October 4, 2014

Orion directly over the end of the drive. Hard dreams last night. There was a blizzard and then a wintery landscape. All our cars were snowed in, so I had to push a grocery cart bearing–something--through deep snow, and I had to get to a certain place at a certain time, all the while needing (for some reason) to disguise the effort I was extending to make it all happen. A simulacrum of my life, actually.

Sang for the Marriage Rights Rally which weather moved into the Renaissance Hotel. We looked good in red. We were made to take a pledge that was about four pages long. Gruesome.

In my email this morning:

I am rather certain we were Boy Scouts together in Goodyear Troop 40 in
Akron, Ohio.  I came across your name in connection with your writing and
thought I would check if it was you after ordering a copy of "A Childhood in
the Milky Way."  My father was Warren Wilson (now deceased).  I think I may
remember your father--did he use a cane?  For some reason I have a faded
memory that he might have.  

If you are who I think, I remember when you were Senior Patrol Leader.  I
was at one time Librarian and later was Senior Patrol Leader. 
I have a memory of how much you like "The Sound of Music" when it came out.

Like my father, all 5 of his son's became Eagle Scouts (all in Troop 40).
Life is such a variety.  I went to Kent State University the year after the
shoots.  Stayed there until I left with a PhD in Mathematics.  Chaired the
Math department of one university in Connecticut, went to another here in
Virginia, and this former anti-war graduate from Kent State is now a US
government civilian employee at a government lab.  I spent 39 hours at the
Pentagon after 9/11 and it turns out I had coincidently spoken to 3 of the
hijackers in Las Vegas the month before.  Life seems full of strange
coincidences.    In what I have seen in the brief reviews of your work,
Akron comes across as bleak, but I would move back there if I could.   But
maybe I was lucky as I lived 11 miles outside Akron in the country and spent
many hours hiking the country-side.   Paradise is a short distance from
bleak I guess.  

I hope life has treated you fairly--I guess I will know when I read your
book.

I answered that I remember him quite well. He was slight and secret and private and almost never said a word. But something inside was alight.