the timboucher experience

The title of this post comes from one of the higher grade question pools of the FCC ham radio operator’s licensing examination. Apparently radio waves will travel slightly farther around the globe than corresponding light signals. Go figure!

I’ve been thinking about how I like Easter, because morally you don’t have to do anything to make Jesus come back. He just does automatically. It’s not like with Christmas, how if you’re not “good” then Santa Claus isn’t going to visit you and give you presents. Fuck that!

Another cool thing about Easter is the whole Harrowing of Hell myth which was much more prominent in the Middle Ages. It’s the part of the story where Jesus goes down into Hell as a conquering general, basically smashing open the gates and freeing all the “righteous pagans” who died before Redemption was born into the world. It’s like the Catholic Church’s time travel fix to cover the fact that the basic narrative premise is implausible. A deus ex machina. The descent into Hades used to be a big theme in the medieval Mystery Plays too. They would build something called a Hellmouth which served as the passage-point for actors traversing the realms.

Speaking of conquering kings, I’ve been thinking lately - I wouldn’t say a lot, but a little bit - about how America has this fundamental flaw in its psyche: that we’re continuously at war, but that morally we like to think we’re above simply “slaying our enemies.” Whatever else you think of the Bible, it’s absolutely full of enemy-slaying. Entire families, cities, tribes and peoples are wiped out. And people decide it’s God’s will.

Found out last night about an amazing ghost town up in Northeastern Massachusetts, on Cape Ann. It’s referred to as “Dogtown“:

Nevertheless it was settled, beginning in 1693, because its inland location afforded protection from pirates and from enemy natives. [...] Their abandoned houses were for a few decades occupied by itinerants and vagabonds, giving the area its bad reputation. Many of the widows of sea-goers and soldiers who never returned kept dogs for protection and company. As these last inhabitants died their pets became feral and wild, roaming the moors and howling, thus the name “Dogtown” was born.

Some of the last occupants were suspected of practicing witchcraft, including Thomazine “Tammy” Younger, whom some knew as the “Queen of the Witches.” Tammy lived on Fox Hill, by Alewife Brook, and would reputedly place a curse on teams of oxen carrying fish from the harbor as they crossed the bridge there, unless their driver paid her a “toll”.

And this is the best part of Dogtown, that aspect of their legacy which most tangibly lingers:

Babson’s grandson, Roger Babson, is known for, among other things, his commissioning of unemployed stonecutters to carve inspirational inscriptions on approximately three dozen boulders in Dogtown during the Great Depression.

I’m considering this as a stop-over point in my bicycle/camping trip north - maybe come September if I haven’t gotten a contract yet. It’s just too beautiful and perfect.

Speaking of, I cut up my credit cards the other night. Still paying them down (for now), but just wanted to eliminate bullshit options from my vernacular of action.

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