I decided to take a break from doing the Time-Line for a couple of days. I got 2012-2015 done including the Close-up of the "Delivery". But it is tricky getting everything to work and takes a lot of time. SO - I have taken a break. The other night I watched "Shawshank Redemption" for the umteenth time, and this time a piece of music got my attention. "Brooks was Here" by Thomas Neuman. As it was playing, I had a thought back to my "Ash Casting" ceremonies on my last cross country trip, (which you can see on the Pod-Cast page "Mission Across America"). Specifically the picture above, is just before the ceremony that I did close to the joining of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. I was standing on the Route 66 bridge across the rivers just below where they meet up, a place called the Confluence. Those two white stripes in the picture; the one on the right of the line is Missouri, and the one on the left is Illinois. In my hand is a plastic bag with my Mom's and Dad's ashes in it.
BUT that is a separate story. The story I want to tell, so that you understand the mood of "Brooks was Here" and the portion of the Road-Trip that happened just before the picture above.
I had really wanted to go to the "Confluence" as specified by my Mom. BUT I couldn't get there; the roads were all washed out. I found myself sitting on the side of a road, very bummed out, and frustrated at my inability to get to where I wanted to go. A guy came by, and asked if I had a problem. We never said "Hello", I immediately told him of my situation. So he said no problem, follow me and I'll take you to a place just as good, and he took off on the very road that I had stopped on, because of the warnings about flooded roads.
So thinking about him, the situation, and what evolved over the next 15 minutes, the piece of music "Brooks was Here" - just seemed to fit. So, I made the video of the approach to the Ash Casting Ceremony, and it is now posted on the "Find New Roads" page. Because it truly is the story about finding a new road - getting more meaning from a bad situation that was not to be as originally planned, and accomplishing a goal previously missed. Essentially - "Pete was Here." (With Calypso of course.)