LEON’S AUTO BODY PARTS — THE WALKING    [Continue reading]]]> Many years ago when I was traveling semi-regularly between DC and Charlottesville I’d drive past a huge junkyard barely hidden from the highway by a long fence – chain link with strips of green plastic woven through it. I probably would have forgotten about it except for the sign:

LEON’S AUTO BODY PARTS — THE WALKING MAN’S FRIEND

Gotta love Leon.

think4photop / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Next week I’m checking into the high-tech medical version of Leon’s – my local hospital – and having both my knees replaced with new parts. I guess my surgeon is the NON-walking person’s friend. I hope so, at least.

I’m psyched, nervous and eagerly looking down the road several months to the return of warm weather and some real walking.

I obviously haven’t been blogging much and my timeline for the JUST DESSERTS: Greed. Lust. Death. Tiramisu. sequel went off the rails with all this body parts stuff. I apologize for leaving Vince, Lizzie, Ernestine and the rest of the Moon Beach crew in the lurch, but they are still alive and kicking and the rest of their story will emerge before too long, I promise. Right now, Vince and Lizzie are having an – uh – adventure in a junkyard somewhere in the rust belt and I suspect Leon was the inspiration for that.

Cathryn Grant wrote a blog post about crows that reminded me of a creepy guy from my distant past. Pretty soon a story idea featuring Creepy Guy and his pet crow started percolating in my head. I can already feel the story expanding to embrace Smoker Man, a creepy guy from the present.

Smoker Man parks his silver sports car in the same spot at the state park marina every day. He leaves his window open about three inches with his cigarette hand dangling out, pulling it back in to inhale every 30 seconds. Sometimes he’ll get out and walk along the shoreline in a dark grey sweatshirt, hood always up. Top’s always up on the car, too, even when it’s nice out. He lights his next cigarette from the last. His eyes are definitely focused Somewhere Else. He’s the only person I’ve seen walking along the beach that I’ve been afraid to talk to, and you know I’ve met some characters.

I’m wondering what impact a couple of days of post-surgery narcotic buzz will have on the story of Creepy Guy and Smoker Man. I’m anxious to see how that will play out. More giant chickens, perhaps?

So I’m gonna be in the hospital and then rehab for a bit. I’ve packed Swamplandia, Death Comes to Pemberley and Boomerang in my suitcase and loaded my laptop with a bunch of books by indie authors. I bought ugly purple gym shorts for physical therapy and an awesome Dragon Lady shirt to scare away evil spirits. And, of course, I packed notebooks and pens for capturing whatever my Muse has to say.

I think I’m set for this new adventure. Catch y’all soon. In the meantime, enjoy this:

~~
Still image: think4photop / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Much more than a lump of coal, actually. This is Part Two of my earlier post describing our recent road trip.

This is strip-mining and mountaintop removal in operation. Mountaintop removal to extract the coal within has been going on throughout Appalachia since the 1970’s.

According to the EPA:    [Continue reading]]]> A lump of coal

Much more than a lump of coal, actually. This is Part Two of my earlier post describing our recent road trip.

This is strip-mining and mountaintop removal in operation. Mountaintop removal to extract the coal within has been going on throughout Appalachia since the 1970’s.

According to the EPA: “Mountaintop removal/valley fill is a mining practice where the tops of mountains are removed, exposing the seams of coal. Mountaintop removal can involve removing 500 feet or more of the summit to get at buried seams of coal. The earth from the mountaintop is then dumped in the neighboring valleys.”

aerial photo from ilovemountains.org

It’s hard to comprehend the scope and scale of these excavations from a photo. Here’s a screen capture from Google maps of mountaintop removal in southeastern Kentucky. It’s more than two miles across the brown excavated area:

More than 500 mountaintops — 1.2 million acres — across Appalachia have been removed so far to extract coal. Here are a few of those mountains:

mountaintop removal - Kentucky and West Virginia

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.

Please take some time to watch this video and to visit iLoveMountains.org for more information and interactive features that allow you to find out if your electricity comes, in part or whole, from mountaintop removal. And what you can do if the practice of mountaintop removal seems terribly wrong to you.

I realize the irony of privilege that allows me to plug in my computer to write this, especially since at least part of that power comes from Kayford Mountain, West Virginia . And to post pictures taken during a fossil-fuel consuming road trip.

Still, I just finished reading The Secret to Turning Consumers Green in Monday’s Wall Street Journal. According to the author, Stephanie Simon, it isn’t financial incentives or more information that work to change one’s behavior toward consumption and the environment. It’s guilt. And peer pressure if you think your friends or neighbors or fellow bloggers are doing something that you could or should be doing as well.

God knows the whole Russian angst thang I specialize in has given me plenty of practice with guilt.

Awareness is a first step toward understanding the impact of our own footprints, toward action, toward change.

~~~
Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find that going to the mountains is going home. ~ John Muir, 1898

What do these mountains mean to you?

“Hey! Ma’am!”

I turned, and the old man continued: “Can I have your cart?” He pointed to his foot, in a cast, and I walked the cart over to him.

I smiled; he    [Continue reading]]]>
After unloading the groceries into the back of my car yesterday, I headed toward the ‘cart corral’ with my empty cart.

“Hey! Ma’am!”

I turned, and the old man continued: “Can I have your cart?” He pointed to his foot, in a cast, and I walked the cart over to him.

I smiled; he smiled. Then he hobbled into Harris Teeter leaning on the cart.

As I was pulling out of my parking spot, I noticed this plastered across the back of his van in HUGE letters:

KISS MY A$$ AMERICA.

**

As Doc Watson used to sing, “Life gets teejus, don’t it?”

The whole trailer shook when JimBob slammed the door on his way out.

“Berneice, that man gonna explode from mad one of these days. And with his heart — Uh uh.”

Berneice kept stirring the gravy; JimBob didn’t like it lumpy.

“Well, Lord’ll decide that one. I just try and help Him along as best    [Continue reading]]]>

The whole trailer shook when JimBob slammed the door on his way out.

“Berneice, that man gonna explode from mad one of these days. And with his heart — Uh uh.”

Berneice kept stirring the gravy; JimBob didn’t like it lumpy.

“Well, Lord’ll decide that one. I just try and help Him along as best I can.” Berneice winked at Loreen as she threw an extra mound of bacon grease in the gravy.

She added more salt.