{"id":615,"date":"2008-05-24T22:55:40","date_gmt":"2008-05-25T05:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eaf.net\/mvp\/?p=615"},"modified":"2008-05-24T23:13:40","modified_gmt":"2008-05-25T06:13:40","slug":"memorial-day-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/2008\/memorial-day-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Memorial Day, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"

I drive by two roadside memorials quite often. (Well, more than two, but I’m thinking of two in particular.)<\/p>\n

The first one is about two miles from our place — where Hwy 211 and Canby-Marquam Hwy cross. Over the years it’s been a bad, bad intersection — many wrecks, many injuries; many lives changed, many lives ended here on planet Earth. Interestingly, though, only one memorial remains:<\/p>\n

\"Mercedes
\nMercedes F. Ramirez-Flores<\/center><\/p>\n

Cut off at age 15. Eleven years ago. People still remember Mercedes. I know, because I’ve seen some of them there. In their hearts, there’s more left of Mercedes than this roadside memorial.<\/p>\n

But there’s another memorial that has often produced fleeting melancholy in me.<\/p>\n

It’s also by Hwy 211, about 5.8 miles east of Hwy 99E in Woodburn.<\/p>\n

It just sits there year after year. Untended. Perpetually almost to fall over. Forgotten?<\/p>\n

Not by me!<\/p>\n

And to my knowledge, I don’t even know this Peter:<\/p>\n

\"Peter,<\/center><\/p>\n

What compelled someone to put up so simple a memorial?<\/p>\n

Is it somehow indicative of a wasted life? of a forgotten person? of an insignificant other?<\/p>\n

Peter. Mercedes. Sometimes I wish I knew more about them both. And about their families.<\/p>\n

And about their relationship with God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I drive by two roadside memorials quite often. (Well, more than two, but I’m thinking of two in particular.) The first one is about two miles from our place — where Hwy 211 and Canby-Marquam Hwy cross. Over the years it’s been a bad, bad intersection — many wrecks, many injuries; many lives changed, many … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lessons-for-living","category-my-photos"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prJUJ-9V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eaf.net\/mvp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}