Home again

I first scuba dived when I was 12..... the year was 1958. I have owned my own gear since 1962 and have been diving ever since. There is a certain feeling that comes flooding back over me.. and through me each time I enter the waters of my youth and go diving again. I felt that again this month in the waters of home.

I travel on the airlines to get to those waters now.. but I bring with me all of the gear that I need except for my tank and weight belt. The local dive shop, JADS, has folks there who know me well now...... and we always greet each other with smiles and hugs. (well, hugs are for the ladies)

Donning the gear and trudging over to the waters edge, the first feelings of deja vu.... beginning the swarm of feelings.... is triggered by the scent of the wind coming off the surf. This is going to be a shore dive, so wading into the surf also triggers feelings that are so familiar. The water is cooler than the air.. but just barely. It is warm, but embraces me comfortably as I slip below the surface and hear the sounds of the reef.

Familiar sounds underwater.. the clicks of the mantis shrimp, the sound of the waves forming whitecaps over my head.. all are sounds that I remember from many dives.. the earliest ones now seeming like yesterday. As I head for the bottom, the landscape here has changed.

Coral damage is everywhere.. and the old forests of staghorn and elkhorn coral now only exist in my own memories. Remnants of these magnificent corals are now rubble on the bottom and along the shore, thanks to intense wave action from recent hurricanes such as Ivan, who spawned immense surf along this coast, forever altering the seascape below the waves.

Going deeper, the reef health improves and the live coral shelters many varieties of reef fish. No large fish or predators are visible.. and I wonder back to all the spearfishing that we did her as youths... did we forever damage the grouper and snapper population of these reefs? Surely not.

Diving with friends or Lago brothers makes the trips back onto the reefs much more valuable to me. I have been here now in these waters with many friends 4 decades after we last dove here together. Diving with Joe again.. or John and Walter (we were a trio of military experience.. a Sailor, a Soldier, and a Marine) always is a step backward in time. This time down to the dropoff was with Jackie.. another old dive buddy who I had not been diving with for 44 years.

Each time I dive with some of my brothers from Lago, I can see the gray hair.. but once we are beneath the waves, all of the semblance of the elapsed time just washes away and we are teenagers again. That lasts until we get out of the water and take our gear off once more. For that brief time of the dive we are all young again and enjoying the same reefs and company that we did so long before. All my senses tell me that it is the 60s once more.. the scents, the sounds, the feeling of the embrace of the water...... we are home again.

No wonder I return to the reefs with my brothers again and again.

Dances with Wolves

It was time.... on of my college brothers had been wanting me to join him in Oklahoma for an outing... "man time" together. We were going hunting in western Oklahoma.

Let me give you a background about me and my love of guns and hunting... as a boy I used to set birds in the "low house" at the Lago Skeet Club on Sundays and used to shoot a round of skeet once a week. The Pan Aruban would show my dad's score as Sr. and mine as Jr. I never was able to outshoot my dad in skeet.

I spent 4 years in the USMC in the late 60s, and that is where really I learned how to shoot well. That time in the Marines was a very powerful time that included a trip to Vietnam and many qualifiying and re-qualifying trips to the range with various types of weapons. I am very comfortable around my guns and will not get into a debate on pro or anti-gun ownership here. Just know that it is part of who I am at this point in my life.

I was heading north up the interstate, seeing the terrain outside change from the overthrust area of the Arbuckle Mountains into the rolling prairie land of northwestern Oklahoma. The CD playing in my truck was the sound track to "Dances With Wolves", and I was thinking back to my ancestors and how they helped to settle this land. I had ancestors come over on the Mayflower, so they helped settle and form the early days of our country. They hunted for game to survive and that was a very necessary part of their lives. I could feel the presence of those who came before... from the Native Americans to the settlers of the Land Rush.

We now hunt for sport but hunting echoes deep into my soul... or my psyche. This trip is for hunting, but mostly it is for the companionship of another... it is a continuation of days spent in classrooms, laboratories, and study sessions decades ago. If I did not even get a shot at a quail, just the experience of being out in the open country with a close friend, escaping the concrete and the rush of daily life in the big city would be worthwhile.. and rejuvenate me once more.

The hunting was good. I scored well on quail, pheasants and chukar partridges. My shooting was as good as it ever had been with a shotgun. These birds were all cleaned and bagged; I have many recipes for them and they are very tasty table fare. I do not shoot to leave things in the field; all these were coming home with me. There is a thrill to a good shot; feeling the recoil of the gun and seeing a bird go down gives me a feeling of accomplishment similar to spearfishing beyond the reef when I was a youth. Those fish were table fare, too.

Hunting is a sport, but for many of us it is a part of who we are and the feelings we get out in the fields is something that I cannot explain to others. You have to be there. It is time spent in the shadows of our ancestors, and with current friends and brothers.

Where have the years gone?

I am occasionally surprised at how fast the years have gone by. One of my old teachers and high school principal who I hold in very high regard is 91 today. I remember him like it was yesterday.. but 45 years ago.

I look at my gray hair, and sometimes see my father's image in the mirror. I do not feel as old as my drivers license says that I am, so the years must not be creeping up after all.

My son is now married, and has a wife who I feel is very good for him. She balances some of the wildness that he had exhibited over the last ten years or so. He is also now a father, and his little girl (the elfin one) is another reason that he seems to have finally found steady footing. He has a new job, one that he will likely do well at, so I am glad for him.

My daughter is now very far away, working on her PhD in MicroBiology. She has traveled so far in her education, eclipsing what I had done and has zoomed farther along.. warp speed! I remember that first day of school when I dropped her off at kindergarten.. and she strode through those doors at the front of the school and never looked back. She embraces educational challenges.. and I think she will do well in her chosen path.

When I look now at both children of mine, I see a compressed time scale for them. I can replay memories in my mind.. and often see them as smaller versions of themselves, dependent on me much more than they seem to be today. I welcome that independence, yet fear it as well.. for they will soon be at that point in their lives when I am not needed any longer.

I have reconnected with friends from my childhood as well as some from the USMC. Both groups of friends shared experiences with me that are hard to describe to outsiders. I grew up on Aruba, at a company compound called Lago Colony. We had an existence where we were a very self-sufficient community, lacking nothing. We had our own school, church, commissary, movie theatre, bowling alley and beaches with white sand and blue water. We all WERE friends.. we knew pretty much everyone in our age groups, plus a few years up and down from where we were. We were like an extended family and when one of that group sails West for the last time, we all feel that loss.

My brothers from the USMC and I also shared special experiences together. We served in Vietnam, and regardless of the politics that anyone feels for that time, we were not making policy for our country. We fought.. and well. But, we fought mainly for each other, for we wanted to make sure that all of us could get back to "The World" once more. I saw an old buddy of mine a few months ago; his hair (well, shiny head) is worn differently now.. but the same sparkle in his eyes showed me that the same guy was in there.

The years flow by.. like sands through an hourglass. Sometimes I worry about the amount of sand that I have left... and I want to keep filling it with sand from the beaches of my youth. The time is now to reach out and tell others how much I value them... for what they have done for me many years ago, or for their continued friendship today.

I will try to get to all of you..... so if I don't say anything right away, just give me time...........