Category: History
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Kicking Leaves in Owego: my imaginarium
[On the left, in the distance, just beyond the white house, just hidden in the morning fog, is the riverbank where I played away my childhood. Photo is mine.] Great Grandpa, what’s an Imaginarium? Oh, Great Grandson, it’s like a rambling and cluttered room, an old room, a very big room. There are lots of…
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the four green fields blog12: Three crescents, a circus & more
[Ceiling of the nave in Bath Abbey. Photo is mine.] Oh! Who can ever get tired of Bath? ~~Jane Austen Northanger Abbey Like a grandfather clock on the landing of a staircase of an old house, like a circular staircase leading to the dark places in a haunted Irish castle, like an elderly couple at…
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the four green fields blog6: a night in my ancestral castle
[Castle Redwood. Lorrha, Co Tipperary, Ireland. Photo source: Tipperary Tourism.] This photo is of Castle Redwood. It’s not a ‘castle’ in the popular sense, the way most are depicted in movies. It’s a Keep, intended to hold the owners in safety during an attack. Walls are nearly ten feet thick, slot windows for defending archers…
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the four green fields blog3:the burren
[Where we were. Photo is mine.] Burren (‘b^ren0 n. A limestone area on the North Clare coast in the Irish Republic, famous for its wildflowers, caves, and dolmens. The Burren is a lot of things. It’s a place in Ireland, a route to tour, and a UNESCO Heritage Site. To me, it’s something else altogether.…
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Below The Equator IV: A Day at the Recoleta Cemetery/ Among the Serene, the violated…and Evita
[Abandoned poster display outside the wall of the Cemetery of Recoleta, Buenos Aires. The advertising is gone, but behind the wall, the city’s dead remain. Photo is mine] My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten. I cast my dreams aside to fulfill those of others. ~~Maria Eva Duarte de Peron (Evita) Readers, you…
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Coal For Christmas
[Another year. Another Christmas. I republish this every holiday season with a tweak here and there. This story is true and I am passing it down to new readers and my two children and my grandson. Every story from our own lives or the lives of those we once loved…every story is worth telling. There…
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The Journey’s End 3: Inside Wimborne Minster-The Man In The Wall & The Chained Library
[Wimborne Minster. The Church of St Cuthburga. Wimborne, Dorset. Photo is mine.] The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it. ~~Anon Where heaves the turf in many a mould’ring heap, Each in his narrow cell for ever laid, The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep. ~~Thomas Gray Elegy…
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The Journey’s End 1: Winchester Cathedral
[In the nave of Winchester Cathedral. A man stands at a mirror, allowing the viewer to study and admire the vaulting of the ceiling without cracking a vertebra in one’s upper neck. Photo is mine.] Winchester Cathedral You’re bringing me down You stood and you watched as My baby left town. ~~New Vaudeville Band It…
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Judge Wyndham’s Oak
[The Celtic Tree of Life. Source: Google search. CelticArtStudio.] Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening earth. ~~Tagore A few days ago, my friend, Tim, asked me if he had ever taken me to see Judge Wyndham’s Oak. I said that I have no recollection of such a visit. He said,…
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Aethelgifu, The Teenage Abbess: A Peak Inside The Walls Of The Shaftesbury Abbey
[Gold Hill, Shafesbury] Silence isn’t empty, it’s full of answers. It was a chilly day, this fourth day of October. Chilly and windy. Mariam and I had just had a very enjoyable lunch with a former student of mine, Sally, and her husband, Matthew. Sally was in my Geography class when I had the joy…
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