The Unhappy Camper and His Dog Head Home

So this older couple with a big assed 5th wheel RV and a huge diesel pickup decide they have had enough of all the generators running all night on their side of the lake – I could hear her last night complaining; I could hear the generators too. Either one or more of those generators was running all through the night. So early this morning I hear the throbbing engine of the pickup pulling their RV to my side of the lake. “You got what you wanted” “It was not what I wanted,” she replied. I could hear them pounding away and lowering the jacks and stretching the awning and rehooking the boat up behind the pickup. But they had been together a long time and he did not push his point. “Get my glasses for me. They are in the briefcase.” “Which pair,” she replied? He talked in a loud voice. And she I had of course heard in the middle of the night. Why come and bother me. I had already had someone come sneakedly into my campsite and steal some firewood in the dark and had already planned to decamp and had I not been so planning I would certainly be now. And they let their truck idle all the while – spa-putta, spa-putta putta.

To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility – Erich Hoffer – The True Believer, 1951

I got as far as Shafer and decided I just didn’t want to do it anymore – I just didn’t want to pitch the tent once more - so I am headed back. I drove five hundred miles the first day and seven hundred and fifty the next. I had the 5,000 mile service of my truck done in Alamogordo. I got in about eight last night.

I felt that my life with Albertine was on the one hand, when I was not jealous, noting but boredom, and on the other hand, when I was jealous, nothing but pain – Marcel Proust – The Captive

The problem is usually not with the theory but one’s understanding of the theory – one’s perception of one’s options that are exercisible  More precisely, the problem is the derth of an adequate theoretical understanding – then on the other hand maybe theory is just not implemental (any theory) to begin with – theory being abstract and implementation concrete. Implementation is constrained by organizational considerations and the will of those doing the implementation. Systems demand simplicity and compatibility and can and do eradicate memories of their failures. And I just wanted to have fun.

Wars, we believe, are like street fights, on a grand scale with the central stragegic challenge being to beat up the bad guys – Gideon Rose – How Wars End, 2010 p2.

Grey, wet and dreary
The litter of leaves


Forties big bands
I’m in the mood


The broad width of
Her withers
Legs akimbo


Bouncing up and down
On grandpa’s knee

His face was sandpaper
Even when he had just shaven

And he insisted on
    Rubbing our noses in it

Nine-tenths of our lives is well forgotten in the living… of the part that is remembered, the most had better not be told: it would interest no one, or at least not contribute to the story of what we ourselves have been – William Carlos Williams – The Autobiograpy

They shift – moving from the west
     Unto the east when they reverse
It’s not just the transition from arboreal
     To the prairie and back
It is also the business opportunities
     That these different ecosystems provide
What they stock in the general store
      For example
The ranch supply store to the farm
      Implement dealer
While In our cities its paycheck cashing
      To lawn fertilizer and ornamental
                      Shrubs

[A Declaration is a speech act that] changes the world by declaring that a state of affairs exists and thus bringing that state of affairs into existence – John E Searle

To travel by carriage
Four good horses in stages
A driver and at least one
     Postillion maybe two
An advance courier
     To make arrangements
      And pay the bills
            At the next stop
The servants in back
       All in black
Then there was mama and papa
           And me and Mary
The courier also served
          As our tour guide
Farther liked large rooms
Mother liked clean rooms
      And I like a view


“Why travel to see less
         Than we may?”

“Border Patrol told us to report them if they demand food… [but if they ask for water] give it to them, and send them on their way" – William Powers – The Atlantic, Nov 2010 p.40