SHATTERED WALLS The sight of shattered walls and tumbled trash from homes scattered over the landscape in bombed and blasted Beruit, Lebanon, reminds me of days in the past which I had hoped could remain memories in our time.
I look at these current scenes of destruction and say to myself: "Haven't we learned anything in the past half century!" Why does all of this misery and deprivation have to happen over and over again and again? I remember spending a night in a bombed out shell of a former hotel in London. It was far from being elegant. I has a typical bed, as I remember, two straight chairs, a two drawer chest and a stack of what happened to be used lumber salvaged from somewhere - anywhere in the city. It was in an area known at
one time as "Kensington Palace Mansions" and being used by the American Red Cross as a hostel area. The two sides of the corner room had been and roughed-in with rough second-hand lumber. I had outer shell only. No sign of a "wall" was there, but I knew that would follow in due time. I slept well that night in a primitive-mod setting. There was a working W.C. just down the corridor. I remember lying there in the darkness thinking of how the English people had responded the the crushing disaster which had come upon them. By that time I had come to know enough English men, women and children to have close feeling for them and the suffering they had to endure.
We see little of people in these photographs from Beruit. We assume that, since much of what we are shown is "downtown" in business establishment structures with humans less obvious than residential areas might reveal. We like to feel that any humans trapped in such an area "made it out" in some way. Some did. Some did not. Those who escaped took with them memories they would rather not have today, I'm sure.
I have no memory of hearing people complain about their lot. I try to think about that when things go a bit awry in our present day mode of living. The troubles we experience are almost petty compared to that which is a routine occurrence among people trapped in the desolation of any war-torn area.
It's a small part of it all, I know. This being concerned about what is to become of the people involved. One is forced, at such times, to wonder it we are progressing as speedily as we like to think we are.
I can doubt that we are - very easily. I can cushion the thought somewhat by inserting "in some ways". Hope endures.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@adelphia.net 7-23-06 [c469wds]
