As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I have seen a fair piece of this world and I don't talk much about things, save the Brier or areas I really hate, like them cedar thickets in Georgia and Missouri as they just look dried up sad, worse than anything West Texas could ever conjure up.
For me there are two areas in this world of delights, which no one ever mentions, but they are the only two areas which ever made me feel small.
That is a rare thing for a human to feel small. I remember the morning in November, it was clear and we were in northwest South Dakota at a place called the Cave Hills. We walked out on the south side, and a sage hen flew out , the instant we came out on this overlook. It was just this big basin that seemed to stretch forever, and that bird was below us, gliding and flying forever. Sage hens are like small turkeys, they got some size to them. I never felt so small in my life as at that mesmerizing instant. For some reason, the emptiness and the scope of forever made the Grand Canyon look small.
The other location is in South Dakota too. There ain't much in that state, but in a place of nowhere, we were tooling along in the northeast part, and drove into this thing. I don't know what you call it, as it was not a cut, it was not a run, it was not a valley, it was not a coulee, it was not gulch, it was just this big thing. I always thought how magnificent in a prairie to have the house that was located on the edge of that, and to wake up each day and go out and see that thing. It just looked bottomless and you could see to the bottom as it was a big deep swale. It was like a place you could enter and it would take some time to walk out and you would get tired doing it.
The reason I was thinking about this stuff, was we were in an auto parts store, and we ran into this kid raised in Kansas, we were talking bugs the size of Godzilla, when he asked me about my name as it was familiar to him, and when I asked him about his name, his name was familiar too. His family actually owned that land I was so affected by. Talk about a most small world in thing that are large and make you feel small.
As a child, you end up yearning for big places, as the places you know do not measure up to that kind of big that surrounds you like eternity or a bottomless pit. Then by God's design you happen upon two places like that, by surprise and you stand there with others with you, just in awe of what this place is. It is a feeling of being intoxicated with a dizzy high.
The Brier has no place like that. My Grandpa had a poetic heart as his homestead is on a break, about half way down, and his house was built on a shelf overlooking a place that fell away. I admire him for his choice of a place to live as it was pretty without anything being there.
I like a country with some roll to the land. I detest hills and mountains as they get in the way of where I'm going. I would rather have endless flats than all them trees. I'm glad so many people like living in them trees and hills in the east, as I sure as hell would hate that. Like being blind and strangled all at the same time. Suit me just fine when God levels all them hills and mountains.
A tree is something you see. A forest is a city of trees and you can't see anything in a forest or a city as they both get in the way.
Done with this private conversation about feeling small and not liking things that are large to blind you so you can't see the big thing to make you feel small.
Nuff Said
agtG
