Hey y’all. How’s everyone doing out there? Another week has come and gone sheltered in place here in Washington D.C. It’s had its ups and downs, like every week has, but I’m feeling a lot more positive this week than I was last week. I’ve gotten out of the house more (though not as much as I need to be), and have gotten back to playing my guitar and avoiding the news as much as possible. As July begins, it continues to heat up here in our Nation’s Capital, and 90+ degree days with high humidity are prevalent in the forecast. I’m getting up earlier to get my walk in before the heat really takes hold of the day and trying to get outside in the evening as well when it cools off again. Meanwhile I’ve been eating a lot of watermelon because really is there anything better than cold watermelon in the middle of a heat wave? I can say that before this summer I only knew how to cut a watermelon into slices. Now I’ve watched some videos on the subject and can cut a whole one into chunks pretty easily (seriously, there are some fascinating methods out there). I’ve also found that making watermelon balls, covering them in vodka and freezing them are quite the treat! In short, despite the heat it’s been a decent week and watermelon is delicious.
Thursday was an interesting day. As a follow-up to our Tuesday trip to Monocacy Battlefield, we wanted to go and visit Fort Stevens, the site of the only Civil War battle fought inside Washington D.C. After the 1864 Battle of Monocacy, Confederate General Jubal Early trained his sights on the Nation’s Capital. Thankfully, the delay at Monocacy had allowed reinforcements to be brought north from Richmond in steamships and the Confederates were turned out. President Lincoln was there that day and it was the only time that a sitting president has come under enemy fire during a war.
Having been rebuilt by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the New Deal and now administered by the National Park Service, Fort Stevens is the only one of our many forts which actually looks like a fort as most have been turned into parks and receded into the landscape. There isn’t much to it, but it’s only 10 minutes from our house so it was an easy place to visit. After wandering around the fort, we headed up Georgia Avenue to Battlefield National Cemetery, where 40 of the Union soldiers who had been killed during the battle are buried. With just an acre of property in the heart of the city, it is one of the smallest National Cemeteries in the country, and is really quite interesting to visit.
Leaving the cemetery, we wanted to make one more stop to round out our Fort Stevens day – at the Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring where some of the Confederate soldiers from that day were buried. We were pretty taken aback to find that the memorial to these soldiers had been vandalized and toppled. This was not some grand statue to Robert E. Lee or Stonewall Jackson, but a small memorial in a church cemetery to mark the graves of unknown soldiers. Even though these men were attacking my city, my hometown, I think they deserve to be left to rest in peace. I know that taking down a marker isn’t the same as digging up graves, but it seemed disrespectful and unnecessary. The Civil War has left gaping wounds all across this country which is why I’ve spent so much time in my life trying to understand it. Even this week as I’ve been rereading some books I still have from a class I took on the Civil War in college I’ve found my brain pulled in many different directions. I think it all comes back to the same thing though. In Ken Burns’ documentary on the Civil War, they are discussing the causes of the war and one of the historians says that in her opinion the Civil War was caused by the allowance of slavery in the United States at its birth. I couldn’t agree more. At that time there was slavery in all 13 of the original colonies, so to jump ahead one lifetime to the Civil War and say it was just a Southern thing is ridiculous. To then jump two lifetimes past that to today and say that the wounds caused by slavery (and the wounds caused by the war) should have healed by now is equally as ridiculous.
Furthermore, I think that it is long past time for us to reexamine some of our founding documents and start to put together ideas for a new beginning here in the United States. I believe that we should take those tenets which we hold so dear of “liberty and justice for all”, which have never actually been true in this country and pave a way to make them true. People often turn to our ideals when they discuss what makes America great, but those ideals are just words if they are not backed up by actions. It’s not too late in this country, but it’s getting closer to that point every day. I truly hope that some of the discussions we are having in America right now can turn towards tearing down some of our systems and rebuilding them again from the ground up – not with disrespect to our founders, but with an understanding that the world has changed dramatically since the 1700s and we should be changing with it. I think election reform across the country is a great place to start – not things that can be put into place by November, but things that 4 years from now could allow for a better representative government to benefit us all. I truly want everyone’s vote to count equally and I want everyone to be able to vote. I want us to come up with a way to eliminate the gerrymandering and get the money out of the system altogether. It shouldn’t ever be about manipulating the system so “our team wins”, but rather having a fair system so that the best ideas win.
This point was further driven home this week by the House passing a resolution for D.C. statehood. That bill will die in the Senate, but it is something which is near and dear to my heart. I know I often have to explain to people that it was only 14 years before I was born that D.C. residents got the right to vote for president (by the 23rd amendment which was ratified in 1961). Despite the fact that we have a higher population than Vermont and Wyoming, we still have no voting representatives in congress. Worse yet, our budget and local laws have to pass through congress in order to be approved and are often used by the political parties as pawns in their bigger games. It’s absurd. The reason which is given comes right from the Constitution which reserves certain things “for the states”, and since we are not a state we do not have those rights – despite the fact that Washington D.C. did not exist when the Constitution was written. The most beautiful thing about that document though, despite all of the shortcomings of our “founding fathers”, was that they understood that the world would change in the future and they left it open to change. Of all the ideas of America which I’ve encountered in my travels over the years, those that pronounce the Constitution as set in stone, instead of the living document which it is and was always intended to be, are those I disagree the most with. It’s time for profound change in this country – some of which will right historical wrongs and some of which will set us up for a better future.
Anyways, Thursday was a day of deep thinking, so Friday was a day to put that aside. We had a wonderful Friday night party in the basement, with a medieval theme. We dressed the part and had some renaissance music, some European beers and played a few rounds of the wonderful game Carcassone. It is a game which I learned and played often when I lived in Japan, but haven’t played since I returned. I couldn’t find any smoked turkey legs, so I cooked up some frozen fish and chips which wasn’t great but was as good as some I’ve had in bars over the years. It was a lot of fun and a really good night.
Saturday I had a few friends come by in the afternoon for a socially distanced visit. We sat under the magnolia tree out front, which gave us some nice shade, and talked and laughed and drank some beers. It was good to see people and enjoy some time together. It certainly wasn’t like it would be otherwise, but we can try and be social while still keeping our distance. It was good for all of us to have some interaction outside of our home pods.
Sunday I spent some time planning my schedule for the next couple of weeks as I try and get organized so I can get some things accomplished. I need to make better use of all of this free time while it’s here so that when it’s over I don’t wonder what I did with all that time. I finished one book and started another one and even had an hour to play my guitar which I have missed doing these last few weeks.
Monday I spent mostly getting some work done. I wanted to get my lesson plan for my Wednesday tutoring session prepared and get some photos edited and have time for some writing. I also needed to have a solid plan for our Tuesday field trip which was going to be a big one. I found myself getting frustrated with the day though as it just seemed to steam by. I had plans for what I wanted to accomplish with the day and I just couldn’t seem to get it done. The frustration turned to depression and the only good thing about any of it was being able to recognize what was happening even if I didn’t feel like I could stop it. I don’t want to take anti-depressants for my own reasons, but if I can at least recognize when it’s happening and know that it’s chemicals out of whack in my brain and has nothing to do with me or how hard I work or try, it helps. I’ve found the same thing with my anxiety – when I can recognize what it is and when it is happening, it’s almost like I can hold it in my hands like a ball and decide what to do with it. There is some liberation in knowing sometimes.
One of the things I really needed and have recognized in the past was to get out of town. Many of my coping methods like the gym, live music, museums and movies simply aren’t open right now and I wouldn’t feel comfortable in them if they were, but I can get out of town. Driving, traveling and immersing myself in history are very enjoyable for me and allow my brain to focus on other things. This week was a big one in our Civil War travels as we followed Grant and Lee south towards Richmond. We stopped at the North Anna Battlefield Park for a short hike in the morning, and then headed on to Cold Harbor, both sites of violent and awful battles which often get mashed together in the broader Overland Campaign. Then we went to City Point, where Grant established his headquarters high on the bluff above the James River, before moving on to explore the siege on Petersburg which would last 9 months and ultimately lead to the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox. We visited three of the Richmond area’s National Cemeteries, culminating in the grand Poplar Grove National Cemetery in Petersburg. It is never lost on us how costly in human lives this war was and is a part of our weekly discussions on the subject. Sadly we ran out of steam before we got to the end of the siege and turned towards home. Next week we hope to get back to Richmond on our way to Appomattox.
Beyond next week, we will hope to continue our travels in the area, but are hoping for a somewhat lighter topic than the Civil War. Although this is something I’ve always wanted to do in the way we are doing it and I haven’t regretted it for a minute, it has definitely not led to happy thoughts. The war was a terrible thing, like all wars are, and while it is historically interesting and important, it’s never lost on us that more than half a million people, mostly young men, lost their lives as a result. I’m looking forward to the fall when taking pretty pictures of pretty places surrounded by fall foliage will be the plan of the hour.
And that’s about it for this week. We came back last night just before dark, grabbed some pizzas and then called it a night. Today I’m trying to get this weekly memoir finished and then I will go and do my weekly math tutoring session where I can immerse myself in two-way frequency tables and systems of equations for an hour (I know most of your eyes just rolled up into your head, but I’ve always liked math!). This evening I want to cook a nice Southern meal and we will put up the movie screen in the living room and watch the great summer movie Doc Hollywood. I love that movie and remember going to see an advance screening in the theater with my grandmother because our friend and family dentist Stan’s brother wrote the book the movie is based on. I also spent some time last year in Micanopy, Florida, the town where they filmed it. It should be a calm and enjoyable night with the family around the movie screen.
This coming week I hope to continue to be productive and get some things done. I want to finish writing the two podcasts I’ve now been working on for 3 months. I hope to get back out into Washington D.C. and take some more neighborhood photos which I was enjoying doing earlier this spring. I want to finish up some of the Civil War books I’m reading so that very soon I can set that all aside for a while, even though I know I will be drawn back to it at some point. Mostly I hope to enjoy being home, being with my family and being able to recognize this current situation as a gift and a blessing even if it isn’t one I would have chosen if all the options were on the table.
I’m hoping y’all have a wonderful week wherever you are. For all my fellow Americans, enjoy your 4th of July celebrations, be safe with your fireworks, and let’s really start to consider how we can make those feelings we feel in our hearts about this country into realities we see on the ground. Take care, be safe and I’ll see you right back here next week.
-Mike