July 5th, 2010 by Hoopleton

Yesterday we were in Dallas. Dealey Plaza. Five feet from the spot where JFK was murdered in 1963. It wasn’t what I expected. Smaller. Hillier. So condensed that it be hard to imagine that a second assassin would go unnoticed. Even so, all the talk was of conspiracy. Old men surrounded by children passing down paranoia like so many pearls of wisdom.

Texas has come a long way since 1963. Even in this economy. Construction is moving forward everywhere. Cities and towns are booming. In Dallas too, beyond the decaying shrine of Dealey Plaza there is prosperity. The industrial north has turned to rust and it is the defeated south that is on the rise again.

But they don’t lie. Stacy told me as much. The heat here is like nothing you’ve ever known before. Of course I’ve been in the south in summer even further, but now the temperatures seem so much more oppressive. Weightier. Perhaps it’s permanence that peaks my senses. Maybe my winter was just too long.

I tell Stacy that she brought me this warmth. She asks why I don’t write about her anymore. I’ve been so overwhelmed by having her I haven’t written anything in six months, I reply. But now we’re in Texas. I can write about Kennedy, our trip to Dealey Plaza, and the heat. It’s a start, isn’t it?

July 18th, 2009 by Hoopleton

Having taken a brief time out we return today to our daily inspirations with John F. Kennedy’s 1962 speech at Rice University in which he challenged Americans to land a man on the moon by the end of that decade, a dream that was fulfilled on July 20, 1969, the 40th anniversary of which will be marked on Monday.