One thing that sent me careening away from the PXP Pottery sale on Saturday, as aforementioned, was the opportunity to maybe catch up with some part of the Parker Family Reunion.  I found three individuals at my gate who promised to return with the whole crew the next afternoon after their night at Buffalo Meadows seeking the Round Corral, wherever that

might have been. Sunday morning was more than a little damp, but just after improvising the

day’s watercolors and starting lunch there was a knock and the Parkers, led by older brother Mark, came pouring in.  Seven, I think, but since no introductions were made and Mark main-

tained a constant monologue of tales seemingly grown taller over the intervening decades [500 rabbits shot in one field in one night; 55 gallon drums filled with quail sent to Harrah’s; buckets of catfish from Squaw either eaten or dumped into Wall Spring] it was hard to get much acquainted.  Nonetheless it was an amazing visit of close to an hour before they precipitously pulled out to slosh over to the old ranch to stir more memories…I would have liked to accompany them but by then lunch was hardening on the cold stove and I was expecting Bruce and Mary of, among other things, Maria del Camino fame, who did duly arrive, sans Maria.

The rain continued as we toured and coffee’d in the kitchen before they continued on, down the desert, eventually to Truckee while I sheltered in place remembering Memorial Day

Weekends long gone spent tearing down deserted desert roads with George and son Bruce, the Indy 500 on the radio in George’s then-new Chevy Nomad which always, it seemed, “ran better at sea level”. Or so he’d say whenever we’d hit “Sea Level” crissing and crossing Death Valley…

I ate up the climbing, camaraderie and photography but what really stuck [as should be obvious to any faithful followers of “Hits and Missives”] were those limitless drives on pavement or dirt to anywhere at all.  On Memorial Day itself, present tense,

an OD medevac flew over, a reminder in its way of what we’re charged to

remember here, miles of white crosses in service of Empire on a day our hyper-sensitive Great Nitwit is being feted by an Emperor on the other side of the globe…while also on other sides of the globe, slightly different coordinates, my son among a lot of other people’s sons are put in harm’s way day unto day because “freedom isn’t free”, particularly the freedom to mess around

in other countries’ affairs, just like the Russians continue to do in ours with palpably more success and considerably less risk. But their freedom to do that was hard-earned as well.

Underneath all, however, the Land.

Wednesday’s one-cup breakfast,

followed by even more precip, grew to

two cups Thursday after Linda arrived wherein, in addition to the ongoing and seemingly

neverending Discussions of Stuff [and what to do with it], we ventured over to the Parker,

ever more parklike as Twisto wraps up his fourteen-year tenure

admirably.

Anyway, ya just never do know…