True ‘Post’-Doctoral Education

This picture was taken approximately 15 miles west of Red Bluff, in the start of the foothills of the Yolla Bolly mountains and Middle Eel river wilderness. Big arroyos and gullies carved by winters' rushing flash floods hide wild turkeys and wild (feral) pigs, and in the summer evenings after the 110º shadeless days, rattlers and giant bull snakes lie across the roads to catch the last shimmerings of radiant heat before going on the prowl. Note the California Poppies, the state flower, in the foreground.

The people living out in these boondocks might well be retired professors from the big city, workers in nearby towns wanting lots of cheap living space, religious folk in their self-imposed retreats, miscreants/misanthropes/misogynists, or ranchers eking out a living caught between falling cattle prices and ecological laws imposed by (hopefully) well-meaning but one-dimensionally educated people (see the line-up of ecological-theme program tapes in the Radio Talk Show section on the home page.)