Beltway meanderings: Monuments to history, lessons and what we've sacrificed

A second blog in the Beltway Trip series is all about history.

While in the Maryland, D.C., and Pennsylvania areas recently, I had the privilege of marking off several items from my “bucket list.”

Saw the White House, on a day when a madman with a shotgun went on a killing spree at the Naval Yard just a mile and a half away. 

My first inkling of this horrific event was seeing snipers appearing on roofs around the White House (and atop the presidential residence), plainclothes Secret Service agents in LaFayette Square checking black nylon bags for their automatic weapons, a flood a uniformed Secret Service and metro cops suddenly appearing, and steel barrier pillars rising out of Pennsylvania Avenue to block vehicular traffic.

Otherwise, people continued on with their daily routines. We followed a large delegation from the People's Republic of China for a while as we trekked the National Mall, seeing the Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and other monuments; the Vietnam Memorial; the Reflecting Pool, etc., joining them in snapping photos.

Another day, we drove to Gettysburg, Pa., to see where ancestors on both sides of my family tree fought the decisive battle of the Civil War. As I stood at Little Round Top, and later the scene of Pickett's Charge, I mused about what it must have been like for those Mimses from Virginia and Georgia who struggled up the crags and slopes into a wall of musket balls and cannon grapeshot.

I realized, as I walked, that one of my ancestors may have trod the same ground, albeit under far less serene, peaceful circumstances.

Now, it is sacred ground; then, it was hell unleashed on earth, the soil soaked red with blood and strewn with broken bodies.

Later, I stood at the earthworks of Fort McHenry, where a small garrison withstood the might of the British Fleet to save Baltimore, after the redcoats had torched Washington, D.C. I had a new appreciation for the “Star Spangled Banner,” and the emotion and pride Francis Scott Key must have felt in writing those words while watching from the deck of a truce ship.

I, too, had pride then, as I watched the flag flying at the fort.

I also had sadness, wondering what all that blood, sacrifice and pain we have memorialized had bought, and how our nation today squanders it,, allowing fear, selfishness and materialism to fray the liberties and moral character so hard-earned.

Musings from the Beltway: Newspapers' demise and an informed electorate

This will be the first of several blogs from my recent trip to the East Coast and the Beltway.

I guess that chronologically is usually the way to go with such endeavors, but my mind works differently.

Instead, I will dispense with the event that, even 1,800 miles removed, affected me personally the most: the massive layoffs at The Salt Lake Tribune.

It is where I do my day job; it has been for the past 15 years since I escaped, finally, an unstable and often malevolent boss at the national news service where I had worked for 18 years, three months, 12 days and 5.5 hours.

I learned about the layoffs, my good fortune and the misery of the unlucky, in a telephone call from my editor.

The newspaper industry's woes are well known, and they have not skipped the Trib. In the past two years we have lost half our staff, and cuts that came, unexpected and deep, at my vacation's mid-point were devastating.

So, I kept my job; 20 percent of the remaining staff did not. What the future holds only God knows. I may work at the Trib until I retire in 5-10 years or so, or I may find myself joining my now-unemployed colleagues when the next unexpected cuts come.

End of the year budget reviews come to mind, though -- as we have been told with lessening conviction by management in the past 3-4 layoffs -- this latest, most painful cutback is hoped to be the last.

I put my trust in God . . . and continue to beat the bushes for freelance work with an eye to the time when I may have to depend on such opportunities to pay the mortgage.

So, there's my personal reaction. My professional reaction is far deeper: I fear for our already tattered republic is professional, balanced and investigative journalism disappears, along with newspapers.

Not that newspapers have done well, in my opinion, in living up to their supposed commitment to fairness and balance in reporting. They have not done so.

Still, they provide the best foundation for those informational elements that keep the electorate informed.

Founding Father Thomas Jefferson was abused horribly by the press, but still held that a free, unfettered journalism was essential to our nation's political health:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be," he said.

As I visited the monuments and memorials spread along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., recently -- including one honoring Jefferson -- I mourned for my departed colleagues and wondered how the electorate will be adequately informed in the future as they make choices that affect us all.

A journey of awe, love and faith: Forty years with my best friend, lover and mother of our children

Musings on 40 years of marriage.

It really isn't that time flies. Rather, it is that SO much living can be crammed into a mere four decades; that so much of the beautiful and wonderful and exhilarating could come, seemingly just when needed, to wash away the pain and disappointments that are part of all our destinies, our Fate, and yes, our legacy to our children and grandchildren.

How the power of Love, between a girl of 18 and a boy weeks removed from 19, could endure so much, empower so much, and takes us so far -- despite not-always-conquered temptations of self-obsession and selfishness.

Faith we have shared, in God and each other, even as we were exasperated and awe-struck by trials and blessings, mountain peaks and valley pits, sweet sunshine and flower-scented breezes and thunderstorms, lightning and deluge.

It has always been, even if not always realized, not the destination we set out upon on Sept. 1, 1973, in Spokane, Wash., but the journey -- and that we have taken it together, hand in hand, comforted by each other and that occasional warm Hand on our shoulders.

I do not know what lies ahead, but I know that children we remain, despite the years, the gray, the aches that may make us slower (just a little!), and for all of it, only a bit wiser.

I think back to the summer of 1972, when I went on a three-week backpacking trip into the wilderness of the Kaniksu National Forest, trekking with the friend who would later be my best man. It was an intentional break, from everything, to be sure that when I asked Barbara to marry me, I was indeed ready to be committed to her in all things, for all time.

The journey, then, was imagined, both exciting and terrifying, but unknown.

Today, I call back to the youth, building the extra-large campfire to dry out clothing soaked by a mountaintop storm that shook a small pup tent with the crack of sheet lightning. The flames crackle, the heat comes in waves from coals glowing red and white.

Listen to the breeze in the pines, kid. She will be your lover, your best and truest friend on earth. She will be the mother of your children. She will surprise you with her strength, move you with her tenderness and compassion, and being the perfect receptacle of that torrent of Love you sense within yourself.

Years later, you will still marvel at her deep, green eyes, that still undiscovered country that beckon, assure, calm and inspire, always there, even at the end of life's squalls of madness and the pain.

Young man, you have no idea of what is ahead. But God has indeed brought you your soul mate. Laugh at the night, breathe deep the scents of fresh rain, sodden pine needles and feel the warmth of the fire spreading inside.

Don't be afraid to take her hand. It's going to be one wonderful, crazy, breathtaking ride.