Vacation Reading

I'm sitting next to the brook outside our house in Jeffersonville reading "Unbroken" by Laura Hillebrand. We spent 10 relaxing days there, with visits by Jim and Karen who flew in from Orlando, and Dianne and Sandy who drove in from their house in the Poconos with Sadie, a two-year old bouvier in tow. The weather was wonderful, and even the two rainy days were nice. On one of the rainy days, we had tropical downpours that transformed the brook into a roaring river of mud. It was amazing to watch. We'd seen something like this before, but this time, the water level went beyond anything we'd experienced. There was flooding all over the region, but we were high and dry.

All week, we ate, drank, and were very merry. Turbo enjoyed reclining in the grass and going for long walks. One night, Marty and I ate at the Welsh Cabin, four miles up the road. We had really good food, and the atmosphere was rustic, complete with antlers, animal rug hangings and three flat-screen TV's. Mostly, though, I cooked and we did a lot of grilling. We spent as much time as possible outside reading, talking, hammocking. We did some very minor home and garden projects. We knew vacation was over when we packed up all the trash and recycling and hauled it off to the transfer station.

Marty read a Tom Clancy novel and I finally finished "Unbroken," a non-fiction book about an Olympic-quality runner (4:14 mile in 1942) whose career is halted by World War II. He enlists in the Air Force and ships out to Hawaii. On one mission, his plane is shot down and crashes into the Pacific. Only three men survive and he is one of them. They spend 47 days on rafts with little water or food. Sharks and Japanese planes threaten to kill them but two survive long enough to find land, which turns out to be a Japanese-held island. The POW's are treated horrifically. It makes Abu-Graib seem like being sent to the corner for several minutes. The runner is liberated by US troops some two and a half years later. I don't want to give away what happens in the rest of his life (he's still alive). Much of it is disappointing, but he does manage to overcome his demons. Read it and weep.