Notes From A Bear's Journey

   Imagine you've created something so important that it would alter the understanding of humanity, an invention so revolutionary that it would come into use worldwide, a concept so unique that even 50 years later it would be not only still in use but would still be pretty much in its original format.   Now imagine that even after all of this you would receive little recognition or reward; in fact, you would consider yourself fortunate that you were even allowed to present such an idea...and you, yourself, would feel that you were lucky to have had this chance even if you didn't get much credit or pay, certainly nothing like that of most of your colleagues.  At first, you might think that all of this was in reference to the group of black women so instrumental to the math and engineering at NASA when manned space exploration was just beginning, a subject of the bestselling book and movie, Hidden Figures .  And you'd be partially right.  But you'd have to go back to the

   It's an odd phrase, really.   Why not use the word "in addition" or the actual meaning of the word which would be "up-to-date?"  Only about 70 years old, the term "updates" or the slang version of the singular ("Here's an update") is relatively recent and almost begs for a new phrase (much as the symbol # which has grown up to a new generation of Twitter users as a "hashtag" and to an older generation of voicemail and telephone users as a "pound" symbol, as in "to hear this menu again press the star key; to end this call press the pound key"...it's also the "sharp" key to readers of sheet music).  Ahem, so the word "updates."  It's in our lexicon and almost instantly recognizable, but what exactly IS an up-date?  Funny how language sometimes pulls us in without questioning.  The show Chrysti the Wordsmith points out many such words and phrases, one of the most recent stumpers

   Fall has come quickly this year, the leaves wanting to turn and rapidly reaching their peak after a few cold fronts arrived from Alaska.  That early chill seemed to bring a sense of urgency to the trees to wrap up their nutrient gathering and begin the process of shutting down, a bonus for those of us watching the annual display of colors being revealed as the green camouflage of chlorophyll withdraws.  The song in the title, of course, has an interesting history for I remember it more as the instrumental by Roger Williams (the only piano instrumental to ever hit #1 on the Billboard charts in the U.S.), his descending cascade of notes seeming to mimic the falling leaves.  In the original Hungarian composition, the title was "The Dead Leaves," a bit more somber title to put to such a melodic composition but perhaps one reflecting the author's viewpoint of the coming winter.  The late Eva Cassidy* joined many others such as Nat King Cole and Ella Fitzgerald in doing a v

    Our friends were kind enough to invite us back down to their cabin, a place not much larger than the single 12x16-foot room home of Maude Lewis, the artist recently mentioned and highlighted in the movie Maudie .  But this cabin* was built with heart and from the ground up.  Through the years, we watched as our friend brought siding and insulation and ever-so-tiny bits and pieces down to the cabin, each 2-hour journey of goods only adding to the cozy affection in this off the grid location.  Of course we joined this time lapse of construction midway, missing the initial frame building and his climbing solo up to the rafters to attach beams, or dragging a toboggan through the snows that would pile 6 feet high and block his entry in winter.  But when we first arrived some five years ago, you could sit out by the crude fire pit and hear the distant coyotes, an eerie call even to our dogs who were quite tougher back then in their younger years.  Now the coyote and occasional wolf track

   There are several definitions of labels, the sort you tend to hear most often these days (such as "transparency" and "full disclosure") and the ones we often slap on people ("he's as tight as a drum" or "he's nuts"...or worse).  We slap labels on people in ways that seem to come too easily, a form of divide that's both noted and perpetuated by our media , our societies, and our parents and friends (our upbringing).  An article in Psychology Today put it this way: Categorical labeling is a tool that humans use to resolve the impossible complexity of the environments we grapple to perceive.   Like so many human faculties, it's adaptive and miraculous, but it also contributes to some of the deepest problems that face our species.   Researchers began to study the cognitive effects of labeling in the 1930s, when linguist Benjamin Whorf proposed the linguistic relativity hypothesis.  According to his hypothesis, the words we

   There was a time, way way back, when I was 100% an outdoor person.  One of the questions in the game I designed (titles Perceptions) even asked that question: Would you consider yourself more of an indoor or an outdoor person .  Back then, there was no question; my answer was filled with conviction and my actions matched my words, one solo camping trip of mine having me explore the southern parks of Utah (Zion, Bryce, Canyonlands, Arches and Capitol Reef) alone over a period of 12 days.  My tent and me, setting up, packing up and making deep new friendships along the way (it would also turn out to be one of my first experiences with deep snow, my waking up chilled and wondering why I had no more warm things to put on in my tent, then peeking out and discovering that I was slowly being buried in fresh snowfall which caused me to quickly dismantle everything and get the heck out of there...I was camping at Bryce Canyon at the time which is nestled at about 8000 feet).  I was just ente

    Dropping my brother off at the airport brought a flurry of mixed emotions for me; perhaps it was because of the random deaths and injuries from the recent shooting in Las Vegas or the death of rocker Tom Petty at the age of 66.  Who knows?  But my brother and I had shared grand times, laughing at our shared childhood, comparing our rather poverty-like childhood to where we both were now, mingling with others at thrift stores while he searched for beads for his wife, and being treated exceptionally well by a waitress during a final dinner out.  We were quite fortunate indeed, and now it was all coming to an end as he picked up his bag, gave a final hug and disappeared into the crowd.     There is always that assumption that you will see someone again.  He's only so-and-so age, or he's fit as a tiger or whatever the rationale; it's the same one that we tell ourselves most every day.  Unlike the warnings from a devastating hurricane, no one expects the car crash or stray