Mansfield

Louisiana

October 28, 2008

Have you ever felt the ground vibrate beneath your feet?

I don't mean the sensation you felt when you were window-shopping at Bloomingdale's on Lexington Avenue in New York, and you heard the subway train rumble up towards The Bronx.

I don't mean the sensation you felt when you were sipping a latte in Union Square in San Francisco and the workmen nearby were using noisy pneumatic drills to repair the cable car tracks.

What I mean is something like the vibration I felt when I was walking the streets surrounding the Great Synagogue in Budapest. In 1944, Hungarian Jews, by the thousands were herded into this small area, barely able to survive, until, they knew not what awaited them, they were transported to their final destination. As I wandered these same streets in the summer of 2000, I could feel the earth shudder.

Once more I felt the earth come alive as I strolled the Civil War Battlefield at Mansfield, Louisiana.

{C}