Going Back.

The Goose Pasture. I have no idea why it is called that. It is just a no frills campground at the end of a tram road in west Florida. Just a place to camp with a couple of outhouses. A place where I would spend summer vacations with my family as a kid in the 70s. In all the times we went there, I never once saw a goose. Cows, yes. Pigs, yes. Snakes, yes. Mosquitoes and yellow flies, yes. But never a single goose.
    Every summer, we would camp there at least once, but sometimes twice. We would usually stay a week at a time, often combining it with a visit with my Mom's family that lived close by in the town of Woodville. We had a Coleman Valley Forge pop up camper with an old 12 ft boat from J.M.Fields tied to the top, and a white Chevy van that my dad had bought. It came as a work van with no seats in the back, but we added a couple of bucket seats out of an old Cadillac for my sister and I. They were not bolted down (in case they needed to come out to haul something), so the chance of Margaret and I flying around back there during unexpected braking was real. But somehow, like most of our generation, we managed to survive.
    Looking back on those times, there are some fond and sometimes funny memories. My dad and I taking the boat out and fishing all day, just to come back and find that My mom and sister out-fished us by a long shot sitting on the bank with cane poles and worms. Hi-jinks that my sister and I played on a particularly annoying game warden who insisted that we had a dog with us (when it in fact was just a cassette recording of a dog) A big fish-fry with all the close in relatives joining. Campfires and stories that I wish I had listened a little closer to. A trip with this local guy (Pinkney Hartsfield) to some nearby caves and a place where you could move a rock and see the water running under the ground you were standing on. 
   I didn't realize it then, but it was where I began my love of the outdoors. This campground is nestled on the Wacissa River, which was pristine, remote and wild at the time. We would always go up river, just in-case the old Evinrude 9.9 broke down, we could drift back to camp. I remember my dad teaching me how to constantly pay attention to the surroundings and how it was easy to get lost. That river has a lot of fingers - like a maze, and many of them lead to nowhere. You had to know which ones would get you back to camp. I learned how to paddle and control a boat there. I remember my dad using a fishing technique called a bob-pole. It was a long (14 ft or so) cane pole with a foot long solid steel wire lashed to the tip with a spinner on the end of the wire (no fishing line). He would use that pole to run the spinner in and out of the nooks and crannies along the shoreline. The combined action of the spinner and the lure bouncing from the steel wire flexing in the current made for a spectacular presentation to any fish in its path. That technique is not used much any more, but it requires good paddling skills from the guy in the back of the boat to keep the guy up front at the right distance from the shore and out of the trees.
    All that was over forty years ago. I have often thought about going back, especially the past few years. But something always came up.  Last week, I finally made it happen. I left from work on Friday after lunch for a three day trip. Driving up highway 98, when I got within a couple of miles of the dirt road turn off, I actually had butterflies in my stomach. Not really sure why.
    Well, the old dirt road was paved - for the first mile, but turned to dirt right about at the now closed and dilapidated dolomite mine. Nothing remaining but rusted remnants behind an oft breached chain link fence. Another mile or so before the left turn to goose pasture road. About 3 more miles of pot holes and washboard to go. There is a sink hole next to the road that is about half way. We always used to stop there and see how much water was in it. It is actually part of the Aucilla River sinks and now part of the Florida Trail system. Passing that, I knew I was close.
    The cattle gap going into the campground is now gone, as are the outhouses - an RV dump station now taking their place. Recently maintained porta-potties are now installed on the far side of the campground. Otherwise, things seem pretty much unchanged - including the abundance of biting flies. The river adjacent to the campground is now disappointingly choked with eel grass - an inevitable byproduct of the environmental impact of "progress".
    Once I made camp, I got in my kayak and headed up river. As I got past the wide open section of the water and got into the narrower parts, the eel grass all but gone, the real beauty of the river I recalled as a kid lay before me. Just me, the river, my senses, and my memories. It was later in the afternoon, so I kept an eye on the time and paddled up as far as I thought safe to allow for time to get back to camp before dark. Some areas I recalled vividly, some I think I experienced for the first time. But I had the river to myself that afternoon. Magical, emotional, and calming. Though I brought fishing gear, I think I only made one cast the entire trip. I was too occupied with just taking it all in to focus on fishing.

    The next morning, I decided to set out down river and explore new territory. As I mentioned, we rarely went that way due to mechanical concerns. A kayak does not share that limitation. I also was in search of a piece of water called "The Slave Canal" which is basically a shallow and swift circuitous path through the swamp that connects the Wacissa to the Aucilla River. It is it's own history lesson, spanning paleolithic to post civil war times. It turns out, down river of the goose pasture is just as magnificent as the other parts. And I did find the slave canal and go in for a ways, but it was a little too swift and technical for me to traverse the whole way (5 miles) and then try and paddle back up stream through it. I will save that for another day when I can arrange transport back.

I dedicated the final day of my trip to exploring the Aucilla sinks. A nearby series of sink holes and geologic formations where the Aucilla river goes underground and reappears, only to go back in hiding just to do it again a few hundred feet or so away. In these explorations, I finally made another connection. My mom always mentioned a repeated nightmare that involved me falling in a sink hole. She and her brothers & sisters grew up in this area and often fished and hunted the area for food. She would have known just how much of this area involved sink holes, water rushing under ground and other such inherent dangers. She mentioned seeing cows getting pulled under during one high water period. Having seen some of the sinks first hand now, I have a better understanding of what I once thought a strange thing to be worried about. I also know that had she been here and seen me purposefully crawling down some of them, she would have taken a switch to my ass.
  

By any measure, it was an awesome trip. Words fall short to describe the beauty, so I will quit trying. But I have attached links to a few videos that I tool along the way. 
   Do I plan on going back again? Well, although I am already planning my next return trip, I don't think I any longer have a need to "go back". While memories are cool, and a great reference point, there are so many new discoveries to be made there. So, no, I won't be going back, per-se. I will instead be going forward, building on a newly refortified foundation.
~Peace~

Wacissa & a story.. a little bit of the river upstream from camp

A hike along the Aucilla and sinks walking along the Florida trail

 

Courage

 

    

 In a couple of hours, I have to walk from my office down the street to the the cancer center to have a cystoscopy. I am not looking forward to it at all. I still remember the last time that I had one, back at the beginning of this adventure in 2015. That time, it was to make sure that my newly found prostate cancer had not spread into my bladder.
    This time is a little different. Since the beginning of the year, I have had several seemingly random incidents of blood in my urine. Some times, it was trace amounts - just a little pink. Other times it was full on blood and clots. One time a month or so ago, it looked like a CSI crime scene in the bathroom. I went to the emergency room with that one. They did a cat scan of my bladder but didn't see anything. Like all the other times before and since, it eventually cleared on it's own. There has been zero pain associated with it, save minor discomfort trying to pass the initial clot a couple of times.
    The common assumption shared with the ER docs as well as my oncologist and urologist is that it is radiation cystitis scarring from my salvage radiation in 2016. It makes sense to me. And as much as I am not looking forward to having a camera sent up my urethra, it makes sense to have a look see as well.
    The odd coincidence of it all - which brings me both concern and comfort, is that today is the 13th anniversary of my father's passing. He died on May 19th, 2008. From complications of bladder and prostate cancer. According to all the genetic testing I have had, my PC was more than likely not due to hereditary traits, so chalk it up to coincidence, I guess. I really don't anticipate finding anything more than scar tissue, but it is obviously in the back of my mind.
    What is also in my mind is a memory I have of my father. The day he had his surgery for his cystectomy and ileal conduit. He was scared to death, but when they brought the wheel chair to take him back to pre-op, he refused it, and instead got up and walked straight and tall all the way to pre-op, orderlies in-tow.
    I have often thought of the courage he displayed that day, especially since I started my own cancer journey. And with that thought of him, I will walk tall today.
I love you and think of you often, Dad. 

Let Me Be(lieve)

     When I was very young, I was told to believe. To believe that if I did as I was told, was kind, and did my chores, that on a special night at the end of the year, magical things would happen and gifts would appear from afar. And I believed. For a while wholeheartedly. Then as time passed, I began to notice some things just didn't seem to add up. When I posed these questions of mine, I was encouraged that it would be best just to let it be. So I did, for a time - up until I could no longer let it be to just believe.
    Several years later, diploma in hand & scholarships within reach, I chose a different path. Having been immersed in parades, memorials, and the such, I was oft told of the honor of serving. Putting nation over self. Traditions. Valor. And I believed. I was a part of something bigger, and we were going to ensure peace and prosperity throughout the world, quenching evil in its track. I believed - hook, line, and sinker. Until the day I didn't. Some things didn't seem to add up. Why are we here, and why are we doing these things to these people? I began to ask questions. Again, I was told to just let it be. Do as you are ordered and let it be. And I did let it be for as long as I had to, but I no longer believed.
    Norman Rockwell depicted a exceptionally rosy version of the American family in most of his paintings. My generation was raised to believe in and strive for that picture perfect version of Americana as a life goal. It would take a lot of work and commitment to succeed, but if you stuck to your guns and worked together, we would see it through and look back on a lifetime of memories with warm hearts. And I believed. Oh so wholeheartedly, I believed. When we set out to build a family, I poured all of my heart and soul into making it work. I think we both did at first. As small things would crop up sometimes we would solve them, other times we would just let them be. Somewhere along the way, things began to not add up. For the longest while I tried not to question things. I just let them be, and worked harder. Eventually, things reached a point beyond questioning. Nothing added up. It was not meant to be. It's hard to believe that over a quarter of a century had come and gone, trying to hold on to that belief.
    Perhaps I should of let that be that, but I still believed in the dream. Perhaps I would get a do over. A second shot with the right person?  Could it be? I genuinely believed it possible. That there is someone whom I could grow together with each of us empowering the other in unbelievable ways? Yea, I was beginning to believe that. Truth is, I still have that belief. But after a lifetime of just letting things be, I have little if any interest in continuing to do so. When things don't add up, they don't add up. Full stop. I readily accept the fact that I am more than a little gun-shy at this point in my life, and perhaps even lost my ability to correctly add at all.
    Regardless, at this juncture, I believe that doing what is best for me is paramount. To let it be about me. To explore and answer my questions and concerns. To address my needs. To learn to believe in myself.
    As to the rest of the world; I hear you. I care. I really do. And I will be back. But for now, for the time being, please...
Just. Let. Me. Be(lieve).

High Fives.

 I had my 3 month cancer check up yesterday. A pretty typical routine - show up and get a blood draw for labs. Then a nurse calls me back to my room, with a quick stop by the scale. Once in my room, basic vitals, and a few cursory questions confirming I feel ok, and that the medications list on file is accurate. "All looks good, and the doctor will be in in a little bit, but there is someone else ahead of you. " No worries, I replied. It will take a few minutes for my lab results to arrive anyway. So after reassuring me that the nurse station is just down the hall, should I need something, she walks out, leaving the door open.
    The walls between waiting rooms are thin, and I could make out the tenor  of a conversation that is going on in the room next to mine. Though I can't (nor do I want to) make out the actual words, it is clear that the doctor is in that room, and it is obvious from the tone and laughter good news is being given. From where I was sitting, I could see when the doctor exited that room, closely followed by a husband and wife. And I saw them looking at each other with relieved smiles as they gave each other a high five and a hug on their way to the check out desk. Good for them! When someone leaves an appointment at a cancer center with a smile, it is a big deal!
    Several minutes later, my oncologist came in and we began my appointment. All of my results were super positive as well. I have been off of Lupron for over six months now, and my PSA is still undetectable. In that time, my testosterone has gone from a below castrate level of 5 ng/dl to 216.3. On top of that my recent colonoscopy was perfectly clean. All good news. Great, in fact. So much so that in stead of a 3 month visit, we are pushing it out to four months. My orders are to continue to eat healthy and exercise.
    All in all, about as good as a visit to an oncologist can go. 

Except for the fact that there was no one there to exchange a high five with.