Learn how savoring—past, present, and future—can increase happiness, resilience, and meaning, especially during retirement and life transitions.

Savoring Fire Lookout Towers

Today, I’m savoring some special moments from the past. I lived on two fire lookout towers during two different life life eras in Oregon’s Ochocco National Forest. Because I’m savoring, my thoughts are positive, drifting in mountain mists.

A Passion for Photography

After graduating from university with a B.A. Literature Degree from the University of Oregon in 1978, I found myself working in a photography shop. Later, I took photographs professionally for newspapers and magazines after grad school in journalism. One of my passions has always been photography.

 So, it wasn’t a surprise it popped up on my Retirement Curious List. I’d lost the “edge” when I went into journalism “management,” (ie. Editor-in-Chief of a group of community newspapers; and then for a PBS/NPR affiliate station). Burnt out from that, I embarked on a 20-year-passion in overseas mercy ministry.  I often took good photographs, like any traveler, but not so much for art.

Back to the photography shop! I grew bored working in sales. I was very enthusiastic when my wife achieved her first job– in a small town in the high Oregon Desert.

Life is full of transitions: Moving to the high Oregon Desert

Job prospects were weak for me in this small high desert town, but I ended up in the U.S. Forest Service, running a small warehouse in a desert compound, and learning how to move stuff with a forklift. I had experience with a forklift from a college summer job at the (yes, the) Central Intelligence Agency. Perhaps my sophomore college scores put me in that stimulating job. (I think we all learned lessons along the way …think of those. We adapted and changed.)

When the heavy winter dropped like a fat polar bear on Burns, Oregon, my job was terminated until Spring. Having trekked the snowy mountain forest with a fire fighting crew burning logging debris, I’d learned there was a fire lookout position open in the late Spring. I jumped all over that idea and got the job at the Snow Mountain Lookout. 

Journalism Burnout

Twelve-plus years later, after grad school, and feeling burnt out from my Florida job as a reporter covering everything from crime, to business and sports. I was working for a daily newspaper while my heart was in developing an environmental magazine called Southwest Florida Outdoors. I wanted a peaceful place for reflection. By God’s will, I’m sure, I was directed back to the same forest, but this time to the Dry Mountain Lookout.

Here are some savoring moments from those two experiences.

Savoring Snow Mountain, 1979

• I lived in a glass-enclosed cabin, elevated on sturdy pillars, at least 20-feet above a bare ridge line. Wow. The 360-degree views were stunning. To the west, the Cascade Mountains pierced the sky 100 miles on the horizon and could be seen on a clear day,  usually white-capped peaks puncturing brilliant blue skies.  To the east,  the John Day River Valley and faraway Idaho teased me with thoughts of cowboys, mountain men and gunfighters.  To the south, the Steens Mountains rose, a geological oddity in the high desert. And to the north, green-patchwork ranches reached towards the Columbia River where Lewis and Clarke relentlessly stroked boats to their cross country conclusion.

I wish I remembered more …Notes on bears, pheasants and fish

• But I do recall a huge black bear crossing my ridge before dusk. I’d just finished my evening walk along that same ridge line.
• I remember the first bird (and last) I ever shot with my 22-rifle. I believe it was a mountain pheasant. When I cleaned it, my eyes teared at its colorful beauty. I never shot another bird. I’m not sure why I didn’t feel the same about slaying fish in Florida, where I’d end up living for 25 years on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico.

What the buck, and more

• I also remember driving a defective old van, desperate to come back to “civilization” for my “day off,” from the tower, late one night, and a huge buck tackled my car. It got up and ran away. I was shaken. I had to pull over and pray. In hindsight, I know it hurt the elk more than me; I hope not so much it was terminal (no negative!) But I’ll never forget the sound of a living thing hitting a modern device (my truck!).
• Talk about poor! Unable to constantly purchase oil to fill our oil furnace, I remember my wife and I cuddling on a fold-out sofa bed in the living room because we had a wood stove that emitted heat as long as I fed it wood. I was good with an axe in those days. As always, past and present and forever, I loved showers. I took a portable electric heater into the shower, hoping to remain warm, not electrocuted.
• And I remember people: a grizzly (ie. rough, like a Grizzly Bear)  looking older man (well, I was a kid so he might have been in his 40s!). His name was Touche, with the French pronunciation (too-shay). He was an expert hunter with the famous American “musket,” an antique muzzle-loader used in the American Revolution against the British Empire.
• We also befriended two local forest fire fighters, Mike and Debbie. Tough young folks, with a lot of wisdom to share with a sheltered college grad.

A journalism meditation

• So, after this experience—a little wiser and experienced —I went back to Graduate School to be more employable … in a profession I eventually loved, journalism, a low-paying profession with great rewards. Its value is so much more than money when you continue to serve your community and country by sharing information and knowledge (as ethically as possible.)
• Honestly, as journalists, we wanted to save the world, or at least make it better. Today, there are still many journalists who feel the same way. But, like all important institutions, it needs to constantly be re-evaluated and improved. As we all know, there is a lot of bad journalism and fake news out there in the 21^st Century. It’ll only get worse. But we all have the responsibly to be discerning and use critical thinking to make choices based on good information. There is serious and ethical journalism out there. We have to learn to seek it, and evaluate it. Then we can make good choices.
• By the way, I eventually found Jesus because of my journalism skills of constantly seeking the truth.

Savoring Dry Mountain, 1991

• By now, my wife and I had the most beautiful child in the world, Willow, named after a tree, in the time of tree huggers trying to save our forests (God’s creation), and long before a silly movie of the same name. Of course, my wife had a second explanation “just in case,” saying Willow was named after her wonderful father, William O. Or Will O. I’m cool with that.
• A diligent dad, I bought a wading pool to put by our cabin. My 4-year-old daughter was a Florida kid, and needed water! 
• I worked in a “skyscraper” fire tower. This time, our cabin was on the ground. The tower was a small cubicle far into the sky. I’m not even going to Google it. To me, it was half-way to the stars. I was literally in the thunder and lightning clouds at times.
• I remember one time being in the tower when a thunderstorm moved too fast for me to flee down the exposed metal stairs to the wooden cabin. My fire boss told me to stay put and stand on a stool with glass “feet.” The tower shook from the thunder as I tried to stay on the small stool. Simultaneously, lightning flashed and thunder exploded. It was right there, in my glass-enclosed space. It was damn interesting and exciting (yeah, right you liar!). I was too terrified to pee.
• About that pool. It melted when some logging equipment caught fire and burnt my mountaintop (but not the cabin or tower). I was in Portland on my “weekend” at the time. Firefighters were camping around my tower when a shocked Scott returned to the lookout station.
• Wildlife? I remember too many snakes. The walking was still amazing, but rocky. I towered above the desert to the south, and green forests to the east, west and north. The diversity of God’s creation continued to blow me away with amazement at his creativity.

Savoring: it’s a valuable tool for anyone, but particularly for retirees. 

Think of the best moments, and look at challenging moments in hindsight with a positive eye. We likely learned from these experiences. They built us as who we are today. But do we know who we are today? Sometimes, we’re so wrapped up in the most recent past, we forget what is most important. We survived. We have fortitude. We are conquerors. And we have wisdom to share with others.