GREEN ROSES AND HUMMINGBIRDS

About the Book

About the Author

I was once asked the question like most people in a University class, “So tell us a little bit about yourself,” and for the first time in my life, I found myself debating in my thoughts about how I should answer this question. I thought about answering with the same old line of I work at, married to, graduated from, hobbies are, and so on, and so forth, but came to a sudden realization that I am actually not just those things. I came to the conclusion that the basis of this question was really not about who I am but was really giving way to allow the student to stroke their own ego and brag about how important they are or how important they are going to be. I just watched everyone talk about how they graduated top in their class, how they fought to protect a village under gunfire, how many doctorate degrees they had from Princeton, Cambridge, Harvard. When it came time for me to answer I said, “I am who I am.” An immediate response with a short chuckle just tell us your name, where you're from, and what you expect to get out of this class. “Alright!” “My name is Joe, I'm from California, and I expect to get an “A” out of this class.” Everyone laughed, and I know their laughs were because they thought I was being arrogant and cocky, but at the same time I felt they were the ones unknowingly being arrogant by stroking their own egos and bragging about what they had become. When I got home later on that night, I answered that question on paper, that I should have told the class. That is if I really wanted to stroke my ego and be even more arrogant. I came up with this: Well, It's very hard for me to answer who I am without first establishing the old-fashioned techniques used by the master craftsmen whose hands helped to shape the soft, fresh, wet clay, which was used to form my structure and set the foundation, for who I’d later become. Some of those hands that sculpted me were as ancient as the Nile river, and some as new as the wind that just touched your my face. I was formed into is a complicated accumulation of governing values, culture, proper etiquette, and hopes and dreams, which were not exactly established by me, but set in place – like that mark of a chisel on my outer surface -- by those who came before me. I may have thought at one time my likes and dislikes were by nature choices unique only to me due to genetic preconditioning but in fact even my character and personality are an accumulation of ideas of all those hundred of small chisel marks, which are formed by others either directly or indirectly, to ultimately form my image. Listen, chip, chip, chip, that constant chipping never ceases. The chipping away of my outward shell never stops being formed. I have chisel marks taking place while I explain this to you right now, and by you listening to this you have chisel marks etching their way into you that will ultimately form a masterpiece just as unique to the world as “The Thinker” chipped into existence by Auguste Rodin. I wonder who those teachers were who guided Rodin's hand or did Rodin simply get lost in his work so deeply that all of those complicated accumulation of governing values, culture, and proper etiquette just somehow got sloughed off allowing him to create art form, which almost seemed to breathe the words of his sub consciousness from a place where only his dreams could reside. The values I carry with me, influencing everything I do, and directing every action I take, were instilled in me through a meticulous nurturing and careful planning by the people who loved me enough to take the time to do so as the same was done to them and those who shaped the ones who shaped them. I thought I am who I am, not entirely by choice, whether through nature or through nurture, a constantly evolving, never ending story set in play by those who came before me. My father – a veteran Seattle Police Officer – was a true family patriarch. He molded me through the tough-love techniques not to do, what he called, anything "half-ass" and for him that meant I learned to do "whatever" right the first time, do it in a timely manner, and to do it with a purpose. Some of his lessons my father taught me where at times chiseled into me quite deeply. Those chisel marks have left some very deep scars. Although plaster was used to cover up those chiseled mistake, the scar has remained under a mask of plaster. As to not get re-injured, I learned to just give in and not think but to react quickly to my father's purpose, which was not at all mine; consequently, and unexpectedly to me, the teachings of doing it right the first time, and not in a half-ass manner, having been so forced into me, taught me to take pride in whatever I set out to do. I know what my father really wanted for me was to be a man of integrity, honor, and with a strong work ethic. What my father wanted for me was to be a man who could always be depended on to do things right, with reasoning, and that reasoning was actually his thoughts he wanted me to have. My mother taught me to choose the harder right over the easier wrong, the golden rule of treating others as I would want to be treated, how stealing would send me straight to hell unless I confessed in the confessional at the Catholic school I attended, how being a liar would set my pants on fire, and how a little white lie would always turn into a great big fat lie, and lastly to never ever hit a woman no matter what the situation was. I gained a few more very deep chisel mark even from my mother when I decided to hit my sister. How could I forget not to hit a woman when the act is associated with a swift deeply hammered chiseled mark into my back side. My mother was deadly against a man hitting a women, and I remember her informing my father that if he ever put his hands on here, that would be the reason for her leaving him. As I got older, I realized my mother had some deep seeded scars from having to grow up in a home watching her mother being abused at the hands of her step-father. I would see her sobbing in the bathroom by herself and she would tell me what she had to witness. I realized sometimes what happens to us in childhood follows us into adulthood and turns out being a lesson for all. I know her goal was to make me a good man who could love, and more importantly, be loved. My mother showed me these lessons not always with words but with her actions of compassion and her unconditional love for me. The most important thing both my parents taught me, in their different ways, they didn't even have to use words for. Their actions, in most cases, spoke much louder than the words they said to me. Although there were times they didn't always walk the walk or talk the talk, in my trying to figure out the rules and customs my society expected of me, I would mimic what I saw my parents do and gained an idea for how I would deal with or not deal with certain situations. Mimicking their actions also molded me into what I would project to the world for who I am. My parents loving guidance has made me a man of honor, duty, integrity, respect, love, loyalty, and with a high regard for intellectual activities, and logic. I am now a man who is aspiring to be all those high aspirations society expects of me to be successful: Honor, Duty, and a gentleman and a scholar. I grew up in Southern California a practically spent my childhood the Southern California beaches. My older brother was a surfer and since I admired my brother, I spent my time on the beach, too. I didn't surf but I would trade surf stories with my cousins growing up on the other side of the Pacific, on the Islands of Hawaii. Tom also listened to what is not referred to as Classic Rock. Again, I listened to what he listened to because it was not my radio, and I dare not touch Tom’s radio. Today, I am a fan of Classic Rock and will probably still be listening to Classic Rock at the ripe old age of ni