The Colorado Zephyr

Last night on our drive home from Denver we past the California Zephyr Train just past Glenwood Springs. It was a special moment. Driving 80 miles an hour slowly overtaking the classic silver locomotive. It was dark but the windows of the train were all lit up. It was surreal ridding alongside the Silver Bullet. My daughters shared a story about their train ride from New York to Boston. Talked about napping on the train as they traveled through the rain and snow. Said it was the best possible way to travel. It was a fitting ending to our weekend adventure visiting family and friends in Denver.. It's memories like theses that make all the struggle traveling moore worth it.  

What Mom Said

Seeing Mom was great. She struggles with severe short-term memory loss and gets really confused, but she knows who she is and recognizes me. The idea of not being able to make new memories terrifies me, But this is a happy post so I will not dwell in the negative. My mom is happy. She had spent her entire life being happy happy. It’s something she would always say. Even named the boat Happy Happy, I sorta liked it, J hated it.

Anyway she’s happy.

I saw her Tuesday and Wednesday and it is now Saturday. I spent a lot of time in the solitude of traveling alone. Thought a lot about what she said. Thought a lot about everything. I been working on becoming more mindful. Being present. Being engaged. And I realized my mom had been focused and engaged. She listened to everything I’d said and wouldn’t remember any of it. Tomorrow she will not remember I was there. When we are talking about something she remembers she is completely engaged. When talking about tomorrow she concentrates and starts getting confused. So I let her drive the conversation and it went well. She talked about her and Dad watching all my sports games. She told me how proud my father was about what a special athlete and student I was. And how he so loved our wedding and he told her it was like being in Heaven. Or what he hoped Heaven would be like. It was great to hear. 

She said how much love and happiness I had brought into the family. She said she would not have known what to do whiteout me showing her how to move on with life after Karen died. I said no Mom it was you and Dad who helped us live on. The agenda was life and you and Dad lived it. And what a good life it is. She said you sound like your father. I told her people think I look like him. She said he had more hair.

She is in the moment and that is enough. 

Happy Dance

Blessed to have visited Mom twice this past week.

The first visit was just before lunch and the second a day later in the evening. During the second visit she started getting agitated because she could not remember anything from my previous visit. I told her to relax and not worry about it. I asked her to talk about something she did remember and she said, "I remember you were one of the most daring athletes in the world!" I said you must be remembering Dad? And she said, "No, he's the one who said it about you. After one of your games he said to me you are the most daring athletes he has ever seen on the football field." Wow. What else did he say about me? "He said he was afraid for you, not that you would get hurt, but that you would kill someone and he knew that would haunt you. He said you were fierce. He said you played best when someone made you angry. He would say Honey watch now because your son is about to unleash some rage. Whenever he would say this you would always do something spectacular."

I am grateful to be here

Been thinking of another chapter in my newest book inspired by you. Champion. It's based the idea that gratitude can change your attitude. I've already covered winning is good (playing the game).Team building with heart and Soul. There is an I in win and there is a me in team.

The new chapter, being grateful, is to be full of great. 

Memes

Been making some memes recently and posting them on Instagram and Facebook. Chloe says they are technically not memes so I’m not really sure what one is, but mine are inspirational AK quotes over my landscape photography. Most of my quotes are paraphrases of things you used to always say to me while growing up.
Looks like my phone cannot download pictures to blogger anymore so I will return soon to post some examples. Eventually I plan to publish them in a book. Not that any of my books are selling, but next to marrying Suzy and having your granddaughters writing your book was the best thing I ever did.
I now realize I am a pretty crappie writer, but when has that ever stopped me from doing something I enjoy. My current plans are to write and publish the sequel to Vivis, 20 Saturday’s, the Memes book and and inspirational book called Champion. Kind of a how to book to pair with your book to launch my motivational speaker career.
Wish me luck on the new books. I’m going to need it with everything else going on in my life right now.
Love,
AK

My dad’s ring

I have been wearing my Dad’s ring all weekend. When I wear it I remember to be grateful for having had a dad who has left such an impression on me. I had a really cool dad.

Dear God

Thank You. I Love You. I am begining to know You. You have never left me. You will never leave me. You will always welcome me home. You have forgiven me. Protect me. Inspire me. Love me. You know me. I am a miricle. We are all miricles. I am so grateful for my family. Help  me love them as You Love us. Give me strength, wisdom and courage to seek Thy Will. Help me see Thy signs. Help me hear Thy Voice. Help me listen. Help me live a wonderful life. I praise Thee. Worship Thee. Believe in Thee. There is none other god but Thee. The help in peril. The Reason. Soften my heart. Sharpen my mind. Help me be present. Help me be mindful. Help me be useful. I pray to Thee in the name Emmanuel. Amen.

Silverton, CO and Red Mountain Pass

Mary

Dear Dad,

Hi Dad,

Hope you are well, well, you know, besides being on the other side. What's it like where you are? I sure wish you could answer me. Seriously. Are you aware of this world or have you truly moved on to a better place? I bet you have established yourself well in the Spirit World. I hope and have faith you are  with Karen and Carol. 

From the last posts you can see Kayla has become quite a golfer. She made it to the Colorado Sate Championship by shooting an 89 in the qualifier. I'm so proud of her. So proud of her sisters too. 

Sorry I haven't written lately. So busy with family and work and to be honest I think I have lost my voice. After writing Vivus I seem to have lost some steam. I know I still have tons of stories to tell and things to say, but recently inspiration has abandoned me. 

One idea I've been thinking about came to me while I was trying to write a poem. I wrote Sad Mad Bad Dad. I realized I had the first line of a bad poem or the title of a great book that could help a lot of men out there like me. I haven't been writing lately so I thought I'd talk over some ideas with you and see how it sounds.

As men we do not know what to do about being sad. We ignore it. Run from it. We work through it. We workout. We eat. We drink. We turn to drugs and alcohol to mask the pain of sadness.We fantasize. We fight. We get angry. We get mad. We can do something with mad. We weild some control and aim our anger here or there. We hurt people. We feel guilty. Guilt allows us to turn our anger on ourselves. We hurt ourselves. We get what we think we deserve. We fail. We feel that we do not deserve to succeed. That we don't deserve to be happy.

Anger and guilt are fueled by unresolved saddness. There is a lot of saddness in the world. A lot. There is unbearable grief. There is loss to great to even imagine. There is sickness and pain, suffering and hunger. There is death. Everyone knows loneliness and fear.

It makes me sad. Being sad makes me mad. Feeling guilty I can do so little about all the injustice in the world. Being mad and guilty makes me a bad dad. A sad mad bad dad!

It has taken me a lot of hard living to learn what I am about to share. It is OK to be sad. Everything will be OK, even if it isn't. There are keys to happiness. I will share with you these keys, but only you can turn them and unlock the door. Only you can walk through.

1. Forgive yourself, you are only human.

2. Forgive those who have wronged you, even if they do not deserve it.

3. Be grateful. Gratitude will change your attitude.

4. Work on your S.O.U.L. Self, know thy Self. Take Ownership, own it. Take responsibility. Be Un-selfish and be kind. Know that you are the only you that there will ever be. Value what is unique about You. Love. Love thyself so that you may love others. So that you can love. This Love will make you part something Larger than thyself.  

5. Know that God loves you.

6. Know that God wants you to be happy.

Well, it's a work in progress, but what do you think? I think there is something there.

I'm also thinking about writing a motivational book on team building. The title is Champions. There's an acronym for it too. LOVE. Larger, commit to something Larger than thyself. Take Ownership of the teams preformance. VE value everybody! The strength of a team lies in its members differences. Synergy is created by combining what is different about each other. Powerful synergy is created by combining various strengths and rendering each other's weaknesses irrelevant. 

Thanks Dad for listening. I miss You.

Love,

Bitty-buddy

Kayla at State Championship

Kayla is a Golfer!

Kayla qualified for the State Golf Tournament today having her best score ever at Regionals! So proud of my K-bear. She has improved so much this year. If she continues to enjoy the sport there’s no telling how good she can be. 

Coming up she has Nationals in Speech and Debate and States for golf. She’s first in her class with a 4.2 grade point average and misses a lot of school competing in golf, don’t know how she does it. As a DDD, fortunately I do not need to understand or know how she does it. I do appreciate her hard work, dedication, and talent and once again it has paid off. 

I got there in time to see her finish with four straight Pars! 

Senior Day and Miami University Graduation 1988

Senior Day at Miami 1988

Don't have much to say, don't remember much about this day. 31 years ago. Hard to believe it's been that long. My dad looks really happy. 

Graduation from Miami University 1988

Big J probably took this picture. Again I wish I remembered more from this day, but a lot of my Miami memories are like that. Love and honor to Miami. Blessed by the education, but still haunted a little by the experience.

Marine August 1947, Merchant Marine June 1945. At home with mom in ‘46!

This Marine Corps. picture of my dad from August 1947 is amazing. . This is one year prior to enrolling at University of Maryland. He is twenty years old, a Marine, just after the war.

This Maritime Marine picture is from June 1945.

This picture of my dad with his mom is from October 1946.

Mary and I had a great trip West! Spring Break 2019

My dad’s .22

My brother just sent me a picture of my dad holding a rabbit that he’d killed with his .22. I remember this picture. A line in my very first DDD post was something like one year he killed a rabbit. He said his mom would make rabbit stew.

There is so much here I don’t know where to start. First, the rifle. I have it in my gun safe. Has his initials JK carved into it. Still shoots. My big brother gave it to me a few years back for Christmas. I’ve always wondered how old it is. This photo is dated 1944 so it’s at least 75 years old! Pretty cool. Also this date means he becomes a Marine before the end of the year. Lastly, he is so young, wearing a jersey, and that calic and the jet black hair. 

I’ve been dwelling in’s the past a lot lately, so I will be sure to make my next post a little more current events.

 

I

I dwell in the past

My wife told me once I dwell in the past. I was defensive, but realized she was right. I just didn’t like the word dwell. I guess this post prooves she right. All these people are my relatives on my mother’s side. I got this album from Carol. It had water damage, but I salvaged most of the photos. The one date I saw written in pencil on the back of one of these said 1901. 1901! Almost 120 years old. This first picture fascinates me, she is beautiful, striking. The lace collar and shirt, fur, she looks comfortable, calm, elegant.