BOOMER by Tim Engel (smallest ebook reader txt) 📕

beautiful deep reds to oranges browns and yellows with every sort of variation. And trees that didn’t change providing a striking contrast.
Dinner. The River’s Edge dining experience is extraordinary. You begin by starting at the top of the stairs gazing down and out toward the Missouri River. Two stories of windows and a beaufitul valley view are what pull you into the dining area. Also at the top of the stairs are storage for books, computers, portfolios, etc. and examples of the fare for the evening. The meals range from chicken breasts, to salad, to fish, to prime rib and king crab legs. Healthy to decadent. As I consider the choices of course, I tell myself “Hey, Tim – remember you do go to the gym and this is special, so you can afford to treat yourself; a bit.” Why do I listen to myself sometimes!? Sylvia is the manager of the gym and she explains to class members the danger of over indulging at the BLC dining room. To illustrate her point, she brings a nasty, disgusting looking piece of rubber out – two times the size of a loaf of bread, and says “this is a pound of fat.” Yuck. Truly disgusting. We certainly don’t want that hanging on our bodies!!
So you take the two flights of stairs down to the dining area and are met with a buffet set up, a salad bar, and an order counter. The order counter is where three to four cooks graciously take your orders for anything from collard greens and catfish to onion rings, ravioli, cooked to order steaks, prime rib, crab legs, bacon cheeseburgers, and various others up through and including homemade ice cream. I figured out why the ice cream is part of the service counter. Because if they had it out in the self serve area, people would be putting on exponential weight gains.
Darrell is on duty and quick as a flash he says hello, Tim how are you? What can I get you tonight? To which I reply well, what do you have? He replies with a litany of goodies which had my head spinning. How can he even remember all that stuff? And how did he know my name? Oh, that’s right – I’ve got my badge on with my name. But he said it so quickly and genuinely and I didn’t even see his eyes go down to my badge!
I open one of the buffet covers and find turkey encrusted with some kind of cheese. It looks good, tasty, healthy and ‘not’ so much. I figure at least I’ll get my protein and it will be tasty to boot. I get some spinach and dark green lettuce from the salad bar and add some walnuts, fruit, and cranberry vinaigrette. I also get some broccoli and cauliflower to add a nice vegetable. Good start I tell myself. Not too bad…but those desserts…
The room is sort of shaped like a big ‘bell-curve’ with the apex being the closest and having the best view of the Missouri River. I decide to take advantage and move down close to the end of the room and pick a table with a great view. Immediately Marilyn comes to greet me and ask what I would like to drink. I noticed that people had wine on their tables and I do drink a little red wine every night. What kind of red wine have you? I ask. Marilyn replies Merlot and Cabernet. OK, I’ll try the cab. I respond. Quick as a wink I’ve got a nice glass of Cab on my table and I cut the tukey with my fork. Mmmmmm. Melts in my mouth! Delicious!
Jackie joins me at the table. She is from Ohio and her site modifies and repairs black boxes or avionics boxes for aircraft. How are you? I’m good she replies. She has the merlot and we gaze out to the sweeping River valley and I ask her about her work. She tells me about the avionics mods and repairs they perform. She brought up her boss Jake. She said he was a hands off kind of guy. Great boss. But didn’t like trouble. He didn’t want to be in the nuts and bolts of the daily operations. If something did go wrong, he wanted to know about it right away. Jackie had worked all over.
She had been in Long Beach on the twin jet, Huntington Beach, Arkansas, Ohio and a couple of other places as well. I am amazed at how flexible some folks are. And many of them have been rewarded with more promotions because they were willing to move when the company needed them.
I told her about Long Beach and the C-17. How we were going to be cutting our assembly rate and how we had cut back and would be cutting more soon. She suggested I be a good mentor and help people find jobs. Have the ‘tough’ discussions where need be.
The next morning I slept in and really enjoyed the chance to catch up a bit on sleep. Today I thought I would hit the gym and take a hike on the blue trail. That’s the trail that goes down to the Missouri River.
I went to the front desk and asked for a guide to the trail. She pointed me to a place just outside the front door where there was a sleeve of guides hanging on the wall. I took one and could see the trail beginning behind the BLC next to the softball field. I headed down the main hallway and just short of the last lodge took the door out back…immediately I was impressed by the beauty of the fall colors in the trees. Beautiful orange, red, yellow, and colors I can’t describe. It’s Nov in MO and the weather is incredible! It’s about 8AM and its already about 70 degrees. I am in my typical gym outfit. Tennis shoes, shorts and T shirt. As I make my way to the softball field I notice a parking lot where some folks who live locally park. Cool. I notice a predominance of American made iron. Nice. I appreciate that. I know that Detroit is trying to make a comeback and needs all the help we can get.
An occasional gust of wind throws leaves high into the sky swirling like sparks from an autumn fire. But there’s no smoke and the sky is as blue as azure. At the start the trail is asphalt. I think this is a bit overkill, but I appreciate the sure footed trail because it’s actually pretty steep. The elevation of the BLC keeps it safe from potential river overflow. I step carefully but assuredly down the trail and scan the trees. This reminds me of something and I think yes, the movie Last of the Mohicans. It reminds me of the forest scenes where various ambushes occurred. But no renegades launch from the thickets. Only the occasional sound of flitting birds and the rustle of leaves.
I am alone. No one else is on the trail or in the area. It is breath taking. Nothing exactly like this near where I live in Anaheim, CA. We have some trees, we have some trails, but not like this. The leaves are huge. Possibly maple? Leaves 10 inches across. I can see that some judicious trimming has been done to keep the trail safe. A few logs have been cut and are marked with orange tape. Further down the trail it becomes gravel. Decomposed granite? I like this better. It just seems to fit better with the forest. The trees seem to reach up to touch the sky. Way up. I have my camera with me and snap some pictures as I walk. Some trees are full of leaves, others are half naked, and others are bare. It reminds me of the Fleetwood Mac song Bare Trees.
What am I feeling? Blessed, fortunate, lucky, healthy, strong. I’m in my mid-50’s and am blessed to be here. My company feels that this experience is important enough to send me 2000 miles to a beautiful setting replete with wonderful people and service, food, accommodations, curriculum, teachers, facilitators, cooks, cleaners, drivers, concierges…whew…to start with. And it’s Monday morning and the birds are chirping, the sky is blue, I’m healthy, happy, exercising and communing with nature. I feel very blessed. I’m happy. This is so nice. And I’m the only one out here! I step at a moderate pace. No sense in rushing because there’s no hurry. The exercise is happening but how beautiful is this? Each new angel reveals new cascades of color, green, blue, yellow, orange, brown, red. A red tree shadowed by blue sky. A naked tree reaching what looks to be over 100 feet into the cerulean sea. Walk walk walk walk…I come to a bench and emergency signal station. They really think of everything. If someone had health problems of some kind they only had to hit the button to summon help.
And too, there were workout stations. Jump, stretch, hang, to foster workouts by the hikers. I am tempted to get on the back stretcher, but decide to pass when I see it’s a bit low to the ground and has some spider webs! Pass. Walk walk walk..more trees lots of trees. Bushes, thickets and as I round another corner I see it. The mighty Missouri River. Wow. It’s big! Looks to be about a half mile across. And moving pretty slowly. I wonder if I could swim it. I think I would be very tired and I also note that it doesn’t look very deep and might had tangles of trees and other debris beneath the surface.
I look up river and see more river. This thing is massive. Down river is the same. I was told that the Mississippi is just up about 4 or 5 miles. I wonder if Huck Finn ever spent time on this river? I look across to the other side and see what appears to be farm houses. I can imagine that this river bottom land is very fertile. Washed with the nutrients of many years of river water flowing across and dropping onto the plain. I notice that there is a sign that says be careful the river bank edge is soft and unstable. In other words, don’t get too close to the edge you might fall into the river. I get as close as I can while feeling safe and think that someone probably fell in at one time or another. There were no fences or guard rails. This was a place where you needed to be careful. I snapped some more pics on my digital camera and got back to the path and headed further up the Missouri River. The River was truly impressive. It reminded me of visiting