I shivered more than ever before. Clutching a drenched sleeping bag. Lying in soggy clothes, next to three trembling men. The wind howled like a locomotive, swirled around our tent, and pounded on the vinyl walls. I drifted through several states, none of which were sleep. It was last October. I was a junior atContinue reading “History is Complicated”
Category Archives: Ruminations
A Cold, Rainy Way
It’s cold. In fact, it’s freezing. I checked my “spanking new” iPhone and the app told me it would be 60 degrees today. It lied. My feet are soaked. My face is tingling with abrasion and my books are moist. My shoes, my socks, my backpack, my umbrella, the papers within my backpack, my books,Continue reading “A Cold, Rainy Way”
Mistakes
Sometimes mistakes lead to a change in the route home. Sometimes you pass on foot what you intended to drive by. As a person who cherishes routine and the expected, these times can be hopelessly frustrating. However, such a time happened to me while heading home last Thursday. I have a five minute window ofContinue reading “Mistakes”
Wilderness and Passion
There is something wild in each of us. In everything that breathes there is something to tame. Children eat with their hands first. They crawl before they walk. They spit before they speak. They scream before they write. If it were natural for these activities to reverse in order it would be so. If these,Continue reading “Wilderness and Passion”
Much of Nature
When I drive down the freeway I often watch the hills as they roll on either side of me. Rather than focusing on their present, barren, condition my imagination soars with ideas of how they must have been. Instead of forty foot billboards I see hundred foot Chestnuts. I see oaks as big as housesContinue reading “Much of Nature”
Wilderness Artificiality
The other day my wife and I went for a run. The challenge was to run six miles outside. It was a rare feat for both of us. We chose to run in downtown Jefferson, Georgia. We started near a park which has a Boy Scouts home on the premises. This park is a tributeContinue reading “Wilderness Artificiality”
Wild, Wonderful
Last night Nature’s progression became an inconvenience for man. A storm moved in. As the skies filled with moisture, turning every shade of gray, and replaced the sun-streaked blue and white landscape from the early afternoon with a dark tumultuous atmosphere in the evening, I drove my cantankerous automobile over limbs and leaves, which swirledContinue reading “Wild, Wonderful”
Constant Life and Beauty
We are the projection of the perpetuated ideals of our parents, teachers, culture, religion, nation, and fears. Our view of nature is an aspect of the projection. It is programmable. Like a universal remote control, with the correct codes, our intended purpose can be fulfilled. It is no more natural for me to walk underContinue reading “Constant Life and Beauty”
A Magnificent Oak
It is the most magnificent oak tree I have ever seen. On the route from my home to the gym is a homestead featuring a wooden house painted yellow with a very old brick fireplace. Directly in front of the house is a stump at least nine feet in diameter. I want to stop eachContinue reading “A Magnificent Oak”
Graceful Hunter
It leaped in front of my car from a small patch of forest on my left. It was in flight. This was no common bird. Its large and broad wings moved slowly with great strength, creating flight and bearing grace unlike any I have seen. At first, I thought it was a vulture because IContinue reading “Graceful Hunter”
Anthony Sadler 