Getting prepared

Descending Gingilos

I planned to bounce out of bed this morning, drive 45 minutes east, and climb the 3,500 feet up Mt. Si for an unprecedented third time this season.  But I didn't bounce.  I fixed coffee, thought of other things I might do (things that seemed of trivial importance last night), and now find myself at my accustomed spot in front of my computer monitor.

I leave Seattle on Monday for my trek on Crete.  But before reaching Crete, I spend several days wandering about in Athens.  My first day of actual physical activity won't be until Sunday, October 2.  My last exertion of any note was my hike to Colchuck Lake, ten days ago.  I need a little booster shot of exercise hormones about now to keep myself conditioned for October 2.

October 2 will be a climb of Mt. Gingilos, near the start of the walk through Samaria Gorge.  After studying whatever I could find out about Gingilos on-line, I conclude that our group will be climbing approximately 2,500 feet -- similar to other hikes I've done this summer.  But the climb is rocky, and the temperatures will be hotter than the near-perfect in all ways temperatures of the Northwest Corner.  Part of the climb will be on scree -- loose gravelly stuff that increases the effort required significantly -- and a small part of it will be a scramble over boulders requiring use of hands.

Have they begun the trek with this obstacle course for the express purpose of weeding out old codgers like me?  Unanswerable.  In any event, the next day is the red letter day of the trek -- the ten-mile descent through world-famous Samaria Gorge, over a trail composed of rocks, until we finally drag our bodies into the village of Agia Roumeli on the island's south coast.  The following day is a free day, with optional hikes to "ancient Turkish forts," and the day after that is a walk along the coast.

On October 6, we drive part way up the mountain called Pachmes, and then hike to the top.  Again, perusing the internet, this seems to be an easier, although higher elevation, climb than was Gingilos.  And again, about a 2,500 foot climb.

So, this is nowhere near as rigorous -- or long -- a trek as my high elevation walks in the Chinese Pamirs last year, or in the Fann Mountains of Tajikistan in 2013.  But it also means we jump right into it with no easy warm up days, as are usually planned for longer treks. 

I'll be surrounded by Brits, and therefore need to uphold America's reputation, if any, for pluck and determination.

And so -- although I'm not climbing Mt. Si today, I almost certainly will be tomorrow.

Ghost Medicine

Troy, Gabe, and Tom are three teenaged friends, living in ranch country, somewhere in California, probably.  Some place where open pastures have been carved out of redwood forests.

Tom, the joker, the trickster, the coyote.  Gabe, the shy, sensitive boy, the kind one, the saintly one.  And Troy, the silent narrator, the brooding philosopher.

Troy's dad and Gabe's dad had been best friends as kids.  As adults, they still called themselves close friends, but, as Troy tells us, they are polite with each other like "members of the same stamp club or something."

[B]oth of those men just seemed to me like they never wanted to show how things really affected them, and it always made me wonder about the cost of growing up.

Andrew Smith's earliest novel, Ghost Medicine, is about many things.  It's about the silence of the open spaces and of the people who live and ranch there.  It's about friendship.  It's about caring for the horse who is both friend and transportation, about protecting cattle and goats from predators, about the way the sun reflects from nearby granite peaks at a certain time of day.  It's about Troy's theory that what happens, happens; that you can look back and sometimes see how you caused events to happen, but can never know in advance how an act will "ripple like the surface of a pond once a rock has been skipped," disturbing everything it touches.

But it's also about the "cost of growing up."

Troy, Gabe, and Tom have very different personalities.  They aren't given to rambling conversations with each other.  They tease.  They speak by staying silent, by joking, by spitting tobacco, by changing the subject.  Several women or girls, commenting on the novel on Goodreads, denounce the story as just one more irritating example of guys who never even talk to each other, and just go through life oblivious.  But these three guys know each other, and each other's moods, and each other's feelings better than they'll ever know anyone again in their lives.  They don't need to speak in complete sentences to communicate their ideas or their emotions.

Troy falls in love with Luz, Gabe's older sister.  Their mutual love is another central theme of the book, but it never overwhelms the story as it might in too many young adult novels.  Luz, too, is from the ranch community, and they understand each other.

As the novel moves into its second half, its mood darkens.  Small incidents, especially conflicts with the thuggish son of the local sheriff, "ripple" outward, threatening the quiet lives of Troy and his friends.  The boys make decisions -- which, in retrospect, prove to be poor decisions.  They ride together up into the hills, chasing the sheriff's son and his equally thuggish friend. 

We had been warned of disaster from the very beginning, and disaster has been foreshadowed throughout the novel.  Not everyone comes back down alive.  And those who do return are no longer the same boys.

But all three boys had been changing throughout the novel, changing as they reacted to their experiences.  They had been losing their boyhoods, becoming -- for better or for worse -- men.  Much earlier, Troy had spun a theory that every animal had a form of "medicine," and that the blood from a cougar they had just killed provided them with "ghost medicine" -- medicine that made you invisible to the eyes of others.  Much later, he muses --

I told Gabriel that ghost medicine was everything we could ever want; that it was more powerful than we knew, more than we could reckon with.  And in the end, I guess, it did make us disappear.  But it wasn't like a cheap illusion in a magic show, because we didn't realize that it took us in pieces, not all at once, and others could see those bits vanish away and I, we, could only feel them in ourselves, thinking all the time This is what I want, this is what I want, until those lost pieces revisit us in dreams and make us thrash and grab for them only to swish our sweaty, empty hands in the air.

The fears, the guilt, and the desires of the surviving boys cost them the innocence of their childhood, leaving them as adults. Adults, kind of like their dads.

Troy, Gabe, and Tom are three kids with -- compared to suburban kids -- an enormous amount of independence, self-sufficiency, and competence.  They cuss, they drink, they chew tobacco.  They have easy access to guns -- an access that is necessary for people on a ranch, but an access that invites tragedy.  During summer, when the novel takes place, they are largely on their own -- they have no "helicopter parents."

And they happen to be three of the most decent, kind, and "good" kids that you're apt to read about in today's literature.  Which is why so much of what happens hurts so much.

Three boys rode up there.
Not one of them came back.
Maybe all boys die like that.

Many young readers found the pace of the novel too slow, the descriptions too detailed.  They are used to more "action."  For those with the ability to savor the slow, quiet pace of outdoors life, I highly recommend this book.

Ill Met by Moonlight

With my visit to Crete looming in less that two weeks, I just completed a quick re-reading of W. Stanley Moss's 1950 memoir, Ill Met by Moonlight -- his blow by blow account of how he and Patrick Leigh Fermor, as members  of the British Special Operations Executive ("SOE"), successfully kidnapped the general in charge of the German occupation of Crete in 1944.

The "memoir" is more accurately the belated publication of Moss's actual day by day journal, written beautifully under the most dangerous and uncomfortable of conditions.  Moss wrote in 1950 that he had deliberately refrained from revising his journal -- aside from clarifying information, printed in italic font -- preferring to let the freshness and youthfulness of his emotions at the time be revealed through his actual words, rather than tidied up at leisure under more comfortable conditions.  All the more amazing the detail and length of his daily entries:  The observations of his natural surroundings.  His reactions to the many persons -- Cretan, British, Italian, Russian, and German -- with whom he came in contact during the 48 days of his adventure.  His reading of classical literature while bored.  His contemplations of philosophical questions while staring at the starry skies. 

How atypical of war zones appear some of his journal entries.

Paddy and I spent the morning reading short stories aloud to each other -- this, because we have only one book left between the two of us.  Stevenson's Markheim, King Arthur and the Green Knight, Saki's wonderful The Interlopers ... it was all rather fun.  Then Paddy recited snippets from Shakespeare in German, at which he is adept; and we talked of mythology and lore and wondered if General Kreipe would look anything like Erich von Stroheim.  Minotaurs, bull-men, nymphs of Ariadne, kings of Minos, and German generals -- a splendid cocktail!

All this while hiding in a dry riverbed, within a day of the actual abduction -- the failure of which would most likely result in their own deaths.

"Paddy" Leigh Fermor, who was in charge, left it to Moss to describe the details of their operation.  Leigh Fermor's own favorite story was of trading memorized Latin quotations from Horace with the captured general -- while they were on the lam from the Germans deep in the Cretan mountains -- in what must have been one of the more civilized exchanges between friend and foe during the second world war.

Moss points out that General Kreipe, once captured, was well-behaved.  He agreed on his honor not to make any effort to prevent his evacuation to British-held Cairo in exchange for good -- almost fraternal -- treatment by his abductors.  Although an "old man" -- Moss estimated he must have been 45 to 50! -- he did his best to keep up with the their long nightly marches, at times riding a mule because of exhaustion.  He shared their uncomfortable days in wet caves, and their near-starvation at times, with only minimal complaining but with major lamentations about his humiliation and his accidental loss of one of his Iron Cross medals.  The general observed -- with perhaps some surprise -- how willing the Cretan mountain residents were to aid and assist the British, despite routine murderous reprisals by the Germans.

Upon eventual evacuation by small launch from a southern beach rendezvous point, the general, along with Leigh Fermor, Moss, and a few others, were taken to Cairo.  General Kreipe was greeted by the commanding British brigadier general with salutes and full recognition of his rank.  Moss notes that Kreipe and his British counterpart talked long into the night, with much drinking and loud laughter. 

At least in those days, war was a game for the generals, and a true sport always respects his worthy opponent.

On the other hand, the successful removal of the general to Cairo was not met back in Crete with the same sense of sportsmanship.  The German High Command issued the following order:

From now on all enemies on so-called Commando missions in Europe or Africa, challenged by German troops, even if they are to all appearances soldiers in uniform or demolition troops, whether armed or unarmed, in battle or in flight, are to be slaughtered to the last man. ... Even if these individuals, when found, should apparently be prepared to give  themselves up, no pardon is to be granted them on principle.  ...   [I]t must be made clear to the adversary that all sabotage troops will be exterminated, without exception, to the last man.

After considering this barbarity, it is pleasant to realize that both Moss and Leigh Fermor were men of civilization, curiosity, and advanced liberal education, and that both possessed lively senses of humor. 

After the war, Patrick (Paddy) Leigh Fermor published a number of travel books, still eagerly read, and a novel.  He also translated Greek works to English.  He died four years ago, at the age of 96, and was the subject of many news stories about his life.  W. (Billy) Stanley Moss unfortunately died at the age of 44, but nevertheless had time to write two non-fiction books about his wartime adventures, including Ill Met by Moonlight, and three novels.  He crammed a large number of adventures into his short post-war life.

While I'm not a fan of war stories, Moss's book reads as a boys' adventure -- lots of excitement with the necessary killings taking place largely off-stage.  Moss and Leigh Fermor were the kind of soldiers who make you feel there is hope for humanity, even in the midst of sordid warfare.

I left the book, also, with the realization that a short seventy years ago, the British Empire still ruled the world.  The battle for Crete was an all-British affair, and Cairo was under total British dominance.  The Empire and its representatives, despite cracks beginning to show between the two world wars, still showed the confidence and self-complacency that America and Americans show to the world today.

Makes you think.

Colchuck Lake

I'm not sure what September might be like in other parts of the country, but here in the Northwest Corner, it's a hikers' paradise.  The sun is bright, but the air is cool.  The leaves are changing.  Just walking outside your own house in the morning is invigorating.  And the crowds of summer are off doing whatever crowds do in September.

Yesterday, I decided to nibble at the northern edge of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area.  The smartest way to do it would have beeen to stay overnight in Leavenworth -- that little ersatz Bavarian tourist Mecca, some 35 miles east of Stevens Pass.  But I opted to drive to and from Seattle, making a long, one-day adventure out of the hike.

It had been a while since I'd driven U.S. 2 over Stevens Pass.  The scenery is spectacular, even from the windshield of your car.  The Cascades in this area take on strange, bizarre shapes, jagged against the sky.  Among the evergreen forests, you can now spot just enough changing deciduous trees to add flashes of autumn color to the background green.  And you pass through strange little towns with strange little names -- Sultan, Gold Bar, and, my favorite, Startup.

My objective was Colchuck Lake.  From Leavenworth, you drive 8.5 miles south on Icicle Road, then turn left on the unpaved road marked "Stuart Lake."  Four miles of potholes and washboard surface later, assuming your suspension holds up, you reach the trailhead at the end of the road.

The trail itself is pretty straight forward.  It starts out smoothly surfaced with a gradual ascent.  It becomes increasingly steep as you proceed, following Mountaineer Creek.  At about 2.5 miles, you come to a junction -- the trail to Stuart Lake on the right, and Colchuck Lake on the left.  Once past the junction, you cross a log bridge, and find yourself in a rock-strewn landscape.  I remembered my guidebook's admonition, kept right, close to the creek, and quickly found the path ahead.

The trail then becomes very rough, over rocks and tangles of tree roots.  Going up isn't so bad, but coming down I wished I'd brought hiking sticks (or a younger person's sense of balance!).  Once you reach the top, you have a great view of the lake below you, and of surrounding peaks.  I met a number of backpackers who were planning to camp at lakeside, and climb the next day over Aasgard Pass into the Enchantments.  Good luck to them!  The pass looked difficult and treacherous, from where I sat, munching on my lunch and sharing a few nibbles with a chipmunk who was practically sitting on my lap.  (I know, don't feed the wildlife.  But he pled with me so winsomely!)

I could have taken a snooze in the sun, but I hadn't started up the trail until noon, and didn't want to get back to Seattle at midnight.  The trail to the lake was about 9 miles round trip, about 2,500 feet vertically.  The climb took me about 2 hours, 20 minutes, and the descent -- picking my way down from boulder to boulder -- not much less.

Bleak lives

Although I've traveled a fair amount, there remain a number of large blank spaces on my travel map.  One of those spaces is Patagonia.  Unlike other blank areas -- say, Oklahoma -- the term "Patagonia" sometimes tempts me because of the spectacular hiking at the far southern tip of the South American continent, in both Argentina and Chile.  I came close to signing up for a Patagonian hike during this coming January, but backed off finally for various reasons.

Patagonia is a large area, of course.  It includes much, much more than the portion of the Andes where so many trekking companies organize hikes.  Most of the region consists of flat plains, grass-lands, and desert -- the pampas.

Looking for a good travel book to read, this past week, I happened on Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia, the first successful book by perhaps the first great travel writer since World War II.  Unfortunately, Mr. Chatwin has diminished my interest in hanging out in Patagonia for any length of time, although I still wouldn't mind spending a week or two trekking in the southern Andes.

Chatwin tells us of a grandmother's cousin, Charley Milward, a sea captain who lived the last years of his life in Punta Arenas, Chile, and who claimed to have discovered a perfectly preserved brontosaurus  Chatwin recalled seeing a tiny portion of the beast's alleged hide as a child.  The ostensible purpose of his pilgrimage in 1974 was to learn more about both Charley and the brontosaurus.

The last chapters of In Patagonia recapitulate the sad life and career of Charley, and offer some insights into the true identity of the "brontosaurus."  It's an interesting story, but almost an afterthought to the rest of the book, a last-minute attempt to fulfill the promise of the opening chapter.

The bulk of Chatwin's book is a series of vignettes of human lives, from the days of the Spanish conquest up until the twentieth century.  He tells his tales as he travels -- largely on foot or by hitchhiking, talking to locals living in great isolation -- from the Rio Negro in the north to the Straits of Magellan in the south. 

Patagonia, at least as described by Chatwin, was until recently dominated by European landowners (especially the British) -- marginalized men at home who came to Patagonia to seek their fortune.  The Spanish-speaking Argentines and Chileans -- so far from their national capitals -- play a minimal role in his narration, and the indigenous Indians appear as little more than nameless serfs.

It is lives of those European emigrants who most pique the author's interest.

I've heard speculation that suicide rates on the American West Coast are unusually high, because Easterners, tormented by failure and personal problems, kept moving west to build new lives.  When they reached the Pacific, unable to escape their own weakness of character, there was no place to go but the grave.  Similarly, as viewed by Chatwin, Patagonia is now, and always has been, a place where Europeans come to escape their own incompetence and/or bad luck, and where they find only ultimate disaster.

His stories are often amazing, sometimes humorous, sometimes gruesome, sometimes frightening.  They virtually always end in despair, loneliness, self-recrimination, bitterness, hopelessness, futility, and -- ultimately -- madness and/or death. "Bury me not on the lone prairie," is the final wish -- literally or metaphorically -- of so many of his characters.  They rarely get their wish.

I may still visit Patagonia, someday.  I still have Paul Theroux's The Old Patagonian Express to read, possibly as an inspiration, although Theroux's travel narratives usually produce their own sense of depression.  Mountain Travel/Sobek and other trekking companies offer marvelous, expensive treks with names like "Patagonia: Trekking the Paine Circuit," illustrated brilliantly with beautiful photographs.  Those itineraries are tempting.  But they would not show me the "real" Patagonia. 

Not, at least, Bruce Chatwin's Patagonia.  Similarly, I'd love to visit and hike the mountains of Jackson Hole National Park.  That doesn't mean I'd care to hike across the Wyoming steppes, hanging out in small town bars and hearing stories of the bitter, lonely lives of its residents.  But that's another hike that, for Chatwin, would have been food for literature.

Tribbles

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of NBC's broadcast of the first episode of Star Trek. The show was canceled after only three seasons, but has been in syndication ever since.  The world still abounds with faithful trekkies.

As with acid rock, bell bottoms, light shows, university sit-ins, and other phenomena of the '60s, Star Trek touched upon my world but never exercised a transformative effect on my life or personality.  Although a fan of science fiction since childhood, Star Trek, Star Wars, and the more extravagantly-filmed sci fi movies that followed, weren't really what I looked for (and look for) in science fiction.  I'm not quite sure how to describe what it is that I do look for, but that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

I actually watched quite a few of the episodes of the first and second Star Trek seasons, however, because some friends in my university dorm had a small TV and insisted that I join them each week.  As a result, as I began preparing this post, I planned to brag that I had watched the original televising of what is perhaps the best known episode of the entire three-year series --  Episode 44, "The Trouble with Tribbles."  But I now discover "the trouble with memory."  Episode 44 was first broadcast on December 29, 1967 -- during Christmas vacation. 

That episode must have been rebroadcast shortly thereafter, because I'm certain I saw it with friends while in the dormitories.  And by the time Star Trek went into syndication, in March 1969, I would have been out of school.   It's perplexing.  All I can say is that I remember what I remember.

In any event, "The Trouble with Tribbles" is the only episode of Star Trek that I actually remember in any detail.  You'll recall that, while the Enterprise was docked at Deep Space Station K7, a trader gives a tribble to a member of the crew, who takes it on-board as a pet.  Tribbles, of course, reproduce rapidly, asexually, and as frequently as the available food resources permit.  And they eat virtually anything, including organic portions of the space ship and the grain cargo in the hold. 

Like rabbits in Australia, only far cuter and cuddlier and more lovable, and far more devastatingly reproductive.

All ended well for everyone by the end of the episode, except for a Klingon spy who was done in by the tribbles' natural antipathy to Klingons, and for the tribbles themselves who all died from ingesting the cargo, which turned out to have been poisoned.

Life was often cruel in outer space.

The fact that I remember this one episode is not strange.  While many true trekkies turned up their noses at the intrusion of cuddly pets into the hard-edged world of space travel, "The Trouble with Tribbles" was a hit with the general public, and is probably the best known episode of the three seasons of the Star Trek franchise.  The New York Times calls it one of the "best-remembered moments" of the series.

Life is short, and one can't do everything.  And Star Trek's appeal isn't that of great literature -- not even great sci fi literature.  And yet, one should maintain some connection with the life of his own generation.  If someone offered me free access to the show's three seasons, I'd probably lock myself in my house, stock up on food, close the shades, and binge.

Indian Henry's Hunting Ground

Ranger station at Indian Henry's 

Indian Henry's Hunting Ground is the picturesquely-named destination of a beautiful (but lengthy) day hike out of Longmire in Mount Rainier National Park.  The elevation gain is about 2,500 feet.  The Park Service's flyer gives the round trip mileage as 13.6 miles, but the on-the-ground signage gives it as 14.0 miles.  

We, of course, will call it 14.

Indian Henry really existed.  He was a Klickitat or Yakima tribe member, whose Indian name was So-To-Lick.  He was comfortable in the worlds of both the Native Americans and white settlers.  He was fluent in English, and wore the same clothes as the settlers.  His sons were named Thomas and Wickersham.   He acted as a guide during the late nineteenth century, and apparently died shortly after 1913.  The meadows named after him were one of his favorite places, before creation of the national park.


Bridge over Krautz Creek

To begin the hike, I followed the Rampart Ridge hike, discussed a week ago, in reverse.  This means that I found the sign indicating the Wonderland Trail at the east end of the Longmire parking lot, followed it a quarter mile until it crossed the highway, and then climbed approximately two miles to the intersection with the Rampart Ridge trail.  This time, I turned right -- staying on the Wonderland Trail -- and headed for those magical sounding destinations mentioned in my earlier post: Pyramid Peak, Devil's Dream, and -- ultimately -- Indian Henry's Hunting Ground. 

The remaining five miles of the trail alternates between gently ascending and steeply ascending.  The major disruption occurs when the trail crosses Krautz Creek, just before you reach the Pyramid Creek campground.  At this time of year, at least, the creek is a small but fast moving steam.  But the stream occupies the center of an enormous swath of cliff slides and destruction, rocks and boulders, sand, and debris. 

You pick your way through all this debris for a considerable distance before reaching the creek itself.  This portion of the trail is largely washed out, but you can follow the footprints of other hikers, together with a number of small but helpful stone cairns.  The bridge itself -- which washes out most years during the high water season -- is a simple log, flattened slightly on top, with a single hand rail attached.  There is actually another similar bridge about a half mile farther up the trail, crossing what must be another branch of Krautz Creek. 

Crossing this canyon area is a bit of a challenge, but an interesting novelty after miles of hiking in dense timber.  Unfortunately, you lose elevation to reach the creek, which you then must regain.


Misty lake above
Devil's Dream

Devil's Dream, at about the 5.9-mile mark, is a relatively well-developed campground, with about seven tent sites and a latrine.  Not long after passing Devil's Dream, you emerge from forest into the first intimations of alpine meadows.  The trail passes along one shore of a small lake, which was enshrouded in mist on my way up.  The scene was both beautiful and haunting. 

Once I reached the lake, I assumed the trail would be roughly horizontal the rest of the way to my destination.  I was mistaken -- it ascends rather steeply, alternating between forest and meadow, until finally it reaches a plateau and Indian Henry's cabin is visible across gorgeous grass meadows.  Actually, the cabin is a park ranger residence -- unoccupied and shuttered when I was there -- but after seven miles I felt entitled to romanticize a bit.


Rehydrating at the cabin

The cabin has a pleasant covered porch with several feet of bench on which you can sit and eat your lunch, stare across the meadow, and fantasize about visiting Indian Henry.  I shared the porch with only one other couple who arrived a few minutes after me.  The entire trail -- even near Longmire -- was surprisingly unpopulated.  I guess that for many people, hiking season is over before Labor Day.

As the trail approaches the cabin, there is an intersection with another trail coming up from the Krautz River Bridge, down on the main highway.  This trail is only 5.7 miles one-way.  I know nothing else about it.

The second half of your 14 mile hike is a simple reversal of the first.  The good news -- you're generally (but not always) walking downhill.  The bad news -- if you're like me, your legs are becoming rubber-like in stability, and your feet hurt.  But even the "bad news" means you are building up muscle strength and endurance for future adventures.

Whatever your rationalization for pain, the parking lot at Longmire looks wonderful as it comes into view.  And you congratulate yourself on a day not wasted.
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Time for hiking up and back was about 6 hours, 30 minutes, which includes about 20 minutes for lunch at the top.

Opiate of the people (updated)

College football is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.   
--Karl Marx

So, yeah, now it's September.  Today was the first full day of a holiday weekend.  Seattle's brief rainfall was over almost before it began, barely touching the roots of the desiccated lawn in my back yard.  So -- I faced a beautiful day, happy people biking by in the streets, plenty of time to do anything I wanted.

I began the holiday weekend last night, watching my vaunted alma mater edge out a team that I now suspect had been underrated.  We beat 'em, but not in such a way that I felt happy about the game or the team's future.  But check, got football out the way early, right?

This morning, I got up, read the paper at breakfast, went for a walk,and then ...  I can't really remember.  Somehow, I ended up sitting at my computer, but staring at the TV.  I have faint memories of a number of games I watched briefly, involving teams I cared nothing about.  Then came the local heroes, the Washington Huskies, who vanquished a team, nominally from the Big Ten, satisfactorily.  I got a big laugh out of watching highly-ranked LSU "coug" a game (as we say here in the Northwest).   UCLA (who I'd usually never root for -- but playing Texas A&M?) lost a squeaker.  And I finally turned off the set as USC showed that it wasn't going to give Alabama much of a struggle.

I recite all of this to show how easy it is for a day to pass -- it's now 7:15 p.m. -- doing nothing but sitting slack-jawed in front of the tube.  What have I gained by today's football viewing, even assuming without deciding that watching my alma mater's game last night was an acceptable and understandable use of time?  Nothing.  Neither I nor humanity has profited from my totally wasting one of the dwindling number of days stretching out before me.  If I wanted to float along passively for a day, far better that I sat outside watching the birds chirp and the leaves fall.  Or listened to a Beethoven quartet.  Or even read some trashy, non-demanding fiction.

My life's not so "oppressed" or my soul so "soulless" that I need to dull myself with opiates.  I know that fact instinctively, which is why I daily consume great quantities of caffeine, rather than drugs or alcohol.

So tomorrow, I pull myself together and return to Rainier National Park.  I have a 12.6 mile hike in mind.

Unless, of course, I can't resist just sneaking a peek at an NFL game before leaving the house.