A Sea of Shuttle Seers.

I spent the last few nights with good friends in Titusville, Florida. I had hoped to see the last Space Shuttle launch at night, but it was scrubbed because of cloud cover on the first night. It did go off the next night, but travel requirements and good sense prevented me from getting up at 3AM again to find a place to watch the launch as I did the first night.


Even though the Endeavor did not launch on early Sunday morning it was fascinating to watch and participate in the throngs of humanity. People came from all over the world to Titusville's route one to camp, park their RV's, drive to and stand and wait for mission control's Cap Com to call the go or no go minutes before the launch. Cape Canaveral is two or three miles across the bay from Titusville. You can see the launch tower clearly and the lights of the space port.

People, who had them, used their aircraft band radios to listen to the chatter at NASA HQ to pilots who reported the cloud ceiling and other conditions that might affect the launch. Other people listened to local radio stations that broadcast all the launches and then turned their car or RV radios to loud so all in the vicinity could hear.

It was magnificent. It was an American experience. There was no boisterous drinking and no being rowdy. There was respect and reverence for the event and even profound regret when the launch was cancelled because of a low cloud ceiling.

Once the scrub decision was announced it was pandemonium to get vehicles out of the ad hoc viewing sights all along the busy road. There were miles and miles of people, cars, and motorcycles trying to get somewhere. The old, the young, families with little children came to see the launch, but then everyone tried to leave at once. There was no police presence that I could see. A distance that normally would take ten minutes to drive took two hours to accomplish. It was wonderful.

It is unfortunate that launches into space these days have become commonplace and media coverage is blasé at best and limited or nothing at worst. I remember when the USSR launched "Sputnik" in the late 1950's. The world was stunned and America was embarrassed that we didn't do it first. We made up for it with the man on the moon project.

Every launch today is a testimony to America's greatness. It is a tribute to the intellect, ingenuity and talent of our people. I didn't see the launch, but then again, I did through the hopes, and awe of the thousands who come to every launch.

More from my travels on the highways and back roads of America. Tomorrow the Gulf Coast heading to New Orleans.

SuperBowl 44.

Some limerick thoughts this morning on Super Bowl forty four.

With pride the fans came to the bowl,
believing their team could control,
   The ball on the ground,
   in the air around,
But just for one the bell would toll.

Some think it’s the ultimate game,
With the players getting the fame
   Bowl Forty and four,
   Some wanted some more,
Next year will the teams be the same?

Today it's the loosers with woes
and healing the scrimmaging blows
   With media hypes,
   And one or two snipes
The losers, their bragging, now stowed.

Reporters were witty and bright,
covering each side with delight.
The Colts and the Saints
Their might be complaints
With loosers accepting their plight.

In this life of struggle and fears,
In this time of terror and tears
   We needed this game,
   to help us stay sane
Miami did send us the cheers.

The season is over and done,
the heart never caring who won,
   The game is the thing,
   by hoping to bring
a code of competitive fun.

Savannah

Dateline: Savannah

Maybe rain on the way.

This is  a delightful city. No wonder it is called Savannah. You cross a wide and marshy plain before you enter the proverbial gates of the city. There are no gates, but the city rises out of the flat plain and  there is history galore.  The city is nestled at the northeastern edge of Georgia. The Savannah River separates it from South Carolina.

Getting here was easy. The back roads once again carried me past the homes and marshlands of South Carolina into this thriving port city.

The South has a mystique about it and I'm not sure northerners can understand it. It smiles along with its inhabitants and there is a grace that soothes, you can feel it. I've often wondered if people make the place where they live or if the place conditions their demeanor? I suppose a little of both.

What I find here is a willingness to take life a little slower. People seem to have a joyful experience of just living. They also have a ambient courtesy that is evident in every exchange whether mercantile or just passing by. I like that.

More as my journey progresses.

Back Roads

Dateline: Charleston, SC

Some differences between North and South.

Traveling to here has been an experience and an education. I drove the back roads instead of the interstate highways. It takes about an hour longer in travel time, but the scenery is authentic Americana, not interstate sanitized.

I remember years ago when Lady Bird Johnson, then the First Lady of the United States, created a campaign to beautify the interstate highway system by eliminating junkyards and billboards. Granted, it’s beautiful, but it’s the same mile after mile and you have no idea of cultural or social change from one state to the other.

The back roads, through villages and towns is truly America. It is both quaint and depressing and strip-mall speckled into the sameness of names. McDonalds, Arby’s, Applebee’s and Wal-Mart.

One of the big differences between North and South is pronunciation. We are one people separated by a common language. Misunderstanding occurs in the ear. In the south everything begins with, “Yuall” and continues with undistinguishable words. I tried to find something at a convenience store and I couldn't understand what the clerk was saying.

Charleston, SC is a wonderful city. I got to see Fort Sumter for the first time. It's the place where the civil war began. It's actually a little piece of the northern rock. In 1827 they imported 70 thousand tons of New England granite to build-up a sand bar in the middle of Charleston harbor. Then they built the fort.

All in all, I would recommend a visit to this historic city. Its charm is infectious and its architecture an hallucinogenic back to another time.

“Yu’all” come.

Dispatch - North Carolina

Today’s post begins a series of dispatches from the road as I head south to Florida and then West to California. It is a mobile passage to experience life and lives both on and off the highways and blue roads of America.

From my rural lair in the Northeast I write and read about life in America. I do so from both observations and interest. This trip is to affirm my sense of oneness in humanity and acknowledge that it snuggles within diversity.

I left the New York-Washington corridor quickly for two reasons. I’ve lived and worked in that region most of my life and I know it fairly well. AND it was 5º above zero. You can guess which one was the motivator.

Today I am ensconced in Southport, North Carolina at Saint James Plantation. www.stjamesplantation.com It is a massive residential development on the inland costal waterway. You stay inexpensively for two nights in a three-bedroom well-appointed condo. The developers give you a spiel and tour in hopes the experience and place will entice you to build, buy, or rent on the plantation. So far I like the high temperature of 50 plus degrees and no snow.

I met a very personable young lady last night at dinner. She was the waitress. She is in her late twenties, a graduate from college with a degree in elementary education with an art minor.

She is not teaching because of student loans. She can make more money in the restaurant service business than she can teaching.  America needs teachers desperately and the young need to pay off their bills. It is a social dilemma that must be addressed so we can stay intellectually competitive with the other developed countries of the world.

It seems to me that if someone gets the appropriate credentials and agrees to teach for five years there ought to be a forgiveness of student debt. Maybe Congress could find a way to spend money on that.

More tomorrow farther south.

Ground Zero

Writing yesterday’s post brought back the darkness of 9/11 2001.

Not only did I see it happen, I reported on tragedy for days and days.

I’ve visited Ground Zero a number of times over the years. I remember passing the wall of shrines at Trinity Church where flowers, letters, and photos were set in sacred reverence on a wrought iron fence.
Each tribute then a collective jolt and individual pain reminding us of what we lost.

People prayed with each attempt to rescue those we thought might be alive and trapped beneath the tombs of debris. We cried as each body was recovered and still we hoped.

As the time passed our prayers of hope gave way to the horror of the numbers dead and the knowing that no one could survive.

All we could do was salute and be silent as the flag draped bodies passed from the pit into the broken hearts of their families and we ached for those who would have no body to mourn or to bury.

Our leaders responded to terrorism as the civilized world said no to the inhumanity of terror and vowed to destroy the organizations that promote and encourage it.

The war on terror is far from over and it is doubly sad that so many more lives have been lost in the battle.  Like so many I will visit Ground Zero again and again and remember.

Terrorist's Trial

The Justice Department is moving the terrorist’s trial from lower Manhattan.

Lower Manhattan, a great place.

I like many things about it. I like the sophistication of Wall Street, but not necessarily their selective ethics.

I like the history there; the steps where George Washington took his oath of office, the mishmash of streets long before someone thought better with avenues and streets in straight lines. In fact Wall Street was just that. A Street with a wall on it to keep the cows in and the Indians out back in the 16-hundreds.

I like the way the area empties out at night and its people move to uptown bars and restaurants. I like city hall and China town and the boats to Staten Island, Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

What I didn’t like, because of the potential disruption, was the plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators a few blocks from where the World Trade Center twin towers stood.

Somehow it didn’t seem right.

Ground Zero is sacred ground now and its proximity to the court where Khalid Sheikh Mohamed would have been tried has a certain justice to it, but the disruption to life and business negates the irony.

At first I accepted the idea because it seemed justice to bring the accused back to the scene of the crime, but then listening to so many explain the hardships they would face because of security, I changed my mind.

Justice will be served no matter where the trial takes place.