Saturday came, and the opportunity to get caught up with a friend.  We decided to visit Johnson’s Mound State Park in Elburn, Illinois which was only a few minutes away.  A short drive would afford opportunity for conversation.  Despite the use of a GPS we found ourselves without bearings in the rural countryside.  We came to Kaneville, a farming community, which appeared to be a cross roads.  We could not miss the Kaneville Cemetery.  I do not know if others generally a find an old cemetery interesting.  Maybe Brandon and I are outliers.  Reading old tombstones prompts me to remember that I am present to remember, alive and conscious, aware that others, countless generations have preceded me. 

Why are we inclined to turn public spaces into a parking place for old military equipment, antique weapons of past wars?  The Kaneville Cemetery, with family plots dating from the mid 1800s featured a giant, towed howitzer, parked by the entry drive to the peaceful burial ground.  I have visited many old courthouses in the course of my life, and it seems that most have a memorial of statues or old guns, to the casualties of war.  Granted the maelstrom of war is an unspeakable nightmare, impossible to forget.  Nevertheless would we not be wiser to memorialize the efforts of past generations that nourished the community, those acts which deepened the meaning of a life lived at a particular time and place? 

Could we perhaps display the facade of the mid 19th century one room school house, where our great grandparents learned to read, and do math?  What about an old wood fired steam tractor?  “Remember that life is short and death is long,” native American artist Fritz Scholder wrote.  What manner of life, what sort of future for our children and grandchildren will be evoked by what we feature from the past?

What do we want to leave behind, a message to the future, that will live longer than ourselves?