Editor’s Note: I was castigated severely this morning for “syndicating” the contents of The Daily over the last few dozen weeks. I took umbrage at the criticism, though upon further consideration can be viewed as a valid one. In defense of the hard-working staff here at Socotra House, there is so little that anyone can comment on that does not cause immediate blow-back that a topical commentator is driven directly to despair. OK, politics? “Off the table.” Commentary on the state of these great United States? Ditto. Racial and other identity politics? Forget about it- it is straight to the trash heap. I have held out hope that the simple recounting of the life of a Great American like Mac Showers, seen below chatting with Her Majesty the Queen of England and head of the Commonwealth would be un-controversial, but that also leads to an indictment of re-cycling, which I thought was a social benefit. But perhaps not. The original stories have been updated and freshened, and even a few of the artfully contrived typographic errors corrected. We are still committed to having the unconventional Biography out in at least manuscript form by Spring, which is hard to imagine with the fresh snow on the ground at Refuge Farm. As an aside, we are also now embarked on a dueling manuscripts contest with another author based in the great Southwestern desert to complete the projects.
However that all works out, we are confident that despite the widespread paralysis the minor weather event has brought to the National Capital Region, life as we know it will continue. Well, at least we hope so. These days it appears that nothing is certain, and everything is worth protesting.
– Vic
(Mac chats with Elizabeth-with-a-Z, 2005, at the dedication of the WW II monument on the National Mall).
“What do you want me to do? Win World War Two again?”
– Mac to Grandson, Outer Banks Shower’s Family Reunion Quote of the week, 2012.
It was a marvelous weekend, filled with camaraderie and family, and it was an honor to be part of the gathering of the far-flung Showers clan and assorted admirers and friends as they celebrated the life of our friend, mentor and guide.
The night before had featured the money quote of a Showers Beach Week on North Carolina’s Outer Banks- the sort of ultimate come-back to trump the contentions of a younger and sublimely confident generation to the revealed and settled wisdom of another.
The Showers family had secured the Williamsburg Room on the second floor of the luxurious new Arlington clubhouse of the Army-Navy Country Club or the memorial event. The golf season was just starting in earnest, late on a Sunday afternoon, golfers coming off the course and the place coming alive.
The old clubhouse, the one whose central core went back to the founding days of 1924, is fully gone, and the new contour of the ridgeline now resembles what it must have looked like then the Civil War Arlington Line of defenses snaked across the highlands. The outlines of the earthworks of Fort Richardson that now nestle the ninth green on the clubhouse approach are much more dramatic.
The property was part of the Nauk Neighborhood, whose immediate progenitor had been a Freedman’s Village established at the end of the war. It is still true that the defining event in the life of the Boomers is World War Two. When we say “the War,” or “after the War,” as a marking point for some event in the social life of the nation, that is the defining moment.
But not here. The War still will always refer to the years that the Union Army surged across the River and constructed an astonishing ring of forts, protected firing positions, sunken roads, and all of them bristled with guns from the Arlington highlands.
(Mac’s sister, in from Iowa and looking spirited at 96 years young.)
Anyway, nice view from the new clubhouse, where the gathering of the Clan was just about complete. Mac’s big sister was there, alert and vibrant with the same spirit of life that Mac always had. She was almost a dead ringer for her little brother, and with a walker just like his, and the same bright eyes that have seen nearly a century of life in These United States.
Mac’s kids were there, and their kids, and a few of yet another generation crawling about with tiny trucks and jets, and some new arrivals still clinging to their mothers. Truly a multiple generational celebration of Mac’s life, and pretty damned impressive.
Tom the son-in-law brought in an extraordinary case of fine wine that had been a favorite of Mac’s, whose traditional wine of choice had been Gallo Hearty Burgundy, a vintage I recall vaguely from Mom and Dad’s adventures in fine wine, and which I despise to this day. Mac’s tastes evolved over time, and if he did not have this precise vintage before, it was from a winery of which he would have thoroughly approved.
(Two of the most beautiful granddaughters ever share memories of the man and his times).
So, Saturday at Willow as the critical mass of family increased. An afternoon in the Gardens of Stone to survey the place of eternal rest for our pal, and his reunion with his beloved Billie. Now, this afternoon is the main event.
Showers this morning, the meteorological version, and the weather guessers are saying things will dry up in time to accommodate the scheduling of the final military ceremony for Mac Showers this afternoon.
(Mac and his beloved Billie prepare for the Big Trip).
Copyright 2017 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com