Here’s the deal. We still have Brenda’s grandfather’s farm
in north Lonoke County. It comprises 120 acres, of which maybe two thirds are cleared
pasture.
Now consider the situation and make a couple of guesses.
Who gets to mow it each year?
Why is it particularly grassy and overgrown this year?
Right on both counts.
I go out each day that I’m not busy actually earning money
for working and try to mow for two to four hours. My IOT, i.e. “instrument of
torture” is a 1960 John Deere 60 HP tractor held together with bailing twine,
bubble gum, and a bobby pin. No, wait, that’s Brenda’s smaller tractor that’s
held together with a bobby pin. I’ve tried to get her to let me replace it with
an actual cotter pin, but her explanation? “It’s worked just fine with a bobby
pin for two years, so shut up.” (Apologies to Ring Lardner.)
Anyhow, back to my original point … let’s see … what was it?
Oh yes, it had something to do with thinking, and mowing. Yes, quite right.
Sometimes, when I’ve cleared the edges by the forests, and
the grass left is in a nice, semi-rectangle, the tractor nearly drives itself,
and I think.
Oh, I don’t think of how we seem to becoming a nation fueled
by hatred. I don’t think of how a group of madmen seem to be pulling the
strings of America. I don’t think about how racial prejudice seems to be the prime
moving force of politics today.
Hell no. I think of movie scripts. Yeah, movie scripts. Like
yesterday.
During lunch break, I watched a bit of one of those 1950
science fiction films about how a major disruption to the earth’s crust had
unloosed a terrible insect monster. You know, the kind in which the denouement
always begins with, “It just might work.”
Naturally, as I mowed a large piece, I wrote a movie script
in my mind.
It’s in the future, see. A group of forward-thinking women had
taken over the country, educated women who believed in linear thinking, kindness,
contemplation, and the ability of government to be a positive force in the
lives of all. Together, they had moved men into inferior position without
power. Their main job was to follow orders and remain silent. It worked like
magic.
They had brought about an end to the escalation of global warming.
They were beginning, with the help of their sisters around
the globe, to balance the demands of food production with population control.
They had replaced the cruel teachings of the old religion
with one that blessed the least privileged of society.
The had eliminated war as a solution to religious problems
by institution a universal requirement for public service.
They had formed an efficient working relationship between
government and free enterprise.
We felt good about ourselves. Poverty was disappearing,
replaced by goodness and concern.
Then it happened.
The San Andreas Fault showed its ass. Big time. It showed its
ass all “ …down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico.” The state of
Mississippi disappeared under a sheet of brown, roiling water. The state of
Alabama split into.
Then the trouble started. There, from the pits below Alabama,
as from the pits of hell, wild creatures flowed out, hell bent on making up for
eons of bondage. These creatures, part human-like and part furry, four-legged
monsters, exhibited a ferocious appetite for all things good and wholesome.
Food began disappearing. Shortages appeared in all goods
that had made the nation prosperous. Neighbors fought one another for scarce
resources. Some began joining bands of the recently released monsters, forming
great packs that controlled areas of the country where the population was most
in need of enlightened administration.
Leaders arose who directed the human-monster packs. These
leaders promised all resources to their followers. They chose groups of their
foes and branded them traitors to society. They began attacking resistors, and
resistance began to disappear. The resistors began turning on their own
leaders in desperation.
The earth began to turn brown.
Well darn. I finished the patch I was working on about then.
Time for Happy Hour. It’s nice, though, to quit thinking about current affairs for a while
and just dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment