Travel Tips... Hetch Hetchy Reservoir - A Park as Spectacular as Yosemite but Uncrowded... In 1974 We Went Camping and Mountain Climbing... and a ZEN WISDOM TALE:

We Took LSD, Peyote & Marijuana and Started Free Climbing... UP A "CHIMNEY" in the Granite... Something I have never done before or since... The LSD Gave us a LOT of Energy... that's one of the Effects of the Drug... and NO FEAR... Like a Viking Berserker...

Later on I walked up to the Side of the River just upstream from a Giant Waterfall to marvel at the bubbling water in a pool... I Accidentally Slipped In and was Swimming (Fully Dressed) in a Current That was Much More Powerful than I Could Swim.  

The River Took Me to the Bottom of the Pool and I GAVE UP... I ACCEPTED DEATH... and Relaxed... 

Then the River Bubbled Me Up to a Place Where I Could Crawl Out... and I walked back to the Campsite, got into my Mummy Bag and Did Not Come Out for Hours... 

Ever Since My Near Death Experience I Had a Feeling that I Had Something Important I Needed To Accomplish with My Life... and That's Why I Did Not Die That Day... 

and after a few decades I have come to realize I won't be doing any BIG IMPORTANT ACTION but an Every Day Little Positive Effect is Enough... That's why I was Spared...  

The Years I helped design Communication Equipment for the US Air Force... Helping Defend the USA... My Stuff FLEW! 

The Time I Bought and Delivered 20 Gallons of Water to a remote trailer way out in the woods... 

The Years I Delivered Pizza for Domino's in the SNOW... When the Customers Had Difficulty Getting Out of their House... and were Hungry...

When I was Working at The Plastics Factory and I Made Thousands of Wheel Chair Wheels... Thousands of People Roll around because of Me...

The Time when I was working at Radio Shack and I sold 50 packages of hearing aid batteries to a fellow that smuggled them to Czechoslovakia... It'd difficult to buy them behind the Iron Curtain...  

When I was working at the Welfare office and I Arranged One Way Bus tickets for People stranded in Humboldt County... Young People would come here to work in the Marijuana Harvest as Trimmers... and then when the harvest was over, they were out of work, penniless, hungry, and Lost... We Sent them Home... and Bought them Enough Food for the Journey...

Little Positive Actions... Done over a Lifetime... 

and Then Decades Later I Heard this ZEN WISDOM TALE: and Thought, Hey! That's What Happened to Me!

The old man and the waterfall tells of an old man who is swept into dangerous river rapids and plunges over a massive waterfall.

The Tale
Onlookers gathered by the riverbank in terror, certain that no one could possibly survive a plunge down such a high and violent cataract. Yet, moments later, the old man emerged from the churning foam at the bottom of the falls, walking out onto the riverbank alive, composed, and completely unharmed.
Astonished, the crowd gathered around him and asked how he managed to cheat death.

The old man replied:
"I accommodated myself to the water, not the water to me. Without thinking, I allowed myself to be shaped by it. Plunging into the swirl, I came out with the swirl. This is how I survived."

The Core Wisdom
• Non-Resistance (Wu-wei / Letting Go): When people face crisis, panic often makes them stiffen, fight the current, or try to exert rigid control—an approach that usually breaks them. The old man survived because he offered no ego-driven resistance; he became one with the movement of the water.

• Flow Over Force: True strength is not about dominating a chaotic situation through sheer will, but learning how to yield, adapt, and move with the momentum of life's unpredictable turns.

• Presence Without Thought: He noted that he did this "without thinking"—meaning he acted from intuitive, unhindered presence rather than second-guessing, calculating, or panicking.