blogging – Page 16 – Truths, Half-truths, and Sea Stories

fitness test

August 2, 2018August 2, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity. John F. Kennedy
(brainyquote.com)

One of my earliest memories of my father was him working out on the pull-up bar he had secured in the doorframe between the hallway and the kitchen of our home. In the bathroom he had dumbbells that he would use before he got ready for work. Years later I saw pictures of him on skiis and also when he was a great swimmer, looking very fit in a picture taken at the beach. He was a handsome and strapping young man.

My mother was also an avid skier. When my father had surgery for a brain tumor requiring years of physical therapy, my mother continued a routine of taking my younger sister and me hiking, running, bicycling and swimming. This was in the mid-1960s, when the President’s Council on Physical Fitness was a sought-after award at school, kids were always in perpetual motion outdoors and obesity was rare in my community. In the years prior to her accident on the slopes (she shattered her ankle ending her skiing days) we took trips to Lake Tahoe in winter to ski. She also had a daily regimen of exercising in front of the television broadcast of Jack Lalanne. She swam laps in a pool for hours twice a week for perhaps thirty years – right into her 70s.

As a teen in Tucson Arizona, I worked on a ranch in the early morning and late afternoon before school, riding my bicycle several miles to and from school. I rode horses several days a week, which is great exercise for your legs, back and core. And in the Navy, I continued to work out, even though I did not have a runner’s body, running several miles every day with the leadership of my department. I was never a body builder, but regularly worked out in the base gym. And cycling around the cities I was stationed.

In my late Thirties, I started to lose interest in fitness. Whether laziness, age or a depression mindset thing, I started to gain weight and stopped going to the gym. It was actually my selection for Chief Petty Officer that turned me around. Up at 0430, meeting a group of men and women ten to twenty years my junior at 0500, we ran along the beach and golf course at the base. Calisthenics, tug-of-war contests, and even a half-marathon were activities I determined to give my best – “lead from the front” attitude. It was in response to a challenge that a Chief, five years my senior issued me.

fb_img_1528732288111 After my military retirement, I rode my bicycle for miles to and from work for a few years. One month after I started to up my efforts – getting the clipless pedals on that bicycle, I had an accident and broke my wrist in several places. I was afraid to ride a bicycle in San Diego after I recovered. Then work became my excuse to not exercise and binge eating instead to cope with stress. Obvious to all, I started to get terribly out of shape to the point, on a vacation cruise in November of last year, I was teased by a Jamaican tour employee who nicknamed me “Santa Claus”. Upon my return, I hated my cruise pictures – alongside our very fit friends. I made a decision. No more Santa Claus. With an illness at the end of the year to motivate me, I decided to follow my spouse’s commitment, by eating nutritiously and moderately. And get into physical fitness again. There have been few things in my life that have not been accomplished when setting my mind to push through. I believe that anyone with sufficient motive and “never quit” attitude can achieve anything, I intend to wear my uniform, fit and with pride, for Veteran’s Day this year.

I just turned 59 last week, and I am well on my way to my next milestone: I was under two hundred pounds when I received my Chief’s anchors in 2004, and I will be there again. It takes forty minutes a day four days a week. I walk the dogs daily, and hike with my friends (and the dogs) Saturday mornings. And I no longer eat the processed crap I ate unthinkingly, as I look at it now as sidetracking my goal.

No longer being a fat old man has been noticed by my co-workers, and supervisors but particularly by friends I had not seen in a year. “Half the man I used to be” is my new moniker. My wife is excited that we are getting healthier together. And my zeal for the outdoors, my relationships with my wife – we work out together , with my physically active friends, and even zeal in blogging has been renewed. And I intend to be healthy and active for my grandchild, Zander, just born, and any more in the future.

I want to encourage you to stay active. Nothing will pull you out of anxiety, depression, a “funk”, or a stressful day at work like exercise and good nutrition. You can find out if this is something you want to do as well here.

And nutritional help here

True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and exercise of the body; the two are ever united. Wilhelm von Humboldt (brainyquote.com)

Popeye was no vegan

July 24, 2018July 25, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

1395286500-2 During the years I served on Navy ships underway on deployment, one of the most anticipated days was the mid-point of the cruise when the Command authorized a barbecue for the crew. This was known as “Steel Beach”. We all would form long lines to have a burger, roasted chicken, hot dogs, and potato salad, baked beans and chips. And a beer. But I can understand the excitement about a barbecue – even a steel beach one. It seems to be part of the human DNA to enjoy roasted meat. Perhaps it was the way food had to be containerized, frozen, powdered, steam-blanched for long voyages. At least, we never had salt beef, hard-tack or meal-wormy bread of our sailing ship forebears.

1000w_q95 — Steel Beach, USS PHILIPPINE SEA

I guess I could have fared worse. Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs have been issued to servicemen on the battlefield – or during Chief initiations – or in SERE schools for generations. But in our changing society, I hope that vegetarians or vegans do not come to control the food selection of a captive audience be they on a forward operating base or a deployed destroyer. In Twenty-First Century society, we have a number of people who choose to eat vegetarian or even more radically, make food choices as “vegans”. The latter disdain any product that has anything to do with animal-origin; these folks condemn animal-related food industries. Of course, prior to modern refrigeration and frequent underway replenishment, I imagine had there been vegans onboard a ship thirty years ago, they would have been hard-pressed to determine if what was offered from the galley had been a creature at one time. SOS and powered eggs at breakfast, or sliders at lunch hardly seemed to be animal products.

One of my childhood cartoon heroes, Popeye, certainly had a thing for spinach. But I don’t think he would ever have turned away from barbecued steak, ribs, or a brat. I certainly never saw any war movie where the men (and women) lined up for soy or critically read the ingredients in any of the slop they were served. I learned as a child while watching movies about dinosaurs, aliens, and vampires, there is an undeniable dominance of meat-eating creatures over plant-eaters. Tyrannosaurs were definitely the hunters that preyed upon the herbivores. Lions and other big cats, wolves, foxes, and coyotes are predators. Barracuda, killer whales and other cetaceans are meat eaters. I know that human beings are more omnivorous, and when times were tough, hunter-gatherers would get by on flour ground from plants. A rabbit or lamb might do if a bison was not available. I have heard of some Amazonian warriors eating their enemies. The Aztecs did have a thing about human hearts, but a Sailor would have to be very hungry to eat someone you had played Spades with late nights.

Gratefully, cannibals do not seem prevalent in the military services. Nor do I encounter any at my employer. But I have encountered vegans. And some of these are a little ill-tempered, particularly when you tease them why they are not joining you in savoring barbecue for lunch or the team picnics. But inquiring further, I learn that vegans are predisposed to feeding their cats or dogs in the same manner they have chosen for themselves. While I can understand personal choice in the type of sustenance that humans put in their bodies, I am at a loss to understand how we humans project the same ethos on our dogs and cats.

Then again, I was eating some cantaloupe tonight with my dog monitoring my every slurp. To humor him, I gave him a small chunk. He ATE the chunk of cantaloupe. But of course, he had also just eaten scraps of the barbecue roast I had on my dinner plate. Omnivores. I would think it cruel and unusual punishment to restrict him to soy proteins and vegetables. He might decide to snack on me one night. Vegans can be a little unpredictable.

Self-made

July 6, 2018July 5, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Do you think “outside the box”? In other words, when you were a child were you chided for coloring outside the lines in a coloring book or for using “wrong” color crayons for subjects? Did you ask a lot of questions? Were you someone who could ace your tests in school but were bored with rules, homework, and projects that “wasted” your time? At work, do you get easily frustrated with the forms, chain of approvals, and eventual denial of your ideas for improving productivity?

Why is it that some of the best marketers and entrepreneurs came from humble beginnings, school dropouts and the like? Perhaps these individuals are an anomaly. Scholarly articles on the subject of entrepreneurship indicate that past success, “coloring outside the lines”, and stellar educational credentials predispose a person to be a successful entrepreneur, it is not necessarily required to make a successful venture. Some of the people I am familiar with personally have built businesses though focused effort and personal ambition. Yet many of today’s workers never achieve a level of comfort that is not mortgaged (homes, cars, recreational vehicles). We all become chained to our standard of living because of company health plans, steady paycheck and known, if not satisfying expectations. Whatever happened to the people who threw everything they owned into a covered wagon and headed West into the undeveloped land in the 1800s?

What happened to the “American Dream”?

As one of the last Baby Boomers, I have spent more than forty years. half in the military and half in the private sector, employed by someone else’s vision. A year before I turn sixty, I am wondering whether playing by “rules”, following the “Baby Boomer” model of (1) get a good education, (2a) join the military, (2b) get a good job , and (3) through hard work and long working hours/effort buy into the “American Dream”. Is getting married, raising kids to have the same dreams, sending them to college; and retiring comfortably at some age around sixty or sixty-five still possible? Somehow in the past forty years, everything got more expensive, taxes, fees, and legal restrictions got ever-more difficult to compensate in order to obtain that retirement. And so, for many, a second-income became necessary just to stay “even”.

Entrepreneurs are self-made

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos was not born into wealth. He was the son of a teenage mom, and adopted by his mother’s second husband (who had arrived from Cuba a few years earlier knowing only a few words in English). He held a variety of jobs growing up. Brilliant and obsessed to make a better life, he was a garage-inventor. Perhaps the early struggles in his family, helped him focus on academic achievement, which in turn lead him to Princeton. When he decided later to follow his passion, it was then he founded what would become Amazon. And we know how successful Amazon has become.

Richard Branson, son of an attorney in England, has childhood dyslexia. He dropped out of school and at sixteen founded a music magazine. The billionaire founder of the Virgin group began with money from that venture to found a music studio. Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Corp, was a brilliant college dropout who created the company in his parent’s garage. While Mark Zuckerberg attended Harvard after very impressive scholastic achievement, he certainly built Facebook from a combination of intellect and ambition. Logan Green and John Zimmer , former college students, created the ride-sharing service from improvements they learned from a service Zimmer built to help college students get around via Craigslist and Facebook linking.

At the end of the Nineteenth Century, my maternal great-great-uncle, Philip Ward, an impoverished immigrant from Belfast (then Ulster) Ireland, established a mail-order business ( Bullock and Ward), in Chicago and the Mid-West, a rival to Sears, Roebuck and J.C. Penneys. It did well until the beginning of the First World War. Other maternal Irish family forebears had built businesses in the linen trade and chocolates (confections) in Ireland that prospered up until the Second World War. My paternal ancestors came to New York from Poland and became tradesmen and entrepreneurs, engineers and shopkeepers.

Members of my family and extended family have been motivated by necessity as well as intellect to have successful careers. A Registered Nurse and single mother who went to school, worked, and raised her children, excelling at each to create a balanced life. Mothers who achieved position and higher income with the largest corporations to support their families. Entrepreneurs and marketing trainers who helped a national network improve their businesses. And some have followed a path a little more “outside the lines” to create opportunity for themselves and for others through a nationally recognized network marketing firm.

Find your why

What sort of vacation have you taken this year? What trade-off have you made to have that new(er) car so you can get to work? How often have you used that 5th wheel in your driveway since you signed the payment plan? What size apartment have you been limited to because of income? Are you working harder and longer to pay for the child-care for your kids? Do you spend more time ill or seeing a specialist than enjoying mid-life?

For me, I have driven eighty (80) miles or more every work-day for eleven years to my employer. And that employer pays me enough now, to pay for my home – small that it is – and my new used car, but also means that my wife also has to work very long hours to pay our bills and hope for retirement someday. We do not have a pile of money. And the years spent in search of “retirement” is perhaps the motive for wanting something better.

Finding “time and money”

The old saying about being able to have time OR money, but not both has certainly had some application in the second decade of the Twenty-first Century. But the additional reality is that your Government will take its cut of whatever you do extra. However, the way to continue to earn is through residual income. That is income that continues and increases beyond your own effort and time to earn it.

And with health problems for the last twenty years, a focus on healthy living and exercise – so I can afford to “retire” and ENJOY it – are reasons I chose to get involved with Beach Body. I’ve seen what a niece has built through diligent effort -hard work- over eight years, in that she overcame health issues, and can work from home – a home her business afforded herself and her husband, while being mom to her two kids. And she has been actively involved helping about 1600 people through her business build income and better lives in the process.

Like everything else in life, the amount of effort put into an education, a career, a business venture, or a personal life is directly responsible for the achievement. In the military, just about everyone who maintains an “average” performance can retire after twenty years with an average stipend. But additional effort and preparation can result in someone being selected as a Chief Petty Officer. And of those, even more effort, preparation, and focus, someone may retire as a Senior Chief ( or Master Chief). With effort, and single-minded focus, someone may achieve an Amazon, an Apple, a Facebook. or a Beach Body enterprise. Or even the 6 AM commute, ten-hour day, and 5 PM commute home.

Entrepreneurs. Work Ethic plus an American ( or Latino, Canadian or British) Dream.

I have to go. I need to go workout.

If you want to know more about an opportunity to get healthier, or help your child who loves the gym but is working double-shifts all the time, check out BeachBody

Thursday PT

July 5, 2018July 4, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Start by making your bed, the Admiral advises.
Personal hygiene
Coffee. Everything is better with coffee.
Time for Physical Training! PT (Weight training, cardio, core strengthening)
Commence Holiday Routine.

Other than Monday, I took the whole week off making up for the push we had at the end of the Quarter last month. Time to catch up on honey-dos, and sort through the stacks of stuff piled on my desk in recent weeks. Probably have four books and two magazines that I want to read- mostly personal development topics that I need to read through. Plus about a hundred blog posts to read and respond to. Who has time to commute, slave away, and commute back – and have a life outside those parameters? Thus, the needed Stay-cation.

I wanted to say thank you to my blogging community friends who have hit the “Like” on my accidental wisdom 500 times. Ninety folks following have journeyed with me so far.

likeable-blog-500-2x

Check out my page on Facebook, if you are interested in joining my health and fitness challenge for the summer. Salty Dawg Fitness Group page

E pleg nista

July 4, 2018July 4, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

It is the Fourth of July, American Independence day; it is the 242nd anniversary of a group of revolutionaries to pen a “Dear George (King) letter”. A random thought in a comment I made to my blogging buddy from across the Atlantic, Little Fears, was all it took for this particular post to spring forth:

Funny that it all started over Tea, Taxes, and that royal thing… Now we have tea everywhere (though mostly ICED – which the UK knows nothing about; in California specifically we pay the highest taxes (but don’t/won’t/can’t revolt); and if we aren’t swooning over British royals, we are treating celebrities as though they were royals!

And I started thinking what it might be like in an alternate universe ,,,, which then lead to me thinking about an old, old episode of Star Trek ( the original 1968 version) when there was this episode, The Omega Glory, about a distant inhabited planet that had a parallel history to the United States. But war had destroyed everything but emnity between the Yangs and the Congs.

Of course, in the early decades of the Twenty-First Century, we all know that this is a very improbable scenario. Even Neal Degrasse Tyson would be hard pressed to deduce the probability of an inhabited world somewhere in our galaxy having a parallel history to our Earth.

But imagine, what if there had been no Revolution, no war over taxes and tea? Something to ponder over coffee.

(Ed. note: had to make amends to die-hard Trekkies – I re-listened to the episode and it’s e pleB nista and Comms— but you get my drift)

a day for heroic mothers

May 13, 2018May 13, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Happy Mothers’ Day, 2018! Whether your momma is alive or living in your memory, hug her today!

My own mother passed away seven years ago but I have others to celebrate. My daughter-in-law is expecting our grandchild in August. My wife has three now-grown sons – she did all the work as I married into the family when they were pre-teens. But I have a mother to call today, whom I still refer to as “Ma”. There’s others whom our family has had as ‘second-moms’. My elder maternal aunt is someone I would have chosen, if that was a thing, to be my mom.

When I studied Russian in college and then had a opportunity to visit the country ages ago, I remember how the old Soviet regime had an award for moms: Мать-героиня or Mother-Heroine.

Whether you have one whirlwind of a boy, a seven brides for seven brothers family, or like my wife, three men- all radically different, celebrate the day. Give your mom a hug, a phone call, some flowers, and treat her to brunch. Love you, Mom!

a motto for marriages

May 12, 2018May 11, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

2 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit,if any tenderness and compassion, ²then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. ³Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, ⁴not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. Philippians 2: 1 – 4

Your spouse did not come in your seabag

Up through the late 1980s, the military services did not yet offer the kind of training and support that married service members need. When training was introduced, the first programs were the ombudsman that informed the unit commanders about the family support systems for the military members in their unit. Classes through the Family Service Centers in life basics, credit, budgeting, child-rearing, shopping, nutrition, and employment opportunities for the military spouse started a little more than two decades ago.

Is marriage outdated?

For 2017, the U.S. Government (CDC) issued these statistics for marriage and divorce in the United States:

Number of marriages: 2,245,404
Marriage rate: 6.9 per 1,000 total population
Number of divorces: 827,261 (44 reporting States and D.C.)
Divorce rate: 3.2 per 1,000 population (44 reporting States and D.C.)

One-quarter as many divorces as weddings in 2017! While divorce statistics have declined a bit, the number of people cohabiting and not getting married may be part of the statistics. And what factors contribute to divorce? Without going into the data, it is probably the same things that people all say – financial difficulties, different goals and attitudes, infidelity, mental or physical abuse, health issues, and so on. People whether gay or straight, and if examined, probably in any other country, have the same issues. A lack of common, unifying principles, beliefs, or values that treat each person with respect and worth.

The recipe for a failing marriage is actually based on our human nature. Take two self-interested emotional people and put them legally together. Remove intimacy, common goals, and a support network of family and friends. Add long separations due to the nature of the military job, a culture that is generally foreign to a civilian spouse, and the dangers that any day, a training accident or hostile action can mean a complete life change for either person in a marriage.

Semper fidelis is not just a Marine motto

Always faithful. Regardless of someone’s spiritual understanding or lack of one, there are means to learn how to not merely survive, but thrive as a married couple. It does take effort and common goals of both persons – daily – to have a successful marriage. And it is not enough to be a member of the same spiritual, ethnic, or career community either. It is the commitment to learning, practicing what one learns, treating one another with respect and love and honoring your vows.

Self-paced training

This week, our fellowship in church began a series of lessons from a book by Dr. Gary Smalley, If Only He Knew, for husbands and for wives, For Better or Best. The married men began with lessons on checking our tongue, by not spouting off sarcasm about things that irritate us, and not sharing your “fix it” strategies when your spouse is sharing her frustrations and needs. These only serve to alienate our children and spouses at home, and those attitudes can also negatively impact your work environment.

A second part of the introductory workshop covered protecting our spouse physically, emotionally, her honor, financially, and with sound principles. To which were also included our spiritual involvement. A husband should provide a safe and secure home by regular upkeep or maintenance. Vehicle maintenance, especially with working spouses is also part of that physical protection. Emotionally, we should learn to recognize the signs when our spouse is burdened. Sometimes, husbands can neglect the shared responsibilities for childcare and home. For most of our spouses who also have careers, this can be overwhelming. It is also a fact that many people suffer chronic depression, so recognizing the symptoms and seeking care for a spouse may be a responsibility of the husband.

Protecting a spouse from negative attitudes or disrespectful comments by other family members is protecting her honor. Financially, husbands need to protect our spouses – whether or not they are a two-income family- by setting sound financial goals, spending habits, communication and mutual agreement. Too many people “fly by the seat of their pants” spending more than their income each month. And then there are the sins that plague us as men – greed, lust, selfishness, envy, and arrogance or pride that if we men do not actively control – or apologize when something occurs – they can ruin our marriages.

Additional study

The first book I read on the subject of developing a vibrant marriage was Strengthening Your Marriage, by Wayne Mack which I bought a few months before I got married eighteen years ago. This was the basis of a class that friends of ours, married then six years, taught us starting while we were engaged and then for several months into our marriage. In a future blog post, I will summarize the lessons from this book.

Over nearly two decades, our church has held several “marriage workshops” for members and invited guests. The principles that the speakers have shared cover the mistakes that even biblically-centered couples made. And the successful application of the principles in this article’s biblical quote. While I know that Christian couples who do not actively work at the principles for a strong marriage can fail, I am aware of couples married for decades who do not attend church but with the help they got and the lessons they learned from biblical principles and these sorts of helpful books and seminars, grew closer to each other and to God.

the Prince got the Pauper fired

May 10, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Universities revel these days in being all about inclusion, “free speech”, minority rights, and “post-modernism”. And people who have risen up the ranks to lead universities were all educated in this system for the last thirty or so years, so I would expect them to fight against “oppression”, “class”, working-people’s rights and other “ills” of this society’s so-called anti-intellectualism. (All of which I believe has more to do with those wielding power and manipulation of those not in power -regardless of party or nationality) I do not happen to like Rap music, but I never would get someone fired over it. Yet a college senior administrator, at prestigious Duke University did exactly that.

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deep waters

May 4, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Anyone who has gone to sea for any length of time – and with a wink to my Coast Guard brothers and sisters I mean out past “ankle deep” (out of sight of the land) – knows the sea is vast. And it really does not matter whether the vessel taking the mariner out is a sloop, a ketch, a six-hundred foot Navy cruiser, a thousand-foot aircraft carrier or nine thousand-passenger and -crew cruise liner. At some point, everyone realizes that we are but dots in the ocean.

For poets, scholars, kings, farm boys and fishermen, the ocean casts a spell beckoning us to it, and yet the depths and potential hazards have been a metaphor, even among land-lubbers, for danger and despair. Who today has not heard or used the phrases “in over your head”, “you’re in too deep”, “the deep end”, or being “out of your depth” to describe discomfort.

²I sink in the miry depths,
where there is no foothold.
I have come into the deep waters;
the floods engulf me. Proverbs 69:2 (NIV)

But getting in over my head was never a reason for me to avoid doing something. I did venture to sea, most of the eight years I was crew on 3 Navy ships. Perhaps it was due to my early introduction to water. I think I was learning to swim almost at the same time I was learning to walk. My mother used to tell me how, as a toddler, I would venture off the step in the shallows of the community pool – and her lightning-quick mother’s arm would shoot out to rein me in as my head went under. I was a budding Jacques Cousteau. As a young teen, I took a class in Lifesaving, in order to become a lifeguard, and the instructor- as I recall it- tried to drown me simulating a panicked swimmer. I punched him. Later, in the Navy class on treading water, I never understood how some of my peers had never learned to swim. I never feared putting my head underwater. And in my twenties I obtained a SCUBA certification and spent some years going diving.

Still, I have a healthy respect for water whether it is gathered in rivers, large lakes, or the ocean. Perhaps it is due to my experience with lakes that appear deceptively shallow, or water that was particularly frigid on a very warm New England May day. Or with currents in rivers, in saltwater marshes with an ebbing tide where I tried to navigate a little rowboat across. And I’ve lost my footing in a shallow beach tidal outflow and been sucked out to the bay.

There is a magical quality to looking out at the sea, and witnessing the deepening blue hue of the deep ocean, turn gray-blackish and whipped into white foam caps. When a calm sea could become a violent storm in a matter of hours, there were some, myself included, who offered prayers of thanksgiving to Providence for never having been seasick . On a bright sunny day, as the weather turns into a full-force gale.

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. Vincent Van Gogh / brainyquote.com

In my childhood, I was fascinated by nautical museums, sea captain’s two hundred year-old homes, touring lighthouses and old ships, steamers, and ferry boats. And today I am blogging about such things now and again. At my keyboard now I remember the first work of fiction I wrote for a college literature class being a blend of all these memories. And I quite clearly pictured Burgess Meredith as the crusty old Salt protagonist.

Dwellers by the sea are generally superstitious; sailors always are. There is something in the illimitable expanse of sky and water that dilates the imagination. Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Strangely, I never bought a boat after my assignments at sea ended. While I have been on several since my career in the Navy ended, I have never wanted to scrape barnacles, chip paint, or clean the salt-corrosion ever again. But I still know port from starboard, and even on the maritime museum, the MIDWAY at the pier in downtown San Diego, I will still request permission to come aboard. And I can wish for others a fond time getting “haze gray and underway”.

changes

April 28, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strange)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time – David Bowie Changes

David Bowie was a genius when it came to his music and his showmanship. He could repackage himself over the years and always be fresh and draw attention. I think it is time to make some changes to this blog. I need to have a fresh approach and better content. When I started this blog, I was recalling memories of lessons learned, places visited and people who impacted my life over twenty-five years in the Navy, and lately, remarking on current events that were Navy or military-themed. But what about writing fiction? A comic strip? Possibilities.

Recently the company I work for changed its brand identity, and introduced a new logo. They hired a public relations firm. I have more than fifty subscribers. I need your help. I am looking for feedback on this fresh look for Truths, Half-Truths and Sea Stories. Like it? Hate it? Don’t particularly care? Let me know.

getting back in the game

April 28, 2018April 27, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

Finishing races is important, but racing is more important. Dale Earnhardt
https://www.brainyquote.com

In the sports world, professional athletes sometimes get injured or sick. For some, surgery for torn ligaments, broken bones or other issues requires an extended absence. In the MLB, baseball players can be put on the DL (Disabled List). In the NFL, football players have injury categories including the Injured Reserve (IR) list. For the guy or gal whose career does not have millions of adoring fans, bright lights and cameras or sponsor endorsements, she can be hospitalized at the worst time where work or family are concerned. For compulsive, “Type A” people – and I am a recovering compulsive worker – time away from the office is being away from my team and from the battle. I certainly felt that way when I had to retire from the Navy eight years ago. It took years to lose that compulsion to be involved and to simply enjoy being “retired”.

the home stretch

Many know in the game of baseball, between the “top” and “bottom” of the seventh inning, is a time for the fans to “stretch”. And then the game resumes. For a month of recovery from abdominal surgery, my work life feels it has had that “stretch”. While I did not plan to be away so long, after a few weeks at home, the light housework, cooking, and a few other chores seem preferable to the whole regular job thing.

“What am I thinking!”

Of course, I have been working almost forty years, so this is as close to “retirement” as I’ve gotten. My youngest adult son still questions my work ethic, “are you STILL off work? When are you going back?”, he says. I remind myself he’s only held a real job for two years. Forty more to go (unless he eventually learns to save a dollar or two). As a Baby Boomer I know taking time off only leaves a bigger headache to return to. What is time off worth to you?

To get a week at home, a few might trade work for a hospital bed. Fewer still might trade, for two weeks away, surgery, staples, hospital food and daily changing bandages. Maybe for three weeks, one or two might volunteer for a hospital stay, including an operation; a persistent cough that racked your body with pain each time; use or not use painkillers which alleviate pain but slow down healing; bedrest, antibiotics, itching and requiring help to pack medicated strips into the surgical incisions twice daily to properly heal.

sporting legs, backs, sight, and wind

The last leg. On the back nine. The finish line is in sight. A second wind has kicked in. Athletes want to be in the race. With apologies to Dale Earnhardt, the sooner restarted the sooner I reach my finish line.

After four weeks, going back to the “job” is preferable. A discussion I had with a blogger concluded that suffering is needed for great art, drama, and writing. Is my blogging getting BORING? I am not suffering! Where do I get inspired? Suffering at work. I am not used to working like this!

With my return to work, there’s going to be an adjustment. Others are going to suffer. Dogs won’t have my company during the day. Barbecuing and making dinner for my wife coming from work are going to be a weekend-only thing. Coming off the DL is an adjustment. Work is going to expect that I will return to my suffering program and knock a homer out of the park. Perhaps my dogs will be inspired to blog.

one man’s junk

April 24, 2018April 24, 2018Eric SaretskyLeave a comment

“…is another man’s treasures” – see etymology

Looking over all the random stuff I have collected in my travels years ago in the Navy, I am recalling how much I learned about marketing since those days. For the longest time, I was quite the buyer. Fresh out of bootcamp, I was “accosted” by a photography film and developing service. I think they were out of business before the contract expired.

“you are going to see the world, kid. You need something to take pictures and to develop them. Sign right here…”

It took a while to learn to bargain proficiently – which is how most of the world operates between vendors and customers. I love hunting for bargains today. I am always asking for any discounts, and chatting with anyone and everyone. But many, even today, will not admit they may subscribe to the old saying, “a fool and his money are soon parted”.

Thinking back to my childhood, two of my favorite characters from television or movies who were amazing at marketing (trading goods), was Pat Buttram’s Mr. Haney in the 1960s television comedy, Green Acres, and Don Rickles character, Crapgame, from the movie, Kelly’s Heroes.

Whether knowing the “talk” of a salesman with just about anything you wanted – or didn’t want, and helping me to avoid “being sold” to a guy who could trade up to get what he needed, I know that my experiences in the Navy were invaluable in my later years. If it was a more-comfortable chair for my boss in the Pentagon, I could get one through “appropriation”. Or if some repair work was needed sooner than the bureaucracy allowed, I could barter favors for moving the work order to the top of the “day’s worklist” stack.

But in the early years, particularly when traveling around the world, I was a tenderfoot with a pocketful of cash, so there were life lessons to learn in salesmanship and becoming a prudent shopper. How many of us, Sailor, Soldier, Airman, Marine, or merchantman have walked past a street hawker without looking or at least listening, to the pitch for gold, jewelry, or girlfriend – swag?

“My friend, my friend, I give you good deal!”

There was always a little marketing going on, from trading shipboard things like embroidered military unit patches, engraved Zippo lighters, military ballcaps. Before widely marketed, Levi’s jeans, Nike shoes, and other “Americana” might make good currency. Sometimes, barter involved Marlboro cigarettes, American whiskey, or music CDs. Yes, kids, there was a whole economy going on, before Paypal. Before Amazon. Before the Internet. A long time ago.

I recently found and then misplaced a picture of me and my shipmates sitting in a beachfront cabana somewhere in South America, decked out in Panama hats. Must have been Ecuador. We had encountered a pretty streetwise kid- a New York City kid visiting his uncle there – who was helping Sailors with the local menu and beer prices. I think he made a kickback but we weren’t complaining. Does any American twenty-something really understand the foreign currency conversion to the dollar? After blowing through your money on the first visit, wisdom then seems to show.

And then there are unique buying opportunities. Ecuadorian vendors in Manta presented me with “genuine” Inca figurines. They were clearly cheap copies but the women selling them from a blanket made me feel I had to buy something. At a beach cabana a kid sold me (yes, I bought one) a fishnet hammock.

In Toulon, France, others offered ladies handbags far more reasonable than the Cannes Louis Vuitton storefront (of course cheaper meant a knockoff). I told my shipmate he could have saved $400 and his spouse wouldn’t have known the difference. Yet he bought the real thing. There were replica French (a nicer word than counterfeit) perfumes in Egypt. One sailor was buying these and fancy stopper bottles from other vendors, to resell at home.

Elsewhere there were Turkish carpets, former-Soviet Army medallions and belt buckles, and amber jewelry (in Bulgaria). Leather goods and inlaid gold and metal items in Spain. Jewelry using ancient Greek and Roman coins in Greece. Tailored suits in Sicily. How many visiting sailors bought panini sandwiches from buxom women in waterfront kiosks in Toulon, France? (These women were Italians!). Anyone visiting Toulon at the time knew “smash” sandwiches.

With the Internet, I imagine these same vendors now have Point-Of-Sale shops, Apple Pay, PayPal and international shipping. Perhaps I too, shall open a little shop. “I give you good deal!”