My internet connection is spotty here, so just a couple of quickpix in advance of a bigger report later.
My friend Vahe Gregorian is a sportswriter in St. Louis. He saves stuff. Like, for instance, all his credentials:
It’s funny — I’ve always been a credential-saver, too. Of course I don’t have a fraction of Vahe’s. My guess is, he’s saving them to sell on eBay in his retirement, to supplement what’s left of his pension when the entire industry implodes.
Meanwhile, at the Cornerstone Festival, the alt-Christian culture is in full flower:
If they’d had a T-shirt of this, I’d have bought it. But they didn’t.
A few short items this morning before I start packing for the Christian Burning Man:
We’ve been visiting our lake cottage in Branch County less and less over the years, and perhaps you’d like to know why. OK.
Our next-door neighbor there, who bought the cottage built by Alan’s uncle, tore it down this year. No harm in that — it’s small and had a powder-post beetle infestation at one point. It probably needed doing. Of course we knew they’d put up something much bigger, but we were hopeful it would be, er, in character with the neighborhood. They decided on a prefab Swiss chalet. Other houses on the strip had been brought there in pieces, so there was a precedent. Can they get the truck to the lot without major damage? Oh sure, no problem.
The chalet went in this week. Their truck driver backed his semi across our front lawn and without so much as an oops, flattened two 10-year-old river birches Alan planted when Kate was a baby. Number of profuse apologies that have arrived at this address, or that of my sister-in-law, in the interim: Zero. Simple acknowledgment? None.
That’s it, in a nutshell.
We’ve told Spriggy that if he’d care to entrust us with his share of Leona Helmsley’s $8 billion, we’ll take very good care of it. Jeez, what a bitter old crone — $12 million for her own Maltese wasn’t enough, I suppose. I love dogs as much as you do, maybe more, and let me tell you: $12 million for a single dog deeply misunderstands the nature and needs of all dogs. You can argue with the foundation setup — I suppose there’s always someone who needs to hear the spay/neuter argument again — but at its heart it’s the work of a true misanthrope, in love with the poochies but not a dime for humanity. You know what I think? I think it’s because LA Mary couldn’t get her the strawberry preserves she wanted for her hotels. It queered her on two-legged creatures once and for all.
Appreciate Clay Felker? It’s all anyone ever did, who wanted anything to do with magazines. Was it emulation, or was it envy, or was it a fantasy — working for the perfect place, the perfect editor, at the perfect time?
When I started freelancing, I had a simple goal: To do as much work as possible for editors who could help me improve. Needless to say, I never met Clay Felker.
Metro mayhem: Someone stole the copper plumbing from one of the city’s most visible landmarks. A six-figure repair bill for a few bucks in scrap metal.
John Scalzi printed one of his famous sunset pictures and included his cat, so I LOL’d it. No one will get it:
That should keep you. I’ll be in and out until I leave for the airport, so, y’know, whatever. Oh, and thanks for all the SF recommendations, folks. I neglected to mention, this trip is basically a rerun of our honeymoon lo those many years ago. (Alan: “You sure you don’t want a diamond ring?” Me: “I want a two-week honeymoon more.”) You brought back memories and gave me some new ideas. You guys are the best.
It’s raining outside my window, not too hard, but a definite get-wet-if-you-stepped-outside sort of rain, going pitter-pat on everything, and it sounds wonderful.
It’s 8:54 p.m. The sun is trying to break through in the west, real golden-hour light, even though the rain isn’t abating at all. It’s almost, but not quite, Hollywood rain, the kind created by an industrial sprinkler on a bright Los Angeles day. I can hear a cardinal singing somewhere. If I weren’t sitting here, I’d go outside to look for a rainbow, but I’m enjoying the sound and the light filling the room too much to move.
The rain is harder now. Not a breath of a breeze; it’s falling straight down. Very very nice.
I know I’ve been bitching a lot lately, but today I am happy to be a work-at-home freelancer (even thought I have to go to work in, um, two minutes). But I’m working in a chaise in my own bedroom, on my laptop, enjoying the rain and the light and the cardinal. I just left Alan sitting over the remains of dinner — grilled salmon with cucumber-dill sauce, mixed green salad with herbs from the garden, Swiss potatoes — and he informed me he intended to listen to the rain for a while, too.
(Later.)
I don’t know why, but just sitting there enjoying the moment reminded me of something I heard on NPR — you know, that elitist radio network — a few days ago. Margot Adler’s story is headlined “Perfecting the Art of Frugal Living in NYC,” but it really should be called Perfecting the Art of Living, period. It was about a study of New York’s most endangered species — its starving artists, the people who in large part give the city its character and flavor, but who are also the ones least able to live in its staggeringly expensive apartments.
Wary of using too much in fair use, I urge you to click over and read the story of Hank Virgona, visual artist, who typically makes less than $30,000 per year, but still has the world’s riches outside his front door:
Virgona says when people come to see his art he never asks them if they’d like to buy anything.
“I talk about art. I talk about my love for art,” he says. “I talk about how a walk down a quiet street — especially toward dusk — is as good as going to Caracas or Venezuela or anywhere. It is nourishing. That is part of art’s purpose.”
Joan Jeffri, who directed the study for the Research Center for Arts and Culture, says for these creative people being an artist transcends every other identity — race, education, gender.
“They don’t ever think of giving up being artists,” Jeffri says. “If they have arthritis, they change their art form. They don’t retire.”
Jeffri believes these artists have wisdom to impart about living and aging. In a sense, she says, they are role models.
And what are the first programs to be cut when schools have budget troubles? Anyone? Yes, the arts. This has been your moment of Zen.
Jeez, it’s a hot one today. Of course, the hottest part of any day is late afternoon, which is when the (outdoor) kickoff party for the film festival starts. On a rooftop. Oh, well — if this day goes like the last 60 or so, it’ll be raining by then.
Some bloggage:
Of interest to media types only, a WSJ piece on the widening rift — there’s a piece of journalese, ain’a? when was the last time you used “widening rift” in casual conversation — between member papers and the Associated Press.
In the right blogosphere, Roy finds growing anxiety over “what the inaugural ball will be like” if Obama wins. I’m hoping for a five- hour set by Parliament Funkadelic, with lots of “get up offa that thang!” from the stage.
Color me astounded: Madonna’s teeing up a divorce filing. She’s said to be getting the best legal talent to preserve her giant pile of money, wherein live the souls of the men whose essence she extracted, creative succubus that she is. I think her husband’s best strategy is to go limp: Walk into the first negotiation and say, “I don’t want a dime. I won’t take a nickel. I’m off to live in a garret while I try to regain the semblance of originality and creativity I once had before you entered my life. I’m getting some futons from Ikea for the kids to sleep on when they visit. You are a curse and I am fortunate to have escaped with my life. Have a nice one of your own, what’s left of it.” And then walk out. She’d be running after him stuffing a check for $100 million in his pocket.
It wasn’t until I saw the flag box in the grocery store vestibule that I remembered how patriotic this part of the state is. A retired mailbox, it was repainted white and emblazoned (in red and blue, natch): DEPOSIT WORN-OUT FLAGS HERE FOR PROPER DISPOSAL. I own a flag, but it’s only been flown on patriotic occasions, so I figure it’ll last a lifetime. I can’t imagine going through so many that I’d need to use a special flag-disposal box, but like I said, Mio, Mich. is a patriotic place.
We were in Mio to launch the boat for a little downstream floating, part of CampFest 2008, the first of three planned summer trips. Somehow, two people who rarely passed a year without a camping trip managed to give it up entirely when the kid came along. (Wonder why? Wonder no longer than it takes you to imagine changing diapers in a tent. Keeping toddlers happy in a tent. And so on.) So this was Kate’s first, but not her last. At least, I hope so. We had torrential downpours both nights, our campsite was invaded by tent caterpillars, the mosquitos were vicious, and there was a war going on across the river, and she still had fun. Fingers crossed.
Yes, a war. We camped in Grayling, home of Camp Grayling, and as usual, maneuvers were under way. The town was clogged with camouflage, and at night, the sound of machine-gun and artillery fire rang through the woods. It’s actually not objectionable at all — it wasn’t terribly loud, they’re good neighbors, and the plug is pulled at 10 p.m., which, at this time of year and at that latitude, isn’t even full dark.
Most people around here know the charming story of the Kirtland’s Warbler, an endangered little songbird once thought extinct, until a few were found nesting near the National Guard’s firing ranges. KWs nest in jack pine forest, but only in trees about head-high; they need a recently burned landscape to survive. In the years of vigorous fire suppression, they lost habitat, and only found it in the places where artillery shells had started small fires, stimulating regrowth. And so the wee birdie found refuge with the big soldiers, and if we could add some kittens and rainbows to this story, we would.
Actually, we can. This was Saturday:
Yep, that’s a threatening sky. I’m just glad the hailstorm came when we were in the car.
More video later. I have a busy morning, and then a busy week. I think I mentioned this once before, but lo it has come to pass: I’m on a team participating in the Detroit-Windsor International Film Festival Challenge, which takes place this coming weekend. Everybody meets at a central location, and each team is given a genre, a location, a line of dialogue and a prop, and we’re given 48 hours to make a four- to seven-minute film incorporating all four. The location has already been leaked — the Ambassador Bridge. There are six possible genres, which means I (the writer) have to have at least six vague ideas for short stories in each one. That’s not too daunting, is it?
Also, a final note: I freely admit to being the most out-of-touch writer in the world, but even I was amazed at the Princess Diana-ization of Tim Russert’s death. My last media intake was Friday night, after midnight, when MSNBC was still live “Remembering Tim Russert.” When I resurfaced Monday, glancing at the headlines in USA Today at the Grayling McDonald’s (did I mention I forgot the coffee in the camp kitchen), there were stories about sudden cardiac arrest and “what it means for your health.” It must suck to be famous. Is there really a demand for this? Judging from some of the vox populi out there, a lot of people felt personally connected to the guy. I don’t get it, but I’m sorry for the loss.
I know you guys have come to expect something fresh and new every day here, but the day’s tasks are piling up like cordwood and something’s gotta give.
What’s more, NN.C is taking a brief road trip to a primitive land with no wi-fi, and will not be back until Monday. I’ll leave the doors unlocked here, and y’all can play. Something we might talk about:
Finally, a dispatch from our Wisconsin correspondent, in the western suburbs of Milwaukee:
i spent a lovely 15 minutes or so in the basement today with the boys while we waited for the latest tornado siren to stop howling. i’m not complaining, mind you. in greendale’s R section, close to the root river, water levels were up to the bottom of the stop signs. a small town south of here is just waiting for its dam to break–it’s not a question of if it happens, just when. westbound I-94 to madison is closed because one of the rivers is flowing onto the freeway now. (earlier this week, they closed that stretch down and parked semis loaded with sand at regular intervals to provide downward force to offset the upward force from the floodwaters directly beneath.)
but: not complaining. our basement, for the moment, is dry. still, we feel a little shellshocked.
Stay dry, Deb. Good thoughts to all of you caught in the deluge. Me, I’ll be back late Monday/early Tuesday.
“Vroom!” goes the full-size SUV under my bedroom window, open to the cooling breezes of late spring.
At 5:30 a.m., someone drops off a child across the street; this neighbor baby-sits. The two adults stand in the driveway having a conversation. Their voices aren’t raised, but in the still morning they might as well be in bed with me.
Ten minutes after this, an automatic sprinkler system erupts. Sure, we’ve had rain out the wazoo these last few days, but those things are on timers and not easily overridden. “Hisssssss,” goes the sprinkler head. “Ticka-ticka-ticka.”
Sometime after that, my neighbor returns from his morning errand. The V-8 conquerer of highways comes back up the driveway. And a few minutes after that, my mattress dips. It’s my wonderful child, crawling in for five minutes of cuddles before we both have to get up, because it is, after all, a school day. Time to get up.
I have to change my life. Have. To. Change. By Thursday I’m so sleep-deprived I’m nearly hysterical. I feel as though I spend my life catching naps, which are invariably interrupted. You might have read about recent storms in the Midwest? Storms are followed by chain saws and wood-chippers. You’ve heard of the green revolution? That means three rounds of big trucks rumbling through the neighborhood on trash day (garbage, recycling, yard waste). Every lawn service uses gas-powered blowers, edgers and weed whips. Don’t get me started on the ice-cream truck.
And on those days when everything comes together for me, when I can sleep through the sprinklers and the SUV and everything else? Sometimes this requires me to go sleep in the guest room on the other side of the house. Those neighbors have a sprinkler, too, but sleep later. But there’s a line of arbor vitae along that side of the property, excellent nesting habitat. One blue jay greeting the day is all it takes.
Oh, don’t mind me. I’m just ranting. And starting tomorrow, my life will be changed. Yes, at long last, EndofSchoolFest 2008 is over, and I can sleep until I feel like getting up. Learning effectively ended a week ago, and since then it’s been party, party, party. Today, the last day, is a half day — it’s all over at lunchtime.
“Why are they even having school today?” I said over raisin bran at 7:30. Grumpily. (Yeah, go figure.) “What on earth are you going to do?”
“There’s a breakfast, and then a helicopter lands on the playground.”
Jesus Christ, and then what? Hannah Montana steps out and plays a four-song set? Bill Graham presents the Playboy Bunnies? No, it lands, everybody gets to look at the instrument panel and ask questions, and it takes off. One of her classmates’ father is a Coast Guard officer on the rescue chopper, and it’s just a treat for the kids. This is its second visit in three years. I talked to the Coastie’s wife at a school function a while ago. What sort of missions does that thing fly? I wondered. She said they evacuate a lot of sailors with chest pains from Great Lakes freighters, a procedure that, if you did it to me, would push me from mere chest pains to a full-blown heart attack. Nothing like being hauled up to an orange chopper in a basket to make a day interesting.
The promotion ceremony was sweet, though. And no one said a word about the flip-flops.
So, bitching aside, howzabout some bloggage:
Michelle Obama, “baby mama.” Yup. First the crazy negro fist bump, and now this. That clip of the Fox News host asking if the Obamas’ knuckle punch was “a terrorist fist jab” is overused — find it yourself on YT; I’m sure there are eight billion copies up there — but it reminded me of the first thing I ever read about this greeting. It was a story in which some baseball player was quoted as saying his secret to toughening up him mighty man-paws was soaking them in his own urine. The team’s manager was asked for a response, and he said, “Oh, no one really cares. Although no one shakes his hand anymore, either. We mostly just give him the fist.”
Personally, I’m all for handshake alternatives. In the labs at the Centers for Disease Control, I’m told, it’s considered very bad form to offer a handshake; the preferred greeting is the elbow bump.
Of course, if Fox News existed in Canada, we could fine them into the stone age. Not a good idea.
Whenever I concentrated long enough to begin prayer, I felt some type of physical force distracting me. It was as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe. . . Though I could find no cause for my chest pains, I was very scared of what was happening to me and Susan. I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone in an attempt to find peace for myself.
Now I kinda hope McCain does ask him to be his running mate; this could be fun.
Guess what I can hear? A helicopter! Time to get to work:
You can’t get out of school without a final rule being shoved down your throat. The final rule of today’s Promotion Ceremony was handed down yesterday — no flip-flops. Screw it. Our student has a special new pair of flip flops with sparkly straps to go with her new dress, and she’s wearing them, and if anybody makes a stink about it they’re going to be dealing with me, and mama don’t take no mess. There’s a point at which all the stupid rules of school become unbearable, and they don’t even apply to me. I’ve sat silent through No Squirt Guns at the Class Picnic (violation of the weapons policy) and No Untwisted Paperclips (ditto) and a punishment system that frequently involves writing, but on this one I’m a scofflaw.
(The punitive-writing thing bugs me in particular. Say you’re, oh, a software designer. Were your child to misbehave while in my care, I would not make him or her design software as a punishment. And yet, teachers think nothing of assigning painful essays as punishment for breaches of conduct large and small, and then wonder why kids despise writing.)
I shouldn’t complain. I don’t have to wrangle a few hundred kids who’d much rather be at the pool. I frequently marvel that teachers stay sane at all, and don’t begrudge them two or three end-of-day cocktails one little bit. Keep in mind this is a middle-class suburban district where kids are, generally speaking, still respectful of adults (in public, anyway) and will behave if ordered to do so. Still. Squirt guns? Please.
In other domestic news at this hour, we have a resident wild thing — an opossum. (The writer within insists I call it by its formal name on first reference.) I think it’s living under the deck by day and it needs to be removed, but I caught a glimpse of it in the driveway last night and damn — it’s the size of a Ford F-150. For once I was grateful for the dog’s ailing eyesight, because I was able to call him inside before he saw that mofo lurking out by the birdbath. A fight between those two would have been ugly. Alan has a live trap at the lake house, weaponry from last fall’s Groundhog Wars (score: Groundhog 1, Humans 0), and it’s coming here a.s.a.p. I like to live in peace with the natural world, but I’m wary of the damage a beast like that can do. And I read that in possums, “senescence is rapid.” I don’t want that sucker dying under my deck.
A quick skip to the bloggage, then:
I’m sorry, but when I see a headline reading Baby born with penis on back, man oh man am I clicking that one. If more babies were born with extra penises growing out of their backs, the newspaper business would not be in the fix it is today. For the squeamish, this appears to be one of those incompletely-absorbed-fetal-twin situations, and the kid seems to be fine after surgery, even though he lost a second career as a coat rack.
My favorite blogger, Roy, is taking a few days off to have eye surgery. This seems as good a time as ever to re-promote “Detached,” our friend James Burns’ graphic novella about his own eye surgery.
My congresswoman, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, is the Detroit mayor’s mother and is, I have assumed, as cemented into the job as my last congressman. The Free Press says maybe not — her son’s troubles have given mom some challengers, one of whom released an ad on the internets this week. In typical old-media fashion, the Freep didn’t provide a link. I’m going to assume it was an oversight, but here it is, and it’s a goody. (It uses the infamous “y’all’s boy” meltdown, seen in longer form here.)
You’ve probably all seen this by now, but just in case not, the NYT looks at the popularity of re-virginization surgery among European Muslim women. Show me a culture that values chastity over everything else in young women, and I’ll show you a sick culture. Nothing in this story changed my mind. Funny line:
But hymen repair is talked about so much that it is the subject of a film comedy that opens in Italy this week. “Women’s Hearts,” as the film’s title is translated in English, tells the story of a Moroccan-born woman living in Italy who goes to Casablanca for the operation.
One character jokes that she wants to bring her odometer count back down to “zero.”
I’ve always thought you could judge a group by what they compared their women to — cows (as in why buy one when you get the milk for free), shoes (you wouldn’t buy a pair without trying them on) and now cars. I ask you.
Off to walk around threateningly on the deck. Maybe I can scare the possum away. Ha.
I’m sure we’re all very sorry to hear the site of Brian Stouder’s upcoming vacation is now a muddy bog. But we’re more amused by his reaction:
We’ll see how this plays out; our plans are for after the 4th of July. If nothing else, I definitely wanna see that Paul Bunyan restaurant.
The cry of the Midwestern Clark Griswold: Carry on regardless! It’s just a flesh wound!
The weather here’s been no picnic, but a fraction of the misery of Wisconsin’s — or even Indiana’s. A big storm system smashed through here Sunday night, but gave the east side the slip, mostly. A few limbs down, nothing worse. It’s pouring at the moment, which lately feels like par for the course. At least it’s not 94 degrees, like yesterday.
When we kick off with the weather around these parts, it means we are tapioca on topics. The end of the school year happens in 3-2-1, and as usual, it blots out the household sun. I’m looking forward to sleeping past 7 a.m., not looking forward to swinging the maternal whip of get-off-the-couch-and-go-outside-it’s-a-beautiful-day. So far I’ve resisted the pull of the upwardly mobile summer — enrichment camps and lessons in lifetime sports. I’m a firm believer in down time as a restorative, and all those camps and lessons can quickly feel like a different form of school. She has to learn to swim, and I’d like her to learn to sail, but so far I haven’t packed her off to High-Q Acres for pre-algebra training. If she refuses to get off the couch this summer, the next one might be a different story, however.
One thing I’m trying this year: A summer reading list. Part of the commodification of the tween years has been a veritable explosion in targeted literature — chick lit for 12-year-olds. It’s enough to keep a kid occupied for months, but I aim to shove it aside from time to time. I had my Nancy Drew, she has her Beacon Street Girls, but I had a “suggested summer reading” list, handed out at the end of the school year. It was strongly implied that there might be a quiz in September (there never was), but it was enough to make me pick up “Animal Farm,” “Johnny Tremain” and a few other classics of the children’s/young adult room at the library. I’m making my own list, and welcome suggestions for an 11-year-old reading at the outer edge of her age range. So far I’ve got some Jack London on there, and thought about “Little Women,” but was amazed to rediscover what a brick it was. Five hundred pages of antique language and exhaustive period detail can bog down even a bright reader of the modern age. I tried to recall when I read it, and the dread set in — I’d read a Reader’s Digest condensed version! Illustrated! What a fraud I am. It’s still on the bubble; I may reread it myself. “Tom Sawyer” is on the list, too.
Time the next-door neighbor’s home alarm — a klaxon horn mounted on the outside of the house, 40 feet from my pillow — went off, not due to an intrusion but to someone forgetting to turn it off before going out for morning coffee: 6:10 a.m.
You have a nice day, too.
So you can guess the mood I’m in this morning, on a day forecast to be 92 degrees at its peak, with the usual oppressive humidity. Sorry, Dexter, but I don’t think I’m going to be attending the Red Wings victory parade today. Although the idea of a nice long nap on the ice might sound pretty good by then.
There are those who are energized by parades and crowds, and those who are not. I’m in the latter group, which is unusual, because I’m a classic Myers-Briggs extrovert. But crowds frequently send me into a funk; who are these awful people, and are any of them living near me? I’m likely to think. And do they have exterior home alarms?
I think I should go back to bed. Enjoy Lance Mannion’s take on “Weeds,” here. Did anyone see “Swingtown,” and if you did, what did you think? And here’s a writer’s trick: When all else seems inadequate, try a lede like this:
Let me be blunt: “You Don’t Mess With the Zohan” is the finest post-Zionist action-hairdressing sex comedy I have ever seen.
The Boston Globe allegedly did it first, when it described “Shakes the Clown” as “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of alcoholic clown movies.”
Short shrift today, folks. We’ve entered the last days of the school year, which mean more work for mother, and practically no work for the student in the house. Today is the safety/service picnic, and I’m a driver/chaperone/fruit salad contributor. Also, I worked a seven-hour news-farming shift last night, and I don’t want to see my keyboard for another 12 hours. Discuss what you like. I hear Hillary’s finally throwing in the towel, which is gracious of her because, you know, she could have taken it to the streets of Denver, and tear gas could have been involved. I’m thinking what happened to Hillary is what happens to people who live in a human cocoon, surrounded by ass-kissers and pillow-plumpers who either a) spend all their time covering their own; or b) telling you what you want to hear. When Sonny Corleone shouted at Tom Hagen that he wasn’t a wartime consigliere, he was speaking for everybody at the head of a losing team: Tell me the truth!
Too bad no one did. On to November. Remember, look past the fence.
Bloggage:
Detroit should change its motto to “defining new ways to be fucked up, every day” — someone pried an 8-foot statue of Jesus from the cross on the side of a church, and I don’t think they were re-enacting the 13th station of the cross. Best guess for a motive is, the statue is green, and the thieves probably thought it was copper. (It wasn’t.) America, behold your future!
Sweet Juniper’s dad has the second kid in cloth diapers, and he was feeling a little smug about it. Was:
…Yesterday I had the misfortune of going down into the basement during the spin cycle of that initial rinse. Our washing machine empties into a basin during the spin cycle. As desensitized as I have become to all things scatological over the past few years, nothing—nothing—could have prepared me for what was pulsing into the wash basin. Vomiting out of the tube was this butterscotch-tinted gray liquid, quickly filling the room with the humid perfume of pickled baby shit that had marinated in a brine of cold urine for a week. I watched it rise in the basin as the washing machine spun. Just when the vile brew threatened to spill over the top it began to subside in a roaring, fecal Charybdis above the drain. I swear I heard the voices of demons or lost souls calling desperately to me from the gurgling ferment.
That man is a good writer.
When I lived in Indiana, and I was about to attend my first Indy 500, I went prancing back to the sports department to pick up my press pass. Ooh, how exciting! The old geezer who covered, I think, golf and some other boring sport looked at me and shook his head sadly. He’d been to the race, he said. Once. He took his kids; they had great seats right on the main stretch. The race started, that thrilling moment when 33 cars go into that first turn like a flock of fighter jets flying in tight formation, and then this happened on the second lap:
Right in front of the biggest part of the crowd, right in front of his kids. The old sportswriter bundled his hysterical children into the car while they were still clearing the track, drove back to Fort Wayne and never felt the need to attend Indiana’s signature sporting event again. Those sitting close told stories much like this:
I see a driver being carried on a stretcher into the infield hospital. I am close enough I could have reached out and touched him. He is burned so badly there is no way to tell who he is. The figure is barely recognizable as a human being. I have never been able to get that image erased from my memory.
This particular writer is given to melancholy and hand-wringing; maybe this is why.
Off to hunt up my melon baller. So I can ball some melons. Shut your mouth. Back later.
