Wanderlust Daydreams

I admit when I drove past the flight pattern on I-24 this morning and saw an airliner taking off, I got a little stab of wanderlust. When I mentioned this on social media, a friend asked, “Where do you want to go?”

Well, friend, my age wars with my desire … but I do have an ongoing list that places come and go from. Growing up I saw a lot of this country because my parents were into that. A national park? A natural wonder? Mountains, lakes? Turn left here, honey! So it’s in my blood, I think, to want to see things. Here’s what’s on my list now, in no particular order.

• I would like to use that magnificent itinerary I made for Germany to visit friends (canceled due to COVID). I worked on it for weeks, going into great detail. Rothenburg ob der Tauber was on it, and Harburg Castle, which dates from 1190.
• My dad fell in love with Spain on a TDY trip back when I was a teenager, and I’d started researching both Barcelona, Spain (think: Antoni Gaudi, OMG), and Andalusia.
• I fell in love with the little bit of New England that we saw when Jesse and Katie were stationed in Newport, but we didn’t get to see much because Sybil really had our attention. I’d enjoy going back, for example, to do a fall colors tour.
• I’d love to spend some serious time in Boston, for the American history tour. And the food.
• I’ve always wanted to take Gerry on a Washington DC tour (I haven’t been since I was a teenager), but not until there’s no chance of running into MAGAs.
• I’d really love to go back to France; Gerry and I had a brief six days in Paris several years ago, but perhaps the Bordeaux area and some nice drives in the country?
• Rugby, Tennessee, a “living Victorian village,” has been recommended to me more than once.
• I have friends who love the Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia. A scenic drive … or a ride on the scenic railway, perhaps?
• When Jesse and I visited England in 1999, we were only in the south … and there are other places I’d like to see. Oxford, perhaps. The Lake District (Beatrix Potter’s stompin’ grounds).
• Gerry and I have talked about taking the ferry from Ireland to Wales more than once. I’d also like to see Scotland.
• In spite of my feelings about him as a person, I still have a thing for Frank Lloyd Wright’s work, and I’d love to see Fallingwater, in Pennsylvania. I’d like to see the Gettysburg National Military Park, too; it’s only about 160 miles away, and a nice scenic drive.
• I’d love to return to Newfoundland (the island), in Canada. I went to first and second grades there. It was beautiful then, and I bet it still is.
• A Tennessee friend of mine (and her husband and son) took Amtrak from Nashville to the Pacific Northwest, and they had a great time enjoying the scenery of the Western US from inside. The point here is the train travel, and then enjoying, say, Vancouver Island (Victoria).
• I’ve driven through New Mexico, but Gerry has actually visited it; we both understand how unique it is, both in history, nature, and art. Santa Fe is where I want to go.
• Italy has always, always been on my list of destinations. Cinque Terre (not that I could get up there, but I could see it from a distance!), so perhaps Portovenere is a better choice; Venice; Florence; Rome. Maybe just rent a car and drive all around the coast?
• I want to take Jesse and Katie and Sybil to Ireland. I know they’d love it. Originally I planned to take Jesse as a grad school graduation gift. But then that didn’t happen; he joined a touring brass quintet, dropped out of that master’s program, and … well, things change. When he got back in grad school he met Katie, and while I was still up for a travel gift for both of them, the timeline just didn’t work out. But maybe …

• • •

That’s quite a list, right? And I’ve taken things off. Austin, Texas, was once on my list but I’ve lost my enthusiasm for anything related to Texas. We have friends who lived in Germany and toured literally all over Europe and well beyond it, but I don’t need to drill down to Romania or Hungary or wherever. I’m sure they’re lovely, but … I’ve gotten old.

Finally, neither our age nor our budget will accommodate this whole list. I fully recognize that. But it’s nice to daydream. 🙂

On This Day in Gettysburg …

A year ago on this day—an important anniversary—historian Heather Cox Richardson discussed the battle and the speeches in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. She wrote:

While the southern enslavers who were making war on the United States had stood firm on the Constitution and said that its protection of property rights—including their enslavement of their Black neighbors—was the heart of the nation, Lincoln tied the country’s meaning instead to the Declaration of Independence.

You can see the article on her Substack here, but I actually saw it on Facebook (here). The comments (and HCR’s responses) in this discussion of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (which I had to memorize in its entirety to make my mother happy back in the day) are probably just as interesting as the piece itself.

A reader commented (and I’ve copied here with her various errors):

Just no.
Lincoln didn’t give a flying fig about the “freedom of black americans”. He cared about maintaining the US. and in his own words “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
The E[mancipation] P[roclamation] only freed slaves in the confederacy to weaken them.

There were 353 replies to this comment, but here’s Dr. Richardson’s reply:

It’s absolutely right that the EP only freed enslaved southerners where they were helping the Confederacy: that was the justification for doing it under the war powers. But I think it’s a mistake to read into Lincoln’s words to Horace Greeley, who was at that moment alienating all the moderates Lincoln desperately needed to win the 1862 midterms, his full beliefs, especially since he wrote that message to Greeley on the same day he issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. And, then in 1864, he insisted on running for reelection on a platform of the 13th Amendment, even though he had gotten crushed in the 1862 midterms after all, and his opponents insisted it was because of race. Above all, Lincoln was a politician. He wanted to save the United States. He also believed in democracy instead of oligarchy, and that meant crushing the enslavers and ending their ability ever again to enslave anyone. And, he was morally opposed to slavery … although he did not think the government had the power to end it in the states without using the war powers or amending the Constitution. I guess in addition to being a politician, he was a lawyer!

Richardson is both a historian and a teacher, and even in the comments she fills that role. I also found it interesting to note that even then, the midterms were important.

• • •

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

—Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address, 19 November 1863

 

 

 

It Was a Beautiful Day

It was a beautiful day. Gorgeous, sunny, not too hot, just enough clouds to be pretty. I was sitting in my office, in an office building that sat at the foot of one of the several runways at the Nashville Airport, in Donelson. (Our hours were eight-to-five but because I had a commute and was a single mom, my hours were seven-to-four, and I was usually at my desk by 6:30. Especially today because I had to leave work early for a haircut appointment.) I always listened to NPR on the drive in, so I’d heard the news … but not this day’s news.

That news was delivered by my coworker and buddy Brandi Lewis, who arrived in the building just after it had been reported that a plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. She’d seen it on Good Morning America. She was a little rattled, relieved to see me, and we went immediately downstairs to the cafeteria on the building’s first floor, because we knew they had a television. We were probably their first customers. We stayed, watching the news, until the place was so crowded—everyone wanted to watch the news that morning—it was unpleasant and we went back up to the Xth floor. (Wish I could remember that detail!)

By then a lot of the staff was in, huddled in groups around televisions in the offices of vice presidents. Like my boss. No work got done. Because—as if one tower wasn’t enough—the second tower was hit. A plane crashed into the Pentagon, for God’s sake, and within minutes US airspace was shut down. All civilian aircraft were ordered to land at the nearest airport, and from the window in my office at the foot of a runway at BNA, we watched them come, about thirty of them as I recall, one after the other, not more than a minute or so apart.

The South Tower fell. Passengers on Flight 93 stormed the cockpit and the plane crashed in a rural field in Pennsylvania. The North Tower fell about twenty minutes later. We went from the window in my office to the television in my boss’s office, back and forth. We saw people running away from the area of the WTC, weeping, covered in dust.

When the towers went down, the World Wide Web was affected—in Europe. My friend living in Rome called me for updates on what was happening, because they knew something bad had happened but weren’t getting any news.

No work happened that day. I left around three to head across town for my haircut in Brentwood, and was home by five. I sat in front of the television watching CNN—people pinning up photos of loved ones who were missing, hearing the stories of people who’d been late to work and missed dying that day, hearing the heartbreaking stories of those who’d jumped from the WTC when they realized they could not be rescued.

• • •

Like that day, September 11 dawned bright and clear today. It was beautiful that day; I remember it, and I mourn with those who lost loved ones in New York, Pennsylvania, and DC. Education, not ignorance … inclusion, not exclusion … love, not hate, is the only answer.

 

Sending the Wrong Message on September 11

The Bidens, Obamas, and Clintons were in New York; George W. Bush spoke in Pennsylvania. But on the morning of September eleventh this year, I drove down to the courthouse square to the Saturday farmers market.

Sure, I was thinking about it. I remember everything about that day—how beautiful it was, how I heard very early (to avoid traffic, I was always at work around seven) because another early coworker had heard about it on Good Morning America as she was getting ready for work. How we went down to the cafeteria on the first floor of our building because they had a television, and watched until the place got crowded. How I had friends in Europe call me to find out what the hell. How not much work got done that day. How everyone was freaked out. For days, for weeks.

It profoundly affected every American, in a variety of ways. I have a good friend who was in grad school when it happened (I would meet her years later), and she dropped out and joined the US Army because she felt the call to support America.* That happened a lot, I think.

I think about that day every time it rolls around. For me it’s a day of remembrance, of mourning, of sadness, sorrow.

Which I was hearing about on NPR as I drove down to the square at 7:30am. As I approached from the south, on Church Street, the street was blocked and several cops were milling around the roadblock. And I thought, oh, there must be a 5k about to finish up. That’s happened often over the years; they usually start at 6 or 7am; when the market opens at 8am there might be one or two stragglers but the three or four cops working the thing have already removed the blockade.

I turned right on Vine, where I saw many (many!) more cops, wearing bullet-proof vests and carrying guns and rifles that I couldn’t even begin to name. I passed the big black SWAT/bomb threat truck, and started thinking Oh no. Oh no. And also What the actual hell is going on here? There were cops everywhere and the street was cordoned off for a couple blocks in every direction. I couldn’t get to East Main Street, for heaven’s sake, and there were multiple cops on every corner. It looked bad.

I saw no runners at all during the time I was in the square area, which, I want to note again, is unusual given my past experiences. (Later I visited the event’s Facebook page; there were lots of photos of runners three abreast carrying large American flags. Woo. Is that a thing now?)

When I asked a cop what was going on, he told me there was a “race being put on by a foundation” and that there was no market today. And I made my way home, but couldn’t shake the idea that perhaps there’d been a bomb threat—because I have never seen that many cops in one place in all the years I’ve lived here. (Granted, I lead a sheltered life.)

But when I posted a comment on Facebook, one of my market vendors replied that the market was open and you could get to it on foot but it would be a couple blocks. And get this: my farmer friend told me that according to the people who organized the race, 60 percent of the market vendors said the race was a great idea. However the market manager did an actual poll of the farmers—and that was definitely not the case. “None of us were asked by the people who put on the race,” my farmer friend said.

So I had a look at the market’s Facebook page, and posted that I’d been discouraged by the presence of cops in riot gear, and what was that all about anyway? Within an hour some gal had replied that it was a display to pay respects to the 9/11 first responders. Um, OK. I responded: “Rifles are a sign of respect? I’m all for honoring the occasion, etc. But maybe they should’ve had a parade instead, on a traditional parade route [rather than disrupting the market already set up on the square].”

That brought out the event organizer, who reiterated in this conversation, “It was a display.” She went on to say, “You are the only one that has complained about it. We’ve had overwhelming response of positive feedback.” Her words, awkward as they are.

Well, by then I’d also learned that the long-scheduled ACT test being given at Central Magnet School that morning was also disturbed (seriously, they schedule these things months in advance). On Friday all the test takers had to be contacted and rerouted to another building, from what I’ve been told. Sometimes the difference between just passing or excelling on a test like this is a disruption of the nature caused by the folks who managed the event (but who were focused on guns and flags but less on the daily business of our community). So I can absolutely imagine that some parents of some those students probably complained at some point.

My farmer friend said—and I quote—it was just a big mess, and expressed doubt that the Travis Manion Foundation Heroes Run would be held in the square’s environs again. Or at least not on a market and ACT testing day.

• • •

The Travis Manion Foundation? Whazzat? So, yes, this “event” (and display of firepower) was all done under the auspices of the Travis Manion Foundation, which seeks, according to their website, to honor and support veterans and their families. How do we get from there to a 5k run on 9/11 (with cops in riot gear)? The connection is not mentioned at the Foundation’s website nor, interestingly, is it mentioned in this long and fascinating set of articles, touching and inspiring though they are. However, Travis Manion, a US Marine (and son of a US Marine), died in Iraq in 2007; the Iraq war was initiated by George W. Bush on the Weapons of Mass Destruction Big Lie which arose as … a result of 9/11?

Britannica says “Bush argued that the vulnerability of the United States following the September 11 attacks of 2001, combined with Iraq’s alleged continued possession and manufacture of weapons of mass destruction (an accusation that was later proved erroneous) and its support for terrorist groups—which, according to the Bush administration, included al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks—made disarming Iraq a renewed priority.”

So that’s the connection to 9/11, I think, and though convoluted, Travis Manion’s grieving family is absolutely entitled to it. (I’m proud of my father’s military service, as you know, and my son’s.) The foundation the Manion family has named after their son does a lot of good for military veterans, raises a lot of money, and is highly rated by the charity-rating organizations.

One of those fundraising events is a 5k run (which local communities run on 9/11), modeled after such events as the Department of Defense’s Warrior Games, and many others.

How do we get from a 5k on September 11 to a public “display” of firepower by the police (and a bunch of flags, judging by what I saw on the event’s Facebook page)? Honestly? I think maybe the attitudes** and personal politics of the local management team is what caused that. Also, probably, some inexperience is managing an event of this nature.***

• • •

When I expressed concern on the farmers market public Facebook page about seeing two dozen cops in the downtown area dressed in full riot gear on an otherwise peaceful Saturday morning, I was chastised (“It was a display!”) for expressing concern that there might have been a bomb threat. It was supposed to make me thankful for the first-responders in my town, this woman said. (I don’t know if she was actually on the local management team or just an enthusiastic supporter.)

But this “display” did not inspire me to thankfulness. It made me nervous. This is the wrong message to send, no matter how many flags you wave.

When I later had a look at the first woman’s personal Facebook page and noticed an artful photo of a Bible lying on top of an American flag, with a handgun lying on top of the Bible, the issue became more clear to me. (Also, I found it much more unsettling than just a mismanaged first-time event, although, again, I don’t know if this woman, the Bible-gun woman, was involved in the production of the event.)

If this “event” was intended to honor the first responders of 9/11—many of whom died at the scene, many of whom have died since of various carcinogens they were exposed to at Ground Zero—it didn’t work for me. I have read that a lot of New Yorkers stay home on 9/11; for them it is a day of introspection. It is not a day of celebration. Or of a gun display.

While the rest of us—far from New York, from Pennsylvania, from the Pentagon in DC—can recite with varying degrees of solemnity where we were when we heard, this article from the Atlantic is more representative of what New Yorkers felt and remember:

As glass crunched beneath his feet, Glenn climbed gingerly through one of the empty windows and made for the elevators. One of the firemen stopped him, looking incredulously at the gentleman in the fancy suit. Glenn explained that he ran Windows on the World and needed to get upstairs to his employees. The man shook his head. “You need to get out of this building. Right now.”

Glenn backpedaled, puzzled and a bit irritated. Then the first body landed—“like a bomb going off”—on the portico just above him. Moments later, another body, this one hitting the ground nearby. And then another. Bystanders shrieked. The sirens grew louder. The sensory overload was such that Glenn didn’t hear a second airplane smashing into the skyscraper next door. It was only when he stumbled away from the lobby of the North Tower, finally heeding the fireman’s directive, that he noticed the South Tower was burning. He pulled out his cellphone, but there was no signal. Standing next to a couple of cops, he heard one of the police radios: “Watch out for a third plane inbound.”

Panicked, Glenn sprinted over to Battery Park. He wanted a better view of the North Tower—and specifically, of Windows on the World. When he arrived, he encountered two indelible images, scenes that will replay in his mind for the rest of his days. The first was a fireman curled into the fetal position on the ground, sobbing. The second, as he raised his eyes to the top of the North Tower, was white handkerchiefs flying from broken windows. Except they weren’t handkerchiefs. They were white table linens. And Glenn could tell, based on their location, that the people waving them were his employees. Clouds of black smoke cascaded from the building; more and more bodies plummeted toward the earth. In that moment, Glenn thought to himself: They’re all going to die.

So my feeling about this Heroes Run debacle is they’re sending the wrong message. September 11 is, frankly, a national day of mourning. Do cops show up at the funeral of one of their own in bullet-proof vests carrying automatic weapons? No, they wear dress uniforms. They look solemn. They are mourning.

And so should we be. I didn’t intend to offend anyone with my question to the farmers market folks, but I drew out a pair of women who did take offense, and I’m taking a stand: They’re sending the wrong message. I really don’t like the idea of letting MAGAs—and that’s clearly what this was—co-opt our national day of mourning.

NOTES:

* She calls people who did this the Post 9/11 Generation. She’s written a book about it.
** Scroll down on the Facebook page of the husband of the woman who organized the Heroes Run, and you can glean a few things. He’s a former Marine (semper fi) and is now a respected local policeman. This is something for which I have a lot of respect. The family is also into the 5k thing. Last year they promoted something called MOMENTUMrun with a cartoon of someone scowling while wearing a hoodie: “Join us tomorrow for a “Shady” Run. Ha. No don’t bring your hoodies and sinister grins [emphasis mine] but because the heat is turned up we are planning to run where there is “Shade”. We will meet at New Vision parking lot tomorrow morning at 6:00 and run thru the Battlefield.” Um. I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel about the clueless wording of this and the attitude it conveys. It’s a (needless) dog whistle of the worst sort.
*** Facebook shows us the organizers “got approval” on July 9th. Did they communicate with all facets of local government to learn what they’d be disrupting? (Obviously not.) It was rushed. They will learn from this, one hopes.

A Trip to See the Tiny Girl

Back in August, my wonderful daughter-in-law called and informed us that the Navy (and the Department of Defense, for whom she is a civilian employee) had lifted its restrictions on their having visitors and would we like to come to Rhode Island?

It took me about three seconds to say yes. When? she asked. I was covered up in manuscripts; October was as soon as I could comfortably get away. But we’d come back at Christmas, I said.

And the planning commenced.

I did some research. We’d drive. We bought a portable HEPA-certified air purifier. We put together a bin of cleaning products and had a plan for checking in and cleaning and then leaving the room for an hour before bringing in luggage. We have become fans of the Hilton family of hotels, which has, it turns out, a highly regarded COVID-cleaning reputation. We settled on dates and made reservations and began to prepare.

• • •

Because we were driving, we could take things. Big things, like the wooden toybox with the hinged lid my father had made for my boy back in the early 1980s. He’d painted it red and hand-sawed the shape of a floppy-eared puppy, which he hand-painted and glued to the front of the box. It had been living in my attic for twenty years.

Now it was to be the Tiny Girl’s. We brought the toybox downstairs, picked out a sage-green paint, and had our wonderful contractor / handyman—who has become a good friend—do a professional paint job on it. He also removed the dog (in one piece, at my request) and I set it aside—when the project was finished, I’d glue it to the underside of the lid, where it would represent its previous life decorating a boy’s toybox.

To replace it, I ordered a custom stencil of her first and middle names and also purchased a stencil of a rose. I won’t go into how many times I tried to actually stencil those two things before I figured out it was the minute grain of the wood causing me the trouble. In the end, I traced the name and the rose onto the toybox with paint pens and then filled them in by hand. Took forever—labor of love—but looks OK. I have painted a small wooden heart—sage green—and used my paint pen to write that it is from Mimi in 2020 so that if, perhaps, she passes it on to her child someday, the history will be there.

A treasure to me, and, I hope, my little family.

As the departure day grew close, we packed the toybox with little pumpkins for “the babby,” as Gerry calls her, as well as the limited edition print (of a fox in the woods, also with a pumpkin) we’d purchased and had framed for her first birthday but hadn’t shipped (when that trip got COVID-canceled. We brought beer from the Bearded Iris Brewery where her parents got married back in 2017 (a story not yet written, I think). And then …

Tuesday, October 20th
That afternoon, Katie asked if we’d had COVID tests. Um, no. But sometime in between 1 July, when Rhode Island had somewhat loosened its restrictions for visitors, and the day before we left, apparently, the state’s COVID restrictions were tightened again. We didn’t know, the hotel didn’t warn us when we made the reservation, and Katie’d found out that afternoon that we needed a negative certificate to avoid a two-week quarantine (and to make her boss happy).

Yikes! We started calling the clinics recommended by the Rhode Island dot gov website—too long a wait for both an appointment and for results. Called clinics in Connecticut (on the way); again, too long a wait for an appointment and results.

I lay my head down on my desk and began to cry, but Gerry suggested we google “fast COVID tests in Murfreesboro.” Places that didn’t require a doctor’s order that we could walk in. There it was: CareNow Urgent Care. I called them at 3:30pm. The woman who took my call heard the desperation in my voice. “How fast can you be here?” she asked. We leaped up, drove there, were seen immediately, and had test results (negative) in ten minutes.* And the desired certificates in our hands. By 5pm the day before we left. Whew.

We picked up hamburgers on the way home. Ate. Checked the map. Packed the car. Reviewed instructions for the wonderful man who pet-sits for us and loves Suzy and Spot as if they are his own. And then we fell into bed, wiped out already.

Wednesday, October 21st
We left home around 7am and drove east and north for nine hours—first on I-40, then I-81—stopping only for gas (masks, antiseptic wipes) and drive-thru food. Most of this interstate is only two lanes each way, and it’s heavily traveled by truckers, many of whom are courteous drivers, but some of whom seem to delight in slowing traffic to drive side by side.

I’d planned to go all the way to Baltimore but Gerry had suggested we choose a smaller town; perhaps the hotel there would be less busy, quieter? So we’d settled on a Hilton Garden Inn along the interstate in Martinsburg, West Virginia. (Or … you might call it trump country. Lord help us.) And then about twenty miles out, traffic came to a dead halt and we crept along for an hour, moving about a mile, before traffic began to move a little faster, and we did finally arrive before the sun set. (Important for me because I don’t like driving at night in an unfamiliar town looking for an unfamiliar restaurant to order takeout!)

Hilton’s distance check-in confirmation and keyless entry is nice. We didn’t have to stop at the front desk, and the Hilton app on my phone unlocked the door. We set up the air filter, wiped down and sprayed the room, and went off to find food as the sun began to set.

Thursday, October 22nd
When I’d been planning this itinerary, I was surprised to learn that Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with its important national battlefield, was just twenty miles from Martinsburg, and just five or so miles off the interstate. We could stop on our way to Aquidneck Island, since this day was just a seven-hour drive. We could sleep in, hit the park about the time the museum/bookstore opened (for a map).

We live in the South—the other side of the Civil War—and in fact our little town (not so little anymore) is the site of a major battlefield. And I was raised in a family that revered history. I saw Gettysburg on that map and thought, Man, I would like to stand where Lincoln stood.** So we put it on the itinerary. We’d see it Thursday morning or we’d catch it in the afternoon on our way back the next week.

But when we got up the next morning, there was a heavy, dense fog (which, as it turned out, lingered until noon) that reduced visibility to just a few yards. It was obvious Gettysburg National Battlefield was out of the question, so we packed up and got moving. Loved the last couple hours driving through Connecticut and Rhode Island before crossing onto Aquidneck Island. If the kids were going to stay there, I’d be looking at property.

We checked in to the Hilton Homewood Suites on Aquidneck Island (our third visit; we really like this hotel—it’s so convenient to our little flock and, in the off season, very reasonably priced) around four o’clock. We ran through our clean routine, then left to let it simmer while we went to see Jesse and Katie—and the little girl who’d grown so much since we’d seen her at Christmas 2019.

They came out to meet us when we drove up, and I went right up to my Tiny Girl and asked her if I could pick her up. I could see her processing my face and my voice—things she knows well from FaceTime calls—but could tell she still was a bit puzzled. I picked her up anyway. It was precious.

Not quite sure yet. “Who is this woman? And how does she know my name?”

We went inside. She kept staring at me …

Tiny Girl looking over Daddy’s shoulder. “Should I know you?”

… but after a moment everything clicked and before long she was bringing both Gerry and me books to read together.

“Are you there, little fox?”

We brought in the beer and other perishables (teabrack among them) we’d brought from Tennessee, ordered supper from Portsmouth Publick House, and after we ate, these two old people were ready to crash.

On the way home we stopped at Stop & Shop and bought bread and orange juice and sliced ham and other breakfast-y things we could eat in our room, since the hotel’s breakfast bar was shut down due to the pandemic.

Then we watched forty-five minutes of the second presidential debate before we concluded trump was lying and we were wasting precious sleep time.

Friday, October 23rd / Katie’s birthday!
Slept in, then headed back to the kids’ house to bring in the toybox, watch the Tiny Girl exploring its contents, including those tactile pumpkins. Also, Gerry taught her how to low-five/fist-bump. They did this constantly during our visit.

“Are these all mine?”

We got out and drove around, thinking we’d go to an apple orchard or a pumpkin patch—but it was the end of that season, and they were all closed. So we went to Sweet Berry Farm, which I love, and bought an end of season pie and cheese and sausages, brought them home and had cheese and crackers for lunch.

Gerry often orders Irish foodstuffs and we all love the Big Irish Breakfast he makes—and Katie had asked for that for her birthday dinner. So Gerry cooked and then we all gathered ’round. (It was also our sixth anniversary.)

Celebrating Katie’s birthday Friday night with Irish breakfast for supper.

Saturday, October 24th
I wanted to visit the Stephen Hopkins house in Providence on this trip. I’d read that they give a nice historical tour and also, of course, my family may well be related to these Hopkinses. Perhaps they could tell me more. But in spite of my researching their website and FaceBook page to learn they were open on Saturdays from 10am–4pm, they were not, actually, open. (sigh)

At the Stephen Hopkins House.

For a while we poked around the grounds (small) and watched the young, fit people running up and down that one block of Hopkins Street for exercise—because it is literally a 45-degree angle of steepness. Crazy, but Providence can be a lot like San Francisco in that regard. (I would have needed help getting down it.)    

Look at that steep street!

Right across the street in that historic neighborhood, we passed this …

… and later I looked it up. Wikipedia says:

The Providence Athenaeum was founded as “The Athenaeum” in 1836 as an independent, member-supported library open to the public. Its progenitors were two earlier libraries: The Providence Library Company, founded in 1753, and the Providence Athenaeum, founded in 1831. It became “The Providence Athenaeum” by amendment to its charter in 1850.

In 1753, a group of private citizens started The Providence Library Company to gain access to a collection of books that they could not afford individually. Members paid a small subscription fee to the library to purchase books which all members could share. Stephen Hopkins, signatory of the Declaration of Independence, was a leading member of the early organization. Many of the early books had to be purchased from England.

In 1758, a fire destroyed the majority of the first collection of books, which were then housed at the Providence court house. 71 of the 345 titles held by the Providence Library Company were in circulation at the time of the fire and survived. The surviving volumes now make up the Founders’ Collection. Brown University moved to Providence in 1770, and the library offered students the use of its books. In 1836, the Providence Library Company merged with the Providence Atheneum (founded in 1831), and the merged organization became known as the Providence Athenaeum.

So much history! But it wasn’t open either. 🙂

What to do? We went home to Aquidneck and the Green Animals Topiary Gardens. But it’s also part botanical garden / park, and Sybil had a blast.

Entrance.

Tiny Girl, Gerry, lion.

A reindeer, maybe?

Tiny Girl and teddy bear.

We’re not far from the ocean here.

After supper (pizza!) and Sybil’s bedtime, we got into our room around 8pm. Exhausted. Shortly after we got in, the folks next door did. Actually, we heard them loudly coming down the hall, then slamming doors, talking loudly (boistrously, not angrily) and walking heavily. (Honestly, how do you walk that loudly? We’ve stayed in this hotel on three separate visits now and it’s always so quiet, so dignified.) But there they were, noisy.

Sometimes I put up with noise in a hotel until I’m angry, so I don’t do that much anymore, but I did wait to give them a chance to settle down. Sure enough, the door slammed again and they left. But … their dog began to howl. (Sigh.) Note, we don’t blame the dog. We love dogs. The dog was just lonely. But I’ve read the requirements Hilton has for checking in with a dog, and you are not supposed to leave the dog unattended. For this very reason, obvs.

I called the front desk. They were no-nonsense: “We are ON it” and sure enough, within minutes the dog was silent. Front desk called us back (by this time we were both in bed): “Is the dog quiet?” Yes. But within five minutes: Aaarf-arf, hooooooooooo!

I called the front desk again. “We spoke too soon, I’m afraid.” Again, “No problem, we’ll take care of it.” I’m sure we weren’t the only folks who could hear the poor dog.

Ultimately we had a couple more conversations with the front desk. The humans were called, and they came back from wherever they were and up to the room and we heard no more from them or the dog. But wow. I resisted the urge, the next morning, to ask if they were kicked out or just billed extra for breaking the rules. Ha.

Sunday, October 25th
Back at the end of August Katie and I had discussed going to the aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, and this was the day for that. I’d purchased the tickets online, as it was assigned entry due to the pandemic. Masks required. It was a beautiful, chilly day, and we were in the first group.

Right at the entrance. Imagine me singing “Baby Beluga.”

The Tiny Girl was having a big time!

Sea anemones and clown fish.

It’s a big world, and the Tiny Girl is seeing lots of it.

Katie took this one.

I got my second comment about my Biden-Harris pin (which I wore on my face mask) at the aquarium. (The first was at the Topiary Garden the day before, from an older woman who was policing the entrance; she said, “I don’t normally say things like this but I like your pin.” Katie had told me that “people just don’t talk about it” in this blue state.) This second comment was from a young woman, and it also was positive and made me happy.

That afternoon, back at the house, I was holding the Tiny Girl on my lap. Then I lay her on her back, like a tiny baby, and told her the story of the day she was born and how I held her in my arms … just … like … this.

Her mommy told me she never lets them hold her like that.

We had steaks on the grill this night. Yummy.

Monday, October 26th
Our last day on the island. We slept late.

Katie was at work, so the other four of us went for a ride and ended up at a little pebbly beach on Aquidneck’s northeast side that reminded me of Ireland last time I saw it.

At the water’s edge.

I don’t know anything about sea life, but as we walked on this little pebble beach, I kept finding these little shell animals attached to rocks. They were everywhere. I thought maybe they were some kind of barnacle …

I saw this and thought, What in the world is that?

And then there was another one.

No, really. This ain’t natural, y’all. Or is it?

… but no. When I posted a photo to Facebook, my Welsh friend, Roz, set me straight: Slipper limpets. Amazing.

We then drove to the opposite end of Aquidneck, to Fort Adams State Park, a public recreation and historic area preserving Fort Adams, a large coastal fortification located at the harbor mouth in Newport. It was active from 1841 through the first half of the twentieth century. Wikipedia says:

Fort Adams is a former United States Army post in Newport, Rhode Island, that was established on July 4, 1799 as a First System coastal fortification, named for President John Adams, who was in office at the time. Its first commander was Captain John Henry, who was later instrumental in starting the War of 1812. The current Fort Adams was built 1824–57 under the Third System of coastal forts …

There’s a lot to see, including a beautiful view of the Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge in the distance when it’s not too overcast.

That’s the 1824 building on the left in the background. The foreground is a map of the grounds. And functions as a bench for old folks like me who need to sit down.

There’s even a tall ship, the Oliver Hazard Perry, anchored here. Launched in 2015, it’s a teaching vessel.

That afternoon we ordered from Fieldstones Grille for supper and G and I went to pick it up. When we came in, Syb was ready for bed, and it hit me right then that this would be my good-bye to her, and I started to cry. I long for her to know me. I long to live long enough that she will know me, will remember me. I have so much to tell her.

Tuesday, October 27th
We said our good-byes last night, so this morning we got up and got going. The map app took us right through the middle of New York City—not the way we came on our way to Rhode Island, but presumably the quickest route at that moment. That bit of driving was quite an adventure—and now I can say I’ve driven in NYC. Goodness gracious.

Western Pennsylvania was having a beautiful autumn, a gorgeous autumn … except for all the trump signs and people not wearing masks in public spaces. It’s still astonishing to me that these rural folks think the republican party has their best interests at heart … because it does not. (Same in Tennessee, btw.) I blame it on Fox.

We were making good time and excited to stop at Gettysburg … until we got there. It’s large, there are several entrances, and you need to know where you’re headed before you make the choice. I’d planned to stop by the visitors’ center/museum/bookstore and pick up a guided map*** so we’d know what we were looking at. (There are many monuments and our time was limited.) After about thirty minutes of wandering around lost, we found it—but it was closed! Gaaah. COVID schedule, apparently, and I hadn’t stumbled across it in my research.

Soooo … now we were off the interstate in very rural Pennsylvania. The map app first found us a highway to head us on toward Martinsburg, and when we passed a roadside stand we stopped and bought apples. Then we were routed through Catoctin Mountain National Park**** to get the Martinsburg highway. It was spectacular, honestly, and very Irish-like in character: narrow lanes, curvy, and up and down. We didn’t stop, though, because we were tired and dispirited. We got to the Hilton in Martinsburg around four o’clock.

Wednesday, October 28th
This long day of driving was uneventful until we got close to the Tennessee border. It was raining, there were wrecks, the map app kept trying to reroute us but the wrecks were outpacing her.***** Finally we got on the west side of Knoxville, then we were at a dead stop for an hour. Google maps tried to reroute us three times while we sat still! That was kinda hilarious. But finally she let us stay on I-40 and we continued on. We called our wonderful petsitter and told him not to come, because we’d be there in time to feed Suzy and Spot, and we were.

Wrap-Up
We traveled through nine states—Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. And those of you who know me I love looking at and counting license plates, so here’s the list (though I missed some): AL, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, FL, IL, IN, KY, ME, MD, MA, MN, MO, MS, NH, NJ, NM, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, TN (not us), TX, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI, Quebec, DC.

* I am aware that these fast tests aren’t always accurate.
** Not so fast, cowgirl. Wikipedia says, “Neither is it clear where stood the platform from which Lincoln delivered the address. Modern scholarship locates the speakers’ platform 40 yards (or more) away from the traditional site in Soldiers’ National Cemetery at the Soldiers’ National Monument, such that it stood entirely within the private, adjacent Evergreen Cemetery.
*** I have since purchased one. The Gettysburg bookstore is online. Of course it is!
**** Technically, we “visited” two national parks on this day: Gettysburg National Military Park and Catoctin Mountain National Park.
***** Yes, I have always called the map app Emily, because she speaks to me. You know.