Loose Leaf Notes

1. “On Walden Pond” is not a movie starring the Fondas, nor is it a book by Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau; that was Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1984), which was reprinted in the ’60s as, simply, Walden. 

2. It’s not an easy read. When Joe and I were on our mini-vacation at the Peaks of Otter, we stopped at a campground in the Jefferson National Forest to eat lunch and ended up falling asleep by the creek.  I was asleep with the book covering my face when the ranger came to collect our camping fee.  Busted.  Drunk on Thoreau, I thought.  More HERE. 

3. As someone who lives off the Blue Ridge Parkway, saying “in my neck of the woods” is not an idiom.

4. I think the back-to-the-land hippies who started communes in Floyd in the ’70s could be the reincarnated Transcendentalists of Thoreau, Emerson and Louisa May Alcott’s time and of other Transcendentalists who started utopian communities in the 1800s.

5. Yes, I am a flower child of the ’60s, but I’m not, what I refer to as, “orthodox hippie.” 

6. My dad loved That ’70s Show.  He related to the hard-ass WWII vet father Red, which was also his nickname.  He (also a WWII vet) said the sitcom made him nostalgic for when he was raising his own kids in the ’70s.  I didn’t like the show when it was on and didn’t watch it at the time (too close yet and not as cool as my ’70s), and I teased him about liking it.  But lately I’ve been catching some reruns and it’s become a guilty pleasure. I love the ’70s references and can’t believe how the show blatantly depicted the pot smoking kids, filmed regularly talking stoned in a circle in the basement, and surrounded by a cloud of smoke.

7. I actually have a poem that includes the line “Pot saved me from wearing false eyelashes and having to walk in high heels.”

8. As a simple living devotee, Avery has learned to make the distinction between what is needed and what is desired.  Her advice to others interested in living more simply is simple. “Find more satisfaction in life experiences rather than in material things,” she says.  Her no frills lifestyle might be viewed by today’s mainstream standards as “doing without,” but she doesn’t see it like that.  “I feel like one of the wealthiest people in the world.  I live in what I consider to be paradise, the beauty of Floyd County in a secluded little hollow surrounded by trees, flowers, birds, and fresh running water.”  ~ From a story I wrote about my friend and neighbor, potter and simple living devotee Jayn Avery that was published in Natural Awakenings.  See the whole article HERE.

9. The next best thing to Walden Pond is Abbott  Lake (pictured above), which we rode our bikes around during a recent stay at the Peaks of Otter Lodge.  The picture to the right is of Joe after he rode his bike nearly up the peak, the highest point in the Virginia part of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

10. Like the term “Obamacare,” the word “Transcendentalist” was first used in a negative way by critics who were suggesting that their position was beyond sanity and reason.  Edgar Allen Poe was one who disliked the Transcendentalist movement (which originated in Boston), calling its followers “Frogponidans,” after the pond in Boston Common. 

11. I got a kick out of a recent thread on Facebook about my niece not allowing bacon in her house. It turns out that she does allow it but won’t allow anyone to cook it in her house.   She’s a bridal seamstress that works at home and can’t have all those bride’s dresses smelling like bacon!

12. A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.  ~ Thoreau

13. I call the picture below of the drive to Primland Resort (for Easter Brunch) “V is for View.”

ABC Wednesday / Thirteen Thursday