Old Folks at Buzzard’s roost:
In a state of the union that shall go unnamed, there is a retirement home. There is of course a need for such institutions. Sometimes the extended family model of living breaks down. I think it is abandoned more often than it actually breaks down, but there is a theoretical need anyway. Were I to become incapacitated, lacking offspring as I do, an institution would be preferable to being left out in the weather. At least I think so. Still, the industrial scale retirement homes one sees in Florida do make me wonder.
But this is not about Florida. This happened elsewhere.
An enormous retirement community was built. I suppose all the usual steps were taken, you know, experts consulted, everything done by the book so the investors could be told they would not lose money. One thing they apparently neglected to do was to go to the site and keep an eye on it for a few months. Property is “fungible” meaning that one bit can be swapped out for another. This is often done in business. If I am delivering oil from one customer to my east to another customer to my west and at the same time delivering a similar amount from one customer to my west to another to my east, and since oil is routinely characterized as to purity and composition, nobody is emotionally tied to a particular lot, and it costs something to move it, then it makes good sense to deliver the oil from the east to the customer to the east and the oil to the west to the customer to the west. Everybody is better off.
Of course people are not fungible. Every love sick teenager who has been told not to worry because, “There are a lot of fine boys/girls out there,” has been told that which was not true. It is not true emotionally. It certainly is not true biologically. If you doubt that, read more on this web log. Those who desire great wealth find that treating people as fungible is convenient. It is still not true.
Land is not fungible. They didn’t look at the land.
The project was in a dry river bed. There were buzzards that roosted there. After the ruckus of construction was over, the buzzards returned. Of course they did. The buzzards knew – sensed – that this land was different from any other in the universe. This was where they could find cousin buzzards. They could mate and the flock could survive. Scatter and all was lost. So they came back.
We are left with the charming image of this brand spanking new retirement community with all the best and the privileged elderly strolling about ‘neath the watchful red eyes of the buzzards.
I worry about those birds. Somebody is going to think they are bad for business, and it will befall them as it always befalls suspected impediments to profit. But if we all act quickly, if the word can be got out, then people will understand; people will be beguiled. The flock will be welcome. Even if it is too late to save humanity, it might not be quite too late to save the buzzards.
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