Interval in Sunlight

I generally hate to talk about love, for the simple reason it almost never resembles anything anyone says about it.

Sometimes there is no other motivation so strong. Sometimes who and what you love is the only motivation you can come up with to explain your behavior when faced with tradition- or madness. With that in mind, observe how with the changing of the seasons from subarctic wasteland ice to subtropical scrubland bog in Michigan comes the Passover/ Easter ritual.

My wife, a brilliant yet devout yet feminist yet Catholic yet scientist, felt the homing urge of traditional obligation, and floated the idea of a pilgrimage to the altar of capitalism and retirement homeland of her parents, the Emerald Coast of Florida. Here we could discharge our familial responsibilities: a week with her parents, and a day or so coming and going with my parents in their retirement flat in the hills of Tennessee. I never pass up a chance to go running in Warner Park.

There is an ancient kame that lives there, and I like to let it know that it is appreciated.

So on "Holy Thursday" ahead of Good Friday we packed the Pilot with our dog, our daughters and ourselves and began the sojourn.

That day in early April the sun brought the temperature: 90 oF in southeastern Michigan. It was cooler in Nashville, and cooler still at the Gulf of Mexico.

Far away you could hear the groan of glaciers moving to the sea.

Along the way were the compressed harbingers of spring more green with every mile, passing the outstretched arms of Jesus and the Cross proceeding to an Easter vigil, ahead of the storm.

I am always amazed at the natural beauty of the Southern highlands. Redbud and dogwood in the hills of Kentucky: add the purple locust, the brilliant greens and deep reds and orange of budding hardwoods, and the deep verdence of cedar glades and pine stands.

The miles rolled by, and I played psyops with the speed cops.

Anyone from Michigan knows about Ohio state troopers, which are only marginally more ubiquitous than state troopers anywhere else. It's the stereotypical Ohio driver, moving ten miles below the speed limit in the left lane until they decide to pass someone at 90 miles an hour in the right lane that make driving there so special. The most special drivers and gen d'armes of all are found in Alabama, where it's the Christian duty to drive like the Dukes of Hazzard.

Unless you're close to what passes for a Big City in Alabama. In Birmingham you get about 5 miles from downtown before you see what's given as Civilization, but at least you have pretty hills. In Montgomery you don't even have that, as the speed limit falls from 70 to 50 mph over a few hundred yards of highway ["45 MPH MINIMUM"] and there are almost as many traffic troopers lurking as people on the highway.

Or what passes for people, anyway, flying colossal Confederate flags in small towns with names like Warrior, Alabama. Homes of the Sons of the Confederacy. Alabama, never occupied by the Union, and where the first War Between the States Foghorn Leghorn chicken hawks crowed their defiance as they donned their hoods. Towns where the mighty sword of Jesus the Barbarian stands guardian against pagan traditions only openly observed here by the Upper Classes. Pagan traditions like the Easter Bunny are frowned upon by the local minister, who says you need to drop that dollar in the pot of the Lord instead of the pot of the local Dollar General Store for candy for the young'uns.

South of Montgomery, there is a little jog you take on a narrow two lane road, a couple of turns you take through small hamlets with blooming rhododendrons and rusty trailers, and in the middle of nowhere is a little traveled four lane highway with the same 65 MPH speed limit as the South Alabama Interstate and built with the best pork dollars Uncle Sugar has for Right Thinking Folks.

We made time with no one on the road except an occasional farmer. Not a trooper in sight- only black unmarked cars with darkened black windows, spot lights (even the spot casings were black), heavily aerialed and traveling down the highway at what must have been 100 MPH. Very Important Porkers, indeed. Boss Hawg's deputies gone all DynCorp, from all appearances.

Finally to the Emerald Coast, or what is left of it after last summer...

Easter dawned, my wife took the kids to Mass to get Jesus. I ran and took in the spectacle of the people of the bubble.

They earned this name. Here on the Emerald Coast, New Orleans is a couple of hundred miles to the west, and light years away in the mind. Although the ocean is about 100 yards closer to the condos and beachfront homes, crashing a few feet away from the broken piles and cracked foundations of most. Katrina surely was a once in a lifetime event, and hundreds of millions of Federal dollars are being spent to rebuild beaches along the resorts surrounding Eglin Air Force base. With Jesus, they all say, property values must stay high, because dozens of high rises are being built- often rebuilt after last summer.

The hysteria is suppressed but there nonetheless, the monster in the closet. We sitting here in the only free internet access for miles around. In this crowded cafe, my family is the only one actually using it.

Everyone here is white, republican, or trying desperately to appear so. Or working for the white republicans. But isn't it that way everywhere?

So pass the sunscreen. We're in the last days of Atlantis before the wave. The wine is sweet, the wind is strong, and change is in the air. You can feel it in the fever of the Faithful, trying to bring about the Will of their One God, whose real Name they hide from themselves.

There are those of us still who love it enough to preserve the High Culture from the incantations of the priest-kings.