I have written several times about going to the local hangout and drinking coffee. Some of the more narrow minded people call this gossiping but I see it as being almost tribal, a throw back to the days of being around a camp fire or the hearth in a cave. In the old days when communications were word of mouth, we sat around the fire and told stories. Stories about the best place to find game for hunting. Stories that told of lessons learned the hard way, how we know not to do something because it will in fact leave a scar. Stories that passed the wisdom from generation to generation. Just this morning we had a discussion about Gregor Mendels law of dominance, of how parent organisms passed dominant traits on to their offspring. All things considered Marsha is lucky that we don’t sing and dance around something that we have set on fire. I’m sure her insurance premiums would go up.
It would be hard to find anything wrong with the weather that we have been having lately. We have had the rain that we need and also a lot of sunshine. The other night it was cold enough to make you use your electric blankets and like an idiot I was standing out in the yard listening to owls hooting. It seemed like they were all over town, talking about whatever it is that owls talk about. In Greek mythology the owl sat on the shoulder of Athena giving her the ability to see on her blind side, enabling her to see the whole truth. In the Bible the owl was seen as being a sign of wisdom. It was viewed in many cultures as being good luck but in others it was bad, even to the point of being a harbinger of death. All I know was that standing there on that cold clear night hearing all those birds hooting back and forth, it was a beautiful sound.
My eldest brother, Scott who could accurately be described as being old school, was telling me Sunday that in his toolbox at the shop, there is a laptop computer. This machine is not even part of the diagnostic equipment that is part of being a modern auto mechanic. This particular computer is for ordering parts that he needs. The companies don’t send out the old fashioned books made of paper the way they used to do.
In the last twenty years, every job that I have had, involved using a computer. From the warehouse to selling hunting and fishing permits. Even paying my sales tax on the plant business includes those infernal machines, as my good friend Jon Harris calls them.
I remember when I was in high school, my counselor suggested that I go to college and get into computers, that was the coming thing. I told him that was the silliest thing that I had ever heard. According to the seventeen year old Dennis, no one is going to want to sit at a computer all day.
