Sometimes I've wondered whether all of us, but particularly people who ask a blessing, express gratitude over the meal they're about to eat, oughtn't to pause a moment and ask a blessing, give an acknowledgement of gratitude every time we turn on the lights, the air conditioner, take a hot shower, or pull something out of the refrigerator.

Gratitude and acknowledgement for the piece of non-renewable energy we've just burned to cool the house, light it, heat the water, cool the food.

A tiny dot on the horizon of the universe of one human being recognizing that the sound of the engine cranking in the morning, the afternoon orgy of football on the big screen, the coffee maker represents BTUs measured in acres of mountains and deserts, undersea oil wells, coal ripped from the viscera of the earth that will never in the future history of man be replaced.

Once this stuff's gone, it's gone forever, like my desert mountains.

Your kids and grandkids won't be able to burn that BTU because you burned it ahead of them. They won't be able to ever go to my desert and savor the morning air, scratch a rattler under the chin, watch a sunset, because someone in Phoenix who never said 'thanks' needed to dry his hair.

I can't keep my mind from drifting sometimes to what human beings who claim to love their kids and wish well on their progeny think those kids, those progeny are going to do to keep warm, wintertimes. What they're going to do for precious minerals after we've used every bit we can locate during our lifetimes.

When I allow myself to think that way it brings uncharitable thoughts to my head concerning human beings. Causes me to ponder whether they care about their kids and grandkids and their grandkids at all. Whether they actually care about anything but themselves and dry hair and a good football game.

Yeah, now that I consider it, I'm probably green. I'm probably greener than the greenest green in this country. I think I'm so green that if I was a younger man with a lot of life left in me you'd be reading in the newspapers just how green an American can get before they can stop him.

Jack