End of Days

And so we come to the End of Days. It's all over when December rolls around this year (according the prophetic Mayan calendar). I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. The way we dump toxins and garbage in the oceans, our callous mistreatment of animals, our  utter disregard for the ground upon which we walk—we don't seem to be the evolutionary pinnacle that will or should last longer than any other species that has ever appropriated the offerings of this little dust speck near the back edge of eternity.

Forever is a long time. When it's time to do something different than what I'm doing right now, I won't mind catching a new train when it's time to go.

But until the porter asks for my ticket, I do have some things that I want to do while I'm standing around the platform killing time. Not that I'm much into New Year's resolutions, but I have some significant changes that I want to make. Actually, the things I have in mind for this new year have steamed in the boiler for too long; it's just time to let off some of the pressure. A while back I stopped lamenting what I gave up when I came to Oregon. Two and half years here, I'm tired of wondering and waiting for what and when something will happen.

I could sit around with a banjo on my knee, and wait for someone to offer me a new vocation with benefits and a pension plan, but career jobs rarely show up in the want ads of the dying newspapers, and Craig's List seems to be nothing more than lists of scams.

I could continue to drive an hour, sometimes more, just to play a gig, but I've "been-there-done-that" as a kid, and I no longer want to do that. If I can't play somewhere that's less than thirty minutes, I can probably make myself happy in my own living room. Car seats hurt my back. Besides, I enjoy hanging around with a circle of folks my age at the weekly old-time jam just seven miles from my house.

I could wait for the house my wife and I rent to miraculously remodel itself closer to Corvallis, and we could wait for a self-sustaining Eden of vegetables to sprout in the back yard... but while I enjoy imagination, I take more stock in reality.

Yep, before I run out of chances to keep myself from dying with woulda-coulda-shoulda on my mind, I suspect it's time to board the train so that it doesn't leave without me.