A Bitterweet Fourth of July

I miss her, I miss her terribly.

Nancy Lynde was more than a teacher who traveled with me, she was a friend, mentor, and mother figure.

It was she who convinced me that conducting a trip during July 4th, despite the crowds, was feasible. I was apprehensive because I did not want to lose any students, but it turned out to be perfectly safe and an annual pilgrimage for students in the Corona, California area.

The day started out early, as we were always the first to enter the National Archives. Before the Archives opened there is a public reading of the Declaration of Independence. There’s also a parade, but we were already inside the building visiting our Charters of Freedom. There is an honor guard inside the Archives on the 4^th. Every half hour they silently changed, bringing dignity to the Declaration and our other documents of freedom. (I wish the guard was always there!)

After that we rushed over to Ford’s theatre (no lines!) and proceeded to visit the Smithsonian Museums and their Folklife Festival in small, independent, adult-centered groups. Everyone knew the plan, meeting places, and emergency procedures. If it became too hot or someone became ill, he/she could always retreat back to the hotel.

Let the hoi polloi sit on the crowded and noisy National Mall between the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial, with a great concentration at the mound of the Washington Monument! Nancy had a special place to view the fireworks: The Ellipse in the shadow of the White House overlooking the Jefferson Memorial (the real reason for the season).

She was right; it was far more civilized, quiet, and an easier place to ‘escape’ to our hotel which was within walking distance. We usually camped out in front of the National Christmas Tree and had a picnic.

The fireworks were directly above us and seemed almost personal. The sound reverberated against the Department of Commerce Buildings in an almost kettle-drum effect. The smoke drifted east toward the Capitol; our vision was crystal clear. Jefferson stood stoically watching the celebration.

In 1986, for the occasion of the rededication of the Statue of Liberty, I donned two verdigris-colored shower curtains (I was perspiring like mad!); a spiked spongy crown; held a torch (which I had purchased, with the crown, on Liberty Island on one of my NY trips); and an empty box of Godiva chocolates as the ‘tablet’. I was the ‘hit’ of The Ellipse and many people took photos of me! Nancy’s son and some boys honored me by building a human pyramid!

Nancy always brought her son Rob along, and for twelve years I watched him grow into a wonderful man. On our last trip together, he brought his fiancé.

After her retirement, and my change to adult companies during the summer and autumn seasons, we lost touch.

The days after September 11^th had me looking up people who mattered to me and with whom I had lost touch. Nancy was one of these, and thankfully, she was still living in Corona, California.

We started emailing and she sent me photos of her grandchildren. Soon, we were able to meet when I was either at an educational convention in Southern California or my semi-annual parent/teacher meetings to answer questions about the trip.

Normally she drove over two hours to see me and we had dinners together at Mimi’s Café, her favorite.

At one of these lunches, I saw Rob, who was now with the Capistrano School District. He told me that I was one of the reasons he is a Social Studies teacher! (You cannot imagine how this has affected me.)

Nancy also invited me to be guest in her home and I finally met her husband.

And then there were the homemade biscotti! I could always depend on a tin for Christmas, my birthday, and whenever we met. The last batch I received was a tangy lemon.

She took great interest in what I was doing and the new path I had chosen. We were making great plans for her retirement and she was considering organizing a tour of the East Coast for retired teachers. (She was active with the California Retired Teachers Association.) She wanted me to design it.

During the summer of 2005, Nancy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. There are no symptoms until it is too late. Naturally, she was hopeful throughout chemotherapy.

I had plans that September to stay the night at her place. After landing at LAX, I received a call from my office that she would be unable to see me and they had made reservations at a hotel. I knew I would never see her alive again.

There were calls and emails, but there was no response. Eventually, I called Rob. She was weak, but hanging in there. They were going to visit Arizona.

I was on tour and called her, but she said I should call back later.

I tried to contact her thereafter, a few times.

But there was no ‘later’.

My tours continued, and when I am on tour, it’s difficult to find time for my private life and time literally flies by.

I finally called her home one more time and her husband informed me that she had died more than a month before! He was very sweet and sent me the obituary as well as the photos above. He let me knew that his wife truly loved me.

I loved her too..

There won’t be a July 4^th when I don’t think of her, and smile.

Figure It Friday # 12 Answer

Answer:
A Moon Rock!

As groups enter the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Air and Space from the mall side, they tend to miss a lonely, black steel tower that is almost obscured by the security area. But if it is found, the delight on the faces of these students is unmistakable, for it displays a piece of moon rock brought back by the astronauts from the Apollo 11 mission.

Not only can it been seen, but it can be touched! The connection that one is touching something from a celestial entity over 240,000 miles away that represents the highest scientific and engineering achievement of mankind, is not lost.

“Wow!”

“Awesome! “

These are the words I routinely hear exclaimed.

Many take a few moments to reflect, the serious expressions on their faces belie the depth of thought; never underestimate these, most are quite profound and poetic.

While the moon rock at the National Air and Space Museum is private, personal, and tactile, the moon rock imbedded in the Washington National Cathedral’s ‘Space Window’ underscores the majesty of the event and puts it into a theological context. This rock was also a gift of the same astronauts, one of whom (Michael Collins, the only one not to have walked on the moon’s surface) had been a student at the St. Alban’s School for Boys, which is the academic choir school attached to the more properly named, Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Looking up from the Cathedral, one is surprised that the red moon is actually depicted larger than the earth and the moon rock has been placed smack in the center.

One student looking up thought it was the eye of God looking down upon her! Others experience an epiphany that God’s kingdom is not confined to earth but is infinite. Most just think it is ‘cool’ that a space window would be in a cathedral. Bosses* above the window are carved to represent Alan Shepherd in his capsule and footprints on the moon.

These two places rock!

*Boss – Architectural term: A raised ornament, such as one at the intersection of the ribs in a vaulted roof

PHOTOS: : This Washington National Cathedral is not the only cathedral where the moon landing is celebrated, Blue Peter, a children's show in Britain had a contest for children to design bosses for York Minster Cathedral in Yorkshire. A six year old Rebecca-Rose Welsh, the youngest winner, designed a Man on the Moon for their vaulted ceiling which had been destroyed after a disastrous fire.

Gathering Moon Rocks. NASAexplores - student sheet

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Moonrock at the Air and Space Museum

Photo of the moonrock at the Air and Space Museum

The National Museum of Air and Space now also hosts some American icons from the National Museum of American History. They have various educational programs and activities all of which can be requested in advance: (A favorite of my groups is the paper airplane contest!)

Educational Programs and visits

Discovery Stations

Science Demonstrations

The Washington National Cathedral/Cathedral of Saint Peter and Saint Paul requires appointments for groups and charges a small fee for tours. The most popular tour is the architectural tour of the 2nd largest Gothic cathedral in the US and 6th largest in the world! US History is represented by windows, statuary, and even the pulpit! Visitors are welcomed and a donation is suggested. As a house of prayer for all people, one is invited to attend worship services.

Space and Technology Window

Cathedral Statistics

Educational Tour Information and Touring Options

Group Visit Request Form

Worship Times

Close Up Tours

WW #3 Answer : Kindred Spirits

Kindred Spirits

By
Asher Durand

1849

Going.

Going.

Gone!

For over $ 35 million dollars!

It was shocking and unsettling not only for the perceived lapse in trust and responsibility by the library towards it gifts, but there was a hue and cry from New York's citizens and cultural elite because The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art had been outbid!

However, Kindred Spirits is not leaving the country and will remain on public display.

The New York Public Library, Astor, Tilden, and Lenox Foundation sold one of their library's, and New York City's, most prized works of art (and other important works) to increase its endowment in order to acquire more items for research. As of this writing, their endowment is about $ 500 million.

This Hudson River School painting depicts the prominent painter Thomas Cole and the poet William Cullen Bryant standing on a table rock in the midst of the Catskills mountains of New York State. It had been commissioned by Jonathan Sturges, a dry-goods merchant, one of Durand's patrons and in turn, Sturges presented it to Bryant's daughter Julia. It was Julia who gave the painting to the New York Public Library.

The subject of the painting is bittersweet; Thomas Cole had just died at the age of 47 of pneumonia and this was a memorial to him as well as a tribute for the great friendship and love of the pristine environment these three men (Bryant, Cole, and Durand) shared.

The title of the painting comes from a Keats Sonnet to Solitude:

O SOLITUDE! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,—
Nature’s observatory—whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, its river’s crystal swell,	5
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
’Mongst boughs pavillion’d, where the deer’s swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I’ll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,	10
Whose words are images of thoughts refin’d,
Is my soul’s pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.

I was personally shattered because I had stopped at this painting so many times throughout my youth whenever I visited the library for research (from sixth grade on), or was just wandering around this beaux-arts palace to knowledge taking in all the details of its interiors, and other works of art on display. Kindred Spirits was an old friend and I felt it was a family heirloom which hung in a rich uncle's home; indeed it was a family heirloom for New Yorkers. It became my oasis from the din and frenetic pace of one of the world's largest cities, and a reminder of the natural beauty further north in an almost mythical place called, New York State.

Where exactly was this untouched paradise? Who were these two men and what was the content of their conversation? Ah! A romantic enigma!

And who purchased this painting and where will it end up?

It has already left building that backs onto a park named for William Cullen Bryant and is currently on loan to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC until mid-march of this year. After that it will part of an exhibit on the Hudson River School at the Brooklyn Museum. From there it will travel to its permanent location at a new world-class museum being built in Bentonville, Arkansas.

Yes, It was bought by one of the richest women in the world, Ms. Alice Walton.

I have no doubt that the good people who live in and around the Ozarks will appreciate the unspoiled and idyllic setting of the Catskills and take the same interest in the two humans standing on the ledge conversing, but I cannot help but mourn the loss and resent the adjustment; my childhood friend has moved and I will be unable to visit with the same frequency.

Until then, I still have a bit of time to visit it the National Gallery of Art and will probably take at least one more peek at the Brooklyn Museum. (I have already bought a framed print.)

And watch for Kindred Spirits on a calendar at your local Walmart.

I haven't mastered the placement of photos, so the painter is Asher Durand, young William Cullen Bryant is looking left, Thomas Cole is looking right, and the black and white drawing is from a Dover coloring book.

Touring Information:

New York State Map of Hudson River School sites and collections

William Cullen Bryant's pristine home and grounds in Cummington is open to visitation: ,The Homestead

Cedar Grove, the home of Thomas Cole and can be visited in upstate New York, within a comfortable drive from New York City. Cedar Grove administers and is one of the sights that make up the Hudson River School Trail.

March 15, 2007 is the last day to see Kindred Spirits at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. After that it will travel to the Brooklyn Museum to be part of a exhibition devoted to Durand Kindred Spirits: Asher B. Durand and the American Landscape, but it is unclear whether or not it will continue to tour with this exhibit to the Smithsonian American Art Museum (at the Renwick Gallery, near the White House), Washington, D.C., September 14, 2007–January 6, 2008; and the San Diego Museum of Art, February 2–June 1, 2008.

It's ultimate home will be the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas slated to open in 2009.