Occupation of Independence

I never miss a chance to praise radio tower mountains and roads as one of the most under-rated hiking opportunities. (Sometimes they are mountain bike-able.) Yesterday it was time to go up Red Mountain, near Patagonia AZ. There is a lot to be said for a road that does a 360 around a mountain and has several saddles on it. The viewscape changed radically about five times on the way up. On the descent I noticed an expensive white SUV, with darkly tinted windows, driving up the road that we were descending. Was it Border Patrol? If so, why wasn't it marked with the usual green band? Then I saw three young men in dark clothes walk around a rocky outcropping. From my spot on that steep road I could see everything towards the main road. But they were walking slowly; maybe they were just locals on a hike. Who was I kidding? A minute later I saw a second, more dispersed, group of young men fly through the juniper-covered, rocky terrain. There were four of them, running faster than

There must be many a man who is surprised by how his career as a girl-watcher develops as he ages. Most young men probably think that age rots the pleasure of girl-watching. Are they ever wrong! They come to this erroneous conclusion because they confuse sex-drive with pleasure, and craving with appreciation.  Something similar happens with "owning a house". The more experienced man realizes that the house owns him more than vice versa. But that isn't to say that he can't be fond of looking at old buildings, ruins, foreign architecture, etc.  A third example of the same principle is enjoying funky, artsy, old mining towns in beautiful locations. What a pleasure they are to visit . But I don't envy those who live here. How general is this tendency for us to outgrow ownership -- with all its irony and self-impalement -- and replace it with an appreciation that is sincere, flexible, and unbinding? And why not? We don't really own Life; we're just rentin