Normally at this point in the procedure I click the little picture button and upload. Today I am stuck having strained the creative muscle yesterday and then tired out the rest with the community weed whacking in the morning and the tear down of the stage set up this afternoon.
The memorial ceremony event went fine with one of the performances being given by the 5th and 6th grade students from the local primary school. There were a couple of other lively performances by kids a little older before they came on and I was worried that the locals were going to be outdone, but their simple do of three pieces and a little speech went down very well. As one might imagine the theme of most of the spoken word was world peace, in their speach the kids also related the following tale.

A few years ago we had some heavy snow falls and on arriving at school some kids found that the snow had built up on a statue in the school grounds of a kid reading a book while walking. They commented to the principle that it was a pity the kid had to be out there in the snow and they gave him an umbrella. Some local folk heard about it and arranged for a roof to be built over the statue to keep the weather off of the little tyke in future.
The kids at the school, mine among them, used to learn about the history of the local dam having been built by prisoners during the war. But that somehow stopped happening and none of these kids knew about how many people had died in the construction. So when they heard about this bit of history from one of the organisers of the event, you can imagine that it made an impression. If they felt sorry for a stone statue out in the snow, what might they feel for chaps drowning in concrete.
I think a true democracy might have a few seats set aside for kids like these. They might make some dumb suggestions, but I bet they would ask some highly pertinent questions if they were allowed to speak.