tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-105110572024-03-12T16:32:02.882-07:00Meanwhile Back At the Ranch~~~The (Almost) Daily,
or maybe monthly,
or well, whenever Edition~~~Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.comBlogger9096125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-69830120331045527302021-04-07T19:06:00.003-07:002021-04-07T19:06:50.083-07:00Deplatformed. By the man.<p>Today, without warning, Facebook erased what had been a 14- year- long experiment in real time, direct contact with a vibrant readership. Immediately friends reached out--wanting to know if I'd blocked them or if something had gone down between us. </p><p>This morning I had 4961 friends on FB.</p><p>I'd created thousand of posts, shares, photos-- all content I choose, for whatever reason and posted to what is by all means, now, a public utility. The phone company, by law, can't interject themselves into our private discusions, our texts, or our phone videos but Facebook can and has. They have, via immunity from prosecution, interjected themselves into our private discussions. In my case, my FB was locked down to allow only friends to read, share or comment on what I post. It was, for all intense purposes, a private discussion.</p><p>Yet on a regular basis Facebook has become increasingly intrusive. Deploying ever dubious "fact checks", which-- as I have repeatedly pointed out-- do not age well, often inserting details never claimed, so that their small army of disinformation agents can then proclaim the post "false". Many of these FB teams have documented ties to communist China, a totalitarian regime exhibiting among the worst authoritarian controls humanity has yet to experience.</p><p>In other cases, "missing context" claims are inserted, again to insinuate dishonesty, skewed positions, or biased coverage. A sort of invisible official party line is enforced, and non transparent, vague, arbitrary "community guidelines" policing occurs with enforcement results that are the definition of subjective. </p><p>Nearly every fact check defammation FB has slapped on my posts has not aged well. Indeed just two daya ago Facebook had to publicly apologize for their August 2020 censorship and reinstate the post. This has happened many times.</p><p>But it isn't just censorship and the fascist impulses that now define these sort of reckless and defamatory judgments-- it is also the near monopolistic power Facebook wields and the public private partnerships that are reliant on the comparibilty they rely on with/via multiple platforms.</p><p>In rural America, Facebook is not just a speech forum. It is also how emergency management, community engagement, and first responders communicate. We often lose power. Only twice, in the last thirty years I've lived here, have we lost cell phones too, and thus smart phones--often enabled by apps that utilize Facebook is how we receive tornado warnings, wildfire updates, power outage notifications and a wide variety of other vital information communicated via Facebook.</p><p>Of course it is/was impossible to spread the word via 4961 people what happened to my Facebook pages today. </p><p>Facebook claimed to offer an appeals process, but it requires verification of identity via an sms code sent to my phone. Despite repeated attempts to comply and get a code, no such code was sent and I cannot request another code for 24 hours --in spite of my contact information being verified and up to date. Just yesterday Facebook notified me if suspicious behavior and required input of new passwords.</p><p>I can't imagine how people who only have a landline are to comply with this process.</p><p>So what is Facebook really doing here?</p><p>They are forcing uniform speech, quashing dissenting opinions and they have, in fact become not only publishers, but editorial gatekeepers, in essence not just regulating public speech but also consensual private communication. This is in violation of the carve outs and exemptions FB recieved from congress at the dawn of the Internet.</p><p>For the record, I have not been in Facebook jail in recent memory. I have no idea what post triggered such an invasive response, one that "disappeared me" witbout warning.</p><p>I am a long time writer in not only the LGBTQ community but also rural, trucking, and HIV AIDS communities. I have witnessed much history first hand and can back up my claims with long ago published writing that cannot be scrubbed as easily as FB just did. </p><p>My work has appeared in regional, national and international print and radio forums, has won awards, and extends clear back to 1986. In all those years, hundreds of articles, I have only had to make one significant correction and that mistake was based on reporting originally published by The Spokesman Review.</p><p>I have an alternative account on telegram ( selkirk cowboy) and my High Mountain Ranch Instagram account remains active--at least as of this writing. But even though these accounts are active, my primary means of communication were via Facebook. If Facebook can arbitrarily silence a long time activist and writer in the LGBTQ community, they can and will silence anyone.</p><p>I have no political affiliation. I have always written toward shining the light on truth, fighting for the underdog and against exploitation, prejudices, bigotry and racism. I am among the few of my generation still here to communicate what the HIV pandemic was like, the opportunists, grifters, and failures that defined leadership at that time, experiences that provide valuable lessons in our current situation-- and yet that forthright steadfastness has made me plenty of enemies. I've been doxxed, fielded death threats, and yet always had a loyal following that had my back.</p><p>It is long past time Facebook, Twitter, and several other forums face consequence for their heavy handed intrusion into the free flow of information, ideas, and discourse. Please join me in this fight.</p><p>Other forums are emerging, but as long as Facebook/Twitter and Google hold so much concentrated power, they will represent a threat to freedom. We must fight back.</p><p>Timothy Anderson</p><p> </p><p><br /></p>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-14643338080699823982014-03-05T13:32:00.001-08:002014-03-05T13:32:11.408-08:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0OiXoE8Zff1ptwcu5zoxP_u_wnGkEzMmzNPsHoefFcsbj6vHS2caAax5oZhA-Qw3Y8-cOJzNCypYcUc99c9FeOpSq-28HfEQHczQA5O1TsHGjf8jFra5JRD-aq5bwzNBaZvZ/s1600/Names+project+edit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj0OiXoE8Zff1ptwcu5zoxP_u_wnGkEzMmzNPsHoefFcsbj6vHS2caAax5oZhA-Qw3Y8-cOJzNCypYcUc99c9FeOpSq-28HfEQHczQA5O1TsHGjf8jFra5JRD-aq5bwzNBaZvZ/s1600/Names+project+edit.jpg" height="500" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 8.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">An excerpt
from<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 20.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Defensible
Space<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">By Timothy
Anderson<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">This is an excerpt from a much larger essay
of the same title published in 2011. I read this portion of Defensible Space in
Santa Fe, NM as part of my graduation exercises associated with obtaining my
Masters in Creative Non Fiction from Seattle Pacific University.</span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Defensible Space is based on true events and is dedicated
to my longtime friend, Gert McMullen,
fairy Godmother to The Names Project~The AIDS Quilt </span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It is also dedicated to the memory of Vincent “Steve” Abyeta whose art is featured above.</span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~W~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
sit inside the idling semi-truck, a long gleaming Peterbilt hood in front, twin,
chromed-exhaust stacks behind. The doors on the trailer are already closed. The
last, heavy, cardboard box of folded Name Project quilt panels already off
loaded. The truck is parked near the junction of Market Street and Castro,
hugging the curb. San Francisco traffic careens around me, without pause. I
smell exhaust, and restaurants, and a hint of the sea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Somehow,
I must turn around eighty feet of truck. A load of Salinas Strawberries awaits
pick up then I will run them north to Edmonton, Alberta. Northbound, I haul the gift of California’s nearly year
round summer, renewing the weary culinary dreams of the still snowbound.</span><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Southbound I’ve just hauled death, symbolized by quilt
panels. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert McMullinstands cued on the curb, her long blonde hair flat, her skin and bones, a study
in emaciation at war with emancipation. I decide she looks part crazy,
appearing more fitting as a stand-in, lead singer for a girl band. She fearlessly makes eye contact with me,
waiting for my nod. I check my mirrors,
looking behind the truck, and when a lull appears, I lift my head.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Reacting
to my signal, she steps purposely off the curb, placing her fingers in her
mouth, and whistles. The world stops.
Everything is at attention. The noise, shrill, enforces interruption, pauses
sidewalk café gossip, parking, ticket officers mid write up, and most
importantly, south bound traffic. Blocking all three lanes of Market Street,
traffic stops as my airbrakes release with a whoosh, and at the last minute,
Gert steps back from my front bumper. I grab a gear, and all 40,000 lbs. of
truck groans against the torque of 525 Cummins horsepower. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
parts traffic as if she’s Moses, standing within inches of the trailer, it
begins to turn around her as if she’s a traffic pylon. Slowly pivoting, the
truck catches blinding sunlight and initially blocks only one direction of
Market Street. She tenses, as if
awaiting a starting gun, and then, as if on signal, her prey in one direction
trapped, she struts parallel with my trailer, to the other side of the
arterial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Now,
facing off against three lanes of northbound traffic, her shrill whistling
returns. Her pitch of God Awful mourning departing, repeats. The trailer groans, I “walk” a giant beast in
place, turning all 80 feet on a dime, the rear axles spinning around in place as
if doing an ice skater’s maneuver, and then, finally, rear axles conclude their
pivot. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
faces off the motorists standing in the middle lane. Every driver and every
pedestrian, on each opposing sidewalk, freeze.
Like a magic barrier to mobility, her raised fist now commands all six
lanes of arterial traffic. Appearing so
thin a person could glance right through her, I see the impossibility of one
woman standing against huge forces. I see love. I see it isn’t always pretty.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~E~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
quilt, that one brave candle, lights the darkness, like a miracle appearing
just after everyone has given up. Marking the final home of dashed hopes, the
Names Project Quilt is the way of reckless belief. The quilt stitches together
names--taking the form of friends, strangers, and estranged shirt tail relations.
Hand sewn, coffin sized panels now travel the nation, becoming historic, a
place where the war began--this remembering, this bleeding fabric, rises up for
those who stood down. When the quilt rolls into town, citizens weep in mass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
works all day, every day, for the project. It consumes her. Facing and
channeling grief, as if God called just her to dispatch the sorrow of the
multitudes. Loss became her resume. She gathers fabric, becoming guardian of
tens of thousands of lives. She is high
saint among mourners, and she could not know then, back in the early days, how
the pandemic would grow. If she’d known this museum of death would be her home,
living under siege, that ten, then twenty, and even thirty years later, the
quilt and her attachment to it would represent her legacy, her constant
companion, I’ve wondered-- would she still have volunteered to walk this road?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A
few years ago, while shopping at the Post Falls, Idaho Wal*Mart, I stopped mid
stride, startled by her familiar image peering at me from behind the glass
protection of a newspaper vending machine.
A headline from the Coeur D’Alene press featured beneath it a photograph
of Gert. Still dangerously thin, her features aged and her hair falling
haphazardly over her shoulders, the expression peering back at me seemed just
as determined, although a bit more exhausted than my last sight of her. The
story mentioned the Names Project’s relocation from San Francisco to Atlanta,
yet Gert appeared still attached to the project, still following her children,
all those quilt panels, into the next chapter of the never ending
pandemic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~~~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It
is 4 a.m. Gert whirls around me, dancing
as if she’s walking on air, lit by strobes, inspired at 134 beats per
minute. Welcome to the Pleasure Dome. We
dance, she among the few women allowed, surrounded by shirtless, starry eyed men. Dawn breaks outside but we remain sweaty in
the darkness. The Pleasure Dome is in a forgotten part of town, a foreboding,
converted warehouse south of Market reclaiming industrial blight. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">My
friend Jon is spinning, exalted in the DJ booth. Porn stars man the bars. Water
flows from plastic bottles and I close my eyes as a surreal-colored disco light
descends from the ceiling. The light is
brilliant, and I welcome this artificial vision of heaven, spinning and
rotating amongst us at the most human level. This, the Pleasure Dome, is our
interpretation of the celestial, the multi-colored lights, our gay equivalent
of the Holy Spirit. Only upon entering
these spaces could light engulf us, transcending our soon to be decimated
bodies, while blocking out the already gentrifying industrial reality outside.
Gert flitters to my left. She appears and then she is gone, disappearing into a
sea of men, all moving, even if only briefly in this moment, at the same
heartbeat. I smell cloves. I smell
sweat. For once, I can’t smell fear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
reappears. A sea of flesh parts before her, and her long hair is suspended
amongst artificial Technicolor-like-dust. Catching light, she’s backlit with
abandon, and energized with the purpose-filled determinism of this briefest
allowance of escapism. Gert raises my arms far above her head, then she bends
backward, stretching us together, until we are both leaning over, I’m falling
into her and she’s suspended beneath me, her eyes wild toward the unknown, and
then again, as if by instinct, her entire frame is rising, challenging the
night to end, daring dawn as she again releases me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Just
as she’s already released a thousand other loves, only to disappear. I lose
sight of her, she’s already moving deeper into the immense warehouse dance
floor. But in my mind, I still see her
in that moment, grinning and laughing, daring to push away the infinity of
death, disappearing behind perfect muscular, sweaty men, emerging a few songs
later, now towing some gorgeous man behind her, already aware that he too will
soon be lost to her. I see her. I see my friends. In that moment, we flee an
ominous reality bearing down on us like a mountain range collapsing against a
fragile plain. Thus it was in the beginning. But in that place, oh just for a
moment, we could forget. We had the luxury of blindness to our future. We had yet to remember that time is fleeting,
and that we must stitch together most of these names before the disease took us
as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~S~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">One
stitch at a time, a quilt panel is held, sewn, folded, ironed, and released. At
the termination of the display, panels are lifted in unison, and folded back
into repose. Later Gert and her volunteer army will repair damaged panels. To
create a story on fabric, in the shape of a coffin, allows no emotional
distance. Touching all this sacred fabric, by hand, by its nature, violates
every “personal and professional boundary”. Gert holds them all. Still.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~T~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">At
the quilt displays, we read the names of the dead. New panels are accepted.
Teary-eyed lovers, siblings, fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and strangers
sheepishly step forward, holding their bundles in hand. Stitched in grief, and
worried over.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Was
the panel done the way he’d wanted it to be done? This satin, was it the right
choice of fabric? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Does
the Gold shine as much as she did? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Was
that blue the right color? Because you know, he’d know if it wasn’t. Hadn’t he’d always known the right color? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Maybe,
don’t you think, shouldn’t the piece of black leather harness, that ick part of
his life, be left out? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Friends
gathered. At the leather bar, the
community center, and the county fairgrounds. Motorcyclists, warehouse loaders,
and mechanics drink their Bud as they sew. Mothers drink tea. Needles appeared
loaded with thread, maybe deciding to include the harness, after all. Also making the cut, the red hanky, worn on
the active left side, finds a home attached to jean fabric. Maybe the explicit details aren’t too much
because they will never be enough to bring him back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~I~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Eventually,
not even the acres of fields surrounding the nation’s Capital Mall can contain
our display of lives taken from us too soon. Presidents Regan and Bush I will
fly over the display but they will not land among us. Twenty years later, Washington
DC will represent one of the most infected cities on the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~L~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">My
friend Lane and I are traveling 90 miles round trip, from Pend Oreille County
to Sandpoint, Idaho, and as we drive through the night to see the movie Milk, I
gaze up at stars. I remember the night of Harvey Milk’s assassination. I lay in
my bed, violating lights out and curfew, the AM radio antennae propped against
the window. I dare and strong arm the signal to come in clear, listening to the
shock of radio newscasters, reaching me in Nowhereville, Oregon, via the
longshot clear channel radio signal of San Francisco’s KGO. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
still remember static-filled accounts of the riots that follow, the candlelit
marches, and just years after that, the seemingly immediate onslaught of AIDS. Cleve
Jones, the founder of the Names Project, was among Milk’s best friend.
Still-living, he becomes a historical icon. His early activism inspires a
supporting character in the film based on the life of Harvey Milk. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
film will win Oscars, but as Lane and I enter the theater, surrounded by
liberal heterosexuals in a former brothel town’s historic Panida Theater,
patrons move over a couple seats to give us room. Or maybe to give them distance from us, the
assurance afforded by defensible space.
I remember being the only two guys sitting together. I remember the curious
looks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I’ve
met Cleve Jones, I’ve shaken his hand and stood beside him at beer busts to
fund the Names Project, held at a Leather Bar, the San Francisco Eagle. I will volunteer rides in my truck to raise
money. Lesbian’s want to know about the engine. Men gaze longingly toward the
sleeper. Nearly everyone at that fundraiser is now dead. The San Francisco Eagle is now closed. Even
then, many from those beer busts already knew they were dying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Tonight,
I will remember, as the credits roll at the end of the movie, that gays have
always known more tragedy than elation.
That we’ve had too much worry and not enough time to live and that at
the same time, we’ve lived too much life, with not enough worry. Both contradictions remain my reality. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~L~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">My
friend Steve volunteers at the Names Project.
He is already sick. I stand beside him looking at art he’s created to
publicize the first showing of the Quilt in Washington DC. I am 21 years old, almost 22. He is my
mentor, and in my hands, I hold the poster sized image he’s created for that
first display on the Capital Mall. This
moment, the Names Project’s Quilt’s unveiling on the National Mall, becomes a
starting point of American Dialogue. We
are already several years into the epidemic. President Regan is oblivious. He does not acknowledge this moment; among
historians his lack of attention standing out as the darkest domestic stain on
an infamous presidency. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
print I hold, Steve’s art, features six determined subjects, sitting in a half
circle. Each of these diverse quilters is portrayed with intensity. A long
haired woman sits beside a grandmother and seated on the opposite side, a man
in a button down shirt lifts his needle. They sew quilt panels together and
even then the Quilt is portrayed falling out, uncontained over the Capital
Lawn. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Steve’s
art is his looking glass. In each of his subject’s expression, I see love,
sadness, loss and hope. In my friendship
with Steve, I feel all of these things as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A
reproduction of his art, one I’m sure he stole from the project’s sales
inventory, still hangs in my hall. He had so little money, an artist so broke
he resorts to thievery; stealing his own work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~~~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Driver, can I see your log book?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A
good-looking, blonde, Oregon DOT officer is standing at the edge of the
Kalamath Falls, Oregon scale platform.
Shining a flashlight into my eyes and peering up at me, the officer
steps up onto the cat walk above my fuel tank. Behind me, the refrigerated unit
roars, and the tractor engine fan kicks on. I can barely hear him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
grab my clip board, my log book attached to it and just as I pass it over the
window of the truck, handing it to the officer, I realize I’ve filled out the
wrong dates. Even worse, I’ve failed to show the required “pre-trip inspection”.
The final gut wrenching revelation? By
the look of my comic book, and the previous date, I have perfected time
travel. I stand guilty of being here two
days in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
officer holds the flashlight over the paper work and looks up at me quizzically.
“Driver, do you realize that…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
interrupt, already visualizing the massive fine and log book ticket about to
bear my name and driver’s license number.
My heart sinks further, as I realize that even if I’d left that morning,
logging today’s actual date, there’s no way that I could depart Bellingham and
made it to K Falls, legally, in one day. Not only can Officer Robert Redford
cite me for falsification of logbook, he can also write me for speeding. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Officer,
I can explain…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Park
your truck. In front of the scale. I
want to see your permit book, your bill of lading, and, of course, your
driver’s license.” He smiles. A model quality, giant, evil, handsome-as-hell,
you are so mine, love ya mean it and hey, you didn’t need those next three
paychecks anyway! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I’ve
just made his day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
park, assemble the paperwork, and walk back toward the scale house, site of my
pending execution. I can’t believe I’m
such a dumb ass. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Should
I tell him? About the call that I’d always dreaded? The one that had finally
come? That my best friend Steve is dying, and that I gave up my vacation, to
grab any load I could, and that I’d not slept in 36 hours, but that if I didn’t
hustle, Steve would be gone before I made it to the Gay Bay?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
open the door. The officer sits alone at
his desk. Thankfully, no other drivers
are in the scale house. I hand him my
driver’s license. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“So it’s Tim, huh?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“Yes,
officer.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“You
know you’re five hundred pounds over on your driver axles?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">My
heart quits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Five
hundred?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Yep.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I’d
just fueled at Mollies Truckstop sitting not 500 feet north of where I’m now
detained. I began to calculate how long
it will take to burn off enough fuel to be legal again. Eight pounds per gallon
times six miles per gallon…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
officer hands me back the bill of lading: McDonald’s muffin dough from
Bellingham, bound for Stockton. “And
according to this…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“I
know.” I interrupt him again. “Officer, I know. I can’t legally be here, even
if I had the right day on my log book. But I can explain, I have an emergency.
I’m…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
still has my license. My permit book. He’s looking at me, leaning over the
counter, his pen in his hand, a partially filled out citation awaits his
completion. “Go on…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“I
know you’ve probably heard it all. But I swear I’m telling the truth. My best
friend is dying, in San Francisco, of AIDS. I got the call early this morning,
and I’m just trying to get there. To say goodbye. I don’t know how long he’s
got.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I’ve
just outted myself. I’m sure of it. I feel sick. I’m very much aware that Steve
is failing. I am about to have multiple, high-dollar citations, and that long
after tonight, I will still have to cross this same scale, several times a
week. My life is going to be hell. Marked by a badge happy feast of citations.
This scale will stand as a unique memorial to Steve Abeyta and the crashing of
my MVR.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
officer watches me, pen suspended, my license held against the top of the
stainless steel </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">citation clipboard. The same citation book that remains propped
open by his other hand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“I
believe you. No driver would admit to a story like yours.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
begins to write on the citation. “Tell
you what. I’m in a generous mood. Here’s
what we’ll do. I am going to write one
and only one citation up with the wrong infraction number. All you have to do is request a court date
and contest the ticket. It’ll be thrown
out.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
points to the place where on the infraction is listed the address of the court.
“You’ll have to come down here for a hearing, but that way it’ll stay off your
license and it won’t cost you anything. I could cite you for numerous
violations.” He makes eye contact. “But I won’t.” I decide I could marry this
man of the law. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
pauses still holding my gaze. I fill in the silence with the weakest “Oh
Kayyyy…”, kicking myself for sounding like such a dork.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“There’s
a catch.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
swallow. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“You’re
going to bed. I want your butt parked at
the rest area south of town. For a full
eight, you got that?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
nod.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">“I’m
not telling you when I shutting this scale down, but when I do, it would be
best for your sake, that if I get a hankering, say to patrol south of here,
your lights out, getting shut eye in that pickle park.</span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">We do understand each other, right?”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
nod again, salivating over my license, which he still holds. Firmly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“A
<i>full</i> eight hours. I’d hate to call
CHP or the Shasta Scale on you because I come bearing warm coffee and you’re
awol.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
hands my license back to me, and quickly finishes the one and only citation.
“Now get out of here.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
take my license and the citation from him. As I turn to open the door, he adds,
“And, Tim…I’m sorry about your friend.
Tough times are these.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~R~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Steve
dies. I barely make it to San Francisco in time to lay with him, holding his
decimated body in my arms. The Quilt is displayed once more on the Mall without
him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It
is now too big to be displayed, anywhere, in its entirety.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~E~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Gert
stands in the doorway of The Names Project. We stand beside her watching the
animation of the Castro.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A
man approaches wearing a plaid shirt and a dirty green baseball hat. The hat proclaims “Nothing runs like a
Deere”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">My
friend Rob taps me on the shoulder, and points me toward him. “Tim, check it out. Fish. Out of Water.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
man is clearly lost. He keeps looking up at building numbers and turning, as if
he’s a sort of misguided human weather vane. He does not return the eye contact
of the parade of men on the street who seek his. Soon enough he is standing at our door, still
looking up, verifying the numbers, and looking down at a scrawled address. He
seeks out a person in charge, and lucks out, as Gert corrals him. The farmer
thrusts a haphazardly folded fabric into her somewhat unexpected arms. She
ushers him in, and his eyes dart frantically, surveying the stacks and stacks
of Quilt panels. The posters. The books. The VCR tapes chronicling the project’s
history. Steve’s art.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The volunteers sorting through the chaos are
too busy to notice his awkwardness. The
man sees my Peterbilt baseball hat, looks surprised. I wave, sheepishly. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
speaks quietly, but at first only to Gert.
His face is reddened from the sun, and he still has a toothpick dangling
out one corner of his mouth. It moves up and down as he speaks. Gert waves me
in close, as the man falters. He’s a father. Hails from a dot on a mid-western
atlas, and grows grain. He points at the bundle Gert holds, explaining that
he’s presenting us this quilt panel. He’d sewn it alone, late at night from a
lone, bulb-lit, barn-housed work bench. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Don’t know how right that stitch is.” He points at the middle of the fabric. “I’m
no sewer.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
smiles. “It’s fine.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“He
was a good kid, my son. Good with the
other kids. Good with the animals. Maybe not so good with a wrench, but he had
try.” The man swallows. Composes.
“Don’t know how or when he got it, this . . .” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
man fights for words, standing alone amongst all these strangers. I feel his embarrassment lost in the lobby of
a big city, fancy place, a place he never thought he’d be standing in. “I’m not sure if it’s good enough. But I had to…you know, for him. My boy.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
places the quilt down and begins to unfold it. The man won’t look. He faces
away, anywhere but at the panel. He
speaks again. “I almost came to Kansas City, when you were there, but too many
people know me in that town.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
and I again make eye contact. Sizing me up, curious and surprised at a guy like
me--my presence, here. Me dressed almost as if I could be jumping out of a Kansas
grain truck, running into the Quik Fuel for a cold one in his home town,
dumping a load of wheat at the elevator.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He’s
still talking, “I’d first heard ‘bout the quilt on a radio station I sometimes
get out of Denver. But I didn’t think I could go through with it, didn’t know
what to put on...”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
quilt panel is beautiful. Our eyes
water. The man, very quickly, looks at his creation. Then he looks away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“I
did this between my pay job and farming. His momma had left us before…so I
sewed in Wintertime, after shifts at the grain elevator, after harvest slowed
up, so I think it’s mostly finished. I think it’s him. He’s my only kid. Always will be."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
is now refolding the panel. No one says anything, and the street noise outside
is smothered by the man’s grief.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“I
loved him. Didn’t deserve this. But, I guess, no one does.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
farmer doesn’t stay long. He tells me he
needs to get back home, before he’s missed by his neighbors. He tells me to
stop in sometime, that he’ll buy me coffee. He says he needed to make this last
trip with his son. That they’d always talked of California, imagining a place
of sun and warmth and beauty. “I just
never thought I would see it alone. Especailly not cuz of this.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~M~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
meet single mothers, devastated at losing their brightest star. I meet widowed wives, their spouse already
gone, their time also now short. Sometimes
husbands and wives arrive bearing their own panels, created by one for the
other, in preparation for what both know lies ahead. Sometimes siblings arrive,
acknowledging a death the rest of the family will not. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“He
didn’t die of no cancer. Wasn’t like
that. Was that other thing that took
him. Mama wouldn’t tell no one. She wouldn’t take him to no doctor ‘cause she
knew before he did. The night sweats,
that’s what it was. She knew.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Some
people bring finished quilt panels and stay on to volunteer themselves. Most of
the volunteers will themselves die. By
volunteering with the quilt, their service eases their own transition or erases
a few transgressions they’ve committed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Some
of my friends will make their own panels. Convinced no one else will.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Others
drop off their contributions and never return. Volunteers sometimes die without
anyone, estranged and rejected by every member of their family. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Members
of the project arrange for their memorials, pass a hat to pay the costs, and
will later gather in a coffee shop or bar, and because this is a ritual now,
sewing boxes emerge. They take up familiar needles, beautiful threads, and
model in real time Steve’s first poster. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">This
is how we clean our bodies, this is how we bury our dead. This is how we mourn,
holed in the back booths of bars, bowling alleys, and other dives. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
learn, after repeated attempts, that stitching a stranger’s life together is
not so easily accomplished. At times,
just a name flows across the panel.
Other times, beautiful, colored links emerge, portraying a life
shortchanged. I become skilled at marking what I know, the high points of a stranger’s
life, by visualizing a quilt panel. How I’d do it--if I only knew how. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
will start a panel for Steve. Once, twice, three times. I buy the fabric, and a
woman at Fabricland offers to help, but because I can’t face the depth of his
passing, I will never call her. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Fabric
unravels, frays, and fades. The panel remains unfinished, haunting me. It has
remained this way now over two decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">At
times, some quilters find it difficult to let go of a panel, realizing this just
as they enter the Names Project headquarters, that their work now represents a
final link to a last shared moment. They are flighty before us, nervously
looking around the lobby, the permanence of the street at their back, and
suddenly racked by sobs, they ask for additional time. A Kleenex. Or the return
of the panel itself. Taking the fabric back. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~E~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In
the beginning my dispatcher keeps routing me back to San Francisco. The Dyke is my shepherd, she Lays me over in
the gay bay, tells me there is no freight. She always knew. About the other
freight I carried. I find parking for my big truck in the old industrial
neighborhoods, the already gentrifying South of Market District, I come farther
and farther out of the closet. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
am too young to be so shell shocked. I
am out of the closet but wishing back in it. My beautiful friends dance while
they are dying, as if out of a movie scene on the deck of the Titantic. Even as the ship, our lives, begins to list,
and even as reports of horror and grief rise from decks below, I don’t yet see
the full-on terror--just replace the four string quartet with a synthesizer and
140 beats per minute; replace the luxury of tuxedoes with sweat, fog machines
and laser lightshows. My friends dance until they can’t and then the braver of
them return to these, our midnight palaces, sometimes in their wheel chairs,
sometimes covered in KS Lesions, and sometimes, they return carried by
survivors, in a casket. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">My
roommate will die while I’m on the road. He dies alone. He never tells me he is sick.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
have never finished his panel either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~M~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">A
woman enters the Names Project building. She seems lost. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Gert
approaches her, “Can I help you?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
woman holds out home baked cookies.
Looking over Gert’s shoulder, at first, I don’t really know what I am
looking at. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“I
thought you might use these for a fund raiser.
Each cookie is an exact replica of a quilt panel. You could sell ‘em, at the showings.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Turning
away, I don’t want to see whatever comes next.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Oh
wow. Thank you. That is so thoughtful!” Gert’s voice rises behind me, above the
traffic outside. “Did you make these yourself?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~B~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I
lift quilt panel filled boxes into my “refer” trailer, a big refrigeration unit,
looking like a metal tumor, looms on the front of the trailer. It is 1991. The
boxes of fabric weigh more than some of my recently departed friends. My trailer is capable of keeping hundreds of
bodies cool in a natural disaster. But in this disaster, all the bodies I carry
need no cooling. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~E~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">It
is a cold December night, after the showing wraps up and the exhibition halls
clear. The coldness of the Seattle Washington State Convention Center matches
the sterility inside my trailer. Closing the trailer doors, I stand on the ICC
bar. I spit on my fingers. I began to
write in the stainless steel doors, against the grime, the dirt, until the
stainless steel that my hand traces, is mirrored in shine. My face and the city
lights reflect behind me. In big bold letters, the doors of my Semi Trailer
spell it all out, messy and dirty, but yet shiny and beautiful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">“Remember
their Names. The Names Project. Silence Equals Death. This trip is for you, Steve.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">And
then I am off, into the night. My CB radio is my constant back up vocalist.
Joining the army of trucks rolling southbound for California, I put the gear
shift into the last big hole and hit the hammer lane. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">All
I receive in feedback, via CB channel 17 is a few “10-4’s” to break the silence. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">~R~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Epilogue.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">In
the summer of 2012, in conjunction with the return of the International
Conference on AIDS to the United States, the full Names Project Quilt returned
to Washington DC. During late July, over 47,000 Quilt Panels saw daylight on
the National Mall and throughout Washington DC.
We still remember their names.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-35461349534577959672013-12-22T17:09:00.000-08:002013-12-22T17:09:12.200-08:00Flat Creek Candles<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5Z99ASFI63WpXX1xrdq8WzsYCG5Zok5yvqq_i9IM6PUhCt5ovQBctqVa4HzIRP5Pn5jw_1oZdzxlXTUEx4uz1yuteTeMpCo_tp_x-fRA4Y1_p9gwvw7MTMQ38YxxqAHWdKHD/s1600/Tim+and+Bo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI5Z99ASFI63WpXX1xrdq8WzsYCG5Zok5yvqq_i9IM6PUhCt5ovQBctqVa4HzIRP5Pn5jw_1oZdzxlXTUEx4uz1yuteTeMpCo_tp_x-fRA4Y1_p9gwvw7MTMQ38YxxqAHWdKHD/s1600/Tim+and+Bo.jpg" height="400" width="258" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Flat Creek Candles<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Life is eternal and
love is immortal<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and death is only a horizon <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">and a horizon is
nothing save the limit of our sight.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Rossiter W. Raymond<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I stand at the end of the driveway leading into the Wiley
Ranch.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I lean into a bull pine, feeling the bark rub against my
jean jacket, feeling the scratchiness of the texture of all that roughness
against the Pendleton jacket I rarely wear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I see my boot prints trailing through the snow and as I look back toward
the lighted single-wide mobile home, filling in a small depression of one of
the benches that descend ever steeper into the chaos marking the cliffs below,
the light spilling out from those Christmas light lit windows beckons warm and
bright.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Off to the right, tied in on a
barbed wire fence line, Debi Wiley has spelled out the words “Winter Sucks” in
joyous Christmas lights. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Fifty feet above me, traffic occasionally pauses on Flat
Creek Road, the death trap leading into town, it winding above the ranch and I
suspect to encounter that lit-up fence line is as close a revelation of the
truest element of surprise. Motorists dynamite their brakes, pause, backing up
around the corner, just to snap a picture. From what I understand, the digital image
of the jolly spelled out tribute to the suckiness of winter has already traveled
the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Yeah, it seems a glaring contradiction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But if anything defines this place I’ve so
grown to love, it is the word, contradiction. This landscape and the people
residing here, win me over easily--them who despite everything they face, ruggedly
stay. Whether I’m warming up around summer campfires, or stationed at a bar
stool in the WhiteBird, I’ve found via quiet conversations, more locals than
not seem far more educated in humanity than any academic I’ve rubbed shoulders
with. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As I visualize this landscape, by my thinking this place is
an assortment of dissimilar features. Things that don’t usually go together,
well, here they do. The natural elements appear as if drop-shipped by creation,
forming a harmony that would seem unthinkable and forced anywhere else. It’s as
if God just couldn’t make up His mind what this place needed to be—sage or
forest, foothill or mountain peak, river run through it or water never seen it.
A single mile becomes a miracle of rapidity as desert lifts into forest, rock
into good soil, elevation becoming a dual testament to the power of exposure
and refuge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">By my reckoning, God, frustrated by His indecision finally
just said “Oh Fuck it”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He threw it all
down, all that creation that shouldn’t and don’t normally go together, and He
mixed it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Before He left, he must
have looked back one last time at that hot mess of contradiction, and said, “Damn,
I do good—this so works.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">But in this stillness, I also understand that some in these
parts sometimes wonder and wander in their despair. They question if maybe
after God left, he never came back. Others believe God is always just passing
through so fast, He can no longer see this place, know the brokenness of this
valley.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some of my friends have told me
they think they might actually hate God for what’s happened. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I feel this sense tonight on this holy eve, and it becomes
yet another contradiction, another set of things that don’t, can’t, and won’t
ever add up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That here in this beauty,
ugliness reigns, and that in this perfection, loss is the most familiar chorus
of the most of them who’ve stayed on. It is a beautiful crazy, an unresolvable tragedy
almost unique to this valley, and maybe, as I look up into the stars, that is
why I keep coming back. I return to stand in awe of the high country, to dance
in the lowlands, to marvel at the mighty river and to dream of summer in winter
and winter in summer. I come back here because no one has any answers as to why
God does what He does, and because they don’t have that sacred knowledge, they
don’t expect anyone else to either. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Through the window I watch my friends gathered inside the
small mobile home’s kitchen and then, for whatever reason, I remain on the
perimeter of the light. I turn back to face into the darkness, and as if on cue,
I watch as the moon rises over the Selkirk Rocky Mountains to the east. Far
below me, rounding China Bend, on the banks of the Columbia River, a freight
train labors toward Kettle Falls. I hear the railcars rocking, metal shifting
against weight, the engineer’s throttle revving horsepower and then the easing
off relief as the tonnage of weight overcomes grade and becomes a slightly
different collision of sounds, airbrakes, screeching, and other strains. I
listen as the engineer’s horn wails against the perils of an uncontrolled grade
crossing and again. within me awakens a love of trains and mountains, echo’s
and passages, and here, in all of this I stand on the edge of a dark night filled
with both loudness and silences. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The air, oh the air, how sharp it feels with its bite and I
respond by pacing my inhalation to match this, the sacredness of a stunning
winter’s night, Even as I huddle against the chill, I can see, if not feel, the
breaking flashlight invasion of the moon into the darkness, as at first, it
struggles against cloud bonds and then breaks free of the entrapment by paint
brush inspired cirrus clouds far overhead. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What I can only describe as the sacred holiness of the
moment, this one-of-a kind instance, begins to illuminate the valley with moonlight
and relief; perspective and vanishing points; and in so much stillness, I can
barely remain still. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now, far below me, a thousand trees free themselves from a
forest no longer blanketed in darkness, and that canopy rises distinguished
toward freedom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The forest crown is
destined to love on that moon. Overhead stars poke through the heavens. As if
this might have been the signal they’d waited for packs of coyotes, on both
sides of the river launch into a chorus, beginning first to shrilly yap, then
they howl, and in that broken silence, I remain obedient to the stillness of
unabashed wonder. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I no longer care that I’m freezing my balls off, that the
tears forming around my eyes already seem to be solidifying and as I lean
further into that bull pine, not even the pine pitch that threatens to forever
stain my jacket, matters. The song of the coyotes changes and then I recognize
that the wolves have joined in, and now also, from far, far away, up high on
the flanks of the mountains, their howls silence the coyotes. I remember in
this moment that night and darkness is central to Christmas, and in the darkness
is where we often find the most compelling wonder, and even as I can finally take
the cold no more, I pivot in the snow, trudging back toward the warmth and back
toward the lights of “Winter Sucks”.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For some reason I’ve decided that Bo Wiley should drive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I rarely trust gravity and g forces or God enough to let him
drive but tonight, as I take the shotgun seat in my jeep and we blaze away from
the comfort of that high perched single-wide, it seems the only truly wise
decision I’ve ever made. Bo, without knowing it, is about to take me to a
destination I’ve never been even though in truth, I could sketch it blindfolded.
And as much as we are on a mission, and as much as I am up for just about
anything, what lies ahead still describes a first. Even for me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The minute we turn off the ranch drive onto Flat Creek Road,
snowy and iced over, winding and treacherous, like a roller coaster of
unexpected and improbable engineering, I feel Bo become the reliably
crazy-sane, recklessly-controlled, closeted, fugitive-on the-run grand-prix,
cowboy, racecar, Jeep Driver he should never be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Bo!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“What?” He looks over at me, eyebrows raised, the Iphone
still dangling in his lap from where he’s just been searching for yet another
Avett Brothers Song, while an additional smart phone, a droid, liea between us.
All of this smart technology turning us dumb-behind-the-wheel as we become a
rolling hot spot on ice, connecting into a mass of chords and do-hickey
attachments, a 4G’d, Wifi’d, bio mass of smart technology morphing us all kinds
of stupid, our version of “can you hear me now” inserted into chargers and
knobs on my dash that I still can’t understand. I grab the Oh Shit bar, we sail
around an iced-over corner, and as I look at my dash, it already appears as if
my Jeep is on Life Support. If Bo doesn’t pay attention, soon enough, we may be
similarly hooked up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We fly down what I estimate is a 12% downgrade, make the
next corner but I’m not sure if all four wheels are still touching the ground
and I wonder if Joni Mitchells “The River” might be a better song selection, as
we now hug the same river bank that an hour before, I’d been perched against a
tree, looking at least a thousand feet down upon even as I looked up toward the
heavens.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“You’re good. It’s what’s up dude. You know I know this
road. I once made it to town in…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“five minutes” I finish his sentence, already well
acquainted with his need for speed and my need for the “oh shit bar”, the same
handle that at times I wonder might also be large enough to contain other
expletives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Thankfully we make it to Northport without landing in the
river. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Along the way we pass the
Colville Tribal Cemetery where Bo’s murdered Colville Indian friend David Barr
now lies. We pass the Guglelmino’s lower holdings, part of the stunning Bull
Hill Guest ranch, and as we cross the Columbia River, only to roll down main street,
we pass The Whitebird, home of more drunken brawls than anyone can count and
Kuks,’ the oldest continually operating bar (and former legendary whore house)
in Washington State.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This place breathes
abandonment in the tragic stats of all the closed mines and lumber mills. Yet
throughout its rough and tragic and complicated history, I’ve come to know its
multiple nuances like some sort of grief etching held up by angels. Here is
about crossing over and looking back and breaking badness and struggling to
find the good. Here is about mine shafts and wildfires, drunken miracles and
sober let downs. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As we turn away from the river, I’m feeling winter full on, seeing
the unseen children’s snow angels, left on the Christmas light lit yards—angels
who are still somehow holding all of these survivors in a midair embrace,
invisibly suspending love on these souls who are caught somewhere between an
epic capacity for acceptance and a denial of divine love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I can’t reconcile the two. Yet I’m not alone
in facing such impossible reconciliation. Anyone who’s truly been here, truly
known this place stands alongside me in awe that some much loss could happen in
a town with so few residents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Calibri;"> </span></o:p></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We stop in Northport and Bo emerges from the Jeep to smoke
and take care of business, and I get out to gather my senses, checking to make
sure I haven’t pissed myself after the ride into town.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bo finds me half a block away from the Jeep,
finishing up a cell call, and he’s full of questions, checking me out, with
“you’re ok right—like Tim, that drive into town was nothing like straight up,
my normal bitches be so tripping” and as he bend down to look into my eyes
under the cowboy hat brim, and he’s already impatient for me to end the call. “C’mon<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>dude, for real, we gotta go.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I know that it’s my last chance at cell service for an hour,
and I grudgingly disconnect from the call to land in the bitch seat, the
perilous shotgun side. Bo is buckling in and I again confront a massive knot of
chords marking the trail of too many gadgets competing for too small a
space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lorde’s is singing about Royals
as we leave town, and I’m thinking no truer song seems to encompass the hopes
of this place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We may die on these
treacherous mountain roads, but we will for sure die with the best tunes I
Tunes and Youtube can provide.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like I
said, contradiction is my life. I’m getting over it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The night is dark. Soon our travels lead us out of town, and
on this side of the river, the moon has yet to scale the mountains. I can see
ridgelines and headlights illuminating dark winding pavement, and again the
river is to my right. As we travel toward Williams Lake Cutoff, Bo begins to
tackle this idea of God, and somehow reading my mind, for once his driving is
calm and reserved. Thank you lord I whisper under my breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">For the last several weeks, through no intention of our own,
we’ve found that Godtalk is a regular part of our dialogue. Whether or not He
even exists, or whether or not God’s Give a Damn is Busted. Jesus is also a
regular reoccurring character in these animated debates and Bo is not entirely
convinced when it comes to belief in any version of a personal Jesus. If there
was a cross, he’s not sure if it reveals anything relevant to us in our always
going bust towns, our respective families history’s on the verge of ruins.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">So how Jesus matters, like to us, is regularly a topic of
discussion and for months, I’ve been drawing blanks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both of us are dealing with separate murders,
the painful realities of addiction, too many unexplained losses, and as much as
I’m supposed to be an ordained minister and really believe in all this God
stuff, right now I’m also plenty pissed at God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Twice in the last few months, I’ve faced off against those whose hope is
extinguished, who don’t know why they’ve lead good lives only to lose children
and grandchildren to violence and accidents and overdoses and they want to know
where God went off to when they weren’t looking. I’m not hearing any great
conclusive answers to solve any of this shit. I feel dumbfounded and clueless,
my faith is fragile, and right now I’ve never hated any human institution more
than the church. My responding silence is deafening. The gospel according to shrugging
wasn’t how this was supposed to end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m at a point where I’m in full surrender mode.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Like really Tim, I still ain’t getting this God stuff. I
don’t believe in Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I mean, yeah ok
maybe—possibly, God exists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But what if
He totally hates us?” Bo is looking at me, not at the road. I point ahead.
Twice. Reluctantly he looks back toward the highway. “You’re such a granny!” he
laughs.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Look dude, your grandmother drives a hummer. It could be
worse. As for God, Bo-- I don’t know. I mean faith is all about questioning.
Even though I know all these “What if’s” seem to be a pretty lost place, if you
never have to fight for something, never question it, what worth is it right?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He’s quiet, thinking about this.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“I can’t prove Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But really, it’s such a-not-human concept. Think about it. Forgiveness?
Like when have humans ever embraced that?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He responds. “For real, right! That’s so not what’s up.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“No man, for us, it’s always been all about the getting
even. We want to inflict twice the pain dude. If you look at it like that, the
idea of forgiveness is the same as spiritual welfare. Like for real, right?
Spiritual entitlement spending!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s not
spiritual austerity or higher productivity of doing good deeds but it’s really
all about getting something you haven’t earned—Grace is something that no
matter how damn good you think you are, you can never achieve it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about faith more than about what you did
to deserve grace, and yet we have zero proof, really that grace exists and all
these unlimited chances and freedom from religious rulemaking might just be pure
horseshit.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I pause, looking at him, trying to read his reactions. He is
going all poker face so I continue, “Still I just have to believe God or Jesus
or something beyond our understanding intervened, because these are so not
human concepts. This is about being saved from…”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Save us from?” Bo interrupts and he is driving faster now
and I feel like I am speaking in a language I hate, Christian hypocrisy, and
I’m thinking I should just shut up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo is smiling and I look over at him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Don’t you see the irony?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>My family? Your family?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two
opposites, but I don’t know that yours, the Christians wouldn’t so beat mine in
a crazy-off.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And your dad is a minister
and mine is a logger.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I imagine the difference responses among my family members
in hearing this interpretation of our practical, real-life example of what it
means to be a “Christian”—this business of faith-based living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My mom…my dad…uh, me. It wouldn’t be
pretty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I think we’d definitely win any
crazy-off competition with Bo’s family. I’m just being honest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Well, being a Christian or believing in God doesn’t save
you from being douchebags for one. Remember Harry from the pawn shop in town? He
says his worst customers are Christians.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>I mean the worst.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Drug dealers
keep their word, but the Christians, Oh My God—liars’ thieves, they don’t pay
their bills, don’t keep their word. Don’t return his calls.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Yeah! What’s up with that?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo signals and we are turning left, up the steep grade that
begins Williams Lake Cutoff, and he smiles at me proudly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“See, I didn’t spin the tires once and I took
that corner at way over the suggested limit.” He is again fiddling with his I
Phone and we are listening to this song by Carbon Leaf about how love endures, it
clings away, when asked to leave, it begs to stay.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m nodding to the lyrics, still thinking about Christian
douchebags, the most dishonest, pious, self-righteous people I’ve ever met. I
feel my stomach tighten. Hating on my faith, hating on the fact that when I try
to make excuses for my fellow believers, it all sounds like a secular humanist
trying to rationalize the purpose of the lifeboat game and truthfully I’d
really like to throw so many of my fellow believers overboard—which makes me
just as pious and self-righteous as they are. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’d told the pawn shop guy a few weeks back that I think I
hate the church. He’s been a long standing friend, and we sometimes rub elbows
at a non-traditional fellowship gathering. I vented to him that I want nothing
to do with organized religion. I don’t feel welcome, I don’t trust Christians
and that most of them seem to care more about judging others and condemning
guys like me to hell, than feeling their fellow human’s pain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I realize that all my anger has made me just as judgmental
and douche as they are. I’d just gotten in a big Facebook war regarding
trickledown theology with a fellow Bible College Grad, a Colorado pastor dude
who’d repeatedly made comments about the uselessness of a minimum wage and when
I challenged him about the despair of poverty, and that fighting income
disparity is a fundamental Christian concern, he threw the grace card at me,
which had led to a call from my dad that my responses to him on Facebook had
hardly been loving or “Christian”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">More Carbon Leaf lyrics now play over my tripping sound
system, something about New Year’s Eve and waking up afraid of the day and that
beneath the scars of broken dreams an undone war still rages and stings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Really? How could it be that the Gospel of Carbon Leaf made
hella more sense to me than my faith?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">The road is now solid compact snow and ice, and the trees
are closing in on us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know this road
has already taken several people out, loved ones that Bo knows. He tells me the
stories of which corners took out these friends, which road took out those, and
which grades killed that relative. I already know that nearly everywhere we
will drive tonight has a fatality story behind it, and this includes his best
friend.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His grandmother Cozy has buried
five grandchildren.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His aunt Margaret
has lost every child she bore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he is
driving ten-over-the-posted speed limit, on a solid sheet of ice, and the most
amazing thing about any of this, is that right now I don’t give a shit how fast
Bo is driving.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">~ ~ ~ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We are already pulling into the cemetery, the same one
perched on the outskirts of Colville Washington. It’s a familiar place, I’ve
spent countless moments with my cousin Stacy hiding out here so she can smoke
where her kids won’t find out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She is
always telling me that it’s the one place she doesn’t think her father will
catch her either, although I have to admit that to choose a cemetery to indulge
in a cancer stick addiction is about as delicious an ironic indulgence as I’ve
ever encountered.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Still this is a new one for me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve never been in any cemetery after dark before,
much less just after midnight, right before Christmas, right? And, add in that
it’s occurring right after it has just snowed a couple inches.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have no idea how we are supposed to find
this particular grave.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo seems to know where we are going, and he expertly guides
the Jeep down a cemetery lane I can barely make out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Rounding a corner, he stops, shining the headlights
out into the darkness--high beams lit. Mentally I’m rehashing Bo’s mom’s
instructions. Remembering that the Candles we carry must last until Christmas
Eve, when the family will return. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo cuts the engine. “We’re here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ready?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">He is already straightening, stretching-out of the 4x4. I
take his lead and stiffly step out of my side of the Jeep. The cold is the
rudest bitch slap. It immediately takes my breath away and I’m already dreading
my next inhale. I’m instantly rethinking whose family really would win any potential
crazy-off competition. Right now Bo’s family is back in the lead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo rifles through bags at the back of the Jeep, pulling
candles out, grabbing a lighter and then he pulls up the collar on his pencil
thin North Face Jacket. “C’mon. It’s just right over here.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I follow him across the flatness of the newer part of the
cemetery.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know from previous visits
with Stacy that one grave off to my right bears a headstone with the
inscription “I told you I was sick”. I’m thinking of other such understatements
equally applicable now. Yet as I follow my best friend, trudging through the
snow, bypassing the depressions marking manicured headstones, down the
rows<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>of this familiar community of loss,
it is as if I’ve never been here before. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I don’t know why but I suddenly remember the song by Over
the Rhine, “All of My Favorite People are Broken”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I know it’s on Bo’s Iphone but it hasn’t
played on his playlist yet tonight but as I’m thinking about the lyrics, and as
I take one cold step after another, the line “It ain’t pretty, but you’re never
alone” seems to hold more importance and more appropriateness to my raging
thoughts than any line in the song I’ve acknowledged before<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I feel a lightness envelope me, as all the anger, all the
uncertainty, all the hopeless confusion I’ve felt is released off my shoulders.
Another line from the OTR song flows off my lips, “Something’s are better left
unspoken, I just want to hold you, let the rest go” and as I mouth the last
word, I’m stopped in my tracks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo is kneeling before me in the snow, at the foot of his
sister’s, Stevie Jo Wiley’s grave. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">~ ~ ~<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’d actually visited Stevie Jo’s grave before, knowing of her
legacy years prior to meeting the Wiley’s. I knew that she was killed as a
result of a head injury in an industrial accident. That she’d passed at 22
years of age. I knew that she’d been a fierce cowgirl, strong willed and a
diehard Mickey Mouse fan. Yet, she also possessed the most remarkable, if not
fragile-in-first appearance, beauty. She’d been working with a young colt at
the time of her passing, a barrel racing marvel named Buckles, a horse that
remains on the Wiley Ranch to this day. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Although I’d encountered Stevie Jo’s grave on many previous
summer occasions, pausing before her resting place, as my cousin led me on
repeated tours of the cemetery, it didn’t have the same context as it did now. Then,
Stacy would be explaining the significance of each resting place, her
familiarity with each citizen that we would pause before, they now residing in
the cemetery, she now trying to make peace with the pain and anguish of story-after-story.
Ones that ether ended way too soon—or, in some cases, not soon enough, but only
now, did the totality of what I’d born witness to back then really sink in.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">What I hadn’t known, until I actually met Bo, is the tragedy
that he was only 15 years old at the time of his sister Stevie Jo’s death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Now as he’s crouching before me, Bo begins to brush the snow
off the roof of a small hut. The simple shelter constructed by his parents to
protect their daughter’s resting place from the deep winter cold is revealed as
a result of his broad sweeping gestures done with the sleeve of his jacket. Now,
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the humble structure appears naked and
exposed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo swings open the roof lid. From inside, he removes two
extinguished candles, handing the glass remains to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Looking over his shoulder, I peer inside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What I find glistening in the powdered snow
and ice crystal magic of that Winter Wonderland would make Walt Disney proud.
Plush, stuffed Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse dolls are posted watching guard
over Stevie Jo, with Christmas Ornaments and garlands strung up carefully
throughout that small space—this entire spirit house adorned in a festive
combination of Red and Green.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Squatting on his heels, Bo takes each new candle, lights it,
and places the burning towers within the shelter. He straightens, replaces the
lid, and steps back.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The two of us stand
there, in the dark, and we watch as the flames begin to melt wax, as new light
spreads, and the little memorial now glows.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Removing a cigarette, Bo lights up, taking a long extended
drag, the butt end of the cigarette growing fierce and angry and even as he is
inhaling deeply while transfixed by the candle’s flames, I see a man frozen in
time. He turns his face off to one side to exhale, never removing his gaze from
Stevie Jo’s Christmas tribute.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I try to imagine what might be racing through Bo’s
mind—indeed what would race through my mind if this solemn tradition suddenly
became incorporated into my Christmas routine. What if, one day I would stand
in his shoes, looking at a tribute to my sister?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And although I know we are all already losing
someone, just like everyone else, just the force of such a horrific thought physically
propels me a step back, away from the shelter. I cannot confront such a ruinous
thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Without saying a word, Bo extinguishes his cigarette, and
pivots toward the still illuminated headlights of the Jeep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Turning, I follow quietly behind him. Together
we walk slowly, trudging through the powder, returning toward my rig. Our footsteps
land over slightly crusted snow, breaking our footfalls before the plunge into
the softer crystal powder below, a cushion between the frozen outer crust above
and the frozen inner earth beneath. I hear each step breaking through, and I
feel each resulting soft landing--and one step becomes another, on this very silent
night. For the second time this winter’s eve, I’m reminded of the need to tread
lightly, that the surfaces we sometimes traverse are beyond the reach of initial
understanding.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Again moisture threatens
to freeze my eyes shut and I feel the crusted trail of sorrow marking a path
off my cheeks. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I inhale now as deeply as possible. I hold the air and will
my lungs to warm it, that it might warm those who have remained behind. I let
the measured release of my breath calm my heart even as it forms a brief
ghosted fog under the moon. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Repeat. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">And even as I trail behind Bo, following him in the
darkness, blind into the brightness of the high beams, I see his 6’4” frame
casting a long shadow on both sides of me. The splitting of his shadow, moving
like twin guardians over the flatness of the cemetery affords me a sort of
sheltering in motion, locked in the midst of his silhouette, stretching out in
a “v” on both sides of me. I identify the strangest sense really, an embrace of
light over darkness, and hope over despair, the movement of our moving-on,
overcoming the stillness of being stuck in grief. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Bo opens the door of the Jeep, and the dome light inside
shatters the image, but as I hold my door handle open, I feel as if this visual
will always be with me, sheltering me in motion, throughout the rest of my days.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I reclaim my place in the suicidal shotgun seat, and buckle-in.
Bo places the used candles onto the back seat.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Neither of us have any need to utter a word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Bo turns the ignition key, engages the clutch,
gently easing the rig into first gear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Slowly, we idle our way out, creating fresh tire tracks in the snow,
tracing the outlines of the small road leading to the cemetery exit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I look up and beyond the cemetery, toward the foothills, the
sky, and search for the outlier of wherever heaven rests. We exit the cemetery,
turning right, back toward the edge of that troubled town where we have lit as
a beacon on this one foothill, one acknowledging the impossible power of hope,
memory and love. Love’s will endures. When asked to leave, it begs to stay, and
allowing all of this, a slow burn takes the form of candles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Those little flickering flames, a man-made
combination of wicks and melting wax, really-- just two tall narrow glasses.
How powerful the audacity of those candles, and what somehow they enable to
illuminate beyond their assumed scope. The possibility that light could overtake
that sea of darkness, winning over the complete gloom that we’d encountered
upon our arrival, that two small flames could accomplish such a massive feat had
never occurred to me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Indeed, those two small candles seemed to actually empower
the snow, the sky, and in response, against such a powerful stand, the
blackness retreated to the extended corners of the cemetery. And in that
moment, I saw the impossibility of faith and the possibility it might also
enable. That the tiniest belief empowers the smallest flickers of all the other
little flames dancing off wicks, and that when we are open to it, we join
together as one light fighting against the darkness. The light declines our
losses and dignifies our crushed dreams. I’ve been trying to make sense of so
many conflicting and ugly emotions over the last several months, but in this
moment the candles victory over the darkness seemed to suggest a staggering
untapped power. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Could it be that even the simple light of the weakest
doubter’s faith has power—a faith that lies rooted in the illogical hope that
something beyond us still exists, holds us close, sends us joy and reassurance,
even when it doesn’t exactly answer our questions, or solve our disputes, or
end the agony of our losses?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">If those two little candles could not only light Stevie Jo’s
resting place, while also lighting all the surrounding wreaths and the little
Christmas Trees placed on other graves, they if nothing else also became an
unlikely multiplier. An equation so strong in its simplicity, maybe one could
never explain it nor quantify its power. I realize in that moment, as I stare
out the window, that maybe I am not meant to answer questions. That just being
in the presence of grief, standing with others in their darkest moments and
letting them stand beside me during mine, might reassure us all, that all is
not lost.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I recline back into my seat, and picture Stevie Jo, and I
can hear the Christmas Carol <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">All is Well</i>
in my mind. I offer a silent thanks to her and wish her peace on her journey. Somehow
in the craziness of lighting her grave, she’d illuminated my own darkness. I
felt as if I’d just experienced my own Christmas, pardon the cliché, miracle--that
in remembering her on this night, it felt as if she’d stood alive in the
present, confronting me against my determined and self-imposed resistance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’m amazed in this, my encounter with belief, that it
manifests itself in such a visual way. Where minutes before, I’d stood in a once
darkened place, a section of real estate where the soil can barely contain all
the buried pain—that then minutes later two small candles provide a sense of
transformation where unlikely light will love on the earth, flickering from
within that little shelter, with Mickey and Minnie Mouse on guard keeping watch
over the night. Yet although Stevie is already gone 15 years, her presence
holds steadfast to the infinity of memories set lovingly on a frozen and
impenetrable earth. For the next several nights, anyone who passes will see
that firelight, they will be drawn in to the intoxication of possibility where
darkness normally reigns. Travelers will see a pinpoint noting where love
remains binding and blinding, bright against a December night. Maybe the image will
be so compelling, as in the case of “Winter Sucks” spelled out in Christmas
Lights on the Wiley Ranch, they’ll pull over. Stop. Take a picture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">As the cemetery disappears behind us, and as Bo began to
drive us home, I also sense a final sentiment in this moment. I’m no longer
sure we are really meant to move beyond our losses when we “move on”, nor are
we meant to be leaving or burying the indelible marks on our hearts of those we
lose. Maybe in our losses, we are meant to accept a gentle transition, while incorporating
a different relationship with our brandings, our scars and our memories. The
impact of those we’ve said goodbye to isn’t to be buried. Rather it is to be
unearthed and to shine and to ignite the potential of the fragility of time.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Maybe as the ancient poet Dante reflects in Paradiso,
through the timeless guide Virgil, the way in really is the way out. And the
way down really is the way up. That to mourn is to escalate the volume of our
hearts to yes, experience grief; to bare our most sacred vulnerability and yet
we are also called to survive and to light our little candles. We open up. so that
others can love on us. I see no better way to honor the miracle of human
interconnectedness than to courageously embrace such a perspective. To mourn is
to stand brave and naked and let others cover us. Our interdependence—for this
is what it is to know the human version of the divine, daring to believe in a
beginning after the end, is where we light a flame that uniquely dares to hold
the extinguished candle of another. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We turn south, leaving the lights of Colville behind us.
Soon, the darkness envelopes us, holding us in silence and Bo is driving
rationally--his mood subdued. Finally he can take the quiet no more, and now
the radio plays. I look out the window recognizing a Clay Walker Christmas
carol, one of Stevie Jo’s favorite musicians. As the highway opens up before
us, the after-midnight traffic remains sparse, the sound of the tires on the
road harmonizing with the hypnotic effect of two chilled bodies warming from
the cold, the sense that again we are going somewhere familiar, and the
possibility that for the first time in a very long time, I feel right with the
world. That no matter how much loss Bo encounters or I will encounter,
ultimately everything in my life is always well even when it appears otherwise.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We jog east in Chewelah and began to climb Flowery Trail
Pass, as snow flies in all directions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somewhere just after the summit I finally drift off to sleep.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With visions of white and light and Flat
Creek Candles still dancing in my head. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-63177173117244926962012-06-25T23:48:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:52:19.785-07:00Done by my friend Ariel...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGiyAGk-zPdfEH_NQjAnpt_MpJ1SIJvjAmdEZnvpLAtSu-Tb0H0dmTXKVwd_EIeUpjNETaow2V7G8EMTWLYEmldSy7fCYc_eIsjZ6s2CZo9TMZ_02uJTuM2V_HqEZiYy3uDyg/s1600/314739_4208918699540_983607620_n.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBGiyAGk-zPdfEH_NQjAnpt_MpJ1SIJvjAmdEZnvpLAtSu-Tb0H0dmTXKVwd_EIeUpjNETaow2V7G8EMTWLYEmldSy7fCYc_eIsjZ6s2CZo9TMZ_02uJTuM2V_HqEZiYy3uDyg/s640/314739_4208918699540_983607620_n.jpg" width="403" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-54776349384724413572012-06-25T23:31:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:43:24.886-07:00Catching up...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kigTpUmKWy8nqwAADXWS1ehS-u4TzVzkLhJYl0VL5NBHqbot1IsdDCXzBBAnrFJkNHknnM4JiO_PsDXAeJ8HQH0V4I-yznMALBD0Y7kp6IWUjifInsb2AEuuSgexEkHKEEfj/s1600/032.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="595" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5kigTpUmKWy8nqwAADXWS1ehS-u4TzVzkLhJYl0VL5NBHqbot1IsdDCXzBBAnrFJkNHknnM4JiO_PsDXAeJ8HQH0V4I-yznMALBD0Y7kp6IWUjifInsb2AEuuSgexEkHKEEfj/s640/032.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
<br />
I have been traveling so I apologize for the delay in posting.<br />
<br />
Although summer is traditionally challenging for me...I detest being held to a computer and sitting still when it's nice outside, I hope that I will be a bit better at updating the blog over the coming weeks.<br />
<br />
These shots are from earlier in the spring. I hope you will enjoy them. <br />
<br />
Also if you want to Facebook me, there is a link below the pics. Just click on it.<br />
<br />
Or you can use the key words Timothy Anderson and Selkirk Cowboy in a search. Hopefully that will do the trick.<br />
<br />
I wish everyone a wonderful summer season in the Northern Hemisphere and a easy winter in the Southern one. As always this remains a work in progress, and hopefully as I stumble through all of these wanderings....I can report back with some sort of helping of beauty, if not wonder.<br />
<br />
Timbo</div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-34210378404451447072012-06-25T23:07:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:15:28.642-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0JGS2yyqMtdUynedN5FcUjTNkP5-C9YUwl1Zf_irCXEzyNg7sM4l6SH4KNV51_yGqw2utL7Ktj1gB_NcRcVHf-iVaO2-YKKkh5qEUXG-DmAFqeTu4AuM1zmEvcTjAKdQfumN/s1600/020.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS0JGS2yyqMtdUynedN5FcUjTNkP5-C9YUwl1Zf_irCXEzyNg7sM4l6SH4KNV51_yGqw2utL7Ktj1gB_NcRcVHf-iVaO2-YKKkh5qEUXG-DmAFqeTu4AuM1zmEvcTjAKdQfumN/s640/020.JPG" width="640" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-5971209451339126172012-06-25T23:06:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:15:59.811-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-zoMO1O5NWOEU-oudlef9vfEePNgrTQ3DtGPPytYFDfWPrq9srPs5hrZr-W-UqBZCIVMkcBWjSZXe4LD-r8bglyRgUmevLnOHYm7JcbJGD9EQikpOIv6lBv3gwIDptXPxsWxn/s1600/017.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-zoMO1O5NWOEU-oudlef9vfEePNgrTQ3DtGPPytYFDfWPrq9srPs5hrZr-W-UqBZCIVMkcBWjSZXe4LD-r8bglyRgUmevLnOHYm7JcbJGD9EQikpOIv6lBv3gwIDptXPxsWxn/s640/017.JPG" width="640" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-7965367180291848772012-06-25T23:05:00.003-07:002012-06-25T23:16:42.214-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Hu3NP8iLS4v8KBFCt2UGzIAfKh5d485kmXt2Eb-lXGZU2SsJ8triJ657BfaDsRMYJ2lnd_dubL6qrMfYnuD6Dt_sJhMW-4_AK6qSdT-zg15xzpIJPg1_3uG5RHwFbiQ4WLsk/s1600/015.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2Hu3NP8iLS4v8KBFCt2UGzIAfKh5d485kmXt2Eb-lXGZU2SsJ8triJ657BfaDsRMYJ2lnd_dubL6qrMfYnuD6Dt_sJhMW-4_AK6qSdT-zg15xzpIJPg1_3uG5RHwFbiQ4WLsk/s640/015.JPG" width="640" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-4150452081311207882012-06-25T23:05:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:17:22.971-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYP_5TZSxdRpPZSXhHMucFMLskTrS7mvl3byBlKyNsHoz8UZkzye9ANTxEaobdfGxSje4rvmC_7lDWevFHdC9YMJfaYXWX5CympyUN1oJX1B8ryOYcCsE7d2vzm50YEzM8bfLA/s1600/014.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYP_5TZSxdRpPZSXhHMucFMLskTrS7mvl3byBlKyNsHoz8UZkzye9ANTxEaobdfGxSje4rvmC_7lDWevFHdC9YMJfaYXWX5CympyUN1oJX1B8ryOYcCsE7d2vzm50YEzM8bfLA/s640/014.JPG" width="480" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-22155597206458379452012-06-25T23:03:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:18:00.407-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaqSMYIdx8K50KNLToWkDthPKVlxTlVqTqi4K1cHFBJsxn8ZHbJbBuxxvqXer6nsbNkwlHTBN8X4KOGZZvmy_-TVxhb_CLAgaAODBBKjpdqbFwspu5uDZrYOVdGTn6R6MGp1C2/s1600/011.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaqSMYIdx8K50KNLToWkDthPKVlxTlVqTqi4K1cHFBJsxn8ZHbJbBuxxvqXer6nsbNkwlHTBN8X4KOGZZvmy_-TVxhb_CLAgaAODBBKjpdqbFwspu5uDZrYOVdGTn6R6MGp1C2/s640/011.JPG" width="480" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-67026205582115683832012-06-25T23:02:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:18:42.301-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP5yb1QYNM3g8oh9at-18IpLN82C5cjof4XwRxhDlSNOij5NaZ9xoqiU7FPNQaLCjk_PTqOW-womdNePhG5ET52vGoS1dov-NkYTeqNA_orNS-n_RTkkmgAuy4yd5pzpfduQj/s1600/009.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwP5yb1QYNM3g8oh9at-18IpLN82C5cjof4XwRxhDlSNOij5NaZ9xoqiU7FPNQaLCjk_PTqOW-womdNePhG5ET52vGoS1dov-NkYTeqNA_orNS-n_RTkkmgAuy4yd5pzpfduQj/s640/009.JPG" width="640" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-52618582354934651442012-06-25T23:01:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:24:16.519-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJYQounD0tug_XUPSZbZET4NgKzwBZb5BGEMPfnCtcQAnueC76FmP2bARVQJ5wTUWOcPtyyVFCHOhakLka7_qIbBMKTQwzhFJl_cMHHPplr3gpunev2e8arA0WdZlDmjkJn5O/s1600/005.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpJYQounD0tug_XUPSZbZET4NgKzwBZb5BGEMPfnCtcQAnueC76FmP2bARVQJ5wTUWOcPtyyVFCHOhakLka7_qIbBMKTQwzhFJl_cMHHPplr3gpunev2e8arA0WdZlDmjkJn5O/s640/005.JPG" width="480" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-55078298820532650662012-06-25T22:59:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:23:59.249-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV-2FOb18XkIx56DibrYip5JLMBH9xJ6QKdJlfJMvc1iVQvDXbg_-0iRnuGooDA1WMj1ES0hYcerMhEGZi4AUm9CL1H-ubxHsiQnNYY7bt1jzSEn-GjLlH7iLFbf5RlX7FBCEU/s1600/004.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV-2FOb18XkIx56DibrYip5JLMBH9xJ6QKdJlfJMvc1iVQvDXbg_-0iRnuGooDA1WMj1ES0hYcerMhEGZi4AUm9CL1H-ubxHsiQnNYY7bt1jzSEn-GjLlH7iLFbf5RlX7FBCEU/s640/004.JPG" width="480" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-2297948845672962382012-06-25T22:58:00.001-07:002012-06-25T23:14:55.598-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Q_xk9g0GdJBSwmeOUtCxnqMUBeo14evPR9bohdjJaugwF4umwpmKkDbINz0uEAX-GlrLANVY0tz6wECWYqZicIzWrMnTLxi4835iWXJUjwosVdWor-FFMHhQ8ClsK7V46_9v/s1600/002.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8Q_xk9g0GdJBSwmeOUtCxnqMUBeo14evPR9bohdjJaugwF4umwpmKkDbINz0uEAX-GlrLANVY0tz6wECWYqZicIzWrMnTLxi4835iWXJUjwosVdWor-FFMHhQ8ClsK7V46_9v/s640/002.JPG" width="640" /></a> </div>
<div style="clear: both; text-align: CENTER;">
<a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; border: 0px none; padding: 0px;" /></a></div>
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-75786693412989689342012-06-25T22:15:00.003-07:002012-06-25T23:12:39.283-07:00Facebook Me!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Click on the link to facebook me!<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4134114229475&set=a.2215506385478.2130704.1182143419&type=1&theater#!/timothy.anderson.selkirkcowboy" target="_blank">FACEBOOK ME!</a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-53478660169016306462012-05-06T12:39:00.003-07:002012-05-06T12:40:05.906-07:00I wish...<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9NSez7Ux-NvLtoaI9RbhsoEEwaUq0LH6d_XtQKH76YI4eAwccDJ-Mkh2jbEkE5H0AgpsioqqHb1fE6t6Ory3Uedzam8bn5F-bXHK8wC_UohHGS-LQlzJF6cTf7gwIrRPyC34/s1600/117.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhS9NSez7Ux-NvLtoaI9RbhsoEEwaUq0LH6d_XtQKH76YI4eAwccDJ-Mkh2jbEkE5H0AgpsioqqHb1fE6t6Ory3Uedzam8bn5F-bXHK8wC_UohHGS-LQlzJF6cTf7gwIrRPyC34/s400/117.JPG" /></a> </div><div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-82499912686495394842012-05-06T12:39:00.001-07:002012-05-06T12:39:17.561-07:00Spring. Finally here.<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2yhc3auOy2BYpFtTFclPHSFPvBSeAyq-lgZpYShh767UnfpFm54yElkLNoDLF_FHJwS9rYVkWldBJe94zbuJN-oSGzh1-3Z_d8X0Xwsmiu13OfQulMtLuCBGVSloD60z_ifV/s1600/74736_182324375222742_100003355429331_247724_230602909_n.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi2yhc3auOy2BYpFtTFclPHSFPvBSeAyq-lgZpYShh767UnfpFm54yElkLNoDLF_FHJwS9rYVkWldBJe94zbuJN-oSGzh1-3Z_d8X0Xwsmiu13OfQulMtLuCBGVSloD60z_ifV/s400/74736_182324375222742_100003355429331_247724_230602909_n.jpg" /></a> </div><div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-46931612121519445442012-04-24T09:31:00.001-07:002012-04-24T09:31:39.117-07:00"Gay In America" Book Trailer<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5S1emYtI8_E?fs=1" width="480"></iframe><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/08/gay-in-america-scott-pastfield/">http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/12/08/gay-in-america-scott-pastfield/</a>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-27760011910498517352012-04-24T08:53:00.001-07:002012-04-24T08:53:56.124-07:00<div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8XzSR2H8ml6TAIQN2ZqZvKv3BY-j2tm8oFHD-sWAAE3DAJ9p9wccKjpGTnX-Xb4oY8FFJBEobtXqq3bxQRYfuQzT3e7GO-KRa5p71cAxa6j8ArpU9-muSlS3ot6LE73GQAXR/s1600/004.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv8XzSR2H8ml6TAIQN2ZqZvKv3BY-j2tm8oFHD-sWAAE3DAJ9p9wccKjpGTnX-Xb4oY8FFJBEobtXqq3bxQRYfuQzT3e7GO-KRa5p71cAxa6j8ArpU9-muSlS3ot6LE73GQAXR/s400/004.JPG" width="640px" /></a> </div><div style='clear:both; text-align:CENTER'><a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-34264644883423904352012-04-09T09:19:00.002-07:002012-04-09T09:21:51.260-07:00In case any of you are talented in the long lost art of three man pole walking. Here's your event:<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBxYg0Me1cd4f61KIf9p_-UQcaP_xrVr7hH03INa5P3iSFTXvoWZ7bPatDZEtuDRWjrlFRNyXso22A6gdIfLzxDxQNKc-Kv0faHYho_7Lc49A4iuxZO13LX28HOpdfNKKqMXq/s1600/001.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVBxYg0Me1cd4f61KIf9p_-UQcaP_xrVr7hH03INa5P3iSFTXvoWZ7bPatDZEtuDRWjrlFRNyXso22A6gdIfLzxDxQNKc-Kv0faHYho_7Lc49A4iuxZO13LX28HOpdfNKKqMXq/s640/001.JPG" width="491px" /></a> </div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: 0% 50%; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-43722921825398301732012-04-09T09:17:00.002-07:002012-04-09T09:22:17.884-07:00Pend Oreille County Culture.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-qoqHYmMFE67dfwzZl7QKgquLAnRpY5TIqByA1kOwiWveB7dB5rn75DRvfO-aEQuXFLsvKgkCViACqXMPwK7DMcmOU7D_iWijLa5RDRobHcHMrmptlXzfYQwURsfOiWVGQ6d/s1600/046.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF-qoqHYmMFE67dfwzZl7QKgquLAnRpY5TIqByA1kOwiWveB7dB5rn75DRvfO-aEQuXFLsvKgkCViACqXMPwK7DMcmOU7D_iWijLa5RDRobHcHMrmptlXzfYQwURsfOiWVGQ6d/s640/046.JPG" width="640px" /></a><br />
<br />
The Rainbows set up camp last year off Flowery Trail Pass. Another 13,000 of them hung out up near Mt Rainier. It's all about the barter fair, the peace, love, and flowers.</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: 0% 50%; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-46809039756606788392012-04-02T21:47:00.004-07:002012-04-02T22:07:05.902-07:00These guys want to show you a good time. Beach Bear Weekend.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj69X5GiX109R77pZRvukG1KUbVZVLWlWZ4hUZi3LG4Whc9EKAxRTP9FWxED-seLtqm5jLHp0ZXmLUysoWJXPg3t7NBkoN2SxPJ7MxDF8Wiyg7V9tDYHfCmve2H3QBdNVWvoz1A/s1600/MSC_0344.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="422px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj69X5GiX109R77pZRvukG1KUbVZVLWlWZ4hUZi3LG4Whc9EKAxRTP9FWxED-seLtqm5jLHp0ZXmLUysoWJXPg3t7NBkoN2SxPJ7MxDF8Wiyg7V9tDYHfCmve2H3QBdNVWvoz1A/s640/MSC_0344.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
Coming to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. May 10-14, 2012.<br />
<br />
Beachbear Weekend is not about a bunch of attitude. <br />
<br />
This is not just another over-hyped circuit party.<br />
<br />
It's for a good cause with all the proceeds going directly to Sunserve, which is a very worthwhile southern Florida GLBTQ organization. <br />
<br />
Beachbear Weekend isn't about DJ's. It's not about tons of competing events. Its main focus is centered on letting you relax, maybe on the beach, or at the great host hotel, which by the way, has a very limited number of rooms still left. Better book your room soon.<br />
<br />
Imagine-- <b><i>The beach</i></b>. Sebastian Beach. Home of Bears. Sun. More Bears.<br />
<br />
Also imagine these amazing local hot spots:<br />
<br />
Galanga<br />
<br />
Wilton Beir Garden<br />
<br />
Rodeo<br />
<br />
Pink Submarine<br />
<br />
Baileys Bistro<br />
<br />
Matty's<br />
<br />
Bona Italia<br />
<br />
Geisha <br />
<br />
Rosie's<br />
<br />
Alibi<br />
<br />
Scandals<br />
<br />
TJ Sushi<br />
<br />
The Manor<br />
<br />
And Nuts About Yogart-- <br />
<br />
<b><i>THESE are just a few</i></b> of the great places to eat in Wilton Manors that will be offering discounts during BeachBear Weekend when registered with SunServe.<br />
<br />
Better yet, your registration results in your direct donation to this wonderful 501c.3 nonprofit agency.<br />
<br />
So let's see--All kinds of drink specials, foods specials, easy transportation to the entire Wilton Manners/Fort Lauderdale Scene, a great hotel, a fantastic beach, inland waterways, great shopping and a super awesome, good cause...<br />
<br />
Oh ya, did we mention the bears?<br />
<br />
And what else?<br />
<br />
How about a weekend of Dancing. Two stepping at Scandals. Disco at Boom.<br />
<br />
There's Beach Volleyball.<br />
<br />
Jet ski rentals. <br />
<br />
The guys from Beach Bear Weekend are looking forward to hosting this first annual event located on the world's friendliest gay beach. Sun, fun and Bears. What could be better than this?<br />
<br />
Check out the beach bear weekend website: <a href="http://www.beachbearweekend.com/">http://www.beachbearweekend.com/</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Or check out their facebook page: <a href="http://www.facebook.com/#!/BeachBearWeekend">http://www.facebook.com/#!/BeachBearWeekend</a><br />
<br />
<br />
Give 'em some love. Hit the like button!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix_LUBI3XrNqL1UGjfceRXBPqGOBYAGyS9uktdShH_4ZG-hV6Xc_fkNTIDDJ33FlVqssZa3jPTdunCvvdJCqZgNyIFXgomJcWMzV21TecV2MHDmy2yqEnmzlaOjY05DP_fA6Lz/s1600/042.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix_LUBI3XrNqL1UGjfceRXBPqGOBYAGyS9uktdShH_4ZG-hV6Xc_fkNTIDDJ33FlVqssZa3jPTdunCvvdJCqZgNyIFXgomJcWMzV21TecV2MHDmy2yqEnmzlaOjY05DP_fA6Lz/s640/042.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtst09LYskjnwMNVrZ6l9IhczOWwADUpG6TclnZWitI_hvzj0bRU0V3RouRTudtvLqPPFVtWyzExlcFcQVNS1T3Oe5l-BGSHs3h3LAww6z9m6x8kPOj5ian3XYzrswY4BKVzcy/s1600/034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtst09LYskjnwMNVrZ6l9IhczOWwADUpG6TclnZWitI_hvzj0bRU0V3RouRTudtvLqPPFVtWyzExlcFcQVNS1T3Oe5l-BGSHs3h3LAww6z9m6x8kPOj5ian3XYzrswY4BKVzcy/s640/034.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HhqtdvQGT86WzGMkJT2H2HUPPZLqSwHHbgf_7NIdKztwZ_VI8iu3rSdEMDEcV2JTvlOX9LzPAMPU9TLxtNNq2NRffF1XZSju2I7ylJDMEEQuiGjb6uqwe_eN6UTpFHeyNTkr/s1600/MSC_0359.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="420px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HhqtdvQGT86WzGMkJT2H2HUPPZLqSwHHbgf_7NIdKztwZ_VI8iu3rSdEMDEcV2JTvlOX9LzPAMPU9TLxtNNq2NRffF1XZSju2I7ylJDMEEQuiGjb6uqwe_eN6UTpFHeyNTkr/s640/MSC_0359.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTYt5t92EUJ31ou0Uf6Q6XYmu_-C0wBpGv64QWYY7gfFxs11WVT5HKbiS-pH3HCQRVAgf_e-xGzhmGyb8zuiFwH1eWXSsIGFNMzcoKh6elZJFGDdGwSyAiwnNnm-STB6EteGXa/s1600/MSC_0399.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="422px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTYt5t92EUJ31ou0Uf6Q6XYmu_-C0wBpGv64QWYY7gfFxs11WVT5HKbiS-pH3HCQRVAgf_e-xGzhmGyb8zuiFwH1eWXSsIGFNMzcoKh6elZJFGDdGwSyAiwnNnm-STB6EteGXa/s640/MSC_0399.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSdrOh6kfQkZPw21aPS7axSeHpP33QDEfx9N960F7laPTKqR4MDGahFe9DCdGPod3ZocwcOtHhTSIGc6ySFu4O4KMV7a_OIVIeUHaK_HXpJ0C7SyPtdSv7n0B5KJl_hMcgkfnh/s1600/MSC_0576.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="416px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSdrOh6kfQkZPw21aPS7axSeHpP33QDEfx9N960F7laPTKqR4MDGahFe9DCdGPod3ZocwcOtHhTSIGc6ySFu4O4KMV7a_OIVIeUHaK_HXpJ0C7SyPtdSv7n0B5KJl_hMcgkfnh/s640/MSC_0576.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4BcdZRhgwrO3dIXoyBTxahnaMAGLIgjMP6GM5ceAsUNu30s_aJYrjRYlT_F5ZlhheN-m0T1sMVVDi5LOHkxNmaDWSQOMI_fwnFK1kBPhTZSWO15W4qTr4w2dBIZJNpG9nPTo/s1600/bb10+all2+good.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEil4BcdZRhgwrO3dIXoyBTxahnaMAGLIgjMP6GM5ceAsUNu30s_aJYrjRYlT_F5ZlhheN-m0T1sMVVDi5LOHkxNmaDWSQOMI_fwnFK1kBPhTZSWO15W4qTr4w2dBIZJNpG9nPTo/s640/bb10+all2+good.JPG" width="426px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Fia0y9URVPxYylNfDeuPqfMwq3fycx5yld9eVh-X63ruW8iqQMqbKXSJYMSay2Et1kOl8BY7m2yQ5vyBR1gtBp2QSXWosvVAN0ErCjpI2iIrI4NYZTq9JQokdCKX-QoMqMGg/s1600/bb13+sand+good.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Fia0y9URVPxYylNfDeuPqfMwq3fycx5yld9eVh-X63ruW8iqQMqbKXSJYMSay2Et1kOl8BY7m2yQ5vyBR1gtBp2QSXWosvVAN0ErCjpI2iIrI4NYZTq9JQokdCKX-QoMqMGg/s640/bb13+sand+good.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ugNpTwRKAFTOwRcuWvlMWs7JkjmTTtkffG3xWH_iFNTb5HZCErLD6cadCYlc5rvqYcsfLPp47IH40f3-NU1Bsvfoo4V2L6tujUB1IQslpYsNG4ICO8v3GwXQ0y-tkkqZJQ07/s1600/bb7+side+good.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2ugNpTwRKAFTOwRcuWvlMWs7JkjmTTtkffG3xWH_iFNTb5HZCErLD6cadCYlc5rvqYcsfLPp47IH40f3-NU1Bsvfoo4V2L6tujUB1IQslpYsNG4ICO8v3GwXQ0y-tkkqZJQ07/s640/bb7+side+good.JPG" width="426px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKpRTzwFDcIYqvXTuAq0VmuMW3QTSyUPC84QSNtNltl3FU2gg6p7hCaUqNKvxluS_DpP_jthFodvCCcWk8vdDSVNP6ObfAI4N5ChjuZZt3ExYxa3kb7OfvowtG0o0St56E4i9-/s1600/boats.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKpRTzwFDcIYqvXTuAq0VmuMW3QTSyUPC84QSNtNltl3FU2gg6p7hCaUqNKvxluS_DpP_jthFodvCCcWk8vdDSVNP6ObfAI4N5ChjuZZt3ExYxa3kb7OfvowtG0o0St56E4i9-/s640/boats.jpg" width="360px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Uq-Yr5Kwq7XkSPGd24UKL2k7GJi_I4DW2c0eUL6ks07zwjtwaIOFj0qhvoseAdmAimObYlXM1tJflbGOTlmefbZKw3JNOKoo5GBYQhK50IsqDlP9onbNqI5RpeOriejNgJTT/s1600/logo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2Uq-Yr5Kwq7XkSPGd24UKL2k7GJi_I4DW2c0eUL6ks07zwjtwaIOFj0qhvoseAdmAimObYlXM1tJflbGOTlmefbZKw3JNOKoo5GBYQhK50IsqDlP9onbNqI5RpeOriejNgJTT/s640/logo.jpg" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Av6skLQbQrQ?feature=player_embedded" width="640"></iframe><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIl7B-jpWtCs2GQGOm5TbpcyCk4JW04T7zNH91smBcurEaw1o8yxNdDznKgvfK329oO9pHbkvv7vzSP0G5Kf-UWjbupVl-Mk36rsOl7fshk6heBNuS34Q7UY9oUEv7HAXR9A8G/s1600/046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIl7B-jpWtCs2GQGOm5TbpcyCk4JW04T7zNH91smBcurEaw1o8yxNdDznKgvfK329oO9pHbkvv7vzSP0G5Kf-UWjbupVl-Mk36rsOl7fshk6heBNuS34Q7UY9oUEv7HAXR9A8G/s640/046.JPG" width="640px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDcOlPiY3gmL3DaR07AeNkUU0LWhmGVv8Y8KNaK5coCWrANipymMI_oMo0TEsyM1htE2FCKNKaUPulBgC25dXjvAlkEyZA97oPqei8pSi7zCTeDwpY3yNIO5qC_-bzIxufHDb/s1600/005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisDcOlPiY3gmL3DaR07AeNkUU0LWhmGVv8Y8KNaK5coCWrANipymMI_oMo0TEsyM1htE2FCKNKaUPulBgC25dXjvAlkEyZA97oPqei8pSi7zCTeDwpY3yNIO5qC_-bzIxufHDb/s640/005.JPG" width="640px" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKjBg0u2Z3kGNK0HjEoBT_RBqiq6SjmKnisJiXcJcvPu9lpJTbulHaIypvJcsB3JF2t0AoRwqJIiHsQI8AWxCco-HODB46B5mEIC-3EIgsY28G6Jw5njAIWrc0cRBIXjFgDWN/s1600/logo1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifKjBg0u2Z3kGNK0HjEoBT_RBqiq6SjmKnisJiXcJcvPu9lpJTbulHaIypvJcsB3JF2t0AoRwqJIiHsQI8AWxCco-HODB46B5mEIC-3EIgsY28G6Jw5njAIWrc0cRBIXjFgDWN/s640/logo1.JPG" width="640px" /></a><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpeFRroELv0vfT6lM-_qIOBDTA2AWUtn0v7jBQLM3Y19Ej3LVe5qEecvphc_XGikdBZNFPQvXWOCTkK7507WX3XBBrFUV5Nf7Oc5IlcK88WsaAHxwuwXhE83shxPAgVpFQM-4b/s1600/047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKWDCLbnNycscZ4YWNIlzo0XQ9NjZGvbZalafUOY2zJHpr79u1ZuGJWA7VSb3QGu9WKdANJcJFn6FW29FD0RVpQSqJy5VcrWskzjit0JO6lbOxQYaQvkH-tBGHot4wK1WsfMj/s1600/007.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEKWDCLbnNycscZ4YWNIlzo0XQ9NjZGvbZalafUOY2zJHpr79u1ZuGJWA7VSb3QGu9WKdANJcJFn6FW29FD0RVpQSqJy5VcrWskzjit0JO6lbOxQYaQvkH-tBGHot4wK1WsfMj/s640/007.JPG" width="640px" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="480px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpeFRroELv0vfT6lM-_qIOBDTA2AWUtn0v7jBQLM3Y19Ej3LVe5qEecvphc_XGikdBZNFPQvXWOCTkK7507WX3XBBrFUV5Nf7Oc5IlcK88WsaAHxwuwXhE83shxPAgVpFQM-4b/s640/047.JPG" width="640px" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxb4vrpdCahHhxnRmpOQ-jnkHb1uAc7dIkZjYDXod7J1IwEHmL77TuCHPoZLwWj_D6Dq8jc0AyJps0hKPGkgI5j7wfzdgz-E6Oxe3Jts9KmrzlJ8wQgdoWN8d36H4jk9Mfk2eF/s1600/mail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxb4vrpdCahHhxnRmpOQ-jnkHb1uAc7dIkZjYDXod7J1IwEHmL77TuCHPoZLwWj_D6Dq8jc0AyJps0hKPGkgI5j7wfzdgz-E6Oxe3Jts9KmrzlJ8wQgdoWN8d36H4jk9Mfk2eF/s640/mail.jpg" width="640px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_PXXUuJ99QKoYs0nDnh9xk60tC6UE_cfxhYxTTsRp4eDaGCV0bIAQ3jr7oQK894SvPXvpa56stxrA6lAQ5j_A20by-tI-PsXNgyiDFndDVDmWwpYbFdEUzd9Z5y4dyvYUGoyE/s1600/028.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_PXXUuJ99QKoYs0nDnh9xk60tC6UE_cfxhYxTTsRp4eDaGCV0bIAQ3jr7oQK894SvPXvpa56stxrA6lAQ5j_A20by-tI-PsXNgyiDFndDVDmWwpYbFdEUzd9Z5y4dyvYUGoyE/s640/028.JPG" width="636px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPVwcVfTivPXGmUrM3WCskPVc2Q9vmfsRi5k8H9kC0UH69c9DdAaP3ACj3bqzvR-i8VnCYEXZ58Jdk3LbjCUpGB2avjZgnSOqcEg-ulLbZGLue1Jqu5-T5hmnscEg64wjIoxXt/s1600/029.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPVwcVfTivPXGmUrM3WCskPVc2Q9vmfsRi5k8H9kC0UH69c9DdAaP3ACj3bqzvR-i8VnCYEXZ58Jdk3LbjCUpGB2avjZgnSOqcEg-ulLbZGLue1Jqu5-T5hmnscEg64wjIoxXt/s640/029.JPG" width="480px" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ZuIa5yTQOjbcxrCoFHG8ssR10rw1Z0ToJz5kl-Z3HKNxGPXZ_aQIsg18xVeVIq-vWG4rT6dC40tQSGCyRKc1haWUIXm1ZFqUW3mGFttwsJkPdLARYn3Hd-pi2YTLETq_69c/s1600/032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA5ZuIa5yTQOjbcxrCoFHG8ssR10rw1Z0ToJz5kl-Z3HKNxGPXZ_aQIsg18xVeVIq-vWG4rT6dC40tQSGCyRKc1haWUIXm1ZFqUW3mGFttwsJkPdLARYn3Hd-pi2YTLETq_69c/s640/032.JPG" width="480px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3i7mtRLme1dfSxskRUEEMcck9lefxq0IkaAv9qVdtCYOzs97Oy6MkDj_nox7BNsw_pmG6Ldv4qsf2z55nRwM15d_Oj6jSMCIDaxHTI4amfIJHBM2TYl0tOelTSTA5P9ZpRgrz/s1600/palm+trees.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3i7mtRLme1dfSxskRUEEMcck9lefxq0IkaAv9qVdtCYOzs97Oy6MkDj_nox7BNsw_pmG6Ldv4qsf2z55nRwM15d_Oj6jSMCIDaxHTI4amfIJHBM2TYl0tOelTSTA5P9ZpRgrz/s640/palm+trees.jpg" width="360px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj672FL0iyjqf6xbcyXhyzY4TLZEMBB_65R2GocFrWAXCoDAetglyoNlJH72_PL_zht8EURVxa0_DwlujUZIBtHx6pA1K5imBpIDsQlTXLJfnPbHEU8F3-0f2rVRoGSx8x-pDyy/s1600/photo7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj672FL0iyjqf6xbcyXhyzY4TLZEMBB_65R2GocFrWAXCoDAetglyoNlJH72_PL_zht8EURVxa0_DwlujUZIBtHx6pA1K5imBpIDsQlTXLJfnPbHEU8F3-0f2rVRoGSx8x-pDyy/s640/photo7.jpg" width="640px" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipEeygC9JANmy0zz4J2-h0MGALfR5MQlfO8UYCD-glm4BJXUBbO3cffmwoO_ULSB0Mlc9ATwFHVwlftOuBkoymSBK2iYxCCJKsXPjecGEc1q1n6-C_APF1rJjJfFa3kHj0-ckC/s1600/sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipEeygC9JANmy0zz4J2-h0MGALfR5MQlfO8UYCD-glm4BJXUBbO3cffmwoO_ULSB0Mlc9ATwFHVwlftOuBkoymSBK2iYxCCJKsXPjecGEc1q1n6-C_APF1rJjJfFa3kHj0-ckC/s640/sunset.jpg" width="360px" /></a></div><br />
</div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-35715931080561194022012-04-02T21:42:00.003-07:002012-04-02T22:02:00.961-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwRfyNUdETQLDqBL_Pby4u6kR7yOh_165cm9dTJYt8_6sabQT9rEOMWii1FPmVZskTAIwmbezN5cWlKfp3Ly7JUwT6Ym63oEVGFRtCgzqFvkAEQyJkT7Icm7sDQfKsX9X_4Uyc/s1600/MSC_0576.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" height="387px" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwRfyNUdETQLDqBL_Pby4u6kR7yOh_165cm9dTJYt8_6sabQT9rEOMWii1FPmVZskTAIwmbezN5cWlKfp3Ly7JUwT6Ym63oEVGFRtCgzqFvkAEQyJkT7Icm7sDQfKsX9X_4Uyc/s640/MSC_0576.JPG" width="640px" /></a><br />
<br />
Your Hosts!</div><div style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img align="middle" alt="Posted by Picasa" border="0" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" style="-moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; background: 0% 50%; border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a></div></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-49559136711615923572012-04-02T19:11:00.008-07:002012-04-02T19:11:51.401-07:00Point. And Shoot.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-MAHAeoZ8sHTfSpBGrBJRqjh1n9AQOR9RGKrcwBcemXNJT61rrjkJ3FAtbUF9f9U66bQDP6utEw3yMpR6YxUVXl3S6WcvkdCkH-672BDJvOZtfze_Pk2NKNUqRJb95RbXuf-/s1600/IMG_9525.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU-MAHAeoZ8sHTfSpBGrBJRqjh1n9AQOR9RGKrcwBcemXNJT61rrjkJ3FAtbUF9f9U66bQDP6utEw3yMpR6YxUVXl3S6WcvkdCkH-672BDJvOZtfze_Pk2NKNUqRJb95RbXuf-/s640/IMG_9525.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vbudVepPV25l7Jl3Afcy0N4f_LX19UZ0QeL9vLZPMONmolbu4dOJ1Y98bH55Gn3UsVdYOEMCPSzX9r2aHSzBWxya9wHUaJrTJ0qfDEbL71MSGRDixb3MxwEgGANY4WqI5CJp/s1600/IMG_9531.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vbudVepPV25l7Jl3Afcy0N4f_LX19UZ0QeL9vLZPMONmolbu4dOJ1Y98bH55Gn3UsVdYOEMCPSzX9r2aHSzBWxya9wHUaJrTJ0qfDEbL71MSGRDixb3MxwEgGANY4WqI5CJp/s640/IMG_9531.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEHTbxuDdHaVp3XScmWFGsQkgcXb-n5AJWsgHdfVc1-QGrvO3_mks2Z1lbgGgfGlIMOnGJaA5Rb_SYLoa87D1X99SNcKZwWKDtUgs5iTN0-liNz6yf8V8U0X2Ha-l39CuO8HdU/s1600/IMG_9581.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEHTbxuDdHaVp3XScmWFGsQkgcXb-n5AJWsgHdfVc1-QGrvO3_mks2Z1lbgGgfGlIMOnGJaA5Rb_SYLoa87D1X99SNcKZwWKDtUgs5iTN0-liNz6yf8V8U0X2Ha-l39CuO8HdU/s640/IMG_9581.JPG" width="588" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNyHAO9srjVMs85xj7EiLd8YuiL6TvoNz5iiOrJtw9s7eUFdVKCdIFy6myNOvfukemmZV9ZGml814VEC1eIkZJ4oOPAzxnKMh8sO7zj_iKkafPv2SA5HrcNFSFAprl2FuTlBt8/s1600/IMG_9623_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNyHAO9srjVMs85xj7EiLd8YuiL6TvoNz5iiOrJtw9s7eUFdVKCdIFy6myNOvfukemmZV9ZGml814VEC1eIkZJ4oOPAzxnKMh8sO7zj_iKkafPv2SA5HrcNFSFAprl2FuTlBt8/s640/IMG_9623_2.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoBoIqxLY5hqLGF6k_Ch1vdp-BKNZe-SuVIfR-hvLEaQrpDWXwxYvuEDcFPZCImDVpV_1qMvTGukQSJAiEvjbhRi2CELP01CJ03c5-gZHJhh9b_8MogoLlpP0jyiPKrf6p64KW/s1600/IMG_9626.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoBoIqxLY5hqLGF6k_Ch1vdp-BKNZe-SuVIfR-hvLEaQrpDWXwxYvuEDcFPZCImDVpV_1qMvTGukQSJAiEvjbhRi2CELP01CJ03c5-gZHJhh9b_8MogoLlpP0jyiPKrf6p64KW/s640/IMG_9626.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb3YfoHhhMxrhA-pUytMHQqU2sTnC1poqUbfGD_tXbk-dLwkTY8ColWD8poKdnSmfw9Haq0D4AforzOtdb2x3mW1TJwFctKSN1mmqkTZV1DGPkaY5OH-Jh3u1hwSBkURuB1HXB/s1600/IMG_9632.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb3YfoHhhMxrhA-pUytMHQqU2sTnC1poqUbfGD_tXbk-dLwkTY8ColWD8poKdnSmfw9Haq0D4AforzOtdb2x3mW1TJwFctKSN1mmqkTZV1DGPkaY5OH-Jh3u1hwSBkURuB1HXB/s640/IMG_9632.JPG" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJeobDgL08GToMoUgOIS749SdIzNAcym1cB-igBK6NyIvWe-u94xAmd-uLewl1OFtEFzw_Xqkb6K2ijOFCYkwIDf0xIPzckSli5pvLiV8OYTAA1h3qXTT6AoL_YW-ynhxoL1Rg/s1600/IMG_9646.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJeobDgL08GToMoUgOIS749SdIzNAcym1cB-igBK6NyIvWe-u94xAmd-uLewl1OFtEFzw_Xqkb6K2ijOFCYkwIDf0xIPzckSli5pvLiV8OYTAA1h3qXTT6AoL_YW-ynhxoL1Rg/s640/IMG_9646.JPG" width="636" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTP9VSO1i6dmnVMmTTwopBw3O7Pt2jusPCfIk7mVKyYOekK7qRwazeBEhuVBZ3Js6xZSfkBP-N7b8GogzUMQ903Zx-p4b7SJAFFsLkwzxcZ85ra6S-qu98UjLIErLJlh3SwAUu/s1600/IMG_9653.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="564" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTP9VSO1i6dmnVMmTTwopBw3O7Pt2jusPCfIk7mVKyYOekK7qRwazeBEhuVBZ3Js6xZSfkBP-N7b8GogzUMQ903Zx-p4b7SJAFFsLkwzxcZ85ra6S-qu98UjLIErLJlh3SwAUu/s640/IMG_9653.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_snJXvbN3Yq9WYjdrR9lVjMyeMHsgXAZxAIQ9YgH4kN1jdB9_JupclcI7tb23mJQhLJRUu5nuBNsXSEkMuZTOp6gkgaxWX6IgiCs0VynsniHuyNJg09MuJaPWyzpHjikVWCmd/s1600/IMG_9660.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_snJXvbN3Yq9WYjdrR9lVjMyeMHsgXAZxAIQ9YgH4kN1jdB9_JupclcI7tb23mJQhLJRUu5nuBNsXSEkMuZTOp6gkgaxWX6IgiCs0VynsniHuyNJg09MuJaPWyzpHjikVWCmd/s640/IMG_9660.JPG" width="612" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnYmcdpseaO7I6AxlhJbTIldamfRLuKHD3NjvQL67aY8VAw3aBer6c4CGf1InuGieOwpIy7QIw7RF7WwflxwfZus9VnDRZMvg05hhdDTKyuGdMtkcydfykFn8xsSdleSn7RXI/s1600/IMG_9662.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhnYmcdpseaO7I6AxlhJbTIldamfRLuKHD3NjvQL67aY8VAw3aBer6c4CGf1InuGieOwpIy7QIw7RF7WwflxwfZus9VnDRZMvg05hhdDTKyuGdMtkcydfykFn8xsSdleSn7RXI/s640/IMG_9662.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1VhLMKMHYCWsSnQfKLFqX0ezyC_HSw5EM2lNTpCd5Sx3TiqH7sFyMzo9XoONBQD5DuC2Faro265_kkwKORKs1NZj-g32_NHtSdH4cyP-iO74x74JrGNLXq4Hv5zPv_zTQMHW/s1600/IMG_9697.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="508" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS1VhLMKMHYCWsSnQfKLFqX0ezyC_HSw5EM2lNTpCd5Sx3TiqH7sFyMzo9XoONBQD5DuC2Faro265_kkwKORKs1NZj-g32_NHtSdH4cyP-iO74x74JrGNLXq4Hv5zPv_zTQMHW/s640/IMG_9697.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6ekxWkN05pIxQrJpbJsV3BjNqt1RGGAkLdI86x60Xe03VhNneBaXPH2cxzfyOFpWbNRjWK71PD2ezpWdw9Jr5qzLH0F9Sk6okTK9V3K5yMYuQLsLyyC0zxeMEb5ooRL-6h0p/s1600/IMG_9700.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="598" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6ekxWkN05pIxQrJpbJsV3BjNqt1RGGAkLdI86x60Xe03VhNneBaXPH2cxzfyOFpWbNRjWK71PD2ezpWdw9Jr5qzLH0F9Sk6okTK9V3K5yMYuQLsLyyC0zxeMEb5ooRL-6h0p/s640/IMG_9700.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAO10xMuwp4AUpVl8ZFlIFjcO2BdNSIp7UDQ32_3qlFtmwmDP-H59zja67DNXPK1zXkBUK07awGVULTwuDvP0JtGgaA_bHA-XyPAeh7pc8Rtfg6z-BlnzkyqLH-AjbqRblQYI8/s1600/Kootenay+Crossing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAO10xMuwp4AUpVl8ZFlIFjcO2BdNSIp7UDQ32_3qlFtmwmDP-H59zja67DNXPK1zXkBUK07awGVULTwuDvP0JtGgaA_bHA-XyPAeh7pc8Rtfg6z-BlnzkyqLH-AjbqRblQYI8/s640/Kootenay+Crossing.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxhPOA7AduEQaU_BFTxhsOhOT5sCFArPHHYzUhv2Nr5VIClqtY5p5aAhaoMDHuY-QHoL-yhYfIirwaLJ1C7j5mxHFS8WNtPlylCO3eHs7KZOCbKZ36qJ-K_d9UI0BmaIN-7KZV/s1600/Near+Nature+Near+Perfect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="388" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxhPOA7AduEQaU_BFTxhsOhOT5sCFArPHHYzUhv2Nr5VIClqtY5p5aAhaoMDHuY-QHoL-yhYfIirwaLJ1C7j5mxHFS8WNtPlylCO3eHs7KZOCbKZ36qJ-K_d9UI0BmaIN-7KZV/s640/Near+Nature+Near+Perfect.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ66m63vjIIZYxpqy8IWaGu9ebTS8JL34wWgB5XCEZtxX9ZqrGJ4djpaNTKa3BPZnzT_vIYs6JjjsBnPzywN7DgP0zwmQs5dg1kvL4YTTjV4jSVZMix4_B2beEdHsgAyBnw_kd/s1600/Pend+Oreille+River,+Newport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ66m63vjIIZYxpqy8IWaGu9ebTS8JL34wWgB5XCEZtxX9ZqrGJ4djpaNTKa3BPZnzT_vIYs6JjjsBnPzywN7DgP0zwmQs5dg1kvL4YTTjV4jSVZMix4_B2beEdHsgAyBnw_kd/s640/Pend+Oreille+River,+Newport.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveTFkgSLD7ykKWuwXrmuD3L6gv8E5ePyDhnYw-7CukLqidC3hyphenhyphenShpX1Pa-UqNJ7AEhaav63mn9oF5gvUzaa-72MDbpvht4p28X-F82MP_oM-re97fX6TsQuPnoUgoL06rP-AA/s1600/last+light.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiveTFkgSLD7ykKWuwXrmuD3L6gv8E5ePyDhnYw-7CukLqidC3hyphenhyphenShpX1Pa-UqNJ7AEhaav63mn9oF5gvUzaa-72MDbpvht4p28X-F82MP_oM-re97fX6TsQuPnoUgoL06rP-AA/s640/last+light.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSc7DgKDzkxMsvBo_IJ9VigCYy19-Odwisz88uGePp1k13_dBY5BYAOfT_oLdv_h_rMYlnzXJrhgSOoH3UaXyKdpoJcB3dVF984NV7ajWkJQBdWTBOd_13oLtko62yMg3s-2Zs/s1600/mirrorballs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSc7DgKDzkxMsvBo_IJ9VigCYy19-Odwisz88uGePp1k13_dBY5BYAOfT_oLdv_h_rMYlnzXJrhgSOoH3UaXyKdpoJcB3dVF984NV7ajWkJQBdWTBOd_13oLtko62yMg3s-2Zs/s640/mirrorballs.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqh6US05L34AWyuWFGQ52G-xo_-6ETEL7RGXMVBmRRo9ArUdXLJbLa35jtVzXocAmhDHqLBmZFRIf-RFoLI8NEhPA-5XAu8iFrw8F8_edeIIm8A8KLY30ilremvEo8UyK7SM_1/s1600/mist+me.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqh6US05L34AWyuWFGQ52G-xo_-6ETEL7RGXMVBmRRo9ArUdXLJbLa35jtVzXocAmhDHqLBmZFRIf-RFoLI8NEhPA-5XAu8iFrw8F8_edeIIm8A8KLY30ilremvEo8UyK7SM_1/s640/mist+me.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy04lwBccN7uvz1JfsXNYXP60Uzl9NR6pRGLAeFZNJGD1qSxg1jkcG-RHk7kVyTQ7XVj3LBb41dLDEmtJ_zXnLl4pQSwqPJTsDhG9ZpmSUTPePqlnT9nftNly6qHH_gJOY7I-6/s1600/own+it.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy04lwBccN7uvz1JfsXNYXP60Uzl9NR6pRGLAeFZNJGD1qSxg1jkcG-RHk7kVyTQ7XVj3LBb41dLDEmtJ_zXnLl4pQSwqPJTsDhG9ZpmSUTPePqlnT9nftNly6qHH_gJOY7I-6/s640/own+it.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGN-b9rtCaEPpqMBHLxzMnula1CpBfw-WqkDEk_6HOp6-2qbORyt-smBeaT3rO6ZQMJMhI2TlxLFG_ASuFJd6E-9ZLr56MCih4tSoJPhrLnQPjOOjiSj0_v0BOfAeEs5_Owa5u/s1600/pink+eye+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGN-b9rtCaEPpqMBHLxzMnula1CpBfw-WqkDEk_6HOp6-2qbORyt-smBeaT3rO6ZQMJMhI2TlxLFG_ASuFJd6E-9ZLr56MCih4tSoJPhrLnQPjOOjiSj0_v0BOfAeEs5_Owa5u/s640/pink+eye+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10511057.post-60320716260764388882012-04-02T19:00:00.001-07:002012-04-02T19:00:04.634-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNFvCF0naNattOrILTZcGTNt59i6C-YSZJVcYl4JUUQV4SDSxbtc0Vcw1We0Peyk8ycPrkUIQRDCv_-Jp_N7ji4LiFl4nWS8Icskbxza1H9UaCf9b3Z4lMoQl5fBU9IS5v3X4b/s1600/Riverpark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNFvCF0naNattOrILTZcGTNt59i6C-YSZJVcYl4JUUQV4SDSxbtc0Vcw1We0Peyk8ycPrkUIQRDCv_-Jp_N7ji4LiFl4nWS8Icskbxza1H9UaCf9b3Z4lMoQl5fBU9IS5v3X4b/s640/Riverpark.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmwQzr8vo5ElwBBRMqMru_rOyz-_CvNw-apSIlplzKe2dvSv748ItI8_MW8BKw2pHnsA9fuzBq7Sm_rSx1VcRpxROf3t4Szq89SH6BQu33v86gRpvcl2_R8ivUwS03sv7pYT1/s1600/Round+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsmwQzr8vo5ElwBBRMqMru_rOyz-_CvNw-apSIlplzKe2dvSv748ItI8_MW8BKw2pHnsA9fuzBq7Sm_rSx1VcRpxROf3t4Szq89SH6BQu33v86gRpvcl2_R8ivUwS03sv7pYT1/s640/Round+II.jpg" width="612" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3IO5F6LZX4RXafXYPHg-SOmu5UrUmNsQ04KrsNChhstEMBWM9jHSlCPbqtGyCd2v_TIAuhFcCXAOqGrvbslZO-OuVbCkPxsJeuXqTHzS3hBvlpoF4GhX2RVL49P0DJyxrqaCW/s1600/Round+III.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3IO5F6LZX4RXafXYPHg-SOmu5UrUmNsQ04KrsNChhstEMBWM9jHSlCPbqtGyCd2v_TIAuhFcCXAOqGrvbslZO-OuVbCkPxsJeuXqTHzS3hBvlpoF4GhX2RVL49P0DJyxrqaCW/s640/Round+III.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_TJFd5YP87_-35ThQnHfCt-rvLkU4jHEKnz3kgSvpvAMpDdh2cRYZlQ46xReNgAV6DdClreyospv6vDovskKSWy5sM8RjJ-v6AzZL2jfbDd60CJ96T0wn6FK_7DET_RAeieOP/s1600/Round+IV.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_TJFd5YP87_-35ThQnHfCt-rvLkU4jHEKnz3kgSvpvAMpDdh2cRYZlQ46xReNgAV6DdClreyospv6vDovskKSWy5sM8RjJ-v6AzZL2jfbDd60CJ96T0wn6FK_7DET_RAeieOP/s640/Round+IV.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwRfwR5X95R7h9UGKqWoFGgywop6XkwtDqLpQtreEy7MZBjwFtVBfxV5CjlzTnixaedZ0-s8Vpp6GX28hBMarnRdA3nciU0b6bJz5zOjXEGVGwD3z-3Rnw2h2M-pdD_rW9Ms-L/s1600/Shower+Time+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwRfwR5X95R7h9UGKqWoFGgywop6XkwtDqLpQtreEy7MZBjwFtVBfxV5CjlzTnixaedZ0-s8Vpp6GX28hBMarnRdA3nciU0b6bJz5zOjXEGVGwD3z-3Rnw2h2M-pdD_rW9Ms-L/s640/Shower+Time+II.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM08hTn_3tmRMJ40oAiuP8hIK-dQ0i07Iu4PpW5UTUCpSWix7-xr0PHww8SUpVRdG2UlbH0v1TSOa0cwe_zlNJZY9UU8Tr9kAygEq2fbVE3O_TNoVSJlPP6lC4qkrM-ajhyQso/s1600/Spokane+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM08hTn_3tmRMJ40oAiuP8hIK-dQ0i07Iu4PpW5UTUCpSWix7-xr0PHww8SUpVRdG2UlbH0v1TSOa0cwe_zlNJZY9UU8Tr9kAygEq2fbVE3O_TNoVSJlPP6lC4qkrM-ajhyQso/s640/Spokane+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIkc_fX0VBMHRMum602IeZmy8vhjTBJtYa8d107ZJ76Z94jdjn20ghbIx1_CMgPPpmhhoDuGOYv_lwIuL00IiSjRCnmSxlCgRlIL6X4EtkQl3OBVFB319J6enEzPoGZj6XzuI7/s1600/Stairway+to+heaven.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIkc_fX0VBMHRMum602IeZmy8vhjTBJtYa8d107ZJ76Z94jdjn20ghbIx1_CMgPPpmhhoDuGOYv_lwIuL00IiSjRCnmSxlCgRlIL6X4EtkQl3OBVFB319J6enEzPoGZj6XzuI7/s640/Stairway+to+heaven.jpg" width="182" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_wrsiG_jTKSxnKZaUtMAtslYFle4cF-X1A7O2_t2GyfUL1I5vxhuIAzBVvOQbuYLLyu6E-xdXKKIZMRLvHAMx1nkO0NwMf99PGkbPKvfR7bRlyIaPZJdeEnbq5doHx1FB2363/s1600/Usk+WA.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_wrsiG_jTKSxnKZaUtMAtslYFle4cF-X1A7O2_t2GyfUL1I5vxhuIAzBVvOQbuYLLyu6E-xdXKKIZMRLvHAMx1nkO0NwMf99PGkbPKvfR7bRlyIaPZJdeEnbq5doHx1FB2363/s640/Usk+WA.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Ql8CIJhb7e-c6D9UPvAI8bBjfFiurgJGgl_77posYpN-_gUPfAG9wUOLpiQ1BpCJURBNJ03PLOAGlG6e-VHlgAdh79bZDVrS6JYFCtOMZC45SHYFRb-LvIdt-M0HK3kXbRk5/s1600/Washington+Idaho+Line.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_Ql8CIJhb7e-c6D9UPvAI8bBjfFiurgJGgl_77posYpN-_gUPfAG9wUOLpiQ1BpCJURBNJ03PLOAGlG6e-VHlgAdh79bZDVrS6JYFCtOMZC45SHYFRb-LvIdt-M0HK3kXbRk5/s640/Washington+Idaho+Line.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJksIhcDX0zF5N6Ty9CdagfuejTJIcprCXdMW1efzE5yGuLsFnvp7SNxaa604292OReSZ1Y6XM_Cg2uvXLq6yrSLIaVt7PLevLCcFxLiVJRwlrn6Ya6UoiX-D-0CmJaCVIg5r/s1600/Wildflowers+from+my+place.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBJksIhcDX0zF5N6Ty9CdagfuejTJIcprCXdMW1efzE5yGuLsFnvp7SNxaa604292OReSZ1Y6XM_Cg2uvXLq6yrSLIaVt7PLevLCcFxLiVJRwlrn6Ya6UoiX-D-0CmJaCVIg5r/s640/Wildflowers+from+my+place.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhogsmxZaMN8O6mJ1a029nfxacIb3TiJjADP9vq6bOXzR1MIvm2p-KZ5GnztecFODtUFkNG0X7jTrmMIrI2aDQdYpm9nwQ77rcr11Ro6mcNh2mj50JyK82Rp8W7Etzzh9E41i9J/s1600/pink+eye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhogsmxZaMN8O6mJ1a029nfxacIb3TiJjADP9vq6bOXzR1MIvm2p-KZ5GnztecFODtUFkNG0X7jTrmMIrI2aDQdYpm9nwQ77rcr11Ro6mcNh2mj50JyK82Rp8W7Etzzh9E41i9J/s640/pink+eye.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU84zD_qfQBdbmYgWiqQMj4i7r6F9SXp_I19XmRuRfUOxoeejcorXKHhfa67wcpK4aHRkl8AwrhN1u-sWeh-Z1aC7S_JtF7BAt_U-AEULFo6CZQT00NQWw__56Ylr_EG4jOJAA/s1600/red+eye.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiU84zD_qfQBdbmYgWiqQMj4i7r6F9SXp_I19XmRuRfUOxoeejcorXKHhfa67wcpK4aHRkl8AwrhN1u-sWeh-Z1aC7S_JtF7BAt_U-AEULFo6CZQT00NQWw__56Ylr_EG4jOJAA/s640/red+eye.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGpjmqbWK4HHCcZRR_nolHnd1xMeMJOwYFxbXft0xYbPtkK3DtGUKmfUWs1FA2AtbwnW9cot9Rvf3t-vvE7PI7h7AoDZsXM7ZC1LXvjXFrXd3ynyewnwlAX43lNdswsGwZDr1j/s1600/shower+time.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGpjmqbWK4HHCcZRR_nolHnd1xMeMJOwYFxbXft0xYbPtkK3DtGUKmfUWs1FA2AtbwnW9cot9Rvf3t-vvE7PI7h7AoDZsXM7ZC1LXvjXFrXd3ynyewnwlAX43lNdswsGwZDr1j/s640/shower+time.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNrO4Hqbkul2bf_TvZBQVcNuyluistz0y8p7PIyj_RzEZa2ujNQxN2vABxyhOnm3YsyVx77tMW_Q5-WPr4UTyPpggPGefLuHWbY26gRUkGd-ebDCvgdyaKCgU_wCg3fYAPkV_A/s1600/skullduggery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNrO4Hqbkul2bf_TvZBQVcNuyluistz0y8p7PIyj_RzEZa2ujNQxN2vABxyhOnm3YsyVx77tMW_Q5-WPr4UTyPpggPGefLuHWbY26gRUkGd-ebDCvgdyaKCgU_wCg3fYAPkV_A/s640/skullduggery.jpg" width="534" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYuKPH0FmRkBwLUtJidzHm7wiQtebsiGQcsWCjD64kXOwc7oVjEltf4McZhqdg-z0apGJhOYKi_T5uHcsBGs1Dop5ohZdtRmolMScqG6UCrTSFzrkued6Kf75XmipAQEG5Slo/s1600/spin+me+round.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYuKPH0FmRkBwLUtJidzHm7wiQtebsiGQcsWCjD64kXOwc7oVjEltf4McZhqdg-z0apGJhOYKi_T5uHcsBGs1Dop5ohZdtRmolMScqG6UCrTSFzrkued6Kf75XmipAQEG5Slo/s640/spin+me+round.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-zhvChAqV-FZAj6j0L5cUOf7z39Dk18uYqwmv7L5sLL8vkwq8YyGOmQjA3Roe4qJHpvuryfRajLdT3UbX0LtCV9jmKMZsI3dDqXqgYUqs07CJFtiCjyGv9xTfjwlG4jWkBoHC/s1600/sunbeam.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="470" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-zhvChAqV-FZAj6j0L5cUOf7z39Dk18uYqwmv7L5sLL8vkwq8YyGOmQjA3Roe4qJHpvuryfRajLdT3UbX0LtCV9jmKMZsI3dDqXqgYUqs07CJFtiCjyGv9xTfjwlG4jWkBoHC/s640/sunbeam.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWPxo0hguAmzUKV0Vk81cL6sK0t100YeRIhnRfg7JBktrdhXkrgU8fxfub7gH01bm0wtectqBmJIGMDPiF0tj_ydFhTM-gV-pMaTcnGmObnVkrPnp-ktdSXQvZ7T8vIy8gc1-/s1600/sunstar+II.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYWPxo0hguAmzUKV0Vk81cL6sK0t100YeRIhnRfg7JBktrdhXkrgU8fxfub7gH01bm0wtectqBmJIGMDPiF0tj_ydFhTM-gV-pMaTcnGmObnVkrPnp-ktdSXQvZ7T8vIy8gc1-/s640/sunstar+II.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hqS0mO1M9Goz8n7bCxRB3CRKKD7q6G6ANnM5G8D4Aas_4hxWhXiS1xkuQMnqHV3gzi2-b6eTxMGfdjnz1hG7bbHTyyRso8OcoR3daCPzqrQG19QDD7SCB24aViasTiVkOJE1/s1600/sunstar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2hqS0mO1M9Goz8n7bCxRB3CRKKD7q6G6ANnM5G8D4Aas_4hxWhXiS1xkuQMnqHV3gzi2-b6eTxMGfdjnz1hG7bbHTyyRso8OcoR3daCPzqrQG19QDD7SCB24aViasTiVkOJE1/s640/sunstar.jpg" width="584" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwo-zwltYdPx3eUX6OxardJA-JmlJ2UtTceQN-SrT1Il7-fTaMz9jEVMceSvxmJd3rNBnJT6acJsQzCklkLgG-CA3t8SGLhvJuQq7gUtw02Cj8T7mW2mXxQe_QjdTaGTkq82PE/s1600/tower.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwo-zwltYdPx3eUX6OxardJA-JmlJ2UtTceQN-SrT1Il7-fTaMz9jEVMceSvxmJd3rNBnJT6acJsQzCklkLgG-CA3t8SGLhvJuQq7gUtw02Cj8T7mW2mXxQe_QjdTaGTkq82PE/s640/tower.jpg" width="412" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8M39mpJNX0hjx5RA49p9hUzJXvx0NjV5NtE_ISDIUuX0qSlM6I1Dq5sFToZwSqpLvpnOYU35FnmWaS6_OENmeJ9GhVeKUcklRyXs0AxAMesP3s4jVrQoaY2CpsTAACsOr0uG/s1600/usk.1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh8M39mpJNX0hjx5RA49p9hUzJXvx0NjV5NtE_ISDIUuX0qSlM6I1Dq5sFToZwSqpLvpnOYU35FnmWaS6_OENmeJ9GhVeKUcklRyXs0AxAMesP3s4jVrQoaY2CpsTAACsOr0uG/s640/usk.1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPbOrIjRlchGR9hBoMlAofXiqqC2ai1QN2RKAKXa35-OpoqFN7AxkHSRKGgbk9YXxGDl5VTEGIkY1VRCC5_FQ2z_V_xUdpxsdkTbDrZ5fqo-0zUq6SvLKqKEWaSWd-A_r7BwuK/s1600/usk.2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="518" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPbOrIjRlchGR9hBoMlAofXiqqC2ai1QN2RKAKXa35-OpoqFN7AxkHSRKGgbk9YXxGDl5VTEGIkY1VRCC5_FQ2z_V_xUdpxsdkTbDrZ5fqo-0zUq6SvLKqKEWaSWd-A_r7BwuK/s640/usk.2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7WuBW_wWxehLivM34SkRknaaqQM4fCrhsmwNyxJjOmnAOmumtJ_L2BTVVIo7KRh2J7wQAgTXflQ4_Z0Cd0Im0gMS2-ud8b9kBpo7evjbVMQRjNXLjQDdOe4FlFKuWmDUiaMtZ/s1600/usk.3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7WuBW_wWxehLivM34SkRknaaqQM4fCrhsmwNyxJjOmnAOmumtJ_L2BTVVIo7KRh2J7wQAgTXflQ4_Z0Cd0Im0gMS2-ud8b9kBpo7evjbVMQRjNXLjQDdOe4FlFKuWmDUiaMtZ/s640/usk.3.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWo-IOcGNEB76_eKeglf4R-iOfDdHWe-hBT3VLFpSFGAvDwjkR6voyMwgh8GcKQl7T57qmTIKAP113-TzQfqQD_FsQ5hiAKpUcFRslGMgbjMburtf-n8-WvMYJ3-gT616ML7GJ/s1600/woodfiller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWo-IOcGNEB76_eKeglf4R-iOfDdHWe-hBT3VLFpSFGAvDwjkR6voyMwgh8GcKQl7T57qmTIKAP113-TzQfqQD_FsQ5hiAKpUcFRslGMgbjMburtf-n8-WvMYJ3-gT616ML7GJ/s640/woodfiller.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
<br /></div>Timbohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06029667492693014847noreply@blogger.com0