Thanks 2022

 I do believe that I have given thanks in this space before, so in no particular order:

• Courage to say “no,” when a publisher let me know that my planned first-year textbook would cost students $200 per copy.
• Hope from the Midterm results. Evil got its due, and while it could have been better, it could have been far, far worse. I have recurrent bad dreams of neo-fascist militants who worship a certain evil man coming down our driveway. Guns won’t save us. What will? Community and fortitude.
• Perseverance, a related idea. I fixed things on the farm that seemed un-fixable at times: a stalled diesel tractor, a balky electronic ignition in an old truck, an old lock for our pop-up camper.
• Curiosity to try new things, from listening to some new music, reading new authors, to visiting the Grand Canyon. 
• Gratitude that my wife and I enjoyed relatively good health and prosperity. My own arthritis has been stable and my flexibility improved. A good osteopath, Yoga class, and diet have keep my as limber as possible at my age. We found a talented visiting vet to tend to our livestock dogs, and two of them with persistent health issues have also enjoyed better health in consequence.
• Luck when we had a porch finished, despite delays in materials or builders’ mistakes, the fallen white oak that guaranteed enough firewood, or decent fishing so we brought home dinner a few times.
• Company of others, fighting my antisocial tendencies to visit with family and friends.
• Temperance, not a virtue of mine, whenever my academic job seems pointless, my students anxious and depressed about the world we are leaving them, and my university ever more corporate, concerned more at times with branding than substance and learning.
• Restraint, also not my strength, when I kept my mouth shut instead of screaming. I am still working on that one!
• Knowledge to know when to “call some guy” to fix or make something, when to quit for the day, when to stop looking at screens, or when to let others have the last word.

So you get the last word. Tell me what makes you thankful in 2022?

Slowing Down To Save Time

Yes, this sounds paradoxical. But one thing that 10 years of rural life have taught me is this: when you have plenty of space to put things, you can get sloppy about it.  

That is not my tool box. Not by a light year. But before talking about why,  let's consider socket sets. Yes, sockets.

I have hundreds of the things, mostly inherited. The few dozen I brought with me from town were well organized in an old tool box I once purchased with S&H Green Stamps. I could always put my hand on what I needed, fast.

Finding myself with three places where we store equipment, I could see why my father-in-law put tools everywhere. And I mean everywhere. Unlike my small stash, however, these tools were not sorted. He worked at a breakneck pace and the work was good, but organizing things for later use? He called that "piddling," and it was not real work to him.  He had buckets of tools, jars of fasteners, and sockets every darned place you could imagine.

I'm Type-A about clutter, so it drove me bonkers until I discovered a simple truth about any pile of stuff: if you go after it methodically and do not add more stuff, it will eventually sort itself out. So this Fall, I began to organize sockets: 1/4", 3/8", and 1/2" drives, SAE, Metric, "deeps," "shallows," six-point and twelve-point sockets. I have specialty ones for removing oxygen sensors and spark plugs.

I am nearly done, and guess what? I have a full set for each of the places where we park tractors or cars. My father-in-law was always hunting for just the right size. When I'm done, I won't have to do that any more. Any sizes I'm missing I'll buy individually, until everything is ready to roll without me walking to another building to get one measly socket.

Makes one wonder what we might do if we addressed every mess that way. We confront messes daily but if we also clean up a little bit daily, without adding to it, we might save our mental health, our neighborhoods, the places we call home. 

We might save the world.

Creative Commons image from Publicdomainpictures.net