Hello world!

What happens when you let kids loose with good lighting - they went crazy taking photos of everyone and everything!

It seems we climb forever, striving to reach goals we set and reset and then…

…hmmm

What exactly are we aiming at or for? Are we aiming at a goal to make ourselves better people? More money? More prestige? Are we doing this for ourselves? Others?

Twice I’ve aimed – and now, twice I’ve
Stopped.

The last day of this month marks my last day of employment by Lodi Unified School District. The actual last day of work with students was Friday, May 28.

Somehow I can’t write as I did in my Goodbye to News posting. This move is more of a Hello World – What Next? article. A new beginning with no boundaries…no rules…a world of freedom and unknown choices.

I can finally dig my garden boxes and fence and shape it the way I’ve always wanted to. There are stories to be shot (what would life be WITHOUT a camera in hand? Unbearable). Trips with Newell and trips with Ron. Volunteering (oh year – don’t worry kids – I will be back on campus to hold your hands and guide you). Endless work on the property (fences, gopher patrol to name a few). Try my hand at writing for magazines. Maybe go back into education – this time as a student and aim for the next degree. Watch the sunset from the Drunken Hippo (aptly named because she is so slow and bulky that steering her is just like trying to motivate an inebriated water beast – which she is. Our tiny floating home on the Delta). Oh – and for those of you patiently waiting – finish that blasted book now that I have TIME.

All of that time that seemed too compressed now stretches out in front of me with no horizon in sight in any direction.

I know there will eventually be an end. As I tell my students, we all die. It’s what we do in that brief interlude between life and death that makes a difference.

The difference I make – as a videojournalist, parent, teacher, human being – will not be marked in history books, but in tiny pieces of myself that have touched others through teaching and stories. And in a life I can remember with peaceful content.

…see ya on the road…

Critical mass…

Every day when I wander out into the front forty to pick up my daily dose of what’s happening, I weigh in on the future.

Each day around sunrise a small blue truck whizzes past and a small white bundle flies through the air, landing with a thud and a long slide.

The (Stockton) Record. I’ve read it since I was a youngster. Did a research paper on it in college. It’s chronicled my wedding and the births of my children. And the passing of my parents and parents-in-law. All the good and traumatic moments of life.

And now I wonder if this phoenix child – this born again daily bundle – will survive much longer. As little as a year ago I hefted its weight into the house without thinking. Nowadays I eyeball it as I approach it…gauging its size. Checking its vitals. What is the content/ad ratio?

Some days the bundle is wafer thin…aneamic…barely there. There is content, but not the life-sustaining balance of advertising. On those days I fear the worst.

Today is Sunday and i was greeted by a nearly old-fashioned log of a paper…or so it seemed. The reality is my perceptions have adjusted to the times. I know what appears to be a heathy, bouncing bundle is actually a somewhat average or less-than-average package.

Losing a friend this way hurts…there are days of hope and days of despair. You almost wish the end would come quickly, but fear that it might.

And you will be forever poorer once it is gone.