they do not observe
walk blindly without trying
to see for themselves

For Flag Day … 2023

I painted the flag series after we went into the war. There was that Preparedness Day, and I looked up the avenue and saw these wonderful flags waving, and I painted the series of flag pictures after that.

I was always interested in the movements of humanity in the street… There is nothing so interesting to me as people. I am never tired of observing them in everyday life, as they hurry through the streets on business or saunter down the promenade on pleasure.

The man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of everyday life around him.

The portrait of a city, you see, is in a way like the portrait of a person… The spirt, that’s what counts, and one should strive to portray the soul of a city with the same care as the soul of a sitter.

These small shows were decidedly a success. The exhibitions were not too large to be seen easily. It was not an effort, as larger collections of pictures usually are.

The true impressionism is realism. So many people do not observe. They take the ready-made axioms laid down by others, and walk blindly in a rut without trying to see for themselves.

Childe Hassam on himself.

somebody should do
something … somebody? well …
why isn’t that you?

Reading the story, “A Black Civil War soldier’s unmarked grave Up North finally gets a headstone” by John Carlisle in the Detroit Free Press (May 27, 2023), I came across this quote:

“I saw this and I said ‘Jeez, that’s not right that a soldier doesn’t have a headstone. Somebody should do something,‘ ” Kolehmainen said. “And actually, a friend said, ‘Well, why isn’t that somebody you? Do something.’”

For me, that kind of summed the basis of the American Citizen Soldier.

For ages, this tired old world has seen, as is says in the Bible, “… the time when kings go off to war, soldiers march off for King and County, SPQR, for the Fatherland, for the Motherland or the Homeland.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

I use the line Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori or It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country on Memorial day without mentioning that in the WW1 poem, Dulce et Decorum est, Wilfred Owen wrote:

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

The old lie.

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!

Then there is the American Citizen Soldier.

What was their motivation?

I have read a lot of history.

I have read a lot of military history.

I have read a lot of the military history of the United States.

And a certain feeling, a certain suspect animus or bias or maybe just a feeling is present in this history.

A feeling that was expressed by Mr. Kolehmainen in the mentioned Freep story.

I saw this and I said ‘Jeez, that’s not right.’

‘Somebody should do something!’

And actually, a friend said, ‘Well, why isn’t that somebody you?’

‘Do something.‘

Stephen Ambrose (and yes, I quote him reluctantly but there it is) wrote in his book, Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 – May 7, 1945, New York: Simon & Schuster (1997):

The Great War changed the language.

It made patriotic words sound hollow, unacceptable, ridiculous, especially for the next set of young Americans sent to Europe to fight over the same battlefields their fathers had fought over.

Nevertheless, as much as the Civil War soldiers, the Gls believed in their cause.

They knew they were fighting for decency and democracy and they were proud of it and motivated by it.

They just didn’t talk or write about it.

I saw this and I said ‘Jeez, that’s not right.’

‘Somebody should do something!’

And actually, a friend said, ‘Well, why isn’t that somebody you?’

‘Do something.‘

somebody should do
something … somebody? well …
why isn’t that you?

the smile on your face
lets me know … this IS the best
country in the world

Yes, I ripped off Alison Krauss and the lyrics to her song, The Smile on Your Face.

See, I was watching the NBC Nightly News last night and their report from the Texas/Mexico border.

The reporter was interviewing a family from Venezuela.

A young man with his wife and two little daughters.

A group you would see in Walmart or McDonalds or at the beach and never notice.

Just a family.

They had made across the border into the United States.

How they got to the border from Venezuela is left to the imagination but I bet the story with make any Indiana Jones type narrative seem pretty tame.

But they had made it across.

The family had made it through the border security.

The family had made it through US Immigration screening.

They had a court date to plead their case for asylum.

Their court date was for an appearance in Federal Court in New York City.

The father explained they had no where to live.

The father explained they had no way to get to New York City from the border.

The father explained they had no money left, what they had was spent getting to the border.

The reporter then asked, simply, “Was it worth it?”

The father smiled.

I don’t mean the half grin, half reluctant, somewhat questioning, shrug smile that said, boy oh boy I don’t know, if I had only known, but what they heck, here we are, kind of smile.

But a ‘Hey! I just won the lottery’ kind of smile.

But a “Hey! Michigan just beat Ohio State’ kind of smile.

From the heart.

Without hesitation.

No coaching.

Without thinking.

Without planning.

A smile on his face, that for me, let me know that throughout the rest of the world, this IS the best place on earth.

No matter what the politicians do to it.

No matter what the interest groups do to it.

No matter we what do to ourselves.

As Mr. Lincoln put it:

 “… we assure freedom to the free — honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.

We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth.

Other means may succeed; this could not fail.

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just

… a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.“*

Read this out loud.

We assure freedom to the free.

The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just.

A way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

I hope it made you think about the border.

It should make us proud.

It makes us all free.

That should be something to smile about.

*Concluding Remarks Annual Message to Congress — December 1, 1862 — Washington, D.C.

rid assets of names
symbols displays monuments
paraphernalia

Congress finally parted company with the myth of the noble Confederate in 2021. It overrode a presidential veto to order the Defense Department to rid its assets of “names, symbols, displays, monuments and paraphernalia” that commemorate the Confederate States of America. The legislation established a commission that brought forward new names for nine Army installations in the South.

The main event of the renaming project unfolds on Thursday in Virginia, when Fort Lee is rechristened Fort Gregg-Adams. This change derives its emotional power from the fact that the saint of the lavishly racist Lost Cause is being replaced by two African Americans who served in the Army during the Jim Crow era.

From the Confederate Tributes Are Losing Their Patron Saint By Brent Staples in the New York Times, 4/27/2023.

I have long wondered why the losers got forts.

Fort Knox was a Revolutionary War General.

Fort Jackson is named after General Andrew Jackson of the War of 1812, NOT that Stonewall feller.

Bragg, Hood, Benning were all the loser side.

I was told, as a kid, that this happened during World War 1 for the sake of unity.

The story as recounted in this article relates a story that is sadder than I ever imagined.

When I sent off to the National Archives for my Great Great Grandfather’s Civil War records, the first document in the pile was his Casualty Sheet listing him as Killed In Action.

Which surprised me as he was NOT killed in the Civil War but was badly wounded and captured after the Battle of Gaines Mill.

It benefited me greatly that he was not dead as he didn’t get married and have offspring, that led to me being born, until he returned home.

When someone gets around to apologizing for shooting Great Great Grampa, I’ll consider listening to it.

gotta do what you
gotta because you gotta
there are days like this

There are days like this.

There are weeks like this.

There are months like this.

There are years like this.

There are lifetimes like this.

Because you gotta.