It was a lovely trip. Blue skies. The gold of harvested fields. Balmy breeze. Pleasant company. Lots of interesting sites to visit and learn about.
My fall 'holiday' included many observations about life and lifestyle choices giving one pause to wonder just 'What is with that?' on more than one occasion.
For instance , the presence of a television at the side of a rural highway. It was difficult to determine if it was flat screened or not due to the speed of our passing, but it did have an intact chassis and the rabbit ears were not evident.
After a day of perusing art galleries, tourist attractions, and guided tours of museums and cathedrals, the most unusual item seen on that sunny cloudless day was an upright 14 ' aluminum boat situated in a grassy ditch, minus both trailer or owner; not to mention the total absence of water or fish.
The following day while continuing on our travels we were treated to another 'what is with that?' type moment as we noticed the frame of a gas Bar B Q on a roadside approach, fifteen or so miles from the nearest farm/ranch or town.
The who? what? why? of these objects will never be known; but if one was to dwell in the metaphysical meaning of such a sightings, perhaps one would note that the television was perhaps doing the watching of the public instead of the other way around. Hopefully it might have found the continuous , monotonous and relentless repetition of the 'reality' programming it would have been exposed to as vehicles passed, and passed, and continued to pass in a boring, repetitious, unchanging litany of sameness not unlike that which the drivers of those same vehicles have to endure as they sit and watch what passes as action and intelligence on televisions around the world.
I could guess that the boat in the dry ditch might be a symbol of the hopelessness of weather variances on the prairies or simply a sign of a fisherman's frustration after a particularly disappointing foray into a freakishly frustrating fishing fiasco.
For sure the presence of a Bar B Q on the open rural and treeless approach could be a sign of society's comment on omnivores and their eating habits. But I doubt it. It probably was more a sign of a broken tail gate after a Rider's Game--win or lose.
Yes, the sighting of all of the above can be stretched to fit some sort of weak metaphysical metaphor to describe the state of the world, but my last encounter with the culture that our society encircles is much more easier to understand.
It happened while waiting to transfer my baggage from one bus to anther on the last leg of my journey home. A woman came up to me and asked if I smoked. I replied in the negative. She then handed me her Bic lighter and asked if I could light her cigarette for her. I looked at the cigarette she held to her mouth and said, " It is already lit." She repeated again , " Light my cigarette, please." I repeated, "It is already lit." She looked down at the glowing cigarette and simply said, "Oh". She took her lighter from my hand and wandered away.
Nope, there is not a metaphysical meaning behind this strange encounter. There is, to my mind at least, an interesting 'Sheldon like' physical law behind it in the fact that there were two things already 'lit'--- even if only one was actually smoking.
---Bazinga!
My fall 'holiday' included many observations about life and lifestyle choices giving one pause to wonder just 'What is with that?' on more than one occasion.
For instance , the presence of a television at the side of a rural highway. It was difficult to determine if it was flat screened or not due to the speed of our passing, but it did have an intact chassis and the rabbit ears were not evident.
After a day of perusing art galleries, tourist attractions, and guided tours of museums and cathedrals, the most unusual item seen on that sunny cloudless day was an upright 14 ' aluminum boat situated in a grassy ditch, minus both trailer or owner; not to mention the total absence of water or fish.
The following day while continuing on our travels we were treated to another 'what is with that?' type moment as we noticed the frame of a gas Bar B Q on a roadside approach, fifteen or so miles from the nearest farm/ranch or town.
The who? what? why? of these objects will never be known; but if one was to dwell in the metaphysical meaning of such a sightings, perhaps one would note that the television was perhaps doing the watching of the public instead of the other way around. Hopefully it might have found the continuous , monotonous and relentless repetition of the 'reality' programming it would have been exposed to as vehicles passed, and passed, and continued to pass in a boring, repetitious, unchanging litany of sameness not unlike that which the drivers of those same vehicles have to endure as they sit and watch what passes as action and intelligence on televisions around the world.
I could guess that the boat in the dry ditch might be a symbol of the hopelessness of weather variances on the prairies or simply a sign of a fisherman's frustration after a particularly disappointing foray into a freakishly frustrating fishing fiasco.
For sure the presence of a Bar B Q on the open rural and treeless approach could be a sign of society's comment on omnivores and their eating habits. But I doubt it. It probably was more a sign of a broken tail gate after a Rider's Game--win or lose.
Yes, the sighting of all of the above can be stretched to fit some sort of weak metaphysical metaphor to describe the state of the world, but my last encounter with the culture that our society encircles is much more easier to understand.
It happened while waiting to transfer my baggage from one bus to anther on the last leg of my journey home. A woman came up to me and asked if I smoked. I replied in the negative. She then handed me her Bic lighter and asked if I could light her cigarette for her. I looked at the cigarette she held to her mouth and said, " It is already lit." She repeated again , " Light my cigarette, please." I repeated, "It is already lit." She looked down at the glowing cigarette and simply said, "Oh". She took her lighter from my hand and wandered away.
Nope, there is not a metaphysical meaning behind this strange encounter. There is, to my mind at least, an interesting 'Sheldon like' physical law behind it in the fact that there were two things already 'lit'--- even if only one was actually smoking.
---Bazinga!
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