writing

How Far, How Much Time?

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

As usual, I have a good amount of time to drive to my study or to rendezvous with my Son

and ride to where we work on Sunday mornings. It is a 25 mile drive for me Sunday morning and I leave around 5:15, leaving plenty of time. I drive under the state limit, 45 miles per hour. There are animals crossing, especially deer, and the stopping distance is adequate IF I pay attention. From our driveway exit to the main highway I see 2 to 6 deer lounging at the shoulder or prancing across. There is very little time to brake when one of those fall harvest animals are going full bore.

It works for safety and on a Sunday, there is very little traffic behind me. I can see headlights behind on Highway 87 and it is a game to see if they are getting closer by estimating distance and velocity. Sunday is casual but often, a vehicle comes up quickly and follows me at a close distance, after all, I am going under the speed limit. The dash gauges show me I am getting over 30 miles per gallon or more and I am on time.

At the next dotted center line, the following vehicle passes and often, leaves unburned hydrocarbons in it’s wake. Bad exhaust converter, and and faster then the double oxygen sensors can compensate and report it. You know the smell, and it isn’t a flat skunk ahead. Passing velocity in excess of 65 or so. Quickly to avoid the double yellow ahead. Or ignore it.

I shake my head and laugh when at the lower limit ahead, I am behind them and count the seconds behind. Fifteen or thirty perhaps. I see brake lights ahead, and they are still in sight. Why the rush? I remember velocities from research. If we drive at 60mph, 24 hours a day, every day, it would take 165 years to get to our sun. Probably, a few years less at 45 mph. Just in time to have a flamed out truck or car.

It’s now sunrise and time to get out the sunglasses. Another statistic, there are ten galaxies for each of us in the universe. Lot’s to look at another ‘time’ Myself, I want to ask our Lord to see the interior of a black hole or a super giant sun. Lots of time as there is no time in eternity. As I pray for the truck passing me I wonder when they cross the double yellow they may get to those 10 galaxies soon. Time means nothing to me then, I am on earth going 67,000 MPH and going on a roundabout of the sun that takes a year to get around. Mercury has a shorter time to get around, but the pavement and us would be ash in less than a second. An unpleasant place to be and Venus is further but the same issues arise. It’s a dump and I chuckle at terraforming talks.

We are living in a perfect place and mars is further out and another joke as it has a miniscule atmosphere and it’s a dump too. Check out our moon and see if you can spot the small used car we left there. It took a lot of money to make it and leave it there, but the price is cheap if you can afford AAA to tow it back for you.

I am getting the impression we are living in the only place possible and the only reason we are here is we were placed here by our God who is able to laugh at our talking about eternity as though it’s just a few big numbers and time and distance. Evolution is a child’s concept.

After all, 65 is the new 55 and it means nothing except if we are late for a very important date. “Rushing is not of the Devil, it is the devil”. He hates us and he hates eternity. I can only imagine what it would be like to spent eternity alone without our Lord. There is no roundabout and the atmosphere may be like Mercury, who knows, it might be there.

Anyone can go there and you don’t need a Saturn 5 booster set to do so. All that is needed is to dismiss reality and live for only yourself. I don’t want my neighbors land, I just want the land that is next to mine! Venus, the Greek Goddess of love might be just the ticket!

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Touring With Really Nice Crazy Musicians

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

On through the midwest, avoiding Chicago. Touring to and fro. Coffee houses, clubs and university auditoriums with basketball courts.

Broken strings and lost flat picks. Hangnails from metal fingerpicks. Tuning in bathrooms.

Sweet harmonies with one another, appearing polished at the next gig. Rough working mens songs, love missed and lost, broken people and police cold metal racks and bars.

Canning workers in the far North West coast. Looking for women that a laborer can afford.

Poetry with country blues chords and the twang of a Dobro and Banjo dueling with one another as I tried to keep up with improvised keys and balky capos. Beautiful and these things understood by others that have travelled the D’ Adario paths. Poetry and country blues.

Sleeping on or in whatever was given. Green rooms with running water for the toilet and the good ones that had sinks. Now and then a real green room in the nicer venues.

Meals from the college cafes or with the student cafeteria on metal trays. Road food late at night on the highway to the next gig. Hot dogs on eternal greasy heated rollers and nicely wrapped things. Molten lava coffee or southern pop. Sweets that are in boxes of ten and small ones

aren’t on display. We didn’t need them either, they were icky and sticky and stale to boot.

Stopped by the highway patrol wary as they walked with unfastened pistol straps, out of state plates and a car full of musicians. Bright Mag lites through the windows on our sleepy faces.

Wallets with drivers licenses and enough cash to make it to the gas station and on to the next lucky town, waiting with baited breath for their music and stories.

Adventure, the time of our lives when that siren call pulls us to the Ionian sea for the horizon and it’s promise of interesting people and revelation of meaning to our lives.

I miss it or reminisce it as my left finger callouses fall away and I sit in my comfy living room chair. Praying for many things over my horizon that reveal real joy and eternal life. Life with listening and hearing. Harmonies from heaven this time. It’s pretty good. Norm/Jack

Work at It’s Best

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

“The world is a work-in-progress, and we are partners with God in it’s ongoing creation”

Meister Eckhart 13th Century Mystic

When I meet a person, fairly alone at an ‘event’ of artwork, I like to ask questions of them. Way too many times I begin by talking about myself. That’s boring and being a boor to think right out of the box that it’s all about me. Why do I do that? Life is art and I like the praise of a nice arpeggio or a quick cartoon in pencil.

Both of them with a smudge stick to make it look real and with the shadows I put in there. Now, I like to discover with delight and astonishment of a Mondrian in the works, painting a tag on a building or Another Emily Dickinson wordsmith in the rough, ready to take a nine iron pencil and land the whole thing in the cup. It’s spirit excitement and good food to give them an auditory nod of my head. Hand grasping not clapping.

I write things like this one and I never know what I am doing, or how it comes about. Just get in there and paddle and the rapids will come and you will know then what to do.

Many things can be taught but poetry, prose, music and dance are beyond training. There are all sorts of helps but listening to the Spirit telling us what is around the corner of the canvas is the best.

I learned how to touch type when I was listening to Morse code, so typing is my springboard to launch. It helps to have word correction of spelling or weasel words. Fun in a weird way to type a half sentence and discover my fingers are not on home plate! Yjsy vsm nr gim mpe smf yjrm after I really nail it in my mind and then look up at the screen.

If you get a tingle and a smile from your muse, go for it! Look at everything with wonder and grasp the light fantastic which appears right in front of you. Julie and I saw a dancer at a Christmas event at a big church years ago. All the live animals and central casting and stylists were on board that night. It was posh, it was pretty OK and way up in front, a girl unfolded in a dance. Julie and I gasped at the revelation and union of spirit and flesh. It was worth the whole trip and is still a vivid memory.

The entire universe shows itself in a Monarch cocoon, ringed with royal gold and filled with beauty and rebirth. We look for those things and they usually find us instead. We join the Balinese in saying “We have no art. Everything we do is art”

It’s pretty good. Norm / Jack Many thanks to Frederic and Mary Ann Brusat for inspiration.

In the garden of eatin’ here at home.

Soiree

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was a perfect day for a garden party. Carrie had everyone there and she and Emily were out in the garden. Some tips were welcomed about potato bugs from Emily. She showed how they moved and where they came from. “Under the ground?” Yup. But you can control a small amount of them by just squishing them as they emerge. Or there is a benign way by using diatomaceous earth powder! Any bug with an exoskeleton can be controlled. It was a new word and very good advice from an expert on those things. Bugs.

The round patio table was set with delicious looking pastries and snack sorts of things. Crackers and French Brie. Croissants and small glass dishes filled with pesto.

There were fine china cups that seemed to expect coffee and linen at the places where lawn chairs were set. A high English tea picture set for the honored guests. Gary began digging into the brie and, as another writer, was delighted with all his fellow writers, and good friends, coming over to the table to join him

There was lively conversation approaching as Dave and Sally were on either side of Nigel excitedly filling him in on Scripture verses that explain how this glorious party resembles another to come. Bob was dancing before them, sometimes walking backwards and giving encouragement to the three of them. How exciting it must be to hear these grand stories. Battles and victories with noble people. Suffering with unbelievable impact. Many things almost hidden from casual reading that book.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, just off the porch, I and Peter were whipping up a brew of excellent coffee. Fresh ground and just flown in with Carrie and Peter’s last visit to St. Helena Island. Best coffee beans on the planet for only twenty dollars an ounce. What a smell when the grinder did its work. Oh my, I never thought I would even smell coffee like this! Ecstatic with historical ledge kicking in. The very island that Napoleon was exiled to! Wondering if it was worth his exile to have that coffee every day.

Eddie came in with a really nice linen towel around his arm and he was dressed to ‘the nines’ with an excellent servants black outfit. He delighted everyone when he walked out with a tray loaded with the best espresso ever. Sugar and cream in matching china as well.

It was a gathering of fellow writers that came to enjoy one another’s company and hear stories from experienced raconteurs. The soiree lasted until the evening dew began and the grass was sparkly with the moonlight.

Have you ever thought what heaven would be like? What the King’s table that Moses and seventy some people got to dine at with the creator of everything that is and will be? This was a dim preamble of sorts.

Writers can be persnickety and filled with themselves, but not today. Not in the garden of delights. What a gift for these poetic people to try and capture it in words that just didn’t seem adequate to describe it all.

It’s pretty good, Jack Gator / Norm Peterson

Parking Diagonally In Small Town America

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Nature and God—I neither knew yet Both so well knew me. They startled, like Executors of my identity”

Emily Dickinson

Frederic Wisconsin, is a small town with almost a thousand people, and several deer. A small red fox runs across the state highway by the gas station around 4:30 every morning. The town has a restored railway station which is very authentic. There’s a caboose on a siding, a semaphore signal, a metal-wheeled cart with wood barrels and a bright yellow track-section car. A chain-saw carved wooden bear, stands near the roadbed where the metal tracks once ran. We live 7 miles to the west. A short buggy ride for the Amish who are half a mile from town.

The train station anchors Main Street, which is about a block and a half long with diagonal parking. Frederic has a smattering of small shops: a hardware store, two bars, a library, and the usual shops that sell antiques and knickknacks to tourists and used furniture to the locals.

Leaving town on the state highway you will find a gas station with well made waist-expanding doughnuts a car dealership and a tidy golf course with another bar. It is a cute town with a nice cafe and a second rate self-service car wash. The people in the town are fairly reserved but will speak with you if you speak first to them. A few of the people will wax nostalgic about the glory days of the railroad and the daily passenger train.

When first told of the twice-a-day train schedule, I knew I had missed something by being born 20 or 30 years too late. Of course, the tracks are gone except the siding with the caboose but the roadbed is now a merged bicycle/snowmobile trail. The bicyclists park by the bakery and the snowmobile folks park at the bar on the corner.

Much to the towns confusion, the bakery has been closed for several years from a fire. Now they only sell wholesale and the main street side windows are covered up. There has also been a fire next door above one the bars. A fire no-sale. Two for the price of 1. Soon, the two buildings, which were destroyed, will rise from the ashes become one. A patio for patrons of the bar and bakery will finish the project. As I write this there is still windows and doors to install and the insides finished. The town is excited about the project. Have a pastry with your beer and relax.

There are five churches of the usual preferences, and even a small Amish community on the edge of town. Their carriages and the clip-clop of the horses add charm and fertilizer to the main street. The small town chugged along pretty well and the years brought the expected changes. A late night two dollar store and an old department store now selling secondhand furniture and dishes. There are treasures worth searching for: top line toasters and old hard-bound books. The two dollar store has a red box for last years latest movies. I always wonder why everything anyone buys from those quick two dollar stores smells like laundry detergent.

The early-morning men gather every morning, parking in the same parking spots and sitting at the same table. sipping passable coffee and eating good sourdough toast. The restaurant on the corner was named ‘Beans’ and now is known as ‘The Tin Shed.’ It is an early morning place of connections and warmth on winter days. The Tin prefix refers to the new metal siding. Well done face lift. The huge ventilation fan, dripping delicious smelling grease is still around the corner over the sidewalk. Bacon and french fries mingle their smells delightfully.

On those snowy winter days the village sweeps while its people sleep, the snow and drift removal goes on with the metallic rasp of shovels and the diesel snort of the plows. Some merchants shovel other store-front sidewalks because they have hearts for it. There is camaraderie in the winter, a hunkering and shared misery too: dead car batteries, ice on the roofs and leaking roofs in downtown with all the flat roofs common in row-house shops.

The down-town sometimes appeared like an old man with teeth missing. There were too many empty store-fronts. The draw of the big box stores about 25 miles south takes a toll on local merchants. A small town can only support one antique store or one that has used books, Jackets and couches. Frederic had a burned out bar, the bakery with no public access, an empty appliance store and an excellent hardware store, an old one with everything you need. A new pharmacy and clinic. There is a friendly grocery store with a deli and things the big box does not handle. (My favorite is Lingonberry jam.) There is an exit power door that sticks open slightly and that is a reminder that the wholesale grocery business operates on a rather slim margin. It still works but keeps the entryway nicely cool in the winter.

There is a food truck that shows up in the summer by the old railroad depot with great gyro sandwiches. A tow behind coffee business is faithful a block up the main street parked at the laundromat lot. Great coffee. to be continued

r

Eleven Dollars Short

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

I drove About 20 miles out of my way, but it was an undeniable mission. I wrote a column, Scrap yard or junkyard, and it was the scrap yard I was going to.

A few weeks before to this mission, the man that owns the yard worked on a part I needed.He extracted a seat belt assembly out of a 25 year old Ford truck. It was for our old Ford Ranger that needed one. This time it was the right one. First part did not fit at my first acquisition and the reel was locked up. Oh, got to go back and get one that fits and works!

The owner and I had a laugh the last time we were together, teasing a city man who was startled by a snake in the trunk of a vehicle he was ‘inspecting’ near where we were working. He even took a photo of it. A huge rat snake, a scary looking thing when you first meet one. Harmless to us, the smaller mammals don’t like them.

When we encountered the snake man back at the office, I made up a Latin name for the snake and the last word of my invented sentence was ‘Morte’ “It’s a two stepper..better stay clear and don’t throw anything at it again!” The owner, Harold, winked his right eye at me and we had a little smile together. Military bonding time. I paid 25 dollars for the first assembly.

I returned a few days later and told him the door sticker on the truck said 1999 built in November. The truck was actually a 2000 according to knowledgeable gear heads and I missed that small detail. Plus the reel on the first part I got from him did not work. The reel is at the bottom end of the seat belt assembly and that’s the part that allows the belt to be pulled up. If there is a crash, the reel locks up and keeps the belt tight.

Off he went to find an assembly that worked and he found one out in the yard. I heard him with the battery operated whiz wheel grinding away at the sheet metal on the door of the scrap truck. Tough extraction just from the auditory cues as I sat in his shop chair waiting for him. An old chair with stains and worn out. Obviously his chair. He returned and the reel worked. He handed it to me and declared: “twenty five bucks. I worked pretty hard”

I was hoping for a ‘warranty’ so all I had in my wallet was fourteen dollars. He looked at me and my well used truck with four ones and a ten on the seat. He accepted the money and put out his hand for a shake on the deal.

The owner of the scrap yard is older than I and he wears his age well. A Short man with runnels of wrinkles on his face and a focused gaze. He was just coming out of the side door of his home when I drove up today. A man driving a Jeep wrangler was leaning on the door jamb, chatting.

I tried to dismiss the notion it was important to return whenever I had the cash to give him what he deserved. It was one of those gentle and persistent communiques from God. It’s impossible to ignore God when He does tells these things to me. I pray you have these experiences too. I walked up and stood next to the leaning man and held out a ten and a one for the scrap yard owner.

He remembered me, he remembers everything. An astonishment and a smile was given. Another hand shake of our eyes. I told him “ you deserve it for your work” I knew this was right and true.

My drive back home was relaxing. The new pavement on County B was smooth and the detour ahead signs were still up waiting for the paint caravan to finish up.

It was pretty good Norm / Jack

Scrap Yard or a Junk Yard

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It was hard to see, I did not know it would be so. I was looking up one of the Navy ships I served in and found it had been scrapped down south. There were a few photos of it and some of the steel that was salvaged and sold. I looked for a moment for the 02 level up by the bridge, a gun turret or maybe my porthole aft on the mess deck when I first reported on board. All gone except for a few guys like me that have memories of the old fleet oiler. It was one of three ships I served in and I imagine the other two have met similar fates.

Recently I went to a scrap yard about 20 miles away, looking for a part for a 25 year old Pickup that we bought from a good neighbor for a dollar. It didn’t run and the windshield is cracked. It needed some suspension parts, it still smells mousy and has a few quirks. I was now seeking a drivers seat belt assembly. It was torn and would not move through the metal belt loop up high. It would get caught when the door closed and it was unsightly and not as strong as it used to be. It appeared to be chewed on by a dog that was bored.

The scrap yard has been there for decades and is known by the other scrap yards as specializing in Ford vehicles. Perfect. I drive Fords. My first commuter car was a Ford that I drove every day for work at the Railroad section yard in Dinkytown Minneapolis. An easy commute from NW Wisconsin of 75 miles. Every day. It was a 1941 coupe and I put in a brand new engine before I moved up nort. That’s local lingo for north. “Hey you going up Nort this weekend or no?” It’s worldwide language quirks that identify our ethnicity. You know how it works eh.

So, off I drove to the scrap yard to see if a seat belt unit with retractor wheel was …somewhere. The owner and I roamed about and he knew where to look. It was a hard job to break loose those 20mm torx bolts and I could tell by the grunts and battery impact tools that it wasn’t going as well as hoped. Language pronouns and other crude exclamations came forth across the weeds and debris to where I was sitting on the tailgate. As I am a retired wrench wielding pro I know that hovering over a tough job is a non starter for fellowship.

It was out and we drove back in his old side by side with all the tools rattling in the little bed. How much I asked. “Twenty five bucks”. OK. I handed him a twenty and ten, got five in change and put the parts on the floor of the old Ford and motored home.

It was the wrong one. I got the year wrong. I had it right according to the door sticker but it was a year later build. That was a moot point as the retractor was stuck. Back to the scrap yard the next day and the search began again. The owner is astonishingly older than I. He was old ten years ago. We got on pretty good as I am ‘getting up there’ as the saying goes. This pleasant fellow was in the Enoch School yearbook.

This part was close to correct. The seat buckle was OK and the lower fastener was dinged up when it had to be cut out of the body with an electric whiz wheel. I asked him how much and the amount quoted was the same for the wrong one. “Twenty five bucks.” I looked and told him all I had was fourteen. He said, “OK, Fourteen then. I worked pretty hard on that job.”

I acknowledged his work and difficulty for the second visit. He looked at me, my rusty truck with the cracked windshield, and smiled put out his hand and we shook on it.I plan on returning once I get the folding money together and give him the remaining Eleven dollars he deserves.

It was a wreck of a place and there seemed to be acres of vehicles on the property. To a gear head like myself, it was pretty neat. His office had trophies from car shows made from stroked pistons and rods and many accouterments of the genre of car shows, formula 1 racing memorabilia. It was a glorious mess.

A few polite questions and we knew we had a mutual society of sorts. I met his wife who earlier gave me a cold water as I was admiring her patio flowers and wind chimes. I was relaxed in the dark Homeric shop as the Odyssey and the Iliad flowed by in the wind. The chimes nearby were the Siren’s call to comfort on the patio, but I stayed where I belonged.

I put the seat belt in yesterday and it works. It needed some tweaking to fit but it is OK.

Some illiterate people would call it a Junk Yard but that image is of cranes with claws and magnets. Piles of brake rotors and pyramids of squashed cars and refrigerators. Not old cars that had been yours or mine with weeds and trees growing near and in them.

The recycle generation embraces the concept of the scrap yard. Not in my back yard though. It got close when my shop had dead cars that people couldn’t afford to fix were parked in the lot. It’s a gentle slope, soft underfoot and with no warning signs that leads to the scrap yard. a.

Just ask around when you need that rear view mirror for your old 2CV Renault and someone will know someone that will put you on the scent of the right scrap yard. Adventures await.

It’s pretty good Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

A. A ‘slightly’ modified quote from C.S. Lewis, ‘the great divorce’

See Eleven Dollars Short for the conclusion

What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?

The origin of Jack Gator

/ Norman Eric Peterson / 1 Comment

There was young Norm, I was moving through my life as though it was a normal one. I am a high functioning Asperger’s child and did not trust anyone with my love. No one. There was a secret place in me that is a go to place when my life feels scary and in need of protection. I found that comfort in various ways. I have body moves grounding me in a way with a touch on a silk blanket or just zoning out with movement patterns. A little sniffing on the back of my hand. You have seen the movie The Accountant. The main actor was affirming to me with his portrayal of a a survivor of Autism.

I made up stories and submerged myself in music. Still do. I learned piano early on, then guitar over in Italy. I graduated to mandolin and violin/viola later on with country western and square dance bands. That worked for a while until I was almost 70. By then, the made up stories were real ones and music was my dream world. Listening and playing.

Recently, I began writing about my life and observations of astounding events that only be classed as theologically overwhelming and usually joyful. I recently got some good advice on writing. “Try to be original and you will not succeed. Write your heart as best you can and you will be original” I got that advice in a dream as I sat at the feet on Earnest Hemingway as a boy. I’m sure someone else has been quoted but the dream worked for me.

I began writing day by day and I filled up a journal once a year. There is a stack of them on my desk shelf. I began reading them and saw all the stories and many people began to say to me; “you ought to write a book. I like your stories and the way you tell them” As a known raconteur, I told stories all the time. Writing them down helps me to remember them!

I had the nickname of Mr. Gator from a photo I put into the local paper. They needed one for an article on a fiddle contest I was judging. The picture was a little alligator rocking on his tail, playing a fiddle. It stuck, I even had Mr gator license plates too. Decades later, a close friend, Jessie, drew a picture for me of an alligator resting with a fishing pole and I use that as a header now and then. He said it was something he sketched out the night before. I was stunned with his talent and friendship. He also is a writer of action stories with gold coins and thieves and murder. (I can’t wait for the next chapter!)

After Jessie gave me the drawing we decided that the Gator needed a first name if I was going to write with that name as a byline. Jack Dempsy, Jack Ryan, Jack Clancy and C.S. Lewis’ nickname, Jack. It stuck. Masculine with punch.

I began publishing these stories at a local newspaper once a week as the editor liked them a lot. I give a lot of credit to Jesus in most of them and that was OK for a while but the new manager was uneasy with that. After 4 years of writing one a week I had well over 300 columns stored away on several drives. I resigned with grace and dignity from that paper. They deserved it. I still write for a great newspaper in Ashland, Wisconsin. The bottom Line News and Views.

Again, “You ought to write a book.” I already have written a book, I just need to jump in the water and get it published. Of course then, I have to mention my book in conversations and carry several of them in my briefcase to sell. Easy sell if someone says they would be interested in reading it. And paying for it.

Meanwhile, I keep writing and publishing on my web site. Gatorsgracenotes.com No ads of any kind was my decision. I don’t like pop ups and no one I know likes them either. That money stream is out of the equation. The grace note thing is a double entendre. It’s a very fast note or notes played that are too rapid to write down on a score. And Grace is what Jesus gives me time and again.

I have faith that it will all work out. Faith, it’s the very gift of God.

Gator picture by Jessie Selin

It’s pretty good. Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Local Lingo and Accents

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

It’s something that comes naturally, growing up locally or even relocating and adapting here.

You’ve used these phrases and everyone around you has such as: “how’d she go dis weekend? Ya get out and get anything?” or “ s’hat new boat easy to launch?” Didge yah go up nort to the lake wit da fam to da cabin or just chill and cook out?” “ Hews she goin? Ya look a little foofed.

It’s perfectly normal and not even noticed unless you are just up from Chicago. Relatives that own a new cabin just around our neighborhood up here. Wisconsin actually has more than ten thousand lakes and the traffic is astounding around weekends. Especially the three day ones on holidays that fall conveniently on Friday or Monday.

I count the out of state license plates just for conversation at interstate bridge highways and on this last three dayer there were a hundred vehicles in rows bumper to bumper separated by quarter mile gaps. Usual comments from us about drivers getting ahead on the double yellow by a few cars. I call it ping ponging. Rushing and getting a few seconds ahead game that we play with anxiety and some skill depending if you are quick enough and like to take chances

On the times I am passed by anxious drivers I hold my breath to avoid the inevitable unburned hydrocarbon emissions from catalytic converter overloads, especially from older Buick’s and pickups that do not display led taillights as new stuff. Oh well, we used to make a lot of money replacing those things and erasing the inevitable check engine lights from the mixture fails of over loaded oxygen sensors.

As I have quoted a few times from C.S. Lewis: “Rushing is not of the devil, it IS the devil” some writers capitalize devil, I don’t, he isn’t worth it, it’s not a ‘proper’ name.

Nowadays I pray after laughing when someone passes me and a quarter mile ahead turns off. Sometimes I count the seconds saved and that really generates humor and puzzlement.

Relax, soon we get to relax with the man who is more alive than any man has ever been. We can watch the universe unfold and drift away and still be alive with him.

“Eternity’s eternal song, is calling to me, calling me home.” Misty Edwards

It’s pretty good, Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

Stiff Eaton Collars and high school songs

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

Photo of a wood waste basket I made in shop class in 1960

This late spring morning as I was making our bed, I began humming my high school rally song. “Fight for dear old Henry High” I called an old classmate and had a great conversation. We went deep which was a pleasure. The school has now been renamed and the involved people wanted to name it after Prince the rock star. It didn’t happen due to my old friend who intervened.

The memories meanwhile, flooded in and Ken and I talked a long while with my cell phone on the kitchen table, volume up high with the mic turned over the table edge. An illuminating chat and went far deeper than I thought it would. Similar eye surgeries, stacks of books at hand near our chairs in the living room type of connections.

The title of this column refers to the memories of my favorite author, C.S. Lewis. Preparatory schools with all the unpleasant clothing and such for him. It’s universal among us all. We remember the odd things about those 12 or 16 years. Everyone tried to overcome the isolation and angst that came with education in a public school. The clubs, the teams of athletics and the clicks that we were part of or not. Competition for high grades or outrageous behavior. I was a combination of geek and outrageous. Harley chopper and lecturing on Einstein’s theory of relativity in physics class. Trying to fit in somewhere.

It didn’t help that my mother was the assistant principals secretary either. A connection to power and influence. Plutonium residue upon my prescience. I had three friends and sold my motorcycle to one of them after high school. It would be worth five figures or so today. Hundred bucks and I needed money to get to the exciting town of San Diego. At least I took my briefcase and slide rule with to there.

A rather interesting story that is found in the archives of this website. Auto biography of Norm chapter 2 gives more detail of this adventure.

Norm Peterson / Jack Gator