I think I’ve always been a control freak to varying degrees of severity. Today was a wonderful rainy day that brought almost two inches of rain according to my rain gauge that I have zero control over. At the other end of the spectrum are mostly mundane things like “shall I brush my teeth?” So I find this very broad expanse of courage, coward, brave, panic, love, laughter, and almost all the words in the dictionary will fit into this gulf somewhere. 

        Remember it’s been raining on and off all day, the perfect day to sit by the fire and read my Christmas present book The Hidden Life of Trees. I have a lot of control over their well being, by not cutting a live one down and instead planting a young one. 

          It’s now about four thirty and the rain is coming down. I’ve told my wife that I was going to Parkfield to get the mail and leave some old family photos off with my granddaughter Lauren. She is going to copy them with her new printer that keeps them literally forever in a cloud, which doesn’t sound very secure as all sorts of hazards can be found in a cloud. I can hear one of my grandchildren saying “grandpa, it’s not a real cloud, it's just a place where you can store anything that’s in your cell phone.” So much for this new tech world. I need to feed my three dogs who each have a kennel of their own. First I planned on feeding Trigger. So with a bucket of dog food in hand and Trigger already in his house, I entered his kennel to get out of the rain. My back was to his kennel door as I was filling his dish, that’s when I  heard the kennel door slam shut behind me. It was because Hurly, who is always hungry, took his paw and pushed Tigger's door shut with me in the kennel. 

      The kennel door has two latches that open from the outside only. I was startled at how fast my predicament was starting to snowball. I thought it was no big deal. I'll just use my cell phone to call my wife and have her come to my rescue. I took out my cell phone and pressed her name and nothing happened but as I looked at the screen in the left hand corner there were two words “no service.” 

            I’m now down on my hands and knees and am able to open the top latch by lifting the locking device and pushing the heavy wire kennel door open at the top but not at the bottom latch. The first sign that I've got a problem that I don’t have control over appears in my brain. Next with a fair amount of pain to my index finger I try to reach the latch which is just out of my reach. Now the urge to panic as I would in an elevator that was stuck between floors, I began to feel a little hint of panic and some shame. But this time I suppressed the feeling and was able to think. My dad had told me several times in my young life that being brave as he saw it was a matter of thinking how to get out of a mess rather than trying to run which for him was very scary bad option. Because with no thinking involved he probably wouldn’t survive but with thinking he had survived many perilous times in his life, by thinking rather than running. My dad has been gone now for 61 years but his ability to think his way out of a bad spot came to me and all of a sudden a warm feeling of well being came over me. I had in my right front pocket my Leatherman pocket knife that is also a mini toolbox. I still had to think how Hurly, who” kept jumping on the kennel door and ruining my first efforts, could I tell Hurly to “get in your kennel and stay” It worked! Next was opening the Leatherman wide open and then folding out the file that was abrasive enough to pull the safety latch toward me. It took five or six tries when finally the bottom latch popped open. Then I could stand and hold the door open with my foot. It was only a moment more and I undid the top latch. What a satisfying feeling to know that I could think myself out of a bad spot. I don’t know how long thinking would hold out if Trigger was a rattlesnake or two or three and they wanted out of triggers house and I was in their way. Right now, I’m sitting on top of the world “thinking.” 

                   See Ya,

                     Jack