Volcanos enthrall me, so when Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii started erupting in May, I knew I needed to go. It would fulfill a decades-long dream, and I didn't know when I'd get another chance.

I arrived in early July when the eruption was fierce, the biggest in 200 years. Kilauea is considered by many to be the most active volcano in the world. Its current activity cycle dates back to 1983.

I decided to witness the volcano from a "doors off" helicopter. Shortly after our ascent, a monstrous plume spiraled straight out of Fissure 8 into the sky from a crack in the middle of the neighborhood where lava first exploded from the ground in May.

As we approached the plume, electric red and orange bursts of lava from Fissure 8 made a fountain high in the air. It was so bright it looked unreal. A cinder cone had built up around the fissure like a small volcano. The raw power of it made me feel tiny. The heat of the lava penetrated through the open doors of the helicopter. Yikes.

Our pilot then flew us over the red lava river that ran eight miles to the ocean. Surrounding the river was an ever-widening scar of now-hardened lava. The flat black devastation was ugly. Lava had destroyed any home in its path.

As we turned towards the ocean, plume after plume of white smoke circled high into the sky. The plumes were the product of 2,000 degree-Fahrenheit lava spilled over high cliffs into the cold ocean. We flew out past the cliffs over the ocean to watch. The lava was fluorescent, its movement reminiscent of mercury. Even the steam it created was red.

As with many things, Kilauea's beauty comes at a high price - I 700 homes destroyed, 2,000 people displaced, staggering economic losses. I can't think of Kilauea without remembering the people whose lives have been so devastated.

A month later, I'm still filled with awe at the wild power and beauty of Kilauea in her longest eruption in recorded history. I feel like I've witnessed a miracle. After three months of eruption, Kilauea is now silent. I am so grateful I took the chance to fulfill a dream.

--Tracy McDonald

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Full service members: Please call the office to sign up for your slot. There are limited spots available on each date so call as soon as you know the date that works for you. All full-service members may request one yard party per season.

Volunteers: If you have not signed up as a volunteer for NE Village, you can still participate. If you are a volunteer but did not choose yard work as one of your services, you can still participate. Just let the office know which date(s) you are available.

All yard party volunteers will receive an email from Michelle Ferroggiaro, Yard Party Coordinator, on how to sign up to volunteer to work a yard party and choose your time. 

Twenty-six year old Jean Louise Finch or Scout, the central character in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, returns to Maycomb, Alabama, in Lee's sequel novel and comes face to face with a changing South at the advent of the civil rights movement.

From the outset of Go Set A Watchman, Jean Louise feels uncomfortable on her return to Maycomb until a former classmate tells her, "I stayed away ten years, but the longer I stayed away the more I missed Maycomb. I got to the point where I felt like I had to come back or die. You never get it out of your bones."

Many of us who grew up in the '50s, '60s and '70s were influenced by the adventures of Scout and Jem and the trials of their father, Atticus Finch, who heroically stood up to the racist Jim Crow South in To Kill a Mockingbird. And, like Jean Louise's classmate, many of us never got Maycomb out of our bones.

The sequel novel starts slow. Give it time. The plot will thicken and the characters will develop. Let yourself become mesmerized by Ms. Lee's control of language and her empathy for the characters as she interweaves Jean Louise's current visit with stories of the past.  Her sharp wit keeps us entertained. On church: "There is nothing like a blood-curdling hymn to make you feel at home." The minister: "...he did not like people, he was quick with numbers, he had no sense of humor, and he was butt-headed."  
   
Scout soon learns that Atticus and her boyfriend, who is law partner to Atticus, are active members of Maycomb's racist Citizen's Council. The rest of the book takes us deeper into the psyche of Jean Louise, "Everything I have ever taken for right and wrong these people have taught me - these people, these very same people.  So it's me, it's not them. Something has happened to me."
Ms. Lee develops each character through clear-eyed description and empathy.  But, unlike To Kill a Mockingbird, in which the sides were clearly drawn, Ms. Lee paints the shades of gray of race, gender and class during the 1950s in the South.

To Kill a Mockingbird was a coming-of-age story for Scout.  In Watchman, Jean Louise must navigate more confusing times as she learns to be an adult. "I need a watchman to draw a line down the middle and say here is this justice and there is that justice and make me understand the difference." There have been times in all our lives when we all wanted that watchman, but like Jean Louise, we learn that there's a difference between knowing what justice is and acting on it.

-- Mark Oldani