Paddling to happiness

"The Sound of Happiness," 5 by 7 watercolor, 300# d'Arches cold-pressed paper

"When have you been the  happiest?" is not an easy question to answer on your birthday or any other time. Too many years, miles, people and places. I can't paint weddings, or births of children, or...the list goes on.
But approaching each day without a plan for this month's daily watercolor challenge, to paint "Happy," one image came to mind.
Canoes. Canoeing. I was an amateur canoeist at best, and no longer have the red, 80-pound, 15'8" Old Town Discovery   from a few years ago, but thinking about it, lifted my imagination and memories.
It's difficult to be a canoeist in this country--we have almost no canoe water--clear, fresh flowing streams. Other than family trips decades ago to the Illinois River in eastern Oklahoma, my canoe trips were few, other than out to Lake Arcadia, and down two muddy rivers, the Cimarron from near Crescent to Guthrie, and from El Reno down the North Canadian to Lake Overholser.
But my time trying to learn, to be alone on the water early in the morning at first light, or being lost in nature's time down a river alone or with friends or loved ones, those are times of happiness.
I'm envious of those who are expert at canoeing and do so regularly. I know why. There is only your own effort, and no sound except the dip of the paddle and the slight gurgle of the wake.  Time to think, to solve the problem of the next stroke, to view the wildlife, to think. 
One image that stands out is at Arcadia Lake one morning, I was upwind and quietly floated within 100 feet of an osprey sitting in a tree with a fresh catch. Another time, a flight of Canada geese came in low over the brush and landed not far from me. Happiness.

Canoes transport history and craft and philosophy and romance and literature and cultures, one of the most ancient means of transportation in the world. You must read John McPhee's The Survival of the Bark Canoe, about a 150-mile trip in the Maine woods.

• "Everyone must believe in something.  I believe I'll go canoeing." --Thoreau
• "Refuse to accept the belief that your professional relevance, career success or financial security turns on the next update on the latest technology. Sometimes it's good to put the paddle down and just let the canoe glide."-- Simon Mainwaring
• "I thing it much better that, as we all go along together, that every man paddle his own canoe." --The "Indian" in Settlers of Canada, 1844, Captain Marryat.
• "There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded of distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known." --Sigurd F. Olson
• "Canoe Trip," on selling my canoe--Canoe Trip

My canoe

My radio column "Coffee with Clark" on KCSC-FM about the geese, from almost 20 years ago:

I could hear them before I saw them. At first I wasn’t sure, but then the sound was unmistakable.

I’d just pulled my canoe out of the lake. The sky was gray with the first cool front of autumn, the sun hidden almost on the horizon. A slight breeze. Quiet.

Then they came in low over the still-green treetops, wings motionless, gliding down in formation toward the water behind the leader.

Maintaining perfect order, they swooped in low over the water, rose, banked, wings moving in unison, voices almost quiet. They skimmed the surface of the water, never missing a beat, not slowing down, until they banked again and had scouted the skeletal old trees full of egrets, the shoreline foliage, the beaver dam, the shallow, almost still water.

After the second pass over the landing area, they curled up in the air, breaking formation. Then they spread their wings wide, putting on their air brakes--you could hear the air and wind rushing against those gray feathers--and they dropped down to smooth landings. The first feet skidded into the water with orderly furrows, settled down into the warm water. The rest of the flock followed.

In a few minutes another flock followed, finding assurance in their companions’ presence. 

In less than five minutes the water was full of them, occasionally honking, settling into the shallows for evening feeding and roosting.

I stood there spellbound at the aerial grace, precision, and promise of Canada geese. These early birds are the first harbingers of fall, when leaves turn, the light changes, the breezes rattle brittle leaves and seeds.

Once they were all down, talking to each other, I pulled my canoe up. I wished I’d been on the water in the middle of them, but if I had, they wouldn’t have landed and I would have missed it all. Our lives are richer when we stay out of the way and let the geese have their way. Theirs is the promise of fall.

Back-tracking on the "wrong" track for 45 years

Neruda: "Is there anything sadder than a train in the rain?"

Americans apparently like being in the dumps, or blue, as my small watercolor from Pablo Neruda's poem suggests.
We think the country has been "on the wrong track" for almost a half century, apparently, including now.
Let's "backtrack" some.
That dissatisfaction fueled the Democrat's mid-term election "whuppings" of George Bush and the Republicans' of Obama.
Warning...I spent almost as much time searching my photos for appropriate train photos as I did writing. Hey, I like trains.

This "old one" is rusting  and abandoned on an old track at Skagway, Alaska, but perhaps that is the right track for old ones like me.

So what is the history of the country being on the "wrong track"?
Since 1972, polls have found most Americans have thought the country is on the "wrong track." Some pollster reported asked in 1971: " “Do you feel that things in this country are generally going in the right direction today, or do you feel that things have pretty seriously gotten off on the wrong track?”
Keep in mind that was in the middle of the Vietnam War, inflation was climbing, unemployment was up. Source, the Daily Beast: Wrong track. 

In fact, polls show that Americans have rarely thought we're on the right track. When did we derail and hit the ditch?--Eight years ago, in the fall of 2008, when the economy imploded. Per Gallup, between September through about November 2008, only 7 to 9 percent of the country thought the country was in the right direction. 

What were the highest points in the past 45 years? Three times--(Gallup polls)
In Reagan's second term it bounded to  60 percent on the right track. It soon dropped  to under 50 percent; during Clinton's impeachment, the economy was great and 71 percent thought the country was on the right track; and after 9/11, it soared, but seven  months later it dropped to 60 percent thinking we were on the "wrong track."
My conclusion, (opinion), Americans are fickle, short-sighted, spoiled, and whiners.
 

Canada in the background as the locomotives switch ends on the right track.

Getting on the right track politically is a matter of many opinions. But not in railroads. At the White Pass and Yukon railroad between Alaska and Canada, they take you up to the pass made famous in the Gold Rush, and the locomotives park you just inside Yukon Territory, Canada on a siding. They then move around and attach to the other end of the train for the trip back to Skagway. There's always a "right" track. So simple, in railroad operation if not democracy. 

Next--more tracks.

 

Coffee with Clark "blogstone," by the numbers

Screen shot of blog page views per month from beginning in May 2009 til today when it surpassed 5,000 monthly views for first time.--Note: Blogspot is wrong, not May 2007, but 2009.

Coffee with Clark reached a "blogstone" today--more than 5,000 views in a calendar month. That's a long way from May 2009 when it started.

Here are the numbers:

•  5,012--December page views at 9:45 am today
• 4,459--Previous high month, July, 2013

105,000+ --page views total

Page views by country

United States	66350
Russia	4423
Germany	4282
United Kingdom	2533
Ukraine	2277
France	1878
China	926
Canada	687
Poland	670
India	607

• 128--number of countries with readers
• 33--new countries this year

Blog posts per year

• 2009--339
• 2010--292
• 2011--135
• 2012--203
• 2013--252--by December 31

Months with most posts

• August, 2009--76
• July, 2009--70
• January, 2010--57
• April, 2010--47
• December, 2013!--39--by the end of the year

Day with most page views

• Dec, 23, 2013--532! A watercolor "Christmas eve journey"

Most popular posts of all time

• 2492--All aboard for Bartlesville , October, 2010 (I have no idea why)
• 1646--All aboard, August, 2010
• Actually top six posts of all time include the words "All aboard." Lots of train buffs?

Most popular posts in last month

• 129--Flags of historic friends--Canada, Feb. 2012 (This is now the 10th most popular posting of all time) I wondered about posting articles and maps about the countries of my readers, but apparently, it's interesting.
• 114--Black Friday blues, November, 2013
• 75--A Friday night 44 years ago, Nov. 2013
• 71--Raining ice as the sun comes out, December, 2013

My favorite and most creative posts--helping earn the Okie Blog Best Writing in the State Award in 2009

•  "The booth is a verb"--More than 10,000 words in multiple chapters telling the story of the booth and my friend, the late Bob Illidge, from 2009.

This blog is typical of many, starting out with a flurry of postings, bottled up inside, or from something that triggers a passion. That's why the first year had so many postings and then tapered off. I wondered when I started it if it'd continue, and it did slump, but has picked back up.
That's due in part because I teach a class in blogging at UCO and have to be active to have integrity. It's also due to the fact that the blog has grown and changed since the beginning and I've learned a lot and changed too. 
It now includes more photographs and paintings, and more story telling I think. The design has changed with the times too. What hasn't changed in the past four months is the title photo at the top, from my back road solo trip to New Mexico. That photo tells you so much about me and my interests. But it will eventually change too.
 What's next? I have no idea, although I've said for some time I want to take the blog to the "next level," whatever that means. I hope it means switching formats and hosts, adding advertising for some income, and emphasizing travel more. But I don't really know.
Why do I do this? I guess because I'm a first-born Capricorn  and deep down, a journalist.
When I owned the Waurika News-Democrat, my weekly column was titled "Trail Talk," because we were on the old Chisholm Trail. As a friend once said to me about this blog, "Hey, you've got your column back."

Flags of historic friends--Canada and the UK

 Of the number of readers of this blog over the years, Canadians and the Brits rank in the top 10. It's good to have friends, even when familiarity leads to jokes about the other, on both sides of the border and "The Pond." Of course there are differences and sometimes tensions, but like loved ones, you tolerate each other, forgive and know how important friendship is.
The flags of Canada and the United Kingdom are among the most recognizable to most Americans, because of so much shared history and culture.

The Canadian flag is relatively new, only officially adopted on Feb. 15, 1965 to replace the British Union Flag. That date is now the National Flag of Canada Day. It's also know as the Maple Leaf flag, and in bi-lingual Canada, the I'Unifolli', "the one-leafed," in French.

"The Union Jack" of the United Kingdom, composed of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is deeply a part of American history too. It's the flag of  our "Mother Country, of many of our ancestors, and the flag we fought against, and then alongside, over the centuries.

 It was first adopted in 1606 by order of King James IV--the one who commissioned the King James Bible. It consists of the red cross of England's Saint George, patron saint of England, and the white cross of St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland. The current design dates from 1801 when Northern Ireland became part of the UK, with the added  red cross, for the cross of St. Patrick, Ireland's patron saint. Wales' patron saint, David, is not included.

Aboard at the White Pass summit

Three thousand feet up, at the White Pass summit, you reach the Canadian border. Deep snow greets you, along  with five flags, U.S. Alaska, British Columbia, Yukon Territory and Canada, virtually where the borders meet.

The narrow gauge keeps going, into Canada

You don't need a passport unless you're on the train going to Whitehorse in Canada. The train cars go on a siding, the locomotive unhooks, slides by and attaches to the other end for the trip back down to Skagway. Shoulda brought a coffee thermos, but the sky has cleared and it's bright, almost glaring. I know why it's called "White Pass."

By the way, this is "Mountie" country--Northwest Mounted Police.

There's time to look and chat, but you don't get off the train. Then since you were in the car closest to the locomotive, you're at the end of the train, which means a great view back down the line. The seat backs are flopped forward-reversed, and you switch sides with the people on the other side so they can have the same views you had coming up...left, looking down, way down, through two tunnels, across a trestle with a 1,000 foot drop, with the ocean and Skagway shining in the distance.

The turnaround

I think the wind blows up here.

And then you start down.

Remember your train rides?

Amtrak Surfliner, California

My oldest son, M/Sgt Vance Clark, USAF, called today, riding AmTrak Surfliner up the Pacific Coast from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara.  A beautiful view. He was thinking about memorable train rides in his life and he couldn't remember the date of one.

"Remember when we were in Canada on the steam train? He asked. "When was it?"

I pulled the date and place out of my mind immediately. " "Your Mom was pregnant with Dallas, so it would have been the summer of 1971, in Winnipeg." I asked him what he remembered. At age almost six, he could remember going to the bathroom, flushing the toilet and seeing the tracks underneath, afraid of falling through.

We chatted for several minutes, each remembering train rides, he with more than me, because in the service he's been on trains in Turkey, England, the Chunnel, France  and Germany, plus time on Amtrak from Glacier National Park to Chicago to St. Louis.

"It's amazing that you remember the train rides more than any plane rides, and they're always more pleasant," he said.

The Rock Island Rocket

Got me to thinking. Earliest train ride I can remember, just barely, is at about four or five, riding with my Dad in the Rock Island Rocket from Fort Worth, through Comanche where Granddad lived, to Duncan, where he'd pick us up. I most remember dark windows and night, wondering about the people living in the lighted homes.

Of course there was one train ride my Dad would never forget, when he jumped a freight in Tucumcari in 1932, lost his grip and fell under the big steel wheels, costing him a leg. See "My Dad had a wooden leg." But he never talked about it to us. http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/search?q=wooden+leg

In Albuquerque, long ago

After that, I don't know. There's a photo of Mom, Jerry and I boarding the Santa Fe at Albuquerque to go to east Texas, but I don't remember that trip. And when I got my Cub Scout Webelos badge, they packed us onto the Santa Fe at Albuquerque and took us to Lamy near Santa Fe for the ceremony.

I do remember Neysa and I boarding Amtrak in Ardmore to go to Houston, where we picked Mom up and moved her to Waurika in the early 70s. And we road the steam train out of Chama to Cumbres Pass and back years later. http://www.cumbrestoltec.com/

Cumbfres and Toltec

Since then, I've ridden Amtrak from Washington to Philadelphia one morning to meet a professor friend. Susan and I have ridden the Amtrak Heartland Flyer to Fort Worth a couple of times (taking students one time), and took the train from Rome to Florence a few years back.  In Utah, east of Salt Lake, I rode the steam Heber Valley Railroad for a short distance, riding in the caboose all the way. http://hebervalleyrr.org/

Forest Park Railroad

Most recent was a "kiddies" train, the Forest Park Railroad,  in Fort Worth two years ago, see August, 2010 post http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2010/08/all-aboard.html   and I road one in Elk City  and Duncan before that.

On every one of the trips I remember the scenery outside the windows, the sounds, some of the people--pleasant, relaxing. Today I value such travel for its lack of stress. Isn't that amazing? As Vance said, the only plane trips you remember are the bad experiences.

Now I'm not a real railroad buff, but no wonder I'm attracted to old steam engines,  see October post, http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/search?q=Bartlesville  and prowl old depots like the one at Waurika where we owned the newspaper--vacant then but it's become a library and museum.

 I always want to climb on old steam engines and railroad cars, am captivated by cabooses, "Where's the 'boose?' http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2011/07/wheres-boose.html , count the freight cars going past, attend train shows, yearn for a caboose in my back yard, look down those tracks wanting to go.

North to Alaska

And this May, the Lord willing, we'll board the Yukon and White Pass steam train at Skagway.

And with Dad's art in the house, and some of my efforts, especially Christmas cards for good friends Roy and Jill Kelsey, the pull of trains is more than just a fact.


All aboard!

My Dad's scratchboard of the turntable in Fort Worth. I was there as a kid when he drew this, and he later turned it into a snow scene for a Christmas card. So many memories

My watercolor from Neruda's poem, "Is there anything sadder than a train standing in the rain?"