Happy Johnny Appleseed Day

Johnny Appleseed wore a tin pot for a cap. He walked barefoot across the heartland of America. No fewer than 57,000 apple trees he planted still flower today, the apples sweet and crisp, in dozens and dozens of deep orchards.

When settlers put up beam and rafter,/ They asked of the birds: “Who gave this fruit? /Who watched this fence till the seeds took root?/ Who gave these boughs?” They asked the sky, /And there was no reply/ But the Robin might have said, /”To the farthest West he has followed the sun,/ His life and his empire just begun.”

Vachel Lindsay, 1922

Real Boy

It’s a cool grey day here near the banks of the broad Potomac and my roommate and I have fortified ourselves and our dwelling as we wait Hurricane Hannah to blow our socks off and knock our neighbor’s trees down.

I would be racing little sailboats in the Leukemia Cup Regatta this weekend, but God breathed and many hours of preparation knotting little lines and polishing boats bottoms howled away.

Instead I have planted myself bravely on the balcony and am contemplating as I wait for Hannah squadrons of wind and rain to march on our city.

…

At registration for the race last night, I interviewed Gary Jobson, who is perhaps the greatest competitive sailor in American history, and who helps publicize these fundraising races for The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Sure, I abused my golden ticket (the old press pass) a little for the opportunity to chat with one of my sailing heroes on tape for about 20 min, but it was worth it.

I asked the man questions from the range of my curiosity… about the America’s Cup races, the Olympics, and the joy he finds in sailing.

This was my first non political interview since last December–

Though Jobson too had carefully prepared lines of rhetoric, no doubt well practiced from years of dealing with the media, he was nothing like the politicians who ordinary dominate my scribbles.

As Jobson told me tales of battling for his life while sailing the high seas, battling for his life against the disease of Leukemia, and the real life he finds in sailing and helping children who are sick through his sailing, I detected a fire burning in his eyes that I havn’t seen while conducting an  interview in some time…

Pinocchio, I though, Pinocchio.  Gary Jobson is a real boy and he is nothing like the men (if you can call them that) the politicians I interview with most days day.

I guess it struck me how I could see the difference in a man’s face who earned his crown by shifting with real wind rather than blowing with the the hot winds of public opinion.

The spark of life in the eye’s of a man whose rotunda is the sky and whose marble floors are surging seas.

I am reading Charles Lindberg’s The Spirit of St. Louis right now, and he says of his own stint in DC that there was ‘to little opportunity for men to feel the wind and rain lashing against their faces.’

I agree and have endeavored to remain a ‘real boy’ as I dance along my dingy days here in the city that is, to me,  neither Rome nor Home…

E pluribus unum

September 11, 2001 is a day of stories. Everyone remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the heart-wrenching and blood-boiling news that terrorists hijacked three planes.

The stories of those involved in the Pentagon attack – the victims, the responders, the supporters – converged at the Pentagon 9/11 Memorial which was dedicated today. It was beautiful ceremony. The President, the Secretary of Defense, former Secretary Rumsfeld, and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff delivered very good speeches. Rumsfeld even quoted “an American poet” (Frost’s Acquainted with the Night). Gates quoted a poem also, but I am still looking for it. During the closing song “God Bless America,” everyone waved their American flags.

If ever you have the chance, you should visit the Pentagon Memorial. You can sit on one of the 184 benches, each dedicated to a victim. Today I saw families posing for pictures around benches, families holding services with clergymen, families making rubs from their loved one’s bench, families with flowers and balloons.

You can take a quite moment under a shady tree. You can contemplate the side of the Pentagon that the plane smashed. You can look up at the huge, three-pronged Air Force Memorial, and follow with your eyes the line of approach that the plane took; the center prong happens to match the flight path of American Airlines 77.

You can share these details and tell your stories to those Americans who will have no living memory of what happened on September 11, 2001.

You can imagine the flames, and share in the heartache of those who lost loved ones at that place. You can remember.

It is a very good memorial. It is worthy of the resolve that makes our American spirit sturdy despite attacks, that makes us one though many.  

God bless America.