bedtime thoughts

When i was little i would fall asleep to the sounds of my mother's sewing machine in the den down the hall. Other times the sound of her typewriter. And when neither of those were present, my earliest memories were the sounds that came from my pillow. I would hear marching in my pillow (which i suppose now was the sound of my own blood pumping), and i would imagine armies of people or animals moving over landscapes. And i would follow them to sleep.



My mom introduced me to typing. "Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country." I typed it over and over again.

She introduced me to watercolors, with a big brush on a wet page she created a deep ocean over which she swept the golden gate bridge in three strokes followed by the connecting cable... up-down up-down.

My mom was my history teacher in 7th grade, where we learned about the Punic Wars. I was fascinated with Hannibal and war elephants marching cross the Pyrenees to take on the Romans.


The Department of History, United States Military Academy

Elephants live in packs led by the female, or matriarch. Adult males live in solitude mostly. According to wikipedia, elephants were used in wars up to and through WW2, where they were still used to move heavy machinery and artillery over more difficult landscapes.