The amazing thing I found down at my York River beach

The beach at Harbor Hills

At least a few times a week, perhaps more, I walk a few blocks down to the neighborhood beach on the York River at the end of Harbor Hills Road. I walk by a piney lot that a neighbor told me is the final repose of the bones of slaves resting in unmarked graves. I wonder if that's true. I have no reason to doubt, but I find it startling. And mysterious. I walk down a hill where on the corner is a house with distinctive Cape Cod-style siding that always reminds of something I might see on the Oregon Coast. It takes me back to the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport. 

There's a couple of spots on the road where I've encountered snakes. A copperhead once with its distinctive brown diamonds and then a long, skinny black snake another time. It's quite a journey down to that beach.

One time I glanced out my kitchen window and saw a summer storm had cropped up. I was hustling down to photograph the sinister clouds as they rose in ambush over the York River. I was nearly there to capture it all when the clouds unleashed their thunderous fury. I turned for home and ran, chugging uphill in a downpour as the pine trees bent around me, arriving home soaked, my ears ringing. I remember feeling quite happy I made it.

I'm drawn to the beach and it's dun-colored sand for the view, the peace, the water, the sky and the sun. It's a place to pray, a place to think, a place to ponder and wonder. I've been visiting the beach for a little more than two years. There's an inlet from the river that flows high and low with the tide and opens up into a long, narrow pond that's like a shallow natural harbor filling the low spot between two stubby hills. I suspect that's where the area got its name, as a harbor among the hilly bluffs jutting up above the York River, but I'm not quite sure. It's all silted in now and I wonder if it was once a place of shelter for boats, maybe back to colonial times. Who knows. Google doesn't seem to know.

The most remarkable thing of all has been how much the beach has changed in such a short span of my visits. The inlet's path changes almost daily sometimes. The wind, waves and tides alternately heap up sand and drag it away and the inlet's path and mouth has been altered steadily, moving farther and farther downstream of the river.

The changing path of the Harbor Hills inlet

I like to take my kids down there. When the weather is warm for a good part of the year they love to frolic in the little stream and catch minnows and small blue crabs. They don't notice the influence of the greater forces on that little stream. I imagine they're not like me, watching the stream carve out a path through the ever-changing sandy obstructions. Or noting how the new path of the stream yields little treasures, like a bed of colorful pebbles and stones that surprised me the other day. The pebbles, shells and even pieces of smoothed glass seemed so out of place, like they had been dropped there. I posted a photo of them on Instagram and said they were stars that had fallen out of the sky onto my beach.

Unexpected treasures, or fallen stars

As I've watched that little stream change course I've come to appreciate it. It always finds a path, no matter the barrier. I like to listen to it on its meandering track back to the river as it whittles away at the sand in its course, never relenting, always moving one way or the other depending on the tide. When it's warm out you'll find me wading in the Harbor Hills stream, sometimes alone, often with my kids and fishing for crabs and minnows.

Mostly when I get down there I see footprints. Several people like to take their dogs down there. There's people who walk around and I can see where they stop at the water. I wonder if they're like me. If they notice how the beach is changing. How it's captive to the fury of the storms that gather force across the mile-wide river. I wonder if they notice the unrelenting stream, the life of that little stretch of beach.

Adventures in Parenting, Vol. 1. `Hey Dad. Where Are You?'

Let's see...a Taco Bell run or this sunset?

Do you ever get to a late Sunday afternoon, take stock of your life, check your mutual funds, contemplate the meaning of life, wonder if anyone working on Wall Street who engaged in shady mortgage fraud and insider trading deals has a soul ... and weigh whether it's worth it to cook dinner?

There's something about fixing Sunday night dinner that I find particularly agitating. Even daunting, repulsive and annoying. And I'm a dude who loves to cook. I can't put my finger on exactly why I don't like to cook on Sundays. After shedding my pastor duties after church I tend to "check out." You might find me in the garage piddling around making a coffee table. Sometimes I nap. I might take a jaunt to the store and act like I'm shopping for the week's meals and blow it all on ice cream and non-essentials like fancy coffee creamer and crazy cheeses made in Holland. Does this make me a bad person?

I mean, I'm usually a pretty good guy. I recycle. I put my shopping cart in the cart corral in the parking lot instead of in the space next to the van, even in hard rains. I clean up the lint screen in the dryer. I yield in the traffic roundabout and stop for pedestrians trying to enter crosswalks. I buy Julie raspberries because I know she loves them even though they're really expensive this time of year. Really expensive like cheeses made in Holland.

So we got to Sunday afternoon just before 5 p.m. and there were all these kids looking really, really hungry. The thought actually crossed my mind to cook something. The other thought I had was that they wouldn't starve if they didn't have dinner. I mean, we have bread and peanut butter in the house. But then I'm not going to eat a p.b. & j sandwich for dinner ... so I was faced with what's known as a "parental dilemma." You know the one. Where you have to decide if it's in the best interests of your family to eat at Hardee's or Taco Bell. I had a hankering for a burrito so the choice was fairly easy.

I got the lowdown from everyone of what they wanted from Taco Bell, loaded Seth in the van and took off down the street ... except I glanced at the sky and it was on fire. It's a three-block run down to the beach from my house and my intention was that I would race down there while obeying all traffic laws, snap a sunset photo and then get to Taco Bell before my children suffered privation leading to acute starvation and other health-related issues.

I got to the beach, told Seth to sit tight, ran out to the shoreline, snapped a photo and ran back to the van. Piece of cake. Except I knew that the show was just beginning. It would be a monumental sunset because literally the sky was aflame ... so I fetched Seth out of the van and we frolicked on the beach while I documented our interlude via my iPhone. Yes, I had total disregard for the well-being of my family. Yes, I got a phone call from someone high up in the Sabo household who was surprised to learn I had not even made it out of the neighborhood.

But I got some killer clicks.

Seth gets photo-bombed by the sunset.

Ultimately, I made it to Taco Bell. No one in the Sabo house had starved. They appeared perplexed at how long it took for me to make a Taco Bell run considering it's literally a few minutes away. But hey, boy did Seth and I make some remembories, as Evie used to say when she was a little girl.

Three Things I've Learned When I Feed My Creative Juices

The ruins of Rosewell

Over the past year I have been shooting a lot of photos from around Gloucester. It began when I started using my iPhone as a camera. I also have a Canon T5i that gets lugged around the county to snap shots of sunsets, landscapes and landmarks. And kids. Plenty of kids. Here's three things that I've discovered about what happened when I started shooting photos and the surprising things that resulted when I launched a new creative passion.

1) What you will find when you take the time to get out in nature will surprise you.  

I started shooting photos after getting on Instagram and fighting a sense of inadequacy. I have friends out in Oregon who were posting these amazing landscape shots -- majestic snow-capped mountains and rushing rivers and desert sunrises -- and I felt like I had to compete somehow. But how? We have no mountains here -- the highest point here  is like 60 or 80 feet above sea level, unless you count the 90 feet height of the Coleman Bridge as you enter Gloucester -- our rivers are amazingly wide but languid and the closest desert is thousands of miles away. So I started exploring. Living on a peninsula has its advantages. The sunsrises and sunsets on the rivers are spectacular. The trees and foliage tell stories. The frequent storms usher in extraordinary cloud formations that refract light in stunning ways and are enhanced when they are reflected off the water. There are hidden treasures and gems off the beaten path; historic homes and crumbling plantations and weathered houses. I've learned a ton about watching sunsets and the timing of the most glorious light. You'll be surprised. You'll be amazed. Your life will be enriched when you get out there.

Boats in a Gloucester marina

2) Exploring creativity opens paths of more creativity.

When I started shooting photos and thinking about settings, sunlight, natural light, reflections, angles and other aspects of photography, I've found it started opening doors to other creative avenues in my life. By no means am I an accomplished photographer. I want to make that clear. I have friends who are professional photographers and it's a huge leap from what I do to what they do amazingly well. But in my own little way I'm exploring something new and trying to stumble through learning a craft. Perhaps it's the time I'm taking to appreciate the scenery God has given us in this little corner of the world that is spurring other creative juices. Whether it's dabbling in making videos, writing, woodworking and making a coffee table out of 60-year-old reclaimed hardwood flooring, I've found that creativity feeds creativity. There's just something that happens when you start stimulating your brain in new ways. Challenge yourself. Take the time to find something new to take on. You'll be surprised.

3) You will feel, and be, blessed.

Being out in nature has renewed my love of God's creation. He's made so many beautiful places and we all should spend more time enjoying them. It's also been a time for me to meditate on God's word, to pray, and to think about how richly God has blessed me. The other night when I had five of my boys down on the pier at the beach in this lovely, peaceful setting was one of those times. We made a memory and those last forever. There are times I've looked up in the sky near sunset and saw the clouds and the way the light is arcing through the sky and told Julie or some of my kids to get in the van because we're heading down to the river to enjoy the sunset. As I've worked on my coffee table I've been able to listen to sermons from pastors and I've thought deeply about what He's doing in my life and where He's taking me and how I need to yield more to His will in my life. Creative time can be periods of slowing down, assessing and reflecting. I experience a recalibration, a deeper understanding of what's valuable. First and foremost of value to me is my relationship with God and the eternal gift He has given us of His son Jesus. My family is a gift from God. What I experience, all of it, is a gift. I am thankful. I am blessed. 


Finally, here's a link to a collection of photos I've taken from around Gloucester that I assembled in a video. The music is kind of cheesy ... oh well. Enjoy.  Gloucester vignette

When Times Are Tough, Head To The Water

Gabe & Seth on the pier.

Yesterday evening was one of those days. I had a ton of things I wanted to get done and nothing was getting done. You ever had that feeling? Things were going way south attitude wise for me and so I loaded into the van the five boys who were left with me after everyone had dispersed to soccer practice, Bible study (for the ladies) and work. At first I had no clue where to go. The sun had just set but it was a beautiful evening, still 70 degrees.

We headed down to Gloucester Point beach. It's a five-minute drive and we walked on the pier until the wind kicked up enough to prompt shivers. It was lovely. Peaceful. Beautiful. Seth was enchanted by the water. As he trundled back across the beach the waves kicked up and crashed onto shore from a passing boat that sped by. He paused, watching and listening to the commotion and I could see him trying to figure it all out.

I grew up in the Oregon High Desert. Where the sagebrush and open range meet the piney slopes of the eastern Cascades Range. Snow melt water flows icy cold off of the mountains and is a precious commodity where I'm from in Oregon. The rivers are narrow enough to easily throw a rock across them.

Out here on the Middle Peninsula, we're surrounded by water. Big saltwater rivers that yield bountiful catches of crabs and oysters and fish. The sun rises and falls spectacularly across the rivers here. The white sandy beaches are play spots and we're close enough to the neighborhood beach on the York River that the kids can load up the wagon with buckets and nets and head down to the river to fish out minnows and crabs from the inlet that meanders inland.

I love the desert. I love the solitude, how the sky is so blue, how it's filled with a million bright stars at night and how you can see forever. I miss it. But I've been out here for a decade and remain enchanted by the water that surrounds us. If I ever were to leave, I know one thing. I would miss it.

Homeschool Field Trip to Oregon Fish Hatchery

                                          Sabo boys at the hatchery fish ladder

We set out for Oregon this summer for several reasons, among them to include spending quality time with family and friends and visiting and updating supporters and potential supporters of ours for our missionary work with TEN3 (www.ten3.org). We have been achieving all of that and in between I purposely, intentionally and even deliberately have resolved not to get cheated on our time in Oregon. Hence, within two days of our arrival I had canned 30 pints of Marionberry and boysenberry jam,. Later one evening I took the kids down to the Canby High School track for a Sabo Olympics and later took a scenic, back road drive with the family when the highway was readily available. Today was another of my "Oregon resolution" days.

Julie and our five daughters went and visited her Aunt Judy in Gresham so the lads who remained, Abram, Gabe, Eli, Ezra, Judah and Seth, decided to take a field trip. Well, technically I decided. I wanted to visit a fish hatchery out in Oregon and today offered the opportunity. The kids were simply along for the ride and trusting Dad wasn't completely out of his melon with this idea of a good time. Our "educational" excursion proved to combine all the key and required elements of homeschooling field trips: Brain stimulation, fun, adventure, varying degrees of danger, a stop at a rural convenience store for chips and snacks and man versus nature that has the potential to go awry. At least those are the required elements of my home school field trips. Certainly there's a time and place for art galleries, museums, operas, symphonies and visits to historical sites. Just not today.

We set out just after lunch for Milo McIver State Park and the Clackamas Fish Hatchery in metropolitan Redland, Oregon. Or maybe it's metropolitan Viola, Oregon, neither of which may even be on a map. So maybe it's metro Estacada, Oregon? However you slice it, we got there by rolling in our van through the hills of northeastern western Oregon, bisecting and snaking through the hay fields and Christmas tree farms and splendid Cascade foothills vistas. It's gorgeous. Even on a relatively cool, cloudy day. At the fish hatchery we were all alone. Except for a few workers who paid us no mind. Inside the hatchery was everything you would want to know about salmon, in this case primarily steelhead and Chinook. Outside the buildings in holding pens we saw hundreds of the monstrous critters and dreamed of salmon on the grill. Well, at least I dreamed of landing one of those 40-lb. behemoths for a grillfest.

                                          Salmon

After touring the hatchery, we hiked a short distance down to the Clackamas River and that's where the fun and adventure really began. First off, the water is cold. The boys were shocked at how cold it is this time of year when they plunged in up to their ankles. They are used to the York River in Gloucester, Va., where the tidal saltwater is 80 degrees or so in mid-July. A fisherman we met on the Clackamas, Jason from southwest Portland who could not seem to get over the fact that I had 8 other kids who did not make the "home school field trip" trek, estimated the river was 55 degrees. I explained this novel concept of "snow melt" to the boys and how the rivers in Oregon are fed by melting snow from the mountains. Which makes the water freezing. In reply they shivered. I guess they understand.

We arrived at a bend of the Clackamas River where several fishermen, including Jason, were trying to snag the elusive salmon. My boys promptly started throwing rocks in the river. I tried to direct them away from the fishermen and mostly succeeded. The mouth of the creek where the salmon head upstream to the fish hatchery is at the bend so the older boys ditched their shoes and socks and clambered over rocks to the creek channel. It was a bit dicey for them getting out there over the rocks, but while stationed along a rocky chute they nearly managed to wrangle, or noodle, or whatever you want to call it, a few steelhead out of the watery chute to shallower calm water where we would've, I don't know, tried to wrestle them out of the water and take them home for the grill? Okay, so maybe "nearly" is a little strong. Gabe and Abram managed to actually touch a couple of steelhead salmon -- mind you these steelhead are easily in the 15 to 20 lb. range -- and it was exciting, even gripping you might say, action. Especially when the lads ended up pretty wet from being splashed by steelhead determined not to go down in history as the knuckleheads who got caught by hand by some "fishing" greenhorns from Virginia.

                            Jason the fisherman walks up the chute hunting for steelhead

At the end of the field trip we ended up a bit chilled, wet and empty-handed. But our day was far from over. No sirree. On the way home we stopped at the Redland Store for chips and drinks. That's always a highlight of any educational field trip. Then just on the outskirts of Canby we stopped at a roadside peach stand and snagged a box of Red Haven "seconds" -- basically peaches that aren't exactly the pick of the peck, though by tasting them you'd never know it -- for $1 per lb. There is something absolutely heavenly about the aroma, color and flavor of fresh, tree-ripened peaches. Don't even bother arguing with me about it because that is the absolute truth. And lastly, we stopped at the Fred Meyer in Canby and picked up a wild sockeye salmon from Alaska for the grill. Maybe it wasn't a steelhead out of the Clackamas, but it proved to be a darn close second.

                                                 Red Haven peaches