So I’m back (albeit briefly) to ask for a moment of your time.  If you are reading this, much of this is old news, but I’m asking for your patience and help, and Lord knows I’m not short winded…

Anniversaries carry a lot of importance.  They help us celebrate events and people (and man, heaven help the guy who forgets his own).  In the next few days an important anniversary is coming up for my family.  September 1^st would have been Joel’s 38^th birthday.  As most of you are aware, after Joel’s passing, our family established a scholarship in his memory at the Florida State University Career center where he was a counselor.  Thanks to the incredible generosity of countless friends and family (many of whom are reading this now), the $25,000 necessary to fund the Joel Ross Driver Memorial Scholarship was completely raised in less than a year, and the first Driver Fellow was awarded and recognized the following year.

Since that first year, we have continued to raise funds and awareness towards the goal of increasing the scholarship to allow the College of Education to award up to $2,000 a year in perpetuity for graduate students pursuing a degree in career counseling as Joel did.  People still donate small amounts regularly (Quite a few of you paid around $1500 to watch me prepare for and suffer…I mean walk the Camino Ingles in Spain last year.  Some of you are sadists, yet I love you all dearly for it). Helping others find their way was Joel’s first love, and I cannot think of a more appropriate way to cement his legacy than to continue his life's work in this way and to do so through university that has meant and done so much for our family.

Our final goal is $50,000 and through a lot of generosity, around $36,00 has been raised to date.  Our family has pledged to finish this task, and as I said when I started my preparations for the Camino, I will not rest until this is finished.  This is where you come in.  We need help to fund this scholarship as quickly as we can so that graduate students can benefit as soon as possible and so that we can move on to the next philanthropic project.     We as a family have committed to FSU to fund the last $14,000 in five years – it WILL be funded - but my goal is to raise the remaining amount within two.  This would provide the full amount to students by the following semester, and also bring this effort to a close.  We will continue to chip away at it until it is done.

So, after getting the idea from one of Joel’s friends, and since next month would have been Joel’s 38^th birthday, I am asking anyone who is interested in taking part to make a donation in the amount (or multiples of) 38.  $38, $76, $380, etc…any and all donations are appreciated and get us closer to the goal (I’m thinking you can even donate .38, but not sure about how that will work…I'll try it out this week!). If you feel so inclined, you can even make a pledge of any amount or a reoccurring pledge each month (as I do).  Anything you feel you can or wish to contribute will be greatly appreciated.

And if you cannot or would rather not contribute financially, you can still help by putting this information out in front of your own friends or family so that they have the opportunity to help us.

The funds go directly through the FSU Foundation, and 100% that is contributed goes directly to the scholarship.  The web link to the FSU Foundation is below and on my website at fromcouchtocamino.blogspot.com.  If you wish to mail an amount in, the address also below

To donate online, click HERE

FSU Foundation

For the Joel Driver Memorial Scholarship

2010 Levy Blvd.

PO Box 3062739

Tallahassee, FL 32306

This scholarship isn't earth shattering, nor is it monumental.  It won't cure disease, nor guarantee world peace…and since it is for a guy that we knew and loved, it might even be considered a bit selfish by some.  All I know is, Joel was all about helping others, and I think his legacy is for those of us who love and remember him to continue what he was doing in his place. 

$14,000.  It’s going to happen.  It’s just a matter of how quickly and who can help us get there as quickly as possible.  It’s for the (graduate) children…..

And that kind of corniness should be worth at least .38

Thanks!

Jason Driver

Journal entries - first thoughts

So, in addition to video blogging most nights, I also had a small leather notebook that I carried next to my passports and pictures in order to write down random ideas and thoughts that, at the moment seemed deeper and meaningful at the moment but upon later reflection and re-reading, come across more like the pompous ranting of a drunk freshmen philosophy major.  Sigh.  I'm hoping that as I transcribe these, more of a pattern of where I started and ended mentally and spiritually will start to appear.  I fear that instead I'm gonna look more like a loon....:)

“Be great and doing good because doing good is great”.  Not sure why that popped in my head on the first day, and it’s not that I don’t agree with it, but if this entire trip is going to be inspirational quotes best suited for bumper stickers and team building rallies, I have seriously misjudged the Camino experience….

I have discovered that one of the things about a pilgrimage like the Camino is that, whether in a group or alone, it is all about time for reflection, personal peace.  This is a case of common people taking part in an uncommon activity with an unknown result.  This seems like a “duh” statement, but it’s one thing to talk about reflection, but it’s newly defined when you are all alone in a foreign country on a forest trail with a backpack.  May make it, may need to stop.  Not sure what the result will be beyond success or failure of the walk…but there will be a result, a change to the individual.  It is a shame that we do not have more pilgrimages like the Camino in the US (I think that walking the Appalachian Trail might be a close experience back home)

For me, it is a sense of wonder at this new adventure and undertaking.  There is the sense of “I cannot believe I am doing this”, in equal parts pride and incredulity.  I just have to finish.  HAVE to finish.  I am taking a lot of stops, but as the saying goes, everyone’s Camino is different and personal.  It isn’t a race….and that’s a good thing, because I’m not built for speed at this point!

Listening to a lot of music on the Ipod.  I have it set for random among a set list of songs I have handpicked for the trip.  Many times, the songs that come on are completely appropriate for the day, the mood (or the terrain).  I started off in Ferrol with “Dreams I’ll Never See” by Molly Hatchet:

                        Pull myself outta bed, yeah, put on my walkin' shoes.

                        Climb up on a hilltop, baby, see what I can see, yeah.

                        Pull myself together, gonna put on a new face, yeah.
                        Gonna climb down from the hilltop, baby, Lord, get back in the race.

Yeah, pretty much an appropriate way for more than one morning to start.  Other times, during long stretches of trail or path, I’d be surprised by songs like “Man on the Run” by Cowboy Mouth:

I've got the desert in my eyes and the western skies on my mind.


Everywhere I look I see wide open country for miles.



Out in the distance there's a mountain the size of the sun

Looks like I ain't drivin’ nowhere

I feel like a man on the run

Get goin’

Or, during more introspective and contemplative times (missing Joel, Brendan or friends and family), a song like “Ghost Rider” by Rush:

                        Carry all those phantoms

                        Through bitter wind and stormy skies

                        From the desert to the mountain

                        From the lowest low to the highest high

                        Like a ghost rider.

As I’ve mentioned in blogs before, music is an important part of my life, and tends to color and shape my moods and perspective.  It is very rare that I don’t have music of some sort on around me, and certainly it is just about a constant companion when I travel.  So it is little surprise that on the Camino, songs appropriate to the situation, or mood…or what I might need to hear at the time would come on the Ipod at certain times.   Songs more often than not spoke to the moment. However, with that in mind, I still find myself slightly uncomfortable in processing (or tracking, as one of my counselor friends likes to say) the deeper hidden truth behind the two times I was struggling on the walk and was suddenly joined on my journey by these insightful words:

                        Life's such a treat and it's time you taste it

                        There ain't a reason on earth to waste it

                        It ain't a crime to be good to yourself

                        Lick it up, lick it up, it's only right now

                        Lick it up, lick it up, ooh yeah

                        Lick it up, lick it up, come on, come on

                        Lick it up, lick it up

Ah, KISS.  The more I re-read those lyrics, the more I come to realize that Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley are just Lennon and McCartney with face paint and platform shoes.  Brings a tear to the eye...for more than one reason.

Day Two on Camino - Pontedeume to Betanzos

Day One on Camino (day two in Spain) - Ferrol to Pontedeume

Day One - Ferrol

I'm SOOO late uploading these video blogs from the trip.  Turns out that on the Camino, the wifi was so bad that at times the bandwidth might as well have been delivered by bucket.  The result of which was that I was only able to upload to Facebook and not to my blogging app.  So, now I'm able to upload the video blogs that I was doing on the road.  There were two to three days where I was unable (read: too tired) to blog, so I have journal entries that I wrote down that I will transcribe and upload here in the appropriate order (be warned that many of them have the "Oh lord, what was I thinking" vibe to them...and a little philosophic at times, but that's what a day of wheezing will do to ya!).  Anyway, here is the first blog I did from Ferrol.  Notice that I don't look tired.  That would soon change.

Day one - Orlando to Santiago

July 17, 5:15 pm

 

"All aboard!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

-O. Osborne

 

After a slight delay on the runway in Orlando, I have arrived in Miami to catch my flight to Madrid and then on to Santiago (should be arriving around 1pm on Friday). This is actually a fantastic place to start my trip, since there is so much Spanish being spoken that I'm already getting used to not understanding what is being said around me (my teachers and family would say that I live my life this way). Yesterday I spent the day in The Villages with my extended family, Jon Marc, Mary Jo and Danny. Jon Marc (one of my closest friends) surprised me by arranging and performing a small pilgrim's service for me at Hope Lutheran (where he serves as associate pastor). It was the perfect way to start a journey such as this one, and has set a positive tone for what lies ahead of me.

Marc anointing my head so that I am mindful of what is around me...and that I don't accidentally walk into it.

Anointing my boots (feet), that they may carry me where I'm heading without incident. Tripping is just about a given, though.

The plan right now is to arrive in Santiago, take a bus into town and walk the twenty minutes or so to visit (i.e., discover by luck) the pilgrim's office near the cathedral. This is the place where I will end my Camino and collect my final sello (passport stamp) and my compostela (certificate of completing the Camino). I am wanting to visit on the first day so that I can have an idea of where it is located, get help with directions and up to date albergue (pilgrim hostel) information on the Camino Ingles, and most importantly, to hopefully find a walking stick. There are evidently many left there by pilgrims as they complete their walk, and rather than run the risk of not finding one in Ferrol, I'm hoping to find one suitable in the "share box". I have done practice walks both with and without a walking stick, and would prefer to have one with me.

After checking out the office, the plan is to walk back to the bus station and ride up to Ferrol, where I will be starting out the next day. I have a hotel reservation waiting for me there, so the rest of the day will hopefully be me visiting the visitor center and getting my first sello (important, as this will prove where I started my walk).

In practical gear news, my backpack has been fantastic and very compact. Had to go without the crocs due to space, but the backpack could almost fit under my seat, so it's been as advertised with regards to plane travel so far. As the time approaches for us to start boarding, I'm regretting my earlier decision to eat when I first landed. Airport cafe fish tacos and key lime pie are starting to create what I hope is not my first "cultural experience" on the plane.

...they just announced that we are delayed for thirty minutes while the first officer gets here from another plane that is late coming in. Even if I'm not ON the plane, "tardy" is part of the Driver travel experience.

 

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Last Blog - Camino Packing Tips (not for those with OCD)

 

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