Testing... Testing...
The rain in Spain falls mostly on the plain. Hmm, it is entirely possible that the fault has all along been with my father's p.o.s. HAL....

Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith

I was driving behind a truck the other day and in the center of the rear windshield was a sticker. The sticker featured an Americna flag and next to it the words "These colors don't run." Now, this was a late model truck; so, this sticker was not just a holdover from the Gulf War. The really fun part was that the colors of the flag were quite faded.

Manfred von Richthofen
Herr Richthofen, known to history as the Red Baron, was credited during the Great War with shooting down eighty Allied (French, British, Candian, and American) aeroplanes, more than any other pilot on either side. At the time of his death in 1918 (shot down either by a Canadian pilot or Australian anti-aircraft gunners), he was a mere twenty-five years old, the same age I am now. He may have fought on "the wrong side," but still he is remembered. Were I to be flattened by a bus im the next few minutes, I would quickly be forgotten.

I said to Skeeter last night, "A quarter century and I have nothing to show for it." To which she replied, "Don't be so melodramatic."

At the Summit on Saturday, the Plate told me I was about the experience a golden birthday. "Golden" not because I was turing twenty-five, but because I was turning twenty-five on July 25, the first, last, and only time in my life the date and my age will line up thusly. A month earlier, he had experinced his own golden birthday on June 25. Well, hurray for us.

And yeah, I'm awesome! I mean, did the Red Baron ever publish his own crummy little newsletter? I think not! Or if he did, it wasn't The Newsletter. Ha! Point for me.

On the plus side, I am now Constitutionally eligible for election to the United States House of Representatives. Five years until I can be a United States Senator!

The City That Never Sleeps
I am flying to New York on Freitag to spend the weekend with Skeeter. The poor devil. Sites and attractions I want to see: the Natural History Museum (last time, I spent our entire visit just in the dinosaur room), Theodore Roosevelt's birthplace (it's an official National History Site!), and the site of the World Trade Center/the cornerstone for the new Freedom Tower. When I mentioned this last destination, Skeeter wrote, "Really?" I have no idea what she meant by that. I sincerely hope she does not share the attitude many New Yorkers have articulated that only they suffered on 9/11 and that no one else in the country was affected.

On my very first trip to New York City in the mid-/late-'90s (this will be my third), my family went to the World Trade Center. It was there than my brother and I encountered the Monocled Man. He was a distinguished older gentleman, bald in the way that sez, "Hi, I'm a Viscount," neatly dressed in a blazer and turleneck sweater, and sporting, honest to Bog, a monocle. And on the Monocled Man, that monocle looked completely natural. I have been to the Gettysburg National Cemetary and toured the battlefield. I have been to Arlington National Cemetary, where I almost cried. I have visited the Little Bighorn and seen the headstones. I have been to Fort Ticonderoga, the Saratoga battlefield, and the reconstruction of Fort William Henry. I desire to one day visit Hawai'i not for the beaches and the sea breezes, but to pay my respects to the crew of the Arizona.

I am not terribly fond of the "Ground Zero" designation - to me it seems disrepectful to those who died at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania - but to me visiting the site seems both natural and proper. Men and women and children died there, most of them innocently, many of them heroically, some of them intentionally, and it is important to stop and say, "I remember."