Both ends of a fine spring day
I've been reading that Federal general John Logan, as head of the Grand Army of the Republic, chose (originally) May 30 as Decoration Day because it commemorated no anniversary date of any Civil War battle. He hoped to leave the door open for common observance and eventually succeeded.
It must be a sign of age that I have made a habit of showing up for at least a part of our town's Memorial Day ceremonies.
The mind of a veteran goes very far away from the here and now during these things. My strange little Foggy Bottom ceremony a couple of years ago has, oddly enough, laid to rest the worst of the memories that had troubled me for more than 30 years. But one can't put on a navy ball cap with insignia, stand to parade rest or attention, render a salute, without remembering one's own experiences. The volley salute, in our town, is offered by an 18th C. re-enactment group. It's a reminder of how loud musket fire was, and how long it took between volleys. It's also vaguely disturbing that the death toll of veterans of what we coyly call "the Vietnam era" keeps going up.
The park where the keynote ceremony takes place is dominated by a silent obelisk to the fallen of the Civil War. There are smaller monuments to other wars around it. You need no skills but arithmetic to understand why this is the largest. Our media moan today because as of this weekend we have lost 1000 service personnel in nine years of war in Afghanistan. Our threshold of horror keeps shrinking. Skipping the intervening wars, that would have been the death toll of a single minor league Civil War action...in one day. The obelisk, with its many score of fallen from one town, reminds us of that.
Just as well then that there were other things to do after paying the respects. Our trip to Yosemite is less than three months off. Practice is in order if we mean to a) enjoy it and b) come home alive. The nearest place with anything like sustained technical hiking is the Blue Hills Reservation, south of Boston. We contrived to get down there at a quiet moment in traffic, to put in (on my second trip and my wife's first) over three surprisingly vigourous hours of hiking, and to get back ahead of the slavering* mob of irate Cape Cod weekenders.
Here's another definition of "technical" hiking. It is hiking where you are on your hands and feet, but have not left the vertical. It is also hiking in the presence of six circling vultures, all of whom show an uncommon interest in your state of health.
(*"Slavering" is excessive, you say? Clearly, you have never been stuck in a seven to ten mile traffic jam of people trying to leave the Cape Cod holiday paradise right now. Most victims of these jams store up about six months worth of road rage in one afternoon.)
It must be a sign of age that I have made a habit of showing up for at least a part of our town's Memorial Day ceremonies.
The mind of a veteran goes very far away from the here and now during these things. My strange little Foggy Bottom ceremony a couple of years ago has, oddly enough, laid to rest the worst of the memories that had troubled me for more than 30 years. But one can't put on a navy ball cap with insignia, stand to parade rest or attention, render a salute, without remembering one's own experiences. The volley salute, in our town, is offered by an 18th C. re-enactment group. It's a reminder of how loud musket fire was, and how long it took between volleys. It's also vaguely disturbing that the death toll of veterans of what we coyly call "the Vietnam era" keeps going up.
The park where the keynote ceremony takes place is dominated by a silent obelisk to the fallen of the Civil War. There are smaller monuments to other wars around it. You need no skills but arithmetic to understand why this is the largest. Our media moan today because as of this weekend we have lost 1000 service personnel in nine years of war in Afghanistan. Our threshold of horror keeps shrinking. Skipping the intervening wars, that would have been the death toll of a single minor league Civil War action...in one day. The obelisk, with its many score of fallen from one town, reminds us of that.
Just as well then that there were other things to do after paying the respects. Our trip to Yosemite is less than three months off. Practice is in order if we mean to a) enjoy it and b) come home alive. The nearest place with anything like sustained technical hiking is the Blue Hills Reservation, south of Boston. We contrived to get down there at a quiet moment in traffic, to put in (on my second trip and my wife's first) over three surprisingly vigourous hours of hiking, and to get back ahead of the slavering* mob of irate Cape Cod weekenders.
Here's another definition of "technical" hiking. It is hiking where you are on your hands and feet, but have not left the vertical. It is also hiking in the presence of six circling vultures, all of whom show an uncommon interest in your state of health.
(*"Slavering" is excessive, you say? Clearly, you have never been stuck in a seven to ten mile traffic jam of people trying to leave the Cape Cod holiday paradise right now. Most victims of these jams store up about six months worth of road rage in one afternoon.)
Labels: Blue Hills reservation, hiking, Memorial Day
posted by Uncle | 23:31
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