The Pentagon Memorial

I have recently posted comments about the 9/11 memorials located in Shanksville, Pennsylvania and at the World Trade Center, in New York City.  So it is only right that I give the Pentagon Memorial is just due.

On that fateful morning of September 11, 2001 I was at my desk just three short blocks from the White House as my colleagues and I followed the unfolding of those tragic events in New York City.  And while we and much of America watched in horror as two commercial airliners crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 carrying 59 passengers and crew, was hijacked by five terrorists after its departure from Washington’s Dulles International Airport and deliberately crashed into the west side of the Pentagon at 9:37am.  The plane struck the building at the first-floor level while traveling at 345 mph, and debris and fires penetrated the three outermost rings of the building.  The building was severely damaged, and one section at the impact site collapsed. In the aftermath, I joined thousands of others crowding the streets and sidewalks of downtown Washington as we made our way out of the city on foot, the smoke of the burning Pentagon rising into an otherwise cloudless blue sky. 

Following the investigation and clean-up of the crash site, the Phoenix Project was initiated to repair and to reoccupy the outermost ring of the rebuilt section by September 11, 2002, the first anniversary of the attack. This goal was bettered by nearly a month, when Pentagon employees returned to the previously destroyed and damaged section on August 15, 2002.  This rebuilt section also houses a small indoor memorial cenotaph and chapel situated at the point of impact.

Dedicated on September 11, 2008, it is a lasting tribute to the 184 who died that morning - the passengers of American Flight 77 and the men and women at the Pentagon.  Like the Shanksville site dedicated to the memory of the heroic passengers of United Flight 93 who foiled the hijackers goal to crash the plane into a target in Washington, DC, the Pentagon Memorial is administered by the National Park Service and is opened to the public free of charge every day of the week.

The exterior memorial consists of a series of 184 bench-like granite-covered structures, each one overlying a small pool and bearing the name of one of the victims.  All are aligned in the direction the plane was traveling when it struck the Pentagon.  The names on each memorial bench face east or west.  If the victim was on the plane, visitors read the name as they look toward the western sky. If the person was inside the Pentagon, you read the name looking at the building, facing east.

One survivor who lost a loved one in the attack on the Pentagon stressed the importance of such sites to families and friends left behind.  They have a place to go other than a burial plot or a vacant stone in a cemetery.  We all need a place to go to ponder and reflect on what happened on that bright, sunny September morning.

Check out the "Looking Toward Portugal" Facebook page for more information and photos.

Now Why Didn't I Think of That???

   Some bloggers think outside the box.

The 9/11 Museum Should be Free to All

This morning I read with not a small degree of dismay that the non-profit corporation and foundation responsible for constructing and operating the new museum at the site of the 9/11 terror attacks on the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan is now planning to charge up to a $25 per person mandatory entrance fee when the museum open to the public next year (although the exact amount of the fee is yet to be determined).  Apparently I am not the only one who feels this way.

Karen Matthews of the Associated Press reports via the Huffington Post that the Foundation claims it is facing sizeable operating costs in the neighborhood of $60 million annually, due in large part to the security that will be required to protect the site from future terrorist attacks. “This is something that is going to be important and is going to be worth the expenditure,” according to Joseph Daniels, the president of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum since October 2006, adding that there would be student and senior discounts while rejecting the idea of optional donations as unfeasible.  

There was a great deal of debate and hair-pulling concerning the final design and ultimate mission of the Memorial and Museum, as well the proposed construction and operation budget funded by private and public funds.  Cost concerns surfaced early in the process with the public disclosure that both would cost an estimated $672 million.  Furthermore, it would take a total of at least $973 million to fully develop the memorial setting which would be owned, operated and finance by the Foundation.  A subsequent  estimate put the cost $494 million and the budget was cut to $530 million, with an additional $80 million grant from New York State for the construction of the museum pavilion.  Even with this reduced budget, over $700 million has been raised to date, with more than half coming from private donations from hundreds of thousands of donors in all 50 states and more than 100 foreign countries.  The remainder consists of federal grants through the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC).  The first capital fund-raising goal of US$350 million was raised by April 2008 to be used to build the memorial and museum and to create an operating endowment for the museum after which Thomas S. Johnson, chairman of the Foundation's executive committee announced the decision not to actively pursue new fund-raising efforts until there was “complete clarity” concerning the design and the costs of the project.

Construction for the memorial began in August 2006, and despite delays, the Foundation was still confident that the memorial would be completed by the tenth anniversary of the attacks on September 11, 2011.  Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is also the Foundation’s chairperson, received a low interest $15 million dollar loan to cover budget shortfalls, and there has also been federal and state funding along with monies from the Port Authority.  If you visit the Foundation’s website - http://www.911memorial.org - there is ample opportunity for you and other private individuals, corporation and foundations to make tax deductible donations, and in doing so recognizing that “the National September 11 Memorial & Museum is only possible because of your support.”   Well, that is not completely true is it?
   
The late Senator Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) proposed Senate Bill 1537 (the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Act of 2011) which would have transferred the site of the memorial and museum to the Secretary of the Interior so that it could be administered by the National Park Service while providing an additional $20 million in US taxpayers’ money to be applied toward the annual operating budget of the memorial and museum (this is approximately one third of the proposed annual operating budget).  The bill was introduced on September 9, 2011 and sent to committee.  House Resolution 2882 was introduced by Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY8) on September 12, 2011 and was co-sponsored by three other representatives from New York State as it was sent to committee.  On October 19, 2011, William D. Shaddox of the National Park Service testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources and raised concerns regarding the ability of the National Park Service to provide the funds required by the legislation.  Shaddox testified that there was no precedent for the Park Service to hold title to a property over which it does not also have operational and administrative control as required by the bill.  Both the Senate bill and the House Resolution died in committee and were never enacted.  What a shame.

Almost a month ago I visited the Shanksville, Pennsylvania memorial to the heroic passengers of United Flight 93 who foiled the attempt by terrorist hijackers to fly a fourth commercial airliner into a target in Washington, DC on the morning of September 11, 2001 [ http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2013/04/a-common-field.html ].  This memorial is operated by the National Park Service and is open daily to the public free of charge.  The Pentagon Memorial to the 184 who died that morning - the passengers on American Flight 77 and the men and women at the Pentagon - was dedicated on September 11, 2008 and is also administered by the National Park Service and opened to the public free of charge every day of the week.

One wonders why the federal government through appropriate Congressional legislation has not found it fitting to financially support a memorial to ALL victims of the 9/11 attacks and not just those who perished at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania.  Throughout our nation’s history, Congress has stepped forward to authorize operating funds – in partnership with private donors – for memorials and museums of national significance.  Congress has authorized funding for numerous Civil War battlefields, for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and for numerous museums and other historical sites.  Why not support of memorial museum in New York City to recognize and honor the victims of the largest foreign attack on American soil?   It seem like a no-brainer to me.

The museum’s mission statement claims that it exists to bear “solemn witness” to the terrorist attacks and to honor the nearly 3,000 victims of these attacks as well as those who risked their lives to save others.  “The Museum attests to the triumph of human dignity over human depravity and affirms an unwavering commitment to the fundamental value of human life.”  Furthermore, Alice M. Greenwood, the museum’s director, tells us that “the Museum will explore the very real impact of terrorism in the lives of very real people, and their families, friends, colleagues and communities.”   If this is the case, why should these same families and friends be expected to pay such an exorbitant entry fee?  Why should anyone, whether they be American or not?  “As custodian of memory,” she goes on to say, “the Museum will take on the mantle of moral authority that will define its continuing and evolving role. This Museum will do nothing less than underscore the absolute illegitimacy of indiscriminate murder.”  I would certainly hope so at $25 a head! 

If there is as much money in the coffers as one is led to believe, it seem to me a rather specious argument to suggest that there is not enough to fund an endowment to cover the operating and security budgets for the new memorial and museum.  How odd that we can visit the Holocaust Memorial Museum and learn about Nazi criminal intentions and actions toward innocent victims and to memorialize and honor in some small way the memory of Nazi victims, yet we are expected to pay top dollar to memorialize and honor our own victims of wanton violence and murder.

Frankly, I think it is offensive to the memory of those who died at Ground Zero, those passengers in the two planes, the workers at the World Trade Center, and those dedicated first responders who gave their lives so that the lucky might return home to their family and friends.  It is an insult to these same families and friends who must soon pay to honor their loved ones.

If the Foundation is truly the custodian of memory cloaked in the mantle of moral authority, it will find a way to make the museum and the surrounding memorial open and free to all who now live daily with the threat of global terrorism that is inalterably changing the fabric of our daily lives.  

Check out the "Looking Toward Portugal" Facebook page for more information and photos.

A Flâneur in Washington, DC

Please check out my blogspot, A Flâneur in Washington, DC, as I explore the neighborhoods, streets, and various haunts and hangouts in our Nation's Capital.  http://flaneurinwashington.blogspot.com. 

Celebrate Earth Day 2013!

Trouble

“I don't go looking for trouble. Trouble usually finds me.”  -- J.K Rowling

Trouble
Oh trouble can't you see
You're eating my heart away
And there's nothing much left of me.

I have had a variety of pets over the years, but few have resulted in a long or an endearing relationship.

There were goldfish and tropical fish, but you can’t play with them or take them on walks through the neighborhood, and so my affinity with these was as short lived as the fish themselves.  I did have a piranha for a time when I was in high school, but even it lost its attraction after awhile.  You can only watch so many goldfish devoured before it cuts into your dating time.  My girlfriend ultimately carried the day.  I had a pet chicken, consequences of an Easter chick that grew up too fast.  We finally found it a good home on a farm outside of town where I doubt it lived a full and rewarding life.  There was a frog I raised . . . from a tadpole at school which I brought home at the end of the year.  It never made it through the summer.  There was a chameleon or two.  A cute bunny that grew into a rabbit who liked to bite.  I discovered I liked Hasenpfeffer (and still do).

Cats seemed to fare better and I actually developed a good relationship with a couple over the years.  There was a white Persian named Romeo whom I really liked. For some reason my dad and Romeo did not get along and a new home was found.  I remember crying as I watched him disappear down the street while sitting up in the back window of our car.  Shortly after my wife and I moved into our first apartment here in Maryland we adopted a black and white kitten which we named Gretchen.  We had her for several years and she was truly a part of our family.  We watched her have kittens of her own and mourned her when she was hit and killed by a car.  We still think of her when we drive down that stretch of highway. 

I had two dogs . . . a beagle and a golden retriever . . . but they came along at a time when I really did not have the time to give them the love and attention they deserved.  I like dogs, and given the right circumstances, I think I would enjoy having one again.  But maybe not.  My wife grew up on ranches with dogs, and a few years after we were married (and after the sad loss of Gretchen) we became the owners of a beautiful Australian Shepherd puppy named Tara, and she was also a member of our family for several years.  It was a present for my wife and she and our young son developed a very close bond with her.  She would have been an ideal pet and companion had she not hated the very sight and sound of me.  We never figured out why.  For most of her life she refused to be in the same room with me, and as much as I tried, I could not get her to like me.  In her later years she tolerated me, I think, but that was it.  There was never really any love lost between us.  Still, I will admit I shed a few tears the day I had to drive her to the vet to have her put down.  So I think you are probably getting the point I am driving at here.  I am basically not a pet person.  Most of these pets were long ago forgotten. Except for one.

One autumn in the mid 1950s I had a pet raccoon named Trouble.  It was not the name I gave it.  Rather my grandmother christened him with this more than appropriate moniker because that was what he was from the day he became a temporary resident of my grandparents’ Michigan farmstead.  But what city kid would not be fascinated with the idea of having a pet raccoon?  I was.  He was not really my pet, such as it was, for very long, but I still think back over the decades to that crisp autumn when Trouble descended on an otherwise peaceful farm.

Trouble was just a tyke when tragedy struck his own family.  His mother was leading him and a couple of his sibling kits across the road in front of my grandparent’s farmhouse when they were run down by a speeding truck.  Only Trouble, although this was not yet his name, survived the incident.  My granddad found an old crate which he wrapped with chicken wire and this became the little racoon’s home.  My grandmother fixed a bottle used to feed young calves and nourished Trouble until he was fully weaned and began to take a real interest in solid food . . . mostly table scraps but also the ubiquitous acorns produced that autumn by a gigantic oak tree between the farmhouse and the chicken coop.  I would gather these by the pail full and delighted in pushing them through the wire cage while watching as Trouble doused each nut in his water bowl as he chewed his way to the meat inside.  Trouble ate just about anything you put in front of him.  Samuel I. Zeveloff, in his book Raccoons: A Natural History, says that raccoons "may well be one of the world's most omnivorous animals."  Trouble certainly proved him correct.

Unfortunately, the older Trouble got, the more he lived up to his name.  He would frequently escape, but knowing what a good thing he had going, he never wandered very far.  My granddad would always manage to find him nearby and capture him or coax him back to his cage.   More of a nuisance than trouble.  The older and larger he got, however, the more unpredictable he became and I was warned in no uncertain terms to keep my hands and fingers out of the cage when I fed him.

I remember it was a snowy morning when my grandfather returned from the milking barn cussing under his breath.  Trouble had escaped again and this time he found the chicken coop.  Need I say more?  Trouble had finally become trouble with a capital T.   I did not realize this until that afternoon, having returned from school to find Trouble’s cage empty again.  I took my pail and filled it with what acorns I could find under the snow, all the while looking for Trouble.  He was nowhere to be found.  I asked my grandmother and she told me to be patient; he would come back when he got hungry.  She reminded me that although I thought of him as a pet, he was a wild animal and belonged in the wild.  The next morning, before heading off to school, I checked the cage to see if Trouble had come home during the night.  The cage was gone.  And, as I left for school I saw my granddad walking up the hill from the chicken coop with his .22 rifle over his shoulder.  I never saw Trouble again.

Trouble
Oh trouble move away
I have seen your face
and it's too much for me today.

[*] “Trouble” lyrics by Cat Stevens.  Check out the "Looking Toward Portugal" Facebook page for more information and photos.

My Obession With Bacon

I have written about my bacon obsession before, and those who know me know that I hold all things bacon in the highest regard.  Some might think it a joke, but I am really quite serious.  It is Ur-Food in my book!

Returning home from Ohio recently, we stopped for breakfast near Zanesville.  The choices at this particular interstate exit did not offer up a lot of possibilities and so we ended up at Denny’s Classic Diner.  Generally, the food at Denny’s is not that bad, and for those of us in the 55 and older set, the menu selections and prices make for little complaint. This restaurant chain has been around for sixty years, starting out as Denny’s Donuts in California in 1953.  The name changed to simply Denny’s in 1959, and since 1997 several of the franchises throughout the country have changed their look and now bill themselves as “Classic Diners.”  Different look, same food.  I first stopped at one of these diners last spring when I was stranded in a snow storm outside of Minneapolis.  I had a great breakfast there and so we decided to give the one near Zanesville a chance.  Little did I know that Denny’s shares and celebrates my bacon obsession. 

Sitting at the counter, our very pleasant waitress offered us the standard menu as well as the special “Baconalia” menu, a limited time offering with which our visit had a most pleasant nexus.  I am use to ordering breakfast while asking for an extra rasher of bacon.  Not necessary this time around!  I ordered the “Ultimate Bacon Breakfast” which proffered not just a side of bacon, but a “Baconalia side of bacon” - six hickory-smoked slices!! - served with two eggs any style, crispy hash browns, and a pile of buttered toast.  And all for just six bucks!  And you know what?  One could add two extra strips of bacon to anything on the menu for an additional 99¢ . . . or four for $1.98.   OMG!

What else, you may ask?   There were choices to be had.  There was the “Pepper Bacon & Eggs” which included a regular serving of bacon rubbed with black pepper.  Looked good, but I was more interested in the quantity of bacon and not the manner in which it is prepared and served.  Still, a pretty good deal at $5.49.  There is a “Pepper Bacon Avocado Omelette” described as another “bacon-inspired dream come true” . . . a three-egg omelette with diced pepper bacon joined with fresh avocado, roasted peppers, onions, mushrooms, pico de gallo and cheese.  It was tempting.  Then there is  “French Toast Stuffed With Carmel Bacon” . . . two slices of toast enclosing a layer of bacon and a white chocolate spread doused with a caramel sauce and covered with bacon bits.  Add a couple of eggs and two more slices of bacon and anyone with a sweet tooth has a pretty good bargain at eight bucks.  Too sweet for me, but hey! 

Had we stuck around for lunch, we would have had a choice among the “Ultimate BLT” with its four slices of pepper bacon; the “Spicy Pepper Bacon Jack Burger” topped with slices of bacon and all the usual fixings coupled with sliced jalapeños and a chipotle sauce; and the “Bacon Pepper Jack Tilapia” with sauteed spinach, diced bacon and pico de gallo with jack cheese.  The bacon sounds good . . . but tilapia?  I’m sorry, but I view this species as just one small step above carp.  A nice haddock, even catfish, is preferable as an affordable and tasty white fish.  Yet, if you cover it with bacon . . . maybe.

For those with lighter appetites, there are the “BBQ Bacon Mac ‘n Cheese Bites” served with BBQ sauce and warm pepper jack cheese and topped with bacon bits, or the “Bacon Cheddar Red-Skinned Potatoes” which give the phrase “meat and potatoes” a whole new meaning. 

So you see where I am going with this.  Bacon give a wonderful flavor boost to anything and everything.  A case in point.  How about a “Maple Bacon Milk Shake” or a “Maple Bacon Sundae”?  They are both on the menu.  Vanilla ice cream with maple-flavored syrup (I would have sprung for the real thing) and bits and chunks of hickory-smoked bacon.  Our waitress told us they are both “divine.”  As much as I like bacon, I personally think this is pushing the envelope a bit, especially mixing the hickory and maple flavorings.  But maybe it’s just me.  Finally, a “Salted Caramel Brownie Sundae With Bacon” (also available without bacon).  Nope.  That IS going too far!

My wife had a waffle . . . she always goes for the waffle.   Did it come with bacon?  No, it did not.  If it had, maybe I would have had the waffle.  True, I could have had the special bacon side order, but that’s not the point.  But I am not complaining.  It was a great breakfast and soon we were headed down and bound for Wheeling and points east with visions of bacon dancing in my head.  





[*] I have received neither enticements nor compensation of any kind from Denny’s . . . although our nice waitress was kind enough to give me a copy of the “Baconalia” menu for my collection.  Check out the "Looking Toward Portugal" Facebook page for more information and photos.

A Common Field

It looks like so many other fields scattered throughout the rolling hills of southwestern Pennsylvania.  But this field has become a solemn place and so it will always remain.  It was here, on the morning of September 11, 2001, that a commercial jet - United Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco - fell out of a clear and quiet autumn sky killing its 33  passengers and seven crew.  Also killed were the four young men who had hijacked the plane as it passed over northeastern Ohio, turning it in the direction of Washington, DC.

No one of a certain age who was alive on that September morning will ever forget the images of the two commercial jets flying wanton into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, in New York City, or the thick pall of black smoke rising from the Pentagon after a third airliner flew into its western elevation.  But few seem to remember the fourth jet, the one that never reached its destination or its intended target.  I hope I can rectify that overnight.

Personally, I will never forget the fate of United Flight 93, and for over a decade I have wanted to visit this solemn place near rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  The reason for this being the fact that had it made its way to its intended target, which was rumored to have been either the White House or the Capitol Building, I might not be sitting here writing this today.  That fateful morning I was at my desk  just three short blocks from the White House.  Despite the fear in Washington that day, I did not, at the time, consider myself in imminent danger.  I joined my colleagues as we followed the unfolding of those tragic events and the confusion that ensued.  We heard reports that other jets were headed our way.  There were reports of fires and explosions throughout the city, none of which turned out to be true.  Finally, I joined thousands of others as we crowded the streets and sidewalks and made our way out of the city on foot, the smoke of the burning Pentagon profaning what was otherwise a cloudless, robin egg blue sky.  It was not until I watched the unfolding news reports at home that afternoon that I heard for the first time the fate of the fourth jet that crashed before it reached Washington.  It was only then that I realized my day could have ended very differently than it did. 

We will never know with absolute certainty what happened on board United Flight 93 on that tragic morning. It departed from Newark at 8:42am, almost 25 minutes late due to heavy traffic in the area that morning.  Four minutes after it took off American Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.  Seventeen minutes later United Flight 175 struck the south tower.  Roughly a half hour after that, at 9:37am, American Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon.  Following the first three hijackings, the FAA and individual airlines began to warn their planes in flight to be aware of possible “cockpit intrusions” while the FAA ordered all civilian aircraft in American skies - approximately 45,000 planes - to land immediately, the first and only time that this has occurred in US aviation history.  United 93 received the cockpit intrusion warning at 9:24am, just four minutes before the hijackers went into action and the flight deck declared a “Mayday” distress call as the plane was approaching Cleveland.  In the background air traffic controllers could hear the sounds of a physical struggle in the cockpit as the crew repeatedly said “get out of here.”   Four minutes later the hijackers informed the passengers, who had been moved to the rear of the cabin, that they had a bomb and that the plane was returning to Newark.  Some of the passengers contacted family and friends by phone.  Thirteen passengers placed a total of 37 separate calls, describing what was happening, telling that the hijackers were armed with knives and claimed to have a bomb, and that some of the crew might already be dead.  The passengers also learned for the first time that three jets had already crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  They quickly realized that their plane was also destined for an unknown target.  They were doomed unless they decided to act and take control of their own fate.

It was also during these phone conversation that people on the ground learned that the passengers had discussed and voted on whether to rush the hijackers in an attempt to regain control of the plane. They decided, and acted, and shortly before 10 am, a half hour after the hijacking and as the plane passed near the Pittsburgh airport, a group of passengers rushed the front of the cabin.  The air traffic controllers in Cleveland heard, and the cockpit recorder picked up, the sounds of the struggle, a series of loud thumps, crashes, shouts, and breaking glasses and plates as the passengers and hijackers fought and the hijacker pilot pitched and rolled the aircraft in an attempt to knock the  passengers off their feet.  The sounds of fighting continued outside the cockpit until the very end.  Realizing that they were losing control of the aircraft, one of the hijackers asked, “Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?”   Another answered, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.”  Shortly after 10am, as the struggle for control of the aircraft continued, the hijackers rolled the plane on it back.  Again a hijacker ordered, “Put it down.”  That was it.  United Flight 93 plowed into an empty field 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh and 124 miles from Washington, DC . . . just 20 minutes’ flying time from the target in Washington it never reached.  It was traveling 580 miles per hour at the time of impact and left a crater almost ten feet deep and 30 to 50 feet wide and surrounded by an extensive 70-acre debris field.  All 40 passengers and crew, as well as the four hijackers, were killed instantly.  The four hijacked aircraft strikes killed nearly 3000 people that morning, the deadliest foreign attack on American soil. 

The destruction of the two airplanes in New York, and the aftermath of the Pentagon attack, are well-documented in photographs and film footage.  The crash of United Flight 93, however, had few witnesses.  People on the ground observed the plane flying very low and fast and moving about erratically. Shortly before impact, a number of residents in the small hamlet of Lambertsville, just northwest of the crash site, witnessed the plane’s final moments.  One told of a “horrific” and “deafening” noise as it passed overhead.  Others told how their houses and windows vibrated violently.  They ran outside to watch the inverted plane disappear over a ridge to the southeast, there was a huge explosion, and a mushrooming fireball rose into the sky followed by a thick cloud  of black smoke glittering with the metallic debris reflecting the morning sunlight.  One of the residents took a photograph of the smoke as it rose over the crash site.

The first responders arrived approximately fifteen minutes after the crash but there was nothing they could do.  All they found was a smoldering crater, some burning trees, and a broad expanse of largely unrecognizable debris.  A very small section of the fuselage was the only evidence that a plane had crashed, while some debris was found as far as eight miles from the crash site.  There was nothing else.  Much of the aftermath and clean-up was completed far from the prying eyes of the public and the media, all of which added to the legend surrounding the fate of the jet and those who died.  The FBI launched the largest investigation in its history as the site, thanks to its isolated setting, was the only one of the three that day that would offer up valuable evidence as to who planned and executed the attack.

A week ago my wife and I traveled to Columbus, Ohio to visit family, and on the return trip to Maryland we took a slight detour off the Pennsylvania Turnpike to visit this common field that will forever be a memorial to those who died here on September 11, 2001.  There are small memorials to United Flight 93 located at the turnpike rest stops near the Somerset exit, but I wanted to visit the actual site which is located 18 miles from Somerset, near rural hamlets of Shanksville and Lambertsville.

The area was first settled in the late 18th century.  Then it was mostly wooded with a scattering of small farms and their cultivated fields and pastures.  Surface strip mining for coal began to transform this landscape in the 1950s, a practice which lasted into the mid-1990s.  Abandoned mining machinery still litters the area.  Events on that September morning almost twelve years ago have forever changed this area as it has been seared into the American conscience. This common field will tell the lasting and compelling story of courage.

There were a number of makeshift memorials to United Flight 93 in the early years after the tragedy.  Even while the FBI was conducting its investigation, there was a long row of hay bales festooned with signs, flags, balloons, stuffed animals and other memorabilia.   Congress designated the site a National Memorial, in 2002, and since then there has been an ongoing effort to restore the area by reforestation and the planting of memorial groves of trees and wild flowers, as well as to design and construct a lasting memorial to the brave crew and passengers who stood up to terrorism the only way they could . . . by standing together. 

It opened to the public last year and it is still very much a work in progress.  There is a small visitors shelter adjacent the parking area which sits atop a broad, wind-swept hill offering a broad panorama of the surrounding Laurel Highlands of southwestern Pennsylvania.  A permanent visitors center is in the works.  After viewing a number of information panels telling the story of September 11 and United Flight 93, one walks along a long sloping black wall which demarcates the northern edge of the debris field which is closed to the public.  Following the completion of the lengthy FBI investigation, the Somerset County coroner, who along with the FBI was able to positively identify all of the victims, ordered the site filled in and it now constitutes the final resting place of the 40 passengers and crew who died here. The identifiable remains of the hijackers were removed and turned over to the FBI.  Across this field, along the southern edge of the crash site, is a stand of hemlock partially destroyed by fire.  There is a single large boulder which now marks where the impact occurred.  At the end of the long walkway is the Wall of Names, a series of 40 white marble panels, each inscribed with the name of one of the passengers and crew.  

It was a difficult, emotional and sobering moment for me to stand there alone.   Had these brave women and men not banded together in a final moment of courage before they died, I could have very well been one of the thousands who were killed and wounded on that otherwise peaceful late summer morning.  Blessed be their memories.  I, for one, will never forget them.

[*] The information on the actual hijacking and crash of United Flight 93 is a summary of what appears in the official 9/11 Commission Report - Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States - released on July 22, 2004 following a two year investigation of all available data. Check out the "Looking Toward Portugal" Facebook page for more photos.

Three More Strangers and the Thunderbolt of the Confederacy

A couple years ago I posted a short piece on my discovery of an unknown Confederate soldier buried not far from where we spend our summers in Maine –   http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2011/07/stranger.html. Just recently I chanced upon the graves of three more Confederate “strangers” buried far from home.

I never quite know what I am going to chance upon when I embark on a road trip.  This past week we drove to Ohio to visit family near Columbus.  On the return trip we jumped off Interstate 70 for breakfast near Zanesville, and afterwards we left the interstate to the trucks and the through traffic, choosing to continue our eastward journey along US 40 - the National Road - through Concord and Cambridge to Old Washington before rejoining the interstate. For awhile we seemed to have the highway to ourselves.

We made an unexpected stop in Old Washington.  It was platted in 1805 as “New Washington,” making it the oldest permanent settlement in Guernsey County.  It was incorporated as “Washington,” in 1829, and by mid-century it was known formally as “Old Washington.”  As we passed through this small town I noticed the familiar silhouette of a historic marker high atop a hill and I wondered what made this quiet hamlet historic?  I made a detour to the hilltop to discover that we had arrived at the site of the northernmost exchange of hostile fire between Union and Confederate troops during the Civil War.  This was news to me; I had grown up in the belief that the Battle of Gettysburg, on July 1-3, 1863, was the geographic highwater mark of the Confederacy.  Apparently not, as Old Washington is approximately ten miles further north in latitude than Gettysburg.   Confederate raiders appeared in several Guernsey County villages, including Old Washington, where they wreaked havoc before being caught by Union cavalry. The three unknown Confederate troops killed at Old Washington are buried in the hilltop cemetery near the graves of two Union soldiers (local soldiers who were not killed here) and adjacent the historical marker.  The town erected a tombstone in 1847 bearing the inscription "Here was laid to rest by the citizens of Washington under public authority, the bodies of three confederate cavalrymen killed during the battle of Washington July 24, 1863, when a force in command of Confederate General John Morgan, was overtaken and defeated by Federal cavalrymen in command of General James M. Shackelford."  So when I got home I looked into this little known chapter of Civil War history.

At the same time Robert E. Lee was leading his army into southern Pennsylvania in his second invasion of the North (the first coming the previous September when he was defeated at Antietam/Sharpsburg), a regimental force of approximately 2500 calvary troops under the command of Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan was conducting a separate campaign of hit and run raids throughout Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio.  This following Brigadier General Henry Heth’s earlier unsuccessful attempt to capture Cincinnati only to be turned back by redoubtable Union fortifications south of the Ohio River in Kentucky.  “Morgan’s Raiders,” as they came to be known, spread a long swath of destruction in their wake during their raids of July 1863.

On July 8, 1863, Morgan led his troops across the Ohio River near Brandenburg, Kentucky despite specific orders not to do so. Morgan’s intention was to draw the attention of thousands of Union troops away from their normal duties, including support of the Union defenses farther east in Pennsylvania, and to strike fear among the civilian population in the north. They swept across southeastern Indiana in less than a week, procuring horses and provisions while the Indiana militia tried to organize defenses until Union reinforcement could arrive.  Morgan and his troops entered Ohio just north of Cincinnati on July 13 thereby flanking the Union fortifications south of that city.  The Ohio governor called out his own state militia on July 12, and Major General Ambrose Burnside, commander of the Department of the Ohio with headquarters in Cincinnati, quickly organized Union regulars and the Ohio militia in an attempt to protect the southern part of the state from Morgan and to cut off his escape across the Ohio River.  But not before Morgan and his cavalry advanced across southern Ohio, torching fields and farms and bridges as they made their way east toward the Ohio River and the West Virginia border.  Morgan had hoped to cross back into Kentucky but the river crossings were fortified by Union garrisons.

Morgan arrived at the river on the evening of July 18, but decided not to attempt a crossing that night.  On the following day, Union troops under Brigadier-General E.H. Hobson, who had been pursuing Morgan since shortly after he entered Ohio, finally caught up with the Confederate raiders at Buffington Island, near Ravenswood, West Virginia where Morgan hoped to cross the swollen Ohio River.  Morgan succeeded in getting a small number of his men across the river before Union gunboats arrived to block this route of escape.  Union cavalry with a two-to-one superior force attacked the Confederates before most could cross, however, and in a very short period of time Morgan lost between 800 and 1200 men, nearly all of whom were captured. Such as it was, this “battle” was the largest fought on Ohio territory during the war.

Licking their wounds, Morgan and his remaining raiders turned north having broken through the Union lines. They eventually found an unguarded ford where some 300   Confederates succeeded in crossing while many others drowned before Union gunboats arrived.  Morgan and what remained of his men then turned northwest feigning an advance in the direction of Athens and Columbus before turning northeast in the general direction of Zanesville and Cambridge.  Union Brigadier General James M. Shackelford and elements of the 1st and 3rd Kentucky and the 14th Illinois followed in hot pursuit.  On July 22 Morgan and his men forded the Muskingum River south of Zanesville before turning northward into Guernsey County near Cumberland.

This ragtag band of soldiers wanted to get across the Ohio River and return home.  They stole horses and other provisions while burning bridges to slow down their Union pursuers.  Still they had one more fight left in them.  Morgan and his men reached Old Washington on the morning of July 24.  They rested and sought food and new provisions in town until the early afternoon when there were reports that the Union calvary was approaching from the south. The Confederates prepared to flee and many had already left town when Shackelford’s troops gathered at the top of Cemetery Hill and open fired on the Confederates still in town.  They returned fire and three Confederate soldiers were killed while several others were captured. A skirmish more than a battle.  Those that escaped headed farther north, still hoping to find a way across the Ohio River. 

Morgan and his troops lasted two more days, until Union cavalry under the command of Major W.B. Way and Major G.W. Rue finally surrounded them.  They surrendered on July 26 near West Point, Ohio, in Columbiana County not far from the Pennsylvania border and  some 100 miles northeast of Old Washington. Morgan and several of his officers were sent to the Ohio Penitentiary, in Columbus. Many of the enlisted men were confined in the Camp Chase Confederate prison camp west of there (where today almost 2300 Confederate dead are buried far from their homes) while others ended up in the Camp Douglas stockade in Chicago.

The story of Morgan Raider’s - the “Thunderbolt of the Confederacy - ends with an interesting footnote.  After arriving at the penitentiary on October 1, 1863, Morgan and several of his men planned an escape, seven of them eventually tunneling their way to freedom on November 27.  Using money smuggled to him in prison, Morgan purchased a train ticket to Cincinnati where he escaped across the Ohio River into Kentucky, something he and his men were unable to do during their three-week raid across Ohio.  He returned to the war but was killed in action on September 4, 1864 at Greenville, Tennessee.

So now I know the rest of the story.


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Fishing With Volmar

I first introduced my grandfather Volmar Miller (1902-1987) in my September 20, 2009 posting, “The Old Swimming Hole” - 
http://lookingtowardportugal.blogspot.com/2009/09/old-swimming-hole.html - a description of some fond yet ever more distant memories of my youth.  Here is more of the story . . . .

My grandfather, who grew up on Granly Farm in rural Almena, Michigan, was quite the outdoors man who would later serve on the Michigan State Waterways Commission in the 1960s under then Governor George Romney.  It was at Blocker’s Pond, situated on the edge of Granly Farm and which most of the locals referred to as "Miller Pond," that Volmar first taught me the ways of the angler.  He had also built two small fish ponds on his property just downstream from Miller Pond and stocked them with brook trout from the local hatchery. These ponds were fed by the stream flowing out of the Miller Pond, a small wooden waterwheel on to which old coffee cans had been fastened ladling stream water onto a wooden flume running down to the small fish ponds. 

I was five years old when Volmar first started me out with a simple cane pole, a length of fishing line, and a red and white bobber below which a juicy nightcrawler hung suspended to entice a fat bluegill to the invisible hook.  I eventually move up to a small spin-cast outfit and a variety of wooden and metal jigs and poppers.  I finally graduated to a fly rod and reel and the mysteries of artificial flies crafted from thread and feathers, many of which Volmar tied himself.

I always looked forward to the quiet walk along the stream and up through the woods to Miller Pond. The Blockers had a small rowboat and from time to time I would see someone fishing from it along the opposite bank. I asked Volmar if we might not catch more fish from a boat. He impressed upon me the importance of patience when fishing, like so many other of life’s adventures. Patience, and the proper presentation of the bait whether it be a worm or an artificial lure or fly.  Give the fish what it seeks and where it expects to find it. It could care less whether the angler was standing on the bank or sitting in a boat. There was truth in this.  A string of bluegills would frequently find its way into a iron skillet sizzling with lard.  Fishing for the beautifully-speckled brookies in the small trout ponds was a special treat.  How to trick an Argus-eyed trout by presenting a fly that closely resemble its favorite meal.  The brookies were fun to catch and we would always release them after finessing them to the net.  We were tempted to keep a couple for a shore lunch because they taste so damn good when they go straight from the water into the frying pan.  But we didn’t.  They are too damn beautiful not to return to the water and watch that flash of color as they sound into the depths.

I visited these ponds less frequently as I grew older and eventually I moved beyond my own Midwestern roots once I entered college in Florida. I stopped to visit Volmar in January 1971, on my way home from New York City and Toronto where I had spent part of my holiday semester break.  Miller Pond and the smaller trout ponds were covered with thick ice and snow drifted deep in the woods around the house. Volmar invited me to stay and do some ice fishing, but I was in a hurry to visit my girlfriend who attended college a few miles away. I stopped by again a few months later, on my way home for the summer break. This time Volmar and I tossed some flies and small poppers to the bluegills in Miller Pond. One last time we brought back a stringer of fish for lunch. Little did I know that this would be my last fishing trip to these ponds of my youth. 

But this was not the end of my fishing adventures with Volmar.  He would spend his winters along Florida’s Gulf coast and from time to time I would drive over on a weekend break from my studies to wet a line together.  He had a nice little place directly on the Anclote River only a mile of two from where it flows into the Gulf at Tarpon Springs.  We fished shrimp and crab right off his dock and were rewarded with sheepshead, redfish (channel bass), ladyfish (often called the poor man’s tarpon) and catfish.  We would also boat out to the local mangrove flats where we tossed flies to cruising redfish after which we would return to the dock for “Miller Time” . . . a couple bottles of beer while Volmar filleted our catch (he also taught me the proper way to fillet fish).  If time and weather permitted, we would take his boat, a Boston Whaler, out into the open Gulf to jig pinfish for grouper that populated the reefs and wrecks farther out.  He loved to get out on the open water where he could open up the throttle and let fly.

It has been forty years since the last time Volmar and I fished together and a quarter century since he passed away there on the banks of the Anclote River, his beloved boat moored nearby.  I still think back fondly on those times we shared on the banks of those  small Michigan ponds and along the Gulf coast.  And I thank him for teaching me the proper way to fish and for the right reasons.  Never keep anything you don’t plan to eat.  I have never lost my love of fishing and do it as often as I can.  Volmar is always in my thoughts whenever I find myself on or near the water.  Even when the fish aren’t biting, a day with a fishing pole in your hands is better than so many alternatives.   

Three Score and Two, Brandywine River, Pennsylvania

Official birthday portrait taken yesterday at Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania.

90,000 Hits As of Today!!!

Thanks to everyone worldwide who has visited Looking Toward Portugal since December 2008. This project has been more successful than I could have ever imagined when I first started out.  I hope you will continue to look in from time to time for more random notes from the edge of America.  Better yet, become a follower.

Boissevain - A Poem

This is a poem I presented last night at the Iota Club and Cafe in Arlington, Virginia.

                                   BOISSEVAIN
           (You Probably Thought This Poem Was About You)

        Vermont is where philosophy professors go to summer,
        where poets and novelists hide in secluded cabins,
        cottages, trailers, sequestered in rooms with wood stoves,
        scribbling with pencils, tapping typewriters, staring
        at the ghosts on their computer screens.

        A philosopher poet sneaks into Vermont
        from the north, no flatlander seeking respite
        from Boston, Hartford, New York. He wanders
        down from Montréal, the mean streets of Maisonneuve,
        seeking solace in a Church Street bar
        far from any other philosophers and poets.

        Burlington’s businessmen drinks their beers,
        nurse a scotch and water, a dry martini.
        Some eye the pretty girl as she tends bar.
        The philosophical poet is happy to be here.
        “Mademoiselle, un autre biere si vous plait.”   
        He forgets he can order his beers in English,
        flirt with the barmaid who smiles, not telling
        him to fuck off in the language of love.

        At a corner table a young woman sits alone,
        sipping a glass of white wine and reading
        a dog-eared volume of Vincent Millay’s poetry.
        The poet cleverly inquires why she reads Millay.
        She smiles at him; does not tell him to fuck off.
        He sits, they eat, drink, and laugh through
        the evening, leaving the Church Street bar
        in the wee hours, footsteps hushed by the
        the wind-driven onslaught of snowflakes hexagonal.
        Strange how poetry seems to unlock all doors.

        Later the poet stares beyond her darkened window;
        the snow a hushed veil of urgent whiteness obscuring
        the lake and the vestiges of the Adirondacks beyond.
        Farther south the Taconic ridge where Vincent lived
        at Steepletop, where she died alone and where
        she now lies buried.  She did not hide away in Vermont,
        choosing Berkshire foothills over Green Mountains.
        All the poet sees from this window is the snow ticking
        in night shades, no three long mountains and a wood,
        no three islands in a bay.  There is only darkness.

        In the morning the poet heads north and homeward,
        along Lake Champlain and beside the Rivière Richelieu,
        homeward to the eastern precincts of Montréal.
        Who said it is Vermont where professors summer,
        where poets and novelists go to find a reasons to write?
        The poet can think only of a fleeting winter’s night of passion;
        of poor Vincent, her bones in death’s cruel embrace.
        In Maisonneuve he sits alone and tries to write a poem about it.
        “Mademoiselle, un autre biere si vous plait.”

Tender Mercies: A Lenten Sermon

This is the text of a sermon I delivered yesterday morning at the Twinbrook Baptist Church, in Rockville, Maryland.

Tender Mercies
Isaiah 55: 1-6
Luke 13: 1-9

It is nice to be back among all of you this morning, and it is always an honor to have an opportunity to share a few thoughts with you during our Sunday morning worship services.  When I entered college I harbored some thoughts of going into the ministry.  It is funny how one’s life changes, how we follow new paths and opportunities as we mature and grow in directions we might not have ever considered.  So it has been with me.  I have never had a problem getting up in front of people and talking.  But when I do, I am always confident that I have a good grasp of the facts and figures, the methodology, the results.  I do not consider myself a Biblical scholar or a theologian.  But I am a Believer.  And really, how hard can it be to stand before others and say what you believe.  Well, sometimes it is harder than you might think. 

A couple weeks ago Sally Ann and I took a long drive down Interstate 95 from our home in Maryland to Gainesville, Florida.  A distance of 800 miles covered in twelve hours of constant driving.  The sun was rising as we approached the northern fringes of Richmond, and we watched the sun set as we arrived in Gainesville. It is a trip we have taken numerous times over the past four decades and one that I am quite certain I could complete in my sleep . . . while blindfolded.  Choosing, however, to keep my eyes open and alert as we sped along our way, I noticed that the farther south we drove, the greener were our surroundings.  The trees were beginning to leaf out and the dogwoods and redbuds were in full bloom as we passed through the Carolinas.  The azaleas were  just beginning to pop out in north central Florida.  Not only had we driven south in time and space, we had also driven into a new spring.

This is what we have all come to expect with the advent of spring.  A seasonal rebirth evidenced in the greening and flowering of plants and trees.  These are symbols of life, of renewal, a new beginning. 

The Lenten season is a time for us to look at our own spiritual rebirth.  In fact, the word “Lent” is derived from the Old English “lencten,” which means spring time.  A new time.  A time to look at things from a fresh perspective after emerging out of a lean and hungry season.  It is a time of following.  The narrative about Jesus’ suffering and death provides a way in which we are able, in an act of disciplined imagination, to situate (or resituate) our lives in a manner by which we honor what God and Jesus have in store for us.  We become aware that the story of Jesus - his life, death and resurrection -  requires and permits us to create a new version of our own story of life and faith.  How blessed can we be?  We are very blessed, indeed.

It has been said that the purpose of the first part of Lent is to bring us to “compunction,” a word  etymologically related to the verb "to puncture."  In reading Scripture we are told that if we seek penance, we are also recognizing that we need to deflate our inflated egos, a challenge to any self-deceit we might harbor concerning the real and honest quality of our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.

If you really think about it, this penance sought in the Lenten season may actually be more effective, might actually teach us a better lesson, if we fail in our resolutions rather than if we succeed.  After all, isn’t the purpose of this penance more than just a confirmation of who we are, or who we think we are?  Of what we think we may know and believe?  Should it not make us stop and think long and hard about what we need to accomplish and understand in order to receive God’s salvation?  Do we truly like what we see when we look into a mirror?  Or do we see our flaws, those that are perhaps obvious to all, as well as those you have to look real . . . real close to see?  Is the reflection in the mirror what we truly want to see when we take a good, long look at ourselves?  Do we know who we are and where we are going? That is the meaning of repentance. At least this is what I believe.  We need to look at ourselves in the person of Jesus Christ and have a genuine heart's desire to have his spirit shape our lives.

I am reminded of a story told of an Anglican bishop traveling from London to a rural village to perform a confirmation service.  Somehow, during the course of the trip, he managed to misplace his ticket, and appearing somewhat flustered when he was unable to produce it when asked, the conductor smiled and said: "It's quite all right, my lord, of course I know who you are." Still the bishop looked perturbed and replied, "Yes, but don’t you see?  Without the ticket, I don't know where I am going."  It is not enough for us just to be here; we need to know our purpose; we need to know who we are.  We must be able to recognize that face in the mirror.  And more importantly, we must be satisfied by what we see.  Growth in our lives and in our faith is not so much advancing one’s self as it is becoming oneself.  Being who you really are when you take a good look at yourself in the mirror.

Think back on the two readings from Scripture this morning.  Reading and listening to the words of Isaiah 55 we see and hear a prophetic song in which God promises mercy, forgiveness, and abundant provisions to those who seek to repent and put their trust in God.

In the second of this morning’s Scripture readings - Luke 13 - we encounter Jesus as he traveled and taught his way from Galilee to Jerusalem.  He learned that Pontius Pilate had ordered the killing of a number of Galileans as they were offering sacrifices, their blood being mingled with that of the sacrificial animals.  We also learn that eighteen others had died when the Tower of Siloam in Jerusalem fell on them.  Jesus asked those gathered around him whether they thought these unfortunate victims were worse sinners or offenders than anyone else living in Galilee or Jerusalem?   Jesus told them no.  They just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  That said, however, Jesus reminded his followers that this fate awaits all, regardless of their lives, whether they be rich or poor, regardless of their circumstances . . . this fate awaits all who fail to repent and return to God.  All will perish.

Jesus then told his followers the story, or the parable, of the fig tree:  A vineyard owner has planted a fig tree in his vineyard because it is this land where there is sufficient water and nutrients to nourish the tree.  And he knew, if he waited long enough, if he was patient long enough, he would be able to go to his vineyard and gather the figs he expects to find there.  But the tree has been barren for three years.  There are leaves as the fig nourishes itself in the good ground of the vineyard, but it produces no fruit.  The owner asks himself why he should bother with the fig tree if it bears no fruit, if it is only taking up space in the vineyard?  He orders the trees cut down and cast away as useless.  The gardener who works for the owner . . .  obviously a more patient man than the owner . . . cautions against such rash action.  Perhaps if the tree was better fertilized, it might finally bear fruit the following year.  If not, then it could be cut down.

We need only look back to Psalm 80: 8-16 - here the people of Israel are equated with a grapevine brought out of Egypt.  They were allow to grow and to be properly nurtured in the land they returned to.  The ground was cleared of all foreign nations and the people of Israel were allowed to put down deep roots overspreading the land.  But this was possible only as long as the people were protected and nurtured.  When the walls set up to protect them were removed, their enemies returned to this land . . . the fruit was stolen and the vine chopped down and set on fire.  When people came to the Jordan River to be baptized, John called them to repentance. His words were harsh and unrelenting:  "Even now," he said, "the ax is lying at the root of the trees. Every tree, therefore, that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire."  As we read in Mark 11:12–14, three years and more Jesus sought fruit of a fig tree and found none. Having produced all his credentials as Messiah, Jesus made a triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the crowds shouting “Hosanna” as if to glorify him.  Yet how soon was it before these same people called for him to be crucified.  The next day Jesus saw a fig tree and finding nothing but leaves, He cursed it.  The sin . . . the failure of the fig tree in not producing fruit . . . is not that it did something bad.   It did nothing at all.  It did not produce the desired fruit.  It only took up space in the vineyard and consumed water and nutrients which the other more productive plants and trees required.

The lesson here is very simple.  Genuine repentance and faith toward Jesus Christ is the only means of escape from perishing.  Nothing can be expected from those who fail to repent and turn away from their barren and hypocritical lives.  Just like the fig tree that is cut down and cast off, so too those who fail to recognize their shortcomings, failures and weaknesses, who fail to repent and seek God’s forgiveness.  The question for God is . . . how long does he wait until repentance comes to a nation, a church, or an individual?  Maybe the vineyard is the whole earth. Maybe it's the church. Maybe it's your life and mine. 

We can take comfort in God’s tender mercies.  God and Jesus are not going to give up on any of us . . . you, me, the  church, the whole earth.  Read the parable of the fig tree again.  There's hope in this parable . . . patience, don't cut the tree down. But there's also urgency . . . give it one more year.  Still, Jesus' parable moves in the direction of a promise more than a threat.  But don’t let that stop you from doing what you are doing.  Or what you know you need to do. 

Take a real long look at yourself in the mirror.  Look way down deep.  That torn place that perhaps fear or ignorance has opened up inside of you is a holy place.  Take a good look around while you are there. Pay attention to what you feel. It may hurt you to stay there, and it may hurt you to see what you see, but it is not the kind of hurt that leads to death. It is the kind of hurt that leads to the promise of a new life. 

"What have you done?" Jesus asks, "What have you left undone?"  Such questions, like the parable and the fate of the fig tree, move us toward repentance, a word that means to turn around, to believe things can be different, to trust that the one who calls us to turn around will be there even when we fail.

What a grace time can be for us....to have space and time to grow, to mature spiritually, to reform our lives, to serve the Lord and remove the obstacles, big and small, between God and ourselves . . . between us and others.  Look at what we put Jesus through and still God has not given up on us.  We are graced with time, yet we must use it wisely.  This Lenten season is the offer of the gardener to the vineyard owner.  Patience . . . give it more time.

A merciful God made us with what we need to be better than we are now.  We are not seeking to turn to some new way.  We seek only to turn (or return) to God whom we have had with us all the way although we might sometimes forget this.  God is merciful enough to wait for us to discover that. Repentance is not about the past.  It is about the future!!

Jesus told his followers in Luke 21:29-31: "Look at the fig tree, and all the trees. When they are already budding, you see and know for yourselves that summer is now near. So you, likewise, when you see these things happening, know that the kingdom of God is near."  Similarly, in Matthew 24:32: "Now learn this parable from the fig tree:   When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near."  Jesus is simply using the budding of the fig tree to illustrate a point about his second coming. 

We have no idea how soon it will be. The best approach, perhaps, is contained in the apostle Paul's admonition to the Romans to repent and seek God’s salvation, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than perhaps we first believed.  If we live as if Christ will come tomorrow, we will always be striving to be prepared for it.

So what about the future?  Here it is the first days of March.  The spring Sally Ann and I drove into a couple weeks ago as we drove south is now moving this direction.  It will be here soon.  Already I am beginning to see buds on some of the trees.  The daffodils and the crocuses are popping out of the winter soil.  There is promise of new life, renewal, a new beginning.

God’s tender mercies will never fail us.  With these tender mercies he cares for us and all of his people.  Such is the comfort of the word of God to us.  Let us look to Jesus Christ as we ask him to help us be the people we truly want to be.  And let him help us to treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated, to be shaped by what Paul, to the Galatians, calls “the fruit of the Spirit,” which includes love, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, and a great deal more [Galatians 5:22-23].

They Say the Wells Are Freezing

The title is a line taken from “Winter News”, one of the early poems by the Alaskan poet and essayist John Haines who passed away two years ago today.  He was a very dear friend whom I had the pleasure and honor to know during the last two decades of his life. John died in Fairbanks on March 2, 2011 at the age of 86 after months of declining health and I miss him just as much today as I did the day I learned he had left us.  The world lost a truly unique visionary and Alaskan arts and letters are much diminished with his passing.  John was a man as hard and uncompromising as the Alaskan tundra yet he managed to retain a soft and tender heart.  He was a rare presence and one that will be greatly missed.  Thinking of the final lines of “Winter News,” the snowman has truly called home one of his white-haired children.

Neither A Lion Nor A Lamb

March can be a strange month.  Winter is not quite done with us yet spring often gets off to a pretty slow start.  Some have said that if the month gets off to a rocky start . . . “coming in like a lion” . . . which is more often the case, the end of the month and the early days of April will finally witness the approach of spring . . . “going out like a lamb.”

It all depends where you live.  Here in Maryland, however, it is difficult to say what March might have in store for us in the way of weather.  I am just happy that February is behind us.  I have never had much love for this shortest of months.  Thankfully I bid it a hasty farewell.

Meteorologists have long considered March 1 the first day of spring. However, the traditional beginning of the spring season, the Vernal Equinox (also known as the March or Northward Equinox), does not usually occur in the northern hemisphere until around March 20.  I was born on March 21 and my family and I have always considered myself a “spring baby.”

Just about a month ago, Punxsutawney Phil, that prognosticator of prognosticators, stepped out of his hole on a cold morning in central Pennsylvania and announced to the world (or at least to central Pennsylvania) that he did not see his shadow and that we might expect an early spring.  Whether you believe Phil or not, this February has been one of the snowiest in recent memory, especially here in the East.  Much of the country still seems to be in the strong grasps of winter as cold fronts and storm systems continue to work their way across the country from west to east.  The latest GPS models posted today suggest that a significant winter storm may impact the Mid-Atlantic states sometime in the coming week, although it appears that the Washington metropolitan area will see nothing more than rain, or possible a wintry mix.

The changeable weather brings about a whole different type of “March Madness.”  This is the month that college students traditionally head to warmer climes to celebrate their annual spring break from the books.  Back in my day students more often than not headed for the Florida beaches.  Having attended college in Florida, this was never a big draw for me; I could go to the beach any time I wanted.  Now, many head to the beaches of Texas, and to Mexico where the dollar goes just a little further. 

Still, there is no doubt that spring is quickly approaching. Driving by the local elementary school I see colored flowers taped to the windows instead of snowflakes.  Here in Maryland sailors and boatyard workers will celebrate the “Burning of the Socks.”  They only wear socks during the winter months, and with the arrival of warmer temperatures, it will be time to cast the sock aside until the cold returns in late autumn.  The days are gradually warming up, and the sap is beginning to rise in the local sugar maples.  Soon the buckets will be hanging from the taps and the sugarhouses will be producing this year’s maple syrup and sugar products.


Another sign of approaching spring is the daffodils and crocuses beginning pop out of the dormant winter soil.  Think of Act IV, Scene 4 of William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale.  Perdita exclaims:

    O Prosperina,
    For the flowers now, that frighted thou let’st fall
    From Dis’s waggon! daffodils,
    That come before the swallow dares, and takes
    The winds of March with beauty . . . .

Should we be aware of the Ides of March and what it signifies?  Maybe winter isn’t over yet.

Now I think back to that old saying about the month of March - in like a lion, out like a lamb - although given the strange weather patterns, the opposite might just as well be true.  This wisdom, which finds it origins in the positions of the constellations of Leo and Aries during mid-March, is traced back to John Fletcher’s (1579-1629) Wife of a Month (1624/1647).  “I would chuse March, for I would come in like a lion . . . But you would go out like a lamb when you went to [a] hanging.”  One can also trace it back to the Catalogue of English Proverbs (1670).

Who knows what March will bring?  Maybe a little more winter?  Maybe an early spring?  Patience my friends.  It will be what it will be.

The Most Constant of Friends

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.”
 ~ Charles W. Eliot

This is a revised, updated and somewhat expanded version of two essays which first appeared on my “literary” blogspot - “Epiphanies in the rue Sansregret”  - in late 2009 and early 2010.
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The Brazilian novelist and journalist Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist, The Pilgrimage, The Winner Stands Alone, and Aleph) has for many years shown an intensive interest in the Internet and its ability to increase access to literature and other media.  In August 2008, he wrote in his blog that “books are trendier than ever - people are reading again, and writing again and why? Internet.”  A couple months later he delivered a keynote address, “The Internet’s Impact on Culture,” at the Frankfurt Book Fair.  He believed the Internet, as well as the Kindle and the Nook, was making books obsolete.

The December 2009 issue of Playboy magazine featured Coehlo’s essay, “Dust in the Wind,” in which he addressed the question of why he was breaking up his personal library. He confessed that he no longer had many books; years ago he decided to keep only 400 books (give or take a few); books he found himself frequently rereading along with a few that had sentimental value.  The remainder he donated to a public library where they might be used and enjoyed by others.  “Why should I keep all these books at home?  To show friends I am cultured? To decorate the walls?”

When I originally read Coehlo’s essay in late 2009, I looked at my offices both at home and at work, and the walls of books in our bedroom and den, and I began to think that Coelho may have a good point.  He originally kept all of his books, thinking that one day he would need to consult one or another.  Later, considering that the Internet has become one of the most comprehensive reference libraries in the world, he decided to share his books with others, “trying to obtain a maximum quality with a minimum amount of things.”  Coehlo continued to purchase books, but once he finished them, he allowed them to travel “like the mind of the author traveled as he wrote it.”  He now believes that “a book has a course of its own and should not be condemned to remain immobilized on a shelf.”

I must confess that I love books.  I always have.  So it has been difficult for me to imagine ever giving them up, even after I have read them. That said, I have begun to understand why Coelho decided to simplify his life.  There comes a time when one must face the consequences of a lifetime of buying and saving books.

In late 2009 my former office at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC had floor to ceiling bookcases covering  two entire walls, and other books were piled here and there wherever space was available.  Every time my wife visited she would look at all of these books, shake her head, and inquire where I intended to put them once I retired.  A levitate question although at the time I had no concrete plans to retire.  So, in my mind anyway, it was a moot point.  My response was quick and to the point.  “I haven’t got the faintest idea.”  On top of all this, new books seemed to appear almost daily as out of thin air.  Another one for this pile or that.

At home our den and bedroom have floor to ceiling bookcases packed tight with our favorite books, and there is frequently an overflow of books stacked up next to each side of our bed, and by the couch in the den.  Add to this bookcases in the basement along with the many boxes of books packed up in storage.  Most of these date back to college and graduate school, and although I have no suitable place to display them, I have always held fast to the notion that one day that space will somehow miraculously materialize.

The fate of the books in my office?  I was faced with the dilemma sooner than I expected, and in March 2010 I did, in fact, retire and the hens came home to roost.  I finally had to decide what I was going to do with all of those books.   My wife and I braved a winter storm, driving into downtown DC to begin packing up my office, including these three plus decades of accumulated books.  There were books that had sentimental value, and others I knew I would need at some point in the future.  Like Coehlo, I would want to keep these.  Would I be able to keep this number to 400?  Only time would tell.  We crated up over three dozen boxes, most of them books, which we brought home.  Several other boxes of books moved from my office to the section’s library where my colleagues would continue to use them.  Finally, we packed up more boxes which I loaded into our car, navigating a snow-packed Pennsylvania Avenue to a small bookstore on Capitol Hill.  While the owner unpacked each box for inspection, his wife invited me into an adjoining room where she offered me a piping hot cup of coffee as I told her how I had come to accumulate so many books.  They both understood how difficult it was for me to part with them, and they were generous, buying about half of what I brought in.  The rest I donated to the store for its “books cheap” program to benefit the local neighborhood association . . . the idea being to find them a good home.  Sounded good to me; Coehlo would have been proud.  I made my way back through the snow to my office with a few bucks in my pocket, enough to buy a nice dinner for us when we finished our packing at the end of the day.

I cannot see myself ever not buying a new book.  But Coelho may have found an equitable solution to this dilemma.  Perhaps it is time to let some of these older books travel seeking their own course.  Do I really need to decorate my walls with books, many of which I will never open again, to show that I am an intellectual and cultured individual?  I still prefer to pick up a book when I am doing research.  But I definitely like the idea of sharing books with others, especially those I no longer have need of.  And, to be honest, I just don’t have anywhere to put them.

For the past three years those dozens of boxes of books brought home from my office have sat squeezed into the basement wherever there is space.  And just like when she used to visit my office, my wife looks at them and asks me what I plan to do with them.  Well, there is still no room for them here at home and so I am going to have to start making some of the hard decisions I have been putting off until another time. That time has finally arrived. 

I have moved the car out into the driveway and have now unpacked all the books which lie stacked on two long tables in the garage.  The sorting process has begun and I am trying to decide which books I am going to keep for whatever reason.  Some I just cannot part with and so I will find room for these.  I put a few interesting history books into a box which I gave to my son’s father-in-law who shares my interest in various historical topics.  He was very happy to have them.  When you give someone a book, you are giving them the most imaginative of gifts, because you are taking a personal interest in what interests them.

But what to do with the stacks of books for which I have no room?  It is time to find them a new home.  Perhaps I will be able to sell a few more, but when it all sorts out, I will probably do the same thing Coehlo did . . . donate them to a library which will share them with others.  Perhaps I could get more money, if I continued to shop them around to various book stores, but frankly, I am not interested in the money.  If I was, I would have acted long before now.  I will be happy just to find a proper new home for my most constant of friends.
  
Thomas Jefferson, in his aging years at Monticello, offered to sell his private library to the US government in Washington to help rebuild the Library of Congress collections that were lost when the British sacked and burned he capital in September 1814.  His library had grown so large that he could no longer accommodate it, nor did he have the time, energy nor the inclination to read all that he had collected over the years. Not only would these books be welcomed in Washington, but the monies from the sale would go far to help offset the growing debts of Jefferson’s estate.  In April 1815, several wagons containing almost 7000 volumes made their way to Washington and John Adams, Jefferson’s longtime friend and confident (and sometimes bitter nemesis) applauded the gesture as an “immortal honor.”  Jefferson, finding it impossible to survive without his books, began to establish a new library at Monticello.

The bookish Adams could well understand his friend’s plight as his own personal library at Peacefield, his farm in Quincy, Massachusetts, numbered well over 3000 volumes.  And still he wished to continue to increase his collection, as he once confessed to Jefferson.  “What would I give to possess in one immense mass, one stupendous draught, all the legends, true and false.”  This collection was deeded to the town of Quincy in 1826, two years before Adam’s death, and was eventually incorporated into the Boston Public Library, in 1894.  Adam’s son, John Quincy Adams, who served as the sixth President of the United States, eventually authorized the construction of a Gothic Revival stone library adjacent to the Peacefield residence which was completed in 1873, a quarter of a century after his death.  Today it houses over 14,000 volumes belonging to him and other members of the Adams family.

So perhaps my donation of my personal library will serve as my own “immortal honor”?  Had I the means, I would certainly follow in the footsteps of John Quincy Adam and build a library to house all of my most constant friends.  Instead, I plan to send them forth as my personal emissaries.  Let them enlighten others as they have enlightened me.

A Seafood Extravaganza - Part 2

Dateline: Savannah, Georgia and Mount Rainier, Maryland

The rest of my seafood extravaganza was not to be!

I departed Gainesville as planned on a very cold yet sunny day. The temperature was hovering just above the freezing mark and there was frost on the ground as I began my northward journey up Florida Route 24 and US 301, through the speedtrap hamlets of Waldo and Lawtey. I passed several strawberry fields in Alachua and Bradford counties on my way to Jacksonville, most of which were encrusted with ice. I thought to myself . . . there is something dreadfully wrong with this picture. Just a week before I had passed this way on my southbound journey and the temperatures were hovering around 80F at sunset. The week I spent in Florida most days were lucky to climb into the 60s, if that.

But I had other things on my mind. I was up- and outward bound with the idea of dining on some fresh Georgia seafood by lunchtime. A little over two hours after departing Gainesville, I was crossing the St. Marys River and passing from Florida into Georgia. The St. Marys region is the gateway to Cumberland Island, Georgia's largest and southernmost barrier island which is home to pristine maritime forests and marshes and undeveloped beaches and almost ten thousand acres of Congressionally designated wilderness area (one of the few things I can thank Congress for these days). Unfortunately for me, Cumberland Island is only accessible by ferry and my timetable did not allow me to return to the island I first visited forty years ago this month, around the same time the island, which was once owned by the Carnegie family, was deeded to the US government and designated by Congress as a National Seashore managed by the National Park Service. I am sorry I did not have a chance to return and see what it looks like today.

I continued up Interstate 95 to Brunswick with the intention of visiting Jekyll and St. Simon islands, two more of Georgia’s famed barrier islands, which I also first visited forty years ago. This is a region of unsullied marshlands and small islands known as hammocks, extending out to the barrier islands and populated with birds, fish and other marine life.

The southernmost island of Georgia’s Golden Isles is Jekyll Island which was originally purchased in 1886 by a group of wealthy families as a private retreat. By 1900, The Jekyll Island Club included representatives of the Rockefeller, Morgan, Crane and Gould families which at the time represented almost 20% of the world’s wealth. The Club closed in 1942 and Jekyll Island was purchased by the State of Georgia in 1947 and is presently managed by the Jekyll Island Authority. When I first came here in the late winter of 1972, I don’t recall it being very developed . . . it was well-known for beaches and its wide variety of seashells and sand dollars. So I thought it would be fun to have a look around the place and perhaps sample the local seafood. I followed the causeway out to the island until I arrived at the entrance gate where I would be charged what I considered to be an exorbitant rate to just drive around the island. On top of that there was a $6 daily parking surcharge. It seems to me the State of Georgia wanted the Rockefellers and the Morgans to return.

I took the first available u-turn and backtracked along the South Brunswick River to the Sydney Lanier Bridge, Georgia’s longest (7780 feet) and tallest (486 feet) cable-stayed suspension bridge providing easy access to Brunswick and St. Simon Island. It is named in honor of the Macon-born poet (1842-1881) who wrote the “Marshes of Glynn” (1878), an evocative long poem featured in "Hymns of the Marshes," an unfinished set of lyrical nature poems about the beautiful marshlands of this region. After crossing the bridge I actually crossed over the Marshes of Glynn on the Torras Causeway (there are designated “Terrapin Crossings” during the May-July migration) to St. Simon Island, the largest of the Golden Isles. Here I drove though the winding Spanish moss-draped roadways into the village at the southern end of the island surrounding the 1872 lighthouse still in operation. The original lighthouse, constructed in 1810, was destroyed by Confederates in 1862 to prevent its use by Federal forces.

I parked here and wandered around the lighthouse and the village pier which afforded me a broad panorama of the Brunswick River estuary. I browsed through the shops and galleries along Mallery Street, the skies remaining sunny yet the temperature hovering only in the mid 50s with a crisp breeze coming off the water.

I finally settled into a local eatery for a platter of large succulent oysters. Hoping they were local, but learning they were from Galveston, Texas, they were too good to pass up. I followed this with a generous portion of local wild Georgia white shrimp wrapped in Southern-cured bacon served with various dipping sauces and all washed down with a delicious toasted lager.

After lunch I resumed my northward journey, returning to the mainland and following US Route 17 to Darien, on the banks of the Altamaha River. I poked around the waterfront shrimping operations and Fort King George, which is Georgia's oldest fort constructed in 1721 and at the time the southern-most outpost of the British Empire in North America. The fort was abandoned in 1727 following attacks from the Spanish. The town, establish in 1736, is the second oldest in the state. Darien and McIntosh County registered some of the highest oyster harvests in the world in the late 19th and early 20 centuries, rivaling even the Chesapeake Bay, yet the industry went into a long decline after 1910 as a result of over harvesting (which perhaps explains why I could not find local oysters during my recent lunch stop). As the oysterbeds declined, a new commercial wild shrimp fishery developed, and by the early 1960s, Darien and McIntosh County had the largest shrimping fleet along the Georgia coast. Yet today, Georgia's shrimping industry struggles to survive against foreign competition, a story you hear up and down the Atlantic Seaboard.

From Darien I took scenic Georgia Route 99, the old Ridge Road, running along the edges of the coastal marshes between the mainland and Sapelo Island, one of the northernmost of the Golden Isles of Georgia which for many years was the private fiefdom of the RJ Reynolds family and is now the home of the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve. I eventually wound my way back to I-95 and from that point it was a short hop up to Savannah which was my day’s destination.

I settled into my motel looking toward to an evening exploring the older precincts of the city bordering the Savannah River. I was particular excited with the prospects having never really visited the city after closely bypassing it all these many years. Two years ago we were suppose to spend a few days here while I was attending a literary conference, but our plans changed suddenly when we had car problems on the way down and we never made it. I had dinner reservations at a fantastic place recommended by a friend and I thought this would be a perfect end to a most pleasant day. Alas, it was not to be. I began feeling ill - it turned out to be a touch of the flu - and it only got worse as the dinner hour approached. To make a long story short, I canceled the reservation and spent a long and most unpleasant evening in my hotel room. There is nothing worst than falling ill on the road.

The next morning it was only worse. There was no way I was going to make it to Charleston and to the Outer Banks as planned. Instead, I steeled myself and set out on a nine-hour, 600 mile trip up I-95. I figured, if I am going to be sick, I would rather do it at home. To make matters worse, it rained almost steady all the way home.

Now I sit here drinking tea and eating nothing more adventurous than chicken and beef broth and pots of tea. No more oysters, crab, shrimp and other bounties of the sea for me. That will have to await another time and opportunity.