Missive #236

25. NASRUDDIN AND THE OCEAN

Nasruddin once took a long journey all the way to the ocean’s edge. This was the first time he had seen the ocean. He was astounded by the water stretching to the horizon, and the rise and fall of the waves mesmerized him.

He then bent down to take a drink and immediately spat it out. “Disgusting!” he yelled. “Luckily, I’ve got some real water here with me.”

He reached for his water-flask and poured some fresh water into the ocean.

“It’s true that you look very impressive,” he said, “but you need to learn what real water tastes like!”

This Tale is from “Tiny Tales of Nasruddin” by Laura Gibbs. The book is licensed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. © 2019-2022 Laura Gibbs.

With authority and modesty, with loving heart and level eye, Mr. White writes of the history, lore, and nature of the Adirondacks. There are themes in the Adirondack history, and we follow them as he tells of the people who came to make their fortunes in farming, mining, timber; of the men who developed the woods as a vacation area; of those who sought to save the natural resources of the area and worked to make it a forest preserve.This book was published in 1954 so it is dated even with the Afterword by his wife, Ruth M. White, in 1967 and a Postscript in 1976 it is still dated. However, the history is well worth reading and the geography has not changed. A good book for anyone that knows nothing about the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks had its quota of colorful characters: the guides from John Cheney to Les Hathaway; Dewey, pioneer of modern library science who started the exclusive Lake Placid Club in the fashionable era; Dr. Trudeau whose sanatorium for the tubercular brought a new mission to the area; Joseph Bonaparte who had hoped to build New France on his holdings; John Brown, who left his beloved woodlands to fulfill his mission. But the Adirondack bounty is in forest and stream, and Mr. White treats the reader to a turning of the seasons through an Adirondack year. A pleasure for transient and rooted lovers of the area. — Kirkus Reviews

There has been a lot of press coverage of the ‘immigration’ invasion. One side claiming it is Democrat Party inspired to get more voters the other side claiming it is all about bringing inn cheap labor. There is a third argument which does not get much, or any coverage, that Michael Greer puts forth in his posting An Unfamiliar World. His argument is based on demographics and is well worth reading.

We got 0.02″ of rain during the night, a heavy cloud cover this morning and the lowest temperature so far at 36°. The forecast is for a slight chance of more rain and the lowest high temperature since being here, below 60. The 10 day forecast expects the high and low to be back to ‘normal’ then a colder weekend repeat.