More Ed From the Abbeyweb
photo credit: Joe C.
Joe and another Abbeywebber, Chuck, recently returned from a hiking excursion to Numa Ridge, the old observation tower that Ed manned back in the mid-70′s and wrote about in ’77. He spent the summer there with Renée and seven volumes of Marcel Proust. Also present were Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, lingering thoughts (but no sightings) of Ursus horribilis, and countless hours of doing nothing but watching and enjoying the “solitary pleasures of philosophy, the furtive consolations of thought.”
“Wherever two human beings are alive, together and happy, there is the center of the world.” Edward Abbey, “Fire Lookout: Numa Ridge,” The Journey Home
Ed also briefly touched on some of his more important ideas in that essay. The notion that men and women are too often “trapped in the drudgery and tedium of meaningless jobs,” getting technology and industrialism back to some rational, “human scale” and therefore under control, the industrialization of our national parks, and one of my favorites, the need for another revolution.
“The Great Revolution was a failure, they say. All revolutions have been failures, they say. To which I reply: ‘All the more reason to make another one.’”
Joe and Chuck returned with not only an interesting story but some cool photos.
The current resident of the tower, who’s apparently been there for some time, offered to show them Ed’s old journal. Turns out it wasn’t the original, however, but a photocopy. The original is now under lock and key. According to Joe’s account, the original was stolen but fortunately recovered thanks to a responsible person that recovered it and returned it.
Good karma to that bloke.
The photo in this post is Joe’s and the others featuring some of Ed’s entries can be found here.
“God bless America-Let’s save some of It. Long live weeds and the wilderness yet.Edward Abbey, “Fire Lookout: Numa Ridge,” The Journey Home