Hunting Season

   I spent a couple hours driving around the forest today looking at the hunters as they finish up black bear and small game season and prepare for the deer season that starts tomorrow in Pennsylvania. In the coming weeks the local newspaper will have pictures of  hunters holding the carcasses, so it is a  poular activity for many people in Warren County and a rite of passage for their children. This is an area of the country that Clinton labeled the home of "deplorables" and which Obama characterized as "clinging to their bibles and guns" -both descriptions that have a measure of truth but which are so stereotypical that it is no wonder the people here felt offended to the point of voting for Trump. The voter registration locally is 2 to 1 Republican, and no amount of discussion will get the latter to understand the attitudes of the East coast any more than most people in that part of the country understand pictures of dead deer in a newspaper article.
   I know a married couple here who changed churches ( Episcopalian to Catholic ) because the former was going to allow female pastors and homosexuals to join the church. The husband  commented that "women working outside the house contributed to the downfall of society." A friend of this couple subscribed to the conspiracy theories that Michelle Obama was a man and that Hillary Clinton had a sex trafficking ring. Hard to have an intelligent conversation with such people, but I assure you that they do exist and are totally serious about their views. Counterarguments such as Catholic priests were abusing children- a much more serious truth than being female or homosexual-  do not seem to matter to such people. That is, No amount of facts or logic will dissuade them from their preferred attitude. Because I have lived in both places and have heard both sides, I generally find some attitudes around here despicable and not well reasoned, but I also know that these people are not evil monsters; they simply have conservative, often Christian based views that are hypocritical if examined too closely-which often they are not.
    The hunters who are gathering tonight in the many small camps that dot the forest will drink and talk in anticipation of the hunt, and for many of them that will be the best part of the weekend. They will mock the hypocrisy of anti- hunting critics who eat meat, and cherish the freezer of venison they obtain if they are successful. It really is different worlds within one country, but the humanity is the same. Everyone laughs and cries and gets sick and has children and argues politics; we simply experience it in different places....But there is no doubt that there are irreconcilable differences, such as the violent racism supported by some people, that must be suppressed by strict laws if our democratic society is to survive. I truly believe that some form of national service after high school-a year or two where people from across the nation got together to do work for the public good-would go a long way to healing our divisions.

Essential Reading

  This is another one of those rare books by one of the more lucid and observant writers that I know of. He reveals and explains more about what is going on at the border/Mexico in the first 50 pages than I have heard in all the arguing over the past two years. There is so much propaganda and incomplete information in the mainstream media-and from Google algorithms on Both sides- that it is disgraceful that public opinion and policy are derived from so much... ignorant crap.

Bigots

 I saw this article in the paper a couple months ago and was saving it until after the elections to see how many people in the town of Marysville, Michigan voted for the bigot; ...her name was left on the ballot despite her having withdrawn from the race. First, here is some background info on Marysville that I obtained from it's website; it seems to be a typical small Northern/Midwestern American town.


"In 2017, Marysville, MI had a population of 9.76k people with a median age of 43.6 and a median household income of $61,439... Between 2016 and 2017 the population of Marysville, MI declined from 9,775 to 9,760, a -0.153% decrease and its median household income grew from $60,349 to $61,439, a 1.81% increase.
The population of Marysville, MI is 92.1% White, 5.1% Hispanic or Latino, and 1.12% Two or More Races. N/A% of the people in Marysville, MI speak a non-English language, and 99.1% are U.S. citizens.
The median property value in Marysville, MI is $123,200, and the homeownership rate is 78%. Most people in Marysville, MI commute drives alone, and the average commute time is 23.7 minutes. The average car ownership in Marysville, MI is 2 cars per household."

               ... About 60.5% of the population in Marysville is of voting age and from what I can tell about 3,200 people of them voted in the city council election. Of those, 180 people voted for Mrs. Cramer which is about 5.7%% of the voting public. Some of them may have been joking or chose her for another reason, but it's safe to assume that many of them share her views.  It is interesting but not surprising that religion influences Mrs Cramers views, and unfortunately religion is a primary source of intolerance all over the world. One would think that 67 years of living would have afforded her ample time to acquire wisdom, but I have found that crappy old people were often crappy young people; the 5.7% she represents cause a disproportionate amount of misery for the other 94.3%.  No amount of science or logic will persuade them of the unity and equality of all people.

Snow/Politics/Camping

     Snow has accumulated on the grass this afternoon,( eventually accumulating several more inches the next day ) the first snow of the season. It seems as though climate change has initiated this sudden change of seasons whereby arctic air infiltrates south in a sudden rush then retreats somewhat, and I expect December to be warmer than November if my past observations/perceptions are correct. North America generally has been the anomaly regarding global warming, ( cooler than most of the planet ) which perhaps explains the skepticism among  Americans who do not base their arguments on global scientific data.
     The polarization in American politics is the result of deliberate generalizations and narrow definitions of particular ideas by particular people who then apply them to whole populations. As always, those with the loudest voices-on either side- dominate the discussion regardless of the veracity of their perspective. Agendas-rather than truth-is the motive.The inability-or unwillingness-of people to see the larger picture and compromise for the good of humanity, seems to be a biological fallibility of human consciousness dooming us to eternal conflict.

      Meanwhile, Beth and I have been enjoying the van to escape-or at least balance-the madness of our species with the healing power of nature.

Junior Varsity Football

                                                               

                               The score was 20 to 18 with 1:31 seconds to play as the opposing team took the ball on their own 16 yard line. A long pass to a receiver was caught and he ran to Warrens 20 yard line where he was tackled and made to fumble the ball...Warren recovered; Game over. That is him dejectedly walking back to his sideline knowing that he cost his team a potential last minute victory. Soon after both teams met midfield to shake hands in the traditional show of sportsmanship that defines amateur sports.
                               I played football for a few years in the late 1960's and nothing has changed in 50 years from that perspective of teaching young athletes the ups and downs of life. Sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose. This kid will remember this moment the rest of his life and so will the kid who caused the fumble and it's recovery. That's life. People around here do not much embrace the politically correct view of giving everyone a trophy simply for showing up. They recognize it for the BS it is and I suspect that sports still teaches a deeper reality regardless of the spin some people might want to put on life. In the future, this receiver will catch one and score and remember that both success and failure are temporary, and how he reacts to them will determine the character that describes his lifetime. While it is easy to become cynical of the corruption that infiltrates sports, they are nothing more or less than another pathway for the potential good that is the  challenge of every human endeavor.

 

Musings on life, and death

          Walking in Hearts Content woods today I slow to a saunter and exhale in the quiet shade of Toms Run Trail, thinking of life, and the pointlessness of so many things I once thought relentlessly important-sex, ambition. dreams-all the things that describe a normal human existence.  As death comes closer it seems that life is merely a recurring play recast with new characters, and nothing changes but for minor alterations of the plot. From that larger perspective we all step briefly onto a small stage and describe our roles in whatever terms we like, improvising with those around us but never able to affect major revisions to the unfolding drama. It is all vastly important to us in the moment but lost to time like all the rest of nature.
          The trail I am walking upon this hour is carpeted with last years leaves, now brown and decayed, while high above me is this summers growth fading to yellow and soon to fall. The unyielding force in being alive, that ebb and flow of life and death, is all around me, and I know I am a part of it despite my human tendency to ignore or separate myself. The decaying logs on the ground would appall me were they human bodies, yet I would become accustomed to them were they a common sight, and bones and flesh would seem no more remarkable than the moss and fungi and old leaves on the ground. We are all fodder for the earth more utterly than we are the kings of nations, and that is the reality we live and die upon. Perhaps pointless is not the correct title for this opera we each embrace, but repeating is certainly its theme if we are honest with ourselves. Only the young think that life is fresh and new, and that is a grand thing as it sustains them for many years.
           Being alive, we sometimes struggle against the inevitable decay, against the illness and sorrow and loss of everything we hold dear, yet it slips away from us all the same. We choose denial or avoidance or acceptance of those difficult truths, then choose love and laughter to make life a well rounded story regardless of the inevitable. We know there is always the curtain of death we cannot see beyond to tell us why we are here, yet that is never reason enough not to live well.
           As I gaze this hour into the hemlocks illuminated by the evening sun, into the soft light dispersed by gnats and threads of silk, I am made whole, and part of this world and the universe and my small stage within it. It is a stage that stretches far beyond me but everything I need is right here in front of me. I can see far enough to know that life is precious and the Earth a rare thing. It is Home and I am not separate from it. None of us are, regardless of the roles we choose. Always, from the perspective of the trees, the stage stretches beyond the roles humans play, with characters long dead and many to outlive us. I long ago decided that love and compassion are why we are here, and it does not matter who or what role we play so long as that is our mission.

Kettle Creek @ Buzzard Swamp

                                                        

    I hiked at Kettle Creek State park two weeks ago and came upon this bull elk sniffing the path about a hundred yards ahead. It was wholly oblivious to me so I whistled to alert it, after which it strolled nonchalantly up the slope behind it. This is the time of year that bulls assemble their harems, and in the next county the elk are somewhat tame, so one might see a bull with his harem of  females grazing a mere fifty yards from the road. This particular elk was alone and a mile from any other people or animals, so I suppose he was still looking.
    Hiking at Buzzard Swamp today the landscape is looking like early autumn, with red legged grasshoppers very common.This
Mourning Cloak butterfly will presumably survive through the winter, for this species enters diapause ( a form of hibernation) and is among the first butterflies to emerge in spring. The mating dragonflies are representative of several species active in the swamp now, and I recently learned that some dragonflies ( the blue darners for one ) migrate in autumn. Miniature radio trackers have found that at least one individual traveled over one hundred miles in 24 hours, following the wind current like migrating birds. Nobody yet knows where they go, or if they survive the winter somewhere.

    The milkweed seeds are of a kind that I have collected to plant at home, hopefully to provide more habitat for monarchs.