[MD] From the Forest to the Free Market

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Case <Case at iSpots.com>:

A brilliant piece of writing, Case. I'm with you one hundred percent, even
to spending much time in the woods in my youth hiking the Appalachian Trail.
The power and the glory of the free market has never been better expressed.

Platt


> I appreciate the way SA so eloquently describes his love of nature. But I
> also find that for me, talk of plants not growing where they do by design is
> more nostalgic than actual. In my world animals are fenced, leashed or
> considered vermin.  
> 
>  
> 
> But there is a place I go nearly every day were I experience many of the
> same emotions SA muses about. It is the grocery store, where I forage for
> provisions. There are meats and seafoods, produce from a dozen countries, a
> pharmacy, a flower cart, a deli, and a bakery. We have talked about WalMart
> many times in this forum but I want to confess that every time I buy
> groceries at WalMart I feel like I am cheating my favorite store. Like I
> have wandered into a brothel and. you know, a guy's gotta do, what a guy's
> gotta do, but that don't make it right.
> 
>  
> 
> When is shop at my favorite store I usually don't bring home more than I can
> carry because smaller loads means a daily trip and that's fine by me. Inside
> the store I am a Customer. Capital C, always.  Among the members of the
> Customer clan are mothers with infants or toddlers, young couples and the
> elderly; people of every line and season. People I have known for years and
> people I have never met. People I may have met and people I wish I had never
> met. I see people who look like old friends or look like old friends used to
> look. I see lots of people who look like famous people and if I see a more
> than one of these during a given expedition, I might find myself drawn into
> a script involving state secrets hidden inside specially marked bottles of
> Coke. Whoever we are and why ever we are here, it is clean, it is spacious
> and the bagboys are not allowed to accept tips.
> 
>  
> 
> One evening I arrived to the shop just before a lightening storm. We get
> more lightening where I live than anywhere else in the world. At the far end
> of the store there is a sushi chef who doesn't speak English but seems to
> regard his work as a meditation. I had wandered into his region when a big
> bolt blew out the breakers. The store went black. Customers started opening
> their cell phones for light. Fireflies in the darkened aisles. In less than
> a minute the power returned and in less than five mins. Customers were
> checking out. Lightning hit reset and the entire system: lights, Customers,
> employees, everything stopped and rebooted. Outside, beneath a wide and
> covered walkway there is good natured grousing and vows to make a run for
> the car if this doesn't clear up soon. 
> 
>  
> 
> Don't get me wrong here SA, I spent a lot of time camping as a boy. I have
> climbed Bear Butte and Mount Baldy. I know at least five varieties of edible
> wild plants. But in my world there is fantasy on aisle 5, sushi masters have
> halos of cell phone light, and the electron lust of cloud for ground can
> cause everything to start over with a smile. 
> 
>  
> 
> Case


-------------------------------------------------
This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/