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And when it is all over, presuming, that is, that the planet is not destroyed in the process, my children’s children will no doubt be told in school that “no one really saw it coming” and that “no one really understands to this day” how the “freedomloving American people” let this occur.

And, if by chance, one of those precious children visits their Grandpa after school and asks if that’s how it really was, if everyone really was asleep at the wheel, the old man will at least have something a bit more concrete than an Irish word-picture to hand to his curious offspring.

6 January 2014

Livin’ la Vida Barroca

With a bit of foreign travel looming on the horizon, it was time to renew the passport of my youngest child. I gathered the requisite papers and brought them to the post office. A few weeks later, the coveted document arrived.

I opened it up, expecting to find what I always had found inside US passports: a dry one-page recitation of personal data followed by numerous empty pages for recording the traveler’s entries and exits from various countries.