Seen in Print

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I was at the small, but enlightening and well laid out, museum in Gila Bend some years ago and heard a Tohono O'Odum (sp?) lady relate the best I can remember what Wayne has shown above. Gila Bend was my Air Force daughters first assignment. The museum-welcome center was run by an old gentleman who was then probably the age I am now. I would visit with him almost every day to find where I could visit around the area. He always
sent me to an interesting place.

With this posting, you are reminding me of Life - its many, many choices and journeys.

Once I made the decision to emigrate away from the Pittsburgh steelmill lifestyle (thus, apparently, saving my life, when one considers what happened to the steelmills and their attendant lifestyle and neighborhoods/small towns, up and down the Ohio, Youghiogheny, Allegheny, and Monongahela rivers,) I gave myself the absolute freedom to venture anywhere, which included serious considerations of and some actual residence in several of these places: Australia; Saudi Arabia; Brazil; France; Ohio; California, England; Austria; Italy; a Franciscan seminary in Pennsylvania, St Fidelis. Once graduated, much to the dismay and objection of family and neighbors, I simply loaded my books, credentials, and suits into my new car and launched myself into my future. And here I sit, tapping away on MTJ (Hey, was that little last sentence a little Haiku ?!)

[Rufus T. Firefly]

THE MAN IN THE MAZE

According to O'odham oral history, the labyrinth design depicts experiences and choices individuals make in the journey through life. In the middle of the "maze," a person finds their dreams and goals. When one reaches the center, the individual has a final opportunity (the last turn in the design) to look back upon choices made and the path taken, before the Sun God greets us, blesses us and passes us into the next world.
....

Perhaps......

I have always associated the labyrinth with a holding and imprisonment site for beings such as the Minotaur........and worse.

[rogruth]

Murph,
Did your parents and friends accept what you did?
I didn't have all the travels that you had but leaving
my hometown in the Ohio Valley probably saved me.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Murph,
Did your parents and friends accept what you did?

And what were their expectations?

I didn't have all the travels that you had but leaving my hometown in the Ohio Valley probably saved me.

That seems to have been a commonality.

[robert.]

Man creating his own destiny

I have a sculpture in front of me. It’s a guy sculpting himself out of a rock. I tried to upload a photo .

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
Did your parents and friends accept what you did?

And what were their expectations?

I didn't have all the travels that you had but leaving my hometown in the Ohio Valley probably saved me.

That seems to have been a commonality.

I don't know that they had expectations, other than that I would succeed. I was the second in the family (mother was the first) to go to college, so upon graduation, they were all on the adventure with me, in their hearts, as I constructed my new life. We all remained very close, though many miles and dreams apart. Throughout college and during the years immediately following, I made sure I traveled home to visit everybody, for holidays and parts of the summers. For a very pleasant time, I did take a position as a Cardio-Pulmonary Therapist (called, "Respiratory/Inhalation Therapist" at that time) at the same hospital in which I had been born, but left after several months, not wanting to get too re-attached to the area, once again.

However, once my mother passed-away (my father had died when I was ten) when I was in my early 20's, and since the grandparents and many aunts and uncles had died by the 90's, I kept myself focused in my life constructed along the East Coast of the USA.

That afforded me the joy of meeting my wife, which became a 37 year-long partnership, commencing on the day we met. I asked her out the following day, and we were a constant, ever since, until January 14 of last year..

[webenda]

I have always associated the labyrinth with a holding and imprisonment site for beings such as the Minotaur........and worse.

Each of us has to chose our own path in life. In the case of the Minotaur, he became a problem when he grew up and had to be imprisoned. Some humans follow the same bull headed path.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Murph,
Did your parents and friends accept what you did?

And what were their expectations?

I didn't have all the travels that you had but leaving my hometown in the Ohio Valley probably saved me.

That seems to have been a commonality.

I don't know that they had expectations.....................

Interesting.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Thanks.
But.
Well, assumed in our relationships and my personal journey, which were understood and not necessarily verbalized, would have been: moral and righteous treatment of others; listening first, then speaking; restraint on impulsiveness; Mass attendance; being financially generous and helpful to Religious and Clergy, as often as possible and practicable; gratitude; having fun; visits home; a dependable and nice car (more for safety and practical reasons); staying trim and fit; being financially solid, always; immaculate personal hygiene; staying in contact with family and friends ; protecting my mother in her personal journey...

They would have been stunned if I had ever deviated from any of that toward the negative. There was never any deviating ( except for the staying trim part ).
There's more, but that would be enough for here and now (assuming Dr Phil isn't reading this.)

That would be a few, now that you made me think further about their expectations of me.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

...........think further about their expectations of me.

Whether they are obvious or not, parents do tend to have some expectations, realistic and/or otherwise. Some are traps and some are goals; telling which are which may be part of the process of growing up.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

I'd love to hear more about that, esp. "Traps" ?.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'd love to hear more about that, esp. "Traps" ?.

For example, grandfather worked as a machinist because great-grandfather did and so father should follow right in line - it was good enough for them, it's good enough for you......except they all died young (under 60) broken men in a dead end job. That's a trap to escape, and to try to do something better

[healey36]

Yes...my paternal great-grandfather was a butcher, my grandfather was a cutter in a clothing factory, my uncle was a mechanic. My father went to college and chose civil engineering as a profession. Those before him looked down on that, said he never "made" anything. I told The Old Man he should take his father down to the American Legion Bridge and show him that, just one of a number of projects he was chief engineer on.

[webenda]

[Mitch]

I'd love to hear more about that, esp. "Traps" ?.

The expectation is that parents took 18 or 20 years to instill certain ideals in to their offspring. The trap is sending them out into the world to determine if the kids can apply those ideals and make a go of it on their own.