The things we take for granted

During the course of a lifetime, we take all kinds of people and things for granted.

We just expect them to be there, always. And it's hard to square away emotions sometimes when they're gone.

I'm getting that feeling with the announcement this week that the New England Center at the University of New Hampshire will close within the year.

It may sound odd that I'm feeling a sense of loss over the New England Center -- a hotel, conference center, restaurant and lounge in the woods on the UNH campus in Durham, N.H.

But I have a lot of memories invested there, current and past.

I attended UNH, graduating in 1975, and when my Mom and Dad would come visit from upstate New York my big treat from the dining hall -- or my own cooking at the time -- was dinner at the New England Center.

It was special because a) I had to get a little dressed up, much better than the jeans and plaid shirts I'd usually where around campus b) as I said earlier, it wasn't dining hall food and c) it was Mom and Dad's treat.

Architecturally, the hotel and conference center were the funkiest buildings around, the hotel reaching into the sky along with the pine trees. It was the subject of a photography class project (see picture).

I've come full circle in my life, having gone to UNH then moving on to various newspaper jobs throughout the northeast, now settled back in Durham, where the New England Center became a focal point for me during the UNH hockey season.

Before each Wildcat home game the restaurant would hold a wonderful buffet. You could park, stuff yourself silly, and walk over to the arena for the game. Like having dinner with my parents, this was a self-indulgent treat.

For my wife Jane the restaurant was a place for celebrations, particularly for her Mom and her Aunt Jo's birthday. If Jo was visiting from Maryland and it was her birthday, then the Sunday brunch at the New England Center was a requirement. For Jane's kids and their First Communions and other rites of passage that their Nana visited for, it was off to the New England Center.

But now the word is that the university will close the New England Center, perhaps repurpose the hotel for student housing, repurpose the conference center for university offices.

It costs the university $2 million a year to maintain, too much at a time when a recession-drive economy is forcing everyone to think of ways to save money.

It's tough to put a price tag on memories, but mine are certainly valuable when it comes to the New England Center.

A good day in the pool

I don't know what it is about me, water and the creative process, but we work well together.

Sit me down in front of a computer and try to force creativity doesn't always turn out so well.

When it comes to the writing I do, the creative process starts with a good idea. If I have a good idea about a subject or a trend or an issue I can usually formulate the idea into a column or story that I'll then post on one of the blogs I contribute to.

Trouble is, I do some of my best story idea thinking in the shower or while swimming laps in the gym pool.

I'm not sure what it is about the water of a shower or the water in a pool. Is it the isolation that a shower or pool affords? Immersed in H2O with little more than your thoughts?

Then the task is remembering the ideas long enough to actually get them down on paper.

I've always been the kind of person who has to write things down in order to remember them. It's why I have a pad of paper and pencil in my car. It's why I have a notepad and pen on the refrigerator. I love shopping lists. I love to do lists. I love sticky notes. I love having my head attached to my shoulders so that I don't leave it behind somewhere.

If I'm in the shower and a good idea strikes, it's not terribly difficult getting to a piece of paper. I get out of the shower, dry myself off, wrap a towel around me -- usually -- and go across the hall to my home/office to jot down the idea.

It becomes a little trickier in the pool.

I can lose an idea in a heartbeat if I get distracted and don't write the idea down.

In the pool, it means I've got to keep the idea (or ideas) through the swim, which can be as long as a half hour, through the shower, through getting dressed and through getting out of the gym and into the car.

Since there's not much to do while swimming anyways, I try to sear the ideas into my head with the mental equivalent of etching a message on a piece of metal.

It doesn't always work, but this week I came out of the pool with four good story ideas that survived the creative process. And I didn't have to run naked to the car to get them on paper.

The cardinal has landed

I think I'm winning the war against the squirrels (see previous post).

Here is some video of a few minutes in the life of the birdfeeder, with visits from finches and the cardinal.

Yes, waiting for the birds is like waiting for paint to dry. But the end result is worth it.

The squirrels must die!

Since my birthday a few weeks ago, when my mother gave me a birdfeeder as a gift, I've been locked in mortal combat with the squirrels.

I want to feed the birds. I don't want to feed the squirrels. Yet, the squirrels have been ingenious (and I'm talking Mensa genius) about getting to the black oil sunflower seeds I use to fill my feeder.

It got to the point where I wanted to exercise my Second Amendment right to bear arms to establish myself as a well regulated -- but half-crazed -- militia with the sole purpose of protecting my right to feed birds, not squirrels.

I was angling the wife for something that I could set on full automatic, but she said no. (She doesn't let me have power tools either.) So I started angling for wide-spray shotgun, and she said no. Then how about a .22? Or a BB gun? Or a cap gun? No, no, and no.

So it was going to be squirrel wile against my wile. Mano a mano. Wilo a wilo.

Trouble is, those squirrels are one wily bunch.

There was a particular place on our porch that I wanted to place the birdfeeder for easy viewing while we sit in the living room and for easy access to refill the feeder. And I tried to place the feeder in such a way as to put it out of reach of the squirrels.

I put it out on a 15-inch arm hanging planter and Superglued tacks on the arm to create the Plank of Death. That would discourage them. And a large cover over the top so they couldn't drop in my parachute.

And for the most part it worked. Until the squirrels put out a call for the tallest squirrel in the forest, one who could stretch himself in a way that resembles Wilt Chamberlain stretching for a basket.

He pulled himself to full stretch and put enough force on the plastic base to separate it from the feeder, spilling sunflower seeds to the grass below, much to the delight of the assembled squirrel population.

It was at that point that I emailed my wife who was at work with the subject line of: "The squirrels must die!"

The wife thinks the birdfeeder is an old person activity. But I wasn't the one the other morning who was scolding the squirrels to keep away as they lurked about the feeder.

After way too much angst I abandoned the Plank of Death idea of placing the birdfeeder off the porch. Using an S-hook and equipped with a plastic squirrel baffler from Home Depot, I've hung it from a gutter, positioned in front of the living room picture window.

The chickadees like it. The finches like it. Even the cardinals, who I think are a little skittish about seeing their reflection in the window, are fairly regular visitors. And no squirrels. Which means I like it.

But I'm wary. The squirrels are still lurking. They're smart. They're wily. And I still want my right to bear arms. A high-powered squirt gun?

No retreat, no surrender

I'm not going to be one of those apologists for the Baby Boomer generation.

In my role as the national Baby Boomer Examiner for Examiner.com, I've written several posts over the last several months about Baby Boomer bashing from the likes of President Barack Obama to a variety of college graduation speakers.

Well, to quote an iconic movie from my generation -- "Network" -- I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more.

Every generation defines itself in good ways and bad.

The World War II generation of my mom and dad made incredible sacrifices in the name of country and world peace. But it is also the generation that gave us the atomic bomb, nuclear proliferation and MADness of the Cold War -- mutually assured destruction. It held to segregation and the inequality of gender rights.

Then come the children of the World War II generation -- the Baby Boomers.

And as we age, as the oldest members of our cohort are 63 this year our legacy is being considered with some derision.

Obama, himself a Baby Boomer, albeit at the youngest end of the spectrum, rallied a whole new generation of voters by railing against the politics of the older generation.

It was a theme of his book "The Audacity of Hope":

“In the back and forth between Clinton and Gingrich, and in the elections of 2000 and 2004, I sometimes felt as if I were watching the psychodrama of the baby boom generation — a tale rooted in old grudges and revenge plots hatched on a handful of college campuses long ago — played out on the national stage."

It was repeated in his inaugural address: "On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics."

It got worse in May during the parade of college commencement speakers who told graduating seniors -- which included my son David -- that they were entering a miserable period of joblessness and recession brought on my the uncaring excesses of their Baby Boomer parents.

To characterize my generation as the greedy Yuppies of the 1980s or as intractable politicians ignores the contributions. Socially and politically, it was the Baby Boomers who took to the streets to, at times, literally fight for racial equality and peace. The Sexual Revolution of the generation brought greater gender balance at home and at work. The environmental was essentially a dumping ground until the Baby Boomers came along and pushed for its protection.

And we brought an educated, committed work ethic to the office buildings and factories that created unprecedented productivity.

Trust me. We're not done yet. Those qualities of fair play, caring and creativity that we had in our 20s and 30s? We still have them today in our 50 and 60s, and we will still have them in our 70s and 80s.