Let us just step back: two hundred and fifty years ago, or so, the ships of England and Spain had drifted onto a whole new continent, as they saw it, from far north to a savagely cold south; pole to pole, as if there were such things. Millions of people already lived here, some of them still hunters and gatherers; some of them very wealthy, indeed! Gold and silver stolen from the southern Americas funded Spanish and English dreams. There was land, lots of land, under starry skies above, rich land, and oil and coal and iron ore. The whole western world learned how to build industries not on simple muscle power, but on steam and oil. We farmed, too, of course. All we needed was cheap labor--slave labor from Africa, mostly, so the ships came with slave labor. Chinese labor built railroad beds where there had been rock cliffs. Europeans, long used to killing each other for good, religious reasons, brought their religious savagery with them. ...
Conrad, you are such an interesting fellow! I am the dictionary entry for "unhandy". Your structures amaze me. It seems to me you built a functional deck and then just kept seeing new possibilities. Or did you have a master plan? Just wondering.
ReplyDeleteWhat a probing question! I have never had a master plan. A tree blew over. My brother, who owns the property we lease, decided to expand the fenced-in yard space on this one-acre lot. What really happens is that I go to bed, hoping for a snore, and my head wakes me up because it has happened upon something. And because the college I taught for was not famous for over-paying its loyal critics, I had to hone carpentry inclinations to earn extra--or necessary--income during the summers. Anyway, it is satisfying to do something that shows visible results. And--and!--since I am making tracks in the dust, anyway, it is nice to hope that off to the side, here and there, there may be something interesting to remember.
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