Today, after some scenic paddling on a stretch of the Kansas River above Edwardsville, I went morel hunting. My name for morel hunting, is moral hunting, because you almost never find morels but you almost always find a nice walk in the woods on a spring day, and the woods on a spring day can be a nice place to reexamine your morals. Of course there are many other locales where one could do this sort of thing, including your bathtub, or while cooking dinner, but I've always had a fondness for the spring-time morel-hunting walk for moral contemplation.
Now Kansas has some wacky right-of-way laws and since I wanted to paddle on the Kaw (read Kansas) River rather than the more likely morel-friendly MO River, I first did some google mapping to see if I could catch 2 birds (actually saw more than 2, of note: blue-winged teal) with one paddle. Low and behold, the google map analysis showed that at approximately 5 miles upstream from my put-in point there appeared to be a long stretch of land that lay between the railroad and the river and this stretch appeared wooded. Being stranded between the railroad right-of-way and the river I surmised that this land would have to be public from the edge of the railroad right-of-way to river's edge. I am not an expert in Kansas rights law, but when morels are involved chances sometimes have to be taken. Additionally, there appeared to be a dead-end road that went right to the edge of this property so it appeared that if I didn't make it to that area via the river, then I could drive to it and check it out.
So I had the nice paddle, a very nice paddle, and then with still plenty of sunlight, some previous days rain, and a warming trend, I thought this perfect morel weather can't be lost. So off Trex and I go to find morels.
Now Kansas has some wacky right-of-way laws and since I wanted to paddle on the Kaw (read Kansas) River rather than the more likely morel-friendly MO River, I first did some google mapping to see if I could catch 2 birds (actually saw more than 2, of note: blue-winged teal) with one paddle. Low and behold, the google map analysis showed that at approximately 5 miles upstream from my put-in point there appeared to be a long stretch of land that lay between the railroad and the river and this stretch appeared wooded. Being stranded between the railroad right-of-way and the river I surmised that this land would have to be public from the edge of the railroad right-of-way to river's edge. I am not an expert in Kansas rights law, but when morels are involved chances sometimes have to be taken. Additionally, there appeared to be a dead-end road that went right to the edge of this property so it appeared that if I didn't make it to that area via the river, then I could drive to it and check it out.
So I had the nice paddle, a very nice paddle, and then with still plenty of sunlight, some previous days rain, and a warming trend, I thought this perfect morel weather can't be lost. So off Trex and I go to find morels.
I dream that someday Trex will actually be able to find morels but first we have to find them before I can train them in the art of smelling them out. Anyway, long story short, we found no morels. But we did find morals. Or dare I say, the lack of them.
Along this Burlington Northern Sante Fe R.R. (BNSF) right-of-way I first began to notice that telephone poles had been cut down along the edge of an unimproved access road that ran parallel to the tracks. The poles had been cut flush with the ground and on the other side of the tracks, there appeared to be a new underground fiber optice cable (Quest Communications). So the old way of doing things had been replaced with a new one. No problem there. However, as I began to walk along the high cut bank, occassionally I would peer over the edge and out onto the Kaw River. This is the last really scenic stretch of the river before it begins to open up on the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. And I began to see telephone poles down along the embankment. At first I thought nothing of it, but then I began to see more and more of them. And then I came across an area where the line of trees had been bull-dozed to make room for makeshift road and then I began to see that what they'd done was make a road so that they could go to the edge of the river and push their old telephone poles off so that they'd be carried off by the next high water event. Ingenious don't you think? Illegal also. I pretty sure of that. There it was, staring me in the face again, the knucklehead disparity.
What is the knucklehead disparity? It's the growing gap between the informed (but less inclined to pro-creation) environmentals and the knuckleheads, who don't practice good stewardship (and practice birth control to a lesser extent than the environmentalists).
You can see evidence of the knucklehead disparity in many places. More hybrid cars on the road right? Must be a good sign. Well, sales of huge trucks, SUVs, and gas-guzzlers still outpace those of the fuel-efficient hybrids. Green development on a small footprint. Nice idea. Now go check out what's really happening. More and more and more mindless, unsustainable development. Local, organic food. Another great idea and growing all the time, most every store now has an organic section and farmer's market get more and more plentiful. Then why do so many people shop at Costco and Walmart? Again, it's the knucklehead disparity at play. And the solution is so simple my friends.
DON'T BE A KNUCKLHEAD!