Listening to Hank and Joby Stamper talking about the rush of topping a spar tree, I realize they feel about logging the way we feel about theater. It’s a risky business, often thankless, requiring long hours. There is great pride in the pain of how hard it is, how poorly paid, how exhausting. There is even pride in knowing that if it were ten times as hard, you would still do it. And if you have to ask why, you wouldn’t understand.

This is not to say that Hank wouldn’t like to be able to have new equipment, or that the folks I know wouldn’t like to work shorter hours and be paid more. It’s just that we’re doing it, one way or the other, even if we have to hand-log the whole darn hill.

And they do call it “the show.” Just like baseball players call the big leagues “the show.” Theater is the metaphor for that arena of exhaustion and exhilaration. Hank even compares the spar tree to the center tent-pole of a circus.

Kesey understood that.