WHAT I WANT AND WHAT I GET

Did I want a big fluffy dog? Noooo.

But here we are and she’s the best darn dog I’ve ever known, heard of, or seen.

Better than Bullet and Rin Tin Tin?

Waaaaay better. She’s my dog, and just what I want.

But I didn’t know that before hand.

I’ve found that to be true most of my life, that I got something I didn’t know I wanted and would miss it something terrible if was gone.

Take the local mountains, for example.

Sadly, I’ve lived places where the highest point was a building.

On a foggy, cloudy, day, Portland, Oregon looks like that with Big Pink and the First Interstate Bank Tower poking up.

Other days, clear days, bright days, we get this:

 

 

What I want is a majestic mountain, and Mt. Hood is all of that.

But it’s not the only mountain around.

The snowball-looking Mt. Adams.

 

 

Don’t want to skimp on Mt. St. Helens with Mt. Rainier behind and to the left.

It was a clear day on Council Crest with the Cascade Mountains all showing up.

 

 

Of the three, only one still has a peak from this point of view.

If you drive up closer to them all, none are disappointing.

We’ve just got the best of them in the front yard.

 

I Want To Be The King Of Council Crest?

Do I want to be the king of anywhere? Nooooo.

But it doesn’t hurt to practice. This is my king pose.

If my home is my kingdom, I’m third in line behind wife and dog.

Third is still on the podium for those keeping track.

It’s also a maintenance role.

If wife or dog get in trouble, I swing into action.

Who else, right? Every husband worthy of the name knows the drill:

Find the problem, fix it, return to regular programing.

 

Regular Writer Programing:

How does a boomer blogger, a baby boomer blogger, swing into action?

It starts with life long learning, with an emphasis on history.

What’s better than an old man spewing specious speculations?

Well, that’s not what boomerpdx is all about.

Those little blue highlighted words? Those are what they call hyper-links in the biz.

Maybe hypertext?

Click on them and see when I sound sketchy.

 

What I want is to show is that I’ve not lived the unexamined life.

That would be over 3500 blog posts of examination, and you’d think that would be enough?

I’ll know when it’s enough.

It’s not enough, and here’s why:

I’m good enough, decent enough, and strong enough to hold onto the best dog ever, the best wife, kids, yada, yada, yada. (Hi Girls)

Good enough, decent enough, blah, blah, blah, to spend time in the brand new all-volunteer Army of the exact mid-70’s.

Decent enough to see activities for what they are in our shared America, and good enough to make note.

 

Why Bother?

PS: If you don’t listen to Ernest Hemingway’s third wife, who would you listen to?

 

PSS:

From what I’ve gleaned from my travels and reading history, Europe from 1939 to 1945 was the worst of times.

I walked the streets of Paris, France and read about the place I stood where Jewish school kids were gathered and sent to death camps.

People were stopped in cars, pulled out, and never seen again.

People were shot dead in the street for the wrong response to the occupying force.

Policemen were recruited as executioners in the wake of the German army advances on the Eastern Front.

A year after WWII ended, the guilty parties had a chance to state their case.

 

Making note here.