So the trip to Connecticut was fun, albeit brief. Shawn's play was wonderful; I think the entire Long Wharf theatre was in tears. It was about civil conflict, linking the research they did in Northern Ireland to our own Civil War and the Red Badge of Courage. They ended the production with a poem I had never heard before; it made me cry...

For the Children of the North

I dream of the day

When by the coal fire

Your great-grandchildren

Climb onto the laps of your children

And beg not to be put off to bed

"Grandma, Grandpa, tell us again,

How did the Troubles end?"

-John Paul Lederach