TODAY FROM AMERICA:

POOKIE’S ADVENTURES IN THE ENCHANTED FOREST AT THE EDGE OF RIVER CITY:

Graduation Day from Middle School for my granddaughter Amanda happened on Monday. Unfortunately, having to drive from Mendocino that day prevented me from attending. Her mom Hiromi, however, sent me some photographs that she took at the ceremony.My Son Jason and my Granddaughter Amanda.

On Tuesday, on the other hand, I was able to attend HRM’s graduation from Middle School in the Golden Hills. Even though the event had been scheduled for what was for me very early in the morning, I still managed to drive there from the Enchanted Forest and arrive in time. It was a very hot morning. The attendees sat in the bleachers in the boiling heat. Toward the end of theone callow young man who was a tiny cog in something he neither understood nor controlled. It was not a vehicle for aging cinema stars who avoided combat and young wannabes to strut their stuff in an epic glorifying war. As many of those soldiers who survived Omaha Beach said, “There were no heroes at Omaha Beach, only those who were lucky and those who were not.” If one adds to that the fact that the allied decision to pursue the difficult amphibious invasion in Normandy instead of continuing to push into Germany from the existing allied bases in Italy was a political, not a military one, the suffering and death of those forced to charge directly into machine-gun fire along the Normandy beaches that day seem even