“Recycling” is not for wimps.

Anybody else remember this guy??

I’m a recycler.  I haven’t always been, however.  I grew up with learning that respect the environment meant putting trash in the bin. We grew up with Smokey the Forest Ranger teaching us how to not start forest fires (he must have grown up in California…) and there was some commercial about a Native American with a tear in his eye.

So in essence, if I was to be a responsible citizen, everything went, um….into the landfill.

Out of sight, out of mind.  (Ouch.)

Proper use of the bulldozer.

Bulldozer—now there’s a fun word!  I did a little digging (pun intended), and evidently bulldozer is a very American term, no surprise that.  Its origin is summarily inelegant, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the helpful heavy machinery we count on today.

Not long after the American Civil War and Honest Abe’s Emancipation Proclamation, racial prejudice continued (duh) in the form of intimidation tactics, which included administering a “bull’s dose” with a whip on the backs of black Americans who would not vote for a certain party.  The thugs eventually were referred to as “bull dosers” or “bull dozers”, those who cleared a path for their own ideology. (1)

The power of obscurity

I like obscurity.  It’s a safe place, at least for me.  Tucked away on my little plot of Earth in my little small town that barely rates a pin-point on a global map, that’s what I’m talking about.  We had an event one time that brought in some coastal people from back east to our area, and their sentiment was along the lines of, “Where ARE we??”  I am told that people from New York City think of our nation as two coasts, and the in-between is relatively insignificant.  (You know, things like cows and corn and oil, nothing like Fashion Week or Hollywood.)

Thar be giants in them thar hills!

My brother and I come from fairly lanky stock.  Jim hovers around six and a half feet, whereas I am a measly 5’12” (at least it sounds shorter.)  If you’re tall like us, you’ve probably heard the jokes growing up.  You know, “Hey!  Can you hear me up there?”  (To which I reply, “No problem!  Hot air always rises.”)  And so on.  Neither of us were particularly athletic.  I remember my basketball coach saying “Jump, Dawn, JUMP!” Jim’s comment was simply, “That’s the problem; we never have to jump…for anything.”

Even now at my tender age of 50+, being a 6-foot woman in a 5’5”-foot woman’s world is still a bit of a challenge, even humorously so.  Standing in a group of women, I sometimes find myself slouching since the level of conversation lingers about six inches below my ears.  I converse somewhat more comfortably when we’re all seated.

I’m not a very intimidating personality, which is probably