One of my earliest memories is from World War II. It must have been in 1945 -- I would have been two, if this is a true memory. My father was away, fighting in the War and I remember being in my grandparents' back yard, sittting on the grass, gazing across the green expanses then looking up at the sky and wondering, if I listened very hard, if I could hear the guns.
This old memory resurfaced today as I was looking through my pictures, trying to decide what to post. There are so many terrible things going on just now -- not a worldwide war, thank goodness --but it's almost as if I listened hard enough, I should be able to hear, not just the guns but the crying.
Iraq -- mission very much NOT accomplished . . . how many died, how many suffered . . . and for what?
Gun violence/school shootings. . . and we have become a nation where a public figure can defiantly say," Your dead kids don't trump my constitutional rights" . . . where others deny some of the shootings ever took place or even worse, claim that they were part of a plot instigated by this Administration to take everyone's guns.
And closer to home, North Carolina's leaders appear poised to endanger our very air and water through lowering standards, encouraging fracking, stifling dissent, and prohibiting lawsuits -- all for the sake of the corporations that have bought them.
I could continue . . . but I won't. Time to go back outside. Time to listen for the guns . . . and the crying.