Time marches on, but doesn't mean what it once did, oh, and a hike

As I was getting ready to go for my hike this morning I was listening as a few fellow campers were pulling out of the resort. The sounds of their expensive motor homes driving down the street and heading for the front gate and presumably to their home, wherever that may be it got me to thinking.

A camper pulling out of the park

When I was young everything was about the clock. At school everything is ruled by the clock and bell. Classes started at strange times 8:06 a.m. and they ended promptly at 9:01 a.m. and so on throughout the day. Without a watch you were lost.
In the Navy it was the same way, reveille came promptly at 6 a.m. (sometimes earlier), the lights were extinguished in the sleeping areas at 10 p.m. and your day was divided up by four hour watches, many in the middle of the night. Again without a watch you were lost and probably heading for a Captain’s Mast for being late. Your time on and off the ship was strictly regulated by the clock.

Arrive back from shore liberty at 11:59 p.m. all was great. Two minutes later, you were facing the Captain for discipline.

Another camper preparing to leave the park

Then came work. Like the military, my police days were commanded by the clock. Work started promptly on the hour of whatever shift you were on. Tickets and crime reports were written with precise times. Everything was logged by the minute it occurred.

When I went to college, again classes started on the hour and ended pretty much the same. As I transitioned into journalism and newspaper work, the clock and the deadline always loomed. Those drop dead hours ruled my life for nearly 30 years. Although my shifts varied, the clock always remained front and center. Times for government meetings, appointments, police and fire shift changes, not to mention the election night poll closings and on and on were always front and center in my schedule.

"E.J.'s Summer House" says the sign on this old shed

Joan who lived her working environment as a school teacher would not doubt agree with a life led by the clock and the bell.

Then came retirement. Sure there are still times to be kept, but now my life is more ruled by the calendar. Like the folks leaving the resort this morning, they are reacting not to the clock but the calendar. Many have come from far away to beat the winter. In some cases those winters are starting to ease back home so March is a logical time to start for home. For those of us in Michigan winter extends into April so we’ll stay put for a while.

In my retirement years I look more to the calendar to see what is coming than the clock. There are grandchildren birthdays, winters to escape, holidays to prepare for, blood drives to run and a non-profit to help raise funds for. But most of that doesn’t require a daily obsession with the clock.

High grass on the high plains of Arizona at the Empire Ranch

We can get up when we want, go to bed when we want and our daily schedule is more dependent on how we feel or what interests us than being tied to a ticking clock. The transition took some time and in some cases my body still reacts to my working clock. I still rise early each day, we pretty much eat on a set schedule, but there is no penalty for being late or simply scratching an activity off our list.

I don’t wear a watch anymore. Actually with a cell phone if I need to know what time it is I have my portable atomic clock with me at all times. But I can remember days when I probably look at my watch 100 times or more to make sure I was on time for something. Now I just use it to check my growling stomach against whether I need to eat or not.


Our hike leader heading us home

But just because I’m watching calendar pages turn instead of staring at a clock or watch does not mean time is moving slower, quite the contrary, the pages of the calendar seem to turn suddenly like the sweep hands of the clock I used to be a slave too. It’s like the old movie gimmick of the calendar pages blowing off the wall to signal the passage of time. Ah, the Golden Years, as one man said at the resort, they are not really gold, but rust.

But there is always time to do important things and be with important people in your life.

That’s your Grandma’s Recess philosophy for the day.

The Empire Ranch House

What I did do with my time today, besides play armchair philosopher, was go on a little hike at the Empire Ranch. You will recall Joan and I made a trip there a month ago, but this time I went with the easy hiking group to sample the trails on the ranch.

The weather has improved greatly here and I wore my shorts today knowing that temperatures were expected to rise into the mid-70s.

The last five miles to the trailhead was along a dusty dirt road that passed by the Empire Ranch. We headed out for the hike along a well-traveled dirt road and then through a dry wash.  The scenery on this hike was nothing like any other hike I’ve taken. Most of my previous hikes have been in the desert or the high mountains.

The skies were clear and the walk was easy. At the end of the hike we stopped and had lunch at a picnic table where we parked our cars.

A view from the Empire Ranch dirt road

When lunch was done we stopped back at the Empire Ranch so some of our group could tour the house as they had not been here before.

We headed back to the resort and were home by a little after 2 p.m.

Joan and I hung out in the trailer and she made us a nice dinner from the various leftovers in the refrigerator.

On the news today they mentioned that this winter has been one of the coldest on record. So far this season there have been 23 days below freezing. The previous record winter cold was 11 days with temperatures that fell below freezing. Once again, you can thank the Smiths as we are the bringers of record bad weather.

If you want to see more photos from the hike simply scroll down again.