Man of La Mancha

A bubbling young lad sitting next to me on the A330 to Amsterdam glowed with the excitement of his third flight and his first to Europe. His company from Escanaba was sending him and two others to Hamburg Germany to learn about power generating windmills from the Germans. I was impressed by the young man’s enthusiasm and zest but moreover as a representative of an American kid. He was clean cut, well dressed, and had good manners. I was curious to know but would never ask, if he came from a two parent family, attended church on Sunday, and dined with the whole family most evenings.
We talked a little about alternative energy. I said he could consider himself our ‘Man of Escanaba’, as Don Quixote to meet the challenge of the windmills. He nodded with a grin but I wasn’t sure he knew the story. I loved the lunacy of the Knight of the Woeful Countenance and his plight to win the heart of the lovely Dulcinea.
Later that day I was driving to Berlin. Windmills nearly dominate the landscape in some areas. At night their blinking red lights fill the horizon. The sight may tweak the heartstrings of some environmentalists but I think it would be better to have an isolated energy plant fed from an underground source. I have heard our prized windmills near Palm Springs California have decimated the eagle population.