Rainy Days in Idaho

Time to be pensive, even philosophical. Here's an excerpt I like from Randy's speech at his 50th high school reunion last October.

When people ask what I do with all my leisure time, I give a Confucian answer: I seek to diminish my faults!

What I do is talk to people, get their story, read books, visit museums, write articles and poems and in general enjoy myself. Often I camp with 50 or so of my friends who have chosen the same wandering lifestyle. Thoreau could have been speaking for me when he said "Time is the stream I go fishing in." I have managed to write these 4 books of poetry which I leave with you.

Now for the greater challenge: What have I learned in my 25 years of travel?

First, that I don’t know anything for sure; all I have are theories which always need revision.

I think its true that journey is more important than destination.

I’ve learned a lot from Thoreau, including the fact that most people do "lead lives of quiet desperation."

And that we work far harder and longer than necessary. "That to maintain oneself on this earth is not a hardship but a pastime if we will live simply and wisely."

"That things are more easily gotten than gotten rid of."

"That we carefully set our traps to catch the good life then turn around and find ourselves caught in our own traps."

I’ve learned that if a person "advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."

I’ve learned how to have a lot of friends: be interested!

How to have no friends at all: be interesting!

From the movie Harvey I’ve learned that to make it well in life one must be really really smart or really really nice—and that nice is easier.