Hemlock Remover

Western North Carolina. Circa 1994.  My little family was packed into the minivan, traveling on a summer vacation, and speeding toward our mountain cabin along a rural highway. We drove past an occasional billboard, one of which advertised the "Hemlock Inn," evidently a luxury resort in the Great Smoky Mountains.  A few miles later another Hemlock Inn sign. We are apparently closer still.  My eight-year-old daughter Jill remarked from the back seat, "When I see the Hemlock Inn sign it reminds me of hemlock remover."  Hm, I thought.  That's interesting. OK. The trip continued. General family interaction and children fidgeting in the back.  Miles later, another Hemlock Inn billboard.

"There's another one! Every time, that sign reminds me of hemlock remover!" spake Jill.

Now I needed to know. "What in the world are you talking about, Jill?" I insisted.  "What is hemlock remover?"

She explained, "You know. It's what you do when someone's choking."

Happy birthday to me :/

As you people may know, I prefer not to observe my birthday. To me a birthday observance represents a day when it's "all about me."  An idea I reject because it should never be about me but about others.

But I do understand this:  tens of millennia ago humans existed on the plains and in the forests, and faced dangers and threats to their existence daily. There was safety in numbers, and humans formed groups and communities so as to thrive and propagate the species. Threats came from the weather, from drought, from famine, and from wild animals, but most of all, from competing tribes.  The men left the community for the wilderness to hunt and to gather food. The women stayed home, maintained the village, nursed and protected the children. Communication across land masses did not exist.  As centuries passed, and tools were developed which permitted extended travel, individuals at times tended to form their families a distance away from the original group or move away altogether, a risky prospect.  Men found partners elsewhere and sometimes never returned. The group became scattered and lacked a nucleus.  Women felt a responsibility to produce the glue to bind the community together so as to ensure safety in numbers, to reproduce, and to maintain alliances for the future survival of the tribe.

And so a series of inane secular holidays were created.

Birthdays. Mother's Day. Father's Day. Valentine's Day.  Any reason to call the tribe together for a day to remind everyone we are family and to always be there to protect one another when the inevitable mortal attack arrives at our doorstep.

So for this reason only, I accept and appreciate your happy birthday wishes.

This bird

Still waits. 

Green Grass and High Tides

It's Saturday.  I'm fifteen.  No driver’s license, so I climb into the back seat of my buddy Brian's Metallic Blue '68 Mustang.  His parents have a nice brick house and he also has a job, so.... ($$$).  My baseball teammates Tim and Mike are situated in front and in the other back seat. Geez I have to sit sideways in this thing. Sweet ride, though.  I wish I had a car one tenth this cool.

The drive to the beach is 45 minutes.  We talk some minor bullshit for a while and then we're on the desolate two lane highway.  The motor revs......  and then revs some more, and then settles at about 3000 RPMs, doubling the speed limit.  Brian shouts, "Check out my new system."  Then this happens at 400 watts per channel:

https://youtu.be/R82OM5tzcrk

Not sure why, but I am moved by this tune beyond my 1.5 decades. 

The song finishes and we are there.  After a half mile, the Mustang turns left, creeps between the dunes, and idles onto the beach. We each wind our windows down and cruise.  And cruise. The near sound of breaking waves, and the aroma of clean air, salt, and sand overwhelm.