Today is August the 14th, 2008. In response to the package that you sent to me and its accompanying note: Spry?! my ass. My workday efforts—rarely more than three hours at any one session—proceed at a pace that would just drive any younger, or more-motivated, person nutttzz for the slowness of my approach to most all work type effort that I chose to involve myself in. Due, of course, in part, at least, to my having aged enough to just move slower; but also, and very much relative to this slow paced outlay of energy being something that I have consciously decided to chose, as what I believe, for me, to be a 'reasonable' pace. Much also has been taught to me by myself's many experienced Murphy's Law type moments-of-whoops! This body-of-experience has made itself perfectly clear that: In addition to moderation, a very careful and habitual caution seemed and seems in order for this Adam guy, who inhabits my body and brain, to have any chance at continuing survival, let alone successful pursuits-of-'happiness.' This could also be why I have been making mention of grace now and again in my letters. Now: As to spry?: Well, a snail's pace kind of spry; but thanks for the complimentary salutation in your most recent letter. While I am typing here, I am semi-consciously concurrently deleting almost every other word in that desirous form: Brevity. But, you know me, I just run off and run off, and sometimes even run on . . .
Spry? Well, for the past six weeks, solid, I have gone into the steep woods and climbed steep hillsides and put the chainsaw into the sides of the butt of seven Madrone trees, one Oak, and eight Douglas firs trees until they fell over—two of those firs were blowdowns, so I did not have fall them. But, as with each and every one of those trees, I had to then slither downslope while sawing limbs off and climb back up with choker and cable to pull the trunks to the road with my truc; and to finish sawing off the branches and the top, and gather and throw the brushy mess over the side of the road. And throw the wood I had sawed up and into the truck, and if I hadn't just sawed the logs up into (fifteen inch) rounds there, tow the log sections the quarter mile along the hillside up behind me and then down the four-hundred steep slope of the road to the barn. Unfastened the tow rigging, and get the logs out of my way for backing back out of the barn's front yard, and unload the stuff I had already sawed up and stack it out the (truck's) way. Six solid weeks of this continuing ethos and saga of moving and handling and rendering firewood-resource into busnable-sized. Which brings me to mind of my curiosity to know whether this remote cabin's solar set up will also cover the upcoming cooler seasons' heating needs? If this is not the case, then let me suggest that: If you can secure the firewood permits locally, there, then might I offer my saws, splitter, mauls, and truck for your service in at least—at such a late time in the firewood-gathering season—getting your new set up supplied with some reasonable piles of firewood next to the cabin. This appeals to me as the quintessential busman's holiday; in my particular case, anyway. I have the whole nine yards of settup, rigging, tow line(s), hardware, saws—two of them, both in excellent working/running condition—plenty of maul heads and handles; and even the overkiller: Gas powered, trailerable wood splitting machine that has “Twenty-one tons” printed on its side—definitely rather total overkill; as is the three-ton chain come-a-long, and the “7&1/2 ton” (eight-inch-diameter pulley) snatch block that is sooooh beautiful for using to pull log sections that are not in line with the truck's limited direction-of-point, drive, and pull in most off-road situations.
Spry? I am soooooh (feeling) worn out and otherwise exhausted just now, after the six weeks of woods-working-in, that spry is about the last thing I believe about myself. But, yes, I still got gumption, anyway; it just goes slower than I know a lot of folks just haven't the patience for. It isone great relief to have survived all the manner of direct threat that falling and otherwise pulling and pushing on many many tons of trees entails. I face forward to another few weeks' worth of finishing up the splitting of and stacking under shelter of the split woods rendered before I can really cool off on the firewood-rendering and storing deatil, and gear up on learning dobro.
I have decided to shine on attending my highschool's Class of '58's fiftieth anniversary reunion, as I had previously indicated to you. This, then, frees up my time just right about at or near when you said in your letter that you were moving to a cob cabin 14 miles southeast of Ashland up in the hills. Just how high will be that elevation? The higher you get: the colder the winters . . .
Why should I move to Ashland, or any other where for that matter? I'm sure that you must be aware of what-all that would entail; or do you, are you? How in heck am I going to survive if I have to be paying rent and utilities bills? You know I pay neither here; nor garbage, sewer, electricity bills either.
Yeah: To live in such a refined social and intellectual enviroment could be some sort of boon, or another, but I cannot 'afford' such a high cost-of-living situation as most all of urban American cities so sadly suffer through on my six-hundred bucks-a-month Social Security check, that the administration just keeps cheating upon with their annual recalculation of the annual cost-of-living increase in the social security check's amount. Is it possible that a combining of these retirement incomes might be what could secure a place in suburbia. Is that what you are thinking? Does this possibly involve your mom and grampa? Hmmm . . . I can't believe that such a thing would or could be a good thing for me. But maybe I dunno—I don't even know what you know, or others may think they know, or also know . . . I know: I'm just fishing. Ashland? Smashland, not to mention Methford . . . I protest my happicamperitis as being still my guiding light of lights. I do not feel any senses of overwhelming compulsion to go get all toxified again, nor go hob nobbing with bunches of other people. I am content in my levels-of-understanding and associated philosophies underlying them; they 'serve' my own particular and peculiar (senses of) needs well enough for all that I must confront. What I have done with my live through the years is to have thrown out tons and tons of stuff I recognized as superfluous to my natural desires, affinities, drive, curiosities, and sense-of-spirit. You've got to try to imagine the genuine and substantial compromises that I would have to decide it was worth living with, were such a move to happen. Justify such a move to me, if you can. Plead with me, assure me that this is the 'right' thing for me, now, at sixty-eight and counting. I know that you, and you alone, of all people, can be persuasive—have an persuasive effect upon who I am or decide to be or do or think—as to behave? Well, that is another story, yes? Sure.
It's going to take me a while to 'come down' off of this decade-long trip I've been on, here. I do know that my mind still gets itself redirected, now and then, and again, so, who knows? What the hell? Maybe I don't know shit. This is a very real possibility when you have become who I seem to have, sometimes. And then, other times, I do other stuff, or think other stuff. Learning to believe other stuff looks to be a far more difficult thing to pull off or let transpire. My gramma tried to put me under a hypnotic spell when I was fourteen years old and I just could not 'go under'; it just isn't 'in' me. A sense-of-realism, or what is real, and I mean really real and not just some contrived B.S.--A sense-of-what-is-real, or maybe more appropriately: vital-to-the-furthering-of-one's-continuing-survival, and etcetera. I 'cotton' this sense to what must have been more in the mainstream of American societies' thinkings and rationalizings in the time when 94% of americans lived rurally, remotely, and had to come up with self-reliant ways of getting everything that needed to be done every year, done every year. I keep thinking: 'Horse sense.' Common sense, too. And plain old animal sense, as well. Thinking along these lines, I find little in the or from the outside world, out there, to tantalize my fancy or imagination to deciding that I just must have this or that or go somewhere and or be somebody. All of that has gone out the windows of my opportunistic thinking and wildly gyrating boinger in general. None of that 21rst century world of glitz, baubbles, and whoooosh has any effect upon my base personnae; besides the sadnesses, angers, and frustrations I feel, privately, to understand how sorry it is.
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