Saturday, May 31, 2025 - Musings, Reflections, and Consternation
Consternation? Not really necessary but feelings ought not be denied
Judging by my size, I’d say I am four or five years old when this image was made, probably have just gotten through my kindergarten at Jamestown Academy. This would make my sister 7 or 8 as her birthday is in the summer. My father’s idea of vacation was to drive up to parks in the Blue Ridge Mountains and camp. This was in a 1966 Ford Fairlane 500 station wagon without air conditioning. The tents and sleeping bags we’d use were not the simple-to-set-up kind one can find in Dick’s Sporting Goods these days. They were heavy canvas affairs meant to house a family of four. We had cots and inflatable mattresses as well as a little Coleman gas-fired stove to make breakfast and coffee and such. It was pure madness, I think, of my father to think that this was a good family vacation but it made memories for us, that’s for certain!
So, I started out this post in reflection of yesterday’s march through the streets of Washington, DC which took me down past the White House and back up through 22nd street to move the handicapped placard from one car to another ahead of our shopping trip to Columbia, Maryland. What I perceive as I go out the door is that we, collectively, are largely content with the status quo. I open the media and find that this isn’t necessarily so - particularly as I listened to National Public Radio a good bit while Lynn was shopping in various stores that she enjoys - Marshalls, TJMaxx, HomeSense, and HomeGoods - and getting some grocery items at BJ’s Warehouse and Wegman’s. For my part, I got discount gas at BJs. Lynn bought me some treats also. We are content.
Should we be content, however? There are forces in motion in the world which, it would appear, are likely to make for a very difficult future unless we are very wise indeed. Our species is called “Homo Sapiens” - or “Wise Man” - but I fear that this may be wishful thinking. We ought to weigh carefully every action that we execute with an awareness that everything here is connected to everything else. I fear that we are, as a species, not mindful enough. We go through our days like automatons. I know that I am not conscious of every action that my body is doing….and then additionally, I’m aware that I am not just my body. I do not stop at the ends of my fingertips or the boundary of my skin with the atmosphere. “I” am not just “me” anyway - but contain multitudes. Containing multitudes comes straight out of the works of Walt Whitman whose birthday it is today. Earlier, I was amplifying the signal of Jesse Paris Smith and her mother, Patti Smith, as they marked Walt Whitman’s birthday. I feel a kinship with Jesse as, like me, she has lost her father to death. She lost hers when she was quite young. I lost mine last year. By his chair in his sunroom at 100 Underwood Road in Williamsburg, VA, there was a volume of Walt Whitman’s works that he had purchased while an undergrad at the College of William and Mary.
It goes on - life does. I think about that quite a bit because he was a great reader as well as a research historian who applied a rigor to his work that is seldom seen now. His mantra included the line picked up from his history professors at William and Mary in the 1950s. If it is printed, it is suspect. No one every prints anything without a good reason for doing so. Always go back to primary sources.
So, that’s what “Harrowings Live” is about. Creating primary sources which might be used in the future by historians to get a good picture of who, what, when, and where things were happening in front of my lens. I comment a good bit on what I am perceiving, but that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is the raw data being gathered AND preserved for the future. It’s a job. It’s necessary. Otherwise, how will any of us know what has happened and be able to piece together what led to the moment we are in - in the future or presently?
I don’t know. I just know how things seem to me. I could be mistaken so I cast my thoughts out here on Substack and into cyberspace to see what will stick. We have at present, 280 subscribers to this Substack. I intend for us to grow but I can only do that with your help. Amplify the signal through the noise.
Onward!