I recently attended the Hendry County Swamp Cabbage Festival Parade and garage sale. Well to be honest there was no garage sale at this event but it was as American as it comes. It seemed like there should have been a garage sale in there or at least some slices of apple pie. But I digress.

My wife and I sat on the curb near the court house and enjoyed every minute of it. It included everything a parade should. There were bands and floats and candy being tossed from every vehicle imaginable. There were dancing girls and parade queens of every sort and size. There were amazing performers in native Indian costumes and some local politicians looking for some votes.

My favorite float was the one that loudly rocked Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” while kids danced to the music. I hoped that they knew that was when music was really music. There I go again showing my age.

At the very minute that this wonderful parade swept down Main Street America, there was a much bigger, much more deadly parade running over in Europe. Russia had decided to invade Ukraine.

I was born in 1949 so I just missed WWII. But being a life-long student of history, I can clearly remember seeing the horrible images that came out of London after the Blitz and the images of a flattened Berlin after the American air raids. The newspapers and TV stations are full of the same kinds of images coming out of today’s Ukraine.

I am deeply saddened as I see photographs of people walking in pairs or alone, shoulders hunched against the weight of war, carrying everything they own in a single battered suitcase while their homes burn behind them.

I have friends that immigrated from the Ukraine around 10 years back. Can you even imagine the horror they are feeling right now as they try to contact family and loved ones back in the old country? Phone calls are left unanswered, emails sent, not replied to. Silence is the only answer to their terror.

I’ll let people who are much smarter than me decide who is to blame and whether or not we could have stopped this (we couldn’t) and how many of our troops need to be sent over there. My heart hurts for the Ukrainians and I wish for nothing more than peace in their time.

What is it that was written about war? People who don’t remember history are bound to repeat it.

A beautiful group of horses pranced near the end of the Swamp Cabbage Festival Parade and after that, a lady with a broom and bucket. Her job was to clean up the mess in case the horses decided to leave a little steaming pile as proof of their passing. I wonder who is going to have to clean up the mess in the Ukraine after this Russian parade?

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