AMERICAN LETTERS FROM THERE

 

My American letters began sixty-eight years ago.

But that wasn’t nearly old enough.

So I pulled a college history degree, American History with an emphasis in NW History including seminars on the Origins of WWI, and post-WWII Germany.

Was I intrigued, or just taking classes that fit my time frame?

Both. And it still wasn’t enough. So . . . ?

Dinosaurs and petrified wood.

 

I can now say I understand how petrified wood happens, with the help of the National Park Service and driving The Loop.

Aside from areas and pull-outs over what looked too much like open-pit mining, there was a region cut into the earth with a familiar knife: Water.

Like the mighty Columbia River carving through the Cascade mountain range, an ancient river over 218 million years ago shaped the land of the petrified forest.

From trees falling, getting buried in silt, then more trees and more silt until it’s packed tight, the compression builds.

And now, 218 years later, we can see what logs look like when they’ve been buried so long and saturated by silica-rich ground water.

Spoiler: They look like logs.

 

Best American Letters Long Form

 

I’m just parking lot cruising

My dog on a leash and waiting and waiting some more

Talking about my NASA missile

My NASCAR rumble with electric cars at the door

I’m a freedom fighter who hurt his hand

out in the field all alone

In no time I’ll be getting back out

Sending the bad guys home

 

Too Available?

 

American letters are available to anyone with the notion of showing and telling and painting and carving and playing the things they see and hear.

Along with everything else. We’re not talking hermit.

American letters from the field:

“You possess an incredible voice for opera. Come back in twenty years when it has matured.”

“Lose six more pounds and three seconds off your personal best and you may be a track-man.”

“Momma said there’d be days like this, there’d be days like this my Momma said.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? You wanna tell me, or what?

 

That’s The Problem

 

The opera singer will bury that dream on the upper westside of New York City and move closer to family and nurture their dreams.

That’s when you’ll hear things like, “Why is Aunt Diedra so mean to us? We can’t all be opera singers.

“Don’t tell her. I think I’m going deaf. She’s so loud.”

 

The track man loses the weight and trims those seconds and drops to the floor unconscious where he was lucky to be found.

After that track leadership took a different direction.

The track man left with a good education and what it means to take it to the limit.

One more time.

 

For a reminder, every day isn’t one that your momma said anything about.

If she did, consider it a silent blessing, not a news item like: “I remember my mother said there’d be days like this.”

No matter the day, it’s not that day, but it is a silent blessing day.

Sounding pretty good out there.

 

Finally, which is never final but still fun to say, we look for context to understand things.

This is like this, which is sort of like that, so this is like that.

Why is ‘the good life’ called walking the ‘straight and narrow?’ Or ‘getting back on the straight and narrow?’

Because people like to judge.

Drink a beer and you’re a drunk.

Get a speeding ticket and you’re a mass murderer.

Is the good life determined by how you answer on a polygraph?

“Is boomerpdx the best independent, fragmented, eclectic blogger you’ve recently read?”

Leave answers in comments.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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