The Decade in Review 2010-2020
Since 1968 I’ve been filling pages of a yearly diary. These books came from an insurance company in my home town of Ellenville, NY which is now owned by a high school friend of mine.
Every New Year’s Eve for 42 years after, I’d perform a “retirement ritual” where I would lay out all the past years’ journals, read through a few, add the current past year to the pile and return the entire collection to their well-protected memory box.
It was always so exciting starting a new book – so many empty pages yet to be filled and the smell of those brand new pages were both exciting and a bit terrifying.
Unfortunately, the company stopped giving away these books in 2010 and my annual ritual died. 10 years ago I purchased a new journal, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have nearly the amount of time to write in a personal journal, (I was an assistant edior writing daily about irrigation and erosion!) nor did I really find the need to use this method as a way to resolve emotional issues (mostly having to do with a variety of members of the opposite sex).
As a result, the journal I started in 2010 is just this year reaching the final few pages! Instead of having a year to reflect on, I have an entire decade! IN ONE BOOK. If I forget anything, there’s always FaceBook and Google Search to remind me, tools that really didn’t exist 10 years ago!
So, here it is.. My DECADE in review. Beginning with a “then and now” photo:
What a difference a decade makes! I’m sooo very thankful I do NOT have to make a New Year’s resolution to lose weight!
Here are the highlights of the past decade with hope the next 10 years and my next blank journal I will purchase tomorrow – will be just as exciting!
2010
- Bill and I celebrate 30 YEARS of legal co-habitation!
- Kim and Justin get married
- Published “Undercover Reunion”
- First 50,000 words of Vashti’s Daughter
- Keynote Speaker at Care Giver Conference in Ellenville
2011
- Lost 25 pounds on Weight Watchers
- Formed the Green Industry Speakers Bureau
2012
- Finished first ½ Marathon
- First Grandson – Kim and Justin’s baby Julian born
- Started working for Weight Watchers
- Moved to Oxnard
2013
- Finished 2nd ½ Marathon
- Michelle and Barak engaged
- Finished 3rd ½ Marathon with Michelle and Tandy in July
- 60th Birthday Celebration!
2014
- Michelle and Barak get married
- Left WW – Published River Ridge Living
- Moved to Channel Islands Harbor
- Column “Heard It On the Grapevine” for Citizens Journal
- Finished 4th ½ marathon
- Granddaughter – Kim and Justin’s baby Calista born
2015
- Tandy and Tim get married
- Finished first 5k marathon
2016
- Tandy, Michelle and I see final performance of Les Miz on Broadway in NYC
- Michelle and Barak move to New Jersey
- Michelle and Barak get married
- Completed second 5K – Santa to the Sea on my birthday!
2017
- Second Grandson born – Tandy and Tim have baby Derek
- Magazine Folded
- Started working for MK Marketing Brand Ambassador for Qunol
- Started working as a sales agent for SENTEXT text message marketing
- Moved to Camarillo
- Elected Chair of the Libertarian Party of Ventura County Chair
2018
- Third Grandson (fourth grandchild) born – Michelle & Barak have baby Gideon
- Taped “Storyteller Project” a Hanukkah Miracle
2019
- Forth Grandson (fifth grandchild) born – Tandy and Tim have baby Logan
TO BE CONTINUED………………………………..
His Name is Earl
According to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, there are approximately 50,000 homeless people in and around Los Angeles living on streets, parks and freeway underpasses. This is a story about just one. He name is Earl.
About fifteen years ago when I lived in Thousand Oaks I was working as the store manager for Radio Shack located at the corner of National and Sepulveda in Los Angeles. Driving the 101 during rush hour was a nightmare, but the moment I made the right-hand transitional turn to the 405, the drive became a virtual parking lot. In order to arrive at the store in time to unlock the doors I would exit the 405 and take the alternate more scenic route over the Sepulveda pass.
That route traveled under a freeway overpass at the corner of Wilshire and Sepulveda. From my window in the mini-van I could see above all the cars that stopped at the red light which gave me a perfect view of a man who was sleeping on the cold concrete. On many mornings he’d come over to the drivers in the stopped cars and every morning I hoped that light would be green so I wouldn’t be one of them. But he was hard to ignore.
Although his clothes were dark and torn, he always had a smile on his face as he approached the drivers and politely asked for a bit of spare cash. Most just kept their windows rolled up – stared straight ahead and ignored him, but every once in a while I’d see someone hold out a few dollars. His smile would grow to a huge grin that lit up the dark underpass with the glow of gratitude. It was infectious.
One morning I was stopped in the lane closest to him and happened to have some spare cash, so I gave him a few dollars. He smiled that broad grin and, with a sparkle in his eyes he said “thank you, have a great day”. For the first time in many, many mornings, I felt like I was going to have a really great day! After that brief exchange, I started looking for him whenever I drove passed his “home” and worried a bit when he wasn’t there, which wasn’t that often.
Winter came and the weather turned especially chilly, even for California. I knew that cold concrete was going to get even colder for him to sleep. I went into the closet and pulled out a few of my husband’s sweaters he’d never worn and a spare blanket and pillow that we’d use for guests and put them in my van.
I remember it was a Friday morning, just before the weekend when I saw him, as usual walking over to the cars stopped at the light. Once the light turned green, I drove really slowly, not caring that I was pissing off the cars behind me, in order make the red light. Once I’d stopped, I motioned him to come to the car and handed him the blanket, pillow and clothes – then I asked him his name.
“My name is Earl” he said talking the items from me. He added a “thank you” along with that illustrious grin and walked away. A car next to mine rolled down their window and the passenger who saw the exchange said “You’re a very nice lady” to which I replied “His name is Earl”
For many weeks afterwards when I was stopped at the underpass, I’d wave and shout “Hi Earl – how’s it going?” and he’d come to my car and we exchanged pleasantries for the brief seconds before the light turned green.
I never thought to ask his history, or what led him to his situation. I felt it was none of my business, it was just enough to know him in the present and share a smile. When I noticed the people in a stopped car next to mine with their windows open trying to avoid looking at him, I’d say loudly “His name is Earl”. At first, they were startled, but they always smiled back. It wasn’t long after I noticed that other stopped drivers started calling out to him by name before handing him a few dollars.
Somehow knowing this man had a name transformed him from a faceless anonymous homeless individual into a real life human being.
About a year later, I was transferred to manage the Radio Shack in Thousand Oaks. On my last day driving the route, I made sure the light was red so I could stop and Earl came over. I told him this was the last time I’d be seeing him because I wasn’t going to be working in Los Angeles anymore.
His eyes filled with a bit of sadness and a touch of worry and then, with true sincerity in his voice said: “Are you going to be all right?”
I was stunned. Here was a man with no home – sleeping under an overpass in disheveled clothing – asking strangers for a few dollars and He was worried about ME? I was overcome with a feeling of a connection to humanity I’d never felt before. Materialistically, I had everything, Earl had nothing, but in that one exchange he had given me something that no amount of money could buy.
I’ve driven the Sepulveda pass a few times in the past fifteen years but of course, Earl is no longer there. I often wonder whatever happened to him. I hope he found a permanent home someplace safe, warm and just as caring as he deserved.
I’d like to say this experience had somehow changed my response to seeing a person holding up a sign stopping traffic at the end of a freeway off ramp but I’m sad to admit, this has not been the case. There are just too many of them. These nameless, faceless unknown individuals come and go, and I just drive by.
Perhaps one day a man, or a woman in need will be holding up sign that reads “My Name is…” and that will make a difference the next time I’m stopped at a red light.
But it won’t be Earl.
Author Raven West 
Let’s All Do a “Redo” of Our 2020 Resolutions!
Raven West ♦ January 28, 2020 ♦ Leave a comment
Several blogs ago, I wrote that I was making a New Year’s resolution to write this blog every Monday. Well, for those of you following my prose, you know that that resolution never quite made it past the first week. (I could have written the above cartoon caption, it’s so true!)
So, let’s talk about New Year’s Resolutions… or let’s not!
First, the good news: 2020 was yet another year I did NOT have to make a resolution to lose weight! At 5’7 and 138 lbs, give or take a pound or two, my weight is just fine, thank you! I’ve been the same weight since losing 25 pounds in 2011 on Weight Watchers. (I REFUSE to call it WW since that’s my husband’s initials and also reminds me of World WARS.. What WERE they thinking?)
But I digress.
After being harassed by the Chantix TV turkey for months who kept insisting that
quitting smoking “cold turkey” was nearly impossible, on New Years Eve 2019, I put out what I’d planned on being my very last cigarette and drank my very last glass of wine.
I joined an on-line green smoothie 10 day challenge, bought a huge amount of “healthy” ingredients including almond milk, coconut water/milk, plenty of spinach and bananas and filled my freezer with a wide variety of frozen fruits. Using a new Nutribullet Balance I purchased on sale at Costco, I blended and drank the most disgusting looking concoction I’ve ever tossed down my throat!
Although it did taste pretty good the first three days. On day four, I decided to join the KALE craze and substituted the spinach with this weird green vegetable. BIG MISTAKE! For the next three days I was painfully reminded what giving birth was like! OY, the PAIN!
By day 17 without a cigarette or glass of wine, I was feeling… HORRIBLE! Drinking smoothies instead of a nice glass of chardonnay gave me cramps, which I’ve not had for 15 years. I was super tired and SUPER cranky (Just ask my WW).
I decided that being “unhealthy” and feeling GREAT was so much better than eating healthy and feeling like a pile of shit!
I still use my Nutribullet Balance. It makes one FANTASTIC banana or strawberry daiquiri AND I’m getting health benefits of the fruit and I’m sure there is some health value in the rum, but what the hell.
I’m down to only 3 or 4 cigarettes a day, which is as close to “quitting” as I’m ever going to get. As for the wine, 2 glasses instead of four is about right. I save the daiquiri for the weekends.
As far as my writing resolution, well, I’m writing this blog today and I also interviewed a local bookstore owner for my lifestyle column – “The Worm Has Turned at The Bookworm” .
January 1, 2020 might have been messed up for this year’s resolutions, HOWEVER, there is plenty of opportunity to do a “re-do”:
If you missed the Chinese New Year which started on January 25, mark your calendar on March 19, to celebrate Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. If you miss that one, you still have plenty of other dates to choose:
The Assyrian New Year, also known as Ha b’ Nisin and Kha b’ Nisan, is observed on Wednesday, April 1st, Songkran will be celebrated in Thailand Monday, April 13, the Hindu New Year is on April 14th, the Islamic New Year or the First of Muharram begins on August 19th the Ethiopian New Year, is September 12 and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year (and the only one I actually celebrate) is on September 18.
So, do not despair if your New Year’s resolutions did not last more than a few days after January 1. There are plenty of other dates and more than enough re-dos of a New Year to keep making and breaking those wonderful resolutions!
And, there’s always MONDAY!
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