Diary : Milkweed Cream
A few hundred feet south of the Gimlet bike crossing on the east side of the trail, I spy a lonely milkweed plant, a rarity in this part of Idaho. It begs to help a monarch butterfly.

But right now this is speed alley. Zippy bicycle fashions blur by with no time for these winged attractions. The 18 gauges and monitors on their bikes are only for racing down the straight and narrow path. Even their music gear deafens bird songs.

From above, a golden beam of sunlight directs a fluttering monarch to the prize I've found. She dips her proboscis into the flower's nectar. Then she lays her tiny white eggs on the milkweed's soft leafy underside. Her young will soon become riders of the sky through the wonders of metamorphosis as they munch on the creamy cells of the milkweed.

Thrasher and Toxic man care not. The machine operator does not tip his blade up to genuflect to the hallowed incubating ground of the magnificent monarch's milkweed. He slices thorough the right of way while maintaining rhythm to "We're Going Wrong" from the band Cream's "Disraeli Gears." I turn southbound and for some odd reason Neil Young's "aimless blade of science" stanza sings through my head:

"Where the eagle glides ascending

"There's an ancient river bending

"Down the timeless gorge of changes

"Where sleeplessness awaits

"I search out my companions

Advertising

During his days as a journalist, the young Mark Twain once edited a small newspaper in Missouri, A subscriber wrote in saying that he had found a spider in his paper and asked whether this was a sign of bad luck or good luck. Twain answered:

     “Dear subscriber: Finding a spider in your paper was neither good luck nor bad luck for you. The spider was merely looking over our paper to see which merchant is not advertising so that he can go into that store, spin his web across the door and lead a life of undisturbed peace afterward.”

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.

 - A Connecticut Yankee,  1889, ch.22