stormy days
Photo by J. Harrington
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We've been keeping about 1/3 of an eye on our Twitter timeline for tweets about the senate judiciary committee hearings today. It's been depressing watching the performances. We can only wonder if the Republicans believe the Democrats will never hold enough seats and have an opportunity to reciprocate. Much of this behavior has started us thinking that the country, and its inhabitants, would be much better served if real people behaved as if they had read and followed the ethics described by such writers of our youth as Gene Hill, Robert Ruark, and Corey Ford. A trip to Hill Country, a visit with the Old Man and The Boy, or time spent with members of the Lower Forty has always brought us versions of the golden rule wrapped in sugar coating. From the works of these writers, and others like them, we learned that there are many reasons to be polite, to put things back where they came from or leave them as we found them, and that often the best of life is what we have now.
trout parr from "trout in the classroom"
Photo by J. Harrington
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The other factor we recall is that we never read a cynical thought in anything they wrote. As has been said, perhaps they wrote, or at least we read, in simpler times. Or, perhaps too many of us have let our values and priorities become distorted. We've been a member of Trout Unlimited for more years than we want to acknowledge. They've done a solid job of following through on their founding principle ... that if we "take care of the fish, then the fishing will take care of itself." The same is true, we believe, about all of our natural resources. If we don't take care of them, then we're faced with a challenge as formidable as unchopping a tree.
Native Trees
By W. S. Merwin
Neither my father nor my mother knewthe names of the treeswhere I was bornwhat is thatI asked and myfather and mother did nothear they did not look where I pointedsurfaces of furniture heldthe attention of their fingersand across the room they could watchwalls they had forgottenwhere there were no questionsno voices and no shadeWere there treeswhere they were childrenwhere I had not beenI askedwere there trees in those placeswhere my father and my mother were bornand in that time didmy father and my mother see themand when they said yes it meantthey did not rememberWhat were they I asked what were theybut both my father and my mothersaid they never knew
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