A sign marks the site of the worst act of vandalism my town has ever seen.
After the arson fire at the Legado apartment and shopping complex on April 1st, the remains of the concrete parking garage are being taken down.
In this photograph, you can see the town's event center, just kitty-corner across the street from the fire area.
And in this photograph of the parking garage being torn down, you can see in the center right the occupied apartment project just across a fairly narrow street.
Fortunately firefighters from several departments kept the flames from spreading beyond the Legado project which was about 50 percent complete.
Ironically, as I was photographing this today, a "dust devil" came directly through the destruction.
A relative of a tornado the swirling winds on the right took on a black hue from what it had come through.
Fortunately no lives were lost in this disaster.
Not so the other event we take note of today.
D-Day in 1944.
This is just part of the cemetery in Normandy, near where so many died fighting the menace of Nazi Germany.
My daughter and I visited this and other American soldier's cemeteries in France when we lived in Germany, Lorraine, Brittany and others. It's sobering to see how many lives were lost, on both sides, in that war. Now, we're having a resurgence of the philosophy in this country that so many gave their lives for 80 years ago, and a political figure who models himself after the wretched Nazi party leader in Germany.
ReplyDeleteThe cemetery brought me to tears with the white crosses and Stars of David as far as the eyes could see. I'd like to go back. Still no arrest of the arsonist?
ReplyDeleteNot yet.
DeleteSuch stupid destruction. I sincerely hope the arsonist is caught.
ReplyDeleteTwo of my sisters and I visited the graves of two of our great uncles in France, both killed in WWI. Those cemeteries moved me to tears. Such a waste.
Good capture of the dust devil. It's lucky that no lives were lost in the arson. A sobering picture of the Normandy cemetery.
ReplyDeleteThe pictures of both disasters are heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad no one was hurt in the fire, but still....I keep thinking of Sam Rayburn's comment, "Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one." We need more builders, not destroyers.
---Cheerful Monk
Every spring, our school's 8th Grade students take a trip to Normandy to see the D-Day locations first-hand. It's got to be such an eye-opening experience for them. I've never been myself and I'm a little jealous! Maybe I should chaperone.
ReplyDeleteDo they have any sense of the motive behind that Legado arson? Was it political? Ecological? An insurance scam?
Looks like a war zone. A bitter pill to realize whoever did this is getting away with it.
ReplyDeleteSo much destruction on our small planet. Perhaps we should have all remained apes in trees.
ReplyDeleteThe Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial in France at Colleville-sur-Mer, is a place every American should visit, I have been there twice.
ReplyDelete