Positive Thinking For A Wednesday Morning In The Waning Days Of Industrial Civilization...

A Desert Sunrise Beyond The Power Grid

Click on photo to enlarge - © jim otterstrom 2009/2010

Each new morning brings opportunities beyond the possibilities of yesterday.
There is a new story unfolding before us, a story borne slightly more visible with every passing day.
A story that lives beyond peak fossil fuel and Industrial Civilization.
How that story unfolds depends upon us...

jim otterstrom 6/2/2010


Below are some positive constructive thoughts, from Andrew MacDonald, for a Wednesday morning dimmed by the depressing gloom of the Gulf of Mexico tragedy.

Living the new story
by Andrew MacDonald

Published Wed, 06/02/2010 - 07:00
by Radical Relocalization

In this time of transition, two stories run through the culture. One is about continual growth and ascendancy. It's mainstream culture's story, the everyday world we're familiar with. The other is the as yet little known story of radical change and descent as we enter the time of necessary simplification - reskilling, retooling, relocalizing. The two stories compete out there in the public conversation of course but also in us and our personal relationships. It often hits me again how deep a hold the status quo's got. We're pretty much wired into it in our daily routines of shopping, speaking, working and living. It's current reality and it's everywhere and hard to see for that reason.

We've lived in that old story for a very long time and its back story - that growth is good and inevitable - is so in our bones, so embodied in us literally that new thinking doesn't affect it much. The Industrial Revolution and the turbo-charge provided by fossil fuel has strengthened these assumptions. We maintain them in small unnoticed ways. When we go shopping or to work, when we talk to friends - we're actors in a world where the script is still the old story about progress and growth and we bow to that story's conventions before we know it. If we watch TV or advertising, it's the old story, even if with some new lines. Importantly the old story is also the one the people we love are plugged into, including our parents and grandparents. Debunking it can seem disloyal to them. The need to be loyal to the story our family honored isn't noticed much either, but it's at the root of a lot of what seems stuck in our culture.

In short we're caught between a rock (the one that sustained us in the past) and a hard place - the challenging realities that we'll need to sustain us in the future.

So how do we move toward the new story? The new story tells of the descent to a world of less fossil fuel use, more localism, more community. It's a new world in which more is asked of us and more interdependence is needed between us; we really can't do it all alone. The new story stretches us personally to imagine new possibilities, exercise unused talents, to admit to ourselves and others what we really want. "Our past remains present, literally occupying us, til we go into & through it with our awakened, full-blooded presence" tweets Robert Masters. The rewards are high in the new story, so's the cost; it's out of our comfort zone.

I'll talk elsewhere about self-authoring the new story and writing a script that meets more of our needs but right now I want to focus on two practical supports for it that are renewals of our associative life. The first is doing community projects with others: gardening, sharing skills, utilizing local markets, working and building things together at the block level or its equivalent, generally building more local community and economy.

The second support takes the form of small groups that can act as micro-climates for the new story. I agree with Peter Block that "the small group is the unit of social transformation"! These explorations will happen eventually on their own given enough time. The trouble is we don't have much time. If we do nothing and coast, change will happen at what we used to call a glacial pace - a pace that glaciers no longer travel at. We'll need to be proactive on this one.

A small group is a practical help by reinforcing the social glue that connects the community and gets things done. It's also valuable in helping us adopt the new paradigm inside ourselves and see elements we just can't see on our own. It's a place where we can try things on for size, see how others are doing it, literally learn together. In the process, the new story becomes more real and embodied. Doing nothing tends to leave us, for now, in the context of the old story. (Sign up for Andrew MacDonald's newsletter for small group updates and support.)

But we do need to move quickly as possible into the new story now. We don't have the luxury of having the old story slowly come to pass over the next 20 or 50 years. Uh, no! Peak oil, financial implosion and climate change are happening now! And we can't just think our way into the new story by tacking some new thoughts in. The story doesn't live and breathe at the level of thought - especially not abstracted cyber thought. It's the spirit in which we move and talk.

More Essays and Ideas from Andrew MacDonald

A Visionary Architect, Humanitarian, Writer & Philosopher

Nader Khalili 1936-2008 Click on photo to enlarge - photo credit unknown
Borrowed from Kelly Hart at his Green Home Building Blog

"No one can prove there is a meaning to life. I must make my own life meaningful. That is all."

One of the ways Iranian born and educated architect Nader Khalili made his life meaningful was by designing and building beautiful earth-friendly super-adobe structures at his Cal-Earth Institute Of Earth Art And Architecture in nearby Hesperia, California. And by sharing his ideas and enthusiasm not only with his Cal-Earth students, but also within a larger global community of thoughtful, creative & hopeful people from all walks of life. People who are concerned about a viable future as they take deliberate steps toward sustainable living.

Peggy and I had been admiring Khalili's work, through photographs, newspaper articles, and websites for some 15 years before finally visiting Cal-Earth last April for a first-hand look at his delightful creations.

See photos at our post here.

We didn't get to meet Mr. Khalili when we were at Cal-Earth, we missed him by a day, and figured we'd get the chance on our next visit, but that's not going to happen.

Nader Khalili passed away last Wednesday, March 5th, he was 72 years old.

Much has been written about Nader Khalili by the people who knew, loved, and worked with him.

Yesterday morning, one of those people posted a comment at my previous post.

I have re-posted the comment below---and I thank 'anonymous' for the information---because Nader Khalili was the rare kind of human being this over-populated world needs more of.

"Nader Khalili, internationally renowned architect, author, and educator, passed away at the age of 72 on Wednesday, March 5th.He died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Hospital, of congestive heart failure.

Khalili was known for his innovation into the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses and the SuperAdobe Construction (sandbag and barbed wire) technique also known as Earthbag.

He developed his SuperAdobe technology in 1984, in response to a NASA call for designs for human settlements on the Moon and Mars.

He had been involved with Earth Architecture and Third World Development since 1975, and was a U.N. consultant for Earth Architecture.

In 1991 he founded the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth), in Hesperia, CA, which teaches his SuperAdobe building technique.

His sustainable solutions to human shelter have been published by NASA, and awarded by the United Nations, the Aga Khan award for Architecture, amongst others. (see http://www.calearth.org/khalili.htm, for more.)

He authored six books, including his international best-selling auto-biography, "Racing Alone," (his newest book "Emergency Shelter," available this summer) as well as two highly-acclaimed volumes translating the poetry of Rumi, "Fountain of Fire" and "Dancing the Flame."

Born in Iran as one of nine children, his quest was to empower the world's poor and refugees to build homes using the earth under their feet.

He was a prominent American leader on the value of ethically based architecture, where the needs of the homeless are considered above all else.

Inspired by the mystical poetry of Rumi, (whose poems he studied and translated, from an early age) his architecture was distilled from the timeless principles of this universe and its timeless materials -- the elements of earth, water, air, and fire, and has been described as "Poetry crystallized into structure."

Laura Huxley, Aldous Huxley's widow, called Khalili the "practical visionary."

He was a quiet hero and a gentle humanitarian, who wrote: "No one can prove there is a meaning to life. I must make my own life meaningful. That is all."

He is survived by his wife Iliona, son Dastan, daughter Sheefteh, eight brothers and sisters and extended family.

~~~The Burial Ceremony will take place at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday March 11th at the Sontag Greek Amphitheater, Pomona College, 300 E. Bonita Avenue, Claremont, CA, 91711. North-East Parking Lot entrance.

Burial and wake to follow after the ceremony.

10:00 - 10:30 am arrive at the Sontag Greek Amphitheater: For directions call: (909) 576-9830 (The Sontag Greek Amphitheatre is adjacent to the Seaver Theatre due east of Oldenborg Residence Hall.

Located in a wonderful wooded area known as the Wash, it is secluded from traffic yet a five minute walk from the center of campus. There are many theaters in the college but only one open air amphitheater.)

Ceremony until around 12:00 noon.

Then to Oak Park Cemetery for the burial. The main entrance is at the end of Oak Park Drive, cross street with Sycamore Avenue. (909) 399-5487

After the burial, the wake/refreshments at the Seaver House, Pomona College close to the amphitheater and the organic garden."

Click here to read my recent Father's Day post about him

love and peace

Sierra, Molly, and Rojo...

Click on photo to enlarge - Photo by Bill La Haye - December 2006

Pictured, left to right, are Sierra, Molly, and Rojo, the faithful companions of our friends Bill and Kathy.

These dogs also inhabit the hearts and lives of Peggy and I, and our four-legged friend, Dallas.

Rojo and Sierra are seasoned veterans of many years of Spotted Owl surveys here in the San Bernardino & San Jacinto Mountains, having hiked much of the terrain between Wrightwood and Mount San Jacinto with Bill many times over.

And sadly, as Peggy, Dallas and I were taking in the beautiful Big Bear sunrise yesterday morning, another sweet sun was setting.

Sierra had to be put down because of bone cancer, she was 12 years and 9 months old.

She will be sorely missed by her constant companions, Rojo and Molly, and her loving owners, Bill and Kathy...

...and by her friends here at Earth Home Garden too.

Below are some reflections from Bill about his companion of nearly 13 years.

"Sierra was a funny dog. Only six to eight weeks old when we bought her from North Shore Animal Clinic (now VCA), in July of 1994, she was extremely independent right from the start.

As a puppy, she had no problem sleeping outside by herself that very first night we brought her home. Yet, she was really afraid of the world (looking at the big picture) for most of her life. Routine was her salvation. Of course, having to constantly comfort her and bring her out into the real world only tugged at my heart strings more and more everyday throughout her life.

Thus, while she could be incredibly independent, she was also my baby girl who needed special love and attention on a regular basis. She was also a loving dog, but she had to fight herself to come to you to asking to be petted. Most of the time I had to go to her, or make her come to me, so I could give her the physical affection she craved and needed. The only time she could bring herself to break out of this emotional handicap was when another dog came to me to be petted. Then she would show up front and center and sometimes growl or nip at the offender that invaded her special space.

The funniest story about Sierra that I can remember, right off the top of my head, was when she was about one year old. Her and Rojo were running like the devil, rough-housing on our normal, daily dog walk. Somehow, Sierra lost track of important objects, like trees, and ran full-bore into one, because she was distracted by Rojo. Of course, it was a personal and emotional crisis (not to mention physical) for her at that point. So, she came running over to me and I had to comfort and soothe her while sitting down on the ground with her cuddling for several minutes until her whimpering subsided and she could once again cope with real life and we could complete our walk.

Sierra was a great dog that I took everywhere, that never needed to be on a leash, and rarely got into trouble because she based her behavior by cuing off me. On my 1,000s of owling hikes, I rarely even spoke to her. She new the routine, got out of the truck, went owling, laid down whenever owls were around, hiked back to the truck and hopped in without a single command from me.

She was like a satellite appendage, which worked on trust and love.

You can't describe this to other people adequately. It's one of those things that you appreciate tremendously. Yet, its like breathing. You don't have to think about it, it just is. And, it is truly amazing and special. If you have never experienced it, you don't know what you are missing. Needless to say, I sure know what I'm missing now and it's a very sad time for me."

Bill La Haye

2/11/2007

As in Life… There is much Beauty & Generosity in Death…

Click on photo to enlarge - a fallen Flicker - © 2006 jim otterstrom

Forty some years ago there was a Sycamore tree growing beside a stream along Old Topanga Canyon Road in the Santa Monica Mountains.

A friend and I, through the early hours of dawn, sat above the stream, hanging our legs off the edge of a large corrugated culvert, which guided a small tributary, beneath the pavement we had driven there on, into the stream below.

We languished there in the cool shade, for minutes running into hours, listening to the trickle of water falling between us into the creek below, watching flying insects, and birds, interact with one another in the exchanges that enable their lives and deaths.

Fluff drifted gently down from the surrounding trees to float away on the surface of the water in the soft morning light.

As we watched the drama of life unfolding there before us, this one particular Sycamore caught my eye. It had two trunks, one of which had tumbled over, and was lying across the stream.

The part of the tree still standing was in full summer leaf, healthy, vibrant, and full of life. But the fallen trunk, which had obviously been down for some time, lay decomposing along the sandy banks.

Upon closer observation, I became entranced with the teaming complexity of life being supported by the rotting fibers of the dead part of the tree. Young plants sprouted glorious green shoots from rich black compost, while shimmering, crawling, slithering insects of myriad description---clamoring, tunneling, over and through this visibly wholesome detritus---searched for nutrition, shelter, and procreation.

Sensitized that morning, to the intricately beautiful details of the non-human, after a long night spent in wonder and celestial celebration atop the jagged spine of the Santa Monica’s, I was experiencing, possibly, my most life-changing epiphany.

There was as much life in the dead part of the tree as in the living (& certainly more diversity), and I stood there for a long time, taking my first clear look into death, and what I’ve come to understand as everlasting life.

Since that fine day of my well-spent reckless youth, I no longer fret over the possibility of roasting eternally in the hell-fires of some control-freak God’s vindictive damnation, because I realized right then, that, like everything else, I’m simply going to metamorphose back into the wondrous matrix of the cosmos, where we continue our journey together for eternity, whatever that is.

There will be no Pearly Gates for me, no bean-counting Saint Peter with his ledger of sins and good deeds, no streets paved with cold hard Gold, nor flaming red Devil with his fork up my ass, and no reunion with long lost humans, family or otherwise.

My re-union will be in the giving back of my body---to the living Earth, as sustenance for the continuance of life, and, in the spirit of my consciousness, freed from the reductionism of being human---as my molecules, atoms, and energy once again wander & mingle among the elements of universality.

How do I know this?

I carefully observe the nature around me, seeing that I’m simply a tiny part of something very huge and complex, and I have faith in what I see.

Isn’t faith what your religion is based upon?

Now I’m in no hurry to die! I very much enjoy life as a human being, but the thought of my death doesn’t frighten me either, it’s purely the reality awaiting me when the days of Jim are over.

We are but cosmic dust, charged and electric, yet look around at all the beauty forged from the combination, and evolution, of these forces during the eons which have led to our lives today.

We hear much talk of “a better world in the hereafter” or “everlasting life in heaven above” from the churches and religions of our time, the same religions that would separate, anthropocentrically, our bodies from our souls, and our species from the rest of nature.

But anthropocentricity---the regarding of man as the central fact or final aim of the universe---is a selfish, ignorant, narcissistic notion, that, in life, deprives us of seeing, and fully enjoying, that we are an integral part of something much greater and more magical than ourselves.

Even in death, we humans continue this arrogant selfishness by having our bodies embalmed or cremated, entombed in wood, concrete or steel, thus depriving the earth of our rich life-giving nutrients for as long as we possibly can.

When I put a dead plant or animal on my dinner plate, I’m thankful for the bountiful generosity of nature, and the exchange of energy between life-forms, which allows this whole thing to continue and evolve. We are all part of the food chain.

And when I see a dead animal or a fallen tree, decomposing by the roadside---or along a trail in the wild---I see the even-handed generosity of nature, allowing with every loss, other lives to thrive and grow.

My body, soul, species, and the nature around me, including the whole of the cosmos, are all of one, and I have no fear of rejoining that larger self.

When that time does arrive, I’d like nothing more than to become healthful nutritious worm food.

Yes, these are thoughts of death, but to me, they’re not depressing or melancholy.

They are thoughts about our place in nature, about harmony, balance, and exchange.

They're the result of long-studied observations, and my deeply-felt optimism concerning the bio-centric, egalitarian laws of nature---and the interdependence, resilience, and self-perpetuating tendancy toward diversity inherent to life itself---in its passionate desire to persist and to flourish.

But these are probably not very welcome, comforting, or even fathomable observations to the anthropocentric, who would have the world, or rather, the entire universe, revolving around themselves.

Click on photo to enlarge - the decaying shell of a Carp

Roland Diehl 1940 - 2006

Click on photo to enlarge




































Roland Diehl, one of my hippie brothers of the Topanga years passed away at 65, from cancer, on June 6th.

As you can see from the joy on his face Roland found great happiness with his loving sweetheart and partner of many years, Manda Beckett, who is holding a memorial for him on September 3rd, the weekend following his 66th birthday, which is August 31st.

The above invitation came with the mail today and I’m going to try and catch a train up to share in the celebration of his life. Roland’s gentle loving playful spirit will certainly be presiding and I'd love to partake in that experience one last time.

When I moved to Topanga in 1965 Roland was a 25 year old painter, and already an iconic figure of the canyon art scene. His best known work is the cover he painted for Neil Young’s first album in 1969 which I’ve posted below.

A couple of years before I left Topanga Roland moved to Portland, Oregon where he’s been working, loving, and playing his beloved conga drums with his friends up there ever since. We kept in touch by phone over the years, and it was a special treat for me a few years ago when Roland sent CDs of some of their drum sessions because my favorite memories of Roland are the Topanga drum circles we shared in 40 years ago.

Topanga Canyon was an impossibly beautiful vortex of free-spirited originality during the 60s, an island of creative experimentation, revelation, love, peace, freedom, and fellowship. For a brief few years it was a low-rent Bohemian art colony paradise-found, where in youthful innocence, we played naked in the garden as the world raged around us. The handful of friends I still have from that time share an almost sacred bond. Roland was a founder of that Topanga, one of the originals.

Your spirit lives on here in Southern California, too, Roland…

Peace....




















Click on cover to enlarge - Painting by Roland Diehl - 1968

$15 Studebaker - Van Nuys, California - 1971

Click on photo to enlarge

So here's the sweet old 1946 Studebaker Commander I owned when I photographed the sunset pictured below. I bought it in Topanga Canyon, sometime in late 1970, from collage and assemblage artist George Herms for $15. I was 25 years old.

George and Louise lived a couple hundred yards up the road from the old Topanga Corral nightclub where us canyon folk all socialized and danced to many of the great bands of the '60s. The Studie had been sitting up on blocks in their front yard for quite some time when George offered to sell it to me (I believe it was more gift than sale).

What it lacked was brakes, so I did a complete brake job on it, including rebuilding all four wheel cylinders, which probably cost me less than $30 in parts in those days. Aside from that, the car was in great condition, with very low mileage, and the 226 cubic inch flathead six purred quietly like my old treadle sewing machine.

The paint was a bit oxidized but a little rubbing compound, wax, and elbow grease brought back its luster, and when I removed the plastic seat covers the original mohair upholstery underneath was still in perfect condition. In the trunk I discovered one of those neat old, pre air-conditioning, bullet-shaped Thermador swamp coolers that mounted in the car window and whirled cool moist air to the interior.

The photo was taken on a drizzly fall day in 1971 out front of my old buddy Bruce's parents house on Oak Park Avenue in Van Nuys, California. Bruce works for the Post Office to this day, and is responsible for my having a postal career. Back in 1970 he talked me into taking the Civil Service postal exam with him even though working for the Post Office didn't really seem to fit in with my artsy-fartsy back-to-nature hippie dreams. But the starting pay was $3.51 an hour and I figured maybe I'd work for a couple of years, save some money and travel, or buy some land.

Little did I realize that the burgeoning '60s counterculture I loved, and was so much a part of, was coming unravelled, and that the world would very soon be a much harder edged place.

On March 8th of 1971 I began working for the United States Post Office Department at the Woodland Hills station (91364) as a Special Delivery Messenger (the patches on our linen shirts bore the image of a Pony Express rider embroidered in maroon and blue). Thirty years later, in July of 2001, I retired at $20 an hour, from the "modernized" U.S. Postal Service, Big Bear Lake station (92315), where I was the main window clerk (the patch on my polyester shirt was an ugly stylized Eagle's head in red, white, blue, and gold, meant to signify speedy service).

Much of those 30 years was spent outside delivering mail through rain, sleet, snow, heat, and dark of night, because that's the way it was done back then. In 1971 a postage stamp cost 6 cents and we delivered Special Delivery letters & packages up until 9 o'clock at night, seven days a week, for an additional 45 cent fee. In 2001 a stamp cost 33 cents and there was no longer a Special Delivery service, but you could pick up your $11.75 Sunday delivery Express Mail at the Post Office between the hours of 12 & 2 P.M., if you remembered to bring your identification.

Along with a modicum of affluence usually comes some consumerism, so in 1972, to demonstrate my environmentalist leanings, I spent $2,000 on a new, very small and economical 4 cylinder imported Datsun pick-up truck, and regretfully, sold the old Studebaker to a friend for $250.

Four years later, another much-loved Beat Generation artist from Topanga, a mentor to George Herms, my friend Wallace Berman, was killed in a head-on collision in a little Datsun truck just like mine, leaving his lovely wife and young son behind.

Years later, in 1990, when we needed a family car, we decided on a Toyota 4-Runner, at $21,000, because I wanted something sturdy that my family might be relatively safe in, it was our last car. Peggy was broadsided at a blind intersection in 1996 by a kid going about 60 miles an hour, and a beefy frame crossmember in the Toyota saved her life. Soon after the 4-Runner was repaired we sold it, on January 31st, 1997, and now we've been car-free for nearly 10 years. We didn't want to be in them anymore.

Then, on August 29th of last year, at the same time Hurricane Katrina was battering New Orleans, our 24 year old son Jimmy drove another sturdy Toyota 4X4 over a 450 foot cliff, an accident which left him legally blind, but that thankfully, he survived. Still, Peggy and I, again had to spend many dreaded hours in rented or borrowed cars to visit Jimmy in the hospital and get him to his medical appointments, but that too has now passed...

Looking at the handsome old Studebaker it's easy to understand how we Americans became enamored with our automobiles.

But at this point, in light of the realities of todays world; the global warming and climate change brought on by a hundred years of internal combustion engines, the urban sprawl, the freeways and congestion generated by automobiles, the asphalted, concreted, plasticized, polluted, smoggy filth of our civilization, and the oil & resource wars we must now wage to sustain it all (not to mention the nearly four million people dead from U.S. auto accidents), you'd think we'd be realizing there are not going to be automobiles in our future, if we are to have one.

They've certainly lost their appeal in my eyes.

In fact I've come to detest the damned things, they're an expensive, dangerous, destructive, odious, abhorrent, abominable scourge upon the land and I'd love to see them all vanish today.

What we've gained from the convenience of automobiles, for me, is not worth what we're losing in the quality of life, or the health of our ecosystem. If we won't give the cars up; hybrid, electric, hydrogen-powered, bio-fueled, or whatever, I seriously doubt there will be many human eyes left to behold the sunsets and trees of the 22nd Century.

The automobile and its infrastructure is, in my opinion, our biggest mess, aside from, and exacerbated by, our overpopulation of the planet. Clean running efficient cars won't address traffic congestion, or sprawl, and something like 60% of the pollution generated in a cars lifetime is produced during the manufacturing processes.

Here's an excerpt from my favorite Dr. Seuss book, The Lorax.

"What's more," snapped the Lorax. (His dander was up.)

"Let me say a few words about Gluppity-Glupp.

Your machinery chugs on, day and night without stop
making Gluppity Glupp. Also Schloppity-Schlopp.

And what do you do with this leftover goo?

I'll show you. You dirty old Once-ler man you!

You're glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hummed!
No more can they hum, for their gills are all gummed.
So I'm sending them off. Oh, their future is dreary.
They'll walk on their fins and get woefully weary
in search of some water that isn't so smeary."

And then I got mad.
I got terribly mad.
I yelled at the Lorax, "Now listen here, Dad!
All you do is yap-yap and say, Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!
Well, I have my rights, sir, and I'm telling you
I intend to go on doing just what I do!
And for your information, you Lorax, I'm figgering

on biggering

and BIGGERING

and BIGGERING

and BIGGERING,

turning More Truffula Trees into Thneeds
which everyone, EVERYONE, EVERYONE NEEDS!"

And at that very moment, we heard a loud whack!
From outside in the fields came a sickening smack
of an axe on a tree. Then we heard the tree fall.
The very last Truffula Tree of them all!

Oftentimes I feel like the Lorax, and, in fact, I'm beginning to look like him too...

...funny how one thing leads to another; sunset to Studebaker to career to tragedy to Loraxish ranting.
:~ {{{{{{

addendum -

In referring to George Herms and Wallace Berman I realize many people are not well versed in Beat Generation notables, but most of you have probably owned a picture of Wallace. He was honored by the Beatles in being chosen as one of the people for the group photo collage on the cover of their 'Sgt. Pepper' album.

And Wally greatly honored me by hanging one of my drawings on a wall in his home.
OK, so what if it was the bathroom wall above the roll of paper next to the toilet?
What better place to contemplate art?

COOPER 1994-2006

Click on photo to enlarge - photo by Mary Anne

Cooper, an eternal puppy, passed into the hereafter on Tuesday, July 25th.
He was a 12 year-old pup and the much loved companion of our friend Mary Anne.

The following words come from the person who best knew Cooper.

From Mary Anne...

"Cooper was a yellow lab, though a lot of people asked if he was part Dane because he was so leggy and tall. He didn't have a single mean or aloof fiber in his body; strangers were just friends he hadn't met yet.

He lived to play fetch (eating came a distant second) and was happy to play with anyone who would throw a stick or ball or frisbee or pine cone. But, it was always my feet he would be curled up under at the end of the day, and I think he always kept tabs on where I was. Whenever we'd go hiking, he would run ahead up the trail but come back every couple of minutes and bump my hand with his nose before taking off again. Being a lab, he loved the water, even half-frozen Big Bear Lake in the middle of winter.

He had an exuberant life, and I often wished I could approach each day with even half my dog's attitude. Recently, when the eager light went out of his eyes and he showed no interest in balls, squeaky toys, swimming, kibbles, or my proximity, I knew it was time.... "

Click on photo to enlarge

Cooper endeared himself to Peggy and I during one of his first social events, a small gathering of wildlife biologists, botanists, muscians, old & young hippies, and other odd folks, including, of course, several dogs.

We were all just getting to know each other and came together at our house for the afternoon to share some food, stories, and music.

The appetizer was a giant bowl of home-made hummus in the center of the table, and, as we sat down to dip our chips, Cooper, always ready to play, tossed a big slobbery pine cone in the air, which went up over our heads and plopped right into the middle of the bowl of fresh hummus.

There was a moment of silence as we all sat there stunned, before breaking into hysterical laughter, tossing the pine cone back to Cooper, scooping up our hummus, and with some humility, delighting in being initiated to the slobbery spirit of Cooper's carefree dog silliness.

Cooper gave us a very funny moment, an ice-breaking test of just how down to earth our little group was, and I think we passed the test...

Today, in his memory, Peggy made up a bowl of hummus, I plopped a pine cone in it, and we toasted glasses of wine to Cooper.

Here's to you Boy!

In Loving Memory...

Click on photo to enlarge - photo credit unknown
Athena Aspiotes 1989-2005

Posted in loving memory of Athena, our good friend Mike Aspiotes' daughter, who would have been 17 years old today.
She was lost to a car accident this past December 30th,

A Friend To Everyone - Mike 'The Greek'

Click on photo to enlarge
photo by Gus Kirkpatrick 1999

Mike 'The Greek' Aspiotes is one of the most well-known and loved people in Big Bear, his huge heart radiates warmth through those smiling eyes, and a nicer guy you'll never meet.

Mike shared his good nature with our community from behind the counter of his 'Village Music' store for over 25 years, and is a loving father who always puts his kids needs first.

We've been friends with Mike for as long as we've lived here. Peggy & I went to concerts, and club dancing, with him and Cynthia, his ex-wife, when they were first dating. In 'Village Music' Mike created a safe hangout where people, yes even kids, could go in, touch, and actually play real instruments. If you were looking for a hard to find record or CD Mike would check with several distributors until he found it. Cynthia cut our family's hair, either at their home, or later, at her salon. We remember the births of their kids and witnessed Mike doing his part to raise them with a diligence and devotion that only increased after the marriage dissolved.

So it was extremely sad for Peggy and I to hear that Mike & Cynthia's 16 year-old daughter Athena was killed in a another car wreck the night before New Years Eve.

Athena was a passenger in the car with some friends when the driver lost control and hit a tree.

Another horrific event of 2005 has shaken our lives dear Mike & Cynthia, the loss of Athena breaks our hearts again.