Walking Through Aristotle

I'm through with Physics and into On The Heavens. In Physics he concludes there is no actual (separate) infinite; infinity is bound up in potentiality. The first principles [of Reality] are contraries and are at least two in number but no more than three. There is the first movent, itself unmovable, having no parts nor magnitude, bound with the moved, and eternal. Only circular locomotion is infinite. Nothing rests in a moment and nothing is moved in a moment either as a moment is indivisible. This follows because whatever moves is divisible. Only the sensible can be altered.

This is no true summary of the Physics but that is not my purpose. First, I'm not really capable of such a task. My personal journey through these thoughts is just that. Personal. I seek touchstones, places that resonate with my thought, faith, understanding. It is a rich field and there is more than I could ever write down.

Powers of nature, principles, manifest when the right conditions arise. Darkness calls (contrary) light out of itself. Light is a potency of the dark. This is the Greek idea of Logos and is also rendered "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God.” Logos refers to fundamental powers, principles, that have the ability to manifest themselves. The "light" in question is not mere self propagating magnetic fields, "physical" light. This is light as Idea and includes moral light, the light of truth, of understanding, of justice, and beauty. Perhaps all the concomitants of consciousness are a form of "light", powers of nature on a par with gravity. Doesn't Liberty shine forth an attractive force? Aren't we drawn to liberty as well as faith? We want to believe because we want to align with basic principles of nature, as if we had a choice. We want to reside in the Logos. I wrote elsewhere that the entelechy of potentiality is actuality. Truth is an eternal potency and eternally actualizing itself. The other concomitants are the same. "We", sentient life forms, created being(s), are the agency of this apotheosis and our "spirits" are in eternal motion, orbit, around the Divine Creative Spirit. Similarly, gravity holds planets in orbit around their stars.

Even our breathing follows the law of contraries. Nothing is closer to us than our breath. The law of contraries coupled with the law of potentialities means things familiar, such as the bilateral symmetry of biological organisms. The ramification of this is that any organism on any planet anywhere would likely be surprisingly familiar.* But also, this law would tend to mean, for instance, that whatever abominable monstrous evil one might imagine will eventuate somewhere, sometime. On the contrary, benevolent goodness and beauty beyond the ken of man will also come to be; beauty so terrible in its greatness that it is withheld from us because to look on it with mortal eyes would be to die.

That is Aristotle, my personal take thus far.

Finally, for today, in On the Heavens he begins by remarking on the trinitarian theme prevalent in nature. To have being in every respect is, he says, to be a body, not a line, not a plane, and it is only triads that we can refer to as all, not one, not both, but all. Referring to the Pythagoreans he notes that "the world and all in it is determined by the number three, since beginning and middle and end give the number of an 'all', and the number they give is the triad. And so, having taken these three from nature as (so to speak) laws of it, we make further use of the number three in the worship of the Gods." Protagoras was speaking of the Holy Trinity 500 years before Christ. Touchstone.

*Preserved here: "We know that mathematics are consistent throughout the Universe, and that physics is based on math and is also consistent throughout the Universe. We also know that the chemistry, which is based on physics and math is also consistent throughout the Universe. Since the math and the physics and the chemistry are consistent, it seems logical to assume that the biology of the Universe - which is based on the math, physics and chemistry - is also consistent. For example, consistent optics, derived from the physical principles of light interacting with gases and liquids, would lead to similar eyes. Consistent atmospheres with the same gases would lead to similar lungs and gills. The symmetry (left/right) of most physiques optimizes balance and control within a gravitational field, so physical laws point to similar physiological constructs. I think when we do finally encounter other life we (well, not me, you) will be startled at how similar to our own it is. Mother nature is consistent and her laws lead to the same outcome everywhere when applied locally, so it seems logically consistent that biological life will follow suit globally. Except, of course, that the people on all those other planets will all have strange foreheads. " (See Jim's comment at 9:59 a.m. at the jump)

Finger Pointing at the Moon

In the Physics Aristotle analyzes motion at length and at one point gets to how in the soul motion pertains to knowledge and understanding. "And the original acquisition of knowledge is not a becoming or an alteration: for the terms 'knowing' and 'understanding' imply that the intellect has reached a state of rest and come to a standstill, and there is no becoming that leads to a state of rest.... for the possession of understanding and knowledge is produced by the soul's settling down out of restlessness natural to it."

Words alone do not suffice to reveal the truth. They can take us to a jumping off point, but the true discovery begins at the boundary of language's ability to express the absolute. The thought processes are pointers but when we turn away from them it is in silence that truth is born, blossoms. I'm led to make a comparison to an old Zen Yoga precept. It has been noted in these pages before that "There is nothing that can be said that can do more for enlightenment than what a finger pointing at the moon can do for seeing the moon." Seeing the moon is not a "becoming or an alteration." It occurs intuitively and if one focuses only on the pointers the moon never appears. Knowledge and understanding stand in the same relation to their pointers, thoughts, words, formulas, rituals, and rites. Many who deal in these mere signs on the path claim a direct pipeline to G_d. They should avoid self righteousness, the smug certainty of ignorance that finds the views of others contemptible.

Categories or Modes of Being versus Concomitants of Consciousness

The modes of being as written about here are, as Kierkegaard thought, Stages on Life's Way. The primitive man, the primitive mind, tends toward artistic expression and develops into religious, scientific, historical, and finally philosophical modes. I find it interesting to contrast this with the concurrent emergence of what I call the concomitants of consciousness and sentient life forms. Beauty, liberty, love, justice, wisdom, truth all have special niches of development corresponding to the Stages. They come into season and prepare the way for further seasonal changes. To me, and to thinkers like, e.g., Le Compte De Nouy, also written about in this space, these evolutes are proof enough to the doubting mind that divine providence is in play. They are, indeed, signposts along the avenue, the "way" to the transcendent. They are attributes of the divine creative spirit vouchsafed to us as evidence of the true meaning and purpose of life. So, since I am concentrating these days on Aristotle, I would note that these modalities considered extensively, as noted previously, by Collingwood, I find echoed in this statement of Aristotle in Posterior Analytics: "Further consideration of modes of thinking and their distribution under the heads of discursive thought, intuition, science, art, practical wisdom, and metaphysical thinking, belongs rather partly to natural science, partly to moral philosophy."

Consider this quote from Plato's Phaedrus:

"Now beauty [kállos], as we said, shone bright among those visions, and in this world below we apprehend it through the clearest of our senses, clear and resplendent. For sight is the keenest of the physical senses, though wisdom is not seen by it -- how passionate would be our desire for it, if such a clear image of wisdom were granted as would come through sight -- and the same is true of the other beloved objects; but beauty alone has this privilege, to be most clearly seen and most lovely of them all."

And this from Kelley Ross on Aristotle and Kant regarding the role of faith versus reason:

"The picture of the relationship of rational knowledge to existence that emerges is just the opposite of that postulated by Plato and Aristotle, who believed that the most real was the most knowable. Here, the deeper that we get ontologically, and so the closer to the most real, the less knowable, or the less it can be rationally articulated, the matter is. This is the principal characteristic of Kantian philosophy. In the simplest terms, what this accomplishes is to separate religion from science, the former most concerned with ultimate meaning, the latter the most productive of rational knowledge. Thus, Kant himself said, "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith."

Plato in speaking of beauty, wisdom, and "other beloved objects" is touching on the Greek concept of virtue (arete). Virtue is the genus of these emergent principles which, like the bud of the rose, foreshadow greater unfolding, apotheosis, to come. Socrates argues inconclusively and at length with the great Sophist Protagoras in the Platonic dialogue of the same name whether virtue is teachable and is in the end sentenced to death for exercising corrupting influences on the youth of Athens. Jesus Christ, of course, suffered a similar fate.

It seems to me Kant's statement that to make room for faith one must deny knowledge echoes a sentiment of Aristotle noted earlier that knowledge is always knowledge of something. This is from his Categories. He goes on, in Posterior Analytics, to conclude "....we cannot through demonstration have unqualified but only hypothetical science of anything." This further echoes Kant and supports the idea of Polanyi, for instance, that knowledge always breaks down as we approach the boundaries of a subject. Can knowledge exhaust the Real? Aristotle goes on a little later to state "...scientific knowledge through demonstration is impossible unless a man knows the primary immediate premises." And then, he concludes in P.A., after bringing the function of memory and sense perception into play, and their retention in the soul, that we must "...get to know the primary premises by induction; for the method by which even sense-perception implants the universal is inductive. Now of the thinking states by which we grasp truth, some are unfailingly true, others admit of error - opinion, for instance, and calculation, whereas scientific knowing and intuition are always true: further, no other kind of thought except intuition is more accurate than scientific knowledge, whereas primary premises are more knowable than demonstrations, and all scientific knowledge is discursive. From these considerations it follows that there will be no scientific knowledge of primary premises, and since except intuition nothing can be truer than scientific knowledge, it will be intuition that apprehends the primary premises - a result which also follows from the fact that demonstration cannot be the originative source of demonstration, nor, consequently, scientific knowledge of scientific knowledge. If, therefore, it is the only other kind of true thinking except scientific knowing, intuition will be the originative source of scientific knowledge. And the originative source of science grasps the original basic premise, while science as a whole is similarly related as originative source to the whole body of fact."

So, the Real can be exhausted, by Intuitive knowledge. But reason alone deals only with facts, what can be measured scientifically. And the atheist, quite simply, denies intuition, denies the Soul and is thereby, in the end, dead to himself, dead to the world.

Unkempt Thoughts

Got that title from Stanislaw J. Lec.

Walking out on the road today, the leaves were falling and skittering along the ground in the cold north wind. I remembered something I read or heard once that a flower is just a modified leaf. It occurred to me that a leaf was a modified branch, trunk, root. It further occurred to me that Virtue, Truth, Justice, Beauty, Wisdom, Liberty, Love, Consciousness itself, Life itself, were all just modified dirt which in turn is just modified hydrogen which itself is just the most simple thing that can be made of nothingness itself.

I'm still reading Aristotle these days and probably will be for a long time. I'll likely have more to say about this great philosopher in the days ahead. I studied him in University; but not really. For someone like me such a study is a life long endeavor.

On a side note NASA announced today they had discovered microorganisms that are "able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical arsenic." Why am I not surprised? Please let me know when a sentient life form is found based on this chemistry that has an appreciation of the above listed concomitants on a level with Human Beings. I am sure "they" are out there. For all I know the Sun itself is teeming with "living" entities. That is, my argument is that the WHOLE thing is an Apotheosis.

Categories

I just wrote about Aristotle's statement that all knowledge is knowledge of something. Follow this argument. I know God. Therefore God is a thing. God is in reality not a thing. Therefore, knowledge of God is false knowledge. True understanding of God is not gained through the category of reason. Knowledge (of things) necessarily falls into this category. Another category is necessary for the unknowable. That category is Faith.

Are there other categories? Yes. Life spent in pursuit of the gratification of the senses is the most primitive. It is in fact a sort of proto-category. Think of Don Juanism. The artist, for instance, in a search of meaning, pursues beauty. Mankind was first an artist, even when he lived in caves. Faith as Religion and Reason as Science are evolutes of the category of Art. History as dialectical materialism is a further category. All of these reflect man's reaching out into the world for meaning and purpose. But the crowning endeavor, that which all the others aspire but do not achieve, is Philosophy. Think of it as consciousness being directed outward in Art, Faith, Science, History and finally in Philosophy, returning on itself. R. G. Collingwood made a study of this in his work "Speculum Mentis."

A further exegesis of this would be that Don Juanism is essentially characterized by longing, by desire; it is to be a slave of desire, bacchanalia. The next gratification will ostensibly bring fulfillment, full satisfaction, but really it just sets the stage for further desire, and, it is brutish in nature. This longing is slightly civilized when channeled into the pursuit of beauty by the artist. But beauty too is ephemeral and always just out of reach. One can't own it, only pursue it as an ideal. One work of the artist follows the other as the refinement approaches but never reaches the ultimate expression. Beauty is always on the horizon drawing the artist into an infinite regress. In religion the goal of the artist is formalized and posited as an absolute other the union with which is to occur in another dimension, another life, in death. Think about the Gothic cathedrals whose spires and buttresses looming in the landscape are rock made to appear as a yearning toward the sky. This yearning is a "Sickness Unto Death." It is the daemonic spirit in nature and is anything but liberating, this desire to be something greater than yourself, the inability to accept reality as it is. To posit "Truth" in an absolute other to be obtained only by "Grace" is the religious experience for the vast majority. It is also true that Science posits truth as something to be obtained in a Utopian future where perfect measurement ultimately results in a "grand unifying theory" that will enable man to own the purpose and meaning of the whole of Reality. Science mistakes measurement for understanding. History is the same kind of dialectic. Utopia is to be achieved politically in stages until finally perfect equality, peace and justice will be reached for all people everywhere. A true reading of history reveals that all utopias are in reality statist dystopias.

So these categories of existence in the world are for man all self limiting as they have been practiced by the majority of peoples. They all share the same false premise, that Reality is not complete. This falsehood we cling to is our excuse for not owning ourselves, for always seeking completion externally, and is responsible for all the perverseness of human nature. The sensuous genius of a Don Juan is driven by endless restlessness, infinite longing, and this same restlessness is the seed of the life of the artist, the religious, scientist, the belief in history as a redeeming principle, force of nature. Only in the philosopher might one encounter the opposite. Infinite yearning for the Other becomes infinite resignation that the journey is the destination. Once true philosophy is reached any endeavor whatsoever pursued has become like drinking tea from an empty cup; the best faith, the true scientist, the real artist, and so on, is first of all a philosopher and these pursuits are then freed from the mundane to reach the highest achievement possible.

The overture from Mozart's Don Giovanni precisely embodies the infinite restless longing of the sensuous genius in Don Juanism. This is elaborated in the sickness unto death of Western Civilization. (warning at the link = depravity)

Aristotle

Reading Aristotle, Organon, De Interpretatione is like reading computer code at the machine level, the code, e.g., in CMOS. Not that there aren't nuggets that jump out at me, like, "knowledge is always knowledge of some thing." Knowledge is limited to what is perceptible. Perceptible means that which is delivered by the five senses. This precept is well known and it dovetails nicely with Protagoras' "man is the measure of all things," also. It is the basic tenet of my epistemology.

He goes on to the conclusion "...that necessity and its absence are the initial principles of existence and non-existence, and that all else must be posterior to these." He then states "It is plain from what has been said that that which is of necessity is actual. Thus, if that which is eternal is prior, actuality also is prior to potentiality." I think he is in this building up to his later concept of entelechy which doctrine I have adapted to my own philosophy and have written of previously in this space. I have an idea that the Universe is infinitely malleable, which idea, I think, has its roots in the principles stated here. My notion that the Real is akin to a fractal, I think, is also bound up in these concepts. It is infinitely self-inventing, and every instantiation increases and enriches the pregnancy for ensuing evolution. All that will ever be is already actual in the "beginning" even though all that will ever be is an elaboration on the infinite stream of prior instances. Every new instance is a new beginning and a new boundary for the new. Every new instantiation is an elaboration of its predecessor. And, our heavens are self made as are our hells. It's all about individual responsibility and self-reliance. Belief in nothing gets you just that.

Here it all is in the language of mathematics:

Original Sin

Genesis. They ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This was forbidden them. What does it mean? The original sin is putting knowledge above faith. Man's knowledge is his alone and is limited and incomplete. A wise man is full of doubt and in that way keeps an open mind. The fool projects himself, and incidentally closes his mind, on the whole of creation; he takes the place of God. The bigger fool claims ownership of God, of the creative force or principle. Atheism is such a claim. It is the projection of the finite onto the infinite. While the whole of creation might be a kind of apotheosis, this can go horribly wrong. The beginning of true understanding is realizing that knowledge is always limited, always dependent on anthropomorphic modes of measurement. The biblical "knowledge that surpasseth understanding" is a way of stating this principle. It is got to by going into the "upper room." In another tradition, Raja Yoga, this meditative practice is described as focusing the breath between the eyebrows. What results is the discovery, ultimately an action of the unknown, that the "kingdom of heaven is within you." It is not a destination. And, the journey IS the destination. The journey IS the apotheosis, the transfiguration of existential mass into self-realized spirit. One might say that we exist so that "God" can have self experience. When we live within the guidance of virtue, Greek arete, our lives are conducive to its various components, such as beauty, truth, wisdom, courage, compassion, liberty, and love. These are like petals of a flower; the flowering of self-realized spirit. The end within, entelechy, is endless, the universe infinitely malleable. If you believe in nothing, that's likely what you'll get. Faith is the key. Knowledge without understanding is the bondage.

Link to interesting discussion regarding Hawking and G_d

One of my comments in this thread.

From the Bhagavad Gita

"Their soul is warped with selfish desires, and their heaven is a selfish desire. They have prayers for pleasures and power...."

The Fall of Mind-Reason

Usually it is because we are to close to something that we can't see it. So the problem becomes, for instance, how to distance oneself from reality. To Know the Real you can't be the Real. If you are what you would know then you're stuck with tautologies. From self identification (1=1) no knowledge is available. It conveys no information. Isn't it interesting that nonetheless understanding is available. Everything that is begins and ends with our body consciousness. Hard to break out of this. That is why in ancient Greece, for instance, we have Protagoras proclaiming that man is the measure of all things. On the basis of this it seems to me that the supreme good is taking responsibility, ownership of one's life. In a sense, then, to own yourself is to own it all.

Unkempt Musing

What exists does so in space and time. 'Things' exist. God does not. He's not a thing, though most conceive him as such. They are 'things.' God must be too. Anthropomorphism. God does not exist, he creates.* His Reality is only available through faith. No faith. No God. For the denier of faith only the body exists, that which is our material self. This also helps explain the fall from grace.

*Soren Kierkegaard

The Measure of all Things

The ancient Greek philosopher Protagoras famously said man is the measure of all things. This is in essence the heart of my previous post here. I would elaborate a little. We tend to project our being as an "object" in the world onto the whole of reality. So reason pertains only to the material aspect, principle. When Blaise Pascal , the great Christian philosopher of the seventeenth century, said "The heart has its reasons which reason can never know" he is saying that the heart is the faculty of spirit and operates through intuition. Clearly he places heart above. Spirit over matter. When we "give" attributes to God, for instance, we might say, "God loves me", we are projecting our humanity onto the whole of creation. That's fine but we need to have a full understanding that this is in actuality a form of self aggrandizement which I take to be the essence of the "fall" from Grace in the Christian sense. Isn't it better to just "wait" on the deity? I, personally, can't arrogate the status to myself that God loves me. My DUTY is to LOVE him! Then, I wait. This is a touch on infinite resignation, the task achieved by Abraham in the primordial act of faith as described when he takes his son Isaac to the mountain as a sacrifice.

I think with the ancient Greeks that the force of nature we call Love was created BY God for man as a means through which there could be commerce between the Creator and the created. In this sense, the essence of true love is to wait without expectation. To assert "God loves me" obviates that essence by pushing the "Me" to the front. This is my personal approach, not for everyone, except maybe to consider. I believe to love the Deity is a safe and sure path to take through this life whether one cares to examine or not the infinity of nuance available. The principle that the Universe is infinitely malleable, another overriding belief of mine, would see the emergence of a divine spirit that does indeed love man, if that is what man intends.

Heaven's not a destination

A message for my Christian friends.

To think of heaven as a place we go when we die is to cast the hereafter in the light of our being as humans. Our measure of things is based naturally in our physical presence in the world. Anthropomorphism. This works fine except when it is applied to the whole universe. Friends, this IS the "promised land". You've got it all. Yet you want it all. That is kind of crazy, you know? You think you are not complete until you live a good life and die then go beyond to a place of paradise, a heaven? All dichotomies such as this are false. I have to tell you. Heaven is within, it is not a destination. We speak of it as such in order to have it fit our knowledge of our bodies, our being in the world as created entities. If you manage to muddle through and finally reach this place you will turn in wonder and have to admit to yourself, "why, this is the very place I started from. In fact, it is where I have been all along!" All that's necessary is to cut through the veil of illusion and you can see this anytime, anywhere. Because it is like a sphere whose center is everywhere, whose boundary is nowhere. Don't take the metaphor for the Real. Own yourself! In that you will own the whole by default.

Existential Angst - Continued

Notes from September, 2009

Soren Kierkegaard. Reading of Gretall's Anthology, Pg. 231 (postscript) "God does not think, he creates. God does not exist. He is eternal."

Existence and eternality are polar opposites. Creation can only occur from the eternal perspective. Potentiality, then, is integral to eternality itself. Also, eternality is that by which we can grasp existence in the first place, in the same way "darkness" is that condition by which there can be light. Unless we witness the created from an eternal perspective it is a constant source of confusion. The self-centered person has lost the eternal perspective. That IS the "fall" from "grace". It is Materialism, the lot of the Narcissist, the Solipsist. It is to identify with the body instead of the spirit.

The despair is that we cannot know God. Such sorrow as would shame the abyss. We struggle out of this primordial matter to look on a creation the full purpose and meaning of which is ever just beyond our grasp. We close our fist on it only to open our hand to the revelation of....nothing. Completion is only found in the understanding one can never know (God). The transfiguration of sorrow and despair to faith is the infinite resignation to this reality. Only through inwardness do we arrive at this juncture. Not Art, not Science, nor History, especially not speculative Philosophy, and not dogmatic Religion. All of these "endeavors" of man, categories of being in the world, posit truth in an absolute other. And, I agree, Truth is vested in an absolute other, but not like man projects otherness. The absolute other is the repository for all that our understanding approaches but can never quite achieve. That is why the "leap" of faith is required to "realize" ultimate meaning and purpose.

Clove Hitch

That knot is a clove hitch. I wonder if it was invented during that period of the age of sailing ships, 1500s through the 1600s, that saw the opening of sea lanes from Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, and England to the "Spiceries", The Moluccas, the Banda Islands, Neira, Run, and so forth. Whatever the history it is a very clever knot, a highly nuanced bit of technology. Suppose I said to you, mariner, we need a knot that no matter how hard we strain it, it is as easily untied as tied. The "clove" hitch is the answer.

Winter 2009

Who says it never snows in Central Texas? Well it almost never. The last time this happened was winter 1984. It snowed almost all day and some of the "flakes" were as big as golf balls. Real wet snow and just barely freezing though a week or so ago it got down to ten degrees, the coldest in 14 years but I remember when it got down to 8 one winter. Of course, you might know, we get a lot more ice storms than snow. I guess it averages about one ice storm per winter, about. So, snow here is a big deal.

The deck had snow for three days but most of it was gone in two.






Cedar tree near gate






Winter rye grass and the pond





Looking East from top of hill





Looking South






Looking Southwest




Looking West

I had a dream

Really I had a whole series of dreams. The recurring dream was of construction activity to the East and North of my property and always involved trespassers. No matter what measures I took in these dreams I couldn't keep the people out. They would drive right through my yard and I'd chase them through the woods. Sometimes I'd grab a firearm and then chase them. I must have had 20 or more of these dreams over a period of ten years at least.

Well it finally came true. They are building a new high tension power line a few hundred yards from my place. It comes from the North and passes me by to the East, heading South. There is a lot of noise, chain saws, drilling machines, caterpillars, air compressors. Also, they have been on the property. I looked out my window, having heard a "vehicle" noise very close, and some guy on an ATV was tooling very fast right through the yard. Previously I'd heard what sounded like a pickup over by my barn. OK, this is it, I thought. What the hell is going on? I chased the guy down. He was looking for power poles. He was getting a GPS fix on every one and labeling as he went. No big deal. But I did take a pistol in the back seat of the truck when I ran after him.

It was a little later I realised those dreams had been prescient. That is a big deal. This has happened to me several times. Dreaming about future events. Interesting. What is time that this can occur?

Noli Me Tangere

I had the honor of serving in this regiment. I was a Sergeant in charge of a 106 MM Recoiless Rifle. That is the badge of the Second Infantry Regiment. I still have this badge. As I write this I am wearing it. I have stories about those days I like to tell on occasion. That was some weapon! Like! You know! The jeep would seem to come off the ground when you fired it. Anti tank weapon, of course! Primarily.

Freda's Bar

It's easy to make things happen. What's hard is making them turn out the way you'd wish. Once the first shot is fired there is no telling what will pass. It will certainly be interesting, however.

As soon as we got back from our outing I was getting ready, shower, shave, and so forth, for another evening out. It was about seven when I headed out for the Dew Drop Inn. That place being about as dead as a doornail I went to town and lighted at the West Glacier Bar also known as Freda's. It was not busy at that hour but I had no trouble finding people to talk to. Everyone in sight was younger than me by far. I ordered a scotch and soda. Arthur, the bartender, was friendly. There were only a couple of people at the bar. Arthur was in his 30s I guess and said he had bartended all over the world. He specifically mentioned Okinawa and Sudan, but that is about all the details I got from him. He charged me $2.50 for the drink. I told him that was a good deal. I was looking around, checking people and things out, getting my game going. I read the labels on the tap beer pulls. One of them was organic. I laughed at this and asked if they had any in-organic beer. The guy to my right chuckled and said all beer was organic as far as he was concerned. I laughed and toasted him with here's to in-organic beer! He responded to my toast it was all star dust anyhow, no kidding, which gained him a rousing affirmative from me.

Right away I noticed that there was more going on on the front porch of the bar than inside so after this little exchange I moved to the bench just outside the door. The porch was small with the bench being just outside the door on the left. It might hold three people comfortably. There was a guy sitting there on the end away from the door. I took the position next to the door which pleased me because there were two very lovely young ladies sitting on the other side of the door on the floor of the porch. They were facing each other and speaking in some European language, I could not quite make it out. I knew it wasn't German, Spanish, French, or Dutch. About this time my companion on the bench started talking on the phone. I didn't know what he was speaking either. After he got off the phone I asked him if it was Czech. He said no, Russian. Introducing myself I said, well, welcome to my country. He smiled and said he was American. I said he sounded fluent in his Russian. He said he had been an interpreter for the U.S. Army, had gone to their language school. His name was Kurt and we discussed European and Russian geo-politics for a moment. About this time I also struck up a conversation with another patron. Her name slips my mind but she was from New Zealand. You can see her standing in the door in this picture.















During this small stretch of time I met several people. One young fellow was from San Angelo, Texas where I went to high school. His family were ranchers, had a 2300 acre spread out there. He and I talked about the drought plaguing Texas at the time and how it was causing people in the cattle business to sell off their herds. The couple in the foreground with the girl leaning against the post were early arrivals. I was sitting on the bench with Kurt when they showed up. He shook hands with all the guys in our little group and she got hugs from everyone, so I knew everybody here knew everybody else, just about. I was one of the few outsiders. Turns out all these people were either employees of the park service, the businesses hereabouts, or tourists that were staying for weeks or months instead of days like me. It was a most interesting group of people. Just a bunch of well to do twenty somethings enjoying the good times that go with being young and attractive and far away from home.

The lady from New Zealand. I asked her to sit and Kurt and I made room for her between us. Turns out she was a chemical engineer and ran her own company. She had about seven employees and was traveling on holiday with some neutered guy. I met him and shaking hands was like grabbing hold of a dead fish. Yuck! Someone told me, probably Kurt, that he thought he might be gay which prompted me to ask New Zealand girl whether she liked men. This question was put at the end of the evening, of course, and she didn't like it, so that ended our contact. Meanwhile we had talked at length about pest problems in NZ from rabbits to deer, and how to deal with them. You see there are no natural predators there so when the King of England brought some deer so he would have something to hunt he created a huge problem for subsequent generations since, I guess, hunting is now not politically correct there.

After a bit I turned to the two girls sitting on the floor on the other side of the door and asked them what language they were speaking. It was Norwegian. As we exchanged names, Tina Marie and Heidi, I slid to the floor beside them. They asked New Zealand lady to join us but she went inside the bar. Tina Marie and Heidi were working on their masters thesis with the park service on some kind of exchange program but were having trouble with their "supervisor". Improper touching. They were considering quitting which I encouraged them not to do. Tina Marie had, she proclaimed loudly, hitchhiked all over south America. Both girls were quite drunk but just in the best of moods imaginable. Just before I sat down another guy had joined them. He introduced himself as Sean but he left within a few minutes. I think I scared him off. Or, he wanted to play this field himself without competition. I talked to these most delightful girls for an hour or so. It was the highlight of my trip. I have seldom run across people like these. Eventually, drunk as a skunk, I invited myself to take them back to their place. We all three climbed on the K bike, Heidi on the luggage rack, Tina Marie right between us. Of course I got some pictures. New Zealand girlfriend took these.

There was some trepidation on their part, and mine too, about the safety of this operation. They asked me if it was safe. I said, well, let's sit on the bike and see how it feels, OK? It felt fine and no sooner had we maneuvered out of the parking area onto the highway than Tina Marie tightened her arms around me and yelled at the top of her considerable lungs "Pedal-to-the-Metal". I obliged, leaning as far forward as I could to compensate for Heidi being so far back on the bike. I was afraid of doing a "wheely" under that condition but both wheels gratefully stayed on the ground. This is a very powerful bike and they got the ride of their life. I rapidly overshot the turn and had to cross a bridge and make turnaround at which point Tina Marie louder than the first time, gripping me for all she was worth, shouted "PEDAL-TO-THE-METAL", in her Norwegian accent. I don't know whether Heidi chimed in or not it was so loud, but I could hear both of them screaming, hooting, hollering with peals of laughter and joy. What a ride it was turning out to be. This time I made the turn, and the drama was repeated. All of this was in sight and ear-shot of Freda's, so we were putting on a show for the patrons which I am sure they enjoyed. I gave the engine full throttle and it screamed louder than all of us together as I redlined the tachometer at 8,000 RPM. Very quickly, way too soon for me, I could have done this all night, we came to their driveway. I couldn't get invited in because there were other people there, they said. Would I come see them tomorrow in another town to which their duties would take them? No, but I have much enjoyed being friends with you for this all too brief period, I told them. We embraced, kissed, exchanged email addresses, and spoke of the profound meaning of life. I used the Star of David meme for this, me sitting on the bike, them huddled close in the gloaming night to see the diagram I made on a matchbook using the bikes fuel tank for a table. Tina Marie Nagel. Heidi. I will love you forever. I am your knight in shining armour and whenever I sit astride my steed of steel my mind goes to your hearts and pulls them back into orbit around mine.

Going to the Sun Highway

Monday August 18, 2009
The three of us headed out about nine a.m. The trip lasted all day seeing us back at the camp about four p.m. and included lunch of hamburgers in Babbs, MT. The Going to the Sun road is 50 miles long and stretches from West Glacier to St. Mary, Montana reaching an elevation of just under 7000 feet at Logan's pass. This is Lake McDonald being one of the first attractions on the route. The video above is McDonald falls and is just at the East end of the lake. Pat took this picture and the video.














Pat was really taken with the pretty rocks. This is her picture too. Gary and I were skipping rocks across the lake meanwhile but we got no pictures of that.














The fee per vehicle to take this ride is $25. Pretty steep, I thought, but it was very crowded. Too crowded in my opinion; not that they should raise the fee more. I think they should not charge fees at all. It is public land after all.

I took these two pictures the first being a glaciated valley and the second is what is left of some old glaciers. You can click on these images of mine to get a much larger view.