I remember reading "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" back in high school. I'd never read anything so funny in my life - haven't read anything that funny since. As they came out, I read all the books in the series. But I think 'Hitchhiker' was my favorite. Ford Prefect and his towel...never go anywhere without your towel.

There have been many times in life I've wished I could just wave a towel and have a spaceship come down and whisk me away off this planet. We've all felt that sense of "just get me out of here!!" If there was ever an era of desperation on Earth, I think we're the ones who are having to live through it.

When I was a kid growing up in the sixties, I remember sitting down for dinner and listening to Huntley & Brinkley give the dead, wounded and missing totals from a war called Viet Nam and watching as "peace riots" erupted in the streets and soldiers shot and killed students in a place called Kent. In the seventies, the President of my country resigned in disgrace because he thought he was above the law. In the eighties, we heard that God was for sale through televangelists and that adultery was okay as long as we asked for His forgiveness; and the words "go for throttle-up" meant an explosion in the sky that killed seven modern American heroes in a fireball over the southern U.S., and nearly killed the space program. In the nineties, my dad died the same day the first Persian Gulf War started; and at the beginning of a new millennium the President of the United States was getting blow jobs in the oval office while he was deciding the moral agenda of a nation. I keep wondering if these are the "good ol' days" I'll talk about when I'm old.

Every generation has faced its challenges. That we are still here speaks to something within us that refuses to give up - refuses to give in. I'd say it was hope, but that seems too simplistic. It's more than hope. When the World Trade Center was attacked, then entire world sat and waited to see what America would do. They mourned and grieved with us, they shared in our tragedy. But they waited for the reaction. What they saw surprised them - it surprised our own government . . . but it didn't surprise us, the regular work-a-day people.

At first there was sadness ... and anger ... and pain. We wanted the rat bastards who'd done that to us, who'd killed our sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and best friends. But then, there was that indefinable some'thing' that happened and there were . . . flags. A flag? What good is a flag in the face of destruction? Well, one flag became two, became six, became a hundred . . . and so on until you couldn't turn around and not see flags. Silent statements of that - thing - that feeling - that deep in your guts knowing that there would be a tomorrow, and a day after, and a day after that, and there would be babies, and barbecues and softball games and trips to WalMart and treats at Dairy Queen.

That . . . 'thing.' That's what gets us up in the morning and makes us able to deal with one more day with an impossible boss; one more day with the teenager that's driving us insane; one more day of too many bills and not enough paycheck; one more day of wars; one more day . . . one more day . . . one more day.

Whatever you want to label it - hope, faith, determination - that is the 'thing' - that's our . . . towel. It lifts us up from where we are and puts us where we need to be so that we keep going, keep striving. We're a determined lot. It makes me smile. Seems the worse things get, the better we are - and the more the 'thing' shines through.

I've learned to carry the 'thing' with me. I never leave home without it. Funny how this works - if I let others see mine . . . they show me theirs. So, I figured I'd wave my 'thing' here on the website a little - take it global as it were. Maybe the same 'thing' will happen here as happened with the flags - one becomes two becomes six . . . you get the idea. Lots of different 'things' all waving . . . like flags . . . only better.