I am often amazed at the genre movies and programs people apparently watch: The Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, Jaws, The Hunger Games, The God Father, The Titanic…that kind of entertainment.

I don’t get it. To me, watching the Titanic sink…time after time…is like watching the clothes dryer spin around and around. And Jaws is just plain silly. Come on now. We can sink war ships, but we can’t kill a fish, even if it is big and smart? Get real.

I’ll also confess I haven’t watched Jurassic Park for more than a few minutes.  Again, we can kill tanks, but apparently we can’t kill big scaly flesh and blood critters.

Years ago I did watch the original black and white version of The Titanic, but that was before I knew the boat was going to sink. I haven’t watched the new versions. I mean, the boat sinks every time. Where’s the suspense in that?

And I once watched “some” of the old Alfred Hitchcock thriller The Birds. That one was just dumb. I thought, before turning it off, “Get a shotgun or a baseball bat and kill those things.” I didn’t get it then, and I don’t get it now.

As for The Walking Dead, the whole premise is flawed. This is another one of those “get real” gems. (Could it be people watch it because it’s okay to “kill” all those walking dead?)

And I suppose I should mention all the “reality” programs like Survivor or Naked and Alone. It’s sort of like those “death defying” films about climbers scaling sheer rock faces. How dangerous can it be if the photographer is shooting pictures from above the climbers? And how “naked and alone” are you really if the camera crew is filming the whole thing? (I think that program survives because it is mildly titillating for some of us.)

As for the God Father, it just seems wrong to celebrate criminal organizations. Besides, the clips from the film make the story look ugly, and who likes ugly? I sure don’t.

Maybe I’m just out of touch, but I like a little suspense and a touch of “believable reality” in in my fantasies. I keep thinking about the old Sherlock Holmes mysteries: a little danger, a little intrigue, a mystery unraveled by Sherlock’s intelligence, a little murder, but no gore. Just great stories.

I have no plans to ever watch Jaws, The Walking Dead, The Hunger Games, The God Father,  Jurassic Park, or the Titanic (again.) I reckon I’ll just have to live a culturally deprived life.

Rod

Last night the history channel carried an hour long program about D.B. Cooper, our famous skyjacking thief. The program featured a team of criminal investigators researching the D.B. Cooper case. As the team detailed the antics of the man they believed to be D.B. Cooper, they would occasionally laugh or smile. It was like, “He was a crook, but, what a guy.” (I have to admit they had me smiling, too.)

That got me to wondering: why do we make folk heroes out of bandits and outlaws? For example, the God Father was so popular, a sequel or two was the order of the day. (A mean, murderous mafia Don is fun to watch?) I see a new version of Bonnie and Clyde is out. And, let’s not forget Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Of course, you can’t talk about folk hero crooks without mentioning Robin Hood. I know of about six Hollywood films of the story of Robin Hood, going back to early black and white films. (That doesn’t include Men in Tights. Now that one was funny.)

And I remember my sainted, Christian grandmother once saying, a tone of pride in her voice, “We are related to Jesse James.” My limited research says it ain’t so, but she was willing to believe it, like the guy was some kind of hero instead of thieving, cold blooded killer. Oh, yes. Hollywood made a film out his life, also.

So what gives? Why this admiration for big time crooks? The daring of their deeds? The size of the haul? The cleverness of the thief? I’m not sure I know. Maybe someone will enlighten me.

I’ll stop with a memory of the closing scenes of a movie, the name of which I don’t remember, with Paul Newman’s character and his bank robbing girl friend sailing into the wild blue yonder with a suitcase full of stolen money. (The critics liked the film.)

Rod

p.s. I think I better include The Great Train Robbery and The Taking of Pelham 123. If you have others you would like to add, please feel free.

The winter blues set in early this year, and I know I’m not going south even though I talk about it every Fall. So I looked up an article on SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), thinking I might find a way to combat my lousy attitude. I like one of the articles. It gives me a good excuse to be grumpy and lazy. I mean, it ain’t my fault. Winter is doing it to me.

The author talks about a variety of maladies: depression; low energy; sleep problems; hunger for carbs (including sugar, like sugar is key to a bout of SAD); trouble concentrating (like that’s new). The author makes some distinction  between Fall and Winter SAD and Spring and Summer SAD. I’ll buy the notion of Fall and Winter SAD, but Spring and Summer SAD must be for people who already have chronic depression. (I’ll not make light of chronic depression. It is a serious matter for a lot of people, serious enough for them to need help.)

Solutions mentioned in the SAD article include an appointment with the Mayo Clinic (sure, we all have a clinic right next door), counseling, and a SAD light. (Oops, here comes the commercial pitch so common to these health articles. I don’t know, maybe I’m not so sad after all.)

Lest I be accused of making light of SAD, I do know a couple of people who really suffer through the winter. They each have my sympathy because SAD is very real for them, and a strong bout of sunlight is about the only cure for their depression.

As for me, I’ve decided to battle SAD this way:

Depression – For a while, I plan to stop listening to any news except the weather, play a lot of upbeat music, write blogs, call old friends, and plan the first Spring outing.  Oh, yeah…I nearly forgot…and charge the boat batteries…and wind new line on my fishing reels. I’m sure that will help. (I do believe in the power of positive thinking.)

Concentrating – I’m going to find a dose of Doctor Carson’s memory pills…if I can remember to put it on the list for my next trip to town. (Carson’s pills are on the shelves now, I’m told.)

Sleeping problems – I think I’ll exercise a little more and see if that helps. If not, I’ll get a lot of reading done at night. Not going to worry about that one.

Low energy – I can’t say I suffer from low energy, but at times I just don’t care to do much of anything…except play pool and watch a little football. (It’s cold and raining or snowing out there!)

Weight gain – Can’t say weight gain is a seasonal problem because I diet in all seasons. (Wow. What a title for a diet book: “A Diet for All Seasons.”)

Finally, after working my way through the SAD article, and writing this blog, I’ve decided I’m not so SAD after all. I’m sure I’ll  find an answer to help me chase the winter blues away. (There is always Arizona.)

Rod

After years of living with acreage “out of town,” always in a two story home,  we finally faced the necessity of moving into a single story home a little closer to the amenities of town. We chose the town of Redmond, Oregon. (I probably should say “City of Redmond”or risk offending the people who bring all the energy to this part of the world, but it still feels like a small town in spite of a population pushing thirty-thousand souls.)

The neighborhood we found is unique in terms of city living. For starters, everyone lives on a half acre of ground, give or take a smidgen, streets without sidewalks meander a bit without the grid pattern common to most neighborhoods in America, the yards have matured and carry a lot of big trees…juniper (native), cedar, lilac trees, Irish Yews twenty feet tall, Hawthorne trees, cottonwoods, lodge pole and ponderosa pines. And some of us have chosen to plant native red-bark manzanita. I never would have thought of doing that, but the red bark adds to the appeal of the yards. I’ve come to think of this place as a “walking” neighborhood, because a lot of us do walk the streets.

We are comfortable living here. What we didn’t expect was watching mule deer does and fawns get fat feeding on front lawns, shrubbery and trees (including my big apple tree), or the multitude of Mexican doves, blue birds, robins, and a ton of songbirds (who clean out the bird feeder every two days). And I would never have guessed wild mallard ducks would fly in to eat the tender spring grass on our front lawn. We even have a resident family of silver gray squirrels.

I’ve said it before, so maybe it is worth repeating: It is the small things which enrich our lives, at least mine… like birds coming to the feeder, a silver-gray squirrel running the power lines, a first-thing-in-the-morning cup of coffee, and conversations with my good wife and my good friends.

So much for the “wild times” in town.

Rod

I grew up on the banks of the upper Rogue River in a little town called Shady Cove. (Unincorporated in those days.) There might have been a total of one-thousand people scattered for ten or fifteen miles up and down the river. Except for a few farm fields dotted here and there, the hills squeezed the river for the most part, creating a landscape of river and hills. From about age nine I was free to fish or swim in the river or to wander the hills as I chose. (My great desire in those days was to find a cave. I found a mine tunnel I was afraid to explore, but I never found a decent cave. I did find a few shy timber rattlers, but that’s for another time.)

I think I knew the twenty acre field below the house belonged to someone else, and I heard one of the adults mention the BLM land in above our place. But I came to feel the long, quiet riffles in below where our land touched the river belonged to me. And in truth I pretty much had it to myself except for those times Dad would share the riffles and teach me how to fly fish.

Over time, my exploration of the miles of hills and canyons, seasonal streams, springs, salt licks, Snake Rock, Bear Mountain and the old cinnabar mine in the canyon below Bear Mountain, the rim rocks, the oak and pine forest (and the poison oak) led me to feel it all belonged to me…included all the critters thereupon.

I remember my shock at finding a couple of people actually hunting “my” territory during deer season. When my youthful outrage led me to tell Dad someone was “hunting up there,” he laughed and said, “I know how you feel, but it’s public land. Those people have a right to be there, too.” Sharing my land wasn’t big on my list of things to do.

We left the river when I had just turned fifteen. I cried…privately…but tried to put a brave face on our family’s next adventure.

After I started a career with the US Forest Service, I thought back on my growing up years. I can smile at my notion of owning all that BLM land behind the old house as my private reserve, but I discovered a kindred spirit in the people who did the field work for the Forest Service. They, too, felt like they owned the land they had been assigned as stewards.

As a consequence, policies about use of public lands were often restrictive. The policies sometimes ran along the lines of, “Unless we give you specific permission to use the Forest, you can’t enter public land.” I remember taking my Forest Management Team team to task over a restricting policy proposal. I asked…if my shaky memory can be trusted after all these year…”Is it the King’s Forest, or the People’s Forest?”

During my nearly four decades of working for the US Forest Service, I met hundreds of conscientious, well intentioned people, people with big hearts and a passionate love of our National Forests and of our wilderness areas. But as the current managers go about the business of policy making, I would caution them to keep asking themselves, “Is it the King’s Forest, or it is the People’s Forest?”

Rod

36 F this morning. It was sposed to freeze according to the weather lady, but it didn’t. (Makes me wonder about predictions of global warming if we can’t get the next 24 hours right.) Anyway, I don’t care if it freezes. Winter is when I always seem to get a good handle on the next novel. (Fallen, a cold case, missing person mystery. Yeah, I know. There are other novels titled Fallen, but you can’t copy-rite book titles, and this one is truly linked to the story.)

I think we are ready for winter. Our woodpile is stashed safely in the greenhouse to keep it dry, along with about a hundred extra presto logs. We always keep a few gallons of water stashed in the pantry and in the garage, along with a month or two of extra food and toothpaste. Our list of necessaries includes extra gas for the generator, batteries for our two camp lights…and extra meds. (I’m on one of those auto-refill programs…which means I gain an extra week on the meds every month. Pretty soon I won’t need the drug store at all.)

I’m convinced Winter will arrive this coming Friday. Pretty sure. Friday is close to December 1. It’s our snowy month. Sometimes. Got my down jacket ready when it does.

Wish we could share a cup of coffee and talk about the old times…or the new.

Rod