Memorial Day Weekend 2010
Posted By Kathleen David on May 29, 2010
Today I plan to take the girls out. Peter may be staying home to finish the novel he has been writing or he may come with us. We do plan to spend some family time together this weekend be it playing board games or watching a movie together.
I finished the first part of my writing assignment. Now Peter has to look it over and work on it a bit. More about that when we can talk about it. I was pretty pleased in how it turned out.
Now it is onto the puppets for Field Day. I have to find my fabric coupons so I can get what I want at a reduced price but it shouldn’t be that expensive even if I can’t use the coupons. I plan to do progress photos of the pieces. After that it is Shoreleave both the art show and the costume call. I have a pretty challenging piece that I hope I can execute.
There is a lot going on out here on Long Island because Memorial Day Weekend is also the start of the summer season. We have had people walking down our street to the ferry which will take them to various points on Fire Island. There is increase traffic out to the Hamptons. Our population does go up on the weekends. And then Sunday evening (well Monday this week) the cars and the people go the other way. We know how to avoid a bulk of this extra traffic but not all of it.
If the weather stays this nice, I plan to take a book and settle into the hammock this afternoon for a good read.
I found out today that Coheed and Cambria gave Peter and me a shout out at their concert on Wednesday. I thought that was really nice of the guys. We would have been there but Peter was under the weather so we didn’t.
I am grateful for pleasant days and pleasant nights.
I moved to Wichita in March, and, for my first Memorial Day in the area, I drove the 230 miles south to Oklahoma City to visit the bombing memorial and museum. Last week, I had finally gotten around to watching the MSNBC show that ran April 19, the 15th anniversary of the bombing. The show played tapes of the interviews Dan Herbeck had with Timothy McVeigh. (The interviews led to Herbeck later writing the book, “American Terrorist.”) So I felt it was a good time to visit the museum.
Since 9/11, I’ve twice visited the field outside Shenkville, Pennsylvania, where Flight 93 came down. If the memorial they’re planning there is anything like the one in Oklahoma City, it will definitely be worth visiting. It’s harrowing, but you come out of it a better person. You enter with images an comments on how the day started and went on befor 9:02. Then, you go into a room, where you hear an audio tape that was being made of a water board hearing in a building across the street. (The hearing was held in the basement, so the people came through the event relatively unscathed — physically.) And then comes the explosion. Double doors then open to the next room. You enter, and then hear a constant barrage of radio messages from the emergency responders. This area is appropriately titled “Chaos.”
There are TV screens with interviews from survivors, responders, government officials, reporters.
But, by far, the most heartbreaking area is “The Gallery of Honor,” where they have photos, tributes, and, in some cases, mementoes (especially in the cases of the children), of each of the 168 victims of the blast. There are also side rooms with touch screens where you can hear the stories of many of the people involved in that day. At different places around the museum, there are tissues available. They are needed.
There are also sections devoted to the investigation. (The axle from the Ryder truck whose VIN number led the FBI to McVeigh is on display, as is the gun McVeigh had when he was arrested for driving a vehicle with no license plates.) Displays take you through the investigation, the arrests, trials, and executions.
What I’m saying comes nowhere near doing justice to the visit. If you ever have a chance to see the memorial and museum, so so.