Thought for the Day (Sept 22)

Subject: Thought for the Day (Sept 22)
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 09:07 AM

Sept 22 -- In the park this morning, along the bend at the bottom of the hill by the fading sunflowers, the police are out with gaudy orange and yellow tape. I stop and ask, and a somewhat friendly policeman breathes in the bright morning air, and says that they are gathering information for a coroner's inquest on a man who was found here last week. Foul play? Probably not, probably had a heart attack. Thirty years old, so they are doing some more checking. They crunch through the grass. He says, well, you know parks, dumping grounds for everything. I size him up, and say, that is why official people always hate parks. Oh yes, he says, park detail is the worst: always running into people having sex, orgies under the railway bridges, people dumping bodies, drug stuff. And it is all so badly lit.
I walk on and soon reach the paved part of the road. And I recall, not for the first time, why there is this desperate urge on the part of all parks people to put pavement down and high lamps everywhere they can, thus destroying the whole idea of a wild space in the city. To make it easier for the police cars to drive in at night and look around at the dark and the untamed for a few minutes, before heading back out a few hundred yards to civilization.(p.t.)

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 22)
From: catspaw49
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 10:26 AM

Sorry to go off on a tangent here Peter, but it's on my mind, and I have very little, so it's important to clear the BS out someimes.

I remember it had happened two days before I heard. I don't know what I was doing, just missed it I guess. There had been yet another plane crash and more musicians bought the farm. We've had so many discusions around here about what is folk and traditional or folklike or pop or whatever that today, this event keeps coming to mind. No, I guess they weren't folkies, but the background and the musical interests all stemmed from the folk revival of the sixties, and the earliest stuff, that no one ever heard, was certainly folk-like. Record companies considered the music non-commercial and unclassifiable. Word was that since some commercial success had come from "B" cuts (you never know), there was going to be an album cut with a mix of new and some traditionals with a twist...and much less "production." It's too bad it didn't happen and we're left with nothing but mainly the "pop" stuff. I still listen to the early songs and think what might have been. One very prolific songwriter and one skilled and tasteful guitarist, Jim Croce and Maury Muehleisen, both dead after a crash in Louisiana. 26 years ago last Monday...........Gawd I hate getting old...seems like yesterday.

Now go on back to the cops looking for the Waylon Heron in the park. Sorry.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 22)
From: Mían
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 10:42 AM

i remember reading bits of a book from a guy who was a park ranger and who championed the idea of getting rid of all roads and car traffic into the parks. i wish i could remember his name and the book title, i think u would truly enjoy it. i shall poke around & see what i can find.

edging ever deeper into the green of the park, away from asphalt & steel, under a redwood with gently creaking boughs, closing eyes; the sound of traffic becomes the sound of a mirthful stream...

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 22)
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 11:21 AM

Hard to imagine someone so alive as Jim Croce being dead. And yet, there it is.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 22)
From: Mían
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 11:33 AM

It is Edward Abbey. Here is a link with some quotes:
http://ecotopia.org/ehof/abbey/extracts.html

Subject: RE: Thought for the Day (Sept 22)
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 22 Sep 99 - 01:19 PM

Edward Abbey....what a treasure...He's one of my favorite thinkers...radical environmentalist...."Freedom begins between the ears" is one of my favorite quotes.