Life According to Grandpa: Walking with Lions and other stories

By John Reseck Jr.

This is a collection of stories out of the life of an adventurer. They represent special events in his life that made him laugh, cry, or just get a little angry. Each one had a lesson for him about how to live a life that was fun, exciting, and sometimes even productive.

Life is a fantastic gift. It can be thought of as a ball of clay. We

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reseck Enterprises
• Release date: Jan 25, 2018
• ISBN: 9780999562017

Book preview

Life

According to Grandpa

The Wisdom and Philosophy

of

TOMATEOTS

aka

The Old Man At The End Of The Street

JOHN RESECK JR.

Copyright © 2017 John Reseck

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form for any purpose, without written permission of the author.

ISBN – 978-0-9995620-0-0 printed

ISBN – 978-0-9995620-1-7 ebook

Book formatting by Connie Shaw

Cover art by: Bruce Berglund

Acknowledgments

A special thanks to

Judy Wright

Karin Crilly

Marge Dieterich

For their help with this project

Dedication

This book

Has been written

Specifically for my grandchildren,

But, being well mannered

Children, they will

Share it with

You.

I love you all,

Grandpa John

Forward

I have spent the money,

I’ve made each year,

On general things,

And an occasional beer.

My monetary savings,

Are small indeed,

But I can still,

Buy the things I need.

It is with this knowledge,

That I create this writing,

To show you my path,

To a life that’s been exciting.

Letter From Grandpa

To: All of you

This letter is an introduction to what is to follow and why I think it is a worthwhile project.

Because of our lack of geographic closeness, it has been nearly impossible to maintain the physical closeness I would like to have with each of my grandchildren. I find, talking to my age mates that this is also a problem for many of them. All of us miss our family and friends who are spread around the country.

All of you, I feel, have no doubt that I love you, but it is more of an academic knowledge, rather than the gut feeling you get from a good hug.

This project will be my legacy not only to you, but I hope also to my great grandchildren and maybe even to their children.

When my father died, I realized I didn’t really know much about his life. I knew what he did, but I could only guess at why. He taught me so much, but if he would have had the time, and if I would have taken the time as I was growing up, he could have taught me volumes more about life. It wasn’t until his last few years, when he lived with me, that I realized what a wonderful person he was. I feel cheated, even today, that I didn’t spend more time with him.

What I hope to do with this work is to speak to each of you about something that is happening in your life. Read beyond the words; read for the lessons learned that may someday help you solve problems that erupt into your life.

Most of what I write will be about how I feel about something, and why I feel that way.

The memoirs portion will be stories about things that have happened in my life, or to people I care about, who have taught me a lesson on how I should live, what is important, or perhaps, what isn’t important. These will be in story form and I promise I’ll try to keep them short, but I’m not very good at that.

The Biased Opinion section is where I will get up on my soapbox and write about how I think something should be done. I will address public education, and every other thing I get upset about.

All this wonderful stuff will serve as my autobiography, my philosophy, and a little history of how it was in the old days. It is my way of reaching out to those of you I’ll never know, and passing on what I think is important in life.

I will give you some values with which you can evaluate your life, and use to make the hard decisions that you will face, that you can't even conceive of today.

Most of what I write to you will not seem important, until you are living an adult life with adult problems. Of course, teenage problems are just adult problems, without the experience to either realize they are problems, or that they have a solution. Maybe I can help with both of these —first, to help you realize that your actions may cause a problem down the line, and second, once you admit you have a problem, to know all problems have solutions.

My Creed

I wrote the following after the death

of a friend in 1979

I have tried to live by it ever since

This is today, tomorrow may never come.

This is today, yesterday is history.

Every morning when I wake up, it will be today.

I will launch each today, with a positive attitude.

I will not criticize anything, for it accomplished nothing.

I refuse to utilize my limited time at things that accomplish nothing.

Today I know I am equal with all others in our allotment of time.

All of us have the same number of hours, minutes, and seconds

Today I will waste none of my allotted time.

The minutes I wasted yesterday are already too costly.

Today I refuse to use my time worrying about what might happen.

Instead I am going to utilize my time, by making things happen.

Today I am determined to improve myself.

For tomorrow someone may need help.

I must work hard today, so I will not be found lacking tomorrow.

Today I must accomplish/learn something, no matter how small.

Today I will do the things I should do.

Today I will stop doing things I feel are bad for me.

At the end of each day, I must be a better person than I was when it started.

My worth to myself and others is in direct proportion to the way I utilize my time.

Things are not different.

I will not imagine what I would do, if they were.

I will make my life a success with what I have now, not what I wish I had.

I will arrange what time I have, to make the most of my talents.

I will listen carefully to others for they are but mirrors of myself.

I will not wait until tomorrow to say I love you.

I will treat everyone I encounter in life as a true friend.

If I do these things, today will be a good day for me, and for those around me.

Introduction

How to Live According to Grandpa

Everything I needed to know I DIDN’T learn in kindergarten.

As I look back on my life, I find it quite interesting to see where and how I learned what I have. I must be a slow learner, I’m still learning things in my eighties I could have used 60 years ago.

I have eleven grandchildren and two nephews, who are the same as grandchildren to me, and, like most grandparents, I would like to pass on a few things to them that might make their life run a little smoother. I know, however, that anything I say won’t make any difference, because we all insist on living our own life. None of us believe that anyone else could have ever felt the same way we feel, or have ever experienced the same problems that we have. It has to do with reinventing the wheel. Everyone has to do it for themselves.

It is important—I think, and this entire thesis is just what I think—that we all understand there are no new problems in this life that haven’t already been solved by someone else. Located in the convoluted mass of tissue we call a brain is the answer to most everything we encounter in life. The problem is that the brain functions on several levels, and finding the right path to solve any particular problem can be like finding the right button to push on the computer to get what you want to come up on the screen. At times it seems impossible, but with patience and persistence you normally succeed.

Life’s problems, like computer problems, can generally be worked out if you can find the right source, (book, article, etc.), or find the right person to talk to, who will show you the path that leads where you want to go. The trouble is everyone tells us a different path, based on their background to take in life, and we all want, and need, to cut our own path through the tangled labyrinth of society, based on our own background and desires.

If you follow a course that was designed for you based on someone else’s talents, needs, and desires, you will never really be sure if it was the best one for you. The secret is to listen to all the advice you are given in life, investigate every path that is proposed, and then to customize a path, based on their advice, your experience, and your desires.

This path then becomes yours. You assume responsibility for it, and whatever happens to you, and the other lives you influence, as you follow that path through life.

Now we know why some people are reluctant to find their own path in life. If they do, they must accept responsibility for what happens. If you follow a path that someone else lays out for you, it is easy to blame them, for all the things that go wrong along the way.

Parents—listen up. If you insist on creating a path for your kids, you are giving them an excuse for failure. They never really accept responsibility for what happens to or around them.

All of us are genetically different. That means we all respond to life in just a little different manner from the person sitting next to us. I truly believe all of us are really good at something. I also truly believe most of the people in the world live their entire life and never discover what they are better at than most everyone else. That to me is the true tragedy of life.

I taught school for thirty years. I taught preschool, high school, two year college, and university. The subject matter changed from biology to SCUBA diving to marshal arts to underwater photography and others, but the underlying message I preached was always the same—Open every door you pass in life, and look in.

How can you know what you are good at if you don’t even know it exists? Try everything you have a chance to experience. You might just be great at it. What would have Beethoven done with his life if he had been raised on a cod fishing boat in the North Sea? What waste of genetic talent that would have been. The sad part is that it happens by the thousands in every generation. Don’t let it happen to you. Try everything.

In my life I’ve been very lucky to have been given the opportunity to try many things. My parents encouraged me to try it all. I was never told I couldn’t do anything, unless they thought it would be too dangerous for me. Then I was told if I really wanted to do it, I would have to take lessons and learn to do it safely, not that I shouldn’t do it.

Every time I hear someone tell another person they shouldn’t do something because it is too difficult, or too dangerous, too involved, or they are too old or too anything, I cringe. The only difficult things in life are the things that you haven’t learned to do yet. If you know how to do it, it isn’t difficult.

It also freaks me out to hear someone say, I don’t know why you are having trouble doing it. It’s really so simple. What a put down. It makes you feel like an idiot. What they should say is, When you learn how to do it, it will seem simple. I have said that before in my younger days, and I apologize to anyone I made that statement to.

Now that you know the basic premises I live my life by, it will help you understand all the things I have done in my life. What I have found out about myself is that I am good at a lot of things, the best at none, and that’s okay. I also found out I’m really not good at a lot of things, and that’s okay too.

In the search for excellence there will be many failures. In the search for mediocrity there are few failures. Don’t be afraid to fail; only be afraid to be mediocre.

There is one other trait I have, and it has its good points and its bad points. I have never decided which one was dominant, the ‘good’ side or the ‘bad’ side. When I do something, anything, I totally focus on it. (See "The Earthquake that Sealed Mans’ Fate). The good part is because I do focus; I know I have done the best I can do at whatever it is. The bad part is, I exclude most other things from my life while I focus on my present project.

On the other hand I have excelled at a number of things. I have always thought it best to be in the 90 percentile in many areas rather than be the best in just one. I never thought it was worth the effort to be number one. I always tried, because you have to try, but I always got bored before I made it. I had to open a new door.

Now that you have a general idea of how I think and what is important to me, it will help you to understand why I tried all the things I did, as I plodded along the path I chose. Perhaps the most interesting part of my story is how my path took many major turns due to something insignificant happening. Many of the most significant people in my life, I never really knew. The effect we can have on the lives of others we only brush against is sometimes incredible.

You are about to read bits and pieces of my life story. Think of each story as the caption of a photograph taken during my life. I am writing it down in hopes that some of the philosophy that has worked for me will also work for you, only sooner. The stories will, I’m sure, like my life, probably seem a little incoherent to you, but that’s the way it was, and that’s okay. When you think I’ve gone crazy because of something I have done in my story, just read these first few pages again because my reason for doing most everything I’ve ever done is given in them.

Doors I Have Opened In My Life

I told all my students to open every door in life to see what they were good at. I try to live by what I tell others to do so as not to be a hypocrite. At the age of eighty-plus, I look back on the doors I have opened, and I have to smile. It was good advice; it led me to lead an interesting full life. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Diving

I was fortunate to be on the beginning wave of the sport as it swept the country. I started in 1945 free diving and bought my first SCUBA tank in 1952 when they first came to the USA. I became a SCUBA instructor in 1966 and taught SCUBA until 1990 when I retired from Santa Ana College. Diving both hard hat and SCUBA put me through college. I worked at Catalina Island every summer as a commercial diver. I worked hard-hat diving to fix moorings in the early days and then SCUBA, commercially for both abalone and sea urchins, and then putting on the underwater show for the Glass Bottom boats. They were my day jobs for seven years every summer. I had many part time jobs at night; put them all together and I got myself through college.

Teaching

When I decided to become a Marine Biologist, (because of my interest in fish and the other wonderful things I saw when diving), I had to consider how I would make a living after I graduated. If you check the want ads I don’t think you will see many, Wanted, Marine Biologist. I decided to major in Zoology and minor in physical science. My emphasis in Zoology was marine animals and in physical science my emphasis was Oceanography and Marine Geology. This made me more of a general biologist so I could apply as a biology teacher as well as a physical science teacher. During my thirty years of teaching, (two years at high school and 28 years at community college), I taught: general biology, Marine Biology, Oceanography, SCUBA diving, Underwater Photography, Judo and Self Defense.

I loved teaching. I finally retired at 56, after thirty years, not because I was tired of it, but because I developed a handicap that was interfering with my competency as a good teacher. I was getting more and more hard of hearing. It got to the point I was having trouble fielding questions from the students, (many of my classes had eighty to 100 student in them). I couldn’t understand the girls. I had lost the higher pitch section of my hearing. I retired because it was my time. In my opinion too many teachers stay on way past their time and that’s too bad for the students.

Martial Arts

I have an admiration for all the martial arts, not because you can make yourself a weapon if you want, but because they all teach discipline, self-control, self-esteem, and skills that make a young person self-reliant. I got involved in Judo when I was a teenager.

I love the movie The Karate Kid. It shows two types of instructors–one gentle and self-reliant and one macho and abrasive. Unfortunately, both types are with us at the local martial arts studios around the country. The movie also shows the consequences of choosing one over the other. In the movie the two instructors are the extremes at both ends of course, but it gets the point across. Pick your instructor wisely. They are not all good. I was fortunate; I started with a Canadian instructor who taught me all the good things martial arts stand for, and should be taught to students, as well as how to do the throws necessary to be a good Judo practitioner in competition. I taught Judo and self-defense classes at the college for fifteen years. I have a black belt in Judo and a brown belt in Karate.