Blogging has become this way for me to reach things whether its anthropology, archeology, Linux or places of my heart and soul and mind. I think we all need some kind of communication media that allows us to posit the strengths and weaknesses of the human condition we find. Today, I was in this introspective sort of frame of mind primarily because I’ve been giving work a deal of thought of late. I was sitting late today in a certain Internet coffee shop cruising the web, marking bookmarks, and planning a blog entry for later. Often I mark certain passages in my text editor, or save bookmarks of places that I want to revisit. Its my way after work of doing a thing which does not require my full-on presence at each moment. I was actually dwelling on past times which is probably dangerous because one always remembers many of the people and places and one wonders what became of them. In this other life, when I used to study “stones and bones”, I had this good friend named Andy. Andy worked for a very large construction engineering company named Dames and Moore. We did projects together and often Gene was included on our team. Gene was this older archeologist that had a decided vision on doing desert archeology. We all believed that the desert was the kingdom of heaven and that trodding upon it required the light touch of my other friend; a botanist. It had this ferocity but at the same time this rather delicate touch.
You’ve all probably seen the ferocity. The blasting heat, desert sand storms, evening temperatures below freezing. At the same time, we walked a gunnery range in the Mojave and saw dune valleys with precious purples, yellows, and reds. It was springtime in the desert and the tapestry was rich and varied. One could find such a measure of diversity and every so often, one found that elusive Tortoise. The biologist in our group would get all excited and mark a burrow of a kit fox or try to backtrack the tortoise. The gunnery range was actually protected habitat and our guide out there, Mr, Norwood, knew all the secret places. We traveled so many unique places, found historic settlements and trash piles, found old wells, found salt mining, even old Pancho Barnes’ house. If you know Edwards AFB, you know its situated on 3 dry lakebeds. Its what makes it so environmentally and ecologically unique. Prehistoric inhabitants were all over this valley but there were the areas on the base where it seemed a uniquess of the living and non-living gathered. Often, that combination was rich with prehistoric resources.
Anyways, driving around today, I seemed to be backward flashing on these events in some sort of cheap LSD trip. I could see a scene from then, remember a conversation, but not remember the names. Or I could remember a thing I did, a site I found and recorded, but not who was with me. Totally wierd. My wife told me once I had these “visions” because archeology affected my life so much. It was the one thing that marked me and made me, broke me, and made me again.
Well, one thing it did do was make me see things in other terms. And I appreciate that and every so often on my cheap LSD trips I reliive the moments and live to blog about it.
