The island park of Belle Isle is aa agreeable place to do this; Bill, Lowell and I sit sheltered from a light breeze, locked in various comfortable positions amidst the concrete breakwater blocks. These broken up slabs of concrete once belonged to a Nikie missile base that imposed itself on the other end of the island during the Cold War. The Detroit River laps at our feet. From our vantage point we can see the City of Windsor on the Canadian side and Detroit on the U.S. side. The graceful span of the Ambassador Bridge links the two cities.
"I cannot offhand think of another geographical similarity - two cities as large as these belonging to two separate nations divided by a river..." Says Lowell. He could he be right. We continue to chew our food.
I stare down at the concrete blocks and think of that distant Cold War; that ominous time when it seemed that our species was on the brink of total annihilation. I smile, flattering myself that it was all a ruse so that I could have a nice place to sit and enjoy the view.
Strange how the landscape is peppered with these husks of a burnt out nightmare. These concrete blocks have a lot in common with the World Wide Web. Envisaging a breakdown in communication as population hubs were removed from the map in a thermonuclear exchange, a method was devised in which messages were broken down into discrete packets and sent in all directions at once with a single destination in mind. As long as there was an avenue for the message to get to its destination, it would find a way. It was a brilliant invention. With the end of the Cold War, the internet became that flower growing out of the barrel of a gun; a web of communication that crosses borders and spans the world. The Ambassador Bridge of communication. It's like having been witness to the discovery of fire. The three of us are still reeling from the event, to fathom this blinding phenomenon, trying to come to grips with it.
This is why we meet here. To exchange flights of wonder, to ponder the possibilities in the relaxed state of friendship.
"I'm doin' another RoadTrip," Says Bill. "You guys wanna come along?"
 7:38 AM - Awake |  8:23 AM - Getting Ready |  9:30 AM - Detroit Strike |
 12:05 PM - Rouge River area |  2:30 PM - A Boat Yard |  5:00 PM - Handball Buddies |
 Shockwave Portrait of the Artist |