What's an urgency? It's what you have when you feel the need to
contact an administrator, as evidenced in the following note, I've come
home to:
... away from my desk until Monday...However, if you have an urgency,
please contact [name deleted] and
she can contact me by phone.
Most of me has returned, though some of me is feeling few or little or
not much urgency. This is undoubtedly due to the fact that I developed
pneumonia or something quite like it when I was off vacationing. How
is it that I cannot say for sure? I consulted the house doctor and we
decided that antibiotics might be a good idea even though we didn't
have a definitive diagnosis, lab work and all billing information
given. So I got better, returned feeling well enough to take my
brother (visiting from Britain) crabbing--and to post Sunday
poems--felt a good deal worse the following morning, nonetheless
departed as promised to help my brother set up his tent and generally
find his way around Hood River, which is a windsurfing community about
an hour and a half away from here. Having done all that, I came home
and rested. Now I feel a little more life-like.
The State Police had an urgency this morning. After a night in a tent
that did old backs no good at all, my brother and I hied us off in
search of a bagel and coffee. I had given him instruction on
differences between British and U.S. road rules and particularly
instructed him in the most peculiar of U.S. driving institutions, the
four-way stop. Everywhere in Europe it's clear who has right of way.
Here, you take it in turns...unless people choose not to. So this
morning I drove through Hood River's only four way stop, looked in my
mirror, saw John stop, looked back again, saw him followed by a cop
with flashing lights. The cop had arrived at the junction first. John
stopped, waited for the cop to go. The cop did nothing. John assumed
this meant he had right of way and for some reason the cop was not
taking his turn. When in fact, as you or I would know, the cop was
merely staying still in the hope that he could lure some poor visitor
into an infraction. Welcome to America, land of urgencies and quotas
of citations.
Before Hood River, we were near Sisters, in a place called Camp
Sherman. Why was it called Camp Sherman? Because General Sherman came
and camped there? Because soldiers who loved the memory of dear of
Sherman camped there? No. Because farmers of Sherman County ran away
from the heat of eastern Oregon's wheat farms to shelter among the
Ponderosa Pines. This is the camp where farmers camped. Near Sisters,
which is named after three sisters who went camping with some urgency.
Or maybe the three sisters are mountains? One way or another, I'm not
a forest-loving person, so the place lacked charm. As did one of my
nieces. As did whatever bug infested my lungs.
Not the best of vacations.
David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon
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