The sunrise lit the sky on fire, shades of orange, red and crimson playing upon the blue of the sky and the white of the wispy clouds. It was a perfect backdrop for a Sunday morning of geocaching and I ascended into the mountains behind Santa Barbara in search of hidden treasures.
As it sometimes happens with geocaching, everything I tried to find was elusive, hiding itself from my peering eyes, coming up empty time and time again. I continued to search, but to no avail. I looked around to get my bearings and that's when I saw the directional sign for La Cumbre Peak.
As a teenager, La Cumbre Peak was a common destination. Sometimes we would drive the winding road in the darkness to beat the sunrise and watch it come over the mountains; in winter it was typically the closest snow to Santa Barbara, and while there wasn't much it served the purpose for snowballs and the occasional snow person. Other times it was an escape from the June gloom, rising up and breaking through the fog, looking out onto an ocean of puffy white.
I took the road less traveled and headed up the winding road, remembering some of the curves like I had driven them yesterday. The road to the peak itself was closed, so I walked the last quarter of a mile, heading to the top. Not another person or vehicle in sight, I wandered along the potholed road among the pines, maples, manzanita and chaparral. I sat near the inactive fire lookout tower, closed since the early 1980s, void of windows and personnel. I looked as far as the my eyes could take me; the view of the Channel Islands, Santa Barbara and Goleta, the Santa Ynez Mountains and Gibraltar Reservoir are breathtaking.
Aristotle said that memory is neither perception nor conception, but a state or affection of one of these, conditioned by lapse of time. Today, like all those years ago, I was as far away from home as I could be and yet still see the city of my birth, alone in the present, connected to the past and wondering what the future would bring.
It has been said that an era is truly known only when it is over. The life of any individual, marked by its distinctive characters and events, may not make the history books, but it was significant nevertheless for those of us who lived it.
My father passed away the other day. He is no longer burdened by his physical body and the limitations of age, having been freed from that vessel to be one with the universe. A good friend of mine said he remembered my Dad as kind, warm and genuine; truer words were never said about him.
For my Dad, the act of living was about being the best person that he could be, having friends that loved and appreciated him, and loving his family more than anything that life had to offer him.
He taught me to fish, to select quality tools, and to just be thankful.
He always listened to people, never left anyone out and had a real passion for serving his community. This
translated into years of volunteer service. He was well known and respected in the local community, serving his employer, his heritage and his faith.
He was a very caring and compassionate person, putting the needs of others before his own. My father fulfilled obligations willingly; his word was his bond, and everyone knew it.
He was self-made and self-reliant. His skill with tools that could fashion wood, brick, tile, stone or cement allowed him to engage the world as a man who would mold these resources rather than be molded by them.
He has always been a constant in my life, giving me advice and encouraging me to be my best. For that, and for more than I can ever remember and record, I will be eternally thankful.
As we pack up our emotions and memories, take another road to another place and write that next chapter, this finale is symbolic of how things change and evolve, how life goes on despite leaving things on the side of the road, how the future is now.
Today we celebrate the sacrifices he made to his commitment to making the world a better place. Dad, you did good; you did real good.
Jim Tabacchi, December 16, 1937 - September 28, 2014
Daniel Defoe, in his 1726 book The Political History of the Devil, penned that the only constants in life are death and taxes. Some 2200 years before Defoe, Heraclitus of Ephesus, a Greek philosopher, was known for his doctrine of change being a constant in the universe.
The Earth is thought to have been formed about 4.6 billion years ago by collisions in the giant disc-shaped cloud of material that also formed the Sun. The solstices have been constants for this solar system longer than anything we can even imagine, the grand reminder that we are but travelers on this pale blue dot that circles the sun.
Astronomically, the summer solstice, more commonly known as the first day of summer, arrived today at 03:51 a.m. EDT, precisely what the Earth's axial tilt is most inclined toward the sun, at the degree of 23° 26', its most extreme.
Summer solstice is here. Once again, the heart of downtown Santa Barbara is transformed from the Spanish-style business district into an explosion of color and music filled with illusions and imagery, creativity on steroids, beating back the "June Gloom" that can envelope the area.
This year, look for a Monopoly hotel complete with Rich "Uncle" Pennybags atop the chimney. If you have an extra bottle of water, find the small slit in the side about eye level and press the bottle through, and clap when it goes by.
By
the fates I have returned to the float fold, meeting at the appointed
side street to assemble our entry and eventually make our way up State
Street. This time, I can tell my compatriots in crime that love each
and every one of them myself.
Today, as with many days, my past meets my future, and I, much like the parade, will go with the flow.
My friends, we've come home.
Time marches on, years pass, people move in and out of our lives. Some are old, some are young, but all are called to that next evolutionary step, the afterlife, the world to come, whatever you believe.
The passing of a friend in your age group causes you to ponder life a little differently. Part of us dies with them, as friends carry small pieces of each other wherever they go. A friend of mine I had not seen in over five years passed away died recently, causing those past memories and shared pieces to rush to the surface. At a former employer where a group of us were born in 1961, we shared membership in "Club 61" and the common bond of age, musical tastes, workplace experiences, friends. With her passing, another connection to the past, a potential future presence, a constant, is gone.
As the dust of my WMS Czarina returns to the earth, I am reminded we witness birth and deaths many times, and that both are a secret of nature not for us to fully understand.
