TENSION AND RELEASE, THEN REPEAT

Honest Abe knew all about tension and release.

When things got a little too tight for the old rail splitter, he grabbed his other axe and let it out.

Some say he was a rocker, some say a folk singer, but he was a blues man.

Look at the way he’s working the fifth fret in the key of A with a little whammy bar action.

That’s a player.

Tension and release is the way of the world.

From people getting too wound up, to tectonic plates getting too tight, something’s got to give.

And it always does.

The Ring of Fire cuts loose with an eruption and all we hear about is the end of the world.

It’s been foretold in the Bible, in the Aztec calendar, in the Book of the Dead.

Couldn’t it be a simple scientific reaction of tension and release without turning into spiritual one-upmanship?

 

Take the man who works all the time, all day and half the night.

How does he do it, going at a pace that breaks normal men?

First, let’s define normal men.

Here’s an example: Enjoys spending time with wife and kids, being at home, being at peace, and working through problems as they arise.

He enjoys his work, but would do things different if he were in charge.

In order to do that he’d need to start his own company, which he won’t do because it would take all of the time he enjoys spending with his wife and kids and being home at night.

So he makes small improvements to the company he works for to keep on a smooth course.

He had a co-worker who started their own company and had to travel two weeks every month for business.

They made a lot of money but lost their wife and kids when he became a stranger in his own home.

After that he traveled three weeks in every month since he had the free time.

Along the way he dated a long line of girls looking for guys just like him: emotionally unavailable, physically unavailable, but fun for a weekend away.

Fun for a while.

 

Taking A Leap

There are times in life to make decisions, but the options are endless, so you take a leap.

That American Motors Pacer was a good deal?

The Gremlin was under appreciated?

The Pinto got good gas milage?

Any baby boomer with that kind of purchasing history is one to listen to, and do the opposite of whatever they say.

Listen to them pump up their ride without mentioning the exploding gas tank.

That wasn’t just the Pinto, it was also the Gremlin, when a fender bender goes BOOM.

Crash tension turning to fiery inferno is a bad release.

 

I was on a party boat one time with college kids.

Once we got close to the cliffs the talk started about who was going to jump.

The consensus was not to jump in a strange pool of water.

That’s always good advice.

Being the older person in a younger crowd creates tension.

You’re the role model, the elder, the wiseman.

The voice of reason, looked up to, admired, if you’re lucky.

It all added up to calm down and stay in the boat, which is always a good plan.

But there were those crazy college kids wondering what kind of a person would jump off the cliffs.

What kind of person would dive?

Now we know, and it’s hard to believe there’s actually a picture of the event.

Now I have back-up when I tell someone I’m an Acapulco cliff diver.

Acapulco? Similar.

 

Eddie Saw The Dodgers Play In Brooklyn 

Eddie Merchant was my go-to guy in the 1980’s and 90’s.

I met him at work. He was a retired Merchant Marine who had sailed the world.

One of his stops was Coos Bay, which he called Booze Bay.

Every week of the NFL season we bet a package of little Wild Turkey whiskey bottles, airplane size.

I bet the Cowboys, he bet the 49ers. He waxed me the whole decade, he and Joe Montana.

We were sports friends, going up to the King Dome to see the Dodgers play the Mariners.

We went to the Memorial Coliseum to watch Michael Jordan play his last game in Portland.

Together we complained about the baseball strike of 1994 with no World Series.

I’m not a big baseball fan, but I like the traditions that are over a hundred years old.

Eddie saw the Dodgers play in Brooklyn when his ship pulled into harbor the right time of year.

He saw them in L.A. and we saw them together in Seattle.

I could see the strike really bothered Eddie, so I invited him out to my place for a surprise.

To spite baseball for getting to0 big for itself I went out and bought two of the nicest baseball mitts ever.

Ever? Yes, ever.

One is the A2000, the dream mitt of my childhood that I never got.

If I had one of those earlier I might have been a major leaguer.

By the same token, if I hadn’t peaked in Senior League it would have been a different story.

It was classic tension and release when a baseball strike fades away as you slide your hand into those mitts.

 

PS: If you feel tight, and you’re fairly certain it’s not health emergency, address the tension and release with something familiar.

 

PSS: Something familiar means having a catch, or diving off a cliff, not diving under the covers at the No-Tell Motel.