Gentle Readers,
 
I am Elyria, Ohio, in a Super 8, since I could not make a credible attempt at finishing the drive in one day on the second shortest of the year.
 
Dante would have reserved one of the rings of his hell for motels like this, but it has grown on me over the night, with the rattling heating unit and the clear view of the car out the window.
 
It has internet, but the cell phone doesn’t work- the epitome of that commercial about the scratchy towel and horrific reception. I must say though, that the last four hundred miles left me ready for the lumpy mattress and I slept the sleep of the just once I burned off the adrenaline.
 
It is seven thirty now, and still dark. I need to get my act in gear, here in Elyria, which as best I can determine means absolutely nothing in Latin or classic Greek.
 

(Courthouse Square in Medina, Ohio)
 
It is a solid little Ohio town like the one in which Mom grew up in (Bellaire) or the cute little Medina where I stopped to take a picture just at dusk. It is desperately cold for a transplanted Virginian, but I have every confidence that the Bluesmobile will fire up and take me deeper into the icebox.
 
It is about seventy miles further west on the big slab of the Ohio Turnpike before the Big Right Turn that takes me due north again, headed for the little town by the Bay. The key to this is to beat the next front looming across the Midwest, and it is a doozey.
 
I finished yesterday morning with my friend Admiral Rex laboring at the Naval Security Group headquarters at Nebraska Avenue. I think I will leave him there for today, Christmas Eve, and take up the tale once more.
 
Very soon it will be about the gentle breezes of Hawaii, and the torrid heat of SE Asia, but today and tomorrow should be about peace- to you and yours, and particularly for those young people we have sent in harm’s way so far around the globe in the war of this generation.
 
So, from the Super 8, my very best wishes for a Merry Christmas, and we will get together again from the bluff above the gray waters of Little Traverse Bay, under the lights of the gigantic illuminated Santa, whose visage is intended to frighten the residents of Harbor Springs across the water.
 
Happy Holidays!
 
Vic Socotora

Copyright 2009 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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