When I went to Memphis

• I sat by a man who didn't respect the invisible barrier created by the arm rest. He wore short sleeves. He had a hairy arm. And his elbow was in seat 13A. This would have been alright if the rest of him hadn't been sitting in 13B.
• I got to drive a little red Cobalt around with a Texas License plate reading "The Lone Star State." I felt patriotic.
  
• For a little paranoid excitement, I pushed all the furniture in my hotel room, that was movable, against the door.
  
• A black guy asked me how I was and when I replied that I was fine he said, "Uh, huh, I knows you fine!!" (hope that isn't racist).
  
• I met more parents-of-PHCers at the homeschool conference. They were unsurprisingly Pillars-of-the-Homeschool-Movement.
  
• On the flight back I sat by a girl whose Aunt(ie) saw her off (parenthesis mine). While waiting to board my last flight of the day, I heard them talking. From their chatting it seemed that family visits were infrequent and this one almost a coincidence. But it had left them feeling very benevolent because it had been a good visit. Her aunt said, "I am just so proud of you. There are not many young people like you now days. And you are just going to have a wonderful life." The girl deflected this praise and then said, "Aunt Joan, can I hug you?" (After snickering at this exchange like a cynic) I decided, as I looked at her sleeping beside me, that she did look particularly innocent and sweet. Her face full of unfinished lines (no plucked eyebrows, no charcoal liners, no equiline features) and her hair a soft mess.
  
• I had a good little adventure and have decided that R. L. Stevenson is right, "the great affair is to move."