No marching, no pageantry, no million-dollar-per-second commercials... very few cheerleaders.

Funny... as a Space Age kid enthralled with the future - practically bombarded with it in the press, my textbooks, and the mood of the country at large - when my thoughts turned to the turn of the century, I hit the wall whose name is "My god, I'll be 50!" At the age of ten or so, that's inconceivable. Then, of course, I was reminded again at 17 when 2001: A Space Odyssey was released; in 1968 my parents' average age was 40, and now I understand that 50 must have seemed improbable to them, then, too.

[drum roll] And now: here it is, and I am. I had a good chuckle a month ago to learn on the HabitableZone Space board that I Love Lucy is precisely a month older than I; this milestone begs to be comemmorated, and the complusion is that I've "got some 'splainin' to do."

Some know, in broad Jackson Pollock strokes, what upheavals my now-previous life has gone through in the past year-and-some (one knows in pointallist detail, some of it literally, happily exquisite). Suffice it to say this: Nothing is as it once was. Though I yet "wear the chains I forged in life", as Jacob Marley would have it, I shuffle and clank alone now. It gives me some time to read, to write, and [often too much] time to think.

Just three weeks ago, having already decided to commit something like what you're reading to virtual print, my random reading selection synchronistically brought me around to a book that's been on my 'must' list for a while now: William Least Heat Moon's debut, Blue Highways. Within a tad more than four hundred pages, he relates a solo journey he took to, essentially, clear his mind by stepping back from a life he saw crumbling around him. It's a travelogue only in the sense of describing where he stopped; it is a rite of passage (pun intended) in describing what he learned from the land, and from the people he spoke to.

I've transcribed some passages (yes, intentional again) I found apt, given my own journey down blue roads without having moved far beyond the Appalachian valley I now call home. The first section is dedicated with love to some friends Out West:

[N.B.: At about the halfway point, Least Heat Moon has come to Cedar City, Utah, where he meets one Kendrik Fritz, a pre-med student from the Hopi reservation, which itself is a literal desert island within the Navajo reservation.]

On the Hopi Way:
"The Hopi believes mankind has evolved through four worlds: the first a shadowy realm of contentment; the second a place so comfortable the people forgot where they had come from and began worshipping material goods. The third world was a pleasant land, too, but the people, bewildered by their past and fearful for their future, thought of only their earthly plans. At last, the Spider Grandmother, who oversees the emergences, told them: 'You have forgotten what you should have remembered, and now you have to leave this place. Things will be harder.' In the fourth and present world, life is difficult for mankind, and he struggles to remember his source because materialism and selfishness block a greater vision. The newly born infant comes into the fourth world with the door of his mind open (evident in the cranial soft spot), but as he ages, the door closes and he must work at remaining receptive to the great forces. A human being's grandest task is to keep from breaking with things outside himself."

[quoting Kendrik]

'...the Spider Grandmother did give two rules. To all men, not just Hopis. If you look at them, they cover everything. She said, "Don't go around hurting each other," and she said, "Try to understand things"'. - and - '...[the Hopi Way is] a way of the spirit. Spirit can go anywhere. In fact, it has to go places so it can change and emerge like in the migrations. that's the whole idea.' [pp 185-7].

[N.B.: A couple of days later, he meets a fellow who has the following personal creed printed on the back of a business card. It's a good match for my Won't Back Down moods - which, unfortunately, are not a constant state of mind.]

"I've been bawled out, balled up, held up, held down, hung up, bulldozed, blackjacked, walked on, cheated, squeezed and mooched; stuck for war tax, excess profits tax, sales tax, dog tax and syntax, Liberty Bonds, baby bonds and the bonds of matrimony, Red Cross, Blue Cross and the double-cross; I've worked like hell, have got drunk and got others drunk, lost all I had, and now because I won't spend or lend what little I earn, beg, borrow or steal, I've been cussed, discussed, boycotted, talked to, talked about lied to, lied about, worked over, pushed under, robbed, and damn near ruined. The only reason I'm sticking around now is to see WHAT THE HELL IS NEXT1."
[p. 212; emphasis original]

[Then, this meditation in the desert, from the following night]:

"The word error comes from a Middle English word, erren, which means "to wander about," as in the knight errant. The word evolved to mean "going astray" and that evolved to mean "mistake." As for mistake, it derives from Old Norse and once meant "to take wrongly." Yesterday, I had been mistaken and in error, taking one wrong road after another. As a result, I had come to a place of clear beauty and met a man who carried his philosophy on a cafe business card.

"The annals of scientific discovery are full of errors that opened new worlds: Bell was working on an apparatus to aid the deaf when he invented the telephone; Edison was tinkering with the telphone when he invented the phonograph. If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring." [p 215-6]

[Finally, after circumnavigating the country, Least Heat Moon comes full circle on himself, too]:

"Like a crazed enemy running amuck, ego, that excessive looking inward had had its way... and now the old life with [WLHM's estranged wife] was lost. But what had not been lost was the chance, as Black Elk says, "to make over." A man cannot remake ego because it is able to grow only in size like a simple cell. A locked form unable to change its structure, it is ever only what it is. Not so an angle of vision - that a man could make over. To remake his potential, his hope." [p. 399]

[All quotes are from Blue Highways, (c) 1982, William Least Heat Moon (Little, Brown - Boston)]

* * *
I like to hope that I'll live at least a full century, so here I am at halftime, without a playbook for the third quarter but with the goal still in mind. Much has changed since the game began - much more will change, and soon - the most important change of all is longed for, and will arrive... but not soon. The important thing for me, for now, is to take the changes and use them to make over my 'angle of vision', remake my potential.

There's nothing at all that needs to be changed about my hope; the paths I take to get there are another story, one I plan to tell - but it isn't time yet. Rest assured: when it is, you'll all be first to know.

There are people here who I have come to think of as friends - yes, even the ones I rarely agree with! [grin] A few of you I've 'known' since the bad old days in the Looney Bin, before there was an Afterhours or a Habitable Zone; many more I've met since. You've stretched my mind, challenged my skills as a writer, caused me to re-examine my stands on issues more times than I can count... touched me, infuriated me, made me laugh, brought me close to tears more than once.

I've always been extremely fond of the custom among Tolkein's hobbits for giving presents on their birthday, rather than receiving them. Here in this virtual Shire, of course, I can't give material gifts...

But with all the sincerity I can muster, I can give you, my friends, my thanks.

E'telekeli