Indoor, outdoor high-desert states of mind.

If you had this (below: imperialists carving up China) in your national history, and kept it alive with the slogan "Never forget national humiliation," would you give in to a wannabe late-19th-century imperialist? Oh, I think not.

David Brooks today:

I found a few sensible souls out on the trail during the Super Bowl yesterday. Far from New Orleans, the woodstove was shedding its convivial warmth in the Swampy Lake shelter.

Thirty-five years ago (could it be?), my friend William Dyrness published How Does America Hear the Gospel? I think it's time to give that a go again.

A bit of backcountry ski touring in the Cascades yesterday morning. Silence, winter glory, and a little friend (who tried to rob my fig bar).

Out on a late-afternoon/dusk 4-mile ski tour yesterday with my son. Broken Top bathed in alpenglow.

I'm a habitual checker of the Mt Bachelor snow stake, which is just 30 minutes up the road from here. It's showing overnight snowfall. And in an already prodigious snow season (212" so far), last night shows a good effort.

Yesterday I recalled a story from my grandfather in China. Enjoy!

This was several years ago on a December 21 trip to Neah Bay, Washington. The guy had the office hours of an academic. Also, when I asked about the fresh elk head in a bucket by the door, he said his daughter had killed it that morning. I settled for smoked black cod.

Three generations cutting and loading the Christmas tree in the national forest today. $5.00 a pop. Don't tell the incoming administration.

A quick sunset walk to a hill very near our house yesterday, and this. (The camera frame too small to capture the panorama.)

This book, on the shelf behind me, has been gently calling to me as, in recent days, I've been watching the incoming Trump administration take shape. Finally, I took it down and opened it. The passages I marked five years ago (I never finished reading the 750+pp) are indeed speaking to the moment.

dgreid49.substack.com/p/what-do-yo...