Counting one’s blessings - digitally

Blue Skunk blog readers know I like photographs. Taking them, scanning them, organizing them, sharing them, I’ve taken photos since I was a kid using a Kodak Instamatic camera back in the 1960s. (Remember flash cubes?) I took slides using a Pentax 35mm camera with a telescopic lens on my travels in the 1980s. I dropped a Canon digital camera in the waters off Abel Tasman park in 2010, ruining the camera but saving the photos on the memory card. And like many of us, I’ve documented my travels, my grandchildren’s growth, and family events using the camera in my smartphone. 

I have thousands of photos, in print, scanned, and digital from over the years. But it is rare that I take the time to look at them. The physical photos are in albums stored in my second bedroom/office. The digital and digitized shots are on a website in the cloud. Yeah, I have a few prints framed around the house. I have personal photos as screensavers and backgrounds on my computers and phone. And I make the family calendar full of photographs that I glance at now and then. But for the most part, my pictures have been out of sight, and sadly, out of mind.

That is until this past week when I received a “digital frame” as a birthday gift. This small monitor is designed to display pictures randomly from a collection uploaded to the manufacturer’s website (or from a flash drive or memory card if so desired). So over the past few days I’ve been carefully selecting photos from the past 60 years to be shown on the frame that distractingly sits beside my television set. (I have lessened the distraction by changing the change rate of photos from one minute to five minutes.)

And what a pleasure this task has been. Looking back over childhood snapshots, somewhat faded photos from the 70s and 80s. Converted slides from the 90s. And of course heartwarming pictures of my kids and grandkids as they have grown up, along with good times with friends.

Such a visceral way of counting one’s blessings! Looking at my photos I realize just how fortunate I have been to have grown up in a stable household with caring parents and relatives. How it has been possible to get a good, yet affordable education. To have had a rewarding career and professional opportunities. To have been in loving relationships. To have raised responsible and pride-inducing children. And to have had the joy of being part of grandchildren’s growing up.

I guess a digital photo frame is just one more blessing to count!

Remembering Mom

A post from 2009:  The gooseberry pie lesson

This is a picture of the gooseberry pie I enjoyed this week at my mom's house. Here is the recipe:

• Locate thick woods with wild gooseberry bushes.
• Spend at least an entire hour picking each pea-sized gooseberry individually from the thorny bushes - one pint quart* is required per pie. Humidity and voracious mosquitos are a given.
• Spend at least another hour stemming each gooseberry.
• Prepare the filling, make the crust, and bake.
• Watch the whole pie being eaten in less than 10 minutes.

I had always taken the these pies my mom made for granted until I went gooseberry picking myself once. Unlike the hybrid gooseberries that are the size of a shooter marble, the wild ones are very, very small and it takes a lot of them to make a single pie.

I guess the lesson here is to never underestimate the effort others may go through on your behalf - or a mother's love for her family!

* Common knowledge according to my brother... Sorry.

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My mom passed away Friday evening at age 91. I doubt I will ever eat a piece of pie, let alone gooseberry pie, without thinking of her. 

Planning ahead - way ahead

If all goes according to plan, at this time next year I will be just finishing a two week boat-bike trip from Passau, Germany to the Iron Gates in Romania along the Danube River. Yes, it is a year away.

This is not the only trip planned. This fall my friend Heidi and I will do a road trip to Glacier Park and Banff. And in January we will head to Argentina and Chili to hike and cruise Southern Patagonia. And I have my eyes open for a possible trip somewhere interesting this November or December. 

I ask myself if I am wise to plan travel so far out in the future. What if the politics in a country that is to be visited turn violent? What if I should experience a health or financial issue in the next few months? What if Heidi comes to her senses and decides she doesn’t want to travel with me? Yes, I do buy travel insurance for these distant, somewhat costly journeys, but should I really be booking this far out?

It is perhaps my experience last summer that motivated me to reserve an early spot on these organized tours. Both Venice and Yosemite were jam-packed with tourists when we visited in 2023. Scoping out the websites of a couple of my favorite travel companies, Road Scholar and Boat Bike Tours, I found that specific dates for many of their tours fill quickly. I often get a discount for early booking. 

Newspapers report that despite all the whining about inflation, the US is currently experiencing record-breaking numbers of people flying and driving on vacations. National parks are requiring reservations to travel on certain roads (or even enter the park). Venice is starting to charge a day tourist fee to reduce the number of visitors and no longer allows cruise ships to dock in the heart of the city.

I just want to be at the head of the queue by booking early.

Perhaps as you read this, you are asking yourself “Do retired people actually need vacations?” Well, “need” is a tricky word. Do I need a break from a stressful job? No, I love my volunteer work. Do I have young children I would like to see have an adventure? Not anymore. Have I not experienced much of the world and would like to explore other places and cultures? I’ve been to over 60 countries, so not really. 

I “need” these vacations for the same reason people need other hobbies or recreational opportunities like woodworking, golf, or bing-watching worthless streaming series. They give me pleasure - something both to look forward to as well as to remember. In planning my retirement, I purposely chose to live in a small, inexpensive home, drive a modest car, drink cheap wine, and eat out only a couple times a week. I simply economize where and when I can so I can spend my discretionary income on travel. (Even when traveling by myself, I tend to be more of a Motel 6 rather than Hilton kind of spender.)

One reality of being well into one’s eighth decade of taking up space on Earth is that no one is guaranteed that their physical or mental health will last. Aches and pains, memory lapses, contemporaries disabled or dead, all are warning signs that I may not be able to bike along the Danube River five years from now. If I am going to hike Torres del Paines, I gotta do it NOW. 

So “do it while you can” is my new motto. Perhaps it should be everyone’s. Life doesn’t give you many guarantees.