To paraphrase Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Work Week among other works, “…don’t listen to the news; …listen to all the music you want.”  Wise words to be sure and I must admit that my life has been more stress-free since I took his advice to heart.  For quite some time now I have consciously avoided the news.  From my viewpoint based on the ancient philosophy of stoicism, there are a set of things in this universe over which I have no control and I don’t want to spend precious time in my life worrying about them.

I almost always avoid political discussions; I have my own personal views and opposing views are simply wrong.  It’s not my mission in life to correct them.  But, the wisdom of Tim’s advice was driven home yet again as I was (forcibly) catching the evening news while eating my dinner at a restaurant last evening.  The restaurant had a TV blaring the latest horrific tragedy right on the wall by my table–I couldn’t avoid it.  The news was saturated with coverage of that day’s shooting where 14 people were gunned down at an office party hosted by the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health in California.  You could clearly see bullet-riddled cars and dead bodies on gurneys.  The news was the shootings; the dead bodies were simply for effect.  I believed them when they said 14 people died.  Did I really need to see the corpses while eating?  There was nothing I could do about the shootings.  I could not bring those people back to life nor could I punish the perpetrators.  I could have just left the restaurant.

Of course, the gun control advocates were already calling for stricter gun control legislation claiming that if only we banned guns these things wouldn’t happen.  Banning handguns is about as realistic as deporting 12 million illegal immigrants.  Yet the very same logic they apply against deportation (i.e., there are too many to make deportation practical) mysteriously does not apply to banning literally millions of guns already in circulation.

I really am not sure who is the bigger, more shameful opportunist:  the gun control lobby who is using the tragic deaths of 14 people to promote there own ridiculous agenda again (gun control works really well in Chicago, right?) or the idiots in the news media who are doing the very same and feeding off the sympathy of the American people.  You will be seeing the same video on TV for the next two weeks and ultimately will know how many nose hairs each suspect has.  The exploitation by both groups sickens me.  On average, there are 44 murders per day across the United States (not all by gun by the way).  What of the other 30 people who lost their lives that day?  Since they were likely not spectacular, the news media doesn’t seem to care.

The news is simply a string of tragedies purposefully selected and presented to tug at the heart strings of the American people.  It has become less about fostering a well-informed electorate and more about promoting political viewpoints and commercial agendas on both sides of the aisle.  There is no real civil discourse in this country anymore as most people gravitate toward the news outlet that is most consistent with their own views (e.g., Fox for conservatives, ABC, CBS, NBC and NPR for liberals).  They are simply looking for confirmation that their view is correct and the other side is wrong creating an even more narrow minded view of events and issues.  We aren’t well informed.  A broadcast that presents both sides of any issue and allows us to draw our own conclusions simply does not exist today.  Perhaps it never existed.

One might wistfully wish for another Edward R. Murrow or Walter Cronkite but both had their own political agendas and used the public airwaves to drive it.  Murrow railed against communism and socialism; Cronkite used his chair to sway public opinion to end the Vietnam War and remove Richard Nixon from the presidency (be honest, aren’t today’s politicians at least as bad as Richard Nixon or worse and yet all keep getting re-elected?).  The “Most Trusted Man in America” had his own agenda, selected news items that promoted his views, and admitted to doing so after retiring.  Consistent with Tim’s advice and my own belief that there are things over which I have no control, I am renewing my resolve to not watch any television news.

Where have truth, justice and the American way gone?  If only Superman was here to tell us…

“Simplify, simplify.”
…Ralph Waldo Emerson

Part of the driving force in our decision to sell our house, thin the clutter, and become “vagabonds” (click here for earlier post) was to provide the time and freedom to change our lifestyle, downsize significantly and simplify our lives. We wanted to spend our time, energy, and resources on international travel and living, experience new cultures and languages, continue life-long learning in myriad ways, and enjoy the fruits of 40 years of working and saving.  For us, the decision has resulted in a cascade of benefits that were both foreseen and yet some pleasantly unexpected.  The decision has brought a freedom we could hardly have imagined.  For those of you considering the vagabond life or just dreaming about “maybe some day,” following are a few tips.  Step outside the box and think about life in a less traditional way.  Life is good.  But, the sheer amount of crap one accumulates over a lifetime is daunting.  Getting control of that part of our transition was a serious challenge.

Following are some tips I hope are helpful.  Born of experience, these seem to me to be crucial in terms of not only accomplishing the task at hand but, in all honesty, testing whether you have the mettle to pull the plug and seriously downsize.

The shear volume of crap is astonishing…

This move has caused us to do some serious soul-searching regarding material possessions.  Spending summers on our boat provides limited storage space.  Traveling throughout the rest of the year provides no storage space.  See the problem?

Sit up on the mountain with a six-pack and think deep thoughts about where you will store your things while you a gallivanting all over the world.  This is no snap decision.  You will need some space that is preferably climate controlled so your things do not become mildewed, damaged by drips, leaks, etc. and that can be organized as if you suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).  Everything should have a place and everything should be in its place.  When it comes time to move back ashore and be a dirt-dweller again, I have no doubt this will make life easier.

We used banker boxes for storage.  They are inexpensive and, importantly, stackable.  You’ll need bubble-wrap for delicate items, packing paper to wrap everything as if you were a professional mover, labels to permanently stick on the boxes (not the lids) that list every single thing in each box, permanent markers, and tape.  A time-consuming process to be sure but I have little doubt we will appreciate it more when we eventually move back to more permanent digs–hopefully, years from now.

Storage, in our case, is in the form of a modular storage system I built in my wood shop (while I still had one !) comprised of custom shelves sized to hold exactly three banker boxes across.  Each shelf unit is stackable so I can adjust the height of the shelving to fit whatever space I want to put them in.  A big benefit is that each shelf unit is lightweight and easy to move when empty.  Another big benefit is the shelving sits in Mark’s and Eileen’s basement in a relatively small footprint.

De-clutter and Be Ruthless

Perhaps the most difficult task, both physically and emotionally, was to thin out our accumulated belongings.  Hard to believe but we have reduced 43 years of married clutter into 54 banker boxes and kept but five pieces of furniture that are family heirlooms with which we couldn’t part.

In deciding to sell our house, downsize, simplify and in the process create more freedom, we went through every single piece of “stuff” in our house–knickknacks, chatzkees, housewares, furniture, books, keepsakes, etc..  As a researcher, I was always reluctant to get rid of data–you can’t recreate it once its gone.  But at the beginning of my career, data was all on paper and had to be keypunched.  Today it’s all digitized.  I had banker boxes filled with reams of data (paper surveys, questionnaires, literature review drafts, etc.) in addition to tape recordings of interviews–both reel-to-reel and cassettes along with the hardware/equipment to transcribe them.  In short, when it came to research files, I was a pack-rat extraordinaire–I never got rid of a shred of data I thought my be useful again someday.  In a class by myself no doubt.

Additionally, I had crates containing multiple copies of every paper I ever wrote, presented and/or published (see Vita).  Between my data files and the things I wrote, the sheer volume depleted a significant portion of the world’s rain forest.  It’s amazing that the rafters in my garage didn’t collapse.
To make matters worse, in 2011, we sold our first house in Elizabethtown and moved about 3 miles down the road to a new one.  We had professional movers pack everything (and I do mean everything) with the boxes clearly marked as to what room they came from.  Often the movers would also write general descriptive terms on the boxes (e.g., books, dishes).  We did not go through a thing to decide if we wanted to get rid of it before the move; rather, we merely packed everything and figured we’d have the time at the new house to sort through things.  The moving company moved everything into the new place according to the room labeled on the box and it was fairly easy to unpack and restore order to our lives.  However, anything marked “attic,”  “basement,” or “garage” went into the new basement with the good intention of sorting through the stuff “later.”

Well, as you might imagine, being a legendary procrastinator of all things I don’t want to do, “later” never came.  (As an aside, I once owned the domain name ArtofProcrastination.com but never got around to doing anything with it…!!!  True story).  When the current house sold and the buyers wanted to be in as soon as possible, we agreed to a closing date just 30 days from the sale date.  The clock was now ticking.  The boxes in our basement that sat quietly taped shut for three years suddenly became a problem of epic proportions.  But given our plans to travel and wander the world, it was time to pay the piper and go through those boxes.  A herculean task to be sure, but we rolled up our sleeves and began the assault on Mount Melnick Crap.  If there is a hell, it is located somewhere in the universe where you need to box things up so you can move and unpack them everyday.  With the help of very good friends (only your dearest friends will help you move!), the last truck load left the house just two days before closing.  It was a photo finish.

The good news is that Heide was not into clutter.  The living spaces in our house were well organized and minimalist in philosophy.  If something didn’t serve a purpose, it did not live at our house.  It was really the unopened boxes of yesteryear that provided the greatest challenge.  We started the process by each identifying those things that we simply could not bear to part with.  There were pieces of furniture that have been in our family for generations.  The rocking chair that every baby of my parents’ and my generation and the next was rocked in is likely 100 years old, handmade with mortise and tenon joints and not a single one of them has ever come loose.  A few other “sacred” pieces of furniture were mandatory to keep such as the Hoosier cabinet with the pull-out porcelain top where my mother rolled out homemade pie and pierogie dough.  Mark and Eileen are storing them for us in their basement for the day when we wash ashore and become dirt dwellers again.

Except for those “sacred” items, we were able to part with most everything else fairly easily.  When we had moved to the current house, we got rid of a lot of furniture we had for the past 30+ years and bought new.  For the sake of simplicity, we decided not to bother with trying to sell the new furniture.  Rather, we gave it away to family and close friends.  They got some virtually brand new, quality furniture pieces and we were able to empty the house in record time.  And we have the benefit of when we visit them we get to see our old stuff !!!

When the time comes to wash ashore again, the move into new accommodations should be straight-forward and easy (yeah, right !).   I hope that day is many years away…

The trip to Costa Rica has come to an end.  And what an end it was.  After a two-hour delay in the terminal before being allowed to board our plane (our flight was to have left at 2:40pm), we had another two-hour wait onboard while the ground crew worked on a “maintenance” issue (by now it is getting close to 5:00pm).  As it turned out, there was a small chip in one of the jet engine fan blades that the ground crew was trying to file smooth.  After finishing their handiwork, they sent pictures of the final masterpiece to US Airways command central who promptly grounded the flight.

So…more than 4 hours past departure time, 200+ people got off the airplane, gathered their luggage from the luggage carousel, and were asked to gather at the check-in counter in the main lobby.  Liberia, Costa Rica is a very small airport…probably smaller than Harrisburg’s.  Sunset in Costa Rica at this time of the year is about 6:00pm.  The airport literally closes down after the last flight leaves and some maintenance person must have had no idea there were 200+ people standing in the lobby.  Like clockwork, at the daily appointed time, all the lights went out in the airport !!!  There we were with luggage in hand, not a clue about what was to happen next, and standing in the dark.

The lights were finally restored, but little information was forth coming from US Airways.  Unknown to us, the Costa Rican staff was working feverishly behind the scenes to find hotel space for everyone for the night.  Consider that Costa Rica is not like the USA in that there is a hotel on practically every corner surrounding the airport.  The one or two that were there were already full.  The airline made arrangements for four large buses to transport passengers to hotels where they could find space. By this time, everyone is a bit cranky.

I overheard a bus driver telling a taxi driver that he was instructed to take his busload to Tamarindo.  Now just having spent two months traveling the countryside, I knew that Tamarindo was about a 1.5 hour bus ride…in each direction…from the airport.  Those poor folks would have to get up at 3:30am in order to make the trip back to the airport as we were told to be there at 6:00am.  I didn’t intend to be among them.

Tourism is Costa Rica’s number one industry and it seems like everyone in the industry knows everyone else (it’s a small country).  So…instead of enduring a torturous bus trip, I walked over to a taxi driver and gave him $20 to call any local hotel he knew of in Liberia (close to the airport) where we could get a room for the night.  Not surprisingly, as it turned out, he knew a guy, who knew a guy, that had a cousin who owned a small hotel ten minutes from the airport.  Within 15 minutes, we were at the front desk of the hotel (very tiny, spartan, but exceptionally clean).  I gave the taxi driver another $40 for saving us from a bus trip from hell.  The room was $55.  Although we didn’t get the airline vouchers for meals, a few bags of Lay’s potato chips, Doritos, and some diet Pepsi (Pepsi Light in Costa Rica) from the hotel lobby and we were just as happy.

The proprietor even made arrangements for a “taxi” at 5:00am to get us back to the airport…I’m sure another cousin.  As we were pulling out of the parking lot onto the main road to the airport, I noticed the taxi driver crossed himself and said a silent prayer.  It felt slightly foreboding but I was hoping for the best.

As the buses arrived around 6:00am and started to disgorge their passengers, again 200+ people gathered in the lobby in front of the airline check-in counter.  As if the events of the day before weren’t enough, the airline gods smiled down upon us one more time and made the entire computer system go down…that is not work, zip, nada, nothing.  No reservations could be pulled up on screen.  In fact, the screens appeared blank.  Now the Tico people as a society are some of the kindest, gentlest souls you’ll ever want to meet.  In all the time we were there, nary an angry word was heard.  With their usual smiling good nature and doing everything they could to help we poor, lost folks, they managed to check everyone in manually using their cell phones to talk with the US Airways gods…for each and every passenger.  Frustrating as it was, the ticket counter crew could not have been nicer in the face of a lot of angry people.

Through much hoopla, angst, and not a small amount of frustration on the part of the passengers, our plane finally showed up…and you guessed it, late.  We never got off the ground until 10:40am amid cheers from the weary folks as the wheels went up.  We arrived in Charlotte, NC about 5:00pm and had to clear customs.

Having had more than enough of the airline’s hospitality and being herded like cattle through airport chutes, we decided to rent a car in Charlotte, NC and drive the final leg to our son’s house in Ashburn, VA about six hours away.  As it turns out, it was a smart move.  Unknown to us at the time, our connecting flight was further delayed 6 hours (i.e., we’d be sitting in the airport yet again), and never left Charlotte until 10:59PM.  In the end, we arrived at our son’s house just minutes (literally) after our connecting flight touched down at the Dulles Airport.

Rough ending to our trip, but we made it safe and sound albeit a bit frazzled for the wear.

Bilbo would be proud.  Although we encountered no trolls, no dragons, and did not return with a hoard of dragon plunder, we had an adventure…a very un-Baggins thing to do.

Pura Vida !!!