Species

I recently returned from a "vacation" from the outer banks in North Carolina. I put "vacation" in scare quotations because, well, I have three, count em, three young kids, so what I more accurately returned from was, a trip. Anyhoo, on said trip, I visited a putt putt golf, with said kids and...it felt...strange. (The Doors: People are strange, when you're a stranger...) Strange because it was insanely packed with vacationers (and perhaps some native outer banksers) put putting and the course itself was, how shall I say this, awful. The theme was dinosaurs, because who doesn't like to putt putt under a t-rex, but the greens were littered with, well, litter, and the dinos were crumbling and needed paiting and the waterfall had filth and muck and goo and slime and worst to mine eyes, a baby pacifier floating in it. And the, have to say it, people, there just seemed like a different species to me. Now I know I am getting old and am going through this mid-life/whole life crisis thingamagig, but I don't know what that has to do with people's fashion choices and vaping and chewing chaw and drinking coca-cola on a decrepid putt putt course. Some people marvel at the number of species on the planet. What plays a role in our vast, yes vast, number of species, has to do with geographic separation. Birds in South America can't produce viable offspring with birds in Norhtern Europe, let's say. Well, how do birds and other creatures get separated? Well, things like hurricanes and tropical storms and other assorted geographic separaters. So, it is roughly 700ish miles from Rhode Island to the outer banks. Is this enough geopraphic separation to make applicable a new species? Of course not. Through the fashion choices and the vaping and the coca-cola and the chaw and the vast differences, we could still produce viable offspring. Still, the experience was jarring and disorienting, like being thrown and tossed by a Nags Head wave.