While I ruminate on the merits of critical acclaim, popular appeal and the productive union of the two, I find it quite ironic that I, always shunning popular choice categories, am making a choice and I am voting for Joseph “Otep” Zablan’s blog “Libre Lang Mangarap” as my pick for the 2011 Philippine Blog Awards Bloggers’ Choice.

Otep’s blog is a far cry from being a literary haven. It is littered with misspelled words, disagreeing tenses and redundant non-words even when it is written in his native tongue. Sometimes, his posts lack coherence and form. But then, his entries are always engaging, with the unseemly pair of pomp in his optimism and the raw honesty of a struggling young man trying to find his own place. He acknowledges his fear of highfalutin words and sticks to his own standard: self-expression. He admits he is not a rocket scientist. He chose to fly rockets instead – in dreams like most dreamers do. This I believe is the endearing quality of his blog – dreams are woven free…

Maybe the inspiration that his struggles and dreams give has appealed to his many readers. Life may serve us with different color-coated chocolates, but not all chocolates are sweet. Along with the joy of having his little dreams fulfilled come failures and heartbreaks. Sometimes, he stubbornly wallows in the sickening taste of bitter chocolate for far too long but in his own time he picks himself up, takes his own sure strides and dreams again.

If this vote would make him dream more, why not? In our current times, perhaps we need more dreamers like Otep. Perhaps, the future will be much brighter and more colorful…

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 – 1962)

The kitchen is a world all on its own. It has its own rhythm, sound and time. It has seen faces come and go, rites of passage in its stoves, and masterpieces heralded by sonorous and rain-like sounds of thick stews and sautés. Within it lie silent witnesses to the ebb and flood tides of a family’s ever-changing circumstance – pans that may have fried best portions of meat or boisterously smelly dried fish, pots that may have boiled intense soups or glutamate-rich instant noodles, and ladles that have become sticky with clinging rice or have hit and scraped several pot bottoms.

For many families, the rite of passage to the kitchen world begins with rice. Ours was no different. Cooking rice is a primary necessity. And so, at one point in our young age, together with my cousins who lived with us, we all received our instructions.

It began by setting several scoops of rice from the sack using the “pulakan” (a very old coconut shell passed on by my grandparents to us) into the winnowing basket to separate chaff and small stones. Rice has to be washed thrice. The most important step is estimating the volume of water that will cook the rice. This will make or break a hearty meal. We all had to know how to start a fire in our “dapug” – the raised platform in the kitchen where cooking is done by fire mostly through earthen stoves.

Cooking rice requires a certain degree of mastery. Passing it once does not guarantee continued success. The amount of water after the boil needed for that perfect tacky firmness of cooked rice varies from one grain variety to another. We learned that we could always put excess water for the boil. After it has boiled, the excess rice water could be taken (which we call “suam”) to be mixed with a dash of brown sugar as a delicious remedy for sweet cravings.

Before moving on to serious culinary exploits, it pays to rehearse. And perhaps there is no better rehearsal than play – no failures, no scolding and no painful spanking for spoiling food. There was just the sense of achievement of having done a cooking feat, further re-enforced by enjoying a meal.

Back in those days, most of the world had this convoluted view that kids in the provinces were malnourished. Milk, bulgur grains and even green peas were regularly distributed to schools. My two older cousins, my younger brother and I all went to the same elementary school so our supply of bulgur grains were quite copious. I could not anymore count the times we successfully played with hard bulgur grains.

The staple menu was cooking it with coconut milk, brown sugar, banana, sweet potatoes and colored sago pearls. Another best seller was boiling it with diced cassava, malunggay leaves, lemon grass and chicken bouillon seasoning cube. Sometimes we just went for its simple blend with sugar and milk. We usually cooked the grains in the afternoon, and since the grains take a long time to really soften, we played while we do the cooking. And after many tiring games, we capped those afternoons with the bulgur snack.

All the play prepared us for the next big thing – cooking for the main dishes. The menu ranged from frying eggs to pochero, from mung bean stew to pork knuckles with batwan (a fruit used as a souring agent in Panay and Negros islands). There was no written recipe with exact measurements. The recipe was passed down in a series of instructions consisting mostly of the list of the ingredients, the sequence of adding them and the signs when to add them. Thus, cooking at home required near-incessant observations in both visual and gustatory senses.

Among many dishes, I have this penchant for those that begin with the sauté.

Sautéing is the kitchen’s proclamation to the world that a gratifying meal is being conjured. Never mind if the oil bottles are nearly drained or the garlic, onions and tomatoes are but sparing. Its wafting smell is at most times enough to stir the senses to believe on a coming feast.

The sauté is like rain. Its sizzling is like gleeful raindrops rushing down the roofs. Instead of the smell of damp soil, what follows is the aroma of garlic, onions, and tomatoes, suffusing the house and sometimes the neighbors.

Then there is the peculiar cry caused by the vapors coming from sliced onions. I realized early on that holding one’s breath while slicing them, whether diced, minced or julienned, lessens the tears. And I also learned of a way of mincing them without having to cry so much.

Ironically, the grandness of the sauté’s wafting smell effectively obscured the accompanying lowliness of most dishes like sautéed sardines from a can, sautéed dried fish, or sautéed mung beans. Nevertheless, it remains true to its proclamation – a gratifying meal is being conjured.

Perhaps none was lowlier than our “fried” salt for viand. My parents always told us that they used to fry salt without oil, turning it brown, with a finer texture. “Fried” salt they said fully enhances the flavor of rice. When we had “fried” salt, we were allowed to eat with our hands and to lick our fingers while we were eating. We also enjoyed making salted rice balls with a slight hint of vinegar. It was only in hindsight in later years when I realized that in those times we really had no money for better viands. Nonetheless, I treasure the memories of sharing those meals with so much childhood joy.

I also had my share of personal ups and downs in the kitchen. One time, I missed to remove some of the ink sacs of the squids I was trying to fry in batter. Eventually, the batter went black. And I earned a remark that the squids coated in black batter looked like dog poo. I also tried to develop a recipe for an eggplant torta (a kind of omelet) with one of my female cousins. I learned that the key to having a golden brown torta is cooking in low fire, otherwise it would all turn black just like what happened to those poor eggplant patties.

My kitchen adventures continued even when I had my independence and I had already started to work. I had many experiments with pasta. Fortunately, none of them flopped. One time I tried a recipe with a friend. We had so much spaghetti for two that we decided to distribute them to the other tenants in my place. Then there was the relleno overload. The same friend requested me to cook relleno for her birthday party. There were just so much milkfish to prepare that I thought I would do away with relleno for the rest of my life!

Nowadays, I miss the kitchen. Since I am living alone, it is far from economical to cook my meals. I could only do much cooking when I am at home with my parents on special occasions like Christmas or New Year’s Eve. Much has changed with our family’s circumstance. My cousins are not living with us anymore. We now have the luxury to include desserts in our meals. We seldom use firewood at home, and if we do, it’s probably due to sentimental reasons. And when I have the chance to cook, it’s like being home to a kingdom of my own, taking sole and full command of stoves, pans and pots with oil to sweat, with ladles to whip, and with knives to gash.

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

He slowly walked along the timeworn paths. It was raining that day, short-lived but frequent, brought by the passing rain clouds. He was glad that the trails are now covered by broken seashells. They crumbled under his sandals and announced his every step as clearly as the fading rain falling on his umbrella.

He found the spot. And he stood there in silence. The rain clouds vanished and the heavens have cleared. The scent of ylang-ylang blossoms in the breeze brought him many years back into his past, in a spot on the sidewalk…

Being new in the city and having no work, his parents took every opportunity to earn money. His father started peddling fish every morning, bought by the basin every night from the city’s smelly fish depot. His mother worked as a seamstress in a factory. By day, he and his siblings were fended by their grandmother and other relatives staying with them in a big but crammed wooden house.

At times, his father would go back to their hometown to harvest sweet potatoes and bananas to add more food to the table. A portion of these crops were sold on the sidewalk, in a spot underneath the shade of large ylang-ylang trees, outside the small alleys that lead to their house. He and his grandmother sat there on dreary afternoons with the sweet potatoes and bananas laid on the sack-covered cement, entreating people to buy.

With nothing to do sometimes, he always collected the flowers that had fallen from the ylang-ylang trees. He spent afternoons smelling them, occupied by their intricacies and distinct scent. Some other times, his grandmother tasked him to re-arrange their displays, filling the spots of those that were already taken and sold. Sometimes he would rush to put them all back into their sacks to head home when the rain had started to fall. But he spent most of those afternoons just sitting on the concrete sidewalk and observing the passersby while his grandmother did the selling. He felt small with their stares. And he felt like crying every time someone checked their crops saying they were expensive and decide not to buy.

This continued until his parents were able to manage their finances. By then, he and his siblings usually spent the languid afternoons in his grandmother’s room listening to stories she read from her old book “Historia Sagrada”. He would always lay his head on his grandmother’s lap, finding comfort in the smell of the old book and of her patadyong (traditional wrap-around clothing for women in Panay). She and her patadyong had become that strong assurance of love and comfort. In those afternoons, they had also come to mean good stories. Oftentimes while stories were being told, he and his siblings had their share of coconut bars or sweet tamarind balls. On other afternoons, his grandmother sang songs from long ago about smoke passing by, bamboos and butterflies.

His grandmother never faltered in praying the rosary during dusk. There was no known escape. It continued even in those days when they already have television. His grandmother always found a spot to set and light her candle. The television had to be turned off and he and his siblings would respond in chorus to the melodic leading of their grandmother. His grandparents eventually returned to the hacienda in later years. The saying of the rosary however did not stop, and he was not able to escape it during summer vacations in the hacienda or during his grandmother’s long visits to their home in the city. The smell of burning candle has also come to mean perseverance in prayer.

In the dusk of her life, his grandmother has always sought the solace of languid afternoons. She always wanted to have silence to listen to the wind, the birdsongs and even the streams. She always slept on the bamboo benches underneath the trees in the yard to the sound of the soft afternoon breeze. And she did much complaining when her other grandchildren turned up the volumes of their radio or television. In those days when she was less understood, she persevered in trying to find the solace of her old afternoons, sometimes singing songs her younger grandchildren had never heard before.

In the days nearing the end, she again sought solace in the old ways. She passed away clutching her rosary, with lips uttering those words she had always said aloud in swaying candle light. Her children asked her if she wanted him, her favorite grandson, home at once. She said no. She didn’t want him disturbed in his work.

It was not easy for him to come to terms with his grandmother’s death. In his childhood, he dreamed of bringing his grandmother in the comfort of his car to all the towns and cities where she and his grandfather had lived before and after the war. He found that time was too short for him to own a car of his own. But less was the pain of a dream falling into pieces than the pain of losing the epitome of love and faith he found during his childhood.

The rain has again started to fall, with drops not as big as those falling from his eyes. And in that rainy day in the cemetery, standing before her tomb, he still found her death painful. He lit a candle, closed his eyes and uttered a simple prayer. He then looked to the heavens with the assurance of the scents of burning candle and ylang-ylang blossoms in the breeze that he would be heard. With clouds moving in the sky, he remembered one of her songs…

“Lumabay-labay nga daw aso, aso pa lamang.
Ang tanan-tanan nga butang sa kalibutan.
Ang matam-is, ahay!
Nagapait man, ahay!
Kay sa gihapon, ahay!
Umalagi lamang.”

(Like smoke that passes by,
So is everything in this world.
What is sweet, alas!
Will be bitter too, alas!
For ever and again, alas!
All will simply pass.)

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Strong rains, typhoons and hurricanes plagued that school year. One hurricane even took off our house’ entire ceiling and dropped it in the middle of the nearby rice field. Aside from literally sleeping under the stars for a night that year, I fondly remember it for the times when classes were cancelled for several days but we still went to school – in uniform and with bags fully equipped with books, writing pads and pencils.

My partner in crime was Keran. Our crime would start when, realizing that there would be no class (since our teacher hasn’t arrived after an hour or two), everyone else would head home. We would proceed to a roadside canal overflowing with water from the nearby rice fields along our way home. There was a small stream that flowed through the dirt road.

After dropping our bags in a dry area we’d excitedly gather clay. We piled layers of clay and stone to create a small dike strong enough to hold and to contain the flowing water into a pool. This was no easy task for third graders. We had to make sure that leaks were contained and that there was enough drain, otherwise the dike would collapse from so much volume of water. It was not easy to start over. Most days, we were successful. And we thought we were master builders then.

The fun part would come when the dike was already filled with water. At times, we would build small rafts from twigs and vines along the road. Making water spouts and fountains using papaya stalks was also a staple. There were also days when we would make small paper boats and we’d let our imaginations compensate for the other details. On other days we would chase and catch dragonflies and grasshoppers and have them swim in the pool. On drearier days, after building the dike we’d just laze the hours by sitting on the roadside and soaking our feet in the pool we created.

Inasmuch as there was fun in building the dike, there was also fun in destroying it. I used to imagine that a giant passed and decided to step on a dam. There was also a time when we covered all the drains and watched until the water tided and eventually ran over and destroyed the dike. The destruction of the dike would mean heading home for lunch after a morning’s heavy work.

We were getting used to these activities until one day Keran’s mother caught us and reprimanded us. The construction of the dikes stopped. Then the processions came.

The first two months of the new year were no different than the previous months. There were typhoons and heavy rains too. The canals during this time were repaired and culverts were put in place so we were not able to continue our business in dike construction. At the same time, we were already busted so there were higher risks. Classes were usually cancelled in the afternoon too. As our parish fiesta approached, Keran and I would usually stay in a “kapehan” (a store that sells hot coffee, more like a coffee shop for the masses) near our school. The owner’s grandchild was also our classmate.

We spent the afternoons listening to radio dramas and old people’s chatters until the chapel’s bell ring. We’d raise to the chapel and join the praying of the rosary. There were days when I was even tasked to lead the rosary. After the rosary, a procession with the image of the Holy Virgin is done towards the house of a local parishioner where the image would stay overnight. When the image arrives, there would be prayers, singing, and if we were lucky, snacks. This went on for several days until one fateful day, one of my cousins reported me to my aunt who stays with us.

I was leading the rosary and in the middle of it, I was sacrilegiously informed that I have to go home immediately. When I arrived home, I received a good amount of spanking from my aunt. I did not shed a tear but was quite disappointed. I was thinking that they would be proud of me had they known I led the rosary that time. After the spanking, I was ordered to fetch water from the artesian well.

As I was nearing the well, I saw the procession coming. I stopped and waited until it fully passed. Keran was there. Many were surprised and asked why I did not join the procession. As the procession was leading away from where I stood, I wiped tears on my face.

Our crimes stopped that day. In the school year that followed, Keran’s family transferred to another place. We have not seen each other for more than 20 years now.

—

(I searched his name in Google and it was matched to a monastery in Tarlac. He might be a monk now.)

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

I still have your letters. Although it stabs my heart to see them, I find it uneasy to let them go. I haven’t read them for a long while. I know they contain our once shared dreams now toppled by time and fate.

I have always looked forward to those exchanges. I felt so alive with the thrill that a letter would be waiting for me. And I always wondered what color and design the stationeries would have.

Ah, my stationeries. Many times I intended not to match its colors with the envelopes. Looking for new stationeries once every two weeks had brought me to stores in arcane crannies I never thought existed.

I always took painstaking care in writing your name. One time, I rekindled my love for the flare of calligraphy just to lay down your name in the Old English text. That letter perhaps was my most elaborate.

I also have your small notes, for those days when you were too busy with your many responsibilities that you barely had time to sit down and write, for those nights when you were too sleepy even if your oil is enough to keep your lamp burning till dawn. In some of them, your handwriting was barely legible. Now I realized that even then, time told of tell-tale signs of what would become of us.

I always had your letters with me wherever I settled. They meant hope, the illusory hope that we would be together. But just like your barely legible handwriting rendered too fast, you just could not wait for the dust to settle, out of racing towards our priorities. They did not include us, being us, to be us. Even up to now, I am still wondering why you rushed.

You rushed the first time you left me. And when you were free again, I thought time and fate were beginning to be kind to me. But then, you rushed for the second time… I never had any time to stop you.

I do not know how long I’ll keep your letters. Time has not been kinder, even in healing. I guess they’ll stay as long as my heart remains stubborn in not letting you go. And when that day comes for this old heart to open to new possibilities, I’ll read your letters one last time.

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

There was a slight drizzle when I woke up early this morning. And there were many puddles of brown water outside – remnants of the heavy rains last night. I decided to bring my umbrella to work.

The early morning smell of the wet grasses, the cool breeze of the air, and the soft, slippery feel of rain-soaked soil on the sole of my shoes transported me to many years ago. I remembered what it was like to go to school in June. Like today, it was difficult to get out of bed. I just wanted to snooze all day.

When I entered the taxi cab, I again realized the stark contrast of my life before – entering the public jeepney with soaked shoes and socks, wet backpack and moistened books and notebooks and leaving behind wet newspapers used for cover.

Now, I sank comfortably in the taxi’s backseat with my small backpack and with my umbrella resting on the opposite side. While I was blasted with the taxi’s air freshener, I remembered the smell of my wet backpack mingling with the pungent humid air inside the jeepney while I was clutching it close to my chest.

I started work by reading my emails and then I was off to a meeting. The sun has started to shine when I got out in one of the company’s buildings after the meeting. I couldn’t help but smile. I was still wrapped in nostalgia. While walking past the company’s flagpoles, I remembered those early morning flag ceremonies in high school during the rainy months – the sun shyly shining while we were forming broken lines – due to water puddles in the school’s grounds.

Despite the moldy shoes and smelly socks after getting drenched in the rain many times and occasionally stepping into potholes and puddles I went by just fine…

Today is one of those many days of reckoning and life has opened a cornucopia of memories to reassure me that today, just like in high school, I will be just fine…

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Tonight, we’ll walk together, side by side in cobblestone streets. I had hoped, no, longed for this for some time. And somehow I fear that those moments would be fleeting, for time is always unkind to me and the next time this would happen would be close to never.

Tonight, in each stride I’ll soak myself in the joy of closely seeing you – soft black eyes twinkling with every shy smile, each shy smile disarming and uplifting…

Tonight, I’ll see you in every light, in all hues and in all shades. There probably won’t be any music. But your laughter is always music to me… I am hoping for a dance, but that would be too much to ask… And I am too afraid to try…

Tonight, I wish to hold your hand, to lay your head on my shoulder, to lovingly rest my hands on your shoulder… But then, I know I couldn’t be that close…

Tonight, I will feel contented and I will enjoy your nearness. There will be no dance, no holding of hands, but I am sure there will be your eyes, your smile and your laughter. And there will be me, always in the shadows, always in the dark, desperately wishing and always hoping.

Tonight, these fleeting moments with you will vivify me and will wash this dryness in me. And I have enough patience to wait for the next opportune time, even if that would be close to never.

Tonight, just for tonight I will be near you…

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Yes, I am like you
I contain the same glow,
This ancient power that spurned
Myriads of worlds and stars,
This same force to end
All of those lost begotten…

Feed it not with fear
For it will consume you!
Free rein should be confined
Least it burn the vessel
That allows it to live…

Allow it to consume you
And soon destruction follows suit
To burn in full rage
All the things you begin
Seeing you will never complete.

Fire, neither good nor bad
Feeds on your heart’s power.
Your thoughts, good or bad
Trims and gives it arms.
Purify your thoughts, love more.

In this way, fire’s creative
Warmth will always envelop you
To burn with full passion
In all things you begin,
In all things you complete.

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

A pair of feet waged on towards the top of the hills.

The short, quick flicking sounds of grasshoppers making a dash for safety blended discordantly with the rustling of the grass blades. Shadows are growing long, and so the rush. The golden orb is now about to kiss the hills.

After settling on a favorite branch, those pair of eyes surveyed the plains wrapped in gold, and the clouds in fiery orange. The last sounds of day echoed in distant bird songs. As if on cue, smoke rose slowly on humble homes below the hills. Those curious eyes lovingly focused on one of them.

Jumping from the arcing branch, those feet steadied its stooped body. As if owning the strong beams of golden light, those short arms conducted the beams like an orchestra in a slow recessional, flailing from side to side, directing light to move further back, in faint retreat.

When the sun completely dipped into the horizon, a restless pair of feet ran carefree down into the plains, without missing a beat, without a misstep. The paths have become familiar after a thousand suns…

Twilight begins…

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

The aerial memories of seasons passed have again swept me. It rode with the scents in the supermarket’s meat section, in the ethers in the fruit section, and in the julienned pieces of veggies in the vegetable section. Windswept in the cloud of reminiscences, I strolled aimlessly forgetting the details of the present. I reminisced about my very first month in Cebu, a month full of kindness.

Rhodora, Joe, Joy and Jessie were not my classmates. What we have in common is that we were graduates of the same university in the same year. While my classmates were making the final arrangements for our six month review for the board exams, I was still trying to make arrangements for a one night stay in Cebu to enroll for the review and to look for a boarding house. One of my best friends told me to contact Rhodora. She and her friends were in Cebu looking for work. And so, throwing all shame to the wind due to the clear and present need, I called her. I was glad she recognized me. And true to my best friend’s words, she was kind enough to offer their place for a one night stay.

My stay in their place turned out to be longer than one night. When I returned for the review classes, I have no other place to stay but in their boarding house. The four of them treated me as a long time friend. I never felt, even for one moment, out of place. The three ladies even included my clothes in their regular laundry. And I fondly remember Joy ironing my clothes. Joe is the group’s comic relief, while Jessie is the source of sweetness – she always has chocolates. Growing up independent, I was touched by their welcoming arms and unreserved kindness.

After about two weeks since my arrival, I prepared to go home to Bacolod to get my books and my allowance. Joe and I were the ones left in the boarding house the day before I went home. I asked him to accompany me to the nearest mall to buy some groceries. I told him I will cook dinner. We roamed the supermarket for ingredients, and we were in the fresh produce section when he joked that I am preparing for my “last supper”. I have associated Joe’s joke about the “last supper” to the meat, fruit, and vegetable sections, and eventually to his and his friends’ acts of kindness.

After about a month, we parted ways. They have decided to leave Cebu after two to three months of job hunting. When they told me this, I felt deeply sad and unsure. But Rhodora, in her confident and assuring words, told me that she will see to it that I am properly settled in another place before they leave. And true to her promise, they accompanied me when I went to see my new boarding house.

I seldom linger long in the fresh produce section or even in the meat section of grocery stores and supermarkets. I do not cook nowadays. But today, the strong scents have particularly attracted me and nostalgia has once again caught up with me. The scents in the supermarket’s meat section, in the ethers in the fruit section, and in the julienned pieces of veggies in the vegetable section have reminded me of these remarkable people I am forever indebted to…

© COOLWATERWORKS, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to COOLWATERWORKS and A Series of Duration with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.