At three thirty in the morning I woke up and felt it coming in the room, quiet, soft, welcomed. Cold air. Air chilled to about forty degrees filling my room with that marvelous chill, which makes me sleep sounder and wake more refreshed. I awake urged to write, to be productive, to again struggle with this present world.

Today is not going to be filled with that strain and pushing, that breaking out which makes me think of myself as Michelangelo’s unfinished slaves.

No, in my burgeoning new tradition I will continue my pilgrimage of conservative Americana holy sites. First there was Graceland all those many years ago, then my years at Wheaton with the related immersion in multiple shrines of evangelicalism, then Tombstone, where the west was won and Republicans battled Democrats in a manner strikingly comparable to today’s political climate .

Today it is to the holy shrine of the pontiff of Conservatism. To the Reagan Memorial Library and Museum I go, with companions stout and pure in doctrine. My sister-in-laws birthday you know, and this is where she wants to go.

Should be a grand day.