This Southern Cali City Slicker is off to Chile

(see full article here, it’s a great read: http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020110/A_NEWS/301109955&cid=sitesearch)

(January 29, 1925- August 19, 2012)

Yep, that was my Grandpa, Edward Leighton Christopher or Chris for short! That headline tells a little something about him. His age was just a number to him. He didn’t let it slow him down and it didn’t stand in the way of something he had already put his mind to. He would glide through life as if he was still a curious 15-year-old kid the same way he would glide across the ice on his hockey skates well into his 70’s.

He wasn’t necessarily a fighter as far as I was able to observe, but he did serve in WWII. And for anyone who has experienced a war, part of the fight seems to be carried within them. He didn’t talk too much about the details with my sister and me, but oh did we hear all the tunes and jingles that he learned throughout his time in the service. It appeared as if those songs were the blanket he used to separate the horrible things from him and his sanity. Now, when I say sanity, I mean it with a grain of salt because if you were to look up the definition of sanity, you wouldn’t find his name in there. But, that is just because ordinary people think any deviation from societal norms is unconventional.

He walked around on this cloud of hilarity never veering away from what he was going to do or say because of what others thought. He was on a mission to entertain and be entertained and any subconscious thoughts of other people’s judgments would not stop him. Just going out to a restaurant was a Broadway show for him. The main characters were him and the lucky server who happened to get his table. The unsuspecting sever would walk over to greet the table and my grandpa’s first question would be, “How’s your mom doing?” Obviously, this would throw them off guard into a world wind of thoughts: “How does this guy know my mom?”, “Am I supposed to know him?”, “Is my mom here?”, and “Is this guy crazy?” Each thought had an accompanying facial expression, giving my grandpa the biggest satisfaction. He would go on to serenade them each time they came over to fill empty waters or take away finished plates. And by the end of the meal, no matter how crazy they thought he was, he had fulfilled his mission to entertain them, himself and us.

I remember him in his over washed red crew length socks that would slightly peak from under his grease stained corduroys. The cigar case tucked into his shirt pocket; still smoldering from the last puff he managed to take before he had walked inside. Already fullway into a story that started with “have you heard the one where…?”

I can picture him now, with his sideways grin, (one side of his cheek was paralyzed from an elevator accident he had when he was a mischievous boy), gold tooth exposed, scheming for the next joke he would tell or song he would sing. I could tell he had a library selection in his mind. I imagine him walking down the aisles of stories and songs all categorized by years in which he learned them. Although, they would all fit into one of three categories: funny, cute or inappropriate. He was an eccentric man who strived to tug on the ropes of people’s mundane lives. He was the man who took your day slightly off the track of seriousness because you encountered him. In this world of complacency it only takes a little bit of effort to make a difference in someone’s life. I take this lesson from him with me throughout my own life and will continuously strive to be the oddball that is needed when things need some mixing up!

Thanks Grandpa, miss you!

I AM NOT YELLING….WELL, MAYBE I AM…A NEW WAITER AT AN INTERNET CAFÉ IN CHILE SPILLED COFFEE ON MY MAC AND NOW THE KEYBORAD IS LOCKED ON CAPS!

MY VIGOROUS SPRINT HAS GAINED SPEED TOWARD THE END AND IS ABOUT TO FINISH AT A GREAT PACE WITH A GOLD MEDAL!

THE NIGHT WASN’T PARTICULARLY DARK….I WOULDN’T CALL IT DARK CHOCOLATE. IT WAS MORE OF A MILKY WAY NIGHT. THE NIGHT’S HUMIDITY FORCED ITSELF ON OUR BROWS AND UPPER LIPS. WE WERE ABOUT 3 FEET AWAY FROM A CROCODILE ON THE AMAZON RIVER; EVIDENCE OF ITS LAST FEAST WAS A SPINE OF A PORCUPINE BULGING OUT OF ITS HEAD. THE CAPTAIN OF THE MOTORIZED BOAT TRIED TO FIRE THE ENGINE WHEN HE DECIDED HE HAD, HAD ENOUGH OF OUR SILENT ASTONISHED STARES. THERE WAS NO RESPONSE…..THOUGHTS OF BECOMING A MEAL CROSSED MY MIND. AND SURPRISINGLY ENOUGH I THOUGHT ABOUT HOW I COULD GET THE BEST STEVE IRWIN ACCENT TO NARRATE THE SITUATION WE FOUND OURSELVES IN.

THE BOAT FINALLY ROSE FROM ITS SILENCE WITH A KIND OF ARROGANT CONFIDENCE THAT SAID, “HA, AND YOU THOUGHT I WASN’T GOING TO START!” THIS WAS THE SECOND PART OF THE TRIP AND LAURA AND I WERE IN PERU’S AMAZON. IT WAS 7:30PM AND AS WE WALKED THROUGH THE VARIETY OF AMAZONIAN COCKROACHES AND ANTS OUR SECRET THOUGHTS WHISPERED AT OUR SUBCONSCIOUS… “WE HATE BUGS! WHY WOULD WE CHOOSE TO COME HERE, WHERE THERE ARE MORE KINDS OF BUGS THAN YOU COULD HAVE EVER IMAGINED?” WE WERE IN THEIR HOME AND IF THEY WANTED TO SQUISH US THEY COULD HAVE! BUT, AS GOOD TOURISTS WE SLEPT WITH OUR MOSQUITO NETS AND SCANNED THE FLOOR FOR ANY CREEPY CRAWLIES….THERE WERE NO TERMINAL SITUATIONS…JUST THE COMMON COCKROACH JACKET CRAWL WHICH CAUSED A SYMPHONY OF SCREAMS THAT WOULD HAVE SENT AN ALARMING ALERT IF HEARD ON A CITY STREET. BUT EVENTUALLY WE GAVE INTO THE FACT THAT WE WOULD ALWAYS BE SWEATY AND THAT WE WOULD HAVE TO DEAL WITH AN OCCASIONAL SPIDER ON OUR JACKET, FRESH PIECES OF RAT POO IN OUR SHOWER AND PAPARAZZI OF MOSQUITOES FOLLOWING OUR EVERY STEP MAKING SURE WE HAD PLENTY OF ITCHY SOUVENIRS TO TAKE HOME WITH US!

YOU LET YOUR GUARD DOWN FOR ONE MINUTE AND YOU FIND YOURSELF SHARING A BEER ON A CLIFF WATCHING THE SUN SET SLOWLY WITH A PERUVIAN DREAD HEAD VAGABOND.
I FIRST SAW HIM WHEN I WAS WALKING THE BOARDWALK IN MIRAFLOERES, A DISTRICT IN LIMA. HE ASKED ME IF I KNEW THE TIME AND SINCE I HAVE NO WATCH, I SAID, “NO.” THEN HE ASKED WHERE I WAS FROM. I GAVE HIM ONE LOOK OVER, MUMBLED, “ESTADOS UNIDOS” AND HURRIED PAST. HE DIDN’T LOOK LIKE ALL THE OTHER PEOPLE IN THEIR PRESSED WORK SLACKS, RUNNING BY WITH THEIR PURE BRED DOGS. HE HAD A MESS OF DREDS, BARE AND STREET DIRTY FEET AND A CURIOUS DEMEANOR. SO, I THREW HIM IN THE TROUBLE BUCKET AND KEPT WALKING. A FEW MINUTES LATER THE SPOT I WAS LOOKING FOR ON THE GRASS APPEARED AND I LAYED DOWN AND STARTED TO READ MY BOOK. THE SUN WAS OUT AND THE BEACH BELOW WAS SMILING. I EVENTUALLY FELL ASLEEP DUE TO ALL THE CONTRIBUTING FACTORS: A SLIGHT HANGOVER, A COMPLETED LUNCH 20 MINUTES PRIOR, AND THE SUN BLANKET THAT KEPT ME AT JUST THE RIGHT TEMPERATURE.

(I wrote the second part after my computer was fixed, hence the normal typing)

I awoke and squinted my eyes open to see “what time is it?” guy playing on the jungle gym right in front of me. I thought, “oh great, he followed me!” So, I pretended to be sleeping, but kept my eyes slightly open so I could watch what he was doing. He made his way closer and closer and I began to get nervous, so I thought the best thing to do would be to let him know I was awake in case he was thinking he would initiate an unsuspecting attack. I shuffled around just in time for him to walk up to me and once again ask me what time it was. “Hello, you already asked me this,” I thought, and “I don’t know!” I now thought either he was delirious or really didn’t recognize me. At this point my innate danger receptors where starting to beep a little louder. I had two options, one, get up and excuse myself or two, calm down and talk to him. In a rare attempt to live life on the edge I decided to play it out for a while and talk to him. Well, he did most of the talking.
It turns out he was of Peruvian descent, but since he was about 22 years old he has been fulfilling his dream to make it to every country in South America, almost a decade later he has one more country to visit, Brazil. He had finished his university with an underwhelming feeling that drove him to realize that humans are not made to work in cubicles for 8 hours a day; they weren’t even made to live in the same place for more than a few months. Humans, in his view are innately nomadic and if you are not practicing this, you are basically killing the human spirit. He tried to talk me into getting one dread and while I excitedly pondered the idea of doing something a bit wild for me, I declined.

There I was sitting on a cliff watching the sunset in the next town after walking along the beach listening to his strange yet refreshing outlook on life. And my mind was walking away on the water we were starring at. It was my last day of my 3.5 month travels and I thought about why I was going back and for what? Why couldn’t I be like him, a street juggler, he made just enough money for food, hostel and an occasional beer? He would catch rides with cars willing to pick him up. He spent weeks laying on the beaches of South America without a care in the world. But as my thoughts came crashing back to my physical body I realized that he is an odd pin in a haystack of society that has passed his simplistic hope for how humans interact and live. And although, his life did seem wonderfully blissful and stress free, he was lonely as I would be. I do want to lay on the beach for weeks, but I would trade the weeks in for a week if it meant I would have my friends by my side. I would trade in not going to work every day if it meant I would get to come home to a family that I loved and loved me back. Why do I and most of society feel this way? Has our culture changed so much that in order to move forward our human nature is changing? What would happen if you told us we couldn’t go into work anymore? Would we really know what to do with ourselves? Would we turn straight to the beach and lay there in an effortless calm or would we bite our nails with anxiety because our innate nature has changed?

Anyway, I ended up back home and now the southern hemisphere seems like a distant dream from a week ago. Leave it to travel and new people to make us question what and who and why we are? Pondering these questions gives you a little breath in this fast paced life, so take one every once in awhile!