This picture is one that I have posted with before but it captures what can often be a "highlight" of the weekend. Saturday morning walks. A couple of miles and then a follow up run on my own. The last few weekends I have done a long run Sunday AM and did so this weekend also.






And on her lover’s arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold
And far across the hills they went
In that new world which is the old;


Alfred Tennyson
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I was reading a blog of a favorite person I know and she listed her favorite things. The result was a list and it covered a lot of categories. The one that caught my attention was that her comment that she "loved her family". I would add to that thought one other. The most important thing a father can do for his family is to love their mother. Another that caught my attention was that she saw herself as "determined".
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How do I love thee?

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

How do I love thee

Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's

Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love with a passion put to use

In my old grief’s, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints;

I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!

and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death

History of a picture.

This

"collage"

is one that Kathy did a few years ago after we went to the State Fair........................... The picture was then hung just outside my office wall and was there for a couple of years. When I went to El Paso to start a new job, and as it turned out a new series of changes, this picture stayed on the office wall back in ABQ. After I left the company a few months later this "collage" was left behind and a good friend promised to get it for me. It represented Kathy's effort and talent and it was something I just didn't feel I wanted left behind. You always leave personal relationships behind. Some continue on. This picture was a part of someone else and I felt no need to share her talents. 10 months later I was treated to a birthday lunch by my friend who still worked at my former company and brought this with her. It now is on my wall in my new office.

No rage, just "light"

Song of Tonight
By Brent

Land and sky, reach out
Embraced by the old, tonight
Touched, from within with "light"
Our new world, like the old
Gone from sight

Memories, sometimes dim
Free in the land, no need to hide
Dancing with wolves, and the light

A Fathers memories, and past friends life
Friends eternal, a companion and wife
Life so short, families right
Truth eternal
Desire only to do right.

Neither of these guys is Grandpa Brent, o well

...........................two days in a row my "blog picture" has been taken from "favorite blogs" of favorite folks. This may solve the problem of what to post in the future, if I continue to get away with this. I started this day a little earlier than most. I went out for a early run. 10 miles on my B day. I remember a for years JB in SLC and I always ran 10 miles on his B day. Started the day with a couple of nice gifts, book, cookies, later a blog. I have about half of my cookies (did I mention that these are my very favorite) left.*

Remembering a good thought and trying to find it I also have the scriptures open to Proverbs. I found the scripture. I just really should have opened up and looked at this one every day for the last 62 years. Proverbs 3:5.

"Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

So in 62 years I have a great deal to be thankful for. Of course there is a lot of favorites things that might be worth remembering today. Chocolate Cookies, a birthday card that makes me want to hug someone close. 10 miles run. A birthday lunch Friday and a birthday dinner today. Popcorn balls, and blogs and grandkids. The emails we get each Monday. Plenty of good things. Some lessor things but noteworthy over the last few days. A great Friday night fight..............This may seem odd but I watched the Friday night Boxing on TV. I just watched and sort of enjoyed and wished it was a Ali fight from years past that I could watch over and over and have done so. The fights seemed pretty boring in comparison and I was convinced that that ever seeing a good fight was a long ways done the road, if at all. The fight that proved surprising was when Ahunanya won a ten round unanimous decision over Alonzo. What was surprising was that Alonzo lost the fight but in the last second of the fight landed a punch and took the other fighter down. Going down at the bell meant, I guess, that it didn't quite count except for the fact that the guy that went down had to the count of 10 to get up. He did get up in 9. He still won the fight he had dominated until that last punch. The guy that lost held his head up. It made all the difference to him in how he lost. Right up to the last second he was trying and he took the guy down with the last possible swing. Loved the fight. Guess surprises come. Guess a great moment can happen when least expected. Man, just makes you won't to go out and punch something...................................

the day before "the" next year

This "great collection" of pictures was taken and arranged by my favorite person after we went for a walk last week. I "lifted" it off her blog and I don't know if she will be glad or not when she sees it her since "lifting her pictures off her blog is a "no no", sort of, but this arrangement is really good, as is all of her photo arrangements. Our walk was downtown Albuquerque. A lot of the buildings have painted sides and backs that are sort of reflective of the mood of the downtown . In addition to the paintings are some interesting signs a couple of interesting folks in the lower left corner and a interesting window sign.

Very talented lady.

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Tomorrow is #62

Tell that guy to shift/control/delete and then punt.

According to a survey conducted by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Library of Congress, "Man's Search For Meaning", by Viktor Frankl belongs to a list of "the ten most influential books in the United States.

Frankl's book showed that the last of the human freedom was to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

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"Nietzsche's words offered some similar advice,

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'He who has a why to live for

can bear with almost any how.'"

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"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.

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Questions about life/ by me

1 : Life is not fair as you look at it each day but then it does make us better or worse and it in many ways is up to us.

2 : The world won't care about your self-esteem and the truth is working hard in spite of low self esteem does make you better

3 : Titles are a foolish goal. If they proceed accomplishment then they don't last long.

4 : Bosses are tougher than teachers but you will be your own toughest critic if you have the right motives pushing you.

5 : Doing work well is a worthy goal and any work should not be beneath your dignity.

6: Schools may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT.

7. Winning is as much about staying in the ring as who wins the fight. Never give up.

8. The value of people is not in what they can do for you but in the humanity you share with them.

9. Those that hurt you make you better than those that try to help you, all to often.

10 Caring about others should not be dependent upon being cared about.

"High" on Fathers Day

Is he really smiling or even

happy or just "high".

3 of these 5 pictures

really have a lot to do with my best friend upstairs........... rather than being focused on "Fathers Day". So I started out by just figuring I would find some favorite pictures and post them and just let the day go with just that. 2 of the 3 pictures I am talking about here are not even "us". Even so they make me think of "us". For that matter the stack of books I picked for the picture are not mine either. I have plenty of books that I could have featured in a picture but these seemed interesting. I like to re read books and especially the ones that I underlined the first time through. Books that I have underlined in includes a lot of good books. The stuff underlined seems to quickly recapture the book for me on the subsequent times through. I also like to go from book to book finding a common thread or thought that I have an interest in. The scriptures are easier to do this with since you can find references for all the places the "thought of interest" appears.

I like to run and I enjoy watching a good boxing match. Actually I would like to put on some gloves and have a good fight a lot of the time but "wanting" is easier than "doing", I suppose. Even so the challenges we sometimes meet can be a surprise. I really like this picture of me half way through the Saint George Marathon a few years back. I don't know which one but it was probably one of my earlier races. I look at the picture and I see my foot turned more than normal. I see the bandage on my knee that I had put on at mile 10 or somewhere along the line. I look at my face and I realize that perhaps the secret to looking like your smiling is to sincerely wish you had died a mile or two back. I recall the wish was even stronger at mile 22 that day. I remember when I ran into the park in downtown Saint George I laid on the ground and all I could see was stabbing white light and even though I drank a lot of water it made little difference for a long time. I actually, a week ago, for the first time in probably 15 years saw the same light and felt a little like that. I had gotten home from a 10 mile run. The mileage was not the issue but I didn't take any water with me. I have always been ok without water up to 8 to 10 miles but last Saturday was hotter than normal and I just drained my body of water. The main thing I remember a week later about the white stabbing light and being lost for a moment in the pain was that in some odd way it was a little bit of a "high" actually. Not like the overall running high but in a odd way getting through it was a high. Nothing equals the "high" that a long run can produce.

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Good Quotes for the day

Statement after losing his first fight to Ken Norton, March 31, 1973: I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.
Muhammad Ali

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Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even.
Muhammad Ali

Searching for Jumbo

So this is my day before Fathers Day post. I can't even think of a picture to put on this? Maybe I will later, and will add to this? This morning I opened a book about writing and noticed with interest some of the things that I had underlined. One item mentioned that in good writing the readers needs, rather than ones own, should dominate the "thinking" that goes into the writing. It also mentioned that good writing is a lot like good manners. This was a help to communicating with he reader, or course. In another chapter it said that "Mumbo Jumbo"is what comes out in first and second drafts when your still writing for yourself.
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Success. Writing for myself is pretty much a given on this blog. Guess it really, in many ways, is indeed "Mumbo Jumbo". On the other hand I have also given some thought to who else reads it and I often try to tell about something that I would like to have known or quote something that I think has helped me and may help others.
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Success eventually: So even though I "may" be writing this for myself and it sometimes is indeed "mumbo jumbo" I would offer a defense of the approach by saying that I find that writing is also a way of thinking things over......................................
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The great enemy of clear language is insincerity.

When there is a gap between ones's real and ones's

declared aims, one turns , as were instinctively,

to long words and exhausted idioms, like

cuttlefish squirting out ink.

George Orwell

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Writing and rewriting are a constant search

for what it is one is saying

John Updike

ignorance is better if your a little younger, ya think?

Knowing what we don't know is easier as

time goes on. On the other hand when

we are young we sort of don't realize

what we don't know and it may

make us more creative? At

least that is what Picasso thought.

"All children are artists"
The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." '

~ Pablo Picasso

Two very different trails along arroyos less than a mile apart.

These pictures capture a few of the things that I normally see on a run in my neighborhood. I took all but the first one this morning. The first is from a few weeks back and before we hit the 90's. The contrast in the two arroyos is what caught my interest. Today I went back and re ran yesterdays route just to see these two areas again. Yesterday I covered 10 miles and that was my longest run this year. Wyoming to the West and Tramway to the East. North to Elena . Today I went West back towards Wyoming reaching first the arroyo trail lined with sagebrush. Turning to the North and going past the high school is a arroyo trail that really is a "first class park" between two neighborhoods. This park/trail, seems like an oasis in the desert. It is easy to take for granted the blue sky that is just very different in New Mexico than up North but green grass is not a common sight in New Mexico. I don't recall anywhere that it was as "green". Yesterday and today I was struck with thoughts and memories as I ran this short half mile trail. The grass was freshly cut. It was wet. The smell and color was so very different than the sight normally seen on a run. Running is as much about memories sparked with sounds and sights as it is anything else. Even a fly buzzing around my head sometimes takes me back to thoughts many years ago.

10, miles, thoughts about a bench, Milan and making the most of our lives......................

We,

would

have

gone

for a

walk

but

today

was

different. Today we didn't since my favorite running/walking companion wanted to let her foot heal up a little more. One thing I like to do when we go walking is to stop on a bench that looks over a small park. The bench in this picture only reminds me of the favorite little park bench, since I usually start out Saturday walking with her and then running on afterwards alone. I still call my part running although it isn't all that fast. So I just went out and ran myself today. 10 miles. Hot. Not enough water, in fact no water with me which was a mistake.

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Milan Italy was not on my run or even in my thoughts until last night. The other pictures are of a church, and a town square ( bet there might be a nice bench there somewhere) in Milan Italy. I got an email yesterday from a friend who lives part time or most of the time in Tokyo. He had recently been in Milan and took these pictures.

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Then too I was looking at a good quote by Ezra Taft Benson. I thought it was insightful and helpful.

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"Men and women who turn their lives over to God will discover that

He can make a lot more of of their lives than they can.

He will deepen their joys, expand their vision, quicken their minds,

strengthen their muscles, lift their spirits, multiply their blessings,

increase their opportunities, comfort their souls, raise up friends,

and pour out peace. Who ever will lose his life in the service of God

will find eternal life"

Nice birds

Gordon B. Hinckley wrote a very good book called "Stand For Something". He said in the introduction of chapter 4 about

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"Our Fading Civility"

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Civility carries with it the essence

0f courtesy, politeness,

and consideration of others.

All of the education and

accomplishments in the world

will not count for much

unless they are accompanied by

marks of gentility,of respect for

others, of going the extra mile.

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PS: The importance of treating people with respect is even better understood if one has occasion to feel that one was not treated particularly nice. Sad way to learn. I was impressed by the messages in the book, "Stand for Someting".

Guess I am getting older

Life does not lack for things to think about. One question might be for all our thinking "what are we becoming". It may be the case that no amount of thinking will ever help us know what we really have become.
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Nevertheless Solomon said, "with all thy getting get understanding" Proverbs 4:7 .......................maybe that is a better way to look at "thinking"?

Gordon B. Hinckley wrote a very good book called "Stand For Something". He said in the introduction of chapter 8 that "Gratitude was a sign of Maturity".**********
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"Gratitude is the beginning of civility, of decency and goodness,

of a recognition that we cannot afford to be arrogant.

We should walk with the knowledge

that we will need help every step of the way".

**** I can tell that I am getting older.