I headed down Saturday and had a nice dinner with mom and dad of buffalo steaks, potatoes and sugar snap peas. Shannon turned up and we played some euchre. Nice evening.
My beautiful and amazing mother is the feature picture as she was the feature of the weekend.
Now I just returned from today’s big family dinner. 4 generations of humans scattering about. There was food, music, games, egg hunts and even a deck building party. And of course the big meal of ham, beans, broccoli salad, fruit salad, and all kinds of chocolates and appetizers.
Yvonne fell and broke her hip on Saturday morning, so dad and I went to Zanesville to visit her and take her some things. Surgery tomorrow for a new hip.
I am now back at my new few favorite place on the planet—the lovely patio behind my house. Sitting by the fire pit enjoying a DR Monte Christo and a glass of 10-year old Laphroig.
I’m back with Stegner again and a great passage made me set the book down to contemplate and now to speculate. The book is ‘The American West as Living Space’ and the passage:
If there is a western speech, I speak it; if there is a western character or personality, I am some variant of it; if there is a western culture in the small-c, anthropological sense, I have not escaped it. It has to have shaped me. I may have even contributed to it in minor ways, for culture is a pyramid to which each of us brings a stone.
It’s that last line that I like. Surely it’s true, so then it begs the question, what size and shape of stone will I bring to the pyramid of our anthropological record. For many, kids may be their greatest legacy—for good or ill. I suppose the mother of Dylan Roof may feel that her contribution may not be welcomed—but of course that heart-breaking story is now in the books. For me I suppose my brick must have MYO stamped upon it. And whatever tentacles branch out from my connection with those young people.
But now that I have entered this rabbit-hole, I must think carefully about the difference between historical and anthropological. An anthro contribution is less personal for sure. Our contributions to our community can be personal, but anything less than community level is unlikely to make the cut for an anthropological record. Who can name an anthro individual contributor. Lucy? That male partial body and skeleton found frozen in the ice on top of an a mountain in the Alps? The poor bastards entombed by Vesuvius? I’ll have to think about this further.
I will be commenting more on Stegner soon as this concept of fully understanding the western psyche is intriguing to me.
In an interesting side note, my good friend Sheri texted me this morning and informed me that her grandmother went to school with Kurt Vonnegut. I have now had 3 unexpected references to KV in the past two weeks. What does that mean I wonder. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps I need to re-acquaint myself with some of my old favorites. It’s been a while since I have sat with Kurt.
The Martini Tales 