Champions4Her

A moment from the 2009 Kentucky Bar Association convention

As the 2009 Kentucky Bar Association convention fades into the past and the Commonwealth's lawyers bid farewell to Covington, I'd like to record one final memory. Danzig U.S.A. contributors Reggie and Cheryl Van Stockum joined the University of Louisville's reception for law alumni and friends. Below, Reggie shares a moment with Matt Williams and Bob Micou.

Jefferson Memorial Forest

Herewith a sighting of a cricket frog, Acris crepitans, along the Slitstone Trail at the Jefferson Memorial Forest.

Jefferson Memorial Forest, all 6,191 acres of it, lies entirely within the city limits of Louisville. It is 15 minutes from downtown. A quick sprint along any of the Forest's hiking trails will convince you that this is some of the best urban recreation in the country.

I de dager var kjempene på jorden

Again from Recess Appointment, chapter 3 of Iridescence:

I de dager var kjempene på jorden. The land of one's childhood, no matter its physical location, marks the same place on every person's emotional map. In those days there were giants in the earth, and the sons of God came unto the daughters of men. And in turn those daughters bore children who became mighty men of old, men of renown. . . . There the warriors stood taller, whether they swung bats or wore plastic armor beneath their jerseys. The preachers spoke with greater authority, sometimes of heaven but mostly of hell. And above all the daughters of men have no greater beauty than those you first meet in that never-forgotten land. So struck will you be by your discovery, your terrible and thrilling discovery that you want one and all of them at once and forever, that you will spend the balance of your days searching for one to compare with the girls you recall from the founding of the kingdom of giants.

Editor's notes:

1. The phrase I de dager var kjempene på jorden comes from the 1930 Norwegian Bokmål translation of Genesis 6:4.


2. The image shown is that of Milam Park, Clarkston, Georgia.

Calvin Borel, Jockey & Sage

Jockey Calvin Borel said he owed his success to his father. When asked what his father did, Calvin delivered a terse and wise catechism on child rearing: "He believed in me."

Calvin won the 2007 Kentucky Derby, the 2009 Kentucky Oaks and the 2009 Kentucky Derby riding a 50 to 1 long shot that arrived at Churchill Downs after being drive across country from New Mexico in a trailer pulled by his trainer's pick-up truck--the horse-racing equivalent of hitch-hiking to the Derby.

Manifold destiny

From Recess Appointment, chapter 3 of Iridescence:

No reach back into ancient natural history can resist the temptation of the near emotional future. You will believe in that orgiastic future no matter how badly the recent personal past distorts your view of current global reality. It eluded you then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow you will run faster, stretch out your arms further. And if you are lucky enough to have noticed the trompe-l'œil of your own creation, you will realize this truth: No amount of traversing the ancient and the modern, the personal and the global, will separate fear from desire. At any scale the topology of anxiety and longing dictates an invariable outcome. Such is the manifold destiny of the searching soul. Equal and opposite emotions, one and inseparable, comprise a single surface in the Klein bottle of the human heart in conflict with itself.

Memory and redshift

No less than their sensory counterparts, the waves of personal remembrance obey Doppler's law. The mind in motion never quite perceives what passes before the mind at rest. Emotional recall obeys the forces that bend the peal of a passing bell and warp the color of distant stars. Race toward the past if you will; yesterday recedes faster than your memory can recall. As you reel backward, redshift stretches memory beyond your field of perception, till truth dissipates in spasms of invisible heat. Race instead toward the future, and impatient anticipation crashes against the the invariant pace at which tomorrow arrives. Against that blackness you will see no more than purple tendrils not quite taking full form, the fleeting projections of things yet to come.

Spring Arrives at My Front Door

Jared Diamond, author of "Guns, Germs and Steel" and "Collapse"

The Assault of Guam (1944) (Part IV)

A day or two after we landed on Guam, at about 11:30 p.m. on July 25, 1944, those of us at the Command Post that had been established at the base of the steep cliff near the beaches, heard a cacophony of machine-gun fire and explosive bursts coming from the top of the cliff.

Mixed and confused reports, some frantic, reached our radios. In the midst of this turmoil, a forward observer stumbled down the cliff to report that the enemy had attacked, and “all hell” had broken loose on our front lines.

Upon receiving this alarming information, we requested that fragmentation hand grenades be forwarded from our ammunition dump several hundred yards to the rear. In anticipation of such an attack, we should have already had them on hand.

To our consternation, after a painfully long delay, grenades arrived, but they were smoke grenades, useless in our situation, rather than those that broke into steel fragments after being thrown.

As the noise of battle came closer, I received the following order from the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Marlowe Williams: “Van get up there and see what’s going on.”

So I called for my radio operator, who doubled as a bugler, and we started in darkness to ascend the bluff, scarcely knowing where we were but knowing that the way was “up.”

Enemy mortar shells, aimed at rear installations, passed overhead, but more dangerous to us was our own artillery, which was responding to urgent calls from the front lines.

A number of rounds, failing to clear the crest, burst not far from us. Turning around, I saw no sign of my radioman, so alone, I continued slowly on my mission.

The front lines

At the break of dawn, I reached C Company in the front lines. At this location our position was intact, but the enemy had bypassed our positions and elsewhere had penetrated our lines, using ravines as protection.

It was apparent that their objective was to reach the beach in the rear in order to destroy our artillery and the supply dumps. I arrived in time to see the enraged company gunnery sergeant pick up a discarded Samurai sword and kill the remaining enemy soldier.

I then borrowed a company radio and contacted headquarters in the rear to report that the line at that point had held.

As the sun rose, and the fog of battle lifted, the magnitude of this attack became apparent.

It had not been a so-called “Banzai” attack, led by sword-wielding officers, rushing forward to certain death. It was an organized counter-attack, carefully planned and well-executed against hopeless odds.

The enemy’s main blow was against our center, Company B, commanded by my good friend Capt. Don Beck. From his command position that night, he watched as the Japanese, taking advantage of their knowledge of the terrain, came down the ravines, overpowering his command.

Enemy shells, as well as our supporting mortar and artillery shells, were falling near his position. [While wounded at least once, Capt. Beck commanded Company B in all three invasions: Bougainville, Guam and (later) Iwo Jima. I know of no other Marine to remain in command of an infantry company through three such ordeals.]

Editor's note: First Published in the Sentinel-News, Shelbyville, Kentucky, April 8, 2009
© 2009 Ron Van Stockum

Xortal-Times Turn (Chapter 1, part 1)

It was noon.  The sky was a bony cold gray and the air heavy.  An old outdoor thermometer hung on a fence post, its metallic base rusted and bent.

A good day to be in a cave, thought Tony as he stepped out of his vintage Volkswagen Beetle and slipped into his jacket.  He parked next to the fence and noted the long temperature gauge...52º F.  "Warm weather for January, eh bub?"  he said as his friend Vern stepped out of the car on the other side.

"Wait around awhile, it'll change," quipped Vern, tucking his head into his hunting cap, ear flaps still folded up inside.

Both friends turned toward the side of the clapboard frame house and Tony, reaching the outer basement access door, leaned down and swung the heavy, angled wooden door first up and then over to his right.   Vern snapped hold of the door with the metal clip on the ordinarily free hanging chain attached to the side of the house.  Strong winds were common enough to warrant this protection from premature closure.

The basement was part of an 1870's home and hence only undercut a quarter of the house now sitting above it.  Since it was only 14' by 14' wide, Tony was tempted to believe that it was the basement to the original pioneer home carved out from the forest in 1795 when his eastern ancestors traveled down Clear Creek from the point where Harrods Trace crossed on its way from the Kentucky River to the fort at the Falls.

He and Vern pulled the worn cardboard box of caving gear from atop the bare earthen wall of one side.  Vern pulled out the helmets as Tony supported the wet, weak bottom of the box.  The acrid smell of spent carbide permeated the gear and, mixed with the dank air of the basement, created a seemingly alien atmosphere.  Yet to the boys it was a pleasant smell, the smell of life and safety and hope in the power of men to advance into the hostile world below.  They climbed out of the basement with a sense of muted excitement, a sober eagerness that precedes physical exertion.  It would take great effort to dig into the karst window, without the certitude of finding a passable cavity below.  Even if found, it was likely that such a passage would be a belly crawl, pinching out in an unpassable convergence of stone.

At 26 (Vern, born on June 17, and Tony on August 6), both boys were strong with youth.  Tony was thicker in bone and muscle and wore a down-turning mustache across his face.  Vern was taller, but not by much, and sported a light beard.  His features were otherwise aquiline, if a little pudgy.  Tony's features were angular and his eyes were set far back below bony protruding eyebrows.  Vern had blue eyes, Tony hazel.  Vern was already losing his hair in a broad swath atop his head.  In this, he was like his father.

"Here you go, bub," said Tony, dropping the box on the blue table on the clapboard house porch.  "Start pulling out the stuff...how about a cola?"

"Diet, man," said Vern.  He was a diabetic, although diet cola seemed to be his only conscious accommodation to the disease.  Cola and the shots, that is.  Vern loved to grin at Tony as he dropped his trouser-leg, brought out a needle and syringe, pierced the rubber seal on a vial of insulin, and literally smacked the needle into his thigh.  The thought raised goose bumps on Tony's arms, the sight just paralyzed him.  "Here man, give it a shot!"  taunted Vern, thrusting out the spent cartridge toward Tony.  It was a sliver thin needle and that made it even more frightening.

Out from the box came the caving gear.  The hats were ordered from a caving store and looked something like old Prussian helmets without a spike.  They were held firmly on the head by a four point strap.  Ground mud in numerous cuts and scrapes in the hard cap plastic testified as to the need for helmets and tight straps.  It also testified to the two years of experience both cavers now claimed.  Mounting brackets on the front of the helmets would accept the carbide lamps.

Xortal, a novel

"Xortal" is a work of Science Fiction. It is my third novel in that genre. I have a background and interest in natural history and explore such things in my writings.

"Knowledge" is the first chapter in "Xortal." I look forward to posting portions of additional chapters in the future.....thanks, Reginald Bareham

Xortal-Knowledge (Introduction)

I write this story out of fear, punishing anxiety which keeps me bottled up in this dark, dank place lest I even more grossly affect the progress of that without. My friend lies dead, yet I know that he lives. Xortal, I fear, is lost but I am condemned to await its return if I am ever to escape my predicament, much less understand it. I wear the chest pack frequently still, going back on regular forays seeking Xortal. But I do not dare interact for fear of more greatly alienating my being, or worse, threatening my current existence.

So here, in this tomb of my time, I write the tale which will record my true passage through life. It will serve, should any attempt to follow, as a warning and it may yet serve as a guide for those with the courage, or foolishness, to seek this passage again. Although knowledge is a hollow substitute for human companionship, it has proven to be my only friend in exile. A friend that I embrace now more than ever in the awful loneliness that I suffer. It is that companion which, as its reward, will take on a new life in these pages.

So I collect data, increase my knowledge and catalogue it in my growing mind. Regardless, the bronze sled is gone and that can only mean that the isle of Avalon has again risen. The Tor is again a beacon. What terrors will come only Xortal knows, and only Xortal can command.

Listen to the rocks!

The rainbow as refracted truth

By arc or by whole, the rainbow reveals refracted truth. Nearby rain and distant mist have equal power to vaporize visible light into bands of color. A single sheet of water, slicing through sunlight, projects the full spectrum against the sky's inverted bowl. If you are lucky enough to be standing far enough from the point where solar brilliance meets suspended water, you will see sunlight scattered into a full ring of color.

Like metaphorical truth, visible light rarely reveals its constituent parts so regularly and so predictably. Depart ever so modestly from the axis on which truth or light turns, and your eyes will no longer honor one focus. And if you should look instead at an object propelled through the sky, gravity's rainbow will no longer appear to you in closed form. It will rise — and fall — according to a trajectory that will never connect the beginning of truth with its end.

And this is to say nothing of the most treacherous trick of the light, the double deception that awaits time's pilgrim. Race toward the past if you will; yesterday recedes faster than your memory can recall. As you reel backward, redshift stretches memory beyond your field of perception, till truth dissolves in waves filled with heat rather than light. Race instead toward the future, and impatient anticipation crashes against the the invariant pace at which tomorrow arrives. Against that blackness you will see no more than purple tendrils not quite taking full form, the fleeting projections of things yet to materialize.

Pivotal events therefore mark the sections of our lives, slicing at particular points of time through the whole of the truth and leaving us no more enlightened than the objects we trace across our field of vision at speeds well below that of light. Catch them, and you will be rewarded momentarily by the mirage of control. Miss them altogether, and you will rue forever the path that both of you, protagonist and projectile, must follow.

Parrish Court

With apologies to Walt Whitman:

When jonquils first in the courtyard bloomed,
And the great star slowly drooped in the western sky late by day,
I yearned — and yet shall yearn with ever-returning spring.

---

Above: Parrish Court, Belknap Campus, University of Louisville. Cross-posted from The Cardinal Lawyer.

The Harrods Creek Bridge RIP 2008

The Harrods Creek Bridge
Regulated traffic according to the iron law of civility.

Bliss

Bliss
Search inside yourself for bliss
And if you find none there
Quit your search and rest assured
You won't find bliss anywhere.
dv

Me

A Look at Me and Where I'm Headed
I keep a picture of myself on my bookshelf where I can see it from my desk while working and from my chair when thinking. It is the last image I see before leaving for the day and the first image I see in the morning upon arriving at my desk. The self-portrait is shown above.

The picture shows my shadow cast across my gravesite at Cave Hill Cemetery pointing toward the symbol of earthly success, my Mercedes-Benz (formerly). The luxury car cannot deliver me from the place that awaits my sure and certain arrival.

I see myself in the picture as dust and shadow, like the flower of the field described by the psalmist: For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more. Psalm 103:14-16.

There is life in the picture, the good life symbolized by the silver car. There’s death, dust and shadow in the scene as well and even fading flowers of the field set in a vase before a tombstone before the 'wind goeth over it.' And the grave-digger’s work is visible in the lower left foreground, marked by white flags.

And there is resurrection symbolized by the patch of green grass visible near the base of the shadow, the return of life in an eternal cycle.

The picture keeps me centered.

Masterworks

Masterworks

I look at what the masters did
I really learn a lot.
For when I see the work they did
I see what I did not.
--dv

Our club, "Your Water"

The Isaac Shelby chapter of the University of Louisville Alumni Association gathered on February 8, 2009, at Allen Dale, home of Reggie and Cheryl Van Stockum, to watch the Cardinals' basketball game with St. John's. Halftime entertainment included a screening of Reggie's performance of Your Water. The video, drawn from from Reggie's video library on Vimeo.com, exhibits one song from the Reginald Bareham Singer Songwriter Showcase at the Rudyard Kipling in Louisville on February 7. Your Water featured Reggie Van Stockum (performing under the name Reginald Bareham) on rhythm guitar and vocals, Kelly Hickerson on guitar, David Clement on trombone, and Brian Ginn on snare drum.

»  Cross-posted at The Cardinal Lawyer  «

Wendell Berry Makes Public Statement on the Death Penalty

Noted Kentucky author, philosopher and man-of-letters, Wendell Berry has authorized me to use the following statement of his position on the death penalty:

[Not to be altered in any way without the approval of Wendell Berry]

“As I am made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life before birth, I am also made deeply uncomfortable by the taking of a human life after birth. Obviously, it can be well argued that the world would be better off if certain people had never been born or if they had been killed in early youth by a fall from a tree. And I certainly can imagine circumstances in which I might kill another person. But I don’t believe that mere humans have the mental or moral capacity to decide rightfully, let alone infallibly, that another human should be killed. As I don’t condone the illegal killing of a human by a human, I cannot condone the legal killing of a human by a human. One killing is not rectified or atoned for by the addition of a second. An illegal killing is in no way made better by a legal killing. A society is not made saner or more morally secure by the deputation in it of legalized killers. Whereas many illegal killings are done in hot blood, legal killings are always done in cold blood and with a procedural deliberation that is horrifying. Hot-blooded killing is of course horrifying also, but to me it is more understandable. Probably we have no choice against illegal killing, which continues to happen against the wishes of nearly everybody. But it is possible, morally and rationally, to choose to withhold one’s approval from legal killing, and I so choose.”
[Not to be altered in any way without the approval of Wendell Berry].
--Wendell Berry
Port Royal, KY
January 23, 2009

UofL's Speed School to Take Lead on Renewable Energy Research

On January 26, 2008, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear announced that Kentucky’s Center for Renewable Energy Research and Environmental Stewardship will be operated by the University of Louisville. Uof L engineering and business alumnus Henry Conn and his wife, Rebecca, have pledged more than $20 million to the Speed school to support this program.

The center’s mission promotes partnerships among the state’s colleges and universities, private industry and nonprofit organizations to actively pursue federal research and development resources that are dedicated to renewable energy.

Quilting Portraits

Fabric is a delightful way to represent the human face. My work is a bit abstract, but the images are (generally) recognizable.

Here is a version I have done of President-elect Obama. (I must remember that teeth are difficult to portray ...)

Earthrise on Christmas Eve

Earthrise December 24, 1968 Peace on earth, good will to all

Mellwood Artists At Library

Artists from the Mellwood Arts & Entertainment Center will have work on display from December 18 to February 8 in the Louisville Free Public Library's main branch. The works on display are varied and beautiful, ranging from ceramics, to print, to wood, to fiber. (OK. This is a bit of self-promotion, I have a fiber piece there.)

If you are downtown, stop by the library's Bernheim Gallery to see what some of your fellow Louisvillians are doing.

Pug power for the holidays at the University of Louisville

Danzig U.S.A. has made much of the pug's status as the dog breed of the Cardinal Nation. The official 2008 holiday card of the University of Louisville drives home the point.

Woof!

Editor's note: Here is a bonus animal image, from the UofL Law School's holiday card:

Ashley Cecil calls on Champions 4 Her

Ashley Cecil has issued a call for artists to take part in next summer's Champions 4 Her fundraiser:

I’m looking for a few more visual artists who are interested in participating as a street painting facilitator. It entails meeting with the group you will be assigned to at their facilities for a series of sessions to collaboratively create a final design of what will go onto the pavement at Water Front Park the day of the event. Each group will consist of some combination of clients of the organization, volunteers, and/or staff (few of whom will have any artistic experience). This is not an opportunity for artists to showcase their own work. The objective is to guide your group through the art-making process and give them creative license.

Penny Sisto Exhibit at Uzoma

Fiber artist Penny Sisto's exhibit "Rude, Crude and Lewd" will be on display at uzoMa gallery from December 5 through January 23, 2009. The opening reception is Friday, December 5, from 6-8 pm, and she will hold an artist workshop January 11, from 2-4 pm.

For more information, contact Angela Ramsey Robinson at explore.uzoma@gmail.com.

Sisto's work is passionate, intricate and beautiful. I am certain this exhibit will be no exception. The image I have included here is from her Immigrant Series. (Click on image to go to her gallery page.)

(cross-posted on B's Dreams)

Ex libro lapidum historia mundi

Mazon Creek lagerstätte
All geology represents the present-tense freeze-frame of the earth's history, condensed conveniently in the chemistry of rocks and soils. Though the course of any single organism's life is infinitesimally minute by comparison with the history of the earth, only one species in the earth's parade of life — ours — has managed to crack the code. It is as though some geological variant of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle prevents observation over a more meaningful time span. Any organism attaining the power to unlock the earth's secrets also acquires, by that very stroke, the power to destroy the earth itself.

The true wonders in this world do not hide. Rather, they wait in plain sight, obscured not so much by ice or vegetation as by the shades we draw across our eyes. Most of geologic history belongs in this category of true wonders. Terrestrial history accretes at rates too slow for any mortal observer to notice. But it leaves records in the form of rocks and soils and layers.

On extremely rare occasions, the chroniclers of geologic time pause to pick one fragment of one organism — a leaf, a wing, a shell, a bone — and enshrine it in some durable medium. The imprints of Carboniferous ferns, horsetails, and club mosses, insects in amber, the barely perceptible bas-relief of a mollusk, cliffs colored by coccolithophorid shells, even the hydrocarbon relics of ancient plant life that humans so casually burn and polymerize — all these bear mute testimony to worlds long past.

As with sediment, so with sentiment: Our efforts at self-understanding have no chance of overcoming the mindless buzz of being and doing. We cannot understand feelings of the moment, with deep emotional footprints and even with lasting practical consequences, until we stop acting upon those feelings and seize the opportunity to look backward, in the serenity of solitude.

Editor's note: Cross-posted from Jurisdynamics.

Veterans Day

Glory Land

With new dress blues and shiny shoes
And the strut of a brave brass band
Daddy took-up his country’s flag
And marched to glory land.

Without his shoes and new dress blues
But behind the band and flag
Daddy came home from glory land
Wearing a burlap bag. DV
2006

The body of an American

Editor's note: This item was originally published in The Cardinal Lawyer on Veterans' Day 2007. It is a timeless message, though, and for that reason I am posting it here despite being a week late for Veterans' Day 2008.

There is perhaps no finer tribute to American veterans than John Dos Passos's "The Body of an American," the concluding chapter of 1919, part two of the U.S.A. trilogy (1930-36):

Whereasthe Congressoftheunitedstates byaconcurrentresolutionadoptedon the4thdayofmarch last-authorizedthe Secretaryofwar to cause to be brought to theunitedstatesthe body of an American whowasamemberoftheAmericanexpeditionaryforceineuropewholosthis lifeduringtheworldwarandwhoseidentityhasnot beenestablished for burial inthememorialamphitheatreofthe nationalcemeteryatarlingtonvirginia

In the tarpaper morgue at Chalons-sur-Marne in the reek of chloride of lime and the dead, they picked out the pine box that held all that was left of

enie menie minie moe plenty of other pine boxes stacked up there containing what they’d scraped up of Richard Roe

and other person or persons unknown. Only one can go. How did they pick John Doe? . . .

how can you tell a guy’s a hundredpercent when all you’ve got’s a gunnysack full of bones, bronze buttons stamped with the screaming eagle and a pair of roll puttees?

. . . and the gagging chloride and the puky dirtstench of the yearold dead . . .

The day withal was too meaningful and tragic for applause. Silence, tears, songs and prayer, muffled drums and soft music were the instrumentalities today of national approbation.

John Doe was born (thudding din of blood of love into the shuddering soar of a man and a woman alone indeed together lurching into and ninemonths sick drowse waking into scared agony and the pain and blood and mess of birth). John Doe was born

and raised in Brooklyn, in Memphis, near the lakefront in Cleveland, Ohio, in the stench of the stockyards in Chi, on Beacon Hill, in an old brick house in Alexandria Virginia, on Telegraph Hill, in a halftimbered Tudor cottage in Portland the city of roses,

in the Lying-In Hospital old Morgan endowed on Stuyvesant Square,

across the railroad tracks, out near the country club, in a shack cabin tenement apartmenthouse exclusive residential suburb;

scion of one of the best families in the social register, won first prize in the baby parade at Coronado Beach, was marbles champion of the Little Rock grammarschools, crack basketballplayer at the Booneville High, quarterback at the State Reformatory, having saved the sheriff’s kid from drowning in the Little Missouri River was invited to Washington to be photographed shaking hands with the President on the White House steps; —

Read the rest of this post . . . .* * * * *

though this was a time of mourning, such an assemblage necessarily has about it a touch of color. In the boxes are seen the court uniforms of foreign diplomats, the gold braid of our own and foreign fleets and armies, the black of the conventional morning dress of American statesmen, the varicolored furs and outdoor wrapping garments of mothers and sisters come to mourn, the drab and blue of soldiers and sailors, the glitter of musical instruments and the white and black of a vested choir

— busboy harveststiff hogcaller boyscout champeen cornshucker of Western Kansas bellhop at the United States Hotel at Saratoga Springs office boy callboy fruiter telephone lineman longshoreman lumberjack plumber’s helper,

worked for an exterminating company in Union City, filled pipes in an opium joint in Trenton, N.J.

Y.M.C.A. secretary, express agent, truckdriver, fordmechanic, sold books in Denver Colorado: Madam would you be willing to help a young man work his way through college?

President Harding, with a reverence seemingly more significant because of his high temporal station, concluded his speech:

We are met today to pay the impersonal tribute;

the name of him whose body lies before us took flight with his imperishable soul . . .

as a typical soldier of this representative democracy he fought and died believing in the indisputable justice of his country’s cause . . .

by raising his right hand and asking the thousands with the sound of his voice to join in the prayer:

Our Father which art in heaven hallowed by thy name . . .

* * * * *

John Doe’s

heart pumped blood:

alive thudding silence of blood in your ears

down in the clearing in the Oregon forest where the punkins were punkincolor pouring into the blood through the eyes and the fallcolored trees and the bronze hoopers were hopping through the dry grass, where tiny striped snails hung on the underside of the blades and the flies hummed, wasps droned, bumble-bees buzzed, and the woods smelt of wine and mushrooms and apples, homey smell of fall pouring into the blood,

and I dropped the tin hat and the sweaty pack and lay flat with the dogday sun licking my throat and adamsapple and the tight skin over the breastbone.

The shell had his number on it.

* * * * *

The blood ran into the ground.

The service record dropped out of the filing cabinet when the quartermaster sergeant got blotto that time they had to pack up and leave the billets in a hurry.

The identification tag was in the bottom of the Marne.

The blood ran into the ground, the brains oozed out of the cracked skull and were licked up by the trenchrats, the belly swelled and raised a generation of blue-bottle flies.

and the incorruptible skeleton,

and the scraps of dried viscera and skin bundled in khaki

they took to Chalons-sur-Marne

and laid it out neat in a pine coffin

and took it home to God’s Country on a battleship

and buried in a sarcophagus in the Memorial Amphitheatre in the Arlington National Cemetery

and draped the Old Glory over it

and the bugler played taps

and Mr. Harding prayed to God and the diplomats and the generals and the admirals and the brasshats and the politicians and the handsomely dressed ladies out of the society column of the Washington Post stood up solemn

and thought how beautiful sad Old Glory God’s Country it was go have the bugler play taps and the three volleys made their ears ring.

Where his chest ought to have been they pinned

the Congressional Medal, the D.S.C., the Medaille Militaire, the Belgian Croix de Guerre, the Italian gold medal, the Vitutea Militara sent by Queen Marie of Rumania, the Czechoslovak war cross, the Virtuti Militari of the Poles, a wreath sent by Hamilton Fish, Jr., of New York, . . . . All the Washingtonians brought flowers.

Woodrow Wilson brought a bouquet of poppies.


Editor's note: The photos of the burial of the Unknown Soldier appear on ArlingtonCemetery.Net.

Visiting Harland

Harland Sanders is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery. One can follow a yellow line from the main entrance to the colonel's grave. It's really worth the visit. Cave Hill is beautiful, filled with wonderful flowers, trees, and monuments. The Sanders memorial is a delightful walk and a bit of Kentucky history. As the trees turn, before it gets too cold, take a moment to visit the colonel.

Upshot: The Cathedral of the Assumption

World Religions
Philanthropists who paid for the resotration of Louisville's historic Cathedral of the Assumption will be honored and thanked for their contributions in November. The foundation overseeing the renovation has changed its name and mission and is now focusing on interfaith relations among the world's religions. It is based at the cathderal offices.

Pug power in the Cardinal Nation

Danzig U.S.A. has long acknowledged that the pug is the unofficial dog breed of the University of Louisville. And now it's official: