Time and tide wait for no man.
Well, they may hesitate just a little for some. And some deserve it.
We are going to have to wait for a couple of weeks I guess but I’m looking forward to the story of “the big operation”. And I bet that it’s going to be like those of the survivors of those old southern duels. It being the big event of their lives dueling southerners could occasionally wince and clap their hand to the chest or shoulder or…. Friends would obligingly say, “ What is it Jesse?” and they were allowed to say, “Oh, its just that sometimes on these cold mornings the old wound, she twinges me.” “Tell us about it Jesse” friends would say and old Jesse would then recount the time they, he and old Farquar, “armed with those French dueling pistol faced one another under the great oaks with the Spanish moss drooping from the gray branches on that ever memorable morning”. "Oh show us the wound Jessee"
We have gone through our lives collecting those “good stories” with Steve. I guess while we are going to have to wait a while for the next story I bet its going to be every bit as good as the “Pariah Canyon Death March” where Steve exhausted out of his mind and in considerable pain from his macerated feet, masking it all, wandered toward the cliff in a sort of a macho daze. Or perhaps we will get something with the excellence of the “SIXTEEN OUNCES AND HIKE FOR YOUR LIVES BOYS” event that all three of us barely survived in the Uintas. I don’t know but I bet when he tells it it will be hilarious. Those events were even hilarious while we were suffering through them. Not everyone can pull that off. We would have gone down laughing and in a good mood. Hats off buddy. (But keep your shirt on)
The Never ending Foray
Steve is home.
Probably the best, most effective Scout Master the world has ever known some how survived the hikes into inaccessible, talk about remote, places to have a heart attack while surfing with a paramedic son. I wonder how we could have ever gotten him out of Pariah Canyon or off Lions Canyon ridge. It’s a long way to drag a big man by the left ankle.
He is home but he is now facing a triple by-pass. Facing it with considerable aplomb too. I think he facing the coming surgery with a good deal more courage than he is facing Sue. And who can blame him. I believe she had explained to him about those double cheese Burgers, but "did he listen"noooo!
I asked him if he had any advice for other 57year old surfers. He spread his thumb and forefinger about a quarter inch and replied “ Very Little Mayonnaise”. I pass that on to you.
And almost in Memorium
We got a call Saturday night and Dale and I drove over to Ventura Memorial Hospital. Steve had been surfing. While lying on his board off shore he had a heart attack. His son, his surfing partner, was across the little bay and all Steve could do was lie on the board and let the waves was him ashore. Scott is a paramedic. Good choice for a surfing companion. They got Steve in to the Hospital quickly. And just a quickly the Doctors put in two stents. One vein (artery?) was only trickling. No heart damage.
Same old Steve. Lying there with tubes everywhere he joked with us mentioning that all his male progenitors died at this age with heart attacks. Not the funniest thing I ever heard but he can make it so. He has talked about his ancestors mortality for ten years now as he approached this age.
He said his son told him surfers, young and old, have heart attacks. In fact Scott, his son, says he has pulled two surfers “off the bottom” this year. The ocean is apparently not a good place to be rendered suddenly helpless
Two days later Steve is out of intensive care. I suspect our planned outings are still on. I know the man.
or
I’d be the fist to say I don’t want the sports beat
I was just looking at the student newspaper (ok, actually back in September) when I ran across this caption under a picture of the football team.
- first home game: the …. Football team played the fist (sic) home game on Sept. 11. The clouds appeared read (sic) in the horizon from the setting sun that comes earlier with autumn,. (sic)
I could see no evidence of proof reading or of interest in the game other than as an adjunct to the photo, which I thought the author must have taken and which photographic brilliance he/she wanted to underline. I was looking for the score or anything about the game but there was nothing. I was a bit bemused by that but then I noticed the spelling errors.
I count two major errors in that one sentence not counting the fact that the sentence ends with a comma and period. The other error I see is in giving the sports beat to someone who obviously doesn’t have his or her heart in it. I was more into what happened in the game than in how beautiful the sky above the field was. Still, I turned on to the story itself, which turned out to consist of three more pictures and two sentences. The sports guy must be the photographer. Who ever the writer is, sentence two contained no discernable errors. I was deeply disappointed. This could have been a world record with just a little more care. However, the third and ultimate sentence came through. There we are told that the
“Wide Receiver” shown in the picture above the sentence “tries to get pass” (sic) the other teams man “during the 19-16 loss Sept.11.”
I’d have to guess that we are not dealing with a spelling error in the ultimate sentence or sense. My first theory was that spell check has driven the checking of all spelling all to hell. My second thought was that whoever wrote the story didn’t particularly care what the team had done. My third theory now is that illiteracy is universal and not just to be found in the written word. Well, perhaps that theory needs to be that we write what we hear or think we hear. It looks like incorrect “hearing” is often unfettered by any reading which might lead to a correction of the false hearing.
Ok, now wait a second while I run spell check.
(While I don’t like to complain, its also taking my wife longer than I had thought it would to proof read this post)
Well, there you go. CNN just announced the “the prosecution has arrested its case”. We are doomed.
I really dont know what to do with this one but...
I woke up with a line running through my head. Make what you will of it.
Footloose and ankle deep in gunpowder
We were roughing it up Wheeler Gorge above Ojai. (What does Ojai mean? I’m willing to believe anything)
The spot was great. We were on a small projection into a stream that was crystal clear and about a foot and a half deep by twenty feet wide. The site hadn’t been trampled to death, was somewhat grassy, surrounded, shrouded and domed with beeches, with a nice fire ring. I couldn’t believe they let you build a fire. I guess the heavy rains we have had have the forest (if you can call thick brush interspersed with beeches a forest. I’m also willing to do that) almost fireproof. I did have a little difficulty convincing my camping companions that the stream was a Crick. Other than it was gravy.
We got the (once or supposedly) free standing tent set up in record time considering that the aluminum poles, four sets numbered 1 through eight, were missing two number eights. (The tent had been used by the owners teen age daughters and borrowed numerous times, apparently used somewhere where there was a great deal of sand) However, four screwdrivers and forty feet of manila rope took care of that. It didn’t look half bad. Dale explained his profession was to break things and then make them look pretty.
By 5:08 pm, in a slowly developing, canyon induced, twilight we began making supper.
You have to learn how to cope. We started off with medley of mixed vegetables with mushrooms stirred in and warmed with barbequed chicken, roasted pine nuts and candied ginger. Along with this we made do with a simple rosemary olive oil bread. Finishing up with raspberry lemon tart we sighed contentedly, forgot all about a previous life and built a fire around which we sat and joked for about five hours. The sound of the river burbling and gurgling by got to be a bit soporific and we retired, not stirring for about eight hours of deep sleep. Well, the wind blew straight through the tent and I woke up a few times just to feel how nice the wind felt on my skin.
Breakfast was Steves creation and consisted of scrambled eggs and bacon with pan-fried potatoes. See, anything you eat while camping is not real so you can indulge yourself. No oatmeal and soy milk for real men. Not till Monday anyway.
We drove up to the end of the canyon and hiked in to a stunning waterfall. I don’t often fill up a Compact Flash 512 card but I did there.
On the way back down the canyon we saw something so beautiful we couldn’t believe it was natural. The hill, in an area that covered something like fifty by three hundred feet stretching upward, sparkled magically. I had to get used to Dales driving habits. When I commented on the scene he stopped the car opened the door and suggested that it would be a good idea if I checked it out and reported back. So I, narrowly missing stepping in front of a fortunately slow moving pickup truck, (or was that earlier) crossed the otherwise empty highway and hiked down the side and up into the beautifully glittering area. Gathering evidence in both hands I brought it back to the van. We speculated extensively on what was causing the brilliant reflections on the hillside. Supplied only with a handful of small shattered pieces of glass which appeared to come from various brands of bottled Beer, and a handful of what looked suspiciously like twenty two, thirty two and thirty eight caliber bullets which though somewhat flattened seemed not to have penetrated at all the gravel and rock hillside we tried to come to some reasonable conclusion. Phrased like that, there is none.
We made our way slowly back to Ojai. It was slow because every time we saw something nice Dale pulled over and got out and looked at it. He did the same thing, he says, on his Honeymoon, which only took about eight or nine months as they drove across the United States, stopping and working when they ran out of money. That made me a little uneasy but we were in the city by about two and had lunch in a picturesque restaurant, seated out of doors. There are by the way nothing but picturesque restaurants or indeed anything else in Ojai. The City ordinances must be horrific.
Nice week end.
If I were designing a world there would be a lot of water, in a lot of forms. Much of it would fall from great heights, and other would lie still, deep and glassy. None of it would have crocodiles in it. I mean, cummon. What committee came up with that? I just think it had to be a committee decision. Think about it. “Crocodile”? “Sure, ya need excitement. But Gary wont like it”. Silence and then giggling. Then, “Lets make it look evil too.” “And the committee on teeth will meet Saturday, on your normal day off.” “Be there with your plans”.
I noticed today that they are postulating the extinction of tigers in India. I feel terrible about that. It’s almost unbearable. But. We had a (an escaped) Tiger in our hills, not far from where I usually hike. No, the extinction of Tigers in my domain is another matter. I am able to contemplate that with a great deal of equanimity. And there you have the reason for the extinction of Tigers in India. Ok, not the only one but if it lived in your mangrove swamp or wandered around where you hiked while you wore a back looking mask on the back of your head in the hope of outsmarting something with eyes like still, glassy, deep water, and that look like they have been thinking about the nature of the universe and of you for dinner, well, the thought of out smarting it just isn’t comforting. And a four hundred pound Tiger doesn’t strike me as caring much whether or not you saw it coming. What kind of deterrent is that? “I see you so you can’t attack?” Anyway I doubt that a painted face with painted eyes on it would fool something that looks that intelligent.
Have you noticed the sort of smiling lip structure of tigers; like they know something you don’t and its not going to be pleasant for you. Sort of like your last boss? I think if we could recall all tigers and do plastic surgery on the lips they might save the tiger yet.
I don’t think anything can be done with the Croc. There I think form just follows function and the function is to lie in wait and kill. Same thing with the tiger but the committee at least made them pretty.
See, I’m offering a whole new solution, possibility, to the creationism-evolution thingy. Proud indeed! I’m going to ask that my idea be included in the textbooks too. If I don’t get it I’m going to be Offended. Perhaps even feel violated. (Ah, a little edge there eh) We need a name for it. I’m open to suggestions but something like Committee Aided Evolutionary Creationism wouldn’t be bad. And it plays to, makes sense of, justifies… the whole concept that the Camel is a horse as designed by a committee. Obviouly it is, and it was designed on their normal day off, as a protest.
Or Why this Design?
Going to camp out for a bit. Three of us, old Scouting buddies, are getting together and I hope hiking a little and sitting a lot while eating well and telling and retelling the old stories. I think one of the guy’s is actually thinking about fishing in the fishing stream near by. Decompression I think you could call it. I’m almost afraid that the anticipation will be better than the reality but even that is welcome.
Oh, and yes I finally found the sleeping bag. Why is it that nothing is ever where you expect it? Well with me it’s that I tend to bring these things home and sling them somewhere for a moment to be put away later cause I’m tired from the event. Finding things when I want them again is a case of outsmarting (or rethinking) myself. i.e. “lets see, if I were me where would I have thrown the darn thing”; my wife will tell you that outsmarting myself ought to be a complete snap but I find it difficult. It’s a case of no system being foolproof because fools are so ingenious (I know it usually turns out that I am). Still, after about thirty minutes there it was, the sleeping bag that I had apparently just given a toss in the direction of a closet and never thought of again. It has been sitting there, partially hidden by the dresser, leaning against the closet door in the kid’s old bedroom, for about 11 months now. I’d have gotten around to it some time.
Sometimes the way the world works makes me grumpy. As someone once said, “why is it that you always find what you are looking for in the last place you look”? I mean, what kind of a system is that? Bad design I say.
Just got a note from Paul. He is another Old Prof. I have always thought the moniker was too good for some one else not to have thought of it so yesterday I did a search and there was Paul. Today I get a post from him. Old Profs of the world unite.
I was reading Pail's site and came across his idea of a proper burial. I have told my children my desires and in fact just reviewed them to our school discussion group.
They thought it cool.
I would like to be stuffed with about thirty pounds of C3 (I know there are latter better editions of plastic explosive but that’s the one we used and with which I am most comfortable) Then I want to be dropped from twenty thousand feet with red white and blue streamers tied to my feet and the same colored smoke bombs lashed to my ankles. At ten thousand feet I want to be detonated with those golden whizzy things they use in fireworks.
On second thought it might have to be a detonation at a lower level to be visible against an evening sky.
The Neptune society be damned. This is a far better way. I don’t know if it would be cheaper but there would be more ba… ahhh. Well, even I have to draw the line somewhere on cheap puns. Forget it.
My little two year old grandson went to the doctor yesterday and the nurse gave him a shot. He was surprised and yelled , “Ow”! He turned to his momma and yelled “Momma she hurt me. She is naughty”! Then he yelled “ Time Out Nurse”!
I was just in a committee meeting where the moderator and one other member engaged in a conversation that dumfounded me. One asked the other a rather technical question and the rest of the conversation was like watching two people play tennis without a ball. They spoke in half sentences, talked at the same time, laughed at allusions to allusions, used arcane jargon, and just generally disguised from every other living soul what it was, if anything, they were talking about. I realized that our language has potential that is rarely plumbed. I'm not even sure that that they were communicating in what could be called language. They just understood each other and the problem so thoroughly that no real linguistic discourse was taking place. As for the rest of the committee, no one asked, and no one told and everyone just sat there trying to look knowledgeable. I bet I could have broken in and said something nonsensical, like “hah hah, tintinnabulation eh”, smiled archly and looked knowing and gotten away with it. I know I didn’t have the guts to ask them what the heck they were talking about.
At Millies, buying my wife her dinner. The waitress didn’t bring the bill. I went up to the counter and she apologized and said, “Oh, I have been gone a couple of days and am totally out of whack”. I said, “That’s completely ok. I have all the whack any one could want”. Good stuff huh? Those waitresses saw it immediately. Laugh, I guess. Leaning against the counters having a hard time getting their breath. Some people just know great humor when they hear it. Come to think of it, I am inclined to leave a bigger tip next time just because they are so profoundly aware of how funny I really am. My wife on the other hand is lucky she isn’t living on tips. No laughing there. And she is getting the A stuff too. Some people just aren’t born with the ability to discern what is funny and what isn’t. Sad really.
Sometimes when I am faced by a situation in which people don't behave, as I would believe a reasonable person would (not should), I attempt to place myself into their mind set and occasionally come up with a different insight into the event. There are some situations into which I will not attempt to place myself, being too horrified to bear the attempt. However, on entering a restroom between Bakersfield and Las Vegas I thought I had an insight. At least after deep thought and an attempt at projection into the event I can see no other reason for the apparent behavior of a few, than the explanation I propose here.
I have believed for a long time now that the written word has a strong effect on people, far stronger than the writers want to believe. That is, authors who write foul and horrifying material refuse to take any responsibility for apparent copycat actions by their readers. They want to be able to continue making the money without being restricted by any moral considerations whatsoever and deny vehemently any connection between their "product" and anyone's resulting actions. I believe I can now show a direct relationship between at least the written media and the (semi)public act of the reading public. In fact, I have never seen the immense power of the media better demonstrated than in that restroom just outside Bakersfield. There in the doorway, as you entered, was a little triangular kiosk which said in capital letters, “Wet Floor”. I can only suppose that upon reading that, probably sometime in the numinous night, alone and unobserved, several suggestible people thereupon did.
PS
Those of you who find the use of the word “numinous” pretentious are not alone, so does my wife. But I have informed her that she should count her blessings, and cut her losses. If I could have figured out a way to use “tintinnabulation” it would be in there somewhere too. So far, other than popping up in spell check (and surprising the heck out of me), it has resisted all attempts.
PPS
I may still use it. I’m thinking.