Dogs & Wild Iris (long read)
Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:26 pm
I was recently cleaning off my sad, old, broken down, crusty laptop & ran across this. I found it a fun read & thought I would share. I know it's long...but most of you don't really work all day long anyway, do you?
(I left the first word off of the subject, to make it more work friendly)
DOPE, DOGS, AND WILD IRIS
By Keith Mark Johnson
THEN
When I got into climbing, men were men. Most climbing women were men too, as back in the day you had to be blessed with a hurkin’ set of brass balls to even think about climbing. There were no safely bolted 5.8’s with chain anchors neatly placed at the top of a thirty meter face. It was America in the late seventies. Climbing was this gnarly sport that allowed one to escape from the fear of one’s government wanting to kill you. By 1975, we’d lost all our civil rights leaders, our finest politicians and most of the genius musicians. The Beatles were no more. I was still playing Cream records hoping Eric Clapton could get off heroin long enough for a quick reunion tour. It was a murky period of disco bright confusion after a desperate decade of a nation being polarized over Viet Nam, race riots, and Presidential lies. Hmmm. (As a well read German friend of mine once said to sum up the absurdity of politics and the human condition: ‘Every forty years, same old shit.)
By the time I strapped on my crampons in 1977 things were finally changing. Women were still opening their own doors, but were finally shaving their leg hair. Men were giving up limp wristed peace signs for firm handshakes with corporations deeply concerned about machines, computers, profit motives and property rights. The dope was getting stronger and expensive. Cocaine was the new “safeâ€
(I left the first word off of the subject, to make it more work friendly)
DOPE, DOGS, AND WILD IRIS
By Keith Mark Johnson
THEN
When I got into climbing, men were men. Most climbing women were men too, as back in the day you had to be blessed with a hurkin’ set of brass balls to even think about climbing. There were no safely bolted 5.8’s with chain anchors neatly placed at the top of a thirty meter face. It was America in the late seventies. Climbing was this gnarly sport that allowed one to escape from the fear of one’s government wanting to kill you. By 1975, we’d lost all our civil rights leaders, our finest politicians and most of the genius musicians. The Beatles were no more. I was still playing Cream records hoping Eric Clapton could get off heroin long enough for a quick reunion tour. It was a murky period of disco bright confusion after a desperate decade of a nation being polarized over Viet Nam, race riots, and Presidential lies. Hmmm. (As a well read German friend of mine once said to sum up the absurdity of politics and the human condition: ‘Every forty years, same old shit.)
By the time I strapped on my crampons in 1977 things were finally changing. Women were still opening their own doors, but were finally shaving their leg hair. Men were giving up limp wristed peace signs for firm handshakes with corporations deeply concerned about machines, computers, profit motives and property rights. The dope was getting stronger and expensive. Cocaine was the new “safeâ€
