Staffing the "Eyes Wide Open" exhibit was rewarding. Sixty-two pairs of boots stood silent witness to the sixty-two Jersey residents--so far--who have been killed in Iraq. I was glad to see that an adjacent section displayed pairs of everyday shoes--men's, woman's, and children's--each representing 13,000 Iraqi dead. There were sandwich boards noting this information, in addition to a count of the American wounded (thousands) and the amount of money New Jersey alone has spent on the war: more than twenty billion (that's a "b," not an "m"). At noon, we shared the reading of names, ages, and home towns of the fallen. It all comes down to the bewildered sadness of realizing the ages: 21, 21, 19, 24, 20.... Occasionally, there's a soldier who was older (one New Jerseyan was 33, one 42), but it's very rare. The vast majority, of course, were enlisted personnel, not officers. The display also included a loose-leaf book with pictures and profiles of those killed. There was another of about a dozen pages, listing the names and ages of some of the Iraqi civilians dead, along with a few words of description. The ages here were even more heart-breaking: 5, 3, 12, 8 months...
Leslie and I had signed up for the 10 to 12:30 shift, and we got home a little after 1:00. I made Pat lunch, he went down the bay, and I drove to Manahawkin to leave the rental car. One of the Enterprise people took me back to Charlie's Collision and I picked up my car--yay!
I had no sooner walked in the door than eccentric neighbor Anne Mary called to ask if she could come over to give me something--darn! but I said "yes" of course and she brought me a red, white, and blue candle. She stayed and stayed, hashing over, re-hashing, and re-re-hashing her medical history--believe me, it's the most boring in the world. She finally left when Larry came in.
Larry said he had explored various places and had had lunch at Renault Winery. He had also called another old St. Jamesian--Andy McE.--and invited him and Jack B. to lunch tomorrow (now today, of course), a nice surprise. I ran out to Acme to pick up fixings for our lunch guests; also, made some hard-boiled eggs. Got a large chicken potpie (Mrs. Smith's) for dinner and popped that in the oven. All in all, it was a good, busy day.
Saw Keith's "special comment" on "Countdown" and it was dynamite. Essentially, he called for the dictator (and his puppeteer) to resign and boy, did he have some hard-hitting rationales, featuring, of course, the cynical bastard's Libby commute.
Today is the fourth of July, and where has our proud patiotism gone? Turned to dross in these last years and now we have to hang our heads in shame before the world.