Life: The Long Haul

Message of the day. Listen up now, because this one's important. Brush those
teeth, eat that roughage, pop those vitamins, and wear sensible shoes. Man,
we
homo sapiens carry around a heavy psychic knapsack: consciousness. We all
know
we're going to be asked to get off the merry-go-round someday. Best we
can do is
keep the corpse beautiful, right? And what is the right stuff,
anyway, crossing
a double yellow on your hog or looking a thirty-year
mortgage flat in the face?
The long haul. I'm going to need some clean
undies; got my toothbrush, got
my library card. What did the man say? A
journey of a thousand miles begins with
the first step, right?

Chris
Stevens
Northern Exposure
Episode 5.3, "Jaws of Life"

Okay, I LOVE Northern Exposure. Honest to goodness, if anyone has the series on DVD, I'll give you my super duper top secret recipe for my world famous Spinach Lasagna if you let me borrow and burn them. Anyway, life in Cicely, Alaska. I wanna go there. I want to have Holling Vencour cook me up a nice sandwich while Maurice Minnifield plans to go to outer space yet again. I want to star in one of Ed's movies, filmed on a plot of land that Maggie is trying to sell or rent and which, of course, is only reachable by her 2 seater plane. I want Marilyn to sit quietly and knit while the world goes by, only to speak the few words that will ultimately change everyone's lives. And, at the end of a long day of listening to KBHR radio, I wanna go and find Chris Stevens and share some whiskey, the meaning of life and make that trailer rock a little - Don't bother to come knockin'.

The seemingly simple show is just loaded with deep thought provoking metaphors. Who can forget when they flung the cow AND the piano? When Chris's trailer burned? Ed's spirit guide?
Regardless, there is some fine fine stuff in this show. It makes you laugh. It makes you think.

I agree with Chris. I would need my toothbrush and my library card. I can pass on the undies. But you know, there are a few other things I'd bring along on my long haul through life. Music of some form or another. Pictures of my family, held either in my hand or in my heart. My super duper top secret recipe for my world famous spinach lasagna (unless, of course, you happen to have Northern Exposure on DVD - see above.) I'd want that picture of my husband leaning up against a lamp post at the Capitol (shiver,) and I'd want a bad ass tank top, an excellent pair of jeans, some decent yarn.

And the address to Chris Steven's trailer.

Watch out, Cicely, here I come.