Story - Blast from the Past

A Blast from the Past
I am dating a member of the Walton Family. And the Walton’s, as you know, have many gatherings. This latest gathering was a camping trip by the American River. It was a beautiful, peaceful setting right next to the river that was going by calmly and serenely when we arrived late Friday.
Somewhere around 6 AM Saturday I hear this tumultuous roar and the river is no longer calm, but raging. I marveled at what was clearly a level three (or four) rapid below me. Apparently, they open the damn in the morning to get this river really going for rafting trips. And, apparently, Boyfriend and the younger set are all going. Ten minutes later, I’m informed I’m going too. What?
Have you ever done anything as an adult that you used to love doing as a child and wondered what ever possessed you to do them? Like eating S’mores? When I tried one as an adult, I nearly gagged. Climbing trees is another adult bozo no-no. Up is no problem; down is another story. Over forty jump roping became a near-death experience for me, and belly flops over the age of ten are a very, very bad idea. Skate boarding is also now out, as is the trampoline (just plain ugly) and drooling over the likes of David Cassidy. Things change. Do I grasp this concept? Apparently not, because what came out of my mouth was, “Cool! I haven’t been white water rafting for years!!” (“Years”, Sharon, check on the word “years” – it could serve to be key!)
They say that we forget pain. Which must be true or none of us would go on to have a second child. Cold is pain. I forgot about the part where rushing rivers never warm up and was immediately frozen solid upon getting in the raft in my little helmet and big life jacket. We sit through our safety lecture, learning things like how to position ourselves if we should fall out of the raft so that we can float down the river safely and use our legs to fend off the rocks. Alrightie then, I’ll be sure to do all that while I’m freaking out completely! I’m praying that this is an extreme case situation and not the norm on this river.
Then our guide announces that we are going to do something called “surfing”, which is really “fun”. This good time amounts to maneuvering the raft below a rock where water is rushing back in on itself, sitting down in the boat and holding on for dear life while the thing tips one direction to another, nearly flipping over and saturating you with ice cold water. I kept getting hammered by the waterfall and by the time he pulled us out of there, laughing with the maniacal glee I often associate with young, testosterone ridden males, I was sputtering like a cat. The equally youthful Walton’s were all over it when he suggested a repeat performance, but I was not so sure. I opted for a quick drop-off on the shore to “watch”, but was instantly met with a barrage of “Oh, come on, Sharon!”, “You can do it, Sharon!” and “Don’t be such a wuss, Sharon!” Boyfriend’s youngest daughter even offered to trade places with me after I brought up the whole drenched-by-waterfall issue and for a moment I almost succumbed to peer pressure. Then I remembered that people 25 years younger than me do not qualify as peers, so I pulled the Almost Fifty Card and got out. Off they went.
I’m here to tell you that this thing looks as harrowing as it feels. There they were, tipping precariously to the left and to the right, while the guide was doing the “yeehaw” thing and giving me the thumbs up. And then the youngest daughter was gone. Simply gone. I watched in horror until she finally reappeared on the opposite side of the boat, stuck in that darn waterfall. Of course they can’t pull her out there, or they will all wind up in the river, so she has to swim in sub-zero water, eyes as wide as Texas, until they can rescue her.
I looked at her in awe when they picked me up. “That would have been you!” she says to me. I’m quite aware of that fact. Fortunately it wasn’t me, because I doubt I would have been recounting the episode with the same excitement and pride that she was. There probably wouldn’t have been much pride involved when I burst into tears and proceeded to get back on the bus and abort the mission. But she’s a trooper and was laughing and slapping high-fives with her cousins as we set off down the river.
Golly! A whole ten minutes into the trip and so much to talk about already. The only upside of being soaking wet was that it was impossible for anyone to differentiate between the water on my face and the beads of sweat that were breaking out.
Another thing that I had apparently forgotten was my mother telling me, “Avoid the back end of the boat”, because here I was, in the very back of the boat next to the guide. Its tricky back there, because you can’t hook your feet the same way, and you can only hook one foot or you risk tossing the guide out of the raft, and, well, that would suck. He demonstrates how “easy” it is to just hook one foot and lean waaay out of the boat to use your oar, and how you can actually lift your other leg right up in the air and still keep your balance. Isn’t that nifty? By our second rapid he learned that me trying that wasn’t such a hot idea as I suddenly became airborne and he had to abandon guiding in the name of grabbing my life jacket to ensure I returned inside the boat instead of outside the boat. The boat did a full 180 at that point and we had to take a rapid backwards, but it was better than doing the darn thing solo, if you ask me.
After awhile I got back into the swing of it and was having a good time until I foolishly asked where we landed. Back at the campground, isn’t that convenient? Back at the campground on the other side of that crazy rapid I saw this morning? Yes, the crazy rapid that they named “Troublemaker”. Well, I figured if I could survive things like “Hospital Bar”, “Triple Threat”, and “Meat Grinder”, I could probably survive “Troublemaker”. If not, at least the swim would end near my towel.
I did survive Troublemaker, mostly due to another quick rescue from our guide, and I got out of the raft as enthusiastic and excited as everyone else. And that right there is just plain weird. If anyone tells you that you will find sheer terror and freezing cold to be an absolute blast, you would probably question their sanity, but there you have it.
After I finally regained the use of my frozen legs, I walked down to the edge of darling Troublemaker to sit in the sun and watch the other maniacs attempt this thing. After watching a large number of people go flying out of their rafts when doing this, I realized we must have been pretty good to have all stayed in. I must say I felt pretty darn proud of myself right about then. Not too shabby for a middle-aged chick.
That night by the campfire, however, I did draw the line when offered a S’more. After all, some things are better left in the past, right?

Photo - Leslie

Leslie and George! Here you go - your site will be up this morning at www.thedawsonstudios.com/les/les.htm
Enjoy!

Photo - Brandon Dawson

Yea!!!! My baby came home to see me!!! He's so handsome, looks just like his mother. LOL

Photo - Kate

Here you go Kate!

photo - Jillian and Chad

Hi you guys! How is Fiji? I'll post more later, and write more - but I'm on deadline for my column today. LOVED the wedding, you are wonderful people to be with! I hope you are having a fabulous, well-deserved honeymoon!

Photo - Brayden

This is Braydon. What a cutie. I couldn't believe how expressive and interactive he was at only 6 weeks, but after watching the parents interact with him, I could see why. You are great parents, Jennifer and Brandon, you should be very proud of this little guy. Thank you for such a lovely afternoon.

Opinion - My thoughts on the Economy

I seldom leave my house these days, partially due to the garden, and partially due to the fact that I don’t have the $219 for enough gas to get to Lower Lake. But on the occasion that I do wander downtown for a bit of social time, it seems to me that the conversation inevitably turns to the economy (or lack there-of). The hard times aren’t just hitting the little guy – they are hitting everyone. And while the government has just gotten around to admitting we “may be” in a recession, the people are wondering if this isn’t the beginning of a depression.

I turned to the older generation to ask them if this was possible. Everyone told me no, it wasn’t, because the government had “safeguards” in place to prevent it. However, no one seemed to know exactly what those “safeguards” were. I decided to find out.

First, I called the bank, to see what they knew. Apparently the FDIC loan was a big safety measure. What that means is that if you have up to (but not over) $100,000 in a bank account and the banks go down the government will pay you your money back. Really? Our government? With what? According to them, they don’t have any money either! Let’s hope if they do have the money, they move faster than the car insurance people. And who has 100K in the bank, anyway? I don’t. I guess they could swing my $55 easily enough. But it doesn’t matter if the government can pay us back or not because the way things are going, nobody is going to have any money left in the banks to insure!

So I decided to do a search on-line. Stupidly enough, I typed in the word “depression”. After two thousand pages of websites ready to script me out on Prozac, it occurred to me to type in “Economic Depression”. Site after site showed me discussions and concerns about the situation and the word “safeguards” kept coming up, but no details. It took me a long time to dig it up and even then it wasn’t easy to figure out.

Mind you, I am far from an economist; I can’t even balance my checkbook, so bear in mind this is just what I was able to learn and only my opinion. But check this out: another “safeguard” is that they will shut down the stock market if it starts to crash. Phew! I’m feelin’ safe now! I can see where it would help major corporations, but I’m unclear on how it helps the people. Let’s see, I loose my job, as does all my family, due to our economy, so I run through the 100K in my bank account, and turn to the stock market to pull out my money. As most of the country is in the same boat, this happens all around the same time and they shut the damn thing down. So Wal Mart is safe, but I can’t get my money to feed my family. Wonderful. But no matter, because I don’t have the 100K and I don’t have any stocks. Anything else?

Then I read about a very important aspect that was put in place to protect us. It is called the Glass Stegal Act. The best I could understand was that this was designed to prevent banks from giving “frivolous” loans and mortgages and to keep them from charging exorbitant fees and interest rates. Now this one could surely protect the little guy, but oh dear, it seems this safeguard was abolished in “recent” times. Well, that went swimmingly, didn’t it? I can’t figure out if that maneuver was the result of arrogance or sheer stupidity, but the results were just super. So tell me again how we aren’t in danger of going into a depression, Mr. President? Because we are dying out here. Between the credit card companies going completely INSANE on us and everyone loosing their homes, a gallon of gas costing more than half an hour of minimum wage and a damn cucumber costing $2, I’m thinking things could be a bit better over here in Real People Land. He’s even messed up the old “Rich Get Richer” thing – they aren’t lovin’ the moment EITHER!

So, I started thinking about what I would do if I was president, and the first thing that came to my mind was the obvious – stop putting money we don’t have into this war-that’s-not-really-a-war because we are going to need it to pay off those FDIC loans. So WHAT if we look bad to other countries by up and leaving? Personally, I think we look like idiots for not! Look what is happening to the dollar! He’s got issues with Mexican people coming into this country to work? Well, he’s solved that one – in about another week the American Dollar will be worth half the Mexican Peso. WE will be going down THERE to make a living. (Let’s hope they are kinder to us then we’ve been to them!) One man’s pride is not enough justification for all this and the not-war isn’t helping. All we are doing is pissing off other oil producing countries and the prices are going up, up, up. This brought about another thing I would do if I were president, I would open up our own oil supplies for a bit. Give the country a break – cut the damn prices in half.

I asked about this. Apparently, we are “saving” our oil. Saving it? For what? A rainy day? Well, if We-the-People are having to dip into our savings just to feed ourselves, then They-the-Government might consider doing the same thing. I guess the idea is that we are using up other country’s oil first, so that when they run out they’ll have to come to us. I sure hope the other countries think to look for us under our bridges because that is where we will all be living!

Obviously, I’m not president. But I am a person in this community and I do have some ideas on how we can help each other since the government seems to be a tad remiss. First of all, if you are having trouble, don’t keep it to yourself – ask your neighbor for help. Grow food in groups. In my neighborhood we all know what the other is planting so we can share. If you have to go out of town to shop, car pool together, if your neighbor is loosing their home, open your doors, if they are hungry, share what you can. Barter for services. Give discounts to locals when possible, shop locally when that business is supporting locals (and when they aren’t, go back to the carpooling thing). Have gatherings at your homes, give people a chance to laugh and talk and eat. Reach out to each other and recognize that you are not alone. Otherwise our economic depression could easily turn into emotional depression, which leads to isolation and despair, and since half of us don’t have insurance, who is going to pay for the damn Prozac?