conversations by the firelight

part 4

May was mild with cold nights but warm days ever so welcome. The hillsides and valleys were a profusion of color; goosefoot violet, yellow fritillary, ball head waterleaf, mountain kittentails, Payette beardtongue, and dwarf monkeyflower among others. The three of us, Beggar the dog, Electra the horse, and me, the weird wacky old man of the mountain were surely happy to be reunited. My little cabin was no worse for the wear but with some needed repairs to be sure. Ah the mountain! It welcomed me with open arms. You folks living in your busy ant hills, rarely lookin’ up with eyes fixed on your screens, gadget prisons, enjoying your latte’s and lotteries, Lexus and luxuries will never know the noble truth about existence.

Totally consumed with your image; new car, new home, and the whole ding dong, wing ding mock lampoonery, bright red lipstick on a pig, your world quickly becoming a synthetic version of itself. Sleep in your bed of satin sheets and try to hide the evidence of the boots under the bed. Whose Boots? YOURS! And the bed you made is what you sleep in. Heaven doesn’t hear complaints but readily receives genuine prayers of repentance. That’s when you accept your correction willingly without complaint. Yesterday is gone forever. Only the memory and consequences remain. Sometimes your backtrail is more important than your front. And remember, if you lie down with the dogs, you’re gunna get up with fleas.

The mystic pendulum is swinging for the whole world, 23 and Me. ‘You gotta watch out fer it might backside ya’ I said. Anyhow’s ain’t gunna change the name though its 2024 or close enough. Found someone stole our moniker and usin’ it to suck you down another rabbit hole. Now 23 was depressed with the hive mind and collective conformity he was experiencing everywhere in Disunited States. ’Gotta stop watchin’ folks’ I said, ‘not lookin’ for commendation or someone who agrees with ya. Ain’t never gunna find a pearl in a bag of peanuts. Better to be alone and solitary than married to the mob. Sides, most folks can find someone to agree with them about most anything if they look hard enough. Don’t make it right’.

Sittin’ about the fire kinda somber like, I told him about sum neighbor twins I had once upon a time. Their names were Halweird and Hurdleona Hochensnit. Not only were their names unique, Halweird had such a severe overbite he could scratch the back of his neck with his front teeth, and he could shuck and strip ears of corn faster than green grass through a goose. The kernels were gathered in a bowl, rinsed and canned, sold to market quicker than Halweird could get the strings out of his teeth. Yes sir folks really loved their creamed corn. Not to be left out Hurdleona was so cross-eyed she could sit on the front porch and count all the chickens in the back yard. Sit her in a pasture you could, and she would herd all the animals while posturing herself in any one direction. Didn’t need a dog.

Anyhow’s that lightened the mood as we roasted pieces of fresh elk over the fire and enjoyed sum barley brew. This time 23 had come prepared to stay so we laid out under heaven’s handiwork a tapestry woven with starry delights. Talked about his family, work, and in general about the life he was compelled to live. ‘I appreciate all the conveniences of this modern world’ he said, ‘but yours was lived so much simpler, so much purer. And you found satisfaction and happiness with so little. I ceased to be amazed of how you endured and embraced hardship and the riggers of living, tightening your belt and doin’ it all, all over again. Having someone to share it with was the feather in the floppy old hat of a simple man’.

Turning to me he said, ‘I envy you and everyone who truly lived life everyday to its fullest’, not like the masses and their mad dash to serfdom and oblivion, their heads in a cyber cloud living for leisure, time off and the weekend with a new distraction to pursue. They will agree there are problems but live like there is no tomorrow, living life in the broad river of de-nial doing little preparation for the event horizon like good men have always done’. ‘Yep, well said my friend. You can equip a man with all the knowledge and tools he needs, but you cain’t make him think’!

Next morning we drank some hot brown gargle strong enough to float a horseshoe, just the way I like it. 23 coughed as liquid was ejected from his teeth and out of his mouth like a bullet . ‘Like it’? I said, with a big grin. ‘Oh yah’ he said, eyes watering and wiping his chin. ‘Just have to add a slight indulgence’ as he added an equal amount of French vanilla coffee creamer to his cup of ‘joe’.

‘Don’t listen to the multitude of voices each with their own intention in mind wanting to fleece and control you, propagandizing their lies as truth, to hell with the nether parts and the neighborhood. You don’t have to be the patsy in their game of pawns’, I spoke. ‘Good men throughout our history and the worlds that preceded us have drawn the line in the sand, some to death, all to immortal glory. Dare to be different. Your cause is not unique but virtually unparalleled in this present world’. ‘I salute you I said, you were sent to me because you had a teachable spirit and the heart of a warrior’. Sighing he said, ‘there is the burden of knowledge, a candlelight piercing the darkness, and so many failures and failed chances. I’ve made so many mistakes’. ‘Only dead men have no regrets’ I said, ‘and you cain’t git past time back’. Seek and accept continually the forgiveness that is offered and remember we is imperfect beings, spirits on a human journey.

Now I knows much of what I share is about as popular as head lice in a hat shop. Figured this weren’t no popularity contest any no how. Now iffin’s it was a beauty contest I’d measure up…Ah Pishaw!!! But I can still stop on a dime and leave nine cents change. And while men cannot recount a sequence of events without adding sum of thar own laundry, reckon that could be said about me too, just know my undies is clean. I still have more sap than a Birch tree or Maple, my eyes grey and cool like something stolen from a Dakota winter. If you are the rare soul readin’ this I hope you will read the three that came before. Though they are written sequentially they can stand alone. Cause it’s for you that the good folks at Wings makes this available…..

Now to borrow a phrase sang by Willie and used in the present tense……..’you are always on my mind, always on my mind’

Beggar, Electra, and Me and my RC

P.S. Willie’s been around so long I think I remember him entertainin’ at the Long Branch in Dodge City, Kansas just after the war with Miss Kitty, Doc, Marshall Dillon. and Chester justa keepin’ time…….He looked old even back then!