A Very Civil Weekend

This is my second time to come and spend 6 to 7 weeks in Virginia. As I was driving through the beautiful countryside yesterday on highway 17 out of DC to Virginia Beach, the privilege and blessing to be able to see so much of America because of freelancing really hit me. Freelancing is fun and difficult. This is the truth about everything in the end.

My friend Pat and his delightful wife Alana once again played hosts. They live in Silver Spring, Maryland so I drove up the I-95, picked up Pat and we headed to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. You do know there is a WEST Virginia, right? Well, it's stunning. I felt like I was on the shoot of LAST OF THE MOHICANS and any moment Daniel Day Lewis was going to come out of the woods across the Potomac and yell to me "Wherever you go...I will find you!" and then disappear again, running like a gazelle.

At the National Park there (in which my annual pass is still good to the end of September...BUY A PASS YA'LL! Support America's National Parks!) we got to see the actual village of Harper's Ferry and share it with Living Historians as well as Civil War reenactors. Our first stop was the provost's office which was basically the military police. The Union really had to be tough there because of the US Armory (which John Brown had tried to take over and steal guns for a slave uprising in 1859).

The park ranger there (who was dressed as a Union soldier) told us that when you came to town, the first thing you had to do was come by the provost office to get registered. To get a pass to be in town you had to swear allegiance to the United States of America (as opposed to the rebellion in the South) and then you received a pass you carried with you at all times that matched a log in the book of who was in town. On the back of the pass were descriptions of your hair color, eyes, height, skin color etc. When they asked me where I was from, I told them that my people were from Mississippi and that they all fought for the confederacy, however, I was at heart a Unionist and abolitionist so I got a pass. Whew. Close one. On the wall they had a chart from an actual day during the war of people who were brought in and why and what the punishment was. Some were as simple as "looked suspicious" and "drunk" or "spoke a word against the Union."

A group of reenactors were there from Pennsylvania (Union) and they did a gun demonstration. They were camping in period as well so we went over and had some good chats with the soldiers. If you've read the fine CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC by Tony Horwitz you would know immediately that they were all FARBS. None of them were hardcore, but they were good guys and they were having fun. God bless em.

We walked on the Appalachian Trail which was great fun. Check out Bill Bryson's A WALK IN THE WOODS about his escapades on the trail. Hilarious. Plus a friend of mine wrote a musical recently that going to be in NYC called TRAILS that is quite fun. A rom-com mystery set to music on the Appalachian Trail. Some of the numbers are gut busters.

On Sunday, Pat took me to Arlington National Cemetery. Overwhelming and mindbending number of graves there. The house (which was Robert E. Lee's home before the war broke out) was taken over by the Union in 1861 and used as army headquarters, a refugee camp for former slaves and eventually our nations main graveyard for servicemen of all wars since the Civil one. The contradictory feelings that this place brings out is rich. If you know anything about Lee and the war you can't help but realize the irony that his front, back and side yards are now a graveyard. When you see the view from Lee's front yard, the US capital, you see why the Union had to take it and make an example of it. Knowing that to the Union, Lee was a flat out traitor it blows your mind that Arlington house is now a monument to Robert E. Lee. The mingling of justice and audacity is a very unusual drink and yet is just right. It's perfect.

I told Pat that I think the reason Appomattox and Harper's Ferry National Parks are practically exactly the way they were during the war is because both towns failed. The people of Appomattox moved a couple of miles to the railroad after the war and for whatever reason Harper's Ferry just never quite took on. And now they are preserved.

Thank you to all the people who have cared enough to fight for the creation and care of our National Parks and to all the historians who feel that preservation is important to fight for.
We all have a part in bringing beauty, mystery and honor to others.

Next time I'm in DC, I want to see the FDR monument, go to the American History Smithsonian museum and take a tour of Ford's Theatre.

Until next weekend!