Five foot ten and bullet proof..

Good afternoon dear readers. It has been quite some time since I have put finger to key and confronted some of life’s questions with you. I apologize for my absence and “cry your pardon”. I have been on a quest as such. My quest has been one of danger, adventure, and the ages old battle between good and evil. I have not been to war again but I have been to a places like, Iraq, Afghanistan, Mt. Everest, England, and even a place called Mid-World. My particular quest? In a word, reading. As a published author, one might infer that I am also quite the reader. This is historically not the case for this “writer”. I made a new years resolution this year to read a book a month for the entire year.

I started with the outstanding work of Jon Krakauer in his book titled Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, where my love and respect for the name sake of the center I lead only grew to greater heights. Those heights led me to the highest of them all on Mount Everest where Krakauer regaled me of his epic and tragic story in Into Thin Air. What a storyteller he is and what a life he has lived. It got me thinking about my own story of course. What story am I leaving behind? Have I been as tough, brave and courageous as Pat Tillman or Jon Krakauer in my life? As I age, I remember thinking to myself, how I used to feel. How I’m five foot ten and bullet proof. There are moments I still feel that way but the bullet proof at times seems to be wearing off, I feel older, my body takes quite a bit longer to heal from things. Things that used to bother me for a couple of days, now linger weeks. Which got me to thinking about another character I have been reading about. Roland of Gilead. The Gunslinger in the famously written book series by Steven King, The Dark Tower.

If you have not taken the time to read this series of books and are looking for a great story to get lost in, I fully recommend it. It takes you between worlds, between times, between cultures and right at the heart of good verses evil on so many levels. It follows the journey of a law man or gunslinger named Roland. It speaks of his childhood, the adventures, the life, the death and all of the struggles of becoming the person he is today in search of this Dark Tower. You watch as his body deteriorates from this vibrant and strong young man with the world at his finger tips to one of a person who has lived centuries maybe. His body is broken, he’s lost a couple of fingers on one of his hands making it hard to weild those guns of his but he still treks on. He learns to shoot with diminished physical capabilities and remains this mythically heroic character all along the series. It would seem he is bullet proof at times, but isn’t. He gets hurt, he struggles with emotional ambiguity, he is at times without empathy or compassion and he can kind of be a hard ass most of the time. Probably if you saw this man walking down the street you wouldn’t think, gee I should be his friend and honestly it wouldn’t bother Roland in the slightest.

What I have found as I begin this 6th book of 8 is that Roland, even though he is pretty much a badass, can’t complete this quest all by himself. He has what is called his Ka-Tet. His fam, his compatriots, his fellow travelers and fellow gunslingers. From the very beginning of this story, it appears King shows us that even though Roland is this champion of good and has all the talent in the world or worlds to be the last and greatest gunslinger he will fail at his attempts to find the Dark Tower and defeat the evil that threatens to end all civilization for all times with out his Ka-Tet. I get it. I want to be able to conquer the evil in the world, save those who need saving, travel from place to place, build fences with my son, run around with my grandkids, hike Arizona’s South Mountain, brave the wilds of nature and it would be great if I were still five foot ten and bullet proof. But alas, I am not. I am a bit diminished if I am being honest. My body hurts more, my sleep isn’t as restful. I have wrinkles and hair where they don’t belong and sometimes I even feel like yelling at kids to get off my lawn! I see some of myself in the character of Roland and I am thankful that my quest isn’t one where I must venture alone.

If today, you feel alone and the world is stretched out before you without hopes of conquering it, know this. You aren’t alone. You read this today so you are part of my ka-tet and I am part of yours and we can overtake the dark towers of life if we just keep moving forward-TOGETHER .

If you were wondering. I have read nine books in seven months. It might be the one resolution I actually stick to!