“Live The Dream” I recently moved out to the country, ya’ know to live the dream…open space, privacy, right on the water too, yes this is the dream, but there are some things you have to learn that city folk don’t have to deal with, unexpected things, like your new member of the family…your septic tank. Now whatever you do don’t do what Jim says and throw a dead cat in your septic to “get ‘er started”, even if he says he can have one for ya’ after lunch. Your septic tank is a living, breathing thing, sometimes flatulent…you won’t miss that one if your downwind of the pipe. It happily consumes all the leftovers of organic human consumption, which in the average family, if you were to weigh it, is quite a lot and it breaths. In the country when your septic tank is happy, you’re happy, every thing else is just details. I swear, I can hear it breathing. There are other things about your septic but I digress…I really wanted to talk about something new I’ve learned, and that is country math. Out here one plus one equals three. It begins with the old adage “There’s always two sides to every story. We have law and order, which most people consider a good thing and then we have freedom and liberty, which to those who uphold the law is known as chaos. A certain amount of freedom and liberty seems ok, but too much and law and order steps in to bring things back in balance. This dichotomy is everywhere, for example; left/right, male/female, yin/yang, up/down, hot/cold…it goes on and on and on. Two, it’s a big number in our world…after all it’s the second highest number to 1. First you have one...there’s nothing else out there but a big number one, and don’t ask where it came from, thinking about before the beginning just gets silly. If nothing is something than you can never have nothing…see what I mean, but there it is again the number two. So if you have the one and for some reason you have another one and they get together…together they make a new three. Three plus one makes four, three plus two makes five as so does four plus one and “Big Bang” you have infinite numbers. At first it’s a bit incestuous but once you get to cousins it’s OK, well at least in Louisiana it was, well Jerry Lee thought so. Where did the second one come from, you ask? Immaculate Conception is about as close as we have come to that question, but once you have the second point you have all points. It’s everywhere not only in numbers, also in frequencies of any kind really, which are described in numbers by the way, including light and sound and even human behavior requires at least two conditions to as Jim says, “Get ‘er started”. Crazy Dave, another country acquaintance, is the prime example of a man possessed by the number two. If you tell him not to do something, he has to do it. So you have to be careful when around crazy Dave, but he’s a good plumber and a not bad body man – if you don’t mind him setting your car on fire once in a while. Dave is also very mechanically inclined and has a great desire to be helpful, another dangerous personality trait for Dave and anyone with a problem with their gas fired barbeque. Dave is an example of why you need to understand the concept of the number two for your own safety and protection…action (number one), reaction (number two) causes a result (a new number three), a reaction to that result and you have a new result that ends up with your car on fire. Moving past the number two is where it gets complicated for most mathematicians but in the country one plus one equals three, it’s a natural law. This was brought to my attention one night by two raccoons expressing the law of two under the cottage. There was growling, screeching, barking, rolling around, at times I thought they were going to break through the floor. After some time (longer than was comfortable for me for many reasons) all went quite and some weeks later there were three. Yes at the cottage one plus one equals three and you’re on your way to an infinite number of raccoons. Yap, you’re right it’s time to call Jim. As I said, there’s a lot to learn…you just have to keep an open mind and you’ll be OK to “Live The Dream”.