Dark Themish Day Plus One

I'm a day late with the theme day photo, and a dollar short. My archives offered up this photo of Takehara, Japan, the original place of employment of Kagami Sensei when she went to teach English there. I took this photo when Herb and I visited in May, 2006. The cemeteries in Takehara are on the sides of the cliffs - not really hills, not really mountains. Two theories. The flat land is too valuable to use for cemeteries, and, for the same reason, they plant the ancesters real close together. The other theory is that the ancesters should reside as close to the sky as possible, so they are buried high in the "hills."

The photo was taken from above, from a higher ledge where there were other graves packed close together. The view of the city shows how close together the houses are built, and, to some extent, the beauty of the countryside. This is the town where KS spent more than a year of her life. It's about a half an hour by train from Hiroshima.


It rained all day in River City. Not much happened on bikes or tennis courts.

The last segment of Ken Burns' "the War" was on PBS tonight. This segment had footage dealing with the Atomic Bomb at Hiroshima, the battle on Okinawa, and the Holocaust. There were enough bad images to wish for the end of all war. An idea worth considering.

Calamities happen

I played indoor tennis tonight at Wooddale. It's been raining since Saturday morning, on and off. Mostly on. We took the game inside because we could. It was three sets of uneven tennis. The lighting is different inside, but there is no wind, and only half lobs because of the ceiling. The gang of geezers participated. Tennis Dennis will be having cataract surgery soon, followed by hip replacement surgery. He has about two weeks to play, so when we are scheduled, we play.

The drive to Wooddale took me through Spaghetti Junction - the interchange of highways in downtown St Paul. The traffic was as clogged as I've ever seen it. I think the city is feeling the loss of the 35W bridge and more of the traffic burden goes on 94 through St Paul. Traffic patterns have changed and people have to get used to the new reality, and must find new routes home. We're going to be clogged for a while.

It has been a bad streak for Minnesota. This weekend was the big rain and flooding in the southeastern part of the state - 17 inches of rain near Winona. At least six people were killed and beaucoups damage to homes in the area. Last week it was wind storms taking out the big trees at Como Park and the State Fair Grounds. On August 1st the 35W bridge collapsed and they are still searching for the last missing person. It has been a bad spell, but things could be worse. See below. Ground zero in Hiroshima. The Japanese people left standing the shell of the building at ground zero, as a visual reminder that worse things can happen unless we remain vigilent. This building was directly below the atomic bomb dropped there in August, 1945, and miraculously, partially survived. For 62 years.