It Wasn't Hiroshima, But....

Seventy-five years ago today, American soldiers dropped the world's first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.

I will not try to debate whether the bombing, or the one in Nagaski three days later, was necessary or ethical.  The effect of those blasts was, I believe, best summed up two millenia earlier in a Calgacus speech, as recalled by Tacitus:  Ubi solitudenum facient, pacem appelant (They make a wasteland and call it peace.)

I have seen the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and of various natural disaster.  I cannot, however, pretend to have ever seen devastation resembling anything wrought by those weapons. 

Even what I saw yesterday pales in comparison.

On the day after a not-quite-hurricane struck this area, I went for a ride in the direction of Connecticut.  Along the Pelham Bay Park trail, I had to detour around downed limbs and other parts of trees.  Still, my ride was going relatively smoothly until I crossed into Westchester County:

Less than a mile north of the city/county line, this tree toppled onto Mount Tom Road in Pelham.  So I backed up a bit and took a right, figuring that the road would take me, if in a more roundabout way, the direction of my ride.

Didn't get very far.

On that road, a couple of guys were sitting in their car.  "Be careful out there," the driver yelled.  He explained that his friend had just been out cycling and encountered broken power lines as well as downed trees.

At his suggestion, I cut through the golf course into a residential area of Pelham Manor.  I knew that I would end up at or near Boston Post Road, a.k.a. US 1, where I could re-orient myself.  At worst, I figured, I could ride US 1 for a bit, as it has a decent shoulder--and, I thought, was less likely to contain obstacles and hazards like the ones I'd encountered and been warned about:

So much for that idea, right?  I turned down another road blocked by a tree.  For a moment, I thought perhaps the storm was some cosmic conspiracy that threw down those trees as a "wall" to keep riff-raff like me out of the upper reaches of Westchester County and Connecticut.

Of course, that thought was no more rational than any comparison between what I was seeing and what the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki carried with them. 

They're Not Free To Celebrate Their Freedom

Seventy-five years ago today, the United States and its European allies accepted Nazi Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces.  

Citizens in countries such as France, Belgium, and the Netherlands could, for the first time in years, consider themselves free of a brutal occupation in which many of their friends, neighbors, colleagues--and, in many cases, relatives--were murdered or disappeared.  

As this is the 75th anniversary, few people who participated in combat, or who supported those, in or out of uniform, who participated in supporting the soldiers, sailors and airmen, or in other forms of resistance.  Even those who were young children during that time and remember various privations are not young.  So, this probably would have been the last time significant numbers of people who experienced the occupations in any way, as foes or allies, could or would celebrate in a major way.  

Notice that I used conditional tenses in my previous sentence.  Under other circumstances, thousands of people surely would have participated in ceremonies and other commemorations. Today, however, much of Europe remains under COVID-19 induced lockdowns.  In some countries, people can't even go for a bike ride or a walk and must show an official document granting them permission to go to grocery stores, pharmacies and other enterprises deemed as essential.

So, here is one of many sad ironies of the situation:  On a day when people would have been celebrating their liberation from one kind or tyranny, they are now living under another.  

And, the enforced curfews and other restrictions of Nazi invasions and occupations changed life in ways that still affect people today.  For example, the Paris Metro closes from 1 am to 5 am every day.  That schedule was imposed on the city during its occupation.  So it remains today.  In an odd parallel, for the first time in its history, the New York City subway system is  not operating 24/7.  It is now closed every day from 1 to 5 am--as a result of what has been called our "invisible invader."

Another parallel between the Nazi occupations and the COVID-19 pandemic is that thinking "out of the box" with the available facts is needed to beat back the terror.  The Nazis introduced the Blitzkreig, but French and other military strategists continued to strategize in the ways they'd done, or learned, before.  Once they and their allies understood that the Nazis were sending "lightning strikes" rather than masses of soldiers, they started to win battles.  Likewise, health care professionals, scientists and policy makers--at least the ones who don't placate political patrons--know that while their knowledge and data will inform their decisions, those decisions cannot always be made in the same ways because COVID-19 is not behaving in the same ways as earlier afflicitons.

I just hope that my friends in France and the wonderful people I met in other countries will soon be able to celebrate in the way they deserve (Xoom just doesn't cut it!)--perhaps with a bike ride.

Be Safe. Don't Become A Memory Just Yet!

Today is Memorial Day.  

In spite of our current President, I still hope that, one day, people will be able to look at military installations and armaments in much the same way they look at Stonehenge:  as monuments to practices abandoned.  That, to me, is the only way the millions of combat-related deaths and mutilations will have any meaning.  In other words, those wasted lives and bodies will matter if they teach us that we don't have to squander our talent and treasure.

Now, I hope none of this sounds so lugubrious that you won't go for a bike ride.  If you do, be safe.  I don't want this day to be a memorial for you, before your time!

What We Came From?

Being a writer and English teacher, I'm irked by overused (and often inappropriate) words and phrases.  It drives me crazy, for example, when a literate, erudite interviewer asks a good question and the interviewee begins his or her response with "So."  

Another annoying language tic is the use of the word "evolution" when "development" makes more sense.  I even heard someone talk about the "evolution" of medical devices.  Trust me, if you've ever had a mammogram or been treated with a vaginal device (I know that at least half of you haven't!), you know that some medical devices haven't "evolved" much!

And so it is with bicycles.  Writers facing deadline will refer to the "evolution" of the bicycle when they're describing how the Draisienne became today's computer-designed machines.

Then again, they might not be too far off the mark:

Hmm... Maybe the bicycle has "evolved" more than humans have--or, at least, more than humans ever will if we don't get rid of war.

Gardens Of Memory

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.