NEAR COMMON SENSE

Life in post-modern America tends to be hectic and fast paced, so much so that it is rare, if ever, that we have the opportunity for some real down time, some honest to goodness just kick back and “smell the roses”, time to just “be”, without defining ourselves by “doing”. I often find myself defining myself by what I am doing. I become agitated if I am not at the desk “doing” something. The energy that propelled me through 20 years of dairy farming continues to push. I cannot simply sit and watch TV, I have to be also surfing the web, or writing next week’s column, or experimenting with Open Source Software – doing something, anything.

It is a habit that I cannot control. I believe that I might be, as Leonard Cohen once wrote, “a very willing victim”.

And so it was rather unique and simply wonderful whence last Friday I found myself in the marvelous company of two gentlemen, brothers of our friends George and Sharon, thereby making both Mark and Buddy brothers-in-law as well as brothers. Sharing the connection with George and Sharon Buddy, Mark and I were not total strangers and were able to begin the process of sharing of ourselves without that lengthy “getting to know you” period.

We had all gathered at George and Sharon’s for the wedding of the oldest granddaughter the next day. Grandma Sharon was doing the cooking, with barbecue help from Mark. So by mid-afternoon, Sharon, along with my wife Gennie and Mark’s wife Cindy went into town to check on all of the preparations at the church – leaving Buddy, Mark and I to our own devices.

The three of us gravitated to the front porch of the little house which overlooks the tree-clad mountains of Central Oregon. You couldn’t have asked for a nicer day – the temperature was in the 70’s and the air was so incredibly soft and gentle – almost a nearly perfect day.

In the process of getting to know one another better, Buddy decided that we needed to jointly to explore what he believed to be an excellent Petit Sirah wine. In Buddy’s world, one cannot truly appreciate an excellent wine without an excellent cigar to round out the experience.

And so it was that I spent the last day of summer sitting on the front porch of a neat little house in the Oregon woods sampling good wines and enjoying a Cuban cigar. The poet may have written, “what is so rare as a day in June?” - but I would counter by asking “what could be more perfect than a September afternoon with good wine, good cigars and good men around me?”

Thanks for a great day, George and Sharon.