Free...

Free. 

I can get in the car, drive several hours to Texas, Arkansas, New Mexico. Visit people. Camp out. 

No check points, no passports, no guarded borders.

I can buy a newspaper anywhere, go to bookstores, subscribe to magazines, turn on the TV to any channel, carry radios, my cell phone, access the Internet-- everywhere.

No questions, special forms, no suspicion.

I can stop at any church, walk in, and worship. I can gripe and campaign against or for about the governor, the courts, the legislature, the mayor, the school board, the police, the President, the Congress, the Supreme Court. No danger. No fear.

I can think what I want, and write it down. Publish it on paper or online. No worry.

So what?

People in North Korea can't can’t. Neither can people in Iraq. Nor people in China, Vietnam, Libya, Iran, other places.

I once toured Philadelphia, went to the old statehouse and Independence Hall. A really tiny room, with high ceilings and tall windows. Hot in the summer time. 

In this room, a group of men signed their names to a document. It could have been their death warrant. Treason usually is.

They tore down the English royal coat of arms. Members of the militia--armed for good reason--took the document outside and read it to the crowd.

Instead, it was a warrant for my freedom.

July 4, 1776.

“When in the course of human events....”

Independence Day.

Think about that as you read these words, as you pick up a book, go to church, turn on the TV, go visit relatives and friends, gripe about the government, or tot he lake, a fireworks show, a family dinner--all without fear.

Free, that’s what.

Free. It started with guts and words and conviction and commitment. It becomes real with blood and guts and more words.

Free. 

                                                                                                                                                                           

Red, white and blue, and unhonored

They fought and died under the red, white and blue, but this July Fourth no flags will fly on most of their graves.

Part of Veteran's Rest Cemetery at Vicksburg,
where only 1,600 of 5,000 Confederate graves are identified

Yes, small American flags will decorate thousands of veterans’ graves in National Cemeteries across the country.

But in at least one city, less than a mile from such a cemetery, hundreds of white tombstones will not be honored, though they died fighting for their country. 

At Vicksburg in the National Cemetery, the Stars and Stripes decorates almost 20,000 Union graves rolling over the green bluffs above the Mississippi River, on part of the historic battlefield. Besides other veterans of all wars buried there, more than 18,000 men in blue who died in the battle and elsewhere rest there. An astonishing 13,000 of them are unknown.

Can you imagine not knowing what happened to your son, your brother, your husband—not where he was killed?

Yet only a few hundred yards away there is another military cemetery, with rows upon rows of uniform white gray tombstones, also of men who died in the battle. But no flags decorate their graves.

One of them reads “First Lt. John Roseberry, Mo. Vols., 1834-1863.” He was just 27 years old. 

Yes, overhead flies a red, white and blue flag…the Stars and Bars. A monument to a soldier stands in the middle…dedicated to “Our Confederate Dead.” A few of the hundreds of graves have tiny Confederate battle flags on them, but not many. 

Vicksburg fell to Grant’s Yankee siege on July 4, 1863—a day after Lee lost the battle of Gettysburg a thousand miles away.

For years Southerners didn’t celebrate July 4—for them it wasn’t Independence Day, but memories of a lost cause. Instead, the whitish-gray monuments went up at every courthouse, with lone soldiers looking north on perpetual guard.

In the North, especially New England, the DAR—Daughters of the American Revolution--keeps veterans’ graves decorated year ‘round. Go to any cemetery and small American flags decorate the resting places of veterans not just of the civil war, but the Revolution, 1812 and everything since. And flags and red, white and blue bunting decorates the porches and windows of hundreds of houses in every town.

The Yankees didn’t need a Sept. 11 to celebrate July 4 and fly the flag.

In Oklahoma, and most of the rest of the country before Sept. 11, car dealerships were about the only places, other than government buildings, where flags flew. Since, more and more flags are seen, hanging in windows, used as bumper stickers, and small ones flying from passing cars. Still though, in Oklahoma, they’re not as common as the red and white ones flaunting a college football team, or the blue ones for a basketball team.

We have something to learn this July Fourth, from both the Yankees and the South.

Independence Day should no longer just be a holiday. Defiance and pride are in order. The South—the only region of the country to lose a war and be occupied by enemy troops—can’t forget what happened—surrounded by monuments and unmarked and neglected graves in hundreds of private cemeteries. As time passes, and the UDC—United Daughters of the Confederacy--no longer decorates the Confederate graves as at Vicksburg, will the memory of the cost of the sacrifice fade?

The Yankees remember also, all the way back to the First July Fourth and how costly it was to raise the first Stars and Stripes.

This Independence Day, no veteran’s grave should be forgotten, and the flag that represents the travails and triumphs of a free people should be defiantly and proudly raised. 

What will you do about it, to keep July Fourth from just being a holiday?

Vicksburg National Cemetery

Gettysburg written in American blood

Barefoot and brave beyond measure, they stepped out of the trees into open fields of knee-high corn, forming ranks a mile long, a mile away from the enemy crouched behind a stonewall at the top of a ridge.
Fifteen thousand men, in butternut and gray, an army that had never tasted defeat, blood red battle flags raised high in the humid July afternoon.

A mile away, the blue-clad foe, battered by a two-hour long artillery barrage, gasped in amazement at the sight below them. The Army of Northern Virginia, advancing on the Army of the Potomac—the two best armies in the world. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. 

The "High Water Mark" where Virginians briefly crossed
that stone wall in Pickett's charge.

An hour and a half later, 10,000 Americans were dead and wounded. July 3, 1863. 

We give grand names to what happened: The High Water Mark, Pickett’s Charge, the Turning Point, America’s greatest battle. But there’s nothing grand about the carnage. About 51,000 Americans were killed, wounded or missing in three days, July 1-3. My eyes glisten as I think about all those men dying for their differing beliefs.

Pickett’s charge, which was also Pettigrew’s and Trimble’s charge, followed two days of terrible fighting with the outcome of the battle was still in doubt. Then General Robert E. Lee made the mistake. Confident in his seasoned veterans, he ordered the frontal assault.

Have you been there? I have, and seen the monuments and the graveyard, and walked the fields.  I don’t understand the courage of men marching to certain death, ironically toward “Cemetery” Ridge where the Federals waited. They walked into murderous artillery fire that obscured the field with smoke and dust. Point-blank artillery and rifle fire cut them to pieces. By the time they got within 25 paces of the stonewall they didn’t have the force to crack the Union line. They crossed the wall, but couldn’t hold. Two Pennsylvania units, suffering almost 50 percent casualties, met the charge and held.

Close up of the monument to the Pennyslvanians who met
and repelled the Virginians at The angle."

You’ve heard of the “Charge of the Light Brigade,” but that unit in another war lost 37 percent of its men. Paltry compared to American losses—on both sides—at Gettysburg and throughout the war. A Minnesota regiment lost 82 percent; a Pennsylvania unit, 75 percent. 23 Federal regiments lost more than 50 percent of their men. 

Three North Carolina Units were wiped out—100 percent. The 26^th North Carolina had only 70 men left out of 895. The Carolinians lost one of every four people killed in the entire battle-- more than 20,000. Virginians? Sixty-seven percent of Pickett’s command of 5,500 men was gone. The others in the charge lost from 52 to 62 percent. 

In three days, Lee lost 28,000 men, more than a third of his army. Twenty of his best commanders were gone. The losses there were not unusual for the War…disease from wounds killed an alarming number. In four years of war, The Union lost 360,000 men—110,000 battle deaths and the rest to disease. The Confederacy, 94,000 in battle and 164,000 to disease. More losses for Americans than in all other wars combined.

Gettysburg National Cemetery, dedicated by Lincoln
with his immortal address...Only Union soldiers are
buried here.

After Gettysburg, Lee’s army never won again, never went on the offensive again, although the war lasted another two terrible years before the killing stopped. At Appomattox, he had only 26,000 troops left. 

Bravery beyond measure on both sides. Buford and Chamberlain saving the first two days for the Union, setting the stage of The Charge—raised from obscurity by the book “The Killer Angels” and the resulting movie “Gettysburg.” How can you not watch and cry? 

No wonder the South didn’t celebrate the Fourth of July for many years. Gettysburg, and the fall of Vicksburg a day later spelled a defeat and horror that lingered long.

Lincoln said it best, four months after the battle, dedicating the cemetery:

“…the brave men, living and dead, who struggled here….the world… can never forget what they did here….” 

Where Armistead died, looking back
over the mile of death after breaching the union
lines. Both flags honor him today,
and every July 4.

In spite of my Southern heritage, even though I automatically say “we” when speaking the Confederacy because my non-slave-owning ancestors wore gray, I believe the outcome from those bloody but heroic fields was best for this country. We grow freedom from defeats.

The red stripes on our flag are the blood of those who died at the Alamo, in the Bataan Death March, at Wake Island, at the Battle of the Bulge, at the Marine retreat at Chosin Reservoir, in Tet and at Khe Sanh, and in a thousand places…and at a place called Gettysburg.

As you celebrate your Independence this July Fourth, remember those thousands who died so bravely there 149 years ago.

Peach orchard reverie

Stratford peaches in the bag, new ones, a lemon, plus the
essential ingredient of a morning drive into the country.

Peach cobbler season... fresh juicy delicious Stratford peaches from the Edmond Farmer's Market last Saturday. Fourth of July coming up...perhaps not enough for an entire cobbler for about eight people.

I call father-in-law Jay Henry about driving to Harrah to get more peaches from the orchard he's visited for years. He calls and finds the orchard is open at 8 a.m., so I drive across town to get him about 7:15, and off we go, through the morning rush  hour traffic, till we turn off I-35 into the morning sun on 23rd Street....

Into a different world. Yes, Choctaw commuters are passing us heading west to work in OKC. Soon though, the four lane gets quieter, over rolling hills, past places I want to stop and take photos of, but I don't have a camera, and we're heading to peaches.

North on Luther Road, past new houses, into the quiet countryside. Hay fields, soybeans, corn, horses in yards, blackberry orchards, peach orchards. We arrive at the gate just as it's opening, and our tires crunch down the gravel road into the 300 acres of so of orchard on rolling hills. On both sides are peach trees, many of them only a couple of years old, others already picked. Signs mark rows marked  as to varieties...Redskin, Topaz, more than I can remember. A hail storm two years ago devastated the orchard, Jay says, and it's just now recovering.

We stop and ask where to pick, and get directions from teenagers working the stand. Half bushel paper cartons to put our pickings in. $30 if they're full. Most of the peaches we see are small and not ripe, and where we're supposed to pick is a disappointment...hard and not tasty. We see other pickers and stop and ask, and eventually get about a quarter of a bushel...small, just getting ripe.

Not what either of us had envisioned, but they go in the back of the car and we wend our way home through the backroads, past cemeteries, more fields of hay and soybeans and corn and more...a peaceful, rural way of life only minutes from the madness of morning metropolis. Back to his home, and I pick out just a few peaches to add to my cobbler brew. They're smaller than the Stratford, and not quite as tasty, but by 10 a.m. I'm back in Edmond. I slice up a few, licking the juice off my fingers, thinking about cobbler...my recipe and others'. 

I know one essential ingredient has already been added...a morning conversation of memories and sights that will add flavor to the cobbler.

Barn yet again

15 by 22, watercolor, 300 pound d'Arches paper--Oklahoma county barn