Random Observations by a Recently Turned 55-Year-Old Guy on a Chilly, Overcast Sunday Morning

Or, “Holy Crap, It’s the 9th of October Already and I Need to Post Something!” Meanwhile, autumn comes and goes quietly in the south central San Luis Valley.

I’ve noticed a lot of people posting in social media and in comments sections transposing “conscious” for conscience,” e.g., “No one with a conscious could ever vote for X.” I haven’t seen it the other way around, so at least no one’s been knocked into unconscienceness.

La Veta Pass on 4 October. I’d expected everything ablaze in color by this point, but it seems the trees take turns at this elevation.

I realize a lot of common misspellings are attributable to over-eager auto-correct functions on smart-phones. Variations of “darn auto-correct” are given in the edits, anyway. So why not disable auto-correct and learn to spell?




Every now and then I notice someone taking a stab at When Everything Started Going to Crap. I’m old enough to remember this being attributed to allowing students to wear blue jeans to school. Après cela, le déluge: once this was permitted, all order and reason and civility were acid-washed, ripped and distressed from the public square.

Looking south down Jefferson Street in Monte Vista.

Incidentally, I remember how these same people complaining about the blue jeans in schools (and girls in pants! yeah, I’m that old) would joke, “Hyuck-hyuck! I don’t know how to spell” when they wrote something out in their equally juvenile handwriting.

West side Monte Vista, looking north towards the one and only high school.

I remember when penmanship was graded, along with spelling. By way of thumbing my nose at the ignorant elders I knew back in the day, while offering my own elderly complaint for 2016, I proclaim the growing popular disregard for spelling and penmanship in the late 1960s/early 1970s as the point When Everything Started Going to Crap. You want to complain about discipline, and the lack of it? There you go, you brick-headed old fools. Who parented the generation that sent everything to hell in the first place? Talk about your evasion of accountability!

A fiercely orange tree, again on the west side of town, where all the best trees are.

Well, check me out. I made an entire post from a minor complaint. I have other complaints, and loads more photos of stuff to dump. I just might make up for lost posting time. Hooray for today.

A fiercely orange cat, on a pinkish porch, before green outdoor furniture in golden autumn light.