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| Our neighbor |
Richard has been asking if the apples from our trees are
any good. Or, alternatively, when we were going to pick our apples. By
mid-September, the only apples left hanging are those that birds and insects
have started on. He does not realize that we have that conversation every
Sunday when he comes for lunch. I usually make a joke that what is left on the
trees is for our neighbors. He thinks I mean our human neighbors, which would
be fine, but I mean our animal friends.
Traveling does not mean we will always understand the local culture. So, when I was walking along 3rd Street, the “Main Street” of Laramie, and a man in a red pickup truck with the window down, blowing a duck call loudly as he drove through town, I was momentarily confused. I had seen very few ducks while hiking in this part of Wyoming, and certainly not in Laramie. There must have been some reason why this man, close to middle age I would judge, was doing this. But the cultural significance was lost on me. Although, given the reactions of others on the street as they went about their mornings, perhaps not many other understood either.
Sometimes, when walking through an airport I ponder if how people act is human nature, or is how airlines and the travel industry treats people make them so irritable? As I watch people forget their manners, or say awful things to their loved ones, it is understandable that everyone is tired and moody. There are times, while traveling, when I find things frustrating, although often that is caused by the thoughtlessness of fellow travelers. Still, when the woman you are traveling with asks for some help after she nearly fell getting onto a moving sidewalk, and you are twenty feet ahead, it should elicit a better response better, “I am trying to get on too.”
