Day 40: Back in Texas!!

After a 40-day, 17-state circuit it felt good to finally circle back to Texas.

We spent the night in a motel on I-35 but had a great meal at a nice brewpub on the courthouse square in bustling downtown Denton.

Even though it was windy and hot and we are still 300 miles from home, it is nice to be back in Texas.


The only real excitement during the drive from St. Louis came when a guy in a pickup truck pulled up next to us on I-35, just north of Oklahoma City, waving his arms, yelling and pointing at the back of our truck.

What does that asshole want, I wondered?

Turns out he wanted to tell us that one of the bikes had fallen off of the rack on the back of the truck and was bouncing down the interstate behind the truck, connected only by a lock and chain.

Miraculously, when we pulled over, the bike appeared to have sustained no significant damage. I re-attached the fitting and we motored on south.

Another matter of note on the drive south is that we passed by the town of Joplin, Mo. on I-44. Apparently the tornado crossed the interstate at one point and we were able to see denuded tree stumps that looked just like the ones we have seen in news photos over the last few days. There were a few billboards that had been snapped off, leaving nothing but a bare post, and we saw a few houses that had been stripped of all their siding and shingles. However, the main area that was hit by the tornado is apparently not visible from the interstate.

Despite weather reports of storms on our route through Missouri we were dry for the entire drive.

We have been blessed with great road and weather conditions for the entire trip.

Unless something notable happens on the drive down I-35 from Denton this will probably be my last post.

Day 39: It's warming up

That is not to say it was all that warm when we arrived here in the St. Louis suburb of Fenton (at our motel on Bowles Ave.) but it is significantly warmer here than it was when we started out in Ann Arbor, 520 miles and one time zone to the northeast.

The Michigan morning reminded me of a January day in San Antonio; low 40s, damp, windy.

A good part of our day was spent driving through Indiana and it looked pretty much like you would expect Indiana to look.

It was a nice day to drive with leaden skies but no rain.

That's a good thing because that is pretty much all we did, drive.

Day 38: The Red Sox should pay us to go to all of their games

Even though we have been traveling we have heard about the tornadoes that hit Tuscaloosa and Joplin. However, we did not realize until our trip to downtown Detroit yesterday that a tornado also struck here in Michigan.

It’s a good/sad joke but I can’t take credit for it because the Detroit Free Press had an editorial in yesterday’s paper with a guy standing among the empty lots in Detroit asking why, if the government can rebuild Joplin and Tuscaloosa, it cannot rebuild Detroit?

My short answer would be that Tuscaloosa/Joplin have infrastructure problems; Detroit has human problems. We’re much better at fixing the former than the later.

Actually, the parts of Detroit that we saw on our trip from Ann Arbor to downtown for the baseball game and back, were not as bad as I expected. There are vacant lots everywhere and a few hulking, empty buildings; but there were also some signs of life, including grinding rush hour traffic on the drive home in the rain, a vibrant, restored downtown theater similar to San Antonio's Majestic Theater, and a bustling bar-restaurant in an historic building.

With tons of vacant lots it was no trouble finding a parking spot for the 1:05 p.m. start between the Tigers and Red Sox.

Once again the Red Sox scored 14 runs (the first time that’s happened since 1998) although, fortunately for me since  was scoring at the time, they were one batter short of batting around when they scored five runs in the second inning. Readers may recall that yesterday I reported that Carl Crawford could have hit for the cycle with a triple but had to pull up because of a slower runner in front of him. Today he hit two triples, the eighth time in his career he has done that.

The game was shortened by rain but we came prepared with rain gear and repaired to a nearby bar (see photo below) a few minutes before the umpires called it off. Before we arrived yesterday the area was deluged and the newspaper reported that this is the fourth-wettest spring on record with 15 inches since April 1.

Of the four stadiums we have visited on this trip I think we both like Detroit the best, even if it is in Detroit.

The outside of the stadium is really cool with these gargoyle-like Tigers everywhere and it is very nice inside, with a nice, clean, green look and a good view of the downtown buildings over the outfield fence.

Our stub hub tickets were awesome; about 18 rows back from home plate. Counting the minor league game the seats we have had on this trip, collectively, have been crazy good.

After the hour-plus drive back to Ann Arbor we supped at a brew pub downtown, near the university, and called it a day.

The BIG DRIVE home starts early tomorrow.

Day 37: Indians scalped

A first-inning ambush turned into a full-fledged massacre at Progressive Field in Cleveland when the Red Sox sent 12 batters to the plate and scored seven runs in the first inning. When the dust finally settled light-hitting Carl Crawford had four hits (and would probably have hit for the cycle if he didn’t have a runner in front of him) David Ortiz bombed a 431-foot homer – one of 20 hits for the Red Sox - and the ugly finale was 14-2; the worst loss of the season for the team with the best record in the majors.

Bloodshed aside, it was a wonderful day with pleasant weather and great seats in an awesome stadium where they sell an excellent dortmunder beer produced by the nearby Great Lakes Brewing Company.

The baseball game wasn’t the highlight of the day however. That distinction was earned on the way to the game when we stopped by Ralphie Parker’s house.

Yes folks I’m talking about that Ralphie Parker - THE Ralphie Parker – the one that matriculates at Warren G. Harding Elementary School and sleeps with a 200-Shot, Range-Model Air Rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing that tells time.

I know what you are thinking; if we are in Cleveland how could we possibly have gone to the Parker abode, which is - as everyone knows - located in Hohman, Indiana (a fictional version of writer Jean Sheppard’s hometown of Hammond, Indiana)?

Think about it for a minute. Do you remember the street they lived on in Hohman? Cleveland Street!

Yes movie fans, the actual house that was used in the movie is in a Cleveland neighborhood and we went by that very house on the way to the game.

And, yes, there was a leg lamp in the front window.

The game started at noon so we were out on I-90 headed toward Michigan before rush hour began.

P.S. Unbeknown to me Betsy took a photo with her phone at the Johnstown Flood National Memorial. Therefore, if you consider a phone to be a camera, then I stand corrected in my comments in yesterday's blog post about not taking a camera with us when we visited this site.

Day 36: Memorable memorials

Our morning was spent in a strange combination of symmetry and juxtaposition at two National Park Service national memorials; the Johnstown Flood NM and the Flight 93 NM.

They are only 30 miles and 112 years apart, but it seemed further. The flood memorial felt like an historic curiosity. The Flight 93 memorial felt like a fresh wound when the scab is peeled back.

There were 40 passengers and crew on Flight 93 and the toll from all four of the 9-11 planes that were highjacked was about 3,000.

The Johnstown flood had a similar loss of life, claiming 2,209 lives in the flood itself. Scores more died from disease and hundreds were unaccounted for.

In other words, the loss of life in the 9-11 attacks and the Johnstown flood were very similar.

The flood was caused when an earthen dam gave way 14 miles upstream from Johnstown, unleashing  a wall of water from an impounded lake. The dam and the lake were created by the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, an exclusive retreat that catered to wealthy residents of Pittsburgh.

The dam had been breached decades earlier and the dangers were well-known. However, no one associated with the club was ever held to account for the negligence.

Obviously the two events are very different, but I was struck by the many similarities and the way that time has changed our perception of these two events.

We didn’t even take a camera with us when we went into the Johnstown Flood NM visitor center.

The Flight 93 memorial is still under construction. The plane crashed at an abandoned strip mine and the temporary memorial is housed in a metal building that was part of the mining operation.

It is spare and rudimentary; no interactive displays or anything like that.

But it is still powerful in its simplicity – and its freshness in memory.

They have a cork board in the metal building where people can write notes and post them with a push pin.

A striking number of the notes start with the words “thank you”. “Heroes” is another common word, as is the phrase “never forgotten.”

As I looked out over the crash site and watched the construction workers that are trying to meet the September 11, 2010 target for opening the memorial I wondered if it would become an historic footnote, like the Johnstown flood site, Pearl Harbor, Andersonville and dozens of other memorials in the NPS system where the occasional visitor doesn't bother to bring a camera.

I jotted down two of the postings on the cork board.

I wish the plane didn’t crash, but it did. I feel bad for you. 

                                                                         Ross Santos

It has been my honor to serve in your memory.

                                        SSgt. Aaron R. Lotaro

                        Wyoming Army National Guard

The afternoon was spent driving west to Ohio, in preparation for tomorrow’s game between the Indians and the Red Sox.

Day 35: Goodbye Delaware: we’ll miss your flatness

We did it!  All of our stuff is stuffed in the truck and we can still out of the rear view mirror. Mission accomplished!

The Pasleys have a long-running practice of stretching our hands across the dashboard in a competition to be the first to enter the next state, county, etc. However, as we left Delaware at the same place on Route 404 where we entered a month, ago Betsy and I jutted our arms backward in an attempt to be the last to leave Delaware.

It really was a “small wonder”.

As I have said before the thing that surprised me the most about Delaware was the amount of agriculture and the rural character of much of the state. Simply put; Delaware was a lot more like Texas than I expected it to be.

Another thing that surprised me was how much the roads in Delaware resemble the roads in Texas.

First of all they are in very good condition and the parts that are not seem to be under construction; often with the contractor working under the lights at night, a practice pioneered in Texas.

Like Texas highways, the Delaware state roads often have wide shoulders.

There are some significant differences however. Delaware is far more aggressive in striping those wide shoulders for bike lanes, and requiring developers to provide bike lanes, than is Texas.

Another noticeable difference is the attention paid to drainage.

TxDOT does a spectacular job of draining its rural highways, using a center crown and what we in Texas call a “bar ditch”, which is essentially a grassy swale on either side of the highway that removes the water. Unless there is a flood condition it is rare to encounter standing water on a TxDOT facility.

Delaware roads are much different in this regard.

Most of Delaware is flat as a pancake. Thus, you would think, that if any state should be concerned about drainage it would be Delaware. But that is not the case. DelDOT roads are virtually flat and there are no bar ditches. As a result, even a relatively light shower produces puddles in the main lanes.

Another huge difference between DelDot and TxDot is speed limits. As a general rule I would say the speed limits in Delaware (and Maryland too) are set about 10 mph less than they should be. DelDot loves to change the speed limit; from 25, then 30, then 35, then 40 - all in a half-mile stretch. After that you can go miles without seeing any signage to reinforce the existing speed limit. As a result, as the locals whizzed around me, I was often left wondering if the speed limit had changed and I missed the sign.

We stopped in Annapolis for lunch with Tex and Laurel and then headed into the Maryland panhandle on I-70, crossing into Pennsylvania about 5 p. m.

The change in topography was dramatic. In this part of the Maryland it can be a real challenge just to find a flat spot.

We arrived at the peak of Mt. Davis, the highest point in Pennsylvania, about 5:30 and were treated to some spectacular views from an observation tower that allows one to see out over the treetops.

It was windy and there was a fairly intense rain shower on a portion of I-70, but by the time we reached the highpoint it was clear and quite comfortable.

We twisted and turned through hills and farms to the Flight 93 Memorial, but arrived at 7:30 and it closed at 7. Twenty more miles of twists and turns and nice farms and pleasant vistas brought us to Johnstown and the perfect trifecta of a Holiday Inn Express, a beer store and a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

The trifecta had a downside however, because of Pennsylvania’s liquor laws. Only cases of beer could be sold at the beer store. Normally that would not have been a problem but with space in the truck at a premium we passed on a case of Pennsylvania beer.

Day 33 & 34: The Beverly Hillbillies visit Brooklyn

Pretend that Jethro Bodine and Elly May Clampett  from the Beverly Hillbillies took a trip to New York City to visit the biggest overachiever from Jethro’s class of 1973 back at Hillbilly High and you have a pretty good idea of what it was like when Dave and Betsy visited Dave’s high school friend Debbie Buell and her husband Charlie Henry in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn this weekend. The only thing missing was granny sitting in a rocking chair strapped to the bed of the pickup truck.

We dined at an Italian restaurant in the neighborhood, strolled the Brooklyn promenade, watched the Yankees embarrass the hapless Mets, drank strong coffee while reading the Times, and sat on the stoop of the Henry’s brownstone watching the neighborhood walk by.

Sort of like an episode of Law & Order without the crime.

Along the way we found time to catch up on the events that have taken place in our various lives since 1973, much of it spent bragging about our kids. Fortuitously we got a first-hand report about the youngest Henry from Maggie herself; a firecracker columnist for the Cornell Daily Sun and a Big Red debate team member who appears to be on a fast track to matching her mother as the ultimate “power woman” (but only if she wants to).

The air crackled with Mag’s electricity.

Betsy and I packed up and left the condo in Lewes Saturday morning with a twinge or two of nostalgic regret, but mostly with a deep-seated concern about the looming question: “how in the hell are we going to get all of this crap stuffed into the truck?”

The short answer is, we didn’t; at least, not yet. In classic Pasley fashion, we punted; leaving the bicycles chained to the rack at the condo and dropping off some of our bulkier items at the Realtor’s office (story to be continued in a future post).

But even with those offloads we still had a mish-mash of detritus piled inside the cab of the truck. After we parked on the street in Brooklyn the detritus began screaming out to passersby; “break a window and steal us.” That prompted us to haul enough of it inside the house to be mildly embarrassed and further reinforce the hillbilly stereotype.

After a month in laid-back Lewes, New York City was a sensory overload.

There are a mind-boggling number of shops and eateries within walking distance (who in their right mind would drive and give up their parking spot) and seemingly more people milling about in a three-block area than in Delaware’s three counties combined.

Because of our extensive exposure to Law & Order we weren’t too surprised by anything we saw in New York - except for the overtly-friendly staff at Yankee stadium.

I’m serious. As many blog readers know, Betsy and I often critique customer service; both good and bad. Having complained so often about the latter I don’t want to give the impression that I am knocking the Yankees for their explicit attempts to provide the former; however, the gap between the effort to appear customer-friendly and the actual rendering of a tangible service was a little creepy.

Other observations from our 26-hour visit include the impossibly high ceilings in the Henry’s brownstone; my gleeful perception that the mighty Yankees’ $1.5 billion stadium is not as good a place to watch a ballgame as the hapless Mets’ $800 million CitiField; the huge chasm Debbie crosses every day between her life as a partner in a Wall Street law firm and her life as a mom in Brooklyn; that a lot more blue-state Yankee fans sing the national anthem than red-state Astros fans; that New Yorkers walk a hell of a lot, and; that there are a hell of a lot more fat people in San Antonio than there are in New York City.

Note to self: could there possibly be a connection between the last two observations?

I’m also debating which is more surprising to me; how far Debbie has come from the farm where she grew up outside of Liberty, Missouri, or how close it still seems to be.

The one thing that did shock me about Debbie was the intensity of her crush on Derek Jeter and the depth of her disdain for poor A-Rod, whose at-bats have been consigned to the lowly status of “blackberry-checking-time.”

When it came time to leave and we had hauled the last pillowcase out of the brownstone, stuffed the last bag of leftover mini-wheats into the truck and strapped on granny’s rocking chair we headed out on the BQE, crossed the Verazano bridge (for the measly toll of $13; it’s $8 going into the city?) and fired down the New Jersey turnpike like a couple of veterans.

Before long we were back on home turf, back in Delaware.

Day 32: Hooked on birding?

No, not really hooked; but we did go to the Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge east of Dover.

We have become, perhaps, a little more appreciative of bird watching during our stay here in what must be one of the best bird-watching areas in the country.

Bombay Hook is basically a huge wetland, much of it salt marshes, and it is managed to provide habitat for the hundreds of thousands of birds that migrate up and down the east coast every year.

We saw a bald eagle, numerous herons, the ever-present red-wing black bird and – our personal favorite – the semipalmated sandpiper (we just like the name).

On the way home we stopped off at the Fordham Brewery in Dover and got a personal tour from Jim, one of the owners. And I do mean personal, opening boxes to smell various hops, looking inside the freshly-cleaned kettles, etc.

The interesting thing about Fordham is that it started as the Ram’s Head brewpub in Annapolis, a favorite hangout for many Johnnies. Jim our tour guide still lives in Annapolis.

It seems like a very nice, efficient operation and the beer was quite tasty. 

The photo below is "Hop2D2" the device they have fabricated from available materials to add hops flavor to the beer.

A few weeks ago we drove past an auto repair shop and Betsy noted the oddity that there was a funnel cake stand in the parking lot.

The stand was closed and it was one of those portable types that can be pulled on a trailer so I opined that it was probably just parked there. Surely they were not selling funnel cakes at this location.

Guess I was wrong.

This was our last full day in Lewes and it rained off and on and then really poured after we got home. It was the most rain we have had since we’ve been here.

This weekend we are going to New York City to visit an old high school friend and go to the Yankees game on Sunday. We will come back to Lewes on Sunday to pick up the bicycles and other stuff we don’t want to leave in the truck parked on the street. We will depart Monday for home; via baseball games in Cleveland and Detroit. We should be home by Memorial Day.

Because we will be on the road my postings from here on out may be sporadic.

Day 31: Sweden attacks, Lewes Navy responds

When we looked out in the bay and saw the Kalmar Nyckle under full sail we took matters into our own hands; renting some kayaks and going out to sea to repel the invasion.

We also found time to stop on an isolated section of beach to look at an old shipwreck and save the lives of several horseshoe crabs (the Delaware State Marine Animal). These odd creatures come in on the high tide to lay their eggs in the sand and, as the tide goes out, some of them get turned upside down far from the water and unable to right themselves.

We went along and righted/"saved" a dozen or more. As you can see in the photos and the video, the crabs took a slow and sometimes circuitous route back to the sea.

We also found time to start packing (yes, we have to leave on Saturday morning) and enjoyed another awesome sunset.

Note: That is our condo in the background. The second floor porch on the far left is ours.

In addition to fending off the Swedes Betsy also took time to scare off a ferry full of New Jerseyians.

Apparently until a storm four years ago this 19th century shipwreck was in one piece.

All things considered, it has held up pretty well.

A grateful, righted Horseshoe Crab makes its way back to the sea.

After this u-turn.

Day 30: Straddling the transpeninsular line

Another forecast of almost certain rain produced a few drops and turned into a stellar, sunny afternoon.

We re-traced some steps from a previous trip to Fenwick Island on the extreme southeast corner of Delaware to look at a lighthouse we had driven close to on a previous trip but had not seen.

The lighthouse is in Delaware, but only by a few feet. It fronts on a street that is in Maryland and sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood that includes the two former lightkeepers' houses that are now private residences.

In front of the lighthouse is one of the original markers used to delineate the Delaware-Maryland border; with the seal of the Penn family on the Delaware side and the Calvert family on the Maryland side (photo shows the Calvert side).

From there we drove due west to the town of Delmar, which is home to the Evolution brewery, makers of some very fine beers. The seal on the city truck in the brewery parking lot tells you everything you need to know about Delmar.

It was a beautiful drive home, partially along the Mason-Dixon line, where a beautiful sunset awaited.

Before we left for the trip I jogged to the state park and Betsy biked there. Along the way Betsy was able to snap this photo of one of the animals in the park as it raced past me while I was jogging.

 

  

Note: I have posted the text of the SJC commencement address on a separate page which can be found at the top of the blog and accessed by mouse click.

Day 29: Touring the first town in the first state

We finally got around to visiting some of the museums and historic sites that are right under our noses here in Lewes.

I’ve mentioned some of this in earlier posts but Lewes was “discovered” in 1609 by Henry Hudson (there were, of course, native people who had been living here for centuries). Hudson was looking for a northwest passage to the Pacific ocean and was probably a little miffed when the promising Delaware Bay turned out to be the Delaware River, and New York harbor turned into the Hudson River.

Although he did not find what he was looking for, Hudson claimed the area for the Netherlands (Hudson was English but was employed by the Dutch) and called the two places north bay and south bay.

A year later an Englishman by the name of Samuel Argall sailed into the "south bay" and he named the cape here in honor of the governor of Virginia at the time, Lord de la Ware. The cape was eventually renamed Henlopen, after a place in the Netherlands, but the name Delaware stuck and was eventually applied to the larger area that included the bay, the river and, ultimately, the state.

Hudson supposedly suggested the spot in the south bay that is now Lewes might be a good place for a whaling station and, in 1631, two or three dozen guys showed up to start one; calling the place Zwanendael in the Walvis. Zwanendael means valley of the swan and Walvis means whale (and it was also the name of the the ship that brought them across the Atlantic).

When a supply ship showed up a year later all of the guys were dead, apparently the result of a “cultural misunderstanding” with the locals. There are lots of theories about the nature of this “cultural misunderstanding” but the one that makes the most sense to me is that the Dutch boys got a little too friendly with some of the native women, and the native men exacted a harsh punishment.

Such has been the downfall of many.

In 1638 the Swedes settled in what is now Wilmington and that community flourished to a much greater extent than did Zwanendael.

For the next 40 years or so there was back and forth bickering among the Dutch and the Swedes and Lord Baltimore over in Maryland but that was pretty much settled when William Penn arrived in 1682 and renamed the place Lewes, declaring it to be the seat of the new Sussex County, one of Pennsylvania’s three “lower counties of the Delaware.”

The three counties gradually but steadily grew away from Pennsylvania and into self-governance, eventually becoming a separate colony just a month before the revolution.

This story is told in the Zwaanendael Museum (pictured below) which was built in 1931, the 300^th anniversary of the founding of the settlement by the horny whalers. The building is modeled after the town hall in Hoorn, the Netherlands.

The Presbyterian Church is just down the street from the museum and I’ve posted a photo of the church (below) to show what I have described in earlier posts as the propensity for churches in Delaware to be surrounded by cemeteries.

The next photo (below) is the Episcopal Church in “downtown Lewes”. This building was built in 1854 but it is the third church building on the site as it evolved from the Church of England into Trinity Episcopal Church.

In addition to (of course) a cemetery, the grounds of the church include a meditative labyrinth and you can see in the photo below that I am "getting my zen on" as I prepare to enter the labyrinth.

In the 19^th century the construction of the two breakwaters and the two lighthouses (that I have described in previous posts) helped Lewes become an important harbor for fishing vessels and for the pilots that, to this day, travel out from here to board ships near the mouth of the bay to guide them through the tricky waters as the bay narrows to a river in Wilmington and, eventually, Philadelphia. The photo below is the "lightship" Overfalls, literally a portable lighthouse. Lightships were used in the 19th and early 20th century. Built in 1938, the Overfalls is one of the last lightships constructed in the U.S.

Obviously, the folks here in Lewes are quite proud of their lighthouse/ship history.

In the 20^th century it is important to note that, as Rehoboth Beach and Cape May were developing as tourist spots, Lewes was primarily a working-class town centered on fishing for a type of fish known as Menhaden. Menhaden were netted in great quantities and processed for their oil. By the mid-20th century most of the people that lived in Lewes were linked in some way to the Menhaden fishing industry.

A major transition took place in the mid-1960s when the Menhaden declined sharply. Fortuitously, both the Cape May ferry and the state park opened in 1964 and a branch of the University of Delaware that is devoted to marine sciences opened in 1970. Now the town caters primarily to tourism and sport fishing, attracting well-to-do retirees and getting a nice boost from the university.

Although there was supposedly a 100 percent chance of rain today only a few sprinkles fell and we spent most of the afternoon walking around downtown, visiting the many historic sites. The threat of rain may have kept the workers away and it was a blissfully quiet morning.

Day 28: 402 years later; Henry Hudson returns?

I was jogging by the ferry landing, returning from Cape Henlopen State Park, when I was stopped dead in my tracks by a strange sight.

Moored over at the dock was one of those three-masted ships; you know, the kind where you expect to see Johnny Depp at the helm.

The first thought that came to my mind was that Henry Hudson, who sailed into this very harbor in 1609 in a vain quest to find the non-existent northwest passage, had somehow worked out a deal with the powers that be so that he could return to earth and resume his quest for the passage, now that global warming is on the verge of creating a real northwest passage.

Quickly, I came to my senses.

“That’s crazy,” I said to myself. “There’s no such thing as global warming. If there was, Congress would be doing something about it.”

Based on this reasoning alone, I completely dismissed the idea that Hudson had been reincarnated and sailed the ship into Delaware Bay and docked it here in Lewes. With that possibility discounted, I went over to the dock to further investigate the odd-looking ship.

It turned out to be a replica of the Kalmar Nyckel, the Swedish ship that came to Delaware in 1638 with the colonists that founded what is now Wilmington (and later built what is now called Old Swedes Church).

The first Kalmar Nyckel made four crossings of the Atlantic. Today, for $60 bucks, a person can sail out into Delaware Bay on the replica for two-and-half-hours.

Spotting the ship and returning later with Betsy for a closer look and some photos was pretty much the highlight of the day, along with hearing Mrs. Osprey squawk and move around some in the nest as I watched on Osprey Cam.

Days 26 & 27: Graduation Weekend

“To the senior man and woman, who, through participation, leadership and sportsmanship, have contributed most to the SJC athletic program, a special blazer.”

Quoted from the program for the 2011 St. John’s College Commencement Exercises

In the photo above SJC Athletic Director (and 2011 commencement speaker) Leo Pickens assists 2011 award recipient Clayton Read Pasley into his "special blazer".

With two parents, two uncles, an aunt and a girlfriend looking on, Tex graduated from St. John’s College Sunday morning, the 219^th commencement in the College's 315^th year.

It was quite a day and quite a weekend.

Soon after we arrived in Annapolis we attended what Tex had described as a “little get together” put on by his recently-engaged housemates/landlords/fellow Johnnies; Kelsey Gilmore and Matthew Gore.

It turned out to be not a little get together but a full-fledged party, with a full layout of cheeses, shrimp, burgers on the grill, beer, wine, espresso and – get this – party favors. That was a very nice way to get the day started. Thank you Kelsey and Matt!

After checking in to the hotel and getting the vehicle parked (not as easy as it sounds) we met my brother Chet and his wife Sue, who traveled from New Hampshire, on the campus and the four of us along with Tex’s girlfriend Laurel Fischer (SJC, Class of 2010) attended an annual graduation weekend event known as “Class Day”.

In essence Class Day is a talent show and I want to put a lot of emphasis on the word talent. For more than two hours a dozen or so members of the SJC senior class treated a bladder-challenged audience of parents, grandparents, siblings and assorted others to a potpourri of music by combinations of voice, piano, guitar, violin and accordion. Poetry was read and a section of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was (hilariously) performed.

Adding to the aura the event took place in the “Great Hall” of McDowell Hall, a building originally intended to be the colonial governor’s mansion when it was constructed in 1742.

You can read more about this grand building and its award-winning restoration in 1989 at this website http://www.bohlarchitects.com/McDowell_H/mcdowell.htm.

I am certainly not one to judge talent in areas such as Bach’s “Chaconne” on violin, or a piano piece by Schubert, but for whatever it may be worth I was very impressed with the talent these kids – er, young men and women - displayed.

Perhaps the most unusual performance – and I know readers may find this difficult to believe – involved Tex and two of his good friends, John Vining and Blake Myers. Now I am sure that most readers would have thought that, with the college president looking on from the audience, my son would be drawing the bow across the strings of violin, tinkling the keys of a piano, or perhaps singing a duet or reading a classic poem.

Nope, none of that stuffiness. Instead, Tex displayed his skills as a bartender.

John read the preface to, and Blake read the text of, what I would call a cross between a recipe for, and a romantic essay about, the mint julep.

(Note: I have posted this “recipe/essay” on a separate page on this blog. You can access it by going to the top of the main page of the blog where you will see headers titled “About the Blue Hen” “Tex’s Senior Essay” etc. On the far right of this list of separate pages is one titled “The Mint Julep”. If you take the pointer on your cursor and place it over the page tab and click once on that tab with the left clicker on your mouse it will take you to that page and you can read Soule Smith’s ode to the mint julep. To get back to the main page - i.e. the blog - click on home.)

As John read the preface Tex was at the back of the stage at a table setting up the various items that are needed to make a mint julep. Then, as Blake read the recipe/essay, Tex performed each of the tasks that were being described in the "ode". When Blake was finished reading, Tex had three mint juleps were ready for drinking.

The three of them then toasted one another and left the stage.

One of the inside jokes, which I did not realize until told later, was that Tex used the head of broken croquet mallet to pound the ice cubes into crushed ice (if you don't get that joke you have not been reading the blog).

I think it is fair to say that, among the many talents on display at Class Day, the performance by Tex, John and Blake stood out.

After Class Day we went to a reception, then to the patio of our hotel for a beer and some cigars and then to a restaurant where we were joined by John Vining and his family.

That was it for Saturday; at least as far as Chet, Sue, Betsy and Dave were concerned.

Sunday morning Betsy and I met her brother Rob for breakfast at Chick and Ruth’s, a famous Annapolis eatery, and then walked over to the campus.

The graduation was scheduled to be held on the front lawn of the campus (primarily, I think, so that there would be enough seating for everyone that wanted to attend). However, rain was forecast and skies threatened and the ceremony was moved indoors to the Francis Scott Key (SJC, Class of 1796) Auditorium. Each graduate got eight tickets apiece and, because there were exactly eight of us, the move inside was good even though it did not rain. I say good because it was warm and muggy outside and the seats in the auditorium were much more comfortable than the folding chairs would have been out on the lawn. The overflow watched from an adjacent room, via video.

After remarks from President Nelson and the singing of a well-known song written by 1796 SJC graduate F. S. Key, the awards were distributed. Just to give you a bit of the flavor of SJC, the best senior essay was titled "An Investigation into the Supposed Conflict Between Non-Eclidian Geometry and the Doctrine of the Transcendental Ideality of Space". 

The commencement address was delivered by the school’s Athletic Director Leo Pickens, a 1978 graduate of the college. Tex was a member of the speaker selection committee and a strong advocate for Mr. Pickens' selection as the speaker.

Now, to many (admittedly, myself included), this would seem like an odd choice – a very mundane choice – for such an august occasion. With the exception of crew, St. John’s does not have any intercollegiate teams. Thus, Mr. Pickens is essentially the school’s intramural director. Not the kind of resume most folks would normally associate with a commencement speaker.

But most folks don’t understand St. John’s College. SJC is an inwardly focused institution that could care less about having someone with a high profile from the outside world come in to tell graduates about how to apply their college experience "in the real world".

St. John's isn't trying to mold students to fit into a particular niche, it is trying to prepare them to lead a life well-lived.

I am not going to spend a lot of time in this post trying to explain what SJC is about because I have already done that to some extent in the page with the heading “About SJC” and I am also providing a link to an article about President Nelson and the college that appeared on the front page of the metro section of Saturday’s Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/at-st-johns-a-defender-of-liberal-arts/2011/05/11/AFMhWz2G_story.html

My take -way line from Mr. Pickens excellent address to the students was an advisory for them to “grow a big pair of ...(pause)... ears.”

In other words, focus on listening; both to yourself and to those around you. That was just one segment of his message but in a world that seems to have become increasingly shrill, an ever-narrowing cacophony of talkers, it just might be that those with the ability to listen and discern will be in great demand.

I am hopeful that Mr. Pickens' address will be posted soon so that I can copy it and post it on a page of this blog.

After the commencement there were the obligatory photos and champagne reception.

The seven of us went from the reception to a nearby restaurant for an excellent brunch. Rob then left for Atlanta and Tex and Laurel went off to begin the rest of their lives.

Chet, Sue, Betsy and I strolled around the Naval Academy grounds and downtown Annapolis.

By 8 p.m. we were back in Lewes, ready (or not) for our next chapter.