I spend most of my time looking for things I have lost, sometimes lost long ago, sometimes lost a few seconds ago. Most of these things are tangible though some of these things are corporeal.

An example of a corporeal loss is my general loss of fitness over the past decade. Almost exactly one year ago I ran a turkey trot in Millersville. It was not fun to discover that my best effort was a nine-minute mile average.

At the same time I found that losing twenty-pounds since the start of that year kept my knees from being destroyed in that race. That’s a loss I plan not to recover. 

Now a year later I am running without knee pain and for over an hour at a time. I do hill repeats once every two weeks. I am swimming and biking. I am almost hopeful that I can find a bit of youth in my fifty-seven year old self.

I have also lost much of the hair on my head, though rather than fuss with what is left, I just shave it all off every two weeks. This allows me to feel like I have also lost the vanity of my youth, the pride I used to have with my long, curly hair. 

This is possibly true of my hair, but I have become incredibly brand conscious of the clothing I wear. Almost a snob. This was not true when I was younger, so I’ve found something that perhaps would be better forgotten. 

Collecting things I have not lost prepares me to lose even more things in the future, a beautiful bountiful life indeed. 

Just yesterday I stopped at a thrift store and picked up a Santa Claus riding a bike and a ceramic turkey with bead-chains for legs that dangle over the edge of a counter. Wendy loved the Santa. It seems that I have already lost the turkey, the trash being taken away this morning. 

Sometimes I find things during my hunt for other things. This happened two days ago when I found a bound copy of my first blogging adventure back in 1997 during the period right before and after my son Jack Henry was born. 

It wasn’t called a blog then–I didn’t know anything about blogging. It was not posted online but instead sent out as a weekly-ish email to a group of about twenty.  I would write short entries as I could find time through the week and then hit the send button. 

These posts are not to be found anywhere else that I can possibly think of. A look at the email addresses includes lots of hotmail and aol.com, two hosts just about everyone has left. This is also twenty-six years ago. I’ve looked through some old hard drives but I can find nothing. 

Such is the fate for all digital memories, perhaps, unless we are diligent about backing things up somehow. For me it’s the fault of my personal memory–I simply didn’t see that changing an email address would cause this loss.

But it did. Except for the efforts of my lifelong friend Paul. He collected the posts and bound them for me as a gift. A precious gift indeed.

Paul was one of the first friends I found after moving to North Manchester, Indiana in the fall of 1980. Our friendship has changed my life in so many significant ways. He is the reason I went to Camp Billings, where I met so many other friends and in 1992 met my now wife Wendy. 

Paul brought me into running and swimming. Because he became a teacher I became a teacher, living with him in Seattle just after I finished my bike ride across the United States, just before I met Wendy, seeing what life as a teacher could be firsthand. 

And while reading these blog entries, which I called “Mr. G’s Journal” back then, I can see the style of writing I use today being defined, how these are more like a blog then what I have posted here on my website. These entries are crafted, often taking hours to write and rewrite with thought given to the poetry of the words and their phrasing, time given to connected themes and drawing them to a conclusion.

Mr. G’s Journal is instead more of a thoughtful response to the current events of my life. There are lots of asides, a few lengthy sentences, but it is clear, at least to me, that I wrote quickly and ended posts as my time to write ended. I wrote a few entries while at school during a planning period, in all of five minutes I’m sure.

That was my third year of teaching. At the time I taught sixth grade science, far from the AP Physics and American Lit courses of my student teaching and first two years at Brecksville-Broadview Heights. Far from this retired life spent mostly finding things I have lost and unless I’m careful, losing them mere minutes later. 

I am going to mix-up my writing here moving forward, sometimes pushing into the imagery, craft, and verse of my recent blog entries, other times writing quickly and in the end posting more often. I am devoted to this writing life.

The first entry of that journal/blog is short. Here it is, along with the caveat I wrote at the time. I hope you find it interesting.

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Note-the following is a page from my daily journal. I’ve sent it to a bunch of people, so it really isn’t that personal. I’ve cut out all the places where I make fun of the people I know. Do I really do that? Hope you find it interesting. Jay)

Monday, February 3, 1997

This was a short weekend, as they all seem to be lately. In fact, the weeks fly by. Wendy is into her 20th week already. Inside her belly, somewhere, is a little person. It is a mystery, wondering how this little baby is going to change my life. I constantly watch for other babies, to see how they are acting, to see how cute they are, how well behaved they are. I am sure that I will have plenty of expectations before the baby is born. I hope that they don’t negatively affect his or her life.

That’s another thing-will this baby be a boy or a girl, and do I care? I have felt for a while that it would be a girl. I never felt that it was hoping, just a feeling. Others seem to know as well-Wendy’s dad is sure it is a boy, as is Bob, my step-father in law.

Today in class we have been creating recipes for disaster. The idea is to take a storm and write it up as a recipe, with ingredients, etc. Most kids did well with it, peppering their recipes with flying cows and chicken coops.

Others seemed completely confused with the concept. Perhaps I am teaching the wrong sides of their brains.

Track season is about to begin. I have my first meeting with the head coach tomorrow. It looks like I will be coaching long distance again, as I have for the past two years. I have been told that the runners are great to work with, and I saw some of this while timing cross-country meets in the fall. I feel in good shape myself, which I hope somehow transfers to them and makes them faster.

Now it is lunch time. I’ll head down to the cafeteria where I’ll eat my yogurt, pretzels, jello, and a blueberry bar. Yum. We eat at round tables, all of the sixth grade teachers together, very separate from the students. I wouldn’t mind eating with them, though. It would be more like camp, wouldn’t it？

Later–Mr. G