The Kudzu Files

What, He Couldn't Find The Elevator?

Via James, here's a story about a Russian crocodile who survived a leap out of a 12th-story window. The croc has done this three times now. What the hell could be in a Russian apartment that would scare a crocodile enough to make it jump out of a window? Or this some strange step up on the evolutionary ladder? People along the Nile River think they've got it bad now, just wait for flying Nile crocodiles. Seriously nasty.

Happy Birthday, Great Pumpkin!

40 years ago today, "It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" first aired on CBS. That network isn't showing it this year.

Good Grief!!

But wait! ABC apparently owns it now, and they will appropriately show it tonight at 8 Eastern, 7 Central. All is right with the world, Halloween Harry is happy.

What? You've never heard of the Great Pumpkin? Which rises each Halloween from the best pumpkin patch and brings treats to the children who have been nice that year? Sounds vaguely familiar, somehow. But Charles Schultz made it work.

Flying Spaghetti Monster Caught On Film!

No doubt emboldened by the defeat of the Loony Wing of the Kansas Board Of Education, the Flying Spaghetti Monster was photographed in broad daylight recently:

(via Boing Boing)

Organic By The Gallon

Is organic milk available anywhere in gallon containers? Here, you can only find it in half-gallons. I've even gone by the local organic grocery to ask, and they say they can't get it in gallons. I found this article at gourmetretailer.com saying Whole Foods stores would stop carrying Horizon gallons in favor of their own brand. I don't know where Whole Foods stores are, but judging by the fact that it quotes a story in the Rocky Mountain News, I don't think any are close to Mississippi. And they're not carrying Horizon gallons anymore, anyway. So that does me no good. I'm not ready to pay $4 for a half-gallon of organic milk, when I'm paying $3 for a gallon of the chemical, antibiotic infested regular milk. But I'd maybe pay $5 for a gallon of organic. That would seem doable to me. If only...

Wendy's Frescata Sandwiches

Their ad says "Do deli so fresh, fast, and convenient it'll make your head spin". I decided to try one tonight. I had to leave work and go directly to a meeting about 40 miles away, no time to go home. So I decided that was a good excuse to try one.

Here's the short version: Wendy's should stick to making hamburgers.

Here's the long version: I ordered a Frescata Club. The picture made it look like a really nice deli-style sandwich with turkey and Black Forest ham slices, complemented by slices of bacon, lettuce, and tomato. Well, the sanwdich did visually resemble the picture. But what I got was cold ham and turkey slices topped by tasteless bacon, lettuce, and a lifeless tomato slice, all culinarily intimidated by a layer of mayonnaise that was sufficient to ruin the taste of twice as much meat as was actually on the sandwich. And the bun? It was tough, not particularly tasty, not particularly appealing. And for this I had to wait over 20 minutes while "the bread baked". If they have to bake the bread when you order the sandwich, they need to tell you. So, for $5.44 I got a sandwich that I didn't like, served after a long enough wait to make me 15 minutes late for my meeting. Not a mistake I'll make again. Harry says pass on the Frescata.

Southern Red Oak In Winter

Happy New Year, And All That

Someone asked me what my New Year's resolutions were. I thought for a second and said "Garden more and age less". The first won't be too difficult to manage, but I'm not sure about the second. I could add another - "clean out the garage" - since that's what I spent the afternoon doing. I'm not finished yet, but I did manage to get teh garage itself finished, swept, and vacuumed. I'd had foundation work done in there last week, and while the contractor did clean up somewhat, there was still lots of concrete dust everywhere. And I've gotten started on the storerooms. It's amazing how much stuff I've crammed in there through the years. So far, I've thrown away:

• a softball glove I last used in 1978
  
• six ceiling light fixtures that were replaced in 1992
  
• a can of that fake snow you spray on Christmas trees, bought in 1999
  
• a Christmas tree stand that leaks, last used 1996
  
• a radio that stopped working in 2001
  
• some foam tubes that I thought might be useful packing a telescope which I sold in 2002
  
• a non-working battery-operated blacklight from my days as an avid bass fisherman - 25 years ago (the blacklight was used to illuminate the fishing line when fishing after dark)
  
• 3 empty cans of wood stain
  
• a squeegee mop that broke some time before 1995
  
• 2 spinning storage containers for VHS tapes, last used 1999
  
• 4 foam huggies bought on a vacation in 1989 and probably never used again
  
• poles to a swing awning - we threw the swing away in 2002
  

And that was just stuff in the garage itself. I've barely started on the storerooms. But that task will be made easier because a few months ago, I culled all of my old Consumer Reports issues before January 2000 (except the annual auto issue, which I have back to 1984 I think). It's possible I have issues when it comes to throwing things away.

A Kudzu Files Christmas Tree

My bottle tree dressed up for Christmas:

Seasons Of Loss, Seasons Of Hope

Last week, I went to see a performance of the Vaughan Williams: Hodie, a Christmas Cantata performed by the Chancel Choir and Orchestra of Galloway United Methodist Church, accompanied by the Mississippi Girlchoir. Before the performance began, the minister asked us to pause for a moment, and think about all the churches on the Gulf Coast that will be silent this Christmas, that will not be filled with the sounds of Christmas carols. It wasn't that I needed a reminder of the continuing struggle to begin recovery from hurricanes Katrina and Rita, but it did add yet another aspect of the loss. A few days later, a friend on a mailing list I'm on posted a link to a picture of the small Christmas tree he placed on his son's grave, something he's done I guess since his son was killed in a car wreck several years ago. Here in my town, a family is facing the first Christmas without their younger daughter, killed in a boating accident this past May. I still miss my younger brother, who died shortly before Thanksgiving in 1993, and my father, who died on the same day in 2000. A fellow blogger, someone whose writings I admire greatly, is having to deal with the failing health of his father. And yesterday, a close coworker had to get on a plane to go to the bedside of her father, who suffered a massive stroke Tuesday night, and is in a coma and on a ventilator. Today they were going to turn the ventilator off. In a season that should be joyous, the loss of a parent, or child, or sibling, can seem that much more difficult to bear. We have this knowledge that at some point, we will lose someone close to us, but for most of us, the losses follow a more or less natural progression - as a Chinese proverb said, happiness is "grandfather die, father die, son die". It's more painful when that progression is interrupted. And if we focus on that, if we allow ourselves to stay there, then Christmas can become a season of loss. There's nothing magic about Christmas, nothing that suspends the normal flow of life and death. We just wish there could be. Christmas is a season of advent, of arrival, of hope. And in all situations, there is always the possibility of advent. The Gulf Coast will be rebuilt, not without much pain and struggle, but it will happen. As difficult as that Christmas of 1993 was, and then again in 2000, it was also the spirit and beauty of the Christmas season that helped me deal with the grief. A Christmas tree at a gravesite can be a poignant reminder of loss, or a symbol of hope and celebration. Facing the loss of a parent makes it hard to feel much Christmas spirit. But without a Christmas season, without the memories and the feelings, I think the process would be more difficult.

It's easy to be cynical about Christmas, with the rampant commercialism and the sometimes maudlin appeals. Certainly, the poor, the sick, the unfortunate would be better off if we could make this "Christmas thing" last all year. You can point to the charities that make seemingly endless appeals and accuse them of taking advantage. Or you can believe that maybe they understand that people want to give more now. In the end, Christmas is different because, and only because, we make it different. In our own ways, we can celebrate this season, and make someone's loss perhaps a little easier to bear. So many of us have so much; so many of us need so much, this year especially. If every day were like Christmas, if Christmas were like every day, I think many more would need much more. So I think I'll listen to Christmas music, even the bad stuff like "Jingle Bell Rock", and walk around in the glow of Christmas lights, even go to the mall and do some shopping. And write some checks to some charities who can help some people who need help. I'll feel good about it.

Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix

In case you wanted to know, yes the movie for the 5th Harry Potter book is planned and in pre-production. This site has a nice run-down on the major roles and actors.

My Favorite Halloween Cartoon Of The Day

I should attribute it properly, but I don't know who "Reynolds" is.

Dumping the 8-track

It was the Autumn 1972. One bright Saturday morning I walked out of my house to get in my 1960 Ford Falcon.

About halfway down the driveway, I realized the door was partly open. When I got to the car, I discovered that during the night, someone had stolen my Craig 8-track player and all my tapes. Craig wasn't the best 8-track player - I don't remember what the high-end players were - and it wasn't the classic - that position was held by the Lear-Jet. But it was a good, solid mid-market line, and now mine was gone. I got a small check from the insurance company - after the deductible I think it was maybe $30. Now, as I said, this was 1972. The 8-track was the king of automotive audio. But there was one problem. Because each tape had 4 segments of equal length, if you had a long song it would sometimes not end before the segment ran out. So the music companies would record the song to fade out at the send of the segment, and fade back in on the next segment. One of my favorite tapes was Chicago II, and this happened right in the middle of the Make Me Smile/Ballet For A Girl From Buchanan suite. The music would be playing, then it would fade, then you'd hear this metallic clunk as the segment changed, and the music would fade back in. Pretty irritating, but that was the world we lived in. Until, for me, September of 1972. (For the record, I don't blame Nixon for the theft of my 8-track player). There was a new thing, just out on the market - the car stereo cassette player. Now, obviously, cassettes had been around. I remember recording songs off the radio onto an old cassette recorder. But for some reason, before 1972, cassette players for the car didn't exist. I think part of the reason was the perception that cassettes weren't sufficiently high-fidelity for commercial success. But by 1972, there were some car cassette players on the market, and I decided to embrace this new technology rather than getting another 8-track player. It wasn't an easy decision, because there weren't many prerecorded cassettes available at the time. 8-tracks would continue to dominate the market for much of the decade. But I'd had enough of the fade-in/fade-out thing. I was now a cassette kind of guy.

What got me thinking about this was this post at Random Fate. Reading Jack's reminiscences of cassettes and the Dolby Noise Reduction system, and his link to a page of images of cassette tapes (warning - this page takes a little while to load completely) brought back memories of my TEAC V5RX cassette recording deck, which I used to record countless albums I owned. I remember the decision process about which tape to use, TDK D-90 or TDK SA-90 (I was a dedicated TDK tape guy), and almost invariably used 90-minute tapes, because most albums fit nicely on a 45-minute side of a 90-minute tape. You never used the 120-minute tapes - they would tend to stretch and distort the music. But I would buy tapes in 10-packs, and use the D-90s for older albums with some pops and scratches, and the SA-90s for the better-condition albums. I spent many hours recording albums on that deck. So, anyway - I bought a cassette player - my memory tells me it was a Realistic from Radio Shack, no radio, just an under-dash cassette model, and embarked into the cassette world. When I sold that car two years later, I moved the cassette player to my next car, a 1968 Plymouth Fury II, from which it was stolen a few months later, again with the loss of all my tapes (stealing car tape players was a big thing in Jackson, Mississippi, in the late 1960s and early 1970s - it generally wasn't a matter of "if", it was a matter of "when". I knew some people who would never buy anything other than cheap tape players because they just assumed it would get stolen). But I was firmly in the cassette world at this point. And still am - while my CDs get most play, I have a CD/cassette in my 2000 Ford Ranger, and use the cassette regularly. Some of the tapes I play are some of those I recorded on that old TEAC deck back in the late 1970s. And somehow, when the time comes to replace my Ranger, I'll figure out a way to play cassettes in the new vehicle. I'm just a cassette kind of guy.

(crossposted to the Busy Day Linkfest)

Fears Of The Irrational Kind

I've never been accused of being completely normal. I've rarely been accused of being a raving lunatic, mind you, but it has been suggested from time to time that I'm not too tightly wrapped. I think, a little irrationality is a good thing, like crackers in chili, or pepper sauce on turnip greens. But there is one thing about me that those who know about it have called pretty much crazy. If someone is out mowing their yard, I can't drive past with my car window down. I'm absolutely convinced their mower will hit a rock and sling it through the window, hitting me in the head. Now, I can walk past someone mowing their yard, with no problem, no mental or psychological anxiety. Drive by? No way. I'm a math and physics type guy, and I know the combination of events and velocities necessary for such an absurd thing to happen, but that has never satisfied my mind. I've never seen this happen, or heard of it happening. But I know, somewhere out there, a mower and a rock are plotting.

So, anybody else have something like this?

Windy City

In Chicago for an Oracle class. Temperature yesterday and today, low 70s. Temperature in Mississippi when I left Sunday, mid-90s. Maybe I'll just stay here.

Car Shopping

Janet woke up today and decided it was time to look for her next car. The plan had been to get her new one next spring, but with the deals being claimed now, and having the money in the bank already, she decided she was ready. We've been researching for a while, she was pretty sure what she wanted. She's been driving a 1997 Honda Accord LX, bought new, that has just turned over 70,000 miles. That will become Kristen's car. So, we headed out intent on looking at Toyota Camrys and Honda Accords. We also decided to look at a Toyota Prius, just because. So:

Car 1: Toyota Prius - great car, fantastic mileage, very nice to drive. Around $25,000, the one we drove, had some options we didn't really want. Would have gone to the top of the list, except - legroom for the driver was just too tight. I couldn't drive it very long. But definitely very cool, everything controlled through an LCD screen.

Car 2: Toyota Camry LE - OK, Camrys are great cars and all, but it was just - plain. Vanilla. I expected chocolate ripple at least. Legroom was fine, headroom for the driver was fine, but headroom in the rear seat was tight. My head was bent over in the back. Around $20,000.

Car 3: Scion xB - OK, Janet wasn't interested in this one, but I wanted to drive it as long as we were there. The Scion xB is freakin' fun to drive. Strange looking from the outside, but from the inside - this one had a sunroof, front and rear sears, with shade screens. Big expanse of glass in front, and sides - fantastic visibility. It was almost like being in a convertible, except with no bugs in your teeth and with air conditioning. I loved it - a little tight on legroom for the driver, but not too bad. By the time we got back, Janet loved it. When I go looking in a few months, this one's on my list. 34 mpg too. Did I mention it was freakin' fun to drive?

Car 4: Honda Civic Hybrid - this drove more like a regular car than the Prius. Roomier too - much better legroom. Less expensive - around $20,000. The 2005 Civic has about as much interior room as our 1997 Accord. But the air conditioner was a little strange - when you were sitting at idle, it wasn't blowing cold. Maybe there was some adjustment that needed to be made, because it's supposed to be running off the battery when you're idling. But with outside temperature of 95F, it got warm fast. Still, a nice car. Janet began wavering on the Accord thing here, thinking that maybe a Civic would do nicely.

Car 5: Honda Accord LX - larger than our 97 Accord, longer by about a foot. Looks like they used the extra length to give the rear seat passengers more legroom, a nice touch. Very nice drive, felt more refined than the Camry. Chocolate ripple. But the roof protruded down in front so I couldn't see the stoplight when we were sitting at the light. Very strange, and made me uncomfortable driving it. Nice as the Accord was, it was beginning to trail the Civic at this point. Said we could have it for $19490. A little higher than I expected.

Car 6: Honda Civic EX (non-hybrid) - just to compare to the Hybrid. Nice sled. A/C cooled better than in the hybrid. Civic definitely pulling ahead at this point. Said we could have a Civic LX for $15800.

But! I went back to the Accord and noticed this lever on the side of the driver's seat. Height adjustment!! Cranked it down, and the visibility was much improved.

Car 7: Honda Element - I just wanted to drive one of these, I thought I'd like them. I didn't like it. I loved it. Most room of anything we drove today. I love the funkiness and the versatility. Not as good gas mileage as the Scion xB, though - about 10mpg less, in fact, despite both being 4 cylinders. But I loved driving it.

Car 8: Honda Accord LX (different dealer) - drove it to make sure the height adjustment was good. Before we drove it off, salesman said we could have it for $18998. Drove it around, came back. Salesman said, OK, $18698. I had decided ahead of time that $18500 was probably an unrealistically low price, so I might offer that to see what they'd counter with. So Janet and I talked it over briefly, she wanted the car at this point. Salesman said, OK, $18600. I said, OK, as long as nothing gets added except sales tax. Done.

So, that was our Saturday.

London Bombings

Terrorist attacks in London get a lot more personal when your youngest daughter is in England. Fortunately, her choir left London yesterday, before the attacks. If I hadn't known that before hearing of the bombings, I'd have probably been a basket case. As it is, the girls are all fine, their schedule has them in another part of England the rest of the trip. I feel for the parents and families who aren't getting such good news today.

Toto, I think we're in Kansas!!

Curious Gas Mileage

When we left Mississippi, the first tank of gas in our 1992 Itasca (Toyota) RV, V6 and auto, gave us only about 11 MPG. The second tank, we got about 12.5. Third fillup, about 13.2. But with the fourth fillup, in New Mexico, we got right at 14, even driving through the lower mountains going up the interstate to Colorado Springs. Does higher altitude improve gas mileage? It would seem to do the opposite. Maybe the little RV is just getting warmed up.

An addendum: After leaving Colorado, the mileage dropped back down to the 11-12 range. So this is even more puzzling.

Kudzu Files In Jayhawk Land

Closed out the 4th of July last night in Memorial Park in Colorado Springs, listening to the Co SPrings Symphony playing "traditional" 4th music - Sousa marches, some Big Band classics (pretty good vocalist, although "New York New York" didn't work for her), and of course the 1812 Overture. How a 125-year-old piece of classical music depicting an early 19th-century war between France and Russia became an American 4th of July classic is a bit beyond me, but I love the piece, so any reason is a good reason. And the fireworks were great, framed against the mountains.

Left Colorado Springs this morning, a little late due to several reasons, but we weren't in a hurry anyway. Stopped at a small antique/junk shop somewhere along Highway 24 to buy some blue bottles for my bottle tree, then made our way east along I-70. Tonight we're in bustling Wakeeney, KS, in a KOA campground with 65 cable channels and wireless internet. Like I said earlier, camping isn't what it used to be, but connectivity is great. And I can post these exciting updates!!

Eastern Colorado seems to get described as a Big Nothing much of the time. Maybe I'm just a terrain-watching fool, but I enjoyed driving through the rolling high plains east of Denver. And for all the fun poked at Kansas for being flatter than a pancake, the enormous sky and distant horizons were interesting in their own right. I was surprised at the number of dairy farms in extreme western Kansas. And at the small amount of corn. Isn't Kansas supposed to be covered with cornfields?

Kudzu Files at 9600 feet

At the urging of Loren and Jeff, this morning we went to Garden Of The Gods. And wow! Garden of the Gods is - spectacular doesn't do justice to it, but I can't think of a better word. Awesome scenery, awesome geology. I shot up an entire roll of film walking the loop around the Gateway Rocks area. Hopefully some of the shots will come out. An added "attraction" was seeing a rock climber, climbing without ropes despite the warnings, fall about 40 feet landing flat on his back. I hope the guy was OK. He was moving, anyway.

We decided to eat lunch at the Nature Center there, sitting outside staring at the Garden and Pike's Peak in the distance. Definitely one of the most scenic meals I've ever eaten. After lunch, we drove west along Highway 24, past Woodland Park and on up to Mueller State Park. One of the nicest state parks I've ever seen: new, clean facilities, great campsites (electric hookups only!), and truly astounding views. And 9640 feet up. It has to be one of the highest state parks in the country. Cool, clean mountain air. Pike's Peak just to the east, with some snow still showing near the summit. A great way to spend the 4th of July.

Kudzu Files On The Road

I'm writing this while watching the sun set behind the Rocky Mountains just south of Colorado Springs, sitting outside my little RV using campground wifi. Camping isn't what it used to be. It's been many, many years since I drove through the Texas Panhandle and northeastern New Mexico. The trip this time has been interesting so far - discovering literally right before we left home that the refrigerator on our RV had quit (it's a 1991 Itasca 21' on a Toyota chassis, not one of the luxury cruisers); none of the local RV shopd could help, so I called Camping World in Denton, TX, to see of they could. And they could - they had the same frig in stock, so we set up to have it replaced Friday afternoon and hit the road, 3 hours later than planned but still on the road. Stayed Thursday night at Tyler State Park, Tyler TX. Very nice park, just north of I-20 at Tyler, TX, of all places. Got to Camping World at 12:30 Friday - we had a 2PM appointment, for what they had said would probably a 3-hour job. But they started early, at 1:30, and finished in 1 1/2 hours.

[Side Note = the folks at Camping World in Denton are first class. Everyone we dealt with was great, doing everything they could to get us back on the road]

So, at 3PM we left Denton and headed northwest, hoping to get past Wichita Falls. Wichita Falls came and I was still feeling fine, so we drove on - and discovered that out around Childress, Texas has 2 rest stops with free wifi! Stopped in, never left the vehicle, found a campground in Amarillo, called ahead via cell phone, and had a destination. Like I said, camping ain't what it used to be!! Rolled in to Amarillo at 9:30 Friday night. Then today, we drive across Dalhart, TX and Clayton, NM to Raton, then up to Colorado Springs. I had forgotten how much I liked the terrain in northeastern New Mexico. Beautiful area. Even if the rest area where we stopped had signs that said "WARNING!!! WATCH FOR SNAKES!!" So, now we're in Colorado Springs. That's as far as we've figured out on this trip. Probably, we'll end up back home next weekend.

Words Worth Reading

The great thing about blogging is that it becomes what the blogger wants it to become. The political ranting and division that dominates so many can make us think that's all there is. Until you come across something like this.

Frozen In Time

Ten days ago, a teenage girl here was killed in a horrible boating accident. There was no alcohol involved, no drugs. Just a freak accident. The kids on the boat were all good kids. The kind parents want to have. And now her parents are staring into that black abyss that comes with the loss of a child. I saw what it did to my parents when my younger brother died at 31. I feel for her family, her parents, her sister, her little brothers. They're walking a path that has to be walked alone, for a while at least.

It seems like nobody bad ever dies young. No one speaks ill of the departed. But in this case, the words are very true, without embellishment. This was a girl who touched all those around her. I didn't know her directly, but she played soccer with my youngest daughter several years ago, and my wife taught her last year in Biology. She acted in community theatre, was part of the dance team at her school, deeply involved in her church. She was truly a bright spirit. In one of those supreme ironies, she and the other girl on the boat had talked about their funerals shortly before the accident. She had said she wanted bright colors, and happy people, celebrating her life lived as a Christian. Lots of yellow. "Let It Be" was to be the featured music. And that's what she had.

She, like so many her age, had a weblog. Reading it almost seems like a violation, but it, and another site set up by her friends, have become memorials of sorts. And the lasting impression from reading her blog is that this was a girl who was alive, vibrant, living in the moment. All the phrases you want to use. Yes, it's the blog of a 15-, then 16-year-old girl. But what we too often forget is that, at that age, they're beginning to look seriously at the world and make some sense of it. Sometimes serious, sometimes funny, sometimes so lighthearted it makes you ache for what was lost. But what you take from it mostly is a 16-year-old girl, frozen in time in the late spring of 2005. We probably don't think much about how weblogs are part of us, but apart from us, and could, in an instant, become part of a disassociated netherworld, waiting for a next entry that will never come, but continuing to be a last remainder of us until some webhost does the final internment.

Lanie Kealhofer, 1988-2005. Missed by her family, a large circle of friends, and a small Mississippi town.

Sunset is an angel weeping

"Sunset is an angel weeping,
holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
make out what it's pointing toward"

Bruce Cockburn, "Pacing The Cage"
Photograph by Joyce Ward

Harry Does Something New

I made my radio debut Tuesday as a guest on Felder Rushing's Gestalt Gardener radio program on Mississippi Public Radio. That's me on the left in the picture above; Dr. Dirt, on the right, is Felder's co-host. (Felder's website is here; there's a great article about Dr. Dirt here; and if you just have this overpowering desire to hear the sound of my voice, you can listen to the program at PRM's Gestalt Gardener archives site.) It was a pretty interesting time, I've never been inside a radio studio before. And we didn't really talk much about stargazing, so maybe I can get a return engagement some time to do that.

Pacing The Cage

There's a Bruce Cockburn song that captures much of how I often feel:

"Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it's pointing toward
Sometimes you feel like you live too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage

I've proven who I am so many times
The magnetic strip's worn thin
And each time I was someone else
And every one was taken in
Powers chatter in high places
Stir up eddies in the dust of rage
Set me to pacing the cage

I never knew what you all wanted
So I gave you everything
All that I could pillage
All the spells that I could sing
It's as if the thing were written
In the constitution of the age
Sooner or later you'll wind up
Pacing the cage

Sometimes the best map will not guide you
You can't see what's round the bend
Sometimes the road leads through dark places
Sometimes the darkness is your friend
Today these eyes scan bleached-out land
For the coming of the outbound stage
Pacing the cage
Pacing the cage"

Jack, at Random Fate, touches on what often seems to be a sense of futility. For me, it's more a sense of frustration, that somehow there were just some fundamental things we'd gotten wrong. I've felt for most of my life that I was fighting with something that I couldn't identify. Not a constant feeling, but a recurring one. But it never pays to ponder it too long, for that way lies madness. I was in a local bookstore recently, and found myself browsing some shelves near a couple of high-school students curled up on the floor, discussing life, the universe, and everything. They were talking to each other about what they would do during college, and afterwards. How they would find jobs that meant something, not just bring home a paycheck. How they would take a year off after graduation and just travel, experience the world, and find that place where they could make a difference. I could remember being that young, that idealistic, that naive. When you're 18, your view of the horizon doesn't extend far enough to see the ruts waiting beyond. But if we didn't have that idealism, none of us would ever stick our heads up out of the ruts and do something besides pace back and forth. I hope those kids make it where they want to be. I hope I make it where I want to be. I hope I figure out where I want to be. Meantime, I'll just keep pacing.

Am I Prescient Or What?

This morning, I wrote: "Unless CBS wants to hire a leading right-wing figure as part of that move, the job would probably be easier without a focal personality on the evening news." Now James Joyner has this: "CBS May Use Multi-Anchor Format". I have my moments!!

Things That Go Bump In Our Brains

Dylan is busy trying to remember one of his first batch of CDs. If you think you can help, pop over to the Client And Server and try.

It's odd how your brain will get fixated on something. About a month ago, I started trying, for some reason, to remember what my first trombone was. I got it in 1967. Why I wanted to know, I'm not sure. But I couldn't remember, and it really started bugging me. So I started doing internet searches for trombone models that might have been sold at that time. It became a mini-obsession. All I could rememebr was that it was silver-plated, had a slightly smaller bore than most other trombones, and I thought the manufacturer name started with "G". I spent 3 weeks trying different ways to search for this thing, and finally found it. It was a Besson. I was wrong about the "G". But now I can lock that bit of history away, and move on to the next obsession.

Dr. Pepper Cokes

And I know that some of you are saying "Dr. Pepper coke"? Southerners know there is no conflict there. For instance, any Southerner knows that if you ask someone this question:

"Would you like a coke?"

And the person to whom you are speaking replies "yes", then the proper followup is:

"What kind of coke do you want?"

And the response might be "Dr. Pepper", or "Pepsi", or "Barq's", or "RC". Or they might reply "Coke", which then becomes contextually known to mean Coca-Cola. And as James Joyner pointed out, "Co-Cola" or "Co-coler" is an exquisitely proper response also.

Since I feel like talking about coke today ("pop" or "soda" to you yankees), I wondered if anyone else has noticed that Dr. Pepper quality varies widely at the various fast-food chains? While there may be weightier issues in this day and age, there are few that confront you with such frequency. I have, through the years, had the occasion to partake of the finest of all soft drinks at many establishments in many locations. And there is a strange consistency across most fast food places, regardless of the city or state.

The Rankings:

McDonald's: while their burgers leave something to be desired, they have absolutely the best Dr. Pepper. Perfect fizziness, best balance of flavor. This is what God intended Dr. Pepper to taste like. And it's rock-solid consistent no matter where you are.

Arby's: A close second to McD's, and sometimes indistinguishable, but I've found a bit more variability in Arby's restaurants than in McD's.

Whataburger: This is a new entrant in Mississippi, so I can only judge the two here plus the couple I've been to in Texas. Whataburger is really as good as Arby's, but the small sample size means I can't rank them as equal

Burger King: close to McD's and Arby's, but they need to work on the fizziness a little.

Pizza Hut: Often excellent, but they fall short enough that they take a hit on the consistency aspect

Taco Bell: almost a tie with BK, but sometimes it's a little flat

Wendy's: a bit too syrupy, but still reasonable good. Consistently inconsistent, though.

Popeye's: almost pure syrup, and basically undrinkable. The only fast-food place where I refuse to order DP, and generally get water, because I figure they probably can't get anything else right either

(Beltway Traffic Jam)

Thought For The Day

You can complain that roses have thorns, or rejoice that
thorns have roses! - Ziggy

Comprehending death and destruction on an unimaginable scale

I've started several times to post something about the earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean. And stopped several times. It seems like everybody has posted about it, so what is there left to be said, anyway? We've been inundated by numbers that try to represent to us the magnitude of this tragedy - 150,000 dead, although this will certainly go higher; 5 million homeless people; a 9.0 earthquake, strongest in 40 years; 135 cubic miles of ocean water uplifted by the quake, forming the enormous tsunami. And then there's the international aid situation, which sometimes seems like some kind of obscene competition. But the numbers are almost, maybe are, beyond comprehension. So I did some equivalencing.

I live in a small suburb of Jackson, Mississippi. The current reported death toll from this is equivalent to having almost the entire population of Jackson being wiped out in a space of about 5 minutes. Or the entire population of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Or Springfield, Missouri. or Tallahassee, Florida.

The number of homeless is equivalent to the entire population of Maryland suddenly being homeless. Or Arizona. Or Mississippi and Utah combined.

Imagine a wall of water 1 mile high, 1 mile wide, and 135 miles long. That's how much ocean water was pushed up and out by the quake. imagine it moving at more than 500 miles per hour. Obviously, it wasn't a mile high, but it was spread out much longer and wider.

A 9.0 earthquake is something like 700 times more powerful than the 1994 Northridge earthquake in California, or the 1989 San Francisco eqarthquake.

But here's the equivalency that keeps coming into my head: on 9/11/2001, about 3,000 people were killed. And the United States essentially ground to a halt for a week. I'm not trying to belittle those deaths, or our national response to them. But this is another human tragedy, not one inflicted by terrorists but a tragedy nonetheless, and this tragedy is bigger, in deaths, than 50 9/11 attacks. It didn't take place on national television. It didn't take place in our neighborhoods and cities. But the response of the American people, while generous, falls far short in an emotional sense, in a monetary sense, in an empathetic sense, of the response to 9/11. That's understandable, to a point. And the wrold generally is still struggling to figure out how to respond to such an immense catastrophe. I don't agree with those who criticized President Bush for an imagined slow or inadequate response. No one, outside the affected region, had any idea who inconceivably huge this was. President Bush reacted, I think, as appropriately as was possible under the circumstances. The question becomes, where do we go from here? And it doesn't have to mean "what does the US government do now?". Certainly there are many things the United States as a government can and will do. But the American people need to respond. They're beginning to, and I think they will continue to do so. I get a little concerned when I hear, as I heard Wednesday, someone complain that all the news was doing was covering "that tidal wave". "That tidal wave" was perhaps the greatest human tragedy in recorded and documented history. It wouldn't hurt if we let the rest of the world stand still for a few days while we react.

Just Say "Merry Christmas", OK?

I hate to argue with Kevin Drum, but this is something that I've been thinking about lately. And I'm not trying to make this out to be a strident attack on Christianity, like some are doing. But it seems like more and more, businesses and organizations are using "Season's Greetings" or "Happy Holidays", and almost straining to avoid saying "Merry Christmas". Are we, as a society, really so committed to making this into a bland winter break? Yes, Christmas has been over-commercialized. and yes, the Santa Claus Christmas has become almost a separate-but-equal counterpart to the Bethlehem Christmas. But at the root of both is the story of the birth of a little child, an event that, whether or not you choose to ascribe to the beliefs that arose from that birth, has at least partially determined the course of Western civilization since. And so we're left with the spectacle of schools banning religious songs and references from school plays, and towns banning Nativity scenes from Christmas displays. Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer in the separation of church and state. But if you're going to observe Christmas, you can't do it without admitting there is a religious aspect to the occasion. Yes, I know that the date of Christmas was probably chosen to coincide with the date of pagan mid-winter holidays. But if you want to claim some "a priori" justification, there's still a religious element. And I wonder if some of those so offended by the inclusion of Christian symbols would be similarly offended by Druidic symbols. It does seem sometimes that the only religious displays that bother people are Christian in nature.

For me, it's pretty simple - if you choose to celebrate Christmas, then part of what you celebrate is the cultural acceptance of the Christian myth - and by myth, I mean John Ruskin's definition: "A myth, in its simplest definition, is a story with a meaning attached to it other than it seems to have at first; and the fact that it has such a meaning is generally marked by some of its circumstances being extraordinary, or, in the common use of the word, unnatural." Without the story of a Jewish boy being born in a small village two millennia ago, there would be no holiday as we know it. That's the one reality of Christmas Day.

In Which Harry Rants About Hummer H1s, H2s, and the SUT

Mark at The Bemusement Park notes an unflattering review of the new Hummer SUT.

I hate the Hummers, H1, H2, SUT. They, to me, represent everything that is worst about contemporary American values - big, heavy, wasteful, inefficient, of poor quality, and as I've said before, something that only an American ad marketer could convince an American consumer to buy. I watched the other day as a woman driving, not a Hummer but a weight-class contender SUV, tried to dock her rolling behemoth in a mall parking lot. She couldn't maneuver the thing well enough to go straight in to the parkingspace, so she went back and forth, back and forth, trying to get the angle down so she could open her door and get out. Meanwhile, carswere stacked up in both directions, and eventually the traffic back-up extended into the cross lanes in the lot. It took her something on the order of 5 minutes to get parked. And the resulting angular position left the car beside her blocked in unless they were willing to scrape their car against her. At that point, I realized the solution - we should require a separate license to drive a vehicle over a certain size and weight. Maybe not a commercial license, but a certified license that required a driving and maneuver test in one of these. And there should be no tax subsidy for these beasts!!

I hate these things.

Working Through College

I was in college a fairly long time, from 1972 until 1979, with a couple of short breaks along the way. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do, and so changed my major a few times, from accounting to undecided to engineering to physics to math (with a minor in physics, that could have been a double major if I'd taken 2 more physics courses). I finished with 169 undergrad hours. It was fun. I loved college. But, being in that long, I had to work a series of jobs to finance the endeavour. The first few were fairly mundane - driving a delivery truck for a paper company, washing well samples for the state geological survey, working at a pet store - but then the jobs I worked took a more interesting tack. I worked security at a K-Mart for about a year. Part of the job was pretty tedious, calling people who had written bad checks and listening to their excuses. Some of the job was fun - hiding in odd places of the store after hours to see if the overnight stock crew would find me (they were supposed to check the store). Once I found a love nest at the top of an enormous pile of beanbags (the market for beanbags had collapsed not long after we got a huge shipment in), where two amorous store employees had been having their trysts. But actually stopping shoplifters was not so fun, sometimes. Like the time I saw a man from the local stockyard stick a shirt down the back of his pants. Under the rules, we couldn't accost them until they were physically outside the store. Now, I'm not a small guy - at the time I was 6'5", about 225 - but this guy was huge. About as tall, and looked like he benchpressed cows for fun. And I had to stop him. He didn't want to stop, I didn't want him to leave, the situation was beginning to degenerate. You weren't supposed to actually lay hands upon them, you were supposed to convince them to stop, unless of course they attacked you, which was about to happen. The suddenly one of the mechanics (we had an auto shop in the store) came racing out the front door with a crescent wrench the size of Montana. He later told me one of the store employees ran into the auto shop and said "hey everybody, Harry's about to get his a$$ beat!" (the previous security guy quit after a shoplifter pulled a knife and cut his arm up, but nobody told me about that until later either). After Mechanic Guy showed up with the crescent wrench, the stockyard man decided to give up.

After the K-Mart job, you would think a normal job would have sufficed. But no, my next job was even more interesting. Officially, I was Evening Secretary to the evening shift charge nurse at a local hospital.. What I was, was often the only male other than security and lab techs in the hospital on the 3-11 and 11-7 shifts I worked. I got to see and do lots of things - emergency room, OR, ICU - but one of the main jobs I had was to retrieve bodies of patients who had died, take them to the hospital basement, and check them in to the morgue. They called me the Head Nurse of the Morgue. There were plenty of times I would be alone in the basement, in the middle of the night, with several bodies in the cooler. Kind of creepy. Also very creepy is the sensation you get when you roll a body off a hospital on to the gurney. Often, you'll compress the lungs and get a shot of cold, clammy air in the face, or ear. Very creepy. And all of this was done to pay for college.

So, what kinds of jobs did you have during college?

Have You Seen The Frog?

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If anybody has seen it, please return it!!

Passings

Dick died a couple of weeks ago. I didn't know him well - a few chance encounters, but mostly escapades related by others. Mostly by one other. Dick was my father-in-law's best friend for nearly 70 years. They went to school together, went off to war together - although they served in different areas, they kept in touch as much as possible - and after the war, went to college together, then settled in the same small town, where they lived for the next 50 years.There was a small group of men in the town that met for coffee for years, but it was always Bill and Dick, and some others. They built sheds and shops and cabins, and a myriad of smaller projects, some times in competition with each other, sometimes them against the world. And they argued about who had more sense, and went on countless road trips around central Mississippi. Just a day or two before he died, they had been working on another project. Dick was fine. Then a couple of days later, he had a cerebral hemorrhage and died within a few hours.

I don't know what you say to someone who's lost their best friend of 70 years. There aren't that many friendships that last that long. There aren't many marriages that last that long. It's one of those ironies of life, that the things that bring the greatest blessings are the things that hurt the most when they're gone. And I know this - my father-in-law's life was richly, richly blessed by his friendship with Dick. And I know that's what he'll remember most, once the shock has worn off. But part of me is thinking, wow, to have a best friend for that long - is something really, really special. Part of what I feel is jealousy, because I think friendships like that are much rarer now than they were for that earlier generation. We've concentrated so hard on making a living that in many cases we've forgotten to make a life. I just know this - in a small town in central Mississippi, there's a man who has some incredibly rich memories, that I hope will comfort him sooner rather than later.

Words of advice to husbands everywhere

If you set a mouse trap under the kitchen sink, don't forget that you put it there. Because on a Sunday night years and years later, your wife will decide to clean out the area under the sink, and the ensuing contact scenario will not be pretty.

(I was pretty amazed at how well-reserved the subject of the trap was, however).

(I probably shouldn't have said that to her, however however)

Strange Dreams

I don't generally spend much time trying to figure out my dreams, for two reasons: they're often pretty fragmented and strange, and I rarely remember much about them beyond "that was kinda wierd". BUt the other night, I had one that has stayed with me. Any of you into dream interpretation, have at it.

It started with the monkeys. I noticed that a neighbor a couple of houses down had these monkeys in their back yard. They were kept in by this high fence, but one kept running up this tall tree and trying to jump out far enough to clear the fence. He finally made it, but got hurt while he was landing. He laid there a little while in the grass, and then police and firemen and an ambulance showed up. My wife and I decided to walk down the street to see the goings-on. We walked past the house, and by the time we headed back, the police and firemen were gone. But then, three tigers came out of the house. They didn't attack us, but they came right up and began nudging us, pretty hard. A kid came out of the and said he had called his father, who trained the tigers (this was apparently a circus family, I guess) to come get them back in, but meanwhile we had to start getting the tigers to do tricks, or they would get bored and attack us. So we were getting the tigers to roll over, play dead, stand on stools, that type of thing. And we were running out of ideas for tricks, and the trainer-dad wasn't yet home. That's when I woke up. End of dream.

Me, Myself, and I

When did these words become interchangeable? For years, we grammar snobs fought the battle against the improper use of "I" and "me". But now, that has morphed into an unholy trinity of mis-appropriated personal reference. This afternoon, I heard Dan Akroyd refer to "John and myself". Sports figures are among the worst offenders - "He wasn't respecting myself". "Me" seems to be a forgotten word in our vocabulary. So, here's a quick review:

I and me are personal pronouns. I is a nominative personal pronoun; me is an objective pronoun. The nominative is used when it is the subject of a verb:

I wrote this snobby little post about grammar.

or when used as a predicate nominative:

The oldest people in the room are he and I.

The objective pronoun me is used when the pronoun is the direct or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a preposition:

He hit me with a rock. (Direct object)
She gave me apple pie for dessert. (Indirect object)
She gave the pie to me. (Object of a preposition)

Myself is a reflexive pronoun. Myself should only be used if the word I has already been used in the same sentence, either when the subject and object of the sentence are the same:

I hurt myself when I fell.

or when you're emphasizing the subject:

I finished it myself.

Pretty exciting stuff, right? So, let's use the right word at the right time, and maybe I won't start ranting about how the transformation of impact from a noun into a verb was the beginning of the end of America's moral dominance.

A day not like any other

11 years ago today, my little brother died at age 31 of a brain tumor. It doesn't seem that long ago, sometimes. Other times, it almost seems like his life never happened, that it's just a collection of memories of dreams.

4 years ago today, my dad died at age 81 of a heart that was just worn out. Sometimes it's still hard to believe he's gone. I still catch myself occasionally saying "my dad does...", or "my dad has...".

I miss them both. November 16 is not on my list of favorite days. It just feels a little freaky.

The sanctity of marriage

They say this was one of the big reasons not just for the defeat of John Kerry, but also for the passage of the marriage amendments in many states. Don't get me wrong, I believe marriage is a great thing. I just can't help thinking the United States is more than a little hypocritical about this. We fixate on the seemingly unending series of marriages of various movie stars and pop harlots, even though many last only a matter of months, or weeks even. It's a rare celebrity marriage that lasts long enough to have any anniversary numbered higher than one. Yet magazines pay millions for photos and exclusive interviews of these productions - because they know we'll buy the forthcoming issues by the thousands. And that's not even the most glaring example of the American version of revering the sanctity of marriage. The TV shows "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette", and their ensuing sequels, are consistently among the highest-rated shows on television, across the country. These shows surround a chosen man or woman with a crowd of potential mates from which they'll make a choice at the show's end, based on time-honored relationship-building activities such as huddling together in a hot tub while being filmed, or perhaps based on a vote of the viewers. Sanctified!! Seriously, I've never heard or seen a word of disapproval of these shows from any of the conservative Christian groups that were so vocal about preserving the sanctity of marriage. And given the wide popularity of the shows, I would suspect that many good church members that voted overwhelmingly in favor of the marriage amendments also anxiously awaited each episode of "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette". I'm not sure how I feel about gay marriage. I'm not saying people who supported the marriage amendments were wrong. I'm just saying, either marriage is sacred, or it's a civil thing only. You can't play both sides of the street. If marriage between gays is wrong because God intends marriage to be a holy union between a man and a woman, then a staged competition to pick a spouse is just as much outside the realm of holy. And if marriage is such a casual thing that we endorse such televised arrangements, then on what basis do we disallow a union between any two people?

Losing the training wheels

It happened on an early spring day, one of those days that really starts the job of chasing winter's chill away from your garden and your body. I was working in a front flowerbed, when Kristen, then about 5, came out of the house, jumped on her bike, and rode off down the street. She was out of the driveway before I realized I had never seen her do that before. Not in that fashion, anyway. The training wheels were still on the bike, and they had received plenty of use. But the training wheels weren't touching the ground. She was past that. I asked my wife when Kristen had learned to ride without them, and she said she hadn't. But there she was, cruising down the street. She'd figured it out, she was ready to go, and we hadn't noticed the transition.

Kristen's fourteen now, and she's ridden off on many bicycles since then, literally and figuratively. If I could figure out a way to slow down the years, I would. The time is coming when she'll be ready to ride off to find her place in the world, and I suspect I won't see that coming any more than I saw that first ride coming.

The Power Of Marketing

If, 10 years ago, you had asked the typical American auto shopper if they would be interested in a daily use vehicle that would weigh 5000-8000 pounds, be almost 20 feet long, and get 8-12 miles per gallon, the answer would have been a resounding "no". The relatively few people driving Chevy Suburbans had good reason for driving those trucks, and were quite happy to exchange them for a smaller, more driveable car when the working day was done. But over the past decade, marketers have convinced us that not only are these trucks acceptable, they're desirable to the point that we have to have them. And so we're greeted each day by hundreds of these hulking behemoths, being ponderously navigated around grocery store parking lots and city streets by a lone occupant, often a woman, sucking gasoline at obscene rates. And just as often, we're regaled by the drivers of these things complaining about how expensive it is to fill the tanks. And the worst part is that the biggest of these monstrosities are driven by welfare recipients - they would certainly claim otherwise, but the fact is that they were given a government handout, far greater than that given those "other" welfare recipients. So when you're sitting in traffic trying vainly to see around the enormous hunk of metal next to you at the intersection, or waiting while the driver tries to maneuver it into a parking spot meant for a normal vehicle, comfort yourself with the thought that your income taxes quite possibly helped subsidize the price of that rolling obscenity.

Altoids just got better!

Liquorice!!!

The Stillness Of A Place Out Of Time

If you drive southwest from Clinton, Mississippi, along the Natchez Trace, an hour's drive will bring you to the town of Port Gibson, near the Mississippi River. Leave the Trace and drive a few miles further west, and you'll stumble on a reminder of another time. Had you been here in 1861, this is what you would have seen:

This was the Windsor mansion, built in 1859 and 1860 by a landowner who, ironically, died just a few weeks after it was completed, only 34 years old. For 30 years, Windsor was visible on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River (the river moved west over the next century, which confuses people who try today to envision the view from Windsor). But in 1890, a fire destroyed the home, leaving the ghostly visage that greets visitors today who venture a bit off the beaten path.

Only the columns remain at the place known by locals as the Ruins of Windsor. I was there last on a bleak, lonely, overcast December day a few years ago. For about an hour, I wandered the site, alone except for the hints of ghosts that seem to pervade it on a winter's day. It has the stillness of a place frozen in time, the past clinging to the air around the stark columns. You feel like an intruder; after a few minutes, you find yourself looking behind you, unable to shake the feeling that someone is watching. It's also one of those places that has a power - "I once meant something" - that makes you want to stay silent. It's a rare treasure, a side trip worth the taking, even if it does leave you with a feeling of sadness that may take an hour or two to shake. The columns will eventually crumble and fall, and be swallowed by the kudzu that has devoured so much of this part of Mississippi. Maybe then the spirit of the place can finally rest.

Yet another possum

Man, I'm tired of these ugly beasts. Why do they keep coming back into my yard? The one tonight is number 6, I think. Why do they pass through all the neighbor's yards to come into mine? In the words of Nancy Kerrigan, "Whyyy me???"

If you could read my mind

If you could, you'd know that, in my opinion, not that many songs have been written the past 35 years that were better than Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind". And "Canadian Railroad Trilogy" isn't all that far behind.

Camping again

Kudzu Files is gone camping for a few days.

Return of the possum

Real Live Preacher had raccoons. Some people would think raccoons are cute, although RLP's experience, and our experiences camping around raccoons would lower their cute factor. RLP has a good series of stories about them, for what it's worth. Possums, on the other hand, are ugly, nasty creatures that nobody except possibly another possum would find at all cute. And possums are what life has chosen to throw my way.

It started lasy year. I'm sure the construction of several new subdivisions nearby had something to do with it. But I don't understand why the possums pass up houses all around me, yards they have to cross, to end up in my yard, inside my fence. Biltmore goes absolutely berserk when he finds one. He's only 14 pounds, not much bigger if at all, but he's a vengeful beast when his yard is violated by a cat, or a possum. It happened four times last summer and fall, then stopped. I figured maybe the invasion was over. But I got suspicious a couple of weeks ago when my daughter said Biltmore had killed a big rat - but she couldn't produce a body. Biltmore only knows one way to attack. I've seen him get rats - he'll work them and work them, dashing in from behind and the side until he gets a shot at the back of the neck. When he does, he grabs the neck and snaps it, killing the rat pretty much instantly. It's actually pretty fascinating. But when you try this on a 10-pound possum, it's not so successful, since he generally can't snap them around the way he does a rat. So we end up with a battle royal for a while, until he gets enough of a grip to trigger the possum's one defense mechanism, the famous "play dead" maneuver. On Biltmore, this works perfectly, because once he thinks his foe is dead, he's finished with it. No playing with the corpse like a cat or a lab would do. He just walks off. Then I move in with a shovel and garbage can, scooping the possum and driving it down the road.

As I said, I thought maybe the invasion was over. Until tonight, when I realized that the furious barking I heard outside was coming from my back yard. I went out to find, indeed, another possum, with 14 pounds of fury darting all around it. It kept up for another 10 minutes before the possum went limp. So at 10:00, I was scooping a possum into a garbage can and going for a ride. Not my idea of Friday night excitement.

(Submitted for Beltway Traffic Jam)

A few more Petit Jean pictures

This is Cedar Creek Falls, which fall down into a large open gorge. Note the people just to the right of the falls. It's several hundred feet down.

My favorite part of the park. Rock House Cave is actually just a huge overhang, but it's deep enough and high enough for perhaps 150 people to have taken shelter. It's south exposure meant that in the winter, the sun would have brough a welcome warmth, while the rock walls would have given shelter from the wind and elements. There are some drawings by Native Americans at the back of the cave. I'll put some pictures of them in another entry.

These were called Turtle Rocks, located just about Rock House Cave. The picture doesn't do the formation justice - standing just below them, it was easy to feel like you were watching a group of giant tortoises.

This little guy held still just long enough for me to get the picture

Pictures from Petit Jean SP

I spent a good bit of my time at Petit Jean hiking trails, although I never took the trail to the base of the falls. But I did take some pictures along the way:

We hiked down this trail to get to the bottom of the gorge. The steps were cut into the rocks by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in the 1930s.

A fairly typical outcrop along the trail...

It always amazes me the way nature arranges things...

This was a small cave along the north wall of the canyon, big enough for a group of 5-6 people to shelter in.

Petit Jean State Park, AR

Nice campsites, good hiking trails, great place to just kick back and hang around. It's about an hour northwest of Little Rock, on top of Petit Jean Mountain - only about 850 feet high, but high enough to get away from the worst of the humidity. More pictures coming.

Gone camping

Kudzu Files is taking a break for a few days while we go camping in Arkansas.

Monticello

We left Alexandria this morning, headed home, and drove to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville, VA. The countryside around Charlottesville is beautiful. It was a surprisingly cold day, rainy and windy. The temperatures at Monticello were in the high 50s, which affected the views from the estate, but it was still a fascinating place.Well worth the extra time it took. I wish I had been able to walk around the gardens, but the combination of cold, wind, rain, shorts and t-shirt which were all I had to wear, and a wife and daughter ready to get on the road made that a quick look. There's one tree, a tulip poplar on the south side of the house, which was planted by Jefferson around 1815. It's still there, and you can buy seedlings from the tree. I wish I'd had a place in my yard for one.

Memorials by night

Tonight, as dark was falling, we drove into the District to see the new World War II Memorial. It is a bold, grand memorial, very moving and very dignified. Situated with the Lincoln Memorial visible from one side, and the Washington Monument from the other, it integrates well into the National Mall. My father, I think, would have liked it. I really liked it. It is, I think, a worthy memorial to an incredibly worthy generation, one that humbles us with it's history. The Mall at night is a very different place - much less active, of course, but more than that, a more personal space. We walked along the Reflecting Pool to the Lincoln Memorial, lit so that Lincoln seems to be watching over the area. Just south of the Reflecting Pool is the Korean War Memorial. I'd been there a couple of years ago, during the day. In some ways, the Korean War Memorial is my favorite. The Vietnam War Memorial, so powerful and so moving, nonetheless has a tortured stillness about it. The World War II Memorial has the feel of some of the best of the Civil War monuments, but done in a massive style. But the Korean War Memorial has a sense of resigned determination, on a very personal level. Stand across the small hillside where the soldiers are forever trudging upwards, facing the wall on the opposite side. At night, the faces on the wall appear like ghosts, almost luminescent, beyond the shadows of the men. You feel the weariness. The World War II Memorial brings a lump in your throat; the Vietnam War Memorial brings an ache to your heart; the Korean War Memorial brings a chill to your bones.

Traveling Man

Drove from Madison, MS to Sevierville, TN today, on the way to DC. Except for some road construction north of Chattanooga, it was an easy drive. Eastern Tennessee is a nice part of the country to drive through. And free high-speed internet at the hotel is very, very nice.

Country Roads, Country Churchyards, Country Cemeteries

My great-grandmother is buried in a small cemetery behind a church that is no longer used, in a tiny, old east Mississippi community called Beech Springs. For many, many years, just before Mother's Day, my grandmother would make the 35 mile drive from her home in Newton to put flowers on the grave. My grandfather accompanied her until he died, then my mother and father would go with her. It's remote, down a winding country road, and the cemetery is behind the church, almost hidden from view, so my grandmother, and my mother, didn't want to go alone. After my father died, my uncle, who also lived in Newton, went with them. He died earlier this year, and so the role of escort has come down through the years to me. This morning, my mother and I made the trip.

As I said, Beech Springs Cemetery is remote. We drove 60 miles to Newton, then about 20 miles north to Union, then headed northwest on a small country road. We drove about 15 miles, up hills and around curves, all the while immersed in the scents of sweetshrub, honeysuckle, and Virginia Sweetspire. The last ten miles or so, we didn't see a single car. I understood why my mother was reluctant to go there alone. We got to the church, drove down the short dirt path, and parked. It was a beautiful day, bluebird sky, no clouds, yellow sun, and a warm, gentle breeze brushing along the clearing at the top of the small hill. While my mother tended to her grandmother's grave, I walked among the other graves and read the headstones. It always strikes me how sterile the new cemeteries are that have only gravestones, lying flat on the ground. Something not quite identifiable is lost. But here, there were headstones, some very old. I found one for a woman born in 1799. Others looked as old or older, but were so worn the dates were no longer legible. Many, many were for children, who lived 4 months, 1 year, 2 years. We take for granted now that our children will be born and live a long healthy life. But even one hundred years ago, birth began a harrowing period for a child. On both my mother's, and father's, side of the family, there were numerous deaths of children under 2 years of age. Yellow fever, typhoid, some mysterious stomach ailment. We take so much for granted.

But what struck me most, what always strikes me in these small country cemeteries, was the sense of separation from the world. There is a stillness that seems to insulate the place. And I'm always drawn back to the headstones. People were born in 1814, and died in 1859, and were thought to have lived a full life. I'm four years older, and think of myself as young. But a headstone for a young man who died at the age of 14 still has the same aura of grief that a stone laid today would have. The difference, though, is that the stone laid today won't tell the story the same way.

RLP and the Raccoon

Do yourself a favor, go to Real Live Preacher and read the series of posts about the raccoon. It's hilarious.

I'll make it easy for you:

Part 1: In which we are introduced to the raccoon

Part 2: In which the raccoon gains the upper hand/paw

Part 3: In which RLP calls for outside assistance

Part 4: An air of resignation

Part 5: In which RLP invokes a new and hideous weapon

Part 6: In which fox urine is avoided, and RLP emerges victorious