Beyond the Scenery

Park News

     September 2 marks the official end of World War II, corresponding with the day the surrender documents were signed with the nation of Japan 80 years ago. The National Park Service has a website listing several parks with some connection to that conflict, but let me highlight a few:

• Washington, DC’s National Mall has several spots: memorials to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all those who served (below), and Japanese American Patriotism
• If you want to know more about the 125,000+ plus Japanese and Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during WWII, go to this page. Several of these former sites are in the Park Service
• At Boston National Historical Park’s Charlestown Navy Yard, the WWII era destroyer USS Cassin Young has free tours throughout the year
• Those who fought the war right here in the U.S. are remembered at California’s Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park. That includes my mom and her parents, who worked at a munitions factory
• The Manhattan Project National Historical Park, relating to the development of the atomic bomb, has three locations: Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Hanford, Washington; and Los Alamos, New Mexico
• Further afield, in the Pacific Ocean, American Memorial Park in the Northern Marianas Islands pays tribute to the U.S. servicemen and native civilians who died in 1944 in the battles on Saipan, Tinian, and the Philippine Sea in 1944. Guam’s War in the Pacific National Historical Park commemorates those who served in that region.
  

More on What’s Happening in the Parks

• Another free day in the national parks! National Public Lands Day is always near the end of September, this year on Saturday, September 27
• Staffing shortages in our parks are a real problem
• This month’s review from the Subpar Parks calendar: “Not much to do” in Michigan’s Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Really? Not according to this list.

Books

This year I joined the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, a professional group for Christian authors and lecturers. A fellow member, DiAnn Mills brings out a new contemporary book this month with Tyndale, Canyon of Deceit.  

The publisher of my two Life Lessons from the National Parks books has released Designs for Nora by Karen H. Richardson on Kindle.

And my e-novella publisher, Pelican Publishing Group, is putting out a pair of new titles in September:

• Love in a Lifeboat (Karen Malley)
• Unchained Melody (Clare Revell)

Wars and more wars

         Sadly, wars are all over the news these days. World War I was called “the war to end all wars,” but as we well know, it wasn’t. Since then, we’ve been involved in several other conflicts, while fighting continues in other places around the globe.

         Luke 21 (as well as other biblical passages) talk about the real “war to end all wars,” that is, when Jesus returns to earth. The events leading up to that occurrence are frightening (false prophets, wars, earthquakes, betrayal by loved ones, and strange phenomena in nature, among other things).

People down through the ages have tried to predict when all of this will take place, or if we’re on the brink of it happening very soon. That’s a futile calculation, though, because Scripture tells us no one but God knows the hour or day (Matthew 24:36). For believers in Christ, though, while humanly distressed, perplexed and fearful when these occurrences transpire, are directed to “straighten up” and “look up,” because all will see Jesus descending from the sky in all His power and glory (v. 25-28). What a sight that will be!

         Since we don’t know when this will come about, Jesus concludes the chapter by cautioning all of us not to be weighed down by life’s worries and concerns, but be on the alert, prepared to stand before Jesus’s judgment (v. 34-36).

         Are you ready?

429, as of now. The newest is Amache National Historic Site, in southeastern Colorado. Also known as the Granada Relocation Center (Granada is the nearest town), this is one of ten places where over 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans from the West Coast were sent during World War II. Two-thirds of them were American citizens; Japanese immigrants couldn’t become naturalized citizens until 1952.

A few other of these incarceration camps—the “residents” were housed behind barbed wire and overseen by armed guards in watchtowers—are in the Park Service: Tule Lake and Manzanar, California; Honouliuli, Hawaii (also a Japanese POW camp); and Minidoka, Idaho.

The National Parks on Jeopardy!

Try to answer these clues—in the form of a question, of course—from Jeopardy!. I missed the first one.

Bad behavior in the parks

You’ve probably heard about the people who damaged and stole artifacts from a closed-to-the-public area of Canyonlands National Park in Utah. They were caught on a security camera, which the park is releasing to the public for help in finding them.

On the other hand, a man who brought down a 113-year-old structure in California’s Death Valley National Park came forward and took responsibility for his action.

Good behavior in the parks

NBC’s Al Roker won the American Park Experience Award for his promotion of the parks over the years. The honor was bestowed by the nonprofit National Park Trust.

Previous recipients include national park ranger Shelton Johnson. He was featured prominently in Ken Burns’ PBS documentary, The National Parks: America’s Best Idea.

Get into the parks for free!

Only 109 of the 429 charge admission, but there are six days during the year in which even those waive their fees. Juneteenth, June 19, is among them.

What is Juneteenth? One of the oldest known commemorations of emancipation in this country. Many park sites mark the occasion—go to nps.gov and enter “Juneteenth” in the “Search” space, then click on “All NPS” to see if there’s one near you.

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Have you ever considered your funeral? Yeah, I thought not—because the topic’s not exactly the most pleasant, too many of us leave it for our loved ones to deal with. Not a good idea. Check out Know Before You Go: The Not-So-Sad Guide to Planning a Funeral, a piece I wrote for Good Housekeeping. The graphics are really cool!

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Two verses for this month, both relating to the park news:

"Be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23). It’s pretty hard to hide out in today’s world; with God, it’s impossible.

“Stand fast in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and don’t be entangled again with the yoke of bondage” (Galatians 5:1). Even better news than Juneteenth!