Jim Follis

I got the blues - bad.

One of those kind of days when your best bet is to go take a hike in the Olympics or find a quiet spot on the strait where there's just you and nature.

Generally, my best bet is to stick my head in the sand by not watching the news or listening to any of the commentary/entertainers.

Running away from my own mistakes in the past is the toughest, but living in Sequim provides many positive distractions.

Today, I'm stuck inside and trapped by my own thoughts. Momma said there'd be days like this, but sometimes they're harder than others.



Fewer friends

On the way home from a road trip visit to the relatives, we stopped by the house of a longtime family friend to see how things were going. The parents have passed, but their troubled son still was living there.

But not now. The house was up for sale by the bank and a potential buyer, also visiting the house, informed us that it really had been trashed.

Ken had built that house stick by stick, and Bon planted everything green on the outside. It was a doll house. Now they're gone and the house is gone and Gary is nowhere to be found. Damn.

The couple we bought our house from were delightful people, but they just recently have passed. She went first and Wife Nancy was taking him a meal now and then. We were getting quite attached to having him over for dinner.

As the ambulance rushed off to the hospital early in the morning, I realized that he, too, was up there in years. By 3 o'clock that afternoon, he was gone.



Hard life lessons

I remember my mother telling me that one of the hardest parts of growing older was losing your friends so suddenly. They'd be fine at dinner and be gone before breakfast.

I understood what she was saying, but I guess I just wasn't quite ready for it to happen in my own life.

We have a friend who was planning and organizing some study sessions that we all were looking forward to, but cancer has stepped in and reality takes over.

I'm not certain but I think I'm getting some pretty serious life lessons here, but they're just not taking. I seem to always come out at the end feeling sorry for myself. It isn't supposed to happen that way, is it?



Excuses no excuse

I see other mortals much taller than I who are grappling with their own personal issues and some of them aren't doing much better.

These gentlemen may own up to the fact that they have been less than faithful, but there's always a reason why. But none of their reasons really hold much water.

A policeman friend told me of a case he had regarding a child-molesting minister. He had worked with the minister to get him to confess and give the names of all those affected. When it came time for him to turn himself in, the minister was outraged.

"I confessed, what else do you want? Now you want me to go to trial and probably jail?"

Even the great home-run hitter Mark McGuire has admitted to using steroids - but not so that he could hit more home runs, according to him.

I'm thinking that half an apology or admission is possibly worse than none at all.

I gotta get out of the house and outside where I'm surrounded with the comfort that Mother Nature has provided us and away from my own selfish thoughts.

This growing up is hard work.



Jim Follis is a retired school administrator, has published two books and currently writes three newspaper columns. Eating, drinking and making merry are his professed hobbies. Traveling, trekking and observing people follow not far behind.