Juneteenth

  A  L  O  H  A    FRIENDS !

Click on the photos

 " My grandfather always said 

that living is like

 licking honey 

off a thorn. "

Louis Adamic

" A memory

 is what is left 

when something happens 

and does not completely 

un-happen.  "

Edward de Bono

" Memory is a child 

walking along a seashore.  

You never can tell

 what small pebble

 it will pick up and store away

 among its treasured things.  "

Pierce Harris

 " Every man's memory

 is his private literature.  "

Aldous Huxley

" God gave us memories

 that we might have roses 

in December.  "

J.M. Barrie

 And

there are memories

that it is our

duty

to remember 

Happy Juneteenth!

On June 19th, 1865
US Army Major General 
Gordon Granger
landed at Galveston, Texas
bringing the news
that the US Civil War
was over,
and that slaves
were now free-

two and on half years
AFTER
President Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation.

January 1, 1863

Texas was far away,
but with the arrival
of the General's troops
freedom had at last 
come! 
(Surrender had been signed
in April of 1865)



In a similar vein:

From:

 Dwight D. Eisenhower

 Memorial Commission, 

Washington, DC

HERE " On April 4, 1945, elements of  the United States Army captured the Ohrdruf concentration camp  outside the town of Gotha  in south central Germany. . . . . . . .. Bodies were piled  throughout the camp.   There was evidence everywhere  of systematic butchery.  Many of the mounds of  dead bodies were still smoldering  from failed attempts  by the departing SS guards  to burn them.  The stench was horrible.. . .   General Eisenhower  immediately arranged to meet  Generals Bradley and Patton at Ohrdruf  on the morning of April 12th.  By that time, Buchenwald itself  had been captured.  Consequently, Ike decided to  extend the group’s visit to include a tour  of the Buchenwald  extermination camp  the next day.  Eisenhower also ordered  every American soldier in the area  who was not on the front lines  to visit Ohrdruf and Buchenwald.  He wanted them to see   for themselves  what they were fighting  against. . . .  Later on Ike wrote to Mamie,  “I never dreamed that such cruelty,  bestiality, and savagery  could really exist in this world.” . . . .  [And he had just fought a savage war! Cloudia] He cabled General Marshall  encouraging him to bring  Congressmen and journalists  with him.. . . . General Eisenhower understood  that many people  would be unable to comprehend  the full scope of this horror.  He also understood  that any human deeds  that were so utterly evil  might eventually be challenged  or even denied  as being literally  unbelievable.  For these reasons  he ordered  that all the civilian news media  and military combat camera units  be required to visit the camps  and record their observations  in print, pictures and film.  As he explained to General Marshall,  “I made the visit deliberately,  in order to be in a position to give  first-hand evidence of these things  if ever, in the future,  there develops a tendency to charge  these allegations   merely to  ‘propaganda.’”  His prediction proved correct.   When some groups, even today,  attempt to deny  that the Holocaust ever happened  they must confront  the massive official record,  including both written evidence  and thousands of pictures,  that Eisenhower ordered to be assembled. . . .  " © Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, Washington, DC, 2004    >  <  }  }  ( ° >
Thanks for swimming these wine-dark seas of memory with me. Let us enjoy our Summer all the more to honor the people - fragile, people just like ourselves- who overcame literal darkness. Let us promise ourselves to be more like them. Today's Germans & Texans bear no responsibiltiy for the past even as they  live history's lingering effects,  those regrettable, and those  ennobling.                       Warmly,  cloudia