Yesterday, a reader (MM) stopped by the bunker. As it happened, I was out – which I regret, because I would really like to have thanked this reader – and his wife – in person for the wonderful note they left on my door. Unfortunately, this will have to do.
Rest assured, some magnets are in the mail, too!
I welcome such visits – in the spirit of days gone by when folks would just stop in to say “hey” – as we say down here in The Woods. I have read, moreover, that it was once common practice for people to visit the homes of people they wanted to meet – even including the president, once upon a very long time ago.
I find this salutary – and civilized.
This modern business of paranoia about other people – Stranger Danger! – the neurotic obsession with security and (of course) saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafety baffles me. I figure most people mean well and if someone means to do me harm, they will find a way. Hence I do not hide my identity or my location.
And I welcome anyone who wants to stop by and say . . . hey! Maybe have a cup of coffee (or a beer) and have a look at the bikes, the Orange Barchetta… .
This is also the right place and time to – once again – thank everyone who pitched in this month, including several very generous people, via the mail and also via PayPal. Thank you! (Magnets and such are on the way.)
Your support not only makes it possible for me to do this, but to do it without having to whore myself out to Gooo-guhl or “content” providers or other forms of shyster. I will try to sell you ideas, but that’s it!
Thanks again to all of you!
-Eric
. . .
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I’ve missed those days, ever since I first got my driver’s license I noticed people had already become conditioned to not drop by unannounced on weekends and whatnot.. Was kinda lame cuz I remembered growing up in that small town my dad’s buddies were always stopping in for a visit to chill in the garage a couple hours and catch up while he worked on car stuff, it was nice. Only ever had one old friend drop by looking for me, right at the end of that era, and I wasn’t even home hah. Ah well.
I stopped dropping in when the ball games became more important than my friendship( if all the high end BS “ballgames” stopped tomorrow ,I wouldn’t shed a tear) I can remember when we played ball for fun.
The resentment and cold shoulders I received didn’t take Me long to figure out my level in the scheme of things , so basically there is only one Guy I drop in on now( neither one of us will brook bullshit- so I guess we have that in common .
And I guess you sojourners have noticed there are few people sitting on the front porches these days( most places won’t let you drink a beer on your property on your front porch {I say fuck em’} Alas Babylon, you have fallen and can’t get up[ the Lemmings are joiming the conga line]
Ya know, Eric, what you say reminds me of the civility and sense of interconnectedness that used to be so common, and can be seen prolifically in many old black & white movies….like: Where a stranger stops to ask someone for directions or knocks on someone’s door asking for information- and one of ’em pulls out a pack of cigarettes and takes one to smoke, and offers one to the other person- and they stand there just having a smoke and talking….
You don’t see anything like that anymore. Heck, today if you did that, either the other person would be highly offended, and or a fire truck would roll up and extinguish your cigarette with a 2″ hose.
The only interconnectedness people have today is with electronic devices, and the alter-egos of people which they create for themselves online. The real thing is long gone- and I’m sure that one never sees those old B&W movies on TV anymore [Except perhaps for a few oft-repeated tired “classics”, like It’s A Wonderful Life -yawn] because they can’t have the young’uns seeing how a genteel functional society really operates; or knowing that in the past, people had a much higher standard of living- both materially and socially, than what can be had today, and that in-fact this swociety wasn’t some kind of Lord-Of-The-Flies-esque zoo [like it is today] where everyone skewered blacks and beat women!
If they saw that, they might rebel and try to achieve that again…..
But it just makes ya realize, how civilizing and humane just those common little niceties were.
The irony is that all these gizmos and social media where originally meant to make us more “connected”…. it seems to have done the exact opposite…..
I too remember as a kid – whenever possible my dad made sure we lived in the middle of nowhere. The amount of times we would get people asking for directions or the phone. We never minded, infact always offered lemonade. Remember the same when we were lost, or once when the car broke down and needed a phone to call AA, can just go to someones house and were always greeted warmly…..
Cant imagine how it would go today……
One of the reasons is how the media seems to have made us all afraid of each other, see someone unfamiliar and always by default assume the worst….. and be ready to call the good people at the police….
You got it, Nasir!
One of the fundamental tools of getting people to not only accept, but love Big Brother:
Instead of the media reporting on the crimes and abuses perpetrated on all of us by government at every level, they instead report on every conflict between citizens- and in such a way as to make people think that most of the crimes are random, and that we “need more government to protect us” from such.
Two guys meet up in a remote church parking lot at midnight to do a drug deal and it goes bad, and one shoots the other….the media leaves out the details, and just reports “Man shot in church parking lot”. The average person then thinks “My goodness! They’re shooting people in church parking lots now! That could happen to me!!! We need more police!”. (It never occurs to them that the police only show up AFTER the damage has been done- or that in the instances where they do show up before, THEY are usually the ones who cause the damage…)
The message is: “Fear one another, and not the real enemy”.
People have been so indoctrinated at every level, by the skools and the media, for generations now, there’s no waking them up. They’re like cult members in a trance- you can’t get through to them anymore.
“Don’t drink the Kool-aid, you don’t know what’s in it”.
“No!….Kool-aid good! Me have before…”
Well, I guess that I’m a bit (or more) on the paranoid side because I don’t at all trust strangers who just casually arrive at our place in the Appalachia of the West. But that’s because we have had a number of bad characters just show up demanding one thing or another, that I have nearly had to run off at gunpoint. It’s been a while now since we’ve been bothered. They were mostly all associated with a former neighbor that went off to federal prison 13 years ago.
Hi Tall,
So far, so good… had once semi close-call from the angry husband of a woman who told me she was separated and “almost divorced.” Except not.
Had to wave the Sig at that guy.
“separated” = “married” to me. Won’t go near them. Your experience confirms I made a good rule there.
Morning, Brent!
You did!
Sorry to hear that Eric.
And I need to rant a little on this. This is the white knighting shit that men have to quit doing. You (Eric) did nothing wrong and did as most men in that situation would. Especially since we can only take women at their word (and I know, if their lips are moving it’s often a lie but that’s another rant). The husband’s vitriol should be focused on his cheating wife and her only. I’m not advocating violence towards the cheating wife (there’s better and more effective methods) and if it was me she’d be served divorce papers the next day. End rant.
Being almost divorced is like being almost not pregnant…..
We had no clue when we bought this place what kind of an operation the “retired school teacher” next door was running, until the federal indictment came out on the news about a year later. They tried to kidnap our daughters one morning, but the dogs ruined their plan. I spent the rest of that school year getting up at 5.30 am every morning and clearing the yard with a gun and a light. Then the “associates” kept showing up now and then for years afterward. I discovered that they had all “just got out of the service” (the branch that lets you grow your hair down to your shoulders!) and they had driven 40 miles out here from town but “didn’t have enough gas to get back to town.”
Then there was the crazy woman that was supposedly hiding from her homicidal soon to be ex-husband. We finally got rid of her last fall after two years of hell.
So yeah – I’m the grouchy old man that always carries a gun. But you’d be welcome to drop by if you ever head out West.