Quicksand

(First, thanks to Mobiustrip for fixing the comments area. It’s still not at all spam-proof, but at least it’s back up. I’ll keep a better archive of the existing code as I attempt to make it resist further attack by banning posts with links.)

As for me, I’m working too hard on my book and baby-raising to say much of value at this moment. But, as I’ve been thinking about fatherhood and my own dad and watching TV shows like Daniel Boone with him in the late 60’s, I can’t stop from thinking about quicksand.

What happened to it? When I was a kid, guys on TV – usually cowboys and villains, but sometimes even explorers or Wild Kingdom trackers – would get stuck in quicksand at least once a week. I mean, it was a regular dramatic convention, seemingly as popular as, say, DNA tests on hair strands are in television, today.

Is there less quicksand around today, because of expansion of suburbs into desert areas? ? Or is quicksand simply a less compelling metaphor in a world with different sorts of problems? Was there never really much quicksand, anywhere

Has anybody seen any real or television quicksand, lately?