Occupation of Independence

The gods are playing tricks on me for adding a second pair of stabilizers to my trailer, so that I could tolerate more of the blue northers Utah was getting in October. The result of course was two weeks of freakishly calm weather here, near Lake Mead. I shake my head in disbelief, but 'not getting my money's worth' is a small price to pay for weather more perfect than I expect to ever see again, at this location. So I celebrate the occasion by taking my dog out to the edge of the canyon system at sunset every night. What do you do when you've seen it all before? Remember the progression of chapters in Thoreau's "Walden:" at some point he moved on to night-time experiences and sounds near the pond. Tonight I was walking back from the overlook when I heard the honking of an airborne platoon of geese, flying over the canyon system. That brought a poignant sigh to my face because it seemed to be the perfect sound at this place and time: the autumn migra...

Today's homework is none other than an essay (about 30 pages long) that any fan of William James would include on his greatest hits album: "A Certain Blindness in Human Beings," contained in a larger book on Gutenberg. _______________________________________ Me and the boys were at Starbucks again, halfway through a bicycle ride. As usual the blarney spilled over the curb and flowed out to the shopping mall parking lot. Then an older woman -- interrupting yet another shopping trip for yet another trinket, no doubt -- walked up to our table, and began to ask some questions. She appeared quizzical. Her reception was not unfriendly by our group. She seemed to think that a kaffee-klatsch of bald/grey/white heads in bicycle garb was so silly that only politeness kept her from laughing out loud. Perhaps it we presented ourselves well, her good nature would have granted us the status of licensed lunatics. I wasn't even going to try to please her. Instead, I seeth...

People think of retire ment and snowbirding as a low-stress lifestyle. Well it is in many ways, but not in all . After shopping i n the Walmart and putting the stuff away in my van, out in their p arking lot, I threw a couple standard plastic bags full of household trash into the shopping cart, and started rolling the cart to one of the corrals in the middle of the parking lot, where I could throw the trash bags into the waste cans. But before I got ten feet, an old biddie started chewing me out, "That's not a garbage truck!", or something like that. I guess she thought I was going to just leave the trash in the cart, instead of throwing it in the trashcan at the cart corral. What gave her the right to assume the wrong thing? But then I noticed the Old Biddie's license plate: B.C., Bolshevik Columbia. That explains that. Albertans, Saskatchewanners, and Manitobans are the nice Canadians, you know. You don't suppose that I'm displaying the longitudin...