The election for Governor and other positions here in Virginia is November 4th, but early voting started last week on Friday, September 20th. At 9:45 that morning, I was voter number 54. We are blessed and cursed here in Virginia, with elections Every. Single. Year. This year, the stakes are high.
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My eyes were drawn to the stone immediately. We were at our campsite in Wyoming when I noticed it. A small smooth stone by itself on top of a tree stump. It had no business being there, unless placed by someone. I walked over and picked it up. It was warm in my hand.
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September 11th is our National Day of Remembrance. I think back to that horrific day, and also recall the unity that came to America afterwards, for a while at least. I now also have something else to think about. I recently learned my dad enlisted in the Army 85 years ago, on SEPTEMBER 11th, 1940. He was all of sixteen.
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In 1986, Life Magazine called Route 50 through Nevada the loneliest highway in America. They actually issued warnings for parts of the drive. Cathy says lonely does not begin to describe it. Forlorn, desolate, rough, isolated, remote, vast, haunting, and yes, hauntingly beautiful.
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OK. Cath and I did a thing. We are in California and bought a camper van. It has been a lifelong dream, and we just pulled the trigger. Over the next couple of weeks, we will drive it 3,000 miles back to Virginia, hopefully the first of many adventures with it.
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Having recently revisited Jefferson Airplane and their brilliant “White Rabbit” in a blog about Woodstock, I decided to reread “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”. I’m not sure I’d read it since childhood. How close are White Rabbit and Wonderland to each other? Go ask Alice, I think she knows.
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Recently, my wife, Cathy, and her sister Bonnie spent three weeks touring the wilderness and National Parks in Wyoming and Montana in a camper van. I’ll talk a little about that. What I really want to talk about is the people who stole their firewood at a couple of campgrounds.
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Fifty-six years ago, from August 15-18, 1969, a three day festival celebrating Peace and Music took place at Max Yasgur’s farm in upstate New York. My friend Chuck, all of 19 at the time, drove there with three buddies, and experienced sex, drugs, and great Rock & Roll music at what came to be known as Woodstock.
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We West Point Whiskey Warriors gave it our best shot on the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. By the numbers, there were fourteen of us ‘78ers, along with eight wives, from twelve states. We sampled at nine distilleries in four days, and had one helluva good time. Numbers of course don’t capture everything, or for that matter, much of anything.
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This write-up is from my friend, Clark Hall (no relation), a Vietnam Veteran. While the words are his, the lessons are for all of us —
60 years ago, on August 3, 1965, an “incident of war” occurred that foreshadowed the human, political and military disaster underscoring the lunacy of the Vietnam War.
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Live Life Exuberantly 