Bye for Now, NaBloPoMo

So this is the end of the November blog challenge. I’ve actually posted one per day, which is something of a surprise to me. Looking back at them, I don’t think there were too many entries that were totally useless. Not bad, I guess, for somebody who posted very few entries per month before this. Maybe I’ll do it again, but not in the immediate future.

I think I may try researching weird, or sort of off-the-wall topics and blogging about them, or looking for oddball developments in the news next. Who knows?

The end of something can be a memorable, or a forgettable occasion. The last installment of MASH, for instance, was quite impressive; as was the final episode in the last Bob Newhart show.

In contrast, there was the finale to Cheers, where everything just sort of ended. The original Planet of the Apes movies were quite impressive in their day, and became classics…but by the final couple of sequels we pretty much knew what to expect, and got it.

So, here’s my November-ending blog, and you can rate it a Bob (for good) or a Cheers (for bad). Or a Star Trek V, if it’s really REALLY bad.

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All the leaves are down, and pretty much crushed underfoot now, and winter is on its way. We’re getting some freezing wind from the north, and an occasional flurry of snow. Most of us who live in our motor homes are hoping the really bad weather will hold off until the job is over here in Coffeyville, so we can flee to places like Arizona or Texas.

We realize, but maybe don’t always verbalize, how fortunate we are to be able to do that. The people who live here full-time will stay, and deal with the snow and ice, and the floods when they come, as they did last year. In return for their sacrifices they’ll enjoy the kind of close community that comes from sharing good times and bad, and pulling together. Symbolic of that is the yearly celebration of the “Dalton Defenders”…the members of the community who responded, some at the cost of their lives, to an attempted double bank robbery in an earlier era.

We have a different kind of community…a mobile, variable neighborhood. The individuals who comprise that neighborhood are always changing, (giving some of us, who are bad at remembering names a particularly frustrating challenge) and so is the geography. Our community fosters trust and interdependence in its own way. Most of us are willing to lend a hand or some advice when needed to people we may have met just yesterday. We’re willing to share the benefit of our experience, so that everybody doesn’t have to learn everything the hard way. There’s a relaxed kind of friendliness and trust that I’ve seen portrayed in descriptions of pioneer towns and early settlements. In a sense, I guess, we’re the pioneers of our time, even though the places where we live have been settled and “civilized” for a while now.

In a way, we take the best from both kinds of America and combine them…and for the opportunity to do that, I will be grateful for just as long as it lasts.

To all the folks we’ve met along the way, are friends with now, or will be friends with in the future, an early Merry Christmas and Happy New year. And may you follow the sun for many, many years to come.
Blog at ya later,
-Geezerguy