Trail Blazers

On a stroll this afternoon along a trail I hadn't walked before, I kept an eye out for the blue blazes marking my way. Their variety pleased me: ranging in color from pale blue to robin's-egg blue to near-turquoise, the paint rectangles chipped in places, taking on the fine craquelure of Old Master paintings, and in other places the paint hosted lichen as it grew pale on a tree's trunk. Some old blazes had even been replaced entirely with new ones.

They reminded me of an article and video a former student posted earlier on Facebook in celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Featured is Todd Endo, a Japanese-American who marched for Civil Rights in his youth, at a time when "the Asian-American population was little more than .05 percent of the U.S. population." Watch the film and you will hear him describe his heroes -- the women who marched next to him, who by their actions risked everything for an idea.

click for the video and article

Sometimes, when I fear that the trails blazed in my childhood and youth by countless nameless men and women and children are chipping and fading away, I think on this student and others of her generation and the one before hers and see them re-signing the way. 

They are my trail-blazing heroes too, and today I honor them.