Battlefields

Today we went our separate ways to historic sites. Tom rode his bike to Mount Vernon, 60 miles round trip.

I went to Gettysburg and Harpers Ferry with the group, many miles in the comfort of our chartered bus.  After a visit to the new museum we toured the sites of the first, second, and third days--July 1-3, 1863--and their commemoration in stone.  The beautiful scenery and celebratory monuments insulate the visitor from the awfulness of the carnage--35,000 casualties and 7,000 battlefield deaths.  Few sites preserve the past as does Gettysburg.  From the number of markers and monuments it appears that from the time of the first shot all knew the import of the moment.  It is too beautiful.

We spent late afternoon visiting Harpers Ferry where three states intersect at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers.  Across the footbridge I inspected the remains of the C&O canal and thought of William C. Critchlow, my ancestor who built canals until the disabling accident that set him to reading the Bible and led him west to Zion.  Wild grasses fill the vacant stone trough and weeds climb up the rock walls.  Trees and bushes sprout from the stone piers, remnants of the bridge that was destroyed nearly 150 years ago.  Time passes slowly in Harpers Ferry, at Gettysburg it almost stands still.

Junket to Philly

This weekend we  took a field trip with the students to Philadelphia and environs.  We enjoyed a tour of Valley Forge with our guide sharing some colorful stories to keep us awake.  The weather was just crisp as we tramped around the cannons and huts.  The Freedoms Foundation hosted our group, and their dog, Ulysses, was the biggest star of the show, even more than Thomas Jefferson.  Tom laced up his running shoes the moment we arrived and found some good trails.  We took a lovely walk through the Medal of Honor grove until the mosquitoes found us.

Saturday we spent in Philadelphia at the Constitution Center and Independence Hall.  I was surprised at the orange and blue paint--not what I remembered as a little girl.  After lunch at the Bourse we ditched for the Philadelphia art museum.  It will take me a few more visits to understand Duchamp's The Large Glass but I appreciated Van Gogh's Sunflowers right away.  While waiting for the Phlash bus we watched a bride being photographed, wind lifting her veil.  Our day was capped by a pizza dinner at Marra's on Passyunk, very south Philly, very Italian. The students made quick work of 12 pizzas and as many pitchers of soda.

James Madison was about my height.

We are almost packed for our move on Wednesday to the new townhouse and I have no regrets leaving this high rise apartment surrounded by corporate offices and shopping malls.  Vienna, where we will be living, is a nice mix of neighborhoods, parks and schools.  I'm ready to buy a pumpkin for the porch and choose some colorful mums for the garden.  I am getting lost less often and still cannot figure out why every third street is Old Courthouse Road.

Ours is on the left.

Remembering and Deliverance

Umbrellas in hand, the students and I took the Metro to the Pentagon 9/11 memorial.  We scattered ourselves across the site in clusters, some listening to the audio tour on their phones.  I entered by way of the age wall that soon was taller than me.  I turned to the right and the vista opened.  As I walked I traveled forward in time from the birth year of the oldest (1930) to the youngest (1998) victim.  The name of each victim is engraved in the stainless steel casing of a polished granite plinth suspended over a pool of running water.  Flowers had been left on some of the graves, and others were bound by wide white ribbons. The benches of plane passengers point inward, of Pentagon workers outward.

I heard my footsteps on the gravel surface and turned my head at the noise of jets passing overhead.  I was reminded of the power of the machine to carry us up into the sky, or deep into the grave.  The sun came out and the beads of water on the benches evaporated.  We stood in the shade cast by crape myrtle trees.  In class today we talked about why it took a tragedy to unite a nation, and it's a good question for us in a city full of memorials. As the nation remembers 9/11 this weekend, I will remember little Dana Falkenberg and the 184 lives lost here on that sunny September morning ten years ago.

Pentagon Memorial