A Flag in the Forest…
Greetings and salutations from the sand, sun and surf of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and the foggy island of Nantucket! Great to be with you at this seven a.m. hour, the 28th day of May, 2012, “Memorial Day”, round these here parts, taking a moment to note the laying down of the wreath of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery, in Washington D.C., where tens of thousands of men and women have been laid to rest on that MOST sacred soil, bearing witness to their sacrifices and continued spirit of forgiveness for wars that most were never privy or party to, going only on the orders of leaders behind the scenes who sent them into battle, battles that, in some cases, were folly to begin with. I just got back from the ocean, right here in Cotuit, on Cape, ‘where that ocean meets the wood’, and thought for a moment about what these men and women have sacrificed for OUR freedoms, freedoms we hold so DEAR here in the United States of America. The biggest, perhaps, being the right to be who YOU really ARE, with no fear, living your life as YOU SEA fit, knowing that the greatest document ever written, namely, the Constitution of the United States of America will always have OUR collective backs. Regardless of all of the plutocratic NONSENSE that is attempting to hijack that very democracy, democracy with a little letter ‘d’, the spirit of men like John F. Kennedy float high above, a man, who, in World War II, saved four, perhaps five men in the south Pacific, a true hero who became our thirty-fifth President of these here states. States that should be more UNITED by now, for the stars and stripes of this great land act as a symbol of what is truly GREAT about this country WE all love so dear. I suppose I could also mention a man, a republican, who, if I had lived in that ‘day and age’ would have signed up for in a heart beat, yes sir!!!… we could speak of Abraham Lincoln, who, after the bloody, horrible war that WAS that most vicious Civil War that began in 1861, a war that took over 500,000 lives as well as bringing an END slavery, yes, we could, and can, speak of him, for it was his thoughtful brilliance, decent candor and gentle kindness that brought this country full circle, and in that fateful year of 1865, that man marked the end to hate with a simple day set aside called ‘Decoration Day’, where most of those ‘decorated’ soldiers were actually former slaves, men and women of ‘color’ whose descendants, in the decades that have since passed, have given more to this nation that WE could have possibly imagined. Men like those African-Americans who flew high over Germany in that same aforementioned war, WWII, taking missions few others would take, not for the ‘glory’, no ma’am, they took it because they KNEW this country would eventually be that ’shining city on a hill’, devoid of the prejudices of old, having FAITH that somehow, somewhere, things would get better. And it was with that fighting spirit that the TRUE tyranny of fascism was wiped from the face of the earth forever…and they couldn’t even VOTE! I pray that you and yours take heed at high noon today, taking a moment of silence to remember that what YOU have today is based on what someone else did for YOU years ago. For that, I should think, unless we have all lost our minds, is something WE should ALL be grateful for. May you have a blessed day and keep on keeping on, ’cause no matter how many cynics out there tell you different, this is STILL a beautiful world–strive to be HAPPY! PRESERVE THE WILDERNESS! Peace~M
