The Job Search, and Other Stuff

Haven't blogged in a while. My trip back to Lousiville for an interview with the Presbyterian Foundation was a whirlwind. Awoke early and got the the Burbank airport at 6:30 a.m. for an 8:00 a.m. flight. Got to Louisville, through Dallas, late afternoon. Had lunch at the DFW airport at Chili's, one of John's habits when connecting through DFW. Ate dinner with John D'Elia, the Regional VP and traveling companion, then tried to sleep. Watched some of the Giants-Cubs on WGN, Giants lost. Read. Journaled. Prayed. Got to sleep after midnight. Awoke at 6:00 a.m., which was 3:00 a.m. body time. (I hate flying east for only a day!) Drove with John across the Ohio River to the Foundation HQ in Jeffersonville, IN.

Had numerous interviews all morning. I had anticipated 3-4, but I met probably about a dozen people that morning. Nice folks. Had lunch with John and Mark, the President, at the stadium of the Lousiville AAA baseball team. Nothing too inspiring, but no disasterous slips of the tongue or heretical statements on my end. I felt good about the interviews.

The picture at left is looking north from my hotel room, a very nice Marriott. In the distance, you can see the Ohio River, and one of the many bridges spanning the river. On the left of the picture, you can see the rounded top of the PCUSA national headquarters. You can barely make out the PCUSA sumbol on the front of the building. Unfortunately, I was not able to tour the building, as we had no extra time on Friday.

On the picture at left, you can see one of Louisville's historic downtown churches, with the majestic spire reaching into the heavens. You can also see the red brick style so prominent in older areas of many American cities. This area by the river was an industrial area, that has been transformed into a tourist and shopping and dining area. The Fourth Street Mall is an open air mall, where the street is blocked off to allow only pedestrians, for about three blocks.

John and I returned the rental car to the airport, then boarded a plane for the return journey. At DFW, had dinner at TGIFriday's, another of John's habits, evidently. (Chili's going east, TGIFriday's going west.) He was very generous and upgraded our seats for first class for the DFW to Burbank leg. I could get used to that!

Arrived home around 11:00 p.m. (2:00 a.m. Louisville time.) I had been up about 20 hours, and I was exhausted. Travel is tiring, especially with that quick turnaround. And I had a small cold before we left, which blossomed into a full blown cold, complete with fever and coughing, by the time I got home. Still, the next day I dutifully woke up early, and refereed or mentored five soccer games. Then I crashed!

I spend the next week sick, and spent a lot of time in bed, reading or sleeping or watching DVD's. I confess, sometimes I look forward to getting sick so I can splurge my time on these guilty pleasures.

I met with John the next Friday, a week after the interviews. We met at Peet's coffee on Lake in Pasadena. He had delivered some bad news to me there earlier in the job search process. And this was to be more bad news. The Foundation had decided not to offer me the position. The rationale, as John explained it, was that my lack of development experience was the key issue. It had been the key issue all along. So actually getting an interview in Louisville was due to either my own giftedness and powers of persuasion, or on Johns persistence. I have a hunch that it was the latter. After sticking his neck out for me, I just hope that I did not let John down by flubbing the interview. I felt good about it at the time, but I was not in the best of physical nor mental shape, with my dad passing away the previous weekend.

So, the job search is back to square one.

James E. Stochl, Sr.

My brother called me this morning to say that my dad had passed away last night, due to a heart attack. He was 74. He was in great shape, and in great spirits, and was working hard on his many household projects. His death took me by surprise, to say the least.

Like many eldest sons, I had a rocky relationship with my dad. We were very much alike in many ways. We both have a tendency to pride, and being judgmental. We both hold grudges, far longer than should be allowed. My dad has not spoken to his own brother since the mid-1960's over a dispute concerning their mother's memorial service. Now that is a world class grudge! And I have been known to carry on some of those.

When my dad left us in 1970 and divorced my mom, I was very angry at him. And I nurtured that anger for many years. As a teenager, I both admired my dad, and hated him. I admired his intellect, his hard work, his sense of self-assurance, his commitment to do the right thing, and his discipline. The last trait, discipline, is one that I never really picked up, to me eternal regret.

After the divorce was final, my mom and brother and I moved to California to be with my mom's extended family. A new start, as it were. But nobody told me that for there to be a new start, one must leave some of the old baggage behind. I took some old baggage with me, especially a grudge against my dad for "abandoning us." I must say, though, that my dad was a man of principle. He sent child support and alimony every month, the same day, as long as he was required by the divorce agreement. I took this for granted at the time. But it was much later that I learned that this was not often the case, as I learned from friends about their "deadbeat dads."

Still, I was not happy. Our family dynamic was such that no one talked about these sorts of things. You just accepted it and moved on. Well, there is some wisdom to that. But I needed to know some things. Why did my dad divorce my mom, and leave my brother and me? Being the eldest, I thought it was my fault.

The summer of 1970 was a hard one for me. My friends began experimenting with stealing, shoplifting. We had contests to see who could steal the most things, the most expensive things, etc. I had, from time to time, taken a few coins from my mom's or dad's dresser at home. But no shoplifting. But one day, I went to the local mall, Apache Plaza, and was determined to steal something from every store in the mall.

I succeeded, too. I stole something from many of the stores, the final one being Wards. From Wards, I stole a fishing lure. I had on a blue windbreaker, and must have looked like the Michelin Man walking out of the mall with all this stuff under my jacket. A security guard stopped me, and walked me back through the store, and into his office. After a lecture, and some paperwork, I was turned over to the police, and given a ride home.

My face was hot with shame, as I was forced to tell my mom and dad what I had done. The reaction was anger, and silence. They were clearly disappointed with me, as I was with myself. I went to bed that night, hoping to never wake up again. But I did. The issue was never brought up again, but I always felt it was being hung over my head. One more failure for the boy.

My dad left the house, moved out, several weeks later. And I guess I had always equated the two events: my getting caught for stealing, and my dad's leaving the family. As I got older, I saw that one had virtually nothing to do with the other.

Still, there was little dscussion in our house, or when my brother and I would go visit my dad on weekends. There were some topics that were not to be spoken of. Ever. But I wanted to know! I lost my father in 1970, and felt personally rejected. Today, however, was the final loss. And I am a poorer man for it. I thought there was going to be some time to work some of these things out. I have discovered that it is much easier to burn bridges than to build them!

There were some elements of raproachment, though. My dad came to my wedding in 1980. He always sent birthday and Christmas cards, though I suspect Susan, his new wife, had more to do with that. We visited several times. A breakthrough of sorts was my brother's second wedding, which my dad attended. We had a nice conversation then. At the time, I wrote him some letters expressing some of my past hurts and misgivings and anger, and seeking for answers. Susan answered the letters, and it was a cathartic process. Still, my dad never ansewred them.

In 1998, Dave and I flew back to MN to work on the lake cabin. (Man, was it that long ago?) This little fishing cabin had been built in the 1940's, we think. And it is where we spent our summers as kids. Dad and Susan built a new house into the bank of the lake, just up the hill from the old cabin. Part of building the house, I guess, was the agreement to tear down the old cabin. So Dad and Dave and I worked for a week, and were pretty successful at tearing the cabin down.

That week was one of the best weeks of my life. I came to think that perhaps some men cannot or will not talk verbally, but communication can happen at other levels. Working together with Dad and Dave drew me closer to them than I had ever been. We discovered some wonderful things about the cabin. The 2x4's were actually 2 inches by 4 inches, and made of clear (no knots) cedar. Lovely wood, and very straight. Of course, it was saved for later use! At left is a picture of my dad and me pushing over one of the last walls of the cabin. I think my dad enjoyed the week together with his two sons, but was never sure.

My dad loved to work. He loved tools. He loved building things. He seemed to have a restlessness about working. As a kid, the cabin meant relaxing. For my dad, the cabin meant work. Well, mostly work, and some fishing! Every once in a while, I would volunteer to help my dad. Of course, my volunteering usually meant that the project would take twice as long to finish! There were moments when I would do what he asked me to do, drive a nail or cut a board, and he would say, "Well done, Jim." Whenever I heard that, I figured I had died and gone to heaven. Unfortunately, those words were extremely rare from him, which made them all the more valuable. The words I wanted to most hear from him, I never heard. Either, "I love you, son" or "I am proud of you, son" were never uttered by him. And I am the poorer for it. This was the view from the cabin, south, on Lake Sylvia. Notice we were still demolishing the flooring.

From what I knw, my dad had few friends, but those he had, he was fiercely loyal to. Most of his friends were from his days as a university professor. When he took early retirement, he was a pretty happy man. He still loved to teach, and would teach some extension courses in southern and central MN. But mostly, he worked about the cabin.

So the man I bothed feared and admired, loved and hated, is now gone. I am now an orphan, having no living parents, my mom having passed away 18 months ago, at 72. I am a richer man for being my father's son. And I am a poorer one for his death. May his soul find peace.

Alaska Trip

We have just returned from an amazing trip to Alaska. We had both wanted to go, and since it was our 25th anniversary, we decided, "If not now, when?" So we bit the proverbial bullet, scrounged up enough cash, or room on our credit cards, and went.

We flew to Vancouver, BC, where we kicked around for two days. We even ate at The Old Spaghetti Factory one evening! We boarded the MS Ryndam on Sunday, the 21st, and set sail for the Inside Passage.

We left with four other cruise ships, and saw them ar each port of call. And for the first day, we were in sight of all of them. A traffic jam on the Inside Passage. However, those ships soon disappeared. We discovered that each ship captain has freedom to chose his own route through the Inside Passage. And Our captain spent the early part of his career on the Rhine River in Germany. So a river captain was not afraid of some of the narrow passages he took us through, one was only 400 yards wide!

The picture to the left was taken at the Mendenhall glacier, outside of Juneau. Alaska evidently has about 10,000 glaciers, and the Juneau ice field is the birth place for many of those. The interesting thing is that 80% of the glaciers are retreating, but 20% are advancing. When we sailed into Glacier Bay, we saw two glaciers, from the same ice field, one was advancing, the other retreating. You would think that both would operate in tandem, but this was not the case. I have no idea what this means concerning the "global warming" debate, but I found it interesting.

We saw an amazing variety of wildlife on the trip. We saw humpback whales, and dolphins one day. Another day we saw eagles. While in Denali, we saw moose, a grizzly bear and her cub frolicking in the blueberry bushes less than one half mile from us. We saw caribou, ptarmigan (a bird), otters, and a beaver. The beaver, (at left), at the Mendenhall Glacier, swam past us several times to check us out, and then emerged from the water no more than ten feet from us, and hustled into the bush a few yards from the water's edge. In Seward we saw a group (pod?) of white beluga whales. At a wildlife preserve outside of Seward, we saw a bald eagle, some moose, and caribou.

While in Carcross, Yukon Territories, we saw some Alaskan Huskies, bred for dog sled racing. They are not as "thick" as the Siberian Huskies, but they are bred to run. The puppies were very cute. To practice in the non-snowy times, there are some special dog sleds with wheels in the runners. While we were there, one of the sleds was pulled out. And the twenty or so dogs went strak raving nuts. Barking and yapping and jumping and digging and almost doing cartwheels! When the six were chosen and harnessed up, and took off with great enthusiasm, the remaining dogs al jumped up on the top of their dog houses and wailed plaintively, "awoooooooo"! Here is Beth with one of the mama dogs, very sweet.

Our cabin onboard the ship was amazing. A king bed, a small refridgerator, a TV, a couch, and a small table, and some closets. It had a small verandah, or deck, where we would often just sit and read, or sit and drink in the beauty of our surroundings. On the left is a view of a glacier and some mountains looking out of our verandah. It was a very comfortable room, and we soon got used to the gentle rocking of the ship. In fact, we got so used to it, that for several days afterwards, we felt that whenever we stood, we were rocking. Our first day off the ship in Anchorage, I took a short nap, and felt that the hotel was gently rocking back and forth! A strange feeling!

Our cabin steward, Mahommed, was from Indonesia, and a very charming fellow. Each night, he left us towels in the shape of animals. One day it was a turkey. One day it was an elephant. One day, it was a pig. They were very cute. Try to guess which animals are to the right.

The glaciers were amazing. Glacier Bay was incredible, as was College Fjord. Up close, the glaciers have a deep blue color. Evidently, the pressure of the ice forces out most of the air bubbles, and the ice absorbs all colors except blue. The glaciers snap, crackle and pop, like Rice Krispies, but the popping is more like gun shots or thunder. Every once in a while, a chunk of ice will fall off the glacier into the water, the process is called "calving". We did not see any huge chunks of ice calve, we saw several smaller chunks fall off the glacier into the water. What an awesome sight. I got to wondering how long that ice had been there. Starting as snow, and then being covered by many feet of snow, turning to ice, and then "flowing" down to the ocean or inlet. Thousands of years old, I will bet. Our ship-board naturalist said at some glaciers, people actually take boats out and pick up some of the smaller chunks of glacial ice, and take them home to use. The water in those chunks of ice is purer than anything they could make themselves, and since there are no air bubbles, the ice lasts much longer.

We bravely signed up for a flighttour, and were flown over some glaciers near Ketchikan in a small float plane. Small planes make me nervous, lots of bouncing around. But the view of these glaciers was amazing, breath-taking. Miles and miles of ice, thousands of feet thick. Carving out huge U-shaped glacial valleys, and depositing huge amounts of glacial silt at their terminus. The picture at left is the floatplane we flew on. Beth actually got to be the co-pilot, though we are both glad she did not have to do any actual flying!

I will hopefully blog more on our trip later.