Memed by The Maximum Leader

KT Cat, Maximum Leader of the Feline Theocracy and principal author of The Scratching Post blog, has tagged us with a meme here at It's All Straw. Participants in the "Week, Month, Year, Half-Your-Life" Meme are to pick four places on the globe and explain where they would spend a week, a month, a year, and half of their lives. After some careful thought and in full and total obedience to the command of the Maximum Leader, I herewith submit my choices:

A Week - Rome

I told you I was Catholic, right?

A Month - Ireland

I was fortunate enough to get to go to Scotland for a week, when I was in college, but I've never been to Ireland. Since about half my ancestors were Scots and half were Irish, I'm missing a connection to about half of my heritage!

A Year - Israel

















The Holy Land. The land of kings and prophets. The land where Jesus walked. Bethlehem. Jerusalem. Golgotha. The empty tomb. Places I've only read about in the Bible. Almost 'nuff said. But when I was doing a Google Image search for pictures of Israel, this image caught my eye. It's a "badge of honor" awarded by an organization called Access Israel to Israeli businesses, government agencies, and tourist attractions that make a special effort to ensure that their facilities are accessible to those with disabilities. I gather from the information on Access Israel's website that access to public facilities and full participation in daily life is still fairly rare for Israelis with disabilities.

Half My Life - Myrtle Beach, SC*



For this one, I'm going to cheat a little bit and name the place where I actually did spend nearly half my life--Myrtle Beach, SC and environs, the coast of South Carolina. Like KT, I'm a beach bum at heart because I grew up just over the hill from the beach, and when I was younger my idea of the perfect summer day was one where I could swim, lie in the sun, build sandcastles, and play in the dunes. I'm going to cheat a little bit more and say that it's the Myrtle Beach of my memory--hence the asterisk--and not the battery powered, neon-lit, plastic-coated Babylon it's become. I grew up there in the 1970s, which was probably the last generation before it became a major tourist and retirement mecca. It was still a fairly small town frequented and populated mainly by people from North and South Carolina. The beach was always the main attraction, and people who came to visit it stayed mostly in beach houses and Mom-and-Pop motels, not sprawling, soulless mega-condos as they do now. My Dad was involved in an ad hoc citizen's group trying to keep such behemoths out of our neighborhood. With his usual talent for exaggeration, he used to say that our parish church was built for the tourists, but in the off-season, the entire Catholic population of Myrtle Beach could fit in the first two pews. Ah, the good ol' days!

I digress from the meme! By the authority vested in me, I do hereby tag Mark Mossa at And I Let Myself Be Duped, Louise at Purcell's Chicken Voluntary, and D. G. D. Davidson at Sci-Fi Catholic. So there.