AIR SPRAY

out the window

Sitting here at the computer with this view out the window to my right, the Christmas tree patch around the house I'm kind of the hole in the donut in the middle of. They go 2/3 of the way around the house. The forest across the road is like a 1/3 chunk bit out of the donut, though it was there before the donut, like the hole. It's a 60 degree day. Good day to keep all windows and doors closed. The sprayer is out on a fairly windy day. It's odorless; therefore, probably deadly. The spray for thousands of trees to the west has already passed through the house earlier, though the western side of the house is pretty well sealed. On the eastern side, the excess taken by the air goes into the woods.

Throughout my adult life I've been pulling for the earth, looking to the day collective humanity will develop a new attitude, one toward people and earth living together. It's like now that our government is owned and operated by corporations and corporate hierarchical mind, it has turned on we the people, the consumers. When we're no longer able to consume because the corporate collaboration called our government has bled us into impotent poverty, we won't be able to support them any more. Maybe this is why the CEOs have been upping their take over the last 30 years, seeing it all comes to an end when the working people have given all their blood and there's nothing left. Then they bale out to the Cayman Islands, Thailand, this place and that place where they have their sweatshops, taking it with them.

There was a time Jr was thinking about selling 18 acres around the house to have some money for old age expenses. One of his friends wanted to buy it, but could only pay to a certain point. Christmas tree growers offered him half again as much. Jr thought about it for 2 years. He chose to sell it to his friend for raising cattle. His reasoning for not selling it to growers at a much higher price was, "I couldn't do that to my neighbors."

I've resigned to it. Not many people think like that, which is why I find someone of Jr's character so rare, and particular to these mountains. That's not to say there's nobody like this outside these mountains. When it comes down to what's Christian, there it is, consideration for neighbors. One day in my store, a man and woman came in and we talked for quite awhile. They asked if I'm a Christian. I told them Christian has become a political party and I'm not a member. Of course, that isn't what they meant. They meant saved. I knew it, just had to say that to let it be known I don't like the subject for conversation. I walk my own path. It is one person wide. There are so many people shouting about being Christians that make me double-take, I'm shy about being around them, like I'm shy about being around people who hang at bars. I don't understand them is all I mean. It's foreign territory.

I'm not one to identify with groups. Every group has its own doctrine and I don't care about doctrines. This is the reason I can't join a church any more. I can't sign myself over to a doctrine, whatever it is. I believe the core of what everyone in the church believes, but not all of what I'm supposed to believe to belong. A lot of it I don't know about, and can't ally myself to that which I don't understand. I will continue to drink liquor, because I like it and can't join a club that won't allow it, the same as I couldn't join a club that required it. I don't abuse it, but if I want to, I will.

Everybody who works someplace now has to go outside to smoke. It's common to see office workers standing outside having a smoke. It's bad fer ya. It's bad. Living in the middle of a Christmas tree patch getting sprayed by everything they spray is good fer ya. It's good. Even the county government thinks it's good fer ya. Lotsa tax dollars they have to get from some place. They're not getting enough from me to pump the water from the river to the subdivision atop Twin Oaks Mountain. They're not getting enough from me to buy the county a new lawnmower. Another hierarchy in which I turn up at the bottom. Home sweet home.