“You’re outta cheese!” Those were the first spoken words I heard in the wee hours of the morning. I’d just stepped into the local all-night corner store at 02:30. I was grabbing a quick cup of coffee before trekking up at local mountain with the hope of photographing the Comet Neowise. A woman was there loading up a DIY meal of some sort (Eeeech!) The clerk replied to her with an unintelligible middle-eastern accent. She responded “Jes tellin’ ya!” And so the day began.
The Duncan airfield all lit up. It’s a short strip with a huge gravel pit at the approach end. There are plenty of deer wandering about and hangars crowd one end. I don’t know if it’s scarier in the dark or in daylight.
With a backpack full of photo gear and trusty tripod in hand I hiked the final ascent to the peak of Mount Prevost using my head lamp, finding my way up the brushy trail in the dark woods. I only tripped four times. I missed seeing the comet but that early scramble produced some excellent images. What a beautiful part of the world I live in! If the sky tonight is still cloudless I’ll try again; but without the clamber.
There are many areas in my life where I can be accused of being a few noodles short of a full can. I do things which in retrospect are clearly stupid. A few days ago, after a long harassment by a pop-up intruder on my computer desktop, I gave in. A free version of CCleaner, allegedly keeping my computer files clean, etc. etc; had kept intruding for many months. It’s been there for so long I can’t remember when it first arrived. It has persistently told me I should get serious and buy the real deal for $24.95. Times are tough. Even that amount needs to be seriously considered. I submitted a credit card number and suddenly the invoice price was $74.95 for a far more exotic package than what I’d ordered. I’m certain I carefully made the correct selection. Now, I can’t directly access my e-mail and every time I do anything online a big, long-fading pop-up covers the screen telling my what a wonderful product I’ve bought. WTF? In my complaint I promised the company called Cleverbridge I’d tell the world. They have NOT responded about my e-mail to their “support department.” So I have now told the world. End of the-too few noodles story. There’s no sucker like an old sucker.
In recent blogs I’ve commented on the “Black Lives Matter” story. I’ve been bemused about all those bronze statues being torn down. Now I’ve twice heard a solution from two articulate Black intellectuals. They both said the same thing. Leave the statues alone and instead erect signs telling of the bias and ignorance which had the bronzes first erected. Provide the comparative views of today which mark our progress away from the datums which those statues are. That is very positive, making lemonade from lemons. If we forget our history we’re bound to repeat it. None of us will ever rise if we continue to stay on the ground struggling with our knees on each other’s necks.
In the hurly-burly chaos of our frantic lives it is easy to get fixated on all that is wrong and dark. Occasionally something incredibly simple can hit a reset button. For me it was opening a single pea pod growing on a vine in a pot. The aroma of the contents and the superb taste of the tiny fresh peas was an instant tonic; aroma therapy. Smell and taste are great stimulants and suddenly for a few seconds I was back in vegetable gardens of my childhood, not a bad little vacation at all! The hike up through the mountain forest in the dark evoked other happy memories. Tis the simple tings Billy!
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Martin Luther King Jr.
