Rambling Josh

Have you ever fell down a rabbit hole? You go to the World Wide Web in search of some quick little tidbit of information only to emerge from a click-and-scroll marathon several hours later flanked by a cold cup of coffee and half-eaten caramel roll. Okay…the caramel roll is gone. As Alice taught us in her foray to Wonderland, one can’t properly descend into and bump around a rabbit hole with low blood sugar. That would be Crankyland.

I’m a fairly even keeled individual, but like most mouth hole owning morsal munching mortals, I am susceptible to occasional bouts of hangriness, and the less than even keeled behavior that lurks in its famished depths. Depths ugly and murky enough to prompt one to wrestle a loaf of marble rye from the arthritic grasp of a blue haired, ordained member of the Fraternal Order of the Elders.

I’ve never stooped to that level…I prefer sourdough, and I’m not one iota reticent to reveal to the masses that I am a shameless, even gleeful, bread groper. If you have ever been in a place that peddles fresh bread after my roaming hands have made their rounds, there is a very good chance that if you bought bread, it was a well groped loaf. Enjoy your sandwich.

I know that there are more of my kind out there. I’ve seen you. Your filthy sausages gently squeezing a soda bread, ever so lightly pressing a pumpernickel, laying hands upon the unleavened. Weirdo…

I hope you were able to relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor riddled life on Labor Day, and that you took the opportunity to don your favorite white or seersucker garments while it was still socially acceptable.

Tragically, sometime around 1989, my beloved white Levi 501 jeans had to be permanently taken out of social rotation after an unfortunate accident that occurred while I was taking my mullet for a stroll through the hallowed halls of Burke Central High School as my intestines were having a spirited disagreement with the “Cooks Choice” that was served in the cafeteria that day.

I’ll spare you the grizzly details, but, in short, never trust a fart while clad in bun hugging white denim. Triple-acting, fabric penetrating, stain lifting? Uh huh…SHOUT was reduced to a whimper.

I also hope you were able to catch a glimpse of the Super Blue Moon this past week. My wife and I went out for an evening stroll to take a gander at the Super Blue Moon, and while she was snapping photos of it, she mentioned that it wouldn’t grace the sky again until 2037.

As I peered toward the east, watching the moon rise above the hills, I wondered how life would look for my wife and I and our family in 2037? I pondered what that wave of time might take, and what it might give? I’m in no hurry to find out, the present has plenty of its own ponderances. Day-to-day…so it goes.

On November 3rd, 2004, the Ramblings column made its debut here in the Burke County Tribune. Pert near 19-years and roughly 450 columns submitted on time, every time, until last time. I always keep my column deadlines in the same place in the back of my mind, so my mind knows exactly where to look and when to start pondering something to write about.

Both my mind and myself were surprised to get an email from the managing editor, Lyann Olson, a few hours prior to the submission deadline that said, “Will you have a column for this week?” My mind and myself thought, “This week? I don’t have a column due until next week.” My mind and myself were both wrong.

All streaks must end, otherwise they wouldn’t be streaks, they’d be lines. Nothing against lines, but streaks keep you on your toes, they keep your jazz hands jazzing (I have no idea). Speaking of streaks, white is the only color underwear should not be. I have a theory that the Fruit of the Loom cartel strongarmed the white skivvy agenda to force the purchase of more of their product.

They obviously failed to take into consideration that the tattered, weathered, and repulsive condition of such garments literally and figuratively flies below the radar of men. Out of sight, out of mind. That’s why clothes lines are always in the backyard.

But I digress…the underwear sidetrack was not intended to distract you from the fact that I messed up. I’m not sure what its intention was? I’m just as surprised as anyone when I go back and read what my mind has written. So…I apologize for the oversight. I apologize to Lyann who graciously replied to my oversight with, “No worries. I will fill your spot.”

The more time I spend on earth the more I’ve realized that in one’s absence their “spot” is very rarely unable to be filled by another. Often, with hardly a soul noticing that there was a spot in need of filling. So it goes.

This first weighed on my mind when one of my colleagues, who had spent 38-years teaching at the college, retired. The incoming freshman the following academic year had no knowledge of my colleagues existence, nor of her 38-year career and many contributions to the college. It was a stark reminder of the sentiment put forth by Saxon White Kessinger’s poem “The Indispensable Man”.

Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego ’s in bloom;
Sometime when you take it for granted,
You’re the best qualified in the room:
Sometime when you feel that your going,
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions,
And see how they humble your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put your hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining,
Is a measure of how much you’ll be missed.
You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop, and you’ll find that in no time,
It looks quite the same as before.

The moral of this quaint example,
Is to do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.

As we move through life, experiences accumulate, some we would like to experience again, some we would prefer to avoid, and some settle indifferently into the expanse between the extremes. This expanse between the extremes is most likely where the majority of our experiences get laid to rest, collecting dust like that flyrod hanging on the wall in the garage.

We eventually find ourselves reaching for, and making time for, the experiences, people, and stuff that we find meaningful, enjoyable, and a worthwhile use of our time. The dusty flyrod collects more dust, and the guitar gets a daily strumming. Maybe I’ll just sing about fishing?

We only have so much time, and as we move through life, our awareness of this limitation of time, and our approaching horizon, becomes more and more clear. With this clarity often comes contentment with that which we often reach for, and possibly a bit of disinterest, or healthy skepticism, in the search for or accumulation of more. Maybe the idea of getting a sailboat should remain pleasantly adrift in our sea of consciousness, rather than having one languish in the driveway?

As a parent, as a teacher, as someone looking back at middle-age surrounded by young people that “have all the time in the world”, I often have to remind myself that their accumulation of experiences is a necessary component in their discovery of what they may find meaningful, enjoyable, and a worthwhile use of their time. Maybe their flyrod will bring them a lifetime of joy and meaning while their guitar gathers dust? Maybe they’ll sail around the world?

As a kid, when you’ve just popped the top off a fresh can of Pringles, the shiny, crumb littered bottom of the empty can seems so far away as to not be worthy of concern. You give chips away without a second thought…a few for the dog, one or two for the birds, a small stack for that annoying kid in exchange for a chance to ride his cool bike…

You stack them higher than your mouth can accommodate, crunch…cough…laugh, sending chip fragments cascading to the shag carpet where they will be ground deeply into the fabric as you and your brother tussle over who gets to dump the can crumbs directly into their Orange Crush stained mouth.

It’s kind of a half-hearted tussle, because you know there’s another can of Pringles in the cupboard, and a shelf full at the Red Owl. As a kid, there’s very little sense of the end of anything, especially time. When I was a child, many moons ago, the siren was the only semblance of time that existed, blaring a reminder that it was time to eat or time to come home for the night. The latter being more likely to be ignored than the former.

“Didn’t you hear the siren?” I learned when I became a parent that you ask your children questions that you know the answer to mostly out of curiosity regarding the story they will attempt to make up.

Of course, there are no guarantees when it comes to our allotment of time, but, in general, there is a timeframe in which we are aware, that on average, many humans tend to expire. A time when the cupboard is bare and the Red Owl’s shelves have been depleted. No more. So it goes.

I suppose it is only natural for those of us nearer that average expiration date to lack a complete understanding of those that are statistically far enough removed from that horizon to fully comprehend or care that it exists. To bemoan and denigrate their willy-nilly “wasting time” while we are peering into the can in hopes of a few more crumbs.

As some bitter, Pringleless, old fart once said, “Youth is wasted on the young.”

In the accumulation of experiences, we are bound to waste, misuse, or misplace some time, try and fail, love and lose, perm a mullet, but this personal classroom is where we learn about ourselves and bump into things that may serve to sustain us deep into life…or not. Some of us ain’t very good students.

The other day I realized that I am closer in age to those that are 60 than to those whippersnapper 40-year-olds. I wish I’d stop realizing such things. As Tracy Lawrence once sang, “Time marches on.” We can drag our feet, but we’ll just ruin our orthopedic shoes.

In the book “Life is Hard”, the author, Kieran Setiya, speaks about the age-old question, “What’s the meaning of life?” He posits that a more useful question is, “What does it mean to live a good human life?” Good question.

From July 1st through July 17th, I was fortunate enough to have had the time to hang out in Lignite. Celebrating Independence Day, taking in several of my nephew Otto’s baseball games, overindulging in all that a Lignite street dance has to offer, playing, singing, and learning a bit at the 109 Club, and trying to be of use around the house while my mom recovers from a triple bypass tune-up.

During my stay in Lignite, I witnessed many times what it means to live a good human life, and see firsthand what the writer, Zina Hitz, meant when she said that “the little human things” are the point of being alive. The little human things are plentiful in upstate ND.

All is going well with my mom’s recovery, and part of that success can be attributed to all the kindness and caring that surrounds her from so many. All the little human things that friends and family have done mean a lot to all of us.

By this time in my life, I shouldn’t be surprised by the way so many go out of their way for one in towns like Lignite. It is a pleasant and heartwarming site to behold, and I want to thank all who unexpectedly put me on the receiving end of such thoughtfulness and kindness with an early birthday celebration during the singalong at the 109 Club.

To have friends, one must be a friend, and it is obvious that my mom is a friend to many. As Cindy Lautenschlager-Hysjulien said, “Did that cardiologist confirm that there is a heart of gold in there?” He did, and it’s good to go for many more sunsets, fairs, photo shoots, and all the little human things she loves to be a part of.

Good human lives…keep living them. So it goes.

It took a few more days into camping season than is customary, but our 1967 Aristocrat Lo-Liner camper finally got out of the yard for a 6-day excursion at our favorite campground in the Black Hills. Black Fox is a remote campground that has nine first-come-first-serve campsites nestled amongst the spruce on South Fork Rapid Creek.

South Fork Rapid Creek does a lovely job of providing a continuous babbling background to whatever it is you find yourself doing while in camp. A few years ago, I started the personal tradition of reading Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It” on the inaugural camping excursion to Black Fox each year.

South Fork Rapid Creek is not technically a river, it’s a bit narrow and a bit shallow, but what it lacks in breadth and depth, it more than makes up for in its ambient contributions to the Black Fox chorus. Technicalities are trite and tiresome tropes that often sacrifice the good in search of the perfect, so, I say, a river runs through it, and it makes a good read near perfect.

At one point in the biographical story, the author, Norman, writes about trying to figure out how to help his younger brother Paul with various life issues stemming from excessive gambling and drinking.

Norman asks his father for advice on the matter, and his dad replies, “Help is giving part of yourself to somebody who comes to accept it willingly and needs it badly. So it is, that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don’t know what part to give or maybe we don’t like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.”

In the end, Norman and his father, come to the conclusion that, “You can love completely without complete understanding, and it is those we live with and love and should know who elude us.” So it goes.

One issue with camping at Black Fox is that once you settle in, it’s hard to unsettle yourself to leave. But, eventually, the trappings of civilization, and the responsibilities that being a part of it entails, rear their heads in search of your time and attention, and perhaps, your help.

As we packed up, and rumbled over the cattle guard to leave Black Fox, I thanked that little bit of good in the woods for its time, and for always being able to give the parts of itself that are needed.

Happy Independence Day my friends. Be well.

When we last spoke I was preparing to traverse the 1,300 miles between Grenville, South Dakota, and Houston, Texas, in the company of a two-man expeditionary force. Both of whom, are well-seasoned Army veterans, battle hardened, and familiar with this particular expanse of terrain. I’m pleased to report that Operation Graduation was a rousing success.

Master Sergeant Bernard Lesnar and Corporal Anthony Lesnar are to be commended for exemplary performance of their duties as co-pilots, navigators, and general chit-chatters throughout the duration of the mission. Never wavering, never complaining, occasionally napping. Tony at 86, and Bernie at 85, have earned the right to nap whenever napping calls.

At 0800 hours on Saturday May 27th we departed Grenville, with Tony at the helm for the first leg of the journey. At 0845 hours, the first leg of the journey stopped for potato pancakes at Perkins in Watertown, after which, I willingly took the helm for the next 2,550 miles.

As I settled into the driver’s seat, Tony said, “Bernie and I have made a lot of trips to Texas over the years, but now they don’t let us go that far.” I simply nod. Nod in recognition of the many road trips Tony and Bernie have taken. Nod in agreement with whoever “they” are. A nod to the past, coming to terms with the present, and contemplating the future. So it goes.

Tony and Bernie seem to have committed every highway number within the continental United States to memory, and many times throughout the journey they would rattle off a few of these highway numbers and ask which of them I was planning to take, and many times I shrugged. Numbers make me shrug. The shrugging, and my statement, “if we keep driving south we should find Houston” seemed to raise suspicion amongst the ranks in my ability to effectively transport us to our expected destination.

Several hundred miles into the journey, Bernie asked, “What highway is this?” To which I responded, “I435. I think?” To which Tony responded, “No, the clock is right, it’s 3:30.” Perfect, we’re all on the same page.

At around 1900 hours, 700 miles south of our starting point, we stopped and set up camp at the Holiday Inn in Perry, Oklahoma. The measured shake and rattle of pill bottles and a few cautious blasts of south wind marked the end of day one. The morning of day two is marked by the same.

As we made landfall on Texas soil, I spied a rest stop on the horizon, and I asked, “Does anyone need a bathroom break?” Tony responded, “I do.” And inquired, “Bernie, do you need to stop for a bathroom break? Bernie replied, “No. I took a shower this morning.” I contemplated that exchange for the next 100 miles. “I took a shower this morning?”

Hearing aid effectiveness was impacted a bit by road noise and Johnny Cash’s “boom-chicka-boom-chicka”, so there were many conversational exchanges that I likened to a tetherball of words being chased and swatted around and around a pole. Sometimes the words eventually lined up and the point was successfully resolved, sometimes the words twisted and knotted around the pole, sometimes they were abandoned and left to waggle in the breeze.

The philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche once proposed the idea of Eternal Recurrence, in which he suggested that we should strive to live each day in such a way that we would be happy to live that day again, and again, and again if such a thing were possible.

I’d be happy to travel with Bernie and Tony again.

The thought I contemplated most over the course of the journey was, “How do I want to be treated when I’m 85?” If such a number is attained.

If my cognitive and physical capacities are somewhat sound, I want to be allowed a level of autonomy that is deemed appropriate through conversations with me, not in directives conceived entirely by others and handed down to me. I want opportunities to demonstrate competence without being pandered to like a child that has just successfully transferred a Cheerio from their highchair tray to their mouth. I want to be included in life, even if that inclusion takes a bit more time and effort from all involved. As Tony summed it up, “Yeah, I’m old, but I’m not dead.”

As the famous epitaph reads, “As you are now, so once was I. As I am now, soon you will be.” Happy summer trails my friends, may a bit of eternal recurrence find you.

Have you ever suggested something well in advance of something that was to occur and then wonder what you were thinking as the reality of that something draws near? In this context “suggested” implies that it was your bright idea, and that particular bright idea includes you as a major player in the execution and completion of the bright idea.

When we make suggestions well in advance, that something is in a fuzzy, hazy state, with borders, implications, and realities that are abstract and not well defined. From a distance, I may look 20-years old, but as one draws themselves nearer and the borders (wrinkles), become more well defined, one is quick to realize that distance and shadows clouded the reality of my being. In golfing parlance, I’m a 9-iron, I look good from about 100-yards out.

From 100-yards out, the suggestion of a road trip from Grenville South Dakota to Houston Texas, and back again, seemed like a good, or at least an interesting, idea. My track record for good ideas is admittedly short, and what I consider interesting is often met with question and doubt from the seemingly sane. The sane that opt for a few hours by air, rather than a few days by land.

I have nothing against air travel, I am a fervent fan of little bags of pretzels, and little bottles of liquor to wash down little bags of pretzels, but sometimes a situation calls for one to transcend such conveniences and descend upon the slow road.

My wife’s sister and her husband live in Houston, two of their children are graduating from high school in the next few weeks. My wife’s father, Bernie, and one of his brothers, Tony, are active participants in the lives of the previously mentioned branch of the family tree, and thus, were planning to attend the graduation festivities in Houston.

Knowledge of the dates and times of graduation festivities is generally known well in advance of the specified date and time of such festivities…months…days…100-yards. A distance far enough removed to offer a buffer-zone in which a bright idea might percolate.

“You fly, I’ll drive Bernie and Tony to Houston.” Someone like myself said to someone like my wife several months ago. Why did someone like myself say such a thing to someone like my wife?

Partly for you dear reader, yes you. Writing is birthed from experiences, and if I cease to have experiences, I cease to have anything to write about. Also, given the option, I knew Bernie and Tony would prefer to roll with a road trip rather than be herded and hustled through the friendly skies.

Those two have made many such road trips in the past, but as that past slips further from view, their loved ones have begun to question and object to such. So it goes.

Bernie and Tony are good men, and have both managed to remain largely autonomous in most every aspect of their lives as they move past the midway point of their eighth decade. They are old men, old men that don’t hear so well, and often repeat each other as a result of not really hearing each other. I’m not a young man, but I’m young in comparison, and my hearing is relatively sound, so I will hear whatever it is they are both talking about, from both of them, for roughly 2,500 miles.

Gas prices and the weather…in stereo, on repeat. Stay tuned.

In the end…all was well, but in the beginning, or more accurately, the time leading up to the beginning, had moments of trepidation. Many moons ago, the Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote, “We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” It often seems that no matter the number of moons that pass over, illuminating all that changes in civilization, much stays the same amongst the thoughts and behaviors of humankind.

Like “mooning” for instance. Not the “wandering idly” or “romantically pining” type of mooning, but the type that the Oxford English Dictionary describes as, “exposing one’s buttocks to someone in order to insult or amuse them.”

In researching the act, it seems that throughout recorded history, and presumably for as long as humans have been in possession of a buttocks, mooning has been a form of expression. Google told me, “In January 2006, a Maryland state circuit court determined that mooning is a form of artistic expression protected by the First Amendment as a form of speech.”

Public Service Announcement: In 2021, the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force and the American Cancer Society issued a new recommendation that colorectal cancer screening begin at age 45 rather than 50.

I did not arrive at the Endoscopy Center with the intent to “insult” or “amuse” the medical professionals that have dedicated their lives to exploring the murky depths of humankind. I arrived, because at 50, I’m a few moons behind the recommended date of exploration. I arrived now, because in the past, I allowed trepidation and consternation to kick the can down the road.

In the end, Seneca was right. So it goes.

When I was 10-years old I was lying on the floor within arm’s length of the knobs on our 5,000lb television set. I was lying within arm’s length, because in 1982, 10-year old kids were the standard issue remote control for the televisions in most American households. The standard remote to turn the knob between all three channels, and the technician charged with adjusting the rabbit ears or providing the occasional whack to the behemoth when the screen started misbehaving.

M.A.S.H. was on, so knowing channel changing wouldn’t be necessary for a bit, I was spending my break lying on my back tossing a lead fishing weight into the air above me. Why? That’s a dumb question to ask a 10-year-old. They never know why.

It was one of those tear drop shaped weights, roughly the size of a Milk Dud. Side note, if you want to shut a 10-year-old up for a bit, a box of Milk Duds will do the trick.

Anyway…I’m lying on my back, casually tossing the fishing weight up towards the popcorn ceiling, Dad, after a long day in the oilfield, is relaxing on the couch three feet away, smoking a Vantage Menthol, Hawkeye and Charles Emerson Winchester III are exchanging zingers while operating on Korean War casualties, and I miss handle the lead fishing weight on its return flight.

It bounces of my hand and into my gapping 10-year-old mouth, bypassing the lips, teeth, tongue, and uvula, it comes to rest cozily in back of my throat. In a panic, I thrash around a bit on the shag carpet trying to dislodge the fishing weight that is blocking my airway and ability to speak. Dad, used to odd behavior from his son, pays no mind to the struggle for life that is occurring to the laugh track emanating from the television.

The lead fishing weight wouldn’t come up, so I went with option two, and it went down. From deaths doorstep I went out to the kitchen and told Mom what had happened. The perplexed and bewildered look I had grown accustomed to seeing whenever I tried to explain my behavior took its usual place on her face, and she either asked me “why” or muttered “why” to herself in regards to the fix she’d gotten into with this whole motherhood gig. Either way, I shrugged the stupid shrug of a 10-year-old.

As the sedation dissipated, and the grogginess subsided, my kindly gastroenterologist stopped by to tell me of his journey to my moon and beyond. When I inquired, he quite confidently assured me that he had not found my long-lost fishing tackle, or anything else of interest. In the end…all was well.

It’s a glorious week. It is finals week on campus. That week when some students suddenly become interested in, or more accurately, concerned about, their grades, and ask, “What do I need to do to pass your class?” I generally respond along the lines of, “The same thing the students that are going to pass my class did…the coursework that was assigned each week for the past 16-weeks.” That doesn’t seem to be what they want to hear? I’m not sure what they want to hear?

After all, they are a college student, they have been in classes before, they do know how this school thing works. “What do I need to do to pass your class?” Perhaps they are implying “doing” something other than the coursework to pass my class? Washing my car, doing my laundry, shuttling me around campus in a rickshaw, sitting in meetings for me, reading the newspaper to me with an Irish brogue, handing me a briefcase stuffed with cash?

While contemplating the potential grade value of a personal rickshaw service, I stopped into the campus convenience store to get a snack, and the student-employee working the cash register said, “You look tired.” No “hi”, no “how’s it goin'”, just “you look tired.” To which I responded, “You mean old?” She just smiled. Smiled a smile that I’ve seen people courteously, yet disingenuously, point at elderly people as they don’t listen to a word they are saying. “You look tired.” Well missy, you look as if you may fail my class.

“I don’t feel tired” I thought, as I stopped into the restroom to see if there was a discernable sheen of overt haggardly tiredness smeared about my face. Nope. All the craggy crevices and furrows are in their preferred places of prominence. Right where I saw them that very morning as I was contemplating trimming my ear hair or giving them another day of freedom and frivolity. I guess I should have trimmed them.

The power and sway that can be exerted on us by something as simple as a few random words has always been intriguing to me. An intriguing, and a cautionary tale regarding the importance and impact of choosing one’s words wisely. There are lots of words to choose from, but if one is feeling truly wise, they often should abstain from choosing at all. Or at least deferring utterances until sufficient levels of contemplation, or blood alcohol, are achieved.

They say we have two ears and one mouth for a reason. We’re supposed to listen twice as much as we speak. What do “they” know? I say we have two ears so we don’t have to use five fingers to hold our sunglasses on while our one mouth runs through the briers, runs through the brambles, runs the bushes where a rabbit, or common sense, couldn’t go.

As I heard Mr. Savelkoul proclaim many times in high school history class, “It is better to look the part of the fool, than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” I can’t remember what he said about history? So it goes.

Have you ever been engaged in the task of seeking out and purchasing a new vehicle, when, seemingly overnight, the particular make, model, and color of the vehicle you have taken a shine to begins showing up everywhere and anywhere you happen to be? “It must be a sign. The chartreuse microbus, that C.W. McCall sang about, was meant to be mine.”

Yes, it is a sign, a sign that you are a fairly normal human, in possession of a fairly normal human brain. A brain that likes to subconsciously seek out things we have a conscious interest in, and then kindly inform us each time that thing makes an appearance somewhere in our sensory orbit. “There it is. See it? There it is. Hear it? There it is. There it is….” And so forth and so on…and on…and on.

Being a fairly normal human, in possession of a fairly normal human brain, I was curious why these “signs” kept magically appearing? A quick trip to the Googlesphere informed my brain that the seemingly newfound prevalence of chartreuse microbuses in my world was a result of the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon…and C.W. McCall.

Professor Arnold Zwicky referred to this phenomenon as the “frequency illusion” and said, “A couple of things happen when the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon kicks in. One, your brain seems to be excited by the fact that you’ve learned something new, and selective attention occurs. So now that you’re looking for it, you find it. To make it all the more powerful, confirmation bias occurs after seeing it once or twice, and you start agreeing with yourself that, yes, you’re definitely seeing it more.”

“You’re looking for it, you find it.” If you’ve ever moved, and had the pleasure of somewhat strategically, and somewhat carefully, stuffing your stuff into the back of a U-Haul, you probably experienced the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon and started noticing U-Hauls everywhere.

I’ve had the pleasure a time or two, and as a result, U-Hauls are on my radar, and when that subconscious radar “blips” with a sighting, my fairly normal human consciousness begins to ponder.

Where are they going? Where are they coming from? Why are they moving? Did they want to move? Did they have to move? How much stuff is in the back of that truck? Did they do a good job of utilizing the space to its fullest potential? What’s the heaviest thing? How many things will be in more pieces when they are unpacked than when they were packed? How many lamps do they have?

At the end of all that pondering, my hope for those that possess the stuff stuffed into “Mom’s Attic” and beyond, is that they find what they are looking for wherever it is they are headed. Find what they are looking for. Find what they want. But mostly, find what they need.

Often, we may not really know what it is that we need, but it has a way of finding us. So it goes.