Sunday, November 29, 2009 - Lubbock TX
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Google map of cotton growing region northeast of Lubbock TX, November 29, 2009
I made good time today, taking US 62 through the cotton growing region of the Texas panhandle, heading southwest toward Lubbock.
Those fields you see in the Google map above are mostly cotton. Each "section" is a mile square, 640 acres, most divided into quarter sections of 160 acres. This years harvest is nearly finished - the fields are brown now with stiff stubble and boxcar sized bales of cotton, colorfully tarped, waiting to be ginned, stray fluffs of cotton drift along the roadsides.
Yet another observation on my front tire issue
It rained off and on for most of my travels today and there was little sign of the tire bouncing (I stand corrected - it's not "hop" - it's "bounce") I am concerned about. I'll have to think about how this may be a clue to the cause of the bounce.
Night camp
Wal-Mart Supercenter in Lubbock TX
Wal-Mart Supercenter Store #861, 4215 South Loop 289, Lubbock, TX 79423 - (806) 793-2091
- Verizon cell phone service - good signal
- Verizon EVDO Broadband service - good signal
- Locate this Walmart on my Night Camps map
- Find other Wal-Marts in the area
- Check the weather here
When Hope Dies
When you give up on hope, something even better happens than it not killing you, which is that in some sense it does kill you. You die. And there's a wonderful thing about being dead, which is that they—those in power—cannot really touch you anymore. Not through promises, not through threats, not through violence itself. Once you're dead in this way, you can still sing, you can still dance, you can still make love, you can still fight like hell—you can still live because you are still alive, more alive in fact than ever before. You come to realize that when hope died, the you who died with the hope was not you, but was the you who depended on those who exploit you, the you who believed that those who exploit you will somehow stop on their own, the you who believed in the mythologies propagated by those who exploit you in order to facilitate that exploitation. The socially constructed you died. The civilized you died. The manufactured, fabricated, stamped, molded you died. The victim died.
And who is left when that you dies? You are left. Animal you. Naked you. Vulnerable (and invulnerable) you. Mortal you. Survivor you. The you who thinks not what the culture taught you to think but what you think. The you who feels not what the culture taught you to feel but what you feel. The you who is not who the culture taught you to be but who you are. The you who can say yes, the you who can say no.