Thursday gratefuls: Dinner with Tom at the Willows last night. Long time friends. Diane. A Mountain Wind. Snow knocked off the Lodgepoles. Snow and Ice on Black Mountain Drive. Advent. Sussex. The Jacquie Lawson advent calendar. Going to bed. Waking up. The Chrysalis Effect by Phillip Slater. CJ Box. Kep, the old dog. US vs. Netherlands. How to become a pagan. Acting class. Nitya. Teaching the Ancient Brothers.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Holimonth
Acting class has been hit by illness. Tal, the teacher, has the flu or something like it. Nitya, a class member, spent several days in the ICU and is still recovering in the hospital. Not sure what will happen. Tal wants to hold a class on Friday, but I’m reluctant to go given the recency of his bout with the flu. A tough wind down for what has been an interesting and challenging experience.
I was ready. I’d gotten both monologues memorized and somewhat polished. I knew all the lines in my two scenes. Not wasted work. Good work. Helps the brain. Adds some literature to the bank.
Tomorrow morning I present in the Creativity class. Think I’m going to do my How to become a pagan piece. Wrote it yesterday. Gotta see how long it is when spoken. Going to lean into writing and art over the winter as I said yesterday. This was a start.
High Wind warning today. The Lodgepoles have begun to sway. Dancing with each other as Sunlight makes their tops glow. I haven’t written about it but the Mountains and their Trees and Wild Neighbors? I would have missed them. A lot. Couldn’t imagine being in a city environment where no Pine Trees framed the Nighttime Stars. Will not trade this beauty for a place with less. Hawai’i matches the Mountains with its Oceans and old Volcanic Mountains, its rich fauna. Someday. But right now. This wonderful place is home.
The world. Russia looking like a blind Bear in the Ukraine. Wrecking the place, striking out wildly. China finding that suppression and repression have their limits. Even with a newly anointed dear leader. The US struggling with divisions at home and new fractures among European allies. Not a great time to be a world power.
It is however a fascinating time to be alive. Talks of a moon base. Be still my John Carter, Flash Gordon little boy heart. The James Webb showing us more and more of the universe in which we live and move and have our becoming. A world shifting its long term basic rules. Climate change accelerating. Women growing in power. China and Russia and the upstart USA. All in flux.
Saturday gratefuls: Gabe. Jon, a memory. Kate, always Kate. Ruth. Jen. Kep, the one who gets me up. Alan and Tom. The changing Moon. The constant Sun. Black Mountain, my stolid friend. Steady. Maxwell Creek, mover of Mountains. Orion’s return. Artemis I. The Land Institute. The Sanctuary. Democrats. Republicans. Independents. USA. Soccer. The World Cup. Formula 1. Book: Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Poem: The Second Coming. Movie: The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Road trip to Colorado Springs
Up a bit late yesterday. Thanksgiving was fun, but it wore me out. Even with my thyroid hormone back to normal I still have no testosterone and chemo. And, I suppose, I’m 75, too. As things are.
Talked to Tom at 8 am. Afterward I worked out, getting my minutes in for the week. 166 after yesterday. 150 is my minimum and I hit it every week unless something dramatic intervenes. Makes me feel good in the moment and later about self-care.
Lunch with Alan. He and Cheri have decided to move into Denver. A neighbor’s house burned down in August. Had the previous owner not been diligent about fire mitigation there’s would have gone down with it. The final piece of evidence Cheri needed to push forward. She’s convinced folks who live up here, like me, will not be able to insure our houses in five years. She’s a bright woman who worked in insurance. Good thing I’m outta here before that. Not really sure I believe it anyhow.
Back home. Wrapped up that Bose Wavesystem 4 I bought off Amazon, a real deal, and shipped it back. The damned thing either wouldn’t play a CD or wouldn’t load them. It did display READING DISC well though. Back to the internet to find something to play my CD’s. I know it’s ancient technology and now long superseded by blue tooth, but I like my collection. And, yes, I have a good blue tooth speaker for my phone and laptop to use. Just stubborn, I guess.
Afterward I joined millions in the U.S. for a black Friday tradition. No, not that one. I ate leftovers. Had a chunk of tenderloin and a good deal of a relish tray brought by Jen and Barb. When you live alone you can eat odd meals like that and no one’s there to comment on it.
Enjoying Wednesday, a limited series on Netflix. I liked the Addams family when it was on many years ago and I’ve enjoyed many of Tim Burton’s films. Jenna Ortega, new to me but not to tween Disney fans, has a wonderful sardonic presence leavened with caring. Tough acting. Said the now two acting classes experienced very amateur actor.
In other news, this disturbing story. At Protests, Guns Are Doing the Talking: Armed Americans, often pushing a right-wing agenda, are increasingly using open-carry laws to intimidate opponents and shut down debate. NYT today
Had not thought about this. It’s a logical extension of the fetishization of guns and the 2nd amendment. Not sure whether there’s a legal argument against it. A chilling effect on free speech should have some weight as should some domestic terrorism laws. Shouldn’t they?
Hate to say it but there may need to be a martyr or two before this issue becomes heated enough for some political action.
After some thought last week (see my posts about Ezra Klein and Pippa Norris) and after Tom introduced me to the Chrysalis Effect by Phillip Slater, I’ve begun to unwind my pessimism about the future. Yes, even in light of this story and in some ways because of it. I now believe this is a transient phenomenon, this right wing, armed fear. The transient period may be long, perhaps decades, but we will age out of it and into a world dominated by Gen Z, Ruth and Gabe’s generation. They have more vision and compassion than exists in our current political climate.
That caveat? That the norms of our democracy might be destroyed before this transition can take place. Alleviated by the mid-terms. Not resolved, no. But lessened. We can still take a punch.
Tuesday gratefuls: Tony’s. That tenderloin roast. Salad. Oh and that sugar cream pie. Diane’s family recipe. King Soopers. The bank. Cash money. In the pocket. Robin. Wrangling my space. Painters. Chilly nights. The mid-terms. Soil. Plants. Rock. Air. Water. Fire. Stars. Artemis I. Exploration. NASA. JPL. The days of our lives. Books. Richard Powers. CJ Box. Immodium. China. Hawai’i. Minnesota. Club Q. Pulse.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Good sleep
Colorado Springs. A conservative town. Where hate is fed by so called family values evangelicals. By years of GOP candidates who fed hate into the political blood stream of the city. By the US historical hatred of difference: race, gender, sexual preference.
The West was won. Sure. By killing the folks who didn’t look like the “pioneers.” And, oh yeah, the West is the original gun culture. Side arms and Remington rifles. No gun control at the OK corral. Or in Tombstone or Deadwood. I happened to be in Denver in 2012 when James Holmes went to an Aurora Theater and killed 12 people watching a late showing of a Batman movie.
An irony. The day after the Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs Colorado officially renamed Mt. Evans, Mt. Blue Sky. Why? Because Governor John Evans created the circumstances that led to the Sand Creek Massacre, a critical negative juncture in relations between First Nations peoples and the U.S. government.*
We can treat the Club Q shooting as an expression of Western values, Christian evangelical values, Republican values. As an expression of the perverted, fetishistic worship of the 2nd amendment. As an extension of the pandemic of gun violence which now features four more mass shootings since Club Q: Illinois, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas. 600 before Club Q in 2022. (gunviolence.org) 39,567 people have died THIS year due to some form of gun violence.
Sadly. When will we ever learn?
Yesterday was a busy day. After writing Ancientrails, I waited on Greg Lell to come. He’s going to be my third bid for painting the upstairs. Greg’s guy stained the house a year ago. If his bid is close to the others, I’ll take it since he proved what he can do. He told me 25% of his business comes from showing up when other painting contractors don’t. That’s the Mountains.
Worked out. Over to the bank to deposit checks, including one from Heatflo covering the cost of my dead water heater. Bought two bundles of firewood for Thanksgiving. Then over to Tony’s to see if I could get my tenderloin roast early. Yes. I could. They tied it up for me, too. I plan to dry brine it this afternoon. Made an experimental sugar cream pie. Pie crust, a deep dish, was too much otherwise. Tasty. While making sure the pie was edible for my Thanksgiving guests, I seem to have upset my digestive tract. Oh, my.
*On November 29, 1864, roughly 700 federal troops attacked a village of 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho on Sand Creek in Colorado. An unprovoked attack on men, women, and children, the massacre at Sand Creek marked a turning point in the relationship between American Indian tribes and the Federal Government. From the day of the attack, US Army actions at Sand Creek have been controversial, because the Cheyenne and Arapaho thought they were at peace with the government and innocent people died. The distrust that grew from what occurred at Sand Creek led to later conflicts at Little Big Horn…” NPS
“Colorado Governor John Evans warns that all peaceful Native Americans in the region must report to the Sand Creek reservation or risk being attacked, creating the conditions that will lead to the Sand Creek Massacre.
Evans’ offer of sanctuary was at best halfhearted. His primary goal in 1864 was to eliminate all Native American activity in eastern Colorado Territory, an accomplishment he hoped would increase his popularity and eventually win him a U.S. Senate seat. Immediately after ordering the local Native Americans to the reservation, Evans issued a second proclamation that invited white settlers to indiscriminately “kill and destroy all…hostile Indians.” At the same time, Evans began creating a temporary 100-day militia force to wage war on the Native Americans. He placed the new regiment under the command of Colonel John Chivington, another ambitious man who hoped to gain high political office by fighting Native Americans.” History
Friday gratefuls: Stevenson Toyota. Blizzaks. Gripping the Snow. Ruby oiled, new boots, tires aligned. A sweet ride. Took her in at exactly 39,000 miles. Could use a good scrub though. Inside and out. The Mountains this morning. Trees with Frost up and down Black Mountain, Conifer Mountain. The Sun shrouded by Clouds. Shadow Mountain Drive snaking its icy way to Hwy. 73. Jackie. Chance. Kristie. Diane and Tom. Me. The Lodgepoles and Aspens.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: My good friend Kep
How do I feel? Joyful. How do I feel? Glad. How do I feel? Amazed. How do I feel? Stressed. How do I feel? Grateful. Leaving Shadow Mountain at 7:30 am the Mountains sparkled in filtered Sunlight. Like driving in a Christmas card. Could have seen a sleigh pulled by horses, jingling all the way. 16 degrees. Snow on the Ground. The Trees decorated on each Branch and Twig, Pine Needle and Trunk. I smiled and would have clapped my hands except you know driving.
Further down the hill the Clouds gave way to Colorado blue Sky and the Hogsback, the front edge of the Front Range, was white with last night’s Snow. Beautiful. What a beautiful, delightful place to live. Glad I’m staying. Both going down and coming back up the hill in the morning I had the good luck to follow snow plows. No dangers at 20 mph.
Handed Ruby off to Chance a Toyota advisor, got a ride to Enterprise rental and picked up a Corolla so I could come home, attend my creativity class and workout. Which I did.
After a lunch of Corn salad, Honeycrisp Apples with Peanut butter and Camembert cheese, I hopped in the Corolla and drove back down the Mountain to collect Ruby. Oiled, aligned, winter boots. Vitals checked. She’s in good health.
Drove back up the hill to Aspen Park where Jackie cut my hair and trimmed my beard. She’s such a sweetie. Ronda, too. The conversation in Aspen Roots focused on preparations for Thanksgiving. Jackie’s doing two Turkeys! 22-24 people. Whoa. We talked about things as we always do. After talking about family a bit, Jackie said, Oh, yeah. Family. The other F word. That cracked me up. So often true.
Back here on Shadow Mountain I fed Kep and came downstairs to write this.
Still drifting politically. Got the book Cultural Backlash in the mail yesterday. Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelhart. I mentioned it a few days back. Pippa was on the Ezra Klein podcast last week. Got as far as definitions of populism and authoritarianism. Really odd how they so often rise up together, yet directly contradict each other. Populists want each one of the real people to have a voice, to be in control. Authoritarians want to provide security to the real people. The price? Their voice, their impact on government.
Saturday gratefuls: Tal. Georgeta. Nitya. The Importance of Being Earnest. Stagedoor Theater. A late Night. Gabe. This afternoon. Blue. Green. Gold. On Black Mountain. Solar panels soaking in the Sun. Boiler Medic. Geowater. Vince. Snowplowing set. Hawai’i. Minnesota. Adventure. Home. The housing market.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nitya’s performance
On the subject of liberal arts. If you pay any attention at all to the world of higher education, you know that the liberal arts have been and are under heavy fire from pragmatists of all sorts. Lists of majors that “pay off” are common with Philosophy degrees and Anthropology degrees easily targeted as low earning degrees and not worth the investment. Usually here investment means amount of money for the degree. Guess who has a Philosophy and an Anthropology degree? Yep.
Or, the fabled English major. God help the education major, the arts major. Doomed to a lifetime of depressed financial potential. God better help them because no one in the STEM or Health fields will.
My own conjecture about the roots of this issue lies in the long ago days of decent vocational education, days when blue collar workers could learn welding, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, auto body and mechanics, cosmetology, secretarial skills and expect to earn a decent living from those skills. By decent living I mean the ability to do three things: buy a house and a car, afford good medical care and food, and a good education for your children.
Three things happened to first confuse then demolish this route to the American dream. First, American manufacturers lost the will to compete with the cheaper labor and goods available in countries like Japan and China. Jobs, blue collar jobs, left the country. Second, foreign goods began to appear in the United States that were not only comparable to US made goods, but cheaper in price, and sometimes, especially in the unfortunate instance of vehicles, better. Third, the combination of one and two lead to the Rust Belt effect where factories closed and well-paying jobs available to persons with a high school degree or even less vanished. Almost overnight.
This is the story, writ large, of my hometown, Alexandria, Indiana. In postwar times, say 1950 to 1970 or so, Alexandria had a thriving main street, Harrison Avenue. On it were two movie theaters: The Town and The Alex. Two grocery stores, Kroger’s and Coxes. Two dime stores, Murphy’s and Danner’s. Broyles’ Furniture. Fermen’s Womens Wear and Baumgartner’s Mens Wear. Mahony’s Shoes. Guilkey’s shoe shop and newsstand. Rexall’s Drugs and Bailey Drugs. The Bakery. The Yankee Bar. Conway’s barbershop.
On Friday and Saturday nights kids from neighboring smaller towns would come to Alexandria to drag main, go to the Kid Canteen, bowl. Parades, big parades, happened on Decoration Day and at Homecoming. Sidewalk Sale days drew customers downtown like weekend food stalls in Bangkok’s Chinatown.
When the crash came, it came fast. By 1974 most of those businesses had altered or closed. In later years plywood fronts would replace plate glass windows. Whole families would leave town in the dead of night, closing the curtains before they left because they could no longer pay their mortgages. Detroit had lost the battle with Volkswagen and Toyota.
I know. You’re thinking, he’s lost the plot. What does this have to do with the liberal arts? Vocational education lead nowhere. Who needed welders? Electricians. Unions began to decline in influence, too, and as they did so did blue collar wages across the board.
It was in this time that the lie of college for everyone began its insidious infiltration into the American zeitgeist. Get a BA and you’ll be safe. College graduates out earn high school graduates. And, this is true. Read this: Do college grads really earn more than high school grads.
And this is the where the story takes its twist. With vocational education or factory union jobs no longer a safe bet for that house and car, good medical care and food, what was left for the blue collar worker? College for all. We’re a small d democratic country. We’re all equal. So it seemed to make sense.
Except it doesn’t. College education takes a certain set of skills and gifts not widely distributed in any population. First, a basic level of intellect. Then, reading and writing skills. A taste for the sort of work required to sit through lectures, study, and write papers or lab reports. This is not about the idea of equality before the law which Americans often confuse with a leveling equality of skills and talents.
Such a leveling does not exist in the US population or any other. I could post links to several articles about the benefits of a college education. You could search them for an admission of the basic requirements to thrive in college. And find nothing.
With the dollar value of blue collar work on the decline along with it went the pride that came with hard work and a decent income. Many blue collar workers used to earn as much liberal arts majors do now. Not anymore. Now the blue collar worker scans and palletizes objects in Amazon or UPS warehouses, sweeps the floors of elementary schools, works in the volatile construction industry. Barely earning a long ago out of date minimum wage.
It was in this transition to an economy with few well-paying lifetime jobs for high school grads that saw white supremacy once again more obvious in US culture. It never left, of course, but it now purported to explain the poor white males declining, even vanishing, prospects. See this recent article by Thomas Edsall, Two Americas.
When the notion of a college education for all began to gain traction in the US mindset, it triggered a concomitant expectation that a college education would deliver a financial reward for those who stuck it out. College education began to replace the old vocational education model where a specific career with specific financial expectations were the norm for students.
And finally we come to the point: In this climate focused on the dollar value of a college education, college education as vocational education, the liberal arts begin to look like a bad bet. Cue the lists of majors and their earning power.
1. The top-paying college majors earn $3.4 million more than the lowest-paying majors over a lifetime.
2. Two of the top highest paying majors, STEM and business are also the most popular majors, accounting for 46 percent of college graduates.
3. STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics), health, and business majors are the highest paying, leading to average annual wages of $37,000 or more at the entry level and an average of $65,000 or more annually over the course of a recipient’s career.
4. The 10 majors with the lowest median earnings are: early childhood education ($39,000); human services and community organization ($41,000); studio arts, social work, teacher education, and visual and performing arts ($42,000); theology and religious vocations, and elementary education ($43,000); drama and theater arts and family and community service ($45,000).
Now we have this remarkable reality in our country. Blue collar workers have trouble, big trouble earning a decent income. Ironically, the communities of color who suffer along with the poor, white male high school grad, have developed ways of coping with economic hardships. See the Edsall article.
And, colleges and universities, stuffed into a false equivalency with vocational education, have cheapened the word value by taking up the talking point of the dollar value of a college education as a primary rationale for attendance.
The problem in other words is not with the liberal arts, but with the mindset that places money as the determiner of a good result in a post-high school education.
This is not only a travesty, it’s a tragedy. And how would you know this unless you had a liberal arts education?
Here’s a good example of what a liberal arts education can do and why it’s not only valuable (good value), but essential:
I don’t know whether the liberal arts in the college and university setting will survive the 21st century. But philosophy, theater, music, painting, sculpture, literature and the other liberal arts will survive. Why? Because we need critical thinking, effective communication, rational analysis, and ethical reasoning to understand and weigh the life or death choices facing humanity. We need them.
Monday gratefuls: Tom’s on his way. Kep’s bath. Dealing with money. Realtors. Money managers. The magic in a young girl’s heart. Ruth. Needs some. Jon. Gabe. TheBus on Oahu. That other North Shore. Wawa, Ontario. Pukaskwa. The heart as it changes. Fresh Water. Salt Water. New Mountains. Old Volcanoes. Pele and her ongoing work.
Reading about the geology of the Hawai’ian Islands yesterday. Noticed that the oldest part of the Archipelago, the Kure Atoll, 1,500 miles northwest of the Big Island, formed between 70 and 80 million years ago. Oddly that’s the same time period as the Laramide Orogeny which created the Rocky Mountains.
If the Rockies were covered by an equivalent amount of water as surrounds the Hawai’ian Islands, I imagine they would be Sea Mounts, well below the surface. Mauna Kea is second in height only to Mount Everest when measured from its base on the Ocean Floor.
Yet the Rockies, on land and made of Granite, Basalt, Gneiss, Hematite, and other softer Rocks, stand tall today while the Ko’olau Range on Oahu is only 3,150 feet high. Mauna Kea is 13,800 or so feet above sea level and Haleakala (on Maui) at 10,000 is about the same height as Black Mountain which I see out my window.
Of course the Laramide Orogeny is long over and the Hawai’ian Island building process remains under way. The Sea Mount Loihi, now known as Kamaʻehuakanaloa Seamount, lies about 22 miles off the Big Island’s eastern shore, and is still 3,200 feet from the surface. It’s growing from the underwater flank of Mauna Loa, the largest shield Volcano in the world.
Yes. New stuff to be learned. New curiosities to engage. New people to meet. New ideas to hear and consider. We humans are more like the Hawai’ian Volcanic system than the Laramide Orogeny. As our Self/Soul moves, accretes changes and gifts, we grow slowly from the inside, a Seamount of the Self. If we’re diligent and mindful, before our death we may see the Island in the Sea of human striving that we’ve become.
Well. Damn. Democrats pass legislation! On a 50-50 vote with Kamala Harris casting deciding votes. Forgot this could happen after the sclerosis of the last few years. And on Climate change! Clapping from the peanut gallery, me.
Add to that the stellar work of the January 6th Congressional hearings and a guy could be forgiven for a stray beam of hope lighting up what seemed a permanently darkened sky.
And, yes, I now have some hope. Not a lot, but some. Even 538 says Democrats may take back the Senate. The Republicans still look like they’ll do the usual mid-term boogie and take over, but it’s outside possible that the Extreme Court’s theocratic ruling on abortion might galvanize enough folks to make a big difference. Maybe.
On buddy Tom’s recommendation I drove Kerr Gulch road today. After an unsuccessful hunt for a kiddie pool in which to bathe the Kep. He was right. A beautiful, windy route which narrows to almost one lane as it nears its exit onto Hwy 74 in Kittredge. The houses along there? Big. Horsey. Lottsa cash. Inconvenient so not a lot of through traffic. Quiet. Dangerous in winter for sure.
Tom’s on his way. Tomorrow we’re off to Durango and the train ride. Should be fun.
Saturday gratefuls: Alan. A cheerful heart. Tom and the train. Honolulu in my daydreams. Shadow Mountain. Firm beneath me. Black Mountain and its Lodgepoles against a blue Colorado Morning Sky. Susan Taylor. Kepler. Reminding me about breakfast. Excel. Penciling out the move. Joy and pleasure. Judaism. Buddhism. Taoism. The Great Wheel.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Alan
Those Native Coloradan bumper stickers? Three thumbs down. Not native. At least none of the ones I’ve seen driving cars with these attached. Always white. Not Ute, Cheyenne, Apache, Arapaho, or Comanche. Just boat people like the rest of us white folk. Most likely with “native roots” in places like Ireland, England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, France…you know. Nothing wrong with loving where you live. Not at all. But claiming to be a native when you’re obviously an Ole or Lena come lately? Poor taste at best.
Can you imagine a Native Minnesotan bumper sticker? I can’t. Do Minnesotans love their state and its natural beauty, its wonderful urban areas? Sure they do. But you can, too. You betcha.
Which brings me to the point. Every once in a while I see articles which purport to help newcomers learn the ropes here. Did you see what I did there? One was very bitter, published in West World, a free weekly newspaper distributed widely in the Denver metro. Don’t recall much about it now except his screed against down vests. They didn’t meet his criteria for proper Colorado outdoor attire. What? See this example from the Canyon Courier in July.**
Again. Never did see an article about how to be a Midwesterner, at least not as a corrective to whatever outsider ways you might have brought with you.
I did however find this curious article in the Washington Post claiming to know “the most Midwestern things on the planet.” Bold. Especially since they got it from Airbnb listings. A link to the article is here. And a list from that article is below.*
Curiously, the top item on the list is Walleye. Now the Walleye is the State Fish of Minnesota and a mighty tasty one at that. Visit Tavern on Grand on Grand Avenue in St. Paul if you haven’t had the pleasure. But, the top defining thing about the Midwest? I don’t think so.
In fact nothing on the list seems to even come close. Let me throw a few out there for my fellow Midwestern readers and ask for your deletions and/or additions. In no particular order:
The casserole
Grain silos
Corn fields
Basketball
Friday night fish fry
The Indy 500
A certain wariness masked by friendliness
Small town life
State and County fairs
4-H
Future Farmers of America
Breaded Tenderloin
Gridded roads, gravel roads laid out in mile squares
Flatness
The US automobile industry
Unions, especially the UAW
The Big 10 (in its original configuration)
Well, that’s a start. Look forward to whatever else you might have. Again, deletions or insertions.
*The most Midwestern things on the planetPercentage of Airbnb listings using each word that are concentrated in the 12 states of the U.S. Midwest
Walleye
Heartland
Conservatory
Lutheran
Rehabbed
Bluegill
Blacktop
Glacial
Smallmouth
Supper
Orchestra
Largemouth
Snowmobile
Amish
Paddleboat
Note: The 12 Midwestern states are Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin, North Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio and South Dakota
**”It’s not always easy living in the rural West, with customs so entrenched that everybody takes them for granted. What makes it hard for the newest newcomers is that they’re caught up in a mysterious culture.
To make the urban-rural transition easier, I’ve collected 10 tips guaranteed to ease you into your new life. But first, know that you will never become an oldtimer, although with patience you might become what Western historian Hal Rothman dubbed a “neo-native.” Here’s hoping this helps…” Canyon Courier, July 19, 2022 David Marston
Decided I’m still on vacation through the end of next week. Why break up a good run when another one starts next Monday?
Result: Breakfast out at the Conifer Cafe.
Kent, my server, had a military haircut, civilian style. High sidewalls somewhat grown out and short bangs. A cleancut All American boy. He also had a waiter’s book with an American flag on the front. Hmm.
A vacation book by John Grisham, The Whistler, sat on my table. “What’s your book about?” “Lawyers and crooked judges.” “Well. We could sure use more rule of law here.” Kent tapped the American flag then pulled out a $2 bill and pointed to the picture in a practiced move. “I always keep Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe close. Those brilliant framers.” He went off to put in my order for eggs over easy and country fried steak.
Pondered that.
At the end of my meal when Kent came to collect my check, I asked him, “So. In your opinion what’s the greatest threat to the rule of law right now?”
He looked a little surprised, then pleased. He gathered his ideas, looking at the blue Colorado morning.
“The first one is that two branches of our government are illegitimate.”
American school children pledging allegiance to the flag
When I gave him a puzzled look, he said, “Dominion and those other voting machine companies. All connected to foreign powers. We need to go back to paper ballots, something we can check and backup.”
Oh. But he had more.
A serious face. “Then we passed the Glass-Stegall act and gave banks the ability to do anything they want.” Oh. Yeah. Populists and I agree at points. This is one of them.
“In the 2010’s we basically legalized propaganda. I’d say voting and the banks though. Those are the biggest threats.”
He didn’t explain legalizing propaganda and I didn’t press. I’d heard what interested me.
Kent was not stupid, nor in a way, preachy. He stated all this as fact. Fact that anyone one paying attention already knew.
I agree that the three things he mentioned, along with Citizens United, are big threats to our democracy. And, on Glass-Steagall, I agree 100%.
Voting rules and measures represent the most exigent threat to our democracy because of the legislation, bolstered by the Big Lie, that puts more and more hurdles in the way of voters. That means we don’t get a free and fair election.
Legalizing propaganda. Making it easier and easier for the dissemination of false “facts” through social media, message boards, and far-right wing media has made it impossible to have a decent conversation rooted in reality. As Kent illustrated.
So here we are. What Kent seemed most like was a Mormon missionary. Clean, respectable, polite and convinced of things so wacky you wouldn’t to spend long talking to him. Oh, and there’s that too close to religious reverence for “our brilliant framers.” Yeah, white men all. Land and slave owners. Convinced that life was fine that way. But also brilliant, yes.
Wednesday gratefuls: Alan. Susan Taylor. Burning Bear Creek trail. The blue Columbine. The Dictionary of Art. Burning Bear Creek. Kep. Groomed. North Fork of the South Platte. The Denver, South Platte, and Fairplay Railroad. Highway 285 which covered its rails. Mountains. Bailey. Award Winning Pet Grooming.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: Burning Bear Creek
Tarot: Knight of Vessels, Eel
“The Eel is a shapeshifter. He is purposeful and agile, gliding over the water (emotions) with such ease and quickness that he can adapt his physical form to accommodate even sudden changes.
Knight of Vessels Wildwood urges you to apply the same adaptability as you begin to pursue your own goals. He invites you to find opportunities to express yourself.” tarotx.net (edited)
Found it. The trailhead to Burning Bear Creek Trail. Surprised myself by walking uphill for some ways without huffing and puffing. Fist pump. Two months ago I drove past the trail head and found other beautiful vistas including the huge beaver dam and pound. Also the hillsides with beaver cut tree stumps.
The trail begins right at the road and the parking area only has enough space for two or three vehicles. I expected a turnoff and a larger parking area so I missed it. This time I followed the mileage suggestion and found it at about three miles from Hwy. 285 on Park County #60.
There is a two mile stretch of 60 before the trailhead that is private property, grandfathered in I imagine because it is in the Pike National Forest. Maybe four or five homes along the way. This is isolated country, back country. What a wonderful place it would be to grow up. Pronghorn Antelope, Black Bear, Beavers, Mule Deer, Fox. Burning Bear Creek. Moose. Mountain Lions. Mountain vistas. Pine and Aspen Forest. Mountain meadows. Wild Flowers. A neighborhood of wild Animals and Mountains and Creeks and Plants.
The trail starts uphill right at the road and continues across a meadow for a couple of hundred yards. Well maintained, it has rock dams every so often. Water shunts down the hillside then, not eroding the trail. A lot of work went into this, one of hundreds of trails in the Rockies.
When I got a hundred yards along the trail, this is what I saw.
A couple of things began to bug me. Had I locked the car? (Had I turned the burner off?) And. Why had I chosen to hike without my camelpak? A short hike, that’s what I told myself. Wasn’t the water I missed but the bear bells. I plan to purchase bear spray, too, now that I’m hiking in the true back country.
I’d set my timer to 15 minutes. I decided I’d go back right away and continued on. A 30 minute hike was what I’d planned.
Further on I found a patch of blue Columbine, Colorado’s State Flower, as well as a contrasting red Indian Paint Brush.
The Blue Columbine is endangered because hikers dig them up for their Rock gardens. Silly folk. They could come back in the fall and collect the seeds. I may do just that.
The trail took a downward slope as my timer went off. I could hear Burning Bear Creek running below so I decided to go on.
Up the slope of the Valley’s other side I could see that the trail leveled out. Went up to investigate.
I found this marker pointing up this section of the trail.
Oh. My. I’ll be coming back with bells on. And Bear Spray, Water, and Snacks. And, a longer time line.
On the way back
Finally, I stopped at the Shawnee National Historic Site. About half way back to Bailey.
Tuesday gratefuls: The USA. America. The Rockies. The Great Lakes. The Great Dismal Swamp. The Appalachians. The Okefenokee Swamp. The Big Woods. Northern Minnesota. The Cascades. The Smokies. Blue Ridge Parkway. Natchez Trace. Mississippi Delta. The Bayous. The East Coast and the West Coast. The Mississippi and the Missouri. Hawai’i. Kilauea. Mauna Kea. Kauai. The Big Island. Bison. Elk. Mule Deer. Black Bear. Grizzly. Trout. Haddock. Lobster. Bass. Walleye. Muskie. The Tetons. The Great Plains. The High Plains. Denali. Tongass. Kodiak. Salmon. Seals. Otters. Sea Lions. Walrus. Lichens. Mushrooms. Douglas Fir. Lodgepole Pine. Ponderosa. Oaks. Maples. Ironwood. Woodchucks. Turtles. Grasses. Elms. Chestnuts. Hickories. All the wild things. All.
Sparks of Joy and Awe: The soil of the Midwest.
Tarot: Going to do a full spread
I offer three long quotes from three different Americans. Tom Crane sent out the first a week or so ago. The other two have a central piece in my own thought and I’ve now added the Whitman piece. I present them to you after this 4th of despair and chagrin.
They reflect, are, the America in which I still believe, of which I am a citizen, and for which I shall fight.
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
From the Introduction to Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“OUR age is retrospective.It builds the sepulchres of the fathers.It writes biographies, histories, and criticism.The foregoing generations beheld God and Nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe?Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in Nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to Nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also.There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship.
Undoubtedly we have no questions to ask which are unanswerable. We must trust the perfection of the creation so far, as to believe that whatever curiosity the order of things has awakened in our minds, the order of things can satisfy.”
Henry Beston, The Outermost House: A Year of Life on the Great Beach of Cape Cod.
“We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.”
Reading about the geology of the Hawai’ian Islands yesterday. Noticed that the oldest part of the Archipelago, the Kure Atoll, 1,500 miles northwest of the Big Island, formed between 70 and 80 million years ago. Oddly that’s the same time period as the Laramide Orogeny which created the Rocky Mountains.
Those Native Coloradan bumper stickers? Three thumbs down. Not native. At least none of the ones I’ve seen driving cars with these attached. Always white. Not Ute, Cheyenne, Apache, Arapaho, or Comanche. Just boat people like the rest of us white folk. Most likely with “native roots” in places like Ireland, England, Germany, Norway, Sweden, France…you know. Nothing wrong with loving where you live. Not at all. But claiming to be a native when you’re obviously an Ole or Lena come lately? Poor taste at best.
Midwesterner, at least not as a corrective to whatever outsider ways you might have brought with you.
Found it. The trailhead to Burning Bear Creek Trail. Surprised myself by walking uphill for some ways without huffing and puffing. Fist pump. Two months ago I drove past the trail head and found other beautiful vistas including the huge beaver dam and pound. Also the hillsides with beaver cut tree stumps.
