Dec 31

T o start the day here is a short extract from my book "From Within".

"He sat munching the remaining sandwich staring at the brown water racing by.  Suddenly he sat up straight and said, “That won’t work!”  He turned to the two cushion ‘package’ he had made and untied it and put the knapsack to one side then he retied the two cushions end to end using the straps that he had seen but took no notice of the night before.  He again left a dangling rope. When he was finished the two cushions formed a flotation device much like a pair of water wings.  He undid his belt and slid one end through the loop on the end of the dangling rope then put his belt back through his belt loops and cinched it tight.  He slipped the knapsack onto his back tying the two shoulder straps together in front of his chest with a short piece of left over rope.

  He looked around, the only things left were the discarded wrenches.  Then he sat down again and pulled off his boots, he tied them together through one strap of the knap sack.

  He looked around again, said aloud, “Here goes nothing.”    Holding his improvised ‘water wings’ up against his chest he stepped out and down into the river.  It was up to his knees and only crept up slightly as he waded gingerly away from his perch.  He wasn’t sure anymore where the small beach dropped away, that came immediately clear when he stepped down and immediately plunged fully in and fell forward onto the ‘wings’.

  He gasped for breath as the cold water drenched his clothes; he let the back eddy carry him along just kicking enough to have his head pointing in the direction of travel.  When he got to where the eddy turned back down river he started kicking vigorously out into the main current.  In seconds he was swept past and beyond the crash site and was now in a struggle to stay away from the canyon walls.

  After the first fifteen minutes his confidence grew, the water was cold, but kicking and steering his unusual craft kept his mind busy and the blood coursing through his veins; then as he rounded a bend the dynamics of the river abruptly changed.  The granite walls remained but the river widened and shallowed; gone was the relatively silent smooth current, in its place a turbulent hell of white water; boulders jutted out of the water without pattern, other boulders were hidden beneath the surface only evidenced by waves of surging water over and around their surfaces. He plunged straight into the roiling boiling waters, powerless to do anything but hang on and to try and avoid being smashed and broken.  Four times his flimsy ‘wings’ bounced off rocks that protruded, twice he scraped his hips and legs across those that didn’t!  His vision was blurred from tears of pain and the cold spray when as he cleared one huge boulder he hit another full on with the leading edge of the cushions; his hands were mashed back into the fabric and he was flipped up and over, his numbed hands loosing their grip.  The cushions released of his dragging weight quickly accelerated then were dragged short as the tether rope attached to his belt snapped taut.  He reached for the rope but his hands, numb and bleeding wouldn’t close tight enough to allow him to pull the cushions back together.

  He floated on kicking and following behind the bobbing ‘wings’ then suddenly he was through the maelstrom, the granite walls closed once more and the river once again became silent and deep.  Once more he tried to close the short gap to the cushions and this time succeeded.  He worked his way back into the ‘V’ of the wings and rested, just floating along.  Suddenly he realized he had been shivering violently for several minutes, he realized the cold water was taking its toll and now he had a second enemy to contend with.  He struggled further up onto the ‘wings’ then started to slowly kick his feet and paddled with his arms.  He drifted on and on.

  He came to another bend and as he approached it his heart sank, he realized he was much weaker, his hands were still numb, he didn’t know if he could go through the same ordeal again and survive.  Then he mumbled, “What the hell, I don’t have any choice, I’ll just make damn sure I don’t collide with any more of those big buggars”.

  Noise increased as he approached the bend signaling the approach of more rapids.  He rounded the bend and there indeed was another stretch of white water but it appeared to be only a few hundred yards long, beyond it appeared that the river widened even more and he thought he could see a stretch of beach or a bar.

  He and his craft sailed into the surge, the glimpse he had caught of beach rock sent a surge of adrenalin through his body and with increased vigor he avoided contact and within a few minutes found himself bumping along on a wide shallow river bed.

  He maneuvered himself to the right side of the river, he didn’t know whether it was east west or south, but he knew that the direction he had to travel would be from that side. 

  Finally he was in shallow water, the current barely tugging, he tried to stand and walk but was too tired, too cold and too stiff.  He rolled off the cushions and crawled out onto a gently rising sand and gravel beach.  He continued crawling for several yards, he raised up to look around; granite cliffs were some distance away and then suddenly he realized that not only was it not raining at all, the sky wasn’t overcast, there was broken cloud and sun rays could be seen shining on the distant cliffs.

  He rolled over to a sitting position, laboriously he stripped his clothes off, he opened the pack and took out Fred’s clothes, they were as wet as the ones he had just removed.  He slowly rang out as much water as he could and slowly redressed himself.  He spread out the remaining clothes and then finding a spot almost bare of rock lay back and fell a sleep in seconds."

Cold this morning -7 when I got up. Maryann heading back into NS Computers but only until 2pm.

Wallaces and Todds here tonight.

The new year is now only hours away for us here on the west coast; every year the same  comments are strewen about like boulders on the beach. What will the New Year bring? This year I'm gonna .... What's your resolutions? This year will be different! Look at all the changes, what will be different this year? I pray for ....
And of course 'Happy New Year!'
There will be new songs and music but none of them will really capture the importance and meaning of 'Auld Lang Syne'; it has lasted for generations and will continue to last for generations to come. Its not just the remembering of past friends and acquaintances but it's also a promise to to remember those of today and tomorrow.
Peace in the world would be a good thing to wish/pray for but peace will never happen. Power, greed and prejudice will always exist and although from time to time there may be brief universal reprieves, the influence of those three things will continue to create the will to dominate and in lesser or greater ways wars will carry on and on.
Even in times of so called peace the dominate powers maintain their secret "services"for how else can they retain their dominance. At the same time the lesser powers train and maintain their secret ones and agendas so that when the opportunity arises or is created they will be ready to step up to the 'power plate'.
Benign power doesn't exist. But some dominators are preferable to the alternatives and I guess that's what we have to 'hang our hats on'.

Happy New Year folks!