Frankie can be very intuitive,

sometimes that drives me nuts.  She senses something is not quite right this morning
...and she's right.

Honest, there is absolutely nothing wrong here, things here are back to normal and going well.  But I do feel like somebody stabbed me in the chest.  It's hard for me to breathe.

When I was a senior in high school, my class took a trip for three days to Washington DC.  It was a most wonderful time.  We crammed so much into those three days we went home exhausted.  We visited monuments, went to the museum, toured the White House, went to Mount Vernon, went down the Potomac River on a steam boat.  (Okay, that was not so good, water terrifies me, I got nauseated, and now that I think about it, that might have been my first panic attack.) 

I got to eat Asian food for the first time.  I don't remember what was actually on my plate, or if I even ate all of it, but I do remember the restaurant decor, and I was fascinated by the ornateness of it and all the bright red, shiny lacquer black and gold accents.  It was amazing.

Two things from that trip will stay with me in vivid detail until the day I die.  Coming in at second place is the memorial to the men planting the flag on Iwo Jima.  The monument opened in November 1954, we were there in Spring '55, I felt especially honored to be there.  It was an amazing sight and it actually brought me to tears.  I have a picture of that somewhere.  I will never, never, ever forget standing so close to those men and the pride I felt looking at that statue.

However, the thing most etched in my memory is me standing at the feet of Abraham Lincoln.  He was huge.  I was awe struck. Yes, there he was, sitting in a chair, over the back of which hung a blanket. He was wearing a suit and long coat.  I noticed his arms were resting on the arms of the chair, the fingers of his right hand draping over the edge of one, while his left hand in a loose fist was draped over the other.  The toe of his right shoe slightly extended over the edge of the pedestal on which the chair sits.  His head slightly tilted downward, those, sad, sad eyes looking down at me while I was looking up at his.  His features showed the most about the man he was.  His hair was a bit tousled, his cheeks slightly sunken, his beard cropped short but neatly groomed.  But it was his eyes that told the most about the man.  They were filled with sorrow and grief, and bored into my soul, they told the story of the times he lived, and the anguish he felt for the decisions he had to make, and his disappointment he had to leave his job unfinished. 

Oh yes, it was those eyes...I could barely pull myself away from those eyes. 

And, that dear Frankie, is what is wrong this morning.  I'm thinking about those eyes, and how I am sure this morning, although a statue cannot weep, I know in my heart of heart they are because this is the news I got.

"From CBS news.

Lincoln Memorial vandalized

Green paint was splattered overnight on parts of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.   U.S. Park police say a patrol officer found green paint splashed on the floor near the famous statue of President Lincoln, and some on the base of the statue, at around 1:20 a.m. local time. No messages were written, according to the National Park Service.

The memorial, on the National Mall, will be closed until the National Park Service can clean it up. The NPS said that they are using citrus-based cleaners and power washers to clean the paint.

NPS spokeswoman Carol Johnson said the paint used to vandalize the Lincoln Memorial "is not permanent...it can be cleaned," adding she's "hopeful" the whole monument can reopen to the public sometime on Friday.

An investigation is under way."

What has happened to the country I used to know and love?  When have we started to accept the unacceptable?  Why do we tolerate leaders who are corrupt, selfish, self-centered and egotists?  I do know the answer to that, it's because we have become corrupt, selfish, self- centered egotists ourselves.

Remember not too far back in history the tearing down of the statues of Stalin and Saddam Hussein?  Does America's future foretell that someday, someone, sometime is going to implode the Washington Monument, bulldoze the monument of Lincoln, and pull down the statue of the flag raising on Iwo Jima with a crane?  I think so.

Is it to late to change the course of America's future?  Please, someone, answer me that.