10 QUESTIONS FROM THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN ROAD

… more purging of the pocket notebook…

I keep a notebook in my pocket while riding and gleaned from it these ten questions that came to mind while in the saddle going somewhere:

HOW LONG is an eon?



WHEN DID TOSSING litter out the window regain acceptance? [Corollary: When did leaving your shopping cart in the space next to where you parked become acceptable practice?]

WHAT DOES THIS FELLOW now know that the rest of us have yet to figure out?


WHY IS not being truthful all-of-the-sudden acceptable? [And to whom did Jesus lie?] [Corollary: If Rush can lie, why can’t I?]

A GUYS LIFTS a newspaper box, hauls it to a remote location, chisels open the coin box and retrieves a few quarters. What turns out to be his hourly rate?



WHEN SCIENCE CONFLICTS with Scripture, which one wins?

WHO ELECTED Grover Norquist to anything and why does anyone pay attention to him? [Corollary: Who elected Karl Rove?]


SPORTS ENCOURAGES development of character, we’re told. Specifically, what kind?”

UNDER WHAT CIRCUMSTANCES might bigger not be better?



HOW LONG did this oak live and how long it will stand as a monument to itself?



© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

THE PURGING OF THE POCKET NOTEBOOKS II

2nd in a series

“WALT LONGMIRE” series author Craig Johnson, in the middle of a presentation for writers in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, pulled from his shirt pocket a tiny spiral bound notebook and stated: “Best fifty-nine cents an author can ever invest.”

I was pleased. I’d been carrying these for years and continue to find relics in various places about the house including sock drawers, bookshelves, liquor cabinets and the garden shed. More keep turning up and in them are found strokes of the pen that have, until now, not seen the light of day. They may provide proof that tenth item down is grounded in truth.


THE CHURCH OF THE OPEN ROAD has no idea what prompted many of these thoughts, but if any one of these should evolve into a Country and Western song, the Church expects a cut.

• Not having to answer the bell has turned out to be more difficult than having to answer the bell.
• You’re always halfway to somewhere.
• Internet access does not a learned man make.
• He felt himself slipping into a self-imposed isolation. Self imposed and irreversible.
• Every woman deserves to be some heart-broken guy’s Ilsa Lund.
• My ninth grade English teacher never bothered to tell me I couldn’t write.
• God is not responsible for your bad calls.
• If I had to start my life over, I’d start it over with you.
• Nursileze (n) a language spoken by nurses that no one else can understand. Twins and others in professions likewise have secret languages.
• The “delete” key can be your best friend.
• Never place yourself higher on a pedestal than you’re willing to get knocked off from.
• Don’t draw what you see. Draw what you think you see. It’s the same with history. History is not what happened. It’s what people think happened. History is not written on the front page. It is written on the Letters to the Editor page.
• An alternate route is a countermelody to the Interstate.
• The problem with round tables is that they don’t often square up.
• “A faint night breeze pushes the soft plume of smoke down slope through the stand of firs and off over toward Smith Camp.”
• Yes. There are voices.
• Roadside Forest Service signs are not dangerous, nor are they good eating. Makes me wonder why drunkards, gun nuts and various other innocents shoot them up.
• It’s not “like flying.” It’s like riding a motorcycle.
• The perfect cinnamon roll is elusive; the perfect day is not.
• Up until about a week ago, I thought “Tunisia” had something to do with an inability to recall a melody.

And, perhaps, the best (and truest) of the bunch:

• Everything that happens in life relates, in one way or another, to a scene in Casablanca.

NOTE: To see the previous listing, click on the label “notebooks” below. (Not sure why you’d want to do that, however.)

© 2011
Church of the Open Road Press

THE PURGING OF THE POCKET NOTEBOOKS

FOR DECADES, I have carried small spiral-bound notebooks around in my shirt pocket keeping shopping lists, directions, phone numbers, project dimensions, notes on road conditions, and story starters or random thoughts for later use.

Today, in policing the house, I uncovered more than a half dozen of these primitive Palm Pilots. I set myself to purging any page that had writing on it, saving only the aforementioned random thoughts. Most of them, I think, are original and they are listed here:

• You can’t be getting your nails done and cry poor at the same time.
• I’m a little ticked off about anger management.
• Being stupid protects people from getting old.
• If you set the bar just so, everybody can do excellent.
• Lord, grant me the enough wealth to be enlightened, but enough creature comforts to not have to bother.
• The less well read a person is, the more sure they are of their beliefs.
• Decisio-terrorism:  The act of sabotaging a decision arrived at through group consensus.
• Arrange the facts to support the conclusion.
• How do we avoid what happened before and what do we create when we do?
• Not all who grow grapes should make wine.
• The end of an appointment cannot be before it starts.
• The closer they are to chickens, the better children will behave.
• The grass may not be greener, but you still may want to hop that fence and chew on it a while.
• Defensible decisions receive support because they are defensible decisions - not because somebody asks for the support from colleagues or underlings.
• People, forever, will fall short of expectations they do not know exist.
• Where does a UPS truck go to die?
• Get even: be the reason the other line moves much faster.
• Prosperity is not what one can afford, but what one can afford to give away.  
• I was workin’ on learnin’ a song when you walked through the door.
• There are 100 routes from here to there.  Just find ‘em.  Heck, just find one.
• An idea, well proffered, moves giants.

THE GOOD NEWS is that I now have eight or nine little notebooks with varied numbers of blank pages in each; all ready for more service in support of my weakened faculty for remembering a thought. Or a grocery list.