We lived in a small pup tent when we first got married. For some reason people seemed to think we were peculiar. I never gave a second thought to what unimaginative people thought. We were living an adventure.
Our stint on the Rogue River was only one summer long, but it was packed with adventures. You see, I lived with the notion that adventure and imagination were interwoven. Our tent was sufficient as a home, and the river provided us with an endless supply of exploration and discovery. Wild creatures were a few threads of fabric away from our bed, which simply made the whole event real. It was the perfect honeymoon!
We got our water from a spring. We ate a lot of wild blackberries and took our baths in the Rogue River. Black bears were abundant, if not amicable, neighbors and deer walked through camp every day. It was a twelve mile round trip hike to the Agness post office where we had a box. I guess we would have been classified as homeless by today's bureaucrats.
We were not actually homeless, it was much worse than that. Back then I assumed I was normal.
Somewhere along the line, we bartered our way into the possession of a DC3 inner tube and suddenly we owned the river. Mind you, we did not have sense enough to wear life jackets when we shot the rapids … it is probably a miracle we survived that part.
Our three-days-per-week post office provided us with a schedule to live by, so we made that trek on those days. At least once per week we included a detour to the store, such that it was, on the other side of the river. That only added six miles to our trip, which rounded it off to an eighteen mile hike. Yes, hike, like walking, with our feet. Together we could do that trip in three hours and forty-five minutes. Alone I could do it in just under three hours, but that was really getting it on. I was a lot younger thirty-odd years ago.
Because I was under the delusion that I was normal, it seemed to me that everyone else suffered from a profound lack of imagination. It turns out that normal people do not have intense, vivid, wildly imaginative dreams. And they certainly do not act on those dreams. I've since come to grips with the fact that I may not be normal.
I've heard that some people read more than one book at a time. I have eight … that I am currently writing … of the twenty three that I have slated. You tell me, is that normal?
