I celebrated my “achievement” of survival by going camping last weekend with William and his scout troop at Tobyhanna. It was a good trip and certainly left the boys with exciting stories to tell. We took a 10 mile hike on Saturday on one of the most challenging trails I have ever seen. Lots of rock hopping and climbing over trees brought down by this winter’s ice storms. Growth so thick that several times we had to send scouts out to find the next red trail marker on a tree. It was grueling, exhausting, and wonderful!

Saturday night brought vicious thunderstorms, and something else that could have been vicious, but thankfully wasn’t. A bear visited our camp in the night and made a heck of a mess of things. Tore into one of our food boxes and dragged our garbage (which should have been put in the dumpster) into the woods. A few boys said they heard the intruder, but none quite had the courage (or recklessness) to try and steel a glimpse> They smartly snugged down in their tents and waited until morning to see what had happened.

Weekends like this one make my years vanish. and that is good. Sadly every day I go to work lately ages me immeasurably. The joys I have had in the past several years of leading talented people to do meaningful things are gone, replaced with feelings of despair and hopelessness. I met with our president last week and it was no help. I’ve concluded the company has given up on a strategy to win, and settled on a strategy to simply not lose “too much”. These are difficult conditions for people who believe they have a vision. I’ve spent years “leading upwards” but it is just so much more difficult now, and frankly no one seems to be interested. They know they can survive, and they are resigned to do no more.

But it is only work, it is not life. The company will either come back to me or it will not. I will do what is asked but I will not stop doing what is important. I will not seek out failure but I will not hide it if it is thrust on me. I will do it quickly, and move forward. Someday there will again be meaningful work to be done. If not here, then somewhere else. I have another lifetime ahead of me…

Something else I did in celebration of my own life so far, a few eeks ago I received the last of the slides from Dad from Scan Cafe. Once again they did a phenomenal job preserving these old memories. This batch leads up to my early childhood. I’ve replaced the original gallery with a new one including some of my favorite images from this wonderful collection. I hope someone enjoys them as much as I do. I’ll be sending copies of the entire set to my sisters Cheryl and Marian, and to my half brother Geoffery in Wales.