Cousins

Here are three pictures of my grandchildren. The middle picture is on a camp out with balloon animals made by grandpa.

Up, Up and Away

Here's a photo of Grandpa trying to teach Superboy how to fly.

1958

I was born in the 1958. A year when the United States had 48 states. A year when NASA was born.

The year both Michael Jackson and Billy Mays were born. Both dead now at 50 years old.
Last year my heart stopped in my sleep and I too could be dead at 50. Death can take us at any time and I accept that and have no fear of death.

I have lived to see my grandchildren and that is more than I could have hoped for after my first brush with death in 1975.

I plan to live on for many more years and finish everything I have started before the twilight of this life fades from our world.

One Small Step...

This wall relief sculpture reproduction is something I've had since 1969.
I am in the process of up cycling it into a prop for a movie I'm working on.
So far I've added gold foil, black paint and two toy astronauts.

Swimming in the 21st Century

When I became a pot belly human I quit swimming way back in the 20th Century.
Too much writing and not enough hiking. Only my grandchildren could get me back to the water.

I did some wading on a sandy beach on a lake in Minnesota with both my grandchildren but Cordelia got me back into a pool in a motel in Iowa.

As my son Micheal played with her in the water I used muscles I hadn't used in a decade or more in an effort to swim again.

I took Cordelia in my arms and we began to play silly water games as her daddy cannon balled into the pool over and over again.

Grandchildren don't make you old, they give you back the last part of your youth.

Red Spoons

This is a post about anger. It's about anger in a 50 year old man and about anger in a little girl not yet two years old.

I don't like camping. I've never liked camping. But camping is something I've done many times in my life to make other people happy. I joined the Boy Scouts to make my father happy and went camping for the same reason. I took my sons camping to try to get them to love nature.

Me I'm a hiker or I use to be a hiker. I've never been a camper, my heart was never in it.

I think I've went on my last camp out. Seeing my two grandchildren play around the campfire was wonderful but my mind doesn't handle stress well and hoping and praying not to have asthma attack is very stressful to me.

With stress comes my greatest enemy, my own anger. I got angry four times on my family trip.
I don't think I'll write down those moments of anger any time soon.

At the camp site I was sitting near the fire when I saw my two grandchildren dropping every red plastic spoon on the ground off of the picnic table.

"Denver give grandpa all the red spoons please."

My little grandson handed me what I thought were all the red spoons. Then I heard my grand daughter cry and scream as she fell down on the ground.

"Cordelia why are you crying?"

"She wants to give you spoons too grandpa."

Said my daughter-in-law Amanda.

"I'm sorry Cordelia, grandpa wants your red spoons too. Please give them to me."

As she stood up I saw her right hand was clenching red spoons, knifes and forks. She handed them to me and I wiped the tears from her eyes and gave her a hug and a kiss.

How little I differ from my Grand Daughter, I don't understand something and I get angry.

The Right People

Last night I talked to my newest friend Jeffrey Staab.

For years I have surrounded myself with the wrong people, people that didn't dream big or if they did dream big were too lazy to reach for that dream. Many times I allowed people to steal my time and money to find their dreams when I thought if I did my best they would help me with my dreams. All those times were a lie. A lie I told myself because I wanted a chance to prove I had talent.

I don't need to prove anything anymore. I just need to find the Right People to work with and do the work I was born to do.

I'm going to start writing about the Right People on this blog and Jeffrey Staab is one of those people.

Talking to him last night made me believe in myself again. He is everything an actor should be and beyond that he is a good person. I look forward to working with him.

More to come..... leaving for a script reading and trip to see my Grandson, later:)

I was going to write more to this post but I've forgotten what that more was.

Grandpa is Coming!

This little boy won't remember me but I love him with all my heart. I'm going on a five day road trip to be with both my grandchildren, my sons and those two wonderful mothers of my grandchildren.

Grandpa is coming Denver Vincent Vollrath!

Not the Invisble Jet?

If you've read this post for a while you have read I can do some strange things with my imagination. I call it "editing reality" and I guess it's some kind of self induced reality.

I can live with this part of my imagination and even the waking nightmares I get on long road trips without sleep but on rare moments in my life I've seen things disappear that couldn't disappear.

I went to an Air Show a few weeks ago and saw a B-2 bomber up close and no longer believe I saw it years before turn completely invisible.

If you are new to this blog you should know that I had a car wreck in 1975 that changed my view of reality in many strange, wonderful and terrible ways.

Shinning Heart

Shinning Heart is a song I made up to swing my Grand Daughter Cordelia to sleep after a long day at the zoo. On an overcast day I sang many made up verses to this on the spot song for over two hours as each time I stopped singing Cordelia would wake up.
These verses were written down after I got home to be used in a future novel.

I wish I could remember all the verses:)

SHINNING HEART

Lada Dee Lada Doo

I will always love you.

Eyes of blue and hair of gold.

I will always love you.

Button nose of my laughing rose.

I will always love you.

You made me whole from a broken soul.

I will always love you.

You steal my hat and giggle at that.

I will always love you.

Lada Dee Lada Doo

I will always love you.

I have no musical skills and I'm not a song writer but I am a loving Grandfather who does what he can to make his Grand Daughter happy.

A day of lost Dreams

Today nothing went right but I just keep trying. I'll have better days.

I can't afford to make movies but I feel I must. I just can't hide from the world anymore while I write my novel. I need to make contact with people and making movies is my favorite way to do that.

My dreams aren't really lost, they just had a big setback today.

The Cast

The movie bug has bitten me again.

The script reading is just around the corner for my script "Two Jews and a Pagan" and I decided after talking to Maia, to direct the movie myself.

Maia picked a wonderful cast and I'm hoping to use all of them in the production.

Antoine Williams as Jesus
Daniel Handley as Houdini
Amanda Riley as Merlin

Heaven's a Joke

"Heaven's a Joke" was my first attempt at a one act play and my second short movie script.

Renamed "Two Jews and a Pagan" for comic effect, this script will be cast tonight at the 7:30 PM meeting of the Kansas City Coalition of Independent Filmmakers. First the actors will read the script later this month in a public setting and then it will be filmed for the second time.

I won't be directing this movie but my good friend Maia Brown will do a fine job as both an actor and director.

My Grandson

Wearing a hat much like mine and dressed like I imagined my Grandfather Green Tie alter ego I miss and love this boy with all my heart.

Hope to see you soon my wonderful grandson!

Kissing Sally

Her name isn't Sally but it is easier for me to talk to her through this blog than by email, phone or in person.

"I'm going to kiss you."

Sally closed her eyes to receive my kiss.

I was nervous and my damaged nerves betrayed me. After the trauma of bending a steering wheel to the column in a car wreak with my face, my face would contort when I was under stress.

I hadn't kissed a woman in years and I was under stress. I closed my eyes and kissed her with my twisted face.

Years later Sally told me she had opened her eyes when we had our first kiss and saw a grim twisted face as I kissed her. I told her why my face was the way it was but I don't know if she believed me.

Later I told Sally I loved her and when she said it back I wasn't sure she meant it.

A car wreak, a first kiss and two "I love you" all twisted metal in my life or is that twisted mental?

The Scars of Fear

Some wounds never heal. Fear bleeds our faith from us. I am losing my fear moving forward and yet the mountain I must climb is so tall and I am so very tired. I've wasted so much time on other peoples projects only to have them steal from me.

Time to give it all I have. I must focus on the novel. Its not like anything that's out there, will people read it? I need to just write it and get over any fear. I need to brush that last bit of fear aside and finish it.

I tried to explain to a friend on the phone last night what my novel is about.

"I believe we're one soul and we can reincarnate into ourselves to protect the future from destruction that flows down the river of time. The novel is about my real life and my imagination. I'm writing about places it my life where the real and the imagined mix. The story is about an impossible reality that seems very real to me."

She said, me telling her that helped her on her journey. Why did I live in fear all those years. People are more open to alternate forms of believes now. Fear is a waste of my time and I just need to go that last step.

The Path

I began to walk down the path. A path I feared, a path I knew wasn't for me. As I got older the path became more narrow until I walked on a dull blade that was miles long.

When I was younger I ate drank and spoke lies. I was a fool and a word worshiper. Then the path had three ways set before me.

Past Me, the master of lies was one road. A road I happily followed.

Present Me, that was lost without hope in a Broken Mirror Universe.

Future Me, a creature sculpted in harsh truths that saved my soul many times.

The blade is sharper now but I still walk. I know what I must do no matter how impossible that seems. I must become a writer and make a living at it.