Somewhere ...


Banal, whether to begin unremarkably with So or with Well or neither: that is the question. Problem solved. So, that was interesting. Three essays of sorts to start Tuesday before driving over to Linda Ave behind Cove School near the bike rack where we parked our bikes under the scrub oaks 70 years ago, and walk with Robert. Walk about an hour, one direction or other and back, remember who lived where, have breakfast.

First was an NYT article reporting life in Russian Crimea is hectic these days, chaotic. None of the social systems is working. Banking, government, courts, businesses. Will it be that way in Texas when they revert to Lone Star or return to Mexico? Do the rest of us get to vote in their referendum? Putin will vow to protect the Texans from the Americans, will he be their first president, or governor?  

The delanceyplace.com selection is about the origins of agriculture. We began thousands of years ago as hunter-gatherers, but agriculture evolved even though hunter-gatherers had a better life: more leisure, less stress, even better nutrition. As people settled, we started clearing and plowing, planting, weeding, watering, tending and harvesting. Baking bread, eating oats, domesticating animals that once had been our prey. Shifting from gathering to farming wasn’t natural, it was forced by population growth and running out of space to wander freely. Judging by earth after as known in the book Earth Abides, we’ll be going back to that, hunter gatherers. Frankly tired of the hassle, squabbling, hatred and warring, I’m rather looking forward to it. A basket for berries and a spear. I’ll use my old Easter basket. Basket, spear and a rock. After a couple generations there’ll be no firearms for hunting, because nobody will remember how to make ammo or how to repair a dynamo to provide electricity, besides, the hydroelectric dams will have crumbled. Spears, rocks, a stick. And a hammer. Hammer as a scepter of authority and mystical symbol of The Old Time. 

Oddly independently furthering the theme, in his thought for the day after defining bombastic, Anu Garg quoted someone who said aptly that nature does not need us protecting it, nature has survived millions of years and doesn’t give a hoot whether humans are around or not, this too will pass, we too will pass, they too will pass. Who or what will record what a relief it was to see us disappear with all our fighting and killing? Who or what will succeed us? I have a bad feeling that roaches are next. Wandering, mind, there are no roaches in my house, as Randy from pest control keeps them at bay, but they are out there, big ones. Kept At Bay. Bay is down front. Bay is also the name of the neighbor’s dog, maybe it was short for Baby, now it’s Bay. Bay loves to sneak out of their house and escape, roam our porch and garden, and gorge from the feral cats’ supper dishes at our daughter’s house next door. We don't mind, Bay is friendly. 

History Channel’s miniseries Life After People made the world seem horrible at first, grim, desolate. Weeds and grass spreading over streets and highways, vines beginning to cover buildings, slowly crumbling cities, bridges tumbling into the sea below, a wasteland. Vines, everything slowly returning to nature, green. Looked pretty good, eh, neither fire nor flood next time, just nature. Mother Nature.

8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, 9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; 10 and with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth. 11 And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. 12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: 13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. 14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: 15 and I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. 17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. (Genesis 9:8-17, KJV).


Touch of Insanity is good for the heart.

W