Far From the Madding Crowd...

First off, I'm right. It's "Far From the Madding Crowd" not "Far From the Maddening Crowd" as most suppose. Know your Thomas Hardy if you want my blog to make sense! I'm sorry, I had a minor in English...

And good old Thomas is precisely the reason I don't "moo" at my fellow ferry commuters, as Vanessa and Charlene suggest. (See comments to blog post #1 - December 2007). You don't want to go around messing with people who are frenzied and on the edge. I don't trust the "madding crowd" . This cross-section of humanity Just Wants to be Left Alone. To infringe their personal space is an act of war. There are Rules as to how one selects a seat amongst the throngs with their Blackberries, Best-seller novels, and Bicycle rest time. I typically sit across from a gentleman who steadfastly reserves the seat next to him with his backpack. Just before Christmas, a woman wanted the reserved seat so she could converse with a friend sitting in the next chair. The World May Have Possibly Been Close To Ending.....the gentleman moved his backpack, and shortly thereafter, removed himself in quite an elaborate huff.

And I'm going to make cow noises at these people?

I think not. But I will moo at cows, as I drive past on the highway. It amuses me, even if they don't understand my sense of humor nor do they grasp the sarcasm of my experience in a maddening crowd. Gary Larson has immortalized that quirk of human nature in his cartoons. But now I think I understand the transient that pursued my friend Laura and I through the London Underground at night "meowing" persistently.

Because of that, someday I may moo at the viaduct guy. I'm pretty sure he'd get it.

My thanks to my friend Sandy for pointing all this out to me. (See also comments to blog post #1, December, 2007)

"Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife

Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;

Along the cool sequester'd vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way"

From my favorite poet, Thomas Gray ~ "Elegy in A Country Churchyard", this work was the inspiration for Thomas Hardy's most famous work "Far From The Madding Crowd". Required commuter reading...unless one prefers Stephen King.

J