WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

Sahalie Falls some sixty miles or so up highway 126 heading sort of northeast from Springfield. Drops over an ancient basalt lava flow. Cool, misty, mossy, ferny. The way side is right off the highway. There's a trail runs along the river a fairly easy walk. Darn. I miss that part of Oregon. 

My part of Eastern Oregon has the fancy description of arid continental climate. Cold winters. Hot dry summers.  In a good year around here the average rainfall is about ten inches. US average is thirty nine inches. Phoenix, Arizona is slightly drier with just over nine inches. 

It was 117 degrees in Hermiston yesterday. It was cooler in Arizona believe it or not. The weather gurus claim the "heat dome" is a once centuries phenomenon. I hope so. It's supposed to get down to 102 or so by the end of the week. That's still hotter than the average that runs around the high eighties to low nineties. And it is dry. Bone dry. I've got FB friends in this part of the country literally begging folks to stick to the fire works put on by the casinos and the city. Anyway I thank heaven the worst of the hot spell is over. This time. And pray it isn't a taste of things to come. I  wrote the rest of this entry awhile back. The song was written back when some rivers literally caught fire. 

And Hermiston isn't too far from one of the worst superfund sites in the country. Hanford. Courtesy of our own government. How can we expect private companies to clean up their messes when the elected hired help can't clean up the messes they create.

WHOSE GARDEN WAS THIS

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Whose river was this, you say it ran freely.
Blue was its color.
And I've seen blue in some pictures.
And I'd love to have been there.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose grey sky was this?

 Or was it a blue one?
You say there were breezes.
I've heard records of breezes.
And I'd love to have felt one.

Tell me again I need to know.
The forest had trees, the meadows were green.
The oceans were blue and birds really flew.
Can you swear that it's true.

Whose garden was this, it must have been lovely.
Did it have flowers?
I've seen pictures of flowers.
And I'd love to have smelled one.

Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.
Tell me again I need to know.

Words and music by Tom Paxton. Covered by John Denver about 1970

I don’t really know what to make of these lyrics. But listening John Denver sing this song is enough to break your heart.  

Is this a nightmare of now or the far future? God/dess knows we have enough nightmares in our own time. The dates suggest the song is pre EPA era. And here we have a concerted effort to gut the EPA. Supposedly this will create jobs. I’ve even run across comments that take the stand that given a choice between jobs and the environment, the environment comes dead last. And you can’t get through to them. If we destroy the environment the jobs aren’t going to matter very much.

So, what is the world in this song? Is it the remains a jungle in Viet Nam after Agent Orange was dropped on it? The remains of an equatorial rainforest? The spreading of the Sahara? The wrecked neighborhoods in the Bronx and Brooklyn?

Or is this a nightmare out of the finale of Soylant Green or the novel Stand on Zanzibar? A future when flowers, trees, blue skies, free flowing rivers, unspoiled oceans, and even birds are remembered in pictures and folk tale? Something your doddering great grandparents tell stories about? “I’ve seen pictures of flowers. And I’d loved to have smelled one.”

Goddess, may it never come to that. 

AMAZING GRACE

 Slight change of pace here. 

Amazing Grace was a song first and then a movie about the struggle in England to abolish the slave trade. The most vocal group was the Society to Aboish the Slave trade. The potter Josiah Wedgewood (potter. He was famous for his relatively inexpensive table ware) was behind the creation of of a medallion that became the "face" of the abolition movement. Pins, plates, nedallions to be worn as necklaces. He even sent some to Benjamin Franklin in the colonies. 

Back in the day I did a journal entry about Moses coming down off Mount Sinai, stone tablets securely tucked under his arm. More to the point I imagined what happened in the first thirty seconds or so after he finished letting the Hebrews in on the Word from on high. First there would be silence, I imagined. Then everybody would be talking at once. Every sentence beginning with “what exactly to you mean by,” followed by the commandment(s) of your choice. The gist of the matter being “what I’m planning on doing, or would really like to do, or wish I could do isn’t really covered by…..again the commandment of your choice…..is it?

Ok, intro over. Back in the 1700’s West Indian sugar and all that went with it was oil, high tech and sub-prime mortgages all rolled into one for the English economy. Slave grown and processed sugar fueled the triangle trade. By the late 1700’s the infant abolition movement in England found a voice. It belonged to William Wilberforce. Member of parliament from Yorkshire, he spent twenty years trying to get a bill through parliament abolishing the slave trade. It’s the story behind the film, Amazing Grace. He was the voice for the hundreds, if not thousands of men and women who worked to end the trade in human souls. (frankly if I used all the adjectives I'd like to use I'd run out of space, abomination is the kindest)

Is the film totally accurate? Probably not. Did the film take liberties with history? Probably. Was I totally blown away at the end? Yeah. Would I have wanted to ask the man to dinner? I’m not sure. Abolition, free education, decent treatment for animals, efforts to end prostitution; the man was never still. Dinner would not have been boring. A profoundly devout Evangelical Christian, he was influenced by John Newton. The same John Newton who finally traded the slave trade for a pulpit and along the line helped write the hymn that gives the film its name.

But, it’s not the movie so much that I’m writing about at that damnable “surely you don’t mean” gene that human beings seem to have. The western European run slave trade was financed, manned and benefitted people who described themselves as Christians. Most of them saw themselves as good, honorable men and women.  

There are two Creation stories in Genesis. In the first, God Created human beings in His image. In the second, “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

And “but surely” rears its ugly, hydra headed, monstrous body. We hear it in the modern Neo Nazi movement. We're confronted with it every single, bloody, shit not again, day.

The…….fill in the group of your choice that doesn’t look like me, talk like me, eat what I like, dress like me, love like me, or most important of all believe like me can’t have that divine spark can it? Surely this isn’t the image of God. Surely you can’t mean that I should treat somebody like THAT as if God had come down to walk among us, can you?

WELL, WHY THE BLOODY HELL NOT? Sorry. Sometimes I can't help shouting out of sheer frustraion.

Anyway, if you can get your hands on the film, it's well worth your time. We can change the world. Before there was Free Trade coffee there were signs in London shops that advertised sugar grown in the East Indies.

The East Indians may not have been living in paradise. They probably weren't paid that well, Although they at least were being paid. At least they hadn't been torn from their homes, chained, crammed into a space approximately 40 inches wide by 18 inches high for a three week voyage into hell. Men, women and children crammed together in the same stinking holds. Some ships lost over half of their cargo to disease and despair before they even made the slave pens in the West Indies.

The trade in slaves was abolished in 1807. Slavery itself was abolished within the empire in 1833. William Wilberforce died three days later. The fight, all of it continues. The "but, you don't mean" monster and its children are alive and doing very, very well.

MY CLIMATE CHANGE BAROMETER

 Hybrid rhododendron known as Blue Jay. I gave one to the folks back in the mid seventies. Anniversery I believe. 

We planeted it on the south east corner of the house. It was the last one to bloom and the last one to bloom out. For the first fifteen or twenty years that happened about the middle of June. Then I started to notice a change.

The bush was blooming earlier and was bloomiing out by the end of May. It became my unofficial barometer for climate change, I didn't need the talking heads to tell me what was happening. I had the plants. 

The Northwest is facing temps this next week that are more common in places like Phoenix, Arizona. We're talking temps hovering near or over 110 degrees. This is not normal folks. At least historic normal. It may be the new normal. The entire state of Oregon is undeer some degree of drought watch. The best is moderate but there's a nice patch of extreme down around the Southern Cascades and the border with California. 

THE SOUL OF A RIVER

 

I got to thinking a few days ago. My whole life up to three years ago was living within a few blocks of a river. The middle fork of the Willamette when I was growing up. the Willamette itself for the more than four decades in Springfield. Granted I'm less than twenty miles from the Columbia, but I miss the closeness. 

Where  rivers begin.  

A few years ago I invested in the 1990’s Cousteau River Journeys DVD’s. Four of the episodes followed the Danube from headwaters to the Black Sea, with emphasis on the environmental degradation along the river in the former Soviet states. Chemical plants that dumped untreated waste into the river. The dangers of aging nuclear plants that weren’t that well built in the first place. Run off from contaminated ground water along with gas leakage into the atmosphere. Local economies based on fishing and farming were stressed out by the pollution. Hasn't gotten much bettre over the years. The west coast is in drought. The best we can manage is moderate. EVen the westrn part of Oregon hasn't seen much rain or snow this years. 

The diversion of the river into man made channels to improve navigation, while destroying local economies based on the wetlands and marshes.

So, where is the soul of a river? Is it just the river? Or does the river and its soul stretch beyond the channel and the meandering blue line on a map.

The river is the ocean that gives up its moisture to the rains and snows.

The river is winter ice and summer sun.

The river is snow, rain and hail.

The river is the tiny veins and capillaries of water that stretch beyond the banks and below the river bed.  Searching, seeking, seeping into the deep rocks and the deep roots of the mountains. Finally finding the way to new streams and new tree roots. Coming into the sun again, pulled into the sky a thousand miles from where the rain last fell.

The river is the mountains, home to the springs a rivulets that join to form a torrent.

The river is the animals that depend on it for water and forage, the trees that shade the banks and shelter the birds.

The river is the disappearing marshes and the migratory birds that nested in the reeds.

The canals are the river and so are the drying wetlands that used to hold back the floods.

The dams we build are the river and so are the fish blocked from their native spawning grounds.

The river is the disappearing, sick and mutated fish and the villagers and fishermen who depend on them not only for their livelihood, but for tonight’s dinner.

The river is the untreated chemical waste that leaches into ground water. It’s the sewage from overburdened, aging city systems.

The river is the rain falling through air contaminated with radiation from nuclear plants that couldn’t be built to withstand every possible risk.

The river is us.

The last episode ends with a group of children including one of Cousteau’s grandchildren flying kites along the river bank to remind us that they will have to live in the world we are creating.

(Words fail me sometimes. I have the vision in my mind but can’t find the words to express what I see)snow peak in the Himalayas. 

GOOD IN THEMSELVES

 

The Coma Cluster of galaxies from the Astronomy Picture of the Day Courtesy of the Misti Mountain Observatory.

I did something unusual today. I hid an entry from a group on FB. An entry I agreed with. The comments were heading to the Twilight Zone and frankly I didn't want to see that crap on my page. I resisted the temptation to enter the fray myself. Figuared it wouldn't do a damn bit of good. Did like the graphic though. Went on the group page an it wss gone. The mods probably pulled it when it got name calling or heading into politics. 

The original post had a graphic of an astronaut looking out into the wonders of the universe. The beauty of it. The fact that it exists and when you realize the immensity and the incomprensible age of it all our agrumnets and hostitlity towards each really doesn't amout to much. Of the gist of it all anyway. 

Well somebody had to open his pie hole. All those wasted planets. All that wasted energy those stars blasing into space had no value becuase humans couldn't exploit it. Honestly I'm not sure if he really meant what he was saying or if he was being sarcastic. 

I'm not sure how to phrase this. Creation is good in itself. The stars, the galsxies, the trees, the rivers do not require a price tag to make give them value. This world and everything on it would not exist without the "wasted" energy of the stars. The elements that make up this world and every starfish, microbe, fish, leopard, human were cooked in the stars or created when the star went nova, blew itself apart and seeded interstellar space with elements from carbon to uranium. 

Back in the sixties SouthernCalifornia was looking north with their high beams focussed on the Columbia River. All that fresh water pouring into the Pacific. Just wasted. Why not build a pipeline from the Columbia, south.Fortunately there were two senators from Washington with the seniority and the clout to get legislation passed the put the Columbia out of reach for the forseeable future. 

The rivers don't need humans to put a price on them, They have value as threads in the cloak of creation. Pull those thread and the cloak is in danger of unraveling.

CREATION LOOKING AT US

 

And while we are a nature kick this morning. As I am just about every morning. The waterfall is called Sahalie. Up the Mckenzie highway from Oakridge. The words by William Penn, an early Quaker and founder of their refuge in the new world. 

A CHILD'S FLOWER GARDEN

 “All the names I know from nurse:

Gardener's garters, Shepherd's purse,

Bachelor's buttons, Lady's smock,

And the Lady Hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,

Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,

Tiny trees for tiny dames—

These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs

Shady fairies weave a house;

Tiny tree-tops, rose or thyme,

Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,

But the fairest woods are these;

Where, if I were not so tall,

I should live for good and all.”

Robert Louis Stevenson - The Flowers.

Jessie Willcox Smith - The Flowers, A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1905.

Found this on the web this morning. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the poem. The painting appears similar to the flower fairies paintings of Cicely Mary Barker.

CREATION STORY

Before I write too much about Oregon I guess it wouldn't hurt to sort explain some of how Oregon ended up looking the way it does. A little at a time.

 Approximately 15,000 years ago a glacier formed an ice dam at the head of drainage of the Clark Fork river in what is now Idaho. At it's highest the ice dam was 2,000 feet high. The lake that formed backed up as far as where Missoula, Montana is now. That ice dam didn't form once. It didn't form twice. It may have formed up to forty times. And it failed, forty times. The best theory is that pressure from the lake forced the leakage at the base of the dam. As it "floated" the dam failed realeasing enough water to fill Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. 

The flood waters roared down the paths of least resistance tearing out topsoil, boulders, chunks of glacial ice. Down through what is now Washington along ancient river bed we call Grand Coulee now. At speeds of fifty to sixty miles an hour. water volumes that would put the Amazon to shame the flood forced the narrows near the Tri Cities in Washington. On the way it backed flodd waters back in Idaho again. 

The flood hit a narrows at Kalama Gap where the Columbia River enters the Coast Range of mountains. Some of the flood waters backed up into the Willamette River Valley. One of the reasons the valley is the home to farms, orchards and vineyards. Good thing Washington hasn't asked Oregon to return that topsoil. The part of Wshington it came from is now known at the Channelled Scablands. 

Shot is fron the Wickipedia article. View of Park Lake near Grand Coulee. Floods took the path of least resistance tearing out the soils leaving the basalt columns behind. Looks pretty grim doesn't it. To be honest large sections of Eastern Washington and Oregon almost qualify as deserts. If we get fifteen inches of rain in a year we're lucky. Usually more like ten. So far that's what we're looking at for this year. Didn't even have much snow last winter and what we got was powder. Great for skiing. Not great for water content. When the waters slowed down and backed into the Willamette Valley they left some travelers behind. 

The rocks that don't belong where they landed and are composed of rocks hundreds of miles from the Willamette Valley are called erratics. Intersting name. This shot gives you an idea of the size of a several tons of the Rocky Mountains. It was probably attached to a huge chunk of glacial ice that was carried in the flood and finally came to rest in what is now Oregon. The Yamhill Valley south of Portalnd is visible in the background. 

And finally what Oregon pretty much looks like now. The green is the flat lands. Not very much is there. The mountan complexes include the Cascades, the coast ranges and the Blues. And the Blue Mountains really are blue. At least part of them

Pretty isn't it? What isn't mountains is high plateau east of the Cascades. It's high, it's dry. And the further south and east you get the lower the population. By size Oregon is ninth in the nation. By population we're more like twenty fourth with about 4.3 million people. Almost half the people in the state live in the Portland Metro Area. Oh, and the highest peaks in the Cascades? They are either extinct deeply eroded volcanoes. Or not so eroded and may just be dormant volcanoes. Mt. Hood near Portland erupted within the last two hundred yeas or or so Just across the river is Mt St. Helen's. She blew her stack back in the eighties. Oregon is a beautiful state. But respect her and don't take anything for granted once you leave the freeway. 

MY OREGON

It hasn't exactly been writer's block. More like what to write about. Idea have come, are still there, but are sort of in the not right now file. Politics/religion? My interests are off the mainstream and while valuable leave me with a "where to start" problem. A real where to start problem. 

On the the other hand I love this state. My Oregon. Some parts more than others. Especially the coast. Heaven knows there's more to see than I realized. Someone pointed out a few years ago that most Americans say "we're going to the beach." For most Oregonians and folks from Washington its "we're going to the coast." Partly because once you get north of Coquille the beaches get smaller and smaller. We got 'em but rhey don't really invite you to slather on the sunscrean or camp out in a beach chair or on a blanket under an umbrella. 

Outside of the last part of July and most of August it's too damn windy most of the day.And even if the wind isn't blowing just below a gale it's chilly. And if  it's broiling east of the Coast Ranges it's foggy on the north coast. Seriously foggy as in "damn I wish I was on the 5 instead of doing hairpins near Heceta Head and Cape Perpetua." We're talking no shoulders on either side of the road and guardrails on the cliff side can be few and far between. The drive was interesting enough before the birth of the big ass pickup and the super size RV's. 

Now the beaches can be fun. Tide pools, bird watching, really cool kites. There are even kite flying festivals. Those are just an example. I've seen dragons, what looks like space ships, birds, a whole menagerie. I believe these kites were shot around Rockaway Beach. 

You can go to our beaches but most of use stop at the edge of the water. The Pacific off the Northwest is seriously chilly. We're talking temps in the forties to sixties. A few minutes and your feet are numb. Heck most of the picnic tables are up behind the dunes in a secluded spot near some trees where the wind is reduced to a breeze instead of a gale. The sea gulls are interested but not beggars. They let you get so close and then amble off. 

Wise folks check the tide tables and the weather forecst before heading out to make sure if it's t shirt weather or time to haul ouit the goretex. Mom and I fetched up at Washburn state park a few miles north of Florence. We were the only only ones there and the beach walk lasted about ten minutes. I mean it was blowing. So we move up to the top of the parking lot where we could at least see and hear the oceran. BTW these gulls are on rocks near Seaside. Up the coast a bit. Anyway we noticed that gulls were flying south, agains the wind and weren't makeing much of a headway. 

Anyway a few minutes later some what looked like gulls flash by the window heading north. They were moving at wind speed and sort of blurry. A few minutes later it was fight the headwind (beak wind?) again. And then the bird shaped blurs. Those gulls were surfing the wind. And acting like they loved it. They put on quite a show. Pretty soon we headed north to Newport, back through the mountains to the 5 and home. 

THE OTHER USE FOR KNITTING NEEDLES

 I've told this story before. And I will keep telling it as long as too many don't understand why a woman would make this choice.

I had a great aunt I didn't know existed until I spotted her grave market one Memorial Day weekend. Her grave is near my mon's dad and her name was the same as mom's mother, Edith. Old cemetary, lots of big old trees.

It was the middle of the Depression. She already had three kids under six, and pregnant again. They were dirt poor and lived in a very small town about forty miles south east of Eugene, Oregon. near Highway 58. It's part of the state system by the thirties, gravel surface. The road followed the middle fork of the Willamette Rive. Probably got washed out in spots every winter in the pre flood control dam era before the nineteen fifties and sixties.

Aunt Edith was pregnant again and she tried to self induce. She bled to death as the owner of the only car in Westfir tried to get her to a hospital.

This memory popped up while I was watching an episode of Dr. Finley on Prime liast night. Set in Scotland a few years after WWII. Rock ribbed, sternly upright, small town Scotland. How this young married woman ended up pregnan,t by a man not her husband, doesn't really matter. I

n London or even Edinburgh or Glasgow she might have been able to find someone. She tried to self induce. She was lifted up a knitting needle, about a size two from the looks of it, fell on the floor. She was at least lucky enought to have been found in time with a hospital and surgeions nearby. Whether the full damage could be repaired? Well the episode didn't go into that.

I only know there was an I wonder moment when I saw that knitting needle fall to the floor and I remembered my aunt and her grave in a small cemetary in what is nownwest Eugene.

My not so great great uncle? He got married again and had more kids. If I ever met the man I was too young to remember him.

DRIVE DOWN MEMORY LANE

Ressonable shot of my first car. A used 1960 Ford Mercury Comet. Back in the day the comet was described as a compact. Darn vehicle looked like a boat and drove like one. I guess compared to a four door Cadillac with bumpers big enough to be used for a picnic the Comet was a compact. My BIL is six foot three and six of him would have fitted into a Caddie with room to spare. 

No radio and vacuum powered wind sheld wipers. That meant that if you were going uphill in a rain storm the wipers went real slow until you hit level ground. I believe my earlier entry triggered my memory of that car. Took me to school, took me to work and took me on a trip or three to the coast. 

One trip took me south past Coos Bay down to Cape Arago State Park. Wish I had my old shot I took rom the other side of Sunset Bay. The buiding is gone now All that's left a light that doesn't need tending by a light house keeper. That had to be a lonely life. 

Anyway it was time to head back to Springfield. About a three hour drive traffic permitting. Found myself in a line following a loaded log truck. I think I was second or third in line. Passing din't look like a good idea so I just settlled back to enjoy the drive. (or at last make the best of it) Checked the rear view mirror in time to see a car about three cars behind me make a break for it. I just shook my head and took my foot off the gas. Sure enough that car needed the slot I created. Really needed it. Looked like a mom with a car full of kids. It ws a close one. 

This shot does not do justice to the beauty of the cliffs and the bay. There are actually three parks located very close together. Shore Acres, Sunset Bay and Cape Arago. There is now hiking trail that heads from Sunset Bay to Cape Arago. There is a website with some good shots. The old site of the lighthouse is closed and fenced off. Probably for safety reasons. There is a small beach below the light house. Fairly easy for the young and adventourous. 

The Comet was replaced by a four door Datsun B210. Loved that car. It was great on the flats, didn't much care going uphill. But what the hey, it took me to a lot of wonderful places. 

SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD

Or a trucker's map of the US. This started out as a short entry about a fun map. The fine print is easier to read if you click to enlarge. And remembering a few truckers I talked to back when I was working for Hickory Farms the company was probably sending him down to Bakersfield dead heading through the Grapevine and over Tejon Pass. Nasty bit of the 5, especially n winter.

One trucker's opinon of the states. Some of them are pretty funny. And it really doesn' rain ALL the time in western Oregon and Washington. It just feels like it sometimes. It isn't just the rain it's the fog in the valleys. And that pea soup. Sometimes you can barely see the car in front of you much less the back end of that eighteen wheeler a couple of car lengths ahead'

 And yeah. We think our Northwest cheeses are pretty darn good. Especially from the little guys. Tillamook is getting a little big for their britches. A lot of the milk isn't coming from cows grazing in the fields near the coast with a touch of salt in the air. It's coming from huge dairy oprations east of the mountains. Cows in feed lots being fed on the same commercial feed half the operations in the country are using.

I'd never heard of the Florida Man until now. And when that wind comes roaring down from the north there's nothing to stop it until it hits either the Gulf or the mountains in Mexico. There probably aren't any weapons stored in New Mexico but the uranium to power the Manhattan Project was mined in the Four Corners. And many of the miners were Navajo and Hopi. Without the safety measure used now. 

Funny how I started out with a map and it grows, That happens a lot. And there are fewer folks lining up for the long haul trucking jobs. I did a little digging around but I haven't located a music video that covers the song as written. Espcially the bit about those little white pills. Driver's are supposed to take an eight hour break after so many hours. Sort of got ignored when there were deadlines to meet. I've heard that a lot of trucks have computers that record when the truck is moving and when it isn't. And truckers have probably figured out ways to get around the software. Tha's how it ususally goes. 

Then there's the with variations of No Jake Brakes where the county ends and the town begins.Just gefore the speed limit sigh. Bad enough in day light but hearing what sounds like a machine gun in the middle of the night? Not cool. 

But then,  back in the day when the railroad ran through Springfield, some of those engineers seemed to lay on that horn all the way through every intersection at four in the morning. And that horn did not sound like a machine gon. 

SIX DAYS ON THE ROAD

Well I pulled outta Pittsburgh a rollin' down that Eastern Sea board
I got my diesel wound up and she's a runnin' like a never before
There's a speed zone ahead alright, I don't see a cop in sight
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonigh

I got me ten forward gears and my George overdrive
Takin' little white pills and my eyes are open wide
I just passed a Jimmy in white, I've been passin' everything in sight
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight

Well it seems like a month since I kissed my baby goodbye
I could have a lotta women but I'm not like that sort of a guy
I could find one to hold me tight but I could never make believe it's alright
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight

ICC is a checkin' on down the line
I'm a little overweight and my log book's way behind
But nothin' bothers me tonight, I can dodge all the scales alright
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight

Well my rig's a little old but that don't mean she's slow
There's a flame from my stack and that smoke's blowin' black as coal
My hometown's a comin' in sight, if you think I'm a happy you're right
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight
Six days on the road and I'm a gonna make it home tonight

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Carl Montgomery / Earl Green

Well the "I'm takin' over" genie struck again. It's like I hit the road for Portland and end up in Baker City to heck and gone heading for the Idaho border. And I do believe I am done here. I really hope it's done here. It just kept growing.

LOVE IN THE MORNING

 

You can find these little birds all over the country. It's a varietry of finch. A little larger and more spectacular than the siskins I saw west of the mountains. Google house finch and you'll find these little guys. The male has a beautiful song. And it is that time of year. There's a little balcony outside my room. Wish I could have a video of the hopeful male. That red is pretty spectacular in the early morning light. 

He's singing away. Preening. "Hey look at me." She's not too impressed. Hopping the other way. Down the rail they go. 

A second male tries to put in is two cents worth. They squabble. She heads for the bird feeder to take advantage of the new seed supply. "To heck with bilology, it's time for breakfast." Then all but the original suiter fly away. A few chirps that sound a little forlorn. Probably my imagination.Then he takes off to join the rest of the flock and it's quiet for awhile.

A SHORT HISTORY

 

The first official of the new American government to order any kind of vaccination program 

There's a series on Amazon Prime, Dr. Finlay based on the series of short stories by AJ Cronin. This particualr seeries takes up just after the end of WWII with John Finlay returning from six years as a medical officer in the British army to return to Scotland to a civilian medical practice. 

Ah, the good old days before antibiotics had much use outside the military. One episode concerns a local diagnosed with small pox. The doctors know where he got it. Since he can't remember who all he came into contact with and who they might have been with it's vaccinate the village and the locals ASAP. And curious little me started looking up the history of vaccinations. This article is clearer than I could ever be.

Most of the histories start with Edward Jenner sn Rnhlidh physician who paid attention to stories that agricultural workers who mainly worked with cattle didn't get small pox. The virus has several cousins including horse pox and cow pox. Jenner paid attention and eventually started using material from cow pox to innoculate patients against small pox. It worked. But that wasn't the beginning. 

There are no records that name the first bright man or woman that realized that patients who survived the disease the first time didn't get it again. There are records from Ming dynasty China in the mid to late sixteenth century. Scabs from small pox victims were powdered and the material blown into prospective patients noses. While the death rate from this practice ranged from .05 to 2.0 percent that was far lower than the 20 to 30 percent death toll observed in epidemics. 

Records of the practice are found in Turkey, Persia and Africa. In England and the colonies small incisions would be made in the wrists and/or ankles and extremely small amounts of the powder introduced. The wounds were bound up and, I'm assuming, fingers crossed. John Adams was innoculated in the mid 1760's and his family in 1776. She didn't take the decsion lightly but the disease came in waves of epidemics in the coastal cities of Boston, Philadelphia and Charlston. 

The British occuppied Boston and 1775, there was an outbreak of the disease. The British were accused of practicing an early form of germ warfare. Pushing infected people out of the city in hopes of spreading the disease. Since more colonists were rural and didn't travel very far they didn't come into contact with epidemic diseases, such as small pox. 

George Washington contracted the disease during a visit to Barbadoes when he was nineteen. He was sick for a month but immune to the disease after that. While he forbade soldiers already in the army in 1777 from being vaccinated the instituted a program of vaccinating new recruits. The first widspread vaccination program in American history. 

But this isn't exactly ancient history. My great great grandmother in Kasas wrote letter to her son in Eugene, Oregon back around the turn of the last century. One letter goes on on about how hot it's been. The crops aren't doing so great. And by the way "there are rumors of small pox in the neighborhood." My little heart went pitty pat for awhile. Hasn't been that long ago has it. 

Comes to it, a jab in the arm beats having the powdered byproducts of small pox lesions blown up or orherwise applied anyday. 

THERE'S AN AFTERNOON

 and an evening I'll never get back. Made the mistake of watching all four Hunger Games movies in onc go. Played a lot of solitaire during the last one. 

Honestly if Frodo and comapany had spent this much time laying around and navel gazing Sauron would have retrieved the ring and nobody would have lived happily ever after. The fine art of story telling has headed for the crapper if not landed in a resounding kersplat. I figured president what's her name from district 13 as a Snow wannabe about five minutres after she made her first appearance. 

I read the books on my sister's recommendation. They aren't bad but you really appreciate Tolkien or even J K Rowling for world building. 

PROBABLY POLITICALLY INCORRECT

And yes I'm distressed. I lay some of this at WalMart. Once Wally World came to control so much of the fashion world good by pleats, tucks, even extra buttons.just disappeared. It's been years since I've shopped for fabric so I have no idea what is out there. Heck check the classified, what ever there is probably someone out there willing to run a sewing machine for you. 

OoooooKaaaay. I'm going to be moderately political incorrect here. Caught the ad for the Country Music Awards. Male presenter is in what looks like a modified tux, white shirt, no tie. Female presenter is in a siliouette hugging, sparkly mini dress. And I do mean mini as in don't bend over honey. If we're going for eye candy here how about extra tight jeans and muscle shirts for the guys. 

I barely follow feminism anyway so I'm not sure how widespread this branch is. Basically a girl, I'm assuming high school but for all I know they're starting in middle school. Basically girls should be allowed to wear just about anytihng they want; extra short shorts, letting their bra staps show. And the boys should just look the other way.

Watch the Weather Channel lately? Guys in flattering shirts and ties. The male anchors don't really do what I used to call casual Friday unless they are outside. The male body is not emphasized. The women? Oh Lord. Just this side of body hugging dresses. Weird color combinations and just really weird the way the fabrics are put together. 

Alright. I'm a Boomer just over seventy. We were taught to show some pride in our appearance. Hell, I even made a fair number of my dresses for school. Good thing spandex hadn't been discovered. Advice to some of these gals and the idiots advising them to dress like members of the world's second oldest profession? Don't take and share any selfies. Those pictures can be forever. HItting the delete key does not affect the server. And there are some really talented IT folks out there who make blood hounds look like amateurs. 

A future university or employer might be put off or not appreciate close ups of your buns, your abs  (bathing suit probably OK), or your "double frontage with a view." (Nicked that from A Good Year as Russell Crowe's character is confronted with cocktail waitress bending over, extra close.) To look or not to look that is the question. 

Of course we only had two TV channels and the marketers and some of the talking heads hadn't gotten around to telling us that just because we were teenagers it was OK to push the envelopes and act like little spoiled brats. That was reserved for kids seen as delinquents, not to be emulated. 

So we pushed the envelopes in the sixties and seventies. Instead of raising the bars we lowered them, and lowered them and lowered them. At least I never had to pay big bucks for jeans that already have holes in them. 

A WHALE OF A TALE

Or "how not to dispose of a stinking, decomposing, washed up on the beach, dead whale."

Got a reminder today of something smelly near Florence, Oregon November 9 1970. A dead sperm whale washed up on a beach near the coastal community. Forty five feet long and oh about eight tons of decomposing sperm whale. Too big to bury. No real way to haul it out to sea to either be sunk or blown up. You have to wonder who would do the hauling of the corpse, how far out to sea you would have to go and, where the bits would end up. Would you have stinky chunks washing up in place of one very stinky carcase?

The Oregon Highwat Division decided to blow that baby up. Packed about a half ton of dynamite and let 'er rip. In theory this would create pieces of whale small enough for the birds that scavenge the beaches to clean up all that whale. Chunks of sperm whale ended up in town, in parking lots, even on a just purchased 1969 Oldsmobile. The hungry (assumed) birds. Not a feather in sight. Flown off to other beaches that didn't have exploding whales. Archived film on the twenty fifth anniversary of the event. Or this AM Northwest interview the reporter from Portland.  The state didn't waste any time reimbursing the owner of the car. The newsman is still working for KATU. And remembers the smell. It was bad enough BEFORE the explosion. After the explosion there was this mist that settled on everything and everybody. The reporter from Portland complained that he didn't get the smell out of nose for at least a week. The bits were collected, burned and buried.

But Florence has memories, a few fond ones. When a new city park needed a name it became the Expoding Whale Memorial Park. A small picnic park overlooking the Siuslaw River and the sand dunes. 

As for the guy who tried to blow up the whale. He got a promotion and was shipped off to Medford. South of Springfield and on the east side of the Coast Range. Far. far away from any future decaying whales. The owner of the crushed car had just bought it. Ironically the dealership was offering a "Whale of a Sale." 

STAR ROAD

 Image credit Carlos Eduardo Fairbairn

One of the wonders of the universe. I don't know how enhanced this shot is. Anyway. The Milky Way over the Atacama desert one of the driest places on earth. Two volcanic cones in the baackground. The glowing object between the peaks is the Larger Magellenic Cloud. One of the Globular cluster galaxies near our own home galaxies.