Warbirds

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

I've always had a thing for airplanes, going back to my youth.  I suppose that this is part of that peculiar male tendency to anthropomorphize technology.  My Dad would sometimes on Sunday afternoons take us to old Kansas City Municipal Airport, just across the Missouri River from downtown.  There, we would drive to a parking lot on the opposite side of the airport where we could sit and watch the airliners take off and land.  The tall towers of downtown necessitated an abrupt descent to catch the runway.  It took skill to land there, and it was a dramatic process to watch.  

I loved watching the planes, and I took pictures which I added to the scrapbook that Dad had started for me with pictures of the planes he had ridden on.  My favorites were the graceful cetacean curves of the Lockheed Constellation, and the power and grace of the Boeing 707, the undisputed Queen of the Skies.  I don't know how my mom and sister saw these outings, but as a young boy, it was a fine way to spend an afternoon.

I started buying and building plastic scale models, mostly from Revell, and of World War II vintage.  That war was less than two decades past, and I know now how swiftly those years pass for those of adult age and older.  The war was still being fought on prime-time television, with shows like Combat! and 10 o'Clock High.  Movies were shown on Saturday afternoons and evenings, mostly forgettable films like Battle of Blood Island, The Gallant Hours, Wackiest Ship in the Army, as well as undeniable classics like Sink the Bismarck, The Battle of Britain, and In Harm's Way.  Through older movies, I was introduced to the jet age by semi-propaganda movies like Bombers B-52, Strategic Air Command, and the one that introduced me to my favorite jet plane, The Hunters, about a USAF squadron of F-86 Sabres.

The Sabre, has always looked...well...beautiful to me.  There have been a lot of beautiful aircraft over the years -- the B-58 Hustler, the Russian Backfire, the Tomcat -- but in my eyes, nothing more beautiful or graceful than that big-mouthed silver bird.

Why Digital SLR's Never Bathe

What happens when you shoot with a dirty camera.

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

At the end of May of last year, Cheryl and I undertook what was the most difficult hike we (or I) have ever done.  We drove out to the western part of Virginia to the Cedar Run Trail.  This was a humdinger, when combined with the return loop through White Oak Canyon, it was over eight miles, 2,400 feet up and 2,400 feet down on a hot and humid day.  Why, you ask, would we do this?  Well, we wanted to do a waterfall hike, and Cedar Run, which tumbles down that long hill between the two trails, was full of them.  It was pretty, but a tough climb up, and then an even tougher descent, because the spray from the stream had slicked up the clay surface of the trail.  It was like hiking on ice.  Anyway, at the bottom of the return loop, we had to ford Cedar Run twice.  It was, at this point, a pretty sedate stretch of water.  I started crossing on the rocks, but they were wobbly, and at 62 years old, my balance isn't near what it used to be.  Exhausted and impatient, I decided just to wade across.  After all, my boots were waterproof.  But the subsurface was slick with moss and algae, so of course, I went down.  With great energy.  The water was very cool, which felt really great on a hot day, but I had neglected to put my new $400 Sony digital SLR camera back in it's case.  So, it got wet.

Upon arriving home after a 90-minute drive, I stuck camera and lens in a bag of rice.  Now, opinions are divided on the efficacy of this method, but after four days, I extracted the camera, dusted it off and holding my breath, switched it on.  To my intense relief, it fired right up.  All the functions worked just fine.  So take that, Internet.

However, in the ensuing months, I began to notice smudges appearing on my pictures.  Over time, they got pretty ugly.  Eventually, I replaced the lens, which took care of most of the problem, but some of the smudges remained.  I learned that playing with the aperture and focal length, I could minimize their appearance, but, as you can see by the dusk photo of Catalina Harbor above, sometimes conditions prevented such manipulation.  I finally faced up to the fact that there was mold growing on the sensor.

Song For the Combat Vets

From Military.com

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

All Rights Reserved

I am a writer of prose, but have never been a poet or a songwriter.  Nevertheless, I was awakened this morning with these words booming inside my brain.  The tune was the Christian group Selah's song "Oh the Blood," so there's absolutely no chance of doing anything with this other than posting here.

This song is dedicated to the combat veterans, those who were so fundamentally changed by war, and who have struggled to find their footing upon coming home.  

Sometimes I rage.

Sometimes I cry.

At times I just sit and stare.

You ask me why, 

I just don't know

Except there's something very wrong with me.

(Chorus)

I am home, take my hand and comfort me,

I am bleeding from a wound no one can see,

I've laid aside my gun,

My battle, it is done,

But the war it still rages within me.

Bombs explode,

The wounded cry,

These are the sounds that haunt my dreams,

The silence of 

Our nights at home

Are ripped and torn apart by my screams.

(Chorus)

War is Hell

I've heard tell,

By those who've never been,

If you've not seen

Your best friend bleed,

There's no way you can ever understand.

(Chorus)

I live with fear,
Anger too,
I cannot find my peace,
Your patient love
Is what I need
While my broken spirit tries to heal

(Chorus)

We are called

Heroes all,

For serving so our land can be free,

But to me

The heroes be

Those who died in battle next to me.

(Chorus)

I am home, take my hand and comfort me,

I am bleeding from a wound no one can see,

I've laid aside my gun

My battle it is done,

But the war it still rages within me

(Bridge)

I want to be restored

To the me I was before,

And I hope that person still lives inside me,

(Chorus)

I am home, take my hand and comfort me,
I am bleeding from a wound no one can see,
I've laid aside my gun
My battle it is done,
But the war it still rages within me.

Please pray for me
That someday I'll be freed
And I will find that peace that 's meant for me.

A Summer of Trails

“It had nothing to do with gear or footwear or the backpacking fads

or philosophies of any particular era or even with getting from point A to point B. 

It had to do with how it felt to be in the wild. 

With what it was like to walk for miles with no reason 

other than to witness the accumulation of trees and meadows, 

mountains and deserts, streams and rocks, rivers and grasses, sunrises and sunsets. 

The experience was powerful and fundamental. 

It seemed to me that it had always felt like this to be a human in the wild, 

and as long as the wild existed it would always feel this way.” 

--Cheryl Strayed 

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

I haven't written about hiking for some time, mainly because all those posts began to sound the same. It is still difficult for me as a writer to adequately translate into words what these wilderness wanderings do for my spirit. So I thought I'd just summarize my trail activities for the last few months.

In June, we went to Casa Grande, Arizona for three months. Yeah. Arizona in the Summer. I know. Anyway, we stayed in a nice home in a retirement community a few miles south of town. The community was kind of isolated, with miles of nearly-empty desert in all directions. That was my first target. Starting out just after sunup, I was able to explore those sand-covered roads. That particular area contained little wildlife, which was okay because that desert is liberally populated with rattlesnakes and scorpions. To the northeast of the community were the four Toltec Buttes, a couple of hundred feet high, which made for a nice quick climb. There are canals that run here and there, carrying that substance without which life would not be possible there. I alternated those hikes with walks around and through the rather large community. Three weeks in, I felt I had acclimated enough to the heat to try something a little more ambitious.

Setting Goals...and Actually Meeting One

"This one step -- choosing a goal and sticking to it -- 

changes everything."

--Scott Reed

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

January is traditionally the time when people set goals, a process we know as "New Years Resolutions."  I have, for a long time, declined to take part in what I always considered a process that almost always ended in failure.  Got cynicism?  But on one cold night in January I was sitting in front of the computer looking at my stats on running/hiking/walking from 2016, courtesy of Map My Run.  I intrinsically like round numbers, and that total of 822.35 miles kinda gnawed at me.  Surely, I thought, I could have somehow squeezed an additional 177.65 miles out of that 365 days.  It got worse when I did the math and realized I only needed an average of .48 miles every day for the year to get to the magic 4-digit number.  Less than a half-mile per day.  Hmmm....

So out of that doleful rumination arose a -- -- New Years Resolution.  For 2017, I decided, I would commit to bipedally locomoting a thousand miles.

Having made the decision, all I had to do was figure it out.  And then carry it out.

First, the math.  To do 1000 miles in a year, I would have to average 20 miles per week.  At my normal activity level of 5 days per week, that would be a measly four miles each time.  But January was almost gone, so I had to refigure for a 47-week year, which raised the weekly a smidge to 22 miles per week.  I knew that weather would be a factor, and the inevitable times of sickness, plus the usual responsibilities of life which would create days where walking would be displaced by duties. 

January was a time of transition for us.  I retired, we sold our home, moved to Colorado to stay with our middle daughter and her husband while we sorted things out.  Cheryl left her traditional job and chose to become a travel nurse, working 13-week contracts, something she's always wanted to do.  If you read my posts from that time period, you will know that I was also dealing with some personal angst.  So, with all that going on, it really wasn't until early February that I really began whittling away in earnest.  

Remember the Guardians

"This will remain the land of the free

as long as it is the home of the brave."

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

On Saturday, we drove down to the city of Orange, California to spend the day with Cheryl's brother and his wife.  While we were there, we walked to a nearby park where a Veteran's Day event, called "Field of Valor" was being held.

Every year, the city puts on this event honoring American veterans by posting 1,776 American flags in the outfield of one of the baseball fields.  It was a breath-taking sight on a perfect sunny day to see that forest of red, white, and blue furling and unfurling in the breeze.  I've been a lot of places in my life, 32 countries, by my last count, and I can tell you that one of the most inspiring sights an American can see is our flag flying proudly in a place far removed from home.

Amongst the ordered ranks and files of flags, veterans walked.  Some were current or recent service members, those from the trio of Middle Eastern wars of the last 27 years.  Others were older.  Vietnam, Korea, World War II.  Many were there with their wives and families.  Some were alone, accompanied by darker memories never shared.

Attached to the staff of each flag was a placard, honoring a veteran by name, branch, rank, and dates of service.  But through the center rows were flags carrying larger placards, remembering those who earned America's highest award, the Medal of Honor.  As I walked along, I paused and read every single one.  There were heroes there from the Civil War, Haiti, Nicaragua, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Iraq, and Afghanistan.  I was struck by the number of heroes from our most recent wars.  I hadn't realized that so many had acted with the kind of selfless courage, and that such heroic acts had passed almost unnoticed in the news.

The Park

"I find peace where the sun-kissed leaves dance 

in the melody of the breeze that floats through the air."

-- Saim Cheeda

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

A few decades ago, the rock band Chicago released a song entitled "Saturday in the Park," a kind of musical memory of a summer day in an unnamed city park.  The lyrics expressively described "People dancing, People laughing, a man selling ice cream singing Italian songs." And "People talking, really smiling, a man playing guitar singing for us all."  I've always liked that particular song more for the feelings those words sparked in me.  There was a day when people took the time to go to one of those magical green spaces.  Some played, some just...hung out.  Most of us can't do that these days because our schedules are chock-a-block with have-to-dos, and gotta-be-theres.  But I really think there's value in spending time there, even to just sit a spell.

I'm retired, which means that just about all I have is time.  There are still things I have to do, but they don't fill my every waking moment like they used to.  So now, I take the time.  

Sometimes the park is close enough to walk, other times it requires some time in the car.  But it always begins the same way.  As soon as I cross the sidewalk, the world changes.  The world goes away, and I am transported to a magical, peaceful place that might have only existed in Tolkien.  Sitting on a bench, I let my eyes drift across the green grass and trees.  I watch as the sun-dappled shadows of the leaves dance to the music of the breeze.  I clear my mind and just inhabit the moment.