Another corner turned

Many months later, as he stood before the expectant faces of his esteemed colleagues, Russ Huntley remembered that distant afternoon when his friend Dave convinced him that being a presenter at the seminar would be nice.

Yes…a famous quote, borrowed and modified from one of my favorite authors. And maybe it should have remained firing squad, for leading up to the presentation, that’s how I felt….a condemned man standing before the firing squad.

It all started about six months ago. I am the Director of Education for the New Hampshire Land Surveyors Association, NHLSA, and one of my charges is to coordinate and set up educational seminars. We usually try to have them coincide with a quarterly meeting of the Association, so that the members can take advantage of a travel day and obtain both some continuing education credits and hopefully, learn something new.

I had an idea, a theme to build on, from the previous Spring seminar, and so I set about to pull together the players and then step away and let it happen. Wrong. I had contacted a couple of fantastic presenters and things seemed to be going on track until the details started to emerge. One of my presenters, a prominent local author, had a program that probably wouldn’t fit with the time of year we were presenting, due to cold weather and snow. I spoke to my friend Dave, the other presenter and a very well respected and prominent surveyor. He suggested a couple of other guys to ask and some ideas of how we could set up the program, with little cost to the Association, as well. In this conversation, he quietly slipped in “..and you could do an hour or two on wetlands.”  Sure, I blurted without thinking of what that meant.

The months pressed on, and pretty soon, it was two weeks before the presentation. As the team began to touch base and coordinate, I began to sweat. I love people, I really do, I like seeing people, watching people, getting to know people, just not necessarily talking, being the focus of attention… especially presenting to a group who are there for the express purpose of listening to me. I decided that it wasn’t a big deal, I present to groups all the time for my job, and I started to pull together something. I made an outline of what I wanted to talk about, and started on a PowerPoint presentation, as that seems to be the modus operandi of the presenters at our meetings. So far so good…or so I thought. Everyone else around me…those who know me anyway…could see the change in personality…the fear building inside me. While I was actually engaged in preparing the presentation, I was fine… even excited and enthusiastic about my topic. The rest of the time, I began to feel like a condemned man.

The worries and fears began to mount. Of course, I had selected the after lunch time slot…the power point kiss-of-death. The other presenters were talking about things related to boundary surveying, research and physical evidence, while I was talking about wetlands, something none of them are licensed to practice (unless they are also Wetland Scientists). I’m dead! What if I can’t talk…or what if, God forbid, all my work comes out in about a 20 minute talk and I’m left standing listening to crickets for the next 30-45 minutes. What if the computer doesn’t work and I’m left with paper in my hand and nothing to focus on except the crowd….the firing squad.

Of course I had the support and help of friends and family. My wife, Tracy, more than anyone, understood my suffering and tried to allay my fears and calm my nerves. A few friends at work, and scattered around the world offered encouraging words and support. I focused on their words and good vibes.

The day came…the presentation loomed. I sat through Brian’s presentation, then Dennis’s, then it was lunch. I wasn’t hungry, but I managed to stuff down a few pieces of chicken to stop the shakes and the rumbling in my stomach. I left the lunch early and went back to our room to set up. I plugged in my memory chip into Brian’s laptop, only to find that it had an older version of PowerPoint and wouldn’t play mine….aaaagh. My head started to dance and the heat seemed to rise to 110 deg in the room. I took a deep breath and went and grabbed my laptop, and after fumbling with the wires and software, got everything to work….whew!!!

Brian, Dave and Ed came up, and each offered their own words of encouragement. They sat scattered around the room. Deep Breath…I didn’t even hear Ed introduce me. I then welcomed everyone back and a few friends in the front row joked around with me…we laughed about the fact that it was after lunch and it didn’t matter if my presentation was interesting…they would be sleeping anyway.

Then, something happened. A couple things anyway. A gentleman in the audience, Randy O. asked me some questions and provided some comments. a few others began asking questions and I started answering. I knew my subject. I kept presenting and pushing onward, and I noticed people writing things down. Wow!…I said something that someone wants to remember?!?  There were a few nodders in the group (it was after a lunch of heavy carbs and cheese…I would have been dead), but even they woke occasionally to participate. All of a sudden, Brian was smiling at me and pointing to his watch…and I was on the last couple of slides. A half dozen questions answered later and I was done…with my talk running 10 minutes over and a group of interested people to boot.

I went up stairs for a drink of water and to sit down, let my adrenaline burn off. A number of people went by and told me they enjoyed the presentation, and a few approached me with more questions. I was shaking, a bit numb, and yet feeling a little euphoric at the same time. I called Tracy immediately to tell her I was done and alive.  The rest of the day…and in fact the rest of the weekend went by, so slow and tranquilly. I felt a huge weight lifted and yet something else too. I conquered another fear…  I did something new and exciting, something that I’ve always admired others for doing and being able to do… I was one of the presenters… a teacher… a somebody… I turned another corner.

Many days later, as he sat in his office, contemplating another blog, Russ Huntley remembered those blurry minutes after his wetlands presentation when he promised his friend Dave that giving another presentation would be nice.

Brian Burford, Dennis McKenney, Dave Mann, and Me…all smiles…all done!

2010 Garden Journey ~ The first sprouts

My garden journey has begun again this year. The first sprouts are up!

Last weekend, in a spurt of pent up energy, waiting for the growing season to commence, I did the un-thinkable here in chilly New New Hampshire…I tilled the garden and planted. For most people, and for most things that you are planting in the garden, Memorial Day, at the END of May, is the traditional garden planting date. True, the snow was gone and weather had been in the 60’s for a week or so, but we often get snowstorms and sub freezing weather all the way into mid-April. Maybe I pushed it a little.

I have always enjoyed gardening, as a hobby, as a means of artistic expression, and even as kind of a moving meditation. Part of the joy is to do everything organic, no pesticides, no chemical fertilizers, very little or minimized carbon footprint (except for maybe the roto-tiller.) So, ever since I was a kid growing up in Westmoreland, reading organic gardening magazines, making garden plans and planting my gardens, I had learned about and wanted to try something called a green manure. It’s an organic gardening concept, where you plant certain things in the fall or early spring, plants that have some beneficial properties for your garden, and then just before planting time, you till them into the soil.

Some plants draw and free up potassium and phosphorous from the soil, some add nitrogen, some have deep, penetrating roots that break up the subsoil. Some just grow very fast and add a thick leafy matter to the soils to help build up its organic content. One of the plants I chose, Mustard, has an oil that is toxic to fungi and nematodes, both of which can make a beautiful garden go to crap in short order.

So… last week I tilled the soil and planted a mix of buckwheat, field peas, spring oats, vetch and mustard. Of course, that was the end of the the two week warm spell of 60 degree weather and it turned cold and rainy. Oh well, I thought. I’ll have to buy more seeds and try again. But yesterday… all my little seeds have sprouts and are starting to grow.

If it works out well, I’ll do it again next year, as well as hit the garden with the new manure source of 25 chickens that we will be getting in May. Maybe I’ll be able to grow pumpkins the size of a VW.

 

Next time on Life as Russ ~ How I survived the NHLSA Spring Quarterly

The Human touch

I was thinking about something this morning… What!  He thinks? You ask yourself.  Yes..on occasion.

I was thinking about sitting on the couch with Tracy, Molly, Chris, Kevin, Jacqui, Dan…maybe all not on the same couch, but two small couches and one coffee table. Maybe a Monday night, a hot summer night, a few glasses of wine or beers, it’s dark outside, it’s dark in the room except for the glow of the TV, we’re sleepily watching a movie. Nobody is really talking, but everyone is relaxed, leaning on each other, legs piled on the coffee table. My Tribe. No personal space…just a big pile of friends.

Then back in time…Fiske Hall…Me, Jeremy, Jason, Brian, Mace, Donna Lee, Katie-O so many others…watchin Letterman, again, piled onto couches and chairs…eating Ramen. Late night conversations.

From there, I went back further, perhaps because I’ve reunited lately with family and friends who are now spread out across the country. I remember so many family gatherings and reunions; or just summer get-togethers; at Nana & Bup’s or at Grandma’s. I was one of the youngest cousins. I remember games of tag, wiffle ball, lots of food, hanging out on the porches and back steps. In love all with mis primas and wanting to emulate all my cool primos. Ice cream! Quicksand! Swing on the Big Elm. More wiffle ball in the back yard. My aunt’s swimming pool. Sleep-overs. Kids piled in blankets on beds, sleeping bags, couches.

I don’t have much to say, really…just reminiscing… looking at memories from a distance. We are all spread out now. A few phone calls, maybe; a visit now and then; or now, the internet, brings family and old friends back together. Little snipets of conversations and some nice pictures. Pictures speak 1000 words….it’s true. Amazing…the internet.

Now I’ve met and started some great correspondences with new people, because of the internet. Even made a couple of friends, I’d say. The internet allows us to talk to people all of the world…from close by like New York, to far away places like China, Italy and Australia. Different lives and experiences in different places. Different ways of speaking…even different languages.

The common thread here…not what you might think. It’s dinner. It’s shaking hands and hugs. Its sitting on the couch. It’s blankets….. It’s actually none of these, because whether its family, old friends, or new friends…the internet allows us to talk and visit like never before, but it leaves a big gap. One that, for me, feels like a hole that never seems to be filled. There’s no human touch.

Music makes you bulletproof

I think sometimes life takes a look at what your doing and decides you need a little knock in the head, a little “wake up and smell the roses,” a “drink your coffee and lets get going.” In the past week, I’ve had a number of little signs put before me, messages from the great beyond saying, “Hey…listen, here’s something you should do” “Oye, güey, necesitas despertarse!”

I’ve gone thought phases in my life where I have been very outgoing and other phases where I’ve been somewhat of an introvert. It seems in the last few years, the later has been the case. Even to the point that family gatherings or school functions give me great anxiety. I don’t know why. I don’t like being like that.

Then there’s that little part in side me, that voice that is constantly challenging my introvertedness. I join boards and committees, where I have to make presentations. I have to go to planning and zoning boards for clients and present projects to the town and abutters, sometimes who are not particularly happy about the project that I am presenting. Last year, I took a conversational Spanish class, where I not only had to speak in front of other people, but speak in a language that I didn’t know very well and I had to try to hold a conversation. Lately, not only have I organized a seminar for this spring’s quarterly NHLSA meeting, but I’m going to be a presenter. I seem to volunteer and step into the nightmare constantly. I can’t seem to help myself. The little voice wants me to enjoy it, and it keeps urging me to take one more “no thank you bite”

Then the other night life had had enough. Another opportunity to rise above the anxiety and fears was in the works, and I was miserable. I was waiting to go to a planning board meeting, a meeting in my own town. A meeting where I knew that there were contentious people who planned to attack me in public. A meeting where the owner and president of my company would be presenting another project following mine…I would be on many stages. I had a bit of nerves going. Then, a couple little things happened in the course of a ½ hour that brought me just a little enlightenment.

I had about an hour to kill before the meeting. So to relax, I decided to sit down and read my book a bit. In the story, the characters were about to descend a very steep mountainside scree slope. All were terrified. One of the characters told the others to embrace the fear in order to find the joy in the descent. I’ve heard this before in real life. An article in Men’s Health talked about the very same subject. The characters began their descent and there were many perils, dangers and almost death experiences on the way down. But…by the end of their descent, they were exhilarated and high on endorphins…they felt the rush of passing danger successfully. An interesting chapter to read, on this of all nights.

Then it was almost time to go, so I decided to check my Facebook page before I left. Earlier, I had posted a portion of lyrics from a song that I recently discovered and like. The song has good positive lyrics and a poppy, up-beat, reggae-ish rhythm that picks me up. It’s an easy song to play on guitar, and my daughter Grace loves it. We sit on my bed and I play, while we both sing. She made me give here a set of the lyrics so she could learn the song and practice. We even talked about maybe performing the song (me on guitar and both of us singing) at her school’s talent show this year. I was all for it, (Daddies have no fear) but in my head afterwards I thought, Damn! Jumping into discomfort yet again. I had commented as much on Facebook and a good friend posted “ha ha, no fear. you're on guitar? Music makes you bullet proof.”

That’s when something clicked. I thought about that, and about the scree slope, and about the article in Men’s Health concerning anxiety and doing things that REALLY scare you to numb yourself to common daily anxieties. I thought, what if, instead of dreading this meeting, and making my fears a negative thing; what if, instead, I looked forward to the meeting. Change my outlook. Look at it as a chance to run down the scree slope, bullet proof. So I did.

I’m not saying that I wasn’t nervous, but it felt different. I was also exhilarated and found myself chatting up a number of people before the meeting, AND enjoying it. I came home and was positively POSITIVE, UP and AWAKE. This is the way to be. This is how I want to be.

I’m sure I’ll need a reminder now and then, but I think that night, Life was sick of me not listening.

You’ve got mail.

Remember the Mailbox?  I mean that metallic can with a door, stuck up on some post. It is usually found along a town road, at the end of a driveway, at least in the rural town that I grew up in. The mailbox is one of my favorite places in the yard. Although, no, it’s not a feature begging for exhibit in prominent Landscape Architecture magazines. It is just a functional item.

My mailbox is a dented gray can on a 2” pipe stuck in a tubular shaped base of concrete. It’s not even a permanent feature. The snow plow, bored high school students travelling on our lane, and even an occasional falling branch from the big oak trees spread out overhead, have endeavored to reposition it. It is just a plain, ugly thing, and yet it is a portal. Every day things are deposited in that can, things for me, Tracy, the kids, the current resident, or postal patron. And every day, I look forward to pulling up to the mailbox, in my truck, as I arrive home from work, to see if there are any goodies in there for me.

Yes Folks….Goodies. I love mail. I’m sure that’s not too much of a surprise to those of you, my friends, who know me and to whom I shoot off various E-mails, letters, notes, chats, tweets and pokes to on a regular basis. Here, though I am talking about mailbox mail. The tangible stuff. Stuff I can read, no matter whether I’m in the truck, sitting at the fire pit, sitting on the couch or laying in bed. Now maybe I’m not talking about the mail that says I owe $400 for an oil delivery or that the mortgage is due. Really, I don't look forward to those letters. You can keep ‘em, Billing Departments!!

I DO, however, love my magazines, postcards, letters, packages from my professional organizations, DVDs and books from clubs…you get the picture. These are little presents. Stuff for me to open, stuff that I enjoy reading or looking at, delivered to me, each day, at MY mailbox. Automatically. I just show up at the mailbox, and there they are, all shiny and packaged in plastic, or tucked into big brown packs, or crisp white letter envelopes.

I have loved mail since I was a kid. My brother and I used to sign up for all the seed catalogues, free calendars and farm catalogues advertized in the Old Farmers Almanac. From then on, every day, we would get little presents from the postman. Craft-matic adjustable beds spent a lot of money on paper and postage on account of my brother. He took the the love of mail even a few steps forward and wrote to a dozen or so pen pals around the globe. I had a pen pal for a while, too…Nimi Ibrahim from someplace in India. A letter from Nimi was like Christmas. The idea that somebody, somewhere in the world, was thinking of me and took the time to jot down their thoughts on paper and send them to me was so wonderful.

Most of the mail I get now is in the form of magazines. I love my magazines! Every Friday, Entertainment Weekly, and once or twice a month I get Discover, National Geographic, Men’s Health, Rolling Stone, POB, ACSM Bulletin, Salis, People en Español, The Benchmark, The TBM, American Heritage and my newest, Hobby Farms. These are what I look forward to, they provide so many hours of entertainment or education, or both.

So I have an idea, which actually prompted this blog posting. It would be fun to receive and send stuff from my friends and readers who follow my blog, here and through Twitter or Face book.

Send me a note or a postcard. Or put a signed picture of yourself, or a copy of your favorite take-out menu, or a small coin or item from your locale. I’ll follow up with something of the like from here in Cheshire County. I think it would be fun to start correspondence with others from around the country or around the globe and have something more tangible that a few bytes of data on a server somewhere. Maybe if it turns out successfully, I’ll start a blog series about the stuff I get, where it comes from, depending on how much, if any, response I get.

You can send mail or postcards to:

Russ Huntley
331 Poocham Road
Westmoreland, New Hampshire, USA 03467

 

We’ll see how the experiment goes. I’ll let you know.

Back to the Drawing Board

So, I still haven’t settled on anything that really grabs as far as my blog goes. I’m back to my original template for now.  We’ll see how it goes.

And please, let me know if you like this version better than the darker version I’ve had for the past week or two.

I know; if it’s not worth reading who cares, but just as in fine dining, presentation is very important, so I’m struggling with coming up with something I want to continue with. 

I also wish I could get an Uncial font to work, but I haven’t been successful so far.

A new look

Well friends, here it is; a new fresh look to my blog. This is in part because I wanted something new to look at, but mostly because, in trying to edit and fix some problems with my previous template, I caused major blog template trauma.. I dubbed around with a number of different ones, and I still haven’t settled permanently on this one. Let me know what you think. I may make a few changes here and there over the next few weeks or so, and try different things out.