TALES FROM THE STOPLIGHT JUNGLE...

...they paved paradise and put up a whole bunch of traffic lights...

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Have you ever wondered how much of your life you've frittered away waiting for the Stop Light to change? How much of your life have you spent sitting grinding your teeth, hoping the Red Light turns to green before we enter the next milennium? In some towns, including where I live, the traffic signals are complicated further; they aren't wired on the same circuit or whatever...so, a trip thru the downtown goes something like this: Slow down 'cos the light's gonna change. Wait for the red light to change. Make sure there aren't any people in the crosswalk who are in a big hurry to get back to their cubicle. Resume movement before drivers behind you are try to drive up your Trunk. Repeat process several times during the time it takes you to go wherever you're going. I've become frustrated at times when I got caught in the stoplight jungle, thinking, "what good does it do to have a car if I can't DRIVE the damn thing?"

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In all its wisdom, The Beaver State has further complicated things with a recently-passed traffic law that puts all blame for whatever happens in an intersection, or Pedestrian crossings, whether or not crosswalk-lines actually exist on the road for striders to navigate, squarely on the shoulders (and in the wallets) of Every Driver. Every corner has an established right-of-way that pedestrians can use at any time, again, whether or not a crosswalk is painted on the pavement. To complicate all this even more is the fact that if you're driving in the far right lane, a pedestrian on the opposite side of the road can make one step onto pavement, and everyone has to stop, no matter how long it takes the pedestrian to saunter and lolligag their hind ends to the other side of The street. So when I'm driving down the road, and I see a pedestrian standing on the corner, any corner of the intersection I'm about to drive thru, I'm thinking (and almost praying), "puh-leeze, don't step off the curb, let me go by...", and it really becomes a guessing-game sometimes, trying to, in addition to avoiding all the other motorists that are trying to Kill you, needing to be able to stop on a dime if a pedestrian has one TOE touching the roadway. The police oftentimes conduct traffic stings; someone on the force will dress in street clothes and stand on intersections with their cop-buddies posted at various places, just licking their chops at the prospect of filling this month's traffic-sting quota a few days early. And now drivers must be able to psychoanalyze the behavior of someone even THINKING about crossing the street.

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Look...I don't want to kill anyone. I follow traffic rules. I allow for other motorists and pedestrians to do their thing. I have never hit anyone with my car, and have not had an at-fault traffic accident since 1977. That's a whole lotta driving. This law, the way it's written, though, implies that pedestrians are a bunch of sheep who don't really know what they're doing, who can just walk out right in front of your moving car and "Boom", you have to be able to stop RIGHT THEN. (This applies only to street corners, not someone wanting to walk across the street in the middle of the block.) So, in addition to obeying the traffic laws and watching right and left, far and wide, for Pedestrians, there is now a climate of Paranoia among drivers. SCREECH!!! STOMP THAT BRAKE PEDAL!!!DO IT NOW OR YOU'LL GET A HEFTY FINE IF A COP HAPPENS TO BE OUT AND ABOUT!!! I've seen pedestrians "playing" us drivers, too. Standing on the Street Corner until an approaching motorist is about ten feet from the crossing (lined or not), and THEN stepping out into traffic. Any cop reading this will hate my attitude, which is all right with me. I respect 'em for keeping us all safe, but that doesn't mean I have to like them. And I DON'T.

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So, this last weekend, I went to Brookings, a small town located near the Oregon/California border. It's a great road, although I wouldn't want to drive it at night. In places, the Ocean is just a few feet away from a cliff with Ocean beyond. The scenery is amazing. Sea stacks (you know, those huge rocks that God himself must've used for paperweights), ocean surf, crashing waves, the whole ball o'wax. If you've never driven the Southern Oregon Coast (it is fairly remote, but worth taking a side-trip for), load up yer cameras and get out there. Which I did. Thinking, "ah, no traffic lights, at least for a while". Little did I expect...

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That big rock poking through the clouds is Humbug Mountain, all of 1700+ feet at the top. There was road construction on this coastal highway. They paved paradise and put up a temporary traffic light. And I saw several cop cars parked along the way, near where highway personnel were plugging away. Fines double in work zones, after all...

I CAN FINALLY PROVE WHO I AM...

...free at last, free at last, thanks to Oregon DMV...

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I lost my drivers' license earlier this year, along with the rest of what was in my wallet. Many years ago, when the same thing happened to me, getting a replacement license was simple. All a motorist had to do was chug over to the Department of Motor Vehicles, lay down some cash, fill out a couple of forms, and presto, he emerged victorious, new license in hand (or wallet). That was then. Things aren't the same anymore. It seems that the more computer-oriented society gets, the more complicated things are. Last spring, the DMV wanted my Social Security Card. Which was lost. Without the Social Security Card, you can't get a Driver's License. And to get someone who'll sign a form saying You Are Who You Are is especially difficult, if you're in an area where Not Many People Know ya. So I jumped thru the hoops until I'd completed the process. I was able to get a temporary license which covered me thru three months, and that expired, so I got another temporary license. In the meantime, I'd sent a letter to The State Of California for a copy of my Birth Certificate. It took at least 16 weeks to FINALLY get it. The Very Next Day, I went back to DMV to get my Driver's License, the one with the picture on it, legal document in hand (the one I've pictured represents the wrong county, but otherwise looks like what I received. An old-format certificate scrunched into the present-day format. Looks odd, but it'll do).

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Remember way back when, you'd take your driver's exam, or have to renew a license that was about to expire? They'd sit you down, take your picture, they'd make up your license right then and there, and you'd tuck it into your wallet and The Process Was All Done. Well, here, in the Computer Age, things don't work that way anymore. I should've gotten a clue when they wanted me to take my glasses off. They snapped my picture, but they didn't give me a 'finished' driver's license. They evidently need more time to find out that I am actually Who I Am. They will compare the photo they just took with my old driver's license picture in their database, and not will they only look at it, they'll employ a computer-generated Facial Recognition program, making sure the old picture matches my new picture in terms of facial recognition. They're gonna survey my skull, I guess. Gosh. I got dentures within the last couple of years; hopefully the dentures won't affect my appearance too much. So anyway, when this last step is completed, I'll get my Driver's License in the mail. FINALLY. Right now, the photocopy they gave me will just have to do. But like a con waiting for his release date, soon, or so they tell me, I'll have my Official Oregon Driver's License With My Picture On It. Yaaaaaay...

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(Aside: my referral to the "con waiting for his release date" is obviously due to me watching too much of those Prison programs that MSNBC airs on the weekends. And I find it ironic that, while a member of the free world, I watch programs where people are locked up.

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It was a real trip, looking at My Official California Birth Certificate. An instant excursion into the murky past. Dad never talked about his younger days or growing-up experiences. He served in World War II, but he never talked about that either. Nine years ago, I learned a little more about him during The Funeral Home's consultation with my sister, her husband and me. Dad was in the Army for one year, discharged a year later, after which he began serving in the Army Air Corps, the forerunner of the Air Force, I guess. I knew he'd been a bomber pilot, but wasn't aware he'd been in the Army before. In 1947, his military career ended. I also didn't know he'd been in the service that long. That was 5 years before he married Mom, and and 7 years before I was born. I have no idea what he did or where he was during those 7 years. And I have absolutely no memory of living in California. Dad and Mom got out of there, thankfully taking me with them when I was about 2, and back then, my memory was even worse than it is now.

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Another tidbit came my way via my recently-received State Of California Birth Certificate. I 'd always known I was born in Hawthorne, California, but the certificate listed Dad's occupation at the time as "Driver"; evidently he drove for some building contractor in the L.A. area. I didn't know that. He'd told us he had worked in several mines in the southwest. That's probably why Dad and Mom got married in Las Vegas; he'd been in the southwest for a long time, trying to survive. His knowledge of mining worked for him, though. He became a mining equipment area representative, his territory consisting of Montana, Idaho and Washington, and was headquartered in Butte, Montana. Mom told me of living in a dingy apartment there with a bare light bulb hanging from the ceiling, so evidently it was dismal. I have no memory of living in Butte, either. Dad drove a lot on his job, and along the way, he passed thru Coeur d'Alene, Idaho and decided to move the family there. My sister was born in 1959 Lake City General Hospital in that city, a hospital that has long-since been torn down. Admittedly I don't know a whole lot about family details and I really don't care about that, but at the same time, looking back thru the years can be quite absorbing.

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A Music tidbit which ties itself, strangely, to the subject matter in this article...in 1972, the year I graduated from High School, a piece of music with a rather unique backbeat (rather tango-flavored, actually), hit the charts...Jethro Tull's "Living In The Past".

MY ONE-THOUSANDth POST...

...a Journey To The Center Of The Mind...

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Gotta keep that blog-monster happy, and the only way to do that is to feed him Over and over and over again. And I've done that, right here, for going on six years now. I began this blog in a really hyperactive state of mind, sometimes posting 3 or 4 times a day. As you can see, my posting frequency has really diminished. Sometimes I feel bad about that, but I'm at the place where a week (or two) will zip by in a flash, and then the old Guilt Complex emerges for a workout, and so I gotta get busy and put something here. I've seen this "thousandth" occasion approaching for a while, and have stepped it up a bit; maybe I just wanted to get it over with, because at my previous blog-post rate, I wouldn't have made it until about December, or next year. So what's happened? Why don't I post a lot anymore?

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I've lived in this Southern Oregon Coast small town for almost 4 years now. I was looking for something different; I was looking to slow down a bit and meet some different people. And most of all, I wanted to Go To The Ocean. Surprisingly, my existence has actually rendered itself quite active over the last few years.

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Until just recently, I was going out to play music two or three days a week. I thought that going somewhere new was going to open up a whole new musical world for me, and to an extent it did. But I've also found that all the same ol' ego issues that musicians have are here, too. I was turned away at a jam session. One of the musicians said I didn't "look" like a musician, and he didn't know if I could play or not, but he wasn't about to take a chance. I walked out of the place not believing what had just happened.
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So I tried to start something totally different, playing guitar while several hand-drummers played along, and for a while it worked. But the coffeehouse where we were playing now has new owners, and we got kicked out. There is no person as volatile or insecure as someone who has just bought a business; they're afraid they aren't going to make money, they are inexperienced, and most of all they're PARANOID. Two weeks before, one of the new owners actually came out and played hand-drums with us. Two weeks later, I was met with my guitar and amplifier in hand, denied entrance. They said people had been complaining about the noise. If I wanted to play in there by myself, they said I was welcome to do that. But the hand-drummers I've met are friends of mine. It just didn't feel right to consider playing there, without them.

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Until just recently, I had kept parrots, which can be just like taking care of kids, although birds never grow up. It's said that owning a parrot can be like putting up with a two-year-old. And I've found that parrots Absolutely Drive Me Nuts. I love birds, but no matter how tame they might be, they're slaves to their instincts and it's the birds' needs that are front and center all the time. I'd feel guilty if I left the bird alone all day, and when I was home, I'd feel like I had to tip-toe around all night so as not to disturb the bird (or birds; I've had pairs of birds several times). I've been bitten more times than I'd like to remember, but with each bird, I tried all I could to make things work. I've cried sometimes when I had to get rid of a bird, but birds Just Don't Work For Me. I'm not sure if I'll ever try keeping a bird again. I've also thot about getting a Dog. Right now, "I'm" all I can handle.

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Previously to moving down here, I had lived in my home town for a total of close to 40 years. The town was getting too big and too hectic; it changed so drastically over the years and I just didn't feel at home there anymore. Plus, the winter cold and hot summers and allergies in-between were something I just didn't want to experience anymore. I needed a change. Some days I wonder why I moved away, but those are counterbalanced by the days when I'm So Glad I'm Here. Some days, I'm lonely. Other days, I'm glad I'm alone. And on other days, I feel like I'm in harmony with everyone and everything around me. I've also met some really good people down here; unpretentious longtime residents who I admire because they're so nice.

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So I don't have a place to play music, but that's okay. My guitar never sounded better than it does when I'm playing it at the beach. So I don't have birds anymore. I can watch the Seagulls, Cormorants and Pelicans. And I realize a post like this sounds pretentious, precious and weak, but I really do feel as if This Time, Right Now, I'm supposed to take the time to slow down even further and nurture myself back to an emotionally secure state, and for very many reasons, that's the toughest job I have. To stay sane. I've made a whole lot of mistakes and bad judgements and have hurt a lot of people in my life. Some memories will never go away. Skeletons in the closet, if you will. Overcoming that can be quite draining at times.
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The days are getting shorter as autumn approaches. September and October are truly the days to experience on the coast because there isn't as much fog. The sunsets are clear and stark in a beautiful way. The sky and ocean are a deeper blue than usual. And occasionally I'll met someone I know (or someone I don't know) and we'll shoot the breeze for a while. At 56 years of age, I'm still trying to fit in, never knowing if I really do, and trying not to worry about it too much even though I do. Mostly, now, I'm by myself, operating at my own speed, and when the sun's out, enjoying the scenery around me. I'm going to start taking some trips to other places here on the Southern Oregon Coast, taking my digital camera with me. Photography has become something that I Really Enjoy. And it's hard to take a bad picture here. For example...

At left, a beach view through the grass to a small modular shelter in which its occupants are trying to keep out of the wind. At right, it doesn't matter if you can't see the sun sink all the way below the horizon, the views are great anyway.

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I have no idea if this blog will live to see 2,000 posts; the tentative plan is to try and publish once a week. And I've got more online photos at http://www.webshots.com/, username 'digitaldave72'. For now, the blog-monster's been fed, and it's time to put him to bed. Lights Out!

NINE YEARS LATER...



It's been nine years since then. Amazing how fast the time's gone by.

ANOTHER LABOR DAY DONE GONE...

...and so the seasons shift once again...

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Even though "Fall" doesn't technically arrive until September 21st, with the passage of another tourist season, things just fall into a less-hectic groove. Sometimes it can actually be a bit shocking, that all of a sudden, your favorite park or beach is all-of-a-sudden vacant, just like that. It's a feeling of, all of a sudden, being in a Ghost Town. Regardless of what the calendar says, there is a certain day in late August (within a week-and-a-half period) where everything just suddenly Feels Different. So September is here. Perhaps September 1st should be the beginning of Fall. Families rush home from wherever they've been vacationing, school begins, work-week schedules start anew, and then all of a sudden, it's Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Start of another year, repeat cycle with each year going by just a little bit faster than the year before. Whew! And the years fly by, ever faster.

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WHAT'S HAPPENED TO "CSI: MIAMI"? Tonight, I viewed that show for the first time in quite a while. I've seen most of the old shows that are shown on the Cable networks; the one I saw tonite was still new enough for CBS to show, and wow, has that show become different. In earlier shows, there was more action, more out-of-doors scenes, more plot, there was a more active TV show. In the 46-minutes of a 60-minute TV show sans commercials, all anyone was doing was standing still, evaluating chemical tests, ponderously pondering information screens, engaging in mannered, almost-whisperish dialogue, and I Found Myself Getting Bored. The Show moves along at a snail's pace. I don't know if the show's on a smaller budget, or if the times have changed that much. "CSI: Miami" has been on for years and years and I can't help but feel the show has outgrown itself; there are now so many different featured members in the cast, that half the time it's almost impossible to follow.

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THE SEATTLE MARINERS ON SLOW-BURN: The Seattle Mariners, obviously, aren't exactly the World's Most Successful Baseball Team. Now, there are 162 games in a baseball season. The Mariners have already lost 83 games. There are just over 30 games left this season, which means the Mariners have ample time and opportunity to lose over 100 games this year. C'mon, you guys, you can do it! After all, you've only been working on it Since about May 1st. So that means that if you miss any M's games after today's date, you probably won't be missing all that much. But yet I'm still watching. I don't know why. Oh, wait, I Like Baseball. There's actually a month of Baseball Season remaining, if you factor in the Playoffs and World Series. Some of the greatest baseball I've ever seen has been in the Divisional Playoffs. Rah!

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MY POLITICAL IGNORANCE ON DISPLAY: I've heard about a phenomenon called "The Tea Party". Honest, I had no idea what it was, so I looked on Wikipedia, and from what I can gather, the Tea Party consists of mostly Republican, extremely conservative politicians who are against Just about Everything. They want smaller government, for example. Okay, if government gets smaller, that means there's more available money out there, and the question then becomes "whose pockets will it line"? Maybe I'd just as soon see the money spent on various people-oriented programs. Heck, we're the taxpayers, after all. So that's my 'Readers' Digest' take on the Tea Party. However, there's one good reason to not take them seriously:

I was sorting out my junk, trying to organize the desk drawers, and I ran across my old "Picture It" hardware and I thought I'd try to deface something with it; you can see the results here. I'm always pulling strange and weird photos off the internet (Sarah qualifies as a bit of both), and I'm sure I'll be doing more of this in the future.

COMMEMMORATING YESTERDAY...
It was just a very, very good day; I need more of those...

"If I had a day that I could bring you...it would be a day just like today..." That line from a John Denver song of long ago really sums it up. Sitting in my car from the overlook where I hang out, the sun was bright, the skies were blue, and for some reason I just started feeling very, very good. That doesn't happen a whole lot. And so it's these kind of days that I live for. It was absolutely perfect out there. No harsh winds, warm temperatures and gorgeous views. Something else indeed.


In the photo above left, this was a portion of the view I had while sitting up on the beach overlook. Two Big Ships in the same vicinity, a scene I don't see a lot. The "Essayons" is at left, along with The "Yaquina". I believe both are involved in dredging the bay and nearby ocean. Above right, this is the view I had from Bastendorff Beach. No, the "Essayons" hasn't run aground; it's in the channel between the two jetties. This is one big boat.

These two photos were taken from on top of the Jetty. Above left, a wave crashed into the jetty while I took this photo. Cool, huh? Above right, the hull of the "Essayons"...it really, really is a big boat. I like to sit on top of the jetty, with the ocean on one side, the channel on the other. Birds flying in all directions, people on the beach, and Sunny Blue Skies. There are times when I can get totally "buzzed" by nature. This was one of those days.

Of course, 'they', whoever they are, say that All Good Things must come to an end, and that's where Sunset comes in. By this time, I've disembarked the jetty, and above left, a view of the immediate inland and you can see Sunlight's colors altering the objects it shines on. Above right, from the same spot, looking seaward. You can see clouds in the distance.

I thought this was gonna be a sunset in which it would become a big red fireball, sinking below the horizon, but the clouds waaay out there altered that quite a bit. In both photos above you can see the faraway clouds as they obscure the sun. And it is cloudy today. But yesterday so tremendous in every way. And so I thought I'd share.

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As far as the John Denver quote at the top of this post, don't worry; I'm not getting all soft and syrupy. I don't really plan on using quotes from him all that much. Thank God I'm a Country Boy, huh?