November 22

November 22, 1963. I was in my first semester at St. Johns College, in Annapolis. I was heading out for a run when someone told us. No run. My father picked me up a little later and we made the drive to Hagerstown for Thanksgiving break. I don't remember him saying much, but then he was a pretty rabid republican. Anyway, what JFK means to me, more than anything else, is that he gave us the Peace Corps, which led me to Willy and our family. Peace Corps also, incidentally, led me to my career in creole language studies and my passion for the issues involved in nonstandard languages and education. Thanks, JFK...

Thirty years ago today...

Today, November 1, was a Tuesday 30 years ago. I was in Carriacou, Grenada, working on my doctoral research. For the past week, the US military had been invading / intervening in Grenada following the coup against Maurice Bishop and his government. It was early this Tuesday morning that the US finally got around to establishing a presence on Carriacou in the form of US Marines, who landed using these amphibious troop carriers, which caused quite a stir. They seemed lost at first, but eventually found Hillsborough and parked along the main street. Except for wanting to know where the "battalion of North Korean soldiers" was hiding, the Marines seemed very calm and professional, very concerned with maintaining a positive image of themselves; a stark contrast with the Army folk who came in the next day.

That Tuesday night I found myself in the Brunswick cemetery with my old friend, Peter Benjamin and many others, the night to hang out with departed relatives and friends. Mr. Benjamin's wife had passed away, so we sat on her stone, lighting candles and having a rum or two. We hear the Marines walking along the road below the cemetery and talking, apparently wondering what all these people among the graves were doing...