Ten years ago...

I'll start with the day before...

On September 10th around 3 a.m. CDT, I was as usual sitting at my computer with Poser open tweaking a character I had been working on. All of the sudden my monitor blinked off, popped and smoke started pouring out of it. I woke Parker up and he quickly took it apart to make sure the fire was out. Later that morning he informed me that the horizontal hold transistor or something like that must have gone out but my monitor still worked limited to a smaller resolution. As if that were not bad enough, that evening we tied our two dogs out in the side yard to get some exercise and left to get a part at the hardware store. When we came back, one of the dogs had wrapped herself around the water faucet and pulled the pipe out of the ground making us a nice pretty fountain in the side yard. No water for the rest of the evening.

That night I spent awake as usual working on poser with my limited monitor capabilities till the wee hours of the morning so when Parker left for the hardware store early on the 11th I was asleep. He woke me when he got back followed by a call from my mother. Parker turned on the TV and I, like most people that day watched in shock and horror at the images on the screen. I logged on line after a bit, can't remember when exactly, that day is a blur and honestly I probably didn't look at a clock. One of the moderators for an e-group I (still) run had suggested that we suspend the rules to allow free conversation and the other mods agreed. We needed that contact. The rest of the day was spent reading email from friends all over the world not only on that group but other email lists as well. I hugged my babies a little tighter that day when the got home from school and the evening was spent explaining the ugliness of the world to them and making patriotic t-shirts because it was all we could do at the time. I still have my shirt packed away.

I was asleep when it happened. I went to bed upset that my dog had broken a water pipe and that my monitor was burned out and was limited to an 800x600 resolution and woke up to a nightmare where my pipes and viewing resolution didn't matter so much. I will always remember, I will never forget.

I created this graphic that day...

Don't Quit - Author Unknown

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When we might have won had we stuck it out.

Don't give up though the pace seems slow,
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faltering man.
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup.
And he learned too late when the night slipped down
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out,
The silver lining of the clouds of doubt
And you can never tell how close you are -
It may be near when it seems afar.
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,
It's when things seem worst that you mustn't quit.

Author Unknown
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This Poem truly is by "Unknown Author" though it seems quite a few people have tried to claim to have written it. In my research I've found that it was published as early as 1876 and is now public domain. Unless the people who are claiming to have written it had a time machine they are simply not being truthful.