It seems that every time I get worked up enough to write about something, someone beats me to the punch. Not too long ago I got an email about the men who guard the Tomb of the Unknowns. My spidey sense immediately began to tingle at catch phrases "for life," "swear an oath," and "never." So I googled up the National Cemetery website and the Tomb of the Unknown's site and verified my suspicions. Someone felt it necessary to embellish the already interesting story of these tomb guards by injecting a bunch of hyperbole and outright untruths. Isn't their job honorable enough without all the claptrap? It seems like I'm getting more of these sorts of emails lately. About the time I got a good rant worked up to write, I found this site as I looked for sources. Go there. They do it well enough. I don't have to reinvent the wheel.
May has been just about enough to wear a body out. We came out of April with unseasonably warm, beautiful weather, then dove into a week and a half of March rain. Once we shook that off, the gnats came out in attack mode, and the temps shot into the nineties. Between our family activities and my commitments at work, we've churned through three choir concerts, two band concerts, two recognition breakfasts, one honors awards night, a camping weekend involving no showers, exchange students from 15 countries and a voyageurs canoe, a junior high dance, two dance shows, and a retirement party. Still left: another campout, a graduation and, sadly, two funerals, one for a young lady gone far too soon.
I also made my semiannual leap of folly into MASC's production of Hello, Dolly! Mrs. Levi ought to keep me out of trouble for a few weeks.
Now it's time to fetch the McKid home from work. Here's hoping I can put my nose above water again soon.
2 comments:
You are busy busy busy!
I get lots of those e-mails too, and I just delete them. It's quite amazing how many are out there and you wonder who starts these things and adds all the untruths to them.
One of my best friends from college was in the 'Old Guard' for two years. The tomb guards are selected from those. He wasn't one of them but he spent two years helping officate at funerals at Arlington. The tour of Arlington Cemetary was one of the most interesting I've ever been on. The ladies who do them are volunteers who also are assinged to each funeral to help support family members there for funerals and who are often alone.
My friend was there during the Viet Nam war. Also, I'm glad to see you've been busy and out of trouble.
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