and we had to get to work. We went down the elevator to the roars of jets overhead.

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