Beyond the Scenery

Park News

The Longfellow House-Washington’s Headquarters National Historic Site not only preserves the home of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, but also the center of operations for General George Washington during the Revolutionary War's Siege of Boston.

         Every December, the site holds a Holiday Open House, this year on Friday, December 12. Early birds arriving from 1:00-4:00 p.m. (last entry is at 3:45 p.m.) avoid the crowds. Those entering between 5:00 and 8:00 p.m. (last entry at 7:45 p.m.) enjoy a luminaria display on the grounds, as well as live harp music.

         The following day, Saturday, December 13, free 30-minute Holiday House tours take place beginning at 11:30 a.m. and running every half hour, with the last entry at 2:30 p.m. No-cost reservations are necessary, and they go quickly.

         As part of the America’s 250^th celebration, the park conducts a series of programs on George Washington, once a month through April of next year.

         But back to Longfellow. Among many other poems, he’s known for one he wrote during the dark days of the Civil War, “Christmas Bells.”

Here’s the background to the verses: Longfellow’s oldest son had enlisted in the Union Army in 1863. He received a severe bullet wound, and returned home for a long convalescence.

         This sorrow came on top of the death of Longfellow’s wife two years earlier. During that Christmas of 1863, he wrote: “How inexpressibly sad are all holidays! But the dear little girls had their Christmas-tree last night; and an unseen presence blessed the scene.”

         The next year, Longfellow penned “Christmas Bells.” The poem not only reflects his family’s but the entire country’s turmoil over the conflict dividing the nation. And it still speaks to us today, as we face personal and national crises, reminding us to listen to the hopeful, joyful ringing of bells, mindful of that “unseen presence" in our lives:

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime,
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The household born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;
“There is no peace on earth,” I said;
“For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."

December’s subpar parks review

         Unless my son-in-law gifts me with a new Subpar Parks calendar, this will wrap up the reviews for 2025. “Mysteriously silent and lonely” is one visitor’s assessment of Kobuk Valley National Park. Perhaps because of its extremely remote location in northern Alaska (no roads go there; for the final leg, you must use an authorized air taxi.) The park’s sand dunes are the largest active ones above the Arctic Circle. 

Caribou are usually seen in the fall.

         If solitude is your cup of tea, you’ll find it on the trails, floating along the Kobuk River, and camping in the middle of nowhere.

Lots of Inexpensive Christmas titles!

         Get Pelican Publishing Group's new Christmas-themed contemporary and historical e-novellas for just $.99!! And, ahem, mine also is on sale for the same price right now. Little treats just for yourself!

The Unseen

         “We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18).

         Faith in a nutshell.

PARK NEWS

America’s 250^th anniversary in the National Park Service

          On the march toward celebrating the sesquicentennial of the signing of Declaration of Independence is the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill, which took place on June 17, 1775.

While this clash between the British and American forces is named for the highest knoll in the hilly terrain of Charlestown, just north of Boston, the combat actually happened on a mound closer to the Charles River, Breed’s Hill.

         In the wake of levies imposed by Great Britain on the American colonies—“taxation without representation”—local militias began stashing guns, ammunition, and other essentials in towns surrounding Boston. Some of these soldiers were known as “minutemen,” ready for battle “at a minute’s notice.”

         When Massachusetts’ royal governor, General Thomas Gage, caught word of this, he sent troops to investigate, leading to the Battle of Lexington and Concord, which I mentioned in my April post.

         This stirred other colonies to action, with New England men—whites, enslaved and free Blacks, and Natives—to gather in Massachusetts, where they expected more encounters with British troops stationed in Boston. They encircled the city, and when they learned the British planned to break through to take the strategic Dorchester Heights to the north and Charlestown Heights to the south, the colonist troops used the cover of darkness to construct an earthen fort atop Breed’s Hill on the night of June 16.

         As dawn broke the next morning, British General William Howe led an assault on the fort, while the British Navy fired off cannon. But the ships couldn’t get close enough to do much good, and the colonists, who knew the boggy terrain much better than their enemies, dug in. Reinforcements arrived to back them up. Howe’s soldiers advanced, and came under heavy fire.

         Howe withdrew, regrouped, and breached the fort, resulting in close combat. The colonists, tired and low on ammunition, retreated. The British chased them as far as Bunker Hill, but neither side mounted any further attack.

         In the two-hour battle, the first major encounter between the two forces, the British had 1,054 causalities, the colonists only an estimated 450. The town of Charlestown was destroyed, but the conflict served to unite the thirteen colonies as never before. Another outcome was the appointment by the Continental Congress, established by American colony governments to organize resistance to British rule, of General George Washington to form and command a Continental Army. I’ll talk about that next month.  

Visit Minute Man and Boston National Historical Parks to learn more about this key battle of the American Revolution. At the former site is a statue of a minuteman, to honor those killed at Lexington and Concord; the latter is where you’ll find the Bunker Hill Memorial, which opened on June 17, 1843.

Flag Day

          Why is Flag Day June 14? This also is tied to the American Revolution. It’s the anniversary of the date in 1777 the Continental Congress officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as our national flag.

         The Park Service’s Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail, winding through Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virigina, is a 560-mile land and water route telling the story of the War of 1812 in the Chesapeake Bay region.

         The flag had a huge role in that war. Along the trail is Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine where, after that war’s Battle of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key penned a poem called “Defence [sic] of Fort McHenry” (you know, writing “that our flag was still there”). That verse in turn was set to music and retitled “The Star-Spangled Banner.” And we have Ella Virginia Houck Holloway to thank for making that the song we sing with a hand over our hearts. She hounded her congressman for thirteen years to sponsor a bill to make the “Star-Spangled Banner” our national anthem, finally succeeding in 1931.

And who sewed that flag Key saw? Mary Pickersgill, at her Baltimore flag shop.

This month’s Subpar Parks Review

“Goes on forever” is the take on the Blue Ridge Parkway. 

          Yes, the 469-mile-long road connecting Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks is part of the Park Service. In fact, according to 2024 statistics,  it was the second-most visited spot among the 433 Park Service units, with 16.7 million visitors, just behind #1, Golden Gate National Recreation Area in California (17.1 million).

          Also known as “America’s favorite drive” and a “museum of the American countryside,” the roadway was constructed during the Great Depression by private contractors, with help from New Deal programs such as the Works Progress Administration, the Emergency Relief Administration, and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Three hundred miles of hiking trails run off the Blue Ridge Parkway, with traces of early European as well as pre-historic settlements.

My article about flags

         My oldest brother, the Latin and Greek scholar, would know this, but I had no idea the study of flags is vexillology, and there’s a North American Vexillogical Association. I had fun writing this 2022 piece for Fodor’s Travel. I also had fun coming up with its alliterative subtitle (“A curious chronicle of peculiar pennants”), and a line in the third paragraph (“These vexillologists voiced vehement views over various vexilla”).

The article's opening photo is from a national park site, which I'm sure you recognize as Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota. And yes, the flag-flying entrance is pretty cool.

God’s flag

Vexillology comes from the Latin word vexillum, which was a banner, or standard, carried by some Roman soldiers. This signal conveys the idea of a rallying point, a place where troops gather under a leader to prepare for combat. The book of Exodus tells the story of Moses raising his hands as Joshua and his forces battled the Amalekites; as long as he kept his arms up, they prevailed. The Lord then instructed Moses to write down this incident so the Israelites would remember how God fought for them, and also build an altar. Moses called it Jehovah Nissi, which in Hebrew means “The Lord is My Banner” (Exodus 17:12-16).

In the Song of Solomon, the author gushes over his romance with a Shulamite woman. The book also illustrates God’s love for His people, most poignantly in chapter 2, verse 4: “his banner over me is love.” Solomon’s protective love exemplifies Jehovah Nissi’s love for us, especially in Jesus’s sacrifice to save us from our sins.

Rally ‘round that flag, and find rest (Isaiah 11:10).