Monday, March 26, 2007

Lee Side of the Mountain

Wandering through Colorado Springs on the lee side of the Rockies, I'm lefting wondering if I've seen purely indigenous habitants or simply universal variants:

1. At the Colorado City Goodwill Store (which stores, by the way, always imbue me with a renewed sense of pride in being able to have other people dispose of my junk), I stood in line behind a young, slightly counter-culture couple (very early twenties), both of whom were buying boots, his a pair of well worn cowboy boots that he immediately donned upon exiting the building. What caught my attention was the duct tape wallet protruding from his back pocket. Clever that, I thought. Looks like he made it from duct tape. Then I observed that they were driving an ancient Toyota hatchback whose tailgate had been generously shoved forward several inches by a rear-end collision. Holding the tailgate to the chassis and the glass to the tailgate was a more than generous supply of, yes, of course--duct tape. Clever that.

2. The most gorgeous, lustrous, thick, wild, celtic-esque mane of blonde streaked with pottery red that I have ever seen caught my eye several yards down the block. Long, down to mid-back and encasing the head in a wavy helmet of hirsute wonder. Walking toward the seated person from behind, I wondered how any woman could possibly maintain this riot of a hairdo without a fulltime assistant and a bucket truck--until the gentleman stood up and turned towards me, and I realized that I was perhaps looking at the last surviving, honest-to-Haight Ashbury hippie that never made it over the mountain for the '67 summer of love. And I wonder if he's spent the last forty years thinking of what might have been.

3. A U-haul moment: a VW bug with a class II trailer hitch (that's for 3500 lbs. of gross weight with a 350 lbs. tongue weight). He could haul (or try to haul) ten sumo wrestlers up the mountain, one of whom was standing on the rear bumper. Whatever he's towing, I just want to be way ahead of him or way behind him going down the mountain.

4. Friendly gnosticism shared freely via bumper sticker: "We are not physical beings having a spiritual experince. We are spiritual beings have a physical experience."

5. Mr. bike-riding, skin-cancered, bathing-challenged, spray-bottle-toting, $90-a-month-disability-check homeless man who offered to clean my windshield for a dollar, and asked with such resigned politeness and amiability that I couldn't say no. He remembered the name of a band from Detroit when I mentioned I was from Michigan. I had never heard of them, and he remarked wistfully, "You don't hear much about them anymore, I don't know why." He took his time and did the job right, accepted some money, and thanked me most sincerely, looking back with a smile when I said, "You take care of yourself."

Sunday, March 25, 2007


Rocky Mountian Hi

Sitting in the eastern shadow of Pike's Peak today, blue-sky, puffy-cloud Colorado mountains' majesty surrounding me. Just wondering. . . .

Do you have to be evangelical to eat at Panera Bread on Sundays for lunch? Seems like most of the crowd is. And they're not much into laptops.

Had a wonderful evening interlude with a blonde Belgium on Saturday. Smooth, silky, easy on the eyes and easy to like. In fact, easy to want to know better. Doug, you are so right in so many ways. Jesse, I have come to the West and been converted.

If I go down to Old Colorado City, can I avoid the the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory? Why is the flesh always willing but the spirit weak?

Towering over me to the north is Ft. Dobson, the faux Colonial brick fortress compound of Focus on the Family, not to be confused with Focus on Republicans. I read once that it is a major area tourist attraction. Just wondering: will Dobson's demise elicit a "final resting place" furor similar to that engulfing poor Billy Graham? If you've not heard of Franklin's plan for a gauche Disneyesque burial site, visit http://www.religionnewsblog.com/16819/billy-grahams-sons-in-feud-over-parents-burial-site. The barn pictured above begins the visit to the memorial site with a talking cow. Really.

Perception-reality collison? In Blue Like Jazz, author Donald Miller wrote: “At the end of each month I would start biting my nails, wondering what account owed me money or whether or not I would pick up any writing assignments. There’s not a lot of work in the Christian market if you won’t write self-righteous, conservative propaganda. I write new-realism essays. I am not a commodity.” Of course not. That's why his Thomas Nelson bestseller now has more than 775,000 copies in print, and he is the "not angry, just ironical" young man of religious literature.

My collorary to Acton's Law: Being a commodity tends to corrupt and being a very popular commodity corrupts completely. Good luck, Don, but I wonder if the pendulum of self-righteousness doesn't swing both ways. You've made it this far--so far, so good.

OK, the natives are showing up now. Time to go look at the mountains.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

From All Under and Over

Sailor Man surfaced in Honolulu long enough for the boat to dump the Seal Team mini-sub shelter on its deck and go back to being a "real submarine." Why? Because there are only, like, two of these things in the whole Navy and another sub needs to "borrow" it. Either that or AJ traded it for several cases of beer and nacho chips. This week they go back to sea for three weeks, under water like a "real submarine." Wait--isn't that what "submarines" do, really?

A new slogan for Brit Land--"England, a Robin Hood theme park every day!" Really, it's a little intimidating, visiting places where they qualify their statements by saying, "Of course, this part of the building only dates from the early 1400s." Granted, it's not Egypt, where the pyramids were already ancient a thousand years before that. But still fairly cool.

Saturday there's a travel show at our house--come over if you'd like to see the 262 digital shots we took. Or say to yourself, "Thank God we don't live close enough to go!"

And, for the mildly-to-seriously interested, Dman is now, by mutual agreement, one-half of a formal couple. She is a fan of Riesling and "The Office," which, I believe, are a good combination. Hopefully, fans of "Hope for Living" will not be crushed by the news that Depressed Man has retired from show biz.

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Merry Olde England

J$ and I are on the hunt for the elusive roots of the Jolli, Jolly, Joyliff, Jolliffe, or Jolliff family roots, no matter how its spelled.

Today we drove from the midlands to the Welsh border to visit Hay-On-Wye, a border town fought over by the Welsh and English for centuries until an enterprising resident turned it into the used book capital of the world--over 30 book shoppes along with antique and craft shoppes. Then a four-hour drive back across the midlands, highlighted by a wrong turn that took us up over the highest mountain in sight where we saw a working rock quarry and a highland commons where sheep had free-range of the road.

Tonight we are in Leek, the hotbed of Jolliff history. Tomorrow the vicar is letting us into the tower of St. Edward Anglican church to track down a plaque from the 1600s.

As for the driving, Densmark leads J$ in curbs struck by the front left tire and the number of times the wipers were engaged rather than the turn signals (they're reversed for right-hand drive). But we've both managed to stay on the left. We've even decided to vote Labor in '08.