Approaching the Edmonds dock on a foggy morning

Edmonds, WA – Amtrak’s Empire Builder – Eastbound – January 20, 2013 5:15PM

From the outside the lodge looks like a big sprawling house, but certainly not what one thinks of when one thinks of a lodge in the traditional sense. Nothing ever changes at the lodge, the same fake Christmas tree is always in the corner, the same cheap leather couches surround the living room, the same cheesy motivational phrases adorn the walls on painted pieces of wood (“Proudly serving what you bring!”). The lodge is situated up a small incline from the road off which it sits. This has led to many a stuck vehicle over the years. They don’t stay stuck for long though, not when you have an unlimited number of bodies to push and shout conflicting directions.

The time at the lodge always starts the same way, a fleet of vehicles descends on the driveway, one by one they back up to the front door and an army of people (the family, around 30 or so) transfer the contents of the vehicles into the various rooms. The men outside, the women inside, the children everywhere, but mainly underfoot.

The lodge sits in the middle of the Cascade mountains, the main group of mountains in the northwest corner of the United States of America. As such, it is usually surrounded by snow in the last week of December, the standard week in which the event takes place. In good years the snow is stacked almost to the eves of the lodge, great white mountains on which the children play. Sometimes the adults will come outside and dig tunnels under the mountains for the children to play in. This will usually cause some of the other adults to worry about the tunnels collapsing on the children to which the tunnel building adults will reassure them that “you could drive a car on top of these tunnels and they wouldn’t collapse”. No one has yet tested this, but  everyone seems to feel better. If it is a bad year, the temperature will be above freezing, and the snow pack will be low. This means dripping water, chunks of falling snow, and puddles everywhere. The children playing outside come in soaking wet, and drying snow clothes are scattered everywhere around the house like a laundromat.

No matter the amount of snow on the ground, sledding is the primary pastime of the days spent at the lodge. Just adjacent to the lodge is an open sloped area, somewhat steeper than a putting green. It is on this “hill” that the sledding takes place. Initially the sledding consisted of adults sitting on an inner tube with 3 or 4 children in their arms, sliding down the hill at an alarming 2.5mph. As the years passed, caution was thrown to the wind, and everyone began trying to outdo one another by getting faster sleds and building jumps over which they would hurl their bodies (and their childrens). As the old saying goes, “it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt”, and it was, and they did. Part of the sledding fun is documenting it via video. This is accomplished with a variety of filming devices. The resulting footage is then dumped onto someones laptop where it is spliced together into a series of glamour shots reminiscent of a mix between a Warren Miller film and Reservoir Dogs all set to a soundtrack of 80’s butt rock. Everyone loves it.

Meals are always composed of something conducive to a group of 30 people, pizza, chili,  anything that can be cooked in large quantities with a minimum of effort.  There isn’t any structure to the mealtime, at a certain point in the day, usually around the time of one of the traditional mealtimes someone will start making a meal. It is up to everyone individually to realize that this is occurring and procure some for them and their children. Show up late and don’t expect anything to be left over. The children gather in a squabbling mass around the large wooden table, waiting for someone to place a plate in front of them. The adults gather in the living room, the TV the main focus of the room.

The TV is just one of the many constants of the time spent at the lodge, and 9 times out of 10 it is displaying American football. The room is filled with the sound of the announcers regurgitating the standard football announcer lines “Johnson is really controlling the tempo of this game…” and “The Fighting Trojans really need to complete those passes”. Nobody listens however, they are too busy offering their own analysis such as “You just can’t take a sack on that play, you just can’t” and “I’ll never understand why teams run to the short side of the field, if I were coaching this game I would open the field up”. Nobody really listens to each other.

Soda Pop, Pop, Soda, Coke, whatever you like to call it, it plays a big part in the festivities. Each flavor and brand has been given its own nickname, and those on the outside would need help interpreting what a Red Rocket, Blue Bullet, Brown Bomber, Double RS, White Wizard or Green Goblin is. Whatever drink you choose, there will be lots of it, usually half buried in the snow outside the back door. Drink up, there is more where that came from, there might also be a few beers if you know where to look.

The lodge is equipped with a hot tub which is awkwardly situated just outside the front door. It isn’t a very nice hot tub, but you can’t tell the kids that. Every evening after dinner, the hot tub ritual resumes. First the children must get into their swimsuits. This entails lots of public nudity of the two year old kind. Once the swimsuits and swim diapers have been donned, the lid is taken off the hot tub and the madness begins. Usually one or two of the younger Uncles takes one for the team and gets in the hot tub with the kids.  Then the hoard of children swarm into the rolling waters and the splashing and crying and half drowning begins. Some of the older children will be encouraged to get out of the hot tub and jump in the snow. This is followed by shrieking and more splashing/partial drowning as they pile back into the hot waters. After 15 minutes or so of this, the children (but mainly the adults) have had enough and the swarm of wet and shivering children are brought indoors to drip great pools of water on the hardwood floors and huddle by the fireplace.

The fireplace is a great stone monstrosity which dominates the living room, taking up one whole wall. The actual firebox is about 1/8 that size. That being said, it is kept full with wood and paper products and spits out a large deal of heat. In the early years the closet just adjacent to the fireplace was full of firewood, a gift from the lodging company which managed the property. As leaner times came, the amount of wood provided dwindled in proportion to the state of the economy (probably not actually, but it sounds good). This seeming roadblock to comfortable evenings filled with roaring fires was overcome by simply breaking into the locked garage where the large stockpile of firewood was kept.  This was accomplished by the old screwdriver to the hinges trick and soon the wood closet was filled to the brim and happy times were here again.

Every year at the lodge it seems that someone is battling sickness of one degree or another. Some years it’s the stomach flu, other years a head cold. There have been broken bones, wheelchairs, vomit and much more. The nearest hospital is an hour away and over the years there have been many trips made to it for one reason or another. It’s almost as if the lodge breeds physical ailment. No one really seems to care though, they come back every year.

The time spent at the lodge is a special time, a time spent with family. It’s a time set apart, like a world unto its own. Time slows down and for a few days life is simple. Then it’s over, the cars are packed, get stuck in the snow and then unstuck, and everyone departs, looking forward to next year.

There are also moments in life when time seems to slow down, to advance in slow motion as though allowing for a study of the details. Never stopping, but certainly slowing. Life and death moments, when people enter and leave this world. I watched my grandfather take his last breath on a cold November day; I watched my daughter as she took her first breath on a cold February day. Time is all that separates them, all that keeps them from meeting. I span that time, also bound by time, just one link in the chain that connects them. For me both of these moments are vivid in my memory, those specific days seemingly endless as I lived them, yet I can feel time tearing at them as it passes, the edges fraying. Time has many speeds.

Life, memories, feelings, thoughts, desires, they are no match for time. Time is relentless, merciless, unprejudiced. Humankind has dammed massive rivers, gone to the moon, and mapped the human genome, but man cannot stop time, slow time down, or escape its bounds. Eventually all things are faded by time, physical structures, ideas, and emotions. The people with you when you are born, the people who brought you into the world, won’t be there to see you slip out of it. Time removes them and leaves in their place the ones you brought into the world. You watched them come into the world, they will watch you leave as your last bit of time slips away.

Make your time count.

Walking rapidly away from the truck he headed toward the broken wooden shack which stood nearby. There was a time it had been relatively weatherproof, but that time had been long ago, and no one had bothered to keep it in good repair. The grass grew right up to the edge of the building and as he got close he noticed some of it had recently been trampled down. He paused for a long second, his jaw flexing and unflexing, a disturbed look on his face. Whatever inner conflict had caused him to pause quickly passed and he charged towards the broken door of the broken building. Flinging the door aside, he disappeared into the dark hole. A second later he reappeared, carrying a small wooden barrel. Dropping the barrel on the ground he grabbed a nearby rock and bashed it to pieces. Digging through the broken wood he pulled out a long thin metal rod. It was smooth and polished, cleanly cut at each end. It glistened, even in the dull light of the winter morning. Muttering to himself, he jumped to his feet and then froze, coming over the rise in the distance was another truck. It was large and looming, newer than his own, with tinted windows and oversize tires. He paused for only a moment, then turned and started to run as fast as he could. The wind howled past his ears and caused his eyes to tear up till he could barely see which caused him to stumble and trip over the uneven frozen ground. He resisted the urge to look back, but kept up a dead run towards the distant hills. He came upon an old barb wire fence, stopping in order to duck underneath, he stole a glance behind him. No one was there. The new truck was gone and so was his own. He recalled how he had left the door of the truck open and the keys in the ignition. The wind whistled and howled, the grass whipped around his legs, the metal was cold in his hand, it was 30 miles back to the main road. He headed towards the hills.

You need this in order to be happy. Trust me.

Back to reality.

The above is my best attempt at mimicking the marketing I (and you) am bombarded with daily, hourly, secondly(sp?). It has made me increasingly cynical, increasingly suspicious, and increasingly sick of the non-stop barrage. Things don’t bring happiness. Is anyone still unaware of this? Michael Jackson had his own theme park and zoo…at his house. Do you think he died happy? The marketers must go to increasing lengths to keep selling us the old lie. Now they have to resort to marketing that does not appear like marketing less we realize they are up to their old tricks. Where does it stop, when does it end? I’ve stopped paying attention to the rampant and blatant product placement in films and television. Is there anything that’s not brought to us by the makers of something? Even fruits and vegetables are branded. Thanks for reading, now I’m going to turn off my MacBook Pro, plug in my iPhone, get my Starbucks coffee ready and hit the road in my Honda filled with gasoline provided by the Shell company and drive to the mall brought to me by American Express to buy some more cheap plastic crap that I don’t need. Just kidding…sort of.

This post brought to you commercial free by Google and Comcast.

• My beautiful wife
• The people who surround me and support me (You know who you are)
• Employment that pays the bills while letting me do something I love
• Al Gore – for inventing the internet (Actually, that’s a joke)
• Modern medicine
• Freedom – It wouldn’t be possible without the sacrifice that many have made
• Role models – For taking the high road when it wasn’t easy
• Bicycles
• Choice – The absence of choice is tyranny
• Sight (it makes it all possible)
• Genuine conversation with another person
• Positive people – We wouldn’t have Thanksgiving without them
• Pumpkin pie with whipped cream

This list could go on and on and for that I’m thankful.

Thanks.

As they relaxed and chatted, an old man approached from the north. He had a purposeful stride and a focused gleam in his eye. His pants were high waisted, his shirt was tightly tucked, his white hair perfectly parted and firmly held in place with some kind of hair spray. As he drew near to the three he let out a cheery “Hello!”. The youngish men replied in turn and continued talking amongst themselves, or at least they tried to for the old man had joined their circle. Gesturing toward some houses in the distance he loudly told the three that he had grown up in one of the houses, that he used to play on the railroad tracks that ran nearby, and that the town was a lot smaller back then. The taller one of the three youngish men politely engaged the old man in conversation, asking questions and uttering exclamations of amazement at appropriate intervals. The other two listened with reserved interest, wondering when the old man might finish his stories and move on. But any interest in his stories only encouraged the old man, and he proceeded to tell his life history, condensed into 20 minutes. He had been in the military (thanks for your service), liked blueberry pancakes, and drove a blue Cadillac XLR with the top down. “Boys” he said, “let me tell you how to become a millionaire like myself. Put everything you can out of every paycheck into your 401k. But be careful, it’s a lot harder to take money from your paycheck and put it into investments than it is to have it automatically deducted from your paycheck. The automatic deductions also get the money put away before your wife starts spending it. I never made more than $25 dollars an hour in my career and now I’m one of those millionaires you hear about on TV. I did it all through compound interest” With that he was gone. Words of wisdom hanging in the air.

The three youngish friends looked at one another with puzzled smiles, amused at what had transpired. While he may have unfairly stereotyped the spending habits of women, there were certainly pearls of wisdom in his tale. As they stood and discussed the old mans advice, a beautiful blue Cadillac XLR whizzed by, top down, perfectly parted white hair not blowing in the wind, but held perfectly in place by some kind of hair spray.

Hair spray not included

Successful people don’t waste time thinking about reasons why they won’t make it; they spend time thinking how they will make it. Successful people don’t waste time wishing they were more talented; they spend time learning and training themselves so they become talented. Successful people don’t waste time wishing they had what someone else has; they work hard and earn it for themselves.

If has been said before, if you look for a reason not to succeed you will find it, and failure will follow. The unhappiest people in the world are the ones who predicted their own unhappiness because they have no one to blame but themselves. Stay positive, work hard, be successful. That’s all.