Look What I Did!?

by Tom Shafer

January 28, 2019

Okay, so I haven’t been writing lately, and frankly, it’s mostly my fault.  I could argue that I’ve been busy (true, but aren’t we all), that work, chores, and pleasure have gotten in the way.  But frankly (again), I have suffered the worst of ailments — for a writer anyway — writer’s block.  So, I know you’re probably thinking, ‘Oh, here we go, another stupid writer’s block story by a stupid writer.’  You would only be half right in your assessment; this is definitely another stupid writer’s block story.

I do want to report that Richard Seifried, inspiration behind Signal Hill Musings, enjoyed his 90th birthday a couple of weeks ago.  We surprised him by sneaking his son Steve in from Hawaii and his daughter Amy in from Florida.  Of course, the locals (daughters Carol, Jane, and Julie and sister Diane and her husband Rick) joined in the festivities, which included a surprise party on his birthday (attended by cousins, nieces and nephews-in-law, and not-so-old teaching buddies).  Richard also hit the road for short trips to Young’s Dairy (and a lovely drive in the country which included a thunderstorm trying to spit out a tornado), Outback Steakhouse, and Piqua (a historic tour — Richard’s version anyway — of his hometown).  It was a fun couple of weeks, and has me thinking that soon, we may have to start planning next year’s birthday celebration.

The weather here has been unusually hot, muggy, and unstable — words I might use to describe our President over the same period.  Actually, I would use those same words venturing all the way back to his stupid escalator entrance and subsequent announcement for candidacy (though I still fixate on the imagery of his escalator’s downward descent).  Fortunately, we do get a nice breeze on our little hill here, and that seems to take the edge off the heat a little.  Nothing seems to be cooling things off in D.C. these days.

In other local news, I’m heading to Scotland in a week to join friends for some golf, euchre, and junior high behaviour (yes, I used the British spelling to get in a little practice).  I made a similar trip a few years ago and surprisingly, our passports weren’t retained, so we decided to go back.  If you are a golfer and haven’t visited the cradle of the sport, you MUST put it on your bucket list.  I can’t adequately describe the thrill of teeing off on number one at the Old Course — only to be followed by seventeen more of the most famous holes on the planet, including the Road Hole and the finishing eighteenth — which is always surrounded by hundreds of tourists just milling around St. Andrews.  And other great golf courses dot the landscape of the island (Prestwick, Carnoustie, Royal Dornoch, Kingsbarns, Elie), so you can’t go wrong with any of them.  Oh, and if you are not a golfer, I still insist that you put Scotland on your to-do list.  The wife and I toured the island for twelve days on my first trip there and loved every part of it.  And in case you are wondering and asking, these are my must sees:  Orkney Island (and the historic sites of Skara Brae, the Ring of Brodgar, and Maes Howe), practically anything in the Isle of Skye region (definitely the Quiraing Cliffs hike), Eilean Donan Castle, the Cairngorm Mt. Railway into the Cairngorm Mountains, and the magnificent city of Edinburgh and surrounding area (the wondrous carnival of the Royal Mile leading up to Edinburgh Castle, Wallace Monument, Stirling Castle, and Rosalyn Chapel).  I know I am leaving lots of great places off this list.  These are the MUSTS!

Wow, look what I’ve done in half an hour!  Words put to paper — er, words transmitted to a laptop screen!  My word count is up to 636 right now.  That’s 636 more words than I’ve transmitted in several weeks.  Now, I’m not delusional enough to believe that my writer’s block is completely obliterated — but I think I have chiseled into it a little.  Hopefully, many more words — and full writings — will be forthcoming.  I do have ideas churning around.  I just need to churn them down to my fingertips.  (BTW, word count is 700 NOW!)

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