88 bar falls 4mph NNE dew-point 75 (!) Summer Solstice
Waning Gibbous Flower Moon
Texarkana, Arkansas
Ate lunch today in Monroe, Louisiana at the Piccadilly Cafeteria. This is the cafeteria you may remember from earlier times. It has a sturdy 3-part metal rail and about 50 feet of food set out in neat little rows. The watermelon and the cucumber salad I retrieved first could have come from anywhere, but the shrimp etouffee? Pure Louisiana. Cornbread and greens filled out my tray (Formica with little flecks). This cost $11.84. Pay at the register on the way out.
Dana brought me some hot sauce and a second large glass of water. The atmosphere managed to be both down-home and quietly elegant. I ate until I should have stopped, then went right on past that point. Mmmm. Good.
Earlier a Park Ranger at the Vicksburg Military Park got me to participate in a mock firing of a confederate cannon. I was the gunner. The whole business is a dance that a good crew could repeat three times in a minute. First, a long pole with a cotton damper is thrust into the cannon to put out sparks from the last firing that might prematurely set off the charge. A second person pushes a charge into the cannon. The first person tamps the charge home with a wooden tamper on the other end of the swab.
A third person stabs the charge with a sharp metal rod, opening the powder. Then, the gunner steps up (this is me) and sights along a bronze rule. When satisfied with the placement, the gunner throws up his hands. This signals the person with the metal rod to step up and place a leather covered thumb over the striking hole to create a vacuum. Yet another person puts a firing pin in the next hole. Filled with chemicals, it lights when he yanks a six foot long lanyard. Boom.
On a drive through the park on the tour route I thought about why we commemorate these events. Battles. Clashes of men and arms. There are many monuments. They honor states, divisions, armies, batteries, generals, colonels, the fallen and the wounded. They are made of marble, bronze, and other stones, some small, while others, like the Illinois and Wisconsin state monuments, are huge. This is sacred architecture called into service when some path changing event occurs in the sweep of human history.
It does its job. The whole drive feels solemn, reverent. Somewhere, back behind the trees, the dead still swab the cannons and lift their muskets.
Stopped in Texarkana for the night. I plan to make at least Kansas City by tomorrow night, then on home. After the Vicksburg visit, my inner compass turned toward home. Now, headed north,the journey flows toward my pole star.