One day Tom Hanks walked into my "berthing", but I have to say he walked into the room were I slept.. ...this happened when I was in the U.S. Navy.
If you talk Navy speech, your "navy friends" want to kick your ass. So, you have to be politically correct. ...the people you come in contact fairly regularly while you are in the Navy are not necessarily your "friends", but they are also not necessarily your enemies either.
They're just people you never really let your guard down around.
The story is funny because people look at me sometimes, and wonder how I survived in the Navy. I don't seem like the Navy type these days. Even though then, I didn't really seem to be the Navy type either.
Anyways, back to the friends issue. It's strange. You meet people. You really like and admire some of them. In some ways you love them. ...but you know, immediately, that this is just a fleeting moment, and when the moment's over, it's over.
This moment's gone and the moment will only be a memory, but as memories go, they can serve to symbolize your entire life.
If your life is a lie, your memories will be nothing but lies.
Sometimes you stop and ask yourself, "What do I want to achieve?" ...and you take another step towards that future achievement.
When I was 12 years old, I had a dream of being an astronaut. I had poster on my closet door of Neil Armstrong standing in his space suit on the Moon. My bed sheets were Battlestar Gallactica. There was a Tie Fighter (from Star Wars) on my desk next to my bed.
Back then, I had a fairly decent imagination, and I dreamed of going to space. So there.
The closest I came to fulfilling that dream was meeting Tom Hanks when he was onboard the U.S. New Orleans. He was there to shoot Apollo 13.
For those who don't know, Apollo 13 is a true story.
Three Americans were on their way to the Moon, and an oxygen tank ruptured, and they had to figure out how they were going to get home ...more than 250,000 miles away. Their mission changed from landing on the Moon to "please, God, help us make it back to earth safely." And, they did. It was without question one of the United States of America's finest hours.
The astronauts had to loop around the Moon and make all the way back to earth. They overcame every obstacle, and that just shows you how genius human beings are-especially Americans.
For me, pulling off getting into the Navy and serving 3 years and actually getting to be a tiny part of Apollo 13 on the U.S.S. New Orleans (I was on the helm of the ship while they were filming as the helicopters took off) somehow served to fulfill that boyhood dream of being an astronaut.
In that way, maybe my life's dream isn't necessarily going to space but maybe writing about space and contributing to artistic projects of that nature. I don't know.
My mind has always gone in 10 different directions at the same time. ...I think they call that ADD.
But the way I look at it is, it's a symptom of the times we live in.
Not only am I probably ADD, I'm probably depressed, but it's not something new. I have to live in a world that's very sad and also happens to make very little sense. My struggle has always to try to make sense out of my life. I had to learn how to do that at a very young age.
People talking about "growing up". They make comments like "that person has a lot of growing up to do." That's bullshit.
Everyone is fighting for survival. We are all hanging by very thin threads. Some people, like me, discover this at a very young age.
For me, I discovered this when I was a baby and my mom put me up for adoption. That was a tough time for me.
When I went to my adoptive mothers funeral a few years ago, I met one of my "mom's" life long friends whom I hadn't seen in more than 20 years. ...Alma.
The first words out of her mouth to me was that I was a "monster." She said something about me crying all the time.
She called me a monster at my mothers funeral. How fucked up is that.
Another story similar to that, att my adoptive sisters funeral, my cousin Lauri said to me in a room full of 25 people, "Do you remember when you used to rock back and forth bang your head into the crib?" ...in front of 25 people. I only see these people at funerals nowadays. But they have always left me speechless with their comments.
Then there's the story of my adoptive grandmother. I only saw her about a dozen times in my entire life.
One day, I was living in Michigan a few years ago. I drove down to Ohio to help her move into her new place. I was the only one of her grandchildren to show up, btw.
Anyways, I was taking a break, and I was sitting next to her on bench outside her new home. Bear in mind, I have never really sat and had a conversation with this women known as my adoptive grandmother. We were sitting there, and she says, "You know, one day you were lying in your crib crying and reached down to pick you up and Diane scolded me. She told me to just let you lay there and cry."
Have you ever seen a documentary about Romanian orphanages?
They show the camera view of someone going into a room full babies. In Romanian orphanages those babies rock because they are starved for love and sensation. Their life is void of love and sensation, so they rock.
I was adopted by a woman who saw a baby crying and her response was to point at the baby crying, and I guess that's the point. I was abused. Not by being pounded on like most abuse.
When I was a baby I remember crying until I went into hyperventilating convulsions. My "mom" thought I was having a seizure. She would say "you were borderline epileptic." I knew when she said it that she was wrong.
Because I know mostly I was just heartbroken and lonely when I was a baby. That heartbrokenness has carried forward to who am today. I feel a tremendous sense of abandonment and rejection. They are engrained into my psyche.
To make matters worse, I fell twice trying to teach myself how to walk because no one was around to help me when I was 1-years one. So, I fell twice, and I broke my nose twice, and I have a deviated septum.
What's that? I deviated septum is when your nasal passage is blocked. The normal airflow that "normal" people are fortunate to get into their lungs is something I haven't enjoyed since I was 1-year old. Unless you've experienced what I'm talking about it's might not be very easy to completely understand.
Suffice it to say, life hasn't been the easiest of endeavors for me. Part of it is my own doing. Part of it is the circumstances I was raised in.
And despite whatever tragedies there may have been, I'm still just about to round the turn on the front 9 of my life. Yep, 40 is just around the corner, and for me, that's a day worth celebrating.
Another thought, I've always been a weak starter. The best rounds of my golfing life have always started on the back 9.
Now, that I am beginning this phase, maybe it's time to make a few pronouncements.
First pronouncement, I'm going to do everything I can to make the back 9 much better than the front.
The reality is one day my life's going to end.
Some people never ever get to finish the front 9. So, turning 40-years old is a big deal to me. It's a milestone. I've surprised myself by making this far. I'd like to keep going and see how well I can do from here on out.
I'd like to take whatever time I have left to do something meaningful. That's what I've been trying to do so far, and I've been fairly successful. You could characterize what I've been doing up till now as trying to make it up to speed on the runway of life. I don't believe my wheels have ever metaphorically made it off the ground.
But once they do, I intend to keep flying!
If you talk Navy speech, your "navy friends" want to kick your ass. So, you have to be politically correct. ...the people you come in contact fairly regularly while you are in the Navy are not necessarily your "friends", but they are also not necessarily your enemies either.
They're just people you never really let your guard down around.
The story is funny because people look at me sometimes, and wonder how I survived in the Navy. I don't seem like the Navy type these days. Even though then, I didn't really seem to be the Navy type either.
Anyways, back to the friends issue. It's strange. You meet people. You really like and admire some of them. In some ways you love them. ...but you know, immediately, that this is just a fleeting moment, and when the moment's over, it's over.
This moment's gone and the moment will only be a memory, but as memories go, they can serve to symbolize your entire life.
If your life is a lie, your memories will be nothing but lies.
Sometimes you stop and ask yourself, "What do I want to achieve?" ...and you take another step towards that future achievement.
When I was 12 years old, I had a dream of being an astronaut. I had poster on my closet door of Neil Armstrong standing in his space suit on the Moon. My bed sheets were Battlestar Gallactica. There was a Tie Fighter (from Star Wars) on my desk next to my bed.
Back then, I had a fairly decent imagination, and I dreamed of going to space. So there.
The closest I came to fulfilling that dream was meeting Tom Hanks when he was onboard the U.S. New Orleans. He was there to shoot Apollo 13.
For those who don't know, Apollo 13 is a true story.
Three Americans were on their way to the Moon, and an oxygen tank ruptured, and they had to figure out how they were going to get home ...more than 250,000 miles away. Their mission changed from landing on the Moon to "please, God, help us make it back to earth safely." And, they did. It was without question one of the United States of America's finest hours.
The astronauts had to loop around the Moon and make all the way back to earth. They overcame every obstacle, and that just shows you how genius human beings are-especially Americans.
For me, pulling off getting into the Navy and serving 3 years and actually getting to be a tiny part of Apollo 13 on the U.S.S. New Orleans (I was on the helm of the ship while they were filming as the helicopters took off) somehow served to fulfill that boyhood dream of being an astronaut.
In that way, maybe my life's dream isn't necessarily going to space but maybe writing about space and contributing to artistic projects of that nature. I don't know.
My mind has always gone in 10 different directions at the same time. ...I think they call that ADD.
But the way I look at it is, it's a symptom of the times we live in.
Not only am I probably ADD, I'm probably depressed, but it's not something new. I have to live in a world that's very sad and also happens to make very little sense. My struggle has always to try to make sense out of my life. I had to learn how to do that at a very young age.
People talking about "growing up". They make comments like "that person has a lot of growing up to do." That's bullshit.
Everyone is fighting for survival. We are all hanging by very thin threads. Some people, like me, discover this at a very young age.
For me, I discovered this when I was a baby and my mom put me up for adoption. That was a tough time for me.
When I went to my adoptive mothers funeral a few years ago, I met one of my "mom's" life long friends whom I hadn't seen in more than 20 years. ...Alma.
The first words out of her mouth to me was that I was a "monster." She said something about me crying all the time.
She called me a monster at my mothers funeral. How fucked up is that.
Another story similar to that, att my adoptive sisters funeral, my cousin Lauri said to me in a room full of 25 people, "Do you remember when you used to rock back and forth bang your head into the crib?" ...in front of 25 people. I only see these people at funerals nowadays. But they have always left me speechless with their comments.
Then there's the story of my adoptive grandmother. I only saw her about a dozen times in my entire life.
One day, I was living in Michigan a few years ago. I drove down to Ohio to help her move into her new place. I was the only one of her grandchildren to show up, btw.
Anyways, I was taking a break, and I was sitting next to her on bench outside her new home. Bear in mind, I have never really sat and had a conversation with this women known as my adoptive grandmother. We were sitting there, and she says, "You know, one day you were lying in your crib crying and reached down to pick you up and Diane scolded me. She told me to just let you lay there and cry."
Have you ever seen a documentary about Romanian orphanages?
They show the camera view of someone going into a room full babies. In Romanian orphanages those babies rock because they are starved for love and sensation. Their life is void of love and sensation, so they rock.
I was adopted by a woman who saw a baby crying and her response was to point at the baby crying, and I guess that's the point. I was abused. Not by being pounded on like most abuse.
When I was a baby I remember crying until I went into hyperventilating convulsions. My "mom" thought I was having a seizure. She would say "you were borderline epileptic." I knew when she said it that she was wrong.
Because I know mostly I was just heartbroken and lonely when I was a baby. That heartbrokenness has carried forward to who am today. I feel a tremendous sense of abandonment and rejection. They are engrained into my psyche.
To make matters worse, I fell twice trying to teach myself how to walk because no one was around to help me when I was 1-years one. So, I fell twice, and I broke my nose twice, and I have a deviated septum.
What's that? I deviated septum is when your nasal passage is blocked. The normal airflow that "normal" people are fortunate to get into their lungs is something I haven't enjoyed since I was 1-year old. Unless you've experienced what I'm talking about it's might not be very easy to completely understand.
Suffice it to say, life hasn't been the easiest of endeavors for me. Part of it is my own doing. Part of it is the circumstances I was raised in.
And despite whatever tragedies there may have been, I'm still just about to round the turn on the front 9 of my life. Yep, 40 is just around the corner, and for me, that's a day worth celebrating.
Another thought, I've always been a weak starter. The best rounds of my golfing life have always started on the back 9.
Now, that I am beginning this phase, maybe it's time to make a few pronouncements.
First pronouncement, I'm going to do everything I can to make the back 9 much better than the front.
The reality is one day my life's going to end.
Some people never ever get to finish the front 9. So, turning 40-years old is a big deal to me. It's a milestone. I've surprised myself by making this far. I'd like to keep going and see how well I can do from here on out.
I'd like to take whatever time I have left to do something meaningful. That's what I've been trying to do so far, and I've been fairly successful. You could characterize what I've been doing up till now as trying to make it up to speed on the runway of life. I don't believe my wheels have ever metaphorically made it off the ground.
But once they do, I intend to keep flying!
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