Chasing Lizards

When I was in college, one of my education professors warned me to stay away from what she called “lizards.”  A lizard, she explained, was a burned-out, vindictive, venom-spewing teacher who could see nothing positive about the school, the students, the administration, or other teachers.  Everything to a lizard is always ‘doom and gloom,’ and his answer to every problem is to slither back underneath his rock and pout.  No matter how good a lizard may have it, he will find something wrong with something, and stop at nothing to make everyone else as lizardly as him.

I think every teacher has his or her ‘lizard’ moments.  It’s only natural for human beings to be displeased with something from time to time; sometimes legitimately, sometimes in a ‘me-first’ moment.  As a first-year teacher, I’ve had a few lizard moments, but I am thankful to say that I have not allowed it to become a lifestyle.

I am fortunate to work at a school that has many more positives than negatives.  Because I love my school, I want to enumerate a few ways that Lawrence County High School is one of the best of the best.

1.  Our Students

The student population of a school can make or break a teaching experience for a teacher.  True, like any other school, we have our share of tough cases, but on the whole, LCHS students are simply a cut above the rest.  I can see it in the number of smiling faces and cheerful greetings I get in the hallways, in the polite “yes, sir” and “no, sir” I hear automatically in my classroom, in the sheer number of students at our school who get involved in community-service projects and devote their after-school hours to clubs and developing working relationships with others in our community.

Say what you will about them, I will defend to the end my assertion that LCHS students are the greatest blessing to our faculty.  In an era when many schools are dealing with rampant teen pregnancy, gang violence, and an ever-widening culture gap between students and teachers, our students continue to win hundreds of thousands of cumulative dollars in college scholarships each year, prove themselves as budding leaders in a number of fields, and remain involved in constructive extracurricular activities after graduation and beyond.

2.  Our Campus

I recently had my students write about what they would change about our campus if they could change anything.  The most common answer: wider hallways.  What a great place to work where the only thing seventy kids really wanted to complain about was the size of the hallways!  Our administrators have taken great strides toward updating our rooms in the past few years.  Most–if not all–of us have rooms equipped with Elmoes, computer projectors, and working computers.

Some schools suffer through heat waves with no air conditioners or rainstorms with porous ceilings.  True, a possum may have fallen through the ceiling at LCHS a few years ago, but I am pleased to report that my room has, so far this year, remained possum-free. 

All possums aside, we have a huge building, a state-of-the-art science department, and a massive cafeteria.  But the crown jewel of our campus has to be our gymnasium.  The LCHS gym rivals many college gyms in size and aesthetic pleasure, and there is none to match it in any of the surrounding high schools.  Around the world, some towns and villages have nothing but thatched, one-room huts in which to educate their young.  We have a building that is spacious, sprawling, and regularly maintained.  And for that, I am thankful.

3.  Our Custodians

It takes a lot of work to keep that huge building clean and in good running order.  As a first-year teacher, I stay after school for several hours each evening preparing for the next day, and so I am fortunate to have gotten to know our janitorial staff pretty well.  They do their job with good humor and efficiency, and I have noticed that they seldom have anything negative to say.  They are probably some of the most dependable souls I’ve ever worked with, and my job would be twice as hard if they were not there to ensure I have a healthy, neat, and comfortable work environment.

4.  Our Administrators

I have been a member of the work force for almost ten years, and, thankfully, during those ten years, I have never had a bad boss.  I am pleased to say that this track record has carried over to my young teaching career.  Our principal and vice-principals at LCHS are not only good at what they do, they are also good people.  I know that when a student’s discipline falls out of line to the point that it has become a distraction from my job as a teacher to continue addressing the situation, I can send that student to the office, where my rules will be enforced and respect for authority will be reinforced. 

I can trust that my administrators will back me up when I most need them because I have interacted with all of them both inside and outside of school, and I know that their respect for me goes deeper than simple professional courtesy.  They genuinely care about my welfare and the welfare of the students because they are genuine people.

5.  Our School Pride

When I was a substitute teacher and a student teacher, I worked in schools that had no sense of self or identity.  The students at these institutions saw their school only as a place where they were forced to go until they were old enough to drop out, or a stepping stone on their way to college, or a prison built by sadistic adults who enjoyed using boredom as a weapon.

This is not so at LCHS.  Our school spirit is evident in every corner, from the trophies proudly displayed in the front lobby to the century’s worth of senior pictures hanging with pride in the hallways.  Many of our students represent the third or fourth generation of their family to attend LCHS.  On game days, teachers and students alike fill the hallways with a river of purple and gold shirts.  Our student section at those games has a reputation for being very boisterous in their support for our Wildcats. 

But even more exciting to me than the support we show for our athletes is the support and recognition LCHS gives to our students who do well academically.  Our morning announcements are just as liable to include the conquests of the marketing club or HOSA as they are the victories of the football or basketball teams.  This kind of balance makes for a great place to work as well as a great place to learn.

We have it good at LCHS for these and a host of other reasons.  I love my school because the only limits it has placed on me in terms of educating my students are the limits of my own imagination.  Creativity is encouraged among teachers at LCHS.  That kind of freedom, when given to a talented group like the teachers I work with, can only result in a high-quality education.

And when the lizards come around, flicking their tongues and hissing, I have found that the best way to handle them is to remember what a blessing it is to work at such a wonderful place, and ignore their complaints.

And if that doesn’t work, I swat them with a newspaper, and that usually startles them as much as it would a real lizard.

Unfriended By Facebook

I thought it surely must have been a joke.

It was a Thursday.  That afternoon, I entered my username and password as I had done countless times before.  But, for the first time, I was stopped.

According to the screen, my Facebook account had been disabled by the Facebook Team.  I was shocked and confused.  Wasn’t that the kind of thing they did when Facebookers uploaded pornography or made threats against government buildings or harassed high school classmates?  My posts consisted mostly of Bible verses, pictures of my church group, my blog entries, items of historical interest, and the occasional witty pun.  Why would Facebook consider me to be worth disabling?

That day I sent half-a-dozen e-mails to Facebook, asking why my account was disabled and when I could expect to have it back.  On Friday evening, I got a response; a response which still shocks me.  It went like this:

After reviewing your situation, we have determined that you violated our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities. One of Facebook’s main priorities is the comfort and safety of our users. We do not tolerate hate speech. Targeting people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or disease is a serious violation of our standards and has resulted in the permanent loss of your account. We will not be able to reactivate your account for any reason. This decision is final.

I was speechless.  For a full minute I stared slack-jawed at my screen.  Hate speech?!? I have never posted hate speech to Facebook!  And even worse was that my account had been, with absolutely no warning, unceremoniously deleted, never to be recovered.

I joined Facebook in the fall of 2005, when it first became available to my university.  For five years I had built my account, creating an international network of friends, coworkers, and professional contacts.  I incorporated it as an important communication tool for my job.  It had become the chief means of updating my church group friends of upcoming activities.  Facebook was more than just a fun way to update my friends on what I was having for lunch; it had become my hub for exchanging ideas and information, a hub which no other communication tool could rival.  With Facebook, I could quickly and efficiently gain access to the minds and ideas of hundreds of people around the globe–literally around the globe.  I had contacts in Germany, Ireland, France, and Australia as well as in most of the Continental United States.  Not to mention the thousands–yes, thousands–of photographs I had added to my account over the course of five years.

All vanished, in the blink of an eye.

I e-mailed Facebook again to express my shock and to ask what, specifically, they had considered to be hate speech on my account.  I picked my brain and the brains of my friends.  We could think of nothing I had done on Facebook in that five year span of time that could be construed even remotely as “hate speech,” especially given some of the horrible things we had seen other users post to the site with no repercussions.  I had never uttered a profane word from my account or singled out any individual or group for derision.  Those who know me best will tell you that that’s just not how I roll.  I do not have hatred in my heart for anyone or any group of people, and if I did, I would certainly have had more sense than to post it to Facebook for all of those professional contacts to see.

Without a response from the Facebook Team, I still have no clue as to why they deleted my account with no warning.  It was like coming home from work to find that my apartment had been burned to the ground, and then later finding out that my landlord lit the match because he kinda sorta thought I might be in the Klan.  But what bothers me even more than the aggravation I’ve gotten from this incident is what it tells me about the future of the freedom of speech in the United States.  It is my great fear that, as the medium for the exchange of ideas evolves from the printed page to the computer screen, this most basic of American rights is slowly becoming privatized.

Much to the disdain of many old-fashioned newspaper editors, the preferred medium of free speech is changing.  The Internet has become the method of choice of millions of Americans who wish to express their opinions and exchange their ideas unedited, and with no revision.  I believe that this is the very pinnacle of free speech; millions of individual human beings with the ability and freedom to express individual opinions in their own words, and in their own timing.  Ideas and opinions both great and small, important and mundane, simple and complex, gush from the blogs and personal web sites of America by the tens of thousands each minute.  It is chaotic, it is loud, it is often impassioned, and that flow of information from one mind to another is the cornerstone of democracy, magnified a thousandfold.

And social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have, believe it or not, enhanced that ability even further.  I believe it is obtuse to dismiss social networking sites simply as web sites where kids send each other funny videos.  Social networking sites do not just connect friends and acquaintances for the purpose of socializing, they link human minds in a very dynamic, organized, and fast-paced way.  Everyone with an empty status bar and a flashing cursor has the ability to become the news anchor of his or her own personal news network.  The more contacts that individual has, the more minds he or she can reach.  That kind of power is the very future of free speech in America.

But if the idea of an online social network represents the future of free speech, what does that mean for the companies who own and manage sites where people exchange information online?  Some will argue that since they are privately-held companies, they are free to monitor and censor speech on their sites as they see fit.  I believe that, in a 20th-century world, when print was still the chief repository of ideas, that argument may have held water.  But if the marketplace of ideas exists chiefly online for millions of Americans, that argument must not remain the standard of just censorship.  If evidence is needed, look no further than my unjustly-deleted Facebook account.  My new and revolutionary ability to share ideas and spread information without the filter of another person’s mind was put to an end with nothing but a very baseless, vague excuse, and since my online voice was, by necessity, privately-held, I have no recourse left to regain that voice.

I have a feeling that soon–hopefully very soon–corporations who own personal web site services like Facebook will have a very rude awakening to certain truths about free speech that have, for generations, been the domain of newspaper publishers, radio station owners, and television news networks, for whom a litany of Supreme Court decisions and Congressional actions exist to enforce the honest, equitable, and balanced exchange of ideas in those media.

As the nature of human interaction changes, so must the laws that safeguard our right to interact with each other; a right derived from a Constitution that justly values the fundamental interests of the individual over the financial interests of the corporation.  The safeguarding of free speech should never be entrusted to the private sector, and there should be no single judge presiding over the marketplace of ideas, wherever that marketplace exists.

Otherwise, we may one day find ourselves unfriending democracy.

What Does It Mean to Be From Lawrenceburg?

This is the first installment in an original Clint Thoughts three-part series called “Where I’m From.”

Growing up in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, I would often hear classmates despair about how there was nothing to do there and how they couldn’t wait to leave as soon as possible.  I never agreed with those classmates.  When I was growing up, I thought it was a great blessing to be from Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.  And now that I live out-of-state, I take even more pride in my hometown because I get to tell people on a regular basis that that’s where I’m from.

But what’s so great about Lawrenceburg?  Other than it being my home, why is that tiny town on Shoal Creek so important to me?  What does it mean to be from Lawrenceburg?

I think being from Lawrenceburg means knowing the value of community.  This value shaped my raising and was present everywhere growing up in Lawrenceburg.  Both sides of my family stretch across Lawrence County like a healthy network of watermelon vines, creating a community of blood relatives within itself.  But aside from that, my teachers knew my parents, my friends’ parents knew–and probably grew up with–my parents, and if I were not connected by blood or parental familiarity to my friends, then it was very likely that my grandparents worked with their parents or grandparents at the Murray Ohio bicycle and lawnmower plant. 

That sense of community meant that if I had an emergency, I could go to my neighbors for help knowing they would drop what they were doing to lend a hand.  It meant that, at an early age, I knew that “love thy neighbor as thyself” was more than just pretty words tossed around at Sunday services.  My parents taught me to help a neighbor in need; to stop and offer assistance if a motorist looked distressed; to be friendly and introduce myself to the people around me.  I learned from growing up in Lawrenceburg that a community is a group of equals, sharing equally the tasks of keeping each other afloat.  No obstacle stands in the way of a group of hard-working people pooling their abilities and resources for the greater good.

Growing up in Lawrenceburg, a big part of that community life revolved around my church family.  Lawrenceburg is a town rich in Christian heritage.  There are congregations of all sizes and denominations in town, and church buildings still easily outnumber shopping centers and fast-food restaurants.  So it is no surprise that Lawrenceburg is not only the place of my birth, but also the place of my rebirth.  My parents took me to church from an early age, and in August of 1993 I realized my need for Jesus and accepted Him as my Savior, and was baptized in Lawrenceburg.  In First Baptist Church and Immanuel Baptist Church in Lawrenceburg, I met my first lifelong friends.  Those friends became my second family, and I first learned the joys of fellowship with other Christians while worshiping Jesus in Lawrenceburg.

I never understood why other kids thought that there was nothing to do in Lawrenceburg.  True, my hometown doesn’t have any shopping malls or stadiums.  But my social schedule always stayed busy in Lawrenceburg.  If there wasn’t a movie playing that we wanted to see at the Crockett Cinemas 3, my church friends and I would get together and play games or watch movies at each others’ homes.  The woods near my house became a battlefield at least once a month when my friends came over for paintball.

Those same friends and I used to pack a corner booth at Dairy Queen on Wednesday nights after church.  We would gather at Ledbetter’s Drug Store on the square on hot summer days to start an afternoon of adventure with peanut butter milkshakes.  We rolled many yards, fished many ponds, waded many streams, shot many rifles, watched many fireworks, and drove many miles through country roads at night for fun.   My answer to people who claim that they can’t find anything to do in Lawrenceburg is that they must not be looking hard enough.  Being from Lawrenceburg means having fun regardless of where you are or what you do.

To be from Lawrenceburg means to have a life education.  I had the best teachers in school at Lawrenceburg.  They were just as dedicated to their students as the teachers at wealthier schools (if not moreso), only they did it for much less compensation.  In addition to having great teachers in the classroom, I also had the world’s best teachers outside of the classroom.  Lawrenceburg has no art museums or opera houses to immerse its residents in the culture of other places, but I count it as a greater blessing that I grew up near all of my grandparents, and they taught me to take pride in my own culture and the ways of my own people, the Southerners; how we speak, how we cook, how we worship, how we work, how we sing, and how we treat each other. 

A big part of that culture (in Lawrenceburg, at least) is appreciating and enjoying high school basketball.  My high school has the best gymnasium of any high school in Middle Tennessee, and when I was a student there I rarely missed a chance to see the Lady Cats flex their State Champion muscle against the other girls’ basketball teams in our district.  The excitement and pageantry of a good basketball game in the Ralph Benson Memorial Gymnasium, with the Big Gold Machine playing, the fans shouting, and the championship pennants fluttering from the ceiling over the excited cheerleaders rivals the energy and overshadows the passion of any major league sports event.

To be from Lawrenceburg is to know the true freedom of small-town life.  It is an intimacy with the freedom of wide, hilly fields and shady woods and the security of knowing–and loving–your neighbors.  Lawrenceburg is a place and a state of mind–a very relaxed state of mind.  It’s standing up for yourself and doing what’s right and expecting no reward.  It’s raising your children in peace and rising and falling on your own hard work and motivation.  Lawrenceburg is home, and to be from Lawrenceburg is a privilege and a blessing.

Starving Together

I am no authority on marriage.  But I did learn a very valuable lesson about marriage from a tombstone.

In Walnut Grove Cemetery in Rhea Mills, Texas, there lies a solitary grave that serves as a monument to a very dark chapter in my family history.  The grave belongs to my great-uncle, William Foster Kerr, who died there in 1915 at the age of just a little over a year old. 

The fact that he is buried in Texas is significant because his parents and all of his brothers and sisters are buried in Tennessee, where they were all born.  Why was William Foster Kerr’s family in Texas when he died?

His parents, who were my great-grandparents, Harvey and Florence Kerr, decided to move to Texas sometime around 1914 and try their luck farming in Collin County.  The result was disastrous.  For reasons still unclear to me, their crop failed and they could not make a living.  Years later, every time my Grandaddy, Mack Kerr (who was not yet born at that time), talked about his parents’ journey to Texas, he always ended the story quietly and ominously, by saying, “They liked to have starved to death out there.”

It wasn’t long until Harvey and Florence moved their family back to Tennessee, leaving the body of their child buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery. 

I’m not sure what killed little William Foster Kerr, who was one of six children at the time of his death.  My guess is probably disease.  But from the stories I’ve heard about that stay in Texas, I would not doubt if starvation played some part in his death.

When I think of that sad tale, I always wonder what effect it must have had on Harvey and Florence’s marriage.  It must have seemed like there would be no escape for either of them.  Did Harvey ever look at his starving family and, wilting spiritually from such a load of responsibility, consider running away in the night?  Did Florence, fueled by resentment at such a misadventure, ever feel justified to leave her husband and her family and catch the next train home?

I never met my great-grandparents, but I feel confident in answering both of these questions with a resounding NO.  Neither their Christian convictions nor their personal honor would ever have excused such behavior, nor would their friends, kin, and neighbors.

And that is the lesson William Foster Kerr’s tombstone taught me.  My great-grandparents were married for forty-six years before Florence’s death.  In those forty-six years, they worked together, lived together, and starved together.  No excuse, not even the icy threat of death, itself, was enough to tear that commitment asunder.

So I wonder what they would think about the state of American marriages today.  I feel sure that the excuses some people give today for destroying their families would cause my great-grandparents and other hard-lived men and women of their generation to scoff.  According to a list I recently read online, chief among the top reasons for divorce in the United States today are “poor communication,” “change in priorities,” ”sexual dissatisfaction,” “financial difficulties,” and “failed expectations.” 

Far from being perfect, I’m sure that my great-grandparents’ marriage contained a great deal of poor communication and priority-shifts, just as many marriages do.  And I would say that almost-starving-to-death-in-Texas would certainly constitute a “failed expectation.”  But none of that became an excuse for them to destroy one of the most precious gifts that God can give any of us–family. 

Sometimes I think it might be a good thing for a married couple to starve together for a little while.  How many marriages today would remain intact if the petty things in a marriage remained petty and the truly important things were counted as truly important?  How many men would think twice about leaving a woman who loved him enough to stand by him when there was nothing to eat?  How many women would overlook the small faults of a man who was devoted enough to work from daylight to dark to feed her and their children?

While the sad truth is that a good many people today really don’t think twice about leaving spouses who love that deeply, the deeper truth is that there is no “me” in “matrimony.”  A husband is bound to his wife to love, cherish, and honor her all the days of his life.  A wife is bound to her husband to love, cherish, and honor him all the days of her life.  Marriage is not about what you can get out of it.  I have heard no marriage vows that say, “Do you promise to hold your own interests above those of your spouse, eschew responsibility, run away from challenges, hold grudges, ensure that your own needs are more important to you than those of your spouse, place blame, belittle, or otherwise emotionally tear down your spouse so long as you both shall live?”

As my 87-year-old grandfather Chester Alley has taken to reminding me lately, the only thing that can keep a married couple together is L-O-V-E; love for each other, love for their children, love for their neighbors, and–most importantly–a shared love for the Son of God.  And while I may not be an authority on marriage, my grandfather certainly is.

He married my Granny in 1943, and they worked together, worshiped together, suffered together and loved each other for fifty-nine years, until her death.  He is adamant that money will not hold a marriage together; they had nothing but a Dodge car and a pair of mules when they married, and he has had to wear his body out by working hard for everything he owns today.  A big, elaborate wedding with fine jewelry and expensive clothing will not hold a marriage together; my grandparents’ fifty-nine year marriage began at the foot of a flu-stricken judge’s bed, with no attendants, no reception, and no flowing white dress.  According to my grandfather, nothing money can buy or thieves can steal will keep a marriage together, only love; and without love, there can be no home, marriage, family or quality of life.

Although I will never know, I like to think that Harvey and Florence Kerr would have agreed.  Through feast and famine, they remained a cohesive team; a single entity bound together by love and strengthened by the common experience of survival.  But my great-grandparents were more than survivors; they were overcomers.  When they left Texas, they not only escaped starvation, they escaped it together with their children, just as they no doubt mourned their infant son together and buried him in the Texas sod together. 

I believe that kind of committment is dangerously lacking in our society today.  So many people seem to be living their lives as though the world is their playground and nothing matters as long as they feel good.  That kind of self-indulgent lifestyle is not what makes a forty-six-year- or fifty-nine-year-marriage, and it certainly won’t keep a family together when the children have nothing to eat.

Love–real love–never fails, even when the crops do.

A Perfectly Prophetic Palm Sunday

We all know that the prophet Daniel was thrown to the lions and not eaten, and that he interpreted the original writing on the wall.  His unshakable faith in God never changed, despite his circumstances.  He was a man of great gifts and spiritual depth, and his prophecies continue to awe and puzzle people of all faiths today.  But did you know that this same Daniel eerily and accurately prophesied–to the day–the time of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem?

Today we call it Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday has become somewhat of an afterthought on many modern Protestant calendars.  Some churchgoers may be more familiar with Palm Sunday as “The Sunday Before Easter,” or “The Day When The Kids Get to Wave The Palm Fronds Around.”  Other Christians might know it only as a curious notation on wall calendars, a hazy, unfamiliar holiday which has always been there, but with which they feel few connections.

But what a day to celebrate and remember! Palm Sunday, if you are not familiar, is the day when Christians commemorate Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the week before His crucifixion.  According to the Gospel accounts, it was an exciting day!  Here’s what Matthew says about it:

So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them.  And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:

“Hosanna to the Son of David!

‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ 

Hosanna in the highest!”

And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, “Who is this?”

So the multitudes said, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.”

–Matthew 21:6-11 (NKJV)

Mark’s account says this:

Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and He sat on it. And many spread their clothes on the road, and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road.  Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:

“Hosanna!

‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’

Blessed is the kingdom of our father David

That comes in the name of the Lord!

Hosanna in the highest!”

–Mark 11:6-10 (NKJV)

Luke puts it this way:

Then they brought [the colt] to Jesus. And they threw their own clothes on the colt, and they set Jesus on him. And as He went, many spread their clothes on the road.

Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying:

“‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!’ 

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

 And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.”

But He answered and said to them, “I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.”

–Luke 19:34-40 (NKJV)

And John remembers it like this:

The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out:

“Hosanna!

‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ 

The King of Israel!”

Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written:

“Fear not, daughter of Zion;

Behold, your King is coming,

Sitting on a donkey’s colt.”

His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him.

–John 12:12-16 (NKJV)

As you can see, the story of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem is exciting, joyful, dramatic, and chronicles  an important event in the life of Christ.  It was so important, in fact, that all four of the Gospel writers include it in their accounts of Jesus’ life.  From an earthly perspective, Jesus’ triumphal entry into the Holy City was a crowning moment for His mission.  People whose lives had been touched by Christ joyfully testified in the streets of His omnipotence and divine identity; and why shouldn’t they?  The Messiah, the long-awaited King sent by God to liberate their nation and restore mankind, had entered the holiest city in Judaism during one of the holiest weeks on the Jewish calendar.  It was a great moment to be alive, and a joyful occasion to witness firsthand.  It was a moment of anticipation and happiness, a moment given to those alive at the time to praise God and declare Christ as the Son of God.

But it was also a moment for those who had died many centuries before and a moment for hundreds of generations yet to be born.  From a prophetic perspective, Palm Sunday is a vitally important part of Jesus’ assertion of His divinity.  As John pointed out, the apostles did not grasp the prophetic importance of the event until after Christ’s resurrection, and when they did, it was the words of the prophet Zechariah which spoke to them, written at least five-hundred years earlier:

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!

Shout, O daughter of Jerusalem!

Behold, your King is coming to you;

He is just and having salvation,

Lowly and riding on a donkey,

A colt, the foal of a donkey.

I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim

And the horse from Jerusalem;

The battle bow shall be cut off.

He shall speak peace to the nations;

His dominion shall be ‘from sea to sea,
And from the River to the ends of the earth.’

–Zechariah 9:9-10 (NKJV)

But the prophet Daniel had written of the event at least another century before Zechariah, and his prophecy was startlingly scientific in its accuracy.   For reasons unknown, however, we rarely hear mention made of Daniel on Palm Sunday.  This is a curious thing, for his prophecy seems to predict the exact date of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.  Let’s take a look at it:

“A period of seventy sets of seven has been decreed for your people and your holy city to put down rebellion, to bring an end to sin, to atone for guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times. “After this period of sixty-two sets of seven, the Anointed One will be killed, appearing to have accomplished nothing, and a ruler will arise whose armies will destroy the city and the Temple. The end will come with a flood, and war and its miseries are decreed from that time to the very end.

–Daniel 9:24-26 (NLT)

This prophecy is known as Daniel’s “Seventy Weeks” prophecy.  The King James Version of the Bible starts verse 24 by saying “Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city.”  The original text, according to Bible scholars, reads ”seventy sets of seven.”  This increment of time is somewhat ambiguous to the layman.  “Seventy sets of seven” could mean anything from seventy sets of seven minutes to seventy sets of seven centuries (say that three times fast!)

But most Christian theologians agree that this phrase indicates seventy sets of seven prophetic years each.  A prophetic year is 360 days.  Each time a biblical prophecy mentions a year, it is speaking of this 360-day year as opposed to the 365.2425-day year we now enjoy under the Gregorian calendar.  Using the prophetic year, we are given a period of 483 prophetic years from the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the arrival of the Messiah.

That being established, let’s take a look at verse 25: “Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One comes. Jerusalem will be rebuilt with streets and strong defenses, despite the perilous times.”

As indicated from the phrase “until the Anointed One comes,” this is very clearly a messianic prophecy.  But Jerusalem is a city that has been conquered, destroyed, and rebuilt literally hundreds of times over the span of the past three millenia.  In all that history of conquest and destruction, which reconstruction could Daniel have meant?
 

At the time of Daniel’s prophecy, Jerusalem was in ruins.  The city and the temple had been destroyed by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, who had forced many of the Jews–including Daniel–into captivity in the city of Babylon (which is located today in Iraq) in 606 B.C.  Since Jerusalem was in ruins and defenseless when Daniel wrote his prophecy, it makes logical sense that Daniel’s Seventy Weeks prophecy concerned the most immediate rebuilding of Jerusalem from his perspective.

That first rebuilding of Jerusalem after Daniel’s captivity is recorded in the Book of Nehemiah.  In that familiar story, the Jewish cupbearer Nehemiah is dismayed that his people’s holy city still lies unprotected and in ruins two centuries after its destruction.  He obtains permission from his king to travel to Jerusalem and oversee the rebuilding of its walls under the king’s protection and authority.  This rebuilding is completed in a record fifty-two days in 445 B.C.

According to many scholars, when the final stone was set in place in Nehemiah’s reconstruction, the divine clock that had been described in the Book of Daniel began ticking.
 

Here comes the eerie part.  The Book of Nehemiah is a meticulous account.  Dates and names are preserved precisely throughout the Book. Four-hundred and eighty-three prophetic years to the day after Nehemiah’s reconstruction was completed, the date was March 30, 33 A.D., which was the Sunday before the passover in the year commonly believed by Christians worldwide to be the year of Jesus’ crucifixion.  It was the first Palm Sunday, when Jesus Christ entered Jerusalem “just and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey.”  This is the exact day that Daniel predicted that the “Anointed One” would come to be killed.

 

In his Seventy Weeks prophecy, the prophet Daniel points directly, scientifically, and literally to the first Palm Sunday.  To Christians today, the fulfillment of this prophecy in such a real way should reconfirm the reality of Christ’s divinity; Jesus was not just a good man or a miracle-worker or a prophet.  He was and is God in the flesh, Messiah, the prophesied Anointed One sent to deliver mankind of their sin through God’s chosen people.

This Easter, as we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, I hope you will lay everything down for Him and allow Him to enter triumphantly into your heart, to cleanse you of your sins and restore you to fellowship with God, just as the prophets said He would.

Catfish Blogger: Quantity And Quality At The Fish Creel

Salad bars and catfish restaurants make strange bedfellows.  Most catfish restaurants either eschew the salad bar altogether or keep a small sneeze-guarded buffet table tucked away in a corner, dejectedly sheltering a few whisps of lettuce and a handful of stale crutons, silently crying out that people who eat at catfish restaurants are there for the main attraction and are not interested in salads.

That’s not the case in tiny Anderson, Alabama.  This small village about 45 minutes northeast of Florence in eastern Lauderdale County boasts a restaurant that is almost as well-known for its salad bar as it is for its hot catfish.  The Fish Creel is located at 7810 Highway 207 in Anderson, in a neatly-kept and homey building.  And far from being tucked away in a corner, the salad bar is the first thing you see when you walk through the doors. 

So it’s only fitting that most platter meals at the Fish Creel include the salad bar in the price. I went there to celebrate my birthday in February, and I was not dissappointed. 

I have patronized the Fish Creel sporadically for several years.  I’ve sampled both their chicken and their fish, but on my most recent visit, I was jonesing for some catfish.  It was a Friday night, and that guaranteed that the Fish Creel would be the busiest spot in Anderson.   When Alisha and I entered the restaurant, we immediately took a seat in the sprawling southern end of the building and set to work digesting the menu.  I opted for the large catfish platter with fries, and Alisha chose a grilled chicken dish, both of which included the salad bar.

Unlike salad bars in other restaurants, the Fish Creel’s salad bar was intended to give you a meal.  Mountains of vegetables and fixins lurk beneath the sneeze guard to waylay you with an ambush of flavor.  Not being much of a salad man, my salad relied heavily on honey mustard, crutons, and bacon bits.  But regardless of your taste in salads, the Fish Creel’s bar is a deep well of food, inviting you to pile your plate high. 

   

Piled-high plates seem to be the Fish Creel’s calling, and the catfish did not dissappoint.  With six truly large fillets, three tasty hushpuppies, and a golden explosion of french fries, the large platter lived up to its name.  The flavor of the fish was reminiscent of backyard fish fries after a day at the lake; slightly rivery, but thouroughly-breaded, well-cooked and crispy.  It was hot, good, and somewhat greasy.

The huspuppies were light and fluffy, with just a slight and crispy shell.  The fries were similarly crispy and hot.

Quantity is indeed the byword at this little restaurant.  If you don’t get full at the Fish Creel, it’s your own fault.  For perhaps the third or fourth time in my life, I had to get a doggy bag for my remaining fish.  After my salad, fries, hushpuppies, and half of my fish, I simply could not find room for another bite.  Luckily, catfish is just as delicious for breakfast as it is for any other meal.

The price for a large catfish platter with fries at the Fish Creel is $12.29, including tax.  When I first saw the price for this platter on the menu, I was shocked.  I expected to pay $12.00 for steaks and Italian food, but I had yet to encounter a plate of catfish for such a price.

But when I realized the untapped possibilities of the salad bar and continued to lose count of the number of steaming fillets passing my table on servers’ trays, I realized that I would most definitely get my money’s worth with a large platter from the Fish Creel.  And, like the other aspects of the restaurant, I was not dissappointed with my investment at the Fish Creel. 

And what birthday celebration is complete without something sweet?  The Fish Creel had that covered, too.  With a few words from Alisha, our waitress and another lady brought a slice of the restaurant’s delicious pecan pie to our table, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me, and watched as I blew the single candle out–all on the house. 

If you ever find yourself passing through Anderson, be sure to stop by the Fish Creel.  You probably won’t clean your plate, but they’ll understand–and they keep a healthy stock of to-go boxes on hand to prove it!

Catfish Blogger Review: Swamp John’s of Florence

As a new addition to Clint Thoughts, I will periodically review local catfish restaurants. The new segment will compare restaurants based on price, fish flavor, and service. 

Swamp John’s of Florence

Swamp John’s Catfish is a familiar name to Shoals residents.  From humble beginnings in a gas station near Red Bay, Ala., the local flavor has steadily grown into a fish-and-chicken-based powerhouse known primarily for its catering service.  Throughout the past decade, numerous schools and churches throughout the Tennessee Valley have relied on Swamp John’s traveling catfish bus to fuel their fundraisers with steaming to-go boxes of catfish, shrimp, and chicken.

The newest addition to the Swamp John’s family is its 4136 Florence Boulevard location in Florence, Ala.  Following the chain’s Muscle Shoals site, Swamp John’s of Florence is the second restaurant of the franchise to open its door to the Shoals area.

Swamp John’s of Florence follows the same New Orleans/Cajun/Riverboat motif as its sister location in Muscle Shoals.  The colors are bright, the music is jazzy, and the lights are pleasantly dim.  Adding to the visual appeal of the restaurant’s interior is a vast mural-sized portrait of Wilson Dam and the Tennessee River, which hangs over the door of the restaurant.

As with the Muscle Shoals location, Swamp John’s of Florence is a fast-food restaurant, complete with a convenient drive-in window.  Dine-in diners place their order at the counter insider, receive a numbered receipt, and then wait for their order number to be called by the cashier.  Since Swamp John’s is a fast food chain, service is typically quick, and customers can usually expect to wait no longer than ten or fifteen minutes between ordering their food and hearing their order number called by the cashier.

Swamp John’s of Florence is open seven days a week from 10:30 in the morning until 9 o’clock at night.  I took advantage of their late hours and went there for supper on a Sunday evening.  When my party arrived, we were attended to immediately.  The staff was polite, industrious, and knowledgeable of their menu.  I ordered the catfish platter with fries, which comes with four catfish fillets, hush puppies, coleslaw, a side of tartar sauce, a pickle, and an onion.  Since I am not a fan of coleslaw, I substituted the order of slaw for extra hush puppies. 

The fillets were small, but tasty; each one carried a hint of tang that fit the coastal theme of the restaurant.  The fish was lightly-breaded, and more tender than crunchy.  The meat was well-cooked, but was also pliable and slightly greasy.

Swamp John’s hush puppies, like their fillets, are similarly smaller than your average hush puppy.  Unlike other chains, however, Swamp John’s of Florence made good on their promise to substitute my slaw with an extra order of puppies.  Despite being served at room temperature (as were the fries, which were otherwise your average crinkle-cut delights), my hush puppies were a credit to the restaurant.  Well-fried, tightly-rolled, and with a hint of sweetness, they were the kind of hush puppies that make you remember a place. 

The price of the meal was the lone damper on the evening.  Swamp John’s catfish platter comes without a beverage.  In order to gain access to the restaurant’s fountain of Pepsi products, you must purchase a drink separate from your meal.  So without a drink (and who wants to eat a plate of catfish without something to drink?) my catfish platter cost $7.59, which is around what I would expect to pay for a full meal with drink at most catfish joints.  The drink cost an additional $1.29. The grand total for Swamp John’s catfish platter, including tax, was a whopping $9.68, which I found to be a bit pricey for a single meal on my budget.

Swamp John’s of Florence offers a savory catfish dish at a somewhat unsavory price.  The price notwithstanding, it would be worth your while to check out Swamp John’s newest location (and maybe order one of the cheaper platters, which are just as tantalizing at a lesser cost).  The atmosphere is fun and casual, perfect for an informal lunch meeting or pre-game dinner with college friends.  Swamp John’s has done a fantastic job of merging the traditional Southern catfish restaurant with the modern convenience of a burger joint, and the result is a great place to clean your plate in the Quad-cities.

And the hush puppies are downright ambrosial.

Steak Weather

The grill sizzled when Leroy reverently lowered the first ribeyes of the spring onto its flamekist bars.  Leroy loved the sound of fresh meat hitting the grill.  It was like a triumphant trumpet-blast heralding the arrival of warm weather.  His brother Amos stood nearby, a cold Dr. Pepper in hand.

He took a swig and asked Leroy, “Do you remember Clear Pepsi?”

Leroy nudged the ribeyes into perfect alignment on the face of the grill.  A warm breeze rustled the trees of his backyard, stirring the tantilizing aroma of the steaks.

“Yeah, I remember Clear Pepsi.  It tasted like vinegar.”

“Man, what I wouldn’t give for a can of Clear Pepsi right now,” said Amos.

“How do you remember Clear Pepsi?  You couldn’t have been more than five or six when it came out.”

“I remember it.  That stuff was good!”

“They hijacked a Van Halen song for the commercials, I remember that,” said Leroy.

Amos laughed and nodded.  “I remember that, too.”  He paused, looking into the distance.  “Ruby wants a Van Halen box set for our anniversary.”

Leroy was quiet for a moment, letting the steaks sing their sacred springtime song.  “Your anniversary?” he finally said, not looking away from the grill.  “People who aren’t married have anniversaries?”

Amos lowered his gaze and kicked the ground, fidgeting.  “Yeah, it’s coming up.”

Leroy shook his head and smiled.  “How long?”

“It’ll be two years next month,” he said.

“Two years is a long time to date one woman.”

Amos snorted.  “Tell me about it.  Every time I go to pick her up, she’s got all of these ‘Modern Bride’ magazines all over her coffee table.”

“Oh?  Sounds pretty serious.  Have you looked at rings?”

“No–I–” Amos faltered.  “She’s looked at rings.  She’s been looking at them for months.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?” said Amos.

“Well, a woman who’s been looking at rings and reading stacks of bridal magazines only has one thing on her mind.”

“Hugh Grant movies?”

Leroy grinned as he tenderly dripped dabs of honey marinade onto the cooking steaks. 

“But you’re not interested?” he asked.

Amos exhaled loudly.  “I just don’t know what the hurry is.  We’ve only been dating two years.  Why do women get so all-fired excited about locking down?”

“If you can figure that out, my friend, please let me know.”

“She talks about it with her friends all the time.  She told me they had a two-hour discussion the other night on whether or not it was okay to invite an ex to your wedding.  I don’t get that.”

“Well what did she decide?”

“Decide about what?”

“Is it okay to invite your ex to your wedding?”

Amos snorted.  “You sound like those bridal magazines she has laying everywhere.  Yes, she thinks it’s acceptable to invite an ex to your wedding, although I don’t particularly see how it would make a hill of beans one way or the other.”

Leroy expected that from Ruby.  She was not a very pleasant girl, and a vindictive vendetta seemed like something she would put on her list of things to satisfy on her wedding day, a wedding which would no doubt carry a bank-breaking pricetag.  Leroy–as well as their mother–also expected that the wedding would be just the beginning of an expected standard of living which he knew his brother could not afford.

“Well you know why that is, don’t you?” Leroy asked Amos, preparing to impart the wisdom that two additional years on earth had given him over his baby brother.

“No.  Enlighten me.”

“Ruby sees marriage as a status symbol.”

“A status symbol?  You mean like a Cadillac or a beach house?  How in the world is marriage a status symbol?”

“Well, for swinging bachelors like you and I, marriage is the end.  It’s like crossing the finish line of a really fun, awesome race that you’ve been running for ten or fifteen years.  After you step over that line, the race is over and you have to walk everywhere the rest of your life.  No one is lining the streets cheering you on, all of your running buddies go home, it’s the end of the line.”

“Yeah, I get that,” said Amos.

“But for some girls–girls like Ruby–and, to an extent, I guess some guys, too,” Leroy said carefully, ”marriage is the beginning.  It’s like a rite of passage.”

“You mean like buying your first plasma screen TV?” asked Amos.

“Exactly.  And for Ruby it’s probably also sort of a subtle one-up on all of her single friends and acquaintances.  She probably thinks that letting her ex know that she’s getting married before him would be like some sort of a slap to the face.”

“Really?  That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” said Leroy.  He remembered when his former girlfriend had married earlier that year.  It had been anything but a slap to the face–more like a chilling reminder of how thankful he should be that he had gotten out of what he affectionately referred to as “The Marcia Trap.”

He flipped a steak to check the consistency of the rows of parallel grill marks on its cooked face.  “So you don’t think you’re ready to lock down, huh?”

“Nope,” Amos said without hesitation.  “It’s too permanent.”

“You and me both, little brother.  I don’t even like to use permanent markers.”

There was a pause as the steaks continued to sizzle deliciously.

“You know, you might ought to tell Ruby about that,” Leroy finally said.

Amos took another sip of Dr. Pepper.  “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

Another silence.

“I hear that people pay big money for cases of Clear Pepsi online,” said Leroy, pulling the steaks from their flame bath with a carefully-prepared, stainless-steel spatula and placing them gingerly on a waiting platter.

Amos drained his Dr. Pepper, crushed the can underfoot on the patio, and tossed it into a nearby bin.  “I believe it,” he said.  “I’d pay big money to have one right now.”

Is It The Beard?

In keeping with the tradition of No-Shave November, I have not shaved in a dozen days.  In those dozen days, I have come to a realization: most of the great men of history have had beards.  Pick any man in the Bible and he’s liable to have had a beard.  William Wallace, although we will never know for sure, probably had a beard.  All of my favorite Confederate generals had mighty beards.  Charlie Daniels has a beard. 

But there is one bearded man I respect above all others, and that man is my father.  My dad is great!  He has taught me many things, and he continues to teach me many things.  I learned about good music from my dad.  He sang Skynyrd and Allman Brothers and Bob Seger songs to me as a baby, and when I was old enough, during long Jeep rides, while cleaning fencerows, fishing our muddy little ponds, and seated around country restaurant tables loaded with steaming hushpuppies and still-sizzling catfish, he told me about the men behind the music; men who became my favorite musicians.  He taught me how to shoot, how to herd, and how to drive.  From him, I learned to enjoy books and newspapers and the value of a good story.  He showed me how to fight and he insisted that I never allow anyone–man, woman, authority figure, or surly customer–to step on or take advantage of me.  If I don’t respect myself, who else will? 

He taught me to love who I am and where I’m from; and that while I should always be proud to be an American, I should above that be thankful that I was born a Southerner.  It is from my father that I learned the great joy that comes in being born a Tennessean and the pride one should feel when Rocky Top is played.  I learned politics from him at an early age, and that the only politicians who are worth anything are the politicians who stand up for the weak, the poor, the old, and the sick.  He showed me by example that a real man takes care of his family and looks out for his friends as though they are family, and that a good man doesn’t judge another man by the size of his home or bank account.

He also taught me about being a good man by directing me to the Son of Man.  I have heard hundreds upon hundreds of sermons about Jesus’ command to be born again.  But when my Dad took me aside with his Bible when I was a nine-year-old boy and explained the love of Christ and the need of man to be saved from his sin, I understood that the Gospel was a serious matter, and it was not long after that that I accepted Jesus as my Savior.  However, that lesson did not stop when I was nine.  Since his earnest and stalwart explanation of the Gospel to me as a child, my father has directed me to his Father through numberless words and actions.  I have watched Dad live the Gospel in many different ways since then; whether it be showing kindness to a poor widow in his business dealings or stopping everything to share Jesus with a dying friend, Dad’s actions and godly leadership have shown me the love of Christ in a way that makes our shared faith a very real and concrete part of our family dynamic.

Dad has done his best to teach me mercy.  One day while loading a herd of cattle I found myself excessively beating a bull who had charged me earlier.  It was Dad who told me to lay aside my whip and remember who was the man and who was the beast.  He has encouraged me in everything I have ever tried to do, and he and Mom have always been the wellspring of my financial and moral support.  When I do something stupid or make a fool of myself, he is always quick to correct me.  But when I do something right and praiseworthy, he is always quick to congratulate and praise me.

He fixes things that are broken, and he teaches lessons that need to be taught.  My father has worked hard his entire life, and he consistently refuses to take bull from anyone.  He taught me to refuse handouts, to always be ready to help a neighbor in need, and to find humor in everything I do.  I hope beyond all things that–beard or no beard–I am becoming the kind of man that my father is.

The Boy, Dad, and me.

Fort Sumter

After a two-hour plane trip, a ten-minute bus journey, and a twenty-minute boat ride this weekend, I placed my hand on the bricks of Fort Sumter for the first time.  When I first entered the fort’s ruined pentagonal walls that afternoon and saw its long-silent guns aimed toward a now-threatless sea, my mind became a jumbled mix of emotions and memories.

I recalled Mrs. Lyles’ fifth grade American history class, where I first learned about what happened there.  I remembered the many times I had typed the name of the place when creating tenth-grade lesson plans in graduate school.  I thought about Beauregard and Anderson and the countless times I had considered the significance of that rocky piece of ground in Charleston Harbor.

When most historians talk about Fort Sumter, they speak of it in terms of combustion.  Usually, it is said that the fall of Fort Sumter was the spark that ignited a national conflagration, one that had been smoldering for decades; a conflagration that eventually changed the way we Americans interpret our Constitution and influenced the very way in which we see ourselves as Americans today.

But despite the rush of memories that set upon me as I entered the battered arcades and scarred masonry of the fort, I found myself thinking most prevalently about a man in his early sixties; a poor farmer whom I never met; a man who gave me both everything and nothing.

His name was Hamlin Alley, my great-great-great-great grandfather.  Two months after Fort Sumter fell into Confederate hands, Hamlin cast his vote in the small village of Henryville, Tennessee in favor of his state breaking away from the United States.  It was a vote that would help to change the course of his life and the course of his nation’s history forever.  During the ensuing invasion of the South, most of Hamlin’s sons would fight in defense of their home in the armed forces of the Confederacy, and most of those who fought would spend time in Union prison camps.  The structure of society as Hamlin had known it from his earliest childhood would change irrevocably.  Almost an entire generation of Southerners would vanish from existence.  

I can’t say for sure how much Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for troops persuaded Hamlin’s vote.  But I do know that Tennessee had voted once before Fort Sumter’s fall to stay in the Union, and that when the vote was taken a second time after the fall of Fort Sumter, a majority of the citizens of the State changed their minds, and Tennessee joined the Confederacy.

Seeing Fort Sumter in first person had a very personal meaning to me.  Aside from my memories of Mrs. Lyles’ class and my knowledge of Hamlin Alley’s voting habits, I entered the fort with a very solemn understanding of what the place means for us as a nation.  The United States reached a critical tipping point at Fort Sumter.  On that tiny, man-made island in 1861, decades of angry words begat hours of violent action.  The American Civil War, the most destructive period of American history, began at Fort Sumter without a single casualty on either side.

Fort Sumter is usually depicted in history textbooks as it appeared in contemporary images from the beginning of the war: a stately two-story structure with neat rows of barracks lining the thick interior walls.  In history books, it is inhabitable and alive; a fully-functioning military outpost standing sentinel in Charleston Harbor.  Although I had seen pictures of the fort as it is today, I was still taken aback when I entered the lone gate at how badly mangled the place looks today.  What many people forget is that Sumter remained an active part of the war until the very end.  For years, Union gunships methodically reduced the fort to rubble until all that remained was a burned-out shell, a shell that was doggedly defended until the end as a point of Southern pride.  The American flag that had been surrendered in 1861 was not raised over Sumter again until the day of Lincoln’s assassination.

About a decade ago, I saw many of the great castles of Ireland.  I recall what struck me the most about those ruins was how forgotten they seem.  Fort Sumter, despite being a heavily-trafficked tourist destination, emits the same aura.  In an age when modern weaponry has rendered forts useless, Sumter, like those Irish castles, has become a shrine; a building whose initial purpose seems to have been forgotten by time.

What also struck me about Fort Sumter was that, even as a ruin, it seemed so small.  When I traveled to San Antonio to see the Alamo four years ago, I was warned by everyone who had been there before me that it was shockingly small compared to what they expected.  For me, that was not the case.  The chapel of the Alamo was exactly the size I had always imagined it, and the rest of the grounds were proportioned just as I had always seen them in my mind. 

Fort Sumter, however, seemed surprisingly small to me.  Even without the hulking black form of the Spanish-American War-era battery looming on the former parade ground of the fort, it was still much more limited in space than I had ever imagined. 

Size notwithstanding, visiting the fort in person was a truly spectacular experience for me.  I felt a personal connection to the place that ran deeper than any words printed in a history book ever could.  To see the hollow arcades, to touch the shell-battered masonry, to feel the windswept loneliness of the place all brought the reality of the American Civil War home for me in a new way.  Fort Sumter, perhaps more than any other monument I have visited, is a stark reminder of the price of war.  It is mangled, it is broken, it is unpainted.  The well-tended grass growing inside the fort illustrates how life continues long after the struggles of mankind have ended, but the remnants of the burned-out officers’ quarters stand a century-and-a-half later as a testament that the scars of war never really fade away.

Ruins of Fort Sumter.