Skip to main content

Six-Word Saturday: 16 Tammuz, 5770

Why the weird dates? Click here to find out!

Teds ottawa 260Join the parade:  highway of heroes

Driving home yesterday afternoon, every single bridge between CFB Trenton and Toronto was lined with firefighters, paramedics, veterans and civilians, waving Canadian flags or “Support our troops” banners, all waiting for the procession accompanying the body of Sergeant James Macneil, 28, who died on Monday in Afghanistan.  According to the news, he just got engaged on Sunday.  This was his fourth tour of duty in Afghanistan.  More details here.

I had heard of people lining the bridges for the processions, but didn’t quite realize the magnitude of the phenomenon.  It really did feel like we were participating in the world’s longest parade; quite festive, in a weird way.  Many of the firefighters were standing on top of their trucks.  Lots of other people were just pulled over by the roadside, including people in military gear, I guess so they could salute him as he went past.

It was hard to explain to the kids what Canadian soldiers are doing in Afghanistan in the first place.  I kind of said that just like soldiers protect people here, sometimes when there is something very bad going on, they have to go to other countries to protect those people as well. I believe it’s true; I hope it made some kind of sense to the kids. 

To them, though, it really was just a parade – just another sight along the way to help pass the time.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Call Me CateJune 27, 2010 6:31 PM

    How sad, that poor young man. Sometimes I long to experience the world again with the innocence of a child who JUST sees a parade.

    Thanks for playing 6wS!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I love your comments!

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a
27 comments
Read more

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po
10 comments
Read more

What do we tell our kids about Chabad and “Yechi”?

If I start by saying I really like Chabad, and adore the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, z"l, well... maybe you already know where I'm headed. Naomi Rivka has been asking lately what I think about Chabad.  She asks, in part, because she already knows how I feel.  She already knows I’m bothered, though to her, it’s mostly about “liking” and “not liking.”  I wish things were that simple. Our little neighbourhood in Israel has a significant Chabad presence, and Chabad conducts fairly significant outreach within the community.  Which sounds nice until you realize that this is a religious neighbourhood, closed on Shabbos, where some huge percentage of people are shomer mitzvos.  Sure, it’s mostly religious Zionist, and there are a range of observances, for sure, but we’re pretty much all religious here in some way or another. So at that point, this isn’t outreach but inreach .  Convincing people who are religious to be… what? A lot of Chabad’s efforts here are focused on kids, including a
Post a Comment
Read more