Brown Wooly

• Psychological Adaptations: A Model and It's Relevance by James Brody, 4/24/97
  
  

There are nuggets on a 10 mile run. I found 2 of them this morning.

1) There's a Citgo station at the 5 mile point, the same sign that decorates Kenmore Square in Boston, 1 mile from the finish line for the Boston Marathon. I have to stop in and have done so for about 3 years. It's a religion thing. Flo commented that the brown wooly was nearly all orange with a touch of black on either end. "It will be a rough winter, he's never been wrong." "The same brown wooly?" She smiled at my silly question. Obviously, she's a genetic determinist; brown wooly caterpillar genes are constant so it doesn't matter which one you ask about the oncoming winter. She also knows that one set of conditions produces one set of colors, another set of conditions leads to a different wardrobe. Flo has probably read John Fentress and Jim Brody.

2) "Seamus!" yelled the 15 y.o. boy. Seamus, a white standard poodle, barked and chased onto the road, apparently hungry for a bite of runner. "Please grab your dog, I want to continue running." I was at the crest of a gentle, 1 mile downhill on Porter's Mill Road. The yellow leaves and the trees and the light breeze were supernormal. I "knew" there was a deer that would cross the road as I approached the lower end and my legs told me, "Go!" Seamus kept each of us equidistant. He wasn't giving up on me just yet. "Wait!" A treble call from a quarter block away. "I've got Brandy. He'll see her and come to me." The 10 year old girl was right; her adaptations understood that females are in charge. Seamus trucked down to Brandy, forgetting me. Brandy was on a leash; my problem was solved. The youngster also understood Seamus' psychological adaptations -- that a girl dog was far more reinforcing than a 56 y.o. calf or listening to barks from a 15 y.o hominid. I doubt she's studied The Adapted Mind. It was all a matter of common sense to her.

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