Why do the gods always live on or in mountains while the trolls, barrators, falsifiers and other pointy-tailed deadbeats dwell in the muck beneath the bridges? (As an occasional glutton, I stand just a foul breath's distance from the status of troll in Dante's scheme.) Why do the ordinary people scramble in chaos around the friezes at the bottoms of temples while the enlightened ones quietly meditate at the top?

High places have always been magnets for seekers, scientists, lunatics and people like me (a bit of all of the above), who are intrigued by their unseen possibilities and awed by their beauty. William Randolph Hearst fancied California's Mt. Shasta and built a Bavarian-style villa here he named Wyntoon (his paramour Marion Davies called it "Spittoon"). Fearing that the Japanese might bomb San Simeon, Wyntoon became the Hearst hideout during WWII. Shasta was also a retreat for Jean Harlow and Herbert Hoover, but not together.

Magmanamous Meanderings on the Big Island of Hawaii

 
We are walking across the a'a looking for a nene. a'a is Hawaiian for chunky lava.pahoehoe is the smooth swirly stuff. It is almost as if mother nature had stumbled and dropped a giant Bavarian chocolate cake on the big island of Hawaii. The nene is the state bird, kind of a silly goose, supposedly descended from a Canada goose that went far astray. It has claws instead of webbed feet. The nene lives on the slopes of the Kiluhaea volcano. There are signs warning us not to feed them. But I can't even find one. If you feed them they wander the roads begging for food and consequently become flattened by passing cars.

The nene is an endangered species.perhaps because it isn't too bright.
 

or Befuddled in Boonville

by Russell Johnson 

AUDIO-MP3

Chipmunk (left) went to the hob. "I shied the hob," harped Deacon, "too codgy. " "There was a huge fister," harped Chipmunk, "and the highman of the higheelers brought in thribs deputies and shut 'er down." "Not bahl," harped Deacon. "Gotta have a fister once in awhile to get it out of yer system."

(Translation: Chipmunk went to the dance. Deacon didn't...getting too old for that he "harped" or said. Chipmunk said there was a big fight and the sheriff brought in three deputies to shut it down. Not "bahl" or good, "harped" Deacon.)

Boontling is an folk language spoken only in Boonville, in the Anderson Valley of Northern California. It was invented in the late 1800s and had quite a following at the turn of the century. Now it is only spoken by old-timers and heritage buffs.

Boontling has more than a thousand unique words and phrases.

A Bucky Walter, for example, is a pay telephone. Bucky means nickel and Walter was the name of the guy who owned Boonville's first telephone. A horn of zeese is a cup of coffee.

Practical Boontling for Travelers

ab chaser- Someone who lives on the coast, an "abalone chaser." Not to be outdone, ab chasers call Boonters squirrel bacon.

belhoon - Dollar

blooch - To chatter aimlessly. (also means to masturbate)

Boont Dusties - The Boonville Cemetery

dinklehonk - cow

gorm - to eat

hyoottle - hotel

kilockety - to travel by train

kiloppety -to travel by horse

trashmover - heavy winter storm

weech - a small child

zeese - coffee. Named after a man named Zeese whose coffee, it is said, "would float an egg."