a beginner's beginning/"we have the technology..."

before it starts.

here it is, a blog that i'm going to write for awhile at least, at least long enough to see if it "sticks" with me...blogging i mean. i don't think i'll capitalize my sentences, i don't know how often i'll write, i do hope it'll help with my writing and encourage me to read the blogs of my friends because i do have some pretty talented and good hearted friends. "George just lucky i guess..."

it starts with surgery. 

a surgeon i'd met only once before today put 1 1/2 inches worth of titanium and 4 screws in my skull to repair the floor fracture portion of the "orbital blow-out" of my left eye earlier today. the long version of that story is "there is no logical reason to ever throw a shovel, or anything else, to no one in particular on any kind of job site" the short version is "wrong place, wrong time, right idiot with said shovel". it's one of those things, reconstructive surgery, where the experts and engineers of the thing keep reassuring you, saying things like... 

"it isn't a big deal"

                                                                                                            "we do this all the time"

                              "there's very little risk of any complications"

...but sitting in the waiting room i couldn't help but think of this line from the short novel, Remembering, by Wendel Berry where the main character is flying from San Francisco, California back to his home in rural Port William, Kentucky. he's looking around the plane before take off and noticing how everyone's so calm, meanwhile, he can't get his mind off of how in a few moments all of their lives will depend solely on a couple of jet engines, solely upon a handful of cycles of internal combustion, solely on a couple little flames not burning out at hundreds of thousands of feet above the rugged and sparsely populated country of the American Southwest. it's strange all of the things we describe, out-loud or sub-consciously as "it isn't a big deal" and usually it's just because "we do this all the time". i once heard Tom Petty say, 

                                                   "2003 is a strange year to be a rock-and-roller"

i'll continue that logic and say these "2000's" are strange times to be anyone or anything.

5 little treasures in a 7 5/8" chest.

my eye was swolle shut for the first several days after i looked down into that manhole to ask that idiot if he wanted any help getting that shovel up out of there. even when i could open it a little it was still more comfortable to leave it closed. eventually it opened easily and felt good that way save for the double vision that today's "it isn't a big deal" procedure hopefully fixed. so i bought an eye patch. i never imagined that, in the time of my life, i would ever be sick to death of pirate jokes but after wearing this little $2.97 elastic and plastic accessory i'll never say "ARGHHH" to another friend, enemy, or acquaintance who wears that, or any other, form of "buccaneer gear". still, in these situations, the first of such obvious "betcha' never heard that one!" jokes is always the best one and my first was no exception. the morning after buying said eye-patch at walgreens (yargh, you can get 'em at any walgreens matey!) my friends ten-year-old son looked at me across the breakfast and nonchalantly asked through a smirk...

                                                                                                    "so, did you find your treasure yet?"

and i'm happy to say that after today i have. let me explain, the title of this blog is not a joke, i am the "2001 Jr. Rodeo Bible Camps of Idaho Bucking Machine Champion" and i have the belt buckle to prove it. my dad, Charley Stovner ('55-'09 rest in peace pops), was a Champion Saddle Bronc Ridder. i won't list how many times he won how many different rodeos and year end championships but i will say he was one of the best of his time and only two things kept him from winning more, better paying, bigger, more prestigious national rodeos

the first,

was his love for his family and his dream that we could all travel around the greater Pacific Northwest, together, on the weekends and in the summers from little rodeo to little rodeo. i cannot imagine a better way to grow up. later in life, when he had retired and i had had a small taste of success in being, as he put it, "a professional musician", i told him how much i admired his "family first, silver buckles second" philosophy. he took the compliment and said he had no regrets and i know that he knew he could very well have "won the world" but he just told me how much he cherished those years of traveling together with his friends and his family, doing what he loved to do, what we loved to do, and doing it together.

the second,

injury is a huge part of the professional sport of Rodeo. and not like baseball or even football no, instead of the strained elbow you have the dislocated shoulder, instead of the occasional blown out knee, you have the occasional paralysis from the waist/neck down. it's a rough way of life and my dad bore the scars, worked through the life-long re-accruing pains, and carried around the internal medals of a life on the road riding wild, untrained, bucking horses. a couple plates and several screws in an ankle and a huge plate and several more screws to reconstruct his hip to name a few. 

he never had them removed, that would mean another surgery and more recovery time when he couldn't work or compete or snowboard (yeah, he was also a great snowboarder late in life), he's buried with those war medals pinned to his bones and the stripes and bars cut into the uniform of his earthly body, just as i will be with mine someday. since the plate and screws take the place of an important and now invalid bone in the function of my left eye they'll stay there. it might sound strange, but it's another connection with him that i cherish; like our love of living on the road, drinking coffee, listening to Johnny Cash, and resonating with the comedy of TV Land.

the ending.

 i earned these medals in "the line of duty" working a trade that my dad taught and passed onto me and i earned them working in his stead. my friend Joshua is fond of calling me "Carlos" or "Carlitto" and explained that he does because my name and my fathers are the same in their translation "Man, Free Man, Strong Man" i know that he was all of these and i strive to be, in my own way, in my own time, for him and for myself and for my community of friends and family.