[MD] Tail of the Coyote Hitch Hiker

[John Carl]

For Dan,

You all have heard of sour grapes.   I'd just like to point out that, that
story of the fox's expression of regret was thought up by a
watered-wine-sippin' Athenian , with a shrewish wife probably and and not an
honest-to-god native  Coyote tale of misadventure with the Grapes and the
lusts thereof.

Coyote's tale ends differently.  Lemme explain through something that
happened to this guy I heard about:

He was a guy living in Utah.  He liked Utah.  No complaints. Wife and kids,
flat scenery, so what.  Life is mysterious wherever we are.    Sometimes it
seemed a little dangerous because the only way he could get to work and feed
the wife and kids was he had to cross this really dangerous road, full of
whizzing cars, at night.

Not much fun, and bound to lead to trouble, and sure enough, one night, a
monday, wouldn't you know,  he was crossing the road to get to work and
WHAAM.  He gets hit by a car.

Not at all what he was expecting when he'd woke up THAT morning.  And things
just keep getting weirder.

He gets jammed up in the grill, between the faux front and the radiator, and
the people driving, just keep going!  They think he's all dead back on the
road, nothing they can do, car still works, drive on!  California or bust.
 They don't even realize he's in their grill.  And they keep going till they
 end up in my home town (pop 132) here, with this guy jam stuck under the
grill and the driver of the car shocked to find him there, and still alive.

Now.  This guy was a coyote,  literally,  and what he ended up with was
 something far different than he'd intended.  All he'd known to wish for was
garbage or rodents and what he ended up with  was California.

His story, all factually actually verified
here<http://www.theunion.com/article/2009910169963>,
btw, illustrates perfectly the  point I wanted to make about the difference
between Athenian foxes and California coyotes.

See, a California coyote doesn't see "sour grapes".  He sees big, juicy
luscious hanging grapes, lovely and beckoning, so sweet and so  good.  Oh so
near...

And yet, unobtainable.

Try jumping higher.  Come up with a better idea.

Still out of reach?  Oh well.  They're evidently unobtainable,

but not sour.

If they were sour grapes, then who'd care?  Might as well stop looking
upward then.  Just give up.  There's no reason to lust or care or strive or
sniff...  once you've decided the difficult grapes are sour, well they're
all difficult, they're all bound to be sour.  Screw it.  Why try.

Sour grapes spread like vinegar flies in wine vat.

Coyote doesn't look at the grapes as sour.  He looks at 'em as good,
delicious and worthy.  That's what keeps him trotting on down the road, his
gaze up high, his tail wagging and his nose alert!

Now the whole thing that got me started on thinking about sour grapes, was
something Dan said in a missive recently, that I never responded to, but
I've thought about.

I have a tendency to think about things.

In case you didn't notice.

It seemed a bit disparaging, which is discouraging cuz I really like Dan,
but at the same time, encouraging cuz it's always a pleasure being
challenged by somebody you actually respect, and his disparagement sorta
triggered some pearlish response to the irritation of his sand.

What's wrong with earning money with your words?  What's wrong with making
bucks off of quality?  Honestly, I can't think of a single thing.  I support
it whole heartedly and wish I could suck up some of THEM grapes.  Yessireee.
 But so far, it hasn't happened to me.

In the meantime, one takes the consolations of philosophy. 'Oh well.  I'd
rather a qualified audience than a quantified one."   Coyotes philosophize,
can't you hear it in their cries?

But the one other point of disparagement, the denigration of the individual
valuing community highest of all, that point was refuted thoroughly by the
very quality of its proclaimer!

Hah!

Take that!

Because the jibe, coming from outside my individual ideas about my self and
my plans, brought it to the attention of myself, and,  more importantly, my
wife, who said, "hey, good idea".  Which means I actually might give it a
try.

And thus this jibe, did me much good.  And got me going.  And empirically
demonstrated the superiority of the community over the individual.

Hah!

Take this!