Read With Me! Some recent opinion pieces.

All the Gallant Men

            The One Book One Nebraska selection for 2020 is All the Gallant Men by Donald Stratton with Ken Gire. Stratton originally hailed from Red Cloud, Nebraska, and he was one of the survivors of the Pearl Harbor bombing of the U.S.S. Arizona. Until very recently, he was one of a handful of survivors still with us, but, sadly, Stratton passed away on February 15, 2020. I’m so grateful he took the time a few years ago to collaborate with Gire to share his story before it was too late.

            What a read! I couldn’t put it down.

            Nonfiction isn’t my go-to reading choice, and when I do happen to read a nonfiction book, it can be a bit of slog for me to get through it. So, when I say that I couldn’t put this book down, that means it was truly great – in fact, it was so great that it had me riveted to my seat the two days I spent reading it.

            During that time, I often got up to share a segment with my boyfriend because he has been to the memorial in Pearl Harbor. Finally, I simply told him that he’d have to read it when I was done with it because it was such a great read. He did, and, just as I had done while reading it, he shed some tears. When you read it, and I certainly hope you do read it, have a few tissues handy.

            Stratton shares his personal opinions about things that happened prior to the bombing and during the United States’ involvement in the war afterwards. I enjoyed the perspective of someone who was so intimately touched by so many aspects of World War II. He was severely burned in the bombing and had to convalesce for a long time; afterwards, he returned to Red Cloud as a civilian but soon re-enlisted and saw a lot of action at sea, including the Japan’s surrender.

            His life after the war was eventful and interesting, too, and he spent time working as a deep-sea diver in different capacities and in various locales. He also married and had a family, and he spent his retirement years living in Colorado. He wrote that his final resting spot will be back in Red Cloud and not in the U.S.S. Arizona where other survivors have opted to be interred after their deaths.

            The photos and the map of Pearl Harbor that are included in the book really helped me to visualize and better understand the strategic mistakes that led up to bombing. After years of hearing about what happened in Hawaii on that fateful day in 1941, I finally have a much better grasp of what transpired there and why. This book would make for an excellent teaching tool in history classes because it puts the reader right in the action, but it also humanizes everything and paints a very poignant portrait of loss and the impact that loss has on those left to mourn it.

            Read this book, and savor every little bit of it – the Prologue, the quotes that begin each chapter, the Writer’s Postscript, the photographs, the heart-wrenching journal entries of a sister who lost a brother on the ship, the transcripts of some military communications, the story itself, and so much more. This particular One Book One Nebraska selection is a book not just for this state but for the entire country.

The Edge of Sadness

With thirty-five of the Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction remaining for me to read, I’m getting closer to completing my goal of reading them all. I just finished reading the 1962 winner, The Edge of Sadness, by Edwin O’Connor. It was a pleasant read but also a bit of an undertaking for a few reasons.

First, this novel is 640 pages long, so it can’t be read easily in a short amount of time. Additionally, there are only twelve long chapters (chapter six is 109 pages!) within those 640 pages, and there is seldom a clear or logical stopping place, so putting the book down and coming back to it later makes for a disjointed reading experience. I have no beef with long books – in fact, I’m quite fond of them – however, I do have a problem with excessively long chapters that can’t be easily read in one sitting.

Secondly, O’Connor was very fond of ellipses at the end of paragraphs (there are three instances of them on pages 148-9 alone). The novel is narrated by Hugh Kennedy, a Catholic priest, who, in turn, is fond of using expressions of uncertainty like “I suppose,” “It wasn’t that I didn’t want to,” “I assumed,” and many others; so the overuse of ellipses throughout the story along with Kennedy’s equivocal approach to telling his story makes for a lackluster read at times. At other times, the story clips along a bit and . . . – hopefully you get the point (and the slight joke I just made).

Thirdly, there’s not much of a plot, per se. It’s simply about Kennedy reconnecting with the Carmody family for a few months. The Carmodys and he have a history. He was good friends with Helen, a woman he might have married if he hadn’t had the calling to become a priest, and with John, Helen’s brother who also became a priest. Their controlling father, Charlie, brings Kennedy back among his family for a very selfish reason. That and something unfortunate that happens to John are the only two dramatic plot points of the novel. 

Loyola Classics took this from its out-of-print obscurity and republished it in 2005. Loyola Press only prints books that relate to the Catholic faith. I’m not Catholic; however, I’ve long been intrigued by the monastic or even semi-monastic lifestyle, so I found it extremely interesting to get inside the head of a priest. Even though Kennedy hemmed and hawed a lot as he told his story, his voice was incredibly unique, authentic, and befitting of a priest. However, he’s also a human being with foibles and one pretty serious problem, so I really enjoyed seeing someone who is so often placed on a pedestal written in a relatable fashion. In fact, Kennedy himself says, “I don’t think many people know very much about priests . . . how priests live from day to day, how they fill in their idle hours.” I agree.

Despite the things I’ve mentioned that might keep some readers from attempting this novel, The Edge of Sadness won the Pulitzer because it’s well-written and contains some truly beautiful sentences with insights into human nature. It’s a great book for someone who likes to savor what she’s reading and who is patient. Ultimately, because I am both of those things, I enjoyed this book, but I would have a hard time recommending it to many others.

Preference of Person

            When it comes to reading books, serious readers have several preferences they employ --consciously or not -- when it comes to enjoying what they read. One of these involves the narrator of the book and whether that narration is told in first or third person.

            I recently discussed this topic with some young writers and then spent some time thinking about it myself. When reading a book, I don’t have a strong preference; I simply want the narration to be understandable. However, as a writer, I firmly sit on the third-person narration side.

            I perused all the Pulitzer winners of fiction to see where the award-winning authors tend to lie, and I found that just under one-third of the books have first-person narrators while a smidge over two-thirds contain third-person narration. I doubt the narration style had any strong bearing on whether each book won the prize, but it made for an interesting study on my part.

            There’s a popular trend for writers to use what’s called unreliable first-person narrators, and some of those books have done very well. A few of the recent bestsellers have been Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon, and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. Many would argue that every first-person narrator is unreliable simply because that person can only tell the story from his or her perspective, so there is no way for the narrator to fully understand all that happens in the story – thus, he or she isn’t to be completely trusted. While this is true to a certain extent, some authors choose to make their first-person narrators particularly unreliable.

I’m not a huge fan of this type of narrator because I want to immerse myself in a story and believe what I’m being told. I think this is why I prefer to write using third-person narration; however, I don’t like to write from an omniscient perspective. I use what is called third-person limited, which means that the story is told only from one person’s perspective, but the author can essentially read that person’s thoughts and share them with the reader.

Third-person omniscient narration is enjoyable to read because it lets us in on everyone’s perspective, but if you want a little bit of mystery without the unreliability that often comes with first-person narration, then third-person limited is for you. Sometimes, writers will use third-person limited, but they will shift from character to character via chapters; this technique is often used with first-person narrators, too, where one chapter is told from one main character’s point of view while the next is from another’s.

I’d guess that many readers don’t really give a lot of conscious thought to whether they prefer first or third person when it comes to who’s narrating their favorite books as long as the stories are good and well-told. However, I believe that, if you occasionally take the time to notice the techniques the author used to create such a spell-binding tale, you can also appreciate the story for the piece of art it is.

             

Reading Resolution 2020

Here we are at the very beginning of the year 2020 with 366 reading days (it’s a leap year) stretched out before us. The only new year’s resolution I make centers around books, both the quantity and the quality of those I plan to read over the span of a year.

            In 2019, for the very first time since starting the yearly trend of aiming to read at least 50 books, I surpassed my goal and almost finished 60 books before the year ended yesterday. In fact, I had reached the magic number of 50 in October. Usually, I’m scrambling over Christmas break to read as much as possible in the hopes of meeting my goal.

            In the online book clubs I follow, I often see the merits of setting reading goals debated, and fellow readers seem firmly committed either to being reading goal setters (like me) or to being readers who don’t keep track at all of what they read. In fact, I’ve read a few rather rude comments directed toward people who set reading goals by those who don’t in which we goal setters have been ridiculed for apparently sucking the joy out of reading in our single-minded pursuit of reaching an arbitrary number of books.

            While I can understand (to a point) these comments, I’d like to argue the benefits of setting reading goals and, hopefully, reaching them. First, there is a simple joy that comes from making a goal and striving to attain it, no matter what that goal is. For readers, that goal could entail reading a certain number of books, reading all the books by a certain author or in a series, reading books across genres or centered solely on one type such as the classics, or it could even be to read more books than they managed to read the previous year.

            Second, if you set a reading goal, then you probably will track your reading. Ever since I began recording my books, I’ve paid better attention to the quality of reading I do. Additionally, I’ve caught myself more than once about to read a book I’d already read. I have nothing against rereading a book when it’s an intentional reread, but I don’t want to waste time rereading a book that wasn’t meaningful the first time through. Recently, I started a book and realized it seemed familiar, so I looked back through my reading log, and, sure enough, there were my less-than-stellar comments about the book five years ago. Naturally, I didn’t spend any more time on that book.

            A third benefit to setting reading goals is that it forces you to pay better attention to how you use (or waste) your time. I aim to read 50 books each year, so that’s only a book a week with two weeks of cushion time for longer novels or for those times of the year that just seem to get busier than others. Back when I didn’t set a reading goal, I often let those busy times consume me to the point that I neglected the one activity I most enjoy. Now, that goal is a daily reminder to set aside time every single day for reading, and since I began making a yearly reading goal, I haven’t missed a day, no matter how busy my life becomes.

            May 2020 be a great reading year for all of us!

Walden

            Like many people, I’ve long known of Henry David Thoreau and his famous stay at Walden Pond, but until recently, I only knew the most famous quotes from Walden – the ones that have made appearances in movies or been used in other pieces of writing. (“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” is probably one of the best known and oft-used quotes.) Now, though, I’ve read the entire book, and the list of mind-changing quotes a person could take from it is overwhelming.

            Thoreau’s two major themes throughout the book revolve around simplifying one’s life and living a life of nonconformity. That second theme is one I’ve always been passionate about because its main focus is on thinking for yourself. I read this book with my junior English students, and they can tell you that I often harp at them to think for themselves, so this was the perfect thing for them to read to get them to try to think deeper than they normally do.

            I filled an entire notebook with direct quotes, thoughts I had while reading, information I looked up to better understand his allusions, words I didn’t know or remember well, and many other things. Walden hit upon many of the philosophical things I spend my own thinking time on, so I was in literary heaven while reading this book. Being that they are teenagers, my junior students were not as enthralled as I was; however, even many of them showed a definite interest in some of the passages.

            Naturally, my favorite chapter was the one entitled “Reading,” and I’d like to share some of my favorite quotes from this section as they are the most relevant to this column. Like me, Thoreau appreciated the classics and claimed that “ . . . the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man?” I like that phrasing – “the noblest recorded thoughts.”

            He praised books as being worthy of one’s attention, but he cautioned that to be able to truly read well, a person must put forth the work to do so. “To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise . . .” “Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written.” This would entail learning and understanding the languages, the history, the cultures in which some of the great works of literature were written; so, most people, in actuality, do not truly read well even though they read a lot. Thoreau wrote: “The best books are not even read by those who are called good readers.”

            He realized the importance of words. “A written word is the choicest of relics.” “It is the work of art nearest to life itself.” Words come from our lips and our breath, so words are “carved out of the breath of life itself.”

            While I agreed with virtually everything he wrote in the chapter about reading, the quote I most loved was this: “Books are the treasured wealth of the world and the fit inheritance of generations and nations.” I’d like to tell Thoreau, who died in Massachusetts in 1862, that a writer in Nebraska in 2019 read his book deliberately and appreciated it as one of the classics of American literature it has become.

             

A Gentleman in Moscow

            A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles is a book that a person should read and savor, preferably more than once. After hearing and reading very conflicting reviews about it – quite polarized opinions of either very strong love of the book or very strong dislike for it – I decided to check it out for myself.

So many of the reasons for disliking it seemed to be that the book was boring because it was just about some Russian guy who was stuck living in a hotel in Moscow for half his life. On top of that, apparently, the guy was really into literature, and the author used a lot of big words to write about this guy who didn’t go anywhere or really do anything. Frankly, it sounded like my kind of book.

            I absolutely love this novel! I haven’t had time to reread it yet, but I plan to.

            The Russian guy is Count Alexander Rostov, an aristocrat who is sentenced to house arrest for the remainder of his life in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow. While the hotel is a real place, the Count and his story are not; however, Towles makes the Count and the characters who inhabit the hotel seem so very real. The novel spans the years 1922-1954, and it interweaves a lot of Russian history throughout the story.

            As I read the book, I noticed that every chapter title contains only words that begin with the letter A. I thought that was interesting and probably meaningful, so when I was finished reading it, I visited the author’s website of amortowles.com to see if he had an explanation for doing this. Surprisingly, he did not. He simply mentioned that it somehow felt right to do that. While that wasn’t really the answer I’d hoped to find, I did find many interesting and useful things on his website.

            Towles has links to various interviews, including a 52-minute talk he gave about this novel in December 2017. In that presentation, he shares an exterior image, taken in 1905, of the actual Metropol hotel, which he says is about the “size of a city block with hundreds of rooms.” He claims that it not only was the best hotel in Moscow, but it was the best hotel in all of Russia. A person under house arrest could do much worse than to be condemned to such a place for the rest of his life.

            However, the Count, who had been accustomed to staying in the best rooms, found himself condemned to live out his days in a small room in the attic. He doesn’t let this keep him from continuing to live and act like a gentleman, and his impact upon the people who worked and stayed in the hotel became his legacy. A few people, including a young girl who he essentially adopts, benefit more from his distinguished influence.

            This novel is beautifully written, the Count is that delightful and intelligent uncle we all wish we had, and the hotel is the backdrop for a microcosm of the historical events that impacted all of Russia. It’s clear that Towles did his research for this novel, and he provides much additional information on his website.

            Even though many readers didn’t like this novel, it spent a long time on the bestseller list. After reading it myself, I am firmly planted on the side of those who loved the book.

by: Tammy Marshall

Read With Me! Some November 2019 Thoughts.

I spent November attempting to once again complete the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing 50,000 words. This amounts to an average of 1,667 words each day. While that may not seem like much, keeping that average every single day for thirty days gets to be daunting. I've managed to do it in 2016, 2017, and now in 2019. I didn't get there in 2018 (fell short by about 10,000 words), and I didn't make the goal in 2015 or 2013, which was the year I first tried it. Since I failed so miserably that year, I didn't even attempt it in 2014, but then I reminded myself that I only really fail when I don't try.



I also roped my creative writing students into doing this challenge; however, I only asked them to attempt 15,000 words over the course of the month. Two of them achieved the goal, and I am quite pleased with that outcome. Getting teenagers to commit to something like this is pretty hard, and then to have them embrace it enough to actually do it is a huge accomplishment for them as well as for me.

The novel I have been writing isn't yet complete despite those 50,000 words added to it. I had actually started it years ago, but I got bogged down with all sorts of things while writing it, and I abandoned it for a while. I took advantage of this yearly challenge to make myself try to get somewhere with it because the story had been sitting in my head for years demanding my attention. The story, though, still needs to be completed -- as of now it has about 66,000 words in it --  and then it will need a lot of rewriting. One thing at a time, though. The gist of it is this: a middle-aged woman buys a motorcycle and inadvertently finds herself caught up in solving the mysterious death of the bike's original owner.

Now, if you happen to know me, you will see a bit of autobiographical information in that short summary. I am middle-aged. I bought a bike a few years ago. It had a previous owner. That, though, is where the autobiographical part ends and the fictionalized part begins. My protagonist is a high school principal (o.k., I teach high school). She meets and begins a relationship with another biker. (o.k., I met my guy that way). But that's it, I swear! They say -- write what you know -- and I know high schools, what it's like to be judged as a solo female rider, and the joy of meeting a kindred spirit to share those rides with.

Anyway, one day I'll actually finish this story, and it, along with the three other complete novels I've written these past few years, will be out there for anyone to read. Whether I end up sharing them the same way I did with The Clearwater House and with State of Georgia . . . and Other Writings remains to be seen. The goal is, and always has been, to be traditionally published someday, but time will tell.

As far as reading goes, I spent November mostly on Walden by Henry David Thoreau. I read this with the advanced English class I teach to high school juniors. While I've only required them to read a portion of it, I read the whole thing. I will address the mind-blowing experience it was for me in a later blog post. Let's just say that I regret not reading Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson with greater attention sooner in my life.



Each year, I attempt to read 50 books. Most years, I manage to read that many, but doing so often means I'm spending the bulk of my Christmas vacation time reading a few to complete my reading challenge. While I don't mind that, I much prefer that I happened to make that goal at the beginning of November when I finished reading A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. Since then, I've read three more and am in the process of reading about ten others.

This is the earliest I've completed my personal yearly reading challenge since I began doing it in 2007. At the end of 2006, I decided to begin a reading journal, and since then I've tracked my reads in that journal as well as on the Goodreads site. While some people scoff at both the need to create a reading challenge and the need to record the books a person reads, I have found that both add to my reading enjoyment.

Keeping the journal allows me to record my private thoughts about each book, and it prevents me from inadvertently re-reading a book I don't really want to re-read. The challenge is just for me. I'm very happy that I have already read 53 books in 2019 and that I will end the year having read 55 or more. When full retirement hits and I can dedicate even more of my time to reading and writing, I will up that goal to 75 most likely.

Here are five of my favorite reads from this year aside from Walden mentioned above:

 









I look forward to finishing the book I'm writing, to reading many more great books, and to sharing a few things here with any like-minded people out there.

Roam With Me! Nashville and Asheville -- July 2019

In July, I took a road trip with my honey, and we went to Nashville, TN, as well as Asheville, NC, and a few places in between. Our main reason for visiting these two areas was to see if we liked them for potential retirement locales. We more than liked the Nashville area -- we loved it!

Here are some of the reasons we may very well retire in the Nashville area.

First and foremost -- the climate. We are both so tired of Nebraska winters. While the Nashville area still sees a little bit of snow, that's all it sees -- a little bit.

Second -- there is a thriving literary scene with numerous bookstores, libraries, writing events, etc. These photos were taken in Books at Cummins Station where the books tower toward the ceiling, Parnassus which is co-owned by Ann Patchett, and McKay's where they offer shopping carts to load up on your choices from the thousands of used books available.

Third -- aside from the literary events, there are many cultural events to suit anything we may be in the mood to attend. Naturally, there are musical events happening all over town, but there are museums, live shows, sporting events, stand-up comedy, parks, and on and on.

Kim outside one of the many bars on Broadway in downtown Nashville. Every single bar has live music spilling out onto the street. It's crazy and it's loud!

The Tennessee Titans stadium viewed from across the Cumberland River.

A life-size replica of the Parthenon in Athens -- located in Centennial Park. It's the only to-scale replica in the world.

Fourth -- motorcycle riding and golfing can be year-round activities instead of relegated to the few fickle summer months in Nebraska. We kept a sharp eye on the roads in Tennessee, and we were pleased to encounter very few potholes and almost no haphazard patch jobs. The roads were smooth and would make for excellent riding. The golf courses stay open all year round and only had to close twelve days last year due to poor weather.

The greens at the Hermitage golf course northeast of Nashville.

See how smooth the roads are!

Fifth -- we love trying new restaurants, and there are so many in and around Nashville that we could keep busy for years simply visiting a different one every week. In downtown Nashville, we ate at Sambuca in the Gulch area. It's pricey but really delicious, and the serving sizes are spot-on. I had the hickory-smoked prime pork chop, and Kim ate the shrimp and crab linguini. We even had room for dessert, so we shared a scrumptious cheesecake sopapilla. There, as in many of the downtown restaurants, we enjoyed live music while we ate -- the night we were there a blues trio was playing. Another day, for lunch, we ate at Peg Leg Porker BBQ. Basically, we just stumbled upon it, having no idea it was one of the most popular eating establishments in the Gulch area. My favorite BBQ meal, though, was at Martin's Bar-B-Que Joint in Mt. Juliet, about twenty minutes east of Nashville. I had the brisket tacos. Yummy.

Sixth -- there is a wonderful 55+ active community in Mr. Juliet that we visited to see if it was to our liking. It definitely is. Wonderful amenities including an indoor pool with dedicated lap lanes and a large outdoor pool, a small lake, walking trails, a fitness room and indoor walking path, a lending library and beautifully landscaped areas everywhere. It may or may not end up being our retirement haven.

I'd swim here every day if we lived here.

How fun do those paddle boats look!

Seventh -- the natural wonders that surround Nashville and abound throughout Tennessee. It's just a pretty state with so many trees, lakes and mountains that there's something pretty to see everywhere you go. We even happened upon some elk!

Simply gorgeous scenery.

This is a view of Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park taken from behind the capitol.

Eighth -- Nashville is the capital of Tennessee, so whatever a person needs in a governmental capacity can be found here, and it draws events like the state fair and major conventions.

Tennessee's Capitol.

Ninth -- Nashville has proximity to many other great places. It's one of two states in the U.S.A. that is bordered by eight different states (Missouri is the other one), and since it's a narrow state, it's easy to be in any of those other eight states in a short amount of time. Additionally, it's only a nine hour drive to the Gulf coast or to the Atlantic at Charleston. You can also drive back to Nebraska in a day as well, so Nashville is ideally located for many future road trips.

Tenth -- it makes a great place for friends and family to visit as well, and if we end up there, we look forward to the memories we'll make with whomever comes to visit. There's just so much to do in and around Nashville that we'll always be able to find something fun to do with anyone who visits.

Asheville, North Carolina, is an easy drive from Nashville, and it was another town I wanted to check out as a possible retirement destination. While we enjoyed our visit there, we both decided it wasn't the town for us as far as living there goes, but we'd definitely go back to see more of what it has to offer. 

The highlights of our time in Asheville were our visit to the Biltmore estate and seeing Thomas Wolfe's boyhood home and memorial as well as his cemetery headstone. My words and photos can't do justice to the behemoth that is the Biltmore estate, so I'll just share a few of my favorites.

I love the gargoyles!!

The Biltmore library was my favorite room, of course.

The chandelier in the main staircase is amazing.

Can I please have this lovely writing desk?

The indoor swimming pool in the basement. No water -- I might have jumped in if there had been any!

That's a 179,000 square foot house! It's the largest privately owned home in the country. You really have to see it to believe it.

Surprisingly, Wolfe isn't the only literary great buried in Asheville's Riverside Cemetery. O. Henry is also there, which is odd since he's not from Asheville.

This life-size cutout of Thomas Wolfe is to show that he was a tall man.

The house his mother used as a boarding house and where he spent some of his childhood. The house where he was born was only a few blocks away, but it no longer exists.

Beautiful books that belonged to Wolfe's father.

O. Henry's real name.

We also took a drive from Asheville back into Tennessee to see Johnson City and the fossil site at Gray. The drive between Asheville and Johnson City was beautiful.

Tennessee definitely stole our hearts. Hopefully, we will return soon -- perhaps to live there, perhaps for just an extended stay. Either way, I look forward to going back.

Roam With Me! Harvard, Cambridge and Boston -- June 21-22, 2019

A few months before our trip to Boston, I reached out to a man who works for Harvard and politely asked him if he'd speak to my daughter about the college and its graduate program for her to consider in the next few years to complete her dream of becoming a paleontologist. Honestly, I thought he might shrug me off and suggest I take her on one of the group tours, but he didn't. He was very receptive to meeting with her. I won't give his name or his role at Harvard, but he's a very important man in the science department, and he not only graciously agreed to meet with her, he also treated us wonderfully during our visit with him.

This special meeting was part of my birthday gift to her, and she definitely enjoyed visiting with him and learning about how the grad program at Harvard works. It's really something, that's for sure. He also gave us each caps with the science department logo on them, and he gave us a special tour of classrooms, labs and graduate student work areas. He also walked us into the Museum of Natural History which is connected to the zoology and anthropology museums as well. He made sure to steer us toward the special exhibit of mind-blowing glass flowers, and he pointed out his favorite fossils. I've sent him a thank-you gift for his time, and I'll never forget his amazing office with a glorious view of trees and open space in front of the museum.

Here are some photos of our time with him and of wonderful displays in the three attached museums.

I took the following photo as proof that Harvard, arguably one of the premier universities in the world, uses blackboards and chalk!! They took my chalkboards away years ago, and I still miss them. If Harvard insists on blackboards, then I think they should be put back in public school classrooms, too. Smart boards, be damned. Give me a good old chalkboard any day!!

There are three massive whale fossils hanging in the main room of the zoology museum, and they've been hanging there for over one hundred years! Crazy.

The following photos show some of the glass flowers as well as the information signs about them. Truly mind-blowing that all of them are made out of glass and all made over one hundred years ago. We later saw small sea animals made by the same father and son duo displayed in the Museum of Science (photo below). It's so hard, even when looking at them up close, to fathom that these are made out of glass and that they were made so long ago and have survived this long, too.

The room in which they are displayed is quite large, and there are many cases like these simply full of every imaginable type of flower and grass.

The following photo is of a Day of the Dead ofrenda in the anthropology section. I took a few since I teach Spanish, and I share information about this Mexican tradition at the end of October every year with my students.

This is just part of Harvard's campus. It's quite pretty. We didn't wander around much of it, though, as we were hungry and needed some lunch.

After we walked through the above gate, we found a restaurant which was also a pub, so I ordered a local beer called Clown Shoes Mango, and it was delicious. If you happen to know if that beer is available outside of the Cambridge area, leave me a comment below. Thanks.

Then, since I am a well-known book and book store addict, we visited Harvard Book Store, which was established in 1932. Wow! What a nice store. It's well-arranged and beautiful. Naturally, I bought a couple books, and I took many photos. As we were paying, the cashier noticed my Nebraska Writers Guild t-shirt and asked if I was from Nebraska. When I answered in the affirmative, he said they used to have a store book buyer from Broken Bow. I suspect that was his only familiarity with Nebraska, but at least he knew a little about it. Harvard Book Store is one of the 50 book stores depicted in the box of post cards I'd bought the day before in Trident Booksellers in Boston (see earlier post), so I was thrilled to visit another of those 50 (and I'll soon visit a fourth in Nashville). It is quite worthy of being considered as one of the best book stores in the world. Here are some photos:

Soooooooooo pretty!




























Behind Harvard Book Store is Grolier, which claims to be the oldest poetry store -- around for over 90 years. It's a very small store, and we looked around for a bit but didn't buy anything. I did look specifically to see if they carried any of Ted Kooser's books, but they didn't. I was a little disappointed because, even though he's a Nebraska poet, he was the U.S. Poet Laureate as well, so I really think a store devoted to selling only poetry collections should carry at least one of his books.

We also visited Raven Used Books which is only a few blocks away from Harvard Book Store. Then it was time for an ice cream break, so we stopped at J.P. Licks and had what I'd consider to be some of the best ice cream I've ever had -- however, a few days later when we were in New Haven, we went to Clark's Restaurant and had pizza, a taste of birch beer (which we'd never heard of before but is basically New England's version of root beer but clear in color), and truly delicious ice cream that put the ice cream at J.P. Licks to shame. I noticed, though, that J.P. Licks had been voted the best ice cream by Boston Magazine for 2017 I believe it was, so don't get me wrong -- it was definitely good, but Clark's ice cream was better.

Then we took another long walk, so we could walk along M.I.T.'s campus as we returned to our hotel. Here are a few photos.

As we walked back along the Charles River, I took another photo of a building whose top floors had been shrouded in fog the day before when we'd toured Boston.

As we passed under the Longfellow Bridge (which we'd crossed yesterday from above), we were quite surprised to find a whole line of trophies on display on the ledge. Apparently, it's an odd, yet cute, Cambridge tradition to leave trophies here. 

My daughter had never eaten at the Cheesecake Factory before, so we went there for a pre-birthday supper. Our food was really good, but our meal was ruined by the extremely loud fire alarm going off repeatedly. The place was quite full, and when it first went off, we looked at each other with concern and wondered if we should leave, but the servers quickly went around telling everyone it was fine and that it happened sometimes. Finally, it stopped and people applauded. The reprieve was short-lived, though, and once again our ears were assaulted by the loud alarm. This happened repeatedly for some time, so we asked for to-go containers. I had mentioned to our waitress that it was the eve of my daughter's birthday, so during one of the alarm-bell lulls, she and a few others brought a small dish of ice cream and sang to her. She was not greatly amused by the singing and thought I'd put the servers up to it, but our waitress came to my defense and assured her I hadn't. I did get a smile out of her before our ears were assaulted once again and we beat a hasty retreat.

The next day was her actual birthday, and we went to the Museum of Science which was near our hotel. Then we grabbed an Uber because my feet were quite sore from the two full days of extensive walking, and we went to the New England Aquarium. This would have been a wonderful place to visit, but we were there on a Saturday, so it was simply much too crowded. The inner tank is four stories high, and there is a spiral path that encircles it to the top. We also took in a movie about great white sharks at the IMAX. Imagine our dismay, though, when we entered the lobby only to find that the theater's fire alarm was on the fritz, too!!! It emitted an ear-piercing continuous shrill noise, so we waited outside a bit until shortly before the film began. Fortunately, the alarm malfunction was contained to the lobby only. Phew.

The above photo is of some sea creatures made out of glass that I mentioned above. A few look a little obscene, right? Ha, ha. 

Above is my daughter, the birthday girl and future paleontologist.

Seaside in Boston. The sun was quite intense, and she was yelling at me to hurry up and take the darn photo!

My one regret is that we didn't have time to get out on a boat. I would have liked to go on the whale watch excursion, but it wasn't meant to be this trip. Clearly, one can only do so much in just three days in Boston and Cambridge, and I think we managed to get a lot of great things in during those days. A future trip may need to include a full week or more because I'd like to return to some of the places -- the bookstores, naturally -- and I'd like to see more of the historical side of Boston that we didn't get to see.

I'll leave you with three photos from our short visit to New Haven, Connecticut, where we visited the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural Science -- which will be closed all of 2020 as it undergoes a complete renovation. The first is from that museum, and the following two are from Clark's which I mentioned above. That's not Sprite or 7-Up in her glass or even sparkling water. It's birch beer, and it's delicious!