How can I resist...

...The LURE OF COMIC-CON!

O.K., O.K., HE'S BACK...  That's what is being said about my finally coming home from the Douro River in mostly Portugal and a little bit of Spain and about my not being able to contain my enthusiasm for something as American as Comic-Con.  I rode my bicycle down to the Convention Center by the Bay to find more people than I've seen since... well, since the crowd of people who were jamming the corridors of Frankfort Airport hurrying to catch their planes waiting to take off for all the cities of the known world; but all of those stressed folks in the German airport looked like normal people on their way to some activity which doesn't defy understanding.  Comic-Con in San Diego is another matter altogether.

Where else but in America can you find a self-proclaiming super hero stepping out in a crowd to save the world... That's after the guy carrying a sign reminding us that after death comes the judgment and another guy with a microphone and a sign three times bigger than he is shouting that JESUS SAVES... and where else indeed can you find on the street a guy with a mask and a gun escorting a lovely maiden carrying a chicken... right next to a decidedly unattractive Big Red Ridinghood...  I don't know how to explain any of it.