Monday, June 13, 2011

Where I Wuz

Yep, you don't even get cell phone reception out here.

Click to enlargificationalize.

Kinda looks like a Rebel Base from Star Wars, eh? 
But it's just the Jack's Fork River Valley, from above Alley Spring
near Eminence, MO

Morgan is right.  It's all fine and good to get all wrapped up in the politics of the country and worry and fret and spend time trying to do your part to steer the culture back from the brink, but remember -- you've got roughly 70, 80 years on this planet if all goes well, and there is enjoyment of life to be had.  This means family, friends, nature, and a nice burboun and water on ice.  Among other such things.
We had some neighbors ... the very same we went on this trip with (an annual event that's been going on for 15 years, or 34 if you go back to the lady of that house's childhood) that we used to hang out with when they lived across the street ... quite often, and especially in the summertime.  Out in the yard, or on the deck, quaffing a few and shootin' the breeze.  Sometimes it'd just be a few of us standing in the shade of the garage with a few beers.

Later we'd found out we'd been dubbed by some of the neighbors, "The Outside Guys".   Yeah, it was hot.  Yeah, it was humid.   But you have to remind yourself from time to time of what all of this nice cushy convenience we've built up was built to protect us from.
You have to do something to remind you of what "normal" is.  To De-Wuss-ify.  Deal with it.  And then when you go back into your climate control and sleep on your memory foam matress topper and there's running water and flushing toilets and no mosquitoes... you appreciate it that much more.

They moved about 25 miles east of us several years ago, but we still do this every summer.  And often again in the fall.

3 comments:

nightfly said...

It's all fine and good to get all wrapped up in the politics of the country and worry and fret and spend time trying to do your part to steer the culture back from the brink, but remember -- you've got roughly 70, 80 years on this planet if all goes well, and there is enjoyment of life to be had. This means family, friends, nature, and a nice burboun and water on ice. Among other such things.

This is both the great strength and the great weakness of the everyday person.

The strength is the greater force - the desire to be a balanced, healthy person with a wide variety of interests. It makes a person happier, and harder to manipulate through the control of a single obsession.

The weakness is real, though - and that is, there are people for whom running other people's lives is such a consuming obsession, they have no problem spending 24/7/365 at their task, building all sorts of ways to harass and confine others. They have real lives and therefore can't be at the ramparts for anything like the same amount of time or intensity.

I don't know that it takes a village to raise a child. It rather takes a nation to make sure that the village doesn't meddle with the children, and everyone else.

nightfly said...

Oh, and the first graph was of course your quote, and it was supposed to be in Itlaics... but brilliant thinker me forgot the html tags. Profound Fail.

philmon said...

I thought that sounded familiar. ;-)

Well, yes, all true. I just hope we "work smarter" than they do.