Tuesday, May 4, 2010 - Beymer Park, Lakin KS
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Fish Ponds, Beymer Park, Lakin KS, May 3, 2010
Catfish dinner
The caretaker saw me out with my camera this morning. He had a couple pictures to show me and a story to go with them. It seems there are a couple of wily old catfish in the next pond over. Were in there when he took on the job 15 years ago. They are still there. About 5 feet long now. Wily as ever. Not tempted by anything those guys in hats throw at them.
I was honored to see them this afternoon, drifting around. Of course I didn't have my camera along. Wily old buggers.
Night camp
Site 7 - Beymer Water Recreation Park, Lakin KS
- Beymer Water Recreation Park is an older County park about 4 miles south of Lakin KS offering a few sites with electric and water. It's quiet and clean with several stocked fish ponds enjoyed by the local residents, hatted and feathered.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Beymer Water Recreation Park on my Night Camps map
- 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.