Move On

September is a month filled with anniversary dates.

In September along the Gulf Coast, people commemorate big hurricanes that have made land fall.

The 1900 Storm is the big one. For me, there is Hurricane Carla in 1961. She was classified on Sept 11th as a Category 4 storm. Our home was too close to Moses Lake. It was no longer habitable. We moved on.

Hurricane Ike hit in September of 2008. That storm directly impacted my entire life. It was a disaster that drastically altered the lives of countless others. Like many storms, it changed the topography both onshore and near shore.

I literally had to move on from this one too. The apartment I lived at on 2319 Strand was uninhabitable for months. I finally got to go back around Thanksgiving to try and gather the muddy remnants of my life there.

At that same time, many people were reeling from the Financial Crisis. People my parents age had their retirement savings reduced to half. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was Sept 15, and like a hurricane, it quickly spun into a full blown, out of control, international banking crisis.

Worldwide, people had to figure out how to move on from this. One way or another, people move on.

And of course, there is September 11, 2001.

That is a day that many people use to divide the timeline of their life; before 9/11 and after 9/11.

For me September 11 is a ‘dividing date” too as it is the anniversary of my Boat Wreck; Before Boat wreck and After Boat wreck, September 11, 2011. I can still move; I have moved on.

September is when my very close friend Eric ended his life. (I’ve written about this before/see ‘Hung Up’) That was apparently the way he decided to move on.

Hurricane John hit Baja around the same time Eric died. My good neighbor/friends in their mid-sixties, Patti and Tommy lived next to our surf-shack ‘trailer’ in Baja. They were asleep when the lahar (mudslide) struck.

It rushed straight down the paved road through the trailer park and easily pushed that area of our trailer park directly into the Sea of Cortez. Another friend, Tecate John, whose trailer and boat were not in the direct path of the mud avalanche and did not get pushed into the water, took off at day break the next morning in his trusty Boston Whaler to sea search for them.

He found them located many miles away, miles apart. They were alive, utterly exhausted, and carefully clinging to pieces of debris that provided lifesaving flotation. Their kids insisted they move back to San Diego.

From these September events, hopefully we have moved on.

Honor what happened. Keep hope in your heart. Move on.

Why in the world did I ever think I wanted to do this?

I did not need a boyfriend. I did not want a boyfriend. I was not looking for a boyfriend.

I had not even been on a ‘date’ since my very last date, which was on September 11, 2011.

For me, it was a disaster; “serious disruption to functioning that exceeds capacity to cope.”

To the 3 loyal people who read what I write, that was the date of my very nearly fatal boat-wreck.

My ‘date’ was driving the boat. I ended up in the ER. Unconscious. The boat sunk. Enough said about that date, both the man and the event. (I do want to let you know that I am nearly fully recovered.)

It is now Sept. 2023. That is 12 years. A dozen years.  I had absolutely no interest in dating. Ever Again.

So, am I dating now? I am not sure what you would call this. Is talking on the phone almost daily considered phone dating?  (My computer just suggested that I put a period here, not a question mark but for me, this is a question, with the larger question being WHY. Why am I even talking to this person)

I have seen him two times in two months. We don’t live in the same state. We live 1234 miles apart.

The night after I met him (an accidental / incidental meeting) he sent me a text asking if we could continue talking. My phone service was not working where I was, so I did not see the text right away.

And honestly, if I had seen it, I am not sure how I would have responded. But eventually, I did see it because I needed his help again on my project (which was why I had ever met him in the first place.)

So here it is. Two months have gone by and sometimes in a day, we will have spent 3 hours talking.

We have things in common that we are interested in. Big things like how to get water to populations that have been affected by disasters, bio-char, carbon credits, growing food more sustainably. Those are just the some of the things we have been talking about.

As our conversations have evolved, we have shared stories of our past, hopes for the future, and events of the day.

He has listened carefully enough to my stories of my kids and grands to remember their names and to ask about them.

I have tried to listen actively too but with all the ‘improvements’ with ear buds, headsets, and all that, sometimes, our conversations have long moments of silence. We will just end with a text that says “Good Night/Sweet Dreams.”

I am rather certain there were things he has said that I did not hear. Without seeing the other person, you certainly lack the nuance of body language. And maybe that is all this really is or was, a sweet dream.

To the few people who read what I sometimes write, greetings. I have not written in awhile.

I moved recently and that took up most of my time and every bit of available energy.

I no longer have a washer and dryer in my home/apartment.

After living without running water in the log cabin at almost 9,000 feet elevation for over 6 years, (1978- 1984) I vowed to try to have a washer and dryer at my disposal. My sweet Aunt Bootsie bought a washer and dryer when I moved out of the log cabin and into the first house I ever bought. It was a matching set from Montgomery Ward and the combo cost $400 back then. They chugged away for 20 years. Loved them! Loved her.

For the next 40 years, I’ve had the convienience of amazing applainaces at hand in the various places my wandering lifestyle has taken me.

And now, I live in an apartment that is more like a dorm. There is a handy laundormat in each building. I am totally OK with it.

As I age, I am trying to pracitce for the next phase of my life, aging in place. I am trying out this place. I think of this as a Senior Dorm.

I have used the laundomat here one time before today and I had enough quarters to get the job done.

Back when I did not have running water, once a month we would trek to the Laundromat in Boulder and spend hours getting the laundry done and then we’d go to the Rec Center to get out bodies deep cleaned too. Fun times. Great memories.

So now in the time of apps, I downloaded the app and scanned it and vioala, the washing machine started without quarters.

I did not use Joy detergent, but the I am calling this Joy to the World because I have learned something new. Learning new things brings joy.

And making yourself learn new things, helps brains stay healthy. Having clean laundry helps me feel joy. So go listen to Three Dog Night singing Joy to World and have some joy in your day. ( My app just informed me that my laundry is done. LOL)

I have to share this story with my dedicated readers. It has nothing to do with stars, but it does have to do with the Atmosphere.

I will write about stars again in the near future, the Dan Fogelberg and the Beach Boys stories still deserve their turn.

I am living in the Pacific Northwest, and we are in the midst of what is called an Atmospheric River. Other terms for this weather event range from tropical connection to water vapor surge to my favorite one, the Pineapple Express.

A few years ago, Dec of 2019 to be exact, I was visiting my middle kid and her family in Seattle when they had a similar weather event. Em had dropped me off at the Amtrak station for my return to Portland. I have been using the Amtrak for years to make the trip from the Oregon kids to the Seattle ones.

After waiting in my seat for about 25 minutes for the trip to start, the conductor announced that the train would not be going to Portland for at least a week. The train tracks had washed away due to a mudslide. Mudslides that flow from a volcano are called lahars. This was technically not a lahar, but it was a violent mudslide that caused destruction to anything in its way. It was laharish.

I called Em and she very carefully navigated her back through the very flooded streets to pick me up. The highways and the airport were also heavily impacted by the wettest day in Seattle in the past 10 years and the most rain recorded for December 20 since record-keeping began at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in 1945. The airport was closed. Highways were shut down.

Bonus – I got to stay a few extra days and ended up flying back to Portland.

So today in Oregon, we are experiencing an Atmospheric weather event. The wind was strong enough to knock out power to parts of Portland. (I have power so I can still try to post this piece.)

The downpour has lessened so I quickly went outside onto my front porch to collect some things that had not been secured enough and were blowing around.

As I approached my door to head back inside, I saw something odd on the glass portion of the door. There were of few of these odd-looking things. I carefully picked one up and looked closely at it.

They were worms. Small earthworms. It has rained so much while the wind was blowing so hard, is it possible it blew the worms up 5 feet onto the glass part of my door?

I have heard of frog rain. It is another meteorological expression. Poor innocent frogs get swept up in a storm and get blown miles away and fall from the sky when the clouds release their moisture.

Well, either this is a new version of that, with worms falling from the sky or was it that I just had some very smart worms trying to come inside to wait out this Atmospheric River with me. Or maybe they recognized a safe place to escape.

I have new respect for worms.

I was asked by a loyal reader for another Caribou story, so here goes.

Supertramp recorded at Caribou. They are an English band and, in the seventies, and much of the eighties, their bass player was Dougie Thompson. His brother Ali Thompson recorded at Caribou too. (Take a Little Rhythm in 1980). Take A Little Rhythm opens with that soulful yet upbeat sax riff. The Thompsons are Scottish.

Honestly, I don’t recall which one of the brothers or band members asked but I remember a morning request to make a traditional English Breakfast. This included cooking tomatoes on the grill. I was good at most things cooked on the grill but having never eaten tomatoes prepared this way, I failed miserably.

The sunny side up eggs were beautiful. The bacon, sausage and toast were perfect. But the tomatoes were an ugly, inedible blob of red mush. We belly laughed at my failure. My effort was admired.

It was probably Ali or one of his band members. They were all incredibly friendly and truly nice; they gave me a beautiful handmade Scottish wool, roll-neck jumper, aka; sweater. (They called sweaters jumpers.)

In 1977, Supertramp recorded Even in the Quietest Moments (Give a Little Bit) at Caribou.

The cover of this album is the one with a piano covered in snow. A gutted grand piano was very carefully hauled up one of the slopes at Eldora Ski Area. Caribou and Eldora are not that far away; maybe 8 miles. It was left there overnight to get the perfect look of freshly fallen snow. The sheet music shown in the photo is actually The Star-Spangled Banner, but the title reads Fools Overture. Fools Overture opens with a beautiful piano solo. (Side note: I eventually cooked at Eldora too.)

Even in the Quietest Moments sold more than 500,000 copies within few months of its release making it Supertramp’s first Gold Album. They eventually had 6 of their albums go Gold or Platinum.

In 1979 they released Breakfast in America. (Goodbye Stranger, Take the Long Way Home.) Supertramp’s Breakfast in America was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year. That one was a Quadruple Platinum winner. (Platinum status indicates sales of 1,000,000).

My Traditional English breakfast with the terrible tomatoes would never be an award winner but I successfully prepared many ordinary “no tomato” breakfasts in America for some extraordinarily successful musicians.

I have been writing about some of the stars I encountered while working at Caribou Ranch in Nederland, Colorado. For my loyal readers, here is another one.

I just got off the phone with a good friend. She and I are going to meet in Hawaii in early January for a reunion. We’ve not seen one another for a few years. She lived in Hawaii for several years and I had the incredible fortune of getting to visit her there many times. I love Hawaii!

But back to Caribou; one morning I was assigned the breakfast shift. The morning routine always started with making pots of coffee in the Bunn O-Matic. Next step, fire up the 8-burner Wolf grill.

A note was taped to the hood of the grill. The note simply said “Gone to Hawaii. Will be back in one week.” (I won’t divulge any names here.)

Apparently, one of the servers from the dinner shift had flown off to Hawaii with a member of the band that was at the Ranch. That band was America.

We’d all been humming some of America’s songs in anticipation of their visit. I Need You, Ventura Highway, A Horse with No Name, Sister Golder Hair. There were so many songs that we all loved. They were easy to hum and some of the lyrics really resonated. I am a big fan of bands that can harmonize.

I don’t remember which album they were there to record when this escapade happened.

In 1977, America released Harbor, Silent Letter in 1979, and in 1982, View from the Ground (You Can Do Magic). It could have been any of those. And, in June of 1978, they played at Red Rocks. Many stars came to stay at the Ranch when they were playing at Red Rocks.

The band was easy to for me to work with; they didn’t have any unusual food requirements or requests.

I think it was while they were there that another one of the kitchen staff accidentally used a wooden spoon to scrape down the contents of the blender (while the blender was fully operating) for that night’s dessert. The chocolate mousse had an extra “woody” taste that night. (The very first day I worked the kitchen shift, I flooded the floor with doing something wrong with the commercial coffee machine. Mistakes happened.)

Every dinner included the standards, a soup, a salad, the mains and a dessert. Of course, a very good wine was an essential part of every meal. Dessert was served with the after-dinner Courvoisier in ceremonial cognac snifters.

Maybe it was just the abundant cognac or maybe it was the extra special mousse but not every dinner ended up with one of the staff flying off to Hawaii. But that on one night, magic really, truly happened.

And in January, I myself will be magically “Gone to Hawaii.”

I recently posted about John Denver and the 50th anniversary of “Rocky Mountain High.” It seems just as important to honor this sad date too, the day John Denver died. This was 25 years ago.

Backstory- Around 1977, I met Richie Furay at Caribou Ranch when he was there with Souther and Hillman recording their 2nd album. Richie asked me to go to a church in Boulder that was affiliated with what had once been called the Boulder Colorado Sanitarium and Hospital. After their services, they had a potluck. Richie was avoiding meat and he wanted me to learn to prepare some of the nut loafs and other things that a plant-based diet included.

Richie Furay had played with Stephen Stills and Neil Young in 1966 (Buffalo Springfield) and then with Poco, who included Randy Meisner (who later played with the Eagles) and Jim Messina of Loggins and Messina. (The second concert I ever went to featured Loggins and Messina, but back to my story.)

Richie Furay sang with John Denver and with scores of other musicians that created many of the songs and melodies that are still very popular today. I did learn more about vegetarian cooking after I went to the potluck.

Full disclosure- my nut loaf was a not very good, but Richie Furay was another one of the good guys.

It is the 50th anniversary of the release of “Rocky Mountain High.” I love the Rocky Mountains.

I met John Deutschendorf Jr. (John Denver) in Huntsville, Texas in the early 1970’s. I was a college student at Sam Houston State University, and he hired my neighbor Claudia to make a shirt for him.

Go look at some of John Denver’s old album covers. You will see the shirts I am talking about.

Claudia had moved into the house next to mine with a husband and two little kids. I would see the kids outside playing all the time but never saw any grown-ups. The kids were friendly, and I so was I, so we talked whenever I was coming or going to and from class or work. I wondered where the parents were.

Claudia was watching all this from the bedroom. She was confined to bed because she had broken her back in a car accident. She’d been watching and listening to all the conversations I was having with her kids. She knew I was good hearted. We became good friends.

When she recovered and was well enough to work, she got a job in the fabric section of the local five and dime. It was at this store that she met John Denver and he hired her to create a special shirt for him.

He liked the shirt so much he ordered several more. When she needed to deliver them to him, she asked me to drive her out to the remote ranch where he was staying. That is when I met him. We spent the day out at the ranch with him. We rode horses, had lunch, he played some music. Good times. He was very kind to both of us. He was the first star I ever met. Little did I know that I would meet many more.

After I graduated from college, I ended up moving to Nederland Colorado and working at Caribou Ranch Recording Studio. I worked there on and off beginning in 1977. You can look up Caribou Ranch and see all the stars that recorded there. John Denver is on the list. (So is John Lennon and Elton John but I did not meet these two Johns.) 150 artists recorded there.

Caribou Ranch was an amazing place to work. 45 top ten albums, 18 Grammy awards and 20 number one Billboard hits were recorded there at the beautiful beyond words recording studio.

While I was working there, I was asked to drive Willie Nelson around.

Willie had been up at the Ranch to hang out with Kris Kristofferson. Kris was there to record an album. At his request, I made TexMex Chicken Enchiladas for him. My aunt had gone to school with Kris in Brownsville, Texas. He asked if I could make TexMex and so I did. He was pleased.

Willie and Kris played at Rock Rocks in a concert while Willie was there. I got to drive Willie to Red Rocks.

The concert was one of many I got to drive stars to. If you have a chance, go to a concert at Red Rocks.

It truly is a Rocky Mountain High.

My daughter called me early this morning. She had just gotten sad news. Her friend’s little child had died. There is probably nothing harder in life than the death of your child. There are no words for this kind of loss.

I listened to my daughter and asked how I could help her. I offered to cook dinner tonight to take that responsibility off of her plate. I suggested that she buy some teas and some fruit and just leave a gift basket with a card on the front porch of her friend’s home.

I had to try and do something myself to process the grief. I knew this little human too. She was precious.

We all have people in our lives that die. We all have to process all the emotions that flood us when we encounter loss.

The way I dealt with it this morning was to plant some bulbs. They will bloom in the Spring. They will remind me of the beauty that the little child who died today brought to each one of us who had the fortune to get to know her.

When you don’t know what else to do, just plant something.