Aircraft pilots have the second most dangerous occupation in the United States. First is loggers. Police officer is twenty-second. The most common causes of aircraft crashes are pilot error and maintenance error, in no order. The loss of an engine I experienced recently was a maintenance error, and a very minor one -- a bit of one-sided pressure when gapping a spark plug cracked an insulator that later broke off, causing pre-ignition. I was fortunate that the incident happened in fair weather during daytime near the airport in an empty airplane with plenty of altitude under me. But if I had had to deal with an engine shutdown while in heavy icing conditions or a severe thunderstorm, especially if I were near maximum gross weight with cargo or passengers and far from a landing strip, despite my best efforts, I very easily could have lost control of the airplane and crashed, the cause being put down to pilot error or perhaps listed as unknown.
The family owns ranchland from California to Colorado and with this recent series of discoveries of vast lodes of rare earth ores, some are thinking that our lands, too, may contained huge deposits. If so, I wouldn't be surprised if environmentalists sue to keep the stuff in the ground. I would kind of be on their side because the way the ores would be extracted would be through enormous open-pit mines. I'd rather we establish and maintain good relations with China and get the rare earth metals we need from them and let that country destroy its landscape, since they seem indifferent to it, while we preserve ours. We shouldn't leave our descendants a barren desolation but pass on to them intact the glory we inherited.
I found some more of the buttons my mother used to collect when she was young. She remembers that she got the "British Troops Out of Ireland" button from some guy who was giving a speech at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park, London, in 1973. She still remembers the pure hatred in his face as he talked. She'd never seen the like before. She couldn't tell the difference between English people and Irish people. They looked the same to her.
I showed the buttons to my dad and he remarked that the green one was typical of shoddy British quality, noting how the American buttons were still like new. I pointed out the ribbon of the flag button had seen some rough times and dad said that showed just how much the button had been worn yet it was still in near pristine condition. Pop is hard on the poor Brits and their miserable manufactured products, but still he is a fan of classic British motorcycles -- Triumphs, BSAs, Nortons and others -- and at one time seems to have had a thing for MG sports cars. I think the last one he had was an MGB GT that he bought used in England and had shipped to Japan as part of his personal effects under SOFA. Since it was right-hand drive, it fit in well with Japanese traffic.
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El jefe likes my hands. He says they are one of my most feminine features. I do try to take care of them, which is not always easy, but wearing gloves helps, as does religiously using assorted creams and lotions. My mother still has very nice hands so I think there is some genetic component to having and being able to keep good hands. Anyway, both el jefe and my dad abhor what they call "sausage fingers" on a woman. I've pointed out that such fingers may be the result of damaging manual labor -- washing pots and pans, scrubbing floors and that sort of thing. They shrug. It doesn't change what they like.
"Those who...have...seen enough of the madness of the multitude know that no politician is honest, nor is there any champion of justice at whose side they may fight. They may be compared to a man who has fallen among wild beasts -- he will not join in the wickedness of his fellows, but neither is he able singly to resist all their fierce natures, and therefore seeing that he would be of no use to the state or to his friends, and reflecting that he would throw away his life without doing any good either to himself or others, he holds his peace and goes his own way. He is like one who, in the storm of dust and sleet which the driving wind hurries along, retires under the shelter of a wall; and seeing the rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can live his own life."
I agree with that sentiment and hope to convey it to my children so that they do not throw their lives away on some political crusade or trumped up war, revolution or riot. Stay out of the way of the thundering herd and keep your own council. Think what you will but express little of what you think or, better yet, nothing at all.
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The fable in which the famous line is the moral:
LE GRILLON
Un pauvre petit grillon
Caché dans l’herbe fleurie
Regardoit un papillon
Voltigeant dans la prairie
L’insecte ailé brilloit des plus vives couleurs
L’azur, le pourpre & l’or éclatoient sur ses ailes.
Jeune, beau, petit-maître, il court de fleur en fleur,
Prenant & quittant les plus belles.
Ah ! disoit le grillon, que son sort & le mien
Sont différents ! dame Nature
Pour lui fit tout, & pour moi rien.
Je n’ai point de talent, encor moins de figure ;
Nul ne prend garde à moi, l’on m’ignore ici bas !
Autant voudroit n’exister pas.
Comme il parloit, dans la prairie
Arrive une troupe d’enfants.
Aussitôt les voilà courans
Après le papillon dont ils ont tous envie :
Chapeau, mouchoirs bonnets, servent à l’attraper.
L’insecte cherche vainement à leur échapper,
Il devient bientôt leur conquête.
L’un le saisit par l’aile, un autre par le corps ;
Un troisième survient, & le prend par la tête :
Il ne falloit pas tant d’efforts
Pour déchirer la pauvre bête.
Oh ! oh ! dit le grillon, je ne suis pas fâché ;
Il en coûte trop cher pour briller dans le monde.
Combien je vais aimer ma retraite profonde !
Pour vivre heureux, vivons cachés.
