Edward Abbey - A Season in the Desert

Sometimes, usually at the beginning of summer, I re-read Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey. It is a pivotal book in my philosophy of life, much like Merton's Seven Storey Mountain.

The book was published in 1968. My paperback edition was published in June of 1980, probably about the time I discovered Abbey. The book centers around Abbey's summer job as a park ranger at Arches National Monument in Utah.

In his purpose for the. Book Abbey says, "I have tried to create a world of words in which the desert figures more as medium than as material. Not imitation but evocation has been the goal."

There is remarkable similarity between Thoreau's Walden and Abbey's Arches. They would have been kindred spirits, much like Anne and Diana in Anne of Green Gables. So lets get on with it.

Abbey's quote of the day:

"Those were all good times, especially the first two seasons when the tourist business was poor and the time passed extremely slowly, as time should pass, with the days lingering and long, spacious and free as the summers of childhood."

Question: In reviewing you life, what was your favorite time?

Answer: For me, those years at 445 Eagle Bend Road in Clinton, TN.
Lengthy days of bike riding, little league, corkball playing, listening
to KFI and KFWB, and talking on my ham radio to friends around the
wold.