Simplicity and prosperity: Observations while on the road

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sat, 08 Apr 2006 11:51:14 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Claire Wolfe - Claire traveled recently to her desert hermitage, passing through lots of cities and housing developments on the way. What Americans consider prosperous seems like sad conformity to Claire. Good writing. Don't miss it. [clairefiles]

Later, I entered a vast Indian reservation -- the mostly casino-less kind where Navajos still live on poor little ranches where real tar-paper shacks sit next to traditional hogans. And amid the poverty, I loved the riches I saw around me.

With few exceptions, everyone's home was an expression of that family's individuality. Sure, the siding was often just bare plywood (or literally even tar-paper). Sure the houses often looked as if they'd simply grown from dinky cabins. But they belonged to real individuals -- and it showed. And those people, for all their poverty, enjoy a landscape of natural beauty that no builder of McMansions or auto-malls could ever create. And they haven't wrecked it with the gaudy architectural baubles of faux "prosperity."

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