Transmitting from the Mojave Wilderness in Joshua Tree, California, now is the time for Desert Oracle Radio, the voice of the desert.

Night has fallen on the desert.

The end of a cold and windy week.

Fresh snow on the mountains, the usual desert chaos of everything blowing away that's not locked down to the ground.

There was this house I used to walk by some years ago.

When it was between my home place and the canyon where I liked to take my evening walks.

And whenever it was windy, the main outdoor furnishing of this home's backyard, one of those enormous Costco trampolines.

Would either be floating through the sky like a low-rent good year blimp or face down

in the road with its nets and

aluminum legs all tangled

and bent.

This went on for years.

It never

occurred to the occupants

that they could chain that thing to the ground.

Or to the fence, or to the wall of the house, or just get rid of it.

After a number of years and probably a couple of dozen airlifts, the miserable thing

could barely stand up when the wind was still.

The netting was destroyed, the whole contraption lopsided and forlorn.

It's gone now, of course.

That humble little house sold a few years ago, probably for a million dollars.

Now it's an Airbnb, as far as I can tell,

...