Naivete

Back from a brief trip to Florida. Drove. Bad mistake, but I survived and there's no carnage strewn along side the road so I guess everyone else did too. On the way dropped by Gettysburg, PA. Hadn't visited a site like that before. Had always thought a battle field would be nothing more than a big pasture and a few statues. Well, there's plenty of that there but there's also a lot more. I came away form there with a new sense of the history of my country. We had purchased a narrated driving tour booklet/CD that explained what I was looking at in a particular location. A battle, life and death, for hundreds and in some cases thousands happened here. The ground was soaked with the blood of young men fighting for a cause I knew nothing about. The Civil War. The War between the states. It has other names but I knew little except a bit I been told in school which I discovered had been woefully lacking in detail. I had never experienced such deep sorrow before in my life for persons so remote from me. I grew up a little bit. I learned to abhor greed more than ever before; I learned that stubborn men seeking their own agendas had fomented much of the discord; I learned the media played a larger role, even then, of disseminating information and propaganda than I had imagined; I learned that today's news and methods in politics is unchanged and could easily be substituted for their counterparts then. As close to an epiphany as I've been in a very long time.
On a much lighter vein, I need a good solid idea for Nano. Thought I had one a while back, but alas, no. Sign up starts in a few days and I really want to do that again this year. Hard to believe the start is only about thirty days out now. Keep looking. There's something out there. I know it. Can feel it but haven't seen it yet.
Enough of this for now.