Recently I read Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry. It was a book that I had been reading for quite some time, I would start it and put it down, only to come back to it from time to time when I made some time for reading in my life. I must say, the day I finished it, I was truly sad. I wanted it to go on and on forever, and I could read stories about Jayber and Burley and Athey and all the guys all day.
I think I love the characters so much in this book because they remind me of my friends at home. I wonder about what life would be like if I we all lived in a small town that was made up of “us”. It would be like Pole’s cul-de-sac idea only times 10, since we would have the whole town. Of course Birdman would be the doctor, Pole would be the lawyer, Pratt would run the general store, Ryan would be the blacksmith/mechanic, JR would be a truck driver, Fenner would be the accountant/handyman, Bobbitt would be the school master, Worm would be the mayor, and so on. Of course we would all be farmers on the side.
I think I Ethan would be the barber. He would make a good barber and is full of good advice. When I read Jayber Crow, I always thought of Jayber as Ethan.
It's no secret that I love gadgets. I am not as bad as some, but I have gadget fever pretty bad. I can sit in Japan and watch the TV in KY thanks to the internet and my Slingbox. (when it is working!) I can sit at school on my nice computer and access information about anything and everything from every corner of the globe. I can use my ipod to connect wirelessly to my computer and send files, see the screen, watch movies, and hundreds of other amazing things that you would have to see to believe.
I wonder if I would be happy if I lost all of my gadgets. Could I learn to survive in a world without cell phones and wireless internet on every corner? Could I make it here if I had to rely on paper letters to tell my friends of my adventures or to hear news from home? What if I couldn't watch movies online and have the opportunity to be entertained at all times in all places?
When I was younger my dad always said that he would be happy to have a small house in the Dave holler near where his grandparents lived in Jackson County. I never really understood what he meant when I was younger, but now I do. Ryan and I talk about building a cabin on granny’s farm and having someplace to escape from the world. We wouldn’t need electricity. We wouldn’t need to build a TV stand, or have wireless in the woods. We would need a porch and some chairs and a wood stove to cook on, and we would be in heaven.
Sometimes I wonder where I will be in 10 years. I have decided that wondering is a waste of time, where I am now is much more interesting than where I thought I would be when I was 17. I have been privileged to have seen so much, and travel to so many places that I never dreamed that I would see.
What are we working towards? Will all of the gadgets ever make our lives easier? The more gadgets I get, the more complicated things become. I buy the slingbox so I can watch my KY TV anywhere in the world. How frustrated I become when it doesn’t work? More stress. I worry about losing my ipod. Stress. My cell phone doesn’t get good reception in my apartment. Stress. I left my computer charger in Tahara. Stress.
It is no secret that I think a farmer has more to offer society than an accountant. No offense accountants. I think that a mechanic is a more useful person than a politician or someone with a Masters in International Commerce or someone that can do amazing things with Excel. Today I found a blog that I wrote a long time ago about how we were losing the traditions and skills of our grandparents and replacing them with useless degrees and jobs. I still think that.
I never said what I would be in the town. I think I would just be a farmer, like Burley Coulter. I would love to hunt and fish and cause trouble from time to time, but I would always be there for any of my friends, and they would enjoy when I was around. I would hang out in Ethan’s barbershop and tell stories and laugh at everyone else and tell Bird that he doesn’t know what he is talking about when I went in for a checkup.
We would have a great town.
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1 comment:
If I was the barber we would have some messed up looking townspeople for sure. Now the guy sitting in the shop playing checkers talking about stuff he doesn't know a thing about, there I got you covered.
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