act 3, scene 1a...

To sleep, or not to sleep: that is the question:
Whether �tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The yawns and crusting of your eyes,
Or place arms around a pile of pillows,
and by drooling warm them? To rest: to sleep;
To sleep; and by a sleep to say we end
The back-ache and the thousand sore muscles
That work has given us, �tis a relaxation
Devoutly to be wish�d. To rest, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there�s the rub;
For in that quest for sleep what dreams may come
When all we can hear is our lover snore?

pictures from the red line...

Stacey George posted this picture to her blog a few days ago. Here's her story as I imagine it :

girl on a train

when i grow up...

I have a weird dream. I can imagine myself, in some advanced age, doddering around a crowded workshop full of tools, and sawdust, and collected trinkets of my history. I can see my thin, arthritic fingers fumbling with bits of twine, hacksaws, and glue. In one corner, a stack of homemade rice paper, decorated with bright colored inks and precisely cut to shape. In another, balsa wood frames, half covered in rice-skin, slowly taking shape. I see myself leaving shuffled footprints in the sawdust, orbiting the center of the shop like an ancient planet circling the star of my latest creation. Every Saturday, I�ll carry my art out into the field behind the shop, tie on a length of string, lift it up to the sky in a prayer and watch the winds carry it on towards the heavens.

patient as gravity...

Stepped out of the house this morning into what we hope will be our last bout of winter weather. The freezing rain had draped a thin coat of ice over the cars, the mailbox, the trees. It�s the trees you notice first. There�s a dull white shine that seems to radiate from deep within them. A glistening, even in the overcast gloom, that blurs your vision, makes you rub your eyes as if they were still coated with the crust of sleep. It hides the danger of its weight, pulling and tugging limbs and power lines downward.

pack mule...

The problem with playing acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and mandolin is that you have to carry an acoustic, electric, mandolin, and amp to practice. Sure, it makes me seem cooler than I am, but it does take it's toll on my lower spine.

ski trip redux...

On our way home from Beech Mountain, we played Road Trip Survivor. Using family class radios we announced (over channel 14) who was voted out, one by one, from each of the four vehicles, and why. My mini van (hauling nothing but me, the wife, and the majority of the luggage) was the first car down to one survivor. Me. Jennifer was asleep when the voting started. What was I going to do? Vote myself off?!? The Honda Accord full of adults was next to go, the youth pastor being the first to go. The two 15-passenger vans took the longest. One or two individuals were actually voted out twice, and the reasons were quite... well... inventive. �We vote out John �cause he won�t shut up.� �We voted out Zane �cause he farted.� �We got rid of Adam �cause Brandon wants to drive the van.� �We�re voting out Nick �cause of the choir boys.�

Once we got down to one survivor in each car, we voted out the individual winners from each vehicle. My red van driving self was first to go, thanks in no small part to the youth pastor, Scott. The reason for my demise? His unhealthy obsession with and/or fear of long fingernails. Yes. I have extremely long nails (for a guy) on my right hand that I use to pick my nose guitar. Oh, the sacrifices I make for my art... The two vans then canceled out each other�s vote, leaving Scott�s wife as the sole survivor. Not a bad choice. She did do most of the cooking for 34 people this weekend, and she does have to put up with a youth pastor full time. Two tasks deserving of some recognition. My suggestion for her grand prize? Snow chains for the Honda.

today's word: fatigue...

Took a group of high school youth from church up to Beech Mountain for a ski retreat. The significant events of the trip are as follows :

• Youth leader and his wife spent the first night in their car when they couldn't make it back up the mountain in the fog.


• Had to go night skiing because of the rain.


• Had to ski on ice because of the rain


• Sent one girl to the hospital in a an ambulance at 2am the second night. (She's fine now.)


• Almost got snowed in for another night.


• Had to push a Honda Accord up an ice covered hill.


• The four cars got separated from each other half way back.


• Had a great time.

Begging the Rain
12 April 99

A sudden flash, the smell of rain
cumulo-nimble dances and brezzes
Nature, in a lust for life,
paints yellow all she can.
The front moves against me
fills me with this joy
scares me with white noise.
Thunder crack
runs jagged through bone
Lightening flash
electrifies the water that makes me
shutter clicks to catch
another lost instant of breath.
The heart beats to fear
wishes what was was still
wishes the wind would still
The city begs the rain
wash the filthy air
The city remembers the was
and begs the rain
make it be again
I stand in weakness
waiting for the storm

8-penny nails...

If you�ve ever put hammer to nail, you know this dilemma. You place a nail in the perfect spot and give a couple light taps to get it seated, then let loose one good whack, driving it half way in. Your next shot, miss-focused and arrogant, strikes the nail head off-center, bending it completely over. Try as you might, there�s just no way you�re ever going to straighten that nail out enough to drive it the rest of the way home. You�re now faced with two options. 1) Spin the hammer around, dig the claw into the nail, yank it out, and grab an unmarred nail to fill the hole. 2) Pound the bent nail with all the reckless abandon of a tanked up Courtney Love until it�s embedded flush in the wood. Either way, you�ve still got more nails.

do it right the first time...

Everyone remembers their first time. We remember every detail, from the make and model of the car, to the color of the shirt we wore, to the song playing on the radio. We remember how that single instant stretched out and stopped, as if it were frozen in a photograph. We can still feel every muscle tense, the involuntary clenching of the fingers, gasping for breath, the sudden thrust of impact, and gradual release as time resumed its steady cadence and your heart resumed it�s constant beat. But mostly, we remember the squeal of the brakes.

My first wreck was an exercise in �beginner�s luck.� It was in my first car, a red Dodge Shadow. Rather sporty for a four cylinder hatchback, and much nicer than my second car. We purchased it, for around $6,500, from my cousin who rebuilt it after it�s first wreck. The grand total after I made my mark? Around $7,000. If you�re going to do something, do it right...

How did it happen? At 16, it�s enough to say it was caused by hormones. I had been off to see a girl and was late for work. Flying low down a winding back road of east Chattanooga, I got behind the living cliche of the barely-living, blue-haired lady in a big white Chevy. I�m pounding on the wheel, in rhythm to a cassette tape of Ratt, begging the nice lady to please move before I got fired. Then I see it just up ahead. A nice clear stretch of road, with a slight curve, but clear enough to see nothing was coming. Sure... there was a double yellow line, but I was late. I gunned it and turned the wheel left into the opposite lane.

She could see me for the large street sign pointing toward the baseball field. The very same sign blocked my view of her until she pulled out half way into her lane, the lane I was speeding down at 50 miles per hour. The impact was so great, even after 15 feet of skid marks, that it spun her car around 180 degrees and dropped her, her sister, and her five year old son in the ditch. My car sat there in the middle of the road, four feet shorter than when I left for work. Mom and dad were sure to notice. The point of impact smashed through the battery and acid was eating away at the red paint, mixing with radiator fluid, and flowing down the street like a trail of blood. The sister hurt her arm, a bit. The mom and son were bruised, but otherwise unhurt. I spent the night in the hospital for observation with the Dodge logo embossed in my sternum. I lost the girl to the guy with the 4x4.

There is a story in the Bible about a Dude who had everything you could want. Turns out, this dude is in tight with God. God�s main man, if you will. Satan pops up and suggests Dude only likes God because he�s rich. He suggests that, without his wealth or the joy of his wife and children, Dude wouldn�t feel quite as friendly towards God. Dude would up and tell God to take a hike, jump in a lake, or worse. God had a bit more faith in our hero. Satan said �Let�s prove it.� God says "Give it a shot." Dude loses everything; the house, the kids, the wealth. Dude never blames God. At this point, Mrs. Dude flips out, insults him, curses God and drops dead. Right about now, Dude is hating life. He sits in rags and covered in ash thinking life couldn't get any worse. Then his friends show up. For seven days, they sit in perfect silence with their friend. When they start talking, it all goes downhill from there. They personify the old saying �better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.� They make things worse. In the end, Epiphany. When God shows up, the friends shut up and Dude gets everything back; bigger house, more kids, greater wealth, and a better wife.

The moral of this story? Next time someone tells you their deepest, truest desire keeps slipping through their fingers, don�t be one of Dude�s cruel friends. Instead, put your hand on his shoulder, say a silent prayer, and never, ever use any of the following phrases:

• You�re still young.
  
• You�ve got time.
  
• It took a friend of mine years.
  
• Have a little more faith.
  
• Don�t worry about it.
  
• You can�t rush these things.
  
• Don�t let it stress you out..
  
• You can always adopt.

blizzard fun facts...

It�s no real secret that I like the moon. I�ve written a couple of songs about moons, ours and one of Saturn�s, but did you know that our moon has twelve different names? The Algonquin tribes (and later, European settlers) gave each Full moon a name relevant to the time of year it appeared. The current moon is called the Snow Moon. Can I get a �well, duh?�

Here�s the full list and when they�re scheduled to show up again:

Snow Moon - February 16, 2003, 6:51 p.m. EST
Worm Moon - March 18, 2003, 5:34 a.m. EST
Pink Moon - April 16, 2003, 3:36 p.m. EDT
Flower Moon - May 15, 2003, 11:36 p.m. EDT
Strawberry Moon - June 14, 2003, 7:16 a.m. EDT
Buck Moon - July 13, 2003, 3:21 p.m. EDT
Sturgeon Moon - August 12, 2003, 12:48 a.m. EDT
Harvest Moon - September 10, 2003, 12:36 p.m. EDT
Hunter�s Moon - October 10, 2003, 3:27 a.m. EDT
Beaver Moon - November 8, 2003, 8:13 p.m. EST
Cold Moon - December 8, 2003, 3:37 p.m. EST
Wolf Moon - January 7, 2004 10:40 a.m. EST

from space.com

As seen on TV�
Watched a Discover Channel show tonight about the bane of TV addicts like myself: infomercials. Did you know one of the first and most successful infomercial pitch man was Ed McMann? Did you know Ron Popeil, founder of Ronco, was driven to bankruptcy by his own father? Remember these fine products: Mr. Microphone, Veg-O-Matic, the Pocket Fisherman, Gensu, Flowbee, ThighMaster? Wish you could forget the commercials for them? Wish you had the money they made?

But wait, there�s more�

You�ve seen the value of reading Kudzu, but if you act now, we�ll throw in a poem absolutely free!


Jeremiah 51

The boys in the war club
are senseless and stone
Horse and rider are broken
and the archer's bow
lies loose and unstrung
beside the golden cup
that spilled Babylon's wine
Now the nation is mad drunk
howling like a jackal
for it's last meal
The light of judgement
mushrooms to the sky
burns the reeds on river banks
outshines the metal gods
who melt to slag in the Son.

sometimes it's what you don't say...

There are days when you feel you have nothing to say. Other days, your simply afraid of words you might use, the honesty that might slip through. And then, there are these days... days when all you really want is to stand on the end of a runway, hear the jets rage behind you, fell them slip gently into the air above, and watch as they melt into murky clouds of forgotten sky.

$55.00 a dozen...

So what�s worse: not having a date for valentine�s day or having a date and being sick? Not that it matters much, really. Our idea of a hot date is some grilled food and a couple of movies from the local BudgetBlockbuster. This extreme level of intensity swells throughout the evening reaching the peak of ecstacy as we search the DVD menu for the holy grail of the modern, at-home movie experience: deleted scenes. (By the way, the best deleted scenes ever cut are on the Gattaca DVD.)

Am I railing against the corporate machine? Am I adding my voice to the chorus of angry men and women (mostly single, strangely enough) who spend the first 2 weeks of February making sure every happy person in earshot knows that evil corporate greed is forcing us to buy chocolate, over-priced, half-dead roses, and pink cards dripping poetry so bad it would make my poetry professor roll over in his grave... after putting him there? No, not really.

Am I simply incapable of romance? Let�s investigate, shall we? Here�s the facts:

1. Only really dated three girls
   
2. Dated one girl for five years
   
3. Married my high school sweetheart
   
4. Gave up 23 years of celibacy on my honeymoon
   
5. Enjoyed seven years of marriage sans �itching�
   (not counting the psoriasis)
   
6. Still love my wife
   

If that�s not romance, we need a better definition. Happy Valentine�s Day.

a kudzu manifesto...

I want to give you something unique and special. I want to give you something that is thoughtful yet light; imaginative yet true; sad and real yet uplifting. I want to rewrite the Psalms in my own words. Sing a song of lament that ends with hope. I want to paraphrase Ecclesiastes, to make your journey through these thoughts a time to laugh, a time to learn, a time to love. I want it to be born of my own addled creativity and be fashioned by my slender hands. Some days I�ll show you the left hand, each bony finger ending abruptly in a rough callous, still showing the groove indentation from the 80/20 steel-bronze strings that formed them. Other days I�ll show you the right hand, each bony finger spilling over into the extra long, well groomed nails that I use to pull music out of those very same strings. Maybe one day, I�ll even let you hold my guitar... but not tonight.

feeling like death warmed over...

I must have been dreaming last night, and it must have been vivid and enchanting. I must have done something really bad, too. I must have had that dream again, the one where I'm astride a giant bulldozer, crushing tree after tree as all the woodland fairies go flittering off to safety. I must have enjoyed it way too much. Those freakin' Tinkerbell wanna be's must have found out about my dream and gotten mad. Mad enough to break into my house last night and dump a half pound of pixie dust down the back of my throat. That must be it. I was fine when I went to bed last night. Granted, it was 1:30am and I was dog tired, but I felt fine. This morning I woke up with blocked sinuses and a throat scraped raw by falling mucus. How does this happen in just 7 hours of blissful slumber? Fairies. Tiny, vindictive little sprites right out of the bowels of a Walt Disney nightmare. Well, two can play at this game. I�ll show 'em. I�m going to think about rocket launchers as I go to sleep, or maybe a flame thrower. Oh yeah... &#$@! fairies.

swimming in alphabet soup...

I just traded several hours of my young yet rapidly dwindling time on this earth in the deepest, darkest level of Dilbert hell: the yearly corporate Kickoff Meeting. My first reaction was to ask "Who are we kicking off and will there be an immunity challenge first?" No such luck. And as much as the brochure tries to talk it up, the Embassy Suites� Carolina Ballroom looked nothing like a sub-tropical paradise. I'd like to say that the food was better than roots and grubs, but sadly, I really can't. Maybe I should have had the chicken...

There were harsh conditions to have to overcome, however. The first challenge involved staying awake through a video presentation from Mr. CEO so full of �CEOease� and jargon I got a headache. It was like watching a movie in a language completely foreign to anyone who doesn't sport a MBA and have a key to the executive washroom. "We're focusing on core competencies in key industries, up-selling/cross-selling or unique services, and containing expenditures to maximize our profitability." Read: "No raise for you this year. Sucker. Mr CEO also treated us to a game I like to call "Guess What These Three Letters Mean." The flood of acronyms is inevitable, but always drives me insane. Reminds me of the scene in Good Morning Vietnam:

Seeing as how the V.P. is such a V.I.P., shouldn't we keep the P.C. on the Q.T.? 'Cause of the leaks to the V.C. he could end up M.I.A., and then we'd all be put out in K.P.

Next comes the guy who wants to recognize the achievements of pretty much everyone there. Fifteen minutes before the start, this is the guy running around making sure he's got everyone's name and group down on scratch paper. He insists on making every single last person stand up and receive their quota of half-hearted and conscripted applause. "Yes?... Oh... My turn, now? Why thank you for that rousing ovation for my contribution of body heat, C0₂, and bevy of snide comments to the coworker next to me at the table."

There was also, as there is with all of these meetings, the one speaker who restates what everyone before him said, but he takes twice as long to say it and with all the self-confidence of a first year law student defending Hitler in Nuremberg. Above him on the mini Jumbotron is always a set of Power Point slides that were not only completely unrelated to what he was saying, but overloaded with clipart drawn by his 5 year old the night before.

And what was our reward for being the sole survivor? What prize was awarded for those who could out shmooze, out yawn, out fake-smile? Cold roast beef and a plastic desk clock in the shape of a computer mouse. Lovely. At my present hourly compensation, this cost me roughly $60 American. On the other hand, the cake and coffee weren't half bad. I had two cups.

where you hang your hat...

In honor of a recent post by Jason in which he boiled down his life to phone numbers, here's my own Reader's Digest Condensed version of my own autobiography:

• Selma, AL


• Linden, AL


• Demopolis, AL


• Dothan, AL


• St. John, New Brunswick


• Carolina Beach, NC


• Irmo, SC


• Zachary, LA


• Homosassa Springs, FL


• Chattanooga, TN


• Athens, AL


• Tuscaloosa, AL


• Satsuma, AL


• Mobile, AL


• Cary, NC


• Raleigh, NC

ready, steady, go...

Just got back from a CD release party. Some good friends of ours just recorded and self-produced a collection of mostly traditional and blue grass type songs. The CD is titled Acoustic Americans.

P.S. I thought the engineer of their demo cd was much better looking...

I think the single greatest advancement in grocery store science has got to be this new trend of Check Out Your Own Crap (COYOC™) lanes. Granted, there's still a few kinks to work out in the system (like making sure the labels on the shelf match the prices in the computer, for starters) and let's just be honest here; there are those among us who should be required to endure extensive training before ever being allowed to use the COYOC™ lanes and more than a couple of people who should be barred from ever using the machines. And you know who you are. You're the same ones with the VCR that blinks a constant green 12:00. You're the one who always ends up with the one extra board after putting together a new fake-wood computer desk. You're the one the phrase "dumb as a box of hair" was coined for. You're the one in front of me in line.

I'm still not sure why I like the COYOC™ lanes. After all, doesn't this display a degeneration of customer service? Shouldn't I get a discount for bagging my own? And the whole system is based on the very flawed UPC scanning system. Remember the good ol' days when you would sift through the entire shelf of creamed corn looking for the one can with the much older and cheaper price tag... when you could pull the $1.29 tag off the box of Life and fix it over the $2.29 tag on the box of Captain Crunch?

Maybe I like it because it reminds me of my first job as a bag boy for Red Foods, Inc. (Now called BiLo... what a stupid name...) The proud bag boys of Red Foods, dressed in neat white shirts and snappy red bow ties, were always happy to carry your bags out to your car. "Paper or plastic, Mam?" The best part? Tipping was encouraged.

I remember the best tip I ever got. "(S)he/It" was in store. The one with the makeup and thin cigars. The one with the questionable gender. My buddy Jason disappeared to the stock room and I jumped on the biggest two-buggy order I could find, filling brown paper bags with marked determination. The new kid, the one who jumped me at the bus stop last year, the one who won, but fought like a girl... he wasn't so lucky. I watched the surprised look on his face melt to horror as the manager, who had to bag (S)he/It's order made the hand off to him. "Here... Take this one out." I was grinning so hard it hurt. As I was putting groceries in the trunk of my customer’s car I said "sir, watch this." He and I turned to witness (S)he/It visually molesting the poor kid while he had to lean over into the car to put the first bag on the far side of the back seat. We cringed as (S)he/It smiled, its tongue gently licking the corner of its top lip. As I placed the last bag in his trunk, he said "thanks for the show" and handed me a five dollar bill.

What could be better than getting paid to enjoy your revenge? I ragged him about his new “friendâ€� all the way back into the store, where the rest of the crew joined me in the ridicule and teasing for the rest of the day. As I remember, he was pretty good natured about the whole affair. I remeber a year or so later, learning that kid had walked out on to his parents driveway, placed a gun to his temple and squeezed. I wish I could remember his name.

Storm Shelter
9 March 92

It's in the back yard,
concrete blocks covered
with dirt and grass.
From inside I hear dogs barking
above the cracks of thunder.

He called just now,
knew something was wrong.
I want to hate him
because I love so much.
Mostly I miss him.

When I was young I was scared
of tornados.
Still am.

Is this how Dorothy felt-
the whole world spinning
with no purchase, just a strange
free-fall upwards?
Oz was up there though.
Isn't heaven in the clouds?
Why is getting there
so terrifying
and out of control?

I want to call back
but I can't go inside;
the storm's still too strong
and frightening.
He loves me though.
He told me
not in words;
words scare me sometimes
like tornados

five things i wish i'd written...

1. this book [full text in.pdf]


2. this song


3. this poem


4. this rant


5. this speech

digging through the archives...

I took a trip down to Nicaragua back in May of '94. The beauty of the land is only surpassed by the generosity of the people. One perfect afternoon I sat out on the patio with my friend Scott Dalgety and we wrote a song. Wish I could remember the title. Or the tune, for that matter.

Where are you running to?
Why have you come so far?
What did you think you'd find out here
Leaving the comfort of you mind?

Did you hear the third world calling
A siren song, just for you?
Do you think you're the last true soul;
And no one knows what you're going through?

[chorus]
I can show you all the pain you want to know
I can tell you all the things you need you hear
I can give you all the truth you're bound to find
What good would it do?

Will you find what you're looking for,
A certain harbor for the soul,
Before your feathered dreams fly away?
Boy, will you ever know, that

[bridge]
What do you know of that man
That suffered, bled, and died?
Don't you know he stood beside you
the day that you cried?

Song of Sisyphus

rhythmic roaring rain
constant as forever
falling and flailing the forest floor
pouring into pools and puddles
weakening the ground
melting the old logging road into mire
heavy brown boots
pulling, pressing, pounding
desperately dragging forward
heaving the weight of waiting
centered on sagging shoulders
resolutely marching up the road

i don't know enjoy these so much...

A cywydd llosgyrnog; I'm one. "A what?" Well, quite. There'd be no fun In being understood; I Thrive upon obliquity. Don't comprehend or follow me, For mystery's my ally. What Poetry Form Are You?

the cardboard canvas...

Got caught in a rather interesting flashback this afternoon. Not quite swirling colors and wah-pedal guitar music, but then, i was born about 15 years too late for that kind of mind trip. This was a much more innocent flashback, to a more innocent time, to a more innocent me when I had my first real crush on an animated Disney character.

In the summer before my junior year of high school, we moved from Chattanooga, TN to Athens, AL. The parents were building a house in a new neighborhood and we moved in to an apartment just across the street from Corey's middle school. Being frugal, the parents decided to forgo the extra-large U-Store space and squeezed 2500 sq ft of crap in to a 1200 sq ft rental. Good news: we got a dog. Bad news: wall-to-wall boxes.

Boxes were everywhere, literally. What floor space that wasn't need to get from the door to the bed, to the closet, and back out again, was stacked carpet to flaky, blown ceiling with cardboard boxes. The theme of every room? Brown. Dull, boring, poor, dirt-farmer brown with splashes of blue "United Van Lines" as accents, of course.

I quickly found, the best way to handle a room full of brown was with Crayola. Being new in a town during the summer, gives a 16 year old a bit too much time on his hands. I began to draw. Soon, I realized there was at least one side to the boxes where there was no writing and I drew even more. Outside of the large Batman symbol, I only remember one other piece I drew, the masterpiece.

I got the picture out of a People magazine. It was in the little blurbs at the front where they give a two sentence update on what all the stars are doing... or who they're doing. Might have been a short segment about the best films of last year, even. And there she was, smiling just for me, as if to say "Draw me. You know you want to." So I did. I clipped out that small 2x3 magazine photo and taped it to the top corner of the big box at the foot of the bed, the top box of the two wedged in between my dresser and my desk. Don't laugh. Cardboard is a hard, unforgiving medium to work in.

When I was done drawing, I had captured her full upper torso, from her waist to her head. Her hair flowed out from around her lovely face, around the corner, and onto the side of the box. After the pencil work was done, I dove into the 64 pack of Crayolas and began to fill in the color. I caught it all: the blue of her eyes, the pale skin, the delicate shading of the clam-shell bikini, the fire-red of her hair, the green of her tail, the throes and pains of teenage infatuation, the life-sized essence of Ariel captured in cardboard and smiling from my brown box wall.

i can see uranus...

Neptune. Named for the Roman god of the sea, this big blue gas giant runs his 164 year spin around the sun out past the orbit of Uranus and has a day that lasts only 16 hours.

They say that in the inner layers of Neptune's atmosphere, the Methane clouds actually produce rain. And not the sparkly water droplets you might be used to. No, on Neptune it rains diamonds.

But at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit and more than 5 thousand times the pressure of Earth's atmosphere, I don't think we'll ever get to see it. Bummer.

the post-show wrap up...

Just finished playing a show at the Vineyard Cafe. Had a lot more fun than I thought I would. Had several friends show up and found a hidden reserve of energy for the first set. I think, during the night, I wrote four new songs on the fly. Wish I had taped the show. I'd like to have a copy of the root beer song.

Coming home from a show is hard. I'm worn out. So tired in fact, I left all the gear sitting in the car. But while my body is in full-on revolt and my fingers scream out with every keystroke, the mind is still racing, firing on all 6 cylinders. Driving back, I was blasting out Billy Joel's Greatest Hits (Vol II). I was pushing 70 on the I440 beltline singing "Goodnight Saigon" at the top of my lungs. The song swelled as I pulled up the ramp and around onto Capital Blvd, with a chorus of men singing "And we would all go down together. We said we'd all go down together. Yes we would all go down together."

Flashback to this morning: sitting on the couch, eating breakfast, watching cartoons. Flipped the channel to USA and watched "Ghost Busters 2." Mid-day, I crawled upstairs to read my email. Some one sent me a message... something about the shuttle. Pulled up Fox News Channel. Watched. Cried. It all felt too familiar.

I remember Challenger. We were living in Florida at the time. Soon as it happened, every TV in the school was on. Classes stopped. Breathing stopped. My father was outside watching. He has pictures... three in a row. The trail of smoke. The trail of smoke and a ball of fire. The trail of smoke, the fire, and two smoke trails that diverge as the solid rocket boosters were let lose to wander on their merry way, leaving America stunned.

Today, Bush said it right:

These astronauts knew the dangers, and they faced them willingly, knowing they had a high and noble purpose in life. Because of their courage and daring and idealism, we will miss them all the more.

All Americans today are thinking, as well, of the families of these men and women who have been given this sudden shock and grief. You're not alone. Our entire nation grieves with you. And those you loved will always have the respect and gratitude of this country.