Show & Tell...I've got a piece of the Berlin Wall

[MOBIUS]

Well my larger 2-bed flat in the centre of town (5-min walk!!!) only cost 2/3 of my place in London.

I have a well paid job (admittedly by Cardiff standards), I walk 20 minutes to work through the park and civic centre (a lovely walk!), I have a 35 hour week and 37 days holiday a year doing something reasonably interesting...

Oh and flexitime, tomorrow I will rock up to work about 10am.

My week is packed with social engagements of every kind to the extent that I am frequently triple or quadruple booked, or have multiple events on a given day - I've never had so many friends/been so busy than living here...

I could go on and on about how close the countryside is etc, but then I'd get even more smug/boastful/self-congratulatory than I already am...

Living in Cardiff is just so easy and effortless...

[Solly]

Living and working in city centres is the way to go

[Provost Harrison]

I am sure I would probably more cynical about London if I had to commute into the centre every day mind you - I can keep it at arms length if I wish. The only downside is I work in Dartford. Oh beautiful Dartford

[OzzyKP]

Originally posted by LordShiva
One of my ancestors on my Mom's side was a standard bearer for Lachit Borphukan at the Battle of Saraighat. We still have the cloth from one of his standards in our family.

That is seriously cool. Do you have it hung up somewhere or is it like in a box?

[Jon Miller]

I sorta view keepsakes as foolish. What do I care about some object I had in the past?

Be that as it is, I am a packrat that keeps almost everything.

JM

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Lancer
How did he earn it?

There is a ~120 year old newspaper clipping of his story with the medal, but I don't have a copy of it (I suppose my Dad has a copy somewhere). My maternal grandmother's Grandpa Jackson was a lowly lieutenant in a Pennsylvania regiment. I don't know his unit.

He took grapeshot shattering his left arm. He stuffed his hand into his belt and continued to lead his troops in two assaults on a fort (a redoubt near Fort Pulaski iirc) before he passed out on the field of battle.

During a lull Confederates took wounded soldiers from both sides into the fort for treatment. They offered him ether for the amputation if he told them how many Union troops there were. He reportedly answered, "You can go over and count them yourself."

He was returned in a prisoner exchange after the battle, and continued to serve until the end of the war. He served in the Honor Guard for Lincoln's funeral procession in DC.

[germanos]

Originally posted by Straybow

Originally posted by germanos
I arrived the night after. IIRC the wall fell on a thursday evening.

Cool. But you didn't collect a chunk?

No, as you see on the second picture, the day after the east -german border guards were controlling the wall again, and west-german police wouldn't allow people picking at the wall either.

You see that the wall is damaged from wall-peckers on the initial night, and the major picking only started in the weeks after when it was clear the wall was definitely doomed.

So there wasn't really an opportunity to take a piece with me

[germanos]

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