Are You Still Free? Can You Be?

On the Still Discovering America tour...














since 1968. Happy Columbus Day to you (traditional);
Happy Birthday to Me.

Made more sense when we were a "couple" in the traditional sense, but I used to joke Norm that Mal and I were gaining on him. We'd have tied him in January 2012, and collectively surpassed his years of experience in January 2013.

Columbus: there's a man in history some can relate to...
You get the idea he'd rather have been on the water and pouring over his maps than groveling for the financing, but a man in all ages does what he must, I suppose.

Then, for all his great accomplishments, all the deals he crafted that were reneged on, all the discoveries he didn't realize he'd done, they say, he dies penniless, shackled on later journeys, a presumed failure. ...

History now kinda has Columbus down as one of its greatest Losers. And this is all before the Evil White Man rewrite, courtesy of the PC times of 1992...

And yet...

Imagine those last nights on the first journey, competing with his own men and barely hanging on to his ship. In Caribbean waters sailing into the unknown, he knows it's out there, but his men are of lesser faith. He negotiates for time, wait and see what will be... understanding even if they don't, how close the New World really is, though even he can't comprehend where his journey has taken them all...

And lo!
On the morning of the 12th: solid land. Just the beginning really...

Stand up in a clear blue morning...
Until you see, what can be alone
in a cold day dawning

It casts a toll... on you. (That's how I heard it anyway.)

Make it a great day; you never know how close you are...

Don't Quit!
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low, and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As everyone of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
when he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worse, that...

You Must Not Quit.

~ C. W. Longenecker ~

ADDED:
Speaking of the Americas, how 'bout those Chilean miners -- the government, families, and corporate interests -- people across the world working together and keeping the faith that all 33 can be brought home safely...

With the eyes of the world on Chile's no-expense-spared effort to ensure all the men emerge unharmed, the miners' physical and mental health was being fastidiously monitored. Precautions were taken against all manner of complications — aspirin to prevent blood clots, a special drink to settle the stomach, video monitors to watch for panic attacks.

And officials said the men were so giddy with confidence they were squabbling on Saturday, the day drills broke through to them, over who would get to be the last to take a twisting, 20-minute ride the half-mile up to a rock-strewn desert moonscape and into the embrace of those they love.

A tentative but secret list was drafted of which miners should come out first when the extraction begins, probably on Wednesday. But Health Minister Jaime Manalich said the otherwise cooperative miners were so sure of the exit plan that they were arguing about sequence.

"They were fighting with us yesterday because everyone wanted to be at the end of the line, not the beginning," he told reporters.