A Day in the Life of Chaos

There are times when I can remember being a child.  I close my eyes and a vivid vision comes to play dancing across the neurotransmitters that record the memories of life.  It can be in the form of a sense, a smell or a touch.  They are good visions, not sad ones.  Recollections of moments of happiness.  The kinds of memories that I dare not contemplate before I sleep because if I do, sleep will never find me. As Christmas rolls around once again I remember the days as if they were yesterday.  My father is unquestionably one of the most talented people I have ever known.  Christmas always seemed like an opportunity for him to put his talents to the test.  There were nights when I would lay in bed waiting for sleep to take me on Christmas Eve and I would hear strange sounds in the house.  I wasn't allowed to investigate so my mind and imagination would just capture my sensibilities. I can remember one Christmas so vividly.  I must have been six, seven or maybe eight years

Very young Patrick There is a land far to the north that in many ways seems disconnected from reality.  When you live there it is like living on an island and news from the outside comes in snip-its that leave you at times questioning your involvement with the rest of the world.  It is a magical place and I when I first came to know it,  the largest city was still developing.  Many roads were unpaved.  Television was primitive.  There were only three networks and shows would come up on tapes from Seattle with a two week delay.  Try to avoid a Monday Night Football score for two weeks!  The town was so news starved there were actually two news papers.  How many cities these days can boast that? The people that lived there were as disconnected as the place.  They seemed to all be running from something and everyone had a different and unique reason for their flight.  Somehow in the self imposed exile there was company among strangers.  Everyone seemed to revel in being different, be