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Recently, I've been hanging out with Chris, who was my best friend from say 13-16. His parents were divorced and he went off to Seattle. Now he's experienced poverty and the pleasures of this world; he's been a door to door salesman and been in more than a few fist-fights. How different from the innocent rebellion of our youths!
I ate countless meals with his large Mormon family: nutritious simple meals. I read countless books to his little sister, Janelle. And he's still Chris; he's so full of life and yet he doesn't understand life. Me, I live half-dead, sustained by my superior understanding.
For instance, we were just hanging out in a coffee-house. I drank twice as much coffee as he did and beat him twice, both times because of rash moves. He's actually a much stronger player than I am.
Also, the other day, I paid $6 to visit The Favell Museum, which has a collection of Indian artifacts and more modern art work along Indian themes. It was a fantastic, out of the way place. I saw a musket used by the Indians in The Modoc War; I've visited the rocky, desert battleground many times. There were innumerable arrow and spear-heads, most still in usable condition. It's easy to dismiss these but they are a fact: a primitive piece of technology created by a human who lived in an entirely different world, just hundreds of years ago. There were no sewing machines, pianos or airplanes.
When viewing the arrow-heads and baskets from the arid Eastern Oregon region, I did some reflecting. The harsh, slow life of those Indians must have created a consciousness in some ways similar to mine, molded by similar deprivation and saved by slow-moving grit.
Such is the life of a desert warrior: meals of snails and lizards, laborious hours spent chipping obsidian, and then the bloody grace of the hunt or battle.
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