Feeling the Stones

"I am walking across the river, feeling the stones with my feet." Old Chinese saying.

Lance came across that statement in the Chautauqua newspaper delivered daily to hotel guests. AS he sat rocking on the front porch of the Hotel, listening to the morning Bell Tower concert, it spoke to him about this trip and his third chapter of life question.

Perhaps, this is the season of life when he can care less about The Big Plan and more about The Little Moments. Maybe it's safe now to trust instinct, feel his way across the river of time with nothing but his feet, and listen to the song in his head and heart even when everyone around him is shouting advice. Isn't this exactly when he could/should trust the person within ,the creature he spent a lifetime becoming? If not now, when? Lance felt a calmness deep in his soul now, no more fear of the future. Of not knowing what was "under the water' of the river he was wading in. Of clarity about the role of others in his life by separating the anguish of dependency from the grace of unconditional love. It is impossible to truly live for the love of others. But it is equally impossible to live for the love of self, alone. Lonely and alone are different.

Lance was returning from the sold out Tim Conway show at the Amphitheatre last night when he came upon an elderly couple, sitting on the Hotel porch, enjoying the blessed cool of the evening. She, sitting quite erect in her white blouse with a shawl thrown over her lap, and he, slumped a bit forward, dressed in striped polo shirt, blue shorts and a blue and white baseball cap, were the picture of contentment. With only the slightest provocation from Lance, they were happy to talk about the virtues of retirement. She quit working just before her first husband died. Never looked back and never regretted it. "When you're working, it's for other people and not yourself. You need time to do the things you always wanted to do." Lance could tell from the tinge of bitterness in her voice, her work and perhaps marriage, had not been satisfying. She had deferred her own dreams beyond the limitations of that life. Now, she said she knew of no one who was retired who regretted the decision. No one? The man, at first silent, came to life and chimed in. "We come here several times a summer, travel a little, and play golf in Pebble Beach."

No one? Lance was surprised to hear such a lusty defense of the virtues of stopping working. It may come down to what is work? They seemed to be saying that working for someone else's benefit, aside from your paycheck, is not intrinsically gratifying. So, the real payback is something many people defer to this time of life called retirement. In fact for them, it isn't retirement, it is advancement.

But Lance has known life affirming, self-actualizing, joyous fulfillment in his day job. So how does he "retire" from that which one most seeks? Clearly, some people need to retire (retreat?) from a life that makes them postpone their own dreams. Others may need to renew (retool?) their work life to ensure that it continues to satisfy and advance their dreams. And still others, may need renew themselves by moving to a fresh new mission or vocation which may require leaving their old job. Lance realized it isn't about leaving, its about allowing yourself to arrive in a better place...even if it looks like the old place. But it must feel better.

For Lance, at this time of life, it could mean returning to work, but with a new set of eyes, ears and a stronger internal GPS. The new eyes should see the need, not the want, in others and always see the good before the bad. The new ears, should hear the internal song to which he can choreograph his unique life's dance, ever trusting in the placement of the stones beneath the water even when no one else can see them. And the GPS? It can never choose where you are going, but it does tell you where you are at every moment. The only way you can lose your way in life, is to stop knowing where you've been and where you are right now.

Lance knew it was time to move on. Chautuaqua had done its job. Besides, he was too young for permanent residency.

Lance didn't have a lot to say about the super hot trip out on to Presque Isle, the only remaining room for the night at the Clarion (DO NOT take a "smoking" room EVER again even if it is the last one in town. The acrid sting in the air and stench upon his clothes was worse than he remembered when he was a smoker in college.) The next morning he lit out of town on his trusty steed Prius and sailed north up the Lake Erie Coast on Coastal Rte. 5.

Bracketed by miles of fields of ripening grapes, with occasional blue flashes of Lake Erie on the left, his mind returned to the pleasant musings of vacations long past. Suddenly, his reverie was shattered by the ringing of the Bluetooth car phone (actually his iPhone's calls automatically come out of the car radio speakers when it rings.) Lance was instantly sharing the cozy interior of his car with a reporter from his hometown magazine on the line. She said she had been assigned to interview him for a short piece to appear in the September issue. Sure enough, his mind flashed precisely on the weak moment in which he agreed to do it in the midst of frantically cleaning off his desk on that final Friday at work.

There was something surreal about this situation for Lance, who had spent the better part of a week getting as far away as he could, now to be yanked back to reality by a mere speaker phone attached to someone's ear at home in Maryland. The interview went on for about half an hour (not including the time she stepped away to pay the repairman for fixing her failed A/C unit in the midst of a record heatwave in Maryland...fully justifiable!) Strangely, what had seemed so publicly comfortable for his blog, now felt almost intimate between him and this earnest and inquiring stranger, almost as if she was sitting in the shotgun seat of his car.

Her queries: Did he miss companionship? Did he think a woman could do this kind of solo journey safely, like a guy could? What exactly was he learning from his 3 questions and who was he asking? Why would someone like him, with career, family and friends, do something so spontaneous as this? Lance though he heard, underneath her voice, a gentle wistfulness, almost a longing, of "I'd like to do that someday." Lance thought, but didn't say out loud, "Ah, but you need to wait until it calls to you and you have no choice but to go" That siren song of the heart is the key. And like the grapes, you may just have to ripen enough to make good wine from the process.

Lance arrived about noon at Chautauqua ("Home to about 7,800 people a day and 170,000 a season") and quickly checked into the venerable (this time GOOD venerable) Athenaeum Hotel on Lake Chautauqua ("One of the first hotels in the nation to install electric lights.") Within minutes, he was walking the narrow streets of a small city on the lake shore (think Washington Grove on steroids.) When Lance leaned their slogan was "Be, Think, Feel, Play" he realized he had stumbled upon all the quintessential small town attributes he had set out to discover and all in one place. Furthermore, this was clearly the "Mother Lode" of advice about retirement. Here, a 60 year old is a mere pup, wandering though a blizzard of white hair and wise minds.

After lunch in the very Grand Dining room, Lance went to a 2:00 lecture by a Progressive Reformed Evangelical Apologist in the open-air forum of the Hall of Philosophy, then a 4:00 recital by erstwhile young opera students in the lobby of the Hotel, a 6:00 dinner, and an 8:15 classic summer evening concert by mostly venerable Chautauqua Symphony Orchestra in the Amphitheater.

(BTW the Chautauqua Institute was founded in 1874 as a training camp for Sunday School teachers. If you just go to www.ciuweb.org, Lance promises to stop with the factoids, already!)

By breakfast, Lance was head over heels in love with this place. Maybe it was the 8 AM 15 minute bell concert from the Miller bell Tower or the10:45 daily themed lecture by the 9 term Mayor of Charleston S.C., the Honorable Joseph Riley (D) on "Ethical Leadership" where he flat out announced that the greatest ethical lapse in leadership is to get elected and then NOT lead. Lance was madly scribbling notes now, capturing gems like "Leaders must be in a constant, selfless, humble search for truth. Leaders must be able to say "No" to friends seeking favors. All your public projects must pass the 50 year test...will it still be standing and still be the right investment in your city? Leaders must always" paint a picture of the future" and then tirelessly sell it. Leaders must work harder, longer, listen better, thank more and take blame when things go bad. Leaders must never be lazy."

Lance was glowing white hot with ideas for a new leadership program piece. "Leaders should create Imaginary Constituents to test their ideas out on like an Eighth Grade civics class full of wide-eyed kids or the Senior Center Bridge Club. Ask what is in their heart and will this program make their life better? Leaders must have personal ethics beyond reproach (unlike so many these days) and their words and actions must be in harmony. All local (municipal) politics should be NONPARTISAN, the Mayor argued, so people can focus on progress, not process."

And just when Lance's hand was beginning to cramp, the Mayor, w(ho almost single-handidly saved the now famous Spoleto Festival in 1985, answered the question "why do you support the arts in community?" He simply said, "The Arts affect a city like a sprinkler turns a parched lawn to green. It makes everything grow." Lance had died and gone to heaven. He went straight back to the Hotel desk and registered for another day in heaven.

Or, as he said to himself later, "You just don't leave heaven when its working for you like this."

Lance knew there was more to come, including Tim Conway in the Amphitheater tonight. Besides, he had a lot more people to interview for question #3. And miles to go...

Driving Through Time

Route 6 in northern PA takes you across the entire state without a single rest stop and only one gas station. Lance had never heard of it until yesterday. Rising early, he checked out of the venerable (read "decrepit") Penn Wells Hotel in Wellsboro, Pa. having survived the smallest, hottest room in America. He ruefully noted the gleaming Christmas Trees Ornament American Flag on the lobby wall, made of 1,400 glass red, white and blue bulbs, a proud gift of the local Corning glass factory employees as once featured in LIfe magazine. Lance grabbed a bagel at Native Bagels by the village green, now awash in early morning sprinkler dew, and headed for the Grand Canyon of PA in Leonard Harrison State Park near Ansonia. (Maybe Lance's new semi-retired friend Melvin ":The Tioga Town Supervisor and volunteer Village Green Tender" was already on duty.)

Thirty minutes later, Lance peered down the sheer cliff into the tree lined river bed below. He suddenly flashed on a 13 year old boy and his Dad, hiking an even deeper gorge out West with his aunt and uncle in the '60's. When his dad's knees gave out on the steep trails, Lance insisted on staying with him while the others went ahead to get a mule to bring him out. He remembered it as his first real brush with manhood, steadfastly maintaining his post until help arrived. Just him and his dad.. and, of course, the wolves. Or something like that.

At breakfast, a kindly couple told him about Presque Isle in Erie Pa. a state park jutting out from the city of Erie into Lake Erie. The whole peninsula is driveable, habitat preserved, boasting 10 beaches and a Coast Guard base overlookingthe city of Erie and, somewhere due north, Canada. They said the sunset looking west over the Lake is breathtaking. "Breathtaking is a good enough reason to drive across the whole State." thought Lance. So he did.

Gliding through the mountains of central Pa and snaking through the Allegheny National Forest while playing a 3 disk composite set of CD's made for his 60th birthday party by his children, Lance's mind traveled back in time with The Four Seasons, Chicago, The Four Tops and James Taylor. Technicolor visions of Takoma Park Teen Club, Blair High School shows, Street 70 summer productions, AAA Safety Patrol Camp counseling, old girlfriends and long forgotten college adventures flashed by as fast as the rural mailboxes and rusting cars lining the road. When he awoke from the reverie, he was just outside of Erie and hungry.

At lunch, a gentleman from Minnesota at the next table relished Lance's questions about Life 3.0 having recently taken a buyout and making the transition himself. Now, he consults part-time, golfs a little, helps out at his wife's shop and does some traveling. He lamented that most of his friends are younger than he (60!), still working, and therefore unavailable when he gets the itch to do something, People seem to disappear when they retire, he noted. Lance, temporarily self-disappeared, wondered how long it would take before that could become a permanent state for him.

BTW This blog title, A Fork In The Road, is a triple entendre. ("-Scout" was added when the title was already taken. He's our dog.) First, the trip was partially conceived under the magic spell of Diners, Drive In's and Dives where road food is always amazing when served with a big helping of community..hence the "fork" and "road."

Second, arriving at a real fork in the road, and actually having the freedom to choose either road ("...and sorry I could not travel both..:Frost), has long been Lance's desire almost every day of his 30+ years of daily commuting.

Third, Lance is approaching a Fork in the Road of Life as he rounds 60 and sees so many talented youth coming up behind him at work. There is an awakening of perspective in him, a new awareness of his own power and potential, born of confidence in his life record and relationships. A voice, no...a song, has been urging him to look around and grasp things just out of reach and just around the corner. Things always just out of sight on the daily path. So, here he is. Looking around the corner.

Gazing at a map late last night, he suddenly realized he was only an hour from Chautauqua...an almost mythical community of learning on a lake in upstate New York. Rev. Lon Dring, an old friend and respected community activist, used to extoll the annual virtues of Chautauqua as a "Disney World of the Mind." To Lance, after three days with little mental stimulation, this was the equivalent of smelling the distant water of an oasis while lost in the desert. Within minutes, he was booked into a One Day Special deal at the venerable (oh, God) Atheaneum Hotel including room, dinner, evening Amphitheatre performance, breakfast, morning lecture, lunch and all-park access. Heaven awaited.

One bucket list item less...check.

Campus Life

a funny thing happened on the way to Wellsboro Pa and the Pa Grand Canyon. Lance got a hankerin' to go back to college when he drove through State College, Pa, home of PennState U. Basically a town encompassing a 41,000 student campus, suddenly the world was filled with people younger, thinner people, all with backpacks and round glasses. Lance had a backpack and felt quite at home. Instantly, the stores called out moderninity, every eatery was fast-foodcentric, bikes appeared from nowhere and the women were...smokin'. (Heretofore, Pa. women have not been eye catching, to say the least.)

Lance parked his trusty steed at the gate to the campus and moseyed (?) into the sea of students spilling out of class and headed for lunch in the HUB student union. These are LEAP program kids, freshmen taking summer classes so they can LEAP ahead when the real academic year starts. And there were thousands of them. Lance was swept into the HUB and washed up at the information desk where he discovered there was a three day arts festival starting...tomorrow. There was no space at the inn, motel, hotel or manger anywhere in town. Lance tried to register for school (see pictures) but didn't meet height requirements. He even offered to set up fr the arts festival citing prior experience, but was overlooked, literally, at every turn.

Headed north again, there was time to think about the difference between small town life and big town life. Driving through small towns, especially on a hot summer day, no one is out and about. If residents gather, it is in small, cool private places. They have almost professional quality ballfields galore, more than libraries, as if this is the chosen place community gathers to celebrate life. The heros are the local sports kids, not the nerds. There is something fascinating about whether community invests in our heads or our bodies, he thought. For a moment, he saw the world divided into communities which value the neck up or the neck down. Lance knew where he would choose to live.

By the time he rolled into Wellsboro, he was ready for small town charm. With the perfect village green, flowing fountain, sign announcing summer band concerts (alas, a week from now) and a Main Street to die for, he stumbled upon a quaint victorian home across from the green listing the Visitors Center, Chamber of Commerce, Economic Development Authority, and Leadership Tioga County. Friendly staff showed him where to sleep, eat, walk, sight see the PA. GRAND CANYON. Upstairs, he compared notes with the Leadership staff and found that shop talk spilled from his lips like a thirsty cowboy finding an oasis after days in the desert.

Checking in at the 1876 Penn Wells hotel, where walls and floors don't quite square up, he walked to the "famous" Wellsboro Diner #388 (means the 8th one made in 1938 with porceline inside and out=) for a BLT club and unbelievable fresh raspberry pie. The waitress and the hotel clerk both confirmed #1 see the Grand Canyon, and 2# there's no live music in town tonight. who Walking the main drag, lit by fake carriage lamp down the median strip,, Lance could feel his body sliding into a state of relaxation he hadn't known. It was a mental relaxation, the kind that doesn't automatically turn to "to do lists", deadlines and details to confirm one's value and self-worth. Fact is, "to be or not to be" is only a matter of serendipity, not will. "To be" is a gift we can only squander by ignoring today. At 60, Lance had ignored that gift many times.

At breakfast in the Native Bagel the next morning, Lance chatted with an elderly (70's) couple who, after warily allowing Lance to approach them as they read their morning paper, turned downright chatty when the topic hit #3. She would quit working in a heartbeat if they could afford it and would have no problem staying active with things around the house. He, already retired, ran for and won Town Supervisor, and voluntarily keeps the Village Green green, by choice. She says he has too many meetings. He says you should stay active or die. She says they are finally going on their first cruise in the fall. She said they do everything together. He just smiled.

Everyone has a story, if someone cares to listen. Lance mounted up for the Grand Canyon, Route Six, and the Lake Erie Region.

Launched at Last

His business card reads, "Lance Stiehl ("Steel") Chief Executive Wanderer and Wisdom Seeker" printed on a grey picture of two cars at a fork in the road. His blog address (aforkintheroad-scout.blogsport.com) and email account (Lancestiehl@gmail.com) are in script at the bottom and his three questions are neatly listed on the back. (1.If you only had one day in this town, what should you be sure to do? 2.Where can I find LIVE music tonight? 3.What is the secret to happiness in one's golden years (60+)? His intention was to give these to waitresses, hotel clerks, fellow diners...whoever looks like they have answers from which Lance can learn. He had spent months preparing and anticipating everything that could go wrong when you're on the road, alone, for a month.

So, it was a real surprise to him that tears welled up in his eyes and his voice choked when he finally spoke the words "I love you" as he said goodbye to wife and four children. What kind of Indiana-Jones-Chief-Executive-Wanderer, setting out to see the world, didn't see that one coming? Know thyself had begun.

Grabbing the reins of the hybrid Prius at last, he headed north on 270, then into Pennsylvania on Interstate 70, stopping at the Visitors Center where a kindly lady immediately grasped his trip concept and directed him to three very green, very small town,accessible by blue highways. Her route would take him straight north until he runs into Lake Erie, if he stays that course (and he may not!) His next lesson was that stops will not be defined by gas milage (Prius? Ha! At 44+ mpg he laughs at the gas gauge!) but by renal capacity (No laughter.) Around 1 PM, arriving in Huntington PA ("5th Best Small Town in America"), the iconic Miller's Diner awaited with an elderly waitress who unknowingly inaugurated Lance's 3 questions (heretoafter referred to only by #. See above for refresher.):

#1. "You must go to Raystown Lake and dam", a 47 mile long manmade lake for flood control surrounded by mountains.
#2. "I don't know of any LIVE music 'round here but sometimes they have some at the Lake Amphitheater." (not tonight, tho)
#3. "I'll never retire, my husband and me are building a Bed and Breakfast 'cause I just love being around people."

And so, Lance spent the afternoon at Raystown Lake, watching the families (ALL WHITE), dogs and boats clinging to the waning hours of the Fourth of July weekend with an air of resignation and exhaustion. If this was America, it was fat, sunburned, sittin a burning'"g silently but alone in groups and looking...well.. bored. Lance's mind wandered to the first day in his memory when he wasn't recognized, had no job to do, couldn't be late for anything and had no idea what he would do next. This was a new world for Lance, and every bit as exciting, challenging and surprising as any day he had ever lived. But there were new skills required.

Meeting total strangers, without the context of work or home, is an art. It must look natural, seamlessly merge with human traffic, leave an elegant exit open at all times and both seek and give value for the time spent. Ironically, real listening may be the best gift one can give to others. Like the lady in the diner, we all have our dreams, and want to talk about them if we feel safe, sometimes even to strangers if they have first shared something with us beyond "Hello."

Lance knew that "Strangers on the Greyhound Bus" are often the safest ones to talk to about high value thoughts since the odds of every seeing them again are zero. So, what could Lance share that would engage others smoothly, open them to his 3 questions, and verbally demonstrate the "open hand" of a verbal handshake (See? No weapon here!") In his other life, it would be arts, politics, workshops or budget. None of that works here.

Lance walked the town, ate pizza and went to the restored movie theatre for Day and Knight with Tom Cruise. His Comfort Inn was well clean, abundantly air-conditioned, came with in-house breakfast where he could blog on their internet connection, and was on the road out of town he needed. He made a mental note to get gallon size baggies, a dirty laundry bag, kleenex and some pens.

"Daylight's a burnin" thought Lance as he mounted his steed called Prius. "miles to go before I sleep...wish I'd written that, he thought." Maybe he could, now.

Genesis

A balmy afternoon on the back deck in April, son Erik helps his Dad set up this blog. Other son Mark contributes the blog perfect name and dog Scout offers his likeness. It's a pfamily project fraught with generational diplomacy...youth tolerating senior digital incompetence...as he intones, "It's just intuitive" and I mumble "Intuitive, my ass." But it's up, launched and soon the adventure begins. If a trip happens and no one blogs about it, did it happen?