The First Story

~ Donald J. Lund

Did you ever wonder how some of those first epic tales were born?  Do you ever ask how some of those ancient stories that have retold countless times and still remain inspirational elements of modern sagas came to be?

Classics like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Iliad and The Odyssey to name a few of the very first stories that have stayed with us for many centuries.

I often think back to those old tales and how they came to be, and if you don’t, I get it.  Some of the classics are told in a different style, not every scene includes the action of a modern hero’s tale.  However, if you do wonder about such things, we are kindred spirits.

I love stories.

All kinds of stories.  After so many readings of each story, I then find myself trying to be the author, the creator, the storyteller and imagine the mindset of those incredible imaginations.

I think it means I love telling stories as much as reading or hearing them.

I recall my very first epic.

It was told in the oral tradition, like many of my Celtic ancestors, and I relayed the tale my cousins in my grandparents’ backyard during one fateful summer.  I was probably seven years old at the time, and I started my career as on-demand storyteller.

Two of my cousins and my then four-year old brother occupied what looked like a normal backyard on a particularly hot summer day.  But it was far more than a normal yard.  It was a land of adventure.

And that particular day, it was ancient homeland to the happy green grasshoppers. A once happy land that had become a war zone.

I didn’t know it was a war zone myself until one of my cousins asked me about a number of wonderfully gross grasshopper exoskeletons that were stuck to branches of some evergreen bushes that spanned the entire back fence.

The inquisitor this day was my cousin Lisa.  She, who is just barely over two months older than me, but boy, did she have a way of reminding me who was the oldest kid.  I don’t know how it is for kids these days, but in my era, age was like military rank. Whoever was the oldest generally got to be in charge. Other powers included the ability to break a tie in key little kid votes, how pieces of pizza were  to be dispersed and general boss of younger humans in the absence of adults.  It was simple math, the oldest among us was also deemed the wisest.

Darn those two months.

Anyway, her question to me was, “How did those ghostly looking grasshopper remains get stuck onto those branches?

“Grasshopper Wars,” I cooly replied.

“Grasshopper Wars?” she questioned.

Of course, those were not exoskeletons to your less than humble storyteller.  Those were all that was left of dead grasshopper soldiers in a gruesome ongoing conflict.

“Oh, yes.  It has been especially brutal this summer.  Do you see all of the happier, smaller green grasshoppers around? “There used to be twice as many of them last week.”

“Wow. What happened?”

“The big, brown mean grasshoppers nearly wiped them out. And without our help, the green grasshoppers may not survive the day,” I explained.

At this point, my cousin Cristy looked for some kind of verification from my brother Jeff.  And, my brother had pretty much heard most of my stories in his four years of existence. Some of them liked, some not so much.

He looked at me in a way that let me know, he wasn’t buying into it.  But it was summer, my story seemed like it was off to a good start — and I watched him decide by the change in his facial expression, that he was ready for more.  So, he nodded his head in the affirmative.

My first Hollywood pitch had just been approved.

And the set – or I mean the backyard cooperated in a way far better than I thought possible.  There were indeed many more grasshoppers the week before.  The summer had witnessed a plague of the insects after a very wet spring.  My grandparents had sprayed the yard and there were a number of fallen grasshoppers in and around the yard.

From the war of course.

We were able to investigate different parts of the battleground to discover more ghostly looking exoskeletons, grasshopper bodies and some big, brown mean grasshoppers, caught in the act of invasion.  We jumped into the combat zone ourselves and captured brown grasshoppers and threw them into the neighbor’s yard, which happened to be the ancient tribal lands of those brown grasshoppers.

With a few brave humans on their side, we managed to liberate much of the captured green grasshopper territory.  The victories added up, but not without a cost.

We mourned the loss of some of the fallen greens. Those poor grasshoppers that did not die of any kind of pesticide, but we killed in the line of duty.  We gave them a proper burial and the day went quickly as I described the history of this epic struggle at various corners of the yard.

The day grew hot, and all the warriors became weary.  Someone foraged for lemonade inside the barracks. We soldiered on.

A lone cricket was found, and we could not determine which side it was on.  The wisest among us decided we should chase it off.  Just in case.  If the cricket weighed in with the brown grasshoppers, it could be a factor.

Spiders were easy.  They were the nemesis of both humankind and grasshopper kind, and as such, spiders were dispatched on sight.

We were young, but we were no fools.

My brother added several gruesome details all on his own and the story took off on a life of its own.  Somewhere near dinner time, a nod and wink to my brother was intercepted by the wisest among us.

“Hey, I saw that. Is this story really real?” Lisa demanded.

“Yes,” I offered meekly, my brother nodded in the affirmative on cue.

Cousin Cristy’s faith was shaken and she appealed to a higher authority for her confirmation, well beyond her sister, breaking the chain of command.  That’s when our grandmother shut it all down, “Grasshopper wars? Don’t be ridiculous!”

Genius is born on the back of being ridiculously daring.  Or so I hoped.  My tale was investigated further by the elders. What was the storyteller trying to accomplish?

Entertainment, of course.

“I was just explaining how a grasshopper exoskeleton got on a branch,” I said with defiant pride.

A really fun guess was the actual explanation.  And it was a very possible answer for a seven-year old.  We busted out the World Book Encyclopedias that evening to learn more of exoskeletons.  Sadly, no notes regarding the ill feelings of green versus brown grasshoppers were listed.

Looking back, I now feel like the great anonymous bard before me who saw the remains of a dinosaur and dreamed of dragons.  And then dreamed of the hero Beowulf brave enough to slay such a monster.

Some epics get all the love, others earn scrutiny, but our Grasshopper Wars remains an original from the summer of 1972.  Heroes we were, and so many green grasshoppers were truly saved, although they showed no real appreciation.

Skeptics be damned, it felt real and true at the time of the telling.

Truth it was for five glorious hours, and I was a Beowulf of sorts. A mini-Gilgamesh for a day.  And oh, like Odysseus, how bittersweet the homecoming.

And now it’s all just a story.

The first of many to come.

Grateful Trumps Hateful

~ Donald J. Lund ~ 2 Comments

Let me apologize in advance.

There are days when I present my middle finger at you.

Not you personally.

I mean all of you at the same time.  As in the world.  There are days I still flip off the entirety of planet earth.  But not so much in a mean, hateful manner, my bird is out there in a fun, maniacal laugh sort of way.   I’m me, getting to be me all day, everyday, all year long and there is no one left to stop me.  The kind of defiance I lived my whole life to attain.

If I subscribed to the concept of regret, the bummer is I wish I arrived in this place far sooner.  However, part of the grand lesson is — life doesn’t work that way.  Pain, suffering, depression, anger, fear and hate will certainly dominate most human brains, until enough wisdom is gained to triumph over those very real life experiences.

If we’re lucky, we all start off in youth as happy, life loving kids ready to conquer the world.  My childhood was interrupted with some unpleasant years, but the other side of that adversity made for a tremendous set of teenage years.  Then six years of military service and a marriage to my dream girl and two really cool kids.

According the American Dream (TM) patent pending, I had won at life and the rest is puppies and rainbows, right?

Not so much.

So, here is the second admission.  My flipping the bird at you and the world wasn’t always in fun.  It used to be accompanied by rage.  Unending rage that the supposedly angry Incredible Hulk would be proud and envious to have.

The weird social expectations assigned to me at birth were not being met and I was not checking off very many of the required boxes.   Breadwinner?  Well, only for the first couple years of the marriage.  After the move to Wyoming, the Mrs. crushed the combined salaries from both the radio station and newspaper.  As a feminist, who always wanted his wife to succeed — I got used to the idea, but it wasn’t as easy as I told myself it would be.

I had always wanted to be a father, and that is far more difficult than I remember seeing on the old television series Father Knows Best.  I think I could have rocked that hat too from the old black and white series, but not much else in how easy the show made family life look.  Dad does not always know best, even when he thinks he does. Missed another expectation box.

Of course, there were financial struggles, relationship struggles and then the business failures kicked in. One was a really cool magazine where my business partner had to bolt at the very final moment due to family difficulties of his own. And then up next was a business partner who quickly misappropriated all of our family life savings.

George Lucas and Star Wars is really onto something with the Dark Side.  It is so real.

Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering.

Most of the suffering is endured by everyone closest to you.  My friends and family, some of the customers at the comic shop I owned.  For about a five year span, I became a comparatively horrible person.  I apologized on occasion, and tried for some good days, but it takes falling pretty far before the wake up call lands on you.

I knew I was in trouble.  I knew for a while I was trapped in an angry spiral, and I felt powerless.  All of the expectations of what so much of world tells you to have, and nothing about the disappointment if you don’t meet those illusions of what life is meant to be.

Since there is no handbook for that, I leaned heavy into a lifelong hobby of reading philosophy.  It seemed like philosophers east and west were on the same quest as myself, trying to find meaning in a meaningless world.  I found a few of those new age philosophers that picked the best elements from existing ideas and repackaged them in smaller doses for people who don’t have time to break down Plato’s Republic one line at a time.

I read a bunch, but didn’t always get it.

The end of the tunnel happened when I realized that everyone I loved didn’t hate me for my anger spiral.  They just wanted me to be happy.  It sounds so easy, but it is tough to make that leap of faith, to leave the security of feeling sorry for oneself.

Being angry at the world is the easy choice.  People who are ignorant in your eyes, or hateful, or rude or simply don’t agree with you are super easy targets.  Anything that didn’t go my way was the enemy of that moment.  Blaming other people for my misery was a sport, and I was good at it.

Living in the light of unconditional love from an amazing family, super-human wife — she really is Wonder Woman, but don’t tell anyone her secret identity — fantastic friends and now the sun truly shines brighter.  And the moon too.

Now, I have unending joy and care for the world.  Sort of a sickeningly sweet love for people, an appreciation for the simple beauty in everyone and everything.  So sweet, that on occasion, my inner-Marine Corps voice says, “Dude, dial it back. Just a little.”

Go ahead, make my day – just try and push the old buttons.  If you don’t agree with me on something? Fine or grand as my Irish kin would say.  My team doesn’t win every game, or any game, they’re still my team.  Politics? Hah, no one ever wins that discussion.  Story doesn’t work, write another one.  If someone I love has a bad day, there will be a better tomorrow.  If it rains, every storm eventually ends.

I wake up, write and appreciate the chance to be the real me.  The once happy kid who was ready to conquer the world is back and really awesomer now.  It isn’t weird, and I don’t care what the world’s expectations are anymore.  Wisdom reminds me it doesn’t matter.  Love the ones who love you back and life will sort itself out.

If you see me through the window of my house, and I’m running around with that middle finger extended, it’s not for you it’s for me.  I’m just a big tease at this point anyway…

Self-Proclaimed Nice Guy Unable to Solve Racism Alone

~ Donald J. Lund

I contend the only way racism gets better is if the problem is discussed and acted upon. Maybe not all at once, but I have to start somewhere.

As the fictional Ferris Bueller taught me years ago, “Isms in my opinion are not good” and at the top of that nasty modern list is racism.

I honestly considered we all had made substantive progress on race relations, but after the last twelve months, I have been proven very wrong.

And I don’t mean that racism is being defined strictly by all of the hateful acts that happen between humans of different race, theology or sexual orientation — it is the reaction after each event that has shaken my understanding of my country to the very core.  The reactions, the media and the online responses range from indifference to full on hatred.  I’m discovering indifference is just as bad.

I understand people taking sides when a police officer chooses avoidable lethal force.  I understand the debate about who is disenfranchised in this country and the reasons why.  However, when some people attempt to defend the indefensible, the problem is far greater than imagined.  And, the very recent indefensible act in a church in Charleston, South Carolina that claimed the lives of nine human beings is what I mean.  There is no defense for it.  No amount of gun toting like the old west is going to make racism all better.

I’m as tired of the talking heads on television as the next person as we try to comprehend the latest race related travesty. However, I think if we if continue to merely hope it all gets better, it will only get worse.

My perspective is a unique blend of parenting and experience.  On the parental side, my Mom made it clear about all of us being God’s children and we’re in this together.  Tolerance wasn’t enough, understanding and reaching out was also part of the deal.  Because of that, I never had a personal issue with folks who looked different than me or worshipped in a different way or talked other languages.

So, give me a gold star and the world is all healed, right?

Not so much.

However, the rewards of an open heart started early in life with a lot of friendships from every color and walk of life.  When I was six years old, a loving black family that lived in the downstairs  apartment in Tacoma, Washington taught me how to ride a bike.  They could have laughed at the silly, uncoordinated white kid, but they helped me instead.  Hugs all around, and let us sing, “It’s A Small World.”

In grade school, a Doctor J. (Julius Erving) poster on my wall and Bill Cosby tapes in my drawer made all that bad racism go away in my little world.  Then Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock fandom kept the world spinning in the proper direction.  I still love those guys, so it’s all good, right?  Hanging on every word of Samuel L. Jackson’s dialogue or Morgan Freeman’s voiceovers keeps me in the clear.  I must be one of the good guys.

Next up, my six years in the United States Marine Corps offered another interesting approach to race relations as they taught us on day one that green was the only color of Marines.  A clever method, but not always perfect.  My senior Drill Instructor was African-American or dark green as the USMC vernacular went and is still one of the coolest, baddest dudes I have ever met.

High five, ain’t I grand?

As one of the older college students on the planet, a near lifelong endeavor, it has allowed an ongoing study of history to be a very important aspect of our racism story.  To read of the plight of people brought here against their will to lose their identity and parts, but not all of their culture is not a wound that fades lightly.

Especially when too many citizens keep considering the topic race as “over” or worse, that slavery ended a long time ago and we should all feel really great about that.  Except the results, however we got there, are not satisfactory. I’ve seen the inner cities of Miami, Detroit, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Baltimore to name a few and the only constant in the poorest sections of those major urban centers is apathy.  I was taught that in this great country we’re a melting pot.  We can melt together better than this.

Again it isn’t the results that scare me the most, it’s our reaction to them.  When I was in Detroit, people beyond that city implied the people who remained somehow deserved their fate.  Or a city with humans trying to survive there serving as a political football for both sides of the fence pointing to failed liberal and conservative policies.

Both sides of the political spectrum have failed, regardless of belief.

I wrote a paper about the founding of our country’s ideals once, and specifically regarding one of the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”

And the point of my academic paper was the founding fathers were products of the ideal that formed from a period of European enlightenment that addressed class more than race at the time and specifically questioning the concept of royalty ruling the ‘common’ man.  Those words of all of us being equal is true in my mind, but reality shows a different story. It really should be self evident, and maybe we’ll get there one day.

It took a Civil War to get a step closer.  Up next were the reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution, the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, moved us a tiny fraction closer to equality.  There was some progress.  The calendar shows me it’s 2015. It is time to take another step forward.

All my empathy and five bucks gets me a cup of coffee, and not much more.

It isn’t enough to not use the n-word.  It is not enough to walk away from someone telling a racist joke.  It is not enough that none of my ancestors owned anyone else, or that I was born during the Civil Rights movement.  It’s not enough that some stores are pulling a Confederate battle flag off their shelves.

And it isn’t enough to drop some platitudes here and hope for a better day.

I get it.  There is no easy answer where I get to drop the mic and walk off stage with a winning fix. But I do think Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream still has a chance.  I do.

And for the Civil War to truly end, we have to end two additional general assumptions I’ve read all over the Internet in the last week.  One is that every white person in the south is lumped into one giant hate group.  That concept is a horrific oversimplification making the existing circumstances worse.  The second assumption appears to be that racism exists only in one political party or certain states in the union.

We all know the real answer.

Racism is everywhere, everyday.

Ask a person of color, any color and they can relate a story of some kind of racial difficulty.  Another thought that needs to be out there is this isn’t a problem relegated to our United States.  Again, racism is everywhere.  An uphill struggle for humans to understand and appreciate cultural differences is not new.

What makes us great, despite our failures and setbacks is we’re still the greatest chance to be the better place for people of every race to live and pursue the promised happiness.

Another round of gleeful optimism appears unrealistic, but a few days of New York City and I saw so many people from so many places finding a way to get through their day together, even if they go their separate ways at night.  There’s another photo largely ignored by the media this year, when folks of every color lined up in Baltimore to protect the police in a time where it would have been just as easy to join the understandably angry crowd.

Ultimately, it appears living in the past doesn’t work.  Pretending the past doesn’t exist doesn’t work either.  I wish I were a Saint in all this, but I’m not.  I was a part of the crowd that bought into the idea we moved beyond overt racism.  Ignoring the issue made it worse.

An open heart, open mind for me turned out to simply be a starting place.  Racism isn’t going away, yet, I think each of us can make a difference on an individual level, rather than a collective level.  Reaching out more, listening more, understanding more, learning more have to be among my next steps.  One act of kindness at a time is something I can do.

Writing about and talking about race may help a bit more. Or not. But doing nothing and hoping for the best got us all exactly to this point in time.

Is HBO Winning the Game of Thrones?

~ Donald J. Lund

No life of writer bits or anecdotes today.

It’s time for full on fandom madness and a chance to throw my own gauntlet down in this proverbial game of thrones.  And if my live studio audience has not completely caught up on either the books series or the television series, there be spoilers ahead.  Spoilers I say!

If you’ve not yet witnessed either the book or program, it’s not too late to jump into a dark, unpleasant fictional place where no one is safe.  Yes, this includes one of my all time favorite characters, the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jon Snow.

As Cersei Lannister once proclaimed, “You either win or die at the game of thrones. There is no middle ground.”

Ever since Cersei’s caveat to the late, great Eddard Stark, the game appears to have far fewer pieces on the board in HBO’s Game of Thrones, their ambitious adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.  We’re five seasons in with two to go and the Internet is again in flames as angry fans combat one another in virtual reality regarding the television show, controversial cliffhangers and whether or not anyone will survive the series.

Since HBO set both network records and series records with 8.1 million viewers at the end of season five, it appears the pay channel is indeed winning the game of thrones.  I’m not so sure.  Despite the record numbers, I think there is a middle ground here as the producers of the program continue to drift from elements that made the books into best sellers.

HBO has won already for their specific mission to get eyes on the network, I just wonder if the series will stand the test of time as a quality representation of the source material.

Sure, choosing book over screen is a layup, an easy score for anyone who has read the stories and then watched the show.  I’m generally not one of those observers who always takes the side of the book.  I think both formats can uniquely add to our world of entertainment in their own way.  And of course, it is impossible to cover over 1.7 million words in five books — already nearly four times longer than Lord of the Rings, in fifty hours of television programming.

Ultimately, it is the scenes and characters the show has chosen to add or change in a world where they are unable to cover all the existing bases.

But let’s first join together for a moment.  For the first time, the viewers of the series are in essence caught up with the readers.  Sort of.  There are still some substantive elements the show may yet use that they skipped in the last couple of books.  That aside, several key moments were close enough to the books that offered drama to conclude season five.

Cersei’s horrifying walk of shame is pretty much an exact take from Martin’s series. And for as many evil things as she has done, she’s still human, and it was a tough scene to watch.   Daenerys Targaryen’s final bit was different, but close to where her situation is on the other side of the world and well, of course, there was Jon’s last scene.  Or will it be Jon’s last scene?

For the most part, George R.R. Martin’s dead characters stay dead, but we have a few  clues we can use to hold on to some hope.  Hope is in short supply in either incarnation of the story.  In the book, Jon calls for Ghost, his dire wolf.  And as Bran Stark has shown, some of the family has the ability to morph or merge consciousness with animals and other beings.  That and Melisandre, the red priestess favors Jon Snow quite a bit, if he still has breath in him, she may be able to save him.  Maybe.

That is if Eddard Stark is truly Jon’s father.  There are many hints in the books that suggest otherwise. Which brings me back to the critique phase.

The television program insists on multiple additional sex scenes, relationships and completely stapled on story elements, leaving history and dramatic build up in the dust.  So little of the back story has been introduced, television fans don’t even know some of the background mysteries yet to be solved.  The dire wolves, the ravens, the effects of the war on common folk are all key parts of the story often left out of the show.

Unless viewers have a series reader like me whining about it all the time.  I probably drive my wife crazy with all the extra details and differences. Luckily she hasn’t thrown the television remote at me.  Yet.

My biggest gripe is that the television show is flat out more misogynistic than the books.  Yes, absolutely horrible things happen to women and men in the books, it is plenty dark.  The Red Wedding is far more brutal in the books to me. However, there is no need to add rape scenes at Craster’s cottage beyond the Wall and dead naked prostitutes in King Geoffrey’s suite where they didn’t occur in the pages.  I understand it’s cable TV and naked women are a part of the HBO legacy, but there are enough existing story elements to reference versus feeling a bizarre need to add more.  A record number of added, extended brothel scenes to the screen as another example.  I’m a big fan of the female form, but if it doesn’t add value to the story, don’t constantly overdo it.

Horrible things may await Lady Sansa, but none of that stuff happened to her at all in the books at this point.  I’ve heard apologists argue these bad things and happen to her dear friend Jeyne in the books, but it was more telling than showing.

As to shock for the sake of shock value, it does look that what when you take shortcuts to get to the bigger scenes.  Tyrion’s journey after killing Tywin is much longer, and more difficult.  And some of those scenes from the book may ironically be ignored for political correctness.  Tyrion serves as Medieval entertainment along the way due to his physical stature, but the television audience will never understand how much he endured on his journey.

There, I have added my two copper pieces to the mix. As a fan of the Stark family, I should realize things rarely go my way. At least all of this controversy appears to be pushing book six of the series toward a possible release next spring.

Criticism aside, the program also provides some really cool and positive things to the world built by George.  One, they are generating curiosity about the books.  More readers is always a win.  Epic fantasy is entertaining millions of viewers, which is awesome.  The dragons look great, the sets are all incredible and the cast is near flawless.  The actors are the reason I will be back for more.

Brienne of Tarth is one such perfect casting and her role has been greatly enhanced with many big scenes, and almost all of it positive and interesting.  The episode Hardhome, the big zombie battle with the wildlings,  is vastly different than the books, but was extremely well done as it reminded viewers and readers alike what the real stakes are in this epic.

In the grand scheme of things, HBO has offered a wildly successful program to the world.  Because George R.R. Martin is a deliberate writer, they are going to win the race to the end of the story, and it may be completely unique to the end of the books.  HBO will win the race, but perhaps lose the battle of storytelling in this game of thrones.

Patrolling the Empty Nest

~ Donald J. Lund

One of my all time favorite films is Raising Arizona.  Beyond the genius of Joel and Ethan Coen, the movie included a prominent copy of Dr.Spock’s
Baby and Child Care, as the official set of instructions included with the baby Nathan Arizona.

Oh, if only it were that easy.

Nothing against the bestselling non-fiction advice book, but the problem is, there are no instructions for new parents.  Micro-humans are just as unique as the ones who bring them into the world and every situation is different.

The reality is, parents and children enter into a situation together and everyone does the best they can to get through.  I feel lucky to have raised our rug rats into adults in a slightly simpler time as the modern baby shower gift request list is longer than a wedding registry.  Gigantic strollers, cribs that look like mini-aircraft carriers, and walking, talking wobbly educational toys that all cost more than my entire childhood experience.

While I always wanted to do the American Dream Family Pack © complete with dogs and the white picket fence, like most folks, I had no idea what I was signing up for when our first son was born.

We bought a crib, filled it with stuffed animals, a mobile with black and white critters on it (to help him focus we were told) and a football and soccer ball from me and my wife respectively.  From there, we had to do like everyone else, we had to wing it.

My oldest son decided to break us in the hard way.  Starting with a very difficult birthing process that put his mother into emergency Cesarean surgery, after taking the previous 12-hours to carefully plot his world entry path.  Choking on the umbilical cord and not breathing the first moment or two outside the womb was far more excited than it needed to be.

Of course life changes forever when a child is introduced to the world, and I was immediately overwhelmed.  He was cute – no really, not like the Seinfeld episode with the ugly baby only parents could love, our first born was a good looking baby.

He needed to be cute, in order to survive.

His nickname was the Fussmaster. Because he was.  It’s hard enough to be first time parents, but he only trusted us to spend time with.  The fit he would throw those first couple years outside of our arms made him impossible to pass off.  He rarely slept through the night and eventually, to keep my wife from losing her mind, I took a late shift feeding that generally went from midnight to 2 AM.  Lucky me, he would fall asleep on my chest as we watched ESPN SportsCenter together through the week.

I only thought I was overwhelmed with our first child.

His brother showed up 23-months later.  And somehow, he was completely different than his older bro.  He slept through the night at six weeks old.  We could hand him off to anyone — which can be problematic as well to have a toddler willing to live with any person who smiled in his direction.

By the time he rolled in to the world, we had some things down. In fact, we all did so well anticipating all of his needs, he was much slower to communicate and learn to talk.  And, I was the overprotective of the parent tandem and over-worried each setback along the way.  It turned out he was fine, learned to talk quite well, he just didn’t need to know how to ask for anything in his toddler years.

Schools, teachers, moving from Wyoming to Colorado and back, our family adventure was generally short on cash, whether both of us worked or not.  It was uphill most of the time, overtired and learning about how to be parents on the fly. Each of us bringing the best elements from our own families and trying to leave the less desirable elements behind.

Such filters don’t always work, and I’d love to say it was storybook all the time.  And while there were tough days, the joys those two kids brought to us and the rest of the world around them was amazing.

Soccer days, school plays, award ceremonies, dances, driving them everywhere all the time was not a chore.  That was the fun era.  So much fun that eventually, being ‘Dad’ is the only identity I had.  It was who I was and what I did.  And the exhaustion days gave way to pure joy of watching children evolve into young adults.

The joy of being around two sons who love to laugh and make others laugh, who are kind to their little cousins, who respect their grandparents and teachers and both love music, culture and learning, life is worth every moment of any grief that happened along the way.

As life would have it, as soon as you get the parenting gig down pat, they are off to college and trying to form lives of their own.  I discovered I was equally unprepared for their departure as I was their arrival.

I heard the phrase empty nest before, and now I understand. Suddenly I miss sleep deprivation or not being able to go to a movie for several years in a row.  Well, I don’t miss changing diapers, I’m totally good with that era being over.

But I do miss daily Dad duty.

I’m learning it is okay to be an emergency back-up plan, or advice in a crunch or simply a moment to listen when needed.  That said, I miss those giant rug rats a bunch.  Young men who walk around representing the very best of me and my incredible wife and then they take it up a notch with their own observations of the world. Proud is insufficient as a word to encompass my feelings.

Father’s Day is coming up and it may be another day without my guys around. We still have to patrol the empty nest.  If life goes well, they will not need us as much, as it should be.

But I’ll keep the phone charged and a light on.  Just in case.

It’s who I am, it’s what I do, even if I don’t get to do it as often.  As it turns out, no instruction book is necessary, just an endless supply of love and patience.

Live From New York!

~ Donald J. Lund

Okay, you got me.

It is not exactly live, an inherent disadvantage to the written word.  And this is not a full Saturday Night Live skit or tribute.

But it is lively.

As in I’ll be sharing my amazing and lively first ever journey to the Big Apple.  Or as I see the great city of New York as the Confluence of Humanity.  So many humans from so many unique walks of life all walking around the same place at the same time.

And I’m no rookie here on the planet. I’ve been around the proverbial block a few times. Six years in the Corps, five decades of vacations, moving to different states  and a love of languages, I have seen and heard a few things, but nothing like New York City.

For my wife and I, the city was merely a compilation of a lifetime of movies and television.  The setting for a giant slice of Americana.  Law and Order, Sex and City, The Odd Couple, to mention a few and the movies, so many movies I could be Serpico on patrol or even King Kong around the Empire State Building.  So for us, we were walking on stage.  It does get a little weird when you recall fictional body count scenes walking around Central Park on an otherwise gorgeous Sunday morning.

I knew Times Square gets crazy crowded for New Year’s Eve, because we saw it on TV.  However, I didn’t know the crazy crowd was year round.  The sidewalks and cross streets are not big enough to hold all the humanity and the crush of it in a few spots would be surreal if I wasn’t stuck with everyone else hoping the walk signal pops on to free us all from the moment.

The United Nations is just a building, the real deal United Nations are all the people from all over the planet in one American city.  The concept of the great melting pot is tricky, it doesn’t always work, but when it does, it happens in this city.  An imperfect place to be sure, but the perfect place to find out who you are.

One can’t help out every person in need there, but a few can be helped and it is great to see the moment I don’t have a dollar to give the very troubled man on the subway, a nice lady across from us does.  No one has to be nice, there are no rules about kindness, so it is always a good thing to witness.  As the argument in an episode of Friends it is tough to have a completely selfless act.  However, feeling good helping others works for me anyway, even if it doesn’t hit the selfless mark.

With kindness there is also the rude or jaded factor, but that happens any place you pack a pile of humans into tight spaces.  I love the diversity.  I love trying to figure out which language or accent I’m hearing.  I love the attitude.  One full day walking around the city, it kind of rubs off on you.  And not the John Travolta bee-bopping Saturday Night Fever style attitude either.  I’m talking Dustin Hoffman in Midnight Cowboy, “I’m walkin’ here!” attitude.

The chest puffs up, shoulders out, owning your space a little bit, and more of a stride as cars try to turn into the area where people are crossing the street.  It just starts to happen, when in Rome, ya’ know?

We caught a musical, and a fun place to start was The Book of Mormon.  A fantastic play that was flawlessly performed and all the hype I had heard was absolutely correct.  I could see it again tomorrow.

Of course, we just missed out on a chance to see David Letterman.  The Ed Sullivan theatre is a block and half from where we stayed, but Dave retired a few weeks back.  The first day we were there, all the Letterman signs were still up on the building, but the next day they were gone.  So, for a couple of kids raised on television, and with New York as key backdrop, it was a slightly melancholy moment.

And the season was over for Saturday Night Live, so no chance to heard those famous words that title today’s blog. It wasn’t live, but it sure was lively around there. We did walk by “30 Rock” and Radio City Music Hall and Carnegie Hall and a few dozen other buildings we had heard of or watched on two dimensional screens.

We did a couple tourist type things, but couldn’t hit a fraction of the available activities in the three plus days we had to explore.  Instead of trying to cram all the sights in, I was at peace with it, since I know I’m coming back.  I don’t know how or when, but I do know this:  The city that never sleeps is bigger in real life than any kind of back drop for Broadway or Hollywood.

Restaurants, Irish pubs and knock-off handbag carts for as far as the eye can see in Manhattan. A glimpse was had, and it was not enough. Besides, we bought enough hip-hop sample CD’s off the street, we could instantly get into the music production biz.

I want another bite at the Big Apple and hopefully soon.

Our Story So Far

~ Donald J. Lund

Five months into this snappy, sometimes sappy little corner of the world wide web offers a brief moment to reflect on where we’re at and where we’re going.

I know.

“What’s with this we stuff?” Tonto asked the Lone Ranger after a bad day.

Whoever has wandered into this blog after it kicked off in late January with me is a part of the ‘we’ on this reading, writing journey.  This method to communicate with Universe, share some anecdotes, a laugh or two and some darts thrown at the philosophical dart board of life has been a great way to start many of my writing days.

Or writing daze on other occasions.

Thus far, it turns out there may be more websites, writing groups, workshops, magazines and conventions in the world than there are active writers.  And there are a LOT of folks in this writing boat with me. Again, all the better to me to have more folks out there, and the resources available are amazing.  And all that talk about craft can be surprisingly distracting. I think that is why so much modern writer humor revolves around the giant, shiny Internet destroying focus.

I get all of those jokes now. Although they were funnier when I wasn’t writing everyday.

Ultimately, I have found some great advice, great ideas and a bunch of places to go when I need help through tough spots as an emerging writer.  See that?  New lingo.  I discovered a boat load of material directed at folks just like me, on the verge of getting stories out into the world.

I emerge, therefore I am.

Lots of wisdom out there laying around for the emerging writers. This blog is not a requirement for an emerging writer, yet, a lot of people suggest it is a nice way for people who do eventually read more of your stuff to find a place to read more of your stuff.

The tale of the tape looks like this.  Three projects being worked on at the same time.  The Princess book, the sci-fi short story being edited and reworked and the strangely fun crime book that writes itself faster than my earlier works.

Which one will land first?  First one done.  I have decided to not be picky, and that my finest work may be one of these projects or something I have not yet imagined. The bottom line is I have recovered from the fear that whatever I publish, self-publish or put on a bubble gum card doesn’t have to be perfect.

It worked for my newspaper and radio career.  Some of my best works were not planned and some of the articles I wrote were technically the strongest pieces I had accomplished, some the last minute deadline ideas resonated more with my intended audience.

There will be some not great stories and some less than stellar moments in this passionate pursuit to write well.  It is the way the rest of life goes, I should have realized the same applies to my favorite thing to do as well.

Write it, throw it out there and if it gets accepted or thrown back, write some more.

However, I likely pull all of this off without having to surf over to trending writer articles on how to find a better verb or top ten best places for emerging writers to look at on the Internet.  Cartoons about writing are still open season, I love those.

More Lundon Tymes as well, it is still a nice way to kick off the writing day. Stay tuned, more adventures on the way.

The Matrix of Reality

~ Donald J. Lund

There are real scientists studying the question of whether or not our world is real or we’re living in a giant computer simulation as in the film, The Matrix.  And there is more than one study out there to examine the fabric of our reality to discern a potential truth of our existence.

It seems a bit weird, but Plato was asking similar questions in ancient Greece.  I’ve always thought The Matrix was a tribute to Plato’s allegory of the cave in his classic The Republic.  Plato’s allegory doesn’t imagine computers trying to trick us, instead he considers we have insufficient information to form a proper view of reality.  In effect, we trick ourselves until we know better.

Two quick examples include an original perception of the earth being flat by some observers held true until empirical evidence proved the earth was round.  Another scientific misperception for a time was that the earth was the absolute center of the solar system, and the universe revolved around it.

We now have additional information to improve our collective perception of what is real versus what some folks original considered the truth.

Getting back to the original concept, let me help those studying the possibility of us living in a computer simulation.  It’s not The Matrix.

I would love to be able to wake up, climb out of my bubble and go to war against the machines or whomever is trying to control us.  It would be far more fascinating than trying to generate stories and fictions of my own.  Who wouldn’t want to be Neo playing Superman within the confines of a faux reality?  Flying around and being bulletproof is an adventure I’m willing to take.

Instead, our human existence of pain, suffering, disease and depression in between beautiful sunsets, trees, flowers, family and love is all the programming we are going to get.  It would be nice to get a do over and choose a red pill or blue pill and live a greater truth or a return to a more comfortable faux dream state.

To take it a step further, there is another school of thought going around that our world is indeed real, but that we allow governments and corporations to put us to sleep anyway.  A concept, fairly new to me, has been thrown at my face a few times now on the Internet called infantilization.

Basically, as defined the world at large as keeping us adults in a “dependent, infantile stage of development” in order to control us.  We’re collectively being dumbed down, tuned into silly movies, books and trapped in the it is all-going-to-be-okay like in Disneyland existence.

If you spend just a single day on social media, one can see the basis for such an argument.  Our rich, complex English language is being reduced to a series of monosyllabic letters and numbers and we are all going to LOL our life way.

U no 4 real.

I consider ‘infantilization’ is just as much of an oversimplification as the concept of living in a matrix.  It is another dodge or a shadow we cannot yet define in the corner of Plato’s cave.

Yes, education needs to be rebuilt and perhaps reimagined.  Yes, because we have more people on the planet than ever before, we have more poor people than ever before.  And more bad things happening and it seems as if there is little we can do to alter the course of humanity.

However, the ultimate reality appears to be that is we can do make a difference each day with a series of choices.  We can choose to be kind.  We can choose to help someone in need.  We can learn and improve our knowledge base.  And for kicks, we can choose to fully spell words out in a Tweet.

I jest a bit, but yet, we can be the better example if we choose it.  Bad things are still going to happen.  Depression and sadness will always be around the next corner, but we can decide how we react to each and every moment.

The easy answer is none of this is real. Or the other easy answer is that I’m being fooled into thinking everything is just great, so I should buy new shoes or forget to vote in an election.

I know what our world is.  I can spend every dollar I find on the poor, and I can’t fix poverty.  I can give all my food away and I’ll not be able to solve the horrific starvation problems near and far.  But I can donate to a food bank or buy a meal for a homeless veteran.  I can’t fix it all, but I can be a better me and help whenever possible.  It is a start.

The problem is reality isn’t very nice.  It is why it’s easy to consider this reality as a simulation or that I’m an infantilized, mind-controlled muppet doing the bidding of evil empires.  Those sound bad, yet, the real answers are far more frightening.

No wonder Stephen King does so well by telling us scary stories to distract us from the real horror of the daily toll we see in our real world.  And this is why I loved The Matrix, it looks like a lot more fun than here.

Thus, it is okay to read a book for escapism, or a silly television show so that we can unplug – not from The Matrix – but this harsh, cold, giant rock floating in space.  Fun is good.  Unreality is nice.  Taking a break from the truth of it all, as we currently understand it, is perfectly fine.

At this point, I could use a nice glass of wine and a Gilligan’s Island marathon.

More Than a Good Day to Shop

~ Donald J. Lund

Ah, Memorial Day weekend.

The first long weekend of spring, the promise of warmer days ahead, vacations and as I got older, it was a signal for bargain shopping time. All of those meanings throughout many years were all Memorial Day was for me.

I’ve been fortunate, my brother returned from his 14-month assignment in Iraq for the U.S. Army.  Not everyone gets back, and I understand that now.

I didn’t always get it.  I signed up for the military and still didn’t get it when I was putting that pen to paper.  Of course I knew the potential ultimate sacrifice anyone may make during their time working for Uncle Sam, I had just not thought a whole lot about those who came before me.

Sure, I talked a good game as history high school student, yet reality shifts during those days I was learning what it was to earn the title of United States Marine.  And yes, those drill instructors will call you everything else under the sun but you don’t get the honor until graduation day.

Boot camp is its own world.  There are no days off to hang out in town like they showed in some older movies.  There was no television during those three months.  Sometimes newspapers could be read a few moments on Sunday mornings, but really the outside world vanished for most of my time there.

Except for one Sunday.

Up until that particular day, Sunday mornings were the one bit of respite we were allowed during training.  We did laundry, got to read our mail and we got to go to church.  It was presumably a choice, but our senior drill instructor strongly encouraged everyone to go, as there were plenty of options to choose from.  Catholics, Protestants and those of the Jewish faith primarily, but they had one additional formation for ‘other’ and those guys got to hang with someone as close to their beliefs as possible.

For me, the youngest recruit in the platoon, I very much enjoyed marching to church each Sunday.  I leaned very hard on my faith during that duration and in particular, the day we heard the news.  Again, without much of a news source, we didn’t expect an update during the homily, but it did involve the Marine Corps.

I knew something was up when we got there, the clergy were generally upbeat, but they were somber.  They told us 220 Marines had been killed the day before in Lebanon. It was October 23, 1983.

Understandably, there was an audible gasp from the recruits.  As it should be, it was the most Marines lost in action in a day to that point since the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

I couldn’t imagine what had to have happened for so many to fall.  I didn’t have to wonder for very long.

The quiet march back to the squad bay ended with a strange sight – all three of our drill instructors were in full uniform, waiting for us.  On Sundays, we never saw more than one D.I. And they were more than unhappy.

Our senior drill instructor, a man I think could conquer Russia in single combat, was wiping a tear away from his eye.  There were nine names on the chalk board in  what was called the ‘classroom’ part of the barracks.  It was just some open floor space next to the ‘hut’ or office where the instructors would sleep.  We were told to sit on the floor, as usual in a classroom gathering.

Sergeant Sheriff — even his name fit the job and the Corps — pointed at those names on the board.

“You think this shit ain’t real?” he began.

He then explained these were names of the kids that were here just a few weeks before us.  They were recruits he trained, Marines he made.

They were dead.

They were among the Marines lost in Lebanon on a peacekeeping mission during a time of civil war there.  It was done in a way and by people we are all too familiar with in today’s world.  It was a truck bomb that crashed the gate and killed Marines who were sleeping.  The group that ultimately took credit was the Hezbollah, sponsored by Iran to fight for their interests in the region.

I for one always understood what I was signing up for, although that reminder served as excellent motivation for our entire platoon.

At the Marine Corps Recruit Depot, everyday was Memorial Day. Well, every base I ever served as well.  Taps is the old bugle song played every day at dusk to remind us of the fallen.  An appreciation I respect now, more than ever before.  All assume the same risk, but not all of us make it back.

Way more than a shopping day, it is just one more chance for me to be thankful of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.  Memorial Day has meant much more to me since that Sunday morning.

Absolutely celebrate our freedom with barbecue and fireworks whenever possible, but a thought or two for those who provide and maintain it is always a nice thing.

Spider Bite

~ Donald J. Lund

If I had my focus on where it should be as a writer, I would have always had a notebook or recording device with me at all times.  There are many opportunities missed, but some of the best random human encounters stay with you.

In my journey as the world’s oldest college senior, the downtown campus in Denver is very fertile ground for finding the next fascinating story inspiration.  Whether it is listening to other conversations as you sit in the food court, or while ‘reading’ in the library or just walking around.

An a sprawling urban environment that includes several educational institutions literally allows for all walks of life to join you among or in between the buildings.  This population would include the very less fortunate members of society who are either homeless or in extreme dire circumstances of some kind.

And when you mix in a population of people with lunch money, some interesting interactions occur as people request money to better help their situation.  Over the years, I’ve encountered several dozen people directly or indirectly asking for money.

Of course, not all of them are really in need.  The local news offered several stories about a substantial number of professional panhandlers in the metro area.  Some of them making $30,000-$60,000 dollars a year and return to nice homes or drive in nice cars.  Clearly, they are the exception and not the rule.  And for me, they are fairly easy to pick out.  One, they work the same areas all year long.  Two, they have jeans, a lifetime supply of cigarettes and nice cell phones to go along with folding chairs and umbrellas for break times.

The real stories reside among those truly in need.  I recall one woman who walked right up to my vehicle as I waited through several traffic light changes.  She simply asked for anything I could spare, I only had a five dollar bill on me, so I handed it over. She cried.  She was the most thankful person for five dollars I ever met.  And she turned, crossed the street and ran into a McDonald’s.  It really does feel nice to help someone who really needed it.  I wish I had more money on me.

My very favorite encounter was the storyteller.

An elderly man, at least into his 70’s approached me as a set on a corner bench.  I was in between classes, the weather was beautiful and I wasn’t even pretending to read the book in my lap.

He stood in front of me and held his hand up.  It was covered in a lump of gauze wrap and looked more like his hand was prepped for a boxing glove than to treat an injury.  The gauze was dirty and had probably been on that hand for a while, it was fraying on the edges.

In his other hand, he held a piece of paper and an empty medical prescription bottle.  He then smiled a broken toothed smile and began his presentation in earnest.

“Spider bite.”

“Ouch,” I replied. “I’m not a big fan of spiders. What kind of spider was it.?”

“I don’t know the kind, but it was black,” he explained. “I was asleep under a tree and it just bit me. So, I went to the doctor and he gave me some medicine.”

The prescription bottle was offered as evidence, and then carefully tucked into his pocket.  “I have another prescription.”

And a well worn piece of paper was gently unfolded and held up into the air.  All I could tell is that there was some handwriting on the the other side of it, and truth be told it didn’t look like it was on any kind of official stationery.

“Doc said if I don’t get medicine, this spider bite could take a turn for the worse.”

Well, I sure didn’t want that. “How much does your prescription cost?”

“Twenty-six dollars,” he quickly answered.

“How much do you have so far?”

He looked toward his pockets, then he looked up in the air to do some mental calculations and said, “Five dollars.”

I grabbed my wallet, pulled out the only money I had and gave him eleven bucks.

“Hopefully, it gets you closer to your goal.”

He thanked me, and smiled. He secured his new funds, and then his smile disappeared. He mumbled have a great day and began to walk toward the train station as fast as he could.

I suddenly understood his change of demeanor as a campus police officer now stood before me.

“Are you a student here?”

“Yes, sir,” I showed him my identification, and looked to my side as the old man was trying to make the last 120-yards without breaking into a run.  I tried to buy him some time as the officer explained that panhandling wasn’t allowed on campus, and that I shouldn’t make the problem worse by caving in and giving money.

“But he had a spider bite.”

“What?” the officer asked.

I retold the spider saga and explained the elderly gentlemen appeared sincere to me. He had a prescription.

The officer didn’t quite buy it. He walked away mid-conversation, quickened his pace and moved into a quick jog in pursuit of the old guy.  I watched the weirdest chase scene never in a movie slowly unfold in front of me.  I lost sight of the elderly fellow as he mixed in with the crowd boarding the train and the officer appeared to give up among the large crowd of passengers moving on and off the platform.

It is important to have a story.  That epic was absolutely worth 11 bucks.  I would hate to see that thing take a turn for the worse.

And props don’t hurt either, even if you don’t know what kind of spider it was.