Leaky Lifeboats

My leaky lifeboat

I woke up the other day and realized I was 65 years old. I mean, I already knew that, objectively, having blown out the candles the prescribed number of times accordingly, but subjectively, I’m not sure I could say the same. Instead of viewing my life from the beginning onward, as one does with the celebration of birthdays, I am now viewing my life from backwards, as in how much time do I have left?

You've done that too? Weird.

My father Robert was born in 1922, and moved up to Bell Springs Road at age 55, in 1977. I was born in 1952, and moved up to The Bell for good in 1982. There were thirty years’ difference in age between me and my father.

HeadSod-Buster was born in 1982, thus making it also thirty years’ difference in age between the two of us. Gluten-Free Mama and I had only been on the mountain for eleven weeks, trying to convert a 16 by 20 shell of a cabin, into a home, when the littlest sodbuster burst upon the scene.

He is the real McCoy-mountain-born and reared.

So in many respects, HeadSodBuster and I are living parallel lives to that of my father and me, with me in the role of my father. Does that mean I have nine years left, as Robert was 74 when he woke up one morning, suffered a heart attack and died within an hour?

You tell me and we’ll both know.

Meanwhile, I am in a unique position because I cannot help but compare myself to Robert, at EVERY STEP of the journey. Am I perceived by my sons, in like manner to that way that I was aware of and took note of Robert? Or more likely, what are the differences?

Robert at fifty, down in Baja.

I try to remember the specific things I had to do for Himself in the later years, most of which concerned his little cannabis patch. He never grew more than 20 or 25 plants, heavily concealed amidst the manzanita, and I helped him transport soil/amendments, and I helped him sex the plants, weeding out the unwanted males.

I also remember one year having a male “get away” from us, either through error, or more likely, through hermaphroditing. His entire crop, meager as it was, had seeds throughout it, rendering it practically worthless. 

In the greater scheme it was not catastrophic since the cannabis was nothing but an auxiliary source of income, used for special projects or the occasional run over to Reno, for some R & R. Primarily that consisted of playing blackjack and the ponies, albeit not at the same time. 

Nonetheless, I felt horrible, knowing that if I had been more attentive and spent more time on-site, I would have been able to catch the miscreant, and remove him from the venue before damage could be done. Indirectly, I had become responsible for my father’s economic wellbeing, or at least that part of his wellbeing that allowed him some pleasure.

Parallel lives? HeadSodBuster and BossLady work countless hours to not only run a farm, but to help with the monumental job of trying to hammer out cannabis regulation. I contribute to the workforce on-farm, and thus earn a modest salary.

Without this income, I would still have my pension from the school district and my newly acquired Social Security, but it would be a squeeze, and that’s without the medical bills. Bottom line is that HeadSodBuster must feel similar unneeded pressure to continue the status quo.

When his grandpa was 65, as I am now, HeadSodBuster would have been five years old, and therefore it would be impossible for him to draw any accurate parallels, his five-year-old eyes till seeing life from stomach-level of the adults in his life.

Helping Dad with footings

As time progresses, though, the scale will start to balance itself out, and I will no longer be able to move and stack the five cords of firewood I require, to make it through winter. I am already hampered by an inability to drive any farther than Ukiah.

That means GF Mama has to rely on others to transport her to Sacramento for her immunotherapy infusions every two weeks. It’s not good; it’s not bad. Rather, it simply is.

As for “making it to 74” or not, I’m in the same leaky lifeboat that everyone else is in-we each have our own, you know. Could be yes, could be no, could be just maybe so. I ain’t worried and I’m not particularly scared, at least not of the ultimate destination.

If I knew I were simply going to wake up dead one day, then hey, that would eliminate the only part of the process that makes me nervous. Again, no one knows when the leaky lifeboat each of us requires to stay alive, will finally take on too much water, and sink.

It does no good to compare one leaky lifeboat to another, over a couple of generations, but I do it just the same. Or differently. Who knows? We may be in this world together, but we cannot share lifeboats. 

My lifeboat might seem tighter than many because I am physically active and eat mostly farm-grown food, but my lifeboat could also hit a rock in white water rapids, capsize and sink. I could make it to 74, or older, or I could keel over after a bodacious bong rip.

That might be kind of fun. Folks could nod knowingly then and quip, “Talk about achieving liftoff on multiple levels…”

45's leaky lifeboat