Writing

 Often I title these forays into writing just "Writing" because I"m not sure what is going to come out about writing.

One of my main themes is that "Writing can be healing".

Another point I might make is that: "Writing can foster understanding and I find that understanding is a form of healing."

Often people let themselves be overwhelmed with the complexities of life and they just can't sleep or function very well anymore after that.

It becomes a more permanent form of PTSD.

For example, as I get older dealing with the emotional stresses of living I find life more emotionally challenging than anything else.

For me, most of the time I find ways to remain calm and not upset all the time.

However, I must admit watching people around the world starve to death or cook from overheating worldwide or having all their water dry up like in the Western U.S., England and Europe and parts of China very daunting (if for no reason but this is going to raise food prices exponentially more than anything else simply because there isn't enough water left in at least half of our country now to grow food at all or not much unless people are growing organic gardens in their back yards or something.

It's possible that the idea of "Victory Gardens" like became popular during world war II when all the farmer boys and men went off to war and no one was around much to grow food here in the U.S. might get people now with not water enough to grow crops in some areas to begin to start organic food gardens in their back yards especially if they have water rights to wells on their lands (and if those wells are still giving them enough water without going dry.

I can remember when I returned with my family to California from Maui, Hawaii where we lived in 1989 and 1990 that we rented about an acre of land in Mt. Shasta with fruit and nut trees on it as well as blackberries. Then we decided to start an organic garden too. At that time you could get unlimited water for only 10 dollars a month then in Mt. Shasta. So, we planted corn and carrots and potatoes and other veggies and when it all got ripe enough to pick we ate some can canned what else we could. We also had huge 100 year old black cherry trees on the land and canned cherries and applesauce from the apple trees and pears from the pear trees as well to fill our larder for summer, fall and winter.

I'm pretty sure even in the city of Mt. Shasta you cannot get unlimited water use for only $10 a month like you could then but it might still be easy to have an organic garden if you have enough good land to do this on all over the U.S. to lower your food bill about now.

The house was built in around 1920 to 1925 and wasn't really insulated so I asked out landlords then if I didn't pay rent one month and instead bought 8 inch fiberglass insulation for the attic and put it in myself if that would be okay?

The landlord was happy to allow my then 15 year old son and I to do this. So, we put in 8 inch fiberglass insulation in the attic which made quite a difference in staying warm. But, the wind was still coming through the slats of the siding so I decided to wrap the whole house in inexpensive Greenhouse plastic for the winter and this kept out the wind. Then my wife went out and bought a beautiful wool carpet at a garage sale for our living room, a really large one and that also helped keep our living room warm especially if you were sitting next to our wood stove which warmed the house then there.

The point is I think here that "Where there's a will there's a way"

 to survive whatever times you find yourself living through.

Then I wanted to go skiing up on Mount Shasta but I realized our window van's rear tires started spinning in the snow and unless I wanted to spend a lot of time putting on tire chains and taking them off whenever I wanted to ski this was something of a problem for me. So, my friend had an old 1960 Volvo with snow tires on it but the starter motor didn't work so I bought it and parked it on a hill so I could push start it easily. Then once I was up in the snow I found I could coast a ways down the mountain and throw it into 2nd gear and pop start it on the way down the hill. 

 So, once again where there's a will there's a way if you really want to do something.

Living there through the winter was always interesting because at that time you could get around up to 4 to 5 feet of snow at a time then in the little City of Mt. Shasta.

By the time my son was 17 he got good at even riding his bicycle to the local High school through the snow. I remember him riding his bike through 1 to 2 feet of unplowed snow sometimes. That was always interesting to watch him ride his bike to school through the unplowed snow.

However, within a year of that I think we got him a truck so he could drive that instead of a bicycle to high  school and then college.

The most snow I have ever seen in the city of Mt. Shasta was in the winter of 1992. Luckily for us we had moved back to the San Francisco Bay area and had bought another business there. But, when we visited friends in Mt. Shasta the snow was about 12 feet deep at that time so roofs were collapsing one by one. People tried to put snow blowers on their roofs to blow the snow because 12 feet is above the level of most roofs so most people couldn't even shovel the snow off because the snow was much higher then their roofs. However, people often fell off their roofs into the snow doing this and this could be dangerous in a variety of ways too.

The most snow I have ever seen at Bunny Flat which is at about 6900 feet on Mt. Shasta is around 40 feet of snow. That year I was skiing on 40 feet of snow (80s or early 90s) with a friend and he skied over the top of a tall tree but when I skied over the tree top I fell through the snow and found myself standing on a limb of a tall tree with my skis on. Luckily, my friend heard my cries for help and I was able to give him each of my skis and accept a hand up out of that tree circle. Trees melt out about 3 feet around them so without help I might never have gotten out of that 40 foot high tree well.