Camp Woody Guthrie

The new boots still have bite. Guess that means that they'll last a long time in battle. The weight of my pack has been increasing to keep up with the hunger of spring that does not wait for a calenders permission. The bear has abandoned the den. Everything is on the menu. Leaving the post office after sending a few unneeded articles back to base camp, I head to yet another store to replace the resident pound I just evicted.

There are joys that are silly in words, yet I will try to set them down. Last night I made my tent by the rails in a clutch of evergreen that promised to diffuse the wind that beat my face all day. While the wind smeared the local earth throughout the night, I remained on my bed of red earth (that stained everything), thankfully not feeling even one breath come out of the valley.
When the sun came up to rebuke the night's cold, I started my fire in my zip-stove with evergreen branches that fell around the camp. Fire comes easy with these fingers that collect tinder into flame for nearly every meal I eat. Just as the water chugged to a boil, and I poured it over coffee beans I just mashed with a stick, as the train announces itself in the town below. With a big smile that comes from the ability to see myself sitting over my little fire, I waved to the train as it squeaked and squealed past to the sound of a working engine fighting the grade. As soon as the conductor saw me he found the train's whistle, and shot it into the morning air until he was near the top of the ridge. Today I became a hobo with pine needles in my morning hair. A change is coming. What was a thousands nervous fingers holding on, begins to let go with nothing falling down.