The New Greenbelt Peace Memorial

A few weeks ago I attended the formal unveiling of the new peace memorial in Greenbelt, Maryland. It was originally scheduled to be held outdoors until this massive rainstorm forced the ceremony to be moved indoors to the nearby Greenbelt Community Center. While I briefly saw the memorial during a lull in the storm, I decided to wait a few weeks so I can check it out by myself on a better day.

It was cloudy the day I went back but it sure beats the heavy rain. (LOL!) It was nice getting a close-up view of the memorial since I know all four people who were honored. It’s kind of cool that people I once knew when they were alive are now permanently enshrined in a little local memorial. Their names may not draw huge crowds or lots of social media attention like Bernie Sanders or DeRay Mckesson currently do but for many of the locals who knew them before their deaths, their memories hold a special meaning for them.

For out-of-town visitors the new memorial may be hard to find at first. Basically what you’ll need to do is to park in the back parking lot where the Greenbelt Library is located then walk along a path that’s at the far back of the parking lot until you start going down a hill, as shown in the next photo.

Before long you’ll see three long benches surrounded by trees.

The trees were originally planted years ago (back when the four honored activists were still alive) but now they have plaques honoring each of them. (I’ve already written at length about my memories of these four people in a previous post so I won’t repeat myself here.)

The next photo shows the three benches where people can sit and do whatever people usually do when they sit on an outside bench in a public area.

The benches surround a small plaque with some information about the four people being honored.

Here’s one last shot of the entire Greenbelt Peace Memorial as taken from a different angle.

Fellowship Grove on a Winter Day

Yesterday morning my smartphone gave a temperature reading of 10 degrees Fahrenheit. If it weren’t for the fact that I had to get up out of my bed to attend a meeting with someone, I would’ve felt tempted to stay in bed until noon.

The meeting took place at an Episcopal church in Clinton, Maryland. The church’s grounds included Fellowship Grove, which looked really pretty with the recent snowfall two days ago.