An imperturbable demeanor comes from perfect patience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, but go on in fortune and misfortune at their own private pace like a clock during a thunderstorm.—Robert Louis Stevenson
My mother said those words to me hundreds or thousands, or perhaps only a few dozen times. They were the words that stuck, the instruction that carried over into my dreams where I routinely switch characters. I might be me for a while, but then the other person. I consider how the other person feels. This hasn’t always meant I was as kind or considerate as my mother intended. It did mean that I sometimes see another’s side so clearly that I feel what they feel. That is what I like to think she hoped for.
Oystercatchers make a sound like a squeaky toy. We know this pair at Hug Point very well, and have watched them successfully raise their babies. The black oystercatcher (Haematopus bachmani) doesn’t eat oysters in our area because we have none locally. According to Wikipedia, “It forages in the intertidal zone, feeding on marine invertebrates, particularly molluscs such as mussels, limpets and chitons, but also on crabs, isopods and barnacles.” You can see barnacles and mussels in the photo. What you can’t see in this photo, taken predawn, is the oystercatchers’ red beaks, reddish legs, and bright eyes in dark gold and red-rimmed like enamel on copper.Continue reading →
Be aware, I’m going to write about firearms. It’s going to take a while, but I’ll get to it.
A tax code revision allows some teachers to deduct some [more] of their school supply purchases. In response, an engineer announced: “When I was a kid, we were responsible for our own school supplies and if you didn’t bring them to school, you did not participate in the activities.”
When I was a kid, learning disabled kids were left out of school entirely, and even then the wealthy sent their children to absurdly expensive private schools, most people could afford to live a one person’s salary, Russia’s Soviet Union was the ultimate enemy (okay, that hasn’t changed much), and we hadn’t put a man on the moon. Oh! And teachers could deduct everything, EVERYTHING! including travel, because travel is educational. Teachers were treated with respect, and though their pay was poor, the working conditions were better and the perks were substantial, and they were never sued. Most were overqualified first-generation college grads thanks to the GI bill or women with few employment options. Times change.
I took this photo thirteen years ago. Since then, the elk have gotten out of hand. A bull visits the local garden apple trees and then rubs his velvety antler on the Fatsia japonica across the street. There’s been a bull around since a town north of us (Gearhart) shot around eighty of them they considered a nuisance. There isn’t necessarily a connection between the shooting of all those cows and the wandering bulls (several) we have seen since. Just sayin’ this didn’t happen when I was a kid.Continue reading →
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