Adagio for Strings (Samuel Barber)

This is in Memorial for our Melissa Alison Price. 21 September 1948 - 20 August 2011of Virginia who passed quietly on August 20 this year due to Cancer. You can find her post until is goes away at Melissa's Meanderings. Her love of Classical music was apparent by her frequent posting for Symphonic performance by some of the great composers. Her love of her trees and pond was shown in her frequent pictures of the nature that surrounded her.

We will miss her voice and her complains of the harsh winters snow, but we will feel her in the winds as they caress our face when we stand and take in the beauty of our country.

Peace, and Good by Melissa.

Changing Encounter

Kay and I have begun to meet other people for lunch on Wednesday's at the Student Union where we meet professors, and others from Christ Church Episcopal. The conversations are many and very interesting, no purpose but to meet and chat. We have found this group so socially expanding for us that we keep going back.

Yesterday, after everyone dispersed and we were leaving, we met the Sociology Professor from Japan and she was with the visiting math professor from Poland. As I introduced myself and Kay as my wife, she asked if we could be really married in Georgia, I said yes because I was trans and had not legally changed my name at the time of our wedding. Then she look at me and commented that I looked like a man! I commented, that that's funny because someone else told me that I looked like a woman from the Ukraine.

Kay and I both laughed when we could see her face change when see recognized the similarity in what I just said and she smiled as she laughed at herself. From the perspective of my being from the Ukraine, she saw the 'large woman from the Ukraine', and then told us stories when see met her first trans woman, and watched a girl friend transition to male. She recognized how much happier people with gender variance are once they transition.

We are constantly changing people's minds and attitude whenever I explain my gender status.

Refresh the Memories

Today is the Anniversary. A day that I know and remember what happen because I watched the events unfold; I will not likely watch, or listen to someone's attempt to use this day to catapult their career.

I will only ask the question. As Jesus was hanging on the cross, there were thieves hanging on each side of him. My question, which thief have you and I become, the one who mocks, or the one who knows the truth.

More Pictures

Looking back at how we spent our trip, I realize that there were more picture that I should have taken but didn't. We never have an opportunity to have our picture taken together unless we ask and we were to involved to ask. Here are a few more pictures, but of course they are in reverse the last to the first. Of course these are only a few from each day of our excursion across Mid America

A Gun battery at Vicksburg

Painting on the side of a building in eastern Texas,

I wonder if this PASTOR is talking about 'Robin Hood' or the Government! I should have said, "as opposed to tithe and supporting church programs to help poor?"

Dino in front of a Sinclair Gas station.

The Welcome sign for the Pow Wow

Vintage item of the '60's
3 Amigos and a lizard

Eight days of travel is not enough time to see everything, visit every museum or read every historical marker, but one should take the time to go visit important places in the US for you.

Travels with Kay

This past week Kay and I took an extended trip (2827 miles), partially in respect for the Labor Day Concert at the National Cathedral that didn’t happen and for a continued birthday present for her. All in all, I would say I had a great time; saw many wonderful sights and some of the country I had never been in before. We even discovered, quite by chance, the BB King Museum, learning how he started playing the blues and about his life as an International

Music Ambassador. We found Kermit the Frog’s birth place in Leland, Mississippi, and had our picture taken with the ‘old boy’. Learned that “Kermit” was named after a close boyhood friend.

Crossed into Alabama and the great fields of cotton where it was difficult to see the other edge of the field. Crossed the Mississippi River into Arkansas and spent the night in Hot Springs in the Historic Section of town. The next day we bought a few pieces from the Dryden Pottery factory (opened in1946) and spoke to the present owner and

his son bough a few pieces.

Moving forward, we spent some time in my home town of Mena, Ark., and saw found my family’s church; my grandmothers house and the empty lot where my uncle’s house once was next to my grandmothers.We visited the main park and sat by the old spring that used to quench travelers thirst. All changed, all different. We learned that the Old ruins of the Queen Wilhelmina Hotel has been rebuilt and sits on top of the Ozark Mountain with a grand view of the valley.

Instead of backtracking down to Mena, we forged ahead through the “Winding Stairs” mountains and park, 38 miles riding atop the ridge peering through a blue haze into the hills of Oklahoma.

Discovered the re-Acquired Creek Council House Museum and their history, which is a story in itself. Speaking of the treatment of the American Indian Nations and their peoples.

Found ourselves on a original strip of “Route 66” and wandered around “The Blue Whale” National Landmark. It was at the Cherokee Welcome Center that we learned about the Pow Wow and how Labor Day is also celebrated as their National Holiday, by holding the Pow Wow at their spiritual grounds in Tahlequah, OK.



We left a little early after visiting their quilt show, ruins of their female Seminary School and exhibits of the “trail of tears”. As an observer of their singing and dancing I was moved in some spiritual way. Leaving all to soon to race over to Enid, Ok., to spend the night at Vance AFB as we had made reservations. We saw quite a few Historical Markers on our journey across the USA and back, but the one we did stop for, was the marker for the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889 of the “Cherokee Strip”, starting at 12 noon and by nightfall over 2,000,000 acre tract had been staked and settled.

Well, now it is Sunday and the last day of the Octoberfest in Choctaw, just east of Oklahoma City. We had discovered the two weekend beer fest after the DC Concert as canceled and it was our main reason for the trip. The beer was great, the German Bands were wonderful and I got to play bell with the other kids. Kay knows her way around the web and can find some good hotel room prices; staying at military lodging is a great bargain if you can. As we leftOklahoma City we found ourselves at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Reflecting Pond and grounds. Quite a powerful place for feelings as the timing of our visit was approaching the 10th Anniversary of 9/11.

We saw the tomb and museum for Will Rogers in Oklahoma and learned how he was captivated the American People as was an Ambassador in his own right. But the most frightening scene was as we crossed I 20 into Kilgore, Texas we could see the smoke of the huge fires that are burning across the plains of Texas, destroying crops, homes, livestock. The land is burning up by fires and the two year drought; the animals can’t find enough water to drink or grass to eat. They all lie together in whatever shade they can find.

One thing I learned is that you really can’t go back home; for one thing, your home might not be there. Places and people change. Most of the older folks die and others have moved on, just as you have. Just as I have taken the road ‘less traveled’ and thought I needed to burn my bridges, I know that going back to the place where the two road diverged, one finds two new and very different road. Memories long forgotten are awakened by just looking for them.

We are glad to be home to sleep in our own beds tonight.

Roads not taken or known.

The Road Not Taken

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I marked the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

This past week Kay and I took an extended trip, partially in respect for the Labor Day Concert at the National Cathedral that didn’t happen and for a continued birthday present for her. All in all, I would say I had a great time; saw many wonderful sights and some of the country I had never been in before. We even discovered, quite by chance, Kermit the Frog’s birth place in Leland Mississippi, and saw the tomb and museum for Will Rogers in Oklahoma. Was a bystander at the Cherokee Pow Wow, watching the dancers take to the Sacred Ground as the Singers and drummers sat around the living, vocal drum sing the songs of the different tribes in attendance.

But one thing I learned is that you really can’t go back home; for one thing, your home might not be there. Places and people change. Most of the older folks die and others have moved on, just as you have. Just as I have taken the road ‘less traveled’ and thought I needed to burn my bridges, I know that going back to the place where the two road diverged, one finds two new and very different road. Maybe more than two roads, but one remembers. That first footprint on the other path might have been swept away with time, but the memory of that step bring back so many more. Memories long forgotten are awakened by just looking for them. Pieces of yourself that you know will always be you, always be a part of you. It’s who you are. Remember and gather in your memories.

A few year back on our trip through New England, we visited Robert Frost’s farm, where he tried his hand at farming. Where we looked out his window and saw trees that were not planted when he lived there. This poem by Robert Frost’s has always been one of my favorite. Without knowing the reasons why it pulled so many possibilities out of thin air, it has charted my life’s journey in some manor of speaking. My path of transition and what I found in my way was most certainly not what I expected. Finding a happier self, helping others when I can and showing others that I am just me. Finding that I can face adversity as I deal with my breast cancer. Happy, contented person with a purpose with my daughter and wife by my side; I have indeed made quite a difference by taking the less traveled road.

Labor Day Corrections

Detail of Labor day trip to follow; stay tuned