Teasing Quadratics

"My damned brain has a kink in it that prevents me from thinking as other people think." C. S. Peirce Calculation began with moving small pebbles, calculi, around on a board. The pup was a brindle Mountain Cur, being trained as a squirrel dog. She was still here this morning, we ate fried bologna sandwiches and I finally got in touch with the owner. Good old boy and his son were here on the instant, knew where I lived, offered me $50 for keeping the dog and calling. Had been up near here hunting morels and told me about a couple of spots on my property. Usually difficult information to pry loose, but I had caught his dog and wouldn't take his money, he felt, as he said, beholding. They're no more than gone and another truck appears. Regular freeway. A 'timber cruiser' checking a section of the State Forest for possible harvest, nice guy, Patrick, we have a beer and talk trees. He verifies the Slippery Elm. I tell him about using the frozen sap from busted red maples as ice for my cocktails during the ice storm. He said my house wasn't on the Forest Service map and I told him to keep it that way. On his way back out, he stopped by to thank me for advice about how to approach a certain area, several hollows over (the directions were simple, go out to the graveyard, hang a left, follow the drainage) and came in the house. He was impressed by the staircase and the walls of books, the dictionary table, the natural stone counters; the cook stove blew him away. He asked good questions about writing and I sent him off with a couple of books. Docenting a lifestyle. Worked outside, beautiful day, cool, bright; bow-sawed wood to get a burn in my shoulder. Read Emily's letters for an hour, read around in Maxwell's "Matter and Motion". Morel hunting later in the afternoon, found 27 small ones, did them in butter then built a cream sauce, more butter and cream, served on a bed of egg noodles. This is why we eat local. Incredible meal. The sauce needed a splash of sherry but I made do with a touch of Irish Whiskey. Shallots would be better than onions but shallots are costly. I should grow them. I knew a shallot farmer in Colorado, he earned a living on one acre, everything by hand, organic; his neighbors couldn't earn a living on 100 acres of onions, using equipment and chemicals. Our Mississippi Compromise worked well, had a small old tractor, Ford 8N, used it to bush-hog and harrow, farmed three acres, two at a time, raising pigs on the third in rotation. Whole system worked really well but it was a lot of physical labor, Colorado even more so, building full-time and ranching full-time and raising kids. I was so much younger then, now, the museum suits me fine, inside work, climate controlled, meeting interesting people, installing shows; the physical work is easy compared to building a house in Telluride mid-winter. The geography of survival. What takes precedence. What is that tautology, Why Is What Is? I think, but I'm not sure. I hate being unsure but I still prefer the edge to anything else, as long as it's physically possible. I didn't finish that story, Frank John James (Mac said it should be don't trust anyone with three first names, he has a point, I was merely remembering) was so bad with the public that he would often mop their feet. Understand, he was world-class with a mop, his drying chevrons were a thing of beauty, his stroke we all watched with envy, to sling a mop thus, we thought, was an act of great beauty; but he made the mistake of mopping the President's shoes and the Secret Service shot him down. He lives in myth and legend. There's a fight song that uses his name, but I can't remember the lyric. "On Wisconsin" or something, cheerleaders and bright lights, pom-poms.