Black Diamond Mines

For the past month or so, we've been going out Saturday mornings to hike at the Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve in Antioch with the dogs (Andrew and Harper, if you have not met them before). I had never heard of it, but it got a great write-up in the Dog Lover's Companion to California and so off we went.

What a fabulous place! It's part of the always wonderful East Bay Regional Park District, but it has a couple of unique features.

For instance: a cemetery! So you know I'm going to love that.

The Rose Hill Cemetery was located halfway between two small mining towns and is the final resting place for miners and their families. Many of the graves were vandalized, but the Park District is working to restore them. Here's the headstone for a not-quite-3-year-old child.

Being a mining community, you will not be surprised to hear there are also mine shafts you can see in the park where people used to mine coal and silica. There's a tour of one of the mines which sounds pretty interesting. Despite how the picture looks, this shaft is safely barred off.

To get to either of these, however, involves climbing hills. Lots and lots of hills. The trails are terrific, but did I mention hills?

In this picture, you can sort of see the cemetery on the other hill waaaaay over on the other side. It's the part with the smattering of trees. You know how I was able to get this picture? Climbing hills, that's how.

The great thing is, once you get to the top, the views are magnificent. And you feel like you've really earned it.

I apologize for spoiling the view.

Harper, however, thinks the very best thing is the horse trough waiting at the base of the trail.

Various and sundry

As July Snarkfest 2010 slinks to a close, I apparently have run out of spleen to vent. Or whatever it is one vents when one vents one's spleen. In other words, other people say things so much better than I do, why should I bother? Oh, was that snarky? Maybe there's life!

At any rate, here are a few things that I found (or was sent) this week that were all very interesting but to which I had nothing to add. Read them as your fancy strikes you.

Molly D. sent me this great article on the Bay Area graves of famous people. I'm going to have to hie me to Colma one of these days to go visit Joe DiMaggio and Wyatt Earp. (I also need to rent Colma: The Musical.)

I stumbled across an article in the NY Times about microfinance lending in the United States. Sounds like a good idea to me. I'm glad to see microlending is not just for "those poor people over there."

The fabulous ladies at Dirty Sexy Ministry have a list of things they wish weren't true. I think my favorite is

8. We cannot run other people's lives. The most pervasive acts of violence are unsolicited advice. Most of the time, when people tell you their troubles, they simply want you to listen, not to tell them how to fix what's hurting them. Trust that if people want advice, they will ask. Otherwise, just listen, hold hands, or give them tissues when they cry.

That's probably because I'm still in denial about chocolate ice cream having calories (#1 on their list).

Finally, I loved this essay by a music industry insider called How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Technology.

Every creative field, maybe even every field, has been shaken by technology in recent history. Technology can be cruel. With one hand it gives and with the other it takes. It doesn't do it because it hates you. It just really doesn't care about you. It doesn't even know you exist. You are Molly Ringwald in the first act of every '80s movie she was in and technology is the boy she's crushing on.

I know, I know, it hurts. Take it from me though, that huge wave of technological progress sweeping over [insert your career field here] doesn't have to mean the end. At least, not the end of your career. Your life will definitely change. Your field will too. If you want to survive, I'll help you.

I read this [inserting Church here] and found it incredibly helpful. But I'm hardly in a position to use my new-found illumination, so I hope some people who do will read this and pass it along.

That should keep you busy for a bit! Have a terrific weekend.

Quote of the day

“It won’t be a tourist attraction,” Isgrig said, “but it’s something.”

From a NY Times article on "three baseball fans [on a] quest to locate every former Negro leagues player without a headstone and do their share to right the wrong." Very touching.

Memorial Day--the National Cemetery System

Yesterday, I was overcome with a desire to pay my respects to those who have served in the Armed Forces in some sort of active way. I don't know how I came to learn of it, but I knew that there is a National Cemetery system, that Arlington isn't the only one. And so I decided to go and visit and see what I could see.

The National Cemetery nearest me is the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery--a very recent one, formally dedicated in 2007. It's about halfway between the Bay Area and Sacramento, a rather hot, flat area just off of highway 80 and across from a fruit orchard. And in the middle of seemingly nowhere, here's this National Cemetery.

The way they set up the entrance has basically a marble wall with gaps for cars to drive in. It felt like I was literally driving into a memorial, which I suppose I was.

I'm so glad I went. It was incredibly moving to me. I didn't take a lot of pictures because it felt disrespectful somehow. But I walked through and tried to take in some notion of each person I visited.

Each headstone or columbarium niche was marked with the person's name, what branch of the service they were in, what rank they held, what war (or wars) they were part of, years of birth and death, and then (often) a personal statement.

There was a small flag in front of every grave, as you can see here:

At least I hope you can see it.

Because the cemetery is so new, the columbaria are sparsely attended, so to speak. Only the facades with remains had the flags in front of them. Although there was also lots of empty lawn that will soon also have headstones, there was more of an impact in seeing all those empty niches that will eventually be filled.

What also hit me were seeing all of these stories that I didn't know in one place. The fact that veterans are not grouped by war meant that I saw "Vietnam" and then "World War II" and then "Korea" and then "Persian Gulf" all cheek by jowl. So many stories.

One thing I didn't know was that the spouse could also be recognized and buried in the National Cemetery. I don't know the rules on that. Some seemed to have their own plot; others (and I found this fascinating) were marked on the back of the headstone of the service member. I loved the one where the personal statement was "Hello It's Just Grandma." Says a story right there, doesn't it?

Although I knew it, it hadn't really sunk in that at the National Cemeteries you don't choose a plot; you are buried by date: the most recent next to the next recent, and so on. Maybe this will explain:

Date of interment for the far right was May 27; two to the left of that on May 26; etc. It made me think how inexorable death is, whether you die fighting or end up spending a long life after the war is over. Death goes marching on, tromping over the lawn, and we remember as best we can.

If you are looking for something meaningful to do this Memorial Day, I would recommend that you look up the National Cemetery closest to you and pay a visit. It gave me, at any rate, a sense of the broader picture of what we're talking about when we talk about Memorial Day. Maybe you will find it meaningful too.

From the local cemetery

I was driving by yesterday and saw that the place was filled with flowers. I've never thought of Valentine's day as a day for visiting graves, but I can see how a sunny Sunday Valentine's Day would encourage a visit.

I found this incredibly poignant. Red hearts and flowers as far as the eye could see.