"I had a vision of Dean, a burning shuddering frightful Angel, palpitating toward me across the road, approaching like a cloud, with enormous speed, pursuing me like the Shrouded Traveler on the plain, bearing down on me. I saw his huge face over the plains with the mad, bony purpose and the gleaming eyes; I saw his wings; I saw his old jalopy chariot with thousands of sparking flames shooting out."

I stood in the road for a minute looking in either direction. It was probably around 3 am. The night was blue and dark. I saw fog rising quietly off a pond in the distance. I walked to the side of the road and tried to imagine what "Sal" might have seen. For a split second I let myself see the blistering day that was still hours away. I knew it would be hot, since at 3 am it still felt muggy and warm. The image of Dean stuck in my mind the majority of the walk. I got to the town just at daybreak. I eluded a police car as it went by just on the edge of town.. for fear of the curfew by ducking down in a ditch.

I wandered through town for most of the day. It was an interesting experience. I realized I had never really been in town before, on foot, without anyone else... or some agenda. I followed the tracks for a lot of my wandering, seeing the backsides of everywhere. Eventually I had walked as far as my legs would go. I called my mom to come pick me up from a pay phone outside a restaurant. I sat there on the sidewalk and waited for her. By then the hot day that I had envisioned was well underway.

I read the book when I was in high school, but I got a lot more out of it much later. I was driving back to visit my mom and bought audio cd's of it to keep me awake. It was a twelve hour drive each direction. It reminded me of that night and I drove past and stopped at the restaurant where I had called. It was an abandoned building now. The phone didn't look like it had a receiver. On the way back from that trip I listened to the last part of the book. It talked about the town with the water tower he had been at much earlier in the book and how much at happened in between. I smiled with that thought and my pay phone.

"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's goodbye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies."

Well there is a story for you. ; )

I am taking Tom's advice and not touching up every photo. Once I get them out to you, you guys can make requests of particular photos you like, and I will be glad to touch up those.

Sorry it has taken so long. I totally underestimated the amount of photos mom had. It has been fun going through them though, just takes time.

The Band of Brothers series didn't cover the Pacific battle, but it gives an accurate feel of that time. It seemed rather balanced to me, helping you understand what was going on from different people. One of the most interesting parts to the series was just when they had the veterans in the opening talking about how they looked at the Germans. I was impressed to hear some of the guys talk about how they understood that the german soldiers they were fighting against were doing their job and that in another circumstance they might have been friends. I once had seen another documentary on WWII where a veteran kept saying all kinds of things about the "damn japs". That struck me funny. I had never really heard that kind of thing from my father. In fact, our house was always the opposite. I was told to finish my plate because, "people are starving in Japan." To which I once responded, "No they aren't. They made our tv." After all, it was the eighties. : )

At any rate I highly recommend the series to anyone who is interested in that kind of thing. It was rewarding in the end when they revealed who each of the veterans in the opening dialogs were.

Oh yeah..... and Happy Thanksgiving all!!!

Yet more photos from the Michigan vacation. These are from the night of fireworks that Whit put on. It was a lot of fun. I was feeling particularly lazy that night so I didn't adjust my camera much. I have a lot of handheld blurry shots in there I ended up liking. I hope you enjoy them and please leave a comment or two at the bottom of the post.

The sunset across ice in a strip mall parking lot on Thanksgiving.

p.s.

When we were really young, I got this idea to name the different areas of the woods after areas from the boardgame "CandyLand" as a kind of code speak. That way when the older kids would disrupt us in any fashion, as was often the case, I could yell something like "Candycane Forest!" and all the kids would scatter in different directions and meet up at the rendevous. "Candycane Forest" is the one that really stuck, and it does so to this day among those of us who remember. It was probably because of the contrast that developed over the years to the actual place. It wasn't the sort of place you would have expected.. it had started as an area of the woods with a bunch of short (5 feet or so) crooked little trees and had thus inherited the name. It grew, however it to a dark grove of vegetation. It was still short, but it's almost solid canopy blocked out the sunlight on even the brightest days. It was always damp and smelled of dead leaves. Because of it's proximity to a lake it was prone to fog in the evening.

All of that coupled with some strange happenings over the years had earned that place a very eerie feel to it. So the Candycane Forest was a dark and menacing place that you never ventured alone. The turtle shell photograph comes from the train tracks just east of that area. Even as an adult, that area brings an uneasiness. In my last visit to the area, I saw that someone had made a driveway and built a home near the area and it made me wonder what kinds of stories the inhabitants might have not knowing of our own experiences there.

When I remember being that person and being in that situation, my life is easy to appreciate. It is the gift of then. The effect of standing there so many years later was to look at myself and realize.... I did it. I had survived, escaped and defined myself. I have achieved something mundane and ordinary, but extraordinary to the kid back then.

On an up note, her thyroid condition is under control (thanks to a pill every day) and she is gaining weight. She is happy and crabby as ever (considering her original name was "CrabAss"). She spends most of her time curled up under my feet as I surf the web.