what do you really want to do with your life?

sooner or later we all come to the closed down memorial bridge that represents our fucked up rusty life...
You can walk down lane A, walk down lane B or just jump over the side and see what happens.





I've spent more time in the last month looking at career paths then I ever did in my entire life. and it is just hard to decide one path over another. I think I can do all of them but I suspect that isn't true. I decided to go to HSU for music because I felt my whole life was in front of me and there would be time to do everything and what I felt was missing most was an understanding of music. I played the guitar and had no idea what I was doing but I knew that once I figured it out then I would blaze away. So in 6 years I got a 4 year degree in music. I see now that although that was necessary for me to understand new things fast (ha!) and to demonstrate how serious I was...I think about one semester or two of theory and musicianship would have been ok. I didn't need to analyze Stravinsky or Bartok concertos. And after it was over one thing led to another and one interest led to another and now I'm back to where I started like 10 years ago looking for a career path. I don't feel anything is really missing from my life like I did with music. I've learned a little and think I don't need a two year degree in advanced auto mechanics. I can just take a few classes...or maybe just rescue an old truck or motorcycle and learn everything I want to know. So that's an easy dream to rearrange.
Now the thing that has caught my attention in the last two years is solar electricity. alternative forms of energy. I meant to track down a solar guru living in Niland on the slab city. but it didn't happen. So I wanted to take a class on solar energy. and then there is this program at a NH community college...energy services and technology...that includes conservation and solar and electronics and is way more dynamic than fixing brakes and carbuerators...AND has career opportunities (energy conservation manager, Energy Guru) that look to be the way of the future.
I don't want to lose my identity as a gypsy and iconoclast and guitar playing motorcycle mechanic but this energy services program looks like it could be a path that works. I just wonder what people do when they decide on one path over another. And I wonder if you have found that. There is always time to do something, but there isn't time to do everything. It's agony that I can't take a beading class AND an Indian Cooking class. It's so unfair. Who makes the rules about the time we have alloted to us. Isn't there some kind of application I can fill out that will waive the time requirements on my life? It would be so easy. Just stop the clock and let me do all these things. I don't see the problem with that.
what do you think?

Stratham Hill: refuge for the unwanted

The results are in: 100% of Portsmouth disapproves of my lifestyle. I feel like a flagrantly gay man in a catholic church. Maybe if I painted my van green then they would get the idea that it is all about conserving resources. But I feel that when you start painting vans green or putting a bumper sticker that says, "Sleeping in a van doesn't kill arctic wolves. Shopping at Target does." then you have crossed the line. I'm not here to preach. I know the wolves are doomed. But I want to know if it is even possible to live in a way the wolf would approve of. I think it is possible but it won't be in Portsmouth.

After getting run out of Portsmouth by the witch hunt brigade I went to Stratham Hill to cast a homeless hex on the town. I did so by burning a copy of the Homeless Treatise "Waiting for Godot" and chanting "May the homeless of the world come to your door. May the piece worker sewing your Target brand capri pants be buried under your back porch. May your Starbucks latte be too bitter to drink."

We'll see if it works.

I read some graffiti up there on the top platform that said, "John did it with Megan here." and in a different and less weathered marker "I did it here with Megan too." Interesting...Megan sounds like a girl who knows how to have a good time.

there were some other good remarks but that's the only one that stood out.

The memorial bridge

how many times I played around on this gun. It was only slightly less cool than the one at Ft. Stark that is now gone.



The memorial bridge is closed. It's rusting to pieces. I walked across it the other morning to get a slice of pizza at the badger island pizzeria.




The soldiers "participated" in the first world war. I think that is a little euphemistic. Right? participated? But what other word can you use? They fought and died or survived. It wasn't a community bake sale.




Here's to all the vets. Oggy supports the troops.

Fitz John Porter

This statue is over at the North Mill Pond in Portsmouth. Old Fitzy had a long career in the military, from the Mexican to the Civil War. But something happened that had him "cashiered".
It's right there on his plaque. What is being cashiered? I went and checked it out and it is even worse than court marshaled , it is a degradation ceremony. So Fitzy had his sword broken or his medals thrown on the ground. Maybe he got slapped or publicly disrespected. Anyway, it doesn't happen much. But the interesting thing is that Fitzy's cause was taken up by Pres. Hayes and Pres. Grant and finally Pres. Cleveland absolved him of whatever it was he did and erased the cashiering.



I'll save you a trip to wikipedia. Basically, war is hell. Porter had an order to charge Stonewall Jackson's army at the second Bull Run in the summer of 1862. Porter hesitated. Then when he was ordered again he complied and his 5000 union troops ran into 30000 rebels. Because of the hesitation and subsequent defeat he was the scapegoat for the loss of life and so got booted out of the army. They called it cashiering in 1904, the year the plaque was made, because he was insubordinate. Anyway, that's the story of the guy on the horse near the South Mill Pond. I also saw a chipmunk run across the road, an equally heroic deed, but no statues have yet been comissioned.