Hmm, a small town, Civil War era, with a lighthouse at the end of the main drag.
Any guesses?
(No fair going over to MrsDoF’s blog and looking)
Update: 05 November 9:15am… here’s another hint. Paul’s observation about tree foliage should give you some idea of the latitude.
How would you like to try navigating that river on a little raft?
The Pump Handle relates an awful story that got very little airtime because of urgent media bulletins about movie stars:
Workers dying from asphyxiation in a confined space is a senseless tragedy. When four men lose their lives in this way, with three of them dying in an attempt to rescue the other, it is a genuine disaster. Yesterday, four men died inside a 12-foot deep sewer line at the Lakehead Blacktop Demolition Landfill in the Village of Superior, Wisconsin…
The Pump Handle: Four workers dead at Wisconsin landfill
It happens all the time. One worker after another went into the hole to rescue the others; all paid with their lives. OSHA was supposed to have a rule for confined spaces 14 years ago, but moving at the speed of bureaucracy we can expect another 14 years to go by until it actually happens.
In the meantime, it reminded me of the survival instructor I had in high school. I don’t know how it came about that our school offered extracurricular courses in “survival” – I took both levels – but in Washington state where the Search & Rescue often amounted to Search & Recover, it certainly was a good idea. Our instructor was one of our PE teachers, a crewcut guy we all called “Mr. C”. This news story reminded me of one of his lessons:
“Suppose you see a man down. He’s just lying there face down. What’s the first thing you do?”
Our guesses ranged from “Check his pulse” to “Call an ambulance”.
“Hang back and try to figure out what got him,” he said. “Any power lines down? How about gas? If he’s been shot, look around. You can’t do him any good if you are victim number two.”
Or numbers three and four, as it turns out. It made me realize how lucky I was to have the opportunity to take a course like that. Maybe school administrators should look at their faculty and ask if any of them might be qualified to teach an extracurricular course on survival. I think I got a half credit for each class but it was definitely A Good Thing.
I went to a lecture by the great film documentarian Ken Burns this evening. He has produced celebrated docuementaries on topics from the Civil War to Jazz, Baseball to Mark Twin and lately, World War Two.
Sure, I like history, and might even be considered somewhat of a history nerd. I’ve enjoyed books by David McCullough, Will Durant, Daniel Boorstin and others. But I’ve never seen a Ken Burns documentary.
OK, if you really dig Ken Burns, forgive me, but he sounded like a walking thesaurus, given to grandiloquent language and awfully impressed with himself. Of course, he has a lot more reason for self-satisfaction than I do, (it’s not like I’ve produced any hit 16-hour documentaries about the Civil War) but still…
After his prepared speech came questions and he sounded much more direct. Asked what he thought were the differences between the current war and WWII, he said the main difference was the sense of investment that we lack in this war. “If my president after 9/11 had asked me to sacrifice fifty things I would have sacrificed fifty-one and felt richer for it. Instead I was told; ‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about it, just go shopping’”.