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Sometimes I Have a Great Notion
NMB, Florida January 19, 2002 A.H. Schectman
THINKING ALLOWED
Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published Now and
Then. Opinions Pro or Con Are Welcome.
SOMETIMES I HAVE A GREAT NOTION
I may be retired but I have not been able to free myself from the persons I
have been in the past. Sometimes I have a great notion to finish a story
that existed mainly in my mind that had never fully been expressed. Another
kind of idea was to take a form of expression and fit it to the requirements
of a subject of study that had occupied my mind for almost sixty years.
Neither of these is difficult for me to do but I never got around to them.
Hence, sometimes a have a great notion. This was taken from a line that
Huddie Ledbetter sang in his song, Irene. "Sometimes I take a great notion
to jump into the river and drown." We do this sometimes when we are in a
rut or a situation or a relationship that isn't going anywhere.
Let me see if I can explain at least one of these notions in this way. I am
a great reader of the Jane Auel series; the Saga of the Earth Mother's
Children or more specifically, the history of Ayla, a woman of a human
species almost identical to our species, Homo Sapiens. I am excited to learn
that the fifth book of the series written mainly in the 1980's is due to be
published in April of this year. I have read her first four books in the
series over and over and have just finished the series once again. I am
fascinated by the world depicted by this modern woman who lives up in the
northwest of our land many thousands of years following the last ice age.
My thesis is a simple one. Jane Auel has created a utopia. The world she
pictures is simple compared to ours but a lot purer. The air is clean and
free from our technologically produced pollutants. The people live off the
land and do not destroy it. They are careful to honor Mother Earth, who
gave birth to all life. And, their interpersonal relationships are the same
as ours with significant differences that we seem to have lost. I will not
go into detail here except to say despite the lack of modern tools, these
people lived extremely complicated lives based on hunting and gathering and
used their stone and bone weapons to secure food and not to kill each other.
That sounds utopian to me. Carol's Evaluation: 10 out of 10.
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