Notes From My Knapsack 9-3-20
Jeff Gill
Defenseless but not voiceless
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As my sister and I finish work to sell our parent's home in Indiana, I got a chance my last trip back to visit a place that was mentioned last month in my dad's funeral.
A friend of his spoke towards the end of the service about Dad's last work in a cemetery; they're both members of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, the inheritor organization of the Grand Army of the Republic, the association of Union veterans. The SUV carries on their work in a number of ways (the last GAR member died in 1956), especially in the maintenance of gravesites all over the country.
My father's love of history and membership in the SUV led to him taking a particular interest in repairing and replacing as well as maintaining Civil War veteran markers. His friend Steve at the memorial service said that just before Dad left for Texas at the end of last year they were in the old city cemetery, and the monument for the man in whose memory the former GAR post was named, Chaplain James Caldwell Brown, was the one Dad worked on. Steve handed him the brush and solution bucket to clean off the surface, and said "Ron, I think you get the honors on Chaplain Brown!"
So I wanted to visit this marker, which I'd not seen before, and in fact drove right over there after the funeral, but the Old City Cemetery is fenced and locked. Vandalism and damage has meant that this piece of Valparaiso, Indiana history is only accessible with a call to the public works department and getting someone with a key there. I had to make arrangements for a later date, which they were very happy to do. The visit to the marker itself was a very special moment for me, and I might write about that later.
What my dad has taught me is a parallel to something many wise people have said over the years: that the measure of a community is how it cares for the weakest and most defenseless. Yes, that starts with the Biblical "widows and orphans" and extends to the elderly and infirm, but I've also been taught that it includes the dead. They cannot speak for themselves or defend their monuments, so it's up to us, the living, to do so. A well-tended cemetery, not frequently vandalized, speaks well of a community. The silent dead are respected.
Frankly, I extend my sense of that spirit to political signs. I often see ones that make me shake my head, but the idea of stealing them, destroying them, lighting them on fire, is repugnant to me beyond any candidate or issue. They are a "soft target," like a tombstone. You can do what you will, I suppose. But what it says about you, and your community, to strike at the sign, is not attractive, and does not honor your side of the dispute, in my opinion.
I hope we can, through this national election season with many state & local issues as well on the ballot, respect our values of free speech and mutual forbearance enough to leave the signs alone. And to take them down briskly once Nov. 3rd is over!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in Licking County; he has put signs up and taken them down on occasion, but always with permission. Tell him what signs you see that encourage you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
