Subject: [Tweeters] Hitting the Wall
Date: Nov 4 17:58:48 2014
From: Richard Leinen - rick.lumen at gmail.com


Yesterday never got too bright here at Port Townsend, and it aint much different right now. Looking out the window into the afternoon gloom, I thought " God, it looks like November out there!". Then I remembered it actually is November - kinda snuck up on me.

And reminiscing under this dark grey blanket, brought to mind another dark grey day about 45+ years ago. That was an unusual day, because my family and I were spending the night in a tiny little cabin in an old resort on Big Lake, Skagit County. That was unusual because my family, at that point, were "trailer campers" - we had a bitty 16ft trailer that we would head out to the sticks with, often to State Parks in the "off season" - especially winter and early spring. The Gibson's (my branch of that hominid, anyway) were not, and remain not, herd animals. We liked it kinda quiet.

Anyway, here we were in this tiny, mildewed, one-light-bulbed cabin on a dark wet day. For a kid camper like me, it was pretty boring. But then something amazing happened. A mouse!

No, not some sort of fabulous native mouse, "just" that hominid 'familiar' the House Mouse. But what I saw was incredible!

Several times I watched as the little mousie's , running at an incredible speed, simply disappeared into the wall! A mouse would run right at the kitchen baseboard, and poof - just plumb gone. I couldn't believe it. Examining the tiny crack where the critter vanished at speed, it seemed there was no way they could have done that. But they did. Jello skulls? I don't know.

I've seen this again over the years. Of course now, one can google a question about anything (and get all sorts of bogus answers) so I tried it with House Mouse, and the internet info seemed to agree that a House Mouse can go through a hole the diameter of a pencil. Whatever. Didn't say how fast they could do it though!

Moving right along, since this isn't a pesky rodent site - how about them birds!

Far from a moldy little Skagit cabin, my mind then moved to years later, to the dry desert cliffs of Dry Falls, over there in Grant county. There, in the basalt rimrock, are nesting White-throated Swifts. OK, so a little zippy House Mouse's look to be going fast, maybe faster than they really are, but those Swifts - well they don't call 'em Swifts for nothing.

Simply put, watching Swifts disappear into small cracks in the basalt at high speed, really puts the awe back in awesome. Just sayin'.

Well, enough of these grey day tangents - just the way my mind works. If you call this working.

Jeff Gibson
memory lane, Wa
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