It's A New Day: Note To Readers

Today is a new day above the borderline. I've been thinking about this change for a couple months, but didn't technically know how to do it. I took the time to figure out the technicalities this weekend and did what I had to do to make this change happen. I originally started the Above The Border Line blog a little over a year ago. I did not know were the trail would lead, but I knew it would be a good learning experience -- and it has been. I wanted to learned the technical side of running a blog and also have a place to write. My original blog took on new members and headed on down the information highway. It became a collective with a multiple focus of humor, satire, political discussion, a community watchdog.ing, etc. The journey will continue at the original site, but I'm taking a different path and heading in a new direction.

That original bolg and its archives still exist and can be found at this new address: http://www.atbl1.blogspot.com/. I have turned the keys to that blog over to the exisiting members who joined over the past year. I have left that building, but I'm keeping the original address. Although I will certainly follow what is happening at www.atbl1.blogspot.com and make comments to the posts on their site, I will no longer be a posting member and will not be responsible for any content on that blog as of 6/26/2006. There are multiple members posting on that blog. I will be the only poster on this blog, i.e., I will be responsible for what is written here.

I wish my former ATBL blogging colleagues well over at the original site and will be following their exploits. They know the amount of time an indivual can spend on these blogs and, for myself, personally I want to devote my blogging time working on my own writting projects.

If you have questions, you can e-mail me at abovetheborderline@yahoo.com or leave your comments below.

JPN

Contemplating Thunderstorms On The Road To Colorado

Yesterday we returned from a week-long road trip to Denver. People often remark to me that driving across Nebraska is so boring. I don't agree with them. On this trip, we zig-zagged our way across southern Minnesota through Northfield, south on I-35 and west on I-90 were we caught US 81 west on Sioux Falls, SD and headed straight south to Columbus, NE. It was 100 in Yankton, SD and 102 in Norfolk, NE. Having driven this route intermittently a couple of times over the past 20-plus years, it is interesting to see the growing presence of wind farms along the way.



You cross the Missouri River at Yankton on a double-deck, one-lane bridge and from there to Columbus, NE the road is a straight shot over the gentle rolling hills of northeastern Nebraska. Historically, the Meridian bridge marked the first highway crossing of the Missouri River. The highway that crosses it runs from Winnipeg to Mexico City and is US 81. It was originally called the Meridian Highway. As we drove south up and down the hills past cornfield and herds of cattle, we could see the thunderheads building up to the west of us. As the dark clouds spread our way, it looked like we would get caught up in the brewing storm. As luck would have it, we skirted the southern edge of the storm with only a few drops of rain hitting our windshield. In the rear-view mirror, you could see that all hell was breaking out.



After a night in Columbus, NE, we headed west on US 30 -- also known as the Lincoln Highway -- and drove to Grand Island to meet up with I-80. In that stretch, US 30 runs side-by-side with the Union Pacific railroad line. We met trains coming from the west about every 10 minutes. Those trains we either coal trains or container trains. Despite the rumors, the engineers still do wave from the train.



Once we got on I-80, it was time to make some serious time and get on down the road to Denver. As we drove across western Nebraska and into eastern Colorado, we got to see two different storm cells building. What were small cloud formations in Nebraska were huge, ominous thunderstorms by the time we got to Sterling, CO. The roads gods were smiling on us once again, as we drove between the two storms with only a few minutes of windshield-wiper time in a sun shower. To the north and south, you could see torrential downpours and frequent ground-stabbing lightening displays.



Once we got in sight of the Denver skyline and could see the Front Range running north and south through the haze and pollution, I was reminded of the big-city mystery and innocent-eyed, urban adventure Denver offered me when I first pulled into that city to be a intern at Mountain Bell in 1983. Twenty-three years later, after exiting the rat race of the freeway to get to our hotel, I was quickly reminded it's a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.



Behind the hotel were we parked, there was a small man-made pond with a very active colony of red wing blackbirds noisily going about their business. The roar of I-70 just to north blended with the twittering of the red wing black birds and provided us with a moment of contemplation of the co-existence between the man-made and the natural world; a soft spot somewhere between where the rubber meets the road and the bird eggs crackle open with new life.

As far as a boring drive across the plains, I've yet to experience one. There's plenty of history between the Mississippi River and the west coast. Learning some of that history makes the drive more interesting.

On Surviving Without A Cellphone And Cable TV

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
---
Occasionally I dig out my book of Robert Frost poems and read this and a couple other favorites. Myself, I have no cellphone, don't have cable TV and just got an DVD player a couple months ago. I got the DVD so I could review the edits of a community TV news program I help edit. Likewise, I finally got a PC at home and hooked up to high-speed Internet in February. I'm definitely not surfing on the leading edge of technology.

I recently attended a technology seminar in San Fransisco and, of the 500 people attending, I may have been the only one without a cellphone. I might have been the only only without an official business card also. However, in these cases I hand out one of my band business cards. They are amusing at first sight and later leave people puzzled as to what it is I actually do for a living. What would life be without amusement and confusion?

Sometimes watching ants while sitting in the shade drinking iced tea is enough to keep me occupied. I know there will be stretches of rapids ahead in the white water of my life, as there has been in the past. Likewise, I appreciate the calm parts of life's river where the current of the moment glides you through an hour of loafing.

I read an interesting commentary on staying too in touch with your everyday world. I found these very telling observations in this commentary by John Krist:
I had some appointments of my own. There were some ospreys atop a dead Douglas fir downstream that I planned to watch. I intended to rendezvous with several groves of western red cedars. There were some polished rocks on a gravel bar demanding my attention, some sandy beaches requiring inspection.

I did not, however, require a watch to keep these appointments. They would occur, or not, on a schedule determined by the current and the movement of the sun and moon across the sky. On a wild river, in the middle of one of the largest wilderness areas in the lower 48, a beeping wristwatch is about as useful as an anvil.

But it is so hard to sever the technological tethers that bind us to the world we have built. They grow stronger and draw tighter with each year: cellphones, pagers, laptop computers with wireless modems, e-mail, Global Positioning Systems, instant messaging, 24-hour television news, satellite radio that floods even the great empty spaces of the West with an unceasing barrage of music, news, commentary and commercials.

Read the entire commentary in the Denver Post.

John Krist's writings also appear in the High Country News.
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Sometimes less is more...

Monments To Remember: The Indigo Bunting

Last Thursday, I got out of work early, took care of some business in Hudson and headed back home. From Hudson to New Richmond, there are many choices to take. Am I in a hurry? Do I need to travel on some memory lanes? Would I care for some scenic beauty? Do I want to get a pop and a candy bar in Burkhart? The list of choices isn't endless, but there are options.

That day I took the Trout Brook way which takes me on the two branches of the Willow River below the Willow River State Park. This route combines the scenic beauty and memory lanes options. A liesurely drive down this road, over the bridges and up the hill bring back countless memories that range back to when I was six or seven.

The memory that struck me on that drive was the day a spotted the indigo bunting about thirty years ago. A few of us were out for a summer morning cruise, after 11-7 in the cool of the makings of a hot summer day. A guy I knew who was working for the state park was on the bridge and we stopped to talk. He was doing some type of fish survey on that part of the river. While talking, a blue flash stopped in the trees a little ways off. "What kind of bird is that?," I asked. He said an indigo bunting.

It was a bird of the most beautiful blue. When I got home that day, I looked it up in my bird book and read up on it. Since them I have spotted the indigo bunting only a couple times. It's always been in the cool of the morning and in a well shaded place.

Then I remember that as we continued our road cruise, we came across a bum walking down the railroad tracks on the spur line south of Burkhardt. By then, I was getting warm. We stopped and asked if he wanted a beer. His eyes opened wide, as he took it, opened it and guzzled in right down. Then we gave him another and told him to have a good day. He said he would.

That became a tradition for some of us when we be on a road cruise and see some bum or hitchhiker standing in the sun. As a matter of fact, I ran a across I guy fixing his flat tire northwwest of New Richmond a couple years ago. It was very hot and I had a 12-pack I had purchased to bring to band practice -- my destination. A stopped along side the guy and ask if he need help. He said thanks, but he was just about finished. "In that case," I continued, "would you like a cold beer." "Damn right," he said. He took the can of beer, opened it and guzzled it right down. "Oh man!, that really hit the spot!," he said. "Have another," I said and handed him one more.

"Thanks man! You have made my day!"

County Road E Pole Sitter

Eagle Poem
by Joy Harjo

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you
And know there is more
That you can't see, can't hear
Can't know except in moments
Steadly growing, and in languages
That aren't always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

---
Up till a week ago, I took the new four lane highwayto and from work. It cuts drive time down by at least 10 minutes. You can really fly!

However, I miss taking the old route that heads west on County Road E off of 65. Since I've started taking that drive again, every morning there has been at least one mature bald eagle post sitting by Twin Lakes. This morning, there was a mature eagle with an immature eagle sitting next to him. They were crowded together. I seen these eagle on these posts regualrly for the past five years and I have not seen that before. Usually they take separate posts.

Suddenly, I had to hit the breaks to slow down for a family of Canadian geese that decided to cross the road to the lake. They were living dangerously, but everybody made it. The male had to do some serious wing flapping and honking to remind me who had the right-of-way.

On the way home from work there must have been 10 families of geese swimming in the lake a long the south edge of the road. The water was calm, the sky blue and the wakes off their rumps sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight.

It was a real parade with varying numbers of babies swimming between mom and dad. One pair had two babies and another looked like they had 10 babies. It was definately a good day to motor the family around the lake.

An adult eagle was sitting on the same post I had passed in the morning. I honk at him and told him to get a job. Must be tough hanging out on a telephone all day dodging the deadly rays of the sun.

Mischief In The Drain Pipe Down The Road

The Red Fox

Making a really deep den for their kits,

Gulping down their prey,

Sneaking up behind rabbits so they can eat,

Running away when it's hunting season,

Looking out for the family when the hunters come,

Bellowing when they get caught in traps.

I AM THE RED FOX!

By R.W.
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One morning last week on my way to work, just down the road from my house, I saw a young red fox dead on the side of the road. It lay just a couple feet away from where the drain pipe goes under one of the field entrance road. I knew that meant there probably was a litter of red fox calling that pipe home.

Later that afternoon returning home from work, the dead fox was gone. As I drove by the drain pipe, I saw three young fox wrestling around. Early that evening, on a drive back to town, I saw the little fox up on the road playing. My horn hook sent them scurrying for the drain pipe hole.

It's been a few years since I'd seen fox using that hole for their den. During that summer the surrounding area was over populated with fox. At that time there were an abundance of rabbits around my pine trees and living under the shed. The rabbits rapidly disappeared and then we started seeing fox with mange. Since then, spotting a fox became a rare sight.

This year the rabbits are fat and plentiful. A few months ago the coyotes were howling at night about 20 yards from the back of the house. Now the fox are starting to be seen regularly. It's another cycle of nature that you get to see living in the country -- if you pay a small amount of attention to the wildlife in your neighborhood.

I continued to see the fox in the morning, afternoon and early evening, whenever I drove by. However, for the past few days, I have not seen them. My guess is they have moved off to a new home.

Read more about red fox.