A group of neighbors, community volunteers, our community development staff and friends who did an awesome job last Saturday.  Yes, while many of use were dodging raindrops or simply stayed inside out of the weather, this group of volunteers took on the daunting task of clearing years of neglect from an 1880’s farmhouse on Woodbridge Avenue. Here is an email I received telling all about the team’s efforts.

The yard cleanup last Saturday at the vacant house and adjacent lot at 3105 Woodbridge in our newly minted Jones Home Historic District turned out to be a resounding success.

A ton of thanks is due to so many people for their participation and without whom the event could not have taken place:

• Bob Gardin whose vision of 3105 Woodbridge as a model/demonstration project for our Jones Home Historic District is one of the driving forces.
• Brian and Johanna, and Megan’s incredible SCFBC staff including:
• Adam Stalder who pitched in with me before anyone got there;
• Greg Baron (who moved heaven and earth to save the property from demo),
• Joe Narkin and Adam Gifford who made sure crews got there for us;
• and the great Dave Reuse who carted off the mountain of yard debris in multiple trips.
• The CCS team of 4 terrific guys under Bob Shore’s efficient supervision.  They tore into the decades’ growth of unruly trees and bushes that had long hidden that side of the house providing cover for vandals, thieves and squatters; the cutting tools they brought were a big help.
• The bus load of eager kids from the Church of the Saviour youth group in Cleveland Heights under the leadership of Curt Campbell their dynamic youth director.  They came down from Cleveland Heights and poured their energy and enthusiasm into pulling, raking, bagging, dragging yard debris etc. into piles by the sidewalk for Dave to load up. 
• How does one even begin to thank such a wonderfully focused group for such an encouraging bestowal of grace upon our neighborhood?…
• Chris Vacario who volunteered to mow the adjacent vacant lot which was still wet from drizzle.  He set a fine example of community spirit!

Thanks to all of you for making the day such a success.  It is another step toward reclaiming the viability of this property which can contribute to the strength of our community.

Thanks to you, Alan Forman for this wonderful recap!

Today, The Ferris and the Mewett families are very sad because our beloved Callie has left this earth. Callie had many fans, friends and family that span God’s great earth.  She had friends as far West as British Columbia and as far North as New Hampshire.  Her family members span many continents  and includes the countries of England and Wales, New Zealand, and South Africa.

She will be missed by many humans but it is comforting to know that she was greeted on the other side of Rainbow Bridge by many of her friends who have gone before her.  It is comforting to know that she will romp and play without any reminders of the age and infirmity which slowed her down toward the end of her life. She lived for 16 years which is quite an advanced age for a large size dog.

We will miss her welcoming bark, her smiling face and her expressive eyes but most of all, we will miss her head placed in our lap when we most needed love.

At Rainbow Bridge

By the edge of a wood, at the foot of a hill,
is a lush, green meadow where time stands still.
Where the friends of man and woman do run,
when their time on earth is over and done.

For here, between this world and the next,
is a place where each beloved creature finds rest.
On this golden land, they wait and they play,
till the Rainbow Bridge they cross over one day.

No more do they suffer, in pain or in sadness,
for here they are whole, their lives filled with gladness.
Their limbs are restored, their health renewed,
their bodies have healed, with strength imbued.

They romp through the grass, without even a care,
until one day they start, and sniff at the air.
All ears prick forward, eyes dart front and back,
then all of a sudden, one breaks from the pack.

For just at that instant, their eyes have met;
Together again, both person and pet.
So they run to each other, these friends from long past,
the time of their parting is over at last.

The sadness they felt while they were apart,
has turned into joy once more in each heart.
They embrace with a love that will last forever,
and then, side-by-side.
They cross over . . . together.

                                                                           —Inspired by a Norse legend

God Speed Callie!

“Jefferson County, the largest county in Alabama, filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection in November and is currently arguing in court for the right to cut payments on more than $3 billion in bonds issued to fund its sewer system. Harrisburg, Pa., filed a month earlier because of massive debts from an incinerator project. Stockton, Calif., may soon become the largest city to declare bankruptcy in U.S. history. It currently is in a 60-day mediation period”.

Read the entire article here.

I believe bonds were tossed around as a possible way to pay for Cleveland’s “trash to energy” boondoggle.

The financials for this fiasco doesn’t add up in more ways the one.

Then, there is THIS story about Harrisburg Pa, its trash incinerator and now, it will miss payment on general obligation bonds.

The City of Cleveland needs to start over on their “reduce recycle, and reuse” program.

I still maintain that one of the reasons for pushing so hard for an inadequate plan is because of the tonnage of debris from demolition which will need to be disposed.  If it could be burned within the city, tipping fees and all other costs would be much smaller.

It has never been about “clean and green” energy and what the citizenry of Cleveland desires.

Back to the drawing boards and I hope this time we get something innovative and substantial.

SE Kiwanians,

Mulling over the effects of this incinerator proposal, I remembered that the Kiwanis Club of SE Cleveland had as one of its missions or objectives the mitigation or eradication of unnecessary causes of respiratory problems in humans. This gasification project will create problems with its incinerator itself; it will cause problems with the creation of diesel hot spots in areas affected by the 500+ additional trucks daily required to keep the plant at a break-even level; and it will also cause problems when the trash pellets it produces are burned again to produce electrical energy.

Not much attention has been paid to collateral costs to the community; this is not a green project, it will not create many jobs at all for the amount spent, and its an unproven technology promoted by an administration with no history of sensible undertakings.

There is a public hearing Monday on this issue, and it was mentioned in the PD just recently. I think that Kiwanis involvement is appropriate at this time, given the stated mission of the local chapter. The Ohio EPA is trying to sneak this one by the federal EPA; they are not acting in the best interests of the community, the way Gloria and I see it.

It affects the area in which your club operates; it is said that it should have an adverse impact up into the Cleveland Heights/Shaker Heights area.

Please see more about the hearing at the following links and if, after giving this stealth project a cursory inspection, you decide it might not be in the best interests of the people and businesses of the Cleveland area, please lend your support to efforts to promote health and wellness, which probably entails the scuttling of this gasification fiasco as soon as possible.

http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/the-mysterious-mister-tien/Content?oid=2772517

http://topics.cleveland.com/tag/gasification/index.html

http://epa.ohio.gov/dapc/permitsonline.aspx

http://realneo.us/events/ohio-epa-hearing-city-cleveland-incinerator-monday-january-9th-2012-6-pm

http://ohiocitizen.org/?p=11256

http://www.friendsofbigcreek.org/CREGhearing9Jan2012.pdf

Note also that the PD editorial stance on this project is to be in full-cheerleader mode, as they sell full-page advertisements to this CREG group promoting the project. Conflicts of interest do not exist for the shameless. We hope to see as many of you as possible at the hearing, and later, in the fray. There are lives and property values in play here.

In a first, federal environment officials today scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing, concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely caused by the gas drilling process.

The findings by the Environmental Protection Agency come partway through a separate national study by the agency to determine whether fracking presents a risk to water resources.

 

Multimedia

Drilling Regulatory Staffing in Your State

• 
• Search for how many wells have been drilled and how many gas regulators are in your state.

Graphics

• 
• What is Hydraulic Fracturing?
• 
• Anatomy of a Gas Well

Slideshows

• 
• A Reporter’s Journey
• 
• The Faces of Dimock

Video

• 
• Fracking: The Music Video

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In the 121-page draft report released today, EPA officials said that the contamination near the town of Pavillion, Wyo., had most likely seeped up from gas wells and contained at least 10 compounds [1] known to be used in frack fluids.

Feds Link Water Contamination to Fracking for the First Time – ProPublica

Riverside Cemetery Jazz Festival

Sunday, September 18, 2011

2 pm until ????

Featuring

The Mike Jacobs Quintet

Horse and Carriage Tours of the Cemetery will be available

Free and open to the public

www.riversidecemeterycleveland.org Phone number: 216-351-4800

The Riverside Cemetery Association will hold its first annual jazz festival at the Cemetery located at 3607 Pearl Road. Thee Festival will honor renowned Cleveland jazz musicians, Roberto Ocasio, Robert Lockwood, and Robert "Skeets" Ross, all laid to rest at Riverside. The Jazz Fest will feature a New Orleans style jazz band leading a procession from the 135-year-old Chapel to a circle in the Cemetery where President-elect Rutherford B. Hayes dedicated the Cemetery in 1876. Following a brief program highlighting the lives of these three gentlemen, there will be a concert performed by The Highlighters, aka Mike Jacobs Quintet, noted for its regular Dixieland performances for Cleveland Indians home baseball games since the opening of the ballpark in 1994. The band will also perform traditional New Orleans style funeral music and lead a horse-drawn carriage throughout the cemetery.

Hello everyone-

On April 18, 2011  the Board of Zoning Appeals denied the application made by the Baumanns, Bradley Road Landfill, Landsong Environmental, Inc. and Ty, Inc. for the variance to allow the strip mining of the topsoil at Bradley Road Landfill.

On April 25, 2011   the denial was to be ratified but the City of Cleveland asked that BOZA rehear now that there is a letter of intent. BOZA agreed and said that they would IF  certain things happened.

BE IT RESOLVED BY THE CLEVELAND BOARD OF ZONING APPEALS that the parties have shown good cause to rehear Calendar Nos. 10-194,

10-259 and 10-260, which the Board shall set for a rehearing upon the filing of a joint stipulation between the City and the Appellants that a

pre-rehearing conference was held by the principals of the City, the Appellants, the Old Brooklyn Community Development Corporation, and

the directly affected property owners to discuss the previously mentioned Letter of Intent, including a Settlement Agreement and Consent

Decree involving litigation in US Northern District Court of Ohio Case No. 1:04-CV-1757.

http://www.oldbrooklyn.com/BradleyRdMining/BZAresolutionrehearCP6849.pdf

To get an idea of the seriousness of the proposed plans for this landfill and the impact for a much wider community than is included in the invitation list for Wednesday’s meeting:

GO TO www.oldbrooklyn.com click on Bradley Road Road Mining http://www.oldbrooklyn.com/BradleyRdMining.htm

Be sure to read these letters to:

OH Dept of Natural Resources  http://www.oldbrooklyn.com/BradleyRdMining/Brady_to_ODNR_6-11.pdf

Army Corps of Engineers http://www.oldbrooklyn.com/BradleyRdMining/Brady_to_ACofE_6-20.pdf

Watch for words like "yellow cake" and "radioactive." Note the number of people potentially affected, just in contiguous areas.

Tomorrow is the meeting for the "affected" land owners requested by BOZA.

Here are the details:

WHAT:     Bradley Road Landfill Meeting

WHERE:  Knights of Columbus Hall, 4730 Pearl Road

WHEN:     Wednesday, July 13, 2011     6 pm

WHO:       City of Cleveland and

WHY:        Board of Zoning Appeals condition for reconsideration of Request for Variance

As you know this landfill has been problematic since its inception, and its impact is much greater than they would have you believe.

Air quality, water quality, real estate valuation effects everyone’s quality of life and  impacts our WHOLE community.

This will probably be the usual  "sit, be quiet, and listen" kind of meeting held in the City of Cleveland with few questions and fewer answers, BUT

We should attend so that they will see by our numbers we are concerned about our community.

MAKE THEM GET MORE CHAIRS!!!   

It doesn’t. For those of you not “in the know” SPA stands for Strategic Planning Area- a government nom de plume to designate those areas of a town or city that will divvy up the federal funds allotted to that town or city.In the past, these areas reflected the neighborhoods of Cleveland. Presently, SPAS are being combined and a many neighborhoods will no longer be the designated as a SPA.  Some neighborhoods will be combined with others, essentially, wiping out that neighborhood’s name on the map.  Here in Cleveland, as we have all know by now the $$$ that we send to the federal government that come back to us by way of HUD and other entities are constantly shrinking. Let’s pause for a moment- our dollars going to the government, the government taking a cut, and then, our much leaner $$ come back to us. Of course, those “in the know” would tell you that this routing of money is “fairer” because those areas that are “poorer” benefit from the largesse of the communities that have “more”. I never have truly believed this statement, but neither have I taken the time to research it. It just seems to me that a community that can keep money recirculating within the community rather than constant side trips would prove more useful.

It is my understanding that for an SPA to work well, the area must have a certain amount of “designated poverty” neighborhoods so that the area will qualify for federal funds, hence, the necessity to gerrymander the existing SPAS into “new and improved” areas. Over the past few days, my Gmail account has overflowed with the new nomenclature suggested for these SPAS. My question to you all is “why”? Why are we caught up in a discussion on “naming rights” and not the more important question of how does this benefit each neighborhood of the city?

A strategic planning area is NOT a neighborhood and does not replace a neighborhood. It is something created around a table by a group of planners, political wonks, and elected officials for doling out federal monies. It does not define your neighborhood or you unless you allow it to do so. Kamm’s Corners, Stockyards, Brooklyn Centre, Tremont, Barbara, North Broadway, Mt. Pleasant, Glenville, Shaker Square-each and every one of these neighborhoods will survive as long as the people within that neighborhood identify with that community of people. A neighborhood dies when the last person who knows its origins stops relating memories about its past and stops striving to keep it alive and well.

For some, the problem arises when neighborhoods are split in two or those on the edge of an SPA are not given clear direction as to who, what and where their services are provided. I personally have witnessed this situation during the creation of the Ward 14 CDO (community Development Organization.  An organization created before the NEW designations, and therefore, many neighborhoods have experienced confusion, frustration, and inadequate services. This problem is something that certainly needs to be addressed with the creation of these new SPAS. I for one would hope that ward boundaries would not designate how services are dispensed because they will continue to shift throughout the years. Rather, I would suggest that neighborhood boundaries be considered when creating new SPAs so that no neighborhood is split in two and that each neighborhood knows how services will be dispensed.

Side by Side comparisons of how the existing SPAS work and how new and improved SPAs will be better should be done before any changes are made.  In the long run, when SPA boundaries shift throughout the years how can metrics be compared and how can we know that monies are used efficiently and for best practices.  If SPA areas combine how will statistical data be used to make sure that the neighborhoods encased in a given SPA area are receiving the best value for the dollars invested,  and, if they are truly receiving the dollars that should be invested there.

I think we are on a slippery slope when our identity as a neighborhood is verified or nullified by an SPA designation. I serve on the Ward 14 steering committee, and I have asked my colleagues to resist the urge to name the organization with a combination of the three neighborhoods presently associated with the CDO because it was apparent that this debate would soon be upon us. In my mind, it is better to name the “thing” and say that the neighborhoods of Stockyards, Brooklyn Centre, and Clark Fulton are served by the “thing”. Right now, Brooklyn Centre is served by two councilmen and two CDOs. Who knows what our fate will be when all the new lines are drawn?

What I do know: Brooklyn Centre was settled in 1812, in 2012 it celebrates its 200^th birthday, and my neighbors and I are working hard to ensure that it survives another 100 years as a strong, prosperous community. Will we use the services of our local government? Absolutely! Will we demand accountability and transparency from our elected officials? Absolutely! However, strength and prosperity will come from the residents and businesspeople within the neighborhood, and therefore, it is imperative that we all understand and acknowledge what a neighborhood is and does. A neighborhood reflects the values and aspirations of its residents and business owners, not the name given it by the people who work for it. Neighborhoods will not be destroyed by people around a table; rather, they will die of natural causes when the last neighbor is gone. An SPA on the other hand will continue to shift as the dollars shrink and the workers gather around the tale.

may just have something to say about all that.

As more people opt for walkable bikeable communities with boutique commercial districts, South Euclid’s elected officials buy into an outmoded business model with the promise of it  “being green”.  You tell me how taking 144/54 acres of green space and replacing it with much less is  “being green”.  Obviously, someone is keeping South Euclid’s government occupied so they don’t see all the studies showing that those communities with parks for walking and biking are the ones where people are now settling.  I haven’t seen any studies lately on the hordes of people moving to be close to “big box retail”. I have seen a lot of news articles about the eyesores and blight left behind when “the big box” moves to the next community willing to sell its soul.

I am thankful for my friends Susan and Carla and so many others  willing to devote precious free time to combating Mitch Schneider’s latest venture to make his investors and himself rich and to make South Euclid/Cleveland Heights poorer.  Here is the link to their face book page:

 https://www.facebook.com/#!/citizensforoakwood

Here is an email I received from Susan earlier today.  I asked her if I could post it on my blog because I want her reasons for standing up against this development known.  Please sign her petition asking for sustainable land use and take the time to read what she has to say. It’s good stuff. Oh and those of you talking about “class warfare” shame on you.  We are into this together and when we allow what makes us all “rich”- the beauty of our land to be plundered- those “selling out”  for the short term are the ones who are waging class warfare. You are taking what made our area prosperous and selling us all into poverty.  

If you feel that we have enough big box retail in the Heights Hillcrest area and need not destroy precious green space to build more, you may wish to add your name to the petition linked here:

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-ripping-up-green-space-to-build-shopping-centers-support-sustainable-land-use?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=email

Here’s the long story of why I’ve directed so much time and attention to this:

You may or may not know that I have been involved with a group called Citizens for Oakwood. We’re trying to save 144/54 acres of green space – the former Oakwood Country Club. We’d like to see it become a public park (and improve it’s ability to be a sponge for stormwater by allowing it to be a passive park). First Interstate/Legacy Capital Partners would like it to be big box retail. Of course, Jane Goodman, city council person in South Euclid where he’s begun the rezoning for big box process, promises that this will be a green infrastructure exemplar. Since South Euclid is in such a fiscally dire situation, it is clear to most that it is not a lack of retail, but rather downward (economic) pressure that is driving this. I think most adults know that we can’t buy our way to prosperity. Some are still fooled I guess. What was that Bush said about fool me once, keep right on foolin’ me – I’m feelin’ foolish?

It has raised three issues for me and for many of us.

1) Golf clubs are dying – Landerhaven was first, Oakwood is now, Acacia is next (now that it’s out of litigation). Then which golf/country club private course will fall to a developer? Seneca just sold to Metroparks. Hmmm… Which golf course will go next? While the focus will undoubtedly be on our poor relation, the City of Cleveland, you are aware, I’m sure, that poverty is creeping outward, just as population has. Now it’s also the inner ring that’s feeling the pressure. Please consider the golf courses and work with the Western Reserve Land Conservancy to help these clubs to stay green space. By the time all the planners have finished their studies and identified the "value" of green swathes to our Lake, big box retail may have ruled the day and the tiny municipal governments in South Euclid and Cleveland Heights despite our efforts. I have tried to make the argument that this is more valuable to South Euclid and Cleveland Heights as open green space from a water quality and quality of life standpoint, but I don’t have the metrics. Tacit knowledge is much harder to convey in a world where everything is a transaction. South Euclid just rewrote their entire comprehensive plan to accommodate this development. They did it in two weeks with two people. For golf courses, the WRLC exemplar is Orchard Hills – admittedly "out there", but still a good example of what could be "in here".

2) The downward pressure might be lessened if these balkanized municipalities had merged years ago. I’m going to keep exploring this for our future. It would be good to fold in the value of water absorbing green space when that muni mapping becomes a part of that discussion. The idea? What if Cleveland Heights, Shaker Heights, University Heights and South Euclid were one suburb? What white collar efficiencies might be gained? And could those efficiencies result in some greater resiliency and redundancy in our shared green space?

3) At a forum sponsored by Future Heights on land use and Oakwood, Terry Schwarz mentioned that the metric for jobs and parkland is 1 job per acre. I realized that agricultural land has no metric. Why is this important? Because, growing food, farming in the city has no value. It may not now, but it will shortly. The day will come (sooner than later in my estimation) when refrigerated trucks from the valleys of California will not arrive in NEO. We will need to be reliant on what can be grown and raised locally. We may tear down buildings just to be able to farm. Impending doom – energy crisis? Yes. It is upon us. We may look back and say, "Boy! We sure wish we’d saved this land for growing food!" 154 acres is a substantial bit-o-farmland. I’ll be meeting with farmland and farming experts to discuss how to discover per-acre metrics for ag land so that local food can enter these planning discussions.

In an article in Ecowatch Journal, it is noted that new project efforts at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens will include this issue: "Based on existing work being done in the region and success stories in other cities, identify barriers to implementation of green infrastructure as targets for future action and develop strategies to overcome them." Funny. I asked NEORSD if there might be a land use aspect to their big stormwater plan. You know like, residents of municipalities that have retained green space would get a tiny automatic  credit. They said – no, NEORSD doesn’t get into land use. I guess NEORSD will be in these discussions though. Land use and such best management practices as downspout disconnects where appropriate (most places in NEO) are the low hanging fruit of addressing our water quality issues. Mother earth is a filter. We have abused her mightily, no doubt, but she is still there, still willing like any mother to help her children.

It may be too late for Oakwood unless we all come together to stop this madness. We’re not giving up, but South Euclid’s government seems to have. They’re in a deep hole at Cedar Center – $19 million deep. What could be another piece of Ginny Aveni’s County Greenprint – the Emerald Lace that connects our Emerald Necklace, the Cuyahoga River Valley and Lake Erie, may be paved to put up a parking lot. No pink hotel, no boutique – big box retail. We don’t plan to stop our arguments now and we hope you’ll raise your voice as well and participate in this democratic practice. We need to do everything we can to keep the bulldozers from rolling over Oakwood. At rallies for SB5 I heard the now familiar chant, "This is what democracy looks like!" Letting our elected officials know how we feel is democracy. Democracy isn’t just voting; it’s a state of being, a way of life.

My son has graduated from college and moved away to Seattle for work. There he can take public transportation, ride his bike, pay his college loan instead of a car loan and visit the wonderful parks that the city has protected. How I hope that someday he can move back to Cleveland Heights and appreciate similar amenities here – NEO – the region that woke up and got busy turning what seemed like a burden into a blessing! This  would be an even better story of how Cleveland beat Wall Street. That’s the story I want to hear when I’m passing into another world.

Currently we’re all feeling the downward pressure. It’s palpable in Cleveland and the region, in the state, in the nation. We just want our fellow citizens to look farther, longer and with an eye to water quality, air quality, quality of life. We want them to see that there is a world water crisis that will not bypass the Great Lakes. We want them to think not so much about the hardship they’re enduring, which will increase in the near term, but to consider the outcomes in the long term, however difficult that may be. We’d like to make a gift to future generations. As Ellie Strong said speaking of the "little old ladies in tennis shoes" who saved the Shaker Lakes, "to each generation there is something to save."

Susan

When I was a child, each Memorial Day began when I watched the traditional parade down the main street of my hometown looking for  my dad, uncles and aunt as they marched proudly down the street. Every parade ended at the town cemetery where my uncle sounded cadence and my dad was one of seven who reported with the 21 gun salute. Taps was played and the flag was raised from half staff. When I grew older I marched as a girl scout and then later, marched as a member of the high school marching band.

How fortunate I am to live in a neighborhood where my friend and neighbor Rick Nicholson carries on a tradition started many years ago by the Brooklyn Centre historical Society in conjunction with the Early Settlers Association of the Western Reserve at the Brooklyn Centre Burying Ground located at the end of Garden Avenue off Pearl. Each year at 11 a.m. on Memorial Day we gather by the flagpole to remember our dead who fought to keep us free and to pray for the end of war. 

This year began with our organizer, Rick Nicholson, a member of the Cleveland Grays, leading us in The Pledge of Allegiance Reverend Neal Wilds handled the Invocation but first he talked about is connection to the Civil War, his boyhood home is near the site of the Battle of Shiloh. He then moved on to the Battle of Gettysburg and the loss of 51,000 American lives lost in the battle. He said it is hard to imagine the carnage of the three day battle and the lives changed forever.  He  then related that this bloodiest of wars was the beginnings of what we now call Memorial Day  He then said a prayer asking for the end of war and a world of peace.

Reverend Bob Andrew was next and his comments included facts about the cemetery.  Brooklyn Centre Burying Ground is the resting place of many soldiers beginning with the Revolutionary War and ending with World War II. He told us that he was drafted to serve in the Korean War as a chaplain and he was stationed in Japan and did not experience combat. He recited this poem by Cadet Major Kelly Strong Air Force Junior ROTC..

Rick Jaworski who served as president of Brooklyn Centre Historical Society for many years under the tutelage of Ruth Ketteringham read General Logan’s Order #11  which is the official beginning of Memorial Day which began the tradition of decorating soldier’s graves. For years, veteran groups sold crepe paper poppies to purchase flags to be placed on graves. I wonder how those flags are purchased now. Until 1967, when the last Monday in May became the official designated day instead of the original date of May 30th and the popular Decoration Day became known officially as Memorial Day.

After comments from the people gathered around the flagpole, Joy Parrish and her friend Doc played and sang a beautiful selection of songs. She started with this song by Simon and Garfunkel and ended the set with Let there be Peace on Earth -he asked us to sing along and we did quietly and then she performed  America The Beautiful. Along the way, Doc recited Poppies in Flanders Field with additional verses he penned to add soldiers beyond World War I. Joy set the poem to music but Doc forgot to give her ALL the lyrics so we will have to wait till next year to hear he WHOLE song. What she sang was beautiful.  Doc was concerned that John McRae would be upset that he took liberties with his poem. I told him he would probably be proud.

Everyone took a few flags to place on veteran’s graves to show us all how many of those buried there fought for the freedom we enjoy today. As the flags waved in the hot breeze, we said our last prayers for peace and solemnly stood looking out over the cemetery. I love the sound of “Taps” and I cherish the times I was asked to play it for soldiers’ funerals in my hometown. But, I never heard it played on a violin until today. Doc played it with a reverence and melancholy that I thought was reserved for bugles. We then bookended the service with a second recitation of the “Pledge of Allegiance”.

I am truly blessed to live in a neighborhood that knows the meaning of “Memorial Day” and knows how to celebrate it.  Mark your calendars we will be there next year.