Goldendale Sentinel Editorial

The hard-to-grasp business of patriotism

A column by Rachel Cavanaugh
News Editor

     This year I worked on the Fourth of July which, as a newsie, means driving around the county to see what people are up to.
     I wanted to get to each part and had mapped out an extensive route, beginning in the east and heading west with checkpoints along the way. I began in Bickleton for the town’s Patriotic Pig Roast.
The scenes heading out there were pretty typical: kids playing in the driveway; barbecue grills out front; flags flapping in the wind.
     When I arrived, I spent some time taking pictures and listening to their prayer ceremony before a kid in a Cub Scout uniform caught my attention. He had bright red hair and stood about waist-high with big, splotchy freckles.
     The first notes of the Battle Hymn of the Republic began and as he started singing, he’d pause periodically to plug his ears for the canon sound. Each time he realized the song wasn’t over and another verse had started, he would return to singing.
     Watching him belt out: “Glory, glory, hallelujah..” in an impassioned, seven-year-old voice, I realized the only words I could remember were from summer camp when we changed the lyrics to have something to do with underwear.
     In this memory, I guess, I also realized my patriotism left something to be desired.
     Before the song, someone had read a letter from a female soldier on her third tour in Iraq. She was missing friends and picturing everyone sitting around the barbecue, talking and laughing.
     As I looked around I started getting hit by all these familiar but poignant images: two women huddled together under a sun umbrella; a cowboy reaching his arm around his wife; and a little boy asleep on his mom’s chest. It was all fairly arbitrary, but something in their glances and subtle movements was getting to me.
     I looked back to the Cub Scout and then, right there at the patriotic pig roast, I began crying. Something had swept over me and I wasn’t sure what.
     Monday, back in the office, I got a call from a woman with two sons in Iraq. She told me a story about how they’ve bumped into each other twice – once in Iraq and once in Kuwait. As she dropped the names of all these foreign cities, it struck me how casual she was.
     Not that her sons were in Iraq, of course, but with the way she referred to these places.
     These cities, which to me sounded like news clips or sound bites, had become parts of her reality that sprang into casual conversation.
     She said, “My sons bumped into each other passing through Baghdad last week,” like I would say, “I ran into my sister at the Sentry on Tuesday.”
     Now, I’m not going to use much of the column to talk about the war in Iraq because, for the most part, we all agree. Even where our policy beliefs differ, no one is happy about 4,000 fallen soldiers. (As of July 5, records showed 4,036 U.S casualties, to be exact.)
     Yet paradoxically, that horror is one of the things that draws us together as a nation.
More than the war even, or perhaps because of it, we are reminded of a connection that exists simply by virtue of a shared history, geography, and culture.
     It’s like when you go to a different town or hang out with a different group of people and make a joke no one understands because it is based on a local reference. At that point, whether you’re in Baltimore or Timbuktu, you just want to get back to your people.
     Along with these various sectors and subcultures, countries themselves have a national fabric that transcends beliefs and values, based on that shared history. This is true of every nation on earth.
It is what makes people hang their heads out of apartment buildings in Barcelona, screaming up the fire escape when their team wins a World Cup match, or why an entire nation holds candlelight vigils when a French citizen is kidnapped by Colombian rebels.
     I suppose it is also why an American ends up teary-eyed at a barbecue with perfect strangers for no apparent reason.
     People inside a country are connected to one another, for better or worse. Beneath our bickering and fighting, we share a common makeup and, like it or not, a certain amount of love.
     To me, that awareness is what patriotism ought to be.

Op/Ed

(Don’t) get away from the edge!

A column by Karen Henslee

     I knew the time I spent in the Grand Canyon would affect many areas of my life. The sights, sounds, and smells embed the experience deep into my heart, mind, and soul.
     I often find myself distracted with the memory of climbing over rocks, under rocks and through rocks; of floating lazily in the blue-green river, cooling off from the morning or afternoon hike; spending time in a calm, peaceful place called Ash Springs Canyon, and especially, the 20-foot jump from behind the 100-foot waterfall, at night.
     As night began to fall our first evening in camp, a group of us made our way to the water’s edge (three women were the only ones crazy enough to try this). In hushed tones, our guides (Stephan and Drew) explained what we would need to do – swim about 20 yards across the pool to the rock wall; and because the force of the water made it impossible to see, we would feel our way backward across the rock wall to a boulder, where our guides would help us up. I was the last one.
     It took me three tries to climb up on the boulders. With the sound of the water crashing around us, Steph and Drew calmly explained the next step. We would climb an iron ladder about 12 feet up, and, standing behind the falls, in turn, each of us would make our way to the edge of the rock, where we would then take one large jump landing directly beneath the crashing water.
     I watched and listened as each of the others received the instructions.
     With my heart pounding, I began to wonder at my own sanity. Why was I doing this?
     Ignoring that mother’s voice that shouts, “get away from the edge!” I made my way closer to the jumping-off point.
     Taking hold of Steph’s arm, he explained again, that this was as far as I could go and still stand. It was at this point that I had to commit – take one last step to push off, and go.
     Whether my life was passing before my eyes or not, I don’t remember. I only knew that this was something I had to do. There was no going back.
     And so I took that step, held my nose, and jumped.
     It seemed only seconds before we were all bobbing in the current surrounding the falls. By now it was completely dark, and the only things visible were flashlights and headlamps of others in our group who had come to watch.
     Shouts and cheers went up as we made our way back to the bank. What a rush!
     When I share the details of that first night’s excursion, friends think I’m crazy. But I knew my mother would not be surprised.
     I can still hear her words ringing in my ears, “get away from the edge, Karen!”
     I should still be able to hear them, she had to say it enough times. And, while I became accustomed to hearing them, there was a sense of déjà vu when I heard her voice resonating through my vocal cords as I cautioned my own children. Ah, what traditions we (often unknowingly) pass on!
     As time goes on, it seems we get farther and farther from that edge. We become content watching from the shore, or perhaps fearful of getting wet; getting older but not necessarily wiser.
     Two years ago, we lost our youngest daughter in a tragic accident. And our lives stopped. Though we continued breathing, the desire to do so was gone. Everything we did reminded us of her absence.
     For about the last year and a half, seeing the Grand Canyon became for me an obsession… the need to see something bigger than myself.
     I know now, that it wouldn’t have been enough to simply see it from the edge. Like life, I had to “jump” in with both feet. Take that step, commit, and go on.
     How thankful I am for this great adventure!