“…people sleep peacefully in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf”

1993 Washington Times essay by Richard Grenier

Every country struggles with their own gangs and trying to keep those gangs from  mixing.. Taken in Glasgow Scotland.

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2015

If life is what we make of it,
What will you make of yours?
Will you open the window,
Only to close it?
If it rains, pours, and storms?
Will you realize that lives, like plants, 
sometimes only grow after the rain.
Somethings only heal,
after having been out in a storm.

When the valley flows with milk and honey?
Will you choose to dam it up?
Or will you choose to make bread,
and share it with friends?

When death comes to a loved one,
will you choose to close doors?
Will you shut yourself away in your own self-made coffin?
or will you choose to embrace them,
for all the ways they helped you grow,
and let their works and love grow through you?

When your love says lets go traveling
Will you say, no I'm just to busy?

When your friend says lets have Jamaican Thai
will you just say PBJs sound good to me?

When your children want to go play by the pond,
Will you go collect tadpoles with them,'
or close the gate and lecture about the risks of drowning?

What if when the spirit called,
that man never went into the desert alone for 40 days?
What if he had stayed home with his mother
playing x box live?

If life is what we make of it?
Don't we make our own life?
So how will you make yours?

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2016

I love this picture for a number of reasons. First, of course because I am very proud of my son. Second because America seems to want to actively forget all the men and women who serve everyday to protect and serve our country.  They work to protect each and every one of us, but unless something bad happens, we forget that they are there.

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2016

Funny how after taking it, and looking at it, how different things come through in the clouds . Anyone see a sleeping person’s face, and an angry demon, or goat?

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2015

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2015

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2016

Taken at my wife’s parents house. I love the interplay of the flower, the clay, and the wall.

© Dan DeMarle – photo taken by Dan DeMarle 2016

I love this house on the City’s NW side.  Was riding by on my way to check out a new to me restaurant.  Had a chance to talk to the artist/owner.  To me this as the Barn wall picture are great pictures of two different types of Americana.  This picture and the next 869 Hello really do not do this artist’s artistic vision justice.