Beachcombing for Dreams

Lanai is a small island, only 140 square miles and eighteen from end to end. It lies nine miles west of Maui and five miles south of Molokai, all of which were part of the same volcanic eruption before time. Between Lanai, Maui and Molokai is the shallow ʻAuʻau channel. Ocean currents from the east of Maui accelerate through the channel, depositing all manner of debris along the east coast of Lanai.

Lanai is sleepy with two resorts and a hotel supporting the bulk of the economy. Originally the Dole Pineapple plantation, most of the 3,000 residents work for the resorts or Larry Ellison, the multi-billionaire who owns the island. With no traffic lights, a 20 mph speed limit and easy-going Aloha spirit, the island is beyond quiet. Picture a tropical Mayberry and give it Ambien.

On this relaxing afternoon, I drove Keomuku Road over Mount Lana’ihale to the east coast of the island. The pavement ends here, and like many roads outside the town or resorts requires a four-wheel drive vehicle. Not all-wheel drive, not a Subaru. Legitimate, Jeep Class, high clearance four-wheel drive with intentional tires. One to two foot deep ruts punctuates the road. These byways are either sand, dirt or mud, depending on the wind and the weather. A 1995 Toyota Camry does not qualify for non-pavement activities on the island, so I parked at the end of the pavement, donned my backpack and headed out on a walking adventure.

Turn right and you’ll end up at the abandoned Club Lanai, a once beautiful resort best accessed by boat. Now it’s a seven mile one way trip on the Jeep road. Going left a couple of miles you arrive at Shipwreck Beach. Venturing out you’re surrounded by a canopy of Kiawe trees, a pleasant looking, shade producing species with thorns that could be used in a knife fight. Hawaii has a unique relationship with abandoned vehicles. It’s not uncommon to be driving down the road and see a car with a giant “AV” marked on it. After a certain amount of time, the police will cast that Scarlet Letter on the vehicle. What happens after that is a mystery because the vehicle will sit there until it’s reclaimed by the jungle. Asking around, no one can recall when one of these was actually removed from the blight register. The road to Shipwreck Beach is host to any number of these.

A few hundred yards in, there’s a cut off to the beach. This trail runs through an abandoned yard, host to a couple of small boats in need of repair on trailers with flat tires and the remains of what was once a shed or shelter. The setting with shade trees and the former dreams of boats is peppered with hoof prints of the local Axis deer. At the far end of this yard the thorny brush closes in as nature’s warning sign. On the side of the blocked trail is the skeleton of a deer embedded in the sand. An explorer’s journey is nothing if not intrepid, so moving out and around, I came to the far side of the brambles where the trail continued to the ocean.

Climbing the dunes you’re struck by a warm breeze and the clean scent of the ocean. Cresting the sand and grass the view of Maui and Molokai is worthy of a travel brochure, as long as you ignore the debris covered foreground. Enough driftwood lines the shore to construct a village for the Swiss Family Robinson, all of Gilligan’s friends, Ben Gunn, and Wilson. Weathered branches, palm fronds, lumber that was stolen by a storm, and huge timbers are in Davy Jones’ Building Center. You can imagine tying them together with the remnants of fishing nets that are interwoven on the beach.

Beachcombing along the two miles from the path to Shipwreck Beach, other discards from society litter the shore. You can’t help but wonder how some of them arrived on this deserted stretch of beach. What abandoned dreams, adventures, and mishaps supplied these offerings? Wine, beer and liquor bottles could have been cast into the sea once they’d served their purpose. But what of propane tanks, large and small? How did the sea inherit and then discard over a dozen ice chests? You can understand them not having lids. But why were there no lids on the beach? How does a backpack sprayer end up a dozen miles from the closest town?

Navigating the driftwood and discards of society, I came upon the first shipwreck. A faded yellow and blue ketch that was once someone’s dream of sailing the Pacific. Now, lying on its side, keel open, masts gone and nothing left except the hull and a stainless steel sink in the galley. Perhaps the owners had insurance to compensate for the monetary loss. But what of the dream? The time spent outfitting, planning, provisioning, and envisioning a future on the open sea. Is there compensation for that? At least the trailered boats at the beach cut off were waiting to be made whole and used.

For over an hour, I had been alone with my thoughts and beachcombing. Not a soul in sight. Rounding a point marked by an entire driftwood tree, I came upon a middle-aged lady with over-tanned skin, clad in a black bikini, at least one size too small. She was on her hands and knees, Bud Light can in one hand and the other sifting through the sand for shells that weren’t there, carrying on a conversation with no one. What dreams compelled her younger self were now drowned in a haze of alcohol? We exchanged a brief greeting, but her attention was on unseen mysteries in the sand.

Continuing the last couple of hundred yards I received a gift. On the rise of a grassy dune, someone had set up a rattan armchair, complete with cushion, facing the ocean. The weather had been fair, so the cushion was dry. The chair, sitting on a piece of carpet was a reward for the journey. Those who take the Jeep road to Shipwreck beach would come to the ocean a half-mile farther down the shore. For those intrepid beachcombers, someone with a dream of quiet afternoons and unmatched vistas had set out a place of rest. Sitting in the chair with a water bottle in hand, I looked out over a beach festooned only with driftwood. No coolers, bottles, or empty oil cans. The reef and ocean painted the foreground of an unobstructed view of Molokai with its five thousand foot volcanic summit brushing the clouds.

We travel through life leaving evidence of our dreams. As we move along our path, we avoid the abandoned coolers others have left and the nets that have broken off. But we leave our own bottles, broken surfboards and sometimes shipwrecks. In the end, we need to remember to stop and smell the roses. Or at least, relax in a chair on the beach, taking time to appreciate our place in a tropical wonderland.

Juke Boxes

Kids today have lost the life-lessons taught by the jukebox. Crosley, Wurlitzer, and Rock-ola. All offering the promise of your favorite music. While certainly for entertainment, the jukebox taught me about life.

When I was young, songs were ten cents each, or three for a quarter. Later it became a quarter a song or five for a dollar. At fifty cents a song, I stopped spending my money; the value proposition wasn’t there. I learned about getting more when you bought in larger quantities. How to make sure my quarter or dollar, often from my folks, had to be spent on carefully selected songs. After all, if you only have five songs to pick, split with your sister, you had to be careful which of the 100 to 140 songs you were going to choose. Johnny Horton was usually out, but the Beatles, Beach Boys, Santana, Rolling Stones, Elton John; and if mom and dad weren’t paying too much attention, The Who, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin were all fair game.

Mr. Wurlitzer also taught me about patience and hope. If the place was too busy, you might not even hear the songs you bought with your hard-earned or begged money. First come, first served, and who knows how many songs the guy in the double-denim actually picked. So you wait, trying to remember which songs you chose, and in what order. Once they started playing, we could usually wait until they were all done. But if they hadn’t started by the time we finished the pizza, oh well. Maybe next time. Or maybe I’ll just put my quarters in the pinball machine.

These magical music machines lived in two places, pizza parlors, and diners. The pizza parlor had the big one in the back. If the joint’s owner cared, you’d have some new songs in there. If not, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Mathis, Patsy Cline, and Johnny Cash were waiting to ruin your meal. Diners were another treat all-together. Your patience was tested as you flipped the song list back and forth at your table. Playing songs from the table was a risky proposition because you had no way of knowing how many people had songs queued up, and there was never anything new. More like playing a slot machine as compared to blackjack. There was also the risk of family discord at the table as you fought with your brother and sister over the song menu. Then you not only wouldn’t get to pick any songs, you couldn’t even touch the jukebox anymore. And rarely was there anything new. Just the classics, crooners, and too much country and western. More often than not, you’d only pick one or two songs, limiting the downside of no songs. But you could still fight over the song lists.

Today, we have fast-food, family restaurants, and cell phones. No more communal entertainment and life lessons. In some bars, you can still find a jukebox, and while it is the same size, your choices are now hundreds or thousands of songs, all digital and a dollar apiece. Worse, it’s shut off on Wednesday and Thursday for the horror that is karaoke. The magic of seeing a carousel of 45’s turn, the arm pick out your record and the needle come to rest as the song, your song, played is gone. Kids no longer learn about budgeting, value propositions, choices, uncertain outcomes, and the exciting win when the stars aligned and Crocodile Rock rang out of the Hi-Fidelity stereo speakers as hot pepperoni pizza was served onto paper plates with a pitcher of Tab to go around.



Copyright © 2019 David Barton

When did the dreams of my youth die?

Big thoughts.

Insignificant thoughts.

Ponderings that don't matter.

Reflections that mean everything.

When did the dreams of my youth die? Was their fire left untended? An exuberance that collided with reality? Or folly born of a naive view of the world and ourselves? As I approach sixty years on this earth, some of it actually living, these questions haunt me.

I’m a Christian, and as hold to the hope of life everlasting where my time here would have been just a flicker. I hold to that faith as a drowning man grasps a floating timber, waiting for his rescue. I wonder, what I could have done with my life. Are my self-perceived failures what people do, or have I fallen short and missed the mark? Unanswerable questions all, but begging explanation and resolution nonetheless.

I have dreams even today that merit a younger, healthier man’s life. Yet I still go forward towards measures of success, however they may be defined. I have not maintained fitness and a reasonable weight but now work to lose weight and increase my physical ability. Why didn’t I do the things that are now more difficult when I was younger? I work to pay off debts accrued through laziness and circumstance while continuing to not put anything away for retirement. The dream was once to be a millionaire, semi-retired at forty. Others have done this, but not me. Is it due to a failure of character? Perhaps a mental or psychological problem. Maybe failure in my upbringing, or simply a roll of the dice. The answer to this I do not know.

I often sit at the beach, watching the locals and vacationers, young and old, rich and poor, gods and goddesses, and those overweight, out of shape souls who are my kindred spirits. What would it be like to have the affections and enjoy the mysteries of a twenty or thirty-something beauty? I also realize that I never would have had them even if I wasn’t in debt and rotund. So starts an internal conversation of woulda, coulda, and shoulda’s that wonders how life might have been different.

What if I went to law school as I planned when I was eighteen and newly married? What if my parents didn’t always encourage short cuts? What if I worked for that builder during the summer of my sixteenth year and became a contractor? What if my parents weren’t scared of me getting heatstroke? What if I never accumulated debt? What if I invested in real estate for all these years? What if became an accountant and put money away year after year? What if my dad didn’t always have the next business idea to finally make it rich? What if I spent less time with family, and actually learned the computer skills I needed? What if I didn’t always, always, always feel that I was lucky to have the job and hope they wouldn’t figure out I was a fake? What if I didn’t always feel that I was a fake?

So I resolve again, to eat healthier and be more active. I resolve again, to finally have a budget and stick to it. I resign myself to a marriage that simply is, but I will write more so that I am actually a writer. I resign myself to the fact that I will have to continue to work, hoping that social security is still there when time says that I have to retire.

I do know that I’ve been a successful dad. I always worried about that but knew that once my kids were grown, I would see if I did it right. Both kids, are now their own people, living the lives that they have dreamed, avoiding debt, and staying healthy. Perhaps my failings were a sacrifice that helped them become who they are. Or maybe that’s a hopeful justification, after all, there are kids that have grown up to be a success whose parents were also put together.

I return again to the dreams of youth, that have now become plans for a life winding down. A salvage program to reclaim the years that remain. I know that at least for today, I am a writer. I have done something right.

How did Trump win?

This post is for all of the people who voted for Hillary Clinton, and don’t understand how this could have happened. Who now think the country is populated by racists and misogynists. How could “the Deplorables” have won? 

So, how did Trump win? To answer this question, it’s important to understand that there is a difference between people living on the coasts and large cities, and everyone else. If you look at a map of this, or any of the recent presidential elections with county by county voting, you will see a staggering illustration. The heart of America, Fly Over Country, ‘murica, Deplorables is largely conservative. Even in states like California, Oregon and Washington you can see that outside of the cities, people are conservative.

On the coasts there are population centers; 80% of the population lives within 65 miles of the coast. So take the 20% of the population that lives inland and you have people who by and large, work for a living. They are not uneducated or ignorant, and what they lack in a college degree, they make up for in common sense. They get up early, get the kids to school, drive to work or get on the tractor, and at the end of the day, come back together. Their towns are small, so they’re more likely to know their neighbors, work with them, bring them a casserole when their spouse is sick, bring their dog back to them, and go to church with them. Their values are defined by how they live their life; work hard, raise a family, go to church, go camping for vacation, look out for your neighbors. These are old values, the ones that defined societies before the industrial age and growth of cities. These are the values described in the Bible, Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These are things that you talk to your neighbor about when you’re getting the mail. These are values based on self-evident truths, as our Founders pointed out. And that’s where I believe liberals have a difficult time. Trump/conservative voters' way of thinking based on the how things are, not on the way we wish them to be.

As an example, God (or nature or …) created animals and plants with male and female parts. (Don’t get caught up in the fact that some frogs can change sex, this self-evident truth is valid over 99% of the time.) Male and female exist for the purpose of procreation. Therefore, the natural relationship of things is between a male and female. Period. No social pressures argument. No traditional society argument. No patriarchal dominance argument. Simple. Occam’s Razor – in the presence of multiple, competing theories or explanations, the simplest one is preferred and usually correct. There is no “gays are bad” or “God hates fags” or other pabulum. Just basic logic founded on a self-evident truth. The negativity in this comes from elsewhere, in this case a lot of press has focused on Christian fringe groups. As an ordained Orthodox Priest, I can tell you that “God hates fags” is as much a Christian approach as saying that someone who is against abortion is for rape.

Another example pertains to debt. The total debt owed by all US government agencies is about $20 trillion. That’s unsecured debt, analogous to credit cards, lines of credit, and student loans, as opposed to car loans or mortgages. Total GDP is about $17 trillion. So if we knock off some zeros, it would be like owing $200,000 on credit cards when you earn $170,000, or if we divide by two for a more realistic number, it would be the same as you owing $100,000 on credit cards, while your take home pay is only $85,000. That’s an irresponsible number for anyone’s budget, the government just has bigger numbers. But it’s still irresponsible. What would you do if you owed this kind of debt? You’d cut expenses, put yourself on a strict spending plan, and pay off the credit cards. Extend that to government programs and you have the conservative, not living near the coast approach. In a word smaller government; the spending is unsustainable, so cuts have to be made.

The last thing to understand about Conservatives, is that we are mostly about honesty and truth. The country was founded on principles. We still adhere to those, oftentimes literally and they are enunciated in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Freedom of speech is freedom to speak your mind, not withholding your opinion or certain words because someone might be offended. Children in school get offended by mean words, not adults. When questions are consistently raised about lying and criminal activities, like Hillary’s emails, mishandling of classified information, Pay for Play with the Clinton Foundation, and caucus manipulation, we wonder about her integrity. Maybe it’s nothing, maybe it’s something. But we know a lot of people in government have issues with integrity and it’s nagged the Clintons for decades. So even if some of it were true, we have an issue with her honesty and truth.

So when you wonder how Trump could have won, the answer is that as more and more people become unemployed, see inflation eat up our income, and opportunities flicker and die, those who live on the coasts start to question their assumptions. And some start to think. And when they think, and try to understand why the old rules are not working, they often start to see lies and deceit.

As I read heartfelt, agonized posts and texts this morning over the results, I started asking myself why there is such an emotional, visceral response. I do not pretend to understand or fully appreciate the depth of these emotions, but they are real. So why? What is different about the liberal/Bernie/Hillary/progressive perception that leads to so much pain? I have a couple of thoughts. First, words matter. Politicians and activists throughout history have turned words on their head so they no longer have their intended, traditional meaning. History gives us the “German Democratic Republic” and “Peoples Republic of China,” both terribly oppressive, communist countries that by their actions were neither democratic nor caring for their people.

To pick a particularly inflammatory word, but one that illustrates the misuse of words consider homophobia. I did a quick search on Google, and came up with the following:

Arachnophobia (noun) – extreme or irrational fear of spiders

Agoraphobia (noun) – extreme or irrational fear of crowded spaces or enclosed public places

Claustrophobia (noun) – extreme or irrational fear of confined places

Homophobia (noun) – dislike or prejudice against homosexual people

In our English language, nnn-phobia is an “extreme or irrational fear of” something, not a dislike or prejudice. So homophobia, by normal usage would be defined as “extreme or irrational fear of homosexual people.” But it is not used that way. It is used to describe someone who is “against” homosexuality, but it is an emotionally charged usage. How do we feel about someone who is agoraphobic? We judge this as an irrational person who has a mental health issue. Referring back to the example of gay marriage, people of this opinion do not have an extreme and irrational fear of homosexual people. But the word is used pejoratively as an accusatory bludgeon.

This leads to the second observation, again my perception based on violence against Trump supporters, many people in protests and the media commenting on current events, and posts on social media. A political strategy of alienation, discourages any reasonable discourse. That is, anyone who disagrees with an opposing opinion is labeled or viewed as being the extreme, irrational opposite.  A post from a Clinton supporter stated, “America, you are so much more racist and misogynistic than I ever imagined,” in effect saying that the half of the country that disagreed with this person’s preference for president are racists and misogynists.  Clinton’s deplorables. Her quote is actually, (my highlights)

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic -- you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people -- now 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks -- they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America."

An article linked in social media made the case that many people are not only misogynists, but actually hate and oppress women based on Hillary’s defeats in 2008, 2012, and now. Is this a reasonable conclusion? Is it possible that her politics and lingering questions of illegal activities made people prefer someone else as opposed to them hating or despising women? Coming from the conservative side, this would be akin to me “concluding” that people who support non-traditional sexual relationships are pedophiles.

So to the question, How did Trump Win? Enough people thought that his ideas of restricting immigration, reducing unemployment, and addressing corruption and undue influence were a better option than someone with questions of integrity who had ideas contrary to their reasoned conclusions. And someone whose supporters, painted them as horrible people.

Trump’s supporters did not vote for him because they hate women, they did not vote for him because they hate people of color, did not vote for him because they hate gays, and did not vote for him because they hate Muslims. The fact that she was female had no bearing. They realize that unenforced immigration laws have a financial and social cost. They prefer traditional families and don’t like being labeled as a bad, mean-spirited, evil person because of those values. And they realize that most terror attacks are committed by people from countries that say they hate us, so it makes sense to ensure we’re not welcoming those who might do us harm until they’re vetted, seeing what is happening in Europe.

What they did not take into account was anyone’s feelings, possibly offensive language, the reason people sneak into the country, or a consideration that everyone has the right to behave as they please and not have anyone challenge them. 

They took into account Trumps deplorable language towards women and loud, brash demeanor. Understood that building a wall allows us to make sure people coming into the country do so legally, just as our grandparents did. Listened to what he actually said, versus what was often reported on issues.  They realized that he made and lost and made and lost and made a lot of money. And on the balance, agreed with much of what he said, detracted the negatives. They compared it to what Hillary offered and didn't offer and drew a conclusion that they are better off with him as president. They understand that words have meanings, their traditional values are important, honesty is essential, and they don’t like being called names.

So I understand, although admittedly cannot completely empathize, with your unhappiness. But please understand that those who voted for Trump are not women hating, racist, Islamaphobes. They are people with traditional values, who believe in the kind of America the Founding Fathers gave birth to.

Life or Lucre?

Flying back from a last minute trip to Charlotte where my younger brother, only 47, was "suddenly" diagnosed with kidney failure, heart failure, and high blood pressure. I put "suddenly" in quotes because the reality is that this had been developing for years and began manifesting itself in the final form a couple of months ago, ending in a crescendo of a life altering visit to the emergency room. In The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, Mike describes his going bankrupt as "Slowly at first, then all of a sudden." The same is clearly true of many things in our life; health, mental well being, personal finances, loss of faith, relationships and more. The reasons are many, and hardly worth mentioning except for the lessons learned by Keith and others. They include an irrational loathing for modern medicine and reliance on "natural medicine" that when combined, created cognitive dissonance even in the face of an obviously worsening condition. The result is that he will likely be on oxygen for the rest of his life, have to schedule himself around dialysis three or four times a week, take a bucket of medications, have one of the most restrictive diets known to modern medicine, and have many choices in his now dramatically shortened life eliminated; all because of a dangerous script and filter that he applied to his life. Psychology, fear, isolation, the list could go on, but the end result is that through his choices earlier in life, he is now sentenced to a very restrictive life drive by the very thing he railed against, the modern medicine that saved his life last week. There is no doubt that if he had waited another day or two, perhaps a week, he would have died.

Moving forward he will learn to live his new life, and mom now has something to do. At 77 she becomes caregiver to a disabled man. Emotionally for me, it's heartbreaking. Being a nurse I know it could have been avoided entirely, and as a brother and son, I see that many of their choices in life are forfeit. I will, of course, always be available for calls, advice, consoling and emotional support. But what do I take away from this? In what areas of my life do I have a cognitive dissonance influencing my decisions? Obviously my health is in the forefront; I need to lose 80 pounds, now. I need to build my core strength and flexibility to preserve my back. I'm overdue for dental work and due for sinus surgery. Those are the easy ones. But what about the bigger questions? The gorilla in the room?

I wrote a poem called Three Months to Live, that posed the question, "If you knew you had only three months to live, would you be living where you live and doing what you do?" That's a hulking gorilla of a question. The answer for me, is yeah, I'd be ok living where I live. I'd rather be on a tropical island, but living where I live now in a cute house with room for a garden in the country is just fine. The larger part of the question is would I be doing what I do, more specifically how would I spend my days if I only had three months to live. I teach about roles, goals and priorities and perhaps should have been taking my own medicine. Considering my roles, especially how it affects and influences my day to day and daily activities, I'm out of balance, not the totally out of whack balance, but the imbalance that results from ignoring what's really important, where your love lies, and where you have the greatest impact. My vocational role for the past several years has been a nurse; I'm good at it, communicate well with patients (I think,) and am currently the Clinical Educator for a small hospital. I enjoy teaching and creating curriculum, not so keen on drudgery, tracking, and people who won't take responsibility for themselves. I'm good at the big picture stuff and direct a couple of projects along those lines. The work is good, I enjoy it, but I certainly don't wake up Monday morning excited to go to work.

So what of my roles? Disciple of Christ, husband, dad, writer, and gardener. I pray, but there's really no time for soaking, probing prayer. Leonora and I have a heart for the hungry and homeless and we do some to that end. I've wanted to write on theology and discipleship, but that has been an effort of fits and starts. There is so much more that I could be doing as a disciple. As a husband, I love my wife. We're empty nesters now, but our leisure time, due in large part to fatigue, is spent in front of the television. We got rid of DirecTV, maybe it's time for Netflix and Amazon to go as well, but probably not. We spend very little time exploring our world, and intimacy is mostly sitting next to each other on the couch ... with the dogs. We could have a much deeper relationship. Dad, well the kids are grown. Sarah has her own life as a teacher in Southern California and Jonathan is living the dream working on his Marine Biology PhD in Australia. A writer? Writers write, and I do on occasion, but I freaking love it. This is probably the most glaring area of role deficiency. To be a writer or not be a writer; that is the question. YES! an emphatic, unreserved yes. So the question is how do I transition my good paying job to making a living as a writer?. And gardening? We're working on our own, and I run the community garden which blends with the discipleship since half of what we harvest is given to the poor.

Recognizing your roles and calling is so important. There have been people in church who seek their "calling" when in fact they're just trying to be special. What I'm talking about is what God has intended you to do; the answer to that not only serves Him, but provides for your worldly needs. Of this I am certain. Life has to be more than the hours you sacrifice in exchange for lucre. There are a lot of resources on the internet to "find your purpose," but it can really be quite simple. If you won $100M (that's one hundred million dollars) what would you do with your life? I've run the numbers and paying off all the debt for family members, buying everyone a house, funding all the nieces and nephews education, a ridiculous vacation, and a couple of cars only comes up to $10M. Don't even bother with that part, once you and your family have all the possible stuff you could want, how would you spend your life? How will you serve God? What value will you add to the world? And most importantly, what's your new day look like? This is a turn on the motivational question of what would you do if you knew with certainly that you could not fail?

I pray for my brothers complete and miraculous recovery, but lacking a miracle, he's working with a "new normal" he never imagined two weeks ago. What if the same thing happens to you or me? Chances are it won't, but spend some time talking to God to figure out this thing called life. Make the most of it. Glorify the Lord. Help a bunch of people. Make sure your loved ones know that you love them. And don't just trade the hours of your life for money.