Good Friday

So the cemetery thing has become a recurrent theme as of late. I admit that on face value it does seem a little weird but it satisfies a curiosity within me that a shopping mall just can't seem to handle. So that is how on Good Friday 2013, with the help of Google Maps turn-by-turn directions, I found myself at Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta.

Once inside the gate, I was stunned by the breathtaking beauty of the place. Something about it screamed "life", not "death". A quick stop at the visitor's center to get a map and I was off on my exploration.

My first encounter on the grounds was a small Boston Terrier that came running towards me. At first I thought he was growling but when he came closer I realized he was grunting. The dog had a tennis ball in his mouth and seemed to wonder if I wanted to play. I reached to get a picture of him but I think he was camera shy. He spun around and headed off again to find someone more interested to fetch than photography. Suffice to say, his image won't be making an appearance in this article.

Then there were birds, squirrels, trees, grass and shrubs. There was a young mother and her child enjoying a picnic. Small groups of people were on self-guided tours, much like myself. Several joggers made their way through the streets, conversing as they prepared for the 5K run hosted by the cemetery every October. Even the many workers I encountered seemed to be enjoying the warm Georgia sunshine and their picturesque surroundings as they carried out their tasks.

While I was at the grave of Margaret Mitchell two ladies came up and advised they had come to have lunch with the author. Being a polite Southern gentleman, I excused myself as they spread out their meal along the path. My mother didn't raise me to impose on people with company, even if the host is deceased. So I headed off to find the father/son governors Brown.

For over three hours I walked among the lanes, saw famous names from Georgia and even national history, took in the serenity of the park and enjoyed myself. The Italian Cypress trees swayed lightly in the breeze. The dogwoods began stretching their blossoms as if they knew Easter was upon us. The Lion of the Confederacy continued his eternal nap, resting among the Unknown. No one cussed me out, tried to kill me, shot me a bird or questioned the legitimacy of my heritage.

And then I merged back onto the Downtown Connector for the drive home.

What a difference a mile can make.

There is a lesson here. One about Good Friday and what it means to us. And so I'm going to just go with tradition and not get caught up in the discussion of the Friday/Sunday/three day debate for now. Just go with this because the truth of the Gospel is what is important.

Inside the brick walls of Oakland among the 70,000 +/- dead people I found life. Out in Atlanta, among the 3 million +/- living people I found death.

A small spot of death full of life surrounded by a expanse of life full of death.

Do you see the Good Friday in the analogy?

Many of the people in these graves died violent deaths and caused the violent deaths of others. Almost 7000 soldiers from the War Between the States make up the Confederate Memorial grounds, including 16 Union soldiers. A plaque commemorating the Andrews' Raiders, their capture, trial, hanging and initial burial (a mere 280 feet past the south wall) stands at the wall along Memorial Dr. And on that fateful day in 1864, John Bell Hood stood on the hill behind the Bell Tower and watched as he commanded Confederate forces during the Battle of Atlanta, which spilled over onto what is now cemetery grounds.

But today one can get lost in the beauty of the place. And on hot summer days, Oakland Cemetery can be as much as 5 degrees cooler than the rest of Atlanta around it

In a place of death, I found life...even while surrounded by a place of life where I found death. And over 163 years of history, Atlanta has not punctured the brick walls surrounding Oakland. The Olympics, the Super Bowl, the World Series, The Final Four, the rapid growth that all these can bring. Atlanta has spread over Georgia like pepper gravy over a warm cathead. Yet, Oakland's streets and lanes remain largely as they were built. It's trees, flowers and beautiful monuments are protected from the sprawl because of the death inside.

Death brings and protects life.

That, after all, is the message of Good Friday

Rust

So there's this truck. I can only imagine the stories it could tell or that old men could tell about it.

I'm not currently privvy to any of those tales so I'll just cue up the Mississippi John Hurt station on my Pandora app and hash out some thoughts that struck me when I saw this truck earlier this week.

For me, the past is a passion. If you know me or have read my writing at all you know this. There's something about an old house, a crumbling cotton mill or an old truck. Then thre are the people that knew these as "home", "job" or "transportation". And then they have the stories of what made these things great.

Every day we lose history to the wrecking ball, to Alzheimers, to the Death Angel

And so sits the truck.

It isn't in any shape to serve its intended purpose. Even with meticulous maintenance and up keep, it just wouldn't be capable of filling the role it was intended to serve. There are bigger, more powerful, faster models now. It would be difficult and expensive to even find replacement parts for the old pumper. You can't exactly run down to Napa and pick up a transmission linkage for a 1950 Mack.

But you have to admit, the ol' gal has something that these new models just can't match. Those new trucks are red because models like this one were first. Those running boards carried men long before enclosed jump seats and seat belts. The open top was the tradition before air conditioning became standard. Then there's the details, many no longer visible or even present. that made her beautiful. Class. Grace. Style.

But she's just an old assemblage of metal parts, no longer useful. She might as well be in a scrapyard somewhere.

Or maybe a nursing home?

What?

I made a little transition there. It was intentional. I'm not trying to place a moral equivalence on a rusting fire engine and an elderly person in a home. Although many in our society have no problem whatsoever doing exactly that. On some level, I've been guilty of this myself.

Think about it. Not able to fill the old role, not quite as physically impressive as before, well versed in the old ways, a little sketchy on the new-fangled stuff, still has hints of the class and charm of the past but might have a few parts missing.

Ever known anyone like that?

I could make a list of such people that I wish I could tell me a few stories. But they can't. They'd understand how to ease through this "economic downturn". They'd probably laugh at it and tell us that they called it "Wednesday" because a man that walked miles to work did so because there was a job in the midst of a depression and even if the government was handing out checks, he had too much dignity to take one.

My how times have changed.

They could tell us about garden fresh vegetables and ration stamps. They were recycling materials for the war effort and turning in Coke bottles for the deposit before Al Gore was an inconvenient truth. They knew hard times and how to get by...and how to make sure their kids and grandkids wouldn't know times like that.

And we fouled that up.

Those old people used trucks like this one to make the world a better place. How many of us are here because someone used this old truck to save the life of a father, grandfather, great-grandfather? How many of us are here because a forgotten or neglected old man or woman was a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, a soldier, a fireman, a musician, a cotton mill worker, a banker...well...you get what I'm saying.

Sometimes a rusty old truck isn't just a rusty old truck. Sometimes it's more. Same goes for that grumpy old man down the road. A lot of things can make a man grouchy. I've learned that sometimes its the weather in places like Bastogne, Chosin or the Mekong Delta. Sometimes it's the view from the scenic Winecoff Hotel or a stroll through the Cocoanut Grove.

You don't have to restore the old truck and drive it down the road. Old trucks and old people both pass on. That's the natural order of things. Time moves on. But as it does, give that old rusty truck a second thought or at least the benefit of the doubt. There's a good chance that it deserves it.

Behind Every Great Man...

I know what you're thinking. "Oh great. He's writing again. I bet he's been hanging out in one of those creepy cemeteries again."

And you'd be right. I've probably spent too much time in cemeteries lately and it looks like there's more in store. I'm cool with it because so many of the people that I find interesting are dead.

My mom says it's because I have an old soul.

But you're in luck. That's not what this post is about. This post is about life and one of the most important lessons I've learned in life. I didn't learn it in school. I didn't learn it from a book or a documentary or a battlefield tour or a museum.

I learned it from life.

A few weeks ago, I was part of a discussion with a young man who was explaining a recent break-up. The girl is beautiful and we discussed what a great personality she had. We talked about how many guys would love to date the young lady. We might have even questioned his judgement just a bit but then conceded that he was the one that had to live with the decision, either way. He told us that the biggest cause for the relationship's demise was the fact that they were "too good as friends to be involved in that way."

Hmm.

Now, I'm a guy. My friends are guys. Some are coworkers and some I met in college. I met some at church and some I met online. I'm blessed to have two that have known me about as long as I've known myself - so much so that I just think of them as two of my brothers. It's good to have these friendships as the world can be a cruel, lonely place. A friend is someone that you can disagree with, argue with, fight and even, at times, say some of the worst things imaginable. But then it passes. you're both still there. For me, a friend is someone that you know you can count on no matter what. Thick and thin, good and bad, friends are there.

Over the last 16 years, give or take, I have learned that my best friend is not a guy. She lives at my house. My kids look a little like her. We've been through thin and bad and dark and scary and even a little bit of miserable. That's not to say that there hasn't been good times. We have had some very good times but we've had a least our share of challenges. And what we have learned from that is that we can count on each other.

It's not thought to be very masculine for a guy to speak of his wife that way. We are supposed to think that women are attractive and beautiful and nice and fun to touch but they get on our nerves and we don't want the rest of the guys to think we like them all that much. I guess that even while we re staring 40 in the face we still fear catching cooties or something. But I've reached a point in my life that as I look at the years ahead and know what challenges lie before me (as well as wonder about those which I don't know about) and the prospect of old age that I have one person in my corner, in my foxhole, at me side.

Looking at history we see men that thought similarly about their mates like Robert Toombs, John Adams, Ronald Reagan and "Stonewall" Jackson. Even George Burns was missing something without Gracie by his side. I've seen lesser known men go through the loss of their spouse and the agony is causes. I've seen men with wives fighting horrible ailments and what it does to them. We act tough but, deep down, we know the truth. When you find the right one, it's right.

All of these men went through their own struggles, fought their own demons, had their own faults and shortcomings but they they had their best friend for a pat on the back, a hand to hold or a letter from home at the right moment. They found themselves involved in violent battles, travelling in far distant lands, exiled due to unfortunate political arrangements. When they were old, blind and sick, having their minds and bodies ravaged by cruel and torturous illnesses, their lifelong companions were there, by their side "until death do us part". And if their wife preceded them in death, nothing on this planet was ever completely right again.

That's why you marry your best friend.

So back to the youngster. I started to speak to him, to try to talk some sense in him but I remembered what I was taught about singing lessons for pigs and just decided to let it go. The poor guy will learn the lesson like I did. He'll be ok.

As for me, if I'm facing down the British Redcoats, marauding Yankees, a tough audience or a towering inferno, I'm glad to know that I have my version of Julia, Abigail, Nancy, Mary Anna or yes, even Gracie and if the day comes that we're too old or feeble for the type of relationship the youngster is looking for, that we'll still laugh together, cry together and love each other as ever and that we'll still have each other.

And that's what's important.

"Un-"

Rows of gravestones lie silent in the Confederate section of Myrtle Hill Cemetery. They're not all Confederate markers. This is one of those rare locations where soldiers from both sides are buried together, their final resting places as tightly mingled as their dying breaths.

Standing amongst the rows is a hardwood tree (an oak, if my memory serves me correctly) that is gradually consuming one of the tombstones. At present, the only part of the inscription that remains visible is "UN". Now, to the casual passerby, this inscription might suggest that the occupant might have been named Unther or that he hailed from Unadilla, GA or maybe even that he served in the Union Army. But to people familiar with military cemeteries and history "UN" is the beginning of only one word. "UNKNOWN".

How ironic. Lying in a historic section of a NRHP registered cemetery is a fallen soldier, known only to God, whose lone memorial is being consumed with the passage of time.

Who was this man? Union or Confederate? Artillery, infantry or cavalry? Officer or enlisted? Race? Religion? Level of education? Who were his parents? did he have a wife or children? How did he meet his awful fate? How old was he? Any identifier, other than to suggest that he's not identifiable, has been consumed by the constant growth of the tree.

And time progresses.

Why is the consumption of a 150 year old grave important? Without getting into cliches about repeating forgotten histories let me say it's very important. This grave is a microcosm of our time. History is disappearing with time. There are many trees eating many headstones but one tree concerns me more than the others.

The tree of political correctness is eating our history at an alarming rate. The removal of Confederate flags from the Confederate Memorial Park and Chapel on Richmond, VA, the changing of the mascot at the University of Mississippi, the discontinuance of "Dixie" by marching bands throughout the South and even the planned renaming of Memphis' Forrest Park - including the exhumation of General Forrest and his wife - are the bark on the progressing trunk. And as history continues to be removed from public view, we will forget and then...well...I promised no clichés.

Why is this happening? What kind of person would do this?

Much of it is ignorance. 150 years of the victor's history has led people to have deplorable knowledge of factual history. Most people today have no knowledge of Nathan Bedford Forrest outside of a comical mention in the opening scenes of Forrest Gump. If you think 1)that he started the KKK or 2) that the Klan was his major contribution to society, then a trip to the library is recommended. NEITHER of these are true.

That being said, there is good and bad on both sides of history. Forrest was not exactly a Girl Scout. But also, as bad as Barack Obama has been, he made it to his second term without razing a single American city. The same cannot be said for the saintly Mr. Lincoln.

Good and bad. Give and take. Shades of gray reenact the entire, stinky, bloody drama that culminated in 600,000 dead combatants and who knows how many civilians. Staggering levels of property damage. Orphans. Widows.

Who were the good guys? Who were the bad guys? The only quick answer to these questions can be "yes" because an honest answer depends on too many other questions. Questions that are gradually being obscured by apathy and ignorance.

Who was he? Who knows? Who cares?

So I come to this. The story of our unknown friend hinges on us. He's already forgotten to history. One day the las speck of stone will slip into the bark, forever obscured and then even this inadequate reminder of someone's son will be gone.

I leave you a borrowed line that I think is appropriate. Another "UN" word. This time it's "UNLESS". Because, as Dr. Seuss told us in the Lorax, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,

Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”

It's not.

Who was he? I don't know. I might never know. But you can bet your next paycheck that I care.

Grateful

Well, someone shouted through a parking lot today that it was time for an update.

Duly noted.

So what to write about? There's the repaired, yet still rotten economy, Senator Rand Paul's epic filibuster, the drone threat that produced it, maybe a tidbit from Southern history or culture...when all else fails there's always fart jokes...

How about gratitude? It's an overlooked virtue these days. I think it warrants a mention.

In the past few weeks, the loss of a comrade, the retirement of another, the achievement of a long-term career goal and the birth of a nephew have led me into opportunities for gratitude.

So many compliments, intentional and incidental, have found their way to me in the last few weeks. Seeing how very blessed I am with friends, family and vocation, I'm humbled and grateful.

For everyone that reads this, thank you. It means a lot to know that someone takes the time to enjoy (or torture themselves) with my handiwork.

While this one is short and sweet, trust me, I'm digging in cemeteries, old dusty libraries filled with banned books, nefarious websites, crowded public transportation contrivances, wooded areas inhabited by medicated sages and maybe even an outhouse or two to find something meaningful, funny, encouraging, disgusting or otherwise entertaining to scribble down for your reading pleasure or displeasure.

Thanks for coming along on this little journey.