Fast Away and All That

Colorado River as seen from Toroweap Overlook. Grand Canyon National Park.

We’ve come to the last weekend of the year and I find myself wondering what I’m going to do with the blog. I haven’t made any final decisions other than to promise that I’ll be here more in 2024.

At least that’s today’s promise. I’ve got plans for 2024 and we’ll get to that later. But we’ll also get to the post that acknowledges that plans can and do change.

I don’t like to do year-end reviews but, as things go, 2023 was a pretty good year. I had some cool things happening.

So, as Bing sang to Rosemary, “When I’m worried and I can’t sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep…”

Please don’t fall asleep while reading this, but for me anyway, it’s good to review my blessings of the year.

In January, out of necessity, I bought a new (to me) Jeep Renegade. It’s ruby-red and it helps with the portrayal of the man in the red suit. I’ve been quite pleased with the vehicle. Unlike my 20-year-old truck (which still sits in the driveway for landfill runs), the heater works.

In February, I participated in my first Children’s Book Festival at Gayton Kirk. I’ll be back again in February of 2024. So far, I’ve published four children’s books, all available on Amazon. Yes, there’s a new one in the works.

We spent the first week of April at the beach. Sure, it’s cold then, but we were right on the waterfront. We’re heading back there for spring break this year.

While at the beach, I was contacted by the artistic director at Firehouse Theatre and offered a role in one of the most significant theatrical productions I’ve been a part of. Sound of the Guns is an original play/musical telling of experiences in the Gulf War. It was an honor to be a part of it.

On the tail end of that, my cousin and his wife flew up from Texas to take my wife and I to see the Doobie Brothers for my 65th Birthday. I hadn’t seen Ron in, literally, decades. And, to be honest, my comment on Facebook about someone buying me tickets to the concert was mostly me being a smart-ass. But they picked up on it. We had a wonderful visit and the concert was phenomenal.

If you follow me at all, you know that August was The Old Man Bucket List Road Trip (™). My best friend from college and I met in Kentucky and took a trip out to the Grand Canyon and points between. The travel memoir is a work in progress and may show up here in installments. It also may not.

Shortly after I got back in town, we packed up our son and shipped him off to Japan for a semester. He’s still there and is returning at the end of January. It’s time.

From there I returned to Kings Dominion to be a scare actor and had an amazing time with an amazing group of people. I hope to be back.

Without even time to catch my breath I rolled right into rehearsals for Tinkers Toy Factory at Kings Dominion’s Winterfest. We’ll be wrapping that up this weekend. Along with my other Santa gigs, I stayed busy through the season.

In the midst of all the above things there were the usual work, and yard, and house, and church, and family…not in any particular order.

Was it the best of years? I don’t know. But considering our two years of 15 days to slow the spread and The Great Unpleasantness of the Summer of 2021 (™) that we’ve endured since early 2020, it was a pretty darn good year.

What does 2024 hold? I have plans. I may even get to some of them.

For now, I’ll bask in the memories of 2023 and enjoy the last of the holiday eggnog.

Available on Amazon.

Farewell Summer

“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

When I was growing up, the last day of summer was always officially Labor Day.  That’s the day the swimming pool closed and the first day of school was the Tuesday after.

Now, even though I’m married to a teacher, that schedule no longer applies.  She was back at school even before I departed on The Old Man Bucket List Road Trip (™).  

Today is officially the last day of summer.  Autumn arrives at 2:50 tomorrow morning.

Thanks to my back and/or bladder, there’s a good chance that I’ll be away to say a proper hello.

It also looks to be a rainy one.  Stay safe out there.

In the grand scheme of things, I had a pretty darn good summer.

No, I didn’t spend the days by the pool. In fact the only time I got in any outdoor water play was on July 4 at the water park. Wall to wall people in the wave pool.  Not a grand time.

I began the summer in rehearsals for Sound of the Guns at Firehouse Theatre. If you didn’t see the show, I assure you that you do regret it.  Not because of my performance. But because this was an important piece of theater and music, combined together.  It was an honor to play a small part.

In the midst of the show, my cousin and his wife flew up from Texas to take me to the Doobie Brothers concert in Portsmouth.  Ron and I had not seen each other for some fifty years, but we’ve kept in touch through the magic of Facebook.  We had a great weekend, they saw my show, we had some great meals, and the concert was phenomenal.  All of the original Doobie Brothers were there and their voices and music skills were as good, or better, than they were fifty years ago.

Much of the rest of the summer was spent in preparation.  Not only was I preparing for The Old Man Bucket

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List Road Trip (™), we were getting our son ready to spend five months in Japan for the first half of his junior year in college.

I’d like to think summer could have been more sitting on the beach sipping umbrella drinks, but that didn’t happen.  And that’s okay.  Retirement is coming and we’ll have more time for that.

Summer remains my favorite season, but I’m really becoming more fond of fall.  The changing of the leaves, pumpkins, apple cider, sweater weather, bonfires, and more.

It goes without saying that this is also Spooky Season, which leads to Turkey Season, which leads to Santa Season.

There’s no vacation for the next four months.  No grand road trips.  No sitting around anywhere, or at least not much, sipping fancy drinks.

I used to spend life thinking about getting to the next big thing.  It’s true that I spent much of the year looking forward to the road trip.  But I tried to enjoy things along the way.

That’s what I’m doing now.  There are things on the horizon I’m looking forward to.  But for the moment I need to focus on the day job, on the weekend job as a scare actor, and maybe on yard cleanup.  Although some of that clean up is waiting until the weather changes again and the copperheads go off to hibernate.

While I never really liked going back to school, in some ways I miss the autumns of my youth that included football games, pep rallies, homecoming, hay rides, and tricks or treats.  You get the idea.

Still, autumn is a warm, fuzzy season.  If you live in the south, it’s like summer with pumpkins.

Bring it on.