SCREAMIN' DEACON

EYES THAT SCREAM

   Begin with a highly functioning, multi tasking adrenaline junkie and retire him. In that is an opportunity to create a "vacuuming zealot."
    In earlier times one might say he is afflicted with a "work ethic," a need to fill time with productive effort. In this case turning into a dirt warrior, a "vacuuming zealot." 
    Such a zealot is apt to find personality in the attachments employed in what is nothing less than a wholesale war on dirt, dust, pollen and that unidentified sifting, cosmic "pre-nano matter." So serious is the zealot he employs  what is called "The Animal." 
    One of the weapon systems on the Animal is the "Screamin' Deacon."  The Deacon is the business end of an attachment that moves the eradication work from the Animal's battle wagon ground game to a mobile and remote light infantry strike.
    Behold the array that gives the Animal a robot cat look.

   Here's the battle zone. 15 steps.

   Each of the 15 platforms has two faces. It's a highly trafficked area and requires a warrior like the Screamin' Deacon in a series of strokes applied on two planes.

Tough bristles as eyelashes. Well honed eyeballs, strongly mounted. 

  When it is engaged, it screams in a mechanical wail that may frighten the demon dirt before it grabs and brushes it out in a jet speed whirl backed by a major vacuum action. 
  The eyes of the Screamin' Deacon are those of a true zealot machine in high speed pursuit.

LABOR

   And so, hats off to all of you.  Whether still laboring in profession, career, job or school or a graduate of the work-a-day world now filling days in other pursuits, here's to you! Effort, industry, creativity, volunteering, recovering, healing, dreaming, mentoring or even cleaning your house is a noble human gesture. That's my philosophy and I'm sticking with it.  Cheers.

   PS-keep your fingers well away from the Screamin' Deacon!

    See you down the trail.

AN ENDLESS SUMMER KISS AND THE SPECIAL YEAR

TRACKING TIME

     Sipping a glass of wine back lit by sun dappled pampas grass flowing in the afternoon breeze, Jacque said "The cool thing about California is that after labor day, summer keeps going."

      As another ex pat Midwesterner, her observation is born of many years when a kind of gnawing dread would sneak in on the heels of labor day, summer's last hurrah. Soon autumn would briefly glorify nature with color and then as leaves become crisp detritus, temperatures drop, skies gray and winter's agony looms.

      So maybe those of us who flee for the sunnier climes are weather wimps or looking for the prolonged adolescence of endless summer. But it feels good. And it looks good too like an afternoon at the beach, to kiss summer good bye and to say hello the special year. 
      Notes on Sage living proof follow below.

     Days continue to shorten and we observe summer's slide in the cycles and habits of the considerable wildlife that live from the Pacific into the Santa Lucia mountains.

     We marveled at the playfulness of a pod of Humpback whales, jetting sprays, breaching and showing their backs and tails in a late summer migration.

      The fewer filters between us and nature, the more we see and feel the interaction, the greater the molecular impact on our minds, bodies and heart and soul.

     Out here on the central coast it's also the last hurrah, but with a twist! After labor day when schools are in session, the tourists thin out, traffic quiets, restaurants and shops are again for locals. Tennis courts and beaches are back to normal.

      But I've come to think of September as the first of the special year.  US Open tennis and college football fills September and October, along with the NFL and autumn colors. Then we are into basketball and the holiday season and the festivities to the end of the year. Back in the Midwest when I began to put up storm windows or Hatteras shutters and saw the girls off to school, I thought of the year ending with summer. Then I proscribed the special year-September to December 31. With more of those seasons behind me than ahead, I take great comfort in Jacque's assessment, "summer keeps going." 

        I'm not alone as the 102 year old theatre director throwing kisses from his Rolls Royce, or the 91 year old director of our annual Pinedorado, or the late 80 somethings who volunteered or marched in the miles long parade can attest after their decade's long celebration of Cambria's labor day weekend, or as the 70 and 80 year old surfers, lawn bowlers, pickle ball and tennis players, bikers, hikers, birdwatchers and gardeners can attest, the endless summer continues.

      See you down the trail.

LABOR DAY

A WORKING DAY

     Labor day was just one more working day in a newsroom.  Yet there was a kind of cosmic foreshadowing that occurred in my kid hood.  

       As a grade school kid I became fascinated with radio news. There was something special about those voices coming in from great distances, telling about events of significance.  Perceptive man that my father was, he made sure I paid attention and thought about the process.  As it turns out, he knew the local radio and TV newsman.  

      Fred Moore Hinshaw had been an NBC announcer and legend had it that he and Lorne Greene (later of Bonanza) were the deep voices of NBC East and West back in the days when radio news reached more people than TV.  Fred came to Muncie Indiana, following his wife who was the local drama teacher.  Fred became a founder of the local television station and its news director.  Hinshaw Edits the News not only aired on radio, but in the early days of television, became the only source for local news on the tube.  Dad made sure I watched and listened to Hinshaw edit the news.

      Well one labor day, a rare day for my dad to be home and not at work, he loaded me into the car and we drove a ways into what I recognized was a "nicer" part of Muncie. The homes were larger, many of them were brick and they all had beautiful large yards with plenty of shrubs, hedges and shade trees. There on a slight slopping large green lawn was a man, sweating and wearing a cap as he shoved a lawn mower, the non powered type, over the lawn.  Dad pulled to the curb and honked.  The fellow turned, recognized dad and came over to the car.  It took a moment for me recognize the sweating man as Hinshaw, from Hinshaw Edits the News. I was stunned.  

     Dad and he chatted about politics and then said I was interested in the news.  I can't remember what passed in that conversation, but I was struck by the fact the man on the radio and television was mowing the lawn. At our house, my brother and I mowed the lawn.  

     Then that evening as the clatter of the teletype and the announcer intoned that Hinshaw Edits the News I was struck by the fact the man behind the desk with the deep voice and serious look had been the profusely sweating fellow on the nice lawn.  I'm not sure what I expected, that perhaps Hinshaw never left the station, was always on alert for news.  It then dawned on me that on this big deal holiday when working men and women had the day off, this guy was  there, working.  And just a few hours earlier he had really been working, breaking a sweat on a beautiful lawn.

     By the time I was working in a newsroom, I was not at all surprised by the fact that a holiday, even for working men and women, didn't mean a thing other than the stories we covered-parades, picnics and people working in their yards.  Like Christmas, New Year's eve and Thanksgiving, it was just another day of work.

     A quick post script.  Years later when I was in college and working as a radio news reporter in Muncie, my boss was Fred Moore Hinshaw. He was a brilliant writer, journalist, thinker and a bit of a rascal poet. Had he chosen the lights of a big city he would have succeeded, might even have been Chet Huntley.  He chose family, home and making a contribution where he lived, even if it meant sweating a couple of times on Labor Day.  My dad and Fred were of the same generation.  They were great teachers.

    See you down the trail.