I sometimes
feel like I fell asleep and was beamed up and transported by a UFO into a
future that is alien to me. It is not
the technology that I choose not to be familiar with, or the new music or
colloquial use of the language; it is my basic values that make me
uncomfortable in today’s society.
I have a wrist
watch that cost seven dollars that has more functions than I care to use and
will last three years on battery life. It will be cheaper to replace the watch then
replace the battery. Kids with a
perfectly good cell phone will camp out overnight at a store to get the latest iPhone. Wayfair has just what you need and Amazon
will deliver it by drone.
My favorite
sweater, hand spun wool and hand knitted, is forty years old. My shotgun is fifty years old. This Solstice my wife bought me a new pair of
Bean boots to replace the seventeen-year-old boots I wear every winter; she
also bought me a black and white plaid Woolrich wool shirt to replace the black
and white Woolrich shirt that was 35 years old and thread bare at the elbows. My compass, knives, books, camping gear… are
all forty years old or older. There is
a piece of birchbark reading Did I Run
and Am I Tired that is one hundred and five years old, that hangs above my
(whatever you want to call it) room. I
am comfortable with things that are aged and uncomfortable with throw away
things.
There is
nothing wrong with today’s societal norms; they fit the needs and wants of the
people of this age – It is me that is out of step and past my sell by
date.
the Ol'Buzzard
