My life as a high school graduate kicked into gear with a wild and crazy summer palling around with Paul Lowther’s younger brother, who’d been “released” from the Air Force early. I was in good company.
The highlight of our summer was when we fell out of my dad’s speedboat after I instructed Dennis to turn around. “No, not like that. Flip this thing around hard, it’ll turn on a dime!” He did. We’d been sitting up high on the seats, and we both fell out. The boat, at about ¾ throttle, continued on without us, soon coming into a pattern of tight circles. We swam to the Hensler side of the Missouri where we borrowed a little fishing boat from some folks who were fishing there, but we couldn’t get close to our craft because of it’s wake. Eventually it circled below a tree that overhung the river, and I dropped neatly into the drink, not into the boat, luckily swimming out of the way before the next lap over-ran me. Soon the boat hit shallow water with it’s prop near enough to shore that I was able to jump in. What a day. Ron Sims was watching it all through binoculars from the other shore.
I began my college career teaming up with Walton Carl (do you mind, Walt?) as roommates. Our similar lifestyles blended well as we frequently spent our mornings rolling over simultaneously to the recurring rings of our alarm clocks as we mutually agreed on blowing off class after morning class. Pizza and beer became my favorite food group. I don’t remember liking any classes.
At twenty-one, I took pause to assess life progress and decided to join the Navy. By chance, on the day after Christmas of 1967, a small number of us joining on that day were sent to San Diego, rather than to Great Lakes. California Dreaming” then became a reality, as I walked into NTC San Diego wearing black rubber galoshes and my fleece-lined corduroy jacket along with about twenty other North Dakotans, dressed similarly. The palm trees swayed in the warm breezes while we wondered what we’d do with our snow boots. Boot camp was not too fun, but we could see the marines just across the fence, and we knew we were having it comparatively easy.
My five years in the Navy began with electronics schools in San Diego and San Francisco. In 1968, San Francisco was doing the Summer of Love, and I was soon a ‘wanna-be’ hippie. Then in 1969 I went aboard a small ship out of Pearl Harbor that cruised to Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Despite my dislike for the military, I loved the ocean, and my time on the ship was very memorable. I returned to California to serve out the remainder of my five years in the Navy, serving at Lemoore Naval Air station and attending more electronics schools before being released a year early from a six-year commitment when I developed arthritis.
I subsequently returned to North Dakota, and took up studies in Journalism at UND. I had a great time there, did well in school--even loved many of my classes. But California beckoned, and in about 1974 I joined friends in Santa Barbara, where I thought I might resume going to school. But instead, I strolled to the banks overlooking the Pacific on a regular basis, studied yoga and became a vegetarian. I managed an apartment complex with a friend, and made and sold redwood planter boxes and simple furniture at Santa Barbara’s weekly crafts faire that stretched along the beach front.
In 1978, I returned to North Dakota for a few years, where I began teaching yoga, quite serendipitously acquiring the jobs of two other Bismarck yoga teachers as they were moving on. But by 1981 I was tired of ND winters.
I heard about a “new age community” in northern California that was supportive of macrobiotics, which I’d been following successfully for about a year. In late July of 1981 I packed up everything and moved there, not knowing exactly what I would find.
I found “Harbin Hot Springs” to be a most interesting place. It was an old hot springs-health resort, being refurbished by the efforts of many under the brainstorm of an eccentric guy who had purchased it. It was now a clothing-optional health resort, new age teaching and learning center, frequented by a very mixed group of hippies, yuppies, new-age healers and nudists/naturalists. After starting in the macrobiotics program, after a few weeks I “transferred” to the month-long intensive massage course. It was good. The following month I was helping the teacher, teaching yoga as a part of the course. The next month he offered me the chance to take over his job teaching the school. I said, “Well, don’t you need a special certificate to do that?” “You got it,” he replied., as the school was state-approved to grant teaching certificates. Being a massage teacher at this remarkable place was often a sublime experience, but overall a bit boring.
So I moved on after a few years, coming away with much better health than when I’d arrived, and moved first to Sebastopol, where I lived for a short time, then to San Francisco. That was too “city” for me. After a few other “false start” moves, I found a home in Sonoma, California. I quickly found work as a self-employed carpenter. I lived beside a beautiful creek, where I could swim and garden. The years passed easily there, and I continued to regain my health with acupuncture and Chinese herbalism.
I also became more involved in meditation practice while living in Sonoma, and worked frequently as a cook and manager for meditation retreats in the San Francisco Bay area, in the southern California desert and on the islands of Oahu and Maui, Hawaii. My cooking gigs on Maui were the best, where I’d enjoy a month of light work, meditation and recreation, while making some money in the process and being in the company of wonderful teachers and friends.
In 2004, while walking one evening with my dog, Acha, I was lucky to survive a hit and run accident in which I’d been a pedestrian. After surviving and recovering, I decided to do something I’d been wanting to do, so went to Burma for some meditation in early 2006. While enroute, I fell in love with Asia and decided I’d like to live here.
“The rest is history,” as they say. And here I am now, living in Khon Kaen, Thailand, with a wife and three-year old daughter. I teach English in various schools, most recently at a Buddhist University where I had (or have… not sure) a part-time job teaching English to monks. I have learned the language enough to impress some Thais (which isn’t much), having picked up a lot of it by going to the market early every day for two years to buy things for my wife’s food shop. My daughter is a special little girl, of course, all the more so after making it through her first year with several months in the hospital due to respiratory problems. Here are a couple photos from life here in Thailand:
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