The City Mouse in the Country

I am driving into the sunset.  The colors of the sky are brilliant; as pinks, oranges and reds dominate the skyline.  The sun continues to set and the palate changes into the darker hues.  It feels as if I'm driving into heaven itself as I make my way down some random country lane. Change and loss have been on my mind a lot this October.  We celebrated the second anniversary of our move from Florida quietly.  We remembered the passing of my mother quietly and are dealing with the loss of Susan's father the best we can.   Her father passed earlier this evening. It's only a matter of time for my father as well. Death and change have been on my mind as of late.   How do you deal with the passing of a parent?  How do you deal with the the realization of our own mortality?  Because like it or not we are next in line.   The coming days will be filled with grief as Susan’s family members say goodbye to their Dad.   I will be there beside them to provide what comfort I can.   One

Suddenly, it's October. Actually, scratch that.  Suddenly it's mid October.  Frankly time has passed me by quickly this month.  Nor do I have much to share.  We are still in a holding pattern over our home improvements, and I have just learned that our builder has come down with COVID.   So our plans are put off a bit longer.  I would rather have this work done sooner than later because October is a bipolar month.  It's full of sunshine and warm days only to shift to cold nights and rainy weather, here in Stonoboro there is even the possibility of snow flurries in the coming days.  It is not something I'm looking forward to.  For now however I'm finding joy in leaf peeping.  I'm enjoying stepping out on my porch during a break and letting the sun warm my face.  I'm enjoying the taste of homemade eggnog and the fact that my yard has taken on the appearance of a rich Persian rug.     Susan is baking fresh bread and an apple pie.  I relax with a hot cider.

One of the first items that Sue and I bought as a couple all those years ago was a grandfather clock.  We used to snuggle under the blanket and listen to the chimes on the hour, the sound filling our house with a warmth and resonance.   That clock is nothing special, being simple in its design and technology.  It's accurate because of the beauty of physics and math...and is a lost art form in its own right. I thought a lot about time and place as we traveled this week.  I thought a lot about place.   Sue and I finally took a brief vacation recently.  Due to circumstances beyond our control, every plan we had made to get away earlier in the year came to naught.  My father became ill and ended up in the hospital which we decided to stay home "just in case."  He ended up in the hospital at least three times this past year, and I decided to spend what time I could with him. Family, after all, is what brought us back to Pennsylvania. We had planned on visiting friends in Tenne

**Several months ago I had a bit of an argument with someone on Facebook.  That promoted this article.   I've decided to republish it due to the city of New York recently purchasing over 1000 all electric Police cars and replacing most, if not all, of its gasoline fleet.  You can read about that here .**   One of the reasons I write this blog, is because I believe that knowledge is useless unless it is shared.  Someone that reads this may disagree with me or my conclusions and that's fine.   However they can't say that they didn't learn something. Facts and Reality are not something we get to choose.  Nor can we ignore a fact that does not fit our world view.   Example of an EV Fire Truck Even though I do try to keep politics out of the blog, this post and the last were inspired by a political debate about disaster relief in the future.  Or the mistaken belief that somehow hybrid vehicles or electric vehicles (EV) will never replace gas powered emergency vehicles. Or th

       As I am writing this, the country of South Korea was dealing with the aftermath of the Typhoon  Hinnamnor.   It pounded the southern cities of Korea with anywhere between 1 meter (39 inches) to 104 cm (41 inches) of rain, high winds and destroyed much of the infrastructure in the area.  The death toll however was kept to a minimum due to early warning, evacuations and preparedness     Still though, cars were submerged, people were trapped and lives were lost.  The roads into and out of the city in some areas were simply washed away due to flooding and others were blocked by debris.       What I found so interesting about this story however is how it fell along the "green power vs traditional power" in America on a few political discussion sites.   South Korea will recover from this relativity quickly.  They are the forth largest economy in Asia and the tenth strongest economy in the world so there was very little discussion about foreign aid.       It's also intere