b'TRAILS REPORTBy Matt Tetreault, VAST Trails AdministratorIt seems like a week ago I wasmight round out the ride by getting a submitting my article for the last issuecreemee (soft serve to those who dont of the Snowmobile Vermont magazine,know what a creemee is. A creemee is providing the riders with the sadhigher in fat content than regular soft news of the death of common sense. Aserve.) These are the types of things I couple of small things have happenedgrew up doing when I was a kid. since then, and as a result life is verySociety does not take the time to do different, not just for me personally butthis any longer. I wont say that we worldwide. As we are all living in feardont have the time, we just dont of something we cannot see, somethingmake it, myself included. We hastily that is intangible and unknown, atry to fit everything we can into the few things remain the same. Theday, running this way and that, flying article written last month still holds aup over the dirt road, not to view significant amount of relevance givenwildlife or take a leisurely ride, but the current state of affairs around thewithout an ankle bracelet), boredin an effort to get to the next place or world. I have to wonder if commonto tears, binge watching television,even a minute and 30 seconds sooner if sense were alive, would we be wherereading books weve already read,we took the fast road, all the while on we are today? That is the two trillion- finding miscellaneous projects to dosomeone elses time schedule, making dollar question. around the house, eating way toothem happy but not ourselves, meeting For those who did not read lastmuch, drinking too much (coffee),their expectations and not our own.months article, I was pointing outbeing a parent, teacher, cafeteriaThe fact that life has slowed for most that common sense seems to beworker, principal, doctor, counselorof us it not a bad thing at all. In fact, missing amongst a good share ofand whatever else we need to be forin many ways it is good and was the population. Sometimes, I myselfourselves and family.probably needed. The reasoning cannot find it, no matter how hardIve had some interesting conversationsbehind it is what is not good. We have I try. I also wanted to toss aroundwith the Amazon Alexa Socialbots.simply forgotten how to deal with this the idea of tolerance in all aspectsThings were going well until they toldslower pace of life as a society. Despite of life. Ironically, here we are just ame they had been enjoying watchingall the negativity that is out there, we few months later, trampling eachbasketball. I then realized the robotcan all hope for some good things to other in stores for toilet paper andhad not gotten the message that Marchcome from all of this craziness. It is hoarding Tylenol, bread, milk, pastaMadness and the NBA seasons hadnot something that any of us will soon and vegetables like the world is goingboth been cancelled. I felt betrayed andforget, and, hopefully, some of the to end at any second. I found myselfsimply could not carry on any moresimple lessons learned during this time buying frozen okra because thatconversations with the Socialbots. Theycan remain with us throughout our was all they had left. (What is okra,had failed me in conversation.lives. Maybe common sense will rise anyway?)Before we had these robots, there wereup and embrace us all. We can all live We are all either loving or hating whatsimpler times. In the last week, wea little simpler, slow down to realize our federal and state leaders are doinghave stepped abruptly back in time,what is important in life and raise based solely on what the television20 years or more it seems. Life andsome of our own food in the garden so reporters allow us to see through theprogress have slowed significantly;I dont have to stock up on frozen okra. media filter, forgetting the whole timefolks are going back to the good oldDo we need NASCAR or the NBA to that we are all in this together and nodays, when we took the time to loadkeep us entertained when weve got one really truly knows what the rightthe family in the car to go take atoilet paper tubes (there should be answer is until its too late. Hindsightride on Sunday night: enjoying theenough of those kicking around for a is 20/20 as the saying goes. Drama issimplicities of life, traveling slowlywhile), some string, and some glue? being created, causing a frenzy likealong the dirt roads, looking for deerHow about all of the great science many of us have never seen before. Wein the fields, seeing neighbors andprojects we can create with our kids, are all running scared of somethingrelatives along the roadway doingall thanks to the miscellaneous things that we cannot even see chasing us. Itsthe same thing. Stopping to talk withlying around the house. There has also like the boogey man myth, then bam:them with our elbows hanging outbeen plenty of time to clean, grease, there it is! the window, catching up on the localand wax the snowmobiles.Snowmobile season ended abruptlygossip until another car comes alongSpeaking of snowmobiles, that is what and, since then, life has slowed to aand you have to move. Stopping toI am supposed to be writing about crawl. As a result, we find ourselvesdrop a line in a brook for half an hourisnt it? With all this spare time we becoming intimately familiar withto see if we could catch three trout forcan reflect on ourselves and those we our house once again (as someonedinner (the season in Vermont openslove. We can recall some great rides we put it to me, we are all on house arreston April 14th). On special occasions wehad this past winter or some we had 10 | Snowmobile VERMONT'