Immersion and Connection

Our trip is now water under the bridge.

We crossed a lot of bridges on our trip, both figurative and literal and we soaked up a lot of knowledge, sunshine and local color.

We were immersed in history, in the Atlantic ocean, in the Magothy river, in the kindness of friends, relatives and even strangers.

We made bridges between events in time, we connected with the living and with artifacts that the dead left behind. We certainly made a lot of connections among neurons in our brains. And we were immersed in each other's company and connected by our shared experiences.

Right now I plan to make such trips often. Once a year if I can.

Before the girls' childhoods are water under the bridge.

A Month and A Day

To get a feeling for our trip over the last few days print out the pictures below. Don't look at them. Now go for a drive and hold them out the window and try to steal a glimpse at each one, while driving, before letting it slip from your fingers and blow away.

I want to hold on to all of them and can't. These last few days I fell into a trap I'd avoided the whole trip up to now. In a last ditch effort to see everything it seems like we saw nothing properly.

We are sorely afflicted, too, by a desire to go home (and by too much affected colonial speech).

And yet, every time I pass a brown park sign I feel a stab of pain at something we are missing. I pass by signs like that all the time at home but don't feel the urgency, because, hey, we live there.

Here I want to turn off and see that thing before we leave, who knows when to return. I actually did it today to see Walden Pond. But the parking lot was locked and the park service has put evil brown posts all along the road to prevent you from even pulling over to look. So I glimpsed flat water through branches at 40mph.

If anything this trip has given me a profound sense that time is short for the vast wealth of things there are to do and see in this world. I vow that when I am home I will not return to sluggish complacency. When I see them, I am going to turn off and follow where the park signs lead.

Once Upon Philadelphia

Our first day in Philadelphia did not wow the kids. We rolled in later than I had hoped, with not much of a plan. Everything was going to be closing soon.

So we did the closest thing: the Liberty Bell.

The kids were thrilled and moved by this symbol of freedom in America.

Mm hmm. Sure they were.

Being pesky little inquisitive things they kept asking why it was a symbol of liberty. The entire brand spanking new hall the bell is in is an elaborate self-justification, and yet even I came away thinking the bell story was cracked.

It was brought to Philadelphia in 1752 long before revolution was contemplated.

It is thought that it was rung (though no one knows for sure), along with all the other bells in Philadelphia, on July 8 when the Declaration of Independence was first read publicly.

Sure, it does say:
Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants thereof.

But really, its chief claim to being a symbol of liberty is that it has been used as a symbol of liberty. The only thing I like about the whole liberty bell thing is the crack.

The idea that freedom is fragile and we have to work to preserve it. The metaphor gets a little stretched here because really, wouldn't it have been better to just make the thing right in the first place?

Unimpressed, we hurried on to see Ben Franklin's house.
It is gone.

The white steel frame shows where the house stood.
Engraved stone circles mark his ice pit.

And privy pit.

Ok, I thought these were cool.

No one had complaints about dinner at City Tavern--one of those places where they serve you period food in period dress.

Ok, my mom was not thrilled with her pewter water cup.

But she was fine with her George Washington recipe porter.

Despite the good dinner, enthusiasm was low for our second day in Philadelphia. Clementine professed outright hatred for Philadelphia.

My mom had hopped a plane early in the morning so I'd be on my own with the dragging feet.
But there were too many things I wanted to see to cancel and go to the beach.

So we went. First stop, the Visitor's Center. You have to get there early to get tickets for Constitution Hall. We got there at 9:30am and got tickets for 1:30pm.

Then we dragged along to Ben Franklin's grave site. They were a bit interested in the graves.

Benjamin and Deborah Franklin's

As was I.

Imagine living to 74 and having 11 of your children die before you. That is a real nostalgia-for-colonial-days stopper.

But it was at Betsy Ross's house that the magic that brought the past to life really began.

Betsy was sitting out front, a stone's throw from her grave site. She was telling the kids about how she showed General Washington how easy it was to make the 5-pointed stars she thought would look good on the American flag. He'd had six-pointed stars in mind for the flag.

But with a few folds and one snip she made a perfect 5-pointed star.
Try it yourself. Betsy cut and handed out paper stars to all the children who wanted one. Greta wowed her with her Williamsburg curtsy and was rewarded with a small piece of Betsy's knitting that we hope to work into our quilt.

Inside Betsy's house we took the audio tour. Greta kept disappearing. I'd ask her to wait and she'd shout (because of the headphones), "But it told me to go down the stairs!"

Did you know Betsy Ross, when her upholstery business was suffering during the war, made musketballs in her basement?

But it was back out in the courtyard that we discovered something that would send us gleefully running back and forth across town all day.

A circular bench and this sign mark magic.
You just sit down and a fabulous actor tells you a story.
Don't get too comfortable because you'll be joining in.

You might steal stones from a construction site with Ben Franklin to construct a wharf at your favorite fishing pond.

Or you might be British navymen firing cannonballs at Captain Barry's ship (see the legs of his statue in the background). In that case you'll have to shout, "God save the king. KABOOM!"

Each kid gets a Betsy Ross flag. There are 13 story booths scattered around historic Philadelphia at various sights and monuments. After each story you get a foil star to put on your flag.

If you visit all 13 you get a free ice cream and carousel ride.
We only made it to ten.

But who cares? The real prize was the stories themselves, so well told, that instead of dragging feet, we had running feet all day.

They ran gleefully, knowing at the end there'd be a familiar circular bench waiting to rest on and a wonderful story to hear and participate in. These stories carried us to all the major sights and then helped us travel back in time to relive snippets of the lives of Patriots, Pirates, Heroes and Spies.

Valley Forge: Fragments

Valley Forge. Some things were supposed to come together here. We've been assembling fragments of history, fragments of the American Revolution, a sketch of the British occupation of Charleston, a glimpse of George Washington as farmer living and dying at Mount Vernon, artifacts at Yorktown. I am not sure why, but I thought Valley Forge, where Washington's army lived through its darkest hour, where 2000 men died of disease, cold, and starvation, where officers left because they could and soldiers stayed because they couldn't, would complete the puzzle somehow.

But on a glorious day it is hard to imagine the misery suffered by men in these cabins they built themselves. Washington offered a $12 prize to the team of twelve men in each regiment who first completed a well-constructed cabin.

There were more cannons.

And there were cousins. Cousins definitely raised the day above the run of the mill. It was great to see the girls share the knowledge with their cousins.

And have fun with their cousins. But the place was falling short of my expectations.
Until.
Until we arrived at General Washington's Headquarters.
This is the original building.

I was excited about the Commander's flag flying out front. We learned at Mt. Vernon that this was Washington's flag and it was flown when Washington was visiting a camp. Seeing it out front of the headquarters made me feel like I would find Washington inside and he would help us put it all together.

I did not find Washington in.
Instead we found a dig going on.

Clem is holding a pot shard still cold from more than 200 years in the ground. The last person to hold that pot was there in that winter of 1777-1778 when the British, happily occupying Philadelphia, thought the Continental Army could not hold out long.

Initially the archaeologists said that kids had to be 14 and older to participate in the dig. But we hung around and after a while the kids, with their enthusiasm and knowledge insinuated themselves into the groups surrounding four screens on saw horses. Each screen was for a marked off quadrant of the dig.

The kids pressed the dirt through the screen and when they found lumps they asked what each was. It wasn't long before they were identfying things themselves. I joined in late because I was taking photographs. I'd show them what I found and they'd say, "oh, that's just brick" or mortar or "klinker", a byproduct of smelting.

The kind archeologists put Greta in charge of saving earthworms.

I was so glad that my mom got to share this amazing experience. It was her last day with us.

Just like that our day was transformed from ho hum to highlight. And digging in the dirt, finding old nails and pot shards and pipe stems and glass, the broken remnants of the lives of Washington and his men, made me realize that I had been looking for the wrong thing.

History is not a puzzle to be assembled into one final picture, but a mosaic of unfixed fragments that we can arrange and rearrange and add to endlessly.

No Desk!

I've been the butt of a running joke on this trip. When we were preparing for the trip the kids and I watched a history channel series on the American Revolution loaned to us by my friend at West Vista Urban Farm. In one dramatic reenactment Thomas Jefferson is in Philadelphia, seated at a wooden desk, writing the Declaration of Independence. The voiceover says, In this room Thomas Jefferson penned the Declaration of Independence.

"This is so exciting!" I say to the kids. "When we are in Philadelphia we might see that!"

"What?" Evelyn says, "The Declaration of Independence?"

"Well, no," I say, "That is in DC. I meant the desk."

"Ooooh! The desk! The desk!" Evelyn says. She then goes on to say things like, oh, maybe we'll see the pants he was wearing when he sat at the desk!

So imagine my surprise when, in perusing a DC visitor's guide, I discover that Thomas Jefferson's desk is in fact on display in DC in the Museum of American History. I was ready to go right away.

But there was the Museum of Natural History to visit, and an exhibit on the Unsettlement of the Contintent, about the settlement of Jamestown, Santa Fe and Quebec. Having just visited Jamestown I thought it would be fascinating to see the very different histories of the settlement of Santa Fe and Quebec. (It was.) And there were tours of the Library of Congress and the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to make and monuments to see.

It didn't help that whenever anyone mentioned the desk Greta would lie down on the floor and kick and scream "No desk!" This trip has not been tailor made for a 4 year old.

So on our last day in DC we finally made it to the American Presidency exhibit of the Museum of American History. And there it was, in the center of the room, in glass.

The desk.

It looked nothing like the one in the dramatic reenactment. It was a small, portable desk of Jefferson's own design. I was snapping away, trying to hold still enough to get photos without flash in the dim light.

And Mike and Evelyn start cracking up.

They had been reading. The desk is flanked by two quotations. Jefferson, when he gave the desk to his granddaughter and her husband, attached this note inside the desk:

Politics as well as religion has its superstitions. These, gaining strength with time, may, one day, give imaginary value to this relic, for its great association with the birth of the Great Charter of our Independence.

And to his granddaughter, Eleanora Randolph Coolidge, he wrote in a letter:

Mr. Coolidge must do me the favor of accepting this. Its imaginary value will increase with years and if he lives to my age, or another half-century, he may see it carried in the procession of our nation's birthday, as the relics of the saints are in those of the Church.

What I did not suffer after having been made fun of by Jefferson himself. Evelyn said, "Can you see it? The desk has an aura of power and magic!" For the rest of the American Presidency exhibit Evelyn ran to me with, "Oooh! The wedge that Lincoln used to split wood!" and "Look! Look! Warren Harding's silk pajamas! He slept in those pajamas!"

The great irony is that after being so excited merely by the desk that the Great Charter of our Independence was written on I did not make it to see the charter itself. We kept passing the National Archives and deciding not to wait in the 45 minute line. We planned to go the last day after school groups had left for the day, but we arrived moments too late. It was closed. We did not see either the Declaration of Independence or The Constitution in person.

However, I, ahem, am no longer one to give too much importance to a relic. It is not the paper (or the desk) they are written on, but the words that matter.

Washington DC

Six museums, five memorials, four miles of walking, three government buildings, two tours, and one monument.

Here's Clem last night at dinner. Too tired to eat.

Memory Lane

Calvert Cliffs
These crumbly cliffs of sedimentary rock filled with fossils were a beloved destination of my childhood. I once found a beautiful great white shark tooth here. Other times we sifted and pored and found nothing. Last time I brought the kids they did not find any shark teeth, but at 2 and 4 they were certain their shell fragments were teeth. Now they knew better and I hoped this time the sands would yield their most prized treasures.

On this trip the 1.8 mile walk to the beach passed faster, or maybe slower, but more interestingly than it did in my childhood. For one thing, I no longer take the mountain laurel for granted.

When I was a child we trudged the sandy trail to the beach through an unremarkable pine forest. But some years ago beavers moved in and dammed a small creek. Now the area is a wetland teeming with life.
Frogs abound.

As do lizards

and snakes

and unusual bees

and dragonflies

and turtles

Just when we caught this turtle a young couple was passing by.
Do you know your turtles? I asked. We'd never seen a turtle with the little hedgehog nose of this turtle. And you never know what people will know.
The woman cocked her thumb and her partner.
"He does."
He took a quick look. "Musk turtle."
Glad I asked!

The old pines stand dead in the water, or lie down across the water, that is the ones that the beavers haven't carted off, leaving only their pointed stumps.

And there was honeysuckle growing in profusion.
Later I remarked to my friend of 34 years that it was so great to see the kids doing the things I had done as a child, eating honeysuckle nectar, pulling sea nettles out of the water, hunting for shark teeth at Calvert Cliffs and not finding any.

For those that don't find any this guy has set up shop on the road across from the park.

But we didn't need him. Persistence at last paid off. Our finds, like the memories of childhood, were small but precious.

Three shark teeth, three crab claws, one barbed skate tail, and three skate crushing plates.