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Home with a Scamp

Posted in Dogs, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged coronavirus on April 3, 2020| 9 Comments »

Scamp taking in the morning sun as it came in through my bedroom balcony this morning. — Photo by Pat Bean

“No one appreciates the very special genius of our conversation as the dog does.” – Christopher Morley

At Least I Can Hug My Dog

The shelter ad said she was eight months old, a schnauzer mix, and it called the dog Smidge.

Wrong, wrong and wrong. She was a he, and probably a couple of months younger than claimed, and there is not a smidgen of schnauzer in him– at least according to the DNA results I received yesterday, a gift from my youngest daughter who did the swabbing.

Scamp taking a snooze after a lengthy session of ball throwing and retrieving in the house. — Photo by Pat Bean.

I immediately knew the dog’s name was not Smidge, and thought it might be Harley. But two weeks later, I knew without a doubt that his name was Scamp. For one thing, he resembles the Disney animated dog Scamp, and he definitely is one.

His puppy ways and how he kept growing and growing out of the 20-pound lapdog I was expecting convinced me that he was quite a bit younger than eight months when I took him home last May. He finally stopped growing in January, weighing in today at about 35 pounds.

His DNA results show he is 50 percent Siberian husky, 37 percent Shih Tzu, with some cocker spaniel, Maltese and miniature poodle thrown into the mix, which may be why he is convinced he is the lapdog I wanted.

Whenever I sit in my living room recliner, he shares it with me, lays at my feet when I am at my desk, and is a bed hog when he sleeps with me at night. We do have lots of conversations these days, as he is my only isolation companion.

He’s a better listener than most of my other friends, cocking his head to one side as if he truly understands what I’m nattering on about.

Both of us are extroverts who like people and animals. So, this isolation is not the easiest to endure. Thankfully we have each other.

available on Amazon

Bean Pat: Zimmy https://lithub.com/meet-zimmy-the-quarantine-dog-or-an-insane-response-to-an-insane-time/ This post was my inspiration for today’s blog. It’s cleverly written and funny.

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon, and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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The Rivers Ran Through Me

Posted in Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged Snake River. wjote-water raftomg on March 20, 2020| Leave a Comment »

The two memorable rapids on the Snake River below Jackson, Wyoming, are Kahuna and Lunch Counter. Kahuna was wild when the water was low and Lunch Counter was wild when the water was high, which meant we rafters always had a thrilling ride.

“Life is like the river. Sometimes it sweeps you gently along and sometimes the rapids come out of nowhere.” – Emma Smith

The year was 1983 when I found myself, for the first time, completely on my own. Two marriages, one of 22 years and one of only eight months, were behind me, while my five children had all left the nest and scattered, not just across the country but across the world.

I took both these photos from Lunch Counter — a couple of hours after our groups had passed through this same spot. — Photos by Pat Bean

The freedom turned me giddy, and searching for adventure. I had taken up skiing a few years earlier with my one child still at home. I loved it, but I was a chicken skier who sat down on the snow anytime I thought I might get out of control.

When my final child got married, I soon after followed suit, moving to Nevada, where my new husband and I both worked for the Las Vegas Sun. It was a fun time in my life – for eight months. After the breakup, I ended up as regional editor at the Times News in Twin Falls, Idaho, where I soon went on my first white-water rafting trip. It immediately became a passionate hobby that I indulged in for the next 25 years.

Within a month of my first rafting adventure, I had bought my own, six-person, paddle raft and every weekend, weather permitting, found me and friends floating down the Snake River between Hagerman and Bliss, Idaho.

It was a fun trip, with rapids big enough to thrill but not deadly, or so I thought until the day I forgot to check water levels before launching. It was the day that the irrigation water had been turned off and a resulting gigantic rapid flipped the raft and sent all the passengers scurrying for land — and a five-mile walk back to civilization.

That was the first lesson the river taught me: Never assume!

When I left Twin Falls, the regular summer rafting trips took place on the Snake River below Jackson, Wyoming. I also took two 16-dqy trips through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River — as a paying passenger in which I paddled the first time and was oared down on the second, which was a present to myself on my 60^th birthday.

There was also a week-long trip down the Salmon (The River of No Return) one year, plus numerous day trips on other western rivers, including Utah’s Green and Idaho’s Boise and Payette. One mantra of those river trips, especially in the boat I captained, was self-rescue.

While everyone on the raft looked out for each other, everyone knew they were ultimately responsible for themselves. And on the few commercial trips I took, I always had to sign a waiver acknowledging that very same thing.

I came to realize that self-rescue was also a good life-management tool.

But I think the most important thing the rivers gave me, at a time when I desperately needed it, was the confidence to carefully decide on a path of action and then fully commit. There was no sitting down, or turning back, at the top of a rapid – just the thrill at the bottom to know you had faced your fears and done it!

Life, as we are all fully understanding now, has no safety net. I’m thankful for the guts the rivers gave me to live it.

Bean Pat: To all the health workers and everyone else out there who are helping others at the risk of their own lives, and to all those who are currently jobless and struggling to survive isolated at home in an effort to stop this pandemic.

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On Being Female

Posted in Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged female journalists, females, human rights on March 2, 2020| 2 Comments »

In my 40s, after I had regained my 10-year-old brashness, I bought a raft and learned how to captain it. Bean Pats to the female boatmen who twice took me through Lava Falls on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, females who didn’t let gender stop them from doing what they wanted to do in life.

“The fact is that a woman who aspires to be chairman of the board or a member of the House does so for exactly the same reasons as any man. Basically, these are that she thinks she can do the job, and she wants to try.” – Shirley Chisholm

It’s Really a Human Rights Issue

In my goal to read Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations all the way through, I’ve encountered many a distressing comment from the ancient Greek poets that set my teeth to grinding.

To quote just two: “There’s nothing worse in the world than shameless women –save some other woman.” –Aristophanes (450-385 B.C.). “A woman is always a fickle, unstable thing.” Virgil ( 70 -19 B.C0.)

The attitudes weren’t much different, however, from the social patterns prevalent when I was born 80 years ago. As I recall the attitude back then was “Keep the women barefoot and pregnant.”

At a very early age, certainly before 10, I realized that boys had more life options open to them than girls. While I never envied their maleness, my bold, feisty nature emboldened me to vow that anything a boy could do, so could I.

I decided I would never get married and would be a female lawyer, a brash goal for a young girl in the 1940s. The

My mother, shown here in her 70s on the back of a motorcycle with one of my brothers, was a great example for me in her later years.

goal was diverted when puberty hit, and I went off course and married at 16.

But deep inside, I never lost the belief that I could do anything a man could do, with the exception of brute strength. I’ve always been a realist even if also an idealist. But even that assumption was challenged during the Equal Rights Amendment fight back in the 1970s.

I suddenly realized that some women were stronger than some men, even me. I also realized that men, although they had hundreds of more options, those options didn’t include those that were considered feminine, such as nurses or airline stewardesses. So it was that I began to think of equal rights as human rights, especially after, as an ERA supporter, I was asked if I wanted my daughters to go to war.

“Of course not,” I replied. “But I don’t want my sons to go to war either.”

By this time, I was in my 30s and had regained the feisty, brash attitude of my 10-year-old self. While I can’t say that I ever truly was accepted by everyone as an equal to my male counterparts, and I had to fight for equal pay in my chosen journalism career, I was able to have the life I wanted. And that, I’ve known now for many years, is the important right for all of us – regardless of gender.

Bean Pat: To all the women along the way who have inspired me, beginning with Loraine Bright, the woman I first revealed my secret desire to become a writer, and my first female editor Roberta Dansby, plus to name a few of the more well-known: Ellen Goodman, Anna Quindlen, Maureen Dowd, Barbara Jordan, Anne Richards, Molly Ivins and Maya Angelou.

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My Trail Hiking Days Are Over

Posted in Uncategorized on February 25, 2020| 5 Comments »

The Waterfall at the top of Franconia Notch Flume Trail. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.” Anna Quindlen

It Is What It Is

I’ve said it often, I enjoy being an old broad. Not thinking everything that goes wrong is a life or death situation, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are just some of the positive sides of the aging equation.

Like everything else, however, there are drawbacks, the worst of which for me are the physical limitations that have restricted my hiking days.

My former canine traveling companion, Maggie, on a hike we took in Arizona’s Tpnto Basin. — Photo by Pat Bean

While I’m in good health for my age, and can still take short walks with my canine companion, scampering up and down mountain trails and silently trekking through deep forests paths are no longer possible. It hurts my soul to admit this.

Thankfully, I have my memories of the trails I have hiked – from the view of the Virgin River atop Angel’s Landing in Utah’s Zion National Park to the waterfall at the top of Franconia Notch Flume Gorge in New Hampshire. I’ve also hiked Waimea Canyon in Hawaii and many, many trails in Yellowstone National Park. Actually, I’ve managed to take at least short hikes in 49 states and Canada – I’ve missed Rhode Island.

In addition, I am collecting the memories stored in books by so many others who have loved the freedom of being out of sight and sound of civilization. Currently I am reading In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin and Monkey Dancing by Daniel Glick, who took his two children on a trip around the world.

You can read about hikes I took in my late 60s and early 70s in my book: Travels with Maggie, which is available on Amazon

The truth is I’m addicted to reading travel books by authors like Tim Cahill, Edward Abbey, Jan Morris, Paul Theroux, Bill Bryson, Isabel Bird, Freya Stark, William Least-Heat Moon, Jon Krakauer and Peter Matthiessen, just to name a few.

Thankfully, being an old broad, means I have more time to read.

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson with her canine companion, Scamp. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, enthusiastic birder, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie, and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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Words from a Long Ago Age

Posted in Books, Dogs, Journeys, Morning Thoughts, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged aging, Bartlett's quotees, frogs, Theocritus on February 23, 2020| 2 Comments »

Morning Thoughts

When Scmp gets bored, he looks for things to shred. This morning it was two bookmarks. At least he doesn’t eat the pieces, and I get plenty of exercise picking up after him. — Photo by Pat Bean

With a cup of cream-laced coffee in hand, and my canine companion Scamp squeezed into my recliner with me, I continued my morning perusal of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotes, the first edition of which was published 165 years ago. Just for fun, I’ve been reading a couple pages a day of the old book.

It’s arranged chronologically and I’ve only gotten up to the 300 B.C.s. This morning’s reading included words by the

Theocritus — Wikimedia photo

Greek poet Theocritus’ His thoughts echoed in my own mind, speaking to an old broad who has finally slowed down and longs for peace in her life — which given the chaos in the world has been difficult to achieve.

Wrote Theocritus: “Sweet is the whispering music of yonder pine that sings. Our concern be peace of mind: some old

crone let us seek. To spit on us for luck and keep unlovely things afar. Cicala to cicala, and ant to ant, And kestrels dear to kestrels, but to me the Muse and song.

“The frog’s life is most jolly, my lads; he has no care … Who shall fill up his cup; for he has drink to spare … Verily, great grace may go. With a little gift; and precious are all things that come from friends.”

I thought it interesting that on the same page, Bion, another Greek poet, also mentioned frogs: “Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest.” A good point to ponder, I think.

And now I’ll go put up Bartlett until tomorrow morning, and go walk Scamp, He has been looking at me with injured eyes because I have been ignoring him.

I wonder if Theocritus and Bion ever used a dog as an analogy in their writings?”

Bean Pat: Never Assume https://forestgardenblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/23/sunday-dinner-never-assume/ My thoughts exactly.

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Standing up for Myself

Posted in Art, Birds, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged strength, Tear on January 9, 2020| 3 Comments »

The beauty of mother nature in all her forms can sometimes bring tears to my eyes. — American bitter art by Pat Bean

“A strong person is not the one who doesn’t cry. A strong person is the one who cries and sheds tears for a moment, then gets up and fights again.”

An Aha Moment

It was the late 1960s, and I was juggling a dysfunctional marriage, five children ranging in age from four to 13, and working as a green-behind-the-ears, naïve reporter. I cried a lot at home, always being the one blamed when things weren’t to someone’s liking. I simply cried and apologized.

I cried a lot at work, too, although I hid these tears in the paper’s darkroom, where I had begun my 37-year journalism career processing camera film. City editor Roberta Dansby — whom I eventually came to credit with teaching me almost everything I needed to know about being an ethical journalist — yelled at me daily for two years for anything she considered I had done wrong.

Not wanting to be yelled at, I seldom committed the same error twice and learned a lot. But I clearly remember the day Roberta yelled at me for something I knew for sure wasn’t my fault. Without blinking an eye, I shocked myself by standing up and yelling right back at her across the newsroom.

That was the last time Roberta yelled at me, although I was under her tutelage for another two years.

It took me longer and a lot more tears before I finally stood up for myself at home, but eventually, I did. And life became much sweeter, even my tears. I continue to shed them, but most, these days, are tears of joy: A new great-grandchild, a magnificent sunset, the flash of sun on a red-tailed hawk’s feathers and a glimmer of hope that someday the world will be kinder.

*This post was prompted by my writing circle prompt to write about an aha moment.

Bean Pat: A rambling blog about Christmas cookies https://kjottinger.com/2019/12/28/wherein-pooh-is-quoted/ that made me laugh. I love laughing.

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Tardy Intentions

Posted in Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged friends, new year's resolutions on January 3, 2020| 8 Comments »

New Year’s Resolutions

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” — Mary Anne Radmacher

My dear friend Kim and I recalled memories as we sat around and drank Jack and Cokes on New Year’s Eve. One of the best was the hot air balloon trip we took together over the Serengeti in Africa. This was the balloon ahead of us.

It’s been the best of weeks and the worst of weeks, which is why I’m just now contemplating my New Year’s resolutions, I always make them, and I always break them,

Kim, me and her son Cory hiking Indian Trail above Ogden, Utah. Cory was still a baby when I first met him.

The best of the week was that a dear friend, who I’ve known now for over 40 years, flew in to celebrate the advent of the new year with me. The worst part was that my back went out of commission for a few days and I still had to walk my dog (and another I was babysitting) up and down three flights of stairs four times a day,

My youngest daughter used my woes to once against suggest I move to a ground floor apartment. Nope, I said. Those stairs and my dog, are my foolproof exercise plan. And I know from experience that my back gets better quicker if I continue to move around instead of lying around,

And thus, that silver lining that I’m always looking for happened. My back was back to its normal 80-year-old self after four days. Normal, if you hadn’t already guessed, is not the same as a younger back. It sometimes hurts and I can’t lift anything heavier than 10 pounds without paying the consequence.

Kim and me just before we went skydiving to celebrate my 70th birthday.

But this old broad, who once ran everywhere, not only can live with that, but is thankful for all the blessings that living a slower life has brought: More time to observe nature, to learn new things, to read and write, and to connect the dots of 80 years of living.

As for that New Year’s resolution, I think Mary Anne Radmacher’s words cover all the basics:

“Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is.”

That’s a lot of New Year’s resolutions to break, although since I’ve already had a lot of practice trying to live them, they might be non-breakable.

Bean Pat: Old Plaid Camper https://oldplaidcamper.com/2020/01/03/fifteen-minutes/ Another blogger who looks for life’s silver lining.

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In My Mind’s Eye by Jan Morris

Posted in Books, Journeys, Uncategorized, tagged In My Mind's Eye, Jan Morris, writing on September 30, 2019| 1 Comment »

I’m currently reading this book — and loving it.

“A love of books, of holding a book, turning its pages, looking at its pictures, and living its fascinating stories goes hand-in-hand with a love of learning.” – Laura Bush

What I’m Reading

I’m reading In My Mind’s Eye, a collection of short essays written by Welch author Jan Morris when she was in her nineties. Jan is one of my favorite authors, and I’m loving her unvarnished look at the world through the lens of age.

Dr. Johnson’s Dicitionary, first published in the 18th century is still lurking around in book stores.

Jan, who was once James and served in the military and climbed Mount Everest in the 1950’s, has written almost too many travel and history books to count. In My Mind’s Eye is a kind of daily diary, however. Topics range from talking to your cat to her idea of a smile test.

On Day 59 in the book, Jan talks about looking through her vast collection of books for Dr. Johnson’s dictionary, fifth edition, 1788. As he picks up the book, Jan notices the damage on the spine and remembers that it was put there by her “darling daughter,” 50 years ago when her pram was parked by the bookcase.

Who in the heck is Dr. Johnson? I stopped reading and looked him up. He was Samuel Johnson, considered one of the best writers of the 18^th Century, and best known for his Dictionary of the English Language. I love reading a book in which I learn something new.

Meanwhile, another of my favorite days in Jan’s book is the one in which she rewrote the words to the battle hymn Onward Christian Soldiers.

“Onward friends and neighbors, into the kindly sun,

Where we are paid-up members, each and every one.

We need no theologians, no doctrinal guff,

No military idioms, no sham repentance stuff –

We take the worthy with the nasty, the gentle with the rough.

The absolute of absolutes. Kindness is enough.!”

Kindness is my word for the year.

Bean Pat: To all the many, many authors who have challenged my mind and broadened my horizons.

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Journal Pages: Now I Know Better

Posted in Alaskan Adventure, Birds, Books, Journeys, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged Between Wars on August 29, 2019| Leave a Comment »

Cooper’s Hawk. Once I became addicted to birdwatching, I couldn’t not see birds. And occasionally I got lucky and got a good photograph. — Photo by Pat Bean

“Does the road wind uphill all the way? Yes. To the very end. Will the journey take the whole day? From morn to night, my friend.” — Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Dredging up the Past

I’ve begun work on my memoir, which friends have been urging me to do for years. Like most people’s lives, mine has good parts and bad parts. My book, Travels with Maggie, is 100 percent upbeat, focusing only on the life’s sunshine. I’m happy with it.

If you’re looking for a good book with lots of trivia about America’s cities and landmarks, check out Travels with Maggie on Amazon. It’s G-rated and an excellent book to read together with your kids. Maggie was my canine companion on the six-month birding trip. — Book cover by Sherry Watcher.

For the past year or so, I’ve been working on a second book about my adventures as a late-blooming, bird-watching old broad, tentatively titled Bird Droppings. It also looks at the world through Pollyanna’s eyes. I’m thinking I might start trying to market the chapters I’ve written as single essays.

Meanwhile, as I think about my memoir, tentatively titled Between Wars, a book that will focus on my 37 years as a journalist while also being the mother of five children, and surviving a nasty divorce, I know I will have to put the rose-colored glasses in the trash bin.

I’m not sure I can do it. But I’ve started going back through all my journals and finding I at least enjoy doing the research.

For example, as a former river rat who took two, 16-day, white-water rafting trips down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon, I almost couldn’t stop laughing after reading this entry: The difference between a fairy tale and a river trip: The fairy tale begins “Once upon a time,” while the river trip tales begins: “No shit! There I was…”

This past day’s entry also contained some quotes that are still worth repeating.

Me, at the Standard-Examiner in 1992, when I was the paper’s environmental reporter. It was my favorite newspaper job, and I held it for 10 years before I became city editor to get more money.. — Photo by Charles Trentelman.

“To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illuminated mind the whole world burns and sparkles with light.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson. I think I was reading one of Emerson’s journals at this time.

I was also probably reading one of Natalie Goldberg’s writing books, too. For I wrote down this quote of hers. “If you do not fear the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.”

I also wrote down some thoughts of my own, in quote form. “At one time in life, I sought logic in everything. Now I know better,” and “If our thoughts were not continually shifting, we’d be a broken record to ourselves.” – Pat Bean

Bean Pat: What a Waste https://brevity.wordpress.com/2019/08/29/what-a-waste/ Leonard Bernstein and scammed writers.

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon, enthusiastic birder, and is always searching for life’s silver lining

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Road Tripping

Posted in Uncategorized on July 27, 2019| 2 Comments »

On the road again, outside Monterey, California. — Photo by Jean Gowen

“The real voyage of discovery consists in not seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

Interstate 80 and a Lifer

Day Six: Coffee was again the first order of the day, but this time I didn’t get lost on the way back. After our caffeine fix, Jean was eager to go to the beach again. I sent her alone and stayed at the inn with Scamp. I wanted to catch up with my journaling – and much-needed alone time.

When Jean returned, we packed up, then made a stop at a tire store because my low-pressure light had popped on the day before. All tires, probably because of a change in elevation and temperature, were a bit low, which meant there really wasn’t a problem. Aired up, we headed east out of Monterey and before long all the heavy, horrendous traffic was behind us. As the driver, I heaved a great sigh of relief, and once again was able to enjoy the passing landscape.

A California towhee — my first, and No. 711 on my life bird list.

Before long we hit Interstate 80, a route that stretches from the Pacific Ocean in the West to the Atlantic Ocean in the East. We would take it all the way to Salt Lake City, before heading north to Ogden, Utah, where I had lived and worked for 25 years. We had two sleepovers before we would reach this destination, however.

The first was at the home of another of Jean’s half-sisters. This one lived in a splendid, remote home just off I-80 about an hour outside of Sacramento.

We arrived mid-afternoon and were heartily welcomed by the sister, her husband, their two dogs, and many cats. Scamp and Dusty romped in the couple’s hilly backyard, glad for the exercise. Inside, however, I had to keep Scamp on a leash beside me because he was determined to chase the cats.

After a grilled salmon dinner with all the trimmings, Jean and her sister took the dogs on a walk up a steep hill to a pond while I sat on the patio and watched birds. I was thrilled to announce when they had returned – with muddy dogs that needed to be rinsed off with a hose — that I had seen a lifer, a bird that I had never seen before.

It was a California towhee, a dull brown bird with a bit of rust color beneath its tail and at its throat. There are six towhees that can be found in North America, and I had already seen the other five: spotted towhee in Ogden, Utah, on Dec. 20, 2001; green-tailed towhee on Power Mountain Ridge in Ogden Valley on Aug. 12, 2002; canyon towhee in Sierra Vista, Arizona, on May 9, 2004; eastern towhee in Camden, Arkansas on Dec. 24, 2008; and Albert’s towhee on April 5, 2012 in Tucson, Arizona.

Seeing this final one on June 26, 2019, near Sacramento, made me one happy birder.

After this, Scamp and I retired early to one of the guest rooms and left Jean and her sister alone to catch up on the years that they had been apart. In the middle of the night, I took Scamp outside so he could do his business. It was dark, and when I heard a rustling in the bush, I realized how wild the landscape was surrounding her sister’s home. Scamp and I both hurried back inside. We would wait to enjoy the scenery until daylight.

Bean Pat: Where – or When https://simpletravelourway.wordpress.com/2019/07/27/travel-advice-temperatures-and-showers/ Another travel blog.

Pat Bean is a retired journalist who lives in Tucson. She is a wondering-wanderer, avid reader, Lonely Planet Community Pathfinder, Story Circle Network board member, author of Travels with Maggie available on Amazon, enthusiastic birder and is always searching for life’s silver lining.

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