"Hey it's Good.......To Be Back Home.......Again"

So sang John Denver.....and so sang the ol' Bazookaman when I moved back up here.

Sometimes we're free and we don't even realize it. Sometimes we'll stay in a rut, if for no other reason, but that it's something we're familiar with. (sort of like re-electing the same bums into office term after term-----because....well......at least we KNOW them, and their hands in our pockets are familiar ones!)

Anyway, I'd been fully retired now for over a year, and just living each day trying to stay busy in the sweltering heat down there. Coming back from a gunshow one Saturday afternoon, I got caught up in a huge freeway jam-up. I'm sitting there with the windows down (there's no A/C in an old Volkswagen "Baja" Bug), breathing the heat and exhaust from everyone else around me as we all crept forward 20 feet at a time.

This was nothing out of the ordinary down there, but for some reason, THAT day seemed to be the "straw that broke the camel's back". I worked my way over into the far right lane, got OFF at the next exit ramp, drove into the town of Tempe, and just "stop & go'd" it all the way through Mesa, then finally into Apache Junction. It was the longer way to go, but at least at 25 mph through the city streets, I could get SOME air in through the open windows!

I was "wringing wet" when I "poured myself" out of the car at the apartment. As I stretched out a little later and had a cold Diet Pepsi.....or 2 or 3 or 10.......my mind was a torrent of anxieties.

"God I hate it here........I'm sick of the heat, the scorpions, the traffic, the CROWDS of PEOPLE" (and soon, that population would swell again as the "snowbirds" would start making THEIR way down here for yet another winter)......I was even getting tired of the church I was attending.....particulary being one of the musicians who DIDN'T like where THAT was going-------drums, trumpets, traditional oldtime gospel music was being shoved aside for this new-age "Christian-Rock" stuff........to ME, it was more NOISE than anything else.

I felt like a stranger........even among the 6 or 7 MILLION people down there. There was no breathing space. There wasn't a convenience store or a Burger King you could stop at, without at least a dozen people standing in line in front of you...........and when the SNOWBIRDS were there...........forget it.

That evening, as it got late and the temperature dropped down into the 80's, I went out for a walk, and while strolling along, I had one of those "intimate little talks with Mike Bradbury", that I've found so necessary sometimes in my life.

"I hate it here......this place sucks......another miserable day tomorrow....gotta go pay the water bill, which is as high as eveything ELSE around here"....even just taking a walk, you gotta WATCH where you walk, especially at night when the snakes are out......."this place SUCKS!"

"WHY DON'T YOU LEAVE?"

............where'd THAT come from?.............

It was like a little voice coming from way back in my mind somewhere.........

"INSTEAD OF GRIPING ABOUT IT ANOTHER YEAR........WHY DON'T YOU JUST PACK UP AND LEAVE?"

....Leave?......

"LEAVE......DUMMY!! THERE'S NOTHING HOLDING YOU HERE. YOU'RE RETIRED-----YOU DON'T HAVE A MONEY PROBLEM----THERE AIN'T A REASON IN THE WORLD YOU NEED TO STAY HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO.........."Man, this isn't ROCKET SCIENCE......"

"Listen Mikey.....tell ya what you do......think of someplace pleasant, get in your Bug and go there, or KEEP going until you FIND the "right place." Then come back HERE, give the landlord some ample notice......go rent yourself a U-Haul truck and a small car trailer.-------are you WITH me so far??? Raise your hand if I get ahead of you!! (I'm always hardest on MYSELF)........"ok, now load the truck, load the car on the trailer, give the landlord your keys.......there's a Union 76 station about 2 blocks from here, YOU PASS IT EVERY DAY......

.......fill the truck, get a cup of coffee, you know how to get from there to I-17------------------

STOP whinin' and moanin' about it..........and GET OUT OF HERE!!

Is it that simple??

"YES!-----SO WHILE YOU CAN STILL PRESS "ONE" FOR ENGLISH........GET OUT OF HERE!!"

Yep.............I lived in Arizona from 1996 to 2004. Could have left anytime after 2002 Stayed there out of sheer habit, fought and griped......"Oh poor me"......and the door was open the whole time.

Stupid. It's true----sometimes we CAN'T "see the forest for the trees."

I jumped in a Bug, drove back up here to Mountain Home for a few days, found a place AND a church, hauled butt back to Arizona and started getting things lined up to leave. My last couple of weeks down there was like having been re-born! The night before I left, I was so anzious to finally be getting out of there, I almost couldn't sleep!

I left very early in the morning, to try to get out of the valley before it got hot, but it was already 90 or so out there by the time I rolled through Wickenburg. By the time I got close to Las Vegas, the temperature was in the "3-digits" and I'd had a few "vaporlock" problems with the truck, (I wasn't stranded though---my little Bug was on the back of the trailer, if "push came to shove"). I made it into Henderson, and spent the afternoon with some old friends and waited for the heat to drop off. I couldn't take a chance on that truck "vapor-locking" out on that FREEWAY somewhere in the middle of Vegas, car trailer and all!

As the sun started to set and the thermometer was closer to 70 than it was to 80, I cranked it up, topped it off, snaked my way through Vegas traffic and headed into Utah. I spent the night in Cedar City, got a good breakfast at Denny's the next morning and headed for Idaho. No more problems with the truck, in the cooler temperatures.

Coming up I-84 toward Snowville, Utah, I was really starting to unwind. The further north I drove, the thinner the traffic got----the more mountains there were------the GREENER it got.........when I got to the stateline, I stopped the truck & trailer right alongside that big beautiful "WELCOME TO IDAHO" sign, and took a picture of it.

I remember starting to laugh a bit........"Phoenix??,,,,,,,NEVER HEARD OF IT!"

I jumped back into the truck, rolled into Burley for one last "topoff", and about four hours later, I was HOME!

About 3 weeks earlier, I'd rented a little place from Vern & Marge Gillespie, and I'd be living next to their big mule corral..........but that was fine. I'd lived next door to jackasses before. THESE would be of a much better breed, and a couple of mules "braying" in the morning was a whole lot nicer that loud stereos at night, where I had just come from.

I spent all that next day unloading everything and getting the truck turned in. My buddies Irv & Harvey gave my a hand with the gunsafe, and then of course, I started getting things out of boxes and putting them up. These last three days had been long and tiring, and I slept well that night.

The first thing I did the next morning after I got showered and dressed, was to make a pot of coffee. I walked around outside in the fresh air of IDAHO, the sun had been out a couple of hours and the dew from the field behind me shimmered on the grass. There was the smell of hay in the shed next door where Vern fed his mules from, and pretty soon I heard a long gentle "bray" from one of them.

I took a sip of my coffee and just soaked in everything around me. Then I thought back to Apache Junction just briefly, and thought....."Man, I can't BELIEVE I actually stayed DOWN there those last couple of years, when I COULD have been right here!"

Yes John Denver......it WAS "good, to be back home again...."

Sometimes in life, if we aren't careful, we can actually make "prisoners" of OURSELVES, yet STILL blame everything and everybody around us for our woes. We get so tied up and surrounded in trivial crap that doesn't even matter, and time is a terrible thing to waste......because it's the one thing in life we CANNOT get back.

If I've learned anything from the "Agent Orange", I've learned that you ultimately have control of your life. Your life, though you may choose to share it...doesn't belong to anyone else but you. Whatever you've done over the past 24 hours, with your spouse, or your family, or your friends, a or just time alone........working on a project or just goofing off all day.............whatever it is you've done over the past 24 hours, you've just traded a day of your life for it. And it isn't redeemable.

With all the chaos going on in the country, it's become more difficult all the time to find a little peace and serenity during the day, but I try to make it happen if I can. You can't control the crap around you, but you CAN put it on "hold" from time to time. Sometimes a spin around town in the Olds on a nice day, or chasing jackrabbits though the sagebrush if the wind isn't up, is a nice diversion.

Playing music is pretty good "therapy" too at times. I'll get into THAT is my next blog.