Musings on the the past (and present) by Tim Coonan
And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Yup, there’s that, from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby…I have been told that I’m maybe a little too obsessed with the past; for example, that I’m far too fond of movies where characters go back in time and make different choices, better choices. Hunh. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe I just really respect and value where we’ve been, the people and places which have been important to us, where we’ve spent time and with whom we’ve experienced love. It’s been a helluva journey, hasn’t it? Maybe Holden Caulfield had it right: you just start missing everybody. Granted, there are one or two things I would’ve done differently. Shoulda had the tuna melt.
Anyway, hope you enjoy these ramblings. Drop me a line if you want.
Tim
About
Look, I’m old. Been around a while. Born during the Eisenhower administration, for chrissakes. Which means that I’ve seen a few things, and a few things have happened to me over the course of these decades. I mean, we all have a journey, right? Check this out if you’re curious. Or not. Write about your own journey! I’ll read it. We’ve all led significant lives…
Blog
And BECAUSE I’m old, I have lots of thoughts, and opinions, and reflections, on…just about everything. Here is where you’ll find them. You’ll see that I write quite a bit about the past, about the things and places that have influenced me and those I love. I think it’s important to remember. You’ll find a whole lot of this remembering right over there => in that so-called book.
And it’s also important to be engaged in this world we live in. Let’s make some changes…you’ll find some of that here, as well.
Island Fox
Ever hear of the island fox? Not many people had, before their catastrophic decline in the 1990s. They’re one of the world’s smallest canines, and they live only on California’s Channel Islands. I had the good fortune to work with them when I was a biologist for the National Park Service, and they pretty much became my life’s work. Check it out here.
A so-called book
Our Lady, Queen of the Highways uses geography - the coast-to-coast route we took on summer trips - to chronicle our family life in the 60s and 70s, and to explore the events and family history that brought my parents to southern California in the late 1950s to start a family. The book also tracks the trajectory of my own life (good lord, that sounds self-serving), which was heavily influenced by these trips.
And another
Family vacations were, and are, a thing for us. In addition to cross-country road trips (see above), we did the classic lake cabin vacations. In the 1970s, my parents took us to Lake Almanor, where we didn’t fish, or hike, or water ski…we swam and went to Mass. Fifty years later, we went back to the lake, as adults. And again, we didn’t fish, hike or water ski…we also didn’t go to Mass. And that wasn’t the only change. Lake Effect delves beneath the surface of a rather ordinary lake – a reservoir, really – to examine the region’s origins, and its unclear future under climate change.