My Redneck Reunion

My apologies for the lack of recent content; I attended a remote, three-day family reunion of sorts over the Memorial Day Weekend and was, shall we say, unable to access the Internet.

Remote: L. remotus, p. p. of removere to remove.*

1. Removed to a distance; not near; far away; distant; — said in respect to time or to place; as, remote ages; remote lands.

2. Located somewhere amid the dust, rattlesnakes, and coyotes of the West Desert.

Internet access was simply not possible. Cell-phone reception was rather pleasantly nonexistent. Radio reception, however, was sorely missed. Even my short-wave set struggled to pull signals in. Someone brought along a satellite phone in lieu of an emergency, and as long as you hiked the nearest ridge-line, it apparently functioned well.

Overall, my time in the desert was enjoyable. The beauty of the desert has eluded me in the past, but I think I found it this go-round. You see it’s very much like a Count Basie piano solo—magnificent in its own simple restraint. I found myself taking in the little things: the colors of minute wild-flowers, the smell of a hot breakfast, the sound of guitars around the campfire.

It was admittedly odd, however, to have such a granola-esque epiphany in such company. The remainder of my kin can in nowise be described as anything less that redneck—and that’s not intended as a slight. Some folks simply enjoy nature differently than others, some in ways that usually require a motorbike or gun.

-mixtape

*Courtesy of the 1913 Webster’s Dictionary.

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Tags: Redneck, Family, Reunion

~ by mixtape on May 29, 2007.