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adventures, if he could find someone to help him. I mentioned that I did some writing, mostly on aviation-related subjects. We agreed that we would talk about the idea over coffee later in the week, and continued the drive back to the city. My thoughts went back to the road in Cole Harbor and the GRC shoulder patches. I wondered then if they had taken my picture and if so, why. One evening when I was twelve years old, I sat in my bedroom listening to the radio and practicing my guitar, thinking perhaps someday I would be the lead guitar in a famous rock band. Soon the rock music ended and I switched off the radio. It was 10:00 P.M., and I could hear my parents moving a4 My house was on a corner, halfway up a hill in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. My room was upstairs, in the back of the house, with a view of one of the world's best natural harbors, Halifax Harbor. Bored, I looked out my window, down toward the mouth of the harbor. It was dark now, early in the fall of the year. Lights ringed the harbor and drifted along the water on ships and boats. One light grabbed my immediate attention. It was a round object, glowing orange, the color of iron heated in a forge. It was much bigger than the others, and was drifting up the harbor toward me. I knew at once that this was no ordinary buoy or running light. There was something both familiar and foreign AW o--a ta about it. Although reluctant to lose sight of it, I wanted to get a better look, so I dashed into an unused bedroom, grabbed my grandfather's old field glasses from a shelf in the closet, and ran back to my room. orange hue. It grew larger as it drew closer but I realized I was going to lose sight of it behind the buildings along the water's edge. In desperation I threw open the door to my room and ran recklessly down the stairs. When I reached the front door, I yelled to my parents that I had to get something at the store. I heard my father call after me, telling me to get back in the house in a commanding tone of voice. At any other time this would have stopped me short, but not now. An overpowering curiosity had taken hold of me, and there was no time to explain. I ran through the door, rounded the corner, and was soon running down Pinehill Street as fast as I could. I reached Prince Albert Road, turned right past St. James Church, and darted down the shallow grade of Canal Street. Over the top of the Mayflower Club I could see the object drifting closer to my end of the a harbor. A whirl of emotions coursed through me. First among them was fascination mixed with fear. Something inside, my own common sense, was telling me to turn back. But the sense of wonder overcame all that. I ran through a vacant lot, my sneakers crunching on gravel, taking a shortcut over to a Fi the next street. around downstairs. My hands shook as I tried to focus the binoculars on the orange disc. I could see no form behind the An urgency gripped me. I had to see more. Breathlessly I came up from behind the last of a row of warehouses and onto a deserted street that