I was sorting through some photographs today trying to decide which of the thousands of images to throw away, and I came across this one I took in Salem, Massachusetts, a long time ago... at least 35 years ago.  I was driving in the place very near where it is believed now that at least one of the incidents happened that led to accusations of witchcraft and ultimately to the executions by hanging of a couple of people. I remember stopping and getting out of my car to take the picture of a street sign with a "DEAD END" sign attached to it.  Today I took a picture of the picture because what happened in Salem Town in 1692 and 1693 almost a century before the Revolution which led to the founding of our nation reminds me of the scary patch of rhetoric and just as scary visual stuff that is beamed to us in news telecasts about the election that will happen next week.

The Salem witch trials remind us that ordinary people get caught up in madness that people later find unbelievable.  In Salem Town area not far from Boston in what is now the State of Massachusetts twenty people, six of them men and fourteen of them women, were accused of witchcraft and executed in a period of madness.

As this week passes, I am determined to be optimistic about the election results. Stay tuned...