The trip to Lake Tomahawk began with great consternation. Why do I get so excited about super-broadband access when there are kids who will be hungry today? How do I respond when a person of my same religious creed refers to the Dude and the SubDude as reptiles on the newspaper website? Who can I trust to advance the cause of sensible land use in the Land of the Suwaree without disenfranchising the Suwaree in the process? These are not bad questions, but they are a bit hard at 7:45 on a Saturday morning.
And there is something in me that becomes suspicious when I value participation on an Internet message board above conversation with My Sweet Lady. Being active in one’s community is not a bad thing, but since I have chosen to be a husband and father, perhaps my priority should be on getting Fruit and Fiber rather than Google Fiber. It’s taken a lot of time for me to learn that being a good family man, working man, and man of faith is a full day’s work.
It’s also honest work, honorable work. There are things I can’t do, at least not at this point in my life, and sustained participation in public discussions is one of them. Other things I can do, and like Voltaire’s Candide, I want to cultivate my garden. As I returned from the journey over the mountain and felt the warmth of the sun on my back, it occurred to me that the time to start some sprouts in a cold frame may have come.