"At night, when it was completely black, no one was around you and you can pretty much reach into the stars," Trenton reminisces."There were just moments when you were away from everything for so long with minimal communication with the outside world. And you'd catch these glimpses when we'd surface the boat." Last month, Trenton completed a six-year duty with the US Navy. He returned home to Charlotte from his station near Jacksonville, FL. Trenton was a periscope operator on a submarine. On a whim, he decided to accompany a friend to her job interview in Chapel Hill. His memory of his tour remains vivid.

"Everyday we'd see the sunlight though the periscope. We'd have to go to the periscope and do our sweeps to make sure no one was around. Then we'd come up and we'd go swimming, grill on the boat, smoke cigars, shoot guns," Trenton says, voice heartfelt. "It was pretty awesome actually. It's very hard to put into words."

I remark on the dedication he has to his friend, to drive from Charlotte to Chapel Hill after returning home from a long voyage.

"I've seen a good bit," he says with a sigh. "It makes impulsively traveling to Chapel Hill seem like a short journey. "

post script: Ari, the greyhound in the previous post, belongs to Trenton

(photograph taken on Columbia/Franklin streets near Ben & Jerry's in Chapel Hill)