Mountains of East Tennessee full of color

It's fall, the season of color in the high country of East Tennessee.

As I write this, from Johnson City--near the NC and VA borders--the mountains teem with reds, golds, greens, browns.

It's a spectacular season bursting with bright, uplifting colors.

Nature's unmatchable paint brush does quite the trick.

This morning I snapped a shot of a butterfly resting, of all places, on a butterfly bush. Maybe more summery than fall but stunning nonetheless. Here's the picture:

And a few days ago, I pulled over into a church driveway and captured a grove of trees ablaze with color:

Finally, to help commemorate my 67th season of fall, I ran upon this classic poem by Robert Frost:

AFTER APPLE-PICKING
By Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

About death and life even after you've punched out

I wonder what it's like to be stone cold dead. (One famous person, according to a frequent and faithful reader of my blog, reputedly said, as he lay on the threshold of dying, "And now comes the great mystery.")

Not just dead out of answers or dead to the world (as in completely spent or tired to the nth degree).

But really dead.

Lifeless.

Breathless.

Still.

Permanently asleep six feet (or more) under a cold slab.

Sealed in a metal vault to keep the corpse feeders at bay.

Maybe being planted, if you're lucky, in a peaceful, beautiful spot among trees, shrubs, flowers, butterflies, bumble bees and a gurgling stream.

I guess folks who contemplate taking their own lives don't give much thought to such.

For instance, take all those hundreds (maybe even thousands?) of distressed souls who have jumped to their death in the last several decades from the Golden Gate Bridge just outside San Francisco. I'm told it's a 220-foot drop to the cold deep waters below, meaning only 2 percent survive.

It would be a stretch to believe that many of them considered (truly considered) what would happen to them if they jumped.

They just wanted out. Out of this life. Away from their problems, worries, troubles.

Where they were going, they didn't much care--long as they went.

So sad. So depressing. So shocking to think of so many people jumping off the Golden Gate--perhaps the world's favorite spot for committing suicide.

And then there are the heartless, selfish motorists traveling across the bridge who see them teetering on a beam, thinking of the ultimate escape to darkness. Thinking of saying goodbye permanently.

Many of those cold-blooded motorists, according to a recent report in USA TODAY, yell: "Go ahead! Jump!"

Speaking of things deathly, I read an article (also from USA TODAY) that reported on a study of life-after-death experiences. It seems, according to interviews with hundreds of people who have been pronounced clinically dead but then were revived, that "the dead" can still have thoughts, visions, ideas.

The heart stops beating, but the brain--in some cases--still functions.



Here's a passage from that article last week on near death experiences:

"Scientists looked at 2,060 people who went into cardiac arrest (which they describe as "biologically synonymous with death") at 15 different hospitals in the U.S., U.K., and Austria. Of the 330 people who survived, about 40% recalled awareness while they were clinically dead. (The lead doctor tells the Telegraph that number could be higher if some of those people's memories weren't dulled by drugs or sedatives.)
Of those, 46% had memories not commonly associated with NDEs (Near Death Experiences).

• One person recalled, after he took his last breath, that he was told that he was going to die, and the quickest way to the hereafter was to say the last short word he could remember.

• Another person in the same circumstance remembers seeing "All plants, no flowers."

• Another saw lions and tigers, while one person's whose heart had stopped beating had the sensation of being dragged through deep water.

The researchers say caution is in order before we can conclude anything. Consider how the article ends: "This (having thought processes after death is pronounced) is paradoxical, since the brain typically ceases functioning within 20-30 seconds of the heart stopping and doesn't resume again until the heart has been restarted," says the study's lead researcher. "These experiences warrant further investigation."

Ok. Many of us always believed in life after death. Now we have an iota of titillating evidence.

Meanwhile, life goes on. And so does death, and so does jumping from the Golden Gate Bridge.

It's good, folks. to be alive! And it should never get so hopeless that we want to punch out of our own accord.

If it does (and I've been there, been diagnosed as clinically depressed): Don't isolate. Get a dog. Exercise. Breathe deeply. No sudden decisions. Try to have at least a few positive thoughts. Read. Blog. Listen to music. Attach yourself to someone who loves you. Stay away from those who would pull you down. DON'T JUMP! DON'T CUT YOURSELF! DON'T POISON YOURSELF! DON'T SMOTHER YOURSELF! DON'T OVERMEDICATE.

Petsmart finally agrees

I just got through with dealing with management at the Petsmart store in Johnson City, Tenn.

I had a beef: a chewable, squeaking dog toy I bought there three days ago was destroyed (the squeaker chewed up and the covering fabric torn).

The animal that did this?

My 5-year-old, 25-pound bichon frise Michael Jackson.

He's an adorable but destructive little thing.

He obliterated the $7.95 toy in just three days.

At first, when I complained, the store manager said there was nothing he could do. He added, parenthetically, that his own dog destroys Petsmart's toys in as little as 30 seconds.

"Then why are you selling a whole aisle full of defective toys?" I asked.

He mumbled something along the lines that I didn't have my receipt and even if I did, there was nothing he could do.

But I reminded him that I spend a chunk of money at Petsmart every month.

"I know you do. I've seen you in here a lot," he replied somewhat nervously.

"You need to make me happy," I countered. "You HAVE to make me happy."

Long story short: I appealed to his supervisor. She agreed to let me pick out a new (replacement) dog toy at no cost.

It pays to go up the line. Also pays to remind them that you are a good, long-time paying customer.

Guess I should be a consumer advocate.

Speaking of dogs, that's Michael Jackson (he of the toy-chewing, destructive ilk) in the photo with this blog post.

Also speaking of dogs, my favorite commercial on TV right now stars a dog who lovingly encourages his owner to drink responsibly. Turn up your sound and enjoy:

Houses that Larry Jr. and Larry Sr. have lived in

As some of you know, I've been sifting through my Dad's slides. (Who creates slides anymore??!!)

Click here for a really short slideshow of places we've lived in Colorado, Kentucky and South Carolina. These are the former abodes of Larry Timbs Jr. (yours truly) or Larry Timbs Sr. The brick ranch house (with the vermillion Ford Maverick in the driveway) was the first house I ever bought. Paid the lofty sum of $27K for it in Campbellsville, Ky. The brick home with all the pine trees in the front yard? It was a rental that served our purposes very well in the early 1970s in Columbia, S.C.

You'll also see a rare slide of my Mom at work in a pharmacy in Newport News, Virginia. Mom hardly ever worked outside the home, but she did help bring home the bread--for a few years--when we lived in Colorado, Virginia and Tennessee.

That's my sales clerk Mom, by the way, in the photo accompanying this blog post.

Memories of Granny Jenkins and her family

I keep plowing through my Dad's slides. He left me hundreds of them and I'm trying to preserve some (hopefully for a long, long time) on the Internet. Quite a task to go through all those slides (does anyone create slides anymore?!?) and digitize them and upload them to the Net.

Click here for a slideshow of my Granny Maude Jenkins (my Mom's Mom) and her family. Granny and company are choreographed to the music of singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. Thank you, Jimmy, for your tunes. Bet Granny Jenkins (shown in photo accompanying this blog post) never, ever heard of the singer of "Margaritaville." But maybe she's listening to him now from Heaven.

Turn up your sound and click here for my slideshow dedicated to my Granny.

More family memories

I dedicate this slideshow (and coming slide presentations) to the memory of my parents--Lawrence C. Timbs and Dixie Nadine Jenkins Timbs.

I miss you, Mom and Dad!

Turn up your sound and click here for the show.

Memories of my Mom and Dad

My Dad passed away in early 2012. But during his lifetime he took thousands of photos. He especially loved slides.

I've been working to turn some of his slides into a slideshow.

Turn up your sound and click here to enjoy the first of many (hopefully) such shows.