Yoga And Wisdom

Yoga and wisdom?
Okay, look not every yoga teacher can be 80 years old, do handstands, full lotus or scorpion and simultaneously offer fountains of life altering platitudes of faith or dramatic/mind boggling stories.
I bring this up because I just read an article on Yoga Journal online that was critical of today's yoga, the beautiful bodies doing asanas on a beach and the myriad of yoga selfies on IG and other social hot spots.
I go to a yoga class nearly every day and many of the yoga teachers are young enough to be my kids and even grandkids. Also, all of them are beautiful.
Not all of them constantly recite from the sutras.
But do you know what they do?
They welcome me, smile at me, are respectful of me and encourage me to push through many times difficult obstacles. They treat me as an equal.
And you know something?
That to me is the greatest wisdom there is and it is all of the wisdom I need shared with me. None of what they feed to me in a yoga class is bullshit! Well. Almost none of it! 😂
There.
I said it. That's my voice. Read it and weep. Or not.
Happy Holidays! 🙏

Christmas, harvest and Pickles

My number one son tells me they wrapped up harvest yesterday so that was great to hear. I'm sure that's a relief since it was such a long drawn out affair this year.
This was always kind of a special time of the year when I was a kid because harvest was over and each Christmas eve my dad would put out extra straw bedding for the animals. There was the anticipation of Santa's arrival and what he would bring and the smell of fresh pine needles in the living room from the newly decorated Christmas tree. It was a lot less hectic or stressful than the busy farming days during the summer and fall.
Apparently my daughter-in-law and number two son's kitten Pickles likes the Christmas season too. I was over checking on the kittens one day last week while the building maintenance crew did their thing. I'm told Pickles gets kind of nervous when strangers are around but for whatever reason he and I get along just fine. He even jumped up on my lap and purred a bit but his favorite lounging spot was under the Christmas tree.
Guess Pickles is a party or holiday cat at heart!

Rejection isn't a four letter word

I suppose one of many perks of being older is that rejection isn't such an awful thing. I don't know if anyone ever gets used to being rejected.  But after living 20 or 30 or more years, most of us learn that it is indeed a part of life and it happens more often the harder one tries to accomplish anything worth going after.

When I went through my youthful experience of drinking copious amounts of alcohol for about 10 years, the rejection factor didn't seem to matter. Heck, if one stays drunk enough nothing matters other than trying to lie and manipulate enough to stay out of or get out of serious trouble.
But when the music stops and life begins, it's then that the feelings of rejection begin and in the early stages of facing reality head on, the rejections are numerous and many of them really hurt.
You're not big enough, strong enough, educated enough or seemingly enough of anything for about any endeavor.

Then suddenly one realizes that many of the rejections are compliments in disguise and one begins to see rejection as a blessing not a curse. Life becomes much easier and more fun when that realization takes hold.

What a horrible feeling it is to be hired for a job and once it begins you realize it isn't at all what you want to be doing or maybe the job description didn't fit with your experience and education at all. An upfront brutal rejection by the hiring manager would have been a gift.

Or on the romantic front, you find yourself involved with someone for a period of time and then realize you've been sold a bill of goods, in fact deceived. You realize the person you're with isn't at all what the initial packaging advertised. Now the daily mantra becomes, how do I get out of this one!

All of this I suppose is a part of living and is how most of us learn about life.
Some people learn by logic but it seems most of us learn by bitter experience.

The saving grace of being older is that although the rejections continue, one can retreat in peace and with a smile since the daily mantra becomes...I'm weary, been there-done that so I don't really give a fuck about your stupid party anyway!

Nostalgia over the Triple Post and a great man named Tex

I opened my K-Stater magazine the other day and lo and behold Tex Winter was featured in a two page spread.
Some of you may not know this, but Tex was the basketball coach when I was at K-State and he was a good one. We won a lot of games and although KU was still the king, everyone in the old Big 8 still had to go through us to get to the top. He won 8 Big 8 titles and took the Wildcats to the final four twice, in 1958 and 1964. Oklahoma State and Henry Iba also were a force to be reckoned with during those years in the old Big 8 conference.
Coach Winter died this fall at age 96 and was the innovator of the triple post offense or triangle offense. He was hired by the Bulls to install the triple post when Phil Jackson took over and went with Jackson to the Lakers. So basically Coach Tex Winter taught the triple post offense to Michael Jordan and won 9 NBA championships with that offense. But Jackson, Jordan and Kobe got the credit? Okay well that's an exaggeration but it makes an interesting story. It does take some talented and intelligent players to run it.
A true story is that local Courtland, Kansas farmer John "Johnny" Blackburn came back from a trip to K-State and told our coach Raymond "Stewie" Stewart about Winter's triple post offense. I think Winter wrote his book about the triple post around the same time. This was the winter of 1961-62.
Anyway Stewie and Johnny thought we were bright enough to run the triple post so we practiced, and practiced and practiced including the dreaded daily wind sprints. By the way Johnny Blackburn was in his late '30s then and could still whup any one of us on either end of the court. Practicing against him was like wrestling a pissed off bull. Many times I didn't get home until dark but we managed to put together a pretty good high school team the year I was a senior and ran our version of the triple post in about 70 percent of our games and won most of them, enough to win the Pike Trail League and the District tournament. We got beat in the Regional tournament and kept from going to state by a team from Bird City that played as tough a man defense as us and was as disciplined controlling the ball as us. The score was 34 to 32!
The triple post requires a lot of decision making and movement by the players and I know it was hard for Stewie to give up play calling control but he did it. Of course if we made a bad decision he let us have it with both barrels. It wasn't abuse back in those days...it was coaching! Ha!
Our version of the triple post included sophmore Kenny Henrickson (big dude) and my senior teammates Robert Carlgren and John Freed in constant motion, rotating in the post, setting pics getting each other open so cousin Kenny Russell and I could find an open player for the shot as we continuously moved in a semi-circular motion around the perimeter. If the defensive guards dropped off us too far to clog the middle then we took the shot.
Some teams required a three guard match up so sharp shooting sophmore Gene Macintosh would start instead of Henrickson. In those games Gene, Kenny and I would work the perimeter while Carlgren and Johnny Freed worked a double post. This was my favorite setup because I didn't have to handle the ball quite as much or make as many decisions or get my fanny chewed by Stewie as much. Ha!
I could go on but you get my drift, assuming you've read this far. Ha!
Have a great day!

Isn't It Amazing

Isn't it amazing how short a mile is when you're in shape and how long a block is when you have diarrhea?

Staying In Shape

Staying in shape, or at least keeping from falling apart is quite a challenge for me in the winter, especially this winter.
I vowed to keep running through the winter but I have to confess I wimped out in January with the single digit readings and below zero wind chills here in the windy city.
As much as I despise the treadmill, I have managed to crawl onto the beast and get in a lot of 20 to 40 minute cardio workouts through the week and have kept up with my yoga and pilates workouts. I was talking to my pilates instructor, who up close appears to be in her 40s but from a distance looks to be in her mid-20s, about my lack of energy and she told me to get back into the weights.
She said she was having the same problem and started lifting again. I thought that was a pretty bold statement coming from a pilates guru. Sometimes I think pilates, yoga or about any other instructor thinks their way is the only way to health.
Anyway, I took her advice and got back into weights about twice a week this winter and lo and behold she was right!
My energy is much better since I started working with the weights so I plan to stay with the weight work. I'm currently lifting twice a week and want to work in a third session each week.
As usual, I want to do everything so am struggling a little with balance while I wait for some of the snow and ice to melt so I can run outside without falling on my ass and freezing my fingers.
I just can't get into running all bundled up like a damned Santa Claus.
Okay, so I'm a woose but I feel like I'm getting a little tougher and maybe someday I'll try another one of those crazy marathons?
And maybe not, we'll see!
Carry on.

Depression and all that jazz

One reason I run, do yoga, pilates and lift a few weights is to escape depression. I firmly believe that if I take care of my body my mind will follow.
I'm told that we're in the midst of the worse financial crisis since the Great Depression that my dad experienced in the 30s.
Well I know I have it a lot better than my dad did and maybe we will end up in some weird depression but I can't imagine anything worse than what my father experienced.
My boss at work asked me to write a witness piece about my dad's experience and I did that and here it is.

Maybe I'll lose my job and have to run for a living?
Oh well, it could be worse, I actually enjoy running and none of my running buddies have ever asked me for any money so I have to say I've got it made.

WITNESS-This is no depression like that one
By Sam Nelson
CHICAGO,xxx (Reuters) - The country was in the throes of the Great Depression. It was a time of upheavel, of personal challenges and a test of the nation's mettle.
It was under these circumstances that dad, Clarence John Nelson, better known as Bud, decided to leave Scandia, Kansas, for a job in Chicago.
It was 1936, he was 19 years old, without a job and getting desperate.
Kansas farm life was in shambles because the deteriorating economy made worse year after year of dry weather that turned the sunflower state into part of the Dust Bowl.
Bud was recommended for employment at the Homestead Hotel in Evanston, Illinois, by the pastor of the Swedish United Methodist Church in Scandia. "Gosh I remember in the thirties, going up there to work at Evanston (a Chicago suburb), at the Homestead Hotel washing dishes, we didn't have a darned thing and there weren't any jobs, so away I went...took a bus," he told me recently.
Dad is 92 years old now, living in Kansas and looking at the country going through another period of financial chaos that is being referred to as the second Great Depression.
This time around, he's doing it from the confines of my sister's home, where he has lived after his wife and my mother passed away in 2005.
But memories of the 'first' Great Depression remain etched in his mind, especially those six months in Evanston.
"I'll never forget one time I took the L (train) downtown (Chicago) and some guy tried to get me in a store and sell me a suit, so I got scared and took the L back to Evanston," he said.
Built in 1927, the Homestead Hotel still stands in Evanston. And like many businesses today struggling with the financial and economic turmoil, the hotel went through a few challenges of its own back then, according to its website http://www.thehomestead.net/.
"After the 1929 stock market crash, the inn carried debt from being built when land and materials were at a premium," the website said. But owners -- Philip A. Danielson and wife Ruby Larson -- were able to keep it from falling into the hands of its creditors.
Dad's heading to Evanston and working at the Homstead Hotel, apart from getting paid, had a second objective -- to be able to earn enough money to be able to attend college.
But those plans went awry as he began missing home about six months into the job.
"The idea was I'd work and go to school but there wasn't anytime for school," he said.
"Mom wrote me a letter in the spring and talked about planting garden and I got so darned homesick. I just quit, took the bus back home," he added.
Dad found out quickly that there were no jobs in Kansas, but he got lucky.
"There still wasn't any work around here. Farming was no good, but I was lucky and got a job as an oiler on a dragline.
"They were going to dredge and straighten out the river, but that was another scam because that river had a mind of it's own," he said. "When that job ended they asked me to go to South America with them for some other job.
"But I met your mom here, she was teaching school and we started farming, boy it was tough...no one had a damned thing," he added.
"I've often wondered what would have happened if I would have stayed there in Chicago."


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Samuel Nelson
Correspondent
Reuters News