HAPPY TIMES FOR HAPPY PEOPLE. ARE YOU HAPPY YET?

Happy times don’t always show up in the present.

Sometimes you have to get through things first.

Then, on looking back, you see it.

You were happy and didn’t know it.

The big mistake people make is feeling bad because they’re not as happy as they expect, as happy as promised, if they follow the rules as they know them.

And who among us have lashed our happy times to someone else’s promises and opinions?

You?

How about you?

Have your happy times been drowned in disappointment and bitterness?

Let’s go:

Find Happy Times Ahead If . . .

If you can be alone without panicking, you might be happy.

Find a moment of reflection on how life has been, how it is, and how it will be.

Now put yourself in the picture like someone in a golden coat contemplating their life choices.

(It’s my wife and I’m one of them.)

Is it a better picture? (I hope so.)

If the answer is no, then you’ve got work to do.

What kind of work?

Life Changes, So Do You

I’m the guy in the middle in the top picture. Here’s the story:

On a freezing cold winter day the museum where I worked got a call from Salem.

I needed to go down and pick up a model of the Portland metro area that included land from I-205 on the east, the Columbia River to the north, the Portland west hills to the west, and Tigard to the south.

It was a huge collection all crated up. I rented a box van and drove to Salem over ice storm covered roads.

How many hours does it take driving to Salem at fifteen miles per hour? About the same as the drive back.

But it was a great day with a magical finish. My work buddy Charles and I took the truck back and walked around a frozen, deserted, downtown Portland in the dark.

We’d just moved the entire city in miniature, now we were in it in real life, walking around like giants.

Then we all had birthdays, one after another, year after year, some better than others. We all moved on.

That’s how you do it.

Any complaints?

Try Growing Old And Being Made Fun Of

I’m a baby boomer, but I don’t write boomerpdx exclusively for baby boomers.

First, too many boomers have given up on reading since they’re as old as their grandpa and their grandpa was the smartest man in the family.

And didn’t read a lick.

Sound familiar? Did you have a grandpa who said, “The only reason people go to school past eighth grade is because they’re afraid of work.”

Both my grandpas were loggers. One of them said the only time he felt safe on the job was when he took a three year break from sawing trees down for WWII.

Does that say how dangerous the woods word can be?

That same grandpa taught at the local community college. What was his subject? Cutting trees down.

He was academically inclined from the start.

2

Grandpa Marshall had a shop in his basement where he worked on electronics.

He had big cans full of extra screws and bolts and electrical stuff.

The can in the picture is my first big can purchase.

I’m not throwing that can out without filling it full of the nuts and bolts scattered around my garage.

And there’s plenty of them.

Wife: Just recycle the can. You know you will eventually.

Me: It’s got character and size. And I’ve got just the job for it: holding all the loose screws and nuts.

Wife: I remember you had jars full of screws and nuts in your apartment when we met. What was that all about?

Me: What was what all about?

Wife: The screws and nuts in jars.

Me: They were ice breakers.

Wife: Ice breakers for who?

Me: You’re not the first to ask about the screws and nuts.

Wife: So that was part of your dating repertoire?

Me: Why don’t you tell me.

Wife: So you’re saving the can and filling it up with screws and nuts?

Me: In honor of past screws and nuts, yes.

Wife: I don’t know why I even asked.

The Whole World In Your Hands For Happy Times

That’s my guitar hand after changing strings and tearing up and down the fretboard.

The time before changing strings my fingers were darker from the string grit and grime.

This never happens to piano players.

It’s also one of my grand baby hands. I’ve got two for good measure.

Here’s a grand baby story:

We’ve got a wedding coming up fast, which means going to the store every day to make sure we’ve got food stocks for making the famous Wedding Lasagna today.

Wedding Lasagna:

Thirty six years ago my fiancé and I, along with my future mother in law, made loads of vegetarian lasagna from the Moosewood cookbook.

It was a big hit and we ate and ate and ate, and a year later took some out of the freezer and ate more.

I’m not saying Moosewood lasagna is the key to a long marriage, but we made a bunch for the first kid’s wedding and they’re still married.

Saturday is the next test and I have high confidence the lasagna will come through.

Besides, the big can of all purpose crushed tomatoes will be in there, so I’m keeping the can.

Why? Because these sort of things can have sentimental value for the newly weds.

Follow me for more innovative Christmas gift ideas.

2

I’m checked out and leaving Safeway yesterday and notice a young mother and child coming in the door.

They look sooooo familiar. In the nano second of recognition I saw it’s my daughter in law and grand toddler in her arms.

So I put baby in my cart and follow around while momma shopped for a few things.

It was an unexpected, unplanned, bit of serendipity you never get if you’re not in the same town at the same time.

I walked around the store in a bubble of happy times that may have been different for someone else.

Call me happy.