Kodachrome and Sunny Days

"Kodachrome, they give us those nice bright colors. They give us the greens of summers, makes you think all the world's a sunny day." ~ Paul Simon


The first camera I remember as my own was a Kodak Instamatic 104. I was seven years old and my older sister helped me traverse the neighborhood recruiting kids for Vacation Bible School. After winning the bible school contest, and the camera that came with it, the real cost was purchasing the film and flashbulbs. Back then each flash bulb worked once. Yes once. Not so sustainable I suppose. The Instamatic 104 packed four of these bulbs into one "cube." This was considered a major technological breakthrough.

In 1977 as a high school senior I got my first REAL Camera. A Minolta SRT201 Single Lens Reflex with a 50mm f1.4 Rokkar-X lens. I took money from my savings account and bought a small flash that worked with three AA batteries. This reusable flash cost the equivalent of $140 in today's dollars. I don't remember my first picture with that camera but I do remember, in vivid detail, taking it on my senior year road trip and coming a whisker away from losing it on a roller coaster in California.

Things were expensive back then. And if it wasn't expensive it was slow. How many digital pictures would you be taking today if you were paying $1 each and having to wait a week to see the result? Life is kind of like that these days. If you can't provide it fast and cheap there is no market for it. The latest iPhone can take a video and have it uploaded on YouTube for the world to see in a matter of minutes. I'm not sure how good this is though. We pack our days and nights with activities. We do the same for our kids.

I recently bought the the movie Sandlot. It reminds me of my childhood when my friends and I spent much of the summer wearing basepaths and a pitching mound into my parents front yard. If we weren't playing baseball we were riding our bikes to nowhere in particular and other then the times we mixed lawnmower gasoline with balsa wood airplanes and several thousand match heads with a copper tube, we managed to stay out of trouble.

Back to that Kodak camera. You really had to set up each photo carefully as you only had 12 or 20 photos per film roll. Part of the fun was getting together a week or two later to look at the finished prints. It was an investment in time and money. It's said that a person will not value what costs them nothing. Along those same lines I think that we also don't get the sense of accomplishment that comes with time and effort. Sometimes it seems like things are too easy.

I like to listen to the daily bible reading by Kirk Whalum. I also listen to audio books on my iPhone. But I find there is still nothing to take the place of the printed word. Like Kodachrome film, I suspect the day will come when books are no longer published on printed paper. I'll miss those days just like I miss the routine of opening the camera and carefully loading the film. It was like loading up a roll full of potential; 20 blank slates.

I like riding my bicycle through the farms north of town. You relax and see so much more when you realize you can't go anywhere in a hurry. I've watched the blank slate of the farmer's fields transition from brown to green this spring. This fall the left over chaff will be tilled under and the cycle will start again. There is no hurrying the growing season.

Next week I'm going camping with my family. We don't plan a lot. Breakfast in the morning. A short nap, some reading. A hike to the beach or along the creek. Dinner at night and visiting into the evening around a campfire. I can feel the stress leaving already.

Father's Day

By Ted Werth

I watched a video on YouTube recently. The artist finished the introduction of his song by saying "And frankly, this song scares me to death." I instantly related.

It's hard being Dad. We are pulled in so many different directions. Many of us relate to the desire to provide for our family. There also is a natural inclination to give our kids all the things we wish we'd had. And since no parent is perfect we realize that we are not perfect either. And the effects of those imperfections on our children "scares us to death." Or at least it should.

I have some great memories of time spent with my children. Having them pile on me in the middle of the floor, Saturday breakfasts at McDonald's, trips to the park and bike rides with them perched behind me. I still laugh about the time my daughter peered down into the pile of garbage at the county dump. As I was throwing boxes of garbage from my truck into the pile below I had suggested that she not get to close. Having learned her lessons in kindergarten well she commented, "If I fell in Daddy, they would probably just recycle me huh?" Unfortunately for every positive memory it seems like there is a negative memory. The times I was too "busy" to tuck them in, leaving that to Mom. The times I became impatient because things were not done just right. The times I was too busy on the computer to take a trip to the park or watch a silly kids video on TV.

Since my Dad never really attended my school activities I decided that I would be at as many of my kids' activities as I could. And I was, suffering through many grade school Christmas programs. But there is no one perfect formula. My dad unfailingly took me fishing almost every Saturday during the summer and patiently rigged up my fishing pole until I was able to do it on my own. At the end of every trip we would stop at the store and get pop and snacks. This was often the highlight of the day for me. I didn't realize all that was being passed on to me at the time; all the little tricks my dad taught me about how to catch fish. I now go on a fall fishing trip to Lava Lake in central Oregon with friends every year. We sit in a boat, joke, visit and have a great time. And the fishing is normally really good too. A few years ago we were having no luck at all and after several hours my friend Gary piped up and said, "if Ted isn't catching fish, no one is catching fish." It surprised me, but it reminded me of all the times my dad had given me instruction on how to get your line down on the bottom to improve your chances of hooking fish. How to 'give the fish some slack' before setting the hook. And after hooking the fish, how to play the fish to minimize the chance of losing them.

It used to bother me that Dad never came to those awful Junior High band concerts. I guess I thought he just didn't have time for me that way. And as much as I liked the snacks at the end of fishing trips, I figured we really were just going because Dad liked to fish. Years later I realized that after us boys had grown up my dad never really went fishing on his own. The obvious conclusion is that he did it for me and my brothers. I have heard my dad talk about fishing as a kid in Kansas but never heard him talk about fishing with his dad. I suppose, like my determination to attend my kids programs, maybe he determined to take his kids fishing; the thing he never got to enjoy with his dad. The same was true for the multitude of minor league baseball games he took me to for so many summers.

Men are haunted by the the challenge of the father-son relationship. We want to do the best we can but are always wondering if we are doing enough. If you have experienced teenage children you might wonder if the effort even matters. But it does matter and as life goes on you begin to understand that.

Yes, I still have regrets but not so much as in the past. We live and learn as we age and it is never too late to change. And change does make a difference. I'm sure my kids would tell you I'm a better dad now then I was in the past, and kids are more forgiving of our shortcomings than we often realize.

I carried the song Cats in the Cradle on a cassette in my truck for years, and would take it out every so often to play while alone. The line that scared me the most was the one that says "He'd grown up just like me, my boy was just like me." My kids are grown now and that line doesn't scare me so much any more. What was once a fear is now a challenge. You see, I'm a lot like my dad and proud of it. Is it too much to believe that with faith we can grow in wisdom and character until the day we are able, as fathers, to say, "Yeah, my son IS just like me!" I would hope we strive for nothing less.

Vapors of a Life Well Lived

The bible tells us that our life is but a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow. While that helps us put the briefness of our life in context I have at times found it a little discouraging as well. You see, a vapor is seemingly soon forgotten; gone without a trace. Like disappearing fog. If you dwell on that too long it becomes easy to question how much difference our life really makes in the long run.

I found myself contemplating this several years ago.

I like to visit historic sites and during a break from business I drove outside Atlanta to the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park. At this civil war site over 5,000 soldiers died in late June of 1864. The park is incredibly well preserved. There is a marker showing where a general died; he was shot off his horse. There are shallow trenches where soldiers prepared for battle and where no doubt many of them died. Metal detectors are prohibited to prevent people from trying to collect the musket balls that are still embedded in the trees growing there. And the thought crossed my mind; are they just vapors faded into history?

The answer is no. You see vapors have a way of lingering. Our sense of smell is an incredible thing. I think even more so then music it ties us to our past. The slightest whiff of a familiar smell can instantly, and unexpectedly, take us to days gone by.

My softball glove resides in the garage. When moving and rearranging things I will sometimes catch a whiff of the glove leather. When that happens a rush of memories inevitably come flooding back to me. Memories like the time I caught a couple of 30 year old teammates lamenting how they had to take ibuprofen after games to deal with aches and pains. I pointed out that being 40, I had long ago learned to take the ibuprofen BEFORE the game. We all had a good laugh and they joked about how they "should have known to ask the old guy."

That smell also brings back another memory. When we first moved the 140 miles from Roseburg to Salem I decided to join the softball team at the church we had decided to attend. I figured it would be a good way to get to know a few people. As it turned out, all but one of my teammates were younger then me. Most of them still full of competitive spirit (i.e. testosterone) and the desire to convince each other they were the force to be reckoned with on the ball field. Baseball is a game that lends itself to experience and at 39 I wasn't intimidated by the younger guys. But I didn't really fit in either. By that point in life I had no desire to beat my chest and say "look at me! Did you see that play." I just wanted to have some fun, get some exercise, play well and most of all, get to know some people. There was only one other person on the team as old as me. His name was Tim Albus. Tim was the one guy who reached out in a friendly, sincere way to made me feel welcome. Although we were both pretty quiet guys we both knew baseball; how to make plays and get on base. As we got to know each other better we would often joke with each other about how the two old guys would show the young guys how to play the game that night. We weren't flashy but we generally made plays and knew how to get on base and score. Although we never became really close friends Tim and I had a kind of knowing way between us.

I always appreciated how Tim would reach out to people in a subtle way, often unnoticed, to make them feel welcome. When we saw each other walking across the parking lot to church, in addition to saying hi to me, Tim would go out of his way to talk to my young son, also named Tim. Letting him know that anyone named Tim had to be a special person. Tim Albus and his family eventually moved to central Oregon and our softball days together came to an end. However, years later my son commented, with a smile, how Tim always told him they were both special because of their name. It is a small thing but small things often have a lasting impact. That vapor thing.

This weekend marks the sixth year of Tim Albus' death in a tragic accident. The capsizing of the charter boat Taki-tooo off the shores of Tillamook Bay suddenly took the life of one of the good guys. A husband, father, son and brother. And also a friend.

So back to the scent of that leather ball glove. Inevitably memories of a particular game from that first summer in Salem come back to me. That first summer of our new life, in a new town. Memories of playing catch with Tim before the game. More specifically, memories of walking off the field at what is now Corban College after that game. A game in which we both had several hits and scored several runs. With a knowing grin Tim commented "well we showed those young guys again didn't we Ted." I laughed and said "we sure did."

I know Tim Albus is in heaven, but his "vapor" lingers strongly six years after his life was so suddenly taken. I see it in his wife and kids; I know he would be very proud of them. And for me, Tim's example of kindness to me as the new guy has reinforced the importance and desire I have to reach out to new people. Whether at work, church or in my neighborhood, it's hard to be the new person. Some day my life will also come to an end and when it does I will be looking forward to another softball game with Tim. A day where we can both skip the ibuprofen and, like Field of Dreams, show the young guys how to "really" play the game.