Trees, Hikes, Strangers, Music, and Political Action

 In one weekend last week I fulfilled five repetitions of the 75 items on my list.

      1. Take 75 hikes (Phil Straffin, Marion Haddon). The Cameron Meadows trail, in the Siskiyou Mountains of Southern Oregon, was a great way to add one more hike to the 75 I intend to do this year. (See  dianacoogle.blogspot.com for a description of this hike.) So far I've done 29 hikes since July 20.

      2. Hug 75 trees (Laura Martin). Not only was the trail spectacularly beautiful in its autumn finery, but it provided me with some great trees to hug – salmon-leafed dogwoods, yellow-splashed maples, and some huge old-growth cedars, firs, and pines. That I couldn't get my arms around the cedar didn't make the hug any less sincere than the one I gave the dogwood I could wrap arms and legs around.

I love incense cedars.

      3. Do 75 political actions (Mariposa Kerchival and Verne Underwood). Earlier in the week I had realized that with the election coming up in about two weeks, I had better step up my political actions now, so after Saturday's hike, I hurried to town to take part in a postcard writing campaign to get out the vote. The emphasis was on getting Jamie McLeod-Skinner elected. I started each post card: "Let's oust Walden!" It would be so exciting if McLeod-Skinner won this race. I, like a lot of people I know, would breathe a sigh of relief to send her to Washington instead of Walden.

      4. Listen to 75 pieces of new music from around the world (Chelsea and Tyler). The next day I went to the Rogue Valley Symphony concert and heard the world premier of Malek Jandali's Concerto for Viola and Orchestra. Jandali is Syrian-American and had incorporated Syrian folk songs in his concerto, so it was certainly "new music from around the world." 

      5. Talk to 75 strangers (Sharon Coogle). During intermission, I turned to the woman sitting next to me, a stranger, and started a conversation. Was she with the two children and woman sitting on the other side of her? I was interested because the children were there on the voucher program the Friends of the Symphony have provided to bring young people to these concerts, and I wondered if the children were musicians. Yes, the woman was with them but not related, just a friend, and then she talked and talked and talked about herself, all about her HUD housing and moving here from Ashland and a long story about doing research on some little known event in World War I or the Revolutionary War or something I couldn't keep up with and wanting to go to Washington D.C. to look things up, something about her ancestors; I stopped trying to follow the story. I listened politely, but I was glad when intermission was finally over and she had to stop talking. It was not a good experience. It reminded me of why I don't talk to strangers.

      I had rather hug trees.