Mitchell Way
I wake up each morning to face a life which is the result of the choices I have made in the past. Of course, some choices were good, and some were bad, but the result of those choices is what life is today.
It used to be that when I was young, strong, and had hair, just walking in front of a group of women would make them stare. Now when the women stare it is usually because something is wrong. I’m not saying that I look bad in a swimsuit but last year while walking on the beach in Cancun the women secretly dressed me with their eyes. It’s because I have fashion blindness.
At Bellingham High School, the stereotypical gender pathway in the 70s was always the same; enter the school through the main doors, pass the main office following the hallway down between the auditorium and counselor’s offices. Upon reaching the next crossing hallway, the girls turn left walking north. The guys turn right or continue straight out the east end of the building. The girls were going to Home Economics and the boys to Industrial Arts.
Elwood K. Wayson was a man of the woods. He was a hunter, trapper, and fisherman. He was a spar tree setter for logging camps and later a lineman for the local power company. Elwood lived in a small house behind mine when I was growing up. Since I had no living grandfather, I adopted him to be mine.
I am standing in the kitchen looking out the window at my garden. There are two Blue Jays on the bird feeder, eight finches hanging from the suet block, two hummingbirds fighting for supremacy at their feeder, a two-point buck and a doe feeding on apples in the orchard, a black cat that hides in the garden hedge and four squirrels on my front porch. I feel like Snow White.
My counselor thinks that I should lose the dress and identify with another Disney character.
It was a scene reminiscent of an Elmer J. Fudd hunting cartoon. My granddog Milton Barry and I were stalking wild game. I was wearing my plaid hunting cap and my wool coat. In my hands I carried a 12 gage 1897 Winchester pump shotgun. We were walking on tiptoes. I had never seen a dog do that before.
Saturday, June 4th, 1988. Just another typical weekend morning for me. I was reclined in my lounge chair in front of the TV, sipping a cup of coffee and watching Garfield and Friends. These were the Saturdays I enjoyed. Totally relaxed, no socks on, not a care in the world.
My mother was a world traveler. Ask her about any country or region of the world and chances are that she had been there. She traveled by plane, train, bus, cruise ship, camel and elephant. She was never keen about bicycles or skis because she said that elegant ladies should never fall on their faces. It was her goal in life to see and do as much as she could possibly cram into her remaining years and, as much as possible, she wanted to share the experiences with her family.
I was an eleven-year-old in sixth grade All City band. It was two hours each Saturday that the family would not have to listen to me practice my trombone. There is only so much a parent can do to encourage a child. After that, they play a game called, “Hide the Slide.”
Recently my wife has been ailing from sciatica in her left hip. This has been a blessing for me. For the first time in a long time, I am not the biggest pain in her backside.
It was a panoramic view which I am sure most people have never witnessed. The whole of Abbotsford, B.C. and further up the Fraser Valley to Harrison Lake, south to Bellingham, Washington and west to the San Juan Islands. There I sat in the morning sun; the wind was at my back — about 80 miles per hour of wind.
It was the sound of a rushing mighty wind.
“What was that?” I asked my wife Cheryl.
“That,” she answered, “was your youth being torn away by a twister and your body being thrown somewhere into old age.”
What if a man died on a cross?
What would it matter to me?
Maybe not much, people die all the time.
Maybe I’d care if I knew him.
But what if a man died on a cross
What if He did it for me?
Gave up His life so mine might be spared.
That would be different indeed.
In a small cabin at the Fisherman’s Cove Resort on Curlew Lake, eight men prepared for a week of deer hunting on Vulcan Mountain. This was the opening weekend. This was the final weekend of the World Series and this was the year we witnessed “The Phantom.”
“I once sucked down a whole can of sardines — heads, guts and all, while only taking one breath.”
“Ok,’ I said. ‘You’re a liar.”
My friend Rex removed a can of sardines from his backpack, peeled back the lid, took one deep breath, and proceeded to slurp down the whole can — head, guts, and all.