Reading Stephanie Pearl-McPhee’s post at yarnharlot.ca today brought to mind an old memory, I guess my earliest road-trip memory. I was five or six years old, and, given our large family, I was sitting in what was the coveted position of the front seat of the station wagon between my parents. We were in Virginia, going past a Civil War battlefield, and I didn’t understand all those things in the grass. As Dad pulled off the main road and the car faced up a hill, with an ancient wooden fence to either side of the road as we faced that battlefield, my father, a vet, gently, sadly explained to me what a war was. I will never forget the moment the concept sank in.
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I remember when I was young, also on a family trip, visiting DC & the Vietnam wall. The instant I saw it, the fomer abstract (to me) concept of war, became ever so clear. It was a very powerful turning point in my life.
Comment by pippi 11.12.06 @ 5:29 amThat Wall is powerful.
Comment by AlisonH 11.12.06 @ 10:39 amMine is from my college years, when I was in England. I walked by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and noticed the stone walls were all pockmarked. Hahaha, those British, letting their buildings get all falling-down. Then I noticed a little plaque. I walked over, put my hand against the wall, leaned in. The exact wording was lost to me, but the essence was that the walls had been damaged during the Blitzkreig, and they had never been repaired as a testimonial to the losses of that time. I looked, and my hand was in a pockmark — a shell-mark — twice as wide as my fingerspread. The shiver that passed through me ran down my entire body. It’s a moment that will always stay with me.
Comment by Anonymous 11.12.06 @ 2:13 pmWow.
Comment by AlisonH 11.12.06 @ 5:52 pmLeave a comment
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