R. Mark Liebenow's Blog: Nature, Grief, and Laughter, page 4

Simplify Your Life

            Simplify your life. Listen. Take care of others. - Mark

Prayer

        I don’t know how to pray. I only know to sit in a quiet place and listen.  - Mark

This Blog is Moving

This blog is combining with my blog that helps people as they journey through grief, as well as help their friends and family understand what they can do and say to help. http://widowersgrief.blogspot.com

You can also check my full author website at http://markliebenow.com

Or catch me on Facebook, Instagram (MarkYosemite), or Twitter (MarkLiebenow2).

Heart Mountain Internment Camp

I stood by the remaining guard tower that watches over the dry, windy landscape in Wyoming. This was the site of the Heart Mountain Internment Camp during World War II. Ten thousand Americans lived here in 650 barracks. Little remains of the camp now, one of ten such camps where fear triumphed over humanity. In the distance was Heart Mountain, named by the Crow people because it looked like the heart of a bison.
The camps were set up in isolated and harsh regions of the country. Barracks were hastily assembled out of green wood and tarpaper. Not insulated, as the wood dried, gaps formed between the boards and dust constantly drifted in. In winter, when temperatures dropped to 20 degrees below zero, the inmates had to stuff newspaper and remnants of cloth into the cracks to block the cold.

Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry. Without a trial or due process, they were pulled out of their homes on the West Coast and locked up. Then, in an act of chutzpah, the government still thought it proper to draft the camp’s young men into the military, and over 800 men from Heart Mountain willing fought during the war.
Although called relocations centers, they were internment camps with armed military guards in the towers and barbed wire and held over 120,000 people. Perhaps the best known camps were Manzanar in California, because of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s book, Farewell to Manzanar and Ansel Adams’ photography book; and Topaz in Utah, because of Chiura Obata’s moving book of watercolor paintings, Topaz Moon.
President Roosevelt, Congress, the Military, and even the Supreme Court said it was necessary and right to lock them up. Later they would say their decisions were wrong.
When World War II ended, the United States gave $13 billion to rebuild Germany and Europe, and provided money to rebuild Japan. After being held for three years, each Heart Mountain internee was given $25 and a train ticket. No longer having homes to return to, with businesses that had been looted, everyone had to start over. Some were not able to.
It would take more than 40 years for the U.S. to decide to pay partial reparations to its own citizens who were forced into the internment camps. The bill, signed by President Ronald Reagan, was co-sponsored by congressmen Al Simpson and Norman Mineta, who met as young Boy Scouts at the Heart Mountain camp.

The American system of justice failed its own citizens because of wartime hysteria, racial prejudice, and the failure of political leadership.

Heat Mountain Internment Camp

I stood by the remaining guard tower that watches over the dry, windy landscape in Wyoming. This was the site of the Heart Mountain Internment Camp during World War II. Ten thousand Americans lived here in 650 barracks. Little remains of the camp now, one of ten such camps where fear triumphed over humanity. In the distance was Heart Mountain, named by the Crow people because it looked like the heart of a bison.
The camps were set up in isolated and harsh regions of the country. Barracks were hastily assembled out of green wood and tarpaper. Not insulated, as the wood dried, gaps formed between the boards and dust constantly drifted in. In winter, when temperatures dropped to 20 degrees below zero, the inmates had to stuff newspaper and remnants of cloth into the cracks to block the cold.

Their crime? Being of Japanese ancestry. Without a trial or due process, they were pulled out of their homes on the West Coast and locked up. Then, in an act of chutzpah, the government still thought it proper to draft the camp’s young men into the military, and over 800 men from Heart Mountain willing fought during the war.
Although called relocations centers, they were internment camps with armed military guards in the towers and barbed wire and held over 120,000 people. Perhaps the best known camps were Manzanar in California, because of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston’s book, Farewell to Manzanar and Ansel Adams’ photography book; and Topaz in Utah, because of Chiura Obata’s moving book of watercolor paintings, Topaz Moon.
President Roosevelt, Congress, the Military, and even the Supreme Court said it was necessary and right to lock them up. Later they would say their decisions were wrong.
When World War II ended, the United States gave $13 billion to rebuild Germany and Europe, and provided money to rebuild Japan. After being held for three years, each Heart Mountain internee was given $25 and a train ticket. No longer having homes to return to, with businesses that had been looted, everyone had to start over. Some were not able to.
It would take more than 40 years for the U.S. to decide to pay partial reparations to its own citizens who were forced into the internment camps. The bill, signed by President Ronald Reagan, was co-sponsored by congressmen Al Simpson and Norman Mineta, who met as young Boy Scouts at the Heart Mountain camp.

The American system of justice failed its own citizens because of wartime hysteria, racial prejudice, and the failure of political leadership.

Of Mountains and Bone

Turtle Island Quarterly
My nature poem “Of Mountains and Bone.” Inspired by Ansel Adams’ black and white photograph - “Tetons and the Snake River.” It’s the fourth poem down.
(The photo with this announcement is not of the Tetons, but it gives you a nature scene to look at. Do check out Adams’ stunning photo.)
www.fourdirectionpoetry.wixsite.com/turtleisland/12-3-1

Sitting On Porches

In small towns, like the one I grew up in Wisconsin, as well as in the older neighborhoods of large cities, there are still old houses with porches. Often they are close enough to the sidewalk that people walking by can talk to the people sitting there. Porches are also good for writing.
In the summer, in the time before air conditioners and cable TV, people would come out to their porch after dinner to cool down, put their feet up, and talk until it became too dark to see each other’s faces — how everyone’s day went, who was having surgery tomorrow, who was in town visiting relatives, and what did everyone think about the plan to build a new school?

Sitting on the porch, they listened to the birds chatting in the darkening trees, watched the yellow sun set over the horizon and, as the clouds cleared from the sky, they felt the air grow cool and saw the stars begin to emerge. If heat from the day is lingering, maybe they’re drinking iced tea, lemonade, mint juleps or beer to cool down. If dark clouds were moving in with rain, they talked about that, and how the farmers would be pleased.
Porches are friendly places. They invite social interaction. Houses today aren’t built with porches. Subdivisions often don’t have sidewalks, and front yards are so large that people walking by can only wave across the distance. Most people stay inside, away from the mosquitoes, and don’t know the people who live two houses down. Even in our own neighborhoods we don’t feel part of a living community. If we are struggling with an illness, loneliness or depression, we try to be strong on our own.

I live in a large city now, and after dinner I pretend that I’m working in the yard just so I can say hello to people walking by. Sometimes we talk for a time and get a sense of each other’s lives, and how, no matter how different, we are still so much the same.

Bouillabaisse Against Bullies

Today I celebrate bouillabaisse! A fish stew from Marseille. The broth made of leeks, onions, tomatoes, celery, and potatoes.
I serve it with rouille – a mayonnaise of olive oil, garlic, saffron from India, and cayenne pepper from Asia.
I dip grilled slices of thick, hearty bread into the rich sauce full of the flavors of the world that make the tongue dance, the belly sing, and the heart purr like a tiger.
No pasty white bread without flavor, nutrition or fiber.

Marseille is where they sing the song that calls the community to rise up and resist the bullies.

Quiche of Liberty

Today I eat the quiche of Liberty. The Statue is French and so is the food, via Germany. Both are immigrants, like most of our ancestors.
I eat the quiche of liberty so that we may eat cheese and worship as we please.
I eat the quiche of liberty that we may live unfettered by racism, sexism, and the tyranny of self-serving rich politicians.
I eat the quiche of liberty with the huddled masses of the Emma Lazarus – with bacon, cheese, onions, mushrooms, spinach, and Gruyere, all held together in the crust of community.

I eat the quiche of liberty and believe there is enough to eat if we cut slices for each other and share.

Apple Pie of Freedom

Today I eat an apple pie of freedom. Not that freedom is here, but pie helps me forget for a moment my despair.
I eat a pie of freedom because the desire exists that one day freedom will come for all of us.
I eat a pie of freedom, because fascists, oligarchs, and power-hungry men will not win in the end.
I eat a pie of freedom, because caring for the suffering of others is never wrong.
I eat a pie of freedom because life is more than the falsehoods, half-truths, and made-up lies that people spread about everyone who is not like them.
Today I eat a pie of freedom so that one day we may all sit down and eat pie together — apple, cherry, pumpkin, lemon cream custard — and we will ask how the other is doing, and we will listen.

Next week I shall eat quiche.