After sermonizing about grasslands in the last post, I started wondering whether this could be just one example of a general urge that some people have...
It all started when my Patagonia AZ host tried to make an "honest man" out of me. No more driveway mooch-docking and eating delicious leftovers from her catering business: now I had to earn my keep with a "small" repair project in her house.
How lucky this turned out to be! It made me furious. All it required was a bit of electrical wiring, and then mounting something to the ceiling with four screws. Sounds tough, eh? But it was enough to remind me how frustrating it is to find something solid to sink the screw into! That is true of stick-and-brick houses as well as standard RVs.
I have been infuriated with this all my life, until I converted a cargo trailer into my new trailer. In a way I don't want to lose the ability to become enraged when the Half-Insane is widely accepted as normal.
The desirability of plywood walls in the converted cargo trailer can be seen here, although most people wouldn't appreciate it:
Those plywood walls are a type of vast open range for the necessities of life. To tweak in your improvements, you need only get out your drill and zzzip, another pilot hole into the plywood. In seconds the project is done, inexpensively; and it is strong.
Perhaps there is a common denominator in aversions to:
It all started when my Patagonia AZ host tried to make an "honest man" out of me. No more driveway mooch-docking and eating delicious leftovers from her catering business: now I had to earn my keep with a "small" repair project in her house.
How lucky this turned out to be! It made me furious. All it required was a bit of electrical wiring, and then mounting something to the ceiling with four screws. Sounds tough, eh? But it was enough to remind me how frustrating it is to find something solid to sink the screw into! That is true of stick-and-brick houses as well as standard RVs.
I have been infuriated with this all my life, until I converted a cargo trailer into my new trailer. In a way I don't want to lose the ability to become enraged when the Half-Insane is widely accepted as normal.
The desirability of plywood walls in the converted cargo trailer can be seen here, although most people wouldn't appreciate it:
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| Your screw hole was off by a quarter inch? No biggie. Just move it over. |
Those plywood walls are a type of vast open range for the necessities of life. To tweak in your improvements, you need only get out your drill and zzzip, another pilot hole into the plywood. In seconds the project is done, inexpensively; and it is strong.
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| Del Norte, CO: a grass and sage range at the foot of the San Juan Mountains. |
- unscrewable walls,
- zippers that jam up,
- campground spaces in RV parks,
- sharp corners or trees at the mouth of a driveway,
- over-sized pickups in parking lots or narrow forest roads,
- dense forests,
- overly steep mountains,
Comments
I think I understand your metaphor of "wide open spaces" in terms of the canvas it can present to the human psyche. Endless possibilities, creativity unleashed, etc. Surely, a nice feeling.
And I suppose if that is your reason for referencing rangelands, as metaphor, then that's OK. You've made your point.
However, if one wants to talk about rangelands, hopefully, their vision broadens out and looks at all that goes on within a rangeland. This is one of the planet's complex communities, one important part of the ecosystems that support the overall functioning of the planet and which ultimately supports human existence as well. It appears you have no interest in that though.
Your expressed thoughts put you in the category of a scavenger and surely scavengers exist so, if that's your point, OK. Again, you've made it.
My point was broader though and I do not wish to be categorized into some groupie thing on the basis of one or two comments I make in support of a broader picture. That becomes a greatly deteriorated conversation of no value whatsoever. Let's talk ideas and stick to the point.
Back to this post, I certainly do see that you have a claustrophobia about any restriction of your movement.
So what?
I need more time to think about the rest of your comment.
I don't see how those brontosaurus-sized pickups ever get turned around on forest or canyon roads. The answer is probably that 95% of them never leave suburbia in the first place.
The life cycle of a wood tick just isn't the topic that would have inspired the Buddha, Socrates, the ancient Stoics. or great poets and novelists.
Consider Thoreau's writing. He is at his best when he makes metaphorical use of walks-through-nature to inform on the Human Condition. When he devolves into an amateur botanist, he becomes a useless bore.
I relate to that feeling. For me, the open range is the ocean and the coastal range is at my back.