whose bodies lie in city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land
The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land. In this observance no form of ceremony is prescribed, but posts and comrades will in their own way arrange such fitting services and testimonials of respect as circumstances may permit.
General Order No.11, WASHINGTON, D.C., May 5, 1868
On May 5, 1868, General John A. Logan, as Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), issued General Order No. 11 designating May 30 “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.”
Logan’s General Order, his Memorial Day Order, established Memorial Day as a national holiday.
BTW, Private Edwin Barlow is my Great Great Grand Father.
after all homeless have reason to cry – everything pointed against them
At the highway woods I took one good look to make sure no cruisers were up or down the road and I dove right in the woods.
It was a lot of dry thickets I had to crash through, I didn’t want to bother finding the Boy Scout trail.
I aimed straight for the golden sands of the riverbottom I could see up ahead.
Over the thickets ran the highway bridge, no one could see me unless they stopped and got out to stare down.
Like a criminal I crashed through bright brittle thickets and came out sweating and stomped ankle deep in streams and then when I found a nice opening in a kind of bamboo grove I hesitated to light a fire till dusk when no one’d see my small smoke, and make sure to keep it low embers.
I spread my poncho and sleeping bag out on some dry rackety grove-bottom leaves and bamboo splitjoints.
Yellow aspens filled the afternoon air with gold smoke and made my eyes quiver.
It was a nice spot except for the roar of trucks on the river bridge.
My head cold and sinus were bad and I stood on my head five minutes.
I laughed. “What would people think if they saw me?”
But it wasn’t funny, I felt rather sad, in fact real sad, like the night before in that horrible fog wire-fence country in industrial L.A., when in fact I’d cried a little.
After all a homeless man has reason to cry, everything in the world is pointed against him.
From The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac, The Viking Press, 1958.
In the Bible we read, If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? (1 John 3:17).
According to Wikipedia, The First Epistle of John is the first of the Johannine epistles of the New Testament, and the fourth of the catholic epistles. There is no scholarly consensus as to the authorship of the Johannine works. The author of the First Epistle is termed John the Evangelist, who most modern scholars believe is not the same as John the Apostle. Most scholars believe the three Johannine epistles have the same author, but there is no consensus if this was also the author of the Gospel of John.
Then Wikipedia states: This epistle was probably written in Ephesus between 95 and 110 AD.
If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? was written almost 2000 years ago.
Mr. Kerouac wrote, After all a homeless man has reason to cry, everything in the world is pointed against him 66 years ago.
Seems like some part of the message is still not getting through.
The pessimist says it can’t get worse, optimist … replies, yes it can
Just a quick review of some of the latest headlines today.
Trump trial live updates: Judge again holds Trump in contempt, threatens jail time Boeing is set to launch NASA astronauts for the first time after years of struggle Police issued an Amber Alert for 10-month-old Eleia Maria Torres, which was active Saturday morning. Russia’s Defense Ministry says it plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons Body found in home of man who allegedly attempted to shoot pastor, police say Israel-Gaza live updates: Warnings issued to 100,000 as Israel weighs Rafah invasion A truck driver is accused of killing a Utah police officer by driving into him 14-year-old dead, 5 teens hurt, as gunfire erupts near scene of 2022 Buffalo massacre Israel orders Al Jazeera to close its local operation and seizes some of its equipment Driver killed as vehicle crashes at ‘high rate of speed’ into White House gate Several injured in Long Beach shooting, police say 1 person killed and 23 injured in a bus crash in northern Maryland, police say Russia has launched a barrage of drones on eastern Ukraine and claimed its troops took control of a village they had been targeting as Ukraine marks its third Easter at war
I repeat:
The pessimist says it can’t get worse, optimist … replies, yes it can
yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything
The books which make up this trilogy began, very simply, as an attempt to understand the men who fought in the Army of the Potomac. As a small boy I had known a number of these men in their old age; they were grave, dignified, and thoughtful, with long white beards and a general air of being pillars of the community. They lived in rural Michigan in the pre-automobile age, and for the most part they had never been fifty miles away from the farm or the dusty village streets; yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything, and nothing that happened to them thereafter meant anything much. All that was real had taken place when they were young; everything after that had simply been a process of waiting for death, which did not frighten them much—they had seen it inflicted in the worst possible way on boys who had not bargained for it, and they had enough of the old-fashioned religion to believe without any question that when they passed over they would simply be rejoining men and ways of living which they had known long ago.
Yet, in an odd way, the old veterans did leave one correct impression: the notion that as young men they had been caught up by something ever so much larger than themselves and that the war in which they fought did settle something for us—or, incredibly, started something which we ourselves have got to finish. It was not only the biggest experience in their own lives; it was in a way the biggest experience in our life as a nation, and it deserves all of the study it is getting.
From the preface to Mr. Lincoln’s Army, Book One of the Army of Potomac Trilogy by Bruce Catton, (Doubleday, Garden City, NY, 1962).
They lived in rural Michigan in the pre-automobile age, and for the most part they had never been fifty miles away from the farm or the dusty village streets;
yet once, ages ago, they had been everywhere and had seen everything, and nothing that happened to them thereafter meant anything much.
All that was real had taken place when they were young;
everything after that had simply been a process of waiting for death, which did not frighten them much —
they had seen it inflicted in the worst possible way on boys who had not bargained for it,
It was not only the biggest experience in their own lives; it was in a way the biggest experience in our life as a nation.
I am reminded of what Big Bill wrote in his play, Henry V.
And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.
In remembrance of Mr. Abraham Lincoln who died on April 15th, 1865.
to reawaken keep ourselves awake by dawn’s expectations
We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep.
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor.
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
If we refused, or rather used up, such paltry information as we get, the oracles would distinctly inform us how this might be done.
Henry David Thoreau in the book, Walden, from the Oxford University Press Edition, Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, 1997.
Nope, not going to tell the joke.
I’ll just tell you the punch line.
“Ralph, what are you doing OUT there?”
The joke is about Ralph Waldo Emerson, another of these three barreled named fellers that populated New England literature, talking to Henry David Thoreau (see) about being in jail.
Most folks, I think, have heard of Thoreau but I am pretty sure they don’t know why anymore.
With a little agitation of folks memories, they might just remember that Thoreau went to jail.
But I am pretty sure they don’t know why.
Back in the day, citizens had to pay a poll tax for the right to vote and whether they voted or not, the tax had to be paid.
At the time the United States of America was at war with Mexico over Texas which, as an independent country was looking to ban slavery so them fellers in the US Government who came from the south and who didn’t want a new, none slave holding country on the border, decided the United States should take Texas in as a State, a slave holding State and to do so, Mexico had to be warred off.
Anyway, Mr. Thoreau was against the war and any war at that, so he refused to pay his poll tax and spent the night in jail.
The people of the town of Concord were pretty upset that such a public defiance was taking place in their town so the folks who had some influence got on the case of Mr. Emerson who was famous for being famous and saying famous things before anyone else said them and Mr. Emerson went down to the jail and asked Mr. Thoreau, “Henry, what are doing in there?”
I have already told you Mr. Thoreau’s response.
It got me to thinking, all these folks with a burr up their butt about something that they don’t like that they US Government has done or is doing.
Well Sir, if they are so mad and so sure of their protest, let them stop paying their taxes.
As Mr. Thoreau might say, “I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. “
Set let them folks make a conscious endeavor to elevate their argument not through news sound bites and social media posts but in defiance of the government by not paying taxes.
To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sure.
Somehow, I don’t think this is what Mr. Thoreau meant when he wrote these thoughts down.
But that is where I am today I guess.
Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour.
No Haiku For You 