Snow - December 1999

It's snowing here. Wet snow, the kind that sticks to everything, the kind that soaks you clean through . . . it's overcast but there's a full moon behind it shining through just the same, and there's a fine, solid mist of snow coming down, covering everything it touches. Everything is still. There is no sound save the wind and the snow it brings. I can feel, hear, the snow crinkling into my coat as the wind wraps around me. The pines wave gently in the breeze, so gently they do not drop what snow has gathered on their boughs. I stand, feeling the air, feeling the snow, watching that white mist shift slightly in the wind . . . the snow covers all. Already my footprints trailing behind me to the porch are vanishing beneath its folds. Ahead of me the neighbor's floodlight casts its own glow into the mist, casting the moonlit snow into shadows. It is a brighter white against the silent white, almost out of place in this gray-white world, but it is still a part. Down the hill, the street and the trees are nearly vanished into each other, wrapped in white. There too is a glow, a pale yellow against the white, but it is not so strong.

I turn and retrace my steps, then continue them. The snow cushions my boots, collapsing with a muted crunch into its own cushion of leaves that lie below it. Behind the house, the trees are hardwoods, not pines, and their branches are bare, yet no longer, for the snow is gathering upon them; there are no needles to filter it off, but merely branches on which the snow lands and piles up, rows of white topping the gray wood. The weeds not yet leveled are quiet and subdued, almost beautiful, as the snow covers them equally. Here the mist is not so easily seen, hidden as it is by the enclosure of forest and fences, and the beauty is stark, hard almost; it is more intense than the cold which grips my body. I can bear it no more, I turn and move away quickly. It is too much. A fallen branch catches on my boot; I free it, and in doing so look back involuntarily. The cold that grips me now is not solely of the air. This time I do not look back.

In front the mist remains; it is a comfort, almost as an old friend. Here it is open; here is beauty of an intense nature, but not like of the back, where strange shapes and shadows lie just beneath the snow, almost hidden, but all too present. No, here there is a warmth of heart within the cold of air. This is the place. My voice lifts, not ringing out loud and clear, for there can be no such here. No, here the heart sings strong while the voice sings soft. Still, through the air, there is a voice in this wilderness of snow.

"Silent night . . . holy night . . . all is calm . . . all is bright . . . 'round yon virgin, mother and child . . . holy infant, so tender and mild . . . sleep in heav'nly peace . . . sleep in heav'nly peace . . ."

The voice trails off, the sounds already overtaken by the hush of the mist, but the heart cannot be silenced. The mist understands the heart, and the heart understands the mist, and only the trees may hear.

(December 1999)

Happy birthday, Mom

Warning: the following may be disjointed, rambling, and/or incoherent. Possibly all at the same time. Don't say I didn't warn you.

***

The very first thing I should do - after the warning, I mean - is to wish my mother a very happy birthday. Propriety demands I not reveal the lady's age, but you wouldn't know it to look at her anyway. I guess it could just be me - a mother is always beautiful to her son - but my mother is youthful in appearance, wise in outlook, and loving in every way. She is very much the "eternal mother," and I love her very much. Happy birthday, Mom.

***

I have spent the last few months looking sporadically for a winter car. My '97 Miata is a Southern car - it spent its entire life in Florida and Georgia before I bought it and took it to Texas, where it stayed a few months before I moved to Iowa. It is essentially rust-free and I'd like to keep it that way, which is why I've been looking for a winter car. I've been tempted by all manner of automobiles. They've ranged from pedestrian (Mazda Protegé) to unusual (a Volvo S70R, the turbocharged 5-speed model that looked like what Darth Vader might drive if he were on holiday in Sweden) to money pits (assorted Jaguar XJs and even a 5-speed X-type, besides the aforementioned Volvo) to uniquely and distinctively American (ex-police Ford Crown Victorias.) My dad amused himself by sending me ebay links to 70s-tacular cars that verged on the absurd - in particular a spectacularly plaid Mercury Bobcat. Okay, that one didn't just verge on the absurd, it went so far beyond absurd as to sneak up on it from the other side. If you could sneak up on somebody in a two-door hatchback with fake wood grain, a roof rack, and plaid seat covers, that is. I expected a picture of the owner in bell bottoms, mutton chops, an open-neck shirt, and gold chains.

It was a special time, the 70s.

(By the way, Dad, don't stop sending them. I enjoy them, as long as they're from a safe distance. Thirty years sounds about right.)

Anyway, none of these cars - awesome as the Bobcat was - were quite the thing. See, there's something about a Miata. Cars just don't come any more fun to drive. My Miata has spoiled me for anything else, and life is too short to drive boring cars. But I didn't want to drive my Miata year-round.

There was only one solution to this problem.

I needed another Miata.

Rescue from a winter of discontent behind the wheel will arrive this afternoon in the form of a Mazda Miata in British Racing Green, number 3417 of 4000 special edition Miatas (Miatae?) produced for the 1991 model year, and only that model year. I didn't set out to buy a BRG Miata - I don't like green cars, generally speaking, although obviously I'm willing to make an exception for a BRG sports car - but this one came along in good condition and at the right price. It has the optional hardtop, which is a definite plus for a winter Miata. It also has something quite unexpected - a supercharger installed by the original owner. I'm not usually a big fan of forced induction, but in this case it takes a great-handling little car and makes it a torquey little rocket besides, so why not? Something different.

So by this afternoon I will be the proud owner of two Miatas. Because in a place where they have winter, one is clearly not enough.

***

And speaking of winter - you can feel it starting to approach. Fall has arrived in a cold fury (and I don't mean a Plymouth) of Arctic winds howling through the streets and tearing the leaves from the trees. Just the other day I had to break out the jacket for the first time this season, and I'm not happy about it. Why did I leave Texas again? It'll be in the 90s in Victoria this week. If we break into the 60s here I'll be ecstatic, and probably put the top down. I am in deep denial about the end of summer.

***

The 2016 Summer Olympics (see, there I go again) were awarded to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil yesterday. The Olympic Games are a three-week party. Rio has Carnival. Can't miss. The president went to Denmark to support Chicago's bid for the Games, which strikes me as passing strange - since when does the leader of the free world go to Denmark to lobby the IOC? I mean, it's a lovely country and all, but doesn't he have better things to do? An unpopular healthcare plan to ram down our throats, a deficit to expand, a war to lose?

Wait a minute...any chance he could just stay there and lobby for Chicago to get the 2018 Winter Games?

***

I think that might be enough rambling. There's laundry to do, a bag to pack, a Miata to buy. Have a great weekend!

Independence

Just back from Independence, Mo., a little town outside Kansas City, once the starting point of several westward trails and home of Harry S. Truman. You may know him as 33rd President of these United States. It's a nice little town - really not so little, I suppose, but we were downtown and there it had a small-town feel. Old brick buildings in the central business district, the massive courthouse on the square, built in the days when Truman ran Jackson County, wooden houses with plenty of shade trees in quiet neighborhoods. We stayed in an old Victorian house converted to a B&B and filled with antiques. M loved it. There was a festival going on downtown, so we spent an afternoon wandering around that. It was the kind of downtown festival you'd find in any small American town - the arts & crafts set selling their wares, local organizations selling hot dogs and lemonade and cotton candy and funnel cakes, county political parties handing out bumper stickers, local businesses, local bands - all the things you'd expect. You could have been anywhere, but it was Santa-Cali-Gon Days and you were in Independence, Mo.

We were pretty well off the grid there, by choice. Oh, the B&B had wireless internet - a concession to the modern age in which we live, I guess - but we didn't expect it and even if we had we wouldn't have brought our computers. This weekend wasn't about that. It was about getting away, seeing something different, forgetting the outside world. No computers, no TV, no cell phones, no nothing. It's liberating, walking out the door with nothing but the room key in your pocket. The world could have ended while we were there and we wouldn't have known about it if it didn't happen in Independence. We took long walks, asked locals for directions, and didn't have a care in the world. Being connected takes many forms, and sometimes it's nice to just unplug and walk away.

The evening we spent at a concert by an Eagles tribute band. I don't know if it's the family atmosphere of the festival or the fact that the people who liked the Eagles when they were first around are now middle-aged and older - probably both - but there was an awful lot of gray hair in the seats. But I like the Eagles too, and the band played all their hits and did a bang-up job, including a spectacular rendition of "Hotel California" as their grand finale that had everybody out of their seats and singing along. M spent most of the concert laughing at me for being so into it, but that's okay and we had a good time.

Monday we spent as tourists, visiting the Truman home and then his presidential library and museum. It's a nice old wooden home the Trumans had in one of those quiet neighborhoods. 219 North Delaware Street. It was his wife's family home, and it became theirs for most of their life together. And it was a long life together, from their first meeting as children in 1890 to their marriage in 1919 that lasted until Harry's passing in 1972. In the museum there is a picture of them taken on the front steps of their home, probably in the late 1960s. They are looking into each other's eyes - the cute old married couple still very much in love.

Truman had one of the more challenging presidencies of the 20th century - inheriting the job upon the death of Franklin Roosevelt, completing the victory in World War II, the beginning of the atomic age, demobilization, the beginning of the Cold War, the Korean War. For the most part, the museum does a good job presenting his life and times both before and during his presidency - what he did, why he did it, and the larger global and political context in which these actions took place. I was, however, disappointed in the museum's treatment of the decision to drop the atomic bomb - I thought the display took a decidedly anti-nuclear slant, one that I don't think Truman himself would have liked. His view, both in 1945 and throughout his life, was that using the atomic bomb was necessary, that there was no other way to force Japan's surrender. It is unfortunate that museum has chosen a display that downplays Truman's rationale and emphasizes the views of his critics, essentially editorializing on a controversial topic where they would have done better to have presented both sides in a more even manner.

I have long viewed Truman as the last great Democratic president. I'm sure that, had I been around at the time, we would have found much to disagree about, but for all that I think that his presidency must be counted an overall success. He brought a rapid end to World War II, an end without which I - whose grandfather was on Okinawa in 1945 - might not be here. He built much of the framework around which US policy in the Cold War was built - containment, the Marshall Plan, NATO, the Berlin airlift. He fought the Korean War - although it can be argued that a more robust postwar defense policy might have prevented that conflict from ever taking place, or at least from taking the form it has for sixty years. So I'm glad we went and got to know a little bit more about our 33rd President.

The drive back featured some nice two-lane roads through the hills near the Missouri River. It was a beautiful evening for a top-down drive, and I think I only scared M once. We eventually picked up the interstate, and I was reminded of another difference between the East Coast and the Midwest: on Labor Day weekend back East, the highways are jammed with travelers, the highway patrol is everywhere, and the airwaves are full of shrill warnings from the talking heads about the danger of it all. But between St. Joseph and Omaha there was no traffic to speak of, we were in no hurry, and there was no problem.

Sometimes I think that the amount of stress in your life is directly proportional to your distance from the I-95 corridor, and here I am a thousand miles and more away. I've driven it a million times and I know it like the back of my hand, but it all seems very far away now, and that much, at least, I don't miss.

So back to Omaha, but this time refreshed. And I think, maybe, we could all do with a little more Independence in our lives.

Railroad Anniversary

For me, today marks one year of service with the Union Pacific Railroad.

It's been an eventful year. In that year I've made a lot of good friends and seen some of them lose their jobs. I've received an education in railroading from the ground up. I've met the CEO and worked midnights in chemical plants. I've lived in Texas and Omaha, and I've seen a good bit of the country. I've worked with veteran railroaders with more than 40 years of service; I've learned to run engines and switch cars and manage yards and dispatch a busy railroad. I've experienced a lot, but at the time same time I've only scratched the surface.

Somebody asked me recently if I planned to go to grad school. I said no - in the last year, I've earned a master's degree in railroading. And my railroad education will serve me well no matter where I go, no matter what I do. But I think I will stay on the railroad. As a boy I loved trains; as a man I love railroading. It has become part of my identity: I am a railroader. And so this anniversary, I think, is but the first of many. Happy anniversary to me and the UP, and may there be many, many more.

Walker

He was a good dog.

I am writing through tears tonight because my dog Walker passed away today. My parents told me when I got home from work. He had been sick, and today he was in pain. They decided it was time. They were right.

But oh God, I miss him.

I don't think I will ever meet a dog with a sweeter disposition than he had. He was a big yellow mutt of uncertain lineage who was born on a cold afternoon in January twelve years ago. He was one of a litter of eight to which my brother's dog, Chocolate, gave birth. We didn't even know she was pregnant. I still remember when my mother brought them inside - all tiny bundles of wet fur, seven boys and one girl. He was the only yellow one, and the only one without a tail- just a little flap of skin and fur - and the only one we kept, because he was the kindest and gentlest of them all. When they were puppies gathered around the food bowls, that poor little girl had no chance against seven brothers. But Walker would push his way into the squirming mass, get a mouthful of food, and take it to little Dolly. Then he'd go get his own, back and forth, making sure she got fed. He was a good dog.

When he was first born he had a tiny little wrinkled up face (it was as though he had more face than body) that made him look like a bulldog, so that's what I named him: Walker, after a general I had read about who was nicknamed "Bulldog" Walker. He was such a tiny thing - he could fit in the palm of my hand back then, and I remember him crawling around on a mouse pad that must have seemed vast to him. Tiny paws, nose, ears, claws, and of course no tail at all - he was just unbelievably small.

But he grew. Oh, how he grew! He was a bit fat and liked to lay around the house sleeping (what dog doesn't?) - especially under my dad's desk or at the top of the stairs with his paws hanging over the edge of the top stair - but if your feet were cold you could edge your toes under him for warmth and he'd barely even stir. And he was always up for attention. He'd come up to you and rest his chin on your knee and look at you with those soulful brown eyes, and I'd scratch his head and play with those big floppy velvety ears that were so big I'd sometimes play peekaboo with him using his ears to cover his eyes. He never seemed to mind.

He was a big dog but never rough. Even people who don't like big dogs liked him. Heck, even people who don't like dogs period liked him. He was the prototypical big lovable lazy mutt. I taught him to sit and to shake, and he'd do it eagerly, especially if there was a bone in it for him. Shout "treat!" and watch him take off, gallumphing along on those huge soft paws. And he'd sit, and he'd shake, and he'd take the bone out of your hand just as gently as you please and wait for you to rub his head before he ran off to eat it. He was a good dog.

He was always a good dog, and now he's gone, and I miss him. I was sixteen when he came along, and I am twenty-nine now, and he was there as I grew from a boy to a man. And I am not ashamed to cry, because he was a good dog, and I loved him dearly, and I am so lucky to have had so good a dog, and I am going to miss him so much more than I can ever say.

Pontiac

This week, General Motors announced that its Pontiac division will close by the end of 2010. Although I have long believed that this is a necessary step if GM is to survive, I take no pleasure in it: it is a desperate move by a dying automaker, and Pontiac was once an American icon.

Pontiac was founded in 1926 as part of GM's effort to have a brand at every price point, occupying the space above Chevrolet but below Oldsmobile. For its first three decades it fit neatly into GM's family, selling mostly unremarkable cars that the Chevy owner aspired to buy. In 1957 the first Bonneville arrived; costing the same as a Cadillac, it began the process of blurring the lines between the GM divisions that ultimately led to Pontiac's demise.

The division's greatest impact on American popular culture came in 1964. For years horsepower had been escalating, but Pontiac general manager John DeLorean kicked the horsepower wars into high gear with what some consider the first true muscle car: the Pontiac GTO. No more than a standard Tempest with a bigger engine, different transmission, and some suspension parts, the first GTO launched the muscle car era in a cloud of tire smoke and exhaust fumes. Successive GTOs raised the bar higher and higher until the government regulation and the oil crises of the 1970s ended the party.

There was a revival in 1979 when the car-chase film "Smokey and the Bandit" propelled the Pontiac Firebird - complete with screaming chicken hood decal - into the forefront of the national car consciousness. There would be other occasional flashes of brilliance over its last three decades: the mid-engined Fiero, more Firebirds, the Solstice roadster, a new GTO - but by the 1980s Pontiac was in terminal decline. Its products were unremarkable at best, embarassing at worst: rental-grade sedans, Chevys tarted up with plastic body cladding and labeled Pontiacs, rebadged Daewoo subcompacts, the Aztek. Pontiac was broken, and there was no saving it. Its death is a mercy killing.

Today I drove the last new Pontiac there will ever be, the Pontiac G8 GXP. It is classic American iron: a large sedan powered by a big honking V-8 driving the rear wheels through a six-speed manual transmission. It is big, fast, and luxurious. It possesses neck-snapping torque and superb handling. It is the best Pontiac ever made.

It was designed and built in Australia.

Ave atque vale, Pontiac. I will remember you for tire-smoking Goats and Burt Reynolds in a Firebird; I will remember you for the Solstice that was the first manual transmission car I ever drove. I will remember you for the 1970 Catalina that my father drove on his first date with my mother, and I will remember you for the 1979 Bonneville (red on red with an appetite for transmissions and police attention, a CB radio, fender skirts, and the fuel filler behind the license plate) that was the first car they ever bought new. I will remember you for the 1979 Catalina station wagon, baby blue, that was the last car my grandfather for whom I am named ever owned, and which he drove on every visit to see us. I will remember you for your exploits in motorsports - for the iconic image of Air Force One landing behind Richard Petty's blue No.43 Pontiac as he raced down the backstretch at Daytona on his way to his 200th and last NASCAR win, for Ricky Craven's fender-banging victory over Kurt Busch at Darlington in 2003 that was your last NASCAR win, and for the road-racing GTOs and GXPs and Pontiac-Riley Daytona Prototypes that in your last years showed that there was yet some driving excitement at Pontiac.

For all of these things, and more, you will be remembered: an icon fallen, but not forgotten.

Talladega

The big story in motorsports this week is the ending of Sunday's NASCAR race at Talladega, Alabama. Carl Edwards was leading on the final lap when he moved to block Brad Keselowski as the two cars came through the trioval toward the checkered flag. The two cars touched and Edwards spun; the rear of the car lifted off the ground but appeared to be coming back down when it was struck by Ryan Newman's car and catapulted into the catch-fence high above the racing surface. Edwards' car came back down on the track, completely destroyed; Edwards was not hurt, but seven fans were injured by flying debris.

The most important principle is business is this: don't kill your customers. NASCAR came perilously close to doing this on Sunday. Had the catch-fence failed, dozens, maybe hundreds, would have been killed; it would have been the worst racing disaster since the 1955 Le Mans 24 hour race, when a collision sent Pierre Levegh's car flying into the crowd, killing Levegh and 80 spectators. That accident resulted in a ban on motor racing in several European countries that was only lifted after safety improvements were made. Mercedes, which built Levegh's machine, did not return to racing for three decades.

NASCAR and its fans were fortunate on Sunday: the catch-fence worked and no one was seriously injured. But it never should have come into play.

Talladega has always been a dangerous track. When it opened in 1969, speeds were so high that many drivers boycotted the race, citing the inability of tire manufacturers to produce a tire able to stand up to the 200 mph laps being turned. NASCAR ran the race anyway, and the next year, the drivers returned. By 1987, speeds were much higher: Bill Elliott set a record when he won the pole with a lap of 212.809 mph for the 1987 Winston 500 that May. During the race, Bobby Allison cut a tire, spun, and flew into the catch-fence at just about the same spot where Edwards crashed on Sunday.

Although no one was seriously injured, Allison's flight forced NASCAR's hand: the cars had to be slowed down. The solution was the restrictor plate, which reduces the flow of air into the engine, dramatically reducing horsepower and thus speed. NASCAR has used restrictor plates at its two fastest tracks, Talladega and Daytona, since 1987. Unfortunately, the restrictor plates resulted in all of the cars making approximately the same power, leading to the cars bunching up in huge packs that make for huge wrecks.

The restrictor plate was part of the problem on Sunday, but there is a more basic problem: the cars are getting faster again. Telemetry from the TV footage indicates that Edwards and Keselowski were doing 199 mph when they collided on Sunday. Racing is about speed, but that much speed is too dangerous for the spectators. The cars are too fast. They need to be slowed down again.

Many solutions have been offered. NASCAR will almost certainly introduce smaller restrictor plates that will sap even more horsepower from the cars, keeping them bunched up and resulting in more huge wrecks. They will probably tinker with the aerodynamic package used at the restrictor plate tracks. What they will not do is something drastic. NASCAR rarely ever does.

But something drastic needs to be done. Some have suggested reconfiguring Talladega. I would suggest that a better solution is to change the cars themselves in a way that solves two problems: the excessive speed and the huge packs. To eliminate the huge packs requires that the restrictor plate be eliminated; to reduce speed requires something more.

NASCAR's engine formula is simple and outdated: a 358 cubic-inch carbureted pushrod V-8. NASCAR has never been about technology, and that isn't likely to change, but technology isn't the solution. Rather, it's in turning an old saying on its head: "there's no replacement for displacement." The bigger the engine, the bigger the horsepower. Conversely, the smaller the engine, the smaller the horsepower.

The engines should be smaller. As part of the rules package mandated for Talladega and Daytona, NASCAR should specify a much smaller engine that does not use a restrictor plate. Less size equals less power equals less speed; no restrictor plates equals no huge packs equals no huge wrecks.

And all of that equals no cars flying into the stands, which is the point of this entire exercise. Remember the first rule of business: don't kill your customers. NASCAR almost broke that rule on Sunday. If they ever do break it, it will be the end - of the unfortunate victims, of NASCAR, and maybe even of the sport itself. And not killing your customers is more than a rule of business. It's a moral imperative to which NASCAR must pay greater attention - before it's too late.

Miscellaneous Friday

An assortment of things not necessarily warranting independent posts...

Car Lust touched on the MG Midget today. The article is not up to the usual demented standards of Car Lust - frankly, it seems like little more than a warmed-over version of a Wikipedia (spit) article - but it nevertheless reminded me of a Midget that was, as far as I can remember, the first convertible I ever rode in, about fifteen years ago. The Midget was up the usual British automotive standards of the day, but it still sold more than 200,000 examples over twenty years. That record speaks to three things: the indomitable spirit of the British, the undying appeal of the roadster, and the sagacity of P.T. Barnum.

Thankfully, I contracted a less-severe form of British roadster-itis and bought a Miata.

(For those of you who think my NA Miata is tiny, consider that at 156 inches long and 2300 pounds, it dwarfs the 137-inch, 1600-pound Midget! That car got its name for a reason.)

While we're on the subject of British cars, let me point you to Chuck Goolsbee, biodiesel brewer, Jaguar E-type owner, and classic sports car photographer extraordinaire. If you want to see magnificent photos of vintage European iron - runners, no less - look no further. The man takes beautiful pictures of beautiful cars.

***

Pirates are all over the news lately, what with Maersk Alabama and other seizures. Much has been made of the American response - I thought it was appropriate, if delayed - and what we should do about it in the future. I've seen suggestions ranging from cooperation with the Somalian government (such as it is) to working with Somalian clan leaders to putting boots on the ground.

I can't see anything good coming out of any of those options. Cooperating with a Somalian government that barely controls the capital strikes me as a way to get dragged into the unending Somalian civil war. (If you liked Baghdad, you'll love Mogadishu!) Working with Somalian clan leaders sounds like a thinly-described euphemism for bribing them not to attack merchant ships. Putting boots on the ground would only work if foreign powers took over and governed the place themselves - the same thing that ended piracy along the North African coast in the 19th century - and if you believe that's going to happen, I have a reliable MG to sell you.

I think the best solution here is maritime insurance. I don't mean the kind you get from Lloyd's of London, but the kind you get from Blackwater of Virginia. Private security. Armed guards. Piracy continues because the risk-reward equation is on their side, but in the immortal words of the outlaw Josey Wales, "Dyin's a hell of a way to make a livin'." Up the risk, reduce the piracy.

Worth a shot, anyway.

***

Much made of high-speed rail lately too, what with the president taking an interest. Now I'm all for better transportation, but there's an auto racing maxim that's just as applicable here: "Speed costs money. How fast do you want to go?" High-speed rail is expensive, and in most places there just isn't the population density to justify the expenditure. If you're going more than about 500 miles, it's faster to fly. High-speed rail works in the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, and it could probably work in certain areas with high population densities - existing services in both Northern and Southern California could be upgraded - but a nationwide high-speed rail network is just not in the cards. The country is far too big and our population density is far too low to make it work.

No single mode is the solution to our transportation problems. Rail works for commuter service and over some shorter distances. Air works for places where there isn't the population density to support rail service for long hauls. And roads will get you to places that neither rail nor air service go. An integrated, multi-modal solution is the way to go. There are no panaceas, and there ain't no such thing as a free lunch, either.

***

On the subject of spending, some of you may have noticed the Tea Party protests that have popped up lately. Conservatives are not, as I have noted in the past, especially good at protesting. But, as Glenn Reynolds points out, we're getting better at it and that may be to the detriment of the political establishment.

Not that that's a bad thing.

***

Song recommendation for you: Jamey Johnson's "In Color." Great song. Cool video. Reminds me of a conversation I once had with my Uncle Ed and Aunt Ellen when we were looking at some old pictures - we see the past in black and white, but they lived it in color. Maybe that's why I'm so fascinated by color photography from the Thirties and Forties - it's a glimpse of a world we so rarely see.

***

One of the things that bummed me out about moving to Omaha was being so far from the ocean. That still bums me out, but it's not so bad now that I've discovered Freedom Park, home of the World War II minesweeper USS Hazard, Cold War submarine USS Marlin, and other relics. I went there the other day, and while the ships aren't open yet, it was still nice to wander around and take some pictures. They say a bad day on the water is better than a good day on land, and I don't know how that applies to ships berthed on land, but it's nice to have them here anyway.

***

I've been reading a book lately called The Wreck of the Memphis, which is about the tsunami that struck Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic on August 29, 1916, battering the city and wrecking the armored cruiser Memphis, which was there helping maintain order during one of the periodic disorders that mark the Caribbean history. The book was written by Edward L. Beach, Jr., son of the commanding officer of Memphis during the disaster. The elder Beach went on to command the battleship New York with the British Grand Fleet in 1918, while the younger Beach also became a naval officer who distinguished himself in submarines during World War II and eventually commanded the submarine Triton when in 1960 she became the first vessel to complete a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth. Both also distinguished themselves in literary pursuits. The elder Beach published the first edition of The Bluejacket's Manual, the Navy enlisted man's bible since 1902; the younger Beach wrote many books but is best known for Run Silent, Run Deep, the 1955 novel of World War II submarine life that became a 1958 movie starring Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster.

The Navy has traditionally named its destroyers and frigates after notable naval figures. I think it would be fitting for the Navy to so honor these two men with a USS Edward L. Beach.

***

And while we're speaking of literary figures, I have lately been working on cover art for a re-release of Wake Relieved, with an eye toward an Amazon.com release and publication of the other books in the series. π is doing most of the heavy lifting on this one, because she's just that talented and I am not, but it's not the easiest process in the world. I don't have an artistic bone in my body. I could paint you great paintings, if only I could paint. I can see exactly how they should look on canvas, but they get lost somewhere between my brain and the brush. I don't know why.

Sometimes I'd like to be able to download my brain.

***

Joe Yogerst has an article called "America's Scariest Drives." I view this as a travel guide. As the Extra Milers say, "The shortest distance between two points is no fun."

***

Relations with Cuba seem to be warming. I'll believe it when I see it - things warmed up a little under Carter, too - but although I dislike a Communist dictatorship as much as the next guy, we've isolated Cuba for fifty years and they're still a Communist dictatorship. Points for consistency - in fact, I think that may be the longest America has ever stuck with one foreign policy item - but how's that working out for us? Flooding the place with tourists might be a lot easier. Plus then all the hipsters in their Ché shirts would have someplace to go where they could feel really ironic.

***

Graduating Duke point guard Greg Paulus, a standout quarterback in high school, may be headed to Michigan to play quarterback.

Are we sure this is a good idea? I mean, ask any Duke fan who suffered through his three years as the Blue Devils' starting point guard - he's got a career assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.54. Am I the only one who sees an interception machine of Favrean proportions here?

***

Meanwhile, John Madden, one of the all-time great football broadcasters and a Super Bowl winner as head coach of the Oakland Raiders, has retired.

***

There are wild turkeys living in Omaha, I've discovered. A few weeks ago I saw one on the grounds of my apartment complex, and last Sunday I was visiting friends when four turkeys landed in their back yard. Apparently they're fairly common, and in season. Who knew?

***

Paid off my appendix last week. That was my last medical bill - finished paying for the gall bladder a month or so ago - and it felt good to get it off the books. Bad genes are expensive.

***

And...I'm out!

Norfolk

City by the sea, river bay and shore
Tree-lined streets and salt air smell
Ships in the harbor and boats on the beach
Coastal.

Oily Elizabeth drifts through and around
Ships in the docks and the tour boats cruise
Tables half-full, the smoke wafts away
Harbor.

Come all to Willoughby, where it's sandy and damp
Trees bent away, Atlantic winds blow
Cottages in shadow, the amusement park's gone
Ocean.

Old trees and houses shelter beneath
Moss hangs low, leaves fall on the grass
Sidewalks uprooted but no one much minds
Home.

Iowa

John Kinsella: Is this heaven?
Ray Kinsella: No. It's Iowa.
-Field of Dreams

This isn't exactly what I had in mind.

When I went railroading, I went to Texas. And I loved it. The work was enjoyable and it allowed me to spend a lot of time outdoors and away from the computer. Even when I was at the computer, the sun streamed in through the bay window on the side of the depot where the office sits and trains passed maybe ten feet away. I worked with a great bunch of people. Many of them were old heads, veterans of the Missouri Pacific or Southern Pacific, with a sprinkling of Katy people and one refugee from the Rock Island. These men (and a couple of women) taught me a lot about life, about work, and about railroading. If I'm ever any kind of a railroader, it's because of them.

I would have been content to spend my whole career in Texas. I knew I'd be transferred, but I fully expected I'd be going to Houston, where we have a vast complex of yards and industrial trackage. What I didn't expect was to be offered a chance to transfer to the dispatching ranks. Nor did I expect to take it - but it's a good career move and in the current economy, it seemed like the way to go.

So now I sit in an open cubicle filled with computer screens in a windowless bunker in downtown Omaha, Nebraska.

As I said, this isn't exactly what I had in mind.

Don't get me wrong - the work is still interesting, the people are still good, and (a major plus) the hours are a lot shorter. And I like Omaha. I have a place just across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. It sits next to a golf course and gives me a great view of downtown. It reminds me in some respects of Fort Worth - it's relaxed, it has all the big city stuff but isn't so big that you feel lost, it's got a nice downtown area, there's a river, I have friends here. But in other ways it's very different from anywhere I've ever lived before.

I've traveled a lot, but I've always lived in the South, and I've never lived more than a couple of hours from the ocean. Until now, that is. See, I grew up with Southern drawls and tobacco fields in rural North Carolina; I've lived on the southern edge of the northeastern megalopolis, in a sleepy coastal city in Virginia, and in a small town in South Texas. Now I live in a Midwestern city smack-dab in the middle of the country, halfway between Chicago and Denver, a thousand miles from the nearest ocean, where the cornfields stretch off as far as the eye can see and the accents hint of Scandinavia rather than England. It's different.

I have lately had an acute urge to read Thomas Wolfe.

It's not a bad place to live, but I do feel a bit alien here at times. Maybe it's just because I'm still getting used to it. But it is so different from what I've been accustomed to that it's taking some adjustment. There is for me, who has always been close to the water, a sense of geographic isolation that comes from living so far from the sea. I am coastal, the Midwest is solidly terrestrial. It's different.

But it's not different in a bad way, and in some ways it's not very different very different at all. The people here have a lot of the same values as anywhere else in America - faith, family, hard work - that come from a rural heritage, albeit one of a different nature than the ones I knew. The commonalities are greater than the differences. Even so, I notice them.

Is this heaven? No. It's Iowa. But it'll do.