Roads Less Traveled

In February and March, I took a trip through the frigid landscapes of some of our most famous national parks, and it gave me the opportunity, once again, to observe the unfiltered and uncompromising brutality of the natural world as opposed to the safe, politically correct, and very unnatural lives that most of us live today.  For example:

At first, when I dip my toes into the frigid waters of the Boiling River, I think that there’s no truth in advertising these days.  As I struggle to maintain my balance and work my way downstream to where I can see the mists rising from a roiling make shift hot tub, my impression deepens.  From the river bank, boiling hot water issuing from fissures in the rock and upstream geothermal caverns merges with ice-cold water from the mountain streams so that at times one shaky leg is freezing and the other is nearly scalding.  Soon, though, I am able to just ease myself down into a warm water confluence and slip downstream far enough to find myself enjoying a hot mineral bath courtesy of Father Nature along with my new best friends, a couple from Whitefish, Montana, another from Marseilles, France, and a gaggle of teenage girls from parts unknown.  I spend the next hour just relaxing in the hot embrace of these soothing waters while enjoying the splendor and beauty that is Yellowstone National Park all around me.

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There’s a lot of talk about White Privilege these days.  So much so, in fact, that you don’t even necessarily need to be a “person of no color” in order to be “accused” of the unearned benefits that such a designation is supposed to confer.  Everyone from unimpressive Afro athletes to black billionaire talking heads whine about it in spite of the quite visible evidence of their own success and even as a racist Black couple were elected to the highest office in the land not once, but twice…by White people.