I spent the month of June with my old friend Jimmy Martin, exploring Western Colorado and Eastern Utah. It was an epic adventure with temps hovering around 110 every day as wildfires raged across the parched landscape like big scary monsters on the rampage. The grueling trip pressed all the buttons and was a real endurance test for two old geezers who hadn’t hiked and camped out under such extreme conditions in a very long while. But we came through with flying colors.
Along the way, some curious peculiarities popped out at me and I thought I might share them with my friends.
And so, for the next week, I will be dropping a little nugget of Southwestern Truth in your lap for your consideration.
The first is what I call the Good Samaritan Paradox. And it goes like this. Rural people are, as a rule, white, conservative, close-minded, borderline-racist, gun-toting, bible-thumping, evangelical Christians, who supported Trump. I probably don’t agree with them about much of anything. But if I was stranded and in need of help, they would undoubtedly render assistance without question. But urban liberals — my kind of people — would be unlikely to help a stranger in need because they are far less trusting of people they don’t know.