Happy Memorial day to all!

People all over this country are bar-b-queing today and we won't get any mail because this is the day that we remember and honor all the men and women who have given their lives so that I may come here and say whatever I want to say without fear of government interference. So, thanks to them all, my life is my own and I have the freedom to do anything that I want to do and for that, I am so very grateful.

Yesterday I took Payton for a walk in the Kennesaw Battlefield. That is an amazing place, full of beautiful little nooks and crannies as well as memorials to honor those who fought and died there in 1864, on June 27 through the 29th. Kennesaw Mountain was the last real barrier that Sherman battled during his famous March to the Sea from Atlanta.

I live pretty much in the battlefield. It's so big that there are many large roads that go through it but you can still turn off one of those roads and wander around for hours, either hiking, by horseback or just like I did, taking a dog for a walk.

This is the Illinois Monument:

Many, many men from Illinois died far from home fighting for our nation and the locals put up that monument after both sides called a truce. Where else but in America can you find a memorial to the "enemy" right smack dab in the middle of battlefield?

I drive into the battlefield off of Dallas Highway down a tree lined street that you can park along and just walked into the woods. Yesterday I walked in at Cheatam Hill, the site of one of the most ferocious battles fought in Kennesaw. As you walk in, within 1000 feet you'll see at least 4 memorials including this one:

That is the grave of the Unknown Soldier of Kennesaw Mountain. In the 1930's, when they were turning the battlefield into a national park, they found the body of a soldier who had died in that very spot some 70 years before. They buried him where he fell and marked his grave with the stone of an Unknown Soldier.

On Cheatam Hill, at one point you can stand right where the Union officers hid behind a lip in the hill maybe 50 feet away from the very place where the Confederates were firing. You can still see the Earthenworks that the Confederate soldiers hid behind as they fired at the approaching Union army at a place they call The Dead Angle. There's still a small opening where the Union army attempted to tunnel under the Earthenworks so that they could blow up the Confederate stronghold.

As I was walking through the battlefield and reading the markers along the path, I read one that discussed the oak stump that stood right there. When that old oak tree was cut down a while back, they found many, many bullets in it. So, as I walked along the path, when I would find a felled tree, I would pull the rotting bark off of it looking for more bullets. All I found were the termites and millipedes that have made the stumps their home.

I walked so far in that I got lost but what a place to get lost! Payton and I jumped a small creek and walked into it at one point where the rocks were all smooth from where the water runs when Georgia is not in a major drought. We saw horse prints and I wished that I had a horse. I would love to ride through that place on horseback.

Hidden right in the middle of a major Atlanta suburb, the paths of the battlefield go on for miles. You can walk for the entire day and not see a single sign of civilization.

On the few occasions that we passed other people, almost every single person we passed commented about how big my dog was. I've been walking him in the battlefield for years so he is pretty good about not eating other dogs. But, he really, really likes to smell their backsides so I had to brace my feet up against large tree roots to keep a tight hold on him. Other people don't see a big, dumb, happy dog when they look at Payton, they see a huge animal that weighs more than the skinny lady holding on to him. I imagine most people think that I won't be able to hold on to him but he hasn't gotten away from me since the first time I took him walking in there.

That time he was just a puppy and he would occasionally hang himself on my apple trees out in the back yard. When I took him to the battlefield for the first time he bolted and ran into the woods. I was terrified that he might hang himself in that forest and I would never find him. Of course I did, and now he's a well trained dog that loves that place. I can't even say the word "battlefield" in front of him lest I get ready to grab the keys and head on over to the park.

There's one thing that bothers me about that place. I take a pooper scooper and a bag with me so that I can clean up after my dog. If someone sees Payton and then sees his mess, it's not tough to figure out which dog did it. The piles of dog shit left by my dog are bigger than most of the other dogs in the park. Well, as we walk around the park, we pass piles of horse shit that no one has to stop and pick up. Why am I cleaning up after a dog that's almost as big as a horse while the horses crap willy nilly anywhere they want to?

So many people take their dogs into that battlefield that the dogs smell a LOT of different smells. And when a dog smells another dog, they pee on the smell so that the next dog smells THEM. Well, within twenty minutes, Payton had peed on so many trees that I wondered why he didn't run out. That dog must have had quite a store of dog pee. He didn't drink from the creek, he just peed along the sides of it. I was waiting for him to pass out from dehydration when we were lost.

But he made it out just fine and I think I'm going to go back today. Yesterday when I was there I wished that I had brought a camera because I saw so many beautiful things. This time I will. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do today...I'll buy a camera and take Payton back. I think he missed a few trees so today he can pee on those.

As I walk through the battlefield, I stand still and listen...hoping to catch a sound of years gone by. I look out over the clearings and see the Union army approaching Cheatam Hill. I look at the Illinois Monument and wonder if anyone I know had a great grandfather who gave his life right there. It isn't difficult at all to imagine the images of a battle fought long ago and to silently honor those who died there in June of 1864.

So, as you eat your hamburgers and chicken today...say a little prayer for those who died so that we may all live in such a wonderful country. And say an extra prayer that someday soon, ALL of the battlefields in the world will be as silent and peaceful as Kennesaw National Battlefield.