Richard Jernigan -> RE: Comfort. (Jun. 6 2014 19:01:26)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Anders Eliasson quote:
hackberry trees I liked that that story. And its just another picture of modern life. We consider many things to be trash. How can a tree be an annoyance. I love being in the forest. And I always think about how old some of the trees are and how bad we treat them...... But, well, in the en its just a mirror of how we treat ourselves. As some of you may know, I lived for more than 18 years on a tiny island in the Central Pacific. Part of the compensation of most workers on the island was free food in a cafeteria, all you could eat, three meals a day. The food was good, and well prepared, by Euro-American standards. One of the workers was from Kosrae, a small high island about 350 miles to the west. Mose seemed to regard much of the infrastructure where we lived as a temporary incursion of the white people. This included the cafeteria, and the food available in the store. Mose worked as a deckhand on one of the boats. He usually trolled in the wake with a handline. Other deckhands did the same, but Mose always caught the first fish, the largest fish and the most fish. He tended an assortment of trees in the jungle, and had a small pit of composted soil where he raised taro, whose roots he laboriously prepared and cooked. Though Mose was entitled to cafeteria meals, I never saw him eat anything that was imported. There was a thick growth of coconut palms on the island. I once spoke casually to Mose as he was opening a coconut. He responded by spending about 3/4 of an hour showing me the different stages of coconut ripeness, and the preparation and uses of the coconut at its different stages. Sometimes he would give me a banana from one of several kinds that grew in the forest, often he gave me fish. One of my fondest memories. RNJ
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