Norma's Wanderings around a small section of Montana |
Dec 6. Marooned Without a Compass Day! So where are you and what are you going to do? Look for the sun. It rises in the east and sets in the west. So if you can find it, then you’ll know where you are headed. Follow that river, it usually leads to a town, since most towns settled by water. And by a river, especially in the west, trees often grow. If you are high, go lower. And if you are low, go higher. Then as I thought of a compass, there is no moral compass these days. The sky is the limit. But there are rules, folks. There always have been rules. Ever since creation there have been rules. And what about those in the world now with no moral compass? Seems like a lot of people think they can do whatever they want, no worries about consequences. Which once again takes us back to rules. Rules are here for our protection. Without them, the world would spin off into chaos. The planets have orbits, they spin in those orbits. Rules. We have gravity to keep us on our planet. Rules. We have traffic laws to keep us in our lane. Rules. We aren’t allowed to murder each other. Rules. You shouldn’t be allowed to do whatever you want. There are reasons for not murdering someone just because the person is a different color or looks at you weird or cuts you off in traffic. There are reasons you shouldn’t drive on the wrong side of the road or pass on a curve or on a hill. Where would we be as a society if everyone disobeyed the rules? Chaos and confusion. But soon there would be someone to calm the mob, take charge, tell us to buck up and work together and defeat the enemy among us. Whoops, sounds a little like some of the evil rulers we’ve seen in the recent past. Right now we have an evil ruler among us. But this ruler is not someone we can see. It is a vile little biological ruler. One that can take down a human without blinking an eye. It doesn’t care what color you are, where you live, how much money you have, or how old you are. It does not play by the rules we all hold dear. It is threatening to topple countries and pit neighbor against neighbor. So until we have the magic bullet to send this dictator away, we need to follow the rules. Well, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. |
Dec 5. Bonfire Night! Tell us about an evening around a bonfire. I don’t think I ever had an evening around a bonfire. But if I could, I would want it to be a nice one. One with hot dogs on sticks, s’mores, cowboy coffee and lots of dry wood that would crackle and send sparks into the inky black night. You would sit and roast your front like the hot dogs then have to turn and roast your rear for a time. The fire would burn down into some nice coals and then you could take out the potatoes you put into the fire about an hour ago. They should be done by now. I got to thinking of another kind of bonfire - book burning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_burning And what about the book ‘Fahrenheit 451’? The title is the temperature at which paper catches fire and burns. The main character, Guy Montag, is a fireman. He burns books. "The Fireman”, the original idea for ‘Fahrenheit 451’, was written in the basement of UCLA's Powell Library on a typewriter that Ray Bradbury rented for a fee of ten cents per half hour. The first draft was 25,000 words long and was completed in nine days. So no more excuses folks! If Bradbury can write a story as good as that on a rented typewriter in a library, and pay by the hour, and do it in nine days, get off your tush! You have a computer, you have a pen and paper at least. Write On! Queen Norma Jean |