Dresen Wagoner

When he was born I had a great German Shepherd/ Malamute mix dog named Serena. She was a gentle dog as well as a protective dog. Our son however could not be in the same house with the dog and we had to find her a new home. Fortunately my best friend had Serena’s sister and adopted her into his home. Allan is a great friend and a wonderful dog owner. He gave Serena a great life and I will be eternally grateful for his kindness.

It turns out that the Labradoodle, along with quite a few other breeds of dogs, are somewhat hypoallergenic to those that suffer from dog dander allergies. I say somewhat because there is no such thing as a truly hypoallergenic dog. But the Poodle does top the list of those that are closest. I’m not going into the reasons here but if you Google “hypoallergenic dog” you will get all the information you need.

Back to the story. Emma my son and daughter in law’s dog is a great big loveable clown, she has a great personality and brings great joy to all that meet her. I fell in love with her the very first time we played fetch together and watcher her chase a laser light around the floor for hours. He brings her every time he visits and she is always welcome in our home.

Recently my son and his wife had the opportunity for a couple of week long trips very close to each other so we gladly took Emma for a week while they were away. It was during the coldest, snowiest, February in Ohio history and we though OMG what did we get ourselves into? Emma loved the snow and plodded through it like a plow. It was the best winter week we ever had! She entertained us during a very bleak cold week. I was sorry when my son returned and took Emma home. I actually went through a minor depression from the loss of her gentle loving soul.

In between trips my son and daughter in law decided to add another Labradoodle to the family and asked if we would consider adding one to our home. I was elated but my wife was unsure if we could handle a puppy at our age. Especially one that would be so big. So our son asked if we would meet him at the breeders to see his new puppy, we agreed. When we got there we were in awe of these cute little critters and I instantly fell in love with all of them. They were all spoken for so we had no illusion of getting one and being on a fixed income we just could not consider the cost of the pup.

After a couple of days our son called and said one of the little female pups was available and wanted to know if we would like it. It would be a gift from he and his wife to us. And this is where I begin to tear up a little. You see my wife and I really fell in love with the very same pup when we visited the breeder and fantasized about inviting her into our home. Well she has been a member of our household for a couple of weeks and the joy she has brought to us is invaluable. You cannot put a price on the joy we are feeling. Yes Peanuts “Happiness is a warm puppy”. Her name is Abby which means “God is rejoicing” and so are we. My son and his wife gave us a gift that could never be surpassed (except for a grandchild of course).

Needless to say I immediately felt like I was having a flashback. My body and mind were transported to 1971 and I found myself in bellbottoms with a long ponytail and a joint in my hand (metaphorically speaking of course) and I inhaled numerous times. My youth was restored for a brief instant and I was transformed (the joy part) I felt no pain, I was thin again, and I remembered the first time I saw my wife to be. I remembered knowing that all things were possible in my life and I was full of dreams. Then bam! I was back to today and my knees starting hurting again, I was overweight and my hair, well let’s not think about that (the sad part).

Don’t get me wrong I’m not complaining just reminiscing. For me life has been and is a great adventure. I have realized almost all of my dreams that I had then and even with the ups and downs of fortune I have lived and am still living a very good life. I have done pretty much as I wanted all my life except for the military part from 1968-1971. I have never been afraid to take a chance or try to succeed in my own enterprise or go to work in a company I thought was interesting or move to another part of the country for no apparent reason other than it would be an adventure.

At this time I have a photographic studio and I am doing what has always been my biggest dream. I love to document people and find all people interesting and beautiful. To see in a face a life well lived and time tested or the wonder of a wide eyed child seeing everything for the first time. To me it doesn’t get any better than this. A camera has been with me almost all of my life and my photo library reaches into the thousands. But this is another story. All this came rushing into my mind just because of “Them Changes” by Buddy Miles and the power of music. Rock on my brothers and sisters, rock on.

Buddy was probably best known as the drummer for Jimmy Hendrix “Band of Gypsies” band and if you are interested go to Wikipedia for more information on his career.

As usual it was a very warm evening in the high desert of Palmdale, California. My wife was at the fence waiting for my check and my son was in his car seat right there next to her in our Jeep. I handed her the check, and she then placed it into the Jeep on the driver seat and came back to give me a kiss through the chain links on the security fence. We said our goodbyes, and she was getting ready to leave when I started to hear a ruckus. She called out to me and told me she could not find the check anywhere. She looked under the seat, in between the seats, under my son’s car seat and all around the Jeep, but she couldn’t find it anywhere.

I went to my supervisor and told him what had happened and he gave me permission to leave the production area to go outside the fence to help my wife search for the check. We both searched the Jeep again and looked all around on the ground around the Jeep, in the parking lot under the cars and out into the desert area a little ways. There was no wind that night so I didn’t see how it could have blown away. Who knows where it was. We decided I would just go inside and see if I can get a replacement check

After talking to my supervisor, and then talking to payroll. I found out it would take about a week or maybe two to make a duplicate replacement check because they had to make sure that nobody took it, signed it and cashed it before they could issue another one. So off I went back to the fence near where my wife was parked to give her the bad news. When I got there I saw my wife sobbing and I asked her to calm down. We’d be all right. So I told her that I’d see her when I get off work and asked her to bring my son over so I could give him a goodnight kiss. That’s when she found the check, wadded up like a gumball in my son’s mouth. I couldn’t help but laugh. So she gave me the wadded up gumball of a check, and I took it back into my supervisor. I opened my hand and showed him what happened to the check; of course, he began laughing and laughing and laughing as did every one around us. Fortunately, the check was legible enough to see that it was the one that was issued to me. So he called down to finance and told them that the check had been recovered and what happened, then he started laughing again. He stated that the finance office wanted me to bring the check down to them. They would issue me a new one if I could prove that it was the check that was issued to me.

It seems the only reason they needed to see me was not just to check the number on the check. But to laugh a little bit more at my expense. This was the first time they had ever heard the “my kid ate it” excuse. They just wanted to see the check. I gave them the check, and they carefully unfolded it and unrolled it and check the numbers and agreed that it had been a check that I was issued. Later I had heard rumors that they took the check, dried it out flat, put it in a frame and hung it on the wall with the quote “my kid ate it” inscribed on the bottom. I never bothered to check if the rumor was true or not. It was the gift that just kept giving and the joke at the plant for a couple of weeks, not just in the Palmdale facility but all of the space division.

It was such a beautiful day that I invited my wife to join me in my little excursion. As we drove down the highway I looked to my left and I found a spot that was open without too many trees and a beautiful skyline. So I pulled off to the side of the highway, jumped out of the car, put up my tripod, pulled out my camera and started shooting some clouds and a great farm in the distance. I was just waiting for some color to appear but unfortunately it seemed I was just a little bit too impatient. We were still about an hour away from sunset. So I continued shooting some pictures anyway. It’s always a good thing to have some good cloud pictures, put away for a time when you may need them.

Even though the temperature was really mild outside the sun was beating down onto the car and my wife was getting a bit warm. But first I need to relate a little back story. A few months ago I had some problems with the electric windows of my car. My wife had been visiting her sister in California and I was at the passenger pick up area of the Columbus, Ohio airport. You’re not supposed to be there for more than a couple of minutes and my wife was on her way. However the airport police thought I was there just a little too long so they came over to tell me to move on. I was talking to my wife on the cell and rolled down the passenger side window to explain to the police that my wife was on her way. They decided to let me stay since I was talking to her and they could see her coming down the sidewalk. I tried to put the window up again but it was stuck open. The police officer tried to help me pull it up but no luck. This was sometime at the end of September or early October I don’t remember. But it was cold enough to see your breath and my poor wife, just coming from sunny southern California, had to put up with the freezing wind blowing in the passenger side of the car for the 60 mile drive home. The next day I took the car in to get it fixed, and I was told something about a motor or some kind of shaft or something I don’t know, I’m not a car guy. But anyhow, I asked her not to mess with the windows so she complied.

Well back to the story, I guess it’s important to say that I’m a pretty big guy at this point. I was over on the passenger side of the car leaning on the front fender close to the door talking to my wife. So getting warmer and remembering that I asked her not to mess with the windows, my wife opened the door to cool off. Lo and behold my weight put just enough pressure on the fender close to where the front door opened to push it in behind where the front of the door swings open. The door opened and acted like a fulcrum and with a big crunch it put a big crease into the back of the front right fender. Well at least it was a beautiful day for pictures. I have been considering a new car anyway, so we continued on with our journey.

I decided to drive to the Kokosing Dam and witness the sunset across the Kokosing Lake. And what do you know; the good Lord did not let me down. It was an absolutely gorgeous, beautiful sunset full of color streaming across the lake and to top it off; down in the campground below the dam, there was a live band playing a really great Credence Clearwater song. It just so happens that’s one of my favorite groups. So I got some great pictures and heard some really great sounds. We drove home and I took a closer look at the fender. Feeling good I decided to pull out my handy dandy trusty and always useful crowbar and try to pull the dent out myself. I was able to grab just a little bit of the fender and pull it out and straighten the fender so the door opens just fine. Maybe I am a car guy? Life just doesn’t get any better than this.

Sunday morning I woke up and again the weather was absolutely beautiful. The sky was full of clouds and life was good. So I grabbed my camera and off I went again. Since it was Sunday, I decided to stay a little closer to town. I really wasn’t interested in sunset pictures today. I just wanted some more file pictures of clouds. I knew there were a few shopping areas I could go to where the parking lots would be empty. I started shooting across this great big open area into this beautiful sky with large beautifully shaped clouds. Then, all a sudden, coming down the road was a group of old Model “A” Ford cars. Wow! I thought what a blessing? So I started shooting as fast as I could as they were driving by on the street. It was a great shoot the only thing that could be better was if I could get them to stop. I couldn’t wait to get home to check my pictures. You see, it’s become my habit to not look at the LCD screen on the back my camera because I don’t want to be shooting and looking and shooting and looking possibly missing some good opportunities. Also, being a little nostalgic for film, It’s kind of fun to wait until I get home to see them bigger on the computer. So I open my camera and what to my surprise, I had made the biggest rookie mistake anybody could ever make and I forgot to check to see if I had a CF card in the slot. And of course I didn’t! I had left it in the card reader from the day before.

So I got back into my car, drove back over to the parking lot, humbled and laughing at myself the whole way. Pulled back into the parking lot and the clouds were even better than they were before. So, still laughing at myself, I put the CF card into my camera and began shooting away. Happy with the way the day turned out I started to drive back home. When what to my amazement, there they were, the Model “A” Fords, parked nicely in front of a drive-in restaurant. So I quickly pulled into the driveway, parked my car a little ways away, took out my camera, making sure the CF card was still in there, and started shooting like wild man chuckling and giggling like a school girl. These pictures were much better than they ever would’ve been just shooting like a wild man, following the Model “A” Fords down the street. I got some great close ups, and I was very happy. I came home and told my wife, God is good! It was a great lesson of turning lemons into lemonade. And I appreciated it. I also learned. It’s a good thing to not take life so seriously even when you’re out there having fun shooting pictures, because you never know what’s going to happen. And no matter how long you’ve been taking pictures there is always room to make a rookie mistake.

When I was 29 years old I was working as a car salesman for a Porsche- Audi dealership on the PCH in Los Angeles, California. It was a job I didn’t really like very much as I had to work 7 days a week, keep clean shaven and wear a suit and a tie every day. It was a high stress job that made me extremely frustrated.

While at work one day I was called into the office and told I had emergency phone call. My then fiancée, now my wife had called and said I needed to come home immediately. There was a situation at the house that only I could handle. Being this was in 1977, and we were just recovering from the last recession we had. We were sharing a house with my best friend Al. Anyhow, the dealership I was working at was 45 minutes from home I needed to get going fast. So I told my shift supervisor about the call and that I needed to go but he did not want me to leave. I had an argument with him and he told me if I left it would cause me a lot of trouble; I might even lose my job. So I tried to call home to find out what the emergency was but the phone just kept ringing and no one answered. What could I do, I was called to come home for an emergency and no one was answering the phone, so I got into my car and went home as quick as I could.

I came roaring up the street to the house slamming on the brakes and coming to a screeching halt. I exited the car as fast as I could and ran through the front door, and what did I see? I saw my then fiancée and my best friend, sitting in chairs eyes fixed to the top of the front living room window. I asked what happened, what was the emergency, who died and that’s when they both, in unison, lifted up their right arms and pointed their fingers towards the top right side of the curtain rod over the front window. Neither one of them spoke a word. Being a little confused, I kind of looked around and then I saw the object of their concern, it was a giant, black and yellow/orange Bombus Terrestris, a buff-tailed bumblebee just sitting there staring strangely toward them in their chairs.

I looked back at them and then asked again, what now seems to be an obvious question, what was the emergency? They answered, of course, there’s a bumblebee sitting on top of the curtain rod. They then explained to me how for the last couple of hours that they had been staring at this bumblebee on top of the curtain rod. That they had not taken their eyes off of it at all! If one had to go to the bathroom the other one stood vigilant watch over that poor old bumblebee so they would know where it went. They then explained that they unplugged the phone so that the phone ringing would not send the bumblebee buzzing around the room. At this point, it was all I could do from falling on the floor and laughing my ass off.

My fiancée was allergic to bee stings and my buddy didn’t like bugs due to a very strange encounter with insects when he was a kid. That’s a story he needs to tell so I won’t go into it here. I on the other hand I loved insects and was known for grabbing bees and other insects to take them outside and let them loose. Hey, bees are the farmers of the world after all. So I walked up to the bumblebee, slowly, so as not to startle it from its perch. I reached up to grab the insect and that’s when I did start to laugh out loud. The bumblebee was a mummy an empty shell, it must have died up there a long time ago and just mummified due to the heat between the window and the curtain. So for hours they had been standing vigil over a dead bumblebee. Then they both began to state that the bumblebee must have just died, they swore they saw it moving and looking around at them. What could I do I just started laughing even more and to my surprise all the stress I was feeling from selling cars to people that couldn’t really afford them just melted away.

A few weeks later I left that job, moved to Palmdale, California and went to work in the aerospace industry and worked for Rockwell on the Space Shuttle Orbiter. What can we glean from this tale? Don’t take life so damn serious and watch out for the mummies they are watching you even the little ones.

It was now my wife and son’s turn to get into the plane and go. As I waited on the ground for my wife and son to make their 1st jump, I decided to make sure that my camera equipment was in good working order. I had taken great pains to make sure that the lens on the video camera was clean, the batteries were all newly charged and that it was working well. Satisfied that all was well with the camcorder I set the video camera on the picnic table we shared and began to work with my still camera. Making sure that the lens was clean, the batteries were fully charged, I had the right lens on, and I was ready to shoot.

I looked up and became very excited when I saw the rainbow colored parachute my son was coming down in and the red, white and blue parachute that my wife was in coming down in beginning to come into view. Confident that all was working well with the cameras I picked up the video camera, put it on a tripod and began to shoot, following them down to the ground. I asked one of my son’s friends to finish up shooting the video and I began shooting the stills. It was some great stuff!

My wife decided that she wanted to buy the supplemental video that the skydiving school had to offer of her 1st jump. So I agreed, I thought when we got home I would upload all of the video and combine the stuff I shot with the video the school skydiver shot to make a great combined movie with cuts from the air and ground. As soon as we got home and viewed the video the skydiver shot it was great. With great excitement we viewed the video I shot and all we could see was a big smudge and a very blurry video. Little did I know that the couple’s baby was going to be very curious about my cameras? Somehow the little fellow rolled out of his car seat and looked straight in the lens my video camera and gave it a great big lick. Of course the video camera was not a see through the lens camera, so I had no idea the lens had slobber all over it.

I don’t know what the moral of the story is, except that a carpenter measures twice and cuts once. I guess a photographer should clean his lens 3 times, put the lens cap back on and make sure no one has licked the lens before he shoots again. Oh, and beware of babies, they’re sneaky.

I had such a chair. A big blue denim covered, overstuffed, oversized, behemoth of a chair that lived with me for 20 years. I had great conversations while in that chair, I watched a lot of great movies, I shared it with my wife upon occasion, and I slept very well in it. Good old blue!

I guess you must measure the life of a chair, almost like you would the life of a dog. It seems to me that the chair must age 4 years for every one year of human life. As you may have guessed, old blue broke down recently, its springs broke, it was threadbare and no longer giving the comfort it once did. It was time to say goodbye. I was heartbroken. And now I’m feeling guilty. I just couldn’t stand the thought of sending it in to a chair repair shop and getting it back unbroken, uncomfortable and changed. So what did I do? I called the junkman and unceremoniously I threw the chair into the back of his truck and off to the landfill it went. As I saw it driving away, it shed not a tear nor spoke a whimper, but yet somehow it seemed as though it was smiling, knowing it had done a good job for its life.

So farewell old blue, you were appreciated, now off the furniture store to buy a new chair.