Two Bits

Hey, it’s another beautiful day in Colorado. Going to be a little hot, I guess–around 100–but still, a great day to get out. How about hiking Deer Creek Canyon? If we hit the trail early, we can avoid the worst of the heat…

I met Steve Rarey, a rangy, friendly guy with an infectious grin, who is the founder and Director of Blind Outdoor Adventures (BOA), and Bruce Stoddard, an avid hiker at the trail head.

We started up the trail, Steve in the lead. Bruce used his cane and Steve’s vocal cues to navigate. The ascent was gradual at first, and fairly wide–the technical term Bruce and Steve used to describe it was a ‘2-butt trail’–but soon we started to climb. As the trail curved up into the hills, the hike became more challenging. The trail was narrower and more rocky, and sometimes there was a significant drop-off on one side. Steve’s cues were graphic: banana right, left shoreline. Occasionally Bruce stumbled. Occasionally I stumbled, too. Bruce fell a couple of times, but it didn’t stop him. The two guys joked constantly. They were clearly having a great time, in spite, or maybe because of, the sweat and dust.

Bruce is working on using hiking poles, so at one point, he gave his cane to Steve, who closed his eyes and hiked blind. Since Bruce isn’t really comfortable with poles yet, they were pretty evenly matched. I concentrated on trying to give some meaningful directions and keeping up.

Bruce plans on scaling a ‘14er’ this year. In case you aren’t familiar with the term, a 14er is a peak that is 14,000 feet above sea level. Some folks out here collect 14ers the way people in other areas of the country collect sightings of rare birds. Climbing to 14,000 feet is something that very few people do, even here in Colorado, the fittest state in the nation, but Bruce plans to be one of them. He’ll get there just like any other athlete – by training hard. The fact that he is blind might slow him down a bit, but not very much. On the last leg of the trail we passed a family with a couple of teenage kids. We beat them down. Bruce and Steve were doing fine. I was breathing hard.

Note: Blind Outdoor Adventures, <www. blindoutdoors.org>, based in Littleton, CO, is a recently established non-profit that provides opportunities for people who are visually impaired to hike and camp. After years of guiding blind skiers, Steve decided that he wanted to share more of what he loves about Colorado. Since its inception a few months ago, BOA has guided just under 200 miles of trail.

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Shanel thinks she’s fat; I think I’m fat. For that matter, nearly every woman I know thinks she’s fat. Now comes the latest news on the diet front from the New York Times: “In a tightly controlled dieting experiment, obese people lost an average of just 6 to 10 pounds over two years.”

(<www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/health/nutrition/17diets.html>) Now to be fair, the article does go on to say that even modest loses such as these have long-term health benefits, but gee whiz! Even though I have (ample) evidence to the contrary, I still had hopes for dropping 10 to 15 by tomorrow, and I have clothes in my closet to prove it!!!!

 

It makes very good evolutionary sense for those extra pounds to stick like glue, of course, but that doesn’t improve my disposition. The fact that my existence is probably due to my ancestors’ ability to make the most of every calorie does not compensate for the fact that I cannot expect a metamorphosis into today’s ideal of feminine beauty. Reminding myself that only 1,000 years ago, women in France wore bands around their necks to encourage that attractive double chin does no good at all.

 

I talk a good game – I say that what I’m really interested in is good health, and the ability to enjoy the things I want to do, but it’s a bald-faced lie. What I really want is to be attractive. Really attractive. Really, Really, Really attractive. I somehow believe that if I were a 10 (a 9 ½ probably wouldn’t cut it), all my faults would disappear. Nearly 60 years old, and I still subscribe to that fallacy.

 

Unfortunately, I think that a good deal of this is hard-wired – men are from Mars, women are from

Venus; men are judged on success, women are judged on attractiveness. This also makes very good sense from an evolutionary standpoint. A powerful, successful man can protect and provide for a woman’s offspring, and an attractive woman (i.e., someone who is young and fertile) can produce them.

 

If I were 10 pounds thinner, would I have more first dates? Probably. More second dates? I expect so. A better chance at a long-term, healthy relationship? I’m not so sure about that.

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I support Obama, but anyone who has spent time in Africa, Asia, or South America knows that Phil Gramm’s recent comment is true – many Americans are whiners.. It would be political suicide for any politician to admit the truth of Gramm’s statement, but I sincerely hope that Obama knows better. I wish that a major figure would stand up and speak truth to power. A very large proportion of the people in this country are wimps. I see them every day, window rolled up, air conditioners on. “What do you mean, you’re not running the air conditioner in your car? Oh, whoops, I didn’t know you don’t have a car.”

 

Even most very poor people in this country have a TV, a refrigerator, a car, more than one bedroom, potable water, and medical care - things that would make them middle class, or even rich, in many countries. (How about not being able to afford a band aid?).Approximately 2,300 people per day enter the U.S. illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Trust - although some estimates are much higher – and many more attempt to enter the EU. They come in cars fitted out as leaky boats, in airless shipping containers, and across deserts where temperatures can reach 110 degrees.

 

Am I one of the lucky ones? Isn’t it a shame that Americans are losing their jobs and their homes? Isn’t it terrible that Americans are losing their life savings? Of course. But let’s nor lose sight of the fact that many people living in the word today would jump at the chance to be in their shoes. In fact they are dying for the chance to be in their shoes. (During fiscal year 2007 from Oct. 1 to May 31, there were 95 deaths, according to the Sierra Vista Herald (http://www.svherald.com/articles/2008/06/26/news/doc4863345471f3f583291569.txt)

 

When my kids were in Africa a few years ago, there was a joke going around. It said, “If the slave ships were coming today, we’d be paying to get on.” The economic crisis notwithstanding, people feel the same way today.

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