(After Launching My Channel in 2006) Twenty freakin’ years!
Not 8000, Not 80,000, Eight hundred. Yeah, you read that right! 800 and teetering…
Fun Fact: Only 10 % of YouTube Channels reach 1000 subscribers. I’m in good company with the other 90%.
My very first video 20 years ago was a grainy, low-resolution clip of my sister shadow dancing at Burning Man. (since removed) I edited it in Windows Movie Maker. Digital cameras were still evolving, and the videos were Blurry. Tiny. Imperfect.
But that didn’t stop me. I continued to film and upload.
Back then, nobody really knew what YouTube was supposed to be. It was the Wild West. People posted funny skits, awkward home movies, random moments of life. No strategy. No branding. No algorithms to decode. Just curiosity and creativity.
Then came the how-to videos. Those were gold!
I remodeled parts of my house using YouTube tutorials. Total strangers taught me things I might never have learned otherwise. That was the magic — people sharing what they knew.
When I started uploading my trick riding videos, I picked up a couple hundred subscribers fairly quickly. For a minute, it felt like momentum.
Then YouTube introduced ad revenue.
I made pennies….literal pennies.
And then they changed the rules — you needed 1,000 subscribers and thousands of watch hours to qualify for monetization. That’s when my growth slowed to a crawl.
I didn’t have a niche. I didn’t have a strategy. I just wanted to share my crazy life in an artful way.
I’m a musician. A hiker. A traveler. A ranch owner. An artist. A complete jackie-of-all-trades.
Over time, my equipment improved. My editing improved. I spent hours polishing videos into little documentaries of my adventures.
And sometimes they were full-blown documentaries.
I once flew to Kansas to stay with a family living in the middle of wheat fields as far as the eye could see. I filmed their simple life as farmers and the one-room schoolhouses they were restoring. I submitted that film to festivals.
Some of my videos have over 100,000 views. Others have 25.
My subscriber count? It creeps.
I gain a few. I lose a few. I gain a couple more. It inches forward.
It’s always teetering!
One day I’ll hit 1,000 subscribers. Or maybe I won’t.
But here’s what I’ve realized: That number isn’t the point.
The point is that I’ve documented my life.
When I go back and watch videos from ten or fifteen years ago, I smile. I remember who I was. What I cared about. What my voice sounded like. The light in my eyes. The people who were still here.
YouTube became my time capsule.
If I ever get dementia, I hope someone sits me down and presses play.
“Look,” they’ll say. “This was you.”
And I’ll get to meet myself all over again.
800 subscribers – still filming.
Go take a look and don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE! I want to get to 801!
I still remember the first time I hiked toward Frog Lake Overlook in the Sierra of Northern California.
It was summer. Blue sky. Warm sun. Wildflowers scattered along the trail like confetti. And even then — even in perfect weather — it wasn’t easy. The trail climbed steadily, the air thinned, and the slopes around felt big and exposed. It was hot, and I got overheated. At one point I honestly didn’t think I’d make it to the top, but I pushed forward.
I stopped more than once, hands on my hips, catching my breath and looking up at those towering ridgelines, thinking: This place is beautiful… but it’s serious. No joke.
In winter, that same beauty becomes something entirely different. Those open slopes fill with deep snow. Terrain that feels challenging in July turns avalanche-prone and unforgiving. It’s why the area is beloved by experienced backcountry skiers — and why it demands careful judgment every single time.
This week, that place took nine lives.
And I can’t stop thinking about how easily excitement, planning, and commitment can blur the most important decision we ever make outdoors: whether to go at all.
My husband was a private pilot for many years, and aviation teaches this lesson brutally and early. There’s a phrase pilots use: “get-there-itis.”
You plan the trip. Check the weather — all good. Drive to the airport. Then conditions change. You see holes in the clouds and start wondering: Can I get above this? Will it clear… or close in?
We’ve waited it out. We’ve diverted. We’ve cancelled entirely and driven home.
Because experienced pilots know something simple and hard:
The safest flight is the one you don’t take.
“Get-there-itis” kills pilots every year.
And sometimes, it shows up in the mountains too.
Forecasts had warned that the Sierra was about to be hammered with massive snowfall — feet upon feet in a very short time. Anyone familiar with the range knows what that means: unstable snowpack, hidden weak layers, and avalanche danger that escalates fast.
The Frog Lake huts are booked far in advance are NOT cheap and often more than a year out, with strict cancellation policies. That kind of reservation can quietly add pressure. After waiting that long, it’s human to feel like you have to go.
But mountains don’t honor reservations.
My perspective, from someone familiar with the area:
There are three routes out from the huts according to the Land Trust Website. Two of them cross the steep, avalanche-prone saddle, leading toward parking areas near I-80 and the Castle Peak trailhead — less than half a mile apart. Another option heads east along the flatter service road and heads east towards the Truckee area. Or, another option not mentioned by the Trust, is to cut over towards Summit Lake. With some backcountry navigation, that route can also be used to loop back toward the trailhead. In fact, another party reportedly used that approach to avoid the avalanche-prone saddle.
The huts themselves are modern, heated, and staffed with a full-time caretaker. Staying put could potentially have allowed rescuers to reach the group more safely once conditions improved. Skiing out over that saddle — especially during or just after a major storm — would be extremely dangerous. Also, the storm was raging and they were at risk of dying from exposure!
Of course, that’s easy for me to say from the comfort of home. I’m a backcountry hiker, not a backcountry skier. But I’ve done enough snowshoeing in that area to know how serious those winter conditions can be.
The Routes Suggested by the Tahoe Land Trust
What we do know is what followed.
Search-and-rescue crews had to enter whiteout conditions and severe avalanche danger to reach the survivors. For hours, rescuers put their own lives on the line in terrain that was actively unstable. That’s what these teams do — but every risky decision in the backcountry ripples outward, placing others in harm’s way too.
This isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about recognizing something deeply human.
We all feel the pull to keep going. To finish what we started. To not waste the opportunity.
But experience — real experience — teaches a quieter truth:
Turning back isn’t failure. Waiting isn’t weakness. Cancelling isn’t defeat.
Sometimes it’s:
The decision to stay in the hut and wait it out. The willingness to cancel the trip altogether.
I think back to the summers of hiking to Frog Lake — the sunlight, the wildflowers, the sheer effort it took even in calm conditions — and this week’s loss feels even heavier.
Nine families are now living with the reality that the mountain will always be there…
…but their loved ones aren’t.
If there’s anything this tragedy leaves us with, it’s this:
The wilderness rewards skill and preparation. But it demands humility.
And sometimes the most experienced thing we can do is listen when the mountain says no.
—
Stay safe out there. The mountains are calling… but sometimes it’s best not to answer.
I’ve been an entertainer my entire life—one way or another.
It started when I was seven years old, putting on backyard circuses with my friends while our parents and neighbors sat politely in lawn chairs, pretending we were spectacular. From there, it turned into choir from ages nine to fourteen, then professional bands at sixteen, and eventually decades of professional singing that carried me well into my fifties.
Along the way, I even spent twelve years as a radio DJ—but that’s a story for another blog post.
I stopped singing professionally at fifty-five because my vocal cords simply stopped cooperating. Age has a way of shaking things up whether we’re ready or not. I couldn’t hit those high Ann Wilson power notes anymore. Not only could I not hit them—it hurt. And if you’ve noticed, Ann can’t hit her famous notes anymore either.
But we don’t stop!
Why? Because it’s our identity! Something we believe we were put on this Earth to do!
I sang in tiny, forgettable bars and on big, unforgettable stages. I toured. I opened a show for James Brown’s Grammy Celebration in Los Angeles—his annual industry-only event filled with the who’s who of R&B. A dream come true. And damn, back then I could belt those insane high notes straight from my chest.
Then one day… I couldn’t.
And it crushed me.
I threw myself a full-blown pity party. My voice was gone—and it felt like I was gone too. On top of that, I felt invisible. Like I was fading out. And I wasn’t ready for that. I was too young to disappear.
So I did something desperate and hopeful all at once: I paid $500 for one singing lesson with a renowned vocal coach in New York.
One hour. That’s all it took.
He told me the truth—my vocal cords were thinning with age, and there was nothing I could do about that. But there was something I could do about how I sang. I needed to sing softer. I could still hit high notes, but I’d need to use my falsetto.
Back in the day, falsetto was considered cheating.
That day, I was given permission to cheat.
He taught me how to use breath to make falsetto stronger—not airy—so it could approximate that powerful chest voice I used to rely on. Think Ann Wilson in her glory days singing Barracuda or Crazy on You—pure chest voice. I couldn’t do that anymore. But I could do this.
And that changed everything.
Losing My Identity
Here’s the hard truth: when you lose your identity, it can feel like you’re just waiting to die. At least, that’s how it felt to me.
So I turned to YouTube.
I sat on my couch with my guitar and sang into the camera. I uploaded videos knowing maybe twenty or thirty people would watch. And I was grateful for every single one of them. They showed up. They witnessed me. They allowed me to let the creativity that had been trapped inside my body finally come out.
That mattered more than views or numbers.
I was singing on my terms—with the vocal cords I now have.
Today, my stage is the high desert.
I created a channel called High Desert Reflections. It’s just me—singing a few bars of a song, then sharing reflections from sixty-six years of living and what I’ve learned along the way.
So here’s my invitation to you:
Think about an identity you believe you’ve lost.
Maybe the new version looks like writing a book filled with your experiences. Maybe it’s slowing down. Maybe it’s a 2.0 version of who you used to be.
Dealer’s choice.
Just don’t lose your identity—revise it – Change the Key so it fits who you are now.
My Quest for Native American Ancestry Began with a Photograph
My quest to learn more about my ancestors began with a photograph of my great-grandmother that appeared in a newspaper sometime in the late 1940s. The image was captioned simply: “Lady in a Sun Bonnet.”
The accompanying article read:
“The pioneer Kentucky mountain families of the Cornetts and Isons gathered recently for a reunion along Leatherwood Creek in Perry County. One of the most striking persons present was Mrs. Polly Ann Cornett. Her snow-white hair was accentuated by a bright red waist. Her love for red, she explained, was inherited from Indian ancestry. Her paternal grandfather was Indian. She recalled that her brother always wore a red necktie. Her brother is Hiram Brock, a state senator and political leader in Eastern Kentucky for many years.”
Indian ancestry?
This was the first I had ever heard of it.
So I asked my dad.
“Oh yeah,” he said casually. “We have some Indian blood in the family.”
That was pretty much the extent of what anyone seemed to know.
At the time, all I really understood about my family tree was that my dad was born and raised in Eastern Kentucky—Harlan County—and my mom was born in Oklahoma. I had red hair, blue eyes, freckles, and very fair skin. My mom had blondish hair, blue eyes, and fair skin. My dad had black hair, blue eyes, and tanned easily.
Long before DNA testing was a thing, I began researching my dad’s side of the family the old-fashioned way. I eventually traced his lineage back to a Cherokee chief named Chief Red Bird, who would be my fifth great-grandfather. But the Native blood went back even further than that.
In the early frontier days, it was not uncommon for settlers—often mountain men—to take Native wives. Over generations, that bloodline eventually culminated with Red Bird. From there, as families moved out of the Kentucky hollers and intermarried, the ancestry became increasingly European.
Years later, when online DNA testing became readily available, I had my dad—at 99 years old—spit into a 23andMe tube. The results showed 2% Indigenous ancestry. Through additional research, I also found Shoshone ancestry in the mix.
I solved one family mystery but learned about another tribe where my DNA is the strongest.
The Celts
The Celts, much like Native Americans, were peoples who were tribal in structure—bound by clans, kinship, land, and oral history. Peoples whose spiritual traditions were ancient, whose ceremonies and beliefs stretched back thousands of years bound by nature.
The Erasure
Long before the colonization of the Americas, England had already honed its appetite for conversion at home. Celtic peoples in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were targeted not just for their land, but for their beliefs. Conversion was framed as salvation, but it functioned as control. Oral traditions were discouraged or destroyed, sacred sites were repurposed, clan systems were dismantled, and spiritual practices were labeled pagan, savage, or uncivilized—language later reused almost verbatim in the New World. Celtic children were taught that their native tongues were backward or shameful, a strategy later replicated almost exactly in Native American boarding schools. When a language is erased, so too are the stories, ceremonies, and meanings that cannot be translated.
Much of the Celtic tribal belief system was lost—not because it was primitive or weak, but because it was deliberately dismantled through conquest, forced conversion, and the erasure of oral tradition. What remains are fragments: folklore, language, seasonal customs, and a lingering sense of belonging to land and kin—echoes of what once was whole.
Christianity was the primary tool used to justify cultural erasure, but the driving force was political control. Conversion wasn’t only about faith; it was about obedience. Indigenous belief systems—Celtic and Native alike—were deeply tied to land, kinship, and autonomy. By replacing those systems with Christianity, empires weakened tribal authority, disrupted oral traditions, and made people easier to govern. The church and the state worked hand in hand: religion supplied the moral justification, while empire reaped the land, labor, and loyalty.
Native peoples of the Americas, despite immense pressure and violence, managed to preserve far more of their living traditions – albeit through oppression and loss. And perhaps that is why the interconnection still feels present—one culture holding what another was forced to forget.
This pattern of cultural erasure extended beyond Native peoples. Those forcibly brought to the Americas were also stripped of language, tradition, and identity, their histories intentionally fractured as a means of control.
I guess what I learned is that I come from strong tribal roots, abroad and here in the Americas – both part of the European cultural erasure.
It all began with a single photograph that asked a question with even more to the answer than I had imagined.
Recently, during a conversation about family history, I mentioned to my niece that her mother and I had both been Job’s Daughters.
“What’s that?” she asked.
I found myself struggling to explain it—trying to give an elevator speech about a complex organization that’s been around since 1717. I told her it was a leadership and service organization for girls, connected to the Masons, which her grandfather had been a lifetime member of.
She had no idea what a Mason was either.
She did remember her grandpa riding a tiny motorcycle in parades, wearing a fez—but she had no idea what that was about. So I showed her the photos of her mom and me in our Job’s Daughters regalia.
I thought we looked like angels.
She thought we looked like a cult.
And in that moment, I realized how easily meaning can be lost when the stories behind the images aren’t told.
Then I asked my own son if he knew that his grandpa was a Mason and me a Job’s daughter. He knew about grandpa, but not about me. I really don’t think he knows what either of them really are.
That’s no one’s fault but mine. So this is for my Niece, my Son and my Granddaughters:
My father became a Mason in 1951—eight years before I was born.
By the time I arrived in 1959, his Masonry was already part of the background of his life. I remembered his fancy ring he wore with a strange symbol. He was a career Army man, a boy from the hollers of Eastern Kentucky. Being a Mason fit neatly into that larger identity of service and structure.
As a child, I don’t remember much about his Masonry at all. If you’d asked me then what a Mason was, I couldn’t have told you.
I didn’t begin to understand any of it until I was invited into something connected to that world myself.
When I was around 12, my father asked me if I would like to become a Job’s Daughter. I didn’t really know what it was, but when I saw the flowing white robes with wings, I thought they looked like angels. That was enough for me. I said yes.
What I didn’t realize was how serious—and how demanding—it would be.
Job’s Daughters required real commitment. Meetings, responsibilities, memorization, and discipline.
When I eventually became an officer—Chaplain—I was expected to memorize loooong ceremonial passages and stand in front of the entire Bethel (that’s what our chapters were called) to lead prayer and song. In other words, I opened the show and closed the show with stuff in the middle that I can’t remember.
I was thirteen years old-1974
And I was painfully shy.
There was no hiding in that role. No fading into the background. I had to speak clearly in the middle of the room. Lead confidently. Hold space for others. At first, it felt impossible. My hands shook. My voice wavered.
But I learned.
I memorized the words. I practiced until they lived in my body. I stood up straight even when I didn’t feel brave. Slowly—almost without noticing—I began to change.
Job’s Daughters pulled me out of my shell. It gave me my first real experience with public speaking, leadership, and responsibility. It taught me how to stand in front of people and be heard.
It’s a skill that stuck with me my entire life! I am thankful to have been a part of it.
My dad was a 32nd degree Mason. What exactly is that?
When I say my dad was a 32nd degree Mason, it sounds mysterious—maybe even a little dramatic. The truth is much less secretive and far more ordinary (and honorable).
Freemasonry is one of the oldest fraternal organizations in the world, with modern roots tracing back to 1717 in England, when local guilds formed what became known as Freemasonry. At its core, Masonry is about moral character, personal responsibility, service to others, and lifelong learning.
The word degree doesn’t mean rank or power. It’s more like levels of learning, similar to grade levels or stages of coursework. Each degree represents lessons taught through symbolism, ceremony, and reflection.
Most Masons start with the first three degrees—Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft, and Master Mason. From there, some choose to continue their education through additional Masonic bodies. My father did that through the Scottish Rite, where degrees go from the 4th through the 32nd.
So what does 32nd degree actually mean?
It means commitment.
A 32nd degree Mason has spent years studying the principles of Masonry—things like integrity, service, justice, and compassion—and has shown dedication to living those values. It’s not about secrecy or status. It’s about personal growth and service over time.
My dad became a Mason in the middle of his Army career, which makes sense to me now. Masonry appealed to the same things the military did: structure, tradition, discipline, and service to something larger than oneself.
Later, he became a Shriner, a Masonic organization focused on charity—famous for the fez, the parades, and the little motorcycles, and deeply known for supporting children’s hospitals. (photo below) My sister now has the famous Fez, and boy does it sparkle!
So when I say my dad was a 32nd degree Mason, what I really mean is this:
He chose a path that valued service, character, and lifelong learning—and he stayed on it for the rest of his life.
What’s a Job’s Daughter—and Why the Weird Robes?
Job’s Daughters International is a leadership and service organization for girls and young women, connected to Freemasonry. We were typically a daughter or close relative of a Mason. Today all girls can join if they are sponsored by a Mason family and meet the age (10-20) and character requirements.
It was created to teach responsibility, service, confidence, and public speaking through tradition and ceremony.
And the robes?
They’re ceremonial, like choir robes or graduation gowns. Everyone wears the same thing so no one stands out—and so the focus stays on the role and the message, not appearances. The design comes from biblical symbolism meant to represent values like integrity, perseverance, and faith—not a specific religion.
To someone seeing them for the first time, the robes can look weird. But inside the organization, they weren’t about secrecy or mystery.
They were about stepping up, being seen, and learning how to lead.
I loved the robe as much as I loved my Brownie uniform!
In 1997, I built my own website while living on a ranch, connected to the internet by a single dial-up phone line. I had no programming experience, didn’t know code, and barely knew how to use my PC! Windows was still fairly new, and I was migrating from DOS.
Old-timers will remember the terror: a black screen with nothing but a blinking cursor, a row of function keys you definitely weren’t supposed to press—and a few you were somehow expected to remember exactly what they did.
Getting online meant listening to that familiar screech of weird tones that went on forever and hoping no one picked up the phone in another room. If they did—connection lost, and yelling commenced.
I bought a book on how to make a website and learned HTML the only way available to me: pure stubbornness. There were no platforms or templates. I opened a plain text editor and typed everything by hand. Every paragraph, color, and line break had to be told exactly what to do. When something didn’t work, it simply didn’t show up. I had to figure out why all on my own!
Design was a workaround. Tables stood in for layout. Images were carefully resized so they wouldn’t take forever to load. That meant they had to be of very low resolution. Nothing was elegant, but when it worked, it felt like a small miracle.
And my site had movement (What??)
Flashing words. Simple animations. Photos of my ranch. Clickable flashing buttons.
By today’s standards, it was primitive. But in 1997, on a ranch with dial-up, it felt impressive. My friends couldn’t believe I had a website at all—let alone one that did things.
Publishing meant uploading files through FTP (File Transfer Protocal) software—photos and my HTML text file—dragging them from my computer into a place I barely understood. There was no undo. Every update replaced the last version completely. If I got it wrong, the site disappeared.
On a good day, it took over an hour to upload my website to the World Wide Web.
When I typed in the URL—some long, convoluted address with my name at the end—and the site appeared, I felt victorious. If it didn’t, I retraced every step, fixed what I could, and waited another hour or more for my site to upload again.
That internet was slow and unforgiving, but it was honest. If something existed, it was because I made it exist from scratch.
There was no publish or undo button—just patience-lots of it.
For today’s bloggers and creators: Before feeds and filters, we crossed the internet in covered wagons— uphill, both ways, buffering the whole time.
2017 Reunited after not seeing each other for 32 years! College Roommates 1978
Where are all my Friends? Hey there honorary members of the “Been There, Done That” club! I’ve been thinking a lot about all the people that I’ve met through the years as I turn 65 this year. Some were tight friends that I have lost contact with for various reason and some friends I’ve had since my teen years and am still in contact with. My photo albums are filled with people I’ve known over the years, dead and alive. Strap on your hiking boots and grab a cup of herbal tea.. or….., because we’re about to embark on a journey through the highs and heartbreaking lows of social circles at in our “Golden Years”.
The Lowdown on Friends vs. Acquaintances Acquaintances are like the neighbors you wave to while picking up the morning paper, or the cashier at the local grocery store who knows your name but you for, but of the love of God, can’t remember theirs. Acquaintances are the salt to your pepper—nice to have around, but they don’t exactly spice up your life.
Friends are the crème de la crème of companionship. They’re the ones who’ve seen you through thick and thin, from bad hair to bad divorces and break ups. Friends are like fine wine—they only get better with age, and they’re always there to toast to your triumphs and console you through life’s drama. Do you hear a song and immediately think of a certain person in your life? I sure do, and some people have a string of songs that remind me of them! You reading this Lauren and Patti?
Friendships are Fleeting Our 20s and 30s The Great Migration: Ah, the glory days of our twenties, when the world was our oyster and our social circles were tighter than grandma’s knitting needles. But alas, life had other plans, and before we knew it, we were spread across the country like butter on toast, chasing dreams and trying to find our place in the world. With each move to a new city or state, we left behind a trail of memories and a Rolodex of friends scattered to the winds.
Remember the Christmas Newsletter? With all of my good friends scattered between two continents, I used to relish the Christmas season and the cards and newsletters I would get from my missed friends. Then friends would move and my Christmas card would come back undelivered-no forwarding address. There was no internet to just “Google” to get current address. Decades would go by before I had the internet and could possibly find some long lost friends. I have found many, but some I have never found to this day. They are only fond memories of good times and faces in my faded photo albums.
Friends Die Yep, the older we get, the better the odds our friends will move on to the afterlife. I’ve lost a few friends in the past few years. They were much too young to die in my book, but they are gone none the less. I do have a few regrets of not making that one last phone call, but I can’t dwell on that. I must go on and remember the friendship and the good times we had. My dad lived to be 101 and he outlived pretty much all of his long time friends! It was kind of sad for him. The price of living to be over 100. Not many get to.
Pick up the Phone and Use your Vocal Chords! Social media has helped reunite friends, but I find that my friends are now 2 dimensional photos and video on my computer screen. Picking up the phone every now and then is like hearing a favorite song when they say “Hello”. That familiar voice you belly laugh with when you reminisce about that cringeworthy “thing” you did back in the day! You know.. that thing where you may or may not be able to run for public office?
So, my fellow Medicare age posse, cherish your friends like prized possessions, because in a world filled with acquaintanceship and fleeting friendships, true companionship is as rare and precious as a winning lottery ticket. Whether you’re reminiscing about the good old days with old pals or forging new friendships in the twilight years of life, one thing’s for sure: life’s a lot more fun when you’ve got someone to share it with. So grab your aging buddies, raise a glass and toast to the friends who’ve stood the test of time, no matter how far the winds of change may blow us. Cheers to friendship, laughter, and the sweet symphony of shared memories!
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