It is 6:18 in the morning, and I am going to work. I've had only a few hours sleep, though I can feel the jittery electricity of a caffeine surge beginning to find its way into my blood. It is raining heavily and it is still dark, though I can see the beginnings of sunrise somewhere off to the left. I am on the freeway, travelling around eighty miles an hour, because this is Michigan and if you're not going eighty you're holding up traffic. There is construction on this section, though I have seen it a thousand times before because I travel exactly this route nearly every day. And then- Theres some water that had pooled up, some failure of the drainage, the construction left incomplete, and this is Michigan so the construction is never complete, so the water pooled up, and at eighty miles an hour the water catches the wheel, there's a pull to the left, to the concrete barrier still there from the construction, and the front left fender of the car catc...
Consider the huckleberry. It is a stubborn plant, one that only grows above a certain altitude and in a particular climate, so they can be difficult to locate. But where it does grow, it flourishes, so many people find themselves in a huckleberry patch in the summer, picking to their heart's content. For those new to huckleberries, however, perhaps an introduction, a tutorial of sorts, is in order. Step One: If you want to find huckleberries, you have to go to where the huckleberries are. So what you will have to do is load up your poor wheezing minivan with your family and friends, and drive clear the hell up to the top of a mountain, somewhere in the eastern part of the Pacific Northwest. You will drive up to the top and view several lakes which should be spectacular but will find yourself distracted by the wind, the smoke of wildfires and the looming specter of the death of your mother. Step Two: find a patch. You will pack everybody back up in the...