Monday, August 15, 2011

Great Visceral


It was like being next to a burn barrel. All over town. Smoke from a Virginia swamp fire. That's what I've smelled the past couple days. And seen a haze from the dissipated smoke.

Reading someone from another country and generation, reading them describe the stars the same way I think about them.

Writing and reading and talking about Nationals closer Drew Storen's slider the other night against the Phillies, the one he fleeced by Ryan Howard and realizing we were all seeing the same thing.

Growing up in a small town, you realize how closely connected everyone is. There may be six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, but there is rarely more than one or two degrees on the Eastern Shore. Even with folks who aren't from here.

But being connected to people is different, almost expected in some ways. Being connected geographically, olfactory and visually connected, to a place you haven't seen or thought of like the Great Dismal Swamp is one of those visceral experiences where I just shake my head, breathe in wafting swamp fire smoke and think... "Man."

* AP Photo/Stephen M. Katz

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