Reunion

I'm writing this quickly on Thursday night, because my life is about to pick up pace for the next few days. My daughter arrives in Charleston from Colorado Springs on Saturday (the day this should post, if I get this right).

We have cars to look at, movies to see, colleges to tour, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins to visit, feasts to enjoy, tattoos to discuss, beaches to walk, and general catching up to do. If I could, I would stop time on Saturday and just bask for a while in her presence. Our sons and daughters grow up way too fast. And you can tell a young parent, "You're gonna miss this," until you're blue in the face. Until that time comes, they really have no idea. So, rather than missing anything, I plan to enjoy every second of the next week, until I put her on a plane back to Colorado the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

I've been good lately about posting something every day. If I'm not so good this coming week, I hope you'll come back. With luck, I'll have plenty stories to tell by then. Just in case I don't make the time between now and then, I say up front, I hope everyone out there has a grand Thanksgiving in the company of the people they love most.

So I raise a toast to family
Put thanks in my glass
In the arms of your loved ones
It's the only home that lasts
--Edwin McCain

Peace ya'll.

Watershed Essay: the Assignment

I sent out an assignment to my composition students on Thursday. Today, Friday, they're turning in their research essays--really the capstone essay for the course. For the last essay of the semester, I thought they should have some fun, and see just how far they've come in terms of their writing. I plan on joining the fun. I thought the assignment (which I wish I could take credit for, but can only take credit for tweaking) sounded like so much fun I promised to do it with them. And the more I thought about it, I thought it sounded like enough fun some of you, those with blogs and without, might like to give it a shot as well.

Without further ado, here's what I sent out:

Here is your assignment for Essay 5, due in class, in hardcopy so that you may read it aloud, on the Wednesday after we return. This essay replaces the "Letter to the Editor" listed in your syllabus as Essay 5.

The attached .doc file is simply what follows, included here just in case anyone has trouble receiving attachments or opening Word files.

Watershed Essay

(Based on an assignment originally provided to me by Col James Rembert, himself something of a legend in the Dept of English at the Citadel. It came to him, I know not whence. In our profession though, the most flattering thing you can do for a teacher is steal his or her best stuff to use in your own classes.)

(Title: Anything descriptive of your contents, but must not be a sentence.)

Watershed essay—a description and analysis of the watershed event in your life, the incident or event that changed your life. Everything before the event was part of your life lived before this event changed you; everything after the watershed event is part of the you since then, the different you, the you with the new insight about the way the world really is, for better or worse. The incident or event can be something fine and positive, like catching the touchdown pass that won the state championship or hearing your father finally say he loves you; or, it can be something negative, like the car accident described immediately below.

1^st paragraph: The first sentence must be the dramatic high point of the incident, the watershed event in your life. A bad example: “I saw that at this speed I could not make the turn in the highway but must go over the edge.” That is not the dramatic high point. This description is better: “I felt the car leave the road and sail through the air as my girlfriend screamed and braced her hands against the dashboard,” or better still, “I found myself hanging upside down in the car, held by the seat belt, brake fluid dripping from the floorboard onto my head, and my girlfriend lying on the ceiling, bloody and moaning in a fetal position, her now misshapen face inches from my own.” That changed your life, not worrying about not making a curve.

The rest of the 1^st paragraph is simply describing what happened the next few minutes (only) after the event or incident: 911 call, police, ambulance, parents notified, etc.

2^nd paragraph: Begin a week or a month before the incident in the 1^st paragraph, and describe what led up to the event or incident. Pass quickly over the actual event already described.

3^rd paragraph: Describe the aftermath, the results of the incident. What effect did the event have on your life the next week or month or year? Make the last sentence of this paragraph precisely this: “I learned three things from this incident: that (blah, blah, blah); that (bleah, bleah, bleah); and, that (blooey, blooey, blooey).” Instead of that, you may use first, second and last. [For Lt Col Campbell’s class, because we are striving to shatter the image of three as a holy number in composition, you may reduce the number of lessons to two, but no fewer.] Obviously you may use the first-person pronoun (I, me, my, mine, we, our, us, etc.)

4^th paragraph: The first thing I learned is . . .

5^th paragraph: The second thing I learned is . . . (or: I also learned . . .)

6^th paragraph: The third thing I learned is . . . (or: Finally I learned . . .) [Unless you have only two epiphanies, in which case, adjust accordingly.]

7^th paragraph: Explain what it all means. You must use the words “what it all means” or almost identical words. You must use the word “means.” What you say in this paragraph must differ from the 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th paragraphs. This last paragraph is just this: what it all means.

You must follow these direction exactly, precisely, if you want to make a good grade. If you deviate and do your own “thing,” believe me you will make a lower or much lower grade than if you had followed directions. Use no vulgarity, no sex (pick another watershed), no four-letter words, no informal diction. As usual, we are writing formal English. We will read these aloud in class. You will like these. Don’t hold back. The more honest the paper the better received it will be, by your classmates and by the professor.

I promise to let you know how it goes.

Typealyzer: Analyzing Your Blog

This, from Typealyzer:

The analysis indicates that the author of http://theyrodeon.blogspot.com is of the type:

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.

The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Analysis

This show what parts of the brain that were dominant during writing.

Whatever it all means.

Hat tip: Lex

In the News: Snow and Bad Judgment

Not together though.

Saturday morning here it was 73 degrees when I went out to walk the dog first thing in the morning. Tuesday, it was about 41. That's a little bit of a shift. The best part though was getting a text from my oldest daughter in Wilmington, NC: "It's snowing here . . . SNOWING." Here's the article from Wednesday's Star News.

In another interesting article from the Charlotte Observer, some teachers are learning the hard way what they should have known already: that the person you hype yourself as on web social sites can come back to haunt you.

The warning reinforces what one elementary-school teacher learned the hard way: Last week she was suspended and recommended for firing after a WCNC reporter showed CMS [Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools] officials her Facebook page listing “teaching chitlins in the ghetto of Charlotte" as one of her activities. Four other teachers faced milder penalties for pages that showed “poor judgment and bad taste.”

WCNC, the Observer's news partner, found the pages by searching Facebook for people who listed CMS as their employer. The teachers in question did not use a privacy setting that would have blocked general access to their information. The station found photos of female teachers in sexually suggestive poses and a black male teacher who listed "Chillin wit my n---as!!!" as an activity. CMS would not specify which of those pages brought discipline.

This is an issue of which I've always been painfully conscious. I have pages on both MySpace and FaceBook (and the lack of links here is not an accident) for one simple reason: I have daughters with pages there. In order to keep tabs on what's going on in their lives and to be sure that their own such sites aren't going to jump up and bite them in future years, it was necessary to establish a beachhead of my own.

A number of professors I know maintain a very visible presence in such places, even working them into their teaching. The breaches of good taste above are somewhat astonishing to me, but then thinking in terms of OpSec and InfoSec is rather second nature at this point. Teachers are people too, but that mantle of role model doesn't get hung in the closet at the end of the day, especially if you're going to hang out in the same internet venues as your students.

Revisiting the Mountain

I've been dreadfully busy lately, and haven't posted much original in the past few days. Nor today. Instead, since readership has more or less doubled of late, I thought I'd take this opportunity to revisit a post, especially since, last night in the wee hours, I sat here in Charleston, SC, and read this particular piece to my youngest daughter from start to finish. It was late, even in Colorado, but she couldn't sleep. You see yesterday she got to see something that NASCAR drivers are accustomed to, but 16-yr-olds in their first year of driving are not: another vehicle crossing both lanes right in front of you before hitting the curb, going airborne, and landing upside down in a sidewalk planter. She couldn't sleep. She wanted a story. She knew the tale of Daddy's plane crash and some of the family history, but I'd never shared this account with her, since she wasn't yet ten when I wrote it.

So last night, I read it to her over the phone, hoping I was able to get away with playing a few long pauses off as being for dramatic effect, then sent her the doc file and the mp3. If you're new to the blog and you've not read "See Off This Mountain," give it a go. I'd like to believe it's more the sort of thing people visit for than breakdancing videos. It's certainly more the reason I have a blog.

Professor Wikipedia

A post over at Barry's place reminded me of this video. My daughter in college originally sent me the link, and I promptly showed it to my freshman comp classes, adding it to the lesson I teach about evaluating web sources. Enjoy.

Breakdancing

No time for a truly thoughtful post today, so I'll just offer this up. I have tremendous respect for athletes, especially the non-traditional ones. I'm pretty sure the guys in this video could keep up with the folks from Cirque du Soleil on most days. Enjoy.

A New Baby Boom

An entire airborne division and then some has deployed and returned recently. Many of the soldiers were married. The result has been a new baby boom on and around Ft. Bragg, NC. Who'd a thunk it?

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Joanne Chavonne saw pregnant women everywhere in town, shopping at Target for diapers or dining at a Mexican restaurant.

The base has seen an estimated 50 percent surge in births.

Then she heard that so many families were calling the medical clinic at nearby Fort Bragg for the results of pregnancy tests that the Army had to install an extra telephone line.

And finally, over the summer, an administrator told her that the hospital on base was overrun with women in labor, and was delivering nearly 300 babies a month. “I was shocked,” said Ms. Chavonne, whose husband, Anthony, is the mayor here. “That’s 10 a day.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

But Wanda McCants, a nurse on the labor and delivery unit, said she did not mind the extra work, especially considering the high rates of injured veterans that she sees around the hospital. “I think it’s the nature of war to come back and to want to create something,” she said. Seeing all the new life after so much tragedy, she added, “is uplifting for me, too.”

Amen.

The full story is in The New York Times.

Movie Review: Quantum of Solace

Update #2: I read over half a dozen newspapers' front pages daily, some large, some small. Among the small is the Wilmington, NC, Star News. There, of all places, I found this really nice article, published last night. It's less about the new movie than about the franchise itself and the relation between the books (yes, I've read them all), the movies, and the men who've brought Bond to life on screen. And for that very reason, all the more worth reading.

Update: Bottom line (in case you don't want to slog through all that below): worth seeing. B/B+

Saw this last night, at the last showing of opening night here in Charleston. Something of an act of faith, since yesterday morning I read Lawrence Toppman's review in the Charlotte Observer. Now I know how to value Toppman's critiques: not at all. He gave Quantum one and a half out of four or five stars (text says "By Lawrence Toppman (rates on a 4-star scale)" just below a graphic with one and a half of five stars highlighted--we'll see if my submission to the FAIL Blog makes the cut) and wasted a deal of time critiquing a few things that indicated he understood nearly as much about the Bond franchise as Harold Bloom understands about Cormac McCarthy.

If you're a Bond fan, you won't be disappointed. If you're a Daniel Craig Bond fan, you'll even be pleased. Craig is, I think, clearly the best Bond since Sean Connery. What the newest Casino Royale did was take us back to a purer Bond of sorts, a character more like the one that inhabits the books by Ian Fleming. Gone are the gadgets, gone are many of the tag lines. Craig's Bond is the first in a while that we might believe, like Fleming's, could start the day with scalding hot shower, finishing icy cold, if I remember correctly.

I'll never make much of a critic, really. The professional critic feels too obligated to point out every shortcoming of a film with deep analysis of its roots. This sort of exercise is less about the actual film in question than about, "See how much I know about FILM." So go read elsewhere if you want a good analysis of the film's shortcomings, especially its lamentably Bournesque elements, which you can't help but notice, sadly, yet they don't rob it of enough fun to make it worth seeing. Freneticism is here to stay in the action film, I'm sorry to say. Chalk it up to the tastes of a multitasking generation. If you want slow drama with long holds on facial expressions and pauses between lines that carry the weight of the world, this is not your film. Nor Bourne either.

So rather than belabor those points, I'll just mention two I think the film got really right. One is the switch inside Bond that Craig seems to capture just right. While others (Toppman included) may lament Craig's performance as one-dimensional, I disagree. And the scene that captures it best, I think, is his stopping long enough to cradle a dying friend in his arms, before depositing the body in a dumpster. The film's Bond girl, Olga Kurylenko, is touched by the moment, then appalled by its brevity. "This is how you treat your friends?" she asks. Without blinking, looking back, or slowing down, Bond replies, "He wouldn't mind." That ability to feel, and to turn it off, is Bond, Fleming's Bond. The other incarnations of him have, I think, played along a more level emotional field. Put another way, Toppman see's Bond's emotional graph as flatlining; I see it as having a greater amplitude, if a lower frequency. Craig's Bond feels deeply, dangerously so, and his method of dealing with it, is to channel it. Other critics have read this as his being "a brutish pitbull." I disagree.

The other thing I believe they got right is the film's focus on water as the precious natural resource being hoarded here. We are less than a decade away, I think, from our first, honest-to-God war over water. More on that some other time.

Lastly, the film takes us back to an older Bond drink, the Vesper, from a time before a tag line, spoken first in Goldfinger, single-handedly changed the preferred principal element of a martini from gin to vodka. The drink first appeared in the novel Casino Royale, and was revived, appropriately in the 2006 film. From the original Fleming:

"A dry martini," [Bond] said. "One. In a deep champagne goblet."

"Oui, monsieur."

"Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon peel. Got it?"

"Certainly, monsieur." The barman seemed pleased with the idea.

"Gosh, that's certainly a drink," said Leiter.

Bond laughed. "When I'm...er...concentrating," he explained, "I never have more than one drink before dinner. But I do like that one to be large and very strong and very cold and very well-made. I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad. This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I can think of a good name."

-Ian Fleming, Casino Royale

I'll be trying this, just as soon as I can find that wine. Bond has six of them on the flight to South America in this movie. And still can't sleep.

Go see the movie. You'll not be sorry. And if you are, you'll know to go to Toppman for your movie reviews after this.

PS: The Wikipedia entry on "Shaken, not stirred" is worth the time, if you're any sort of a martini drinker at all.

Korengal Valley, Afghanistan

The difference between Afghanistan when I was there in 2002-03 and now? Then, we owned it, and were trying to figure out how to give it back to a more friendly government than the one we'd taken it from. Now, fight's on. We're trying to figure out how best to help the government we gave it to keep it.

For a sobering photo essay about the war we're now fighting in that country, pay this site a visit.

In Colorado Springs, people walk or run up the Manitou Incline for exercise.
In Afghanistan, it's how the troops get to work.
Hat tip: Lex

Snapshot: Marsh in Fog, Evening

Shem Creek. Short fishing pier, unfrequented. 6 p.m. The dark comes early now. Quiet but for the soft whrrr of heat pumps, the faraway sound of traffic, but all that muffled tonight by a light, warm fog. Someone's streetlamp visible half a mile away over pier or boathouse, but beyond that, the condos and hotel normally visible are shrouded. A tall crystal glass of some Aussie Cab/Merlot silhouetted against the grey. A conversation of canines across the creek. Mine rests silent at my feet. She likes the pier, I think--accustomed now to coming here, sometimes only to look out across the water and marsh grass and retreat, and sometimes, like tonight, to pause for a while. To listen to the occasional splash of something alive in the marsh. To allow the breeze, heavy with the weight of the fog to caress us. The crickets to stroke our ears.

I'm learning this place. Tides. So high this morning that I could almost reach down and touch the surface. So, to the chart: +6.9 feet, it says. Then +7.0 tomorrow, before a steady regression to more normal depths. Pull of the full moon.

Fog horn this morning on waking and again now. Took a while to believe it was what it sounded like. No idea where. Something else to learn. Less than three miles to the harbor from here.

Cigar tonight perhaps. Later. After dinner, some Addison, some Steele, a little Swift, and the ever pressing paperwork. Mentally recapping the day leading up to this quiet. Solitary office hours this morning. The afternoon at the Air Force base. Retiree ID card, finally. Register for TriCare Prime. Learn what it is to pay for my health care--a pittance really, compared to anyone else, but after so long at no cost, one more reality check. Ready to be done with that life, but not ready for this.

Walking back in, a conversation of fog horns in differing pitch, like a hearing test for the wide wet world. I press the button.

FAIL Blog

I think it was probably Lex's post the other day that initially sent me to the FAIL Blog, where you'll find lots of images like this one:
which, in and of itself, explains a lot.

Or this one:
which I consider the software version of the recorded message you get when you call your Internet Service Provider and hear, "For faster service, you can log on to our web site at . . . " It's all I can do not to scream into the phone, "If I could log on to your or any other web site, I wouldn't be freakin' calling!!"

At any rate, check out the FAIL blog if you need a brief pick me up. Now I just need to figure out how to submit a few photos of my own (or my daughter's in this case).

There She Stands, and The Gratitude Campaign

Veteran's Day has passed, but not without two moving e-mails from friends, both coming with videos.

The first video comes from perhaps the first girl I ever kissed, too young even to remember (though I do have this vague memory of sitting on the parsonage steps holding her hand), but reminded of it often enough by my mother to think I do. She has a beautiful family of her own these days, and looking at a photo of her, her husband, and their children recently, I know myself well enough to know that if her daughter's face is any bit a reflection of her own at an even younger age, she likely did steal (and just as likely break) my too young heart. How fast time flies.

The second I'll offer here because, newly retired, it's time for me to start saying "Thank you" to those who remain in uniform, carrying on the job I no longer have the privilege of doing. It hasn't been that long though, just over a month now. And it hasn't been three days since someone saw the parachute team sticker on my rear window or the HALO plate on my front bumper and said "Thank you for serving" to me. Even now, retired, the thank you's come.

But really, it's my turn to say thank you for younger hearts, stronger arms, even greater sacrifices than were ever asked of me or my family. If you've known me long, you know I think we ask too much, these days, of our young troops. Not as a nation, for I think the public is grateful in a way never before seen. But the people in Washington, the people running the war, the people making the decisions . . . they ask far too much with too little appreciation of the cost.

So if you have the chance to say thank you, do. I will. And if you ever think it doesn't matter, think again. It moves them, it moved me, often, to hidden tears.

The video can't be embedded, but if you'll click here, it will take you to the short movie. It's worth it. And I owe thanks for this to a newer but equally dear friend in the Pacific Northwest.

Election Aftermath: Obama Supporters

Okay, this falls in the category of LMFAO. Stolen from Buck, this is too good not to pass on. Be sure to pay attention to the text that changes in the lower corner of the screen as the video progresses. Oh, too funny. Way too funny. All my conservative friends who have been beating me up for the last couple of months will love this one.

What College is For

Just over a month ago, I wrote a long e-mail to a student of mine. He would say, I expect, that he was having trouble coming up with a thesis for an essay. I would say, he wasn't really trying. In my composition courses, I construct my writing assignments so that there are clear guidelines about the type of paper one should write (evaluation, cause & effect, proposal, etc), but I leave the selection of topic open. Everyone announces his or her thesis in class and we refine them as a group and everyone learns from everyone else's trial and error.

Not this student. He wanted me to tell him what to write about. He was unable even to come up with a poor thesis that I could help him refine. Sports. Basketball. That's all the help I could get from him. The essay in question was a comparison/contrast essay with two works of art as topic. It could be two films, two books, two poems, two buildings--you get the picture. I suggested he compare sports films, Remember the Titans and Glory Road, I think. When he sent me an e-mail basically throwing up his hands with regard to how to find the films and what to write about in their stead, my response was probably more than he was bargaining for.

For yucks, we'll call him Jake. I reprint this here, not for what it says about Jake, but for what it says about college, just in case I have any readers out there thinking about college, or who have offspring of an age to think about it. The choice to go to college shouldn't be a mindless one. It should be, rather, a choice. I reprint this here for the little help it may be to some facing that choice, or to others in understanding the true import of a choice they've already made.

Jake,

READ THIS CAREFULLY. IT PERTAINS TO MORE THAN JUST THIS COURSE.

You need to decide whether college is for you or not. And I don't mean this in terms of, "It's a cool thing to have a college degree," or "I like to play college sports." Higher education can be just a means to an end, i.e., the degree and a better paying job, but the whole assumption behind the degree being worth a better paying job is that a college graduate's mind will function differently from that of the person who only graduated from high school. Just as there is a similar assumption that the person who sticks with it and graduates from high school has something in their character and intellect that's missing in the dropout. (The fairness of either assumption can be the topic for another debate. For our purpose today, we need only acknowledge that these assumptions/prejudices exist and govern the playing field.)

College is only partially about storing away history, facts, and formulas, Jake. Done right, it's more about learning how to think. That is what you need to decide whether you want or not. Do you want to learn how to think? If what you really want is just to _do_, and to leave the thinking to others, then why drag yourself and your teachers through the next four years?

I'm not suggesting that you should leave. What I'm suggesting is that if you are going to stay, you begin to understand and engage in the process you signed up for by coming here. This letter is part of that process. Not every student needs to be told these things, but you are not the only one who does need to be told.

You say you don't read. Start. If it's difficult, get help. If it's difficult, come see me and I will help you get help. I am happy to participate in your educational journey. I will not, however, carry you. That is not my job.

I give my students flexibility in choosing the topics for their essays because they do a better job on things that interest them. It doesn't work if you rely on me to spoon-feed you. I didn't assign you those films, I suggested them because you were unable to come up with anything on your own. I could spend the time I've spent writing this letter trying to come up with a thesis for you as well, and trying to figure out how you can get access to those films, but, again, that is not why I'm here. That time is better spent writing this letter, inviting you to grow up, grow out, grow beyond the limited expectations you seem to have had for yourself to this point. Take charge of your life, your mind, your education. I will be happy to help you. I cannot do it for you. As Morpheus said to Neo, "I'm trying to free your mind. But I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to walk through it."

You are on your own for locating the movies if you still want to write about them. (I'd start at the library though.) You are on your own for devising a thesis. I will help you refine a thesis. I will not give you one. I refine student's theses. Rarely do I pluck them from thin air. Take the assignment description from your syllabus and go to the Writing and Learning Center. Perhaps they can help. But if you do, go for their help. They are not there to do it for you either, although they may try.

If you are still stumped by the time of our conference on Friday, I will assign you a thesis and we'll see what results. It won't necessarily be on something you'll like writing about, but I'll try to see that it's on something you need to write about.

It's early in the semester for us to be at this point, but better now than after you've wasted weeks in an academic highchair. I want you to come in and sit at the big table. Welcome to college.

He left shortly thereafter to try his luck, I hear, at a community college for a while. Not because of the letter above, so far as I know. Whatever the reason though, I approve of his choice. He needs, I think, a little more time to adjust to the idea of seeking knowledge of any sort for its own sake. A recruited athlete, my sense of him from the little time we shared was that he was here for all the things that being a college grad represented; but, almost wholly unaccustomed to abstract thought, he had little interest in the process underlying his attaining that status. My hope is that in a few years he may return, ready this time for the journey he's signed on to. Paradoxically, he may have demonstrated more maturity in his decision to leave, for now, than a great number of students occupying the chairs of college classrooms show by staying. Either way, I wish him luck.

Have Something to Smile About: Sungha Jung

Go ahead. Give a listen. You won't be disappointed. More rewarding by far than anything I'm likely to write today.

Hat tip: Jay

It's Done

Busy over at the WLA blog today.

Cannot possibly express how glad I am that I will no longer (please, please) have to sort through all the warnings from my conservative friends that an Obama victory will herald the end of days. With luck, they'll be too busy now filling their fallout shelters to fill my inbox. For the record, I'm not in favor of all the man's positions. But I greatly prefer someone earnestly wrong to someone hysterically so. The former can be reasoned with. The latter can only be sedated or ignored.

Did I Mention That . . .

Not that this synchronized video contributes anything new (its point is that neither do the candidates, for the most part), rather, it's just fun to watch. Especially now that it's almost over.

Hat tip: Buzzard.

Snapshot: "I'm Not Dead"

A day at home, dedicated to the paperwork that ends a marriage. Funeral rites.

Coffee on the pier. Gray day. Sluggish backward flow of an incoming tide near high. Quiet trickle of leftover stormwater from a pipe hidden by pier planks. Brown pelican passing at medium height, winging lumberous down the upstream toward open water. Sound of slow wings. The egret beneath ingresses between marsh walls, stark white against muddy banks and brown reeds.

All the while a wake of buzzards holds congress, lining the siderails of the pier reaching from across the way, stacked on roofline and chimney next door, and nearest and thickest perched by the dozen in a dead tree stretched over dead water. All this under overcast sky. Darkly hopeful watch they keep. Fit weather and fit fowl for this day's labors.

And when one circles close to see what sits so long without movement, taking it all in, a flashback. Dark bird to bring such a light thought and true. Not dead. Not yet. Not hardly.


And clearly, I need to replace that lost camera.

A Little RW

It stands for "Relative Work." It means getting 2 or more skydivers together in the air to build formations.

That said, here's a political cartoon a skydiver can really appreciate: