Here We Are

Here We Are                        

By John W. Vander Velden

I must take a bit of time to acknowledge this Blogs birthday, if such things have birthdays.  Wednesday, March 1 will mark five years that I have managed to keep “Ramblings” alive.  Hard to imagine that 260 weeks I have posted at least once a week.  It is far beyond what I imagined in 2012.  I wondered then…I still do…if I will have another idea for the weeks ahead.  Ideas aren’t infinite are they?  But even now I have a few already written…rough perhaps but waiting.  To be honest I had no idea what I was getting into when I began.  My research…we should all do research, don’t you think…gave me a few guidelines.  But I did not follow all the rules, like posting three times a week.  That would be exhausting.  But I understood that I had to post on some sort of schedule.  Over time I have found a system that works…sorta’.  Those that have been following “Ramblings” have noticed….I hope.

Each week I wonder if the time I spend on my Blog should not be spent on other writing endeavors.  But I have learned a great deal from this weekly grind, and it doesn’t take as long to create a post as it once did.  But what did I hope to accomplish by this experiment?  An internet presence…  Whatever that might mean.  But it is part of the “author’s” requirements.  Again whatever that means.

But writing a Blog is only part of the program…promotion the other part.  Social media helps there.  But social media on its own won’t cut it.  The fact is I have to write something that people will want to read.  I have to offer something that is worth the time to access and view, and I have to offer it each week.  That has been the biggest part of this learning curve.  To determine what words might matter to my followers.  It is a responsibility I take seriously.

So I beg your pardon as I speak today about something as inconsequential as a blog.  But it is a milestone of sorts, and I wish to thank all of you for making it possible.  I thank those that come often, those that come rarely, those that have come only once.  I hope that you find something worth your while…something uplifting…that is the ultimate purpose of “Ramblings…Essays and Such”. 

So after five years…here we are…and time will tell where we go…

  

2-22-2017  (415 Words)

I Live To Serve

I Live to Serve

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

My name is Mitch.  Isn’t that just the greatest most wonderful name?  Mitch, Mitch, Mitch… I love hearing them say my name.  Oh…I guess I haven’t told you who the “them” are.  They’re Sam and Lisa.  Aren’t those the greatest names any people ever had? Sam, Lisa, Lisa, Sam, Lisa, Sam, Sam, Lisa, they’re the bestest most awesome people, and I live to serve them. 

Lisa brought me home when I was…well I was a puppy.  That was…hmmm…forever ago.  Sam loved me right away, I don’t know why, after all I’m just a dog.  But they tell me that I’m their dog, and they never lie so I know it’s true.  Being someone’s dog is really special, but it’s a lot of work too, not that I’m complaining.  I’ve got to watch things all day, especially when Sam and Lisa go out, and they go out all the time.  I mean I’d like them to take me with them, and sometimes they do.  We go for car rides in the country, or for long walks.  I love car rides.  But other times they just can’t…well they’re gone so long, forever almost.  I miss them, oh how much I miss them, but because it’s Sam and Lisa I know they can’t help it.  I know they would rather spend time here with me than just about anything else, so I understand…really.  So when I’m home alone I listen…Heard that…I’d better go and check that cracklely-creakely sound over there.  Be back in a sec.   

Awwww… it was nothing.  Just a tree branch that rubs against another one.  But it might have been a burglar or maybe something really dangerous like a squirrel or a bunny.  Why just yesterday two crows landed in the back yard.  I sent them packing you can be sure of that.  I only had to bark at the window for fifteen minutes before they got the message.  “Pack it up birds.”  And there’s the guy that comes every day, well almost every day, in that blue-gray uniform, at least I think it’s blue-gray.  I have trouble with colors.  Anyway he comes to the door and puts something in the box out there.  I let him know he had better not come inside, Mitch is on patrol.

There are others that come to the door, but whether or not they ring the doorbell I let them know I hear them and this guard dog doesn’t like strangers around when Sam and Lisa are out.  Nope, nobody has come in on my watch, and nobody’s going to.  You see I’m Mitch, I’m Sam and Lisa’s dog, and I live to serve.

(449 Words)  1-26-2017

 

 

 

Maybe Not Just Another Day

Maybe Not Just Another Day

 

By John W. Vander Velden

 

 

Some might say that Wednesday was a milestone.  I would like to think of it as just another day.  I guess that would be naïve.  The day made me eligible for Medicare and seeing what I had been paying for health insurance, that alone should have been reason for celebrating. Now I don’t get to “mental” when birthdays roll around.  Well, not too “mental”.  But if I’m honest, and I try to be honest, this one might be one of the bigger ones, if birthdays are ranked.  You know, like the one that meant I became a teenager or 21 when I was considered an adult.  There were other ones too, but this post isn’t about listing milestone birthdays or is it. 

It seems to me that age 65 has always been tied to “old”.  Strange, though I don’t feel young, I don’t feel old.  At least not the old like I had been taught old was supposed to be.  Yes, things hurt, joints that is, but they have hurt for a long time, so nothing new there.  Yes, I’m not as strong as I once was.  That’s mostly my own fault.  I just don’t do the heavy lifting my work used to require, and I haven’t replaced it with heavy lifting “for fun”.  What can I say, I’m not a gym person.  Working on a weight machine might be wise but unlikely.   

So how do I rank this part of my life?  They say age is how you feel.  If that’s true, my age changes all the time, sometimes in bunches.  But rather than dwell on the things time has taken, I try to focus on the things that remain.  A half-full kinda’ outlook, and I always say attitude makes the difference.  So, I, like everyone, face changes…biological included.  And I know that my time among the breathing shrinks a little each day, but so does yours.  So I look at 65, not as a sign of things that dwell only in my memory, there’s a place for memories, but as a milepost of the things ahead.  For in my life, “things are a changin’”.  But if we are honest every year, even every day, things change because each day we change. 

Life is for the living.  And the “up and around” part of life is for those that keep being “up and around”.  Yes, farming…the actual up at dawn and grunt part…is behind me.  But the sun still comes up doesn’t it…and it comes up for me.  I will continue to find a new rhythm for I have lots to do.  So Wednesday may not have been just another day, but maybe it was…

 

 

(448 Words)  2-10-2017

 

The Ocean Calls Me

The Ocean Calls Me                            

By John W. Vander Velden

 

The ocean calls me.  I hear its voice though I walk upon its shore too seldom.  Drawn back to land’s edge, the sandy beaches, to reconnect in ways not understood.  Perhaps it is the vastness, the wide view of distant horizon.  Or the unbelievable power of wind and water that draws me.  The recognition of power far beyond my imagining as water splashes at my feet.  I find a connection there at the shoreline, a connection between myself and something grander…greater…wonderful…GOD.  I understand that GOD exists in all places but as I stand on the edge of the ocean…as I stand with the wind blowing through my hair…as I stand with the wave’s thunder filling my ears…as I stand watching the water’s curling foam…I know, really know that I stand in HIS presence.

The ocean calls me…and I shall return…

(147 Words)   4-13-2016