She was a very pretty girl and you could tell that she was really excited about what she wanted to tell me.  I’m a kind woman, I think, a polite woman even.  Before the door was even opened she was waving at me through the glass as I walked towards her.  I smiled, she could have been a highschool girl raising money for some class function, but “NO”!!!  She wanted to clean my carpet for FREE.  I’ve lived long enough to recognise what FREE means.  It means a long presentation and a hard good-bye.   I’ve got everything I need and I certainly know where to go to find something I do need.

But she was so excited to provide me with something FREE that the words just tumbled out.  I told her that we received these offers from this company on a monthly basis, that they must be using our neighborhood for a training ground or something.  “Oh, no,”  she said,” I have never been here before and besides it’s free”.  No matter the pretty face, bright eyes and smile, and infectious spirit, I interrupted and politely said “No, thank you” but she just kept talking and pushing on my door.  Oh, I admired her for the effort it took to go door to door to earn her living, and I was glad my husband had not answered the door but sweetie, I am saying “NO THANK YOU” right in your face and you haven’t even heard me. 

Oh-oh, I could feel it building in my chest, my mouth was still smiling and saying no but that train had left the station and all at once I put up my hand and  shouted  “NO THANK YOU” right in her face.   I felt awful.  I should never have allowed her to make me do that.  I’m not that kind of person.  After all, what else did I have to do.  Well, there were those favorite shows on TV that we were watching before the interruption, but to be rude to someone over a TV show  was unforgivable and certainly not the lady I thought I was.

Her startled eyes looked at the hand I had placed between us and then into my eyes.  Brightly she said “Are you sure”?  My reply stayed the same but I just couldn’t find a smile to put on my face even though I knew it would redeem me just a bit.  She turned to walk away and I noticed the van parked in front of the house with two young men looking towards me hoping that the answer to her question was Yes.  What were they thinking!  You don’t just invite somebody into your house like that!  Besides, I felt so awful treating her like that.  I went back to my couch, noticed my husbands startled eyes, and caught up on what was happening on TV. 

THEN the phone rang.  The TV Pause button is pressed and I answer the phone.  Now, I’ve spent many years answering phones both professionally and personally and there is a certain decorum  that goes with that activity.  There were times in my personal life that I would forget where I was and answer the phone as if I was working instead of home.  When I did, I would laugh and apologize all over the place.  It didn’t happen often.  

I admitted that “Yes, I was Sharon Smith”, “Yes, I had ordered a gift over the internet from their site”.   I was told that my order was being shipped that day and that they wanted to include me on a program that gave me $100.00 worth of free fuel as well as a subscription to a service that gave me a yearly book of discount coupons to use.   OH, MAN, I had heard about things like this before, had even fallen for it ONCE!  If I accepted this gift it would be mine to use in my area AND, and I learned this the one time I accepted, my credit card would be charged a yearly renewal so that I could get discount coupon books for years to come.  No!  No!  No!  I said in my head.  I know myself, I’m not as attentive to things like this as I used to be.  They sign you up and YOU have to cancel.  Each year, when you get a new coupon book, you will look at the thing and wonder why you got that and then you will see the charge on your credit card statement.

This young man was going on and on about how much they appreciated my order and hoped my free gift would benefit my life.  On and on, verifying my address to be sure my order got to me properly.  I was very aware that there were  some questions he could possibly ask me that would quickly end this conversation, but I was trying to be the “polite me”.  

 Some would say “Wow, free gas, discount coupons?  Whats the matter with you lady”?  But, I’m a little forgetful and in my experience, we have seldom used more than 1 or 2 of those kinds of discount coupons, usually in restaurants.  Sure I could give them to somebody else but what if I forgot to cancel on my credit card, I could be giving free discount coupons for years.  I’d have to put it in my Will so that the gift I received would just keep on giving.  

My husbands eyes were once again turned toward me with a questioning look on his face.  Then he got up and came over and sat next to me so he could hear both sides of the conversation.  Now I knew that he was wondering just what was going on and it was time for me to take the upper hand.

“Young man”, I said firmly.  The voice expressing thanks just kept talking so I said “Young Man” more loudly.  Hmm, no response , just that tidal wave of words coming at me.  Finally, I shouted, “Excuse me, Young Man.  I’m not interested in your free gift.”  He stopped, took a breath like he was going to restart the words and before he could, I repeated myself.  He sounded flustered and sputtered a bit so I said it again.  Then his quiet voice said “Okay, I’ll take that as a no.  Thank you for your order, it is on its way.”

I put the phone down wondering why I had allowed that to happen to me twice in the same evening.  I knew better than that but it was so frustrating.  I remember a time 30 years ago when we took a ‘Communications’ class with our family and the philosophy being taught, was that in being heard by others, you had to step out of your own personality and speak to this person in the same tone they are speaking to you.    I remember thinking during that class that surely this concept doesn’t apply to all instances I might encounter.  Little did I know that all those years ago I was being taught the phone and door etiquette of the 21st Century.   I could be pushed over the edge and become the woman I was now seeing, losing all those years that I was the “Other” woman and adapting to the “Now”.  I honestly don’t believe in that particular philosophy taught so many years ago.  As a family, it was not one that we adopted when conversing with each other but I have traveled enough to know that there are instances when this manner might be important to remember and used carefully.  What I really resented was that I had allowed it to come into my home.    

• Feed leftovers to the dog or put them in containers and store in the refrigerator.  
• Clear the dishes from the table and stack them beside the sink.
• Run hot water in the left hand sink or dish pan and add dish soap.
• Fill the right hand sink with very hot water or fill another dish pan.
• Place Rubbermaid rack and mat on the right hand counter.
• Start washing glassware first in hot soapy water.
• Rinse in the hot rinse water and place in the rack.  (very hot rinse water will help them dry faster)
• Continue same process in this order.  Silverware, dishes and bowls, serving pieces and finally the pots.
• Clean the countertops, stove and sink.  Rinse out the dish “rag” and hang it in its proper place to dry.
• All dishes, pots, pans and silverware are returned to their proper place.

I stood on a stool and watched my mother feeling like such a big girl and later I accepted the responsibility.  I thought I was pretty good at it and then it was time for me to teach my little brother.  As happens with brothers and sisters, it developed into a race which was good because we got them done quickly.  Maybe bad because in the rush some things might not have gotten as clean as they should be and that’s were the “dish dryer code” kicked in. 

• If it’s been in the hot soapy water and the rinse water then it is the dryer’s responsibility to be sure whatever is being dried is clean.

When I say that things got competitive between my brother and me, well, it got down right savage.  Mostly I washed and he dried and in my mind, I had to beat my brother and at all costs.  We cleared the table together, put away (in one form or another) the leftovers and prepared the water, then the race was on.  I found that if I washed the dishes in the manner taught to me my brother and I would complete the job at just about the same time and that was not good enough for me so I devised a new order to dish washing.  I washed the glasses the dishes and the pots and pans and THEN I washed the silverware.  All these utensils had to be washed and dried individually and there was the answer.  After everything else was washed, I would dump all the silverware in my hot soapy water and while I was washing each one and saving them all together, I would glance around the kitchen to be sure I wasn’t missing something.  When all the silverware was washed and I had found nothing else to be washed, I lifted up all the utensils and dumped them in my brothers hot rinse water.  He would groan every time and grab those forks, knives and spoons out of the hot water and put them in the rack and start drying them just as fast as he could.  I would be racing around the kitchen wiping countertops while the water drained from my sink and my brother was drying and putting the silverware away as fast as he could.  He knew I had to scour the sink and rinse out the “dish rag” but he had to drain his sink and fold his towel, so we raced seeing which one of us would win.  

Flopping all the silverware into the rinse water at the end was a real winner for me and most of the time I beat him.  I loved my little brother and really wasn’t trying to be mean to him and I knew he loved me and tried his level best to be done first but that little race got us through the task of dishwashing for several years.  My brother always got the last word though.  I didn’t know when he would do it in the process but when he lost he always pinched the back of my upper arm.  It always hurt, he always smiled as he walked away and I was hollering “Mom, he pinched me again” and mom always said, “Larry” with whatever voice inflection she thought was appropriate.

My brother and his wife visited this summer and it was so good to spend time together.  We sat down to dinner and just talked about everything we could think of and at the end, I started putting things away and getting ready to load the dishwasher.  My brother walked over and said, with a twinkle in his eye, “Want me to help do dishes?”  My default answer always seems to be “No” when asked this, “I’ll take care of it in a jiffy”.  As I was putting the last dish away, I remembered this story.  I knew that my subtle brother had remembered too.  We could have relived the experience once again but for me and my default “No”.  I  wish I had said “Yes”, I’ll bet there would have been a good hard pinch at the end. 

“But you called me yesterday to remind me of this appointment”, I said in exasperation.

“No, you cancelled it but I will see if we can somehow work you in” and she ran through a doorway to consult with someone.

I knew I wasn’t being stupid, I remembered that the very nice Physician in the Emergency Room a week beforehand set up an appointment with a Urologist to help me with my kidney stone.  I was doped up with pain medication but I know I heard him say it.  Not only that, the urologist’s office had called to confirm that appointment and I wasn’t on pain pills then.

She returned and said it would be alright and that the doctor needed me to have another x-ray, handed me some paper work and directed me across the street to the hospital.  Okay, maybe this would turn out after all.  Didn’t take very long and I was back with my x-ray and ready to see my new doctor.  He too, was very young but as he explained the white, oblong object showing in my kidney I began to relax and feel like my problem would soon be over.  He told me that the machine that “blasts” these little critters to smithereens was available on a rotating basis with several hospitals and that he would call me within two weeks with my appointment for the procedure.  I returned to my  car with a prescription for pain medication in my hand, feeling like all was under control.

I waited until the last of the 2 weeks he had promised and called his office to see if I had missed his call and was told that my new doctor was on vacation but he would call me as soon as he got back.  I waited another week without a call from him, so I called his office again and explained to his nurse that I had expected a call.  Sweetly, she said she didn’t have any record of me on her computer and did I have the right doctor?  And then the dreaded phrase, “MY COMPUTER SHOWS THAT YOU HAD AN APPOINTMENT BUT YOU CANCELLED IT”. 

“Please, please check this out and call me back”, I said.  “I know I was in, I know I had an x-ray ordered by the doctor, I know that I stood at the light box with him as he explained what we were looking at and I don’t want to get caught in such awful pain again”.

Another week went by, I called again and was told once again that THE COMPUTER SHOWED THAT I HAD CANCELLED MY APPOINTMENT, so they had no record of my appointment.  In my polite voice I explained, once again, that they had ordered an x-ray, I had taken this x-ray from the hospital back to them and that the doctor had read it, explaining to me what needed to be done.  I reiterated that I did not want to make another unexpected trip to the ER with that kind of pain again, ever!

As her fingers manipulated the keys of her computer and I waited, she finally said, “O yes, I do see that the hospital took an x-ray for you, let me check some more.  I’ll talk with the doctor and call you back”.  Ahhhh,  finally, something was going to be done and I could relax.

My friendly office person called me the next day to tell me that she had the x-ray, had spoken with her doctor and that she would call me back with the information she needed to give me for my procedure.  That day there were 5 phone calls between us with questions to answer, medications to discuss, time and date of my appointment and the explanation that “THE COMPUTER SHOWED THAT I HAD CANCELLED MY APPOINTMENT  and it had taken quite a bit of time to find me”.  My next appointment was in a week, the procedure date at the nearby hospital was made,  and once again I started to relax.

I received paper work, in the mail, confirming my time and date of surgery and holding this in my hand, I felt reassured that I had been “found” and that they were expecting me.  It was a feeling of such pleasure to know that somebody would know my name when I came through the door.  Not only that, they would know what to do to solve my problem and finally, I could remove the bottle of pain pills that I carried in my purse for one of those dreaded JUST IN CASE moments.

Another phone call came  from the hospital asking to set up an appointment to do a phone pre-op appointment.   I said okay, wondering about an appointment made for an appointment process.  This whole experience had been so confusing that I even wondered if the nurse would call on the scheduled appointment time.  She did and after 25 minutes of discussing my most secret ails and drug use, she said “thank you”.  Okay, my next appointment was for Tuesday and I had been told it was to do whatever tests I would need before surgery.   I got up that morning, dressed and joined the morning rush hour traffic with enough time to get to my appointment.

I walked into the office as one of their first appointments, that same little “twit” was at the desk but I wasn’t worried, I had an appointment.  That very appointment had been confirmed the day before and I was confident that all was going to go well.  I told her my name and the name of the doctor  with whom I had an appointment.  She smiled and turned to her computer to look at her appointment list for my name.  She looked and looked, asking my name and birth date several times and then she stood up from her computer, crossed her arms and said, “THE COMPUTER SHOWS THAT YOU CANCELLED YOUR APPOINTMENT”.  

 Well……in my most patient voice, the one that my daughters learned at a very early age to dread, I once again explained  that I had not cancelled………(blah, blah, blah)…yeah, even reminded her that she had called the day before to confirm my appointment and again explained that I was there for whatever tests the doctor needed to do before my procedure on Friday.  A nurse wearing scrubs was also nearby working on her computer.  She got up and came over to my “person” and showed her on her computer that beside my name were her initials showing that she had called to confirm my appointment the day before.  THEN the nurse looked at me and asked if I got my paperwork in the mail.  Fortunately, I had it with me and showed her what I had received from the hospital with the procedure date on it, the  diet I had to do for 2 days before the appointment, the laxatives I had to take the date before and I also explained that I had received a pre-op phone call from the hospital already. 

She raised her eyebrows a little and smiled saying, “Well, then we didn’t need to see you today after all.  We’ll do the lab tests before your procedure on Friday.”

The drive home was uneventful as all the commuters were already at their respective jobs, and the school buses had delivered the students.  I joined the traffic of delivery trucks and senior citizens now using the HOV lanes, stewing with anger.  How dare they treat me that way.  I had been an office manager for 25 years and would never have dared to look into somebody’s face and tell them the things I had been told.  Did I dare continue trying to work with this doctor and his staff?  Was I putting myself in danger?  

When I reached home and explained my frustration to Dick, he kindly suggested that IF, if this doctor was going to do my surgery, it might be a good idea to hold off the “explosion” he saw on my face until it was done.  Not a good idea to get my doctor angry and then blissfully lay on his surgical table in my “twilight zone” while he proceeds with a rather delicate surgery.  Yep, I did agree with that philosophy.  It was either cancel my hospital appointment and find another doctor to work with or continue being a ’patient’, patient and get this done.  I knew that if the first words I heard upon arriving at the hospital on the day of my appointment were “THE COMPUTER SHOWS THAT YOU CANCELLED YOUR APPOINTMENT”, well, I was out of there!  I’ve still got a big bottle of pain pills in my purse and I know there are other doctors out there who know how to do this procedure.  On the other hand, maybe I could get my surgery, my lab tests and my doctors fee all for free.  After all, they have no record of me anywhere that I can tell.  I could just explain that “MY COMPUTER SHOWS THAT I CANCELLED MY APPOINTMENT.”   Maybe this is the new health care program that Mr. Obama has been trying to explain. 

 I did get the procedure done with just a couple of more “dings”.  A hospital in Tacoma called me to schedule a pre-op appointment and when I explained that I was already scheduled at a closer hospital, she just said, “Well, I wondered why you would be coming to us.”  Oh, and then there was the girl checking me in to the hospital who said, ”You’re having the surgery done TODAY”?

I don’t know, Mr. Obama, is this really what you meant?

I didn’t think about that little incident for many years.  I was always with my parents or somebody else more grown-up than I who knew exactly what we were doing and where we were to go.  It wasn’t until I got married and my husband entered dental school that we moved to a new place that neither of us knew.  I remembered where my Mama Gent lived and found her house where we spent the night. We used her house as a base to look for our own apartment the next day.   After moving into our newly found place in Loma Linda and after having our first daughter, I needed to find a job.  That meant getting in the car and  going to town for an appointment with an employment agency.  I found the agency, they hired me themselves, and I learned one way to my job and one way home.  Seemed normal to me and I did it  for 2 1/2 years.  Finally we settled in Auburn with a new dental practise and me at the front desk.  As people called for appointments, they sometimes asked directions and I gave them, my way. ” North on the main drag through Auburn, turn left at the light by the Motel & Quick Stop, go about a block and we are on the left in a group of offices”.  Oh, and I would always add that we were “across the street from the Doctors Clinic”, that always cinched it, everybody knew where that was.  Nobody ever laughed at my directions or got lost. Then we built a new office clear across town.  Now I was having to give new directions as our patients learned our new location.  Now it was different directions depending on which direction they were coming but I had my same way of giving directions and never once did anyone have trouble finding us. 

 One time we went to a dental convention in the middle of San Francisco.  Dick was gone all day attending classes and I was alone.  I realized that if I went out by myself to find the wonderful shopping that was supposed to be nearby I wasn’t sure I would be able to find my way back to the hotel.  How embarrassing that would be.  Yes, that was my first realization as an adult that I had a problem with directions.  I had a husband who would just look out the car window and say “That’s North, that’s South, over there is such and such….”  I didn’t know how he could possibly know this.  As I contemplated what to do in San Francisco, I came up with a plan.  I would go out the front door of the hotel and keep turning left until I went all the way around the block and returned to my hotel.  While on that walk I could see what else was around that might be interesting and make another plan.  I did it!!!!!  Arriving back at the entrance to the hotel I realized that we were just a block away from a place called Union Square and around the whole square were wonderful big stores to explore, a park to sit in and lots of people to watch.  The rest of our time there was full of exploration for me as long as I knew where my hotel was.

Since then, I have watched myself deal with my insecurities about directions and how I handled them.  Always parking at the same spot at the Mall or grocery store, driving the same way to the places that I needed to go, even having Dick drive me to someplace new the night before I had to be there so that I could go the next day by myself.  I still didn’t really think I was any different from others but my husband did smile to himself when he had to make those special “day before” trips for me.  In the Mall, I sometimes explored a store or two that I had already been through because I turned the wrong way and after living in Auburn for almost 30 years, I even got to where I kind of explored on my own because I now knew that I could always find home.  I even surprised Dick sometimes, with my knowledge of some of the side street businesses I knew about because of my casual driving.  I have been on several trips to Europe and mission trips to South America which could have been terrifying but I was always with others and so I just followed along.

I was explaining this little phenomenon to a friend and she said that her daughter was the same way and that there is a name for it.  SPATIAL DISORIENTATION.  She said that she knew because her husband was a pilot and all pilots have to be screened for this.  She said you could have it diagnosed but it sounded like my problem with directions would qualify as that.  Recently, I googled it and found out that it means much more than my small experiences, that it could really be quite serious and pilots, astronauts, divers all have to be tested for this.  Can’t say I felt all that much better about it but at least I understood that it described my problem to some degree.

Now, I knew why it drove me nuts when Dick gave me directions to someplace new and then said. “or you could go this way, or this other way or I haven’t tried it yet, but I bet you could take this road.”  NUTS, NUTS, NUTS.  Tell me one way and when I learn that way THEN give me another way to learn, not all of them at once!  My close friends now know my lack of aptitude for directions and carefully make sure I get where I want to go and I appreciate that.  Because I have a name for my affliction I don’t feel so embarrassed that others know about it.  But I did realize one thing that I don’t think the rest of the world would even think of,  I am so tired, my head is full of directions to places I have been and places that I want to find and all those directions are long descriptions rather than what everybody else knows.  “N on I 5, take Mall exit and turn right”.  When I get to my car to go home, I mentally track my way home so that I will know which way to turn as I leave the parking lot.  To me this  is a disability that deserves a special cure and my husband thoughtfully purchased one.  A Garmin GPS that resides in my car for my use at any time.  I can even just have it show a general map of where I am so that I can see what roads are coming up and I can get in the right lane.  FOR ME THE ULTIMATE GIFT from a very understanding husband.

Sharon and Pat after 32 hours travel. Sao Paulo, Brazil 1996

As my sister Pat and I boarded the plane to leave Iguazu Falls  in Argentina we noticed that we appeared to be the only tourists on the plane.  The door was shut and the usual safety and information message was being given in the national language, Portuguese.  We didn’t understand the language so we just sat there and then they said everything again in a very heavily accented English.  So heavily accented that we only caught a few words, but the message is generally the same all over the world, so no worries.   I looked around, it seemed that those passengers close by to us were looking and smiling in our direction so I smiled and turned back to the window.   The plane took off, barely clearing the trees as we sisters held our breath, then the engine sound changed, like the engine power had been cut back.  Wow, I’ve heard that sound at altitude before but never so close to the ground, something must be wrong.

Pat’s scared eyes looked into mine as she grabbed my hand, “we’re going to die”, she shouted.  Being the big sister and wanting to appear calm, I just looked at Pat, smiled and said, “I guess our memories might not last as long as we hoped”.  Then we noticed that the plane was making a slow turn as if going back to the airport, maybe we would be alright after all.  In a split second the pilot turned the plane up on its wing with our window facing down and then we understood, we were right above the Falls we had come to see.  We had walked the scaffolding boardwalks over the water to the very edge of the Falls, we’d  gone in a boat right up to the boiling water pounding over the Falls with all the spray and deafening sound, and now we were seeing the best view possible, from the air.  FANTASTIC!!

photo by Pat

Without a second thought about all the emotions we had just experienced, my sister whipped out her camera and took this picture.  It was the best possible overview of the Falls and the pilot only did it on our side of  plane.  Ah, now we understood, the pilot had done that for us, the only tourists on the plane.  I glanced around at the passengers and they were still smiling and then, so did Pat and I.   What a relief when we climbed to altitude and proceeded to Sao Paulo, Brazil to catch our flight back home.

I have seen things in this world that take my breath away and this is one of them.  There are many of these canyons in Arizona & Utah and require different amounts of effort to experience them.  There have been many professional photographs of them but actually walking through the area, makes the beautiful photos you’ve seen real. Seeing  these canyons takes alittle effort but it is worth it. 

 The Navajo Indian Tribe controls access and handles the tours so there are fees to pay.  $6.00 per person to enter the reservation, $25.00 per person to take the tour.  The Guide and truck driver is Navajo and tells you all about what you will see.  It is about a one mile truck ride through very soft sand to reach the most available canyon.  These guides have alot of experience with photographers both professional and amateur and are willing to help you.

Our group included a tour from French speaking Quebec and we were all jabbering to our friends as we walked up to the entrance.  The moment we walked inside, it was totally silent, nobody talking, nobody taking pictures, all of us stood in awe for a few seconds before we continued and cameras started clicking.  I have had this feeling when walking into Cathedrals in Europe, or the Catacombs with very old human bones artfully displayed. 

Soon we were all taking pictures, passing our cameras to strangers so that our own figure was in a picture or two.  Though not all of us could understand each other, all you had to do was gesture, hold out your camera and pose.  As a group, we experienced this together and I don’t know about the others, but I feel a certain fondness for those who came from Quebec.

I wish I could have taken pictures that just knocked your socks off, but I am an amateur.  I have seen what the professionals can do but it wasn’t until I actually entered and walked through the canyon that I could see the true beauty.We chose the most accessible of the Canyons, the Upper Antelope Canyon just outside Page, Arizona.  If you are adventurous and like to hike, there are many of these Canyons.

1955 to infinity.

I have my seatbelt attached, my snack box behind me within easy reach, cooler with water and juice close by, my camera at my feet.  Our book of United States maps tucked in between my seat and the door and a coffee cup steaming in my hand.  Recently a new step has been added, setting our destination on the Garmin.    YIPPEE!  A road trip is happening.  This is has been our favorite way to travel since 1955.

 A trip needs to have a reason so that it is memorable.  It can be to fall into the arms of friends and family’s we haven’t seen for awhile, or to see new sights and always in search of new pictures.  Our windshield is clean and our  journey planned, my driver says,  totally by the sweet ladies voice on the Garmin.  Who knows where she will tell us to go but we know where our final destination is.  Kind of like life in general.   Tell you more soon…. 

Dorene, my friend, photo by Sharon

This was not her usual manner but I could assume she was looking for something.  She would even bend over and look under some of her furniture.  What was going on??

Since she didn’t say anything, I walked past her to my room to put my things away but I could still hear her searching  from room to room.  The bed looked so enticing.   The book was laying out turned to the last page I had read.   I decided to rest and read for a few minutes but fell asleep, the kind of delicious nap that seems almost forbidden.  I hadn’t been asleep long when I awoke with the feeling that someone was in my room.  I lay very still moving only my eyes, looking in every corner, and then I realized that whatever was in my room was down on the floor.  Sitting up on my bed I looked directly into the eyes of my friend as she was crawling around looking under the furniture.  I was startled and asked her what she was doing down on the floor and she said that she was looking for something.  Being curious now, I asked why it would be under the furniture.  She said that sometimes it just stopped there and would not come out, so she had to look for it.  Well, that sounded intriguing so I decided to follow her.

We looked under everything and then sat down on the couch in her family room to rest.  Bending over, looking under furniture, is very tiring so it was time for a discussion about this problem.  She looked past me focusing her eyes on the sofa in the corner and said, “I’ll bet its under that sofa.”  We looked and there it was, snuggled way back in the corner just as cozy as could be and it would not come out.  It probably would have if it could but it was out of energy.  Both of us could certainly understand that feeling, so we moved the sofa and gathered it up gently and took it back to its “home” so that it could re-charge.  Soon it was running all over the house just as happy as could be, doing what it was supposed to do with my friend taking note of where it was just in case it decided to rest once again in some dark corner.

This is my idea of a house pet, absolutely perfect if you don’t mind having to search for it once in a while and bring it “home”.  Not only that, there are cute little outfits available for making it look like something else.  My favorite was a bright red & black ladybug ensemble.  Now, THAT’S a great pet! 

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Dick with King Salmon & Red/Sockeye

I stood there with one hand tightly holding our boat railing, the other hand gripping our fishing permit card and record book with the goal of jumping from our fishing boat to the scow where we were delivering a pretty good sized load of Salmon.  The fishing period had not been easy to handle.  Very rough the whole period, tide moving in and out over sandbars made it tricky and the wind was unrelenting.  With skills learned over many years, my Captain has our boat in position, tied securely to the scow.  This is not an easy process in this kind of weather and as I stand at the railing of our boat, I am watching the waves that are taking us up above the scow deck and then below the scow deck while bumping against the side and sliding up and down.  Of course the water was in a wild froth, spraying all over us.  The wind was picking up the spray and hurling it against my face like needles.

My Captain’s advice was to watch the action of our boat beside the scow and to time my jump across from our boat to the deck of the scow during those seconds when everything stood still as the boat action switched directions.  Yeah, easy for you to say, I thought, but I watched to notice when that “stand still” time was.  It was either at the bottom of the wave or the top and I knew that I could not jump UP to the scow so the choice was at the top of the wave which meant about a 3 or 4 foot drop onto the deck of the scow.  When you get aboard a scow there are ropes, hoses, equipment and slime all over the place so its important to decided where you will be landing and notice whatever handholds will be available.

I stood there, mesmerized by the action I was seeing, deciding when to jump.  At the top of the rise I jumped down onto the deck of the scow, grabbing the railing nearby and hanging on until I felt safe.  The deckhands were there to unload our brailors of Salmon with their equipment and my job was to give our permit card and book to the Captain of the scow to record the pounds of fish we caught.  While standing there watching our fish being unloaded and noting our poundage, I was also watching our boat moving up and down beside us.  The crew have always been kind to me and were kind of used to me being around so they were trying to talk to me but I was watching our boat.  I had just realized that jumping from our boat to the scow was the easy part and I was getting very nervous.

The fish unloaded, my Captain was anxious to get untied from the scow and get away from the awful bumping and grinding that was going on, but I needed to get back on board.  Since the scow was so big and heavy, hanging on its anchor in the current, it didn’t move much, unlike our boat which was dancing around and groaning every time the lengths of rope tying the two together came tight.  This meant that I had to time my jump back onto our boat when it was at that “still” place I had learned about.  This time I would be jumping from the nice, stable, secure scow deck down the same amount of feet to the narrow, slippery deck of our boat and hoping to grab the side as support.  I knew that if my feet slipped, I would have to hold myself with my hands so that my hold had better be good.  Captain was doing his best to hold the boat in a good position for me and I jumped.  “Glory Be!”, my feet did not slip, my hands got a good grip and the permit card and book made it too.  Our boat left all the turmoil around the scow and off we went to do some more fishing.  I watched the scow fade away in the fog and mist feeling kind of proud of myself for handling this.  I had done it before, many times, but not in that kind of weather.  I felt a sense of euphoria about successfully doing something way out of my “comfort zone”.

We had a great season and came home with many stories to tell.  I honestly did not realize just how dangerous my experiences had been until we were home sharing our stories with friends.  Somebody asked us what would have happened if I had not been able to do this right and we started talking about the dangers.  As we talked, I started to shake and my voice quivered a little.  I realized that if I had slid down between our boat and the scow, they would rub me against their sides like butter on bread, or if I had fallen into the water, the chance of even being found, let alone surviving was impossible.

Yes, it was stories like this that made it easier and easier to decide to stay home during fishing season.  Even telling the story now, years later, makes me feel some of the fear.  I also remember the pride I felt at making those jumps, the feeling of strength and power that I felt.  Because of having accomplished that feat, I knew that I could handle other tests as well.  I do admit that when I was making my jump, it wasn’t fear that entered my mind.  I was totally focused on the doing and to me, that was a lesson I’ve remembered all these years.  Sure, I knew it was dangerous when I was concentrating on how to make my jump but my main thought was doing the jump correctly.  The fear hit me in the telling of the story.  

This happened in 1978 and I was 42.  There have been other times I have felt this kind of fear.  These experiences taught me how to handle that fear. 

The boat harbor was dug out of a creek that ran into the Bay and then docks and facilities were put in.  The thing about this harbor was that at low tide, it would be dry and the bottom of soft, yucky mud was what your boat settled into.  The joy of having the tide out was that your boat did not move. 

As in most communities, segregation was present among the fisherman.  There were the locals, the summer fisherman, the Italians from San Francisco Bay, the Russian group that had rather distinctive  designed boats and the Big Boys  from Egegik.  These groups all had opinions as to who was a good fisherman and who wasn’t, I was bit proud that my Captain was well thought of by all groups. 

One morning, I decided to confront this man and walked out on the back of our boat,  stood there and stared at him as he did his business.  I knew he thought that I should not be in this man’s world and being of the Italian group, just could not keep it to himself.  He was just acting like the men in the boat harbor always act.  I did this several mornings, neither of us saying anything to each other until one morning, I walked out with my camera in my hand.  I did not raise and point it or even make a gesture bringing attention to it.  But, he noticed it and that was the last morning he made his statement.  A few days later, I ran into him at the restrooms the City of Dillingman had built for the fisherman, he began complaining to me that it just wasn’t fair that with so few woman on boats that there should even be a women’s side.   I kind of gave him a “who cares” shrug and walked into my side.  A couple of mornings later, I made my trek up the trail to the restroom and found the womans side  locked.   You could hear men in there talking,  so I sat on the porch and waited,  pretty soon the door opened and my friend and his crew walked out, laughing.  Kind of felt like they were laughing at me but I just smiled and went in.  At least they were decent enough to leave it in good shape. 

This went on all summer and close to the end of the season, my friend had actually started waving at me when he saw me and he even smiled.  Then, one day I had walked up to the grocery store for supplies and was carrying them back to the boat.  You saw fisherman walking along this road often as most of us had no transportation available.  Those who did have trucks stopped to pick up those walkers and this pick-up stopped beside me.  I looked up into the drivers face and here was my friend, smiling and asking me if I would like a ride to the boat harbor.  I smiled and said “of course” and jumped in.  Afterall, we were now friends, he was a Captain and I was a crew member of another fishermans boat, we had things in common.  Though he never mentioned his previous actions and my observation as he made his statement, I knew that I had been accepted. 

Most woman know that by choosing your path and holding true, you can accomplish much.  To me being accepted into the boat harbor community was every bit as important as a lot of the things the  Womens Movement was tackling.  Mine was just a small step, noticed by nobody but me but it was a victory to me and a FIRST in my growth toward being a mature woman.