Breaking the Ice

Hi All!

Week two of house arrest. I can't tell you how much I savor the two periods per week that I can stray too far from the squawk box attached to the kitchen phone; Thursday from 8:30-2:00 for my LIOP (Low iintensity Outpatient Program at a place near KSTP on University called Avalon) and Sunday from 7:30-1:30 for Mass and AA.

I have 60-90 minutes of slop time to get to and fro the appointed rounds. I really have come to enjoy and appreciate Metro Transit. Even more, I relish the walk between bus stops and destination -- I often get off a stop or two early or late to get some extra exercise.

A forgotten joy I have rediscovered lately on these walks is the strangely rewarding feeling of breaking off the shelves of ice that form along the streets and sidewalks. When I was a kid, I would look for the biggest, toughest one and jump repeatedly in the effort to break it off. At 290 lbs, this is no longer as much a problem.

I've also found that there is endless virgin ice to crack. When I was a kid, it was hard to find them, since every other kid that had passed by had taken a stomp.

The confinement has also turned me into a cleaning freak. Tore into 15 years of business records from the company, Access Data, Inc. that I started in 1979 and let fade away as my specialty, Wang small business computers, faded in the face of the PC revolution. My last billing came in '94, the year I started my ill-fated foray into politics.

I filled over a dozen boxes with check stubs, invoices, bank statements, correspondence, contracts, sales literature, ad museum. I amazed myself with just how much paper I had produced and filed. It was, and continues to be, a very cleansing experience in line with my determination to let go of the past. Somewhat contradicts my learning that the past is but a thought which doesn't exist. It exists alright, in long forgotten filing cabinets.

Cheers!