I remember when I was twelve years old, all I wanted in the world for my thirteenth birthday was a little radio with an earplug that I could call my own, that I could take with me where ever I went, and my brothers couldn’t complain about the noise.

What I got was a pair of glasses. Seems that all my squinting in class had finally given one of teachers the idea that I had trouble seeing. Boy were they right. I knew that trees had individual leaves until I walked out of the ophthalmologist’s office. Since we weren’t exactly swimming, I figured that ‘sight’ was going to be my big “Happy finally being a teenager day” present. But I was wrong.

I also got the perfect radio. It was so unremarkable in appearance or sound quality that it defies researching to find a photo of it on the whole of teh interwebs. But it rocked. Keep in mind, at my house, in 1979, we were as apt to hear Ronnie Milsap or Tom T. Hall as Elvis or Dolly. That, and the folk’s collection of comedy records (yes records, 33-1/3) or country and western 8-Tracks. This little pocket sized jewel introduced me to the rest of the radio world. I could get a classical station from Montgomery, an all-god-all-the-time station from over yonder in Ozark, and a real live, honest to goodness rock and roll station from Enterprise. As well as a radio dial (a real dial) full of stuff i had never heard before. I had everything from ABBA, Alice Cooper, America, Chicken Man and Disco Duck, the Eagles, Manfred Mann, Pink Floyd, Skynyrd, etc. all the way to Queen and Zepplin. I ate it up.

I went through batteries like crazy because I would fall asleep to the music. I would wake up with a sore ear from the ear plug pressing into my head all night, switch ears, change batteries, and keep on listening.

I could hear the strange beeping of ghost stations way at the far end of the AM dial and would stop everything when American Top 40 came on the air. (I remember being confused when I could hear it on two different stations at the same time and the countdown was in a different place.) I could pick up Mexican stations and Cuban stations on AM at night as well as a California station that still played the Wolfman. Sometimes the earplug would be so loud at night that my brothers would yell at me to turn it down. Which I would reluctantly do, hoping not to lose too much of the signal in all the noise.

Oh, looking back, it was a piece of crap little pocket radio. But it was the only thing working when Hurricane Frederick ate all the electricity. It broadened my musical tastes as well as set some of them in stone.

So, this is the soundtrack of my Patriot’s Journey. Hazel loves her internet music and XM, but I’m still that thirteen year old kid with a brand new pair of glasses and a new radio, trying to pull signal out of the static and content to listen to what the radio gods program or to keep changing the channel.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

Click on the photo to embiggen.

Taken from the top of the Seattle Space Needle in 2006, on a warm summer afternoon. In the picture you’ll find a partial view of the Seattle Downtown, A Seaplane from Kenmore Air, Safeco and Qwest Fields, the Washington Mutual Tower, and our own quiet little Vesuvius, Mt. Rainer in the haze beyond.

We had just moved to the area a few months before and that day we had taken my Sister-in-Laws, who were 14 & 20, to do some sight seeing in downtown Seattle. We did some shopping, rode to the top of the tower for pictures, and ended up with the girls playing in various fountains near The Seattle Center, including The International Fountain. We got some great pics of the waterlogged, but very giggly, young ladies.

The photo itself was a complete accident. I had seen the seaplane flying around earlier, but I had lost track of it. My actual target was Mt. Rainer behind the city scape, the Beaver just flew in as I hit the button, giving me a great composite that combined many elements characteristic of the Emerald City and the Puget Sound.

The politics of the region amuse the hell out of me, as by and large the people vote for Democrats, and then vote against funding their projects.

I could go into some lengthy exposition about how Seattle was built on the power of American Determination and Imagination, but I think that goes without saying, as that tiny Seaplane and the various skyscrapers give testament to. Such creations are not built without determination and imagination.

Click to embiggen.

This is Denny Creek washing over the Keekwulee Falls. Taken in September of 2007, this was my first solo mountain hike in the region. I know it does not look like much, but this was September, when the snow has melted and the rain is done, so the creek is pretty low. I have pictures from further downstream that show great trees broken and jammed into the rocks along the creek, telling the tale of how powerful this little creek gets in the Spring.

The total hike for the day was 6.6 miles and I ascended 2200 feet, all with 50 lbs of gear on my back (yes, I overpacked, and I had gear that was too heavy for backpacking, I have since trimmed my loadout). My destination was the small Melakwa Lake. The day started out overcast and wet (no rain, just heavy mist), but as I was coming back, the sun came out and helped to dry me out a bit. It was my first mountain hike, and my legs hurt for days afterward, but it was so worth it. I’m hoping to go back this summer before the creek gets low so I can get some photos of the raging torrent.

If Ted and Hazel are open to it, I’d like to invite other guest bloggers to use a photo to tell a small story and share a bit of their American journey, and readers could do something similar on their own blogs, or on the Picador Project Forums. It helps sometimes to share the journeys others have taken, to remember what we fight for.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

At my own house. On a day where I didn’t have to go work for the State or the Man or Factory Number 118 making lead paint. Because I get to pick the job I want based on my skills, desires, training, etc.

I also had a little time today to prowl around the interwebs and found this gem of reporting from the LA Times.  We aren’t a ‘gun blog’ like so many out there, but we does loveses our precious.  So yeah, I think the idea is great, way to go, thumbs up terrific.  But does anyone else think the tone of the article is one of “gee, I sure wish those rednecks would grow up”?

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

Remember that this is the anniversary of D-Day.  More Allied troops died on D-Day than the sum total of all the coalition forces who have died in Iraq since the invasion.

If you even include the ones who died in my war, Desert Storm, you still aren’t close to all the ones who died in a single day.  A day where the objective was simply to take the beach.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

My boss worked on a survey crew in every job from holding a stick on up.

He got a degree, something his dad didn’t do until years and years after he was already a successful business man, got one of them there new surveyor’s certifications from the state, and took over and grew the business into a company with offices in three states, contracts with dozens of phosphate mining companies or engineering firms, and let’s just say that the Florida DOT is a good friend. While building up the company, he expanded into aerial surveying and all the capital outlay that requires. He now has a staff of over 40, receipts in the millions, and the respect of his community, peers, and employees.

He is only in his forties. Early forties.

My boss is a perfect example of how American small businesses are supposed to work. How a guy with an idea can work his ass off to give his family a better life. His dad gave my boss the keys to the front door only after he had proven that he could do the work, after demonstrating a willingness to do the work, and after showing him how he could grow the business.

His Patriot’s Journey took him from the ground up to the skies, doing every job in between. And when his kids are old enough to hold a survey rod, you can bet they will be donning hip waders and DEET and learning the trade.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

I will repeat that for those of you in Rio Linda (h/t RL).

My son has finished elementary school.

He wasn’t at the top of his class, but he wasn’t at the bottom either. He has learned how to be a serious student, though. He has learned, with much prodding from his mother and I, that reading is fun, that math is the key to understanding science, and that girls ain’t really that icky. I could ask for more, but he at least has the important stuff figured out now.

He got an education in how to BE a student, how to be organized, and how to interact socially to the kids and adults who surrounded him.

He learned that somethings that are supposed to be fun, turn out to be work. And that sometimes work turns out to be fun.

I learned a helluva lot myself. Our public schools are wonderful, when the parents and the community support the teachers and help the kids. I also learned that sometimes the only way to get anything done in a bureaucracy is to break it. And I learned that our kids learn just as much from our actions as from our lessons.

In this first rest stop on my son’s Patriotic Journey, I have given him advice, offered him books, answered his questions, and hugged him fiercely. The road ahead of him is long. It has pitfalls and roadblocks, wonderful scenic routes and national monuments, and the twin joys of his growing independence from his parents to become his own person and the discovery that he has learned HOW TO LEARN on his own so that he can someday answer his own questions.

We rant about the state of our public education system sometimes, but you really can’t beat a country where every kid in the nation has at least the head start over the rest of the planet of having been given the opportunity to learn.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

She pops her gum and without even looking at him says “Try number four.”

So the guy goes to the fourth aisle, finds out the light bulbs are actually on aisle six, scrounges through the mislabeled and mismatched racks, and finally finds the last two bulbs in the store that will work for his appliance.

When the guy goes up to pay at the goth chick’s register, she obviously has had her sense of irony removed since she actually says “‘You gotta go to the customer service desk, I’ve already counted out my drawer.”

So the guy goes to cust serv, pays for his lightbulbs, and leaves the store, never to return.

My kids will NOT be that little goth chick. My kids are going to have jobs as soon as they can. They are going to pay for their own clothes if they don’t like what I buy for them. They are going to pay for their own gas and car insurance or they won’t drive. They are going to pay for their own dates, haircuts, jewelry, tattoos, and chewing gum. Because if they don’t, they won’t have these things.

I think I mentioned here before that I worked at lawn work and fast food joints since the time I was ten or eleven. I was working a grill at a steakhouse by the time I was twelve. I also bussed tables, washed dishes, swabbed decks, took out trash or anything else that needed doing. I have never had a job that was beneath me, because no HONEST job is beneath anyone. And I expect my kids to learn that as well. Hazel and I were talking just the other day about how we need to get to know some of our farmer neighbors so that we can get the kids out in the field picking strawberries or oranges some summer soon. I fully intend to make sure that my kids understand the value not only of hard labor, but of responsible spending and the sense of accomplishment that comes from getting that very first paycheck.

My Patriot’s Journey has led me from a tiny little town in Lower Alabama, through numerous jobs that I didn’t think I could or would ever do, to a comfortable home with a great job where most of the time I sit in air conditioning and never punch a time clock. But I was able to do them all because I knew that nothing good was ever easy, that accomplishments are rewarded, and that self-respect makes digging ditches to feed your family just as important a job as baling hay, or picking pecans, or marching in a straight line, or even designing a multi-billion dollar freeway project.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

My little yard is a garden out back, as Hazel has mentioned to anyone who will listen. She is right to be proud of it. We have done a heap o’ work in the hot, hot, heat of central Floriday to make it so. But the front yard is mine. I fertilize and put down weed suppressant every two months, because if I did it more often, the grass would take over the neighborhood. (If I did it less often, the weeds would take over my yard.) Every three months I use a commercial grade insecticide. (It still doesn’t keep the fireants completely out, but limits their damage.) But just so you don’t think I am a chemical-using hypno-droid under the power of Bayer, Ortho, et.al., keep in mind that I also spread milorganite, iron, composted cow manure, and several other organics all designed to add trace minerals to the soil, provide nutrients for the beneficial worm (and yes, even beetle) population, and enhance the root growth of the lawn and plantings so as to use LESS water, by far than my neighbors. I have never had a problem with cinch bugs, fungal growth, over-thatching, brownspot, etc. The key of course is in knowing how and when to cut the grass short and when to cut it long.

I generally only cut my grass short every three months. This allows the grass to become more mature, make longer roots, respirate more efficiently, and gives the grass time to make plenty of seed heads for future growth. When I do cut it short, it is because I am making an application of something or other and want the grasses to be a little bit stressed and in need so that they reach for what I am giving them more readily.

Mine is the only grass in my neighborhood to be healthy, weed-free, and green all year. And NOT because I water it with the sprinklers every night like many of my neighbors. My sprinklers come on once a week for about twenty minutes. The local water authority, known not so affectionately as “Swiftmud” has deemed that lawn watering once a week is de rigeur . (Unless you are growing produce or have new plantings, but is otherwise ‘verboten.’ ) Of course, they will not come out and check at two a.m. to see who is or isn’t breaking this ‘mandatory guideline,’ so they ask the HOA’s of each community to report on violators. RIIIIGHT. Because the typical HOA is so very likely to require that the yards in their neighborhood look like crap.

Instead, my grass, as well as my flowers and shrubs and trees, look wonderful because I take care of them. A healthy yard full of grass will have fewer weeds because weeds find it hard to complete. A healthy yard will have fewer pests, fewer fungal diseases, and fewer vermin than a yard where the damn sprinklers run every night and the homeowner never bothers to even put out any compost with a spreader. And a healthy yard has long grass.

By now you are wondering how this at all relates to the Patriot’s Journey theme.

Think of it like this. Freedom and responsibility go hand-in-hand. If you give a lawn too much of anything, even something that is good for it, you will poison the soil. If you starve your lawn of things it needs that you aren’t aware of, you leave yourself open for disease and parasites. If you try to substitute limiting the growth of your lawn by artificial means, you don’t get good root growth so that the grass can’t hold on to the soil when the heavy rains come or will blow away when it gets too hot. You must be a steward of your freedoms in much the same way. I think you, Gentle Reader, can draw your own parallels.

The hardest part in maintaining the best looking lawn on the block is balancing all the parts correctly. Well, that, and trying to keep the HOA off your back for letting the grass get a little long haired occasionally.

This is a Patriot’s Journey post. Remember to check out the other Patriotic Journeyers: Drumwaster, The Bastage, Inessential Musings, and The Edge of Reason

Pictures upon our return.

UPDATE: Traffic from Titusville to Cocoa Beach is unpossible after a launch. But…totally worth it. (click for larger)