Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Change and the Melancholy of Impermanence...


Friday noontime, Texas County, Oklahoma. Lunch rush. Not a drive-through window as far as the eye can see, nor water. And out here you can see a damn long piece. Just the rattlesnakes and the racerunners and the horned lizards and the mule deer and the blues and the bobs and the mourning dove and the roadrunners and the wind and the sky and me. It's a little off the beaten path, and the menu's pretty basic, but the ambiance beats the hell out of McDonald's, I'd say. After eating my lunch I place a quarter on the tabletop, just for grins. I will come back in the fall with the dogs, chasing quail, and I will see if anyone has taken my quarter. I'm betting not. It's a lonely place, one of my favorite places, but why is there a gubment-issue picnic table high on this lonely, abandoned bluff overlooking a dry valley? Interesting story, that. But that's another blog post...


A little farther down the lonely road...


Eureka School, Texas County, Oklahoma. Only barn swallows and memory occupy these halls now. The last student walked out the doors in 1969. The plains are full of such ghost schools, abandoned and forgotten. They are sad, haunting places. I poke around in the ruins for a few minutes, then get in the car and drive off, pondering the impermanence of everything. I've been doing that a lot lately. It's something of a prerequisite for life on the plains. Or anywhere, really. And then, a few minutes later, another reminder of impermanence and change...

  
Round bales slowly being buried on the side of the highway, Texas County, Oklahoma. All that picture needs is a rusty Ford Model A and a gaunt farm wife leaning into the wind and you'd think it came from the shutter of some WPA photographer in the 1930s instead of May, 2014. The wheel of life spins round and round and round...

Change is all around us, I suppose. Some of it is subtle, and some of it is stark. However, for better or worse, it is the only true state of being. To think otherwise is arrogant folly. Change may quicken or it may slow to an eon crawl that fools us into believing that what we hold fervently dear will always be, but change always laughs last, whether it's a lake, a school, or maybe an entire region. Who the hell knows? 

13 comments:

  1. Hard not to spiral down about such things. I always find some comfort in thinking that we still live in the Pleistocene, and that the ice will come back and reorient the abundance of flora and fauna that we have so depleted. Nice piece. Wish I could send you some of the madly verdent jungle that this part of the world has lately become.

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    1. We've actually gotten a little rain since I wrote that. But just a little...

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  2. He's back, I hope, and with a vengeance!

    Good stuff, Chad, and in true form. Your road trip from CA was particularly compelling, in large part because I've driven much of that route several times. Even though it adds a couple hundred miles, I always prefer to jump on I-40 from CA to TX instead of rolling on I-10. It's a much prettier trip, given the expanses of nothing from Bakersfield to Flagstaff... and then so very little else from Flagstaff to Albuquerque, which is where I turn off of the freeway onto another desolate stretch of highway, Highway 285 (which takes us through UFO central, Roswell, NM). A drive down that road at night makes it easy to understand the tales of UFOs and abductions...

    Welcome back, Chad. Hope you're here for a while.

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    1. Thanks, Phillip. Been meaning to comment on a couple of your recent blogs, but damn I've been busy lately and lucid thought has not been my strong point. Trying to get back into the habit of actually reading others blogs, cause I'm missing a lot of good stuff.

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  3. Man, you have a lot of style in your pen, Chad. I really appreciate your talent.

    So, how do people who don't write Hog Blog (Hi Phillip! I'm loading up some GS Customs for my next trip to SW Texas.) or Piscator Fontinalis give ourselves names? Is this a bloggers only comment area? Am I doomed to namelessness as well as facelessness? Wait... what does this limited profile thing say...?

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    1. Thanks, Constant Gardner. I've been a bit spotty lately with the blog, but I'm trying...

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  4. So, um. Please disregard that second paragraph. I'm not proud of my internet skills.

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  5. Don't know what to say Chad, except thanks.

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  6. Chad, I didn't see an email anywhere so I'll drop this totally random comment here and hope that you see it. I downloaded Mouthful of Feathers eBook to my phone a couple of months ago, I've since read the damn thing a half a doesn't times. You're story "Brother, have you been saved?" is freaking awesome, the best of that book, and that book is full of great stories. I hope to read more of you stuff soon (and since I just found your blog today, I think it's a safe bet I will)

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    1. Hi Adam, sorry for the delay in responding, I haven't been on the computer as much the past few months and so sometimes have a lag in responding to comments. Thanks for the compliment, although I'm not at all sure I'd agree that mine is the best of the bunch. Pretty salty bunch of writers, there. Hopefully there'll be a MOF follow-up in the future, and I'm working on some stuff of my own as well...

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