Indigenous Ability

  Greetings Crew! The Skippable Part : This Old Man is back from vacation—the photos are from a week of river running in craft ranging from this aging body, to my sailboat, to canoes, kayaks, white water rafts, and jet skis. 56-years-old is around the corner, so gotta get as much meanness in before she fails me. I hope you can say the same! “ You are an old man, take a rest: What? If I were running in the stadium ought I to slacken my pace when approaching the goal? Ought I not rather to put on speed?”— Diogenes responding to the clueless. The Meaty Part A little preview and tentative timeline of things to come… The “Bull” Position ·         Black Box will start covering the Old School “Bull” Position, that is, survival when an opponent has Top-Saddle or Mount. ·         There is nothing sportive here and it ain’t your time-eating subtlety game. ·         When strikes and bites are on the table from the Rider, the Bull has to get wiser, leaner and meaner. ·        

  [Non-Fighty. Skippable. Consider this one a sibling of the prior offerings… Recreational Reading as a Laboratory for Honor & Warrior Poets & Ethical Rhymers. ] This essay’s metaphor only goes so far. We are not literally what we eat. If I eat an entire bag of cheese-puffs, beyond fluorescing fingertips, I do not become a friable bit of dubious cheese dust. I do, of course, receive what nourishment is to be had from the consumption of these orange curiosities. So, I am what I eat in the sense of nourishing value. We are also not what we read until it has been digested and turned into fuel. Say I read every book on competitive swimming shelved in the Library of Congress, or every fight tome or “Can Do/Rangers All the Way!” bit of puffery also housed there… The mere reading of this material does less for me than the consumption of my bag of Cheetos. While my cheese snacks may not be optimum fuel, they will still be used to fire the chemical processes within.

  So, let’s say you’re a renowned archeologist and Egyptologist. What sort of thing[s] would you need to know to be aces in your chosen field? You make your list and I’ll make my own uninformed list. My list includes such things as… ·         A degree or apprenticeship in the ways and means of archeology. ·         A facile ability to read hieroglyphics, both hieratic and demotic. ·         A good knowledge of pyramid and tomb construction. ·         A deep understanding of ancient Egyptian history and culture. ·         I’d wager a fair bit of knowledge about how mummies were preserved would also be on the table. Your list and mine likely share a few items, you may have a few I don’t and vice versa. Oh, here’s something I didn’t include, but maybe you did… ·         Spend vacations visiting “wet markets” and butchers in third world locales so I can stand side-by-side with them as they dress animals for market. Did you have that one on your list? I didn’t. Renow