Day: December 12, 2004

More snow overnight in southeast Michigan, a welcome sight … but the temps rose as the morning went on to 37-38 degrees, so the snow melted pretty quickly. The skies stayed gray all day, though.

The snow was still a nice sight. I walked to Kroger this afternoon and reveled in the white and the absence of traffic (both car and foot). It was cold, but not cold enough to be merciless. I went back home through Frisinger Park and a murder of crows was calling amongst each other in the treetops. They were obviously exchanging some kind of code. Their caws changed in tone as I passed under the trees and then as I walked away, their loud, 2-note “HAAAW–HAAAW” was almost a “All clear” signal.

There is excellent reading/viewing/listening « at the Oral History Project of the Urban School of San Francisco »:

‘We went through a number of Dr. Mengele’s dreaded selections where we would have to remove our clothes on the pretext of a medical checkup. During the time between while we stood in line waiting for Dr. Mengele to decide who should live, and who should die – with his glove on, and a little stick in his hand – many people would just faint. It took a lot of energy to go through such excitement, and later on we no longer had this energy. Of course, if you fainted they just dragged you away. You were too weak. There was always another transport to replace anyone who did that. Right in front of me I saw all these people from our town taken away just like that. They went through, by this time, also a number of these selections, which would always happen spontaneously. We never would know, surprise selections. I can go on, but do you really want me to?’

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