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Please don't remind me that I'm poor; I'm having too much fun pretending I'm simply "living green" like everyone else these days.


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Monday, April 6, 2009

Finally got to one cemetery



Friday was shopping day. It's the day I chauffeur my SIL to the grocery. So naturally since I'm there anyway I get my own groceries.



Saturday my brother decided he wanted to go to the cemetery to see our father's grave. We had delayed the trip from last weekend. I was happy to see that Fort Knox had actually done some work in the cemetery. They had taken many of the broken stones and repaired them. They set the stones in a concrete case to hold the broken pieces together. This cemetery is on the actual military base. We had to get a permit at the gate before being allowed to visit.



At the entrance of the cemetery we saw a plaque with a notice saying many stones had been restored to the rightful places using cemetery records. Last time I was here the broken stones were scattered about willy, nilly.



According to the notice the work is not finished. I'm really happy to see everything in much, much better shape than last time we were there. I have several relatives buried in this place. It's nice to see their markers will be restored for the future generations to find.







Our father's stone has yet to be raised. Hopefully it will be done before the stone sinks below ground. The wall has been repaired. The last time I visited the wall had many missing stones and was starting to fall apart.





There was another reason for us visiting Fort Knox. My brother is a Vietnam vet. The war was a terrible thing. For many years my brother has kept his thoughts and feelings about that time hidden (suppressed) and now it's affecting his mind. I've been spending a great deal of my own time listening to my brother talk out his thoughts and feelings. Talking helps heal the mind.


My brother was a marine. It would be far to difficult to visit a marine museum in another state. Fort Knox has an Army museum. We visited the museum so my brother could see a picture of one of the Vietnam Army Generals. This general was a childhood friend of our mother's. When my brother was in Vietnam this general visited him but my brother seemed to have trouble remembering the general's face. It seemed important for him to remember so we went to the museum to find a picture of General Abram.






Someone decided to do a caricature of the general.




It's hard to see humor in any war but evidently there was some here and there.... like this.





My brother pointed out that this was some of the things he worked with in the war. This is army stuff and his was marine stuff but the death it caused was the same. He worked with explosives. Massive amounts of it! There were bombs of all kinds. He stored it. He moved it. He armed it. He disarmed it. He slept near it. He ate near it. He lived nearly on top of it all the time. Stacks and stacks of this stuff was always present during his time in Vietnam. Can you imagine the stress he must have felt? How much stress anyone in a war must feel?




Sunday was a much happier day. I was at my daughter's house visiting. Two of her half sisters decided to stop by for a visit too. One sister is a hair dresser so she couldn't resist playing with my daughter's long hair.




The other sister decided to take a nap. That's her youngest child.




Well today I get back to the quilting. It was nice to take a couple of days off. I kept thinking of the deadlines I need to meet. At the same time I had to keep telling myself.... all work and no play only makes the deadlines harder to meet.
Now I'm going to spend a few more minutes learning about adding video's to a blog before actually getting back to work this morning.

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