Veterans Day November 11th 2026

   For several years now I've been featuring the Veterans memorials that I have seen in some of the small towns I've visited on my ventures across this great land. This year is no different - the Veterans memorial in Mason City, Iowa is both striking and simple, featuring large slabs of black marble with the names of area Vets who have served in every branch of the U.S. Military since the town was founded in 1854. 

   This year I am dedicating this Veterans Day post to my departed friend and fellow Airman Pete Sukovaty. Pete grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, and was as big hearted and full of life as a man could be. 

   

   Pete and I served in the U.S. Air Force together, duty station HAFB, N.M. He liked to ride Motorcycles, loved to listen to the Ramones, and made each day an adventure.

   You are missed Pete, rest in peace.

Hallucinations & Delusions Interfering With Introspective Thoughts

   The man with the regrettable mustache lay quietly though wide awake in his bed. He stared at the ceiling, which had been meticulously painted to resemble the Cosmati Pavement mosaic in Westminster Abbey. 

   He had worked on the painting for almost two full years, and every morning upon awakening he had lain in his bed and reread the Latin inscription that had been inlaid in brass lettering along three sides of the mosaic when it was constructed in the 13th century.

   The brass letters that made up the inscription were no longer extant to the mosaic as most of the brass had deteriorated due to wear & tear - foot traffic being the main culprit. However, the inscription had been dutifully recorded in the 15th century by a chronicler named John Flete 

   In the year of Christ one thousand two hundred and twelve plus sixty minus four, the third King Henry, the city, Odoricus and the Abbot put these porphyry stones together.

   If the reader wisely considers all that is laid down, he will find here the end of the primum mobile; a hedge (lives for) three years, add dogs and horses and men, stags and ravens, eagles, enormous whales, the world: each one following triples the years of the one before

   The spherical globe here shows the archetypal macrocosm     

   The painting was formidable, especially when one considers he used a postcard featuring the mosaic as his only guide. 

   The postcard had been sent to him by the Countess Beatrix from her home in London. He had never seen the mosaic in person, as that would require leaving the home he had built specifically so he would never have to venture out into the world ever again.

   The house had been designed so that his bedroom was the axis of the floor plan. The four corners of the innermost square of the mosaic were aligned with the four primary directions, just as they had been in Westminster Abbey. 

   This allowed the man to feel as if he was waking in the center of the world every morning, even though his bedroom itself, inspired by Kubrick's 2001 ASO bedroom at the end of the film (without the Rococo paintings though, as he despised Rococo paintings) was rectangular. 

   The mosaic being square and the room being rectangular was deliberate, as that was how the man was able to forgo placing the Latin inscriptions as they were originally placed in the mosaic, inset as three lines of script along the borders, and instead into a single paragraph painted directly above the head of his bed.

  The man had reproduced the Latin inscription verbatim in large letters in the 24' 10" X 5' 2" rectangle that completed the 24' 10" X 30' 0" rectangle that was the ceiling of the bedroom.

   The inscription listed the then King of England as well as the head of the craftsmen who made the mosaic, the date of its creation, and, in a simple riddle, the lifespan of the world.

  19,683 years was the answer to the riddle. From the date of the worlds creation until the last time the sun would rise on any terran horizon would be 19,683 years.

  Which, the man calculated, meant there were 14,657 years left for mankind to get differences sorted and come to terms with the fragility of existence.

         

The Price Of Being Nice

   She asked him if he could help her move some patio furniture from her deck to the storage shed as the weather was predicted to turn from fairly comfortable mid-Autumn to fairly uncomfortable early-Winter within the next week.

   So he did. It took all of a half hour, and most of that half hour was spent rearranging what had been put into the storage shed during the previous Spring and Summer to accommodate the storing of the pieces of patio furniture.

   When all was said and done she politely asked if she could at least buy him lunch for the help, and he just as politely declined, stating that it was no bother and besides, he had to get going to an appointment he had across town.

   She replied with, "You are so nice I could marry you" as he walked back to his house.

   He was floored by that comment. All he had done was altruistically donate a half hour of his time and energy to help a neighbor with a small chore and she returns the favor by threatening to destroy his entire life. 

Halloween Houses Of 2026

 

An Attempt To Write A Wagon Train Romance Adventure Dealio

 

   As he had done most every morning for the past 3 months James woke a little before the men on watch fired their guns to signal the start of another day. The morning twilight became dawn and the low sun began to light up the sky. The group he and Polly were with now numbered 143 souls, far fewer than the more than 1,000 people they had set out with.

   After the larger group had crossed the Big Blue River near the Alcove Spring camp they had split up nearly evenly in order to ease the stress of keeping order over the large group of Elephant Hunters (as they jokingly referred to themselves). Though the two smaller groups stayed within a few miles of each other for safety's sake.

   The route through the Federal Territory after they had crossed the Missouri River had been rugged and demanded a level of persistence and determination that James was surprised he was capable of. He was equally surprised and impressed by the resolute endurance his young wife Polly possessed, and her unwavering calm in the face of adversity. While he walked over to their team of 6 stout oxen and the two horses with buckets of fresh water he repeated the same prayer of gratitude that he had recited to himself every morning for the past 92 days.

   "Thank you Lord, for another day of life and the blessings therin."

   The makeshift corral was abuzz with activity as other members of the caravan feed and watered their livestock and made small talk amongst each other. James approached his brother Alfred and they greeted each other with the same half smile and nod they had silently agreed was all that was necessary in the morning. When they had harnessed their respective teams to the wagons, then they would talk about the days itinerary and whether or not they would be volunteering to serve as foragers or hunters that afternoon.

   As the sun climbed over the eastern horizon James could see the smoke from the morning campfires of the three other smaller emigrant companies that had further reduced the size of the trains the Wagon Master had to personally oversee. Now that the company was halfway to their destination and the fear of Indian raids had subsided, the going, while still rough, had gotten easier.

   Earlier in the week a Scout had returned after four days of assessing the trail ahead and told of meeting up with a group at a large rock near an encampment along the North Platte where a ferry service was available.

   Today was the day the group expected to traverse the 15 miles the Scout had estimated they needed to travel to reach the large rock. There would be several other caravans that had made camp in the area, and it would no doubt be a boisterous evening as there would be welcome reunions with fellows that they had split from since the crossing of the Big Blue River had been made.  

   In about an hour the Wagon Master would signal the bugler to blow his horn. The men leading the teams of oxen would start walking while gently tugging on the reigns and the large beasts would begin stirring up clouds of dust as the wagons they were yoked to began to move forward. After three months the logistics of getting everyone underway was a well-rehearsed and smooth exercise. 

   James looked over his right shoulder and up towards Polly, his wife of not yet four months. She had answered the advert he had placed in the Evansville Daily Journal seeking a wife who desired to migrate to the western territories and two weeks after she had replied they had married. It was an indelicate, risky, and possibly dangerous decision for them both, but it was also something they both wanted, almost desperately so.

   Polly looked at her husband and smiled broadly. Her eyes meet his and she thought once again about how surreal if not absurd the past four months had been. She also thought about how exciting and happy they had been despite the hardships of life on the trail. It was an an adventure the likes of which she never imagined would befall her, and the fact she had been fortunate enough to meet such a sound and able-bodied man to share the adventure with made it all the more exhilarating.

   Her future, their future, held more promise than she had ever hoped for, and with every mile further west they traveled her conviction she had made the right decision strengthened.   

     

Discover Yourself Without Hurting Yourself (Or Anyone Else)

He didn't much care for the opinions of strangers these days

Which was a far cry from the days of his youth

When he was consumed with a need to be accepted

When he was convinced his self-worth was dependent on others perceptions

Of what he could or couldn't do

Of what he knew or didn't know

Periodically he would encounter someone, usually a young kid

A teenager wound tight, emotionally turbulent, deeply anxious

Against everything but hoping to find something

Against the wall and insistently trying to tear it down

Because it was all so frustrating

Because it was all so existential

He had to fight to keep himself quiet on those occassions

Keep his thoughts to himself

The kid didn't need to hear yet another adult tell him

The future was bright and there was no reason to panic

That the world was extraordinary

That the best was just beginning

Everybody deserves the chance to discover all that by themselves

Deciduous Trees Droppin' Leaves Like They're Hot

Here we are more than a month into Fall and the trees have finally begun to start losing their leaves. Some people like to hop in a car and drive for hours into the mountains southwest of Denver to peep at miles and miles of Aspens, Cottonwoods, Oaks, Maples and other deciduous shrubs as their leaves change from various shades of green to an amazing rainbow of shades of red, orange and yellow. 

Which is cool and all, but to me a waste of time and fuel, because here in Lakewood where I reside there are several parks within walking distance of my house that have hundreds if not thousands of those very same trees doing the exact same turning color dance.

Over the last couple of days I've spent a few hours walking along both the Clear Creek and Bear Creek trails, and enjoyed every minute of it. As you might have assumed, I took a few pictures of the beautiful views along the trail, too.