Month: August 2020

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North of a Dozen

I passed north of a dozen ducks in Waterton Canyon today.

North of a Dozen Ducks North of a Dozen Ducks

 

Also north of a dozen bighorns.

 

In Excess of a Dozen Bighorns

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was also a big day for strollers and little kids. There was even a young woman going the opposite direction in a gray tank top that said “Go Take A Hike!” tastefully plastered right across her baby bump. “Nice shirt!” I yelled at her across the road.  “Thanks!” she yelled back, laughing.  I almost never do that. I figure, the less human (or ovine, or avian) contact, the better for all concerned. But today, everybody seemed in such a good mood. Maybe it was the recent rains that broke this August heat spell, I dunno.

But you know the thing that really stood out most today? There were black people on the trail. Not as many black Americans as the police have murdered over the past couple of months, but still.  It was striking. I walk this route daily – 3 miles most weekdays, 10 miles or more most weekend days –  and rarely are there people of color on the trail. I’m not sure if that says more about the demographics of Colorado, or maybe more about when I choose to walk – early, before it gets too hot out, and there aren’t a lot of people. But in any case, like I said:  Striking.

 

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As you maybe can tell by now, this is not gonna be your garden variety Roxhikes blog post. In fact, it is my aim today to offend as many people as possible. If you’re not offended yet, just read on, you’re sure to be offended eventually. It doesn’t make a difference to me whether you’re Red, Blue, Left, Right, or Center:  I’m gonna get around to rubbing you the wrong way before it’s over. You can count on it. After all, it’s my SuperPower. You been warned.

 

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I’ve been having a number of rather contentious email exchanges with various folks lately.  Part of that may be due to my penchant for reaching across the aisle to engage with others who see things drastically different from me. And part of it may be due to this dang new keyboard I’m trying to get used to…

 

7-keys, no BS.
Effective @ curtailing debate, ya think?

 

But whatever the reason, the results have been, well, striking.  For example here are some excerpts from actual emails I’ve received lately. Please don’t be shocked or offended – there will be plenty of time to get around to that later. For now, just try to keep an open mind and see how people actually think and talk, at least in my little corner of the world/Internet.

 

I don’t cry on my knees in the streets because I don’t want to work. I’m not “fortunate” enough to reap welfare, unemployment, food stamps and any and everything else the Dims promote they can give me. I prefer to try and have a good life on my own without government interference and preferably without the idiocy of the BLM and other ugly communist movements where you have to wear black and keep your face covered so the cameras can’t catch a glimpse of my face as I thug my way though the streets. I prefer to walk on clean ground and not shit & needle covered streets of homeless drug addicts and murderers. So much for the rest of it, because I got real work to do here….

 

Also this:

 

Sorry, I’ve been triggered.  In my primitive, white privilege mind, BLM = Anarchists.  Could be Fox News or maybe just what they REALLY stand for and support (not the feel good messaging on their website). Save your response.  You, BLM, Nancy and Joe feel this is a tragically flawed nation and things are worse than they’ve ever been.  I don’t.  No sports figure or Hollywood starlet’s tweet is going to change that.  Last time I looked, they are paid to provide entertainment.  Maybe they should get back to that.  I’m going to get back to raising revenue for my company – that’s what I’m paid to do.  That, pay my taxes, act respectfully when pulled over by a police officer, and VOTE…

 

Last but not least:

 

You must be confusing me for somebody else. I’m middle of the road politically and always have been. The wonder of it all is that you can still call yourself a Christian and look yourself in the mirror every morning championing this pussy-grabbing race-baiting hate-monger with so much distorted disinformation about what he USED to be like, instead of what he now IS, what he has PROVEN himself to be over the last 4 years. You disgust me – and I mean that in only the best possible way.  Have a nice day, you insufferable false-witness-bearing asshole. And tomorrow, if you’re especially nice to me, I’ll tell you what I REALLY think. Let me be very clear: Stop sending me this kind of unadulterated horse-shit, or I am going to go all Old Testament on your sorry ass….

 

Oh, wait – that last was one _I_ wrote – Mea Culpa.

 

In any case, my eldest brother – ever the conciliator – wrote me the following: I suppose it was to try and make me feel better? You be the judge.

 

Thank God we live in a country where we have the right to be wrong…..and can vote accordingly.  Be it known that your father, a staunch REPUBLICAN, voted Democrat this past election…….he had early onset dementia!!

The only thing I can say in response is that it’s a damnable lie because dad was 95 and I know for a fact he kept all his marbles up until the very end.  Also that he started out by voting for Herbert Hoover during the Great Depression and stuck with the GOP until the day he died. No way would he ever have voted for Hillary – even if he did give that as a middle name to his eldest son – I kid you not. And if you doubt any of it, well… here’s the photographic proof that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…
Look at that matching lip line – niiiiiice, “Hillary!”

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What’s the bottom line in all this?  Other than that we need to be careful with our keyboards? Well, whether any of us like it or not, Black Lives do matter. And it’s not only people of one particular party who perform useful earthly functions for their companies, and willingly pay taxes to their governments. Also, in spite of the gloom and doom of certain recent virtual conventions – AHEM! – there’s this bit of wisdom that I believe endures:
“Wow, for a lawless hellscape that Joe Biden is somehow responsible for, it seems like a nice day!”

 

Have a good one, y’all… and God Bless America!

Oh, wait. It just occurred to me… 

 

There are a few other groups I need to offend before I close.

 

The Lovely Ladies of MAGA. All four of them!

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There… done!
Not north of a dozen, but it’ll have to do.   🙂
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Krakatoa, Kith, Kin, and the Pool Boy

Today’s entry is all over the map. It includes at least three different categories, everything from “Literature” to “Current News” to “This Day in History.” And if you try real hard you might even be able to find a “Word Of The Day” in there someplace too.  In any event, bear with me. It’ll all become clear eventually. But you’ll need to read all the way through to find the final filament that binds Krakatoa, kith, kin, and the pool boy together at last.

 

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On This Day in History, August 27, 1883, the Indonesian island of Krakatoa exploded with the most powerful volcanic eruption in recorded human history. You can read all the gory details at History.com – here. And you can find my previous post on the lesser – but still impressive – eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, here.  But any way you slice it, two things stand out.

The first is that while we tend to think of 2020 as a real shit-show of a year – what with COVID-19 over the past six months and hurricane Laura making landfall on the Gulf Coast last night – the fact remains that there are other years in the not-so-distant past that were as bad or worse, at least from the natural disaster standpoint. Think for instance of hurricane Katrina in August of 2005, or the worldwide Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 to name just two cases in point.

But the second and perhaps more controversial point is this: Why is August so notoriously bad for this kind of stuff? Hurricane season starts around this time each year, so that part is easy. But earthquake season? Really? The fact is that at least some people believe hot weather brings on violent seismic activity. And in support of that, I refer you to one of my all-time favorite short stories, titled “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried.”  A full pdf version of the story – by Amy Hempel – can be found here.   Relevant excerpt follows.

 

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What seems dangerous often is not — black snakes, for example, or clear-air turbulence. While things that just lie there, like this beach, are loaded with jeopardy. A yellow dust rising from the ground, the heat that ripens melons overnight — this is earthquake weather. You can sit here braiding the fringe on your towel and the sand will all of
a sudden suck down like an hourglass. The air roars. In the cheap apartments on-shore, bathtubs fill themselves and gardens roll up and over like green waves. If nothing happens, the dust will drift and the heat deepen till fear turns to desire. Nerves like that are only bought off by catastrophe. “It never happens when you’re thinking about it,” she once observed. “Earthquake, earthquake, earthquake,” she said. “Earthquake, earthquake, earthquake,” I said.

 

Like the aviaphobe who keeps the plane aloft with prayer, we kept it up until an aftershock cracked the ceiling. That was after the big one in seventy-two. We were in college; our dormitory was five miles from the epicenter. When the ride was over and my jabbering pulse began to slow, she served five parts champagne to one part orange juice, and joked about living in Ocean View, Kansas. I offered to drive her to Hawaii on the new world psychics predicted would surface the next time, or the next.

 

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By contrast, some catastrophes are pretty much exclusively human-caused. As examples I’d cite the current racial unrest in Wisconsin and elsewhere, along with the sordid history of human trafficking and slavery which – let it be noted – did not begin or end with the U.S. Civil War, and from which we still today are experiencing aftershocks.

Fellow blogger (and fellow Christian) Diana Butler Bass has posted today what I think is an insightful piece on the shame of all this. It’s titled “Family Secrets” and you can read it here.  Her point is that uncovering a Quaker ancestor who was shunned by his faith community for slave ownership in 17th century Maryland can be every bit as humiliating as the Liberty University President’s more recently uncovered threesome escapades with a Miami pool boy. I leave it to you to suss out the various personal and political connections she makes. But I defy you to contend that it doesn’t apply closer to home. Go on. I dare ya.

 

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CIVIL WAR VETERAN, LIVED TO AGE OF 61, HUSBAND TO MARY, AND ALSO…

MY GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER.

 

The son of Jacob & Eleanor Jane (Heikes) Wolf – in 1860 George Wolf was a saddler living with his family in Latimore Township, Adams County, Pennsylvania. He stood 6′ 1″ tall and had dark hair and hazel eyes.

A Civil War veteran, he enlisted at York Sulphur Springs, Adams County, August 8, 1862, mustered into federal service at Harrisburg August 13 as a private with Co. I, 127th Pennsylvania Infantry, promoted to corporal, date unknown, and honorably discharged with his company May 29, 1863. He also was drafted and mustered into federal service at Chambersburg February 27, 1865, as a private with Co. C, 99th Pennsylvania Infantry, and honorably discharged with his company July 1, 1865.

 

(This part here is what’s known as “A Pregnant Pause.”)

 

He married Mary Elizabeth Ziegler and fathered Charles M. (b. 03/24/66), Laura M. (b. 03/28/68), Minnie E. (b. @1871), Bertha A. (b. @1872), and Milton Calvin (b. 11/08/74). He died in Latimore Township, Adams County, PA.

 

All Over The Map - CM Wolf
Charles Martin Wolf (b. 1866 & d. 1932), my great-grandfather.

 

Hmmmm.

July 1 , 1865 to March 24, 1866.

Sure sounds like about nine months to me!

 

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I know you’ve been patiently waiting for the WOTD.

So here it is:  “Kindred.”

 

If you believe that advice and relatives are inseparable, the etymology of  “kindred” will prove you right. Kindred comes from a combination of kin and the Old English word ræden (“condition”), which itself comes from the verb rædan, meaning “to advise.” Kindred entered English as a noun first during the Middle Ages. That noun, which can refer to a group of related individuals or to one’s own relatives, gave rise to the adjective kindred in the 14th century.

 

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So, dear friends (kith) and family (kin), what’s the bottom line? Well, since you asked, I’ll give you my advice, and it is this: If you think there’s no shame in your own personal history, think again. More than likely it only means you haven’t dug deep enough. Or been honest enough.

As for earthquake weather? Stranger things than this are probably true too. I mean, think about it:  Jerry Falwell Jr. and his wife in a threesome with the pool boy? REALLY?  C’mon, man. Get real!

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Local Round Up

Wup, there’s so much low level local news to round up today, I couldn’t pick just one story.  So, lucky you, here’s a couple – or three or four.

On the weather front, yesterday’s high of 98 degrees set a record for the date in Denver. And Sunday’s 130 degrees in Death Valley was the hottest ever there in nearly a century of record-keeping. When we drove across the Mojave Desert back in July it was a relatively balmy 108, though with sustained 30 mph winds, it still felt like a blow torch when you opened up the car door.

Fires burning all over Colorado have made air quality along the Front Range very poor lately. Best wishes to those enduring the smoke and flames closer-at-hand in Grand Lake, Grand Junction, and elsewhere across the grand landscape of The Rocky Mountain West.

Local sports teams (baseball’s Rockies and basketball’s Nuggets) are back in action under unusual circumstances in this wacky pandemic year. The former team is playing before cardboard cutouts in the stands at an empty Coors Field, while the latter ply their trade inside the NBA’s “bubble” in Florida.

After a super hot start, the Rockies have cooled off somewhat currently to occupy 2nd place in the NL West, while the Nuggets just won their first playoff game – an overtime thriller – against Salt Lake. Good luck to both teams, and please stay healthy. In a normal year that might refer to a pitcher’s rotator-cuff or a point-guard’s ankle ligaments; but this year, of course… well, you know.

<Editor’s note: I am told by those who consider ice hockey a real sport that the Avalanche are doing pretty well too. But this fact hasn’t been independently verified yet. Stay tuned for details on your late local news at 11.>

Last but not least, my better half starts off in-person on-site elementary education in the DougCo School District this week. Story from the DP is here.  Welcome back kiddos, thank you teachers, and stay safe everybody!

 

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Bonus PG-13 Roxhikes content, here.

Sorry, folks – just couldn’t resist.

 

Local Round Up - 6-pack
The 6-pack abs may be ancient history but we been going topless in the wilderness forever.
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Consigliere

NEW YORK — (AP)  Robert Trump died last night at age 71.  The president visited him at a New York City hospital on Friday. White House officials said the president’s younger brother had become seriously ill recently.  A cause of death was not immediately released.

 

Donald Trump said in a statement: “It is with heavy heart I share that my wonderful brother, Robert, peacefully passed away tonight.  He was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed.  But we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.”

 

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Robert functioned as the Trump family “fixer.” When things needed quiet action behind the scenes, he was their go-to guy. For instance, when the family brought suit against the president’s niece Mary in an attempt to prevent publication of her tell-all memoir, it was Robert who led the legal charge. Known as “the nice Trump,” he was personality-wise the polar opposite of his more flamboyant older brother. And although it seems to have been scrubbed from later accounts, he was often referred to as a “consigliere.” This prompted me to look it up.  I had a sense of what this term means.  But I just wanted to be sure.

 

Definition of consigliere

A person who serves as an adviser or counselor to the leader of a criminal organization, i.e. “the consigliere of a Mafia family.”

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The word consigliere comes from Italian. It has been a part our language since the 17th century.  Originally referring to someone serving on a council in Italy, it currently is most commonly used to designate advisers to the Mafia.  This English usage first appeared in a 1963 document from a session of the U.S. Senate. It also generally refers to any trusted political or financial adviser.

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Thanks for the connotation confirmation, Merriam-Webster.
Consigliere Robert Trump
And RIP Robert Trump.
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Man’s Best Friend

Man’s best friend – or maybe not?  Ah well…

 

Man's Best Friend

 

Everybody who feels, this way, please raise your hand.

Oh, no, wait… raise a paw?

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All in a Days Work

August is typically the month for summer vacations. Inevitably, that means returning to work too. Well, as long as you’re still employed, that is. Here are some NYer cartoons collected under the rubric of “All in a Days Work.”  They’re for everyone hard at work – or those who wish they were.

 

All in a Days Work - Piling up
“Work really piled up while I was gone.”

 

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For those still working from home:

All in a Days Work - sowing disinformation
“Later son – right now Daddy is busy sowing disinformation.”

 

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When day is done comes time for the ultimate performance appraisal:

 

All in a Days Work - Performance appraisal.
“And, if you can’t answer my prayers, I’d still love some feedback. Thanks.”

 

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A couple more NYer cartoons from way back, here – enjoy.

Don’t bother to thank me.  It’s all in a days work.  🙂

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R-and-R

It’s summer and that means a lot of people are heading to the wilderness for some R-and-R.  Now comes this timely advice from the National Park Service people, who obviously have good information along with a well developed sense of humor:  “Please don’t run from bears or push your slower friends down in attempts to save yourself.⁣⁣”  For more timely tips, check out the link here.

 

R-and-R - bear
NPS / J. Ehrlenbach – Bear resting on a log thinking bear things at Katmai Nat’l Park & Preserve.

 

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⁣⁣
If you come upon a stationary bear, move away slowly and sideways.  This allows you to keep an eye on the bear and avoid tripping. Moving sideways is also non-threatening to bears. Do NOT run.  But if the bear follows, stop and hold your ground. Like dogs, they will chase fleeing animals. Do NOT climb a tree. Both grizzlies and black bears can climb trees.⁣⁣ Do NOT push down a slower friend – even if you think the friendship has run its course…
⁣⁣
Stay calm and remember that most bears do not want to attack you.  They usually just want to be left alone. Don’t we all? ⁣⁣Identify yourself by making noise so the bear knows you are a human and not a prey animal. To help the bear recognize you as a human, we recommend using your voice. Waving and showing off your opposable thumb means nothing to the bear. The bear may come closer or stand on its hind legs to get a better look or smell. A standing bear is usually curious, not threatening.⁣⁣
⁣⁣
P.S. We apologize to any “friends” brought on a hike as bait, or who were sacrificed to save the group. You will be missed.

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For everyone else?  Happy R and R!
See more NPS humor, here.
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Simply Sublime – “Walks Into a Bar” Jokes

Found this on FB:  Simply sublime.

Feel free to share shamelessly.

 

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar where it spends the evening watching the television getting drunk and smoking cigars.
• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.
• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.
• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.
• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”
• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.
• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

 

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.
• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, “Get out — we don’t serve your type.”
• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.
• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.
• A synonym strolls into a tavern.
• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar — fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.
• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.
• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.
• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.
• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.
• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.
• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.
• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

 

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.
• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.
• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.
• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony.
• An alliterative alligator named Alex walks into a bar and orders a pale ale by Anheuser-Busch.

And of course you’ve already seen this one, also simply sublime:

 

• An epidemiologist, an ICU doc, and a scientist walk into a bar during a pandemic….  No, sorry.  Just kidding:  Never. Gonna. Happen.

Simply Sublime

Cheers to the Simply Sublime!

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Nature versus Nurture

One favored design in psychological research is the trope of identical twins separated at birth and reared apart. The primary goal of such an impromptu genetics experiment is to tease apart the influence of nature versus nurture in human development.  In this setup, “nature” means inherited DNA: Identical twins always share 100% of their genome. Meanwhile, “nurture” refers to environmental influences of parents/caregivers/family.  In this case, “reared apart” means presumably zero overlap post partum. Simple, see?

Alas for the aspiring psych researcher, such occurrences are exceedingly rare and never perfectly realized in the real world. But hey, it beats running Norway rats through a maze, or sticking your firstborn inside a Skinner Box for the first couple years of infancy – right?

 

Nature versus Nurturein the rat lab
In my younger days with Rattus norvegicus at Allee Lab of Animal Behavior, Univ. of Chicago.

 

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I recently finished reading two memoirs written by two brothers: Geoffrey and Tobias Wolff. Although not twins, these brothers were separated – by divorce – early in life. They spent their childhood years at opposite ends of the country under very different socio-economic circumstances. Almost like a psych experiment? Well… maybe.

The elder brother (“Jeff”) grew up relatively privileged in New England with his father. After high school Jeff went to Princeton. The younger brother (“Toby”) lived a more hard-scrabble life with his working mom on the West Coast. After high school, Toby joined the Army and served in Vietnam.

As fate would have it, both brothers ended up becoming authors.  And both wrote memoirs of their early years. The elder brother’s was called “The Duke of Deception.” The title is a reference to their father’s checkered career as a con artist and perpetual ne’er-do-well. Yet that very character flaw – inherited by both sons, btw – didn’t prevent Pere Wolff from living the high life as an aeronautical engineer in the heyday of 1950’s Cold War military-industrial-complex America.

 

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For my money, though, the better writer of the two turns out to be the younger son. His memoir is titled “This Boy’s Life.” It follows a mother and her son on their journey from Sarasota, though Salt Lake, and finally to Seattle. The mom tries to make ends meet on a secretary’s salary. Meanwhile Toby tries to figure out his tenuous place in the world with various abusive stand-ins for his absent biological father.

It’s fascinating to follow the life paths of these two boys, especially when those paths finally cross again near the end. I won’t spoil it for you with a big reveal. But suffice it to say, it’s positively uncanny to hear their convergent accounts of identical events after two young lives spent mostly apart.

Nature versus Nurture? You be the judge. But as for finely-spun fiction, I’ll recommend Toby’s novel “The Barracks Thief” and his short story “Bullet in the Brain” – one of my all-time favorites – in preference to anything his older brother wrote. Then again, as a youngest son, maybe I’m biased? Could be, could be…. After all, come what may genetically speaking, we youngest siblings have to stick together.

 

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A really fine archival account called “The Brothers Wolff” (from way back in 1989) is here if you’re interested.  Read it and save yourself reading two memoirs:  Just sayin’.