Anniversaries

Blink and you miss it - earlier this month, Tuesday the 13th to be precise, marked the 15th anniversary of moving into this house, this pile of bricks on a hill I've called home ever since.

It's by far the longest I've ever lived in any one place as a child or an adult.  

I doubt I'll ever move again.  Not only is the hard work of moving physically exhausting, but I've really no motivation or reason to leave.  This pile of bricks shall be the last place I ever lived.

While on the subject on anniversaries, today, August 25, is apparently the 400th anniversary of the pirate ship The White Lion arriving in what was to be the United States, carrying the first slaves brought here directly from Africa.  There was already a thriving slavery business between Africa and the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in South America and the Caribbean, and some of those slaves or descendants of those slaves were reportedly brought from those locations to Spanish colonies in St. Augustine, Florida and the Gulf Coast, but  those shipments were not documented and The White Lion brought the first slaves directly from Africa to the North American continent.

As W.E.B. Du Bois put it, those "20 and odd" slaves brought with them three gifts: 

"a gift of story and song — soft, stirring melody in an ill-harmonized and unmelodious land; the gift of sweat and brawn to beat back the wilderness, conquer the soil, and lay the foundations of this vast economic empire two hundred years earlier than your weak hands could have done it; the third, a gift of the Spirit."

Today is also the anniversary of the founding of America's National Park System (1916).  Entrance to all of the parks is free today, if you're so inclined, including Atlanta's own M.L King, Jr, National Historic Site.  Considering the alignment of the National Parks and White Lion anniversaries, it would be appropriate to visit the King site today, but we were there a couple years ago after the so-called "election" of 2016.

Lest we forget, this was the reaction in the Deep South to the "election" of 2016: