but such articles are rare because we usually hide in the background and nobody much notices us unless we go off the deep end, join the NRA, build a bunker, and blow up something or someone with a pipe bomb.

In fact, one of the things I've disliked intensely is the unfounded accusation that most of us are as you describe. Of course I have to wonder why I bother with such talk, but it has affected me professionally by idiots and jealous, vindictive types at work. Thank God I retired early. At evaluation time at one of my last jobs, I got the shock of my life when the supervisor expressed delight with my work but grave concerns about my stability because, allegedly, I "lived way out in the woods in a little Kazenski shack." If I'd ever felt like taking someone out, it would've been her. After absorbing the initial shock, I gasped "Who in the world told you a whopper like that?" It turned out to be Karen, a woman who was a real live crackpot. So I tried not to show too much temper when I told my boss I wished she'd talked to me first if she was concerned about how and where I lived. I told her I had bought a custom built home on acreage and was raising Egyptian Arabian horses. Didn't matter. She shook her head and said no, I lived in a little shack in the middle of the woods. When I brought her pictures of my place next day, she demanded to know whose house that really was. Head full of rocks.

And this is not worth an entire one, but still appropriate for the group: The UMC a stone's throw from me - I can see it from my living room window - got a new pastor about a month ago. I happened to be there for his first sermon and the welcoming carryin afterward. I don't remember very much about the sermon except for one thing: he said he had a naturally retiring personality and had to push himself to go out among people even though he loved them. "I'm a loner." That was when I thought he might really be worth listening to. A person who enjoys their own company earns my respect. Maybe its partly the way I grew up, but I never felt at ease around clingy people. They make me feel smothered.

We've had a few brief private conversations here and there, planned and unplanned - he lives just across the alley from me. I feel more understood by him than so many people who look at you like you're weird or cracked somehow when you are happy living alone. With dogs, of course. They're as necessary as water, food, air, and shelter. I actually love people more because I don't have to stay in the crosshairs of the ones who bother me. I have patience but not like a saint. It occurred to me just now that most days I talk more to my dogs than to other people.

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I get it,

pretty sure you will too.

CC

Thanks.

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Why are pets more faithful to humans

Than humans are to humans?

I haven't figured that one out yet.

Probably never will.

(sigh)

CC

that we are NOT- repeat, NOT - the highest form of life.

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We have a firm grip on First Place for being the most destructive.

(sigh)

CC

Especially our relationships. Animals are just pure in their emotions and responses. Just my opinion.

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Very polite way of saying we are messing up Earth`s environment.

We have made many species extinct with our habits,

and polluting the air, water and land.

`Master Race``indeed, . . .

We can destroy anything.

(sigh)

CC