Rain fell in the wee hours of yesterday morning. But the day dawned bright and clear, if windy. So, of course, I went for a ride--to Connecticut.
When I got to Greenwich, I parked myself on a bench in the Common, where I munched from a packet of Kar's Sweet 'N' Salty Trail Mix (I see how that stuff can be addictive!) and washed it down with a small can of some espresso-and-cream cold drink.
That combination of caffeine and sugar can make you feel as if you're ready to burst forth--like the flowers I've been seeing during the past few days. The weather is warm for a day or two, and the flowers just seem to appear, in gardens, on trees (oh, the cherry blossoms) and in public monuments.
It's sadly ironic to see flowers growing around a memorial to military members who died in combat. Those soldiers, sailors, airmen and others--almost all of them young-- are gone, long gone. Who remembers them, or the cause--whatever it was--for which they fought? And who will remember, in future generations, the ones who die fighting for basically the same reasons and impulses as the ones who survive only as names on stone?
But the flowers return, whether on their own or because someone planted them. It does not matter whether the monument they adorn commemorates people who gave their lives in a just or unjust, constructive or futile, reasonable or fallacious cause: Those flowers will return, and grow, just the same.
When I got to Greenwich, I parked myself on a bench in the Common, where I munched from a packet of Kar's Sweet 'N' Salty Trail Mix (I see how that stuff can be addictive!) and washed it down with a small can of some espresso-and-cream cold drink.
That combination of caffeine and sugar can make you feel as if you're ready to burst forth--like the flowers I've been seeing during the past few days. The weather is warm for a day or two, and the flowers just seem to appear, in gardens, on trees (oh, the cherry blossoms) and in public monuments.
It's sadly ironic to see flowers growing around a memorial to military members who died in combat. Those soldiers, sailors, airmen and others--almost all of them young-- are gone, long gone. Who remembers them, or the cause--whatever it was--for which they fought? And who will remember, in future generations, the ones who die fighting for basically the same reasons and impulses as the ones who survive only as names on stone?
But the flowers return, whether on their own or because someone planted them. It does not matter whether the monument they adorn commemorates people who gave their lives in a just or unjust, constructive or futile, reasonable or fallacious cause: Those flowers will return, and grow, just the same.
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