Focused at Fifty

Katahdin Woods and Water National Monument During this last trip to Maine in October, I learned a lot. I have every trip to Maine but this time, I  decided to share it with you rather than keep this incredible wealth of knowledge trapped up in my mind. I mean FASCINATING! OK, just grab yourself a beer, hopefully an IPA and pull up a chair. There are lots of weird different bugs in Maine. I can't identify them. I see them and am like, OK that's new! Something purple with fangs.... now SHOOO!!!!  There are lots of spiders. Different colors and shapes and sizes. Luckily nothing which screams "Kingdom of the Spiders". Maine potatoes are just as good if not better than Idaho potatoes. And the fields of white potato flower are just beautiful!  Goats, chickens, sheep, horses and donkeys make great field buddies together. Add cows into the mix and it's a different story. (Awwwwwkwaaarrrd) Apparently cows have attitude?  Lobster is better in pairs and definitely steamed...

I have had much to ponder about this past month, my 51st birthday month. This was a month which I was dreading all year long. It had nothing to do with the crazy Covid year. I quite simply was not looking forward to turning "51".  In retrospect, I was OK turning 30, 40, or 50. It was the year after which I had issues with. I think it's because it hit me that I was now in a new decade. I was 31, 41, or this year as the case may be, 51. It hits you and you realize, whelp ... there's no turning back now!  Another decade has sprung upon me! I was up in the new home in Maine this weekend, the Gardiner House as we call it. Built by Mr. Gardiner way back when in the late 1800s, it stands proudly with the test of time as well as a throwback to a far simpler time. it is not an overtly Victorian gingerbread but just a solid large farmhouse with an attached barn just a block from the town square. There is just a little gingerbread on the main side porch, suggesting a lace doily ...

"Cloud(ed) Memories" by Marc Haynes  I enjoy looking back at my 5 decades on this earth. I feel sometimes it’s been a whirlwind of memories and emotions. These days, those memories tend to get jumbled. I remember them pretty well but sometimes not without a discrepancy in detail or time. Did I go to Baltimore before San Francisco? What year was that? When was I last in Sedona? What was my one cat’s name back in childhood? Why did I not like that guy in college? What did he do to me to not like him so much? Does it even matter now? And you eventually realize, with a chuckle, that it does not. What matters are the good memories, and even the bad ones. And don’t forget those memories which you learned something from. That’s what shapes and molds us. Not the memory of that idiot roommate from freshman year in college.  We tend to get caught up in the details of it all. Does it matter when I went to Baltimore? I know that I went and had a blast. It was such a fun trip. John and I ...

7 Layer Cookie My father Robert Haynes's family owns a cattle ranch far into the deep southwest corner of South Dakota, just south of the town of Keldron. At the time, say the late 80s, Keldron had a population of 11. The next town due west was Thunderhawk with a population of 35. Further on through endless miles of prairie, was the sleepy town of Lemmon, SD, sitting right on the border with North Dakota, then with a population of 1900. Lemmon had the highschool, the hospital, etc and was the largest town for a hundred or so miles.  We visited the cousins on the Drieske/Haynes ranch for several summers during that time. What do I remember about those wonderful trips, these visits to the family ranch? Tons of cousins and family gathering for barbeques and horseshoes; long expanses of prairie; 1000s of locusts; horses and cattle; hunting for Sioux Indian arrowheads; seeing my first rattlesnake outside of a zoo; dry 105' summer heat; Lemmon South Dakota's Petrified Forest (loo...

"PA Grand Canyon" During my childhood in Wenonah, New Jersey, I found that South Jersey was quite flat. As a family in the 70s and 80s, we would drive to the Jersey shore towards Ocean City or Strathmere. Dad and Mom preferred driving the back roads, winding our way down through corn fields and tomato fields, then through cranberry bogs. Or we would drive through miles and miles of Pine Barrens. Not a hill in sight, just miles of flat fields or, with the Pine Barrens, miles of forests. That's what I grew up with and that's what I knew. The trip to the shore only broken that up in terms of marshes and wetlands. Still flat, but just a different terrain. When I was a young child of six or seven, my father brought me to the home of his dear friend Dr. Rachel DuBois, an esteemed author and educator, for a summer visit. She was diminutive in stature but enormous in terms of wisdom. Dr. DuBois also happened to live on one of the highest hills in South Jersey. We drov...

Worlds End State Park     HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! This weekend, I will be going up to Sullivan County Pennsylvania to look at a cabin for sale with the Big Ragu. For the past 10+ years, we've traveled up there a couple times of year to Worlds End State Park to go hiking and chill. Usually we go over Thanksgiving. We figured let's start looking for a cabin in the mountains so we have someplace permanently to unwind over the weekends. Nothing set in stone yet, just starting to look. Depends on finances, the perfect cabin, location, etc. If we aren't gonna make a major move somewhere else, we'd like to invest in a small place to go to whenever the urge hits. Over this past Thanksgiving, the Big Ragu and I stayed up at Worlds End State Park for the long holiday weekend. We rent a rustic cabin and usually put on a smoked turkey for the holiday. It's been the 8th or 9th year we've been doing it. Lotsa fun. It also really relaxes you j...

Family Vacation Pics! As a child, there are memories which stick with you. Then there are singular memories which stand out, for better or for worse. There also may be the occasional odd memory from a trip in which you remember nothing else. Some are wonderful, like shell collecting during my early teenage years on Sanibel Island and others aren't so wonderful, like getting attacked by green heads (biting flies) at Strathmere Beach, NJ. Each of them cemented into your psyche bring you momentary joy or scarring you for life. This is a collection of the truly odd singular memories which stand out from various trips I took as child with my family, in random order, with a little explanation of each. I either chuckle or cringe each time I think of them! It's amazing what makes us up as individuals. #1.  I was 10 or so years old, snorkeling at the now defunct Holiday Isle Resort in Islamorada, Florida. Behind the hotel, there was a quite deep swimming lagoon and...

(www.pexels.com)  Can you believe this? For all my partying and fun in my 48 years, I have NEVER been to Vegas! I am still a Vegas Virgin! Well my friends, I plan on going to Vegas with my brother Adam and his family sometime in March or April 2019 to celebrate my brother's 50th birthday and his daughter, my niece Angelica's 21st birthday! WOW. What a double event! I think the family will need a chaperone for those two AND Uncle MARC! (At least always for Uncle Marc.) Here are two GREAT commercials that I love from lasvegas.com . One is from a man's perspective and the other is from the woman's and then they meet up in each commercial. It is really a brilliant marketing campaign. The commercials are fun, colorful and playful. My Vegas experience will most likely end up with my in bed by 10 PM but a guy can dream, right? Please, I will do my utmost to have an exciting long weekend in Sin City! (Remember, whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!) I'd like...

"Enjoying a beer flying the friendly skies!"  Airlines promote separation of the classes! When I fly, I know that the one thing I insist upon is an aisle seat. I used to want the window seat. No longer. You can have it. The pics you will take will come out crummy anyway. TRUST ME. I like the option of getting up for the bathroom without having to climb over people. And as I get older, my poo cycles are VERY important to this 48 year old man. I don't mind any seat really. Emergency seat, over the wing, front, back, its all good. Well may there is one exception I am experiencing right now. I am in the last row of the plane, with the bathrooms right behind me! i am hearing every high powered vacuumed swoosh of the toilet flushing. Luckily no smells yet 3 hrs into this 6 hour flight. I am also hearing the gossiping and chatter of the flight attendants. I love it. Nothing really that bad. The one gal says to the male flight attendant, can you please go to 15E, I ...

(Photo by Anata  Nsg from Pexels.com) I was going through mounds of paperwork several weeks ago and happened upon a folded-up copy of an article from years ago which had been given to me by a close family friend, Marianna. I have wrote about her before, she was one of my Dad's closest friends and went by the nickname Tia. Tia was in the education field, a writer, artist and truly a romantic at heart. She was constantly spouting off euphemisms about living life to the fullest or how love trumps all. She was wonderful to have around and she remained close to my family until her passing.  The article (with no byline) originally came from a Cosmo magazine from 1993 but I modified some of it so that it's pretty fun for anyone. Don't worry dudes, you won't melt just by reading an old Cosmo list! LOL. I do not claim the list as my own and as I stated prior, have only modified it so it may appeal to both sexes or is more in tune with present times. However, a cou...

Red eyed tree frog My sister and I were discussing this week the dreaded "red-eye" flight for our upcoming June trip out to California to see my Dad. You know the flight. You think it's a great idea at the time because it's SO cheap and are so that you are gonna be able to sleep on the plane and wake up all refreshed on the opposite coast at 6 am. Then you realize after you land that you've just had the sleep from Hell! Hence the term RED-EYE. There is no snuggling comfortably on a red-eye either (unless you are me, keep reading). The guy behind you is kicking your seat. You hear that overhead "bong bong" from two rows ahead of you calling for the flight attendant at 2 am. There is the turbulence. There is the captain telling you to fasten your seat belts lest you get catapulted out of your seat. And of course, if you are on the aisle seat, there is always the person next to you who needs to visit the bathroom at 3 am. UG...

When I was a young boy taking annual summer trips across the country with my family, much to my parent's chagrin travel brochures became my souvenir of choice. (Yes, I was an odd little boy.) I would collect them by the hundreds. They were so colorful, filled with exciting pictures of places to go, things to see! The meteor crater in Arizona; Jamestown Virginia; Cars buried front end down in the earth for miles to see in Texas; the Grand Canyon; Mount Rushmore; Wall Drug, South Dakota; the most crooked street on earth in San Francisco; Reptile Land; Mount Vernon; Pedro's South of the Border; and The Empire State Building. I could go on and on and on. But why this fascination which borderlines obsession? I think it goes back to our summer trips where we would drive thousands of miles across our great country, stopping at various touristy sites, staying at motels along with way, sometimes carefully planned out, other times the luck of the draw. Our trips during the late 70...