March 31: WE MADE IT OUT OF TEXAS!!! That loud popping you heard this afternoon was us finally slipping free of the grasp of the Lone Star State and falling headlong into...Oklahoma. Tornado alley. In the midst of tornado season. Sigh. As we finally leave Texas in our rear view mirror (OK, we have to come back next week to get our granddaughter back to the airport) I want to take a moment to thank Texas and Texans everywhere for putting up with my ribbing, for a generally wonderful and accessible highway system, and - most importantly and sincereloy of all - for the tremendous support, warm welcomes, generous hospitality and true kindnesses we have experienced from on end of the state to another. It has been so much more than we expected - and we are truly grateful. After several weeks of depressing skies and many days of rain and storms, today was the most beautiful walking day I have seen in many moons. Bright blue skies dotted with puffy little clouds, cool temperatures, a gentle breeze, the bright yellow-greens of spring leaves and the smell of fresh-mown lawns was a genuine delight and made the miles comfortable and easy today. We stopped about six miles or so into Oklahoma and then drove on ahead to Texoma State Park, which seems to be a really lovely place that has fallen on some hard times in terms of upkeep and maintenance. The park office was closed and there was no hint of envelopes or a deposit box to leave camping fees. There was a sign directing us to the recreation building, which was chained and locked. The resort beside it in the parking lot - a small complex of motel-type rooms, had a sign that said it has been closed since December first. We rolled ahead to the camping sites, which are very nice, and found that the electricity and water are both functioning, so we hooked up for the evening. There seem to be about two dozen other campers and RVers here - some of them obviously long-term - but the restroom and shower facilities also have signs that say they're closed. It's a beautiful evening, but the circumstances are certainly strange. I hope we can find some way to pay the camping fees before we're ready to leave in the morning. I want to tell you a little story tonight that I was reminded of while I was walking today. I saw a few killdeer flying low over the fields today. While we were living in the last parsonage we occupied before leaving the ministry I happened upon a killdeer nest one afternoon. The parsonage was beside the church I was serving, separated from it by a gravel parking lot. At one edge of the parking lot a killdeer had chosen a spot to make her nest. I returned to the house and asked Jonna, "Have you ever seen a mother killdeer in action?" She said, "A what?" That was a sufficient answer to my question, so I said, "Come with me - I want to show you something." We walked across the parking lot toward the spot where I had seen the nest. Jonna said, "What are we looking for?" I put a finger to my lips and said quietly, "Just wait - you'll see." When we got about thirty feet or so from the nest, the mother killdeer, completely invisible until now, suddenly jumped from the nest and ran thirty feet or so in a line perpendicular to the line between us and the nest. The sudden appearance of the mother bird made Jonna jump just a bit, and I think that she thought that was what I wanted to show her. I whispered, "You ain't seen nothin' yet," and continued walking slowly toward the nest. When we got within about twenty feet of the nest's location, the mother bird started running again - not toward the nest, but directly toward us. When she got within about ten feet of us, she stopped, thrust one wing out at an odd angle, and began staggering and flopping around. "What's wrong with her?" Jonna exclaimed. "Nothing," I told her. "She's trying to protect her nest. She wants us to think she's injured and easy prey, so we'll come after her, rather than the nest." Jonna watched wide-eyed with disbelief as the poor bird staggering around, wing akimbo, looking for all the world like she was about to keel over and die. We continued toward the nest and the mother bird came even closer, staggering now in wobbly circles, wing dragging the ground, making as much commotion as she possibly could. "Where's the nest?" Jonna asked. I pointed about five feet in front of us and Jonna squinted for a minute before she could make out the three perfectly camoflaged eggs, speckled white and brown and black, nestled in a simple depression in the gravel. All the time, the mother bird hovered five or six feet to the side, trying desperately to draw our attention away from the nest. I figured we had pestered the poor bird enough and we turned and walked back to the house. By the time we had gone about twenty feet or so back toward the house, Jonna looked over her shoulder to see the mother bird tuck her "broken" wing back into it's proper position and, after eyeing us for a bit longer, return and settle herself back on her nest. Over the next several days Jonna went out several times to witness the melodrama played out all over again. She was completely fascinated. I finally suggested that she might take a little pity on the poor mother bird before it had a nervous breakdown. Now here is a little bird with a brain about the size of a pea, yet it is smart enough to know that the preservation of her young - the continuation of her species as a whole, is far more important than her own comfort and safety - even her own life. Her actions are not heroic or brave or self-sacrificial in a conscious way, they are merely her completely natural and normal response to a threat to her young...even her potential young. She is not doing the noble thing or the honorable thing or the extraordinary thing by offering herself up as prey in lieu of her nest of hope - she is merely doing what time and eons of experience have taught her is the right and appropriate thing to do. Any potential for injury to herself is not even weighed in the equation, because she "knows" that her survival is meaningless if her offspring are lost. And so she does her elaborate dance - and it works - even when confronted by intelligent, sentient creatures such as ourselves - if we do not know whyshe is doing what she is doing. Had Jonna encountered the nest by herself that day, she would never have found it, as she would have been quite successfully distracted by the mother bird's traumatic histrionics. The killdeer has no other defense. It's eggs are always laid on the ground, in a simple depression in dirt or gravel. It's only means of survival against predators is this incredible charade of injury, distress and ultimate self-intervention. And we think we're so civilized. March 30: For how long now have I been laboring under the goal I set for myself of being out of Texas by the end of March? For a while there it was beginning to look like it would be no sweat whatsoever. Four days to go and less than thirty miles - I could do that with one foot tied behind my back (although that would probably look pretty silly). Then the early spring weather reared its ugly head, and here we are, sitting in Denton, less than ten miles from the border with the walk, and watching the rain come down, and down, and down. Tomorrow will tell the tale. If the weather lets up, I'll make it. There have been many times along the walk so far when I have come to a place where I realize that what happens next is completely out of my control. This is one of them. I've had to learn to live with it. That doesn't mean I have to like it. Not that today was wasted. By early afternoon the new power converter arrived and was installed in Nessie. But it's rained all day, and rather than just take off and just have to find another place to hole up and wait for the rain to pass, we decided to stay right here and turn on every light we could find to give the new converter a workout and make absolutely sure the problem was solved. It's after midnight now and the lights and power have been solid as a rock (insert huge sigh of relief here). Meanwhile, we enlisted our granddaughter's help in constructing stained glass doors for Nessie's closet. We made paper templates and she and Jonna got out all the pieces of glass Jonna collected last week and began arranging them on the templates. Then I took the doors off the closet and began transferring the pieces from the templates and gluing them onto the doors - at which point I discovered that the process wasn't going to be quite that simple (is anything ever?). For some reason, I couldn't quite match up the arrangements on the templates with the space on the doors, so we wound up having to pretty much redesign the layout on the fly. That's why it's after midnight and I'm still up. Our granddaughter has finally crawled into bed, and Jonna is just now putting the last few slivers of glass into place. It turned out, as usual, to be more work than we had expected, but it sure is going to look nice. Jonna's also been after me to start tearing up the carpet in Nessie and put down the vinyl tile she got while she was in Missouri. But I gave her the hairy eyeball and I believe she realized that trying to start on that while there are five of us living here is not the best idea in the world, so I have a reprieve at least until our granddaughter returns to San Diego at the end of next week. Besides, I'm anxious for a stretch of three or four days of dry weather so I can spend my off-walk time sealing Nessie's roof. As far as I can tell there's only one really bad spot - and it's obviously been there for quite a while - the past several days of rain have revealed that there are a number of other places that are at best questionable and will become definite problems if I don't get the sealing done as soon as possible. Oh joy. I wanted to take a minute to thank those of you who have sent emails of encouragement and support lately. With the weather and the maintenance problems weighing on both my mind and my time, I've had to spend what little computer time I've had available just keeping the journal updated and haven't had time to reply to everyone. But please know that your encouragement means the world to us. I know I've said this before, but you would be amazed - I certainly have been - at the universal disgust I've encountered regarding the way things are going in this country in general - and this administration in particular. Again today I ran into a gentleman who's probably about as conservative - and Texan - as you will find, and when he found out about what I was doing, he lauched into a nearly hour long monologue on the damage this president has done to the average citizen, the country as a whole, and the world in general. Those of you who are standing up and speaking out right now are representing far more of your neighbors than you even suspect. Nearly everyone I've met in the past 1,500 miles has had more than enough - and they're waiting for someone to do something about it. You and I are that someone. Don't let up. March 29: Texas...just...will...not...let...us...go! I logged about 4 and a half miles today before the ever-threatening skies decided to hold back no longer and the rain started coming down. That puts me about ten miles from the border - but still in Texas. At the same time, we came flat up against a couple of Nessie issues that needed our immediate attention soooo - back to Denton. Not that I don't like Denton - Denton is a very nice place, but it's now in the wrong direction. And not that I don't like Texas - we've met some wonderful people here in Texas and have made many friendships that I'm sure will be lasting ones - but there are other states ahead of us and it's time to get there. The Nessie issues are ones we had to get addressed immediately. First, just at the time I got rained out this morning, the refrigerator, which operates on propane when we're on the road, suddenly stopped working. I figured we had probably run out of propane, so we found a station and filled up - but it only took about three and a half gallons - nowhere near empty. We've also had a recurring and worrisome problem in that whenever we were hooked up to an electric supply Nessie's interior lights would dim, then brighten, then dim in a never-ending cycle. We had been attributing this to lousy electric supplies at the RV parks, but then it did it the other night when we were operating on generator. Uh-oh. So we're back at Tommy's in Denton, where we had the work done a few days ago. It is pretty much for certain that Nessie's power converter is the electrical problem - and it's going to be a $400+ problem. The good news is that they should have it fixed for us tomorrow and we'll be able to return to the road...if it stops raining...which it's not supposed to. As for the refrigerator problem, we put it on gas again when we got here and it switched over just fine. We then plugged in and switched back to electric. Then just a short while ago I tried to switch it back to gas. No dice. So we still have to figure that one out tomorrow. Meanwhile, I got a call from Duane Brown (I'm sure I spelled Duane wrong) from KPBS, the NPR station in San Diego. He had been doing fairly regular interviews with me through the early part of my walk, but I haven't heard from him in a long time. He confessed that with the problems that had caused us so much delay in the early part of the walk he had begun to think we were going to throw in the towel. But I had told him then that there was nothing that was going to stop me, and here we are about halfway through my walk. I think he's a bit more confident now that I'm going to do this...no matter what. He's going to call back for an interview early Monday morning. I hope you'll notice that we've now established a fairly definitive Oklahoma and Kansas route on the Route page. It keeps us mostly on secondary roads and through small towns, but will also take us very near Oklahoma City, Tulsa, Wichita and Kansas City. So, as I've said before, if you have a group anywhere near our route - or media contacts in these areas - we'd be more than willing to mosey into the metro areas for a day to speak to people or to do interviews. Even with the bump from the radio interviews last week, Nessie's series of problems are bleeding us dry, so your continued financial support is quickly becoming critical to us. So many of you have been so generous to us that I really hate to do this "scratchin' for cash" rap yet again, but it is unfortunately where things are. As Jonna pointed out the other day, it would probably have been more cost effective for us to have just fixed up the ol' van as our support vehicle and made our way across the country sleeping in peoples' homes and motels and eating fast food. But that's hindsight - and I don't think either of us would have survived on fast food - and here we are, dealing with each new obstacle as it arises, overcoming it somehow, and continuing to walk. Your assistance is truly appreciated. March 28 (very late): On Timetables, Phased Withdrawals and Other Red Herrings: As you're sitting there thinking that the atmosphere in Washington seems to be changing, that perhaps finally we're going to begin to see an end to this long nightmare and that sanity and reason may finally prevail, let me point a few things out to you: If somehow the legislation coming out of Congress does survive beyond veto, or the OOOO and his handlers figure out a way to do it and make it look like his own idea, consider that the best we're looking at is another year before our sons and daughters are out of Iraq. At the rate we've been going, that will mean we'll have over 800 more graves to dig, 800 more flag-draped coffins to fill them, 800 more families who will never again see their child. And the people of Iraq will have untold thousands more than that. Terrorist organizations will have another year to use this debacle as their primary recruiting tool. How many of those new recruits will, perhaps two years or five years or ten years from now, find a target they can take out? How many more lives will be lost in that attack? There is no way for us to know until it happens. How many more billions of dollars will we have poured down this rathole? How much good could we have done with that money had it not been thrown after the bad money already wasted on this fiasco? There are many direct parallels to Vietnam in this mess, and clear-headed historians will tell you that the Vietnam war was over about a year before we finally left. The last year was devoted to political maneuvering and face-saving, and the killing and dying during that time, from the point of view of the conflict itself, was meaningless. Are we about to let that history repeat itself? When I began this walk, one of the reasons I gave for deciding to take nine months or more of my life and walk from San Diego to Washington, D.C. was that I figured that since it only took a few months to swindle, dupe, connive and lie us into this war, our leadership should certainly be able to figure out a way to get us out of it in nine months. When you voted around the time I started walking, you - in essence - started your own clock on ending this. I don't know about you, but I still figure nine months is plenty of time - and I am not willing to give them a year and nine months...or more. Since I began this walk I have not taken one single day off just to have a day off. Every day I have not walked has been because of some circumstance that has made it necessary - not optional - to be off the road. My wife has told me that I need to change that soon - that I need to take a day off at some point just because. She's probably right. For my own health and sanity I have to do that soon. But what about you? Are you really willing to sit back and just let things unfold at this point? Given their track record, do you really expect that our legislators will do the right thing if you do not continue to hold their feet to the fire? Think of these things, please - and do not let up until the very last of our sons and daughters in uniform is out of Iraq, the military bases we've built and are continuing to build there are abandoned, and this insane chapter of empire building is behind us forever. Thank you. March 28: As I was saying yesterday before I was so rudely interrupted by ma nature's gift of an idyllic night - I miss the southwest desert and its clear blue skies. Before dawn hit this morning the sullen gray blanket of clouds moved back in...and stayed with us all day long. Tonight the skies have cleared off once again. What sort of meteorological orneriness is this? Whatever it is, it has made the walking miserable for the past few days and made me feel worse after fifteen miles than I had been feeling after 20+. Only part of this is attributable to adjusting my pace to our granddaughter; most of it is due to the fact that I've pretty much been feeling like I'm walking through molasses. I'll get through it, I know, but it's no fun while I'm in it. It's a good thing we woke up early this morning because around 8 a.m. the camping area we had all to ourselves through the night was suddenly overtaken by two schoolbuses trailing an undetermined number of SUVs and minivans behind them - all of them filled to their airbags with hordes of pubescent noise factories. They disgorged their charges onto the parking lot asphalt where they were herded - reasonably successfully - by teachers, parents and a few dedicated park rangers into a pavilion behind us where they were educated about the various critters inhabiting the park (with the visual aid of pelts of said critters) before being let loose on the previously sylvan wood. Before the anticipated mayhem could unfold we were outta there and headed back to the walking route. Like I said, it was a tough day, but I still made my projected goal - Whitesboro, Texas - where I collapsed into Nessie while my feet barked unforgivingly at me. Now that we've left the deserts and prairies of Texas behind us, Jonna and I have been discussing the necessity to get a bit more organized about the section of America ahead of us - Oklahoma and Kansas to Kansas City. With the exception of El Paso and Dallas, I've just been resolutely grinding out the miles for almost two months now. We had a good website bump from the radio coverage on the Stacy Taylor and Randi Rhodes shows, but traffic has quickly subsided to pre-bump levels and we need to begin figuring out ways to generate a bit of attention - not only for the sake of the mission itself, but for the sake of continuing financial support for the mission. At some point tonight we're going to sit down with the maps and (finally) figure out a more exact route for the next five hundred miles or so. Then we have to go about the business of locating peace groups, churches, media outlets etc. along that route so we can get in touch with them and possibly arrange possibilities to speak to groups as well as accommodations. I did fairly well with that on the Tucson-to-El Paso leg, when I simply had to find helpful people in order to have a place to stay at night, but now, with the convenience of Nessie - combined with that long stretch of pretty much nowhere we just emerged from - I've gotten away from making the contacts and need to get back to it. Expect to see a firmer route posted here tomorrow, and one of the most important aspects of all of this will be asking you, my faithful readers, to do what you can to help us uncover contacts along the way. Time to get to the maps. March 27: About midday today I was thinking that I was going to write in the journal tonight how much I miss the clear, blue southestern desert skies. We've been under rain or threat of rain for somewhere around two weeks now and it's been getting pretty dismal and depressing. Then about halfway through the day today the clouds finally began to disperse and tonight it's mostly clear, the temperatire's great and there's a gentle breeze blowing. Very nice. Our granddaughter walked with me for the first time since the first day of my walk. She only managed a couple of miles today, but had a great time taking pictures of flowers and horses. We're in real horse country now with huge ranches situated on either side of the road and lots of beautiful horses. You'd think we were in Kentucky. Even with the weather breaking and a nice, wide shoulder along the road, it turned out to be a grueling day for some reason. The ol' feet were just not cooperating and are complaining bitterly tonight because I made them go a few miles farther than they really wanted to. But I did make it about half the distance up 377 to Whitesboro, so I should get there tomorrow and the following day be into Oklahoma. After the walk today we backtracked just a bit to Ray Roberts State Park. The maps and instructions were kind of confusing, but as far as we could tell there are no electrical hookups in the park. There's a nice area with pull-ins, though - and when we drove in we were greeted by a couple of deer grazing in the meadow, so since we have the generator and just filled up our water tank this morning, we decided it would be a great place to camp. This marks our first night in a state park. March 26: We chose an excellent day to sacrifice to maintenance - it began raining shortly after noon and has not let up. But by that time we were out of Dallas, Nessie, myself and the guys were in a repair shop in Denton, and Jonna and our granddaughter were dropped off at the local mall (I know, I know - a major mistake. Sigh) where they would await our return. The lights turned out to be a grounding problem, and some spark plugs and wires and a new air filter and change of oil and Nessie was running better than at any time since we got her. But the rain was still coming down and by the time the maintenance was done it was late anyway, so we're in front of Michael and Owen's place again tonight, snarfing up some of their electricity and water and hoping that tomorrow will be a drier day - although the weather forecasts indicate that we may well be sitting around twiddling our thumbs tomorrow. Website traffic continues to be up since the interviews and we still are collecting more signatures and a few more contributors each day. Tomorrow may present a brand new challenge for us - how to keep the granddaughter occupied through a rainy day. We shall see.
Jonna enjoying the view from atop Southside on Lamar
The Southside on Lamar sign - up close and personal March 25: A combination of the stress and tension of the last few days, hidh humidity, a stiff headwind and lousy walking conditions made this one of the most difficult walking days in recent memory. To be truthful I was ready to throw in the towel halfwat through the day, but managed to hang on to achieve my desired goal and make decent miles. We now begin a trek almost straight north toward Kansas City before bending back eastward again. This stretch of route 380 is atrocious for walking. A busy road with little or no berm, no sidewalks and many places where there was not even a decent path through roadside grass and weeds made for a rather treacherous day. We enjoyed the morning. Michael, Owen and their boys treated us to breakfast at a little diner on the Denton town square, where we encountered another of those grand old city halls I wrote about earlier. I say it was fun because not only did we have good company, but we thoroughly enjoyed watching a young couple riding herd on three boys age seven and under. It truly was like watching someone herding cats. The four of us were having breakfast and an enjoyable conversation while the young'uns were diligently attempting to re-enact Stalag 17. The youngest would squirm out of his booster chair and just at the instant you were certain he was on the loose and had a clear shot at the bowl of Jello on the buffet table a parental hand would reach out, snag the trailing edge of a T-shirt and hoist the little varmint back into the booster seat...all without missing a syllable of the conversation or batting an eyelash. The oldest was reminded several times that he was now seven years old - the implication being, of course, that he has been occupying this mortal coil long enough to preclude his writhing on the floor like a python with a knot in its midsection. His parents have not yet learned that such implications are completely lost on those who have not yet achieved at least the chronological status of being able to legally purchase alcoholic beverages, so the writhing naturally continued until another parental appendage, seemingly guided as if by radar, casually shot out and guided the little miscreant gently but firmly back to his seat. It was sort of like watching a ballet, and we relished every minute of it. It also reminded both of us that there is great cosmic wisdom in the natural order which dictates that those over fifty are generally no longer possessed of the ability to beget offspring...because we who have attained greater seniority would most likely kill them and eat them (Shut up and sit down or you'll be supper tonight!). We arrived at Dallas Love Field early enough to sit and play a few hands of gin before our granddaughter's flight arrived. We wound up playing outside because the temperature inthe terminal was consistent with having a light come on every time you opened the door. I swear I saw sides of beef hanging from the rafters. We fetched our little traveling companion with no complications and quickly headed to Southside on Lamar - trying to get there before it was necessary to turn on Nessie's headlights and thus lose all our taillights. Dinner was the barbecue Michael had brought us and it was perfectly delicious. I figured I'd have to take a day off within the next couple of days to tend to Nessie's lights, but I'm afraid it's going to have to be tomorrow, because she also seems to be running on only a slim majority of her cylinders right now and so is badly in need of a tuneup. The contributions we've received over the past few days mean that we should be able to do this without precipitating a severe fiscal crisis. I got a few shots of the Dallas skyline from the top of Southside on Lamar tonight. I hope they'll come out well and will post them soon, but I really am completely exhausted right now, and this probably won't get online until tomorrow. For now, I just need to collapse for a while. March 24: It's been a very busy, very eventful day and I'm going to try to cram it all in here. The first bit of really great news is that our oldest granddaughter (almost 11) will be flying out from San Diego tomorrow to join us for almost two weeks. She'll be walking with grandpa during the day and helping grandma out during the evening. This also means that we've seen the end of our 20+ mile days for a little while - grandpa will have to adjust his pace to a granddaughter compatible level for parts of the day. We're really looking forward to her being with us and we know it's going to be a great experience for her...even if it's nothing more than walking along the Oklahoma highways for a couple of weeks. The next piece of good news is that we're continuing to get new signers and some new contributors as a result of the recent radio coverage. I've also been getting phone calls from all over the country and, believe me, folks, they are more than welcome. It's always good to hear from someone who believes in what we're trying to do. Yesterday evening we got a call from Michael from Denton, who had heard the Randi Rhodes interview and had driven out to try to find us. Unfortunately he missed us somehow, but caught up with us this afternoon as I was taking a break along highway 380. He brought us some Texas barbecue and pies and water and offered his house as a place we could plug in for the evening so we gratefully accepted. When we got Nessie, she had a set of retractable steps at her rear door, but they didn't retract very far. Her previous owner warned us that they scraped bottom very easily and had already been bent pretty badly on a number of occasions. It didn't take us too many miles to add an additional few bends, so while Jonna had her in Missouri I asked Joey (Becky's husband) to just take them off and we replaced them with a step stool that we put out when we stop. We've already left one step stool behind at a campground and are on our second one...and now have a checklist for when we leave a place which includes retrieving the step stool. When Michael met up with us I put the step stool our for him alongside the highway, and after he left and Jonna prepared to take off for the next leg of my walk I noticed as she began to pull out on the road that we hadn't put the step stool back. I tried to get her attention, but she was already headed down the road. So I sat down on the stool and called her on the cell phone. By the time I reached her she was already a couple of miles down the road, so she had to turn around and come back. While I waited, I figured that I would walk to a place a bit down the road where it would be convenient for her to pull in and turn around again. So there I was, walking down the highway with my walking stick in one hand and a very large step stool in the other, and I suddenly realized that if I encountered someone walking down the road with a walking stick in one hand and a step stool in the other, I would consider it to be a markedly bizarre sight. It was rather embarrassing. I mentioned it to Jonna when she arrived and she nearly fell out of the driver's seat laughing. Ah, well... When I had finished the walk for today we drove the rest of the way into Denton and stopped to do some laundry. A lady there came up to Jonna and wanted to know what the Walk to End the Wars on Nessie's derriere was all about, so she and Jonna began talking about what we're doing and why. Her name was Harmony, and she was very excited about my walk. When she was done with her laundry, she left - and returned with her son to invite us to dinner. We accepted and had a great dinner and an even better conversation at a little Greek restaurant. After dinner, Harmony led us to Michael's place since she knew Denton. When we arrived, Harmony informed us that we didn't have any taillights of any kind. There was a problem with Nessie's taillights when we bought her, but we had it repaired in Yuma. It seems to be back, though. We discovered that when the headlights are on, we have no rear lights whatsoever, but when the headlights are off we have both brake lights and turn signals. Very strange. I'm afraid it's going to cost us some delay at a repair shop in the very near future. Michael and his family had been to a birthday party and arrived about ten minutes after we pulled up, so we got to meet his wife, Owen, and their three little boys. The boys immediately fell in love with Finn and Spoof and spent the next hour or so putting Finn through all his paces. They got down on all fours and "baa-ed" their way around the living room so Finn could herd them. We're now safely ensconced in front of Michael and Owen's house, plugged in and settled for the evening. Tomorrow I'll get at least part of a day's walk in before heading into Dallas to pick up our granddaughter. It's been a wonderful, exciting, and completely exhausting day. I want to take some time and space this evening, though, to make something a bit clearer than I have to date. If you've been following my journal for any length of time you've heard me talk about remembering America. You've seen me write about wanting her back. You've witnessed my assertion that as I look around today, the country I see is not the country I love or the country I proudly served. It has occured to me that as you've read statements like that, you may have gotten the impression that I'm one of those "those were the good ol' days" geezers with what I will call a convenient memory. I wanted to address that this evening because I wanted to let you know that nothing could be further from the truth. When I was a pastor in the United Methodist Church, one of the things I often spoke out against forcefully and loudly was the prevalence of this attitude in the church. It was one of the things you heard often, and always with a tinge of wistful longing. "If only things in the church could be the way they used to be," people would sigh. And it would really rankle me, because whether the people uttering this wish understood it themselves or not, I understood clearly what they were saying. And what they were saying was, "Things were so much better in the 40s or 50s or 60s"...but they never got around to examining why they thought things were so much better then. You may label me a cynic, but I had a very clear idea of the "why" behind this sentiment, and it spoke terrible volumes. Things were so much better in the "good old days" because: If we were talking religion in America, we were talking Protestant or Catholic Christianity - and that was it. If we were talking about the church to which we belonged, we were talking about being a child in an active church where our parents and grandparents did all the work of the church and devoted many hours to programs and activities that kept us entertained without us having to invest anything of our own time and effort in it. We were talking about a time when we were not concerned with civil rights, racial or gender equality, ethnic mix, homosexuality, AIDS or other STDs, global warming or terrorism. We were talking about a time when we thought war was noble and righteous and we, of course, were always on the side of the righteous and therefore, always victorious. We were talking about a time when not only the TV but the entire landscape was painted in clear patterns of black and white and there was no room for ambiguity, doubt or dissent. And it appalled me that people could have such convenient memories that they could look back on such times as the "good old days". I am not of that ilk. When I talk about remembering America, I am talking not about going back in time, but rather going back into our hearts and our souls to remember the America that has never (yet) existed, but which holds bright promise of the potential to one day come fully to life. This is the America that existed in the hearts and souls of the framers of our nation; those who gave us our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. They certainly did not have this America, but they held it to be an achievable and desireable dream, and they gave their lives, their fortunes and their souls in the hope that one day that dream would become reality. While their noble dream remains yet a dream, it has stood the test of time and inspired generations of us to pursue that same dream, that same America. I think many of you understand this and remember the America that my heart remembers. It is that hope for America - the America that is yet to be but still lives clearly in so many of us - that I remember, that I seek to reclaim, that I walk for - and that I love. The key word here is hope. If you hold this dream, you hold hope. Sadly, I have come to believe that there are people - and perhaps even some entire segments of our society - who are not possessed of this hope. The poor always have this hope, because some days it is their bread and butter. The disenfranchised, the outcasts, those on the lower rungs of society always retain this hope, because it is the key to their shackles and the guarantor of their human worth and their freedom. These people hold the hope of America tightly and dearly, and it empowers them from day to day. The ones whom I fear have lost - or have never had - this hope are those who have come from a background of power, wealth and privilege. What can hope mean to someone who has been taught that they already have everything that is important in life? What meaning can there be to hope when one has all the material resources one could ever need - and one has come to believe that the accumulation and retention of material resources - and possibly the eternal salvation of one's own, individual soul - are the only things worth caring about in the world? Out of a background such as this, I fear we raise those whose primary motivating factor is the accumulation and retention of yet more power and wealth, and any thought of securing a nation or a world where there is safe haven for those yearning to be free, where there is true equality and respect for humanity as a whole and the planet on which we live, where all of us are indeed created equal and where there is truly liberty and justice for all is not only completely foreign to them, but the desire to achieve such promise is nothing short of incomprehensible. We are now at a place in our history where I believe it is people such as these who have come into possession of some of the highest offices of our nation, and they are going about the process of deconstructing the America upon which the hopes and dreams of so many have been built over the past two hundred and thirty years - and reshaping our country into something that retains the words and images as a crumbling facade, but contains nothing of the spirit or substance of that upon which we hope. They are good at their craft, because they are versed in using the words and images to convince others that they share their dream...but their actions demonstrate their true nature. The language of sacrifice, which is ingrained into every person who truly holds America's dream, is nothing more than language to them. They do not know sacrifice, they do not understand sacrifice, and thus, while proclaiming the virtue of its worth, try to accomplish their objectives without it, and relegate any actual sacrifice to those far removed from them in both status and ideaology. They wave the flag, never fully comprehending what it stands for, and rally others to them with cries of pride (rather than humility), and an interpretation of patriotism that any true patriot should immediately recognize as nationalism. They employ the phrases that evoke the rule of law while simultaneously devoting their full effort to placing their own office both above and outside of that law. I do not mean to demonize these people, as I truly do not believe they comprehend the consequences of their actions. They have a dream for America, too - but it is not the same dream we hold. For them, America represents the ultimate means to the ultimate end. For them, American government, politics and citizens are tools to be used to establish global marketplace domination and thus further their own wealth and power. They are about establishing control over available natural resources and creating pliable economic partnerships under the banner of "spreading democracy" that will serve to achieve their goal. If these partnerships can be attained diplomatically that is acceptable, but if diplomacy does not seem to be working quickly enough, force and subtrefuge are also perfectly acceptable. After all, the end justifies the means, doesn't it? If it becomes necessary to shred the Constitution, so be it. If it becomes necessary to spill the blood of citizens, so be it. What else are the lower classes and the militia for? If it becomes necessary to destroy entire foreign countries and cultures and take the lives of even hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens of other lands, this is not even a consideration - as those of other lands and cultures have even fewer rights than the people of their own nation, who themselves have far too many rights and freedoms for their taste. Don't even try to talk to them about the inhumanity of the killing fields or force them to look upon images of the dead, maimed and wounded; their beautiful minds cannot be wasted on such trivia while they are busy pursuing their own version of the dream. If the military leadership judges their plans insane, they simply sift through the hierarchy until they can find those willing to trade their principles for their proud little careers and agree with them. Their dream is not about freedom or equality or the betterment of society or the planet. Their dream is about power, position and wealth - and they do not understand the nature of the beast they unwittingly serve, or its insatiable appetite. It is difficult to combat this particular dream, because it is a dream that holds no ethic or principle as sacrosanct, while we who hold our hope for America are constrained in that we will not, under any circumstance, abandon the ethics and principles embodied in our dream to attain our dream, as that would make any victory we attained in the process a lie that betrays the very thing for which we strive. These are the people - and these are the reasons - I am determined to take America back; not back to a bygone era or back to some earlier time which itself could only hold - at best - an imperfect embodiment of the America I love, but back to the ideals which we may never fully achieve but which I, for one, will always believe are worth striving to achieve. As we passed through Weatherford and Decatur, Texas, we were greeted by two incredibly beautiful old buildings - in the center of each town, in the middle of a hallowed square, the city hall still proudly stands. They are both magnificent structures; from a distance, the only indication that the Decatur city hall is not a cathedral is that it features a huge clock on its tower rather than a cross or another religious symbol. These buildings speak of a time when government was absolutely central to the lives of the citizens. It was here where local justice was served. It was here where dedicated men and women did their best to bring the Consitution of the United States of America into direct connection with the local barber, the local shopkeeper, the local rancher. It was here where the average citizen most directly touched America, and it was a place treated with respect, diginity and, yes, reverence. When people came to the city hall - and they did so often - they knew they were about important business and that their presence there and their participation was valuable to their city...and their country. If there is anything we need to reclaim from the past, it is this sense of direct participation - and direct responsibility - in the affairs of our nation. Shortly after the Constitution was drafted, someone asked Benjamin Franklin, "What have you wrought, sir?" Mr. Franklin replied, "A republic - if you can keep it." That injunction has now been passed on to us. We have a republic - if we can keep it. And I'm trying to sound a simple warning that we barely have a republic now, and are in grave danger of losing it altogether if we do not dedicate ourselves to keeping it. I do worry that America will go the way of Camelot - a bright, shining dream that. alas, died before it ever was able to fully become a reality. Should that happen, America's epitaph will be written in a casual conversation some time in the distant future: "Do you remember America?" "Yes, I remember America." "Whatever happened to her?" "The people became distracted." Remember America, that she may live. March 23: We somehow managed to avoid the rain today, which nevertheless threatened us every step of the way, and made it to our projected goal for the evening - Decatur, Texas. We stopped near our destination to wait the phone call from the Randi Rhodes show, which came just before 4:30 p.m...and we got our first national exposure - Hooray! I'm sorry I forgot to get the coordinates for today, but I was really in a hurry to get the walk over and get somewhere where we could plug in and get online to see what effect, if any, five minutes on the air would have on our website traffic. When we did get settled in and online, I discovered that we had fifteen(!) new contributors and thirty-plus new signers to the petition - fantastic! Between the spot on Stacy Taylor's San Diego show yesterday and the one on the Randi Rhodes show today, we've had just a bit over one thousand dollars in contributions - and it couldn't have come at a more crucial time. A big Thank You to all of you - and especially to Stacy Taylor, who has given us a real boost after a very long, very lonely stretch of Texas highway. During one of the break stops today Jonna found another unexpected treasure. Nessie's closet doors are adorned with inset gold-veined mirrors, which are so 70s/80s it's ridiculous, and it's high on our list of non-critical to-do items to replace them or cover them over or whatever we can think of. We had talked about doing some sort of stained glass mosaic over them until Jonna checked one of the craft stores and nearly had a hissy at the price of little pieces of stained glass. Anyway, as she waited for me to catch up she took the dogs for a little walk and, there right along the roadside, were all sorts of pieces of...stained glass! Remarkable. She got a plastic bag out and began filling it up, then needed to grab another plastic bag, and we finally ended up with a whole box full of stained glass of all sizes and colors - enough to do Nessie's closet doors and more. How's that for a little karma? We also splurged the other day and bought Barak Obama's book, "The Audacity of Hope" and Jonna began reading it today. When she finished the preface I asked her how she liked it. She said, "It could have been written by you." She isn't anywhere near finished with it yet, but I'm sure she's going to give it a high recommendation, especially the chapter on the Constitution. That's it for tonight - I'm totally exhausted from the anticipation and stress of the day. I hope those of you who have found our website via the interview today will continue to follow our progress, tell your friends about what we're trying to do - and do whatever you can to make your voice heard. Nobody's going to do this for us - we're going to have to do it ourselves. And we can. March 22: It looked like it was unquestionably going to become a rainout day this morning, so we decided to chalk it up as such and spend the day getting some needed maintenance done on Nessie. Then the phone rang. It was Scott, from the Stacy Taylor show. Stacy Taylor is the San Diego host of his own Air America program that airs in the morning. Scott wanted to know if I'd do an interview with Stacy, and of course I said sure. About a half hour later I was on the air with Mr. Taylor and I thought the interview went very well. It was a pleasure because he gave me the opportunity to talk a bit in more than just the nine second bite you usually get on a TV interview. Jonna and I were both pleased with the exposure, and as we were talking about it a few minutes later the phone rang again. It was the folks from the Stacy Taylor show again. He's filling in this week for Randi Rhodes on her national Air America radio show and they wanted to know if I'd like to interview on that show as well. Absolutely! While getting the work done on Nessie we anxiously awaited their callback, which was scheduled for 4 p.m. our time. When 4 p.m. rolled around it turned out that the show was getting heavy call-in traffic on the topic du jour, so they asked if we could postpone until tomorrow. I told them of course we could and will now be on pins and needles until tomorrow afternoon. If Mr. Taylor interviews me on the Randi Rhodes show it will be our very first national exposure, so of course Jonna and I are both very excited and trying not to get our hopes up too high. Even so, with just the interview in San Diego this morning we acquired at least four brand new and very generous donors - and I cannot possibly tell you how important that is to us right now. We are only halfway through my walk, but far more than halfway through our available funds and it's been worrying us quite a bit lately. No fear, by the way - we'll finish this no matter what happens on the money end of things - but it sure makes us feel a lot better to suddenly and unexpectedly get such a boost. Nessie's maintenance problems of the moment have been resolved, but the weather has not. This may turn into an unwelcome break of several days if the forecasts hold true, but we've been in this position before and the threatened rain has not materialized, so we're hoping once again that Mother Nature will smile on us. Even with a rain delay of a day or two I think we can still make it through Texas by the end of the month, but I'm trying real hard not to hold myself to any deadlines because we just don't know what is coming our way from day to day and we have to remain flexible enough to deal with whatever presents itself. For tonight we're safe and warm and hope to get some good sleep - if I don't keep myself awake stressing over the interview that might be coming our way tomorrow. March 21: It was a real iffy-looking day - as a matter of fact, in the morning we wondered whether I'd get any walking in at all. But with an occasional very short exception, the rain held off all day long. It was, however, extremely humid and as a result I experienced a first today: not once, but three times a passing semi blew my hat off. I've walked in some really heavy winds and it's never happened before, but today my sweatband was completely soaked, as was my forehead, so there was little or no friction there to keep my hat in place when a semi came rolling by. With the humidity, the worry about rain and a road that was lots of up-and-down I still made a decent day and made it to my target - Springtown. On the plus side, the road had a wide berm most of the way and was easy walking in that respect. Another RV park tonight and a sky that has cleared, so maybe the dire forecasts of thunderstorms through the rest of the week will come to naught. Let's hope. On the point-of-all-of-this side, Susan, one of my regular corresponders, sent me an article that reminded me of something I've been saying ever since I started this, and I think I need to lay it out once more with a clear explanation. What I've been saying is this: don't expect any of our legislators to do anything about ending this war anytime soon. Now I want to explain clearly - and I hope fairly concisely - why: The republicans will not end this war anytime soon because they have orated themselves into a corner. They have created a definition of "winning" that is hazy at best, but which they are fully aware at this point is unattainable, so they know they cannot "win" this war on the terms they themselves have defined. They also cannot simply end it, because they have defined this as "cut and run" and would thus alienate every single one of the fuzzy thinkers who are still backing them. Unable to "win" and prevented from simply withdrawing by previously defining that as "losing", they are stuck with letting the situation play out and the bloodbath continue. The democrats will not end this war anytime soon for two reasons: First, they want the war to be the central issue of the 2008 presidential campaign. Since the republicans have talked themselves into a corner where they have no choice but to be the pro-war party, the democrats - simply by doing nothing - become the default anti-war party. And since a large percentage of the country is now against the war, the democrats stand to make huge gains in the 2008 elections if the war is still in progress (if you can call what's coing on "progress"). Second, if they would manage to end the war any time before the 2008 elections and there is any resultant deterioration in Iraq's stability, the republicans would have a field day blaming them in traditional "I told you so" fashion. The public buys it, the democrats look (once again) inept, and the republicans reap huge political gains by doing nothing more than pointing the finger of blame. As a result, from a political point of view, it is advantageous to both parties to keep things precisely where they are. It is a trap they have fallen into and there is no politically advantageous way out of the trap - this war cannot be stopped by people who are more concerned about political ramifications of the war than they are about the war itself. The most you can expect out of the democratic party at this point is for them to have a grand old time beating their handcuffed opposition over the head, talking up legislation that sounds so wonderful to all of us who want this over, but which they know has absolutely no chance of passing and thereby messing up their hopes for 2008. Unless and until a significant group of our legislators get real real conscience and decide that stopping this war before one more of our sons and daughters - or of Iraq's sons and daughters - is killed is more important than their own political careers, an end of this war is not going to come out of Washington. That is why it is up to us - the citizens of this country who are fully aware that what is going on is contrary to every sense of morality, every dictate of ethics, every canon of law and justice upon which we continue to believe the foundation of our country and our society rests - to bring an end to this war. We cannot do it within the political system. We must approach the situation from the straightforward point of view that what we are now doing is WRONG and we must STOP. We cannot participate in debates about timetables and benchmarks - these are only equivocations that allow us to continue to do wrong for a longer period of time. We cannot be frightened or cowed by predictions of chaos once we leave. If it happens - and I am one who is not at all certain that it will - then we deal with it, but we do not allow it to be an excuse for continuing to do wrong. I hope that's all clear. And I humbly ask that you remember that you heard a lot of this here first - and most of it a long time ago.
Yes, we're still - obviously - in Texas. March 20: We said our goodbyes to Elisa this morning and headed back out to the road. Since we didn't start particularly early I didn't make much in the way of miles today. But that was alright, as I got right where I wanted to be by the end of the day. I had to dodge some raindrops for a while there to do it, but we made it to Weatherford. After observing the remaining length of Interstate 20 into the Dallas area on our back-and-forth, we've decided that for the purposes of the walk we need to find a safer way than trying to follow Interstae 20 any further. So during a short break today we hauled out the maps and found that route 51 veers north at Weatherford to Decatur, then we can take 380 into Denton. This will skirt the Fort Worth/Dallas metro area and give Jonna open access roads to drive so it won't be difficult to find a spot to pull off and wait for me. Tentatively, our plan from there is to continue a bit east of Denton and catch 377 north into Oklahoma. If the weather cooperates I think we can still be out of Texas by the end of March. If the weather cooperates. The forecast here, however, is thunderstorms for the rest of the week. I truly hope not. Like I said, it sprinkled for a bit here at mid-afternoon, but since then it seems to be holding off - just barely. We could get dumped on at any time. Oh well, we take what we get and we work with it. Today has been another encouraging day. Thanks to Dallas and the new article in the San Diego paper the website traffic has picked up quite a bit - and we've also had some new contributors, which is always a very welcome thing. Not much else to report today. We're both pretty emotionally exhausted after the Dallas rally and looking forward to a good night's sleep. By the way, don't be shy if you think you'd like to walk with me for a while. I post the GPS coordinates most every day, but if you would like to join me and want to know not only where but also when to meet up with me just give me a call. My starting time varies by circumstances, but I seldom start before 8 a.m. now. If you call some time around there I should be able to let you know when I'll be hitting the road. March 19: It was a very good day on many levels. First, although it was heavily overcast and Pooh-level blustery, the rain did manage (barely) to hold off and the temperature and humidity remained comfortable throughout the day. Second, the rally in Dallas was well-attended, well-organized and we met many wonderful people and got a bunch of new signers for the petition. I was surprised and pleased by the number of supportive people driving by as the demonstration moved along. Of course, it's Dallas - and there were a few who expressed their displeasure with us. One old lady, for some reason, was yelling out her car window that we should all go back to Cuba. I wanted to stop and reassure her that I would be passing very close to Cuba (Illinois) on my walk, but I don't think it would have done much good. I was in fact asked to speak - and did - although I judged the time and the atmosphere to be not really in keeping with what I had planned to say, so I spoke off the cuff. Jonna, Nick and Elisa all agreed that I presented myself well. Despite many, many years of experience speaking before groups of people I never have much confidence about my ability to express clearly what I'm thinking. Two local news channels we watched seemed to do a fair and accurate reporting of the demonstration, although I had to laugh at one point when they mentioned "a few counter protestors" and showed a close shot of three young men...because that's exactly how many there were - three. I know. I counted. The demonstration included some very atriculate speakers. Jonna was particularly moved by one Iraqi lady who described, first-hand, what Iraq was like before the invasion and what it is like now from the viewpoint of the average Iraqi citizen. I would encourage anyone who is organizing a protest anywhere to give serious thought to the provision for a real arena for people to gather, people to speak - and be heard clearly. It is, I think, the exchange of ideas and the opportunity to be heard clearly and considered that will both give people participating new insight and encouragement and give those who are struggling with the issues the opportunity to hear something with more substance than 50+ year old chants. Once again, we want to thank first Nick and Elisa for their generous and caring hospitality and then the people of Dallas for their warm welcome and enthusiastic response. It has been truly wonderful to finally near the end of this long, long stretch of Texas prairie and be welcomed so openly. Finally, I received word from our son, Jay, Soozy and Don Day that Mike, the reporter who first covered us in the San Diego Union Tribune, had another article published today on my progress. He had called a few days ago and I guess the article was in today's paper. It also accounted for over doubling our normal website traffic for the day. So Jonna and I will collapse in the comfort of the room provided by Nicj and Elisa tonight, then head back west of Fort Worth in the morning to continue the walk. I hope we'll see Dallas again by the end of the week. And, as promised, although I didn't feel the time was right for what I had prepared to say today, here's what I had written: Over the past several months many people have asked me why I am doing what I am doing - because many people seem to feel my course of action is rather extreme. I want to tell you today why I am doing this. I am doing this because I remember America - and I love America - and I want her back. And if selling my home and everything I own and taking a year of my life and walking every inch of the way across this great continent might, in even some small way, help to bring the America I love back, then - by God - that is precisely what I will do. But if I am ever going to see the America I love again - if I am ever again going to live in the land I cherished, the land I faithfully served, the land I want my grandchildren to know and love, then there is something else I am looking for right now - something our nation has been lacking for some time now. I am looking for leaders. I am looking for leaders whose first allegiance is not to political party or personal fortune, but always and only to the Constitution of the United States of America. I am looking for leaders whose primary concern is not for the people of their district or the people of their state, but for the people of this planet - and for the planet itself. I am looking for leaders who know that when the founders of this nation wrote that all of us are created equal and are endowed with certain inalienable rights they were not talking only about Americans, but about all of humanity. I am looking for leaders who at last seek to learn from our history and our mistakes - and vow to do everything in their power not to repeat those mistakes. I am looking for leaders who recognize that admitting a mistake is not a sign of weakness, but rather a clear sign of strength, maturity and wisdom. I am looking for leaders who have the sense to understand that when they stoop to the rhetoric of fear, intolerance, prejudice, arrogance and hatred - they have lost their way and are no longer deserving of the public trust. I am looking for leaders who can comprehend that when you employ the tactics of the enemy you become the enemy. I am looking for leaders who are smart enough to know the difference between supporting our troops and supporting the misbegotten mission of their commander in chief - and brave enough to articulate that difference. I am looking for leaders who are aware that when they authorize the use of tactics of war they will have the blood of our sons and daughters - and untold numbers of innocent foreign citizens - on their hands for all eternity. I am looking for leaders who realize that war is not a tool to be used to shape the political landscape or appease corporate interests, but war is a terrible, loathesome and evil thing that always demonstrates an abject failure of leadership. I am looking for leader who can see that as long as we are engaged in the actions of war we cannot possibly explore any of the other actions available to us when we seek to resolve an international crisis. I am looking for leaders who understand that, when the primary cause of instability in Iraq is the presence of our military forces, sending more military forces in to try to stabilize the country is the equivalent of pouring gasoline on the fire to try to put it out. I am looking for leader who acknowledge that they are not the deciders, but rather - in this great nation - it is We, the People who are the deciders - and that if and when they become unresponsive to We, the People, it is not only our right, but our solemn obligation to immediately remove them from office. These are the things I need to see before I can ever hope to see the America I love again. I am walking across the country hoping to meet other people who remember the America I remember - and love her as much as I do - and want her back again. I am walking with the steadfast belief that one person can truly make a difference - and that I could be that one person, or you could be that one person. I am walking to remind the people I meet that there is no corporation, no organization, no party and no person in this country who has the power that they do, if they only decide to claim it and use it. I am walking in the hope that others will join me and demand the return of the America we remember and love. And until that happens, until we once again begin behaving like the people we believe ourselves to be and relating to the rest of the world in a way that is consistent with who we proclaim ourselves to be, I will continue to walk. March 18: Since Ill be taking tomorrow of for the peace rally in Dallas I really wanted to make good miles to day, and did really well considering we've entered an area where there's lots of construction going on and the frontage road often disappears. After getting the uneventful walking in we headed Nessie into Dallas. We stopped in the Mineral Wells area because the guys were running low on food and we spied a Petsmart there. We also stopped for a Texas barbecue sandwich for ourselves and Jonna has decided that on our next excursion through Texas we're going to make it a city-by-city exploration of all the barbecue joints. She is very food oriented, in case you haven't figured that out by now. When we got into the Forth Worth/Dallas traffic area it seriously freaked Jonna out. She wound up having to climb into the back of Nessie to deal with it. It isn't that the traffic was that bad, but rather than a) she wasn't driving and, like myself, she's a far better driver than passenger, and b) she's been primarily on frontage roads in the middle of nowhere for the past month and has become accustomed to "traffic" being a tumbleweed blowing across the road in front of her. I stopped about fifteen miles short of our destination to let her gather her nerves again, then we finished the journey. We missed one turn and wound up wending our way through a fairly run-down section of southern Dallas trying to find our way back. Just when I decided it was going to be easier to call Elisa for directions the phone rang and it was her. I could see the area we were headed for, and with her help it was no problem getting there. Elisa and Nick live in what used to be the Sears building in downtown Dallas - now converted into condos - a huge, ten-story red brick monolith that's hard to miss. Elisa and their seven month old little boy met us in the parking lot and she took us in to the building to register. The complex has rooms for visitors and she and Nick had reserved on for us. It's really beautiful and quite nice to have a bit of room for a change. Elisa invited us to have dinner with them later in the evening and we accepted. A bit after eight there was a knock on our door and we met Nick for the first time. They ushered us to the rooftop of the building, which has gas grilles and picnic tables...and probably the most stunning view of the Dallas skyline in existence. Nick, a second-generation Greek American, prepared a wonderful meal of kabobs, roasted corn and Greek potato salad and we sat and talked while the Dallas skyline glittered around us. It was a beautiful evening and a warm, friendly welcome back to the big city, and by the time we had finished the meal and our wide-ranging conversation, Jonna and I were ready to call it a night. Tomorrow we have until about 3 p.m. to print up some flyers and cards for the rally tomorrow. The only bit of bad news for the day was that, while the weather is supposed to be decent tomorrow, they are predicting thunderstorms later in the week - something i really don't want to hear. The guys are having a bit rougher time adjusting to the urban setting. Finn tends to freak at more noise than usual, and Spoof, who has just a bit too much of the protective instinct built into him, has an extremely difficult time controlling his urge to alert us every time someone goes by in the hall outside our room. He's fully aware it's a "no-bark" zone, but just can't seem to help letting out the occasional "Woof!" even though he knows it gets him into big trouble. Tomorrow's the rally - we're looking forward to it. March 17: Nothing extraordinary about the past couple of days walking, other than increasing numbers of the signs of spring alonjg the way. Jonna laments the fact that even at the 30-40 miles per hour she drives Nessie on the frontage roads she can't see all the flowers I see at three miles per hour or so. It's a good thing we got an early start today because I stopped often to take pictures (I'll post some when I get a chance) and we ran into some sections where there isn't frontage road and I had to resort to the Interstate for a few miles, but I still made great mileage. I'm trying to get as close as I can to Dallas before we swing out that way tomorrow evening for the peace demonstration on Monday. We may be as close as 40-some miles to Fort Worth by the end of tomorrow's walk, which will make the detour minimal. We've found a couple of very small, very nice, very inexpensive RV parks in the past few days and the evenings have been gorgeous. When Jonna took the guys out for a stroll after we settled in this evening she discovered that there's a herd of sheep and goats in the field across the way, which really got Finn's attention (he has five herding titles, loves to herd sheep, and hasn't been able to do so for about eight months now). Finn stared at the sheep, the sheep stared at Finn, then the sheep took off to the other side of the pasture. Finn has enough control that he didn't try to take off after them without a command, but you could hear his Sheltie brain screaming "Sheep!sheep!sheep!sheep!" all the way back to Nessie. We both really miss herding. I've worked out something to say if I'm asked to speak at the rally on Monday. Whether or not that happens, I'll post it here the next day. This being Saint Patrick's Day and Jonna being about as Irish as they come, she made potato soup and soda bread for supper tonight. She juts about lost it when she discovered that she apparently left the baking powder at Becky's, so I had to go begging from the neighbors. It's a bit dismaying to us how few people actually do any cooking anymore. None of our fellow RVers had any baking powder, but the lady who runs the park said she thought she had some and went to get it. She returned - a bit embarrassed - with a can that she had marked at some time "use before '94", but baking powder is baking powder and it worked just fine. That's it for tonight - I want to try to get an early start again tomorrow.
Signs of spring along the Texas highway
A shot that deserved its own frame
The good news - if we pave paradise to put up a parking lot, Paradise will resist, and - ultimately - prevail. March 16: I'm not going to write much tonight - just wanted to share a couple of recent pictures with you:
Nessie's new posterior - pretty neat, huh?
We spotted this Easter basket in a Family Dollar store in Cisco, Texas "Christ is Risen...an' he's a lookin' fer some PAYBACK!" March 15: I was able to do something today for the first time in this journey - walk a split day. I began early in a pretty dense fog, got part of a day in, then took a break and backtracked to Abilene to get a few things done, then went on and completed the walk. This is all thanks to the lengthening season as well as the time change last week. Through Arizona, New Mexico and the first hundred miles or so of Texas I often had to end my walking day because I was losing my light. That is no longer a factor and it is nice to have more daylight than I need to complete each day. The fog lifted after the morning hours and it was an excellent day as far as weather was concerned. The frontage road in this area gets to be a little more up-and-down than I'd like and there have been a few breaks in it where we've had to find our way around, but those are minor inconveniences. On the plus side, spring is becoming evident here in central Texas. There are a variety of wildflowers poking their heads up along the road, and perhaps most significant to us is that the redbud trees are in profuse bloom. For us, one of the delights of the midwest is to see the redbuds in spring bloom, and it is refreshing here, because we are also in a place finally where there are real trees once again - not just overgrown bushes and shrubs, but real trees, budding with fresh leaves all over. Wonderful! One of the things we managed to do during our break in Abilene was to get some vinyl lettering done for Nellie's derriere. We've been wanting to put a sign on the spare tire cover and now we have it - all I have to do is get it on. When we got to an RV park this evening I scraped the Travelcraft logo off the cover and sanded it down and painted it. During tomorrow evening's break I should be able to apply the lettering. It's quite similar to the masthead on our home page and big enough that people will readily be able to see it. When I stopped at a sign shop in Abilene I almost turned around and walked right out again. I was third in line behind a guy in military fatigues and a policeman. There were flags all over the place, "Support Our Troops" signs and so on and so on. I wondered if they might not just run me out of the shop when I showed them what I wanted to have done. But, non-confrontational as I am, I decided that I need to be able to deal with that sort of thing when it comes to me, so I stood my ground. The girl at the desk got to me pretty quickly and when I showed her what I wanted, she said, "You're the man walking across the United States, aren't you?" I said, "Yes, ma'am, I am." She said, "I saw you on the news. I hope your trip goes well." I thanked her. She told me they wouldn't be able to do the work quickly, but directed me to another shop a few blocks away where she was certain they'd be able to do it for me right away. I thanked her again, and as I was leaving she said, "Take care of yourself, OK?" I assured her I would. I went to the shop she directed us to and an hour later we had the lettering done. Maybe one of these days I'll get used to the consistent support I'm getting from strangers, but not yet - not smack in the middle of Texas. March 14: Through Abilene today and on east. As I came in to Abilene I called both reporters who had contacted me and let them know I was in the immediate environs. Left a voice mail for one and talked to someone else in the newsroom for the other - who said that they'd be sending someone out - but nobody ever showed. Oh well. Then I made a serious mistake. I told Jonna to run ahead to a particular exit for the next leg. I did not know that there was a Russell Stover outlet store at that exit. By the time I caught up with her she had been in close proximity to chocolate for long enough that I knew we were going to take a hit. Five or six pounds of chocolate later and Nessie was appropriately stocked, Jonna was very happy, and I was off again. In the early afternoon I got another call from Elisa in Dallas. Although Jonna and I had not discussed it directly, I discovered we had been thinking the same thing: although I won't quite make it to Dallas by the 19th, we both decided that we should run ahead and participate in the peace demonstration there that will be commemorating the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Elisa was delighted and even has arranged a place for us to stay. After my walk on Sunday we'll drive into Dallas, spend the night there, be a part of the demonstration on Monday afternoon, then return to where we left off. It won't be much of a detour - if the weather holds I should be within about 40 miles or so of Fort Worth by Sunday afternoon. There was an RV park within a mile of where I stopped today, so we pulled in to get a space for the night. The woman at the desk ran the credit card, and while I was filling out the registration, she looked at me and said, with a thick but pretty Texas accent, "Are you the man walking?" I said, "Yes, ma'am, I am." She smiled and said, "I saw you on the news the other night - good for you!" We talked a bit about my walk. It was the first confirmation I've had that the story actually ran on the area news. She was excited to have met me, and I was much appreciative of her enthusiasm. I wish I could convey to you how uniform this sort of reaction is. The expectation would be that about one in every three people I meet randomly like this would be bothered by what I'm doing. But in 1,200 miles and four and a half months, I have had exactly two people express a negative attitude toward me - and both of them clearly did not understand what exactly it is I'm trying to do. It becomes clearer to me daily that not only do a vast majority of people want this over right now, but it is a far, far greater majority than we are being led to believe. I'm looking forward to Dallas on Monday. I'm sure they'll want me to say something - I'll have to figure out what I want to say. P.S. I have a new entry in the "What's the strangest thing you've found along the road?" category today. I found a fake egg. Not just a fake egg, but a real fake egg. Having spent a good portion of my life around people who raise chickens, let me explain. Chicken farmers often use fake eggs - traditionally they were glass, but I think more of them today are made of some sort of plastic - to encourage their hens to lay. If you always remove the eggs, the hens tend to lose interest in the nest. But if you occasionally substitute a fake egg they will continue nesting. I know this because I have a cherished memory from the time when my years on this earth still numbered in the lower single digits. My grandpa raised chickens on their small farm and he would sometimes let me go out to the henhouse and gather eggs with him. On one of those days I encountered a glass egg in one of the nests for the first time and was fascinated. I asked grandpa what the glass egg was for. He told me, "Well, when the hens first start laying eggs, they don't know what shape they should make them. They'll lay square eggs and long skinny eggs and eggs in all sorts of strange shapes - and of course I can't sell square eggs or long skinny eggs, so I put these in their nests to show them what shape the eggs are supposed to be." Now when you are not too far out of diapers, grandpas are the oldest, wisest people in the world (I cringe now to think that I am probably considerably older than my grandpa was when he imparted this wisdom to me). Grandpas know everything and, of course, their veracity as well as their wisdom is so far beyond question as to be not even a consideration. So if my grandpa said that he had to teach chickens what shape they were suppsed to lay their eggs, then that was clearly gospel. As a result - and I kid you not in the least - I hung around the henhouse for inordinate periods of time over the next few years of my young life hoping that I would encounter a chicken that had not yet learned the proper shape to lay an egg - and thus have the opportunity to acquire a square egg. For the record, I never did. Though disappointed, I figured when all was said and done it was just as well, as I imagined it must have been pretty hard on a hen to lay a square egg. At any rate, the egg I found is the kind used by farmers. It's a little dirty, but I'm hoping a bit of bleach will clean it up. It is not only the strangest, but - for me - the most valuable thing I have found along the road to date, for it is a fond memory - and memories are valuable indeed. Some more pictures from earlier in the walk: Snow on the mountains east of Las Cruces Yes, it snows in Las Cruces
A Las Cruces sunset - no, I did not mess with the colors A more recent picture:
Locals are wondering why developers aren't rushing to build high-class subdivisions here... March 13: Some necessary maintenance to Nessie forced me into later hours and fewer miles than I've become accustomed to, but considering the chunk of day that was spent at the shop I'm satisfied with what we were able to do. With the recent time change and the lengthening of the season since I began, I can now walk much later in the day than I was able to before and still have daylight. I should still be some distance on the other side of Abilene by the end of tomorrow's walk. The good news is that part of that maintenance was getting the water systems back up and running, so we now have fully functioning water faucets all over Nessie...but se still don't have hot water and probably won't for a while. Seems that the water heater has completely rusted out, so we bypassed it altogether for now. We've experienced a number of unexpected drains on our financial resources and the cost of replacing the water heater would stretch us more than we want to risk right now, so it will have to wait. We're hoping that as we near Dallas our donation base will increase, but for now - with a bit more than half the journey ahead of us - the ol' cash-o-meter is hovering at a very disturbing level and we have to be as frugal as possible. I can't say I'm disappointed with my first less-than-20-mile day in quite a while. I know days like this will come, so I just have to roll with them. One thing I've begun to realize over the past few days that I'm going to have to begin acclimatizing myself to is the humidity. After the rain the other day, Texas has been quite a bit more humid than normal, and having spent the past seven years in San Diego and walking the first portion of this journey through the desert southwest, I'm no longer accustomed to humid days...and I know it's going to get much worse as we head into the midwest and then on east. I am a world-class sweater. While I was working as a chauffeur, it would be one of the greatest challenges I faced on summer days. The company I worked for maintained the same uniform throughout the year, which was full black suit, white shirt and black tie, and I learned that I do actually have a certain degree of psychological control over the problem. You do spend a considerable amount of time as a chauffeur waiting for clients outside of the car, not to mention lugging some pretty heavy baggage and such, so I would often find myself during the summer "thinking cool thoughts". It really helped quite a bit, but if I have to do any exercise in hot weather the whole thinking thing just breaks down. I sweat. Profusely. And walking is exercise. So I'm already beginning to feel the effects. Maybe I'll get better at it as I go. I heard from Mike, the San Diego Union Tribune reporter who first reported on my walk, this afternoon. We talked for quite a bit about my progress and my experiences along the way. I'm sure he's getting ready to do a follow-up piece on my walk. Thanks, Mike. As we come into Abilene tomorrow I'll be getting back in touch with the two reporters I heard from there. Maybe we'll get some more coverage in this area. In any event - on to Abilene - and to Fort Worth and Dallas. March 12: The skies were uniformly leaden through the first half of the day, threatening to drench us at the slightest provocation but, with the exception of an occasional very light sprinkle, I managed to remain completely dry and by noon the clouds dissolved a bit to puffy wads that once in while even let the sun poke through. I walked as quickly as I could through most of the day, fearing that a sudden rain would cut the day short for me, and since the rain held off I was able to make very good miles in a relatively short time. I wound up about a mile short of Trent, then we motored on ahead to Merkel, where we took a room at the Scottish Inn for the evening. It was a bit pricier than we usually want to pay, but outside of the Homewood Inn Jay and Jennifer put us up in it's certainly the nicest room we've had to date. We got two calls from peace groups in Dallas this afternoon and it sounds like some very good news is coming our way. It sounds like people are working on a welcoming for our arrival that might even include a press conference. That would be outstanding. I have to admit that it has begun to feel very, very lonely out here walking through some very sparse areas of Texas. We've met very few people and have had no opportunities to talk with folks about what we're trying to do since El Paso. It seems that they're also having a peace march in Dallas on the 19th, which very unfortunately will be just a few days before I'll be able to make it there. Of course, we can always motor ahead in Nessie to participate. We'll see what develops over the next few days. We're just hoping that the rain will continue to hold off for us.Jonna wants to recommend a book to everyone - "Jihad - the Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia" by Ahmed Rashid. It offers a background of what was going on in central Asia prior to 9/11 and the threat that still exists in spite of - or actually grows because of - our invasion of Iraq. Which leads, of course, back to what we're doing and why. Those of you who have been watching my walk from the start will soon begin to notice not a shift, but a new emphasis in my dialogue as I have the opportunity to speak and write about all of this. It began yesterday with my interview with the Abilene CBS station and I'm sure I will continue to refine it as I go. I'm not leaving any of my message behind, but where I began by stressing that I was offering an approach based purely on logic and reason, I have now realized that another crucial element to what I'm trying to do must receive equal stress - and that is the rule of law. It occurs to me that while we recognize that individuals are bound to reflect their sense of morality and ethics in their actions - and to be constrained as well in those actions by the laws of their society - so nations are no less bound to do the same. And it has become crystal clear to me that our nation has largely forgotten this. For over half a century now our nation has been "playing" at war all over the globe - conducting warlike actions against a number of countries while never actually declaring an official state of war against those countries - and the process has blurred our vision and blunted our senses. It is time for us to immediately abandon this habit and re-examine the way we have acted on the world stage because, among other things, it is in direct conflict with who we believe and profess ourselves to be. It is in direct conflict with our own sense of morality, our own ethics, and even our own rule of law. It is what allows us, at this present moment, to be engaging in acts of war on the sovereign soil of another nation. When the reporter asked me yesterday if I was advocating an immediate withdrawl from Iraq, I answered, "If we are who we believe we are, we have no other choice. If we feel we have grounds to actually declare war on Iraq, then we can continue to do what we are doing. But if we do not have a grievance with the nation of Iraq that constitutes grounds for war, then we simply cannot continue to occupy the country and conduct operations of war there." Our legislators thus far, while finally beginning to seriously address the resolution of the situation, seem unable to remove themselves from the concerns for their own political futures or their party allegiances. But if they could see that this is not a question of political strategies but rather a time when we must at last hold ourselves to our own moral principles, I believe we could bring this nightmare to an end immediately. It is not an argument that hides one's head in the sand and professes that we should never enter into a war (although personally, I confess that I wish it could be so). It merely says that if we're going to have a war, then we must do so forthrightly and clearly. Either officially declare war and conduct the resultant operations of war, or do not declare war and do not engage in those operations. We are either at war or we are not at war. Which is it going to be? In those terms, there is simply no argument possible that we have the grounds to officially declare war on either Iraq or Afghanistan, and if this is the case, then we have absolutely no grounds to continue the operations of war in those nations. We have no moral, ethical or legal choice other than to withdraw immediately. Further, without the official existence of war, Congress has no choice other than to rescind the war powers granted to the executive office. Period. End of discussion. My argument then is that our rhetoric and our actions contradict each other, and it is time - immediately - to reconsider what we are doing and decide who and what we will be for the future. Here is the choice: a) We decide that we will make a conscious, dedicated and ongoing effort to have our actions reflect our belief in ourselves as an ethical, progressive and compassionate member of the world community of nations - which will both end the current conflict and prevent similar catastophies in the future; or b) We decide that we prefer our present course of action to the image of ourselves we have nurtured since our founding - and admit to the world that we have become in spirit as well as in action the arrogant bully of a rogue nation that our present course indicates we are. We can no longer pretend we are one thing and act as though we are another. We have a clear choice to make. Now is the time to make it. Now for a few more picture from the earlier part of my journey: Just inside the western NM border I stumbled upon this - Halliburton's prototype for a New Orleans rebuild - cost to the government of only $750,000 per residence I met this friendly alien near Las Cruces - gave him directions to Roswell The Rio Grande as it passes under Int. 10 west of Las Cruces - not much rio and not too grande...but still purty. March 11: We went to sleep to the sounds of rain and thunder last night and will be doing the same tonight - in other words, a no-walk day. There were a few small breaks in the rain during the middle of the day - enough so that Mike Alzamora from the Abilene CBS affiliate (KTAB) was able to come out to interview me and get some film. He called about 10:30 a.m. and Jonna and I rushed about madly getting Nessie in shape for visitors. I think the interview went well but I won't be able to see it at ten this evening because, as I said, we have no TV. Beyond that, our only venture out today was to the store for some necessities. The rain has kept us Nessie bound. I'm just hoping it will run itself out tonight so I can get back on the road tomorrow. Beginning this evening, if possible, I'm going to be catching up on some of the pictures I haven't been able to post for the past two and a half months. I'll add more over the next several days. I say "if possible" because the adaptor I had reported on isn't working quite as well as I had hoped. After about 30-45 minutes online it will decide there's something wrong and refuse to communicate anymore. I seem to be able to fix it by powering down for a while then getting on again, but it is an annoyance. I'm going to check the mother site tonight to see if perhaps there's a driver update that will help. Other than that, everyone and everything's fine here and we're all nestled down to wait out the rainstorm.
Mountains NW of Tucson along Int. 10. I believe they're called the Saddleback Mountains. I wonder why? Cienega Canyon - southeast of Tucson
Surprise encounter outside of Tucson - Just tell your buddies with the horns I come in peace, OK? The good folks at the Sierra Vista UU Church treat me to lunch A familiar site to travelers on Int. 10 near Benson, AZ Rockhound State Park near Deming, NM - I had to walk really fast to get this shot in the right light! March 10: I stopped just about six miles or so short of Sweetwater today at a little town called Roscoe, and only a couple of miles farther down the road from our stop we found a little RV park that actually had a space for us. They wouldn't have, but I guess some people who made reservations for the Rattlesnake Roundup didn't show up. I made over 23 miles today and it was a good walking day - a little warmer than I'd prefer and a growing crosswind for the last few hours, but still not bad. We started early, so we were able to finish by a decent hour and managed to get some things done in the early evening, such as doing wash and dumping Nessie's black water and gray water, which we haven't done for a while. I am truly grateful for the way the state of Texas has designed Interstate 20. A vast majority of the road has an accompanying frontage road - usually on both sides - which has made it very easy for us to do what we're doing. Most Interstates, if they have a frontage road at all, will have a barrier of some sort between the main road and the frontage road. This can make it difficult to impossible to move back and forth from one to the other. Here, there is only a wide grass strip separating the roads, so when there is a time that we lose the frontage road it is much easier to find a way to transition. I know we've saved much time - which translates into making better mileage - because of the way this is all designed, so thank you, Texas. People have sometimes asked Jonna how she occupies her time each day while I'm walking. I'll answer that question for everyone - she works HARD is what she does. With everything stowed away all over Nessie, all you really have to do is turn around once and the whole place turns into a shambles. So in essence we have to completely redo things nearly every morning in order to have everything back in its place and retain some semblance of neatness and orderliness. Typically, by the time I've walked my first leg each morning she has Nessie mostly rearranged again, and by the time I'm done with my second, Nessie is all ship-shape. By the third leg, Jonna will make a little lunch, and by that time she's pretty worn out for a while and may actually have time to do some reading and relax for a bit. But there's also correspondence and small items of maintenance and continuing to figure out better ways to do what we're doing. In the evenings it's my turn to work on some of the more major renovations to Nessie while Jonna makes dinner, does laundry, washes dishes, etc. etc. We take turns walking the guys or we often do it together to give them a little workout. We'll get some distance apart in a large, open area then each take turns calling the guys to us so they can run off some of their energy. They love it and are usually ready for a nap when we're done. At the end of the day I work on the journal and updating the website and so forth while Jonna does a little more reading and sets about the process of turning the sofa and/or the dining area into beds for the evening. We don't have a television with us, by choice. By Jonna's choice, actually. I was prepared to bring one along, but she said no, she didn't want a television with us at all. We're not big TV viewers, but I won't try to pretend that we don't watch it at all. Obviously, we watch quite a bit of news and political coverage. We also enjoy watching a variety of movies and occasionally things like the History channel - when they're not running "All Hitler - all the time". But Jonna didn't want a TV along at all, so I acquiesced. And tonight, she was the first to crack. It had been a particularly busy day for her, and when we began winding down in the evening she said, "I really wish we had a TV tonight. I'd just like to watch a little something for a while." I seemed to remember that when we stashed a few of the computer's disks in Nessie there had been a DVD or two among them, so when she went out to finish the laundry I checked, and sure enough, there was a "Finding Nemo" DVD in with the computer disks. Finding Nemo is the one single animated movie that Jonna has ever confessed to liking - and she likes it a lot. So I set up the computer by the sofa, put the DVD in, and the movie was ready by the time she got back with the laundry, so we made some popcorn and sat down and watched Finding Nemo together. I think she really appreciated it, but I don't know what we'll do the next time she needs a video fix - I think it's the only movie we have along. March 9: We decided to take a day off today, which turned our to be an excellent decision. We also decided, since we were in Sweetwater and since the annual Rattlesnake Roundup is going on and since we will never, ever intentionally find ourselves in a location where there is something called a Rattlesnake Roundup going on, that we would avail ourselves of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and actually go to the Rattlesnake Roundup. Well, to tell the truth, the Rattlesnake Roundup includes a decent sized Flea Market, and it is difficult to impossible to keep Jonna away from any flea markets within a 30 mile radius, so we actually went to the flea market and didn't pay the $7 per head to get into the building where the snakes were. Our loss, I'm sure. I pointed Nessie into town on what looked like an appropriate street and it took us right to the roundup grounds. Jonna turned to me and said, "Tell me you looked at a map to get us here." Not wanting to get whapped, I said, "Of course I looked at a map, dear." She didn't really believe me, but it did keep me from getting whapped. She hates it when I do that, but confesses that if she was lost in the middle of a jungle I am the one person she would want to have with her. Of course, the guys came with us (they go with us everywhere they're permitted) and got more than their fair share of attention. Since they just had their baths last night they were positively radiant and we could barely go ten feet without someone stopping to pet them and tell us how beautiful they are. I know it sounds like I'm bragging, but this is our normal experience with the guys - they're not just beautiful dogs, but it's their spirit and temperament that attracts people as well. They're obedient and calm, yet they sparkle with life, and it's this combination I think that compels people who wouldn't ordinarily say anything to want to stop and talk with us and get to meet them. It is always a true pleasure to be walking with them. Sad to say, the flea market was a disappointment. Not as much flea market as craft sale. But we enjoyed ourselves anyway and had a couple of excellent barbecued beef sandwiches for lunch. Having the day off also gave us a chance to get some mail out. Down to the middle of town, onto a likely looking street, turn the corner - and there's the post office. Twice in one day. Jonna growled at me, but once again refrained from whapping me. We also got a call in the morning from a woman from one of the Abilene TV stations. She asked me where we were and when we expected to get to Abilene. I told her and she said she'd call back in a couple of days. I have her number on the cell phone now, so if she doesn't call, I'll call her. I'm pretty sure it was Becky's PR efforts from two days earlier that generated her call. The reason I said it turned out to be an excellent day to take off was that I called back to the Texas RV Park in the afternoon and discovered that the USB adaptor for our cellular modem had already arrived, which meant we could use the day not only to browse the Rattlesnake Roundup, but also to make the backtrack to Big Spring to pick up the adaptor. So that's where we are tonight - and IT WORKS!!! The installation process looked a bit convoluted, but I waded through it and got online within ten minutes. I hope (ihopeihopeihope) this will be the last of our communications problems. For those of you who may find this information to be of interest, I have to tell you about this little device. It seems that some of the newer laptops and such are coming with a slot that looks like a PCMCIA card slot (a slot for cellular modems, WiFi cards and other devices) but isn't actually a PCMCIA card slot - it's something called an Express card slot. As I understand it, it performs the same functions in the same way, but has been redesigned so that a "standard" PCMCIA card will not fit into it. Stupid? Of course. Nasty? Naturally. Point number one is that if you are buying a new computer, DO NOT assume that the slot that looks like a PCMCIA card slot is actually what you think it is. Ask. Point number two is that, if you are already stuck with this problem, or if you have had a problem such as I have had with your PCMCIA card slot, there is now a functioning alternative that will allow you to plug your stuff into one of your USB ports. The device is made by Elan Digital Systems Ltd out of the UK. The model number will vary depending on what type of wireless card you want to use with it, and the price will vary from $130 to $190 depending on the model, but - contrary to what I was told by a Best Buy tech - it works and it works well. So we're settled in to the Texas RV Park in Big Spring for the night once again, I'm able to get online from pretty much anywhere again, and tomorrow we'll take up where we left off yesterday. A great big Thank You to those of you who have inquired on a regular basis about how things are going for us while we've had these numerous and varied difficulties over the past many weeks. Your concern and support for us has meant more than you can know. March 8: Tonight I want to ask a very special favor of you - especially from those of you who have been following my progress for so long now and have been so incredibly supportive of what I'm trying to do. As Jonna and I caught the news this evening we saw that some segments of Congress finally seem to be getting serious about finding a way out of our national nightmare. The trouble is that every approach we're hearing about continues to carry the baggage of partisan politics and is bogged down in the perceived need to preserve political careers. We began thinking that NOW is the time for our congressional leadership to have the opportunity to consider a completely different approach to the problem - one that does not concern itself with partisanship or any need to mollify any elements - but rather approaches resolution purely from the perspective of logic, reason and the rule of law. I'm talking, of course, about the petition I'm carrying. We sat down and drafted a letter introducing what we're about to members of Congress with the intent of sending it to each and every member of the House and Senate. Trouble is, that seems to be a nearly impossible task. Turns out that so many legislators have put so many retrictions on incoming email that it would take us weeks to even get an email to most of them. This is where I need your help. I'm posting the letter we wrote below, and am asking each of you, if you have ANY way of contacting ANY of our legislators, to please, PLEASE copy this out and send it to them. Seems that you're not only our PR team, you're also our Legislative Action Committee. If we are going to make a difference this is a critical time - and I desperately need your help. Thank you. Here's the letter: ***************** Dear : As Congress finally seems to be taking serious steps to bring an end to our misadventure in Iraq, I would like to offer for your consideration an approach to resolution that I do not believe has yet been explored - and which I also believe has considerable merit. Please allow me to provide some brief background, then to present the approach to which I refer. After years of anger and frustration over what my wife and I perceived from the beginning to be an irresponsible and tragic course of action our country pursued in the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq, we felt compelled to take personal action. In November of 2006, we sold our home and most of our possessions and I embarked on a cross-country walk from San Diego to Washington, D.C. carrying a petition to Congress requesting an immediate end to our actions of war in both Iraq and Afghanistan, the rescinding of all extraordinary war powers granted by Congress to this president, and the immediate redployment of our military forces. We established a website to permit people to read our petition and the rationale behind it, to sign the petition and to track the progress of my walk. With no national exposure to date, we have collected over 1,500 signatures on our petition and receive more each day. Moreover, we have encountered a consistent and nearly unanimous sentiment among those who discover what we are doing and why that the people of this country have had more than enough and want to end it - now. I am now over one thousand miles into my walk and will continue as long as the objectives I seek have not been met, but I feel that the approach represented within my petition is worthy of receiving attention at a time when Congress seems truly interested in finding a reasonable solution to this problem. The debate so far in the effort to finally end this crisis has involved significant elements of partisanship, political maneuvering and the perceived need to extricate ourselves from the situation in some fashion that will allow us a perception that we have achieved some sort of positive accomplishment in the process. My approach does not speak at all to - and is thus not constricted by - those elements. It instead speaks to bringing us to a resolution that is based purely on reason, logic, and the rule of law. As I formulated my petition, I began with the realization that the United States is not actually currently at war with any other sovereign state, nation or country in the world. We are behaving as if we are at war, we are talking as if we are at war, but we have never declared war against either Iraq or Afghanistan. In addition, since our warlike actions began, both of these countries have obtained freely elected governments with which we have no grievance that amounts to a cause for war. The point is that, if we are truly a country that believes in the rule of law, then we cannot continue to pursue the actions of war if we are not in fact at war. The petition, therefore, calls first for a declaration by Congress that we are not officially at war with either the nation of Iraq or the nation of Afghanistan. The next point is that of the "war" on terror. Again, employing logic and reason, we cannot declare actual war against an action or a concept, as such a war against something other than a sovereign entity can by definition have no measurable victory or defeat - and no end. The "war" on terror must be re-examined immediately and restructured to that which it should have been in the first place - an ongoing effort to identify and eliminate the root causes of terrorism and an internationally cooperative effort to locate and apprehend those who would resort to terrorist tactics, not as war criminals or enemy combatants, but as the murderers, criminals and sociopaths they actually are. To elevate any group of terrorists to the status of enemies of the state against which we declare ourselves to be at war is to afford them a status and a legitimacy they do not deserve - and which only serves to further their cause. Continuing the line of reasoning, if we are not at war with Iraq or Afghanistan, and if the "war" on terror is a metaphor rather than an actual war, then there is left no justification whatsoever for this president to retain any of the war powers that have been granted to him by Congress, and Congress must, under the rule of law, rescind all war powers it has previously granted him. Furthermore, as a nation, we are also then obligated to redeploy our military forces in a fashion that is consistent with the fact that we are not at war. As I hope you will see, this approach to the problem is in no way partisan - it is based purely on calling our country to behave as a rational, law-abiding member of the wordwide community of nations. It is time for us to acknowledge that nations as well as individuals are bound in their actions by principles which, like it or not, they are not free to violate simply because they desire to do so - and that our nation, as a responsible member of the community of nations is not above nor exempt from conducting ourselves in a manner that is consistent with our own established laws and our own sense of ethics. That is, we cannot continue to use our military forces to occupy and to conduct military operations of war in a sovereign nation with which we are not at war. My petition itself is as follows: A PETITION TO THE CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES WHEREAS the people of Iraq have successfully elected and empowered a representative government, and WHEREAS the people of Afghanistan have also elected and empowered a representative government, and WHEREAS the United States has no grievance with either of these governments that constitutes a basis for war, and WHEREAS the so called war on terrorism is not a war within the historic definition of war, but rather an ongoing policy to identify and address the conditions that breed terrorist activities and protect the United States and other nations from terrorist actions, and as such cannot be considered the basis for obtaining or retaining any powers of war not otherwise endowed to a specific branch of government, and WHEREAS the thoughtful, responsible division of powers in order to provide crucial checks and balances among the branches of our government is foundational to our concept of democracy and to the preservation of the rights and freedoms of the citizens of our nation, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT The president and congress shall immediately and officially declare that the United States is no longer at war with the government or people of either Iraq or Afghanistan, and The Congress shall immediately rescind and the president shall immediately relinquish war powers granted to him under Public Law 107-40 (Authorization for use of Military Force), Public Law 107-243 (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq) and any and all other legislation that may have granted him extraordinary war powers during the term of his office and That the War Powers held by both the Congress and the president shall return to those defined by Public Law 93-148 (The War Powers Act of 1973) and That the president and Congress shall begin immediately to order redeployment of U.S. military forces consistent with the fact the our country is not presently at war with any other state, nation or sovereign power. It is my hope that you will give thoughtful consideration to the rationale I have presented. I expect to arrive in Washington, D.C. by July of 2007. If we have not managed to bring an end to the current crises of state by then, it is also my hope that you will have the courage to step forward and receive the petition I am bringing to you. This is a time when our country's leadership, dedicated men and women such as yourself, must find the courage to put personal and political consideration fully aside and determine finally to do what is right. Sincerely, Bill McDannell Walk to End the Wars WWW.WTETW.COM radicalgeezer@gmail.com (619) 792-5292 ************************ We made good miles once again today, and rather than backtrack to Big Spring - which we're going to have to do anyway when the adaptor comes in, we decided to go on ahead to Sweetwater for the evening and a motel with a hotspot. We found a motel, so I'm online again tonight, but it turns out we arrived in Sweetwater right in the middle of their annual Rattlesnake Roundup. Saints preserve us. Apart from finding ourselves right in the middle of a fundraiser for the OOOO, there are few things I can think of that we could enjoy less than a bunch of people messing with venomous snakes. But here we are, and because this is apparently a big annual wingding, we may have to look pretty hard to find even an RV park tomorrow and may wind up having to crank up the generator out in the middle of a field somewhere. Oh well, this too shall pass. I think I've probably set a personal record of some sort for the number of 20+ mile days in a row now, but it's beginning to take its toll, especially with the additional frustration of having to deal with the connectivity problems and everything. I don't want to, but I may have to take a day off soon just to catch my breath. I've been sort of expecting that we'd catch a day of rotten weather that would force me off the road, but the weather has been incredibly cooperative...and I'm not about to complain about that! It's entirely possible that we'll be in Abilene by the time our adaptor arrives and we'll have to run all the way back to Big Spring to fetch it, so that may be a good time to take a day's break. We'll see. The motel we're in has a bathtub, so Finn and Spoof both got baths tonight. They don't appreciate them, but always seem quite happy and relaxed afterward. It's a major chore just getting them wet through all that fur, then being sure they're rinsed well is also an effort. So the guys are content and Jonna and I are pooped. With what's left of the evening we may just watch a movie and crash. March 7: It was a good, easy walking day, with a pleasant surprise near the beginning. Coming into Big Spring on Business 20 just off of Interstate 20 there was a large, empty field on the south side of the road. Well, not exactly empty - as the field seems to be entirely taken over by a colony of prairie dogs. They were everywhere, and this is the first sign of prairie dogs I've seen so far. They didn't seem to be terribly alarmed by my presence, but the ones near the road would stand beside their holes and chark at me (chark = chirp + bark) until I had passed safely by. One the other hand it was a real roller coaster ride on the technical end. I got in touch with the guy we'd left the computer with in Midland (Eric Miller of Protech, who has been very helpful). He confirmed my fear that it is almost undoubtedly the computer's PCMCIA slot that has been our culprit in being unable to get online. At the same time, however, he came up with a potential work-around. Seems there is an adaptor out there that will allow you to run a PCMCIA card (such as our cellular modem) through one of the computer's USB ports. So after finishing the walk today we drove all the way back into Midland to stop into the library to try to locate the appropriate adaptor and also to pick up our computer. We found the adaptor, made by a company in Great Britain, and a supplier that said they were in stock. So I copied down the phone number and we left to wait for the computer to be picked up. When we got to the RV park in Midland I called the supplier only to find out that they were actually out of stock. So we enlisted Becky's aid in Missouri and she got online and found a place in Oceanside, California - back in our old stomping grounds - that had the card. We ordered one and asked them to ship ASAP to the RV park in Big Spring, who we called to let them know a package would be coming for us. The logistics of all this gets dizzying sometimes. By the time the adaptor arrives in Big Spring - unless we have some sort of weather or other delay - we'll be well beyond there, but it's the farthest point down the road where I had some place to send the adaptor. Then Eric called and dropped a bit more bad news on us. Our computer was crawling with all sorts of viruses - some of them very nasty. He said he had managed to kill all the viruses, but some of them have done significant damage to our operating system and the computer was very, very slow now. The ultimate cure of course is to wipe everything off the computer and reinstall. Our installation disks - I'm sure - are in storage in El Centro. It was late evening by this time and we went to pick up the computer. By the time we got there the news was a bit better. The computer had picked up speed considerably and looks like it will be useable even without a complete reinstall for now. Eric even thought that it might now work with the cellular modem card. We returned to the RV park and I tried it, but no dice. It still shuts down after just a few minutes online, so it will be another few days until we can get our hands on the adaptor before we can get fully up and running on everything again. The business about the viruses has been very frustrating to me because a) I have what is supposed to be a respectable anti-virus program running constantly on the computer and updating itself daily and it hasn't reported anything wrong, and b) we simply don't do the kind of stuff with our computer that opens it up to getting the viruses that are floating around out there. For instance, if you send me an email with an attachment, unless I know you and know exactly what the attachment is, I will not open it. So please don't send me an email with an attachment and simply say, "You've got to read (or see) this" - because I won't. But it means that despite our cautions we've somehow been the victim of not just a couple, but - according to Eric - a whole company of viruses. I am at a loss to figure out how this is happening. March 6: There is a sign at the edge of Gila Bend, Arizona that says, "Welcome to Gila Bend - home of 3,000 Friendly People...and five ol' Crabs". Lots of people stop to take a picture of it. Some of the stores in Gila Bend even sell postcards depicting the sign. There is a sign at the edge of Stanton, Texas that says, "Welcome to Stanton, Texas - home of 3,000 Friendly People...and a few ol' Soreheads". I don't know how many more of these are scattered throughout the country or which small town originated the idea. I only mention it because, as we passed through Stanton today we defied the odds. We met one single person in Stanton, and he turned out to be one of the ol' soreheads about which the sign cautions. We were doing our usual leapfrogging along the Interstate 20 Frontage road. Jonna found what she thought would be a good place to stop right at the Stanton exit. Understand that as we are traveling we are very careful to respect the rights and property of others. We try very hard to park Nessie where she won't be in anyone's way or on property someone might want to use. At the Stanton exit Jonna found a truck stop, but it was crawling with semis. Across the street from the truck stop was what used to be a gas station, obviously out of business for some time. There were old tires and other debris scattered about, and a couple of dozen feral cats crouched among the litter. But the canopy over where the pumps used to be was intact and the blacktop was level, so she figured it would be a good place to stop and wait for me and be out of the Texas sun for a bit. She did see one sign on the station that said "For Sale By Owner". She was getting ready to make a little lunch when I caught up with her, but within minutes after I arrived an old dude in a green pickup truck that was as beat up as the station - and filled with as much debris - pulled up alongside us. He came up to the door and asked, "Do you have a problem?" We've often been asked this question when people see us pulled off the side of the road somewhere. Jonna naturally took it as a friendly inquiry. She replied, "No, we're just stopping to rest a minute." Then the guy said, "This is private property. It's posted no trespassing." This sort of stunned Jonna into silence for a second, then she shot back, "Can we at least finish lunch?" The old fart didn't even answer her, so I said, "Sorry, we didn't know it was posted - we'll move right away". And we did. As we pulled out we noticed two things: first, that neither of us could see any sign anywhere that said "No Trespassing". Second, that the guy in the pickup pulled out as we did - he had gone out of his way to make a stop there just to chase us out. We're still wondering what sort of damage he figured we were about to do to his gas station. Maybe he figured we were going to kidnap some of his cats. It was a weird encounter. I wanted to be able to make it all the way to Big Spring today, but my feet had other plans. I got within a couple of miles, though, so that was pretty good. But in the end my feet said they had had enough just a couple of miles before the first Big Spring exit and I've learned to listen to my feet. We're staying at the Texas RV Park just south of Big Spring tonight - pricey, but probably the nicest RV park we've stayed at to date - even has an indoor swimming pool. March 5: We continue to have good weather for the walk and I continue to make good mileage each day - and then Jonna puts me to work on Nessie. She even has priorities set up. First was replacing the curtains. That's accomplished. Ripping out the carpet and replacing it with vinyl tile is high on her list, but I'm saving that for a rainy day or two when I can devote the entire day to it. This evening it was the backsplash around the stove and sink. The wallpaper that was there was some sort of flower thing that made her flesh crawl. She papered behind the sink with some palm tree pattern stuff and we got a piece of paneling that looks like brushed aluminum squares to do behind and beside the stove. I forgot to mention that while Nessie is still behaving perfectly since we got rid of the Evil Traveling Troll, the microwave decided to die yesterday. It still acts like it's doing something, but it isn't. So in the middle of doing all the other kitchen area stuff it was time to replace the microwave as well. We're veteran remodelers - The only thing I won't tackle by myself is wiring because I always wind up zapping myself. But anything else is fair game. Trouble is, living in a camper now, I have about one-fifth the tools I need for any given project. As a result, much improvisation is required. Actually, the microwave picked a propitious time to call it quits. Since I had the paneling to do the backsplash I could replace the metal grille surrounding the microwave with the same stuff I was using for the backsplash. But that required cutting a large hole in the middle of a sheet of paneling, and with only a drill, an Xacto knife and a pull saw to work with, making that hole took a whole lot more effort and time than it deserved. But I got it done. I still have to put up a piece of paneling on the opposite wall, but I've had enough for tonight. Nessie looks more and more every day like she belongs to us. We still haven't found anyone to check out the computer or work on Nessie's plumbing. The third cellular card should arrive at the Odessa store tomorrow so we'll have to back track a bit to pick it up, and I hope I can find someone in Midland tomorrow to check the computer so we can get it done before we're too far down the road from here. The plumbing will have to wait a bit longer. We can still use the toilet and most RV parks we've stayed at have showers and such, so the only inconvenience right now is hot water and washing dishes and such. For that we heat water on the stove and do the dishes tent-camping style in a large bowl. Enough for tonight. A little reading and it will be time to catch a bit of sleep. March 4: Yesterday wound up being a good day to take off. It was cold, windy, dusty, and just a generally nasty day. On top of that, I came down with a little stomach distress later in the day, which passed quickly - but not before I managed to share it with Jonna. The consistent rule in our home is that whatever I get, I'll be better within a few hours, but Jonna will catch it before then and be miserable for between two and five times as long as I was. Such was the case with this one: I was over it quickly, but Jonna's spent most of today feeling lousy, only beginning to come out of it this evening. We got quite a bit accomplished yesterday. We couldn't find a computer place in Odessa that was open on the weekend, but I got online at the library, we finally got the guys' nails trimmed (they were wicked long and it's the one thing both Jonna and I hate to do ourselves), I hooked up the printer and made more WTETW calling cards and a couple of signs for Nessie's windows, and I got a number of small tasks accomplished in terms of continuing to fix up Nessie. She's looking better every day and feeling very much like home. On top of that, I wrote another country western song. I do that once in a while. Someone will toss a phrase out there and it will sound to me like a good lyric for a country western song, so I'll write one. I really don't like country western...I mean, I really don't like country western, but I'm sure that many people will agree that you don't have to like it to write it. I wrote one for Jonna when we were dating. Money was, as always, very tight and someone said something about getting behind on the bills. So I wrote a song about getting behind on the bills, the rent, the laundry, the shopping, etc. and the chorus tag line was "...but the only behind that I don't mind is the one that I find on you." Good CW, n'est ce pas?Anyway, Friday as we were going through the Texas prairie wilderness I mentioned something about we'd soon be in Odessa where at least there might be some signs of civilization. Jonna - having had enough of tumbleweed, wind and scenery so flat you can stand on your toes and see Oklahoma - replied rather sarcastically and with a bit of self-wonderment, "I'm almost excited to be getting near Odessa, Texas." And that's the chorus line and title of the song. Thing is, I only have the chorus line and the music - haven't figured out the rest of the lyrics yet, but they're coming. It's fairly easy to get the music while you're walking - the constant pace acts as a metronome. But you can't write down lyrics if they come to you. So when I caught up to Jonna I "la-la-ed" the tune into our little recorder so I wouldn't lose it and we're both coming up with additional lyrics. Jonna came up with a line that might make it into the song. She offered, "I'm tired of the sagebrush, the flatlands and the wind's rush - I need a bed to sleep in tonight." I completed it with, "I know it's not Ohio, but I'll tell ya, me oh my-oh, there's no diff'rence when I turn out the light. That's why I'm almost excited to be getting near Odessa, Texas." I'm only telling you this because you already know we're out of our minds. Since we did a Motel 6 for our day off, we had a chance to listen to some news and such while we worked on our various projects. Same old rhetoric. Same old garbage. Same old reluctance from Congress to show any sign of having a backbone. Jonna came up with a particularly apt analogy. She said she had been thinking about cancer patients who undergo chemotherapy. If you know anything about chemotherapy, you know that it is essentially a process where the doctor goes about a deliberate program of poisoning you in the hope that the cancer will die before you do. Sounds a little crazy, but in essence that's what it is - and sometimes it works. She says that it reminds her of what's happening with Iraq. We've been going about a process that is killing Iraq - and us - in the hope that we'll solve the problem before we destroy both them and us. The thing is - it isn't working. It isn't getting rid of the cancer - in fact, it's only making it worse. If it was chemotherapy we would have stopped it a long time ago. But not only aren't we stopping - we're upping the dose! It is truly insane. If the OOOO had gone into medicine instead of politics he'd have had his license revoked years ago. But he's in a position where he can kill thousands more than he could have as a chemotherapist - and nobody has the courage to point out the craziness of what he's doing...and stop it. Wake up, Congress! It isn't "cut and run" - it's "end and mend"! Stand up to the loathesome rhetoric! Get past the fearmongering! We need some leaders with the courage to do the right thing - and we need them now! March 3: I'm reluctantly taking a day off today to see if we can address some issues which need to be resolved. We're in Odessa today, where we picked up the new cellular card for the computer yesterday afternoon. It does the same thing the previous card did - lets us online for a couple of minutes then completely powers down the computer - so we're still not able to get online. Cingular is shipping another card out. Meanwhile, I'm at the Odessa library today to get some computer time and post the journal entries for the past several days. We're going to see if we can find a computer shop that's open on Saturday to troubleshoot the computer and make sure the problem we're having is in the card and doesn't have anything to do with the computer itself. As I'm able for the first time in over a week to get online and check the website, I'm distressed to see that our statistics are way, way down. People aren't finding the site. I know I'm going through a very lonely stretch of countryside right now, but I'd like to ask those of you who have been following my journey to redouble your efforts to publicize what we're trying to do. Jonna and I really have our hands full just trying to make maximum miles each day and keep ourselves and the guys healthy and safe, and with the computer problems we've been having it's been nothing short of impossible to do any PR on our own. So once again I have to rely on your efforts to let people know about my walk and my petition. You can be a major source of support for us, and I hope you will give it a shot. The library limits the time of our online sessions, so I won't be able to post as much here as I would like. I did get the brainstorm last night to email myself the journal entries I've been saving up during the couple of minutes I could get online before the computer crashed, so you can catch up on our adventures and my eclectic ramblings below. Until I can actually get the computer stuff solved, Becky will keep on updating the Route page and I'll get back online as often as I can. Until you hear from me again, know that we're all safe and well, the journey - apart from the technical problems - is going smoothly, and I still hope to be out of Texas by the end of March. March 1: A thousand miles on foot. It's hard to take that in. And I'm not even halfway there - yet. By my calculations, the thousandth mile came in downtown Monahans, Texas. It was a cooler than usual day for the walk today - no clouds, but a brisk breeze made me decide to wear my jacket for the first time in a while. For my walk to date, I've been wearing a black "Members Only" jacket that I picked up a couple of years ago at a thrift store somewhere and had served me well during my chauffering days. I really liked it, but it's getting pretty well worn and was black, which wasn't really in keeping with what I've had in mind. So while Jonna was in Missouri, on a whim I decided to search eBay to see if I might be able to locate the same jacket - only in white. Believe it or not, I did - and bought it and had it shipped to her in Missouri. So now I'll be wearing a white jacket when you see me - if I'm wearing one at all. The last half of today's walk was easy, because we were able to get off the interstate and onto business 20, which took us right through Monahans, so it was easy for Jonna to find places to pull off and wait for me. As is her wont, she somehow managed to find a used bookstore conveniently located near one of her stopping points and so had no choice but to pick up some more reading material. Finding a bookstore makes her day, so she is a happy lady. Nessie is missing two knobs from the stove. It isn't a terrible inconvenience. It's easy enough to pull one of the existing knobs off and push it onto the shaft of the burner you want to use. Over the years I have lived in a number of places where the number of burners on the stove did not precisely match the number of knobs available to control those burners - with the configuration being such that the number of burners invariably exceeds the number of available knobs. For me, this is a great source of wonderment. Where do those errant knobs go - and how do they get there? I mean, it isn't like when you leave the house to go visit relatives or to the store or out for dinner, just before you close the door, your wife asks, "Honey, did you remember to bring the stove knobs?" and you have to rush into the kitchen, wrest the knobs from their shafts and stash them in your pocket before you can leave. Were it so, I could understand how some knobs eventually go missing. But at least in my experience, stove knobs are not one of the valuables we choose to keep with us whenever we leave the house lest some miscreant should pilfer them in our absence. Likewise, I can think of very few other practical household applications for a stove knob other than the one for which they have been designed. Therefore it seems highly unlikely they could become scattered around the house as they are appropriated for tasks other than the one for which they are designed and subsequently lost in the general clutter of odds and ends that accompanies any household. So it remains a mystery to me why I have so often encountered stoves with four burners but only two or three knobs. Why would they be missing? Where do they go? If you know, please clue me in. And don't try to tell me that they morph into coat hangers. I already have that mystery solved. I figured out long ago that socks are the larval form of coat hangers. When you are missing a sock from the dryer, go look in your closet and you will discover you have more coat hangers than you used to. I haven't caught them at it yet, but I am certain that, at some moment that always seems to escape our attention, a sock will suddenly undergo the wonderful process of metamorphosis - much like a butterfly - and become a coat hanger, which is clearly the reason why we are always losing socks and gaining coat hangers. |
