Trump Opts for Graven Image

(WHNS) The Routers news agency reports today President Trump will forgo a presidential library for his carved likeness on the west face of Gannett Peak in west central Wyoming. 

Unverified sources Viktor Krashnikov and Valerie Rhea-Avis cited the state's overwhelming support for Trump's reelection bid as the inspiration for the monument. While the White House refused to comment on the subject, President Trump did address the possibility on Twitter Sunday.

"The beautiful people of Wyoming, those good people, deserve a gift. What a great cause, best gift in the world, boost to tourism, will put Wyomings places on the maps."

Vickie Christiansen, Chief of the USDA's Forest Service, said she could not comment on details because no details were available at the time she was interviewed. However, Christiansen did say, "That's rugged country up there, very difficult to get to." 

Later in the day President Trump did seem to suggest some options for the site, including "Lots of golf courses change the economy, make it bigger, a lodge we could build there. Maybe a casino. All good, best ever."

According to the website "Wyoming Again Great Always", public donations can be sent in care of the WAGA Committee at Belarusbank in Minsk, Belarus. The website does stipulate 70% of donations to WAGA will go to "Save America", a Trump PAC.

An employee at the Gannett Peak Lodge in Pinedale, Wyoming said she was unsure of any expansion plans and ended the interview to finish her high school economics homework.

Gannett Peak is the highest point in Wyoming at 13,809' and stands in Bridger-Teton National Forest. 

The tradition for presidential libraries goes back to President Herbert Hoover.

 

The Great Reminder

 A friendly prompt, to consider a word or phrase to characterize what we--collectively and individually--have experienced, are experiencing here in 2020. I said I would chew over what has been served up by the pandemic and the epidemic that infects our body politic. And so, The Great Reminder.

Spoiler alert--I don't see anything going on any differently from what has been true of the human experience for, oh, 6,000 years or more. To the point, human nature is always a study in human nature. Some folks break things, and some folks fix things. And some folks watch.

Tossing around a term like risk management doesn't change a fact of existence, a human life being unpredictable, ever uncertain. Was that reality ever not so? I saw a report this morning of a poll showing 1 in 3 Americans think a traditional Thanksgiving family gathering is worth the risk of infection. We assess, we make our choices. With the understanding that others may pay for those decisions.

Well, I can't help think of very early seafaring peoples shoving off in their small boats to confront the terrible awesomeness of the oceans to find a new habitable spot. Families in tow, the horizon dividing the knowable from the unknowable.

Needless to say, those of us who have all that we need mostly expect what we need to be readily available. Until it's not. Thus, the mad rush for toilet paper in the face of broken supply chains. The gears of commerce lurching, jobs on hold if not altogether gone, waiting times of 4-6 weeks on, gulp, Amazon. 

Perhaps you have seen estimates of the number of refugees in Europe during and shortly after WWII--a staggering 60 million. Supply chains? Commerce? Jobs? Going without? 

Hasn't the phrase essential workers revealed much about the income levels of workers and the jobs that need to get done to keep our lives rolling along--and those essential millionaires? Hey, millionaires didn't build the pyramids. 

As for the body politic, I'm guilty of a simplistic outlook, simply most people want the world to be what they want it to be. And there is no consensus. So artificially drawing dotted lines around chunks of landmasses--how do you think that will go? Feel free to revisit world history at your leisure. 

I think you already know all of this, but wars, famines, pandemics, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, greed, ignorance, violence et al shove it in our faces. The human experience is a fragile endeavor, my friends. 

Let us be kind to our kind as we will. Enjoy the holiday season.

Think of It

If only for a minute or two, think of how it came to be that you are here, you are where you are. Four generations of my family live within 15 minutes of each other. A more unusual circumstance these days I would guess. A span of about 86 years covers this slice of the multitude.

My parents would be the senior members of our crew, my sister's newest grandchild the littlest kid on the block. I am aware of how my parents met and courted and married. Same for my sister and her husband. My niece met her husband at college, the details were not part of my watch, but here they are with 4 children.

Three couples gets at the point I am driving at. An incomplete picture to be sure. No, 4 individuals on their paths brought niece and beau into this world. Which means their 8 grandparents, each with stories of meetings and life-decisions and passions. 

Now ease back one more generation, 16 persons of interest relative to the little one crawling about these days. Probably 110 to 120 years ago roughly. Teddy Roosevelt or William H. Taft, or Woodrow Wilson, in the White House--if they were born here in the US when they came along.  

How did those family members with all the twists and turns lives easily confront happen upon one another and make the momentous decision to bring children into their worlds? 

Perhaps along and along the mesmerizing effect of doubling came your way--just one more generation, one more set of stories, 32 strands of decisive moments which if one were missing, you would not be you here and now. Think of it.

But let me lose my mind and mull over 10 generations back, 200+years most likely. Now, you sit as you do because 1024 individuals found the someone they would bring a new life into this world with as part of their stories. Or if you like, your personal heritage, that generation, 512 couples. 

Of course, 200 years or so is nothing, but I'll spare you the arithmetic of a thousand years. Just stare off for a moment, consider the spiral of humanity that is your personal history. Go ahead, just a shake of your head. 

And back to your business at hand.

IAQ

Recently I offered up to a former student what I now regard as a rather banal observation about retirement, how much more time is now under my control. Not only banal, a paraphrase, but at the core accurate. Perhaps a more astute observation would be of the underwhelming number of questions from others I face daily.

Of course, no longer in front of teenagers as their teacher is an easy explanation for the drastic drop in answers I generate. I suspect parents understand, those at least who have their children go off to school--the virus notwithstanding--or those who become empty-nesters. Not that all questions stop forever. Do they?

Since I am not much of a provocateur, rarely do I have to respond to more than a couple of questions a day, and many days none. Still, I will admit to surprise no questions followed a statement about the daily morning quotations I put on Facebook when I said I post them for a selfish reason. 

Even a simple inquiry about a particular flower in a photo series I shared is now out of the ordinary. The question, I mean, and not just the flower. Turns out, one other photo sparked enough interest to ask about, this little trio.

Merely garden-variety red Japanese maples (Acer palmatum, if you must ask) I bought online, six bucks apiece, nearly leafless, and three times taller. Yes, I cut them down that much, counting on them releafing pretty quickly. 

Will they be bonsai, my sister asked. Well, technically, they already are. But I know what the question points at, the highly refined trees and plants looking ages old in what sometimes seem impossibly shallow containers.

"Probably" was my answer, but that response is hedging since it would be unlikely they would end up in the ground. The more pointed question would be the 3 together or separated late next winter or early spring. On that point I am leaning toward keeping the 3 as a group. End of February, beginning of March I may provide an update. Should I be asked. 

Now I've got to brace myself because I have a 2nd-grader next door who, depending upon her arithmetic lessons, can be quite the Grand Inquisitor.