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11/26/2004: "Morning Sun, Patchy Clouds, Gusty Wind"

On Thanksgiving morning it was unnaturally warm and unsettled. An eerie wind would kick up, clouds would rush over and darken their countenances, and then the sun would break out again. A few drops of ran fell, but the foreshadowed cloudburst held off. I was doing a few loads of laundry. The old gentleman who is the attendant at the laundromat was sitting on a bench outside, soaking up the warm rays of sun. He also does maintainance at the Catholic church, I think, and was a volunteer fireman, years ago. I wished him a happy Thanksgiving, and asked him how he liked Hawaii. He told me how he'd been there, for a couple of days in '43, and how they went out on the beach at Waikiki. Just like paradise. And he told me a little of what the rest had been like, at sea on an aircraft carrier, with the regular, attacks by the kamikaze planes, and how the sea had swallowed up his friends, and that he survived to be this, in his own words "a bum". And the light that fell from heaven rested on him.