The hands of the rain
Softly Play Upon the Earth
A pale Symphony.

This is so unfair. Let gay people get married... it's not hurting anything.

Here's the issue as I see it:

The 1st Amendment says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

However, the argument in favor of banning gay marriage is that it is a sacred bond between a man and a woman.

"Sacred" = "religion"

So there you have it... it's really simple. Either marriage is sacred and therefore can not be legislated and does not entail any legal status or else it's secular and available to everyone who so chooses to enter into it.

You can't have it both ways.

Personally, I hope this will go to the U.S. Supreme Court and be knocked down as unconstitutional, as it was in my state, Massachusetts.

We've had gay marriage for a couple of years now and guess what... we're doing fine.

For the record I am a happily married, hetero man myself... with no overt pro-gay agenda.

It's just that this is America where fair is fair and there is seperation of church and state... and I for one would like it to stay that way.

In 1919 a Lt. Col. in the U.S. army by the name of Dwight Eisenhower was on a convoy from Washington D.C. to Sacramento, California. The trip followed the old "Lincoln Highway" across the continent, the same route settlers and pilgrims took in centuries past. The convoy took 62 days to reach its destination, averaging 6 miles per hour.

During WWII, the same man, then a 5-star general, was impressed by the German autobahn roadway which linked all of the Reich together. The concept was nothing new, of course. The Roman empire was successful in part because its quality stone highways allowed swift movement of the legions across the empire to quell rebellions and defend against invasions. This was an important asset for any modern country, Eisenhower felt. When he became president he decided to start building a highway system for America.

After 35 years of construction and funding, the interstate highway system was completed. It's the longest road system and the greatest public works project in the entire world. It links every part of the country together for fast, safe travel. Over the last five months I've had the pleasure of navigating this system to every corner of our country. Leaving my home state of Connecticut, I drove south along the Eastern seaboard to Florida, appreciating both landscapes and cityscapes alike.

After enjoying Florida for four months, I drove cross-country to California. This 3400 mile journey, which would have taken Eisenhower's 1919 convoy two months to complete, was over in five days. I enjoyed every minute of it, but it would have been entirely impractical if it were to take two months. The desert of the American southwest holds its own beauty, and its vastness offers great time for personal reflection. I've never seen the milky way as clearly as that night I spent in the Texas panhandle.

After three weeks spent in a Californian mountain town, it was time for me to move on. I drove into the Pacific northwest to visit my sister in Seattle, Washington. This is a lovely town, one I could see myself living in. It gives me such a kick to go around the country and see how Americans live in their own style. It struck me that, linguistically, I never detected a strong accent anywhere in my travels. It must be a mark of how much smaller the world, and with it our country, becomes every day. We read the same news stories and watch the same TV shows, learning to speak the same non-accented American mid-west English from the news anchors. Every now and then I came upon a regional phrase or word, but for the most part no one knew I was from the other side of the country and were surprised to learn it.

After my visit in Seattle ended, I came back home across a more northerly route. This trip took four days this time. I suppose I was excited to be going home. When I left, I never wanted to see my home state again, much less my hometown. I gave the finger to Connecticut when I crossed the border five months ago. But travel makes one realize certain things, I was very happy to see familiar sights and smell familiar smells. It was a fantastic adventure. Many people thought I wouldn't make it. People told me not to go. When I got somewhere, they told me to stay put. Don't go so fast. Go here, go there. Be this, be that. But the journey was my own. I found my way, no matter how lost or lonely. For the majority of my life my town has felt like a prison, utterly smothering. But now, its quaint and small, I've seen and done greater things, and will again.

I've seen a lot in 9,000 miles. I know I'm different for it, but I couldn't say exactly how. I feel privileged to have seen so much of this country's beauty, and feel more American (somehow) for it. I've crossed great fields and plains, gone over mountains, through forests, under and around cities, and over vast deserts. I touched the Atlantic on one side, and the Pacific on the other five days later. I have Eisenhower's forethought and leadership to thank for my safe and speedy travels. If you ever have the chance to drive cross country, I highly recommend it.




























O beautiful, for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea.
O beautiful, for pilgrim feet
Whose stern, impassioned stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;
Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!
O beautiful, for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved
And mercy more than life!
America! America! May God thy gold refine,
'Til all success be nobleness, and ev'ry gain divine!
O beautiful, for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years,
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!

October has been warm so far…… unusually warm but comfortable nonetheless………

It was breezy today, mother nature stripping the last few leaves off the red maples. The foliage of the sugar maples and red oaks will hang on for a couple more weeks, their demise inevitable……

We just bought a couple pecks of fresh apples from a nearby orchard. We'll go back for more when the McCowns are picked.... they're my favorite variety.

The last planting of corn is finally maturing and the winter squash has ripened enough to cook some up.

Fall in New England. Damn, love this time of year.

I live in a suburb of a small city, a big city by Maine standards....... biggest in the State for that matter...... but very small in the global scale. I love it here though I'm afraid the rest of America is realizing how beautiful it is here and the urban sprawl is getting out of control. We have one of the few rural niches left.

Heh, by default, simply because I've been in this spot for so many years, I'm one of the major landowners in town (9+acres).

So..... It's early evening and I'm grilling a chicken, in the dark, a specialty of mine. The air has fallen dead calm and traffic on this rural road has dwindled to almost nothing. The sounds of the city, the interstate, the rail yards and the jetport travel easily through the moist twilight air, though they are several miles away..

And distant sirens penetrate the calm like banshees .........

Sirens.

Dark memories infiltrate my mind. Memories I cannot block out.

Somebody is having a bad day. There is nothing good about having sirens coming to your home.

Someone may be dying, injured, losing their home to a fire or getting busted for something they shouldn't have been doing. I don't know.

The sirens' pleading, desperate wails reach down deep into my chest and wrench at my heart. They bring tears to my eyes even though I have no clue as to their mission.

Years ago, the wail of a siren brought an instant response. Survival meant diving into a sandbagged mortar hole for protection from incoming rounds. A few years later, living in the city, the sirens meant jumping out of bed from a sound sleep and crashing into the bedroom wall........ they would find me huddled in a corner, anything I could grab pulled over me for protection.

All the screaming sirens in the 9/11 videos brought an upwelling of pain to my very being as does the sound of sirens or klaxons in any news article on television. I have found my own way to live with them, though. It hasn't been easy.

As a youngster I was facinated by fire trucks. My father was on the volunteer fire department, eventually rising to Captain of his division. As soon as I was old enough I joined and I eventually joined the Rescue Company too.

I felt I was serving the community but I must admit I really liked the adrenalin rush that went with hurtling down the road with the siren howling and lights ablaze. By the time I returned home from military service I knew I would not be able to function as a firefighter so I withdrew my membership, much to my father's disappointment. I couldn't deal with the sirens anymore.

Even today, though many years have passed, the siren's wail will rip me out of whatever state of mind I am in, whether it be working or sleeping, reading or surfing and remind me that someone's life is going badly.

I know that someday that siren might be coming for me.

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