Yesterday I finally got around to downloading the photos I took from last year's family vacation to Hawaii.
One of the visits we made was to Pearl Harbor. While both of my granddaughters remembered the story of Pearl Harbor from their 5th grade history classes, it didn't have any real meaning until we visited the memorial and read all the names and ages of the many men, women and children who lost their lives that day.
Once I downloaded the photos, I forwarded by email the best ones to my children and grandchildren. I realized the moment I hit send that those photos captured only a moment in time. And, we've had so many great moments since that family vacation.
Viewing the pictures, I recalled every single happy moment (and the frustrating moments) we shared during those seven glorious days together.
Our photos are living proof of time memorial. Remembering time.
Of all of the many time altering things happening in Florida and Texas these days, the one thing that bothers me most are the attempts there at revisionist history. I'm not sure how you can rewrite history, when quite a bit of it is captured in photos.
Yes. Captured in time. Time memorial. From slavery to the use of water hoses and dogs on civil rights marchers in the south. From lynching, to sit ins at lunch counters. From photos of John Lewis, beaten and bloody to Martin Luther King looking through the bars of a jail cell in Montgomery, Alabama. Time memorial.
While revisionist would like to convince us that these things either didn't happen or weren't as bad as we think...our photos tell us otherwise.
However, when we look at the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii we remember in clear detail, the men, women and children who lost their lives the day of that attack.
Yet, no one is trying to rewrite that history.
History is our story. It's your story and my story. It cannot be rewritten. No matter how hard you try, you cannot rewrite or whitewash the devastating history of this country. All we can do is learn from it. And, if we don't learn from it, we are destined to repeat it.
This Memorial Day as we remember the many men and women who gave their lives for this country (the holiday was originated to honor the men who gave their lives during this country's civil war), let's also remember the men and women who gave their lives during slavery, and Jim Crow lynching, on the Trail of Tears, in German concentration camps, Japanese internment camps, during the riots in Watts and Detroit, at Kent State, in Vietnam, and during the civil rights movement.
Every single event witnessed, photographed and remembered. Time memorial.
As we bring out the grills, and beer and revelry let's take time tomorrow to remember all the men, women and children who have given their lives, and their stories so that we may have something to honor and celebrate.
Here's to history and the bold, daring, truthful stories history tells about our nation.
What I'm Reading
This week's blog finds me reading a few oldies and a couple of new releases.
Happiness Becomes You - Tina Turner
Think Like a Monk - Jay Shetty
David and Goliath - Malcolm Gladwell
Discipline is Destiny - Ryan Holiday
Black Lies, White Lies (The Truth According to Tony Brown) - Tony Brown