Category: History
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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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The Terminus
[A card, purchased at a small souk in the Marrakech Market. It is my name, Patrick, written in Arabic by a calligrapher. The cost was about $4.00. A small amount for a priceless piece of art. Important to me. Photo is mine.] The end of journey is not a period, but a comma. ~~ Anon…
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Anemonia Keeps Me Awake
Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out. ~~Richter [The Berlew Family Reunion. Orange, PA. September 6, 1926. Photo: Egan Family Archives.] I don’t think it rained that day. There are no clouds in the sky. I should know. I’ve crawled inside this photo more than once over the years. One…
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Dark Night/Dark Happenings
[A British tabloid. Photo: Google Search] I can’t Imagine… ~~ Patrick Egan It was 1980. I was teaching Oceanography and Earth Science at the Ridgefield High School in Connecticut. Monday, Dec. 8, was a normal day of classes. Late that afternoon, Parent/Teacher Conferences were scheduled. I was a new faculty member and somehow I scored…
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Truth And Lies-Love And Hate
You are right from your side, I am right from mine. –Bob Dylan “One Too Many Mornings” I don’t find very many quotes from Dylan that aren’t spot on. 99.999% of his poetry is impossibly true and astoundingly real. They don’t give the Nobel Prize in Literature to just any drifter from Minnesota. But, the…
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My Premonitions?
“If we learn nothing else from this tragedy, we learn that life is short and there is no time for hate.” ~~Sandy Dahl, wife of United Flight 93 pilot, Jason Dahl [Split images. Photo: New York Times.] The memory of that Tuesday morning is still very clear in my mind. That crisp autumn-like day when…
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