RURAL AMERICA ― Every other week I grab a cup of reheated coffee in the morning, sit in my favorite chair (circa 1910), tune into a jazz radio station, and tap out the words “Rural America” on the keyboard of my MacBook Air. From those words forward I have no idea where it will go and, I suspect, sometimes you can tell. It’s a gratifying, comfortable routine, one in which I produce a newspaper column. After decades of writing these things I still fail to comprehend the affect words can have on people. Thus, it’s always a surprise when someone approaches me at a grocery store, restaurant, or gas station and says kind things. It is both a baffling and beautiful thing. I mean, really, how many men in their mid-70s get that kind of attention? I’m very fortunate, and I thank modern medicine for keeping me alive long enough to enjoy it.
On to different things. Back in 1868, three years after the end of the Civil War, Gen. John Logan, of Illinois, Commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, issued a general order to his army to set aside a day for “strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country.” He was specifically referencing those who died during the recent war, however today we have expanded it to mean all who have served their country. We now call it Memorial Day and on that recent warm, sunny day I did what I have done for many years, attend a service at a local cemetery honoring those men and women.
The ceremony itself was more than satisfying, if not a bit long, what with the heat, but there was a moment that took many of us by surprise. A high school band provided music and, along with them we were asked to sing the Irving Berlin song, “God Bless America.” We weren’t provided with printed lyrics and evidently most in attendance hadn’t committed the lyrics to memory, so our little choir mumbled its way through, but it didn’t matter because something remarkable happened at the beginning of the song when the band started playing. A woman a few rows ahead of me pointed to the sky, with a “Hey, look!” Following orders, I looked to where she was pointing and, oh my, an American bald eagle, probably 100 feet in the air was floating overhead, majestically riding the thermals, gliding, rising upwards and away. The whole thing lasted less than a minute, but I can tell you that there is no military flyover on earth that could have topped that one.
I won’t attempt to assign any wise, thoughtful meaning to the moment, or to dissect it, as that would only ruin the romance and absolute rightness of it. It was an extraordinary bit of American theatre in an old cemetery where Civil War soldiers lie, and I was thrilled to be a part of it. Wish you had been there.
On the other side of the cemetery is a headstone with two familiar names chiseled into the front, my wife’s name, and mine. A few years into her final journey my wife said, quietly, “We need a headstone.” It’s not something I had considered and, to this day, seeing my name on a stone is a bit unsettling. However, it is a reminder that our time here is short. The spot where I will join the others in that old cemetery is very good, in the shadow of an ancient pine tree, next to my wife’s wonderful parents, facing the rest of the cemetery, where hundreds known to us now lie peacefully. A headstone is a marker telling anyone who wanders past that we were flesh and that we too once walked this earth among them. In that sense my wife, as always, was correct. We needed a headstone.
Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. His book “The Iowa State Fair” is available from the University of Iowa Press.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: The intention that goes into making a remembrance | Opinion
Reporting by Kurt Ullrich, Guest columnist / Des Moines Register
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By Kurt Ullrich, Guest columnist | USA TODAY Network
