Tuesday, 10AM

As i was setting out for a ride yesterday, the alert siren down the street kicked into its weekly test. i could also hear the sirens from the surrounding communities rising and falling away in the wind.

i thought about my dad. Dad was born in a small town in Scotland and was a young boy when the Great World War broke out. His eldest brother, too young to go to France, spent the war in the Home Guard. My Grandfather, a former coal miner, was a publican, and had a good trade serving the Tommies and Kilties who passed through town on their way to shipping out.

Dad would tell me stories about hearing the German zeppelins fly over on their way to night raids on Edinburgh and Stirling.

Every Tuesday at 10:00 when the sirens sounded, Dad would stop what he was doing, cross himself (he was a devout Catholic,) and say a prayer.

i never asked who or what he was praying for, but i think i could guess.