Peter, Paul and Mary?  Yes, for sure.  But first I had this right brain flurry that we need to try and corral.  And we will get back to Peter, Paul and Mary, I think.  Who knows where this all will go, right?

1.  Sister Joyce loves peanut butter and jelly, a little known fact.

2.  Peanut butter and jelly is one of those great cosmic connections that we could ponder, if we had time, which we don’t.  We know that it works and that’s enough, right?

3.  Also include bricks and mortar, bow and arrow, skis and good snow, mortar and pestle, ham and eggs, green eggs and ham, lox and bagels, hammer and nails.

4.  What about Peter, Paul and Mary, one of the great folk groups of all time?  Well a little out of vogue now in this fast snarky world but we may tire of that fast also.  And what about the other Peter, Paul and Mary?  They have been in and out of vogue so many times that they know the drill, they wrote the handbook for the drill.

5.  Laural and Hardy, Cheech and Chong, Abbot and Costello, Siskal and Ebert, Romeo and Juliet, Timmy and Lassie, Roy and Trigger, Roy and Dale.

6.  Where am I going with this?  Don’t know exactly but I do know that when I am following the lighted path I can only see a few steps ahead and have to have faith that things will work out.  Keep moving.

7.  Sister Joyce says that everything is a two way street.  When I say to her that I get a lot out talking with her she says likewise (paraphrase).  She can use language like that because she is from Montana.  I love it!

8.  Everything to working towards good.  It may be three steps forward and two back (thank you Father Scott) but it is always going in the right direction.  God is a gathering force and the Devil is the opposite.  That is the reason for the herky jerky feel of things on this earth.  I think, my uneducated guess on this.

9.  I need you all.  And you need me.  Back to peanut butter and jelly.  We, they need each other to live out this play.  We may be annoying to one another on occasion but we need each other none the less.

10. Keep moving, wear your lucky shirt and don’t over think it!

So, yesterday we were talking about our favorite guy, Santo Domingo de la Calzada or Saint Dominic Ultimate Roadhead. And we talked about how he did improvements on the physical Camino. But he also helped out the pilgrims personally as in the Miracle of the Cock and the Hen and others.
There was a young German man doing the pilgrimage with his parents. Somehow he became involved with a young local gal that he ultimately turned down. She was not happy about his decision and framed him with a serious crime. Poor Hugonell was sentenced to death. Our dear Roadhead went to his rescue by going to plead before the magistrate who was unfortunately in the middle of his chicken dinner. Not happy with the interruption he roared at Dominic, “If that young man is innocent, these roast birds will rise from the platter and crow! ” The rooster on one platter jumped up and crowed and a hen on another rose and clucked! So, young Hugonell was released and on his way. So even today descendants of the original birds live in a coupe in the church in Santo Domingo.
There is an artistic image that appears at the church of a dog carrying a human hand in its mouth reminding us of another miracle done by our guy. Two men were dueling and in the fight one lost has hand and the dog brought it to Dominic and he reattached it. Pretty cool.
Quite the story about a guy that started out from humble beginnings with no education. What does it take to be helpful in this world of ours? For sure we
can’t say that there is nothing for us to do because we don ‘t have the fancy training.

Yup.

Good morning!  It is going to be an awesome day here today.  I am off to Swedish Hospital in a few minutes to start treatment which happens every two weeks.  Yup, have to gird the old loins.  Anyway, thought that I would take a minute to explain something quirky about this blog.  We covered this before but it was a while ago.  This is about the sequence of the posts that appear on this blog.  Much of this material is in the archives that you can access by going to the right side of the page and it will read June or July.  So, if you go to June you will find somewhere in there the post entitled “We’re on Shore”.  This was my very first post.  And the posts go on if you scroll down, “Day Two”, “Day Three”.  If you keep going you will come to the end and then you can continue by going back to “We’re on Shore” and scrolling upward and you will be going forward in time.  Then you go through July until you come to today.  The latest post always is at the top and appears first thing when you open the website.

This is just in case you are a real trooper and want to cover all this ground that I have covered in the last two months here.  Annie said my blogs are like potato chips and you just can’t eat or read one.  Thanks Annie.  By the nature a blog, which is nothing more than a journal but maybe more public,  moves forward and the author doesn’t want to explain everything again and again.  To get everything you have to know what happened yesterday and the day before and so forth.

I am mentioning this at this point because my oldest best buddy is recovering from surgery and he has the time to read this blog now hopefully.  God bless you Jim.  Or, Fernando, our cameraman for the Camino, and his buddy the soundman/producer, will need to find the “Proposed Timeline” on the blog.  God bless you guys and can’t wait to meet you.  Or maybe I am mentioning this to you because you have found something here that speaks to you, or entertains you or you’re just curious about things Camino.  God bless you everyone.  Didn’t Tiny Tim say that in “Scrooge”?

OK, off to Swedish Hospital to see my people.  Alice was gone last time on vacation.  Who in the heck gets vacations?  I’ll have to retrain her all over again.   Didn’t Yogi Berra say that?

We are close to wrapping up the standard schedule, so this is the way it should layout for the next few days:

Monday – Old Mill from 0900 til 1200. (start at 220th) (medium difficulty)

Tuesday – Kelly’s Hills from 0900 til 1200 (start at Agren Park) (hardest)

Wednesday – Phil’s Walk from 0900 til 1200 (Phil’s) (easiest)

Thursday – Old Mill from 0900 til 1200 (medium difficulty)

Friday – Old Mill from 0900 til 1200 (medium difficulty)

Saturday – Phil’s Walk – 1000 til 1300 (easiest)

Sunday – Hard to Tell – 1000 til 1300. (hardiest) This one just happens so I don’t know what to tell you.

Kelly, Rick and I walked eight – nine miles yesterday morning after early Mass.  It was the first time that we had all walked together.  At times I could barely function because of their chatter.  They have known each other for years and they have this way of relating with each other like some long married couple and they are hilarious.  Totally glad that I will only have to deal with them one at a time in Spain!  Kelly will be with me for the first two thirds of my walk and Rick with me on the last third.   Had my second 20,000 step day yesterday.  Kelly is about to break 30,000 any day now.

National Fried Chicken Day went great yesterday.  Rebecca made fried pickles.  And the moose peperoni  was pretty dang good.  I would up talking about the Camino most of the time; what else is new?

OK, so here it is, the ultimate roadhead:  Santo Domingo de la Calzada or St. Dominic of the Pavement (road surface).  Yea, there’s my man!  I learned about him from Esther and he is her favorite saint.  Esther emailed a bunch of info on him and let me sift through that and come up with a bio.  Now, I can see that this will take more than one day so here is the first installment:

The town of Santo Domingo de la Calzada is just west of Logrono.  It is considered by some to be the spiritual heart of the Camino.  So, Dominic Garcia was born in 1019 AD near by.  He was a shy devout shepard boy who some point left to become a monk.  He was humiliated later because he was expelled for not being a good student.  He decided to become a hermit and lived in the forest there.  This forest was infested with bandits who made a living attacking the pilgrims who were slowly making their way on the fledgling Camino.  At this time they basically had to follow the setting sun to move westward.  There was no clear path and they had to swim the many rivers and were easy prey.

Dominic had a dream telling him to serve God by doing something for the pilgrims and this unschooled simple man became the first engineer of the Camino.  He cut down trees to make a trail and built a bridge across the Oja River.  His projects were so big for one man that legend says that angels helped!  More tomorrow, SJA, Phil.

Yea, just when you thought that you had it all figured out and settled something comes along to rock your world.  And this is one of those occasions.  Are you ready?  Today is National Fried Chicken Day!  Yup.  I am going to free you from one more meal with kale in it.  OK, so get out there an enjoy it!  Two of the Three Amigos are slated to attend huge fried chicken event hosted by Stephen and Anna this afternoon.  All good.  SJA, Phil.

Kelly says that we have 19 more days but I ‘m trying not to count. Rick got a new pack. It is a smaller version than boy pack. We just got done with our weekly meeting / wine tasting. Getting aclimated to the Spanish wine scene is proving harder than expected.
Things are moving forward on the documentary film project. Ivette wanted me to ask if anyone would want to donate airmiles. Also, we have a add in the Beachcomber to startout fund raising. I openned an account USBank to start collecting funds. So we are putting in the creativity on raising the needed seed money.
Have to go for now, SJA, Phil

the boys are lighting them off   the boys are lighting them off   the boys are lighting them off   my retriever is trying to find the birds   my retriever is trying to find the birds   my retriever is trying to find the birds  a light rain is falling   the firemen will be happy  the boys are lighting them off   a light rain is falling   soon we will be off to a party  soon we will be off to a party   a light rain is falling   the boys are lighting them off   drinking canadian beer on an american holiday   a light rain is falling   my retriever is trying to find the birds   trying to keep it simple   trying to keep it simple   trying to keep it simple

thinking of you   wishing you the best   wishing you the best   love your laugh   thinking of you   a light rain is falling   trying to keep it simple  wishing you the best   sister joyce says we are all one   wishing you the best   wishing you the best   always remember we are all one   a light rain is falling   the boys are lighting them off   thank you   you’re welcome   any time   always remember   a light rain is falling   maybe time to go   not quite   not quite  the boys are lighting them off   always remember   a slight breeze   the boys are lighting them off   the boys are lighting them off   always remember

i treasure your friendship   any time   always remember   wishing you the best   the boys are lighting them off   trying to keep it simple   drinking canadian beer   always remember   the light is fading   love your laugh   the boys are lighting them off   thank you   trying to keep it simple   always remember   a light rain is falling   love your laugh   the slight breeze   it’s all good   always remember   maybe time to go   not quite   thank you  it’s all good   i treasure your friendship   the light is fading   thanks for sticking with me   it’s all good   i love your laugh   always remember

Early morning Fourth of July and just got done helping my American Legion Post put up flags.  We put up a hundred on eleven flag days each year.  And this morning was super glorious weatherwise and it was like walking around in a Norman Rockwell painting!  Kind of like Annie talking about in Spain walking around in a postcard.  Another part of our Rockwellism is our amateur hydroplane race which starts at 5 AM every Fourth and the guys circumnavigate the Island with a racket that can be heard five miles away easy.  I hear through the grapevine that Carl Olson won and Paul Hoffman flipped over at the north end but is OK.  This is supremely cool totally local stuff.

So Peggy, one of my buddies that works at the hospital told me that Caminohead means Roadhead.  She grew up in Panama so she knows her Spanish.  I tried to explain that it was a little different but actually maybe not so much.  I got into Roadheadism yesterday during my training.

Yea, was doing a six miler on Old Mill Rd.  But really on one stretch of the road and it is 3/4 of a mile.  So, I go back and forth four times and that gives me the six miles.  This stretch has a big open field on one side and forested on the other.  No houses to be seen and no dogs to come out and bark.  There are little blue flowers and songs of Redwing Blackbirds that one cannot enjoy from a moving vehicle.  Anyway, back to Roadhead stuff.  I got into studying the walking surface, the road, well the road and the shoulder.  Got it in my head that the they are built with a camber or in other words it is a slightly convex surface made that way to shed rain.  So, if I always walk on one side facing traffic or in this case occasional traffic I am always walking across a slight slope.  So, it occurred to me to lengthen that outboard walking stick 5 cm to compensate and it made a difference!  A little minor tweak that made a long stretch easier.

Also, picked up a couple of “flat tires”,  as my old boss Robert called them, a 16 penny nail and a drill bit on the road.  Yea, a good deed.  A few weeks ago I spied an earthworm out in the middle of the pavement and I got out there and tried to pick him up but he was too small and slimy and I wound  up flicking the little guy ten feet to the grassy shoulder.  This kind of stuff happens when you get older, risking your life for an unendangered species!

OK, have a great Fourth, wherever you find yourself.  Have a drink for all the old dead white guys that started this whole experiment!  Phil.

Vashon Island has one of the greatest fireworks shows anywhere around Western Washington.  The fireworks company tows a barge into Quartermaster Harbor the day before and at around 10 PM on the Fourth, as darkness falls, the show starts.  All the local ducks and dogs run for cover.  Boat horns sound as boaters vote on how wowed they are by a particular flurry of light and sound.  We’re all there in the moment of this special event.  And we all give thanks to our neighbors here that have quietly contributed to make this annual fest happen.  And giving thanks to God that we are here in the now of this great country is in order!  Happy Fourth, Saint James is Afoot, Phil.