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Saturday, Sept. 04, 2004 - 11:19 a.m.

Ah! Life in a small town is both comforting and infuriating. Right now I am leaning somewhere in between these two feelings, realizing that my hopes for a job really lie in the nearby town of Kalispell and might require more logistical weaving than would be ideal.

Alas, returning to my hometown has offered up all kinds of interesting writing ideas. The other night my father and I (my mother is still surviving Minnesota) attended a small estate auction just up the road (and by "just up the road" I mean several miles up the hightway). An elderly woman's husband had recently died and now was her time to get rid of their stuff, their junk, their treasures, their accumulated life together. Of course, first we stopped by my father's friend and coworker's place, just down the road from the auction, and each drank the appropriate amount of wine to place everything in proper perspective.

Basically, this auction looked like a twilight rummage sale with the quick staccato of the auctioneer's voice as a soundtrack. By the time we arrived, the action was happening in the garage. There, everything that wasn't bolted to the concrete floor went to the highest bidder, most often a tired old man whose own garage probably didn't look much unlike this one. Pot soil, nails (By the way, I learned from an obliging friend of the family that steel prices are high, thus nails are expensive right now. Even the smallest part of what holds our shelters in place has its price.), pieces of formica, old Maxwell coffee can filled with odds and ends, rusted saw blades, and tires. Doesn't this man's life seem fairly straightforward?

Sure, until you take into account the stuff outside the garage. On the front tables sat two small statues, replicas of "The Thinker" and "The Kiss", the latter being a wonderful work of the wonderful sculptor Auguste Rodin. Then, next to the tool box, stood a fancy telescope. Sure, you can figure all kinds of reasons these pieces were scattered among the juice glasses and seventies furniture.

I, though, choose to believe that this man who passed away held a secret love for art and liked to sneak peaks at faraway galaxies and possibilities. And, for some reason, I really think that my construction of this man's life might not be too far off from reality, his reality.

Don't we all need that, after all. That being romantic notions that compel us to transcend what our material wealth says about us? That even the material points to something great and more important before being lost on us once we leave this world?

Oooohhh, heavy stuff. I feel a poem coming on. On a funny note, at the same auction I observed at least two men wearing pink shirts, which amused me to no end.

On yet another note, I want to wish JM (my liddle bruder's girlfriend) a safe journey to Spain. We love ya, JM, and hope Spain knows how lucky it is to have you.

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