New 9/11 Photos

New Pictures (not seen by the public) taken above the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001 were recently released. I know it may not be very Valentinsey (or Abraham Lincolney for that matter), but it is important - no, Essential - that the impact, devastation and damage of the day not fade into sanitized memory.  I don't have funny or even thoughtful commentary to add; the pictures speak for themselves. I have other posts today to celebrate Love, Romance and and a full beard, but for now, take a few moments and let these photographs burn into your retinas and sear your mind's eye. 

News from Iraq

ANAHEIM, Calif. (UPI) -- A California contractor working in Iraq stunned his mother on her 50th birthday by appearing live on a computer screen in a store window she was passing.

"That's my son!" Ginger Barnett of Anaheim, Calif., squealed Saturday night when she saw 33-year-old Carl waving hello from the screen inside Ben Bridge Jewelers in the Brea Mall.

Next to the computer screen was a Rolex watch with a card that read, "Happy 50th Birthday Mom," The Orange County (Calif.) Register reported.

Brown said he enlisted family and friends to set up the live Web cam and accompany his mother to the mall and past the store, where she had often admired the jewelry and watches.

"I can't stop shaking," Barnett said. "I had no idea."

Brown, a U.S. Army veteran who works under contract training Marine troops in Iraq, said the longer he is away from home, the more he values it.

"One thing will never change and that is, where Mom is, home is," Brown said.

Christmas at Arlington

Dominique sent me this. She misses everyone.




Arlington National Cemetery




Rest easy, sleep well my brothers.

Know the line has held, your job is done.

Rest easy, sleep well.

Others have taken up where you fell, the line has held.

Peace, peace, and farewell...



Readers may be interested to know that these wreaths -- some 5,000 -- are donated by the Worcester Wreath Co. of Harrington,Maine. The owner, Merrill Worcester, not only provides the wreaths, but covers the trucking expense as well. He's done this since 1992. A wonderful guy. Also, most years, groups of Maine school kids combine an educational trip to DC with this event to help out. Making this even more remarkable is the fact that Harrington is in one the poorest parts of the state.

Please share this with everyone on your address list. You hear too much about the bad things people do. Everyone should hear about this.

90 or 900

Be it 90 years or 900, Monkey Barn will always


Remember

A Soldier

I thought it would be good to have a poem to remember our Soldiers. I ran across this one by Robert Frost, which I admit I don't know exactly what Robert is trying to say. Still, I guess I don't have to know everything, do I?


A Soldier
by Robert Frost

He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark,
It is because like men we look too near,
Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,
Our missiles always make too short an arc.
They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect
The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;
They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.
But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.