I did the long loop today. Getting tired of this long, cloudy, rainy month. Windy with a cold chill in the air. Too warm for a fleece jacket and shell; too cold for just a fleece jacket. Too cold not to wear a tuke; too warm when I wear one. I either sweat or am chilled. March weather.
A word about a couple books I've read recently. The first: "100 Miles" by Dan Thomas. Picked this up at the library the other day. This is a self-published book written by a local author who retired to a property of ten acres, close to here, on the Sacramento Valley. He retired to the town he grew up in after spending a life in Marin County being a school superintendent. The title comes from his explorations within 100 miles of his homestead.
All of his explorations were by car as a change in health status (cardiac problems) limits him from taking long walks. This change in health status gives the book an atmosphere of sweet loss. Of longing to get out and take a hike. The impression is that he is trying to squeeze as much remembrance and life out of what has become for him a glimpse at mortality. Erickson would call it "Integrity versus Despair". For a self published book I found it to be a worthy read. The book has an amateur naturalist feel to it.
And I read a collection of Woody Guthrie's writings. This was a wonderful glimpse into the motivations of a man who cared about working people. Juxtapose this to Bob Dylan's autobiography (Dylan started out by copying Wood Guthrie) and, well, I find Dylan to be a self absorbed, inauthentic artist. Woody Guthrie was the real deal.
Would Bob Dylan write something like this:
"I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world and that if it has hit you pretty hard and knocked you for a dozen loops, no matter how hard it's run you down nor rolled over you, no matter what color, what size you are, how you are built, I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work". Woody Guthrie Dec. 3, 1944
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