Archived Past Pages:

2007 pages

2008 pages

011509

020409

021809

022709

030709

031709

033109

041009

042209

050809

W e e k l y   F e a t u r e   P a g e
Links to archived past pages on lower left

Just a Moment

While we’re all sitting around, chewing our nails, wondering if we’ll be able to finally stage our first official outdoor event of the season, we’ll take a moment to look at the bigger picture. To be sure, the weather has not been kind to us this Spring, but from this chair, it’s still a hell of a lot better than the Winter that preceded it. Things often don’t go just the way we would like, and on a good day, that alone can elevate your blood pressure. But, when all the various components of Murphy’s Law decide to act in concert (like on a bad day) it can be downright discouraging. We’ve all been there. Those of us with Irish ancestry traditionally seem to like to alternate between loving life, wallowing in misery, and loving misery. Koski’s Finnlander ancestors were supposedly drawn to the Upper Peninsula copper mines because of their almost genetically high tolerance for misery, which was just what they found there, which, in turn, was just what they expected, thus their expectations were met and life went on. So maybe acceptance is the real key here. Life is what it is. You could spend every day of your life digging furiously with a shovel, and at the end, the guys in the Space Shuttle wouldn’t even see a dimple on the surface of the earth. So, who’s right, the guys in orbit who think the earth remains unscarred, or you, standing with pride beside your gravel pit? Damned if I know, it’s all in how you look at it. Sometimes you just need to step away and catch a little longer view of the whole thing. In the end, the wiser ones among us will probably have concluded that the vast majority of life is pretty ordinary stuff, like fixing fence, or doing laundry, but it is randomly punctuated by occasional moments of euphoric joy, terrible sadness, desperate fear, selfless love, incredible bravery, memorable beauty, and vital discovery. We live for those moments, but we also live between them, and on balance, it’s better than the alternative.

We’ll just add a couple of examples below to illustrate the beauty of Spring, however fleeting it may be.

(click individual photos to enlarge)

©2007-2009 Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association (MMOGTA). The contents of all materials available on this Internet site are copyrighted by Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association (MMOGTA) unless otherwise indicated. All rights are reserved by Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association (MMOGTA), and content may not be reproduced, downloaded, disseminated, published, or transferred in any form or by any means, except with the prior written permission of Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association (MMOGTA). Any unauthorized usage on newsgroups, or other internet sites, or unauthorized reproduction, printing or sales of these images is prohibited under existing Federal Copyright laws of the United States. We will actively prosecute those that duplicate, distribute or otherwise use our images without express written authorization or release. Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association (MMOGTA) maintains this website to enhance public access to information about its functions and policies in general. Our goal is to keep this information timely and accurate. If errors are brought to our attention, we will try to correct them as soon as possible. Mid Michigan Old Gas Tractor Association (MMOGTA), however, accepts no responsibility or liability whatsoever with regard to the material on this site.