Caution - love story involved

This post takes us back to the museum. The reason why my posts often end abruptly is that the caretakers show up at an unexpected time and I have to go immediately, Believe me, when the caretakers actually show up, one NEVER sends them away. They are a hot commodity!"


While looking at the permanent collection, I found a picture of someone I'd never heard of before, but yet I am sure was me in a former life. His name is Bayard Taylor, 1825-785. He wrote travelogues for the New York Post" in verse! No, they were not in verse for any particular reason. He just liked writing in verse! He wrote parodies of Whitman, I am completely convinced he must have been me! The picture of him in the National Gallery just sort of leaped out at me and made me look at it. And, another similarity, the picture was of him sitting on a rug and smoking a hookah! Although this is not that picture. It's just a picture of a mouse on a rug smoking a hookah.

I called Mom this morning and told her about the exhibit, and we are going to go together next Monday. She doesn't think Dad will be up for it, which is probably true, but which is too bad.

I'll see if I can maybe arrange for a longer trip on Monday, 'cause Mom would be very interested in all the historical portraits. She majored in history.

Mom got her undergraduate degree in history about TWO WEEKS BEFORE I GOT MY DEGREE!!. You have to admire Mom's determination! She originally dropped out of college after her sophomore year. Her parents didn't have enough money to have 2 kids in college at the same time, so when her brother got in school, she had to drop out, She and Dad reacted to that by eloping! They didn't tell anyone in school, not even their roommates, except for a couple of friends they took along as witnesses. Then they ran off and married. They went to Cumberland Falls to honeymoon, and then went back to school and lived in separate dorms until the end of the year! At the end of the school year, they both went back to Dad's home in Wilkes Barre, PA to live with Pop and Granny for the summer. In the fall, they moved to Boston , where Dad attended Boston University and Mom got a job. Dad says that the bus that took her to work each morning would first go up their street one way, and then turn around at the end of the street and some back down, and Mom would wait in bed until she'd heard it go by one way, then would leap out of be and be waiting outside by the time it came back down the other.

Mom was determined to get her college deegree, though. She raised 3 kids, and managed to do all the Den mother, and Girl Scout leader, and Sunday School teacher, etc, etc, etc. stuff. She also worked, on and off, as a substitute teacher, and even as a full time teacher at the alternative school in Charlottesville - this was where they sent students who were suspended from regular school so that they didn't just get a vacation. More about this later - there are some funny stories! Anyway, through all this, Mom kept taking one or two college classes at a time. Finally, when Mom ansd Dad lived in Harrisonburg, she could drive across the mountain to Fredericksburg, and take several classes at Mary Washington. I'm just really proud of her for finishing.