I'm happy to report that this dog is cool:
I also am happy to report that some famous young actor that I never heard of until today, James Franco, is making a film adaptation of my all-time favorite novel, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. Good luck dude. You're really throwing yourself out there. Don't screw it up.
Randy Morgenson, the back country ranger in The Last Season, threw himself out there, too. I won't ruin the book for those of you who might have the inclination to read the stupid shit I read. Suffice it to say that as the SuperDuperPoopsieDog and RogeyRoo were stomping with me up that little creek behind that place in Hinckley, I kinda got what the book was all about: Rogue, Supai and I all stepped through the ice at one point or another, and we only "fell" a couple of inches into the cold water. I've read two accounts now of people who were hiking in the Western mountains who fell through snow bridges into creeks and found themselves in true hurt lockers*. We live in a different world in the Midwest, that's for sure. But there's only a difference in dimension when we get to a place where the sounds of the interstate are replaced by the breeze blowing through a stand of pine trees, and we come up to that three foot waterfall that changes every time we see it and that's all we need, and the sound of a winter bird makes us stop and listen for a moment, and the dogs stop, too, and wonder what's up. We get to see our rock, the rock that everybody has and needs when the asinine world accuses us of being asinine:
Yes, I was accused of being asinine today. It hurt my feeling. Fortunately, I only have one feeling**, so it really wasn't that bad. But who knows? We all might be genuinely asinine, those of us who live like we do. Nobody can really know for certain. The point is that it's good to be able to go out into the "back country" now and then, even if it's only in our own backyard. Stomping in the woods with a couple of dawggies on a snowy evening helps.
(I've been accused of being asinine before: an asinine judge who thought I was being asinine about two speeding tickets I had accrued in one week when i was was in college and driving a Volkswagon Bug that ran on three cylinders and had "Panasonic Thrusters" stereo speakers sitting on the backseat and these screwy little bumpers bars purchased from J.C. Whiteney . What an asshole he was : )
There's a passage in The Last Season where one of the people notices how careless she is being while walking through some sketchy terrain because her mind is weighed down with trouble (The Trampled By Turtles kind). She slips and cuts her kneee and then berates herself for being so careless but then realizes how distracted she had become. I had one of those walks today, and it was like somebody had invaded my privacy, my space, and it was more offensive than the original insult. Damn people who interrupt my walks at the creek in Hinckley! You suuuuck!!!
Ok, I'm over it.
I'm over it mostly because the SuperDog got off the leash today. I know, I know: she was "fixed" on Monday and I already took her on a walk off the leash???!!! Maybe I'm asinine, but damn did she have fun. I kept a close eye on her and I had a leash handy, but she seemed fine and ready to roll after being cooped up all week. Then she took a shit in the woods. There nothing like shitting in the woods:
Then motored down a gully and back up to Pops:
It's like that, I guess: sometimes we have to stand seven feet tall (as the guy in The Last Season says) but then if we deal with it, we get to take a good old healthy dump in the woods after being cooped up all week long (the time I crapped myself at Mt. Baldy, not withstanding. That was not a good thing. Please don't ask my lovely wife Artemis about it. She likes to tell people the story for some strange reason.)
Speaking of getting out there, tomorrow I'm heading to WWWV, and the Younger Son and I are going to have a little adventure. Two years ago, I decided to find one of the most famous "secret" swimming holes in WV: Blue Hole by driving my Nissan Altima Four Door Sedan down the only "country road" that leads into the Cheat Canyon. Let's just say that I had once again brought a butter knife to a sword fight . Let's also say that John Denver is full of shit, as asinine as Loyd Christmas, if he thought he was ever gonna make it home by yesterday by driving one of those rocky, cantankerous, abusive, spectacular....."roads" they call country roads in WV. That "road" leads to a cool old steel bridge about 100 feet above the Cheat. Last summer the Younger Son and I witnessed true college hijinx by watching drunken, asinine Billy Joes jump off that bridge to their certain inexorable doom. Everybody lived. Tired of that, we decided to find the real Blue Hole and scrambled to a place that is exactly what they call "almost heaven." The real Blue Hole is a pool created by the final rapid of the Big Sandy, and apparently as evidenced by the drunken college girl in a bikini we stared at, one can float in a raft and be swirled gently around that pool into infinity - or until the beer runs out. The place has been defiled for decades by the college kids, but who can truly blame a kid who decides to go to WVU - call them asinine for having to put up with all the WV hillbilly jokes, but they have a sense of adventure that is tough to find in a kid who goes to Ohio State or MSU or Cuyahoga Community College). A most spectacular place, Blue Hole.
Long story short:
The Game Plan tomorrow is to ride the access vehicles down Bull Run Road to the bridge then find the two track that allegedly goes along the Cheat River. This may or may not lead to success. However, we are bringing the Christmas present that the Elder Son (a.k.a. A Duey Pyle, the one who sings bluegrass) gave to the Younger Son, so I'm sure we're gonna have a good time one way or another.
Wish us luck.
On second thought, wish ME luck: I'm winter camping on Chestnut Ridge and will probably freeze my chestnuts off. At least I won't have to deal with that couple who was scrogging in that tent up the hillside a few summers ago. Then again, it is WWWby godV, so you just never know.
* Credit for that line goes to My Old Man Stu, who has uttered many a memorable phrase in his life
** Credit for that one goes to Rob, who could shoot your chestnuts off at a hundred paces, if he were so inclined
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