Off 2A mazing
Places 2B lieve
That 2C beyond
Whats 2D cieve
Those 2E gar
Seeking 2F ectively
Rise 2G neus
As 2H chieve
All 2I zee
Not 2J did
Or 2K rupted
So 2L evate
And 2M pres
Maybe 2N timidate
Seeking 2O pen
Pathways 2P eazfull
Existance 2Q up
And 2R ange
Ways 2S ist
Whats 2T deus
In 2U sable
Ways 2V nt
Inspired 2W SirVibe
Raised 2X pand
Only 2Y indup
Opposed 2Z neth.

Far far away- they seek surrender
From those who know not the cause
Of  the anger that they are feeling
Subject to constant ******* - without pause
They see no difference - and no future
In the past or in the present state
Insidious conflict being all they know now
Without direction- hopelessness - time will create
         Hopelessness does create

So they strike out in all directions
What we choose to call their Insurrection
By setting fire to their own homeland
Do they somehow believe they make a stand
If they do destroy - the place that they live
To a point where they resent all we try to give
To a point where in peace- death  will cradle
And in death - nothing but the past will they relive

So as the tanks roll across the dusty desert
Where hidden bombs blast holes in the streets
Trying , sometimes succeeding , killing  those coming  to their aid
Adding victories to their own defeats
In this war - now fought deep inside themselves
They're seeking peace in a game of blind man's bluff
And it's so sad that feeling of constant apprehension
Should cause such saturation of dissension

That it should cause them to **** their own people
By lashing out in such unrelenting hate
Will they not then insult the GOD that they worship and pray to
Therein causing GOD to resent all those who destroy ....
            ...what their  own GOD did create

Sometimes the world moves on without me
And I try to pretend that I just don't care
Sometime I think that I move way too fast
And I'll burn myself out from the pace that I know can't last

And I know that there are things that I've been missing
And I feel like I may never know what they were
So when I found you and you seem to be able
To keep up and pull me back when my manic times do occur

Its so weird to know that you don't want to try to change me
Into some cookie-cutter version of a person that I should be
I don't feel that you now wonder if I'm worth all the confusion that I spread
As I paint with no regard for the numbers or the colors
In pursuit of the vision that I see going around and around in my head

I've never thought of myself as being normal
And I resigned myself to the fact
But the places that I've let myself wander
Led me to places from where I never ever came back
The gypsy road never took me down to memory lane
No such road even exists for the things that I missed
So now I look forward to looking back on us
And a memory as simple as just walking in the rain

I've never been as ready as I am at this moment
To create for myself a past
Where together we paint the paintings
Those memories that I never even saw
And to feel normal .....
..........For the first time....
                           ......At last!

Hello weary travelers .
Welcome
to my living room
for in words
I have found life ...and purpose
in thought provoking
and sometimes
ego stroking words
that can if we're lucky
can ...
paint a thousand pictures
to hang proudly
displayed
along the walls
of any open mind.
Stay
as long as you like
come and go ...as you please
.  The door has no lock
and there is always
fresh sweet tea for all
in the ice box .
My hope ...
is that my LIVING room
is where some will find
living ROOM inside themselves.
So please ...wipe your feet
Wipe your feet
before
you go outside.   thanx.

There on the wrinkled landscape
Of  topographical coloration
I blast two staccato echoes
A subtle shrill arpeggio at fade out
So subtle a difference that I can't say I hear it
Though I am the director
Of that whistles orchestration

Far across the valley bottom camouflaged by pattern
They will appear somewhere among that sea of white
The receivers pop up in mirrored action
Tiny pinpoints of color among the sea of white
I don't need to be able to see them to know
The exchange of glances anticipation of coming attraction
This is what they live for.... that call to attention
As they await like teenagers or #45 for another tweet

Glancing now at each other and aware
Of that growing sense of  anxiety among their charges
My hesitation stemmed from viewing all the Majesty
But I am aware from way up here of the tension below
And with the valleys steeped in ever darkening shadow
The two miles trek to the awaiting gate and the holding pen
I blow a quick quip to start Sas  and Rocket to bring em in
Then as if of 1 mind they lead em home ...leading from behind

An  addiction to action where by  almost supernatural
Is their ability to move by nip and slip around the throng
Attentive to any wayfarers lost in transit
Encouraging less enthusiastic or lost youngster to move along
Sending the adolescents screaming in terrorized panic
As they are  absorbed into the mass of slow moving wool
And only after the last one of them passes thru ...do
The pair allow themselves ...with the closing of the gate

That romp of triumphant joyfull play as they await their reward
They will receive for their day of working like a dog
That bowl of food that awaits them is secondary to the real prize
To that smile and well done pat on the head or belly scratch

From their beloved master for that is really what they live for!!!

I thought about this and around this for a long time, so I guess it's time to write it down.

THE NATURAL ORDER.

There is a natural balance in Earths history and mankind's tentative balance along the scale.
  When humans began to band together and create communities, control of fire / light created a need for oil . Eventually settling on whale oil.
   So it was by the grace of whatever one might want to attribute it to,that let petroleum come into play at a time when whales are in danger of being annihilated and dead horses were clogging the streets of cities in the east, left dead or dying by the Cartmen who simply unstrapped the sick or dead animal and moved on.
  .Oil / petroleum led to the creation of the internal combustion engine.
   So again a hand stirred the ***.                
  Consider these improvements( if such they were )created rapid growth and burgeoning cities . Again Providence stepped in to create radio , telephone and airplanes, essentially at a time when growth of humanity was so great , that new ways of farming , new ways of seeing the world-  were  becoming more and more necessary to a shrinking world.
   Unfortunately, at a time when we, the American initiative creators of so many trends, ideas ,Innovations and inspirations around the world, were suddenly slammed a blow that at this point, 40 years later; it's very reverberations are still being felt.
   Consider if big oil and trickle-down had not ,for spiteful and greedy involution, taken down the solar panels from the White House roof, that Jimmy Carter had installed in 1977.
  How far ahead would we be now ,in clean energy and how much less damage to the ice cap and the atmosphere would have been done??  To date... my guess is that it is incomprehensible.
  So if nature does create a balance, it seems we are coming to a critical Junction.

Right now -metaphorically speaking- we are riding shotgun in a car with a driver ,who like us ,sees cars up ahead disappearing around the curve and all hitting  their brake lights. Now any reasonable driver at highway speeds is 65 - 80 miles an hour would at least take the foot off the gas in preparation of  tapping the brakes.
  So many politicians right now are refusing to accept the brake lights... see no reason to tap the brakes to interrupt cruise control, in all actuality, completely refusing to do anything except go around the curve at full speed.
   Around that curve we may find nothing but smooth sailing ,  or we may find a catastrophe in the making.
   Nature will accept the cruise Interruption now (maybe) brakes absolutely, but Full Speed Ahead will lead to the sickening crunch of seawater rising and  spilling salt water into the lands that are used for growing crops and food -  leading to millions , maybe billions of refugees with nowhere to go.

Or we will reach critical mass of sheer ignorant arrogance and nuke ourselves into a situation that does not have the technology or population to hammer at the planet so freaking hard.

Most likely the first scenario would instigate the 2nd and those of us who crawl up out of the ashes will start the evolution to revolution journey all over again.

Ain't nature Grand ???

( a gift was written this morning at the request of a friend ,for her sister - who puts her hopes in dreams.)

Life would be too perfect
Were it all just a dream
But does that mean it won't be
When all the past is seen

In so much hurry to grow up
Like all kids do I suppose
Now we have our own example
Each with a mini me and only Lord knows

*** all those times we had
All those vacations at Lake Wapapella we shared
LOL along with the owner's son who liked me best
And how we would wander off in our world of dreams
I love our lives together back then along with the rest

Our shared lives without the intrusion
Of petty lies alibis..well one intrusion did occur
When love was tossed into loss and pain, jealousy and confusion

But like I said life would be perfect were it a dream
That sad maddening time when life interferes
Were that a dream more nightmare I swear
I would wake myself by my screaming drowning in my tears

We sure seem to be sharing life again
In so many indescribable Ways and Means
Where someday soon  again we will share our physical beings
Where we will again be able to share those late-night talks of life and love and dreams


So Michelle never let your dreams Slide Away or be tossed
Time has a wicked sense of humorous abstraction
For nothing is ever forgotten or ever lost
Sometimes it seems they reappear by means of distraction
But in any dream....there is one thing I will never lose
Is that we still have each other and our shared commonality
And that is a dream wrapped up in a dream packed in a box for delivery called reality

And that has to be one of lifes most wonderful gifts.
And what dreams are made from .

Every so often as we move along the trail
We meet those who walk along beside us
Some for just a few steps before a direction change
Others a step and two - you start looking for a bus

So rare when out of nowhere a sojourner steps in
At least that's what it seems to be ...then after a time
You realize you really don't know who joined who
So rare is the honor given and recieved that sublime

Is the word that seems fitting due to.. its rarity of use ...
... height and breadth of its inclusionary valuation
Finding the courage to walk the highwire of conversation
Without a net and that is not the normal inclination

A breath of fresh air through a dusty dead air space
Conversation so often drags along creating a rut
But time harmonizing along the trail a foot or endless mile
Has a key to locked doors and  inspired need to open windows

That I as I'm sure ,like so many others,  have.....
                         at some sad impulse driven moment ...nailed shut !!

Wednesday morning I woke up from my first night sleeping in the camper, and  I had that  disjointed feeling that comes from unfamiliarity.  I recognized  the interior of the camper, so that was not what was  triggering that closed in feeling that enveloped me, not claustrophobic really, it was more: comforting.  It is hard to put into words that kind of feeling, but as I am supposed to be an aspiring writer ......It would seem to be my responsibility to do so,,  or at least try.
    So as I lay there cradling the warm afterglow of a satisfying night of slumber and with pleasant dreams of…I’m hungry ! I suddenly thought to myself.  No! Actually I am starving, and just one look down at Stormy , lying on the floor and staring at me and  it was more than obvious that he too was hungry..
    “Okay, boy, I know.  I hear you..”
     “All we ate last night was those Fritos wasn’t it?”Stormy just stared at me with those big brown, expectant and hungry eyes..
   “ Sorry boy !  I am new at this.”  I said as I was just  realizing that I was fully clothed, This fact reminded me that I had come into the camper cruiser nine hours earlier, intending to fix me some food, had seen the bed laid out , done while setting up camp hours earlier, so I decided to see how comfortable it could possibly be .
    I remember laying down and  saying to myself, “  this ain’t too bad.”  Looking down at Stormy -closing my eyes- and well , here I am, nine hours later,  starving and being stared at by Stormy .
    .  6:30 AM Wednesday morning- and both of us starving  .   "Man!   Talk about exhaustion.!" I said to the world at large .
    “Just hang in there for a few minutes more  and we  will both have bacon and eggs today....  Okay?”
To which stormy happily  wagged  the whole rear half  of himself in undying gratitude.
     After breakfast I had a cup of coffee in my hands, and a buzz in my head as I sat down in the lawn lounge thingy ( It had even come with the camper) and watched the other people  go about their morning..
     Was this my story--the ever evolving story  of… Come on dude!  I chastised myself,  this is not your mission, to write about camping spots,  and the ever evolving state of one parking spot that                they are occupying.   .  But as I was beginning to slowly realize  ; my story , just might be more elusive than I  had taken time to consider.
      I glanced down at storm to see if he had any insight, an opinion of some great revelation for me,  but he was in his own world; lying there beside me and watching with rapt interest the antics of a pair of foraging gray squirrels as they skipped and be bopped among the branches of a huge white oak;   wherein  Stormy, unlike myself,  saw the big picture,,  all the story he needed was playing out in the branches of that tree.  This tree was his tree ……of life..!
    “Crazy little buggers   ain’t they boy?”  I remarked to him as I rubbed his head and neck , taking away a few precious seconds of his squirrel watching while he looked around me before returning his gaze back to the  acrobatics  of the little be boppers of the tree..  I went back to watching my new neighbors,  for in a sense-that is exactly what this is . Nt much  different from  the cul-de-sac.  I grew up on. ..  With one exception-vital as it is . I mean  that I only have  the imaginary view of these people , not  the  reality  that I had with… But then, I reassess my thought,,  reorganize my pattern as I remember that morning  .
     That crazy day with all the police  and ambulances suddenly appearing in the street..  All the neighbors  having  been bunched up  in curious knots to wonder what was happening at the Angleton’s.
   Like wind swept fire  to a field of tall grass, the rumors began spreading through  the street.
   “He killed her!”  Someone remarked abstractly..
    “Who?”  They all asked in comatose reality.
    “George Angleton” they said, “he killed his wife  and then he killed himself--I think”
    “Whyyyyy?”  They   bleated .
    “Do not know-I heard they had financial problems,  maybe that was it.”  They quoted equivocally.
    “There was always something funny about them.”  The little man said   fumbling the ball
   “Who?”  They all questioned again.
    “Angleton’s…  It was strange, I wouldn’t  let my kids go up there  on Halloween.. and that time he gave all comic books!”  The little man said with an air of superiority.
   “   Why is that?”  They argued in question.
     “You asked me he was trying to lure them kids in.”  He blundered and fell
    “You are nuts!  He was a sweet old man… It had to be… financial”  they persisted..
     “Say what you want-  but I know what I know-and he was weird.”  The little man overstated.
    “You did not even live around here.  That year he gave out comic books-did you?”   Somebody pointed out aggressively.
      “Well.... no,,” the little man sputtered,, “bububut I heard about it..”   The little man  beleaguered now     “So you never even met George!”   Someone accused  ..
     “Not personally; but all  the…” The little man started.
      “Get the hell away from me little man.” the whole crowd expressed in screaming silent looks .

Rance is eating in a restaurant when he sees a girl ,obviously hitchhiking, get out of the car, carrying a guitar case and then coming to the restaurant. As he's leaving he tells the waitress to buy her  a hamburger because all she asked for was water . Then he goes out to his van
            ---------      ++ -------- ++     ----------    
The guy with the large helium balloon floating over his head was saying something as he closed the distance between us on this crowded bustling Street. The people, for some reason, kept raising their faces to stare at me with lonely ,beseeching  eyes as they scurried by ,then instantly dropping their gaze back to the ground as they quickly continued on.
    " State of my..... state of my ....state of my head....".said the balloon man as he drew near me and I couldn't help wondering why the words weren't appearing in the balloon that bounded along ,dancing chaotically, in lock-step to the dance-like movement of his pace "state of my head ."  
    Unlike the other people who passed by, he never looked at me -in fact- he didn't seem to notice anything except the zone right in front of his next step .  
       "You're legs on fire!"
     "I could still hear the echo of his chant as it, and him, bebopped into the obscurity of the distance, suddenly becoming aware of the barren and empty street , and the fire that was burning my right thigh.
    "Your leg's on fire"  now these words did appear in symbolic cartoon measure across the face of the balloon. "Hey!"I  cried out and then heard the echo of the words as they came sailing back.
   "Hey!"
    "Finally waking up I see" continued the echo as it became a soft laughter-filled sound to my ears.
     Slowly I was  becoming aware that my vision was filling in with the world outside the windshield of my van. The last stanza of Shinedowns state of my head was just fading from the radio as.....
    "Thanks for the burger"
My leg WAS on fire. Okay , it wasnt really,but it was burning above the knee of my right leg from the sunlight streaming through the windshield.      
  I was busy patting out the fire and rubbing the sleep from my eyes when I heard the voice again "Hello?"
     Now though, it was a real voice ,as it came sailing through the window of my van. A female voice.
     A bit slow maybe, but I was finally beginning to catch up, so I knew before I even looked, that it was the girl with the guitar case.
    It was. As I peered over the door frame I saw that she was sitting three feet from the van, on a patch of grass and leaning back against the big oak that grew at the edge of the parking lot and had provided a nice shade for storm ....okay and for my nap.        
     Surely the crooked -and haltingly, embarrassment driven - smile that I managed to conjure up ,as I looked out the window and down at her, was totally inadequate.  I was attempting to move past it , so with great confidence ,and sua da vi I heard my words as I said.
   "Huh? "  oh god !My brain said to my inner voice "really smooth" --- my inner voice took the fifth.  
     "That's a heck of a watch dog you've  got " she said.  Somehow breaking the ice  and allowing me space and time to regroup. " He told me he was there , aware and in charge as I approached your window,but he did it by just raising his eyes and the slightest rumbling growl. It was obvious he was serious but he was so cool about it"      
   I reached ,almost ,unconsciously, to stroke Storms muzzle and the furrow between his ears. "Yeah, " I said " He's got style alright." as more than a bit of pride tinged my words.
    Her laughter was sudden and as free as a wild bird being released from the confines of a cage as it rose up into the air.It was one of those beautiful,,natural
voices of those rare people who are not embarrassed by their own spontaneity.
   "Style " she managed to exclaim among the peals of joy " I love that"
     " Hi" I told her " I'm Rance and my stylin friend is Stormy"
      Her movements were quick, agile and graceful as she bounded to her feet , quickly wiping any perceived dust from her right palm across the hip area of her jeans before reaching out to shake hands.  "I'm Penelope Woods , but everyone back home just called me Piney"
     Now it was my time to laugh. A slight chuckle accompanied my hand as  I reached out to collect hers . " Piney Woods ...now that funny. "
    " Why ,thank you kind sir " she exclaimed with the exaggerated imitation of southern gentellity " I've always thought so"  then that freebird laughter , again came rising up ,to float over and then slide all the way down into the hollow,unused places of my heart . Settling there as though it were home......Maybe it was.

Rance looked at the speedometer. Set  at 65 and on cruise control ,which he was fully aware of - at least he should have been. He kept looking anyway.
   Every time he glanced at the speedometer , he had to lift the fingers of his right hand to see, as it was draped across the 12 to 1 o'clock Zone of the steering wheel in the most casual way ,causing his fingers, in drooping repose- to resemble an enormous back scratcher.
   His left arm rested on the window sill at the elbow as he was experiencing a slightly manic episode  of nerves,  therefore he was doing his best to stretch his left ear lobe  all the way down to his shoulder . Okay, maybe not that radical, but he was firmly  in danger of removing the inner layer of skin from his earlobe with his rubbing thumb.
    Quick glances to his right with darting eyes confirmed his fear .  He  also saw the absence of Largo's large grey head., so a quick backward glance into the rear of the camper- unintentional but habitual -allowed him to see that Largo was asleep beside stormy in the approximate territory each  had staked out
  It was as he was pulling his head back forward , that Piney glanced up from The Notebook to smile.  There in the co-pilot seat , she sat gracing him with a  warm smile , and as far as Rance could tell , those lips that  smiled at him- so friendly -/were totally natural and uncolored, and if she were wearing any makeup at all ,it wasn't enough to cover the four or five little freckles just above the tip of her nose.  The natural look  gave her face that timeless look.   She could have been anywhere from 18 to 25 or 30 he didn't really know and....he really didn't care .
    It was noticing  those walnut colored flecks, just outside the iris of her light ,hazel colored eyes that  started causing him such personal turmoil.  As it seemed - to his astonishment- that he seemed unable to detatch  his own vision from  those eyes.,  Until she looked back - that is.
    First happening to him when she had  accepted his offered ride and as she wss climbing into the copilot's seat. If it hadn't been for largo, who had instantly attached his chin onto her  thigh ,she might have noticed how he was staring .  Fortunately  he was able to break it off but he was still self conscious of that effect she was having on him.
   After he'd done the initial stumble in the parking lot , he had actually carried on with - amazingly enough  -surprising clarity. It was in those 10 minutes that he had learned of her hometown and  all of the time she had been on the road up to now. Which had been all of 30 miles.
    It was that nagging voice that  kept repeating - in the back of Rances mind- the thing that she had said. " I wasn't really planning to be stopping at that restaurant , but I had to get out of that car.   Although the rest of what she said mattered , it was that part that kept resonating .
  " Oh that guy ! "/She grumbled "was just getting creepier and creepier.  The farther we went down the road , the bolder he got ,as he began to get handsy.
First , puting his hand on my knee and then a little bit later a little higher up my thigh." She shuttered  as she spoke  , in a pantomime inspired gesture before continuing. "It was after he pulled out that bottle and then started taking swigs that things got really bad.   When we started coming around that long curve, just before we got to the restaurant he was unable to bother me and ,adjust  for the curve,  so he kept driving over into the other lanes. Then he over-corrected ,almost getting  us killed  by a semi that came barreling through in the slow lane.   Laying on the horn as it swerved away to miss us, and then I knew I had to get the hell out of that car. Anyway possible.
  " So right then I saw the restaurant sign and I tried to get the best lilt into my voice and the most calm that I could muster as I said  "Hey! there's the place  I'm supposed to play tonight. Pull over ..right here! RIGHT HERE!!!"
    But in his slow, befuddled ,drunk and almost run over  brain he stopped right in the middle of the slow lane . " Where we at?"
  "We're at the place I'm playing guitar music tonight " She said -that she told him this - to keep his attention so she could wrestle the guitar case out of the back seat ,over the seat back and out the doorway of the car.  Then just as she had it ready to pull through the open doorway she reluctantly said " Thanks for the ride." Then with a little thought and ****** attitude " yeah ...I'll be playing here tonight at 8 o'clock , so why don't you come by and listen" she lied
  A bit perturbed and confused but he was still able to find his inner creep as he spoke.... muttered .....gutterally.... whatever  "Yeah I'll do that and then me and you can have a drink and I got a little Coke " then he did that drunken kind of wink where they end up opening their mouth in  such a crooked fashion that it looks like a stroke victims Visage
  " Where is a fly when you need one ". Piney  said that then she pulled  the guitar case on through  the doorway , wrestling it the 10 feet over to the grassy apron of the road . Returning to close the door as  he asked "what did ja say?
   "Oh . I said I've always wanted to give Coke a try " and with that she closed the door -/just short of a slam.
 " You got it ba "...as he pointed his right forefinger like a pistol, but if it went off Piney never heard as she trundled her case across the grass area  in the most direct route towards the building and the safety of people.
  At this moment she was still in the process of confirming the abject fear that had Rances heart doing flip-flops, as he was aware that she was still sitting there ,reading his poetry.
    As soon as she had settled into the copilots seat, allowed Storm and Largo to introduce themselves and as they happily filed her smells away. Storm returned to his spot after just a half of a minute while Largo, on the other hand gently lay his head on her leg and for all appearances seemed to go into a trance.
     She confidently rubbed his head as she spoke in a slight cooing sound then looking up at Rance as he was guiding them out the parking lot and did the cruelist thing possible . As polite as a butterfly landing on the petal of a flower she asked if she might read some.
  To which Rance had said "Sure , go ahead " and then began trying to do damage to his left earlobe. After 30 miles he was beginning to catch up with his runaway thoughts.
   Any remnants of sua da vi that he had mustered up in the parking lot , now long gone -evaporated. Unfortunately now it was being  replaced by a carrousel of thoughts in poor Rances mind that spun to the cacophony of music from the most  sinister sounding Calliope.
   Though the music blasted a torrential sound wave throughout his mind it was not enough to silence the voice that kept repeating " oh man oh man oh man" - with annoying and echoing  persistance - from an obscure region--, somewhere beyond the Swirling carrousel.
   Then suddenly the crazy carnival and the voice came to a sudden mind shuttering stop.as piney's soft velvety voice interceded. " you wrote these...i mean ...all of them ?"
  A quick glance towards Piney was enough to.see this fresh faced girl with those magnetic eyes- now filled to overflowing  with tears -  was looking at him in a wonderfilled  way as she held the open notebook in right hand and with the other she stroked largos head.,Which had rematerialized.on her lap , just as soon as her voice had broken the relative silence.
    " He really likes you" remarked the reemerging Rance ,as he indicated Largo with his head. 'And yes I did ...write .....yeah all of them." Not really smooth he said to himself ..but okay.
    " This one " Piney pointed to a page that Rance could not take time to recognize " Somber Sunset. Its killing me....my grandmother just went ...and went through Alzheimer's before she passed. "
    Rance was still staring out the windshield, in silent astonishment - at her perception- when Piney gathered herself to the point of unbroken speech. " that is what its about ...right ?"
      Rance turned a full face ..straight on and confident gaze into her tear glissening eyes ( sua DA vi having returned full force) "Yes " he softly acknowledged her perceptivity" as I read it ...yes"
      Thats  when that annoying voice decided to reassert itself . "  There is always something about a damsel in distress that always brings  out even the most quivering coward ...." SHUT THE HELL UP!! Lance barked out at the voice as he stared out the windshield while making a slight adjustment to avoid.a small box in the road.
   At that very moment the sleeping Storm opened his eyes to stare forward with both ears and eyes , as if he had heard his masters voice call out in angry distress. With no danger detected as he scanned the area, he was about to resume his squirrel watching -which had just gotten good before the interruption -/Storm let his eyes scan around and land on Largo ." Humans "he spoke to himself " good thing they're smart enough to befriend dogs. Now that Largo...that's a dog that poor Rance could learn a thing or two from." Then he closed down his eyes and calling out "squorrely come on squirrel where'd ya go"  as his slight snore began and his right rear leg began twitching.

First day of Rance s and stormys New Life.
After the first night of sleeping in the camper .
First  realization that he's  on his own ,for the first time in his life. First opportunity for Rance to find ,what will eventually become a great novel so ...off to say hi and meet the neighbors.
An hour later,  back from walking the campsite not have found any great stories, a couple of people nodded back as we passed , and one returned how you ? To my How are you doing today?

. No Epiphanies and no happy mood  as he  cooked up some hamburgers, for himself and for stormy .
   As it came time to eat,   and Rance  does something else for the first time ever, and that is deciding to say a prayer- for the journey and for the meal.

        *×××/\/\//θθ\/\/\×××*
Made some hamburger patties , fixed stormy some food in his bowl turned on some Aerosmith Circa 1982 and waited for what would be next. As it turned out it was just hamburgers. No Revelations , no approaching strangers/ Neighbors to regale with the most amazing story ever to be heard..
   So I grill the burgers, set out the condiments, fill the plate with chips ,open the can of dr. Pepper then did something I had rarely if ever done in my life I made up a prayer'.
    Dear God in heaven
Jesus and the holy Spirit
Thank you for this meal
Both mine and Stormys
And for the opportunity
To see...
..... Beyond my horizons

Lift Me Up
And I will look farther
Open my heart
That I may feel deeper
Fill me up that I may have
Something to give back

I don't know what
My sites should be set on
Or the path
That I should be taking
So I will put it in your hands
To guide me- to show me
Where to look and help me
See what I might otherwise miss

I asked myself a little while ago
If I would do anything different
Than the people who. are camped around me .
I don't know the answer
I would like to believe.... that
The answer is inside me
Where only time and your good graces
Will help me if ....
... .  Understanding is mine to possess.

In Jesus name amen

Then for some reason I decided , instead of spending the day and night - as planned -at 12:30 in the afternoon- I packed up ,checked  the map,  picked  what I believe would be a pleasant four our trip, then I shook the dust of campsite 12C modern from my clothes and waved hartily at all the strangers  camping down the lane- as I went past.
    One little boy of about 10 waved enthusiastically back at me as I roll by.
     An hour later I found myself traveling a. switchback mountain pass highway when I came around a blind curve to come face-to-face with large backpack -a very large backpack - in the road.
    The backpack - upon reflection - was on the narrow shoulder of the road and rode on the the narrow shoulders of a red headed guy;  walking with a  dog on a string and ,going in the same direction that I was traveling.
      As I passed by, slowly. as  the surprise from  coming around the corner and seeing the sudden backpacks appearance ,along with the steady uphill climb of the road had slowed me considerably anyway.
    It was the dog that nearly brought me to a complete stop , not the - enthusiastic hitchhiker's - thumb sticking out to his side.
      The dog was bone-thin with  ribs showing like Fingers through the flesh and the protruding hip bones that stuck out like golf ***** under the skin just above each hind leg.  A silver and black dog that stood about 26 inches at the shoulders and should have weighed 80 pounds....would probably  tip the scales at 45 or 50.
      I passed by this pair with cuss words on my breath and anger in my heart to suddenly see a pull off/ view area to my right.
    I pulled in with a sudden and violent yank of the wheel that earned me a hard look from Storm .
    I was probably a quarter mile past The Hitch-Hiker when I pulled in and it was large enough to move back away from the road to a point I could no longer see the guy or the dog.
    " Good God" I said to Storm " Did you see .... and then it hit me with the spirit , as sudden  as a bug hitting the windshield would do;  so I looked up to the heavens" REALLY ?" I said "This is my answer?"
   Then I knew right then and there that I had judged, I had assumed , "I saw a starving dog and never thought... maybe he was attached to a  starving human.

As the sun
Begins to set
I know my day
Is not over yet
So much to see
So much to do
So much to share
Now that I've found you

The time that's gone
Beyond the bridge
Does not effect the colors
Now forming upon the ridge

As abstract as what
We now have
Should I have tried....
......To see
Yesterday
Any vision
Any future
Any thought
That I would have
Someone....
With whome
To share
The setting of the sun

Now I realize I was
All mixed up
And am just now realizing
I am not viewing the setting sun
I'm in total awe....To realize
We're sharing a brand new sun
RISING
And glory
To the making....
.....of a brand new day