My life as a high school graduate kicked into gear with a wild and crazy summer palling around with Paul Lowther’s young brother, who’d been “released” from the Air Force early. I was in good company. The highlight of our summer was when we fell out of my dad’s speedboat after instructing Dennis to turn around. “No, not like that. Flip this thing around hard, it’ll turn on a dime!”
He did, we’d been sitting up high on seats, and we both fell out. The boat, at about ¾ throttle, continued on without us, soon coming into a pattern of tight circles. We swam to the Hensler side of the Missouri where we borrowed a little fishing boat from some folks who were fishing there, but we couldn’t get close to our craft because of it’s wake. Eventually it circled below a tree that overhung the river, and I dropped neatly into the drink, not into the boat, luckily swimming out of the way before the next lap over-ran me. Soon the boat hit shallow water with it’s prop near enough to shore that I was able to jump in. What a day. Ron Sims was watching it all through binoculars from the other shore.
I began my college career teaming up with Walton Carl as roommates. Or is that Carl Walton? Our similar lifestyles blended well as we frequently spent our mornings rolling over simultaneously to the recurring rings of our alarm clocks as we mutually agreed on blowing off class after morning class. Pizza and beer became my favorite food group. I don’t remember liking any classes except the Mechanical Engineering Shop course, wherein Herzog was very impressed with my work. My mechanical drawing was also good, but Calculus, Economics, Physics and Chemistry were challenging
At twenty-one, I took pause to assess life progress and decided to join the Navy. By chance, on the day after Christmas of 1967, a small number of us joining on that day were sent to San Diego, rather than to Great Lakes. That was a turning point. “California Dreaming” became a reality, as I walked into NTC San Diego wearing black rubber galoshes and my fleece-lined corduroy jacket along with about twenty other North Dakotans, dressed similarly. The palm trees swayed in the warm breezes while we wondered what we’d do with our snow boots.
My five years in the Navy began with electronics schools in San Diego and San Francisco. In 1968, San Francisco was doing the Summer of Love, and I was soon a ‘wanna-be’ hippie. Then in 1969 I went aboard a small ship out of Pearl Harbor that cruised to Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Despite my dislike for the military, I loved the ocean, and my time on the ship was very memorable. I returned to California to serve out the remainder of my five years in the Navy serving at a Naval Air station and attending more electronics schools before being released a year early from a six-year commitment when I developed arthritis.
I subsequently returned to North Dakota, and took up studies in Journalism at UND. I had a great time there, did well in school--even loved many of my classes. But California beckoned, and in about 1974 I joined friends in Santa Barbara, where I thought I might resume going to school. But istead, I strolled to the banks overlooking the Pacific on a regular basis, studied yoga and became a vegetarian. I managed an apartment complex with a friend, and made and sold redwood planter boxes and simple furniture at Santa Barbara’s weekly crafts faire that stretched along the beach front.
In 1978, I returned to North Dakota for a few years, where I began teaching yoga, quite serendipitously acquiring the jobs of two other Bismarck yoga teachers as they were moving on. By 1981 I was tired of ND winters.
I heard about a “new age community” in northern California that was supportive of macrobiotics, a health regimen that was developed from Japanese diet and health practices, and which I’d been following with success for about a year. In late July of 1981 I packed up everything and moved there, not knowing exactly what I would find. i
When I arrived, I found “Harbin Hot Springs”, home of this new age community, to be a most interesting place. Harbin was an old hot springs-health resort, being refurbished by the efforts of many under the brainstorm of an eccentric guy who had purchased Harbin. It was now a clothing optional n New Agee Teaching and Learning eCter, arn reat center, frequented by a very mixed group of retirees, hippies, alternative healers and nudies. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, took off my clothes, and jumped first into the spring-fed cold pool. Finally I got up the nerve to get into the hot pool, which was steaming. Within a few weeks I “transferred” from the macrobiotics program to the month-long intensive massage course. It was good. The following month, I was helping the teacher, teaching yoga as a part of the course. The next month, he offered me the chance to take over his job teaching the school. I said, “Well, don’t you need a special certificate to do that?” “You got it,” he replied., as the school was state-approved to grant teaching certificates. Being a massage teacher at this remarkable place was often a sublime experience, but overall a bit boring. So I moved on after a few years.
A few years later, I’d moved from Harbin to San Francisco, then to Sonoma, California. I quickly found work in both places as a carpenter. In Sonoma, I lived beside a beautiful creek, where I could swim and garden. The years passed easily there, and from the time I had been at Harbin Hot Springs, I’d continued to regain my health. Perhaps the thing that helped the most in that process was my introduction to Chinese medicine, which I began to use frequently as a patient of acupuncture and Chinese herbalism. Gradually I learned to use Chinese herbs on my own, and would make frequent trips to China towns in San Francisco and Oakland to stock up on Chinese herbs and get a hit of being amongst the Asian community there, which I enjoyed.
In 2004 I was lucky to survive a hit and run accident where I’d been a pedestrian. I decided to do something I’d been wanting to do, so went to Burma for some meditation in 2005/2006. While enroute, I fell in love with Asia and decided I’d like to live here.
“The rest is history.” And here I am now, living in Thailand, with a wife and three-year old daughter.
