It's Beautiful Here. Life in the eye of a hurricane.

One stone about With a beautiful view Just a rock in the road At piece with you. We accumulate  Disseminate And annotate In aggregate. We touch, we talk Leave a place to walk For tomorrow's traveler We turn to chalk. 

Riding through life one day…I came upon a gate. Fashioned from scrap metal and finished in Mother Nature's signature patina of rust, it was a long forgotten discouragement, left behind after the coal was gone. Helplessly named Private Property, a custodian assigned to limit and control access to something…or somewhere; all while freely sharing through a holey, windowed construct, the remote beauty and intrigue within. There, through her cold countenance, in a shroud of snowfall, a pearly path of ascension rolled and ranged ever up and out of view. Riding through life one day…I came upon a gate.

I don’t know why I was so unsettled; the end was inevitable. But still, there is something deep within us always surprised by change. Here today, gone tomorrow. Coasting down the slight grade on South State Street one September afternoon in 2015, I was moved to stop and take a picture. The bricks and mortar constituting the structure have stood for more or less 100 years. Thanks to a long-since changed demographic and the vicissitudes of time, the building was condemnable, making a last stand in what was once Lewis, Indiana’s business district. With roof missing, walls shifted and cracked, windows shuttered by plywood long turned grey, she spoke softly with the sadness of an unvisited grandmother. Earlier this fall while on my way home from somewhere I took a detour through the increasingly unfamiliar streets of Lewis. My grandparents, Helen and Titus, lived on the corner of E. Green Drive and S. State Street. During childhood, my summer job was to patrol these streets on ...

"Difficulties increase the nearer we approach the goal."  -Johann Von Goethe Goals should be set high, pushing us to achieve what we thought was impossible. I am close. 

He wanted to quit. The pain was great and the effort had nearly reduced him to tears. But something was changing.  A compelling tone of encouragement reverberated from somewhere inside. Still, he wanted to quit, but couldn't...or wouldn't. Either way, can't or won't, something was changing and it was good.  Buried deep within the recesses of the soul, darkness and light dance together. In this place we find our limits are made of smoke. Here we find fire...and something is changed. Find your fire. 

Winding away from me, down the tracks in either direction, no end in sight, are hoppers filled with anthracite. The sounds about me, wind whistling in my ears and gravel popping under my tires, dims and disappears as I approach and stop at the railroad crossing. Nature’s beautiful silence fills the void...birds singing both near and far.  It’s November and my coordinates are roughly 39.30*N and 87.23*W, the days grow short and the shadows long as the South Pole tilts toward the sun. A coal hopper casts a shadow of doubt over what is an otherwise glorious day. Roadblocks tend to do that.  Lucky for me I have a bike with attitude, it will go just about anywhere. And so we do. After a quick survey of the situation and a smile for myself, obstacle turns to opportunity. No, I didn’t hobo the train...it wasn’t going anywhere. Along the rail-bed I head East and eventually South. About a quarter mile down the line I find one end of the train. There was no locomotive attached to the la...

Life, like a river, does not sit on the bank and watch itself flow by. Moving...always toward destiny under different circumstances, in a state of peacefulness, rage, flood or recession...always moving. Regardless of the conditions, we need only courage and grace: the courage to put our boat in the water and the grace to delight in the journey. We will get there...eventually.  *Photo by Jim Cota, Wabash River

Up here, 34,000 feet above everything, hurdling through the atmosphere at 540 mph - I quietly contemplate. This space is somewhere between Heaven and Earth. Up here, the narrowly focused view constitutes considerable perspective - I am. And, in this moment, up here, all at once time stands still, retreats, and then gently disappears. Up here, in the space between, is a breach for acquittal and release. Up here, in the space between, resides faith to conspire and court what will be. It's beautiful up here.  

"Perhaps on the rare occasion pursuing the right course demands an act of piracy, piracy itself can be  the right course?" -Weatherby Swann There is something seductive about the sea that beckons man to her shores. She dances, whispers, calms, and quenches the soul. She comes and goes by the pull of the Moon and kisses the beach endlessly with the mysterious intonation of a siren. Here I sit half in and half out of the water, touched by time long passed as it marches up the beach, wave after wave, moment after moment. This water, witness to the legend of the world - having rained down on a garden named Eden, made holy by Honorius II, and fallen salty from the cheek of a crying child - now bastes my legs. My mind is quiet, all is quiet. I am present, but not here. Completely connected and totally disengaged. In the distance a two-masted schooner, a pirate's preferred vessel, sails on the dark blue edge silently becoming one with the horizon.  As ...

Lucille Rees: Always more smile than frown, more friend than foe, and more sweet than sour. Every day she demonstrates how to be more full than empty, more strong than weak, and how to give more than take. Lucy is all these things because she's more interior than exterior, more pond than pool, and more Mom than Dad. Terre Haute South Winter Homecoming Coronation, January 2015 -Photography by Caleb Pettit 

"Beer and wings, Wednesday at 7:30. Attendance is mandatory, unless you can't make it."  I expect to receive this cryptic message, or a derivation thereof, at some point in time every Tuesday. Twenty other guys receive the same knock at their door, and on any given Wednesday, 10-12 answer by showing up at the appointed place and time. We will squeeze around 3-4 tables to share food, stories, laughter and a couple hours of time. Time has no agenda, emotion, feelings or concerns, yet it's always here. Here, not there. Time waits on no one. Time doesn't care if you dance; it just sets the beat and keeps itself. I try to surround myself with people who recognize this simple, yet difficult to grasp concept. The implacable drum beat of death plays for us all, whether we realize or accept that is an entirely different matter.  It was August 2014, and my son, Jack would be leaving soon for his first year at DePauw University. I asked him to join me...

On a regular basis, I purposefully enter the woods to find myself lost. It's a fact, you have to be lost before you can be found.  A couple weeks ago, while getting myself lost, I quickly discovered how ill-prepared I was for the intended expedition. The ground was frozen and I had the wrong tires on the bike with entirely too much air. I went down three times. The first two falls were relatively harmless. The third fall harbored a greater level of intensity. It caught my attention. In fact, there was enough intensity involved that I took inventory.  After testing the larger pieces of my body to determine if I remained intact and was working properly, I laid back down. I was lost. It was beautiful.  Eventually, I started talking to Me: "What in Hell do you think you're doing...riding a bike in the middle of a 250 acre forest...alone? Seriously, you're closer to 50 than 47!"  Then, Me says to I: "Relax, I'm out here to fall down. You can't pick yoursel...

AMI, FL, USA - Three girls: Helen, Margaret, Lucy Good things come in threes. True. But we also hear that bad things come in threes. Again, true. For future reference please note that bad news is readily available and nearby when a person is looking for and expecting it!  The same can be said for good news or good fortune. How many times have you heard Hard Luck Charlie exclaim, "Good luck follows (insert a name) around like a lost puppy! He wakes up and Fortune has coffee brewed and waiting on his front porch."  Good things happen to those who are looking for it. One, two, three. Ready, set, go!  So what's with the number 3? No idea, all I have is a cool picture of three girls on a beach. 

"There is more to life than simply increasing its speed." -Mahatma Gandhi I pedaled by this 'twice-blasted road closed sign' at about 20mph, on Friday, January 2. The day was brisk at 36 degrees Fahrenheit, yet it wasn't cold. Cloudy but not grey. I was making good time on a planned 35 mile shake-down on the Domane, and a shake-down of myself after spending much of December on rollers. Most of my surroundings on this Midwestern January day had assumed the color of winter, earthy and largely brown. Throw an orange sign in on that back drop and it tends to jump...if you're paying attention. I was paying attention. But I was making good time! Still the urge to capture an image of what had just caught my eye was strong. I rode on. Making good time. At about a half-mile 'post sign' I got on the brakes, stood up and turned around. Why was I so intrigued with a road closed sign where there was no road?! Mounted to a fence post at the gated entra...

Have you ever done a Google search on yourself? I did a couple weeks ago, apparently while experiencing an onset of attention deficit disorder. I often find my mind hundreds of miles from where it's supposed to be. Recently, while doing research on endowment spending policies...exciting stuff to be sure...I found myself reading an article published in the New Yorker titled "Letting Go." (  http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/08/02/letting-go-2  ) See! So, back to the point...while digging for dirt on myself, I found my name listed in a blog posting. While not familiar with the blog, MoseMiddleMan, I was certainly intrigued and clicked on the link to learn more. I was blown away! Here is a portion of the post dated July 15, 2014 (used without permission): "Stepping into the Light" "This is the beginning of…well whatever this is. I am sure that I read, or heard somewhere, that every great journey begins with the first...

It's Beautiful Here. A year in the eye of a hurricane. by Joel R Harbaugh | Make Your Own Book Producing and selling this book was never on my radar. Collecting my thoughts and sharing them with my children, family and friends was my only goal. But people talk...and I am asked frequently about how to get one of my 'books.' So, this is how. They are a little pricey, but that's how it goes with small-run self-publishing. Clink the title link directly below the book cover picture.

Lucille has always given the best butterfly kisses. Here she is swimming the 100 Butterfly for the first time. She is awesome! 

Both of my boys are out of the house. Jack likes to say, "I'm in college." That they continue to bloom is a reality I find exciting and unsettling at the same time. So, having all my children in one place at the same time is a moment I truly enjoy. I swim in their laughter and playful sibling ribbing, and sometimes I get a picture.

The evening grows long and my home is full. Noise echoes off every wall, the sounds of teenage girls being teenage girls. I don't attempt to calm them even though I must wake early tomorrow for work. The laughter and giggles they make are sounds of joy, they can't be squelched, can't be bottled, and can't be denied. This noise, this disruption, this laughter must be breathed in, deeply. Embraced for what it is...this moment. Right now they are life!

The exhilaration of deeply breathing crisp, clean, cold air on a winter evening is only made better by catching snow flakes in the camera flash. I use simple adventure and discovery as a mechanism to change my attitude and outlook...on the spot. We are snowflakes.   Photo: January 2, 2012. Included in  It's Beautiful Here. A year in the eye of hurricane.