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Archive for the ‘Journeys’ Category

A Blog for Trekkies and Oldsters

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys, tagged on March 13, 2023| 8 Comments »

I’ll have to think on that … Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

          Some asshole writer commenting on William Shatner, in the NY Times no less, implied he wasn’t a fantastic actor and hadn’t lived an incredible life. The comment had me screaming.

While I might agree Shatner’s acting might not be Oscar worthy, his role as Captain Kirk helped launch Star Trek’s incredible popularity, and as for leading an incredible life, how many of us can say we’ve flown in space.

Besides, I believe that each and every one of us lead incredible lives, ones that no one else can duplicate. I know I have. While I may not have had as many incredible things happen to me as Shatner – aftercall I’m only 83 and he’s 91 – I’m still enough.  

Even if people have the same experiences, no one reacts, comprehends, thinks, or responds exactly the same. Each of us is valuable in our own way. But that nitwit writer judged Shatner, I suspect because of his fame, against some higher standard.

The writer’s words certainly weren’t kind – or necessary, and in my mind represent the bullying that we’re trying to stem among our youth.

Still, since I’m not a Trekkie, you may be wondering, why the words of that nincompoop had me screaming, I’m kind of wondering about my reaction as well.

Screaming at something I read is not common, but then again, it’s not rare either. But this reaction was pretty strong.

Maybe it was my growing awareness, now having time to reflect on life, that each of us, in our own way, is incredibly enough for this world. Or maybe it’s because I have a grandson who qualifies for that Trekkie moniker, and I was screaming for him. .

 Or maybe it was just one old person taking up for another old person.  

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Memory Triggers

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys on March 10, 2023| 2 Comments »

A trip down memory lane — Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

My granddaughter Shanna often calls me as she drives to work in the mornings. She’s a fantastic woman who at 40 found herself starting life anew. She was a bit downhearted about it, but I told her that my life only got more interesting and exciting once I reached that landmark – and that’s the honest truth.

Yesterday morning as we chatted, she mentioned that she had met someone who might turn out to be a good mentor for her.

 The word mentor triggered a memory of my first, a tall, down-home, y’all-speaking, Texas county sheriff, who taught me the ropes for covering a murder investigation when I was a green-behind-the-ears reporter – after he had humiliated me a couple of times. But then that taught me the power of persistence.

It was a good memory. But then I’ve always tended to bury bad memories beneath a heavy rock that rarely gets lifted — and that’s a gift I treasure.

Memories, at least for me, are one of the positives about growing older. And if you’re into your eighth decade, and embraced life, you’re bound to have a lot of them. And the years have taught me that sometimes the simple and quiet ones, like a phone call from a loved one, or staring out at a field full of Texas bluebonnets, can be as meaningful as standing under a waterfall at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.

But don’t get me wrong. I’m not through with creating memories. I collected one just this morning as I watched a pair of courting mourning doves prance around my yard. At 83, I’m a lot more observant than I was at 23.

So, listen up brain. You better make some more room up there.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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My Unspectacular Cottonwood Tree

Posted in aging, Favorite Places, Journeys, tagged on March 8, 2023| 5 Comments »

I walked past this tree every summer for three years when I was a campground host at Idaho’s Lake Walcott State Park. I call it the tree with a split personality. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

When I read the following, I realized I had not yet hugged the large cottonwood tree that grows in my small yard, even though it’s one of the reasons I love my new apartment. Wrote Ayn Rand, in a book I read many years ago:

“It had stood there for hundreds of years … Its roots clutched the hill like a fist with fingers sunk into the soil, and he thought that if a giant were to seize it by the top, he would not be able to uproot it, but would swing the hill and the whole of the earth with it, like a ball at the end of a string. He felt safe in the oak tree’s presence; it was a thing that nothing could change or threaten; it was his greatest symbol of strength.” — Atlas Shrugged (1957)

I bought my last home, the one I lived in before I sold it to buy an RV when I retired, because of the magnificent elm tree that grew in its backyard — and the tall ponderosa pine that stood in the front yard helped sealed the deal.

I admit it. I’m a tree hugger.

Looking at the photos I took over the years, I find many pictures that contain simply a single tree. Some of them famous, like an ancient bristle cone pine in Great Basin National Park which I stood beside; or the General Sherman Sequoria in Sequoria National Park, which I first saw when I was only about 12 years old.

Then there’s The 2,000-year-old live oak on Goose Island State Park called simply The Big Tree. If I had to name my favorite tree species, it would definitely be a live oak, whose branches seem to wiggle as they grow and can spread out as wide as the tree is tall.  

Another of the trees among my photos is a big old limber pine I saw up near Monte Cristo in the Wasatch-Cache National Forest. My old bird-watching mentor Jack Rensel, who sadly died three years ago, called it the Old Dude, and said it had been around before Utah had gained statehood.

That’s just a sprout compared to the limber pine identified near Utah’s Alta Ski Area. That tree, named Twister, is at least 1,700 years old.

My cottonwood tree comes nowhere close to being as spectacular. And it’s fallen leaves have been a nuisance to sweep off my patio and to rake up in the yard. In addition, the tree is raising havoc to the sidewalk and my gate, as its roots stretch out to reach the generous irrigation water used on a patch of grass diligently maintained in my apartment complex.

I suspect the tree is a wanderer that put down roots a bit farther than usual from the nearby Rillito River, or perhaps another tree hugger planted it.  A cottonwood tree can drink 50 to 200 gallons of water a day, which may be why the one in my yard is the only one of its species in the complex.

I’m thinking I should go hug my cottonwood before it’s deemed a nuisance and cut down as some other trees here recently were – after one of the trees in the complex decided to grow up into the living room of an apartment unit.

It’s an old complex, as are many of the trees that grow here, many of which are spectacular. Perhaps I should hug some of them, too.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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National Women’s History Month

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys, Writing, tagged on March 3, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Art by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

These days there seems to be a month for everything. In March, there’s Sing-With-Your-Child Month, Appreciate Dolphins Month, Berries and Cherries Month, Mad for Plaid Month and National On-Hold Month – and that’s just to name a few of the many I usually never hear about, nor celebrate.

On a more relevant note, at least to me, is that March is National Women’s History Month. I’ve come a long way from being raised in a time when women’s proper place was thought to be married, barefoot, and pregnant to thinking I should have the same rights as a man.

My original perspective was that women’s fight for equality began in the 1960s and ‘70s, spurred by women like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan, and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.

These were the years that marked the beginning of my awareness of inequality and unfairness in the world, and not just for women. Not surprisingly, these years coincided with the beginning of my 37-year journalism career and my personal fight for equal pay for equal work.

History, however, tells a different story. While there are many individual stories going way back in time, the big fight for equal rights for American women began in 1869 with the founding of the National Women’s Suffrage Association by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who along with women like Susan B. Anthony and Victoria Hull, fought for women’s right to vote.

This resulted in an 1884 decision by the Supreme Court that citizenship does not give women the right to vote. Women didn’t give up, however, even though many of them were severely harassed or even jailed simply for continuing to fight for the vote.

Then, in 1913, thousands of women marched on Washington D.C. demanding the right to vote, a right that was finally achieved nationally in 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment. As a writer, I think of all the stories, told and untold, that led up to this momentous occasion. I also am still astonished that this took place just 19 years before I was born.

It’s because of these strong women of the past that I have the privileges I do today. And I’m thankful. Yes. National Women’s History Month is one I will celebrate.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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On Being a Writer

Posted in aging, Books, journalism, Journeys, Uncategorized, Writing on February 17, 2023| 1 Comment »

My former newspaper colleague and dear friend Charlie Trentelman has been browsing the archives of The Standard-Examiner, where I worked for over 20 years. He came across these old clippings and emailed me a copy. Ah! … The memories.

Aging My Way

Laurie Lisle, in her memoir Word for Word said perhaps one of the reasons she wanted to be a reporter is because she could ask anyone about almost anything.

I remember responding to that question a few times in the same way. Of course, it went much deeper than that, with the most important thing being that I wanted to write, and I wanted to be read.

That’s why I blog. It’s why I wrote Travels with Maggie, why I am the staff writer for Story Circle Networks’ journal, and why, occasionally these days, I still submit articles to a variety of publications.

And if that isn’t enough, I fill a page or two in my personal journal most days.

I write because to not do so would be to not breath. I consider myself blessed to have found this passion in my life when I was 25. It happened about 2 a.m. in the morning when I couldn’t sleep, and for some unknown reason found myself getting up and writing about an incident that had moved me deeply the day before.

The only thing I had ever written before this were high school English assignments, which I didn’t particularly enjoy. But I had been, from the time I first learned the alphabet, a bookworm. I read every opportunity I got, from the words on a cereal box to Tolstoy’s War and Peace. In my mind, writers were a breed so far above me that I couldn’t picture being among them.

In fact, it was a dozen or more years after I was supporting myself as a newspaper writer before I finally realized I was actually one of them. And even longer after that before I could actually call myself a writer.

It has now been 58 years since that devious writing bug infected me — and changed the whole trajectory of my life.

I’ve come to love that bug with all my heart.  And I’m still writing and hope to be right up until the day I die.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Gift of Having Pets  

Posted in aging, Art, Dogs, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged on February 15, 2023| 5 Comments »

Chigger — Art by Pat Bean

I came across a blog this morning about the gifts your pets bring to you.

The first thing I thought about was Chigger, the cat my son rescued in a canyon during a snow storm. She was quite tiny, probably less than six weeks old, when he dumped her in my lap on Christmas Eve and said “Merry Christmas Mom.”

She got her name at about 2 a.m. the next morning when I wanted to sleep and she wanted to play. Nothing, I thought, is pestier than chiggers. Chigger and I spent the next 18 years of our lives together.

One of the first things she gifted me with was a bird – this was before birding became one of my passions so I have no idea what species it was. But it was alive and seemed unhurt. I quickly shut Chigger up in the bathroom until I had released the bird, which because of my love of wild things, I was glad to see could quickly fly away.

Chigger let me know she was pissed, and never brought me another bird. Instead, she chose to bring me dead field mice – often.

Then there was my Cocker Spaniel Peaches. She and Chigger were pals, although I never knew until both were aged and hard-of-hearing, and I spied them sleeping curled up together. This, I thought, was a very good friendship because it was a time when I worked long hours and they were home alone.

The only gift Peaches ever brought to me was a tennis ball – and that was with an ulterior motive in mind. She wanted me to throw it for her to fetch – over and over again.

My current canine companion Scamp occasionally brings me a toy to throw for him to chase, or to initiate a game of tug of war, but mostly he expects me to give him gifts. He especially likes to receive his own piece of mail.

He sits in front of me expectantly after I bring in the mail, clearly asking me with his eyes: “Where’s mine, where’s mine?”

So, I give him an envelope or piece of junk mail, and he bounces off happy. A while later, I find myself snooping down – it’s good exercise – to pick up tiny bits of paper scattered around the house. It’s always made more difficult by Scamp trying to rescue as many of the pieces he can. So much fun.

But the best gift all my pets have given me has been unconditional love – and they always know when I need it the most.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Super Bowl Morning

Posted in aging, Birds, Dogs, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged on February 12, 2023| 8 Comments »

Antelope Island in 2002. The water level of Great Salt Lake has dropped significantly since then. — Photo by Pat Bean

Aging My Way

“It’s quiet, peaceful. My soul feels blessed,” I wrote in my journal on March 19, 2002. This was the winter that I visited Antelope Island in Utah’s Great Salt Lake at least once a week. My companion was usually only my canine companion Maggie — and I usually had the 42-square-mile island almost to myself, given that there was often snow on the ground.

It was a very busy winter for me. As city editor in charge of my Ogden newspaper’s coverage of the 2002 Winter Olympics, whose downhill ski events were all being held in the paper’s backyard, Antelope Island was my recall to sanity.

 I also thought of the lake and island as my personal Birding 101 Lab. It was here, with the help of birding field guides, I learned to identify ducks and swallows and shorebirds and songbirds all on my own. And I recorded it all in my journals.

The robin and meadowlark sharing a tree and seemingly trying to out-sing one another. The magpie stealing food from a golden eagle. A chukar sitting on a rock staring at me as I drove past. The rainbow of sparkling color on the starlings’ black feathers. The lone pair of Barrow’s goldeneyes among the flock of common goldeneyes. The pair of ravens that always seemed to appear near the curve in the six-mile causeway to the island.

And not just birds. There were bison, which sometimes blocked the road, and  prong-horn antelope that kept their distance, and the porcupine asleep in a tree, and especially the lone coyote that followed me across the causeway one morning.

Rereading my words from over 20 years ago, while sitting here over 800 miles away in Tucson on a cold, but sunny morning, drinking my cream-laced coffee, I smile. It’s a good way to start Superbowl Sunday.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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The Red Bird

Posted in aging, Art, Birds, Journeys on February 8, 2023| 2 Comments »

A quick painting of a Northern Cardinal I made in a sketchbook 10 years ago. I see I drew the leaves better than the bird, but I did capture the familiar bird’s flamboyance.

Aging My Way

Looking out my bedroom sliding glass door, I saw a red bird sitting on the fence, exactly where mourning doves sit almost daily, and where once in a while a Cooper’s Hawk perches, quickly frightening the doves to scatter.fla

One of the hawk’s favorite meals is smaller birds.

And that includes the Northern Cardinal, the male red bird that graced me with his presence as I drank my cream-laced coffee this morning. I suspected the less colorful female was nearby, but I see her far less often.

The cardinal is one of the birds I grew up with, for a long time knowing it only as the red bird. It’s now become one of the few birds whose voice I can recognize. Sometimes it sounds like cheer-cheer-cheer, other times like pre-tty, pre-tty, pre-tty. Since it doesn’t migrate from season to season, it’s always around, although it’s often called the winter bird.

Photographers and artists love to capture its brilliant red feathers against a snowy background, and Christmas cards abound with such images. Another example of this red bird’s popularity is that seven states – Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia – call it their state bird.

And it’s the mascot for Arizona’s NFL football team. I note this last because since I have now lived in Tucson for 10 years, it’s something I should know.

But what I like best about the cardinal is that it was my grandmother’s favorite bird. And seeing one always reminds me of her.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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What I know at 83

Posted in aging, Art, Journeys on February 1, 2023| 14 Comments »

Art by Pat Bean

“My mother always used to say: The older you get, the better you get – unless you’re a banana.” Betty White, as Rose in The Golden Girls.

Aging My Way

I’m about as far from perfect as you can get. Even so, I automatically resist following advice. The words “you should” have my brain saying “No” before the next words are spoken. Just ask my friends.

But having spent 83 years living a roller coaster life full of experiences and emotions, I have learned a few things along the way.  

Like not to waste time on excuses, but just to do whatever it is I should or want to do. OK, of course, I don’t always do it – but I know I should.  

Another thing I’ve learned over the years is to treasure my friends and family – and to take nothing personal because it almost always isn’t.

I’ve discovered that making decisions doesn’t have to be scary, because you can always change them. Wrong decisions and mistakes are how one grows. Or as Leonard Cohen said: “There are cracks in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”   

I’ve also finally figured out that you can’t learn anything when you’re the one talking. And at 83, I know how important it is to never stop learning or trying something new every day. Another hard lesson for me was to not regret or worry about the past, just try to live today the best way I know how.

But the best thing I’ve learned over the years is to wake up every morning counting my blessings. It always puts life’s little nags in perspective.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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Forest Gump Point

Posted in aging, Favorite Places, Journeys, road trip, Travel, tagged , on January 31, 2023| 1 Comment »

Forest Gump Point — Monument Valley from Scenic Byway 163

“There is an eternal landscape, a geography of the soul; we search for its outlines all our lives.” — Josephine Hart  

You know how you see something, and your mind gets stuck on it, and then you keep seeing the same thing over and over again.

That happened to me this past month. It started when I read an Atlas Obscura story about Forest Gump Point. The story was accompanied by a photo which showed a scene I had passed by at least a dozen times and had even stopped to explore a few of those times.

The Point, illustrated in the article, is the view one gets when traveling the 64 miles of Scenic Highway163 through Arizona and Utah, 44 miles of which goes through Navajo Nation land and Monument Valley. I purposely took this route many times — simple because the magnificence of the views awed me.

The red-rock mesas, buttes and spires are the remnants of rock formations that were over 25-million years in the making, according to geologists. Some of these wonders can be seen in the background where Forest Gump stopped running.

But long before Tom Hanks portrayed Forest Gump in the 1994 movie, Monument Valley was a favorite of movie directors. Probably the most famous use of the spectacular scenery was in the 1939 film Stagecoach starring John Wayne. It can also be seen in movies like The Searchers, The Eiger Sanction and Easy Rider and has even been featured in the popular television series Dr. Who.

In recent weeks, I’ve seen images of the scenic valley more than half a dozen times. Each time made me want to take a road trip – enough so that I looked at a map and discovered that it’s only 462 miles away from my home in Tucson.

Pat Bean is a retired award-winning journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is an avid reader, an enthusiastic birder, the author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon (Free on Kindle Unlimited), is always searching for life’s silver lining, and these days aging her way – and that’s usually not gracefully.

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