tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-289442742024-02-20T02:21:33.543-05:00Til the Last Hemlock DiesMusings on genre writing, waterfall wandering, and peak bagging in the South's wilderness areas.James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.comBlogger2890125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-39005776652536830682023-11-24T20:16:00.001-05:002023-11-24T20:16:13.026-05:00Hike to Sand Cave in Cumberland Gap National Park,<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/IVXq6LyK53U?si=35XB0U2IqdTw7Qvx" frameborder="0"></iframe>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0Cumberland Gap, Virginia 24248, USA36.6039715 -83.672978.2937376638211546 -118.82922 64.914205336178838 -48.516720000000007tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-46800029580588792602022-05-24T15:29:00.004-04:002022-05-24T15:29:41.795-04:00Art Museum.<p> </p><p><b><span style="font-size: medium;">Visiting an art museum. Report later this week.</span></b></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTyng0HiMTRWUFGHDq03dW50Hk9K36ehbIgbfcYwlY_rIEPNsEtsMM6bAqtqROZ7p_dNfgbqHkW23SJBfKEa793Xe8Cm8Vm3Pd2GTJmHlgQk3f_0fJG52ZevNPQMC8exRtxrDfq8HISeZbDjPEqKxYytI2Rvtq7LnQKNoXEXQmMVgqOEVr_4w/s1957/On_the_Island_of_Earraid_(N.C._Wyeth).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1957" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTyng0HiMTRWUFGHDq03dW50Hk9K36ehbIgbfcYwlY_rIEPNsEtsMM6bAqtqROZ7p_dNfgbqHkW23SJBfKEa793Xe8Cm8Vm3Pd2GTJmHlgQk3f_0fJG52ZevNPQMC8exRtxrDfq8HISeZbDjPEqKxYytI2Rvtq7LnQKNoXEXQmMVgqOEVr_4w/w524-h640/On_the_Island_of_Earraid_(N.C._Wyeth).jpg" width="524" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">"On the Island of Erraid" by N C Wyeth.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-73896176526039511522022-01-14T13:11:00.004-05:002022-01-14T13:12:37.214-05:00They're Always Lurking.<p> <b>Most of the time when I'm on the Internet and I comment on, or post anything about wild predators, some guy (it's always a male) will pipe up with a comment about killing the predator with a gun.</b></p><p><b>Sometimes it won't happen, but generally it does. If I show a photo of a bear that I've photographed on a hike, or of a coyote I've seen while in a wilderness only a moment will pass before some armed-up idiot makes a comment on how I should carry a firearm, or what kind of weapon I need to kill said animal.</b></p><p><b>And my reaction has become one of revulsion rather than of surprise or amusement. This is the kind of reaction I've come to expect from these creeps who inhabit US society. And, yes, it's always one of my fellow US citizens who reacts this way. I've never had anyone from another continent or country tell me that I need to kill some animal.</b></p><p><b>I used to wonder where this attitude of belligerence toward wild animals comes from, but now I think I understand it. It has nothing to do with negative encounters these people have had with wolves, or mountain lions, or grizzly bears. It has everything to do with propaganda. That's right. The US press isn't happy just trying to make Americans hate each other; or how we should be ready to kill Russians, or Chinese, or Mexicans or anyone else the system currently wants to demonize. They also do it to <i>animals</i> of all things.</b></p><p><b>When I was a kid I was interested in wildlife. I would read anything and everything I could find about wild animals. When I ran out of books to read I turned to the vast numbers of magazines in my dad's warehouse. And I gravitated to the magazines that had cover photos of bears and wolves and lions. These were, of course, hunting magazines. Usually I'd skip right past the articles about rifles and pistols and compound bows and go right to the prose concerning wild creatures: the <i>game</i>, as the authors termed them.</b></p><p><b>It was in those vast stacks of hunting magazines that I'd sit and read about mule deer, and elk, bison, moose, pronghorn, mountain goats, wolverines, black bears, puma, timber wolves, lynx, otters, and their vast company of other herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. Even as a generally non-critical child I began to note a decidedly negative tendency toward any animal that was a carnivore. If the animal sported fangs and/or sharp claws it was on the writer's shit-list. And they'd pile on the hate. Bears and mountain lions were bad, and should be shot. Wolves and coyotes should not only be shot, but wiped from the face of Mother Earth.</b></p><p><b>Well, it was apparent that the editors of all of these varied hunting publications hated all predators who were not Homo sapiens. They referred to most of them as <i>vermin</i>. It was, obviously, paramount that such animals be cleansed from the landscape. After realizing this ridiculous tendency of the publications I ceased to read them.</b></p><p><b>But it took me a while to figure out why they were taking this attitude. It wasn't just that human hunters don't want any competition. Such people don't generally even like other gun-owners to share a few hundred acres of forest with them. (Other human hunters <i>accidentally</i> shoot and kill one another to a shocking extent every year. Look it up.) No, I couldn't base this endless blather of hatred toward wolves and such creatures merely on the fact that human hunters don't want canines and felines and ursids eating up their game. Sometime else was afoot.</b></p><p><b>And I realized what it was when I noticed that these magazines also had a tendency to hate government legislation that established National Parks and wilderness areas; and any law that mandated the protections of rare and endangered animals. Even when hunting is allowed in wilderness areas, these periodicals didn't support their establishment, based on some vague dimming of our <i>rights</i>.</b></p><p><b>At last I realized from whence these clowns were receiving their marching orders. All such publications are corporate owned. Large, ongoing publishing concerns. And each under the control not just of editors and publishers, but of executives who gather in boardrooms commanded by major stockholders. The same fat-cats who call the editorial shots are also the same people who invest their money in timber, in real estate, in mining, in drilling rigs, in pipelines.</b></p><p><b>Timber wolves and mountain lions are a threat to these human vermin. A blackfooted ferret can screw up plans to exploit an oil field. An endangered bird of prey can derail the laying of pipe. It is in their interest to demonize a predator as surely as it is in their interest to foment a war against another nation which presents no threat to us.</b></p><p><b>I haven't picked up such a magazine in decades. Not even out of curiosity, or during a moment of childhood nostalgia from the days when I was a kid hungry for knowledge and looking for information within the pages of those poisonous magazines.</b></p><p><b>But, at last, I understood the origin of the mania against predators, and I know the source of the fuel that feeds the insanity that pops up when I post a photo of a bear or a coyote.</b></p><p><b>So, to the idiots always calling for me to kill bears and wolves: grow the fuck up.</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkcUgNVe8foFKJGdoDnFmHQTqQpGlraf_tOUBK4Rf-AWBFA2cXEkd6nD_ndlLPFD6W687ToDQ3Np3wnMyB0FWwaU0NNyJNYAtMYArK9Fl7mftNEUAG5B0F-4vnYsRQd-KupgXsj4ST5UOhBcBusRHxJXSjT3bMMXmG7bp_CCBrnpi899gAZyE=s1800" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1800" data-original-width="1800" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgkcUgNVe8foFKJGdoDnFmHQTqQpGlraf_tOUBK4Rf-AWBFA2cXEkd6nD_ndlLPFD6W687ToDQ3Np3wnMyB0FWwaU0NNyJNYAtMYArK9Fl7mftNEUAG5B0F-4vnYsRQd-KupgXsj4ST5UOhBcBusRHxJXSjT3bMMXmG7bp_CCBrnpi899gAZyE=w640-h640" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Hawk.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBItltdygRevjekV2qTqMyq1tcpVnBob4Vra6QRuMSQfC7aEC22r-Pqc7ISnBcyzGt7WOt0i_YB6k7hIOf0FhcR55wHrGRp2jARBJuCHE4t23An-9cBVb3G4nVB6H7yZ88CiSSX4tBxcZ0UOymcmHkRbmzW0TT08-nfh2EVablOwY1I0OY4MI=s1000" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="1000" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjBItltdygRevjekV2qTqMyq1tcpVnBob4Vra6QRuMSQfC7aEC22r-Pqc7ISnBcyzGt7WOt0i_YB6k7hIOf0FhcR55wHrGRp2jARBJuCHE4t23An-9cBVb3G4nVB6H7yZ88CiSSX4tBxcZ0UOymcmHkRbmzW0TT08-nfh2EVablOwY1I0OY4MI=w640-h442" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Turkey.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgAA2oyfu5qUiNp5MSOCjZF-2PviqiOIN8GNSNKy1IPQQo--k9ntRLj-AL_cZktCK2Z6SPmw2Cz9GaZrR8OLRdOaslZnVgfMPt4z45BXoqxT0jjL9N5vhS3AhSJWlkOEjjd_FWRzWvoQi0yM7l59uWIJFCYalBJ6KTqWWzELfWUFAEgxL2eF8=s749" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="749" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhgAA2oyfu5qUiNp5MSOCjZF-2PviqiOIN8GNSNKy1IPQQo--k9ntRLj-AL_cZktCK2Z6SPmw2Cz9GaZrR8OLRdOaslZnVgfMPt4z45BXoqxT0jjL9N5vhS3AhSJWlkOEjjd_FWRzWvoQi0yM7l59uWIJFCYalBJ6KTqWWzELfWUFAEgxL2eF8=w640-h640" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Elk.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcw4-d35I3BQVqEtQluTASWBo1LUx3vmlg8QRkjdgZGjD15yeVIBcvk9L3QdZqvtj7KMguD3prPZsxDXXFS8UKReEUH8HiPQsphLVXoUY-EvXpdTDu7NGH8cKOdmk3FPEE2c6ynugZbxTGTDdPa1eX_s4N7hkTS5wcew-toEL4fGqMTmGG_lc=s805" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="692" data-original-width="805" height="550" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcw4-d35I3BQVqEtQluTASWBo1LUx3vmlg8QRkjdgZGjD15yeVIBcvk9L3QdZqvtj7KMguD3prPZsxDXXFS8UKReEUH8HiPQsphLVXoUY-EvXpdTDu7NGH8cKOdmk3FPEE2c6ynugZbxTGTDdPa1eX_s4N7hkTS5wcew-toEL4fGqMTmGG_lc=w640-h550" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Coyote.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-3806280446903206182021-12-31T19:04:00.005-05:002021-12-31T19:04:43.260-05:00Last Day of 2021<p> <b>Well, it's the last day of 2021.</b></p><p><b>It's been a decent year. Victories for the Smith family were measured in pleasant occurrences. Andy found a job that pays a decent wage. To celebrate, I bought him a car so that he won't have to go into a new situation having to face a monthly vehicle payment. Carole and I got a membership to the local city-owned fitness center that allowed Carole to take activity classes and for me to get back into weightlifting (in a strictly old-man kind of way). I lost weight, which is rarely a bad thing. My novel WORKING CLASS HERO was republished and has been a lot more successful than I would have thought. The sequel is almost finished (although as I write this it's five months late).</b></p><p><b>Carole retired from her old job after 31+ years. She started a new one to count out the time to her own full-time retirement on her 62nd birthday in less than two years. We make plans that we may or may not be able to see through. But make them we will.</b></p><p><b>So, I go into this last night of 2021 looking forward to 2022. I've long since stopped worrying about Covid-19 and what it means. I got my vaccine shots. I have an appointment for the booster. Medicare kicks in for me in less than six months. We're planning vacations for the year. Two or three with the travel trailer; and one, maybe two by jet. Yes, 2019 taught me to not put too many eggs in the vacation basket due to the virus and its various mutations. But we'll do something, no matter what. Worst case, we have six isolated acres 4,000 feet above sea level in the North Carolina mountains. We can park the trailer there and chill out, hike, build campfires, grill, sit in the self-contained travel trailer and take it easy deep in the forest. We'll see.</b></p><p><b>But I don't think travel is going to be the pain in the ass that it was in 2019/2020. I suppose we'll be able to take the trips we're planning. I'll continue to write. I may take a photography class to learn how to properly do what I've self-taught. There are a lot of things I have time to do now, and I hope to explore them.</b></p><p><b>I leave with this image. The last few hours before we take down the tree. I recalled this week that one of the things I loved to do when I was in grade school was to sit in front of the Christmas tree and just gaze at it. Long before I heard about meditation and what it was I was doing it. Cross-legged I'd place myself a few feet from those branches and the bright colors and just sit there, gazing, letting the sight of it take me deep into my thoughts. I told my best friend Chuck how I enjoyed that, letting the symmetry and glitter of that image take me away.</b></p><p><b>Therefore, in the waning hours of the life of this year's wonderful tree, the glittering bulbs, the ornaments, the shining star, the scent of balsam filling the room, I decided to do as I did as a child. I sat cross-legged there, transported myself decades back, recalling the sweet nostalgia of why I still adore this mad season of excess.</b></p><p><b>I love these holiday months. For me, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year. I hope to live the next eleven months in peace, finding happiness with my small family, and enter in to another such season celebrating our lives and all lives. That's something that never comes in excess.</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHTqdTy9XJ6FLqXKxj1r-F7boj3klsy6mWpjdcGyQQfJvNIhA7-2EZeV4Cg9vNDuck8tn_iRky7Xru0Gpp_gEDqlARWf9yFsCliEf8Jk1QE7yR3sYI_o7TjEkjKiKrdSLcfRFO4cMUlegoFU84CrhIznCGAzTgeYMrDqdoQUv6fniovPzbxFo=s4608" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4608" data-original-width="3456" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHTqdTy9XJ6FLqXKxj1r-F7boj3klsy6mWpjdcGyQQfJvNIhA7-2EZeV4Cg9vNDuck8tn_iRky7Xru0Gpp_gEDqlARWf9yFsCliEf8Jk1QE7yR3sYI_o7TjEkjKiKrdSLcfRFO4cMUlegoFU84CrhIznCGAzTgeYMrDqdoQUv6fniovPzbxFo=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>This stuff always makes me feel like a kid, and I had a good time as a kid. That's as good a reason as any for loving the holidays, I reckon.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-471375507015221392021-12-30T22:24:00.001-05:002022-01-01T21:05:30.430-05:00Christmas 2021<p><b> People say I'm cynical, and it may be so. The same people who say that I'm cynical tend to give me a hard time because I enjoy Christmas so much. Yes, it can be a difficult season for some, but the tradition of it and the childhood memories the holiday gave me have always made me happy. So, as an adult, I have done my best to have a great time of it every season and to try to make my family happy at that time, also. I reckon I'm not too cynical.</b></p><p><b>This was a good Christmas. We didn't have more than the average amount of hardships this year, so that means it was a pleasant twelve months. All of us are healthy and financially stable. You can't ask for much more than that.</b></p><p><b>Here's to silly trees in the house, bright lights and jolly decorations on that tree, lots of gifts beneath those fragrant balsam branches, holiday tunes playing, and having the family close.</b></p><p><b>It was nice.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjU745kGmQGczP22fZLtKi7hcSsmP8K-Vn0m3MZbI_78c5rUD702udEDtjMb3po_HFDy8XK7foKzzQUeMv-9ZYNrg00oIvZPMp09XExEfqiF8dHaGrk1rzNHlZpRfkiv1AoL0a-U_YVEQgXPhvUouvVGieAkjsTNJl2S6FWZDXWHPl8w2XVyVI=s6000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="6000" data-original-width="4000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjU745kGmQGczP22fZLtKi7hcSsmP8K-Vn0m3MZbI_78c5rUD702udEDtjMb3po_HFDy8XK7foKzzQUeMv-9ZYNrg00oIvZPMp09XExEfqiF8dHaGrk1rzNHlZpRfkiv1AoL0a-U_YVEQgXPhvUouvVGieAkjsTNJl2S6FWZDXWHPl8w2XVyVI=w426-h640" width="426" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLCxUqI-2VyLy_ftlWkiLHBFIiZp8YjD12VkgE17BjcaddPJ83NBD4VhVPftkuLC081xV-9lKgD3jAKmLPeYAiwXbj7IpFVtU0HJB7dTH_apbdlfaEu2pvc39KBZMv1O8n5srmbp0ftgn-u4uGnSpHOpSpm4Jl3MtHj5F8uE7RJUBpLfz3Z8s=s6000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLCxUqI-2VyLy_ftlWkiLHBFIiZp8YjD12VkgE17BjcaddPJ83NBD4VhVPftkuLC081xV-9lKgD3jAKmLPeYAiwXbj7IpFVtU0HJB7dTH_apbdlfaEu2pvc39KBZMv1O8n5srmbp0ftgn-u4uGnSpHOpSpm4Jl3MtHj5F8uE7RJUBpLfz3Z8s=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggFyMjZ8V9HPGMevsHkhV_6g9IDHHo_GcKyfHBpKxyHDJ57vWMp5AH64t7ZoauWIhoTzkSBSKvVDptPjyzck3ybJ-IIrUD7s3EzYOvaiArCqHeN8O91wdmvQGGez13HBfHkLdlXvAb-wqSPLC5iBRU76MF_WHN8OHD9_5G7LF4yoVKuiHjp-s=s6000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEggFyMjZ8V9HPGMevsHkhV_6g9IDHHo_GcKyfHBpKxyHDJ57vWMp5AH64t7ZoauWIhoTzkSBSKvVDptPjyzck3ybJ-IIrUD7s3EzYOvaiArCqHeN8O91wdmvQGGez13HBfHkLdlXvAb-wqSPLC5iBRU76MF_WHN8OHD9_5G7LF4yoVKuiHjp-s=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzFwFEzSnxlaIJ18OihTWpjfi0CdQC1e7fRkZQOCqfRIF-krYIcZoOaV0NkSw58gGrw6H588aZ0pH244GI8KTW91cX0_p8d3nx4Bex7TTF5ZGM_DyOmvSyQSmRcCN5T--f-m0xyCLNroHUiGth0K2wcSMznppK5_2n-xqVPNFSjqcNLKyWpdY=s6000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="6000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjzFwFEzSnxlaIJ18OihTWpjfi0CdQC1e7fRkZQOCqfRIF-krYIcZoOaV0NkSw58gGrw6H588aZ0pH244GI8KTW91cX0_p8d3nx4Bex7TTF5ZGM_DyOmvSyQSmRcCN5T--f-m0xyCLNroHUiGth0K2wcSMznppK5_2n-xqVPNFSjqcNLKyWpdY=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="367" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/tdu80dth4ys" width="488" youtube-src-id="tdu80dth4ys"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-44839919357060319332021-11-13T06:25:00.002-05:002021-11-13T13:29:41.938-05:00Our Autumn Vacation: Smokemont Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.<p> <b>Every year Carole and I take a Halloween week vacation. We hook up the Casita and try to find a place where we can view spectacular Fall color. Despite propaganda from other parts of the country, I have found that the most vibrant and varied Autumn displays are in the southern Appalachians. Other parts of the country depend on one or two species of hardwoods to paint the local landscape with color, but in the big southern mountains there are hundreds of species of deciduous trees transitioning from green to all manner of eye-popping hues.</b></p><p><b>In 2019 we went to the Elkmont Campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and hit that amazing forest at its peak. In 2020 we headed a bit farther west and north and traveled to the Red River Gorge of Kentucky and once again hit those trees at full color display. The forests there are not as varied but are still amazing to see. This year, we returned to the Great Smoky Mountains, but opted to see the southern end of the Park and stayed at Smokemont Campground.</b></p><p><b>Here, then, are some of the views we were afforded on this year's version of our annual trip. We're not sure where we're going in Fall of 2022. Maybe to New England. 2023 we're going to try for a month-long journey to Colorado. Carole has never seen the aspens when they put on their annual show of leafy gold.</b></p><p><b>When we arrived we realized that our initial reservation would not allow us to use our generator at the spot we'd chosen. So we asked if we could move to a generator-friendly spot. The ranger was able to accommodate us and we got a pull-through site in Section D where we could run our generator. We don't generally run it much...mainly to charge some of the electronic devices we take with us. After the first three nights they closed Section D and we moved to our original site in Loop B. At that time, when they close most of the loops, the entire campground is open for generator use.</b></p><p><b>On the night when the cold front arrived, pushing out the persistent rains, we awakened to find that our furnace was only blowing cold air because we'd run out of propane during the early morning. When I switched tanks I realized that it was empty. So we had to make a quick run into Cherokee to get one tank refilled. I had two spares at home, both full, but had neglected to check to make sure both tanks on the Casita were full before we left. I always manage to forget something. We scooted back to the campsite and I hooked the tank back on and the furnace fired up again. I hope not to repeat that mistake!</b></p><p><b>All in all, we had another relaxing, successful Fall color vacation!</b></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="355" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9JpX8GohUTQ" width="597" youtube-src-id="9JpX8GohUTQ"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>A brief video displaying our two campsites at Smokemont.</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0_At4QMzXN_wE2c2MLsDF4RfEmR5NQ3jONIvrv1RO-PLFII7mCgdQfI3Xu16PaQ35MhiAfrTxDxeyYedtZ5FbwVMVTyIgqnGXFS-GxFhAqegI1e5iyQriOwBwRuZAucTKVj0wEw/s2048/IMG_4696E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0_At4QMzXN_wE2c2MLsDF4RfEmR5NQ3jONIvrv1RO-PLFII7mCgdQfI3Xu16PaQ35MhiAfrTxDxeyYedtZ5FbwVMVTyIgqnGXFS-GxFhAqegI1e5iyQriOwBwRuZAucTKVj0wEw/w640-h426/IMG_4696E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Carole doesn't like pull-through campsites. This is because most of that type are exposed and don't offer much in the way of privacy. But these were fine. The next time we stay at Smokemont I'm going to reserve a pull-through site like this one.</b></span><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOeh6PuQCdXf6HcO9iO2pYA5Bwtr7dZA8ZA4KGA_LemtaNljfy4VHKB1CedM1PZZsvXKgdT9J6wuXNPxkKmynkZ7dWkowNMMoYzBxG3jLawIiR9jjh0_mzp7qjBBCaBA0RnYjvbA/s2048/IMG_4794E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOeh6PuQCdXf6HcO9iO2pYA5Bwtr7dZA8ZA4KGA_LemtaNljfy4VHKB1CedM1PZZsvXKgdT9J6wuXNPxkKmynkZ7dWkowNMMoYzBxG3jLawIiR9jjh0_mzp7qjBBCaBA0RnYjvbA/w640-h426/IMG_4794E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>This was the picnic table at our second campsite. We never really used it. The weather turned cold so we ended up eating inside, even though we cooked outside.</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwVKOmNZmyk0jjTVHpy1iDmfQuQsmmRdBdA3j18ZEqRjO4CyQQfpY6mZIRj1mQy3jZwpvp9hxWWEIMoMceokbVFNobY2rF2wbSjrrI4SVE-_xIFtXCY46fVCtgCnjW4GdNAANnQ/s2048/IMG_4798E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHwVKOmNZmyk0jjTVHpy1iDmfQuQsmmRdBdA3j18ZEqRjO4CyQQfpY6mZIRj1mQy3jZwpvp9hxWWEIMoMceokbVFNobY2rF2wbSjrrI4SVE-_xIFtXCY46fVCtgCnjW4GdNAANnQ/w640-h426/IMG_4798E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Our second campsite. That's the bathroom building behind us. Most National Parks do not offer any kind of hookups for RVs. No electric, water connection; also no bathhouses with showers. This campground was typical in that way. Flush toilets and sinks. We did fill up our freshwater onboard tank at the campground, and we took our Honda 2000 generator with us. So we generally have no need for traditional campground utilities.</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQUF-XqT408C8x4xL7BLdRyK12XQHNM2BKP3u5xlIc7-excPJmT8EYvnsKnfDF2qXyZRXn-dhyBhq6ZKE-oHtHcikJsqi8DTKEOK6CzH5zp4nFGmSobX5KfBx_qEHo-83aavBeQ/s2048/IMG_4887E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixQUF-XqT408C8x4xL7BLdRyK12XQHNM2BKP3u5xlIc7-excPJmT8EYvnsKnfDF2qXyZRXn-dhyBhq6ZKE-oHtHcikJsqi8DTKEOK6CzH5zp4nFGmSobX5KfBx_qEHo-83aavBeQ/w640-h426/IMG_4887E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The campground just before we left. October through March are the low season the the Park. We left on a Tuesday, so there were not many people left in the campground as we prepared to head out.</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidzyAzdLZhCRzzi7CX1feuh_gTn6oUqR4hjjgQU8p7V973hD66jvIgSWhXQNaM2e5OGr7-qbu1JLY6PssBEddul7SOyIs7fJavDelplANi1-e0rqsVC_E3NpN-x9WJ9YCb2FPCvA/s2048/IMG_4879E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidzyAzdLZhCRzzi7CX1feuh_gTn6oUqR4hjjgQU8p7V973hD66jvIgSWhXQNaM2e5OGr7-qbu1JLY6PssBEddul7SOyIs7fJavDelplANi1-e0rqsVC_E3NpN-x9WJ9YCb2FPCvA/w640-h426/IMG_4879E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The last photo I took before we left. We didn't catch the colors are their peak, but they were spectacular anyway. They were actually peaking when we got to the Park but three days of heavy rain managed to bash a lot of the color off the trees. Still...it was a great color show.</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZTCgYvvFuIiVlTj0cvPW22Puz9DG6iWUMHQm5cCSdvZZM2gcjKPW_lXGPPzh3bEm7EFELJERqJ7RQ6UJQVpSBWEZTjfy3otwrwbQ07aWyOd0k-x44rFx1tw0tDvfcFTgzlAWvCg/s2589/IMG_4844E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1214" data-original-width="2589" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZTCgYvvFuIiVlTj0cvPW22Puz9DG6iWUMHQm5cCSdvZZM2gcjKPW_lXGPPzh3bEm7EFELJERqJ7RQ6UJQVpSBWEZTjfy3otwrwbQ07aWyOd0k-x44rFx1tw0tDvfcFTgzlAWvCg/w640-h300/IMG_4844E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Initially, I wasn't going to take any photos of the elk. But when the rain finally broke we drove to Oconaluftee (adjacent to the campground) and there were elk wandering about, grazing. The rut was just over and all of the bull elk were elsewhere. After the rut the bulls tend to congregate in male-only groups and chill out together. So the elk herd was reduced to cows and calves. As you can see, some of the trees had dropped their leaves during the hard rains, but the color was still spectacular.</b></span><br /><div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzFe16E5T-VNjfyZZ-aQ4NOCbh5QlNPfTNKvXbmJqdmNFrf121EqVmM8ozzIUQ0aQr06RbbdkUNlBsW6w8hsd0Wj6VpC0SnQJUyM4zg6BLCkdoItlvOMVi7X0eqj_8TsAeEG1wgw/s2048/IMG_4864.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzFe16E5T-VNjfyZZ-aQ4NOCbh5QlNPfTNKvXbmJqdmNFrf121EqVmM8ozzIUQ0aQr06RbbdkUNlBsW6w8hsd0Wj6VpC0SnQJUyM4zg6BLCkdoItlvOMVi7X0eqj_8TsAeEG1wgw/w640-h426/IMG_4864.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><div style="text-align: center;"><b>An elk calf, its camouflage spots recently faded away.</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRTzOiKFkZwz29-6NMdH8oxAFXZazvuodwKv7yZh7KF7FzYekAQX-ZuWjhZjYrAbcDx_ZgUQMpvvnxvaAULdoZ_sl8QLjl62I3RThO__Tl5PCUF9UhLP2XJFEKKOUHJjVD7sKlA/s2048/IMG_4816.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiRTzOiKFkZwz29-6NMdH8oxAFXZazvuodwKv7yZh7KF7FzYekAQX-ZuWjhZjYrAbcDx_ZgUQMpvvnxvaAULdoZ_sl8QLjl62I3RThO__Tl5PCUF9UhLP2XJFEKKOUHJjVD7sKlA/w640-h426/IMG_4816.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>This was at an overlook on Balsam Mountain Road on a drive we took after the rain finally broke.</b></span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivB7wXg0dxaIz3Pdzwc6ygk0vLf7YfkbLJ2q_A0DVJ2pSpyhFC7G4c4PJLZpD6biKu-SALqwjDrQuBHyeK6beoKV78SX3_kZyYTgZikrSBN7aOrNn8SKvLsU_IytecMguxet4VGA/s2048/IMG_4843.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivB7wXg0dxaIz3Pdzwc6ygk0vLf7YfkbLJ2q_A0DVJ2pSpyhFC7G4c4PJLZpD6biKu-SALqwjDrQuBHyeK6beoKV78SX3_kZyYTgZikrSBN7aOrNn8SKvLsU_IytecMguxet4VGA/w640-h426/IMG_4843.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq54IABPTnlApFT7mZSRoEZQ4S-O6OkyV83_HNTS7RlJNGNVySE4uuNcjlwb0pX-MUfUx68O9wgp0P8kaoSec7IMvNbSst7kTHO7em0UajqfxIVV1NvwFE7D7ZjSt1TmTbfb-cEQ/s2048/IMG_4801E.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiq54IABPTnlApFT7mZSRoEZQ4S-O6OkyV83_HNTS7RlJNGNVySE4uuNcjlwb0pX-MUfUx68O9wgp0P8kaoSec7IMvNbSst7kTHO7em0UajqfxIVV1NvwFE7D7ZjSt1TmTbfb-cEQ/w640-h426/IMG_4801E.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Another view along Balsam Mountain Road at high elevation. The peaks here are over 5,000 feet. I like this view because of the obvious change of climate zones as altitude increases. You can see the stark delineation where the spruce-fir Canadian zone begins.</b></span><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p></div>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-52124352322975551092021-09-25T15:36:00.008-04:002021-09-25T15:44:26.550-04:00Sidelining Martin Goodman<p><b><span style="color: red;">Continuing essay to counter the constant erroneous corporate propaganda regarding the early days of Marvel Comics.</span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Another thing that the Lee droolies like to do is to claim that Stan Lee was a marketing genius guiding the corporate ship known as Marvel Comics. This never happened. Martin Goodman, the publisher and owner, held Lee in such low esteem that his junior cousin-by-marriage had to clear everything through the owner (Goodman) for all but the most minor decisions. Contrary to the lies made popular by later faux-historians, you can see that Martin Goodman was a hands-on publisher who paid very close attention to all of his publishing ventures, especially to Marvel Comics. Once Kirby and Ditko had revitalized the comics publishing portion of his publishing outfit he did not want the Comics Code Authority, or muckraking journalists, to come down on him with complaints against the material he was printing. He was enjoying his resurgent economic success, while also searching for a buyer to make him a rich man. He didn't need complications and kept a very close eye on Marvel.</b></span></p><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="color: #050505; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>I mention all of this because I was recently referred to an article which repeats the fallacy that Lee was some kind of marketing genius, giving him credit where none is due.</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Lee never marketed anything. Just as he never created, plotted, or wrote anything.</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Lee was a rudderless shill. He depended upon upper management for all direction. All of it. Martin Goodman was the man who built a publishing empire from essentially nothing. Goodman hired the talent, paid them, saw to the day to day running of the show and made sure the bills were paid. And he certainly knew how and where to advertise and to make the decisions concerning customer outreach.</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>This article claimed that it was Lee who saw a way to expand sales by noticing new customers who hadn't been targeted. However, Lee didn't see any untapped market. He never directed any kind of promotional campaign or fan outreach. Hell, he couldn't buy paperclips for the office without permission so how was he supposed to find and toss advertising money at this great invisible prospective customer base?</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Reporters like the fellow who wrote that article make a common error. They had seen that lying blowhard on TV, radio, or in too many print interviews for them to formulate any honest conclusions remotely based on the truth.</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Lee was never executive material who could be trusted with a responsibility as important as marketing. If no corporate powerhouse had ever wanted his one dimensional car salesman schtick, his own cousin wasn't going to trust him with something as serious as advertising Marvel Comics. Lee was a subnormal jackass, and he was far too stupid to create any complicated or nuanced business models. He couldn't even plot the comic strips so often credited to him!</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>However, Lee <i><u>was</u></i> a shill who had value to various Marvel owners (and Marvel owners <u>ONLY</u>!) due to his (and the corporations) unfounded claims over the intellectual property stolen from creators like Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.</b></span></span></div></div><div class="o9v6fnle cxmmr5t8 oygrvhab hcukyx3x c1et5uql" style="margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Giving that creep credit for the hard work of Martin Goodman is akin to saying that the actor who portrayed The Marlboro Man was the Chief Financial Officer of a multi-national tobacco corporation. Would you say that some nameless actor was the business mastermind of the vast Marlboro Cigarette Company? Only a snookered moron would make that claim. Like the Marlboro Man, Lee portrayed a garish, posed, false character trotted out to blinker the hoi polloi. They train people to do that. They direct them how to say it, and when to repeat their scripted lines. But the costumed actors don't run the company. Neither did a shill working for Martin Goodman, Cadence Industries, etc.<br /><br />To paraphrase Steve Ditko: A shill is a shill.</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><br /></b><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Pu7Ne5TsCXf3xh4i9a_V_ztb6ZHHkrPjomW8S5KkObxs36LSc3twYoa8C2Di83KkZT6e8NlPXlpaCY1YjO3it48J2ofI0Euf5pqcNE0zWAg3barlU25cNFj2-Y3bGfXZeEPE1w/s1200/Marlboro+Man.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3Pu7Ne5TsCXf3xh4i9a_V_ztb6ZHHkrPjomW8S5KkObxs36LSc3twYoa8C2Di83KkZT6e8NlPXlpaCY1YjO3it48J2ofI0Euf5pqcNE0zWAg3barlU25cNFj2-Y3bGfXZeEPE1w/w640-h360/Marlboro+Man.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>A fiction.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></span><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJX5npij93doY_h2i6s6EQ42uU2sYTm7HqCCy6v8OB1psvdGqQmrguE5etyz2KGeJsgSVRkrGsaFoB-qvc1NHr6Qhh9nHmdzj84QBedlYTxoZevTqwnkmjY6X-rskL4KAYf_xxcw/s1596/Martin+Goodman.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1057" data-original-width="1596" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJX5npij93doY_h2i6s6EQ42uU2sYTm7HqCCy6v8OB1psvdGqQmrguE5etyz2KGeJsgSVRkrGsaFoB-qvc1NHr6Qhh9nHmdzj84QBedlYTxoZevTqwnkmjY6X-rskL4KAYf_xxcw/w640-h424/Martin+Goodman.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Martin Goodman, the man who actually built and guided a publishing company.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div></div></div></div>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-82714676554212030962021-09-10T11:52:00.002-04:002021-09-10T11:55:50.480-04:00Countdowns and Possibilities.<p> <b>Carole and I tend to plan our vacations carefully. Some time back we were having problems with the leveling jacks on our Casita so a friend came over and removed them for us with a saw that sheared through the steel. It was great to be rid of the damned things, I must tell you.</b></p><p><b>Over the intervening months we kept putting off installing new jacks because we couldn't decide which brand and design to use. I wouldn't have thought there was that much variety, but there is. Finally, yesterday I took the trailer off to a shop to have new leveling jacks installed, and to have some other minor touch-up work done. I hope to have the Casita back in a few days. Then we'll start loading it up for our big Autumn trip to the Smokies. I may even go off to a NC state park or National Forest campsite for a few days. Who knows?</b></p><p><b>When Carole retires we're going to take some extensive trips that will stretch beyond a couple of weeks into as long as two months. We have found that we tend to get a bit stir crazy in our Casita in trips over fourteen days. We love the trailer and we also know people who take trips of several months in them, but that's not for us. So, in the months leading up to Carole's retirement we're going to sell our precious Casita and buy a new, larger fiberglass travel trailer. We'll likely purchase a 21-foot Escape, but it's possible we could go with a similar sized Bigfoot or Airstream. The jury is still out.</b></p><p><b>So, our backyard parking lot looks a bit empty with no Casita sitting in it waiting for the next trip. We're probably looking at only eighteen months or so of camping in it before we buy a new model. Unless we change our minds, there will be a very sad day when we say goodbye to the trailer that has carried us all over the Atlantic seaboard, down to the Florida Keys, and as far west (and north) as Glacier National Park. I can already say we'll miss Casita Girl (as Carole calls her).</b></p><p><b>Or maybe we'll change our minds and keep her. You never can tell.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2sDHssk2Rar1UzCsZZvhc1kXpuVHhsbKnbBPVPCKA3aHzxofXTxyNOQwHPORbnAv3gHPowQGFfvKErtmkd1PGj2QU49tB04HfOiR-lc1jx03d4A0czICq_ie8j1P3ZIxBl4jaeA/s2048/IMG_3804.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2sDHssk2Rar1UzCsZZvhc1kXpuVHhsbKnbBPVPCKA3aHzxofXTxyNOQwHPORbnAv3gHPowQGFfvKErtmkd1PGj2QU49tB04HfOiR-lc1jx03d4A0czICq_ie8j1P3ZIxBl4jaeA/w640-h426/IMG_3804.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="396" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rUBGb7Oht9o" width="556" youtube-src-id="rUBGb7Oht9o"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-48098363331948980692021-09-02T12:52:00.005-04:002021-09-02T18:06:47.040-04:00Liar, Liar<p> <span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Presented as the alternative to decades of propaganda.</b></span></p><p><b>As I predicted long ago, with the death of the corporate shill known as Stan Lee, the truth about his career in comics is coming out at a more rapid pace than when he was still breathing. But while it's easier to get the word out concerning his moral crimes, it's no easier to deal with his fans when one is telling the truth about him.</b></p><p><b>I can only describe his fan base as religious fanatics. They have been fed a line about his divinity and if you challenge this line you are at risk of the same kind of attack you would expect from a crazed fundamentalist, or from a rabid animal. When you tell what really happened at Marvel after Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko transformed the publisher from a faltering outfit into a tremendous success the Liar's true believers will descend on you with knives out.</b></p><p><b>Here, then, are the basic truths:</b></p><p><b>What we know of today as the Marvel Universe was created mainly by Jack Kirby. To a lesser extent it was also given commercial success by Steve Ditko. There were additional contributors such as Bill Everett, Wally Wood, Dick Ayers, Don Heck, and others; but the mass of the modern fables emerged from the minds and talents of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko.</b></p><p><b>The big liar we call Stan Lee (Stanley Lieber) was the editor for the comics arm of a publishing company started by Martin Goodman. Lee was cousin-by-marriage to Goodman, so his installation into the company was an act of pure nepotism. No talent was involved, and no meritocracy was at work. A relative was shown the ropes and was provided with a steady paycheck at a very young age. Lee's lack of talent is obvious in that he never left the employ of his relative and stayed there over the years, never venturing forth to find gainful employment elsewhere, and never proving himself as anyone valuable enough for a head hunter to come calling. It's often said that Lee was a good salesman, but I always found him to be on a level with a scamming used car salesman. His personality was odious, at best.</b></p><p><b>But what service did he provide for Martin Goodman? After Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were allowed to create new titles to cash in on the superhero craze of the early 1960s, Goodman needed a salaried employee whose name could be attached to the intellectual property to cement the company's claim to that property. And, as the only salaried employee at the comics arm of Martin Goodman's corporation, Lee fit the bill.</b></p><p><b>So: the liar's name went on every book as writer. Later, Lee claimed to have created all of the titles and characters at the early Marvel Comics. He claimed to have created the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, the Avengers, the Uncanny X-Men, Daredevil, the Mighty Thor, Dr. Strange, the Amazing Spider-Man, Iron Man, Giant Man, Ant Man, etc. In fact, though, there is zero evidence that Lee invented any of the characters which he claimed to be writing. Also, there are credible claims that he wasn't even writing the parade of successful books appearing from the likes of Kirby, Ditko, Ayers, Wood, Everett, Heck, Romita, and company. Keep in mind that before the explosion of creativity provided from Kirby and Ditko, Goodman's most profitable enterprise was publishing a line of men's adventure fiction magazines. There was a constant parade of talented writers in and out of the building who were only too happy to expand dialog already provided by the artists who were actually not only creating the characters, but plotting and writing them. For a couple of hours work these ghost-writers could earn grocery money. No big deal that another man's name went on. For in those days comic scripting was held in lower esteem than even the pulp fiction they were producing for Martin Goodman. Who cared if a no-talent bum put his signature to it?</b></p><p><b>Over the following months and years as Marvel's fortunes expanded Goodman sought to sell the company. I can imagine what he was thinking. He'd already seen his comic book business go through a boom and bust cycle from the early 1940s and through the 1950s, and he could have figured he was riding another wave that might soon crest and fall. He wanted to get out while the company was a ripe crop ready to be harvested and sold. Therefore, more than ever he needed a corporate shill that enabled him to claim ownership of the intellectual property that rightly resided with the men who had sweated it out: mainly Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. For that purpose alone, Lee's lying presence was invaluable.</b></p><p><b>Eventually, Goodman did sell Marvel. For enough cash so that he was able to retire to Florida as a wealthy man. What he never considered was that the value of Jack Kirby's creations was far more than he ever could have dreamed. The publisher never figured that his connivance with Liar Lee was a theft that would someday be measured in tens of billions of dollars. I cannot think of another theft of intellectual property that rivals what was stolen from Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. The monetary value of the likes of X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man, the Avengers, Dr. Strange, etc. staggers the imagination. And as that wealth has increased, so did the lies of the man whose professional existence was provided for that sole purpose. And also continued the willingness for the various corporate owners to go along--they still needed that lie to live on.</b></p><p><b>In fact, though, we all know who created the characters. Kirby, Ditko, Everett, and others did. Who wrote the books? The artists who illustrated it were expected to plot and also write them. The editor placed his name on the credits page as "writer" when there is zero evidence he ever wrote anything other than poorly rendered promotional blurbs and columns, and an occasional butchering of dialog and scripts in some issues. The corporations claimed ownership for everything because of the existence of a sole salaried employee.</b></p><p><b>Today, as I said, the truth is emerging. We now know who created the characters and wrote and illustrated the stories. It wasn't the lying editor.</b></p><p><b>But telling this simple truth can still be a tough row to hoe. One has to deal with the army of zealots who believe the fallacy that a slimy grifter created the characters they love. These fans equate the face of a gleaming, grinning slug with their beloved comics. And there are the professional sellouts working in the comics industry who still feel the urge to kiss corporate ass after the lying bastard they once worked for is dead and rotting. Hopefully, these prostitutes will come to their senses and find enough dignity to stop lying for a dead thief and the corporate master he served. Maybe that will happen. But I doubt it.</b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQm_0-N_vO9faeHI9P6JBGq-xu9R4I8Ua4u47qaH6qztNkYyWB_Ylr0wb3-YX71f78wXDxnVGGI7lnlT8ArK7pH_-CyUzh8DSwmF4In4v29v4OFLDWtSu87N69ZOKsDh3Wp3IQg/s4356/20210720_180559.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4356" data-original-width="3194" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQm_0-N_vO9faeHI9P6JBGq-xu9R4I8Ua4u47qaH6qztNkYyWB_Ylr0wb3-YX71f78wXDxnVGGI7lnlT8ArK7pH_-CyUzh8DSwmF4In4v29v4OFLDWtSu87N69ZOKsDh3Wp3IQg/w470-h640/20210720_180559.jpg" width="470" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b><a href="https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/michael-hill/according-to-jack-kirby/paperback/product-v7dnyy.html?page=1&pageSize=4" target="_blank">ACCORDING TO JACK KIRBY</a> by Michael Hill. Highly recommended.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xsPmaZgWSmg0KHtiL-xknb20V3aZsYNBY_7tvKI4m4gwAiENYuJxd8mSCBRFMO7NIstA_mEJVCBzDJI_MkDgCKk1TD7GEcE8Ub_w2NvFs9-U9BgET0OeRWHk34ACuXDw97rk7g/s225/9k%253D.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-xsPmaZgWSmg0KHtiL-xknb20V3aZsYNBY_7tvKI4m4gwAiENYuJxd8mSCBRFMO7NIstA_mEJVCBzDJI_MkDgCKk1TD7GEcE8Ub_w2NvFs9-U9BgET0OeRWHk34ACuXDw97rk7g/w640-h640/9k%253D.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The Amazing Spider-Man. Created by, plotted by, written by, penciled by, inked by Steve Ditko.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-34796243869432451882021-08-31T13:31:00.003-04:002021-09-02T11:35:22.868-04:00YouTube<p><b>I have a YouTube account. Occasionally I post video of my trips. Generally my videos are records of my vacations to places as diverse as the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, to hikes in Glacier National Park in Montana. They're there for my own pleasure, and as ways for friends and family to see some of the places I've visited. </b></p><p><b>I don't do it for money since my account is too small for YouTube to assign it to monetization. There's a minimum number of subscribers one must have to earn funds on YouTube, and I don't have those subscribers.</b></p><p><b>However, I do watch a number of YouTube channels that are monetized. Some of them earn out impressive sums for their creators. One guy I used to watch had about a million subscribers by the time I stopped visiting his channel. And that's what I want to write about: the reason I stop viewing some content creators on YouTube.</b></p><p><b>The reason I stopped viewing the guy whose fan base grew to enormous numbers wasn't because he started making tons of money from it. I generally couldn't care less about that. What did bug me about it was purely selfish. Initially I thought of his show as something of a secret. But as his fan base ballooned to crazy numbers the novelty of it faded and I got bored with it and just stopped watching. It was just too much the same every episode, and I also got the impression that some of it was created content rather than the spontaneous exploration that had originally attracted me. So, I wrote it off and haven't seen it in about three years.</b></p><p><b>One channel I used to watch featured a working class couple who got into hiking for fitness. Their videos showed them as a couple of fatties who did look as if they had been in good shape once upon a time and had let themselves go. They tracked their weight loss as they tackled long hikes and steep mountains and as the months progressed they were no longer overweight and after about two years were once more in excellent physical condition. And they began to wear skimpier and skimpier (and expensive) hiking clothes, showing off their physiques. For whatever reason I began to suspect that the whole thing was a setup. They'd gone DeNiro Raging Bull and had intentionally gained forty pounds each with the scheme of losing the lard online to promote themselves. Finally, watching the pair of them prance around like a couple of tarts made me nauseous. I can't even recall the title of their channel or even if it still exists.</b></p><p><b>Another guy I used to watch because he posted the best Rocky Mountain hiking information I have ever seen. I could watch his videos and decide whether our not I wanted to tackle a particular mountain when my wife and I head west for a couple of months when she retires. His videos coughed up the finest trail beta I have ever seen with details about trail difficulty and how not to veer off route on some of the tougher hikes. However, he committed what I consider to be a cardinal sin when it comes to producing how-to videos: he got political. In his case it was just one comment. But it turned his show from something fun to watch and into a screed. I couldn't look at him or hear his voice without thinking of him as an idiot. Normally I don't care what a person's political or philosophical beliefs are; but if you're creating a channel about nature then you need to focus on that and only that. Again, I can't even recall his name or the title of his YouTube channel. His was a rare case wherein I actually blocked his presence.</b></p><p><b>Some creator content I just grow bored with, or happen upon another channel that does the same thing, but in a superior way.</b></p><p><b>Then there are the folk who achieve financial success with their show and rub it in their fan's faces. Again, I don't begrudge someone turning a profit. That's fine. One hiker/kayaker I follow has achieved success and thanks his fans for allowing him to earn out enough from YouTube to use the funds to travel more widely to more interesting locations. That's okay. But some of these folk just brag. Some of them end up buying expensive toys with the money the viewers allow them to get and show it off. "Look what you losers allowed me to buy." I've axed several shows over this. One couple accumulated many thousands of fans and then attached a button to their screen that allows suckers...I mean viewers...to send them money. The instant they did that I deleted their channel.</b></p><p><b>So, essentially, unless you are producing a YouTube channel about politics, then it's best to avoid such in your YouTube channel. Just don't do it. Yes, you can attract people of one particular political inclination or another, but you can also lose a bunch of fans who would otherwise watch your show and earn money for you. Just the facts, ma'am.</b></p><p><b>Finally, along the same vein, are the channels that reach a level of popularity when they become "influencers" in the eyes of manufacturers. This lot of creators get to a point where companies send them expensive gifts with the idea that they will dedicate an episode to giving a positive review of the gifted items. This is pretty much when I take leave of them. One of the channels I watched regularly until the past couple of weeks fell victim to this. His past few videos have been glowing reviews of merchandise that manufacturers have given him. Since he became a so-called influencer I haven't seen him post any of the local travel videos he was putting up almost weekly. I'll be saying goodbye to his channel, too.</b></p><p><b>And there you have it.</b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYgd4jJA3dShvpSgyl7gtwXSDf2XQ-EKgetf_xYEdGwOE7F-QbMWrAfjQ8CzmPNNNEtuqPgtlNa7Emhe_rFuw34KqxZB0QOalRz0zfaTj8QUj_N9yisF4s_8DBnU3uMQ68tQrPEA/s2048/Elk+06.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="2048" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYgd4jJA3dShvpSgyl7gtwXSDf2XQ-EKgetf_xYEdGwOE7F-QbMWrAfjQ8CzmPNNNEtuqPgtlNa7Emhe_rFuw34KqxZB0QOalRz0zfaTj8QUj_N9yisF4s_8DBnU3uMQ68tQrPEA/w640-h498/Elk+06.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="404" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ka6dIfhN4g8" width="612" youtube-src-id="ka6dIfhN4g8"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-26437541618535102082021-08-12T21:04:00.001-04:002021-08-13T08:32:30.347-04:00My Hike to the Summit of Mount LeConte and My Stay at LeConte Lodge.<p><b> The first time I saw LeConte Lodge was on a dayhike to the summit of Mount LeConte in 1974. I took the Alum Cave Trail to the top of the mountain and spotted the lodge as I hiked up to the Cliff Tops overlook. Of course I had to take a detour and see the lodge. It was amazing to me that comfortable accommodations were located high on the mountain many miles from the nearest road and with the only access being steep and rocky single-file trails.</b></p><p><b>Back then the lodge was still being heated with firewood. Later, when the owners of this concession were no longer allowed to gather firewood, they switched to kerosene heaters; and these days the buildings and rooms are warmed with propane heaters.</b></p><p><b>After I climbed to the cliffs to take some photos and look out over the nearby peaks, I went back for another look at the lodge. I wanted to be able to stay overnight there and stopped in the office to ask how that was done. And, of course, I promised myself that one day I would make the trip up there and stay for a night or two.</b></p><p><b>Decades passed and somehow I never got the chance to go back, except for dayhikes to the summit. Over those years I managed to find myself hiking up there seven different times via three different trails. When I started working for the USPS I would call and try to arrange a reservation, but on the days that I had free there were no spots open. To draw a long tale short I had to wait until I was retired; to a time when I could take an open date no matter when it fell. Thus, last month I called and asked about any cancellations and found two dates open in August.</b></p><p><b>I ended up taking the first open date even though Carole and I would be camping for four days in the same Park the previous week. We would be coming home, and I would be returning to the Park for my hike to the top of LeConte two days later. So it goes. I no longer live by much of a schedule. I make the plans and don't need to worry about job responsibilities.</b></p><p><b>For this trip I chose to go up via a trail called The Boulevard. At about 8.4 miles it's longer than the others I had used, but I had been told it was a lot easier than the three with which I was familiar. This proved to be a load of crap, as it is harder than any of the other three. For my money, the best way up is still Alum Cave Trail. You climb more, but the distance is a brief five miles, and the scenery is superior to any of the four routes I've taken.</b></p><p><b>But I made it up. The hike took me about five and a half hours since I stopped to eat breakfast on the trail (protein bars and water). I also paused many times to take photographs, as I always do when I go hiking. The first part of the hike is 2.7 miles on the Appalachian Trail with a climb from 5300 feet at Newfound Gap to 6,000 feet near the top of Mount Kephart. From there I faced a series of moderate ups and downs, losing and gaining elevation in what the hiking community refer to as "pointless ups and downs". At last, I approached more open territory with very rugged terrain and a steep climb of eight hundred vertical feet to the top of the mountain, then a drop of about two hundred feet to the lodge.</b></p><p><b>By the time I strolled up to the buildings I was quite tired and sweaty. I checked into my lodge room and soon discovered that my stay would be everything that I hoped it would be. I was pleased. I quickly retrieved a metal bucket to take water to my room and use a wash basin to take a sponge bath. Clean and refreshed, the first thing I did was crawl into my very comfortable bed and rest for about fifteen minutes. After that I took a stroll through the grounds taking photos, then went back to my lodge where I met a young couple from Detroit who were staying there for two nights.</b></p><p><b>Later I took a walk up to Cliff Tops but the views were obscured by passing clouds so there were no landscape photography opportunities. At 2 o'clock they opened the dining hall for various drinks and I had a couple of cups of lemonade. I then just sat on the covered porch in a rocking chair and enjoyed the passing clouds, some of them enveloping the lodge with fingers of white mist. Temperatures hovered around 64 all that afternoon, into the night, and were the same on the following morning.</b></p><p><b>Because of Covid the dining hall was closed except for brief trips in to get beverages, and then only masked. So the crew brings dinner and breakfast to your lodge room for the duration. The evening meal was roast beef, green beans, mashed potatoes, baked apples, cornbread, cake, and I had opted for three glasses of wine. I had plenty to eat and turned down offers of seconds when the staff made another pass.</b></p><p><b>Every other time I have backpacked into the Park backcountry I have had to sleep in a shelter or a tent, using a sleeping bag and hanging my food from a convenient tree to keep it safe from bears and other marauding critters. But that night I slept in a log lodge in a bedroom with a propane heater, on an extremely comfortable mattress between cottons sheets and under two wool blankets with a pair of soft pillows under my head. I slept deeply.</b></p><p><b>The following morning I rose, shaved, brushed my teeth, deposited the gray water behind the lodge and got ready for breakfast. They opened the dining hall and I retrieved several cups of coffee and soon had a great breakfast delivered: pancakes with sorghum syrup, grits, scrambled eggs, Canadian bacon, and a biscuit with plenty of apple butter. I ate it all and chased it with another cup of coffee. After that I got my pack ready as a rainstorm rolled in (the peak gets 85 inches of rainfall per year). I chose to wait a few minutes to see if the rainclouds would pass over, and they did. As the sun was revealed again I hoisted my pack and took a reluctant leave of LeConte Lodge. </b></p><p><b>The hike down wasn't as difficult as the trudge up and I knocked it out in three and a half hours by making no stops at all and pausing only to take a few photos. I had wanted a two-night stay, and the next time I go I will be there for two nights. Because I will go back again. It's rare for an experience to be exactly what you hoped for. Any place like that is worth return trips.</b></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt7qcb6oLvIUcOzkk9rdG-LOh0xGPA4uKBA0deH6J3q1q2foCGQnken5LlzBRXTMCALLw1Pj1-GwtuQkhDXN723h4USZcutRS-1eR0nhF1QFrP9PSHE8OLAof85oj-EZ1RyZH-7w/s2048/IMG_4488.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt7qcb6oLvIUcOzkk9rdG-LOh0xGPA4uKBA0deH6J3q1q2foCGQnken5LlzBRXTMCALLw1Pj1-GwtuQkhDXN723h4USZcutRS-1eR0nhF1QFrP9PSHE8OLAof85oj-EZ1RyZH-7w/w640-h426/IMG_4488.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>I arrive at the cutoff to The Boulevard.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOM00E7fot7hBU5JGEcg6Py5PPqNWUC5GFdzFrm9-QCnWgc7aCyDwIWdNKMZDowO6yL0GGYxwzc_qmIZkCuSdyyhXQOf1kiZtASj-aNYzb2oKBLHi_zT9rZLI28KK-A-zNxe0Lg/s2048/IMG_4634.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrOM00E7fot7hBU5JGEcg6Py5PPqNWUC5GFdzFrm9-QCnWgc7aCyDwIWdNKMZDowO6yL0GGYxwzc_qmIZkCuSdyyhXQOf1kiZtASj-aNYzb2oKBLHi_zT9rZLI28KK-A-zNxe0Lg/w640-h426/IMG_4634.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The Boulevard where the trail had to have cable hand rail installed after a landslide.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pmtEmN9Vb1MzNfJQXGB-It1zZkijER0QFr0j9nWAmVe4CufX-xGaLvB6awQ7__74KqPRgPTg1XK4cmt2CNb4yZMBS4iXnGsasvFt2jnFwxW_l3C1K9odMr2QojKjGo0ubwgJIw/s2048/IMG_4540.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9pmtEmN9Vb1MzNfJQXGB-It1zZkijER0QFr0j9nWAmVe4CufX-xGaLvB6awQ7__74KqPRgPTg1XK4cmt2CNb4yZMBS4iXnGsasvFt2jnFwxW_l3C1K9odMr2QojKjGo0ubwgJIw/w640-h426/IMG_4540.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Almost there! 3/4 of a mile!</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9EsELUdRQ7o2BbCOeogI5fpdl0vJJS_dW4VoBXXgYQ8JU9fKJ4CvSuTn2QUOhlZtdry7EGfDWHWnTKumU2-WRKV9ebYzRNHYcloFEMiwmkqnEO_GSV-8XqERwCklxr49mHL5fWQ/s2048/IMG_4555.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9EsELUdRQ7o2BbCOeogI5fpdl0vJJS_dW4VoBXXgYQ8JU9fKJ4CvSuTn2QUOhlZtdry7EGfDWHWnTKumU2-WRKV9ebYzRNHYcloFEMiwmkqnEO_GSV-8XqERwCklxr49mHL5fWQ/w640-h426/IMG_4555.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Looking down at the lodge where my room was located. Taken from the office deck.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVHpJrWEQgtzeI-eFdOjPJgsMerFJCoAgVzb91vQKAQOxidXnaJMTA-RtXxkvNEBpYSVapdbd7mlzMI2iX5ASY_Dm4sm7UDGzahueqZYHjh8m6_VYJaZ754czPNv2H4npZv90zQ/s2048/IMG_4554.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVHpJrWEQgtzeI-eFdOjPJgsMerFJCoAgVzb91vQKAQOxidXnaJMTA-RtXxkvNEBpYSVapdbd7mlzMI2iX5ASY_Dm4sm7UDGzahueqZYHjh8m6_VYJaZ754czPNv2H4npZv90zQ/w640-h426/IMG_4554.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The dining/living room and my bedroom just beyond.</b></span></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p> </p><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir-MpzVHZU0ajj7QFN8jOcvgi1CR-TOnCiWR7IRNPfz2DX4MQKl7zqhRxLdZFenLXiFJknWWIeumlAKn8_QktC2OfOnxG3HMK-m_eX_IvvTRXodEkViMwrp2FR8Rcbjnx4APOqgQ/s4898/IMG_4553.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="4898" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir-MpzVHZU0ajj7QFN8jOcvgi1CR-TOnCiWR7IRNPfz2DX4MQKl7zqhRxLdZFenLXiFJknWWIeumlAKn8_QktC2OfOnxG3HMK-m_eX_IvvTRXodEkViMwrp2FR8Rcbjnx4APOqgQ/w640-h426/IMG_4553.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>My bedroom.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></b></span></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBLTYJhC3I9_VQjNep2iCnUP3tDj_-dARs_bLtykAt4DkgVeg6mlaBncD5e7SXzChalInUy4QNKn_7b87d6ZfcxIfNmhKCeNXGNCCJcwxqhXOZpbkwMLRfSFOfdfYclEgMy5LHQ/s2048/IMG_4575.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnBLTYJhC3I9_VQjNep2iCnUP3tDj_-dARs_bLtykAt4DkgVeg6mlaBncD5e7SXzChalInUy4QNKn_7b87d6ZfcxIfNmhKCeNXGNCCJcwxqhXOZpbkwMLRfSFOfdfYclEgMy5LHQ/w640-h426/IMG_4575.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The dining hall.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzdNbwDHRwU7Fiqnf4F1WXkC46BHLUfCtPJwyotJjp5V2Elf7FTbOpIA5TiF4benVwfpfuW1ZJt2wlL9MAAInl2R8I8VpaweT_7d1bSGC59Pbk896l2Yrf0oGYvepn30dV-TQJMw/s2048/IMG_4580.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzdNbwDHRwU7Fiqnf4F1WXkC46BHLUfCtPJwyotJjp5V2Elf7FTbOpIA5TiF4benVwfpfuW1ZJt2wlL9MAAInl2R8I8VpaweT_7d1bSGC59Pbk896l2Yrf0oGYvepn30dV-TQJMw/w640-h426/IMG_4580.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The table and washstand in my bedroom with kerosene lamp.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><br /><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6IEkKsU5LNTa9xfEnMv94cR3BEng3Le3WkIEbpPOOCtPVUiAiaqFSPsZsT1IXDYRRP26__NIASrqX2iEiD5-Gf7tZBnbpG_veEh3HgTf3eT0DbRsMPWie74pf7OO9R9JXf_fw1A/s2048/IMG_4585.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6IEkKsU5LNTa9xfEnMv94cR3BEng3Le3WkIEbpPOOCtPVUiAiaqFSPsZsT1IXDYRRP26__NIASrqX2iEiD5-Gf7tZBnbpG_veEh3HgTf3eT0DbRsMPWie74pf7OO9R9JXf_fw1A/w640-h426/IMG_4585.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Breakfast, delivered to my room at 8:00 am.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2TkomQDgH9lMEaSH_yFiVnYrtwW8GF3jFkq04MxEhEH9H9_8EqgCwJswL0yHdkQXqw0lsb-11mnBHbAxyUrxrYBu_hc_MpRnfSa2mLC4ir1wFSOa4CIJg5hKpvL5f9hdDaW7bQ/s2048/IMG_4648.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb2TkomQDgH9lMEaSH_yFiVnYrtwW8GF3jFkq04MxEhEH9H9_8EqgCwJswL0yHdkQXqw0lsb-11mnBHbAxyUrxrYBu_hc_MpRnfSa2mLC4ir1wFSOa4CIJg5hKpvL5f9hdDaW7bQ/w640-h426/IMG_4648.JPG" width="640" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The trail through the high elevation rain forest back to Newfound Gap.</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="323" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IgJaKrKIhKA" width="621" youtube-src-id="IgJaKrKIhKA"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p><br />James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-24982160033649318322021-08-07T22:18:00.005-04:002021-08-07T22:20:49.351-04:00Early August Trip to Smokemont Campground, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.<p><b>Well, I'm retired so I can pretty much head off and take a trip any time I want to. Carole, however, is only semi-retired. She already took her 401k and pension (both of which she invests), but won't be eligible for Social Security for about 15 months or so. Therefore, she wants to keep working until 62.</b></p><p><b>This past week we headed over to the Great Smoky Mountains for a three-night camping trip. We opted to stay at the Smokemont Campground which we'd never used. Generally we utilize the Elkmont Campground on the other side of the Park. While the trails and scenery and more spectacular there, the traffic can be monstrous beyond description due to that area's proximity to the semi-urban hellholes known as Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Our last long stay at Elkmont was made difficult because of the bumper-to-bumper traffic bleeding into the Park from Gatlinburg.</b></p><p><b>Not wishing to face that kind of headache again, we opted for the Cherokee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park which is subject to less traffic. As it turned out, we made a good choice. The campground is much nicer than we had anticipated. Also, the three big elk herds that have developed since the repatriation of the species to the parklands have concentrated themselves in enclaves between Cataloochee Valley (where the first animals were released) and the rest of a triangle created by the Qualla Reservation, and Balsam Mountain Campground where it borders the Blue Ridge Parkway.</b></p><p><b>The herd numbers 240-250 animals currently, and the three main herds are each about 50 to 60 elk with smaller populations interspersed throughout this general area. So if you want to see the elk, the best places to camp or visit are Cataloochee Valley and Campground, Balsam Mountain Campground (the highest campground in the Park), or Smokemont Campground near Oconaluftee where the absolute largest herd congregates regularly. In fact, it's a rare day that a visit to Oconaluftee in the afternoon will not net you at least a peek of at least a few of the giant deer in the later afternoon.</b></p><p><b>While we were staying at Smokemont we did some hiking, and took some drives to nearby towns. As usual, we cooked most of our meals, but did try a couple of restaurants by driving outside the campground to Bryson City (about nine miles away).</b></p><p><b>For some reason, despite the fact that the Great Smoky Mountains National Park has more bears than ever (at least 1500 black bears now make their homes there), I have gone about three years without seeing so much as a fleeting shadow of one. We were really hoping to be able to take some photos of a bear, but no such opportunity presented itself. A ranger told us that one did come through the campground while we were not at our campsite. So it goes.</b></p><p><b>We're thinking of heading back to the Park in October for a trip to see the Fall colors. We did that in 2019 and caught them at their peak, which was a first for me. Before that I would get there either too early or too late to see full Fall splendor. But we're also thinking of flying up to New England before Christmas, so that may be what we end up doing instead of pulling the trailer to Cherokee.</b></p><p><b>As always, we'll have to wait to see what happens.</b></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YOrTKJYlkD8xe14GgGwwltJOYjtDyS0BLC-OWDZRl4Gu80MctuPjqPtLAqeA-lxJmvUDdVN4rGBcrHXlqsaJK3AmwxaLUkBLjz7zFkcSMrkgb3xSKSM8bOJ_10Cf9EubXm0Q1w/s2709/Elk+02.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1161" data-original-width="2709" height="274" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YOrTKJYlkD8xe14GgGwwltJOYjtDyS0BLC-OWDZRl4Gu80MctuPjqPtLAqeA-lxJmvUDdVN4rGBcrHXlqsaJK3AmwxaLUkBLjz7zFkcSMrkgb3xSKSM8bOJ_10Cf9EubXm0Q1w/w640-h274/Elk+02.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: large;">Part of the herd of 60 elk that showed up at the Oconaluftee Historic Site the day we arrived.</span></b></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1638" data-original-width="2048" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQUUuwG9wbZZRisDSZ2HFkD8CVJGOnm8r0gW4x-5Z2JrBUZcF7FVhpb38oUw8WbDtVV9NoWd74GEDLklkNm4YoKEsRzNUnIFMtIh9CrTUrDbxLLJpx1yMl8dhj3vN9PXnP8F2gQ/w640-h512/Elk+01.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>This young bull was stoically enduring a heavy rain at Balsam Mountain Campground.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQUUuwG9wbZZRisDSZ2HFkD8CVJGOnm8r0gW4x-5Z2JrBUZcF7FVhpb38oUw8WbDtVV9NoWd74GEDLklkNm4YoKEsRzNUnIFMtIh9CrTUrDbxLLJpx1yMl8dhj3vN9PXnP8F2gQ/s2048/Elk+01.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: red;"></span></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOnjazU8v0G3tNRVG0qiXpoQYPzzZSv7Rf6pseJSrinYFGGax7nboNoakhFe2-3nsPA-z4F_2baQFZZcyaGWw_fE56xd6J5StdLlDXbFb6nEy7VQxfwHqEyFNlWBJ9A_SBHUia_g/s2048/Elk+04.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1707" data-original-width="2048" height="534" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOnjazU8v0G3tNRVG0qiXpoQYPzzZSv7Rf6pseJSrinYFGGax7nboNoakhFe2-3nsPA-z4F_2baQFZZcyaGWw_fE56xd6J5StdLlDXbFb6nEy7VQxfwHqEyFNlWBJ9A_SBHUia_g/w640-h534/Elk+04.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>The only time I've seen a calf nursing in the Park.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZ1jlyvxhynIM9nXt9wz4g6ZuqWmRIHY7wGjJHMvFtzUIVkYp6FlDJB7SqBbJAduwecACyVImw00-B6O4TwPPDY81NxbnKQE_EDeqh3dF37G8KKK6yKBly-Bgh1IiPRgtED-tZA/s2048/Elk+05.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisZ1jlyvxhynIM9nXt9wz4g6ZuqWmRIHY7wGjJHMvFtzUIVkYp6FlDJB7SqBbJAduwecACyVImw00-B6O4TwPPDY81NxbnKQE_EDeqh3dF37G8KKK6yKBly-Bgh1IiPRgtED-tZA/w640-h426/Elk+05.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>Mona Lisa smile.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDNZrz0RwFArBOdWHcqR_jKoX1N3i4KGcUM_kggQYp2SfCvmT3kYs8JTwptJDfAY5pel1zh3KhnAlQGL6e9lvXgZZUGsMGTFJYJHCP-c0SyDkLizynNfbJ5uT61TmA8TqDFk_v6w/s2048/Elk+06.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="2048" height="498" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDNZrz0RwFArBOdWHcqR_jKoX1N3i4KGcUM_kggQYp2SfCvmT3kYs8JTwptJDfAY5pel1zh3KhnAlQGL6e9lvXgZZUGsMGTFJYJHCP-c0SyDkLizynNfbJ5uT61TmA8TqDFk_v6w/w640-h498/Elk+06.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>My son and I photographed this same cow in June of 2020 when we drove up to spend two days in the Park. I recognized her from the scars on her abdomen.</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJR8smp5GfY22rX6A7P03MrP7x79TkEbAInksOCns_cjEndtYd71RnlebeH-wVC_dIsDcZFyv56G_jWMSICxqcqobFA5uK0SkV1ZQdHripC4b9wXzmReYLhpp1AqLw_wMEFeIgvw/s2048/Elk+07.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1434" data-original-width="2048" height="448" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJR8smp5GfY22rX6A7P03MrP7x79TkEbAInksOCns_cjEndtYd71RnlebeH-wVC_dIsDcZFyv56G_jWMSICxqcqobFA5uK0SkV1ZQdHripC4b9wXzmReYLhpp1AqLw_wMEFeIgvw/w640-h448/Elk+07.JPG" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMuHNNLsqw5Bih3lTxmvVApYz_zjfcSwiNWFBrLFCw2nKP6nWG6UskzN5I51ZCxaLUOSsWhEVawmdmg1lKBpUag3svdo9yKr4MB2ZOXl6FhH0T2qudCGZixw2FpNf6WsWAuB0ww/s2048/Elk+10.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1525" data-original-width="2048" height="476" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVMuHNNLsqw5Bih3lTxmvVApYz_zjfcSwiNWFBrLFCw2nKP6nWG6UskzN5I51ZCxaLUOSsWhEVawmdmg1lKBpUag3svdo9yKr4MB2ZOXl6FhH0T2qudCGZixw2FpNf6WsWAuB0ww/w640-h476/Elk+10.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red; font-size: large;"><b>"Peek-a-boo!"</b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="433" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Csm1LGjAML4" width="608" youtube-src-id="Csm1LGjAML4"></iframe></div><div><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="357" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U4DrqF71MHg" width="603" youtube-src-id="U4DrqF71MHg"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-86925152317498911382021-07-02T21:17:00.000-04:002021-07-02T21:17:40.476-04:00Stuff<p> <b>We've been busy lately. Carole retired from her job and is only working part time (she'll take full retirement in less than two years). We continue to visit state, national, county, and forest parks with our travel trailer serving as our base of operations. We're planning two big trips to round out the year, but have found we have to make a list and never get our first choice of destination due to campgrounds being full. From what we read the reason for full campgrounds everywhere is because people went stir crazy during the lockdown and vast numbers of those people have purchased tents and travel trailers and are hitting the roads to travel in record numbers. I believe it.</b></p><p><b>For years we've talked about taking the Casita trailer to Pennsylvania. That's where we'll likely end up going next. And we want to take a decent Autumn vacation somewhere to view the Fall colors, which we tend to do around Halloween every year. We'd like to continue that tradition as long as we can find a place where we can park the trailer for a few days. We'll likely avoid the Great Smoky Mountains National Park considering the nightmarish traffic we encountered there in 2019.</b></p><p><b>On the personal front I went to see an insurance planner referred to us by my wife's financial adviser. I switch to Medicare in twelve months and needed advice on supplemental plans to cover the things Medicare does not. She helped me pencil in the basic path I'll follow in one more year. (Nine months, actually, since you receive your Medicare card three months prior to your birthday and have to act at that time.) I remain pretty healthy for a man of 64 and want to stay strong enough to hike, kayak, and backpack for at least another decade. We'll see. I've already lived longer than my dad did, so there's that.</b></p><p><b>My second WORKING CLASS HERO novel inches closer to completion and the third book is completely plotted. After that I have a new writing project on which I have been tinkering for years. It's something that I very much want to see finished and which I wish to be able to market to a traditional press. Going the traditional route is getting to be tougher--it's almost as bad as trying to crack the professional circle-jerk comic book industry of the 1980s. I wonder if there will even be an independent traditional publishing industry in a few more years, or if we'll see Amazon as a privately held publishing monopoly.</b></p><p><b>Well, on that happy note I'll take off till next time. We have a kayak trip down the New River planned for this coming week. That's always a pleasure. The extended weather forecast looks promising.</b></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="304" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gic0nWYNtJw" width="515" youtube-src-id="Gic0nWYNtJw"></iframe></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;">This video is from a family trip we took last week to Damascus, VA to bike the Virginia Creeper Trail. Andy had never done that so we all headed up early last Saturday to rent bike and take the shuttle van to Whitetop Station for the ride down the mountain back to Damascus. We had a blast! However, this video is only of Beaverdam Creek at the nearby Backbone Rock Recreation Area which we visited after the bike ride. My old video editing software won't work on the new desktop computer I bought this week, so I have to use a new program. This video of the creek is my first experiment with that software.</span></b></p></blockquote><p><b><span style="color: red; font-size: medium;"> </span></b></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-7184571675393886552021-06-01T18:55:00.002-04:002021-06-01T19:09:41.042-04:00Working Class Writer.<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I'm getting closer to completing the second of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089D9887W/" target="_blank">Working Class Hero</a> superhero novels. I was well into the book when the previous publisher refused to promote the first one and wouldn't commit to the second book. I also, at the time, couldn't get him to relinquish the rights to the first book so I essentially stopped working on the sequel. Then, unexpectedly last year, the publisher returned to me the rights to all of my books and I could proceed.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>My <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089D9887W/" target="_blank">Working Class Hero</a> novel has been selling consistently well for several months. Learning how to advertise on my own has been a learning process, but I've gotten the hang of it.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>When the publishing rights were returned to me, I reworked the second book and moved it in an altered direction from where it had been headed. I'm getting a kick out of creating new characters, and adding additional backstory to many of the heroes, villains, and assorted folk from the first novel. My idea all along for Billy B and his cohorts was to emulate the periodical comics of the Silver Age. I want to deliver continuing tales, sometimes with cliffhangers, sometimes wrapping the narrative neatly with a satisfying conclusion.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I've set myself a deadline for BILLY B VERSUS THE TROUBLE BOYS (WORKING CLASS HERO #2), and hope to announce a publication date in the near future. The third book (tentatively titled WORKING CLASS HERO: A BAKER'S DOZEN) is already plotted and outlined. I hope to get both books published in 2021.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmaxbObQZTGuN5e7VQvLdoREmYvkfpFxX5Ajz2gvw241E7VOF6q_YhBKseL0oALd-CAgjP0lNJHt_Rv6YhTIdTIZN45eNu49ppbWj0bsmbjlhDLbB-S2y5l5wzlRrB3WpeiD4iMQ/s2048/Working+Class+Hero+New+Novel+Cover+01.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="706" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmaxbObQZTGuN5e7VQvLdoREmYvkfpFxX5Ajz2gvw241E7VOF6q_YhBKseL0oALd-CAgjP0lNJHt_Rv6YhTIdTIZN45eNu49ppbWj0bsmbjlhDLbB-S2y5l5wzlRrB3WpeiD4iMQ/w543-h706/Working+Class+Hero+New+Novel+Cover+01.jpg" width="543" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089D9887W/" target="_blank"><span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">WORKING CLASS HERO: The Autobiography of a Superhuman</span>.</b></span></a></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><b><br /></b></span></td></tr></tbody></table><br />James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-20008243779022913782021-05-24T11:47:00.000-04:002021-05-24T11:47:21.220-04:00A Rare Event.<p> <span style="font-size: medium;"><b>A couple of days after we got home I walked into the sunroom and looked at something in the front yard. At first I couldn't tell what it was--a brownish lump sitting in the shade under our willow tree. It was moving and I soon realized it was a big bird of prey and seemed to be injured. After a second I saw that it was a red-tailed hawk. The bird's back was to me and the red tail obvious against the green grass. The wings were out at what looked to be an unnatural angle and draping the ground.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Well, the raptor center where birds are rehabilitated is less than two miles away so I figured I'd best survey the situation in case I needed to toss a blanket over the hawk and drive it to the experts.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The second I stepped out the hawk stood up and began to wobble off and I realized it wasn't injured. It had just killed a squirrel and had been using its wings to hide and guard its kill. After a couple of steps it stopped with its prize so that it could turn and face me. I realized this was a rare chance and ran back into the house for my camera, pausing just long enough to fix a telephoto lens. In a few seconds I discovered that the hawk didn't care when I crouched down about seven feet from her and began to take photos.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Since the bird was a large one I reckoned it was a female, who typically grow much larger than the males. As I watched her she began to devour and dismember the squirrel. In much less time than I could possibly have imagined she had consumed about 90% of its corpse; fur, skin, bones, flesh, guts, and all. By the time the rodent had been reduced to the tail, some uneaten muscle tissue, and a bit of spinal column she gathered the remains and herself and launched into the sky, carrying away what tiny bit of the squirrel that was left.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>When I walked to the spot where she'd had her lunch I couldn't find even a shred of meat or a drop of blood. A rare sight and event that afforded me some killer photographs.</b></span></p><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6S0Gkhshsn52niuEBxONd-4pyIlgJ9o8i8SODm0OGCEC7bpHbPChiZXU38JsaYwqfuuwPHqdenhXI9XtVwSr7vzLHmrwNk2pe486zgt22swKwyVwILELqqB6gNBYStqQDVGfEbQ/s1600/IMG_20210513_154622_000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6S0Gkhshsn52niuEBxONd-4pyIlgJ9o8i8SODm0OGCEC7bpHbPChiZXU38JsaYwqfuuwPHqdenhXI9XtVwSr7vzLHmrwNk2pe486zgt22swKwyVwILELqqB6gNBYStqQDVGfEbQ/w640-h640/IMG_20210513_154622_000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>I doubt I'll get a chance to take a closeup of a wild hawk like this again.</b></span></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWea9UfyJEn9RI5gYV8q6pug86zR5IFPpdvW-8UGKMxZ7tRL459zaK0AfVszwwax2raiHEWkOlERnHSzuY2jJfbwMIZF4TRmAyhX-JZSL5bhvr5sgchymlMz1GqhlLqVE3R6nZ-g/s2000/IMG_20210513_134706_933.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2000" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWea9UfyJEn9RI5gYV8q6pug86zR5IFPpdvW-8UGKMxZ7tRL459zaK0AfVszwwax2raiHEWkOlERnHSzuY2jJfbwMIZF4TRmAyhX-JZSL5bhvr5sgchymlMz1GqhlLqVE3R6nZ-g/w640-h640/IMG_20210513_134706_933.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">She was busy tearing that squirrel to bits.</span></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj55ok7JIcYumWKcIfdMkLMGj11e73cczXAxoYyLbbBBILvQb5U_v8O5E_k-FXYrSBfqnj2kJAYmClby76uHP6n1v_Dvi2CscdAUU9KvATjV0shd0IU99_KQ7mSchbVtmf9XlvGbA/s3919/Red-tailed+Hawk+03.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3503" data-original-width="3919" height="572" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj55ok7JIcYumWKcIfdMkLMGj11e73cczXAxoYyLbbBBILvQb5U_v8O5E_k-FXYrSBfqnj2kJAYmClby76uHP6n1v_Dvi2CscdAUU9KvATjV0shd0IU99_KQ7mSchbVtmf9XlvGbA/w640-h572/Red-tailed+Hawk+03.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">I wish I could have anticipated this move when she spread her wings.</span></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydcXdquCDP0wUjDqjkmxE4q52IbXQlHAMyjWX9L6YgUSiBZ8nWJYjJN8y2Dj2JiiH6PNKkwez9JcsvENGINKhs3d49rqAUOzaWVFUzWZ9IsrPXP0ErkFiuvEaEpEuW6EOyuZ5mA/s1365/IMG_20210524_082709_855.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="1365" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydcXdquCDP0wUjDqjkmxE4q52IbXQlHAMyjWX9L6YgUSiBZ8nWJYjJN8y2Dj2JiiH6PNKkwez9JcsvENGINKhs3d49rqAUOzaWVFUzWZ9IsrPXP0ErkFiuvEaEpEuW6EOyuZ5mA/w640-h640/IMG_20210524_082709_855.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">Giving me the stinkeye and hovering over her kill.</span></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="1872" height="466" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhTk0V4V4_PgSFgSyeoLd1eJ3xXrrNSldZh6e3bU45ZzHLPz7wrLmHmDRWz-NTag92rPe5VCNJRswnt7FyoJ2XKWZFbL5Z_E8uU0NHsp101D6MPSa6cIwGW0S7rnMXV2234KsYww/w640-h466/IMG_20210514_203849_123.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="640" /></td></tr><tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><b>About how she
looked when I first spotted her, only her wings were closer in to her
body. At this point she was dragging the squirrel closer to the driveway to
move away from me.</b></span></span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhTk0V4V4_PgSFgSyeoLd1eJ3xXrrNSldZh6e3bU45ZzHLPz7wrLmHmDRWz-NTag92rPe5VCNJRswnt7FyoJ2XKWZFbL5Z_E8uU0NHsp101D6MPSa6cIwGW0S7rnMXV2234KsYww/s1872/IMG_20210514_203849_123.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><b></b></span></span></a></div><br />James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-46529762310777879772021-05-14T12:50:00.002-04:002021-05-14T12:50:35.787-04:00Spring Vacation 2021<p><b>We just returned from our first vacation of the year. As we often like to do, we journeyed down to Florida to swim, kayak, and snorkel in some of the huge freshwater springs that are peppered across the state, mainly in the panhandle and north-central area. Generally, we like to explore springs we've never encountered, but this time we chose to revisit five that we'd seen in past years: Salt Spring, Wekiwa Spring, Rock Springs, Silver Glen Spring, and Alexander Spring.</b></p><p><b>My favorite of these is probably Silver Glen. The water clarity there is among the finest I've seen, and it's full of fish and other aquatic life. Basically, it's perfect for photography. The area around the springs is also heavy with wildlife and you never know what's going to come gliding in from the sky or ambling out of the nearby forest.</b></p><p><b>So, today, here are a few photos from Silver Glen. I'll post some more photos and information about the other places we visited as I unpack and process the 1000+ images and video we shot.</b></p><p><b>I have to say that this was one of the most perfect, most relaxing vacations we've taken since we bought out Casita travel trailer in 2005. The weather was perfect, and the modifications we made on the trailer before we left proved to be brilliant for us. In the week before leaving we replaced the old carpet with plank flooring and added an eight-inch memory foam mattress to the bed. Both improvements were far better as far as overall comfort for us than we could have imagined.</b></p><p><b><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t0NdOypemdKy8W9K5IZCdxb90s5HX9s7XO2IbmfTSf904nrnJT4CRUgNCFptrxFXSRF4BJPoGu9zaJV7Opd1yQ8_HaAeXTJs6je9x1eGtZu9fBBKHNyIzdOeJAlnv78sN-lTBQ/s4608/20210430_171731.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3t0NdOypemdKy8W9K5IZCdxb90s5HX9s7XO2IbmfTSf904nrnJT4CRUgNCFptrxFXSRF4BJPoGu9zaJV7Opd1yQ8_HaAeXTJs6je9x1eGtZu9fBBKHNyIzdOeJAlnv78sN-lTBQ/w640-h480/20210430_171731.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Our campsite at Salt Spring Recreation Area, a National Forest facility.<br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table></b></p><p><b><br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQfub463fLD3AOthrly2amxibcd6-VSJhcXr3QlQREb5G9fYisebv75JObViJcynvKfFv8VJQ-C9u_nrsj_Rjjhp5KVK62W6zfT4suulJgri4ocw4Ky9diTrmCICg0nxiMMsFeg/s4608/20210430_171818.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDQfub463fLD3AOthrly2amxibcd6-VSJhcXr3QlQREb5G9fYisebv75JObViJcynvKfFv8VJQ-C9u_nrsj_Rjjhp5KVK62W6zfT4suulJgri4ocw4Ky9diTrmCICg0nxiMMsFeg/w640-h480/20210430_171818.jpg" width="640" /></a></b></div><b><br /> <br /></b><p></p><p> <br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIoq5bo1bMQP7XaD2sPGsjf4e7Zc57-joSkmzMRcymOOxttB1qHmbEUTnOpAACdNOCq3wGE6cQ4JSy1mpdt2jbESgZszseKZ3LT9V4MassW28isMCsv0r8z6to_zZQJ_P4jYQGFA/s4000/IMG_20210511_114329_704.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="309" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIoq5bo1bMQP7XaD2sPGsjf4e7Zc57-joSkmzMRcymOOxttB1qHmbEUTnOpAACdNOCq3wGE6cQ4JSy1mpdt2jbESgZszseKZ3LT9V4MassW28isMCsv0r8z6to_zZQJ_P4jYQGFA/w640-h309/IMG_20210511_114329_704.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>GoPro photo as I snorkeled toward the main vent at Silver Glen Spring.<br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNKyzrmqIf0jCqgzU824IQs1DlBg_eF6H2uMz5kA6MJLqS7lh5p7g-WrfmA_dBw1A0pgCmMZPIowuFqvgl1m8RiYh_6u2mCFy1r8hhMrAsfsRtUFxvX0nJSvflPFROGnsjOFE1w/s4000/IMG_20210511_113844_913.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3000" data-original-width="4000" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGNKyzrmqIf0jCqgzU824IQs1DlBg_eF6H2uMz5kA6MJLqS7lh5p7g-WrfmA_dBw1A0pgCmMZPIowuFqvgl1m8RiYh_6u2mCFy1r8hhMrAsfsRtUFxvX0nJSvflPFROGnsjOFE1w/w640-h315/IMG_20210511_113844_913.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>Striped mullet in the main vent.<br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_BMPk5cxBKcMM15AbMREna88_vQ8bzpFtGGowLWp-blYw9aLNlBBnR1UbRL4ohfNw_x3Z658GZyPosdBj2iXcVlU9y4n4ySm4J-gaGdnmF_WmOGJvn9XI23Fvek3BziKP0PD5g/s4608/20210504_112234.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_BMPk5cxBKcMM15AbMREna88_vQ8bzpFtGGowLWp-blYw9aLNlBBnR1UbRL4ohfNw_x3Z658GZyPosdBj2iXcVlU9y4n4ySm4J-gaGdnmF_WmOGJvn9XI23Fvek3BziKP0PD5g/w640-h319/20210504_112234.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The shallows.<br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8-IyUr0KnsZRquV8fMy8hTuI0Rz6bc-tVqbQaycYyt3zrcRNZo_5Gs1_XdAC8MSMNA14Wmwx-bla9DG9N7vMknpFQuO8JVkg8doxla-1COBu7ruvE5z5ARzjYXN85rSRmlzPrw/s4608/20210504_112048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-8-IyUr0KnsZRquV8fMy8hTuI0Rz6bc-tVqbQaycYyt3zrcRNZo_5Gs1_XdAC8MSMNA14Wmwx-bla9DG9N7vMknpFQuO8JVkg8doxla-1COBu7ruvE5z5ARzjYXN85rSRmlzPrw/w640-h321/20210504_112048.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><b>The view toward the head spring.<br /></b></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="332" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4xjrlWkrCfo" width="607" youtube-src-id="4xjrlWkrCfo"></iframe></div><br /><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-52890367833599005562021-02-09T13:49:00.002-05:002021-02-09T13:49:35.265-05:00Stone Mountain Park, North Carolina.<p><b>Lately I haven't had a lot of time to go hiking. I've been helping my son a lot, plus the responsibility of having to be around the homestead to care for my wife's elderly mother. In late March the pressure should slacken and I can go back to hiking and camping when I choose.</b></p><p><b>That said, I was able to get away for most of last weekend. One of those three days I spent hiking in Stone Mountain State Park. I like that park because it has a lot of exposed rock, decent forest cover, a number of impressive waterfalls, and an excellent network of hiking trails, a few of which I still haven't hiked.</b></p><p><b>So on Saturday I got a very early start and drove up. Another plus for me is that it's a genuinely mountainous area and only a little over an hour from the house. If traffic is light I can get there in under an hour.</b></p><p><b>I ended up getting there just a tad later than I like to, which meant that I missed seeing the roving deer out browsing for breakfast, and the wild turkey that seem to like to accompany them in the early light. But that was tempered by the fact that I got to hit the trails before all but a few of my fellow humans. I spent the main part of the day hiking a six-mile loop that took me from the parking area, over the summit of Stone Mountain, down the other side, along the base of the peak to the upper Stone Mountain Falls and then a return to the ridge line and back to Andy's car (which I borrowed because my truck uses a lot more gas than his Santa Fe).</b></p><p><b>Here, then, are some images and video of my main hike from last Saturday.</b></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieLttWJTgMpCl0k99sTHCfroojZCEbqib-zWNl_aZnRLnB5E9_f55J0MU24UYs9uXKVUhyphenhyphen3iN6rh-xa1Y8k9cUsDZGXHk_PX9JLkTwI2cUKQwcK7bbzbD1b0m1YEklC7I_z3d9DA/s4898/IMG_20210208_190928_875.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="4898" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieLttWJTgMpCl0k99sTHCfroojZCEbqib-zWNl_aZnRLnB5E9_f55J0MU24UYs9uXKVUhyphenhyphen3iN6rh-xa1Y8k9cUsDZGXHk_PX9JLkTwI2cUKQwcK7bbzbD1b0m1YEklC7I_z3d9DA/w640-h426/IMG_20210208_190928_875.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWh3zXSfoLlUJoIvJfIpqa3ZS4wwrNuTqdVzPUUCfAZG5wNxC7s4PHSHaoE9vYp8kF4_Qr5BOxeO-RexMW51Iv8EARUaMG4WXzOf4Q38VKVSIT4rsxNMVPuUus7W2HgBJH6wFmA/s4898/IMG_20210208_133224_030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="4898" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQWh3zXSfoLlUJoIvJfIpqa3ZS4wwrNuTqdVzPUUCfAZG5wNxC7s4PHSHaoE9vYp8kF4_Qr5BOxeO-RexMW51Iv8EARUaMG4WXzOf4Q38VKVSIT4rsxNMVPuUus7W2HgBJH6wFmA/w640-h426/IMG_20210208_133224_030.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVntal_Yskaq9ANY2DuX49onUaTZRInyhxHRv9fICWqnUVTmjV371jxQJH7peplGNNcAHXIf7Dv3dTPgl_eKYXmejbYNa3CNs7JNksrkb0C57FHxjAcwmefgGe-bXkRILalR7NTQ/s4898/IMG_20210208_130840_646.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="4898" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVntal_Yskaq9ANY2DuX49onUaTZRInyhxHRv9fICWqnUVTmjV371jxQJH7peplGNNcAHXIf7Dv3dTPgl_eKYXmejbYNa3CNs7JNksrkb0C57FHxjAcwmefgGe-bXkRILalR7NTQ/w640-h426/IMG_20210208_130840_646.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3g1sYRLcVoqDVvJB9M7ttKIeADizxABeDsIvKbpK2zVyxmOUcd1vy_EQi6YiZGxTy3Om81aElDtXdAb-evhWeRnjZreU5rTjByD9YykfA8gdUMI7gF4OuI9kPthU4k8i6nG0eaw/s4898/IMG_20210208_063926_377.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="4898" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3g1sYRLcVoqDVvJB9M7ttKIeADizxABeDsIvKbpK2zVyxmOUcd1vy_EQi6YiZGxTy3Om81aElDtXdAb-evhWeRnjZreU5rTjByD9YykfA8gdUMI7gF4OuI9kPthU4k8i6nG0eaw/w640-h426/IMG_20210208_063926_377.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLu66d_X5_1iiXCtJK8aadhW7J2DV7g0yTCDzvPCidHb4XKLTEIlersHSl0pyPU608GOMPW8qxz193W6mWtBY5bzp7m65zwJHgtVRruMTrp5JvswQ95PIm6uh7hi1n0AtP1Z4WLg/s1706/IMG_20210207_000717_347.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1706" data-original-width="1365" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLu66d_X5_1iiXCtJK8aadhW7J2DV7g0yTCDzvPCidHb4XKLTEIlersHSl0pyPU608GOMPW8qxz193W6mWtBY5bzp7m65zwJHgtVRruMTrp5JvswQ95PIm6uh7hi1n0AtP1Z4WLg/w512-h640/IMG_20210207_000717_347.jpg" width="512" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="color: red;"><b>On the summit. Said to be the most photographed tree in North Carolina.</b></span></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDSWX5kR2mcMh33Oh7PKc_w70hxihvuyniW2kIwuMwdWnvB_keLYo3KVDrIZsJF6TDHOvOiJAtfNB749Bw80CGqNEgDWsniP40dMeqjxJxix34IivEQU25aqRNmg02n6pyzb5QpA/s1792/IMG_20210207_001322_543.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="1792" height="488" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDSWX5kR2mcMh33Oh7PKc_w70hxihvuyniW2kIwuMwdWnvB_keLYo3KVDrIZsJF6TDHOvOiJAtfNB749Bw80CGqNEgDWsniP40dMeqjxJxix34IivEQU25aqRNmg02n6pyzb5QpA/w640-h488/IMG_20210207_001322_543.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVzF2dzNYo_qmW1hPzv6rvxxJvZGOADRSOravjQcso-6HNupWGfyvl1HYgfZI1RYx_U2Eu5nWocwEKnNq_S2MMs-9fR46AuKtY3MZ4TX7Y1Pkk7z9VFTNgJ92525fVj6JYRox0w/s3265/IMG_20210207_080018_147.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="3265" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKVzF2dzNYo_qmW1hPzv6rvxxJvZGOADRSOravjQcso-6HNupWGfyvl1HYgfZI1RYx_U2Eu5nWocwEKnNq_S2MMs-9fR46AuKtY3MZ4TX7Y1Pkk7z9VFTNgJ92525fVj6JYRox0w/w640-h640/IMG_20210207_080018_147.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUMZQDHqow5xplJxi4PfJ_EZuqsc90SyGfLrBp43K8FtZPFoSIXyyywrCZ7_NbMb-F_E3hDbL1FtNEImhRXm9sNPBWUJusbblnleun_Cnzl7ihYsQkv1jstQQlckLyu5EfmUVHA/s3265/IMG_20210207_080707_349.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3265" data-original-width="3265" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKUMZQDHqow5xplJxi4PfJ_EZuqsc90SyGfLrBp43K8FtZPFoSIXyyywrCZ7_NbMb-F_E3hDbL1FtNEImhRXm9sNPBWUJusbblnleun_Cnzl7ihYsQkv1jstQQlckLyu5EfmUVHA/w640-h640/IMG_20210207_080707_349.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">The stairs alongside upper Stone Mountain Falls.</span></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAPqPe8j3_rfsBh_8Z8VfztAszNKY8xil8Ilo697Lcid47_r2yE6hM11d1KmielQhJUPP6ceCzV8qQE3c_c51jaT1yd2-NshBHFTsMIc97KhAGKT5SQfdXqmhdGj4k-_hyphenhyphenPin4w/s1365/IMG_20210207_000139_533.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="1365" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpAPqPe8j3_rfsBh_8Z8VfztAszNKY8xil8Ilo697Lcid47_r2yE6hM11d1KmielQhJUPP6ceCzV8qQE3c_c51jaT1yd2-NshBHFTsMIc97KhAGKT5SQfdXqmhdGj4k-_hyphenhyphenPin4w/w640-h640/IMG_20210207_000139_533.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinOGnZHyuA8p0BtIa3VYo4J2aayyVBtxvRyozwp35O4kNKUt9jSKCxHrwhJd0t3lgl3mxtgvMRdEPqdNspd6gRTMoAKxR5KkVGf3f59MsmOCAIDCKJw2VhaYMf_ZRhn-6fqinHvA/s2048/IMG_20210207_000507_958.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinOGnZHyuA8p0BtIa3VYo4J2aayyVBtxvRyozwp35O4kNKUt9jSKCxHrwhJd0t3lgl3mxtgvMRdEPqdNspd6gRTMoAKxR5KkVGf3f59MsmOCAIDCKJw2VhaYMf_ZRhn-6fqinHvA/w640-h426/IMG_20210207_000507_958.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">A rock climber on the face of Stone Mountain.</span></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir5RkXy29Ot2UWOl2c_6MYFVSDPFcawAm28L-epjHyaZlxfXmwTsbpahoQOfBZnyY2fSYDeADOf539q7PZj5W_Ozsbz7D2Mo3Y-iMJcXGP0tqEqKWKYoUiYPn1tPMkj5PlblQAzg/s6803/Stone+Mountain+Panorama+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2352" data-original-width="6803" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir5RkXy29Ot2UWOl2c_6MYFVSDPFcawAm28L-epjHyaZlxfXmwTsbpahoQOfBZnyY2fSYDeADOf539q7PZj5W_Ozsbz7D2Mo3Y-iMJcXGP0tqEqKWKYoUiYPn1tPMkj5PlblQAzg/w640-h222/Stone+Mountain+Panorama+003.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">A stitched panorama of the face of Stone Mountain.</span></b></span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/RvhlA1N-vB4" width="639" youtube-src-id="RvhlA1N-vB4"></iframe></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-16674815030190692812021-02-06T19:17:00.005-05:002021-02-06T19:20:31.933-05:00Interview, and a sneak preview.<p><b>Recently the nice folk at the very excellent House of Mystery Radio interviewed me. The interview is still up and can be streamed online <a href="https://shows.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio/episodes/james-robert-smith-working-class-hero" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</b></p><p><b>I'm hoping to have the second WORKING CLASS HERO ready for publication very soon. In just a few weeks (knock on adamantium). So I'm posting a sneak preview here. The working title for it is: BILLY B VERSUS THE TROUBLE BOYS. As with the first book, I'm having a blast writing it. Superhero comics plus pulp fiction...a match made in Heaven.</b><br /><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">BILLY B VERSUS THE TROUBLE BOYS (sneak preview)</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;">By James Robert Smith</span></b></p><p><br /></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>It was roughly ten in the morning. The sun was out. The air
was cold and a wind was blowing. That wind was especially rough where I was
standing on the roof of the Drake Building in midtown, thirty stories above the
street. I had managed to scramble to the top without entering the building at
all, having made my way from a seventh-floor parking deck to a section of wall
that was uniquely suited for a man with super-strength to make his way up,
floor by floor, leaping like an impossible red ape along the rough concrete
exterior.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>I’m sure some people must have seen me, but if they had I
was such a boring sight these days that no one had appeared on the roof to
bother me or to ask for an autograph or to take my photo or to ask me not to
freaking do that anymore.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>And so, of course, idling away the minutes and just standing
up there watching the flow of traffic below, I was actually surprised enough to
flinch when my best hyper-friend Shylock Holmes spoke up from behind me.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Have I mentioned that he has perhaps the most gratingly
annoying voice known to humankind? Well, he does. It’s like a staccato assault
of gravel fired from a machine gun directly into the ear canal. Keep in mind
that I hear about fifty times better than the most gifted of people.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Figured I’d find you on a mountaintop,” he said, voice like
a teenaged girl’s fingernails across dry slate.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Goddamn it, Shylock,” I said, turning to face him. I stuck
a gloved finger roughly where my ear would be if I hadn’t been wearing that
helmet with its space-age amazing perforated fabric allowing egress to all
sounds, especially his monstrous voice.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Whenever he did that I always expected him to apologize, but
he never did. I think he likes doing it; scaring arguably the toughest hyper
between Atlanta and the Big Apple. But, old Shylock didn’t decide to gift me or
surprise me with the apology then, either.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>He was baiting me, so I waited before asking him why he’d
appeared once more in such a way as to get the maximum rise out of my hyped-up
sneakers. A few seconds passed. The wind blew. I wondered if I’d grab a
sandwich later. I blinked.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Okay. You must have some nugget of wisdom to impart, or
else you wouldn’t have come up here to startle me.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>He drew in an audible gasp of pure sarcasm. “Oh! Did I
startle you? Heavens! It was not my intention.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>For a guy with borderline Asperger’s Syndrome, he had a
pretty good grasp of cynicism and humor. I waved him off.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>I knew he was smiling beneath that ridiculous mask of his.
“I just figured you’d like to know that they’re bringing in some new talent,”
he said.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>We had all wondered about that. We figured that they would.
Gila had been killed. Amber Ember was in Denver gestating a baby courtesy of me
in an episode of bad judgment by way of (apparently) an honest-to-Jovian god’s
asshole assistant. Flitter had pretty much filled the empty peg left by Amber,
but the folk who paid us would also want us to have someone to serve in place
of poor, departed Gila.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“So…what are you hearing?” I asked him. The thing about
having Shylock for a pal was that there wasn’t much that got past him. Because
of the nature of his hyper abilities, he was a pure conduit for the answers to
mysteries that hadn’t crossed our minds yet. And if someone was hiding
something, they’d better hide it pretty damned well or he would show up with
the solution in his pocket.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“What I’m hearing is Fido and Timmy,” he said.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Fuck me,” I replied.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Well, when you figure…we had a guy like Gila…they’re going
to give us something similar.” He began to sing that old Sesame Street tune.
“One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t…”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Enough!” I held my left hand palm out. He thankfully shut
the fuck up.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Look at this way, Billy. Gila was a nine-foot tall beaded
reptile in roughly human form who had to be kept inside most of the time
because he was just too damned scary-looking for the hoi-polloi. The Agency has
a number of hyper-folk around who are similar to our old pal, and they need a
place to store them.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“We had one that we were taking care of for them. And now we
don’t have one. So…” He left it hanging.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“We get two for the price of one.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I sighed in resignation. Because I was the
one who would have to deal with them whenever there was some action. Also, I
had always been the man to talk with Gila, to do my best to make him feel
better about his situation. Because they need a man with Level Seven strength,
speed, and durability to serve as a sounding board for a half-ton lizard with
armored skin who can lift an Abrams tank and toss it across a parking lot. I
was their lion tamer.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Fido and Timmy are…different,” Holmes said.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>I looked down at him. He was now sitting on the edge of the
cover to an air vent. It was pretty much the right height to be a chair for
him. “I met them once. About two and a half years back. Right before you came
to head the team here,” he reminded me. “They work so closely together that
it’s hard to figure out where one of them stops and the other starts.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“I don’t dig you,” I admitted. I shifted and little rocks
crunched under my feet. A 737 roared overhead on its way out of Douglas
International toward some point west.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Well, there’s a mental connection going on with them. I
mean…one of them is like a bull mastiff that stands ten feet at the shoulder,
and the other one is a little kid who looks like a real-life version of Dennis
the Menace.” He paused. “He even has a slingshot in his back pocket. Did you
know that?”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>I shook my head from side to side.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“I saw him use it once. Knocked that chick…” he snapped his
fingers a few times, reaching for a name. “Bella Bella, that was her. He cocked
back with that crazy slingshot and bounced a rock off her skull at fifty
meters. Knocked her out. Cold. Game over.” He was grinning under that plastic
mask.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Okay. What was your original train of thought?”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“The kid. Timmy. Overalls. Sneakers. Slingshot. Blonde hair.
Freckles. Ten years old, maybe.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>I motioned with my hands, drawing for more information and a
little faster, please.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Those two are bound, Billy. I mean, they are so tight that
I can’t really read either of them. I probe at their minds and they’re almost
merged completely. Not exactly. One of them is thinking and making plans and
formulating tactics. And the other one is mainly just some basic emotions and
wants and desires without much in the way of complications.” He seemed to be
finished.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Okay. One’s a giant dog and one’s a kid. So?”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“So I can’t read either of them the way that I should
because they’re telepathically communicating with one another so well that I
can’t really get inside. I’m stuck talking to the kid the way I would if I were
anyone else.” Meaning, of course, if he couldn’t read minds and influence
enemies where those two were concerned.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“I’ve never met them,” I said. “But I’ve watched video. Fido
is just fucking scary. Looks like he could bite through concrete.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“He can.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>I nodded, believing. “And the kid…Timmy. It’s like you said.
He looks like Hank Ketcham drew him or something.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“He never ages, you know.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Yeah, I know. He’s been around now…what? Twelve years? He
was a ten-year-old kid when they found him, and he’s still ten years old.” I
shivered.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“They’re not sure Fido ages, either,” Shylock said. “He
carries a few scars, but pretty much seems the same elephant-sized canine who
walked up being led on a rope leash in Timmy’s hand over a decade back. “He
gets testy when they get too close to him with probes and needles,” Shylock
added. “So they’ve been willing to let him ride.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>There had been other animals that had been victim to AOHD.
Of course with animals they called it Adult Onset Mammalian Hyper-Development
Disorder. They settled on AOMD for the sake of simplicity, having chosen not to
want to add too many letters to the anagram. But there had been only a few
examples of it and most of those creatures had either been captured and penned
up, or had died quickly because they burned themselves out, or had been killed
by The Agency or the military.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“The AOMD…do you think it effects anything besides mammals?”
I was curious what my all-seeing friend thought. “You ever see anything that
made you wonder?”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Billy…since the first of us appeared some time back, the
whole world wonders. I know you think I’m an extra smart guy, but I’m here to
let you know that I’m not as sharp as all that in matters animal, vegetable,
and mineral. Yeah, I know some basic chemistry and can crunch numbers better
than some, and you know I love history. But genetics….who the hell knows? We
have seen some strange shit.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Yeah…look at poor old Gila. He was about one quarter human
and three fourths reptile.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“And Gorilla Jack,” Shylock reminded me. “You went toe to
toe with that guy. Looks more ape than human. And yet…human he is.” He slapped
his hands on his knees and stood, his deerstalker cape rolling with the motion.
“You never know. It gave us some false human/animal hybrids, and a mutated dog.
Maybe there are hyper-birds up there.” He pointed into the clear, cold,
February sky. I looked up. “And the ocean is a mighty deep place, too. It may
be that there’s stuff swimming around in it that has been affected. We’ll just
have to wait and see.”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“So. Tell me,” I said. “When are our two new playmates
supposed to arrive?”</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Down on the streets far below, something was going on. I
could hear horns blaring and even from almost thirty stories the voices were
coming to us loud and clear as men yelled and women screamed.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Right about now, I’d say,” Shylock told me. By then my back
was to him and I was standing on the edge of the roof looking down.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>The street was now home to a monstrous dog roughly the size
of an Indian elephant who was strolling down the right hand sidewalk and
clearing a path through the intimidation of sheer, hairy mass. In front of the
beast, holding a length of what I knew was a flimsy hemp rope was a kid, maybe
ten years old, maybe seventy pounds, leading that monster canine. Some people
were cowering aside, cars were honking their horns, other people were running
from the scene, and, I knew, a lot of Charlotte folk were soiling themselves.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>“Time for me to do my thing and maintain order,” I told
Shylock as I turned to address him.</b></p><b>
</b><p class="MsoNormal"><b>But of course the asshole was gone.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b> </b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b>Until the new volume is published, you can get your WORKING CLASS HERO fix at Amazon. Available in ebook, paperback, and audiobook. Just click <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089D9887W/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /><br /><b> <br /></b></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHXTEJx-TO1Sm4oyjdEBujIqtyQ_yIWqrT3oGSZY2os_rWIl8VihtJmcAuTj54-zoshC3hT8weI3YWKWdRIKioAtQr8OzSKatnTSEer_bed8JI0mLPojDKDOHvWNdpzSfEGhQQuA/s852/IMG_20210127_170446_476.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="852" data-original-width="852" height="394" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHXTEJx-TO1Sm4oyjdEBujIqtyQ_yIWqrT3oGSZY2os_rWIl8VihtJmcAuTj54-zoshC3hT8weI3YWKWdRIKioAtQr8OzSKatnTSEer_bed8JI0mLPojDKDOHvWNdpzSfEGhQQuA/w637-h394/IMG_20210127_170446_476.jpg" width="637" /></a></div><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089D9887W/" target="_blank"><b><span style="font-size: large;">WORKING CLASS HERO: The Autobiography of a Superhman.</span></b></a></p><p><br />
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<![endif]--></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-7303110448994168922021-01-04T12:11:00.001-05:002021-01-04T12:11:48.968-05:00Peepers<p><b>In case you don't know, peepers are a type of small frog that come out of hibernation every Spring to begin a new year and to breed and otherwise enjoy their lives. If you live even in suburbia you've likely heard their call when they pop out to announce to us that their long sleep is over. It's something that I have experienced all of my life, except for the years when I've lived in an urban environment.</b></p><p><b>For the past three years, generally around this time in the midst of winter, we will have a very powerful warm patch (we don't even have a prolonged winter anymore) and the peepers will emerge and begin to call out, letting us all know that they're here. And for the past two winters I have worried--apparently needlessly--that doom will befall them all. My assumption has been that the next cold snap will catch our thin-skinned amphibian pals by surprise and that they'll all freeze to death and the local population of peepers will become extinct.</b></p><p><b>But I'm not going to worry about the tiny frogs anymore. It's not as if I don't have enough to worry about. I don't need this yearly burden to bear. The way I figure it now is that they've survived two warm winter thaws and refreezes with no diminished ability to crawl up to fresh air and fill our neighborhood with their pleasant songs. Winter of 2018/19 they did it. Winter of 2019/20 they committed the same act. And here it is Winter of 2020/21 and once more they're singing their itty-bitty lungs out and serenading me.</b></p><p><b>This year I'm not worrying. They did A-OK the past two winters and avoided a mass die-off. I figure they'll do it again and continue to repopulate the local ecology. My little friends are going to be fine. Maybe that's a good tiding for the rest of us, too.</b></p><p><b>It's 50 degrees out, headed for the mid-60s. The peepers are singing in the back yard. We're good to go.</b></p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWeikWnGsEfTsPrCZbKlcgAWZ2mkAiO2f5IUpOJ_eioWHcLrFbLm06z3pKdS0DmZymnZak4XaHy7rTsosDERc7_8p8wdXp0geIF1tqMgl-iTEbMN-nEkWmtI8OP5lBstH4-1baQ/s275/Peeper.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiWeikWnGsEfTsPrCZbKlcgAWZ2mkAiO2f5IUpOJ_eioWHcLrFbLm06z3pKdS0DmZymnZak4XaHy7rTsosDERc7_8p8wdXp0geIF1tqMgl-iTEbMN-nEkWmtI8OP5lBstH4-1baQ/w514-h342/Peeper.jpg" width="514" /></a></div><div style="margin-left: 80px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Hey, Mr. Peeper!</span></b></span><br /></div><p><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-16845681024119518862021-01-02T11:36:00.001-05:002021-01-02T11:40:03.300-05:002021<p><b>When I was a kid I used to wonder what it would be like in the year 2000. Now it's 2021. I thought 2000 was scewed up, but 2020 proved to me that the system we live under is about as monstrous as it gets. These days I figure things will only get worse because the way it's geared it can't get better (there's no process for improvement).</b></p><p><b>Last time I posted here I figured I'd be logging in at the old blog more often. In fact, I was here less. Every day that I thought about sitting at the desk to post something, the time I spend here seemed unimportant, and so I stayed away. In fact, aside from writing, I almost never turn on the desktop. It sits quiet and cold and ignored most days. I'll work on a novel for an hour or two, then turn it off.</b></p><p><b>So it goes.</b></p><p><b>Since our trip to Kentucky things have been hectic. We had the whole holiday thang to go through. Unlike most cynics I actually adore the time from Halloween through New Year's Day. And even though I'm not religious at all, I'm with Andy Williams on Christmas. For me, both currently and nostalgically, it is the most wonderful time of the year. I was reminded of the reaction I got from a former friend when I told him that. He was horrified. Last I knew of that twisted loon, he had become both a Christian and a Hitler-loving neo-Nazi. (You can't make this shit up. If it was fiction, readers would think it was too outrageous.)</b></p><p><b>The Casita needs some work done on the water pump, so I haven't taken it camping since our return from Kentucky. I have an appointment to take it in for that, plus some other issues that need attention (windows resealed, new stabilizer jacks on the back, 'porch' light, etc). That's why I haven't been on any cold-weather trips in the travel trailer. When I get it back later this month I'll hit some parks in glamping style.</b></p><p><b>My son, Andy, landed a good job. Making the legendary "living wage". The job is a bit of a haul from where he lives and he needed a new vehicle for that so I bought him one. These days I'm economically able to do that kind of thing...so I do it. It's what parents do, I reckon. At least this parent.</b></p><p><b>With any luck, January will be the beginning of a much more active time for me compared to the last two months. Carole and I were planning vacations, but then the covid reemerged so now we don't know what's going to happen with that. We had planned a winter trip to Key West and a camping trip out to Dry Tortugas National Park, but that's off. Later in the year we wanted to go camping in Pennsylvania, but they have a 10-day quarantine regime set up for out-of-state visitors! If you cross the border to stay you have to quarantine yourself. That would essentially eat up the entire vacation. (Or get a covid-19 test. If it comes up negative and you can present the paperwork you're good to go. Only I'm not taking a virus test to go camping and sightseeing. Therefore, PA as a vacation destination is right out.)</b></p><p><b>As I said, 2020 was a messed up year, and not a lot is going to change soon for 2021.</b></p><p><b> </b></p><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxOFP67T78Be_rFavvPKmVd2Ejl_1Z7T1yvISrbCRpuDFsZY0gr-v7_aAbVSJ3Y0pFkoKboW_ZKpf2S3PjTDT-3fp4k9L8BIK360BUNHP-7BhBX5WGQos2zwHhOocAgj9kGEsxw/s2048/IMG_9865.JPG"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="468" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxxOFP67T78Be_rFavvPKmVd2Ejl_1Z7T1yvISrbCRpuDFsZY0gr-v7_aAbVSJ3Y0pFkoKboW_ZKpf2S3PjTDT-3fp4k9L8BIK360BUNHP-7BhBX5WGQos2zwHhOocAgj9kGEsxw/w312-h468/IMG_9865.JPG" width="312" /> </a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">Just after we got the tree put up and got the lights on. Carole and I both think this is probably the prettiest tree we've ever had. We got lucky. </span></b></span><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBV_TTRODr0A8vDC8tBb1JwvyHnS2a3pgoEbSniu2z-y5bGxpEnDFSJ3tK_036yXu7BK-WltgyWovlRwC6qjgE6Snvt_X6ALedb0pKlE5dT5rG05PmXt-xcv6AuJqteUmj64Heg/s2048/IMG_9866.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="461" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIBV_TTRODr0A8vDC8tBb1JwvyHnS2a3pgoEbSniu2z-y5bGxpEnDFSJ3tK_036yXu7BK-WltgyWovlRwC6qjgE6Snvt_X6ALedb0pKlE5dT5rG05PmXt-xcv6AuJqteUmj64Heg/w307-h461/IMG_9866.JPG" width="307" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3tNSN0nlgW8JM9dXwxdYtoHFSct1JkjrlKi4SxK9SrdR_RWMunwlTGg-wnjQ147DpPdrhMWT3y66StWnmQDjiIpHyRH4JT9boYjdXXEqtjhbtKojsygWmFDUp6zaIqSM57jqsuw/s2048/IMG_9869.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3tNSN0nlgW8JM9dXwxdYtoHFSct1JkjrlKi4SxK9SrdR_RWMunwlTGg-wnjQ147DpPdrhMWT3y66StWnmQDjiIpHyRH4JT9boYjdXXEqtjhbtKojsygWmFDUp6zaIqSM57jqsuw/w474-h316/IMG_9869.JPG" width="474" /></a></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmrxFDNhlSujEOb5L5AR9HbwYYYqWU2BANcycD30kEEYtCpYXo9q_FpCu1y8gFid3tuf44xilB5srdBULBq-AM4BXmTyFk3Wzzjy-29jImvgcF_ypPeAP0ots4NmWd1lLmL7kvw/s2048/IMG_9885.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="537" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmrxFDNhlSujEOb5L5AR9HbwYYYqWU2BANcycD30kEEYtCpYXo9q_FpCu1y8gFid3tuf44xilB5srdBULBq-AM4BXmTyFk3Wzzjy-29jImvgcF_ypPeAP0ots4NmWd1lLmL7kvw/w357-h537/IMG_9885.JPG" width="357" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">Tree up and decorated, no presents yet. </span></b></span><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-QX37QBJlPG3enMvmT9d6DiztpUY-TpiWcYEAmuY48whyphenhyphenBYHOFVQ-Yk939mjC5I6iK-TBtcK49oz3j7c8B2TNpIlhXexhqKJwIF68L5XpC-t44OaJq5eFwjxj5ir8xNb8Or1YA/s2048/IMG_9919.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="601" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho-QX37QBJlPG3enMvmT9d6DiztpUY-TpiWcYEAmuY48whyphenhyphenBYHOFVQ-Yk939mjC5I6iK-TBtcK49oz3j7c8B2TNpIlhXexhqKJwIF68L5XpC-t44OaJq5eFwjxj5ir8xNb8Or1YA/w400-h601/IMG_9919.JPG" width="400" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">Presents accumulating over the days leading up to Christmas. </span></b></span><br /></div><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfgVF3AihDJZzmy3-p3Oa-PSIoxEWJZgdkt3EerLjTMubWLx027LK34AMdgHauKgNYrgfvq-AutdaOTWE583eCwl1ZNCq7lTUPN1ylfAzW-DFVYRcTpQ68JqPq51s4Tve_Gqi8w/s2048/IMG_9936.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="620" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDfgVF3AihDJZzmy3-p3Oa-PSIoxEWJZgdkt3EerLjTMubWLx027LK34AMdgHauKgNYrgfvq-AutdaOTWE583eCwl1ZNCq7lTUPN1ylfAzW-DFVYRcTpQ68JqPq51s4Tve_Gqi8w/w413-h620/IMG_9936.JPG" width="413" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">Christmas morning. </span></b></span><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6T8SM4HyqHsGsTACNrD3wd_yGYNbWsSwomgB11rnTZ1PXXd0E1QZ2Z1YJbumtk7CWkO9qhSp1Wnf-xIRAzrLzVVg3T2UAaTHjh_1wv1XJnO5gxLCXj_24DRHDKDXgMIRPwSAIag/s2048/IMG_9946.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6T8SM4HyqHsGsTACNrD3wd_yGYNbWsSwomgB11rnTZ1PXXd0E1QZ2Z1YJbumtk7CWkO9qhSp1Wnf-xIRAzrLzVVg3T2UAaTHjh_1wv1XJnO5gxLCXj_24DRHDKDXgMIRPwSAIag/s320/IMG_9946.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dcK7FS5FV6smhoQSzdlzA6r5LgIpwwCeN9Ib4yl0sEMY5IMJZ3H0AmIEqu7hESLy3lKyqpIMamBCcaCo6fTuAlYCgRqbB47yIKyp3YHME4O5r6iXWE6ar_2Y5JBu3OMiZ34Ukg/s2048/IMG_9947.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="332" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-dcK7FS5FV6smhoQSzdlzA6r5LgIpwwCeN9Ib4yl0sEMY5IMJZ3H0AmIEqu7hESLy3lKyqpIMamBCcaCo6fTuAlYCgRqbB47yIKyp3YHME4O5r6iXWE6ar_2Y5JBu3OMiZ34Ukg/w499-h332/IMG_9947.JPG" width="499" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhlqsdujgDYLrvI7fRFtXwbZHW0lQ4jT3qV9KNY__MPBKGeV8esaXeiKt3BB_-wX18SCkWo2ZLfA6tBFWLQtcHHCUfE9zrrGv27SAicBAhs4q7vBt4DMnexW8W9r1UbTN4_JrYA/s2048/IMG_9960.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1365" height="560" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPhlqsdujgDYLrvI7fRFtXwbZHW0lQ4jT3qV9KNY__MPBKGeV8esaXeiKt3BB_-wX18SCkWo2ZLfA6tBFWLQtcHHCUfE9zrrGv27SAicBAhs4q7vBt4DMnexW8W9r1UbTN4_JrYA/w373-h560/IMG_9960.JPG" width="373" /> </a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> <span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">The last photo of the tree. It comes down today (January 2, 2021).</span></b></span></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnpf2NUOr1I2Z827ladqCB8NHCnOUoEvHR3bNNdLyp49-gqEnMd9RBNpLZXCT02qbJKdFi-JK3svUuctwIUJUd7Zhjd2R2v_LdNpJQQxDVZZZcjoXdwakDzSDlCnaRWo-WLGXQ3Q/s2048/IMG_9956.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnpf2NUOr1I2Z827ladqCB8NHCnOUoEvHR3bNNdLyp49-gqEnMd9RBNpLZXCT02qbJKdFi-JK3svUuctwIUJUd7Zhjd2R2v_LdNpJQQxDVZZZcjoXdwakDzSDlCnaRWo-WLGXQ3Q/w515-h343/IMG_9956.JPG" width="515" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_770OsQjgA0koX8x-rkE0VBY85Jh_wsFhgqXdnrvwEboOxwWiT9oyI2rRrENHqJ83Ro8DgxtUcekuVym9p-Hh677NVxzlu1xfqj6KQV3eunZ4e-VzDLj0rW0YNK1zD4cdqfBbsQ/s2048/IMG_9957.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_770OsQjgA0koX8x-rkE0VBY85Jh_wsFhgqXdnrvwEboOxwWiT9oyI2rRrENHqJ83Ro8DgxtUcekuVym9p-Hh677NVxzlu1xfqj6KQV3eunZ4e-VzDLj0rW0YNK1zD4cdqfBbsQ/w514-h342/IMG_9957.JPG" width="514" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">I bought this 2017 Santa Fe from my sister for Andy to get to and from his new job.</span></b></span><br /></div><div><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="454" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/73UqDX_quk0" width="546" youtube-src-id="73UqDX_quk0"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: red;">Yeah, I know. I'm a heathen, but I love the holiday season. I adore it when it's happening and I gravely miss it when it's over. I suppose I'm that rare person who looks forward to it every year. My two favorite Christmas songs are Andy Williams classics.</span></b></span><br /><p></p><p><br /></p></div>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-52604230704413851542020-11-19T10:16:00.003-05:002020-11-19T13:15:14.282-05:00What the Hell, Dude?!<p><b>Well...I've been busy being retired. I don't work for anyone anymore. Not one hour, not one bit.</b></p><p><b>Weirdly, I'll often find myself worrying about something. And when I sit to pinpoint the source of my worry, I realize that it's a stubborn and persistent form of guilt that I'm not working. At such moments I'll wonder what the Hell is wrong with me.</b></p><p><b>I worked for decades. I worked constantly for my parents as a kid and never skipped a beat as I entered adulthood and continued to do so. Unlike so many lazy bastards I have met over the years I never shirked the opportunity to engage in labor of any type that would keep a roof over my head and food in the pantry. There have been so many losers I've encountered who would do anything at all to avoid working.</b></p><p><b>That said, being at the beck and call of a petty supervisor or a sadistic manager was often difficult for me. I suffered for quite a lot of my years as a worker from having a white-hot temper and enough physical strength to hurt people with my bare hands. Some days it was a close call to resist the need to lash out and find myself arrested (again) for giving in and beating someone.</b></p><p><b>I don't have to worry about that anymore, because I'm retired. Facing down abusive employers and willing to go to violence over it is no longer a possibility. And, yet, these nagging feelings of guilt keep cropping up at the weirdest times. Sometimes they'll linger in my subconscious to the point where I'll dream I'm working again: as a letter carrier, on a loading dock, clerking in a grocery store, running a bookshop, cutting and assembling pool covers...whatever.</b></p><p><b>What the Hell?!</b></p><p><b>And each time this pointless guilt gnaws at me I will realize that it's from the effects of more than five decades of being conditioned to work for slave wages and to obey orders. They drill that into you from the day you are grabbed up and sent to school, and throughout the years you toil as a servant. It's something you're just supposed to do.</b></p><p><b>These days, I take that guilt and bludgeon it, or choke it until it expires, or stab it in the face, or pour gasoline over it and light a match. But like some kind of rotten ghoul it pulls itself together and comes creeping up on me again and again. Repeat, kill, repeat.</b></p><p><b>So, what I try to do is stay busy doing fun stuff. I read a lot. I hike and camp. Spending time researching places where we can vacation is a big pastime for me.</b></p><p><b>But what I really want to do is find that silver bullet, that wooden stake. Because feeling guilty for not working after five decades of that shit is unfathomable. Maybe the knockout punch for that asshole will come the next time I climb a high mountain or kayak a wild river or hike a wilderness trail or return to Yellowstone or take that trip to Florence, Italy.</b></p><p><b>We'll see.</b></p><p><b>In the meantime...to Hell with work. </b><br /></p><p><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;">Some things I've done this year because I have no nagging job, no reason to hear an alarm clock, no desire to so much as recall what it's like to commit labor under orders:</span></b></p><p style="text-align: center;"><b><span style="color: red;"> </span></b><br /></p><p style="text-align: center;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/G7y0L7P53Wk" width="320" youtube-src-id="G7y0L7P53Wk"></iframe></div><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/c2n3Y_y49kA" width="320" youtube-src-id="c2n3Y_y49kA"></iframe></div><p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nYlTn9gyaFI" width="320" youtube-src-id="nYlTn9gyaFI"></iframe></div><p></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTlPFu6FBMVI_FlnOqCR3nmW5phckrxIVLhgsEndel6ordmudLLhwyvTJpb6-tB_5uwbnwI5FI-sYxTLoFArD1olihqJkrqT0VoKxiK9NlZ9F8R7TU2huoyD7kAY5n1zsF_YaUA/s4608/20201101_103331.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQTlPFu6FBMVI_FlnOqCR3nmW5phckrxIVLhgsEndel6ordmudLLhwyvTJpb6-tB_5uwbnwI5FI-sYxTLoFArD1olihqJkrqT0VoKxiK9NlZ9F8R7TU2huoyD7kAY5n1zsF_YaUA/w640-h480/20201101_103331.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrInUKH9H9FGzrRfmtCwlfVaH8c_8MCUD3Sa_LAgnwKYfXI4mN0jrYgoAiy2UGM-bzjBtHIEcrPuTsCUWZOD9XIf2uL7ebqpOZGHBu5lsWUf6PPy-mKSTXHywCpCPVLG3twasYDQ/s4608/20201031_100307.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3456" data-original-width="4608" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrInUKH9H9FGzrRfmtCwlfVaH8c_8MCUD3Sa_LAgnwKYfXI4mN0jrYgoAiy2UGM-bzjBtHIEcrPuTsCUWZOD9XIf2uL7ebqpOZGHBu5lsWUf6PPy-mKSTXHywCpCPVLG3twasYDQ/w640-h480/20201031_100307.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gf8FtYhYzJiLenpcdXgnYDZnlfvxj16MkEdNlh1Ju59iyRc-GRMQQt7wziZMVk2XcAIq6kK3KJM3ksBdWPMnmJfWtnB4AT5JIOEWs8QTI2yUpwg65P974wZR7PgBwhlMAI92ZQ/s1578/IMG_20201102_230714_151.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="1578" height="554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-gf8FtYhYzJiLenpcdXgnYDZnlfvxj16MkEdNlh1Ju59iyRc-GRMQQt7wziZMVk2XcAIq6kK3KJM3ksBdWPMnmJfWtnB4AT5JIOEWs8QTI2yUpwg65P974wZR7PgBwhlMAI92ZQ/w640-h554/IMG_20201102_230714_151.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiILdOqsS_WL_rJI96e2t3cPyL57H8HA-Os6IphX7r9Y3DpMthbj8WEPwpZ1L2pJzfVnT0GD5BwHGQdOaRrW46LpYJI5cHrak7NWGLpKtwP4F07qHWWJ4SMJIdBMYZ0LvqD862w/s1903/IMG_20201102_230234_013.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1268" data-original-width="1903" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaiILdOqsS_WL_rJI96e2t3cPyL57H8HA-Os6IphX7r9Y3DpMthbj8WEPwpZ1L2pJzfVnT0GD5BwHGQdOaRrW46LpYJI5cHrak7NWGLpKtwP4F07qHWWJ4SMJIdBMYZ0LvqD862w/w640-h426/IMG_20201102_230234_013.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><br /></p>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-28951942160405692272020-08-04T23:48:00.002-04:002020-08-04T23:53:16.447-04:00No Glacial Time for Me.<div><b>Weird.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Here I am retired, tons of time on my hands, and I neglect the old blog.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>In my defense I have been busy. Hiking, gardening, writing. Also, after our West Virginia vacation (I'll post photos) I got seriously sick. I was sick for weeks. Better now, but it was a horror show.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>I've been going through old photos, planning a big trip for next year. Yeah, I know how that goes. Carole and I planned a huge, detailed, complicated trip for this past Spring that was completely botched by Covid-19. But we make more plans anyway. What we hope to do is take some excursions farther afield. At his moment we're looking at Colorado. About a 50-50 chance of that being our destination.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Carole has never seen Colorado. I've only been once, but it was an extended trip and I experienced a lot. One place that I visited that I know she'd love is Rocky Mountains National Park and the adjacent town of Estes Park, Colorado. Both are her type of place.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>At any rate, these are my current musings and this is our thinking for next year when Carole will be very close to retirement herself.<br /><br />And this is the photo of one of the vistas that made the biggest impact on me when I was in Colorado eight years ago.</b></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshn-Nl5GQunrgb3kd1H7TndCU8YXr-7ZPo870eGALqCguiMpF028BmAXadhWwFLqUSVa57Azexr9Zo4huIVO0FJS5vOP-8V8w5gN8HUBTP31VVL2qPFhP8mtp6Xyfsk3h26RmhQ/s800/Glacial+Moraine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjshn-Nl5GQunrgb3kd1H7TndCU8YXr-7ZPo870eGALqCguiMpF028BmAXadhWwFLqUSVa57Azexr9Zo4huIVO0FJS5vOP-8V8w5gN8HUBTP31VVL2qPFhP8mtp6Xyfsk3h26RmhQ/s640/Glacial+Moraine.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div><b>This is a glacial moraine. It sits on the flanks of Longs Peak, the highest summit in Rocky Mountain National Park (14,259 feet above sea level). We weren't climbing to the summit on this day, but to a place called Chasm Lake about 2,000 feet or so below the summit. We still had a few miles to go when we stopped at this spot.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>I need to try to impress upon you the scale of the landscape here. This is a glacial moraine. A localized glacier once sat at this point and this was its terminal reach. It sat here puking up boulders and rock and soil and sand that it had ground up for thousands of years. And then it melted completely away, revealing this big wall of what is, essentially, glacier vomit. That wall of rock and dirt is huge. Those trees at the base down there are not tiny shrubs. The hills beyond would be considered mountains here in the East.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>Another reason this panorama is imprinted on my mind is that it is where I discovered that I am susceptible to altitude sickness. Two years before this trip I had specifically climbed several peaks in Yellowstone over 10,000 feet above sea level to find out if I got altitude sickness, or not. I was pleased then to find then that climbing a summit of 10,500 or 10,700 feet was, to me, no different than hiking up a 6,000 foot mountain here in the South. And so I had concluded that I wouldn't get altitude sickness.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>I was wrong. That malady hit me with both fists precisely at this point. I think we were around 11,200 feet here. Up on a big plateau ground out by that dead glacier. I was nauseous, dizzy, addled; my head ached. In fact, the more we pushed on, the worse it got. The weird thing was that I began to babble complete and utter nonsense and realized that I was doing this, but couldn't stop. My hiking companions should have--in retrospect--forced me to turn around. They suggested it, but I refused, wanting to see Chasm Lake in the worst way. So I pushed on. I recall not being with either of them as I clambered up the final wall of rock that served as the dam for Chasm Lake. I was on my own.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>At any rate, the pure enormity of the landscape out there is essentially beyond description. You have to experience it.This was a single mountain. Huge like a god. Bits of it so impressive that I was held in place, shocked by the mass of it all.</b></div><div><b><br /></b></div><div><b>I want to go back. This time I'll train better and do more to acclimate myself before tackling altitudes over 11,200 feet. (I do fine below that.)<br /><br />I'm looking forward to it.</b><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4leyuqRfuqWfsjhWGVVv1Tnv0Vfr0TBrugA3lz0JGB6LBn9AfIdpLH1CeKben0KRYRZlfy98GaCFD3MsCBXT1qpTg3K9Q-2II6ayNRrpJ60j4aOyVs5ZaUx8dhN6TgOmPn6OKQ/s2048/Weminuche+01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="A week later, deep in the Weminuche Wilderness in the San Juan Mountains." border="0" data-original-height="1365" data-original-width="2048" height="367" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_4leyuqRfuqWfsjhWGVVv1Tnv0Vfr0TBrugA3lz0JGB6LBn9AfIdpLH1CeKben0KRYRZlfy98GaCFD3MsCBXT1qpTg3K9Q-2II6ayNRrpJ60j4aOyVs5ZaUx8dhN6TgOmPn6OKQ/w400-h267/Weminuche+01.jpg" width="653" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><span style="color: red;"><font size="5">A week later, deep in the Weminuche Wilderness of the San Juans.</font></span></b><br /></div>James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-84833581189442787732020-07-10T20:50:00.002-04:002020-07-10T20:50:57.916-04:00Stalking the Cooperative Vulture.<b>I've been enjoying a lot of outdoor activities lately. My son and I head to the high country often to go hiking. My wife and I have been doing a good deal of kayaking locally. And of course when no one else has the leisure time to go with me, I go off by myself. I take advantage of most of those days to go hiking, generally within a drive of anywhere from half an hour to as much as three hours.</b><br />
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<b>Today I fell back on the old standby activity, hiking at Crowders Mountain State Park. My main purpose was to hike to the summit of Crowders to see if I would have the opportunity to photograph Turkey vultures. They're one of the most common large birds around, and they use the cliffs and thermals around the summit to launch themselves into the sky to scan for the scent of carrion.On a sunny day it's hard to miss them at either of the two peaks in the park, Crowders and Kings Pinnacle.</b><br />
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<b>I have to say, it was a hot day for hiking. I arrived at the trailhead at about 10:00 am. The lot was about 2/3 full, and it's a vast parking area. There is very good reason that local hikers refer to it as "Crowded Mountain". On some days you can encounter as many as 100 people arriving at the summit every hour or so. Today wasn't quite that busy, but nearly so.</b><br />
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<b>After reaching the top and toweling all of the sweat off of me, I staked out a shady spot at the edge of a cliff and began to take landscape photos and to scan the area for signs of vultures. One of my friends, writer/photographer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hodges_(writer)" target="_blank">Michael Hodges</a> had suggested a lens to me: a Canon 24mm pancake lens. He told me that photographs taken with it would "pop", and he wasn't kidding. It captures crisp, colorful, brilliant images. This was the first time I'd used it other than to take a couple of test photos. Michael was spot on.</b><br />
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<b>I stayed on the summit for about three hours taking photos, drinking lots of water, and enjoying the views. The people arrived and left at a steady pace. Sometimes it got quite noisy, then the voices and music would subside as the numbers of people dwindled. (I never have figured out why anyone would bring music with them on a hike. I find the idea pathetic.)</b><br />
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<b>Over the course of my time there I took well over 200 photographs of the crew of Turkey vultures who passed in front of and above my patch of rocky cliffside. I think I'll salvage about a dozen images good enough for me to add to my online portfolio of photos that I sell through some online purveyors of stock photos. Every month I make a little more than I did the month before. It has become my part-time job. A job, for once, that's fun (aside from writing).</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-d0cjNrz8pSgxkaTRKhmEo0ZCJxymA3NEQooabKvzSLyyFXFVHCthFj3itwGg1u38KetGwUilB2MLYX5R-C_qtRJbNBcQP02ggOfxUe0_FecdihNpmtbylpCRpB_ObuHdTy-GQ/s1600/Turkey+Vulture+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1315" data-original-width="1600" height="524" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu-d0cjNrz8pSgxkaTRKhmEo0ZCJxymA3NEQooabKvzSLyyFXFVHCthFj3itwGg1u38KetGwUilB2MLYX5R-C_qtRJbNBcQP02ggOfxUe0_FecdihNpmtbylpCRpB_ObuHdTy-GQ/s640/Turkey+Vulture+003.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Say what you will, they're actually quite the majestic bird in flight.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WpXSDTnkc7sSHUueJfD1LX1KfhSlZsH3vPM_HBadXzoFwUohJgYIICUyXR4XDmQ0u3zABhI98ocN9JR-91naemtyVpz1hpD1hGxa80ZtZPTgfFGwuY_q-F61f-bgpwEaYyzwRA/s1600/Turkey+Vulture+004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1120" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0WpXSDTnkc7sSHUueJfD1LX1KfhSlZsH3vPM_HBadXzoFwUohJgYIICUyXR4XDmQ0u3zABhI98ocN9JR-91naemtyVpz1hpD1hGxa80ZtZPTgfFGwuY_q-F61f-bgpwEaYyzwRA/s640/Turkey+Vulture+004.jpg" width="448" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">I don't know if this bird is just old, in the midst of molting, or the victim of a tussle. It seems healthy and flew and cruised the thermals as well as the others. But it looked rough.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggx0TeueTvxriKHnqHePISHk9_HQevi3kpw3SQWC74Bzzpik2TEfvrrNrsy5T-9dWPPh59Q8MgcLdaREqnXC4KybPkO9jLIUm4MZpZPI2Y06oOpYPhKJwzfS1vaaXR_0GTxqRMrQ/s1600/Turkey+Vulture+002A.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1136" data-original-width="1421" height="510" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggx0TeueTvxriKHnqHePISHk9_HQevi3kpw3SQWC74Bzzpik2TEfvrrNrsy5T-9dWPPh59Q8MgcLdaREqnXC4KybPkO9jLIUm4MZpZPI2Y06oOpYPhKJwzfS1vaaXR_0GTxqRMrQ/s640/Turkey+Vulture+002A.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Aside from the Great blue heron, the Turkey vulture is my favorite bird to photograph.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53YpuVYU7c-JhyphenhyphenDzsUkAaALvB9MjY7YcEv_hxXWGTqRGG3YHt8RINwChColTLPvnyc6MhyphenhyphenvqkodhPnoeIOMmeZWvWhOYHDixt7fqSkg1cJe2jsW30N6n4ZQlA_k7CS85kLYOFVA/s1600/Crowders+Mountain+Summit+002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj53YpuVYU7c-JhyphenhyphenDzsUkAaALvB9MjY7YcEv_hxXWGTqRGG3YHt8RINwChColTLPvnyc6MhyphenhyphenvqkodhPnoeIOMmeZWvWhOYHDixt7fqSkg1cJe2jsW30N6n4ZQlA_k7CS85kLYOFVA/s640/Crowders+Mountain+Summit+002.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Michael was right. That lens makes the image really stand out.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<br />James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-9812714091885353642020-07-07T14:15:00.001-04:002020-07-07T15:04:00.713-04:00Messages Both Intended and Subconscious.<b>I was thinking of my writing output recently and what it's about. I recall a couple of writers I spoke to over the years mentioning that even if you don't actively want to engage in delivering a message, you still often do. That is, even if what you intend is to deliver pure pulp fiction, or just an entertaining yarn with no undercurrent of philosophical or political content, your subconscious dictates that you will do exactly the opposite.</b><br />
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<b>What struck me in thinking specifically of my novels and stories was of how many of them deal with racism. Sometimes with intent, but often just a product of ideas percolating out of the subconscious and ending up on the pages.</b><br />
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<b>The only time I actively wrote a book with an intentional undercurrent of commentary on racism in the USA is my book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081LSCGGP/" target="_blank">THE EMISSARY</a>. I wanted to write about the subject in a way that I could treat with it over the course of a story in a horror novel. What I wanted to do was actively write a book with an overt delivery of the problem of racism in the US.</b><br />
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<b>But many of my other books have dealt with some aspect of racism, which I think is far and away the most awful part of our national history. It's always there, and won't go away, existing persistently decade after decade since the times before our nation even existed.</b><br />
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<b>Years ago I was writing zombie novels. And while on the Internet to promote one of those novels I went from bulletin board to bulletin board to make connections and see how I should go about promoting my books there. What I thought I would find I did not, and what I did discover horrified me. Pretty much every public bulletin board devoted to zombie fiction onto which I logged was weighted heavily with racists, many of them neo-Nazis. These guys would post links and you'd find yourself looking at boards promoting hatred and white-race "superiority". I saw vile imagery and threats of violence and extermination spelled out in plain terms.</b><br />
<b><br />Frankly, after that, I didn't want to write anymore zombie novels and decided not to engage in promotions of my work on any of those boards. When one of my publishers asked me to write them another one I at first refused. But then I recalled a short story that I'd written that had later been produced as a comic story. The idea of turning it into a novel had occurred to me for years but I had never followed through. I agreed to an advance and set about writing it.</b><br />
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<b>Thus was born the expansion into novel of my short story THE NEW ECOLOGY DEATH. I thought about what I wanted to do with it. I never once mentioned racism or anything directly related to it. I set about burying any mention of anything attached to the subject in an atmosphere both cold and hopeful, and also cautionary.</b><br />
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<b>But two things that I actively did was make all of the principle characters Jews. And I took guns and gun-play totally out of the picture so that I would rob the reader of what I have come to think of as gun-porn. There is the reference to distant gunfire once in the book, and an actual scene with a firearm is played out near the very end with unintended consequences. I specifically set out to create a zombie novel with almost none of the plot elements that most racists lust for in their zombie novels. I made it so that the tables are turned and the setting is one in which zombies are all but defeated and are only a marginal and fading threat. The main characters are a Jewish family. There are almost no guns, and none of the jargon that gives gun-loving racists a specific thrill (which I am convinced is sexual).</b><br />
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<b>It was the worst-selling book I ever wrote. I don't know how many copies it sold, but not many. It never came anywhere near to earning back its advance. The only feedback I ever got on it was from a couple of racists raging about how there were no guns in the book.<br /><br />Someday I'd like to get it back into print. Of all of the books I've written, I can think of nothing in it that I'd want to rewrite. It was pretty much everything I wanted it to be and which I set out to do. So getting it back into print would be easy on a technical basis (no rewrites). I'd just need to figure out how to get it into the hands of the right audience.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>We'll see.</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBM6_opDYP2KfyxLjA4pBKlhEg7Epc7GHAjGWF4AV1wJkvSdalQ-g8NJkIMXqmX108MIxdzMDwsfBQ5iS0dBIyrQzzef6h9_3jL5LR74zPf4s4ZFG1rAPnqW89lDkJm_fy_nSQ7Q/s1600/TheEmissary.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBM6_opDYP2KfyxLjA4pBKlhEg7Epc7GHAjGWF4AV1wJkvSdalQ-g8NJkIMXqmX108MIxdzMDwsfBQ5iS0dBIyrQzzef6h9_3jL5LR74zPf4s4ZFG1rAPnqW89lDkJm_fy_nSQ7Q/s640/TheEmissary.png" width="426" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B081LSCGGP/" target="_blank">THE EMISSARY</a>. A horror novel wherein racial and sexual hatred manifests itself as lycanthropy.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08234ZW1Y" target="_blank">DEADLOCKED</a>, a novel with major elements of race, philosophy, struggle, and hope.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYu3BVxkZE0cWcd9SqOW7Su8zMSNNRNid35MRTmaMFuONRZpB1OUsqfAHNg33nzAHqYeGF5Y7zM-0iDaVHZuYFUzWDInrwzngwLntgkZ3Nt23oUabj0hPgQVuNKIJtu8nSsrmpxg/s1600/Ecology+of+Death.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="230" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYu3BVxkZE0cWcd9SqOW7Su8zMSNNRNid35MRTmaMFuONRZpB1OUsqfAHNg33nzAHqYeGF5Y7zM-0iDaVHZuYFUzWDInrwzngwLntgkZ3Nt23oUabj0hPgQVuNKIJtu8nSsrmpxg/s640/Ecology+of+Death.jpg" width="424" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">My out-of-print THE NEW ECOLOGY OF DEATH. Returning to print one of these days. Maybe this year. (But maybe not.)</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<br />James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28944274.post-43583743989501984892020-07-06T22:38:00.006-04:002020-07-07T00:23:48.480-04:00A Retiring Fellow<b>Some years back I got a friend request on Facebook that surprised me. It was from a well known movie producer. Now, this had nothing whatsoever to do with my movie deal with Warner Brothers at that time (for my novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Flock-James-Robert-Smith-ebook/dp/B00486U9US/" target="_blank">THE FLOCK</a>). At least I don't think it did. It was never mentioned.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I enjoyed corresponding with him from time to time, and I always got a kick out of his posts about has fascinating career and how he ended up producing movies. And he had great stories about famous writers, directors, and actors who had created the movies he produced. He was the kind of interesting and famous friend you never think you are going to make on Facebook.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>After a couple of years, though, he began to complain that he had too many Facebook friends and that he was going to start paring down the list. I seem to recall he had a couple of thousand at the time which actually isn't all that many in the scheme of things. What he said he wanted was a few hundred people that he felt made his experience on Facebook fun, and with whom he could actually exchange ideas and stories.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>He was one of the very few people on the platform that I worried about not seeing anymore. But he would text me from time to time to assure me that I'd made the cut. This went on for about a year as he shed friends.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>One day he started up a conversation about work. Retirement came up. I was still several years away from retirement. Close enough that I could taste it and wanted the day to come so that I wouldn't have to punch a clock and stress myself out by keeping myself from punching managers or supervisors. I mentioned to him that I thought everyone should be given the opportunity and pension to retire by age 50. I thought that was a reasonable amount of time to toil away for the capitalist system and then kick back and enjoy twenty to thirty-something years of fun.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>This idea upset him. I mean...he actually got angry. I never would have figured it, coming as he did from the counter-culture of the 60s and early 70s. But it did piss him off.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>A few days later I noticed that I was no longer on his friends list. I suppose at that point he must have been actively looking for reasons to shed anyone and everyone to get down to his magic number of Facebook friends of 400 or so. In the end, I didn't <i>make the cut,</i> as he had put it. I must admit that I missed his stories. He was pretty cool.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>I finally did retire. Being retired is glorious. Fuck working. If you don't have to work you shouldn't do it if it's making you miserable and you have the means to give up your job. I worked from my teens until I was 62 years old. That was freaking long enough. I know lazy bastards who do things like leech off of their parents and make their wives support them. I've always worked. For the past ten years that I did work all I could think of was making sure that I could retire at 62. I was freaking finished.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>And I think of my old Facebook friend and I wonder what it was about the idea of people being able to retire on a government pension at 50 that pissed him off so much. Maybe he was just a right wing curmudgeon with the aura of the counterculture about him that was totally false. I'll never know. Not only did he cease to be friendly with me via Facebook, he subsequently died.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>No, don't ask who he was. It doesn't matter, now, and I'm not going to mention it. If his name wouldn't be familiar to you, the films that he produced almost certainly would have.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>As for me, I freaking love being retired. I have time to have fun. I don't stress out over getting up before light unless Carole and I are going on a trip, or I'm going to drive to a park to go hiking or camping or kayaking. I can stay up half the night working on a new novel. I can plan out an ad campaign for my novels. For years I talked about planting a garden and never did. Now I have and we harvest vegetables from it almost every day.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Fuck it. That famous producer was wrong. I was right. Retirement is amazing. You don't have to sit on your ass and wither away or become stupid in front of the television.<br /><br />In fact, I wish I'd been able to do this at 50 instead of 62. Or earlier.</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir8LmEvSiaxPJKizZkaJ_GUaz3t5smbhBrdq-WbhNVZY2vlPsMulfGTYDDtP1DrlvTffqjPSK-18JMbDxND3sR-jQYRZs-cf1FMZPrfiuG_JDzMQl6tm4mkfW55hZPRR3r9ziouQ/s1600/IMG_7261.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEir8LmEvSiaxPJKizZkaJ_GUaz3t5smbhBrdq-WbhNVZY2vlPsMulfGTYDDtP1DrlvTffqjPSK-18JMbDxND3sR-jQYRZs-cf1FMZPrfiuG_JDzMQl6tm4mkfW55hZPRR3r9ziouQ/s640/IMG_7261.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: red;"><b>Fuck working. I hiked ten miles, saw three waterfalls, a mountaintop, deer, a wild turkey hen with eight chicks, and rhododendron in full bloom everywhere along the waterways. I didn't punch a clock. It was a weekday. There was no schedule. I did whatever the heck I wanted to do at the pace I wanted to take.</b></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bKo4k11hyphenhyphenhyKglLxBaPiOatGxcyzH0ktM8xkHsw05lO1hqwR5TpIjG5LG1jpPjnskoJ8aTpYQX3jr4ofGY6ixwDJjsH0ez1Mq4IL-E8Bu8CNorM8x-Wy4n1cVXlTCWnsmVNhtw/s1600/Stone+Mountain+006.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0bKo4k11hyphenhyphenhyKglLxBaPiOatGxcyzH0ktM8xkHsw05lO1hqwR5TpIjG5LG1jpPjnskoJ8aTpYQX3jr4ofGY6ixwDJjsH0ez1Mq4IL-E8Bu8CNorM8x-Wy4n1cVXlTCWnsmVNhtw/s640/Stone+Mountain+006.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr align="left"><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">My favorite view of Stone Mountain while being <i>on</i> Stone Mountain.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRIJaatKCWW4ZfmGNFzHmZx5hls2PTPC46FGgBM_rxtheZ62jNJkzZ1y9rT6_fVDo7z2PPCZDYSzM2HoS77UJ0jchnHjpXrG5Uh9gts28dhyphenhyphenbiYGYD_Lc969Q2LHkuLq2dbapbnA/s1600/Stone+Mountain+007.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiRIJaatKCWW4ZfmGNFzHmZx5hls2PTPC46FGgBM_rxtheZ62jNJkzZ1y9rT6_fVDo7z2PPCZDYSzM2HoS77UJ0jchnHjpXrG5Uh9gts28dhyphenhyphenbiYGYD_Lc969Q2LHkuLq2dbapbnA/s640/Stone+Mountain+007.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">Seven of the eight wild turkey chicks I saw.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVqHOx6nT1USjnsmiViWbBSvEPO4_-sv5j73lQVKyQ-BUnS2K1jhVn9DA78s4OnPpP7Kt28FzGxVdKBx3dht_B3V-EpdBWsi8zcSVhu3TR4F5uaOEuYpUh_6naBXcsWGosApVjQ/s1600/Stone+Mountain+008.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1108" data-original-width="1600" height="442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuVqHOx6nT1USjnsmiViWbBSvEPO4_-sv5j73lQVKyQ-BUnS2K1jhVn9DA78s4OnPpP7Kt28FzGxVdKBx3dht_B3V-EpdBWsi8zcSVhu3TR4F5uaOEuYpUh_6naBXcsWGosApVjQ/s640/Stone+Mountain+008.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">The mother hen.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRPkrmay7_1bx4I2B6sv0zoJnF51x44ecynK0LAm_M_X3Dm9Ej96rzAFqRb7XLC-wfMi_8KEZ0v2FiifQX43mX5tYk9LPwJzt3-GeYDE_JysSU9xAUVjSifh1ChogoCzeORgYkQ/s1600/Stone+Mountain+009.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1390" data-original-width="1600" height="556" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjRPkrmay7_1bx4I2B6sv0zoJnF51x44ecynK0LAm_M_X3Dm9Ej96rzAFqRb7XLC-wfMi_8KEZ0v2FiifQX43mX5tYk9LPwJzt3-GeYDE_JysSU9xAUVjSifh1ChogoCzeORgYkQ/s640/Stone+Mountain+009.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">One of thousands of rhododendron blossoms today.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1g9gelBIdLfg8Of8ZzFFpgHdgT3P4u6ucFJXAA-f9_8ncNvcbn3Q2m7mBnRP7-MqPURLT8yVXFl4y1u9lXk8CWfWlK0FfKl_y_78D5eCVqWIJnQBErXZXI7W4lKdZD2jULi-syA/s1600/Stone+Mountain+010.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1g9gelBIdLfg8Of8ZzFFpgHdgT3P4u6ucFJXAA-f9_8ncNvcbn3Q2m7mBnRP7-MqPURLT8yVXFl4y1u9lXk8CWfWlK0FfKl_y_78D5eCVqWIJnQBErXZXI7W4lKdZD2jULi-syA/s640/Stone+Mountain+010.JPG" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b><span style="color: red;">A small cascade above a larger waterfall.</span></b></span></td></tr>
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<br /><br />James Robert Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17281049641681225389noreply@blogger.com0