{"id":495,"date":"2025-12-10T02:04:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T02:04:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/omp.space\/?p=495"},"modified":"2025-12-10T14:28:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T14:28:02","slug":"stumbling-and-back-tracking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/2025\/12\/10\/stumbling-and-back-tracking\/","title":{"rendered":"Stumbling and back tracking\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I\u00a0had not wanted to be overtly political in these posts. I worried if I started, there would be no stopping and all posts would be colored by outrage. I also did not want to offend friends whose politics may differ from mine \u2014 I like to think that I have both Democratic and Republican friends, those who abhor Trump and those who see him as an invigorating alternative \u2014 all over the West there are shudders as the World War II alliances, America\u2019s economic might, and a global South that can no longer submit to colonization rearrange the order. To say nothing of excluded players, China and Russia, who want their dominance on the world stage. A dear friend challenged me to find a solution to the multinational issues \u2014 he buttered me by saying I was smart, he teased me by suggesting I might have a secret solution \u2014 at moments on my drive, I cannot help but think I might have an answer. To date, my only solution is frivolous – get every leader to spend his (they are all \u201chims\u201d) time building the biggest ball of twine he can. Then we will see. However\u2026 getting back to reality: Sadly, politics is everything and everything is politics \u2014 unless we take Keat\u2019s dictum that drove my late adolescence and early adulthood:\u00a0

\u201cBeauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.\u201d
Ode on a Grecian Urn (1819)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This preamble, if you are still with me it is to prepare for a political statement. Today\u2019s New York Times (already slipping a little bias in there, or not, depending on where you sit) reported with the headline: \u201dNational Parks Drop Free Entrance On MLK and Juneteenth\u201d<\/em> \u2014 replacing those days with June 14, Flag Day, and serendipitously, Trump\u2019s birthday.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I must confess, I was not a big proponent of the National Parks \u2014 I knew of them, had visited some of the Crown Jewels \u2014 Yosemite, Grand Canyon \u2014 and those in my impoverished Northeast park neighborhood \u2014 the smallest, Roger Williams Park, less than a block in Providence but with earnest and well-informed park staff, Arcadia the jewel, and only true park, of the Northeast. Preparing for this trip and enacting it has changed my view of the Park Service. I have been everywhere with them \u2014despite the government shutdown two weeks after my departure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The majority of sites I visited were either Civil War battlefields or Civil Rights memorials. I was, for those not following my travels, in the South, making my way through Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and most recently Florida. These are unusual places for me and require time for evaluation and processing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, I am honored by the National Park Service \u2014 the center at Lowndes County on the march between Selma and Montgomery is a place as many people who visit the Statue of Liberty should visit, as well as the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. (The National Park Service Site there is closed until 2028). The Emmett Till interpretive center holds lessons for all of us. This is not to diminish the many other sites \u2014 Shiloh Battlefield is another site. I like the sites of contention – the sites where the NPS has to grapple with the stories \u2014 there are truths of both sides, but one truth is truer in the end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I honor all those who wear the khaki and green with their Smokey Bears. We need to get all Americans into the parks; we need to get everyone to experience the magic of nature as well as the history embodied in these places. And it is a history that is honest: Shenandoah celebrates Lewis Mountain, the segregated area for black visitors during Virginia\u2019s Jim Crow era, and Flamingo in the Florida Everglades acknowledges the park area we now enjoy was the work of a segregated Civilian Conservation Corps group. In looking at the displays, they sure gave the segregated these CCC volunteers likely the worst job possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am eager for the day when I will see numbers of all the kaleidoscope of America celebrating and enjoying their patrimony in these national parks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u00a0had not wanted to be overtly political in these posts. I worried if I started, there would be no stopping and all posts would be colored by outrage. I also did not want to offend friends whose politics may differ from mine \u2014 I like to think that I have both Democratic and Republican friends, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ww-on-the-wroad"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":498,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/omp.space\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}