Fragments From Floyd

Getting My Ship Together

In light of our current pet crisis, I found myself desparately looking for anything to do that would divert my attention to other less emotionally-draining matters. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was considering putting together a little 'memoir'... of loosly-connected fragments from Fragments, and yesterday, I made a good bit of progress toward that end, and thought I'd bring you up to date on where this stands.

I have about eighty 'selections' to consider. After categorizing them initially into about eight topic categories (Nature, Family, Coming of Age, Field and Forest, The Waters, Gardening Hopefully, Tall Tales, Speaking my Mind) in the end, yesterday, I sorted them all into five folders: one for each season, and 'unsortable' things for which there is no way to file by month/season. Now I will have to read through all of it at a sitting (yuk!) without editing the many things that need changing, just to get an overview of the feel for all of it, and decide on an overall structure, how to weave it together snugly, and be thinking about a beginning and ending 'chapter' that introduces the 'why' and the 'how' of the little book, while the story itself (told in fragments) will be more about the 'who' and the 'where'.

It was difficult to follow a train of thought in words yesterday with the dog declining in the next room, so I decided after months of procrastination to work on some possible images for the book project. The Epson Stylus Color 980 printer had sat unused in a closet for over a year. I was amazed that it worked perfectly with a simple head cleaning, and now I have a dozen 4 x 6 prints that will make a nice presentation for a local publisher, and I also have the digital images ready to ship off on CD if needed. I'm thinking of a final book of about 6 x 9, so images can't be in landscape format, so will have to square up some of the ones I have chosen or find others where the composition will tolerate a 4 x 4 framing; and have no idea at this point about many aspects of getting my images onto paper. So I will be learning a lot!

Trust me. I understand that this is not a high literary event happening here. Baby steps. Baby steps. And I am trying to enjoy the journey, as particularly in this case, the destination is most uncertain. And so I will bring you nice folks with me to help me keep my bearings in this voyage. Thanks for coming along!

Good News, Bad News

Not wanting the dog to suffer, and finding the non-steroidal antiinflamatory meds not doing anything for his pain, yesterday morning, I gave Buster a 20mg Prednisone (steroid). We wanted him to be as comfortable as possible until we could end his pain for good, and had planned to take him for his last ride this morning. The first pill had no effect, and he lay under the table, not lifting his head for four hours. I gave him the second Predisone early, and back under the table he went for another four hours. When he heard Ann drive up coming home from work in the late afternoon, he bound out from under the table steady on his feet and ran to the window, then to the door to go greet her, then down the driveway at a run, without a limp. The old Buster was back.

Which raises another dilemma and merely postpones a final decision. Can we maintain his quality of life by one of a number of possible regimens of steroid use... an end-stage measure to be sure, and not without negative consequences on its own... and prevent him from suffering while under the surface, his autoimmune condition (which is everyone's best guess as an etiology) continues to consume his joints? If he is appearing to feel no pain, can we in good conscience have him put to sleep?

And so we begin our well-intentioned experiment in the pharmacotherapy of canine hospice care, duration and course unknown. I hope we're doing the right thing.

Hard Times

Thanks to those of you who have been where we are now with our 'best friend Buster'. I just gave him Prednisone. It may relieve his symptoms a bit and give some respite from the awful pain that is now preventing him from standing more than a few times a day. We have to lift him down the one step from the back porch to the yard, and then he just stands there, holding up one painful leg only because he cannot hold up all four. It is just pitiful to watch.

How and when we will be able to get him to his final rest I do not know. If we will get another dog I do not know. Why bad things happen to good dogs I do not know. That life will go on, I do know, just as it did after Zachary left us fifteen years ago. We still slip up and call Buster "Zach" from time to time, because the memories do not go away quickly, and this is both blessing and burden. There are many memories of Buster recorded in these pages, and some day I will be glad of that. And if we get another dog some day, he'd just better get used to living in a big black shadow for a long, long time. This I know.

I talk to him when I'm lonesome like; and I'm sure he understands. When he looks at me so attentively, and gently licks my hands; then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say naught thereat. For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that. ~W. Dayton Wedgefarth

Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole. ~Roger Caras

Labradors are lousy watchdogs. They usually bark when there is a stranger about, but it is an expression of unmitigated joy at the chance to meet somebody new, not a warning. ~Norman Strung

A Dog's Life

I am writing around a lump in my throat. I just got up, for the second time. The first time was at 1:30 this morning, and I came in here and booted up the computer and worked half-heartedly in the eerie glow of the monitor, through some Photoshop 'lessons' just to divert my attention, maybe help me recenter my thoughts and maybe get some sleep again before Ann had to leave for work at 5:30.

In the global sense, a dog's comfort and well-being is a small matter. But if you search my stories and prose over the past year, our dog is a central character to our lives here. As the breed description says, "Black Labs want to be involved in all family activities", and so has Buster been, now for almost 4 and a half years. His joint pain that started in November, has now moved from his right front and back legs, to include also the left. The arthritis is either a symptom of or a comorbid condition of something else that the veterinarians cannot name. But the quality of his life is declining rapidly, and he is no longer well enough to be involved in any family activities. And he is in great pain. And when he groans and whimpers in the small hours of the night, I cannot sleep.

And we are at a point where we need to decide what is best for him. And we are damned if we do or if we don't. Some of you will understand.

So, life goes on. I have some things I need to work on outside, and maybe getting out of the house will be the best distraction just now. Except that if I put on my cap and my gloves, Buster will want to go, but cannot even lift his head to watch me leave. And so I will quietly slip out the front door in my sandals instead, and just walk somewhere. Alone.

Bird Food

I just stepped out on the front porch in the crepuscular half-light to 'take the air', listen to the creek and the quiet. Suddenly, in my reverie, not 50 feet away, calling from the yuccas below the house: the ear-splitting call of a Whippoorwill. I could have tossed a rock underhand and gotten within 5 feet of the thing. Yes, these 'goatsuckers' as they are called are well camoflaged to blend in with their nesting places on the ever-loving ground, of all places. But then, they go and shout, over and over, all night long: Come Eat ME! Come Eat ME! I'm right HERE! I'm right HERE! Got no TEETH! Got no TEETH! Tell me how has this bird survived to this day with this self-promotional approach to survival? I am in awe.

You wanna Piece 'o Me?

Apparently they do. In the age of emergent diseases, I regret to report that we now have a new strain of bloodsucking mutant gnats on Goose Creek, and I have the bright red smears on my lily-white legs to prove it. Ann scoffed and said my itchy bites must be mosquitoes (which she knows we very rarely see around here) but I saw the exsanguination in progress behind my knees and on my wrists, and they were definitely gnats, except more heavy bodied and wearing black leather, and with pierced antennae. And they bit like cats: sinking the teeth in first, then kick-kick-kicking mightily with their hindmost legs. And they got a piece of me, some white meat, some dark.

And speaking of gardening, go pay a visit to new blogger and some-day freestanding organic Farmer Hope, who just started her brand-spanking-new weblog, Taproots and Wheelbarrows. Rumor has it she may some day relocate from The BigCity to be our neighbor here in Floyd, if the right farming opportunity comes along. And Hope, if you come this way, yeah, we'll be happy for some tomatoes!

My momma taught me to share. From our garden, we have a surplus, available to the first inquiries. Only stipulation is you must come get it. We have, for immediate offer to a good garden home: rocks, assorted igneous, irregular shapes, up to loaf-of-bread size, quantity unlimited; also, purslane and gallinsoga seeds, pick your own from what was going to become the First Family garden, then seemed destined to become a hydroponic opportunity for the growing of sugar cane and/or rice or other submerged greenery, now baking under a sun that acts like it has some catching up to do. Oh yeah. You can have as many of our mutant gnats as you want... send some to someone you know who needs an adventure in gardening phlebotomy.

Addendum: Bogie, I am afraid you are right. I didn't really think they were gnats, which don't have the piercing-sucking mouthparts our new arrivals obviously do have. They fit the part of black flies, and we have never been bothered by them before... perhaps a combination of mild winter followed by uncommonly wet spring. We have deer flies, too, especially when walking in the woods... but this looks like a good solution to being divebombed by those sorry suckers. And I'm wondering if this isn't yet another use for DUCT TAPE!

Field of Daisies II

Our field of daisies (Chrysanthemum leucanthemum) is lovely, but the white petaled flowers with egg-yellow centers are mere intruders in a sea of grasses. The grass family (Poaceae) contains all of our grains, and they are of great nutritional and economic importance, to be sure. But the grasses are also worthy of attention for aesthetic reasons, but rarely photographed to this end, seen more often as images of pressed specimens on herbarium paper.

I have found it impossible to do justice to the form, color and habit of any of the native grass species that grow across the creek among the orchard grass and other members of the 'intentional community' planted in our field. Their colors are subtle and grass flowers generally lack showy components to attract insect pollinators since this family uses wind effectively as a means of getting pollen to the female parts elsewhere. A single grass plant is linear in form, not falling cooperatively in a single photographic plane, making it difficult or impossible to single out a single plant in focus and in good contrast from its neighbors.

I never took the time to key the grasses when I was a student. They lacked interest to me as I shuffled through the herbarium specimens, and their wirey forms and tiny indistinct glumes and lemmas and awns and such did not excite my curiosity the way the symmetry of petaled wildflowers did. And so my apologies to the grasses this morning, as I admire a field of nameless but beautiful plants that hold dew and sunlight so well in the early light, and the daisies get all the glory.

Mouthing off: Fragments Radio

Well, barring another stint of All War All the Time on WVTF, our local NPR station from Roanoke (a condition that prevailed back in March, pre-empting my next to last radio bit... hey, it could happen again...) I'll be telling one of our family tales for all the world to hear on Friday, June 27. Of course, afterward, my son-- the star of the broadcast feature -- may decide now to not put me in the nursing home I've requested... the one that has internet hookups in all the rooms... after all. Sorry sonny. Too good a tale not to share.

If for some bizarre reason you want to listen 'live', tune in here via Real Audio on Friday morning, at 6:50 a.m. or 8:50 a.m. EDT. Both times, the regular 4-5 minute Civil War piece airs first, followed by the Friday feature 'essay'.

This has been a good way to meet people via the blog, since the station is kind enough to give me a byline that mentions Fragments. Hoping again this week for a few new readers and commenters and emailers... heck, I ate lunch with a Fragments-friend a few weeks back that 'met me' via the radio essay back in November. And they say weblogging is not about building 'real' community!

And oh! I should mention... the station has moved into their new digs. Very impressive, and gratifying to see what listener contributions have helped to do. They even have very good ergonomic chairs, so win my Physical Therapy NPR Listener Award!

Lester Maddox: Pick-handle politician

Today marks the passing of a southern historical landmark of sorts... former governor Lester Maddox of Georgia.

I remembered, hearing this man's name for the first time in decades, carrying a sawed-off pick handle in the back floorboard of my red VW in high school... woodburned with the name and logo of Maddox's Pickrick Restaurant. The pick was a double-entrendre during those racially tense times... a violent icon and momento... and I have no idea how I came upon it or why it stayed in my car for so long, as I drove around racially volatile Birmingham in the 60's.

Maddox was a contemporary of Alabama Governor, George Wallace, who was more outspoken a segretationist and less of a showman than Maddox. I remember getting out of school early to go downtown and here Wallace rant on the courthouse steps. As young teenagers, we knew it was an important time in the state's history, but not why, or what he stood for, really. We stood at the back of the noisy crowd of Wallace supporters and only barely understood how black and white his world view was.

A few years later, I was the loudmouth of the group (Auburn Chapter of the Nature Conservancy) and so was nominated as spokesman to present our proclamation. Somewhere, there is an 8 x 10 glossy of me with my mouth open, shaking hands, lecturing Governor Wallace in his office in the State Capitol about how he needed to resist the temptation to sell the state's natural resources whole-cloth to the big paper companies for clear-cutting.

Body: Not Bad

But the feet will have to go.

My son found out a thing about writing I am having to painfully learn for myself: that there is less joy and freshness and energy in the rewriting of something than the writing of it for the first time. What seemed to stand adequately well written fresh months ago now appears obviously flawed and in need of surgery... some only cosmetic, but for the most part, we're talking amputation here. And mostly it is toward the extremities... the endings... the formulaic conclusions added to a Fragments post because I had tired of writing about it and needed to wrap it up. It's just a weblog post, Fred. Don't anguish over it. Shave and a haircut-- two bits! Done!

Consequently, as I look back through possible entries to include in a little booklet out on the horizon through the haze, I find (and friend-editor Tom has corroborated most tenderly) more than a few of the concluding paragraphs are mushily effusive, mock-wise and cutesy. Bring in the orthopedic bone saw! Apply tourniquet. Lots of anesthetic, please. Today I am inclined to think the patient can be saved. Yesterday, I was ready to pull the plug. I wonder if Fragments has a DNR clause?

I've become somewhat sidetracked from the writing tasks at hand by the new Photoshop book I just brought home. I've learned that I can significantly reduce the size of images of adequate quality by using the "Save for Web" function in the software, so hopefully in the future I will not have to sacrifice quality to get images of small enough size to load quickly on your web browser and also not glut my limited server space. On the other hand, if I am going to include images in the 'book', I need to start printing some of them to paper to look at quality and have a lot to learn about publishing costs for full color images, how book paper affects an image, et cetera. Any experience with this? Anyone?

And oh, by the way, I've decided on a title for the book that I think will have great appeal: Harry Potter in the Enchanted Blue Ridge Forest.

Crossing

Crossing Nameless Creek ~ May 2002

There is a story in this image. I don't not know it yet.

Field of Daisies I

Field of Daisies I ~ Late June, 2003

Light One Candle

And stick it in your ear. Yeah, you heard me right. Ear candling. It's all the rage (take a look at the pictures). I thought this was a Saturday Night Live skit when I first heard about it a few years ago after moving to Floyd. Pick an orifice. Pick any possible thing inserted, ignited, ingested, instilled or inhaled, and somewhere, at some point in ages past, mankind has just had to try it. Imagine one moment in history:

"Hey. I got an idea. How 'bout we stick something... yeah! candles! in our, um... ears maybe, and light them!" (Remember this one at your next office party. Substitute your choice for the words in bold. Write a three hundred word report of your experience. Start a webpage to tell the world about it.)

No thanks. For my annual ear impaction experienced this week, I will be calling a boring ol' allopathic type to shoot a turkey baster full of some chemical concoction into my ear repeatedly with great force.

You know, on second thought, the candle idea might be worth a try. I think we got some in drawer somewhere that sparkle like fireworks. That ought to be good for some new aural experiences! But can one do this alone? And I quote:

"The metaphysical and spiritual aspects of ear candling are legion. You
may want to explore these later. For now, may I suggest that you do
this: If you can, practice ear candling with someone you love, each
helping the other. Before you get started, dim the lights and break
out some candles. If you have aromatherapy or scented candles, so
much the better. Play a little soft music. Sip a little wine. Be sure to
use facial massage. Relax, and let your senses fly. Some say it's
almost as good as. . . well, try it and see for yourself".

Hey. I can't hear too good outta my right ear. So if you send email today, speak up. Use bold font so I can hear what you're saying.

Journal ~ June 21, 2003

This has been a wonderful day of sun, a respite welcomed on the eve of the summer solstice. A cold front has passed through and carried all the dank wet air so that edges are vibrant-razor-sharp. The greenness is so soothing today under an achingly blue sky. I had almost forgotten.

While the colors were remarkable, it was the sound of this day that made me take notice. Standing at the edge of the creek in the warm sun in the amphitheater formed by our little valley, sound reverberated in layers, bottom to top -- the creek rumbling below, a thousand incessant insects stridulating in the middle, while the northwest wind above played in the treble cleft.

The creeks are risen and clear; most of the water comes from underground. Recent rains have forced cold clear water from deep underground into the swollen stream-- enough water to call it a torrent, and it is raucous, in a hurry. If you could stand at the shore of the ocean and record the breakers, then take out pauses between waves--this is the sound that roars along the valley floor today. Breakers without a break, the bass undertones in this valley full of sound.

The seventeen-year cicadas wax and wane their nasal love songs relentlessly, with an occasional short pause when the singing males all seem to agree to stop together at once, just for a moment. They preen circumspectly before getting back to their seductive songs. I'm certain they expect at any moment a lured lady locust will climb up to their singing perch and make arthropodic whoopie. It must be a most orgasmic event-- to have waited seventeen years for this very moment. I wonder if you listened closely, could you hear the instant of those little whoops when the next generation of earth-sleeping insects is consummated, followed by a satisfied sigh, just days before death?

On top of the ridges the wind becomes visible as a million leaves race just ahead of it, like the standing wave that crowds perform in perfectly timed sequence at football games. Before me, a stadium filled with soft leaves rise in unison along the leading edge of the wind; they sit back down as it passes, only to stand and cheer again and again.

The cool, heavy air today feels full of energy and ozone. It has come here all the way from the tundra, never breathed before, save by a few caribou, and fewer wolves. The sound of wind in summer treetops brings a multitude of boreal voices, a soft rushing whisper devoid of the shrill whine inflicted in December by this wind's winter relatives traveling over Goose Creek though bare branches.

Dust to Dust

Annie, here's your door.

I stopped by the old house this morning on the way to town. I've been saying every time we pass "It won't be here much longer". I was relieved to find it still standing this morning so I could take its picture. I had to shoo a half dozen cows away from the front porch, and they resisted moving out of the half shade to the sunny side of the old place.

Ann wanted-- really wanted-- the upstairs door to use in our farmhouse, back when we began restoring it. You can't really make that door out very well here, but it is a work of art, crafted, it appears, from chestnut, with stained glass panels. She snooped around, asked at the feed-&-seed, and found out who owned the house... an elderly gentleman who, like so many country farm children, didn't move far from the old homeplace, into a brick rancher just up the hill from where he was born and raised and his parents died.

He can't afford to keep the old house from decay, but he also can't bear to part with it. Even the front door. Believe me, he's had at least one empassioned offer to buy it. Soon, the beautiful door will crumble along with the gingerbread trim and double porches, and the old man and his memories will pass, and the memories of those who stood arm in arm on the old upstairs porch will go to dust.

Bloggers of Place: Face-to-Face

About Place. Then face to face. Two of our blogging group of Writers about Place have had the rare chance, across the expanse of much geography, to meet each other. Pica of Feathers of Hope and Cassandra of Cassandra Pages sit together and make an entry on the Ecotone pages. Maybe this will be the first of many contacts we will yet have, as we share first our words and thoughts about place, then someday, our very places in space!

And, speaking of 'place' writing, thanks, Boynton, for your kind pointer to the Ecotone essays, and personally, thanks for this link to THE FOREST AND THE TREES: Four Seasons From a Journal About Place and Poetry by Wesley McNair. Hmmmm. A book from a journal about the seasons, place. Very interesting.

Local Color

I don't know if it is a hypothesis that would stand up to scrutiny, but we were remarking in my 'Appalachian Writing and Culture' workshop earlier this month that modern times and changes in cities and towns and culture seems to be wiping out the 'characters' that small to medium towns tended to engender. Back in the days of sidewalks and front porches and town squares. You know. I'd be willing to bet that the town where you grew up had at least one of these notable, conspicuous oddballs. People who marched to the sound of a different drummer, heard voices we didn't, dressed to please themselves, kept 100 cats, wore tin foil hats...

When I was little, we were warned to run inside when the neighborhood oddballs walked down the sidewalk. Alice and Joe. They would walk past our house, usually about a half-block apart, but always talking as if they were in a crowd of enthusiastic listeners. We always tried to hear what they were saying, but were afraid to get too close, not knowing just what Alice might say. Would she offer us some candy? This would be a sure sign of imminent perversion and threat! Everybody knew they were 'dope fiends'. That's what neighborhood parents told us, so we reluctantly kept our distance. Well maybe they were (whatever a dope fiend is). They lived a few blocks away in an alley apartment. A bunch of us went up there once and peeked in their window, not knowing if 'dope fiends' ate little children. It was deliciously exciting. If they were there, their audience of listeners must not have been, because it was dark and silent.

In the small town not far from here where my kids did a good bit of their growing up, there was a character who, it was widely believed, lived in a dumpster, and his unkempt and subterranean appearance seemed to support that notion. He was known locally as "Coaldust Jones". I never saw him in anything other than overalls, and maybe that's all he could find that could comfortably cover a belly rotund and massive enough for its own zip code.

Coaldust... or locally, "th' Dust"... fancied himself destined to become a Nashville guitar picker, and local fund raising events would spotlight him playing and caterwauling an agonizingly bad bluegrass tune. The crowds ate it up, and he interpreted their wild whoops as proof he was Opry-bound, but in truth, his kudos were sadly derisive and mocking. It made me uncomfortable to watch. But he seemed to revel playing the fool and was preadapted by nature and nurture for the part. Coaldust found him a sad little gal (maybe she lived in a culvert, I don't remember) who agreed to marry him. It was an occasion of such import to marry off the local character that his wedding service was broadcast on the local AM radio station. When the ceremony was over, the radio personality was pleased to announce to Coaldust and Mrs. Dust that a benefactor had offered to send them for dinner anywhere they wanted to go. They went to Hardees. It was sad, really.

So. Tell us about your town character. If you've written about him or her, send us the link. If you don't have a weblog, send me your story and I'll post it here on Wednesday giving you the byline, however you want it to read. There have got to be a million of these stories out there. Tell us a few of 'em, won't you?

Are 'characters' disappearing? Have more of them ended up in shelters, sheltered workshops, or met dead-ends more noxious than 'dope'? Are we so much more cocooned in our houses without front porches and shopping malls that contain our modern sidewalks that we don't notice them? Or all we all becoming 'characters' so the old-fashioned eccentrics don't stand out? Hmmm. I wonder.

Gardening Notes

Reminder to self: When cutting the grass during the peak of the gnat swarming season, if possible, cut in continuous clockwise or counter-clockwise circles. The back and forth mowing method carries the certain risk when turning at the end of the row of putting one's face (mouth, eyes, nose, ears) directly into the path of the multitude of whining gnats that are always a half step behind you from June to September. If using the 'back and forth' method, at least keep your mouth closed.

Gardening trick (stolen from an anonymous garden between home and town, yesterday). Regarding tomato stakes: They should be approximately six feet long, so that when hammered into the garden soil, at least five feet remains for the plants. Ever tried hefting a sledge hammer to the top of a six foot stake, huh? Solution: take a three foot section of treated 1 x 3 that you can easily hammer in a foot or so. Then, attach the top three foot section (of 1 x 3 treated wood if you have it) to the bottom section (drill matching holes through both pieces, fix with screws, or wire, or both). All of this can be used over and over, for many years. And I suggest putting some notches into the sides of the 'stakes' too, to better hold your tie-ups (I use old nylon bailing cord I always find around the dumpsters... works fine, and the price is right).

Yesterday was the first time I've been able to work in the garden in weeks. I managed to get the tiller across the creek, and was busily turning under the parts of the garden that hadn't been worked since all this rain set in over a month ago. Ann comes along and says "I see you tilled up that section where you planted the beans. Why?" Well crap. I hadn't marked the rows and the cool weather had slowed their growth so much I didn't see them barely poking up out of the soil after two weeks. She made matters worse by asking "What were you going to plant there where you tilled?"

"Beans".

Thank-you Note

Funny. I wrote the "Conundrum" post Wednesday night, after meeting with the publisher that afternoon. All day Thursday, I worked on Fragments archive, extracting, sorting, wondering how to approach the possibility of 'doing something' with what I have or might yet write in the manner of daily observations and stories per the weblog since 6/02. All day long Thursday... not a single response to the Conundrums post. Fine, I thought. I had said I didn't expect a referendum on this very personal decision and effort. Fine.

Friday I went to Fragments to remind myself just exactly what I had said in that post (especially since I had already sent Beth there in partial response to her question "What do you see yourself doing with your writing?")... and guess what. In my narrow and intense focus on this new project, I'd forgotten to post Conundrums on Thursday. So Friday's vigorous and positive response in comments and emails was therefore even more welcomed and appreciated. I must tell you your support and encouragement is a shot in the arm, a real boost during a time of honest ambivalence.

In a sense, a few of you readers know me better than my coworkers, neighbors and most all of my relatives. If you've stuck with this small dog and pony show with any regularity since last summer, I've pretty well hung my old laundry out to dry in broad daylight, right next to the road, and what I have, you know about it-- faded, full of holes and ragged as it may be. And even so, you are kind enough to say there might be something worth sharing with a wider audience. And three days into the idea, and especially with a wee bit of encouragement from you folks, I'm still sort of hopeful of some tangible thing to hold in my hands in a year or so. We'll see. We'll see.

And I certainly want to continue with the weblog, as many of you suggested, posting snippets and summaries and snapshots of what I am writing and doing for the 'book'. The next year may not allow me the luxury of following my first rambling thoughts upon sitting down to the keyboard every morning, at least not every day. And it will likely happen I'll miss a day now and then. I'm hanging tight, Lord willing, and look forward to telling you about life on Goose Creek for at least another year. Stay tuned! And Thanks, y'all.

Photo Op

We are about to reach the peak of the Cicada emergence around here, and down in the valley, we don't have anything like the number of these critters up on the ridges. But even down here, they are making quite a racquet. Their WeeeOhhhh WeeeeOhhhh sort of gets into your head like a commercial jingle or silly song and it's hard to not hear them.

Maybe that's why I came up with this cicada-centric photo op. I can't find enough of the cast off shells the new cicadas emerge from to make this picture myself, so somebody else will have to er, put legs on this one. Just send me a copy and credit me with the idea. No, on second thought, just send the picture.

Here's the image. Background: the shoulder and arm of a man sitting outdoors at a patio table drinking a beer. In the foreground, a snack bowl full of what appear at first to be Fried Pork Skins. But on closer examination, it is a bowl full of cicada exoskeltons.

I'm sorry. It just occurred to me while I was out cutting the grass (and oh maybe thinking how good a delicious malt beverage might taste later) that they look like fried pork skins on legs. And since perhaps the majority of you are not acquainted with either the southern snack items of Real Beer Drinking Men or the insect that resembles them (the snacks, not the men, mostly) just forget I said anything about this. Really.

Conundrum in a World of Fragments

Hear me out. Look over my shoulder as I think out loud. The dog won't listen to me this morning, and I need to talk.

An old bromide says that "if you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always got". I need to do something different, even though I am most grateful for 'what I've got' over the past year of sitting on this side of Fragments front page.

Before I started writing in the weblog every day, I wrote nothing. I amused myself with thoughts about what I might write if there were anyone to hear, but did not write at all. Fragments for the first time gave me an audience. My small audience gave me some degree of accountability to write something remotely worth reading (not to claim I have delivered such) and this daily routine, if nothing else, has taught me discipline in the craft.

I can see some changes in my writing, a year and many thousands of words later. Now I have a better idea of what I think because I see what I say. There is less hesitancy to just write, gagging the infernal editor, and words come more easily having eliminated to some degree the 'middle-man' between feeling and reason and the words that represent them on the page. When I started, I could write a fairly tight paragraph, and no more. A year later, I have a few 800-1000 word 'essays' that I am not ashamed of, and some degree of confidence that I can go beyond this length to something of more bulk if not substance, and maybe consider 'doing something' with writing.

And herein lies the conundrum. I can't imagine not writing to the weblog. Writing something that will just sit in binary fashion hidden on my hard drive perhaps for months or years is a difficult concept for me, frankly. But on the other hand, if I don't spend more of my time writing for purposes beyond the weblog, I'll get what I've always got.

I feel the need to move out of my comfort zone. And so yesterday, I met with a local publisher to examine options for getting a couple of things in print, in maybe a year. This is something I would have to grow toward. Having a clear idea of some larger purpose may help me to reprioritize my time and energies in a way that will challenge me to do more than I am doing. I don't yet know how important this impulse really is, and I'm hot one minute, cold and discouraged the next. Have you been there?

There are the options of self publication, co-publication and standard publication with greater proportional investment on the part of the publisher with more confidence that a market exists for the work. All of that needs to be looked at carefully.

Here's my thoughts, for both of you who are still reading this.

1) Consider that there may be a market of readers in the two million visitors that travel throught Floyd County and southwest Virginia on the Blue Ridge Parkway every year. Can I put together a small book (Volume One) consisting of basically an improved form of the prose poems, nature essays, granpa tales and dirt road discourse as appears from time to time in Fragments that would give interested travelers a 'slice of life' from Floyd County? I envision a 5 x 7 softbound book of maybe 75-100 pages, with a half dozen small inset color images (some of which have been seen in Fragments past) and cover art also from my images. Expectations: break even. Then after that, from what I have learned, go on the the next thing, or find another mountain to climb.

2) Work to facilitate getting my son's book in marketable form. Consider co-authoring the book, with me writing the parent's perspective of his travel by foot from Maine to Virginia, and telling the details of life of parents who 'simply waited' here on Goose Creek for Nate's adventure come to a happy ending; or just work with the publisher (since son will be up to his elbows in academic alligators for the next several years) to get the book in print. Expectations: this book could actually go somewhere if put together cleverly; it's a great story, I think.

I'm not necessarily expecting a referendum on this. I've learned that the a weblog, at least my weblog, is not a place to engage in gut-level dialogue. This is more monologue, made public, with my apologies. I'm just wondering what to do with my days here. While the pay stinks, writing seems to be the thing for which I have passion, but it seems more should come of my efforts than the short, superficial pieces that fill the archives of Fragments From Floyd. And I'm wondering: what will I do when I grow up?

If you've read this far, I really don't know what to say about you. People are strange except for thee and me, and sometimes I wonder about thee...

Thanks for listening. Mom.

Wet Spring springs springs

We've exceeded 150% of normal rainfall so far this year. Most of that excess has come since the end of April. When spring officially ends tomorrow, we could have the wettest season on record for southwest Virginia, at least. The water table, dangerously low and causing many, many wells to fail in the county last year, is above the long term normal, and that is a very good thing. But we are not acclimated to Vancouver's and Seattle's sustained rains, and everybody you talk to lately admits to having their spirits 'dampened'... a word not chosen at random from our vocabulary of emotional states.

Cancelled this spring on account of rain: lying on the walkway in the warm sun of late spring while the maples put on their last leaves to complete our canopy of shade; walking through the valley the day after pasture cutting among the huge shredded-wheat rolls of hay pretending we were on a park lawn strolling among big round alien toadstools; seeing the summer constellations from the little bridge across the branch while fireflies rise from the field and woods by the thousands. And of course, it has not been a good year for gardens.

Yesterday afternoon, the sun shined and the sky cleared for the first time in weeks. Being outdoors for more than a quick sortee between the eternal showers and storms seemed unfamiliar, foreign, having been so long since I last enjoyed enough time under the sky to actually set about a task and finish it before the rains came again. We've gotten to where we just accept getting wet, and our back porch has been decorated for days at a time over that past six weeks with wet clothes that refuse to dry and are heavily flecked with pasture pollen and chaff and unfit for the dryer... looking for all the world like the signal flags on a sailing ship, the house like an Ark floating in a sea of heavy grass and mud. We are most happy to finally see that darned dove with the olive branch.

I squished around in rubber boots in what will have to pass for a garden this year, already almost a month behind in a short growing year. With another few days of drying, I will till under the bolting Buttercrunch patch I broadcast last fall before putting the garden to rest, put in more peas, a second block of corn, summer squash, and put up the piece of fence for the cucumbers to climb on, if it's not already too late for them. The tiller is across the creek in the barn and the water will be too high for days for me to walk it oh-so-slowly across the two planks over the creek to the garden. Maybe I'll just swingblade the tops off the weeds, till in a week if we get dry weather, and leave half of our small garden fallow this year with maybe a cover crop and hope for a better gardening year next time around.

Seasonal bonus: windfall firewood. Sitting here at the desk a few days ago with the windows open from the top enough to let in some outdoor air and outdoor sounds and keep out the blowing rains, I heard what I at first thought was a big orange DOT truck crunching down our gravel road. No, after a second I realized it was more of a breaking, tearing, ripping sound and it went on and on, and finally, the finale of an enormous THUD. A tree falling in the forest. A tree falling in a valley in a heavy rain is ventriloquial in it's ability to throw its voice, and I had no idea from the sound where the tree had crashed; but I've had my eye on a half dozen, thinking "It won't be long" and also thinking what a mess it could make if a particular tree fell a particular direction instead of another. I've even calculated, based on weak places in the tree or roots, the lean angle, and the weight distribution, where those several trees will fall when they inevitably do.

I'd had had my eye on this week's windfall for some time, knew its days were numbered, but it seems I cast too pessimistic a prediction on its inevitable fall that took place with me to hear it happen. A tall maple, it perched on the high side of the creek about half way up the pasture, clinging to the rocky bluff, its roots some ten feet up on the precipitous creek bank exposed and clutching the air. Every time we'd wander down this way, I'd tell Ann "You know, I think it's leaning more than it was a while back". She'd always tell me my imagination was playing tricks on me, and I know better than to argue with this woman, mostly.

So. This week, with a great fanfare, after weeks of rain that softened its tenuous hold on earth, the great tree fell. Perfectly. Breaking incompletely near the base in a splintering tear, it's roots did not come with it as I had predicted, and it is not blocking the creek as I had feared, instead it hangs suspended ten feet above the water, like a bridge. It did not lodge in the locust tree on the low side of the creek (as I had predicted) but it's 50 foot top fell precisely in the only small cleared space between treetops. And even better, it fell in a spot that I can easily access this fall with the truck, when maybe I can recruit a neighbor with tractor to help me sever the trunk from the roots, and drag the long straight trunk up to the edge of the pasture where I will buck it up into stovewood for the winter of '05. There'll be maybe a third to half a cord in it, and when I finally use it to warm us winter after next, each piece will tell this story.

Oh. And the best part about the fallen tree: I get to tell Ann "See. I told you so!"

Homunculus

He has been the little man in your brain that you identify as your 'self'. Others have seen him as the 'tiny preformed human' inside the head of a sperm that will become the new person in the mother's womb. He has been many things, and the homunculus too is the distorted representation of the brain's terrain that is spent in sending signals to and receiving them from the body, and not all parts get equal billing as you can see. The 'sensory motor homunculus' is everyman, out of proportion, to one degree or another.

I think this is true. Aren't we all homunculi of this latter type? Do any of us have our lives in balance such that one part of each of us is not grotesquely out of balance and enormous, while other parts remain tiny, underdeveloped, withered, hidden? We are often not aware our own homunculus.

Too much of work, friends, making money; of fiction, gadgets, fitness, food, writing, reading, foozeball, weblogs, fishing... any one part of our lives that takes too much of our time while other worthy parts of us lie fallow... creates creatures less comely than we could be, unbalanced.

I have too much of some good things, too little of others within my grasp to have. I'm weary of the huge lips and monstrous hands of my homunculus. The plastic surgery needed to make me well proportioned: clear purpose, setting and persistence in well thought-out priorities and budgeting of time and energy, discipline, and unswerving determination. Life is short.

Ah... that First Cup of Coffee...

.... and an early morning scam.

My credit card has been used to purchase more than $700 worth of merchandise at Best Buy, says the "FRAUD ALERT" email this morning, giving me a URL to contact. The link leads to a dead page. Something is verrry speeecious here, Lucy.

I had to get the straight scoop from The Times of India, wasting valuable minutes when I could have been writing on some totally absurd topic pretending to contain real meaning and purpose. Now tell me, how and where does one report that kind of FRAUD!

Ecotone Mini-mirror

The "Writing about Place" group is coming together. We would love to have visitors, but you may be hesitant to visit something called a 'wiki' (no, it is not a creature from Star Wars II). So, I'm going to post a couple of simple links to the main pages where stuff is happening, and will come back and update this post as warranted by changes at the front page of our "Place" called the Ecotone (which I define at the end of this post).

Come and just read. Then, if you want, as we develope the site further, you can submit links, urls, excerpts and make comments. Ease into it, just go over now for a few minutes and take a look, won't you?

How I Started Thinking About Place - And Why I Started Writing About It Read a dozen or so essays from around the world on this subject.

Here is the discussion recorded so far in response to the essays named above.

That should do for starters. We are still at work making the page more friendly and more comfortable for visitors. Please send comments or emails, we would appreciate feedback so much!

Ecotone: (noun) term from ecology. A place where landscapes meet-- like field with forest, or grassland with desert. The ecotone is an area of increased richness and diversity where the two communities commingle. Here too are creatures unique to the ecotone... the so-called 'edge effect'. Here in the online Ecotone for Writers about Place, we hope to create an edge effect, bringing distinct and different places and communities together to enrich our world. Enjoy your visit.

Ch..Ch..Ch..Ch..Changes

Some notable updates in the mass exodus from Blogspot to Moveable Type, and changes to the blogroll soon to come...

Bigwig of Silflay Hraka has his own domain, although not his archives retrieved from his former abode at blogger.com at this writing.

Boynton, down under, also has recently moved and offers a small sign that Fragments don't always fall on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Terry Oglesby of Possumblog ain't gone nowhere, but is telling jokes.

And Fragments has suddenly become visible to Technorati. I was beginning to believe that I was a figment of my imagination. And BeneDiction sent me a heads-up yesterday saying he and I were side by side, barely squeaking under the 500 barrier in NZBear's ecosystem, having attained the status of Crawly Rodents. Ah, a year ago... seems like only yesterday I lay in the primordial ooze, an Insignficant Microbe. UPDATE: checking just now to verify my facts, today I have sunk to the level of Floppy Bird at #525. Sick Gloria Monday. I'd trade it all plus th' gal down th' road for Grandma's featherbed.

Gone Fishing

There is a plane slimmer than a molecule that separates worlds. Passing through that shimmering foil of liquid light is to slip down, drift down like a maple leaf in autumn, settling and sinking into murky mystery where anything can happen. Passing down below that terrible boundary that divides terrestrial from aquatic realities is to tether hands and mind to the terror and elation of the unknown, where a sudden jerk can pull a fisherman across dimensions of time, stir up even in the oldest of us a childhood thrill, each crank of the reel carrying the threat or promise of pulling in a creature unknown, a mermaid, a gilled genie, or an old shoe.

I always knew, when I reached those golden years when everything I wore would look old and worn and comfortable, like the old men I'd see down on Lake Purdy alone in wooden boats that were green like the water only where old paint held over blue, and barn red-- in those days of aged and indifferent ease, I'd be a fisherman full time. What better life could one imagine as a boy, growing up in Alabama surrounded by water, at every turn confronted pleasantly by that thin plane between the known and the liquid world of possibility.

Somewhere in the days when the world was too large to comprehend, an age when grownups knees were head high, and everything in a new life was over your head-- in some place, I remember high on a cinderblock wall a tangle of knobby-jointed cane poles hung up near the rafters, wrapped and twisted with thready lines, dark woven string, before the terrible deception of monofilament. I recall those cobwebby poles, a ringed coffee can of dark earth and wrigglers, and quill floaters on each line poised to write an up and down script like a telegraph key saying 'they have come!'-- poles held out over dark tepid water smelling of Spirogyra on an Alabama summer day.

I remember the drooping tips of cane poles held inattentively by young hands over still water, watching tiny sunfish, facedown watching them through the slats in the pier, jeweled slivers levitating lazily in shafts of light under their dark striped sky. The underwater world was a child's story self-told, telling of a place in my imagination where I would always be alien-- but too, holding a certain magic of a vast domain below sky that might contain anything imagined and everything hoped for. Many days I wished that I could go there, stay there under that shimmering plane, live womb-like down deep in filtered light among bright fish swimming overhead like floating birds, in silent liquid peace.

PLEASE KIND SIR YOURE ATTENTONS

Make plans now to attend the The 3rd Annual Nigerian E-Mail Conference. (Thanks to Chris O'Donnell for the heads-up).

This is too good an opportunity to pass up. Learn all there is to know about the Nigerian email industry. You'll come away with an understanding of the art and skill necessary to write compelling emails IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS; know exactly how many typographical and grammatical errors are optimal; learn of other countries now exploiting the millions-a-day method that has been so successful for Nigerians such as MR. IBRAHIM AHMED, inventor of the uppercase method.

(Let me know if you're going, we can travel over together. And don't forget to bring all the information about your bank accounts; there will be many opportunities there for large deposits IMMEDIATELY!) Some helpful quotes from previous attendees:

• "My business has increased by 45%, and I am now experiencing an 89.4% ROI" - Mariam Abacha
• "It was a genuine pleasure to meet other honorable business persons such as myself." - Isa Ahmed
• "The presentation on P.T. Barnum was especially helpful." - Farouk Bakoh

Vox Populi

Well, populus, I reckon, since it was only one reader's whose eyes were having trouble resolved the 11 point font previously featured here. This any better, Lisa? Thanks for the consumer tip. And I'm sure others of you, over and beyond the difficulty reading imposed by the garbled mind of the author, may have squinted to see... much less understand... the stuff on Fragments past. I get fewer entries on the front page with 12 point, but some may consider that an added benefit.

Now. Would all those objecting to the new larger font size get in line at the complaint window. It will be opening on June 31.

True Detective

"Well Jiminy H Cricket"! I muttered to nobody (which was just exactly the number of folks within a mile of the house) as I extracted Occupant's Junk Mail from our green metal mailbox at the edge of our dirt road. "What kindofa world is it where folks get their jollies by shooting a person's mailbox!?" I had just that moment discovered a jagged hole in the middle of the left side, and sure enough, another exit hole on the opposite side of the box, just above the red flag that sat in 'no outgoing mail' position.

"Well crap. I'll have to get the needlenose pliers and some duct tape and see if I can undo the mischief some crazy-eyed moonshine-swilling yayhoo has done here" I thought. I considered calling the law right there and then, just to register my complaints about the fallen nature of man in general, knowing there wouldn't be a blamed thing they could do to find the redneck bumpkin that let daylight into my mailbox.

Just the facts, m'am. Just the facts. I assessed the situation with both the cool head of the sleuth and the anxious paranoia of the victim. Hmmm. Looking through the bullethole nearest the road, I could sight through the dark inside of the mailbox to see the trajectory, and hmmm... it would appear that the bullet would have passed through the box and struck somewhere on the front porch. I roped off the scene with copious ribbons of yellow crime tape.

Nope. Nothing there, no holes in the siding, no broken glass, no lipstick-smudged slender cigarette butts. But now: there is that little pine tree between the mailbox and the porch, right in the pathway of the bullet, so that I could not see the mailbox from the porch through the pine's branches. Hmmm, I thought.

Wait just a minute! I KNOW who did it! I am hot on the heels of the perpetrator and even now, I know he can feel me breathing the hot breath of the law down his scrawny neck. What if... could it be? that instead of the bullet coming up from the road, it came down into the mailbox... FROM THE PORCH! That's right, you connivin' slimy bug-lover. You have nowhere to hide now, you despicable treehugger.

I build my case: Is it not true that just the other day you bragged to your wife that you shot at and hit the Phoebee that has built four foul (fowl?) nests on your front porch? Admit it! You went so far as to tell her that the bird had been sitting WHERE? That's right: in the pine tree there off the front porch, the one just this side of the mailbox. Stay right there you sleazy word freak, while I check out one final nail in your sorry coffin.

Just as I thought! The exit hole has left a flap of green aluminum on the side of the mailbox AWAY FROM THE HOUSE, proving that the bullet did indeed come from the house, and it was you... YOU who shot a hole in your own mailbox while plinking small perching birds from the porch! Oh this is contemptible... that you would try to hang the wrap on your toothless brethren who drive past your house in the dark of night.

The dirt road detective recited in his most monotone Joe Friday voice: You have the right to remain silent (but looking at your weblog of the past year, this is not bloody likely)....

I slapped the handcuffs on the criminal's wrists and wisked me away, sobbing. I am incarcerated now in the white clapboard house near the damaged mailbox, and will be serving a sentence of three hundred thousand words to life. I am counting on early parole for good adverbs. Please send e-cards (and if you could slip a small file in as an attachment, it'd be muchly appreciated.)

Hubble Objects Inadvertently Misnamed

I guess even rocket scientists make mistakes, as in this series of five Hubble images. Pity. If you click ahead to image #2, it should be called the "Celestial Dragonfly" and #4, of course, should be called "The Unblinking Eye of God". But then, they did not consult me, this time.

Liquid Sunshine

It's raining. Always. Still. I expect one of these drippy mornings to wake up and find that our framhouse is a lakehouse and our front porch is now a fishing pier. You know, I think maybe I got a fish tale on th' line. Swim back here in a day or two and we'lll see if a big 'un has took the bait.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~Henry David Thoreau

There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot. ~Steven Wright

An angler is a man who spends rainy days sitting around on the muddy banks of rivers doing nothing because his wife won't let him do it at home. ~Author Unknown

Nothing makes a fish bigger than almost being caught. ~Author Unknown

Life's Little Annoyances

A poem inspired by gardening pests and other irritants that hound us.

Found Nugget

Writing about Place

The Ecotone: Writing about Place is opening it's doors, and invites you to come read our initial responses to a 'group blogging topic', adressing the questions below. We'll be offering more, and making a few more changes, perhaps, to our 'front page'; but we're eager to have you come by this week. Be thinking about posts or images that you have written or will write 'about place'. Come, read, look around, and get a feel for what 'place' means to some of us, and offer your own thoughts as well.

The 'wiki' is a little different at first, but basically you can click around and read any posts, and add your own comments or make changes to any page by clicking 'edit this page' at the top or bottom of each page. It has been a great format for pulling together our group and 'home page' which we are called The Ecotone... a new word for many, but it has a definition that suits what we hope to discover among those who come there, to share and grow.

BiWeekly Blogging topic for June 15: "How did you start thinking about 'place", and why did you start writing (or blogging) about it?"
___________________

Thinking and Writing About Place
by Fred First
June 2003

Sometimes the most difficult ground to see is that which is under our own feet. Knowing how to answer these simple questions should be easy, now that I've been writing and thinking about place for more than a year. But what started the 'thinking' and what compels me to write about place? That terrain is not as apparent as I would have thought, and I'll ponder it as you look over my shoulder.

Short answer: I live in a unique and beautiful world and enjoy creating images of it in words and pictures. I want others to know this place and share the experience of living here. But I'd like to look deeper than this. Maybe the trail to an answer can be followed, at least for a mile or two, using two metaphorical tools: maps and lenses. Let me see if I can explain.

In college I discovered the magic of maps. When I began to travel on my own across the south to backpack or canoe, I discovered that maps were almost magical in the way they could condense into a single page of lines and symbols the rivers, roads and trails where I had never been, portraying a truth on paper about a larger truth some real place on the ground. They provided landmarks from which to orient, so that I could find my way in a strange and unfamiliar land. At larger scales, as if going higher above the unknown, maps oriented and connected my tiny square of ground where ever I happened to live or be, to a round, spinning planet, and gave me an appreciation of connectedness, of belonging somewhere, some place, within the Whole Earth. Maps made me aware of places and of my place. I have made sure both my kids understand the value of maps, because I want them to be able to find their way in places they have not been, to know where they are in this world, and to come to understand their own 'place'.

It was by studying maps and traveling through them that I began to comprehend the uniqueness of the Southern Highlands of North America, the Appalachian Mountains-- where I have lived all my life. From my maps I learned that this terrain is unique in all the world, sharing a common orogeny, having in common the rock underground, wearing the same forest and inhabited by a common cast of creature-residents. These mountains unite us, imposing common hardships and blessing with a bounty of good things on the people who have settled here since the days of the Wilderness Road. These old mountains are uniquely different from the beaches, prairies, or rain forests where others live, as we are different from the people that inhabit those places. Across the world, we are all different within and because of place, and we are the same depending on the resolution of the maps we construct and the landmarks we chose to place on them. I have only recently begun to appreciate the uniqueness of my vantage point in space and time and am a novice in this exploration. I consult my maps often and am happy for fellow travelers.

I started writing about place a year ago because I see things here that I want to tell about. I see my part of the world through a lens that is uniquely my own.

In my life, the real lenses of the camera (and the microscope, during my biologist life) have made me more acutely aware of the beauty and form of 'ordinary' things, given me a different appreciation of things than I might have had without looking closely and with interest and awe through these wonderful devices that focus the mind on detail. Photography is an important part of my exploration of place, and in some ways, the images that I share from time to time are as important as the words, bringing my place immediately into yours, bridging both distance and the otherness that separates strangers. Through my lens, you can see through my eyes, share my sight, insight, and vision.

Lenses are real, and they are metaphors for anything that lets us or makes us see the world differently. Each of us has a 'philosophical lens' that molds our thinking and our writing. It clarifies, magnifies, distorts, and colors our perceptions and understanding of the reality around us. When I write about my particular place here on Goose Creek, I portray it through a refracting lens that bends and molds my view of life in a way that is unique, even from my neighbor's. Yours lens, too, is as distinct as your thumbprint, and when focused on that ground under your feet, your words about what you see, and your pictures offer us worlds about you in your place we would never have known.

When we write about place we explore particular coordinates of geography and landform and private experience, guided by our own life maps, seen through lenses that can bind me to your world across the globe's wide curve. And doing so connects us person to person, territory to territory. It puts real places on the representational map that is the internet. Can this writing about place bring us into each other's world and build "real" community? I trust we will see.

I write about place to invite strangers to know and understand my world, perhaps to see their world differently having come here. I'd like to think they may have new and useful landmarks on their maps when they leave here. So perhaps I write, too, as an open page of hospitality, a way of saying "my house is your house, and my creek and valley, likewise". Maybe I think and write about place because, as I believe Wendell Berry has suggested, if you don't know where you're from, you won't know where you're going. In some small or great way, it may be possible in writing on this topic to help each other know where we're going by better understanding the places from which we have come.

Don't Sweat it

How I wish I could. Sweat. Like other folks. How I envied the boys on my "Y" basketball team who would come in at half time with their shirts dark and heavy with sweat. While it's true that I, in fact, had been sitting on a plank rather than running anywhere during the first half, if I had been playing (and I did, once) my shirt would have been bright, dry blue-- just like before the game.

If I had played as hard as my team mates, I, personally would not sweat. Ever. My body, programmed in error at the factory, instead tries to pull heat from my legs, torso, chest, and shoulders up and out of my face alone. It's a bad plan, really. My body above the neck radiates palpable heat, grows coney island red -- almost purple; cheeks and temples and orbits bloat and puff, looking as if the thing needs to be poked a few times with a barbeque fork. A horrified onlooker might expect at any moment to witness sharp blasts of steam from the ears, an obvious valve for pent up pressure and heat.

Next time you perspire, sweat or 'glow', thank your lucky stars. You could come in from the garden like I just did, looking like a Ball Park Frank on a stick.

The worst part of inheriting the sweatless gene is that, lacking an effective way of shedding heat as it accumulates to dangerous, brain-poaching levels, my body has no choice but to reach up just above my ears and pull the emergency brake. In the middle of winning the best two out of three in racquetball, for instance, I have been known to inexplicably drop my racquet and walk off the court. Of course, one look at my face, it was apparent that something was dreadfully wrong. While my opponents basked in the cooling effects of sweaty bodies in motion on the court, I became a hissing crimson teapot, wearing a pained pressure-cooked expression, and they knew I was doomed to concede victory to those who were blessedly able to prespire. To the sweater go the spoils.

I can only thank my lucky stars that I was not born in an age where fight-or-flight responses meant the difference between life and death. Woa! Stop right there, Mr. Sabertooth. I'm overheated and I don't wanna play any more. Ball Park Frank, indeed. You have to wonder why this gene from the shallow end of the pool wasn't eliminated a long time ago -- by snarling, sweating predators who loved a hot meal.

WhipPa(---)WhipPa(---)WhipPa

I emerged from sleep, struggling heavily, climbing up toward the edge of a soft concavity of dreams, this odd sound playing over and over above me, somewhere beyond the edge of oblivion. It was familiar, but alien. Then I realized my 'good ear' had been buried deep in the feather pillow, the bad one-- victim of years of chainsaw abuse-- was hearing only the lower frequencies (WhipPa..... WhipPa) muffling the 'oorwill part of each bird breath... WhipPoorWill, WhipPoorWill, WhipPoorWill I heard when I rolled over, remembering that I had intentionally smothered the repetitive namedropping in my pillow, awake well before I was willing to come up out of that soft feathery pit of sleep. Turning a deaf ear is a handy trick, even in the dark.

Meta-thingies?

I donta speaka de language. Help. I'm wondering why 1) I get very few search engine visits each day and 2) Google's first listing for "Fragments from Floyd" carries you to my long-defunct host of six months ago.

I submitted the site to all the major search engines in January when I first got my domain name. They seem to have forgotten me.

Is there somewhere in my templates I should put keywords, etc, to become more search engine visible? Are there meta-tag thingies I should add somewhere in MT? Huh?

With Apologies to Walt, Annie and Emily!

Well, it just shows ta go ya... Mr. Murphy was right. If you explain something so clearly that no one will misunderstand, someone will. Despite disclaimers giving credit to another Fred for "Prayer to the Mountains", at least three bloggers attributed