danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

An article published in the St. Petersburg Times today brought back a vivid and unpleasant memory.

When I was a student at East Lake High in the early ’90s, the most notorious and reviled teacher at our school was Ms. Whipple. She was legendary. She taught English at several grade levels, and every student feared seeing her name on his class schedule. It was seen as a sort of death sentence. For those poor souls assigned to Ms. Whipple’s class, each day brought some new agony. I know because I was assigned to Ms. Whipple’s English class on my first day of tenth grade.

Some tales of awful teachers are pure myth. That is, you may find that an infamous teacher is, in truth, simply tough but fair, or even nice. Ms. Whipple was neither. Her reputation was earned. I learned this the first day. She carried herself with a degree of haughty scorn that, in and of itself, made her unlikeable. Add to that a level of verbal cruelty to students that occasionally bordered on sadistic, and it became clear why she was so despised. I felt at the time that nobody who enjoyed human society could act that way.

Ms. Whipple’s rules were bizarre and unreasonable, to the extent that following them proved difficult by mere virtue of their incomprehensibility. If one wrote his name on the wrong line on his paper, or put her name in the wrong place relative to the date, he could be sure to receive an embarrassing public reprimand. She seemed impossible to satisfy. Her assignments were simply stupid, and I found it difficult to not feel that if something was not worth doing, it was certainly not worth doing well.

The one instance I can recall of her assigning a straightforward and traditional task cemented her reputation in my mind. We were to write a book report. Fair enough. As she went around the room we were asked what book we would like to write about, but when I told her my choice she replied, “that’s too hard for you”, and chose another title for me. Now, if it  had been any other teacher I might have been humiliated at, in essence, being told I was dumb. But I didn’t respect her enough to care. I would like think we all understood that Ms. Whipple’s opinions were not a true reflection of our merits, and that she was, in essence, just a sadistic bully whose abuse reflected her own self-conscious shortcomings. But I must regretfully acknowledge that some of my classmates were genuinely hurt by the frequent put-downs.

After about six weeks of suffering, we were surprised one morning by a visit from a school administrator who told us that he was sorry, but we were all, for an undisclosed reason, being moved to another English teacher’s class. The room burst into frantic and sustained applause. Many students who, moments before, had been the most silent, frightened victims of Ms. Whipple’s cruelty, now openly cursed her, and shouted at her on their way out of the room. The vehemence of this verbal retribution was so extreme that I almost pitied her. I said nothing, but I certainly participated in the jubilant rejoicing.

Perhaps a year later, a close friend and I played an embarrassing and somewhat gross (though not dangerous) practical joke on Ms. Whipple. Several of her students watched us prepare our revenge and observed as the childish prank unfolded. These witnesses could easily have identified us and turned us in, but none ever did. They no doubt took some satisfaction at seeing their tormentor receive a taste of her own bitter medicine.

In my nearly twenty-year academic career, Ms. Whipple stands out as the worst teacher I ever had.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Rantings, School on March 28th, 2011 | 2 Comments »

A popular and hilarious YouTube music video begins, “Come on down to Clevelandtown, everyone”.   Last month, my father and I did just that.

It sometimes seems as if everyone in America has roots in Ohio.  I have several friends who were born and raised there, but I had never been, and was quite eager to know what that state–the textbook definition of “middle America”–looks and feels like.  Moreover, in recent years, my growing fascination with industrial America has made Cleveland especially intriguing to me.  How, I wondered, did a place with such a prominent working class reputation come to have one of the best orchestras in the world?  What inspires people to endure such brutal winter weather?  What does it feel like to be in the “Rust Belt” at a time when manufacturing is dying in the country?  Meanwhile, an exhibit at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum made a visit to Cleveland in 2010 essential.  And though I would have liked to visit in a less frigid season, my schedule did not permit it.  So I traveled to Cleveland in December.

It has been decades since I traveled with my father, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity.  I met him in St. Petersburg the night before our early morning flight.  We had to leave the house at 5:30 Wednesday morning, but the traffic at that hour is minimal, and the lines at Tampa International Airport were as short as they probably get.  We were anticipating an adventure in the new full-body scanners the TSA has introduced nationwide, but not only did we not get screened, but “nobody even touched my junk”, my dad said.

The sun had barely risen when we were flying north along the western coast of Florida, over Tallahassee, and on to Atlanta.  We could see Stone Mountain as we made our descent.  Our layover there was brief, and we were soon soaring high above the Appalachian Mountains en route to Cleveland.  The skies were mostly overcast, so our first view of Ohio came only as we were about to touch down at Hopkins Airport.  We landed in snow, and when we exited the plane we walked down steps onto the tarmac before making our way into the terminal.  I must say that Hopkins Airport is not Cleveland’s most impressive monument.  It was rather bleak.

Thinking back on a recent trip to New York, where the Crowne Plaza offered free transportation, I thought I ought to call and see if our hotel might pick us up at the airport.  “What’s the best way to get to the hotel from the airport”, I asked.  “The best way is a taxi”, replied the girl at the desk.  In hindsight, I ought to have asked what was the most practical or affordable way, because a cab cost $33 plus tip.  Still, the twelve-mile ride was comfortable, and the driver took us directly to the front door of our hotel.

The Radisson Gateway is nothing special to look at from the outside.  Really, it is rather unassuming – the sort of place you wouldn’t notice if you drove by.  Indeed, the Radisson is so plain that I forgot to take a picture of the exterior.  But it was as clean as could be, and, truth be told, quite conveniently located.  We arrived around one o’clock, and even though check-in was not until 4:00PM, the clerk found us a double room ready on the spot.  Room 323 was huge, with high ceilings, crown molding, and two Sleep Number beds.  Though it lacked a closet, it did have a substantial wardrobe for us to hang our coats.  The water pressure in the shower was powerful, and the hot water was instant and endless.

After getting situated, my dad and I set out for our first destination, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.  To get there we headed east on Huron Avenue, then north on Ninth Street.  Cleveland impressed us immediately with its grand old buildings.  While many newer skyscrapers of glass and steel have risen downtown, along with oppressive mid-century failures, the old stone masterpieces are still there, too, including a handsome cathedral, an old bank, and myriad buildings with elaborate architectural details.  Some were being restored, others were neglected, and, sadly, many had likely been demolished long before we arrived to make way for uglier buildings and parking lots.

As we walked up Ninth, which slopes down to the north, a dark grey feature appeared on the horizon.  At first it seemed oddly blank against the snowy sidewalks and open streets of the city.  Then it became clear that it was Lake Erie, looking fierce and menacing, like a body of water moments before a terrible storm begins.  Far from shore I could see white-capped waves that contrasted sharply with the still, frozen surface of the lake nearer the shore.  Indeed, along the harbor, the water was frozen in irregularly-shaped chunks that gave one the impression they had been distinct icebergs smashed together by force, though, of course they weren’t.  The outside air temperature was twenty-five degrees, which was hardly distressing at all until we passed an open intersection and park, where the wind came howling down the avenues from the west.  Then it was positively frigorific, and hands needed to remain in pockets lest they freeze.

We arrived at the steps of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum at about 2:30 in the afternoon, and it felt delightfully warm inside.  The building, designed by I.M. Pei, has a distinctive sloped glass front facing south that allows a substantial amount of light on an otherwise dark December day.  The clerk at the ticket counter to the left of the doors told us the museum was open until nine o’ clock that night.  I asked him about how much time we’d need to really see everything, anticipating that we might benefit from two-day passes if, as I’ve experienced at many museums, I take my sweet time to look at everything.  “No”, he said, “four hours is plenty of time”.  So my dad and I just bought single day passes, which cost $22 a piece, making it the most expensive museum I have ever visited.  We deposited our jackets at the coat check on the lower level, where they also collected my camera, since no photographing of the exhibits is allowed.  You will have to use your imagination as I describe what we saw.

In tall circular glass cases in the lower lobby, assorted electric and acoustic guitars were arranged in random order.  They belonged to an assortment of musicians famous and obscure.  The one I liked best there was Johnny Cash’s ancient Gibson J-200 with his name inlaid on the fretboard in mother-of-pearl.  A small collection of automobiles was parked nearby, including ZZ Top’s Eliminator and Joan Jett’s first car, a sleek black Jaguar she bought before she even had a driver’s license.

Museum staff collected our tickets as we entered the main exhibit space.  The first things we saw were cases full of Jim Morrison artifacts, followed by Jimi Hendrix’s childhood drawings, photos, and clothing and instruments from his rock star days.  Those were fairly substantial collections.  The rest of the downstairs exhibit space devoted less space to any individual or band.  Clothing appears to form the bulk of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum’s collection.  Every corner is filled with outfits worn on stage or in music videos.  Some seemed simple enough, but a vast majority were elaborate or unusual.  I enjoyed the impression of scale suggested by the clothes.  Mick Jagger and David Bowie, for example, must be small gentlemen, indeed, while Jimi Hendrix must have been a large fellow.  Stevie Nicks must be downright miniature: her tiny gypsy outfits were displayed.  There was a decent display of Elvis objects, including his fantastic bejeweled white jumpsuit, and a car he had given to a member of his Memphis entourage.  The sign below it explained that Elvis went to a Cadillac dealership and spent nearly $200,000 on cars for his friends.  While there, he bought a car for a lady who was just in browsing at the time.  What a guy.  The $1,400 check from the first mortgage payment he made on Graceland was there, as was the receipt for $1,300 for the mansions distinctive gates.  Representing the Beatles were several costumes, including their famous collarless suits, and the vibrant yellow-green military-style uniform John Lennon wore on the cover of St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, complete with fanciful medals, epaulets and the royal coat of arms  on the sleeve.  The costume appeared to be in impeccable condition.  Nearby were Lennon’s distinctive round-framed National Health spectacles that he wore from around 1967 until 1973.  The Rickenbackers Lennon and George Harrison played on many early Beatles records were there, too.

The exhibit which I traveled half way across the country to see was upstairs in its own separate area, and it was amazing.  “From Asbury Park to the Promised Land” featured dozens of Bruce Springsteen artifacts, from clothing and furniture to instruments and notebooks full of handwritten lyrics.  The Teac four-track cassette recorder Springsteen used to record Nebraska was on display, as was the keyboard-operated glockenspiel that always sat atop Danny Federici’s Hammond Organ, and which features prominently in so many classic Springsteen songs.  The most amazing object, of course on display, of course, was THE Guitar, as the fans call it: Springsteen’s Fender Telecaster that, in fact, is a 1950s Telecaster body with an Esquire neck.  This is the guitar Springsteen played almost exclusively from the early 1970s until the mid-eighties – the guitar you see on the cover of Born to Run.  It is beat to hell, and there isn’t a trace of lacquer left anywhere on the fretboard.  The body is so well-used that the wood is worn down an eighth of an inch in places.  It’s the accumulated wear associated with proving it all night, every night, for decades.  I was thrilled to see it.

My father and I were starving when we left the museum, but, bizarrely, there appear to be no restaurants near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  We knew, though, that eateries abound in the Gateway district where we were staying, so we ventured back that way.  We both felt compelled to try a cozy looking place on Prospect Avenue called Vincenza’s Pizza.  Though it was 5:30, the restaurant appeared almost deserted.  I was overjoyed to see that Chicago-style pizza was on the menu, and was cheap, to boot.  We ordered a whole pie, and enjoyed our Cokes while we waited for it.  When it arrived we were astonished by its size.  It proved far too much food, in spite of the fact that we hadn’t eaten anything that day but a few cookies on the airplane.  We had a quarter of the pizza left to take back to our hotel.  The entire bill, with drinks, came to barely $17.

I wanted to pick up some extra soda to take back to the hotel, so we walked around the corner to a CVS.  Inside I found my normal one-liter bottle of cola that I buy every day at work for almost a dollar less.  Milk cost over a dollar less per gallon.  Gasoline was about the same price as it is in Florida, but other commodities seemed absurdly cheap in Cleveland.

The next day we made our way by taxi to the Tremont district south of downtown.  Our destination was the house featured in the now-classic holiday film A Christmas Story.  There, in a humble working-class neighborhood, near the intersection of 11th Street and Rowley Avenue, sat the house, immediately identifiable.  Two other houses across the street are used as a ticket office/gift shop and a museum for the film.  We purchased our tickets ($8 each) and joined a tour that had just begun.  The guide explained that that house was the one used for all exterior shots in the film, and for any interior shots in which the outside can be seen through the windows.  So, when the Old Man is admiring his “major award”, what you are seeing is the house in Cleveland.  I was amused to find that Ralph’s lie about getting injured by a falling icicle could just as easily have been true, since icicles lined the roof of the house.  The backyard was enclosed by a short wood fence, beyond which lay the vast Industrial Valley.

My father and I were both impressed by the authenticity of the whole place.  Not the house-turned-movie set, but the neighborhood itself.  It was made of streets like millions of others in the northern United States, with two and three story homes spaced closely together.  At the corner adjacent to the Christmas Story House was a small neighborhood tavern, where, one imagines, neighborhood people stop for a bite and a drink after work.

Wishing to explore more of the the real Cleveland, we decided to walk a bit.  We strolled north up 14th Street, crossing over Interstate 490, past Lincoln Park, where children were enjoying the snow, and continued until we ran out of sidewalk before the Cuyahoga River.  We passed neat old apartment buildings, grand old churches coated with soot, an abandoned art gallery, and more than a few empty old houses.  Cleveland, of course, has been hard hit by the decline of manufacturing that only escalated with NAFTA in the 1990s.  Though it’s meant to be funny, the line in the “Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video” that says, “this train is carrying jobs out of Cleveland” is mostly true.  Cleveland, like much of industrial America, is losing jobs.  Still, as our taxi driver James told us, if you can find work, Cleveland is a place where, “for very little money”, a person “can live very well”.

James dropped us off at Public Square, right in the heart of downtown.  In the old days, that was the site of Higbee’s Department Store – the very place Ralph spies the Red Ryder BB gun he desperately wants.  Today the window is still filled with toys, but the department store is gone.  In its place is a tourism office.  We walked through the Square, past the statue of Moses Cleaveland (“he’s the guy who invented Cleveland”), past the Soldier’s and Sailor’s Memorial, past the wonderful statues outside the post office, past the Key Bank Building, and back to Vincenza’s Pizza.  The large deep dish pizza the day before proved excessive, so we opted this time for the medium, which was still ridiculously large, and absurdly cheap: $8 was the price of the pie.  With drinks our total was not much more than $10, which, for a sit-down restaurant is hard to believe.  The building that houses Vincenzo’s Pizza is itself an arcade of sorts, with a high glass ceiling, and dozens of small shop spaces.  Many of these, sadly, were vacant, but some contained jewelers, barbers, and a gymnasium.  It is an amazing building, but another arcade a block north defies comparison.

The Arcade, as it is called, was built in the late nineteenth century, which was, apparently, the true heyday of Cleveland.  Funded by insanely rich industrialists, the Arcade is an astonishing gem that surely cost a fortune, and could likely not be recreated today at any price.  The glass ceiling is several stories above the ground floor, which is flanked on either side by long balconies held up by elaborate ironwork.  No opportunity was wasted to feature highly-detailed brass railings or richly-ornamented lamp posts.   I’m not being mean when I say that the fanciest shopping mall you have ever been in sucks compared to the Arcade, at least in terms of beauty and craftsmanship.  Hats are a popular fashion accessory in Cleveland, and I was taken by a display of warm-looking knitted caps in a store window in the Arcade.  I went inside and picked out a matching set of hand-knitted wool hat and mittens for Miriam.  The sales lady was super nice, and talked to us for some time about Cleveland.  She expressed surprise that we would leave Florida in December to vacation in Cleveland, which, I suppose, is a legitimate source of confusion.

We left the Arcade and continued wandering, just admiring the architecture.  We passed the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland (indicated by a “D” on United States currency), with its allegorical statues of Integrity and Security guarding the door.  The Cleveland Metropolitan School District building was large, and we supposed that it must look beautiful in the spring when the ivy leafs out again.  A fabulous old building on East 6th Street currently being renovated–as evidenced by the contractor’s trailer parked out front–was apparently once distinguished by the words “NATIONAL BROADCASTING COMPANY” in large copper letters beneath a clock flanked by two carved stone eagles.

Occupying an entire city block, between St. Clair and Lakeside Avenues and bounded by East 6th Street and the open park space of the Cleveland Mall, the Cleveland Public Auditorium is one of the most impressive structures I have ever seen in my life.  The scale is simply massive, and the exterior is built of what I assume must be pale sandstone, with windows recessed into arched niches.  Carved into the stone along the top of the south facade are the words “1796 CLEVELAND PUBLIC AUDITORIUM 1928“.   Better still, the east and west facades bear the inscription:

A MONUMENT CONCEIVED AS A TRIBUTE TO THE IDEALS OF CLEVELAND – BUILDED BY HER CITIZENS AND DEDICATED TO SOCIAL PROGRESS, INDUSTRIAL ACHIEVEMENT AND CIVIC INTEREST – PATRIOTISM PROGRESS CULTURE

It’s absolutely fantastic – my idea of a perfect public building.

If the Cleveland Public Auditorium is impressive on the outside, Cleveland City Hall is magnificent on the inside.  It is, simply put, a temple – a temple to community and civic authority.  Through the Vatican-sized bronze doors, my father and I passed through the ubiquitous metal detectors, beyond which is an enormous lobby.  The arched ceiling rises several stories above the polished stone floor, and the entire room is lined with massive columns.  Two wonderful frescoes adorn either end of the room above balconies.  Even the mailbox is fancy.  We walked through the space in awe, then came to the far end, where, to our great surprise, we came upon The Spirit of ’76.  We left Cleveland City Hall quite amazed.  The building is, we discovered, Cleveland Landmark No. 1.

The next morning we had to depart for the airport.  Recalling the thirty dollar cab ride to the hotel, we opted to take the train.  It was windy and cold as we carried our luggage down Prospect Avenue to Tower City Center.  The train station is in the basement of a skyscraper.  I am ashamed to say I needed help from a Transit Authority worker.  I have been on trains and subways in some of the world’s great cities, and have managed to figure out the ticket-purchase procedure, but Cleveland had me baffled.  Still, with help we got our tickets: $4 for both of us one-way to the airport.  The train was a little late, but we had given ourselves ample time.  As the train left the station I got my last views of Cleveland.

At the airport we printed our boarding passes and passed through security.  I noticed a mounted display of all the cool stuff you cannot take on airplanes.  It was snowing again as the plane pulled away from the airport, and the skies were cloudy for hundreds of miles.  Finally, as we crossed the Appalachians we could see the land.  We changed planes in Charlotte, which has a beautiful airport, then were back in Tampa by the early afternoon. My dad and I had lunch together before heading to Uncle Tom’s house, where we relaxed until Miriam arrived from Gainesville and I went home.

The trip was a huge success and I will never forget it.  Indeed, I’d gladly go back.  People make fun of Cleveland, but I don’t know why.  It’s not Detroit.

Filed under: Cost of Living, Dana Heritage Project, Family, Film, Food, Musings, Travel on January 28th, 2011 | No Comments »

Day Five

It was late in the afternoon when we left Monticello – hours later than we intended to depart for home.  As we got on the road I wondered if we’d be able to make it straight through.  In the past couple years I have lost the ability to drive comfortably at all hours: past midnight I become a drowsy man.  If the conversation in the car is good it’s still possible, but if Miriam falls asleep I get sleepy, too.  So, heading east on Interstate 64 toward Richmond I was still unsure.

We stopped for food at seven o’clock.  Perhaps we were already in North Carolina.  I ate four more biscuits, bringing my total for the day to seven.  Re-energized from the food and soda, I thought surely I could drive another ten hours.  Ha!  It soon got dark, and the miles and miles of South Carolina interstate were monotonous and fatiguing.  The to-stop-or-not-to-stop debate was a perplexing one.  On one hand, another night’s hotel would cost more money.  On the other hand, driving while sleepy isn’t safe, and since it would be likely we’d end up having to stop anyway, we might as well stop sooner than later, because the earlier we get to sleep the earlier we can leave.

We began looking for hotels where Interstate 26 crosses 95 in South Carolina.  Though there was nothing worth anything at that exit, the two or three hotels we asked wanted well north of a hundred dollars for a room.  We trudged on.  Finally, after perhaps another half hour of driving, I could stand it no more, and I pulled into a Super 8 Motel.  I went to the office but found the door locked and the room inside dark.  A teenager within seemed to come out of nowhere and gestured for me to walk around to the side of the building.  I found a small bullet-proof window there, and that’s where we conducted our transaction.  The room was sixty dollars or so.  I was too tired to haggle.  Miriam found the place extremely distasteful, and it did seem like the ideal horror movie setting, but the room was actually clean, even if the air conditioner having been off for some time made the room a bit musty.  The fear of certain murder kept me awake for a little while, but I did ultimately get the sleep I desperately needed.

Day Six

We didn’t bother retrieving our free continental breakfast in the morning.  We left as soon as we woke up.  We had never removed our clothes.  Leaving the parking lot in daylight I got a better look at our surroundings.  The hotel was a hideous yellow, and vultures sat perched along the roof line, perhaps waiting to feast on the heaps of torsos left murdered in the rooms.  It was somewhat chilling.  We got the hell out of there.

We were back in Florida by noon, and had pulled into our driveway by a quarter past one o’clock on the first day of June.  In five and a half days we had traveled 1,762 miles through five states and the District of Columbia.  It was an unforgettable adventure.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Food, Travel on September 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Five

As most people know, Monticello was the home of Thomas Jefferson, which he designed himself.  It is located in the hills just outside Charlottesville, Virginia.  Jefferson chose the site when he was only a boy, and the house was under construction in some form or another from the 1760s until Jefferson’s old age.  The house and its surrounding gardens are, simply put, an amazing place to visit, and in 1987 were designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Like George Washington’s Mount Vernon, Monticello is owned and operated by a private non-profit, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.  And, as at Mount Vernon, that non-profit has done an impeccable job preserving and protecting a unique national treasure.  While, as a rule, I would generally prefer to see such places operated by the National Park Service, the rather high admission fee charged at Monticello–a fee which would not be charged were the site run by the NPS–allows the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to maintain Monticello and defend it from myriad threats.  For example, rising above Monticello is a grassy mountain capped with tall trees.  Jefferson owned that land in his lifetime, but the mountain, along with countless acres surrounding Monticello itself, were sold off after his death to cover debts.  A few years ago a proposal was hatched to build condos atop the mountain.  While the view from those condos would be spectacular, the view from Monticello would be ruined.  The Thomas Jefferson Foundation forked over millions of dollars to purchase the land and protect it from development forever.  As a Monticello staffer told me, “anytime any land near Monticello comes up for sale, the Foundation buys it at once”.  Monticello is in good hands.

We had made reservations online, and our scheduled tour was at noon.  All that was required was for us to pay for our tickets at the visitor center, which we did, before catching the van up to the house.  The drive up the mountain took only a few minutes, and we were let out on a gravel driveway circled by tall ash and linden trees.  We waited on a bench until the guide summoned us to form a line.  From the east side Monticello looks smaller than I expected.  In fact, there are houses in Gainesville that appear grander at first glance.  But my eyes were drawn to the clever things: a clock above the front door that displays the time both inside and out; a dial on the ceiling above the front steps that indicates the direction of the wind; a half-circle window above the portico that tilts in.

We were advised that photography is prohibited inside the house, and I complied, of course.  But I can tell you what I saw.  Directly inside the tall French doors (which, we were told, are reproductions, to protect the originals from wear at constant use), is a large room with painted wood floors and a balcony.  On the side walls are animal specimens (sent to Jefferson by Lewis and Clark), maps of the United States, and portraits.  Above the French door through which we passed to enter is the other side of the clock, slightly offset from the one outside to account for the single mechanism.  Two long chains attached to weights emanate from the clock and pass through small holes in the floor at the corners of the room.  The number of wights visible indicates the day of the week.  We passed through a doorway to the left into a small study used by the lady of the house, then into Jefferson’s library.  There were scads of books, all of which were carefully researched to accurately reflect the titles in Jefferson’s original library, which today is at the Library of Congress.  Only one small bookcase contained volumes actually owned and read by Jefferson, and those were behind glass for protection.  Almost every other thing in the house is original, which is why visitors are instructed not to touch anything, though I couldn’t help but brush my fingers across a table as I walked by it.  We saw a small guest room with a bed built into an alcove, then moved into Jefferson’s own large bedrooms, which, too, had a bed within an alcove that divided the space.  Jefferson, we were told, died in that bed.  Skylights made the space bright, and the contents of the rooms indicated clearly that its former resident was an intellectual and polymath. Off the bedroom was another large room with a high ceiling and walls covered in portraits of Jefferson’s heroes, including Washington.  Two large mirrors hung on either side of a doorway into the parlor.  These mirrors appeared to be quite old, and I asked the tour guide if they were original to the house.  Indeed, she said, they were.  In fact, she added, most of the glass in the windows was also original.  The most affecting moment for me, then, was the realization that I could see my reflection in a mirror that Jefferson himself looked into every day.  We passed through the modest dining room, and out of the house through a side door, where, from the back yard one can see down into Charlottesville, and spy the roof of the rotunda at the University of Virgina that Jefferson designed.

The day was warm and sunny, and although there were many visitors, it wasn’t what I would call crowded.  We were free to tour the garden and the exterior of the house without supervision.  The garden was beautiful and colorful almost beyond belief.  Butterflies were everywhere.  Within a short time we joined a guided tour of the gardens and grounds, and it was extraordinarily informative.  We learned that Monticello has a huge staff of full-time gardeners, which, considering the size of the property oughtn’t be too surprising.  In Jefferson’s time, he had the hillside to the south of the house terraced to accommodate planting, and even today the Monticello staff grow every conceivable vegetable.

A short walk down a brick path lead us to a small grassy plot of land surrounded by an iron fence.  A stone obelisk within bears the inscription:

HERE WAS BURIED
THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE
DECLARATION
OF
INDEPENDENCE
OF THE
STATUTE OF VIRGINIA
FOR
RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

That’s it.  No mention of his being the first secretary of state, the second vice president of the United States, or third president.

One aspect of Jefferson’s life that is mentioned at Monticello is slavery.  Jefferson owned many slaves, and his home was built by enslaved men.  Indeed, one look at the plantation itself makes clear that that whole lifestyle would have simply been impossible without slavery.  Wealthy planters like Jefferson could not have afforded to live without free labor.  Jefferson understood this, clearly.  But it is a shame to think that the man who wrote that “all men are created equal” chose to 0wn other human beings because it was to his personal advantage to do so.

Our tour had begun at noon, but it was four o’clock before we left the visitor center.

We made one last stop just outside the grounds of Monticello, at an eighteenth century mill and tavern.  Today, of course, it is a gift shop, and while we were there we found our official 2010 Christmas ornament: a small handmade wooden model of Monticello.  Overjoyed at our find, we got back into the car, and back on the road for the long drive home.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, History, Travel on September 6th, 2010 | No Comments »

Day Four

We have found that the importance of hotel location varies from city to city.  In Washington, D.C., for instance, you want to be in the heart of the city, or close to the Metro.  In Richmond, on the other hand, we chose a hotel on the outskirts of town, since we could drive easily in the city, and saved money over hotels downtown.  In Charlottesville we did the same thing and it worked out just fine.

We checked in to the DoubleTree at dusk.  If it wasn’t as opulent as the Willard, it was at least clean.  It had the usual frills, like flowers in the lobby, but it also had an indoor pool right in the middle of the building.  That was neat.  Our room had two beds and a tidy bathroom.  As was the case everywhere we went this trip, we barely stayed in our room five minutes–long enough to put our bags down and wash up–before heading back out to have fun.

Charlottesville is a university town, and it shares many of the traits common to university towns: a young population; a large, centrally-located campus; a small, charming downtown; abundant pizza restaurants; etc.  We drove around just looking at stuff before parking the car and walking to the pedestrian-only Main Street.  It was obviously once open to traffic, but now is an enchanting brick mall dotted with tables, benches, and planters, with shops and restaurants lining either side.  We spotted two movie theaters, two ice cream shops, numerous bookstores and clothing shops.  There was even a stationary store and a store for crazy cat ladies.

We ate dinner at Christian’s Pizza.  The first bite tricked me, and I thought we’d made a bad choice.  But my tastebuds had fooled me, and instead I found the pizza delicious, with surprisingly crispy crust.  I drank Dr. Pepper for some reason.

We walked up and down the promenade, looked in an antique shop, stopped for ice cream, and in general had a fine time before setting off again to explore more of the town.  We drove up and down random streets not looking for anything in particular.  Away from Main Street the city was quiet.

The campus of the University of Virginia is handsome, complete with the requisite number of statues, athletic facilities, and brick buildings to make it identifiably collegiate.  But unlike any other campus in America, the University of Virginia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It was designed by Thomas Jefferson himself, and the older buildings and grounds are charming as can be.  It was late in the evening, but we walked all around in spite of Miriam’s “tourist torture”-related foot injury.  We came upon two lovers on the steps of the great rotunda.  They dispersed when they perceived that I wanted to climb the stairs to see what was up there, and I thought they had run off to a dorm somewhere.  But when we were walking back from the other side of the building–the side that faces the great lawn–we perceived that the lovers were, in fact, hiding down in a courtyard.  We left them alone.

Day Five

Our main interest in Charlottesville was, naturally, Monticello.  The home of Thomas Jefferson, of course, is a popular tourist attraction that becomes very crowded in the summertime, and only a limited quantity of tickets are dispersed each day.  Our initial hope was to see Monticello in the morning, and be on our way back home by the mid-afternoon, which would have us pulling into our driveway between one- and two o’clock in the morning.  But we found that the earliest we could get tickets to see Monticello that day was after noon, so we had some time to kill.

We went first to breakfast at Cavalier Diner, which was a total mom and pop sort of place.  I ate many biscuits.  Then Miriam explored a stand-alone Anthropolgie store she had spied the night before.  It was huge.  We had checked out of our hotel already, so all that was left to do was drive up to Monticello.

Filed under: Dana Heritage Project, Food, Travel on September 2nd, 2010 | No Comments »