Some Moments during the travel journals from a few out of the way places.
By Daniel Smilkstein
Click the link below to see and read more about hiking and trekking adventures in Greece, the Himalayas, and Peru by a doctor and his wife from Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
A Just Say No Moment
By Floyd Martin
I was in the 8th grade and living in Lake Wilson, Minnesota. We had a lake across the street from the school. The railroad track went along the lake. They put in a large culvert so the deer could get to the lake and not get hit by the train. One day during the noon hour, I went with two friends to this culvert. One of the boy’s parents smoked so he would take a package now and then. They offered me one but my folks were so against it, I decided at that Moment that I didn’t want one.
When I got cancer much later in my life, the doctor said that if I had smoked, they wouldn’t even try to help because I had such a slim chance to make it. I was able to beat the cancer.
I lost my brother when he was 59 years old. He had the same class when he was in the 4th grade and made the choice to smoke. The doctor said the smoking is what killed him.
If your parents smoke, let them know how much you love them and you are against smoking.
Look at the picture of two nerves, A and B.
Nerve A is in the body of a smoker and you can see the nicotine that has taken the place of part of the nerve cell. The nicotine will wear off and the smoker will have to have another cigarette to get more nicotine for the nerve.
A cigarette for the beginner is a symbolic act. I am no longer my mother's child, I'm tough, I am an adventurer, I'm not square … As the force from the psychological symbolism subsides, the pharmacological effect takes over to sustain the habit. (Philip Morris, 1969)
Younger adult smokers are the only source of replacement smokers... If younger adults turn away from smoking, the industry must decline, just as a population which does not give birth will eventually dwindle.
(RJ Reynolds, 1984)
About Five Moments
By Joe Hammons
I was at the door of the abode which housed my mother and myself for the princely sum of $100 a month. I was not happy at age 28 even though I had been honorably discharged from military service with an Army Commendation Medal and was the holder of a BA in Economics. I had no job prospects.
As I closed the door, I thought of the time not too long ago that I had picked up a throw away newspaper, for no reason, and found an article telling about a teacher training program starting in East Los Angeles, administrated by LA City Schools and UCLA. I applied for the program and later went to an interview. I didn’t speak Spanish and I had not taken any education classes in college. I waited several days for the phone call. It didn’t come.
So now I was walking to my car with the intention of visiting my old college to see if I could get into their education program. I would have to take lots of classes and I was low on money. I was at the depth of pessimism.
As I opened the door of my car about five Moments after I left the house, I could barely hear the phone ring. I went back into the house. Someone had dropped out of the program. Are you still interested?
I entered the Urban Teacher Corps in East Los Angeles which combined UCLA coursework and student teaching for one year leading to a teaching credential with $75 a week.
A couple of weeks later, a new member was introduced to us. She was looking for a roommate. I wanted to stand up but didn’t. Her brother had been killed in a hiking accident and she was allowed to transfer from a Teacher Corps program in Florida to our Urban Teacher Corps program to be closer to her family.
In a year I was gainfully employed as a teacher and later happily married to the young lady who had needed a roommate. We spent a two year honeymoon in West Africa as Peace Corps Volunteers.
The Chair
Look very carefully at the picture above of Barbara's dream chair which is completely surrounded by burned grass. At an earlier time, she would sit in this chair and dream about how their house would look in the countryside. Finally she and Jim moved in with their Great Danes, who had a place to play in the fenced back yard. One day when Barbara and Jim were gone, a forest fire with a forty mile per hour wind consumed 17 houses. A scout from the fire department came to their property. He could only stay for a few moments. He noticed that their back door was open. He closed it and left. The fire came right up to the edge of their house. If the dogs had gone out the open door, they probably would have kept going because the fire had burned up the back fence. In just a few moments it could have been no more house and no more dogs. Some would believe that there was someone or something sitting in the chair directing this scene from the movie of life.
Moments In A Blizzard
By Floyd Martin
I have been going to rest homes and schools for many years in California , Minnesota , and Texas trying to pass on things that helped me in life, that may add value to the lives of others. The more we know about this wonderful world we live in, the more we will understand the value in life.
Our school in Minnesota had two doors, one for girls only and one for boys only. We had two out-houses, one for girls and one for boys. It did not say boys and girls. There was a moon shape cut out on the girls’ door and a star shape cut out on the boys’ door. I have treasured memories of seeing rabbits, pheasant, deer and lots of game as we drove to school.
Our teacher was 20 years old and it was her first teaching job. She rode a pony to school. She taught all 8 grades, 32 students in that one room. She got big pay $60.00 a month because she did all janitor work with the help of the children. We all got Christmas cards from her each year until she was 97 years old. As we entered the school, each of us had to be inspected for frost bite. To thaw out frost bite, you put snow on it.
One story I told them was how we went to school in a bobsled three miles in very cold weather. I still have the bearskin gloves my brother, who was 12 years old, wore to keep his hands warm while driving the horses. We used to heat the flat irons Mother ironed clothes with and wrapped them in towels to keep our feet warm.
We used to get blizzards so bad we called them white outs. The only way you could go from the house to the barn was to tie a rope from the house to the barn and hang onto it so you wouldn’t get lost. One day at noon, the teacher dismissed school as a storm was coming in. By the time the horses were hitched to the sled, you couldn’t see the driveway into the school. My father told all us children what to do if this happened. Our horses had sleigh bells on them. Dad said to let the horses take you home, that they had a built in knowledge to stay on the road, and bring you home no matter how bad it gets. My dad was standing on the front porch listening for the sleigh bells. When he heard the bells, he rushed into the house to tell Mother that we had made it home.
My Destiny Moment
By: Sylvia Korver
I was a sophomore at the University of the Pacific, in Stockton , when I had a moment that changed my life forever. To most, it may sound like a “silly love story”, but to me it was much more than that. When registering for my Spring courses, I had to choose between two different English Literature courses. The class that I really wanted to take, English 25, was full. I had to be put onto a waiting list for it and enroll into the other one as well. When classes began, I shuffled between the two English courses, waiting and hoping for a spot to open up in English 25. I spoke with the English 25 professor about my situation, and he urged me to go with the other class. Why did I want to waste my time juggling all of my classes? The other class was just as good, if not better, he assured me. I told him that I would wait a week and see what happened. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to take his class so badly. I just had a feeling about it.
After three class meetings, one of my fellow classmates dropped out of English 25. She and her husband had decided to start a family, and she wanted to take some time off from school. The very next day I dropped the other English course and began English 25 as a regular, member of the class. I ended up making some of the closest friends I’ve ever had in that class, including a man named, Keith Korver, whom I have been married to now for almost 4 years.
When I think back on the moment when I could have given up on English 25, I think about everything I would have given up along with it. I could have thrown away the chance to meet the man who ended up being my best friend. Keith was there when I broke up with two of my boyfriends, taking me to college functions, and making sure that I was smiling and laughing. He was also there when my parents got divorced after 25 years of marriage. When I went back to school to get my teaching credential, it was Keith who worked two jobs, so that I could concentrate on student teaching.
It was a moment that I could have gone another way. I could have taken the easier route, but instead I chose to stick with my gut feeling. It was a moment that has given me many happier moments and it will give me many more to come.
A Miracle On A Mountain
By Dave Mende
It was a cold, sunny day in the mountains east of Los Angeles. It was also New Year’s Day. Four of my 11th grade friends and I decided to take the ski tram to the top. We hiked toward the peak of the mountain admiring the glorious view. The snow was turning to ice and the terrain was becoming somewhat slippery. After some discussion Don and I decided to continue toward our goal while the rest of the boys hiked back to the tram.
It was a steep slope with no visibly marked trail. After about hour of hiking we finally reached our goal. We were exhausted so we lay on ourbacks, admiring the panorama at the same time regaining our strength. We knew that we would have to start back because darkness would be here soon and the tram would then close. It was at least a three hour hike back to the base.
I stood and at that very Moment I slipped on the icy slope and tumbled down the side of the slippery mountain, spinning, rolling, and bouncing off of trees. I could see the edge of the ledge approaching rapidly. How would I stop? It was at least a 1000 foot drop as I found out later. For no apparent reason I stopped 50 feet from the edge. A miracle I thought to myself. I knew it was a miracle.
I looked up to get my bearing and saw Don tumbling head over heals down the mountain. Suddenly he stopped head down at the base of a Jeffery pine tree, unconscious. Instantly I literally ran up the icy slope to the tree where Don lay. By the time I arrived, Don was beginning to move. We checked for broken bones and assessed the extent of our injuries. No broken bones. Don had a large bump on his forehead and my Navy P-coat was in shreds. My back was raw and bloody, as the outer layer had been rubbed off. Our hearts were beating out of our shirts but we were able to realize that we must get to the tram before it closed.
As we hiked down toward the tram we talked nonstop. We were praying, making promises to God, and asking him to help us reach the tram. After what seemed like a lifetime we reached the tram, which was still running. We hopped on and descended to the bottom. When we reached the base the operator told us that someone called and told them to keep the tram open an extra hour.
We drove ourselves to our friend’s house and his mother dressed my wounds. She took Don to the doctor to check his head. Don had a concussion but made a full recovery and I had a badly skinned back. We were blessed.
The promise I made to God up on that mountain east of Los Angeles was that I would serve Him by teaching young children. It took a few years before I kept my promise.
If it weren’t for this miracle I would not have met my wife. I would not have three sons and five grand children. I would not have spent almost 40 years working with young people.
A Merchant of Death
Two adult sons were visiting their father in his hospital room. Carrying on a conversation with him was extremely difficult because he was gasping for his breath. Doctors call it emphysema. Lying there was one of the richest men in the world, helpless now, who had slowly been brought to this state of health by using his own product. He died.
His sons went back to their lives. One son continued to smoke and later died. The other son had stopped smoking. He was asked about his own children. He said that he wouldn't allow his children to smoke. I have a question for this merchant of death. How can you sleep at night knowing that your product kills over 400,000 people yearly in the United States alone?
A Typo Mement
By Joe Hammons
I was with a large group of Army soldiers at Fort Sam Houston , Texas , who had just completed eight weeks of training to be medics. Fort Rucker in southern Alabama , had requested nine of the just graduated medics. Army helicopter pilots were trained at Fort Rucker.
What happened in one Moment had consequences for many people. The clerk at the fort in Alabama entered the number 90 instead of nine on the request for medics. No questions were asked at our fort. In fact, those in command rounded the number to 100 and chartered a plane for us to fly directly to the base in Alabama . We landed at the airport located at Fort Rucker . As more and more of the expected nine medics kept coming off the plane, we could see that our greeters were getting angrier and angrier. They contacted our former Army base and were told they would not take us back. We were quartered in barracks that normally housed incorrigible soldiers and weren’t treated well.
A day later, I was with a very small group who were told to march over to a sergeant. He said that our test scores were high and if any of us wanted to be a clerk, just walk over to him. I had known during my medic training that I wouldn’t be able to be a good medic. I couldn’t remember things to do in the correct order to help an injured person. I also knew that a platoon of soldiers could easily replace me by tossing a hand grenade into my tent. It is called fragging.
I jumped over to the sergeant. I was assigned to the Information Office. I had no control over where the Army sent me for training or where I would work. At the height of the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1968, I was at an Army base in Alabama where I wrote articles about happenings at the fort, was sports editor of the post newspaper, was a photographer, and even did radio work for one week, instead of getting a hand grenade during one of my sleepless nights in Vietnam.
An Emergency Moment
By George Wilson
While working at Houston School as a vice principal in the late 90's, I was called down to the 3rd grade classroom via my walkie talkie for a medical emergency! I ran down to the room to find a third grade girl sitting in a chair by the sink, with her face covered in blood soaked Kleenex tissues. The teacher tells me that the student had a bloody nose on the playground and it would not stop bleeding. I take out a wad of Kleenex from my pocket and asked the student to replace the tissue she has on her nose with the clean ones I have in my hand. In the split second this exchange takes place, her nose does the "Old Faithful" routine just inside the comfort zone of Dr. Wilson! With a small emergency alarm going off in my head, I quickly radio down to the main office for the principal, Phyllis Almendarez, to contact the school nurse. A short time later, Phyllis radios me back and says that she has received some instructions from the nurse and will be coming down to the classroom ASAP! Within a minute she is in the classroom with a smile on her face and a note in her hand.The note reads as follows: Pinch above the nose, lean the student forward, place an ice pack on the back of the neck, place a TAMPON in on side of the nose that is bleeding (cut to fit), and contact parent. About the time I get to the part of the note that reads "cut to fit," Phyllis and I are bent over laughing both thinking about how to shove a tampon up a third grader's nose. Luckily, Phyllis had not had the time to stop in the girl's bathroom and so we were left to just use the tissue. Later I was thinking, "Oh great, what if Phyllis HAD stopped in the bathroom, I would have had to shove a tampon up a third grader's nose!" I think I would have had a better chance of getting a ripe watermelon through an eye of a needle.
Thankfully, the injury report reads: Bleeding stopped, student sent home with parent, returned to school the next day in good condition. The report on Dr. Wilson and Dr. Almendarez is still pending!
A Moment Later
By Dave Mende
Joe and I would not have been able to see our children graduate from high school and college. I would have never known my three daughters-in-law and my five great grand children. Over 300 children would not have had the opportunity to have Joe as their teacher.
A Cold Moment
By Jonda Hammons
My moment was trying to figure out, should I go and do gymnastics at Minnesota or Utah State? Did I even want to compete anymore? I knew Jim and Meg so I went for Minnesota. My family said, "Have fun out east." And I thought, where is Minnesota?
Four years turned into eleven - I met my best friends in Minnesota. Equally important, I met my life partner. Who ever thought I'd marry a man from Wisconsin?
A Seafood Moment
By George Wilson
We did have a great time during our eight day visit to Mexico and one adventure was particularly funny to the Wilson newly weds. We decided one late afternoon to visit a seafood restaurant called Sandy's that was favored by the locals as THE place to enjoy jumbo shrimp and assorted other seafood delights. We did our best presentation of "snappy dress" and headed towards our destination via the city bus with the locals. After about twenty bus stops and a hundred stares from the locals trying to figure out why the happy looking gringos were on the bus, we arrived at the front door of Sandy's ready to chow down! Although the place resembled a fugitive grass hut from a hurricane, we happily found a comfortable table with two well worn plastic chairs and a table in the back. For about ten minutes we watched as a parade of people went to and from the kitchen while others stood around watching a local Mexican soap opera on a beat-up t.v. in the corner. Finally, a man came over and asked what we wanted. Both of us started naming off the various seafood items on the menu thinking he was taking our order when actually all he wanted to know was what we were doing in the place since it was CLOSED for the evening! It seems the locals were enjoying some type of holiday and that all the local businesses were closed at 6 p.m. Like the many dogs in the neighborhood, we walked back to the bus stop along a dusty road with our tails between our legs and our heads drooped to wait for a ride back to our condo on the local bus line. After a short wait, the newly wed gringos got back on the bus and headed back to the Baja Cabo resort for a quiet dinner, a beautiful sunset, and a smile about our seafood outing adventure. :-)
A Bizarre Moment
By Joe Hammons
The beautiful hills of Palos Verdes Peninsulaare bordered on the west and south by the PacificOcean, and on the north and east by greater Los Angeles and the Los Angeles andLong Beach Harbors. Rolling Hills Estates features a ranchstyle/equestrian environment with a beautiful view of Catalina Island 26 milesaway.
Delivering mail everyday in this visually stunning environmet can still be boring. The letter carrier delivers all of the mail from his/her truck to hundreds of mailboxes situated on the street near the driveway to one of the horse ranches or residences. Driving up to the mailbox, the carrier, sitting on the right side of the vehicle, stops in front of the mailbox, pulls open the mailbox door while looking at the mail in his/her hand, places the mail in the mailbox, then closes the door and drives to the next mailbox. Day after day, month after month, year after year, the carrier does the same routine of placing the mail in the mailboxes.
At one time on one day, a letter carrier broke the routine for no known reason, during a bizarre Moment. He drove up to the mailbox and opened the door as usual. This time he looked into the mailbox before he looked at the mail in his hand. He could see a note which said, "DearMailman, This rattlesnake is for my husband."
Shaking, the letter carrier quickly slammed the door of the mailbox and drove to the next mailbox.
I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Share Your Moment
I hope that you will think about a Moment when something happened that had interesting consequences in your life. Click on the E-mail link below, write your story, send it, and if I feel it measures up, I will add it to this Weblog.
Click here to begin your E-mail to me.
As told by Sue Hummel
Looking at the picture above, it's hard to believe how the impossible could be possible. The Hummel family was leaving town before 6:00 A.M. in their van to participate in the Bay to Breakers run in San Francisco in 1985. In the van were Monte, Sue, Matt, a seventh grader, and Kipp, a fifth grader. They were going about 60 miles per hour west on Highway 12 and another car going about 70 miles per hour north on Davis Road hit them right in the middle of the van. The car went 36 inches into the van right where the two boys were sitting. Matt was reaching down looking for the strap so he could put on his seat belt. Both boys would have been severed if they had had their seat belts attachedMatt, who was sitting right behind the driver's seat, went out the right side ofthe car where the sliding door had been and landed with the seat on top of his legs. His legs were broken in several places. With strength that Sue normally didn't have, she lifted the bench off of Matt and pulled him away from a vehicle she thought might catch on fire. The night before the impact a farmer had plowed the field. Kipp had been sitting behind Sue and went out the hole the car had made. His head had gotten caught on the jagged metal which ripped the top part of his scalp. He landed 30 feet from the van in the just plowed earth and the dirt landed on top of him. Monte, severley injured, with all the ribs on his left side broken, his spleen in many parts, and collapsed lungs, was frantically trying to find Kipp who had disappeared. At this time Sue felt the presence of God calming her. She finally found a pool of blood in the field and under it was Kipp. Luckily his injuries were not as severe as they could have been. In what seemed as a blink of time two ambulances showed up. They put Sue and her two sons in one ambulance and Monte and the driver of the car in the other. Monte did not want her in that vehicle because he was so upset and angry. She had been drinking all night long at the frog jumping contest, just had a fight with her boyfriend, and had an open container of whiskey in her car. With no seat belt attached, she had flipped to the back seat, ending up with a broken cheekbone. The four Highway Patrol officers on the scene of the collision could not believe that the Hummel family didn't die. They said that they were a miracle family and that there is a reason why they were still alive.After the accident, Monte wanted to find out what that the reason was. He spent more time in church and changed from writng songs about birthday parties to writing Christian music. Matt and his wife are teaching and they have two children. Kipp works for a company that does printing or stitching on uniforms. He is married with one child. Sue feels her faith has gotten stronger after surviving the accident. She has felt the presence of God during the birth of her children and at the accident. If either car or van had been traveling just a Moment faster or slower, there would have been no collision.
Recently Sue was asked by one of her parents how she ended up at Vinewood to teach kindergarten. She remembered a Mr. Fore coming to the hospital after the accident and asking Monte if he could help in any way. Monte, lying there with tubes going in and out of his body, asked if Mr. Fore could get his wife a job in town because he didn't want her driving in the fog out to her school. Mr. Fore told him that it's a done deal, but she would have to interview. Sue showed up at the interview the next day with Monte and her two sons still in the hospital. Wearing dark glasses covering her swolen eye, she said that her dress matched the colors on her face. Sue got the job!
Monte has become part of a singing group called Tapestry which specializes in three part vocal harmonies and live performance. He has made it possible to download, completely free, one of the songs he has written and performed called "Save Me Some Time." If you left click on the link below, you will hear his song right away on your computer. If you right click, then choose Save link target as, you will be able to download the mp3 file to a folder you can choose.
Less Than A Moment
By Joe Hammons
Walking through Gerihun, you can see mud houses with thatched or tin roofs, no electricity, no running water into huts, banana, orange, mango, coconut, and grapefruit trees, pineapple plants, and rice. The village has about 300 inhabitants, one church, a school for boys on one side of town and a school for girls on the other side. We were Peace Corps volunteers in a village that was always friendly toward us.
My wife and I were returning to Gerihun from a walking visit to a new school three miles away where we had worked with two teachers. We decided to take a shortcut through tall grass along a narrow dirt path about two feet wide. I was walking ahead at a leisurely pace.
During the time when my right leg went up and I completed just one step, less than a Moment, I saw a green flash move perpendicular from its beginning to its end right in front of my shoe before my right foot hit the ground. It was a green mamba . It is known that mambas have attacked humans without any provocation. I had miraculously not stepped on one. It would have killed us both! No matter how many years have gone by, when I recall almost stepping on a family member of the most dangerous snakes in the world, I break out in a cold sweat. My two children would not exist and I wouldn’t have been able to teach at a wonderful elementary school for over 29 years.
A Freak Accident
By Beth Smilkstein
Manningham Trust Poetry Awards 2005
Division One Grades 6-8
First Place in the United States
And you know he didn’t mean it
And you know he didn’t mean it
It happened so fast
And you still can’t believe it
The car screeched
The metal tore
And you still can’t believe it
And you still can’t believe it
She’s not coming back
That road still smells of liquor
And you know he didn’t mean it
She’s not coming back
And that woman just keeps screaming
And that woman just keeps screaming
The glass lies out, silver on black
Silver like the tears
And she lived just next-door
Her hair sailed
And she lived just next-door
And she lived just next-door
She’s not coming back
The stop sign wasn’t red enough
And that woman just keeps screaming
She’s not coming back
And you know he didn’t mean it
And she lived just next-door
The car carries her from one death to another
There are no stop signs on her new road
And you still can’t believe it
And you still can’t believe it
She’s not coming back
You cry, the tears never reach the ground
Down she goes
And that woman keeps screaming
She’s not coming back