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Just can’t figure out what other folks have got against forests. Don’t go into the woods alone, I can hear them say, because you don’t know what you will find in them that could hurt you. Like that doesn’t happen in just about any place you might happen to go? I’ve been camping and hiking pretty much since the Middle Ages — I trust the woods. I know to be cautious in them. I won’t be found in the woods, half-eaten, put it that way.
Deserts? That’s a different story… the heat, the snakes, the scorpions, and worst threat of all, desert people. Deserts make folks crazy. Now don’t get yourself in a big huff about that, you sane-and-friendly desert people. It’s not you that I mean, but the ones that make the news, appear in B-movies made by Roger Corman, and folks like him. Serial killers who got started, big surprise, by lighting out into the blazing nothing to get away from the world. That’s what got Yours, Truly into this particular mess.
I love to travel to new places, but I didn’t own a car that year. I had to catch my rides with my friends Bryson and Dionne, who are always zooming off to these interesting places: East Coast, West Coast, north to Canada, south to Mexico, a cruise they took to Australia. He’s got money; she says it’s only a matter of time before she does. I’m content, for now, to hold down these service jobs: a supermarket here, a coffee house there. My mind is on my hobby — I…
