Remembering

I love this project! If I was in the area, I would have wanted to join their raking in the sand!

"A pair of British artists have created this stunning installation of 9,000 silhouettes on a D-Day Landings beach to mark international Peace Day September 23rd.

The project, named, 'The Fallen' is a tribute to the civilians, German forces and Allies who lost their lives during the Operation Neptune landing on June 6, 1944.

The design was the brainchild of Jamie Wardley, 33, and Andy Moss, 50.

Together with a team of volunteers, the pair travelled to Arromanches beach, Normandy, to create the silhouettes, which were individually drawn into the sand.

Those taking part made the shape of a person by putting down a stencil and raking the surface to create a distinctive figure.

The shapes were then left to the mercy of the tide which washed away the 'fallen' after around four and a half hours."

Firefighter's widow finds peace, comfort in 'Be Good' bracelet

My heart is just breaking for this sweet family and their loss...but what a great story, and what amazing perspective! And that fourth son's name: Choice!

Joseph Walker, Deseret News
PRESCOTT, ARIZ. — For Juliann Ashcraft, widow of Arizona firefighter Andrew Ashcraft, the longest week of her life came to a merciful end Saturday, when a message from her husband — and, perhaps, from God — presented itself in the form of a charred rubber bracelet.

“It has been a whirlwind of emotions,” the young mother of four said during a telephone interview Saturday night as her brother drove her home from a planning meeting for Tuesday’s public memorial service for her late husband and 18 other firefighters. The 19 men died June 30 when treacherous, shifting winds turned the relatively small wildfire they were fighting near Yarnell, Ariz., into America’s most devastating loss of firefighters since the tragedy of 9/11.

There was tenderness and love in Juliann’s voice as she spoke, but it was also firm and strong and confident despite the fact — or, perhaps, because of — what she had just experienced. During the planning meeting officers returned personal effects to family members of the 19 firefighters. Or, at least, those that were recognizable enough to be salvaged after what the firefighters had been through.

“There weren’t a lot of things that came back intact,” she said. “The damage was pretty catastrophic. Everything was charred and melted — his pocket knife, his compass. They couldn’t even find his watch.”

But there was among Andrew’s personal effects a rubber wristband — formerly white, now yellowed and singed, but still wonderfully recognizable to Juliann.

“About six months ago Andrew was in charge of our Family Home Evening,” she said, referring to a common practice among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to gather weekly as a family to strengthen faith and family bonds through scripture study, games, treats and prayer. “His lesson was aimed at our children (ages 6 and younger) about how we all need to be good so we can be together as a family forever. As part of the lesson he got us all these white rubber wristbands. He said they would remind us to be good, so we called them our ‘Be Good bracelets.’

“The kids and I wore ours for a few days, but then we took them off and only wore them once in a while,” she continued. “But Andrew promised me that he would wear his until it fell off his wrist — because it was so worn out — or until the day he died. To him, it was a symbol of his commitment to me and to our family and that it was forever. So he wore it all the time, and he told me he looked at it a lot. It reminded him of us, and it made him want to be a better man.”

Juliann said she had no expectation that Andrew’s “Be Good bracelet” would survive the fire. “It was just a cheap thing,” she said, “and it was made of rubber — not exactly fire resistant.”

But when she saw it among Andrew’s effects — one of only a handful of items to make it through the blaze intact — she said she was overwhelmed by what she called a “tender mercy.”

“It was a miracle that it survived the heat and flames,” she said. “I just see it as a tender mercy from Heavenly Father. Andrew made me a promise, and he kept it. And God wanted us to know that he kept it.”

“He was a good man,” Juliann said simply, powerfully. “A lot of us claim to be the things that we are only aspiring to be. We go through the motions, but it’s not really inside us. Andrew was just good. He wasn’t perfect — no one is. But he didn’t pretend to be good; he was good.”

Juliann should know. She and Andrew had known each other since middle school. Even then, she said, he was “a good guy — fun, handsome, popular. Everybody knew him and liked him.” She confesses to having a crush on him back then, even writing out her future name, “Juliann Ashcraft,” as a classroom doodle again and again. But there was a problem.

“He was just short,” she said. “I would try to set him up with my short friends.”

After they graduated together from Prescott High School in 2003, they stayed in touch. They even dated off and on. Not only did Andrew grow physically — he eventually hit 5-foot-11 — but she noticed how much he had grown in terms of depth and maturity.

“Andrew had great parents who raised him as a strong Christian and instilled a lot of good in him,” she said. That was evident when he joined a rock band after high school that was good enough to do a little touring. While on tour, the other band members would go and do the things that rock band members are stereotypically known for doing, but Andrew always declined. When band members asked why, he would say, “It’s just my personal choice.”

“So ‘Choice’ became his nickname,” Juliann said. “Everyone who knew him in those days called him ‘Choice’ because that’s what he was all about.”

In late 2005, when they were both back in Prescott for the holidays, they started dating again. By the end of February they were engaged, and they were married in Prescott in July 2006.

“I was raised in the LDS Church, and I had always been taught about temple marriage,” she said. “But that wasn’t really a focus in my life at that time. But after we were married and we started having children, it was a lot more important to me, and I told Andrew I wanted to go to the temple so I could have my family sealed to me.”

Andrew, who had been attending church regularly with Juliann, was concerned about her announcement. “It was something we didn’t share, and he didn’t like that,” she said. “So I just sort of tabled it. I didn’t bring it up again.”

LDS missionaries were frequent visitors to their home, and Andrew was also kind and welcoming. “But he was honest, perhaps to a fault sometimes,” Juliann said. “He would say, ‘Thanks for being here. I know this is your job to try to talk to me about your church. But I’m totally not interested.’ ”

That changed suddenly one night when some missionaries prevailed upon him to watch a video about Joseph Smith.

“Something clicked for him that night,” Juliann said. “I don’t know why, but everything just sort of fell into place for him. That night before going to bed he told me he wanted to be baptized. I didn’t really respond — I was afraid he didn’t mean it. But the next morning he said, ‘Yeah, I’m serious.’ ”

Since then, Andrew has been as active in the LDS Church as his job would allow. Together with their two oldest children, Ryder and Shiloh, they were sealed in the church’s Mesa Arizona Temple in 2009.

“Andrew cried more than anyone else in the room that day,” Juliann said.

The past four years have been a time of spiritual growth and development for the entire Ashcraft family, including the addition of two sons, Tate and Choice. The youngest was named for his father's nickname as well as for the fact that physical complications during Juliann's pregnancy prompted recommendations from physicians to terminate the pregnancy — a "choice" they just couldn't make.

“I don’t know why, but our faith has gotten much stronger in the past six months,” Juliann said. “Our whole family has been growing — but especially Andrew. He has become a leader on the crew, a leader at church, a leader in our home. He would lead us in Family Home Evening and family prayer. He would come home and really throw himself into family activities even though I’m sure he wanted to nap because he has this really hard, physically demanding job.

"Andrew represented the church and our family well."

And now, she says, it is her turn to grow.

"This has been a hard, horrible, terrible thing, for our family and for all of the other families involved," she said. "But I've felt the comfort of other people's prayer for us, and I've been comforted by my faith as I've tried to focus on the bigger, more eternal perspective.

"I've always been a believer," she continued, "but this week, going through this, I've really had to come to terms with everything I've thought and believed. And now that Andrew is gone, I find that I don't think or hope or believe that I'll be with him again — I know that I will. Through this hard, hard time, I've felt my hope turning into belief and then turning into knowledge."

And as she prepares to say her final earthly goodbyes to her beloved Andrew this week — his funeral will be held at Tim's Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, Ariz., on Wednesday at 1 p.m. — she finds herself responding to one question over and over.

“People ask me, 'Were you always afraid this would happen?' " Juliann said. "And yes, the possibilities are always in the back of your mind. But I was never really afraid. Maybe I should have been. I just knew that he loved what he did. It’s who he was. And I didn’t want to live every day worried. So our family just prayed for him and loved him and enjoyed each other, every day we were together.”

Still, she understands how an event like this can trigger fearful feelings in the hearts and minds of countless others who send loved ones off to work every day as firefighters, police officers, military personnel and other high-risk jobs. To them she simply says, "Treasure every day."

"These men and women, all of them, are heroes," she continued. "I just keep thinking about how incredible they all are, the important work they do and how they do it for the well-being and benefit of others. As far as I'm concerned, I'm just humbled and honored that one of them chose to marry me."

The one they called "Choice."

Graduate's Act of Defiance

Melissa Knowles
YAHOO!

My high school graduation was so long ago (13 years to be exact) that I cannot recall one word that our valedictorian said in his speech. I'm sure some inspirational words were said, and we were told to go and make our way in the world. As well thought-out as the speech likely was, it did not become a news story.
That's not the case with a valedictorian's speech at Liberty High School in Liberty, South Carolina. When Roy Costner IV approached the podium, he ripped up his pre-approved speech. The crowd seemed a bit stunned, not knowing what to expect next. That's when Costner began reciting a prayer, the Lord's Prayer, word for word. Many students in the audience began applauding. The teachers and faculty members seated on the stage behind Costner did not visibly react.

So why did Costner choose this time to say a prayer? The stunt was apparently in protest of the new decision made by the Pickens County School District to no longer include prayer at graduation ceremonies. As you can hear from the students' applause, many of them agreed with Costner pulling the switcheroo and standing up for what he believed was right.

John Eby, a spokesperson for the Pickens County School District, said, "The bottom line is: We're not going to punish students for expressing their religious faiths." The YouTube video of Costner's prayer speech has been viewed more than 245,000 times so far since being uploaded just three days ago. Most commenters think highly of Costner and his courage to exercise his First Amendment right. Other viewers disagree and do not think that the graduation was the appropriate time or place to express his religious views to the student body and their guests.

A Very Pedestrian Superhero Grapples With Traffic

Peatónito, Walkers' Masked Champion, Leads a Double Life

NICHOLAS CASEY, Wall Street Journal

A superhero called Peatónito is on the prowl in Mexico City, defending the rights of pedestrians — in the crosswalks and on the sidewalks. Photos: Jorge Cañez.

MEXICO CITY—If you ever get stuck in gridlock at an intersection in this crowded capital city, you can't expect help from a street cop. But you might try "Peatónito," the protector of pedestrians who dresses as a Mexican wrestler.

When a car blocks a crosswalk, from out of nowhere appears Peatónito ("little pedestrian" in Spanish), in a cape and wrestler's mask. He stands directly in front of the car and tries to push it back with his bare hands—often to the astonishment of the drivers. If a motorbike is parked on the sidewalk blocking the way, Peatónito lifts it up and puts it on the curb where it belongs.

No crosswalk at an intersection? No problem: Peatónito travels with a can of white paint and a few official-looking stencils, ready to paint the crosshatches where they might be needed. It is a pity he can't be everywhere at once. "Peatónito is the favorite wrestler of pedestrians, wrestling for their rights," he said recently. "The pedestrian is king."

Mexico City has terrible traffic and too many cars. City folk deal with pedestrians in the road about the same way country folk deal with stray chickens. If crossing the road is bad, try walking on the broken sidewalks. As the mustachioed Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata once put it: "The moment I get on one of those sidewalks, I start to fall down."

There is no one more neglected than Mexico City's walkers, says Peatónito. "The pedestrian is nobody in this city, he has been forgotten by authorities and our own citizenry," Peatónito says. "The curious and paradoxical thing is that we are all pedestrians at some moment. As such, we have forgotten ourselves."

Peatónito wouldn't be the first Mexican dressed as a wrestler to protect the capital. There was Superbarrio Gómez, who helped displaced Mexico City dwellers find housing after the 1985 earthquake. He wore a red suit.

And there was El Santo ("The Saint"), Mexico's famous wrestler-hero who rose in the 1950s and branched out into beating the bad guys in films, such as "The Mummies of Guanajuato" (1972).

"Mexico is a culture of wearing masks, it has been that way since pre-Hispanic times," says Lourdes Grobet, who is considered the dean of Mexican wrestling photographers.

Sipping coffee near a park, she comes up with another: Fray Tormenta ("Friar Storm"), a Mexican Catholic priest who opened an orphanage and celebrated Mass in his outfit. He became the loose inspiration for the 2006 Hollywood movie "Nacho Libre."

Peatónito, who doesn't actually wrestle in a ring, has an alter ego, of course. His name is Jorge Cañez. The 26-year-old is studying for a degree in political science and works at a consultancy that advises the Mexico City government on planning. There, it is brain not brawn that matters: At his desk one day recently, he rattled off the number of pedestrians in Amsterdam.

Like Clark Kent before him, he takes his disguise seriously—at least according to his boss. She had seen the masked Peatónito at rallies, even followed him on his Twitter account, but hadn't realized he was Mr. Cañez until he confided the secret to her one day. "I could have gone years without realizing it was him," says Mariana Orozco.

Ask this hero who his hero is and the answer is simple: Antanas Mockus, the math professor and former two-time mayor of Bogotá, Colombia. Mr. Mockus—who resigned from his university job after mooning a group of students—also used to dress up as a masked vigilante to urge better public behavior. His own efforts to curb traffic involved firing the city's traffic cops and turning enforcement over to a troupe of 400 mimes.

On a recent overcast Thursday in Mexico City, Peatónito prepared for duty. In his fourth-floor apartment under a wall-size map of the city's streets, he patted down his hair, put on a cape and mask and stepped out onto the street. "Are you Peatónito?" asked a little girl. "I am he," Peatónito replied, kindly autographing a napkin with the pen she handed him.

On the corner of Nuevo León and Michoacán Street in the city's leafy Condesa neighborhood, a traffic light turned green, but pedestrians at the curb hesitated at the intersection. Several motorists made left-hand turns zooming over the crosswalk.

Enter the wrestler. His cape flowing and hands raised, he stared down an oncoming S.U.V. and made like he was about to grapple it. And then something remarkable happened: The motorist stopped. The driver started to laugh. Peatónito later celebrated by climbing up a traffic light and waving the pedestrians ahead.

Memories of that afternoon were still fresh when later that month a Skype call came through on Mr. Cañez's laptop. It was the ex-mayor Mr. Mockus calling. With his urbanism icon on the other end of the line, Mr. Cañez suddenly lacked his typical wrestling bravado. "Mr. Mockus," he asked politely. "Could you please explain to us how you made the decision to send in the mimes?" Mr. Mockus's answer wasn't easy to follow. It mainly dealt with 20th-century philosophers who specialized in performance theory. "Your project, though," Mr. Mockus said. "I have given it some thought."

Once, Mr. Mockus said, he attended a wrestling match in the 1990s. Peatónito was on the right track bringing it into the street, but something was missing. There was a brief silence. "You need a commentator!" shouted Mr. Mockus. All wrestling matches have an announcer narrating the wrestlers' moves over a loudspeaker to the audience, he added. Peatónito should be no different. The two men seemed to understand each other completely. "Now go find someone with an amplifier," said Mr. Mockus.