The View from the Hermitage, Day 70

First, my apologies to He Who Shall Not Be Named. He did not request (order?) that churches reopen; he requested (ordered?) that "houses of worship" reopen and even noted that that included synagogues and mosques. I may not agree with him on almost everything, but I have to give credit or correction where due.

There was an interesting article in today's Washington Post about whether all houses of worship actually wanted to reopen now. Some smaller HoWs that did not traditionally have an online presence have found people all around the world tuning in to their broadcasts or listening as they wish to services posted online. Their reach is so much farther now, which one has to note is a very good thing.

Instead of our traditional Sunday morning outing of giving the family dog the car ride she loves and a walk in the park, we drove to the local university to check out the cemetery. The cemetery is much larger than I imagined. I never actually went into it in my time as a grad student or staff member. The university having been around for over 200 years, there is a section in the graveyard dedicated to alumni or friends of the university who served in the Civil War. Last year, the Daughters of the Confederacy put small Confederate flags on each of those graves. I wanted to see if they had this year as well. There was at least one complaint sent to the university's president last year.

We actually only saw one grave that had flowers and a flag on it, and the flag was the US one, not the Confederate one. Older son will check again tomorrow just in case the flags would not be put up until the morning of Memorial Day. I sort of thought they might be put up today. It could just be that they would not be put up until this afternoon to be ready for tomorrow.

I've always loved walking through cemeteries, especially old ones. There are so many things that catch my eye. There were also graves of university faculty and staff. The tombstone to the right below belongs to the Librarian of the University who was named to that position by Thomas Jefferson, founder of the university, in 1926, six months before Jefferson died.

I could have spent much longer exploring, but we also had to go from the cemetery to the physics building so that the husband could pick up a webcam he wants to try out for taping his summer school lectures. The husband had brought along an extra pair of latex gloves, so I was able to make use of the ladies without having to pull my hands up my sleeve so as not to touch anything with my bare skin. As we were walking out of the building, I noted that going out (the park does not really seem like going out since there's nothing urban about it) made me think even more about how I don't go out to the point that, at least then, being out made me feel a bit uncomfortable even with mask, gloves while inside, and not touching railings or anything outside. I felt better once we got back to the car.

Regular readers have seen me go from being very positive about our governor to being so not so. A Local Opinion column in today's Post lays it all out. We could be setting an example for other states to follow. Instead, we are one of the 24 states said to still be in an epidemic and, with Maryland and the District of Columbia, one of the fastest growing hot spots in the country.