The Spirit

 Alittleleeway here, reporting again from Montreal.  Check out these two historic buildings which are the focus of today's blog post.

In the foreground, you see the Mary, Queen of the World, Cathedral.  For some reason, it has been designated as a minor basilica, though to my mind, there's nothing minor about the place. In the background, you see The Queen Elizabeth Hotel.  

In the mortuary chapel of the church, you will see the horizontal bronze statue of Ignace Bourget, Bishop of Montreal in the mid 1800's.  (This brother had his hand in everything).   There's a live gentleman in this chapel eager to answer questions. I wasn't in the mood for conversation, so I just wandered through the church at my leisure, snapping photos. Case in Point:

But what about the Queen Elizabeth Hotel? In 1969, John and Yoko held their second bed-in for peace right here!  Along with friends, they recorded the classic anti-war anthem, Give Peace a Chance, while still in their jammies.  I went to this shrine searching for a plaque of remembrance, but the doorman told me the plaque had been removed. As you probably know, I love a plaque.  The doorman could see my disappointment and quickly directed me to check out a photo near the elevators with information about the suite, which you can now see here:

I was disappointed with the hotel's desecration of this universal Site of Conscience, where peace loving people fought to end the Vietnam War. The "renovated" Bed In Suite (1742) can only be visited by hotel guests, for 3500$ per night.  

Queen Elizabeth Hotel needs to buy a clue from the Cathedral across the street.  Open the doors to Suite 1742 and let us all soak up the lingering spirits of Sts. John & Yoko. 

Montreal should install a skyway from the Queen of the World Cathedral to the 17th floor of the Queen Elizabeth. STAT.  Suite 1742 belongs to the Peace Loving Citizens of Montreal and the world.  

Give Peace a Chance, why don't you? Also don't forget:  War is over, if you want it.

The City of Saints

 This is alittleleeway, reporting to you from Montreal.  While Husbandman joined his pals at a Math Conference down the way, I headed over to Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mont-Royal. There are 300 steps up to this massive landmark, which pilgrims climb on their knees, but there was construction in the works so I had to take a free shuttle bus up the hill to visit this crazy good basilica.  

Saint Brother Andre, AKA the Miracle Man of Montreal, got the ball rolling with the Oratoire back in 1924.  The crutches and canes pictured above came from people who were healed by Brother Andre, channeling the spirit of St. Joseph (Jesus' earthling father).  The basilica is massive with crypts and gardens and views and murals and fountains and votive shrines.  Ambling about hither thither and yon, I passed a kneeler in front of a glass pane. A plaque read, "The Heart of Brother Andre."  I figured there was some artwork representing BA's loving kindness displayed within, but no. Floating in a reliquary was an actual human heart belonging to Brother Andre at one time. The rest of BA is down in the crypt.  

Fun Fact:  The heart was stolen in 1973, but returned in 1974. 

Stay tuned for more info on our magical Montreal tour. We'll be here all week. 

The Capital Catch Up

 I've been meaning to blog for the past 5 days, but a squirrel chewed through a wire that gave us our internets. VARMINT!

 Let's play a little catch up, SHALL WE?

Did you know that I went to the IU Writer's Conference?  I signed up for the afternoon classes. 4 days of learning about writing with a bunch of other people.  Good fun.  One of the authors had us write fake post cards from/to imaginary characters and send them off to people we know.  He sent over one thousand of these a few years ago. ONE THOUSAND! 

Did I tell you that we spent a few days down in New Orleans?  Just got home.  #1 Son and RS are moving to Asheville so this was a kind of last hurrah. Those little sweeties also got engaged and will, at some point in the future, get married to each other. We're now a FAMILY OF SIX!  

Speaking of marriage, today is our 37th wedding anniversary.  We've been good pals for 44 years which is kind of neat. This marriage has worked out well so far.  37 MORE YEARS!

On the bad side, I accidentally killed most of the plants in my garden by spraying a vinegar concoction on them because I read it would keep deer away. I read this on Better Homes and Gardens website, so I'm now boycotting Better Homes and Gardens.  THEY ARE IDIOTS!

Tomorrow is the official start of summer, so I'm not technically on "summer break" just yet, but I'm having a great time in this period of unemployment. Happy Solstice.  

The Crossroads

The relatives came.  Seattle Kin arrived for the weekend, so we decided to take a little road trip. Usually they visit at Thanksgiving when the weather is cold and nothing is open. While it's always fun, it felt good to show them around some tried and true points of pride in our neck of the woods.  After a quarry tour and a comedy show, we drove down to Clifty Falls State Park.  Indiana has 24 state parks and 1 national park.  Nothing to sneeze at. 

The hikes at Clifty Falls were topnotch, but not going to lie, the heat-humidity combo slowed us down a bit.  We found cool air streaming from a bat cave, so we sat a spell on large rocks in the cave opening. When a hiker approached,  E told him he would have to answer a riddle correctly to enter.  He walked away pretty quickly.  We called out after him to no avail. 

We next walked the historic streets of Madison.  Come to find out, Madison is our state's Music City. We also learned that Irene Dunn, 5 time Academy Award Winner, was raised in Madison.  There are examples of Federal, Greek and Italianate architecture in the beautiful old homes of Madison. I will return to spend more time wandering through Madison's 133 historic blocks some time soon. 

Next on to Cincinnati where we learned about steamboats at Smale Riverfront Park.  After a lunch in Mt. Adams at a place with an uncharacteristically grouchy Midwestern Cafe Worker, we headed to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center.  So much to learn there and I bought a souvenir teeshirt.  

Next we had a wonderful dinner outside at Alcove Bar in the bustling Over the Rhine neighborhood, followed by the famous Graeter's Ice Cream. OTR got its name from the plethora of German immigrants who lived there way back when in days of yore.  

On Monday, we ate breakfast at Sugar and Spice Diner, where Husbandman enjoyed goetta, a meat product of German origin. At the end of our meal, a basket of rubber ducks appeared on the table with the bill.  Free for the taking, these ducks brought  all of us a high level of glee.  

Coming down from our duck high, we headed to the Krohn Conservatory where we communed with butterflies. We ended our time in the Queen of the West with a quick trip over to Fountain Square. We zipped into the awesome art deco lobby of the Carew building. Carew co-owned Mabley & Carew department stores, which originated in Cincinnati. The Carew Tower became a National Historic Landmark in 1994. It's now the second tallest building in the Blue Chip City.

On the way home, we decided to detour to Columbus, Indiana, where we took the self guided architecture tour.  This place is a gem, but we haven't been there in a long while.  The audio tour bragged that in Columbus kids learn their "I. M. Pei's before they learn their ABCs."  Well done Columbus. Keep shining like the star you are.

On their last morning here, we visited museums on campus, then came home for lunch.  I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  

I'm sure you'll agree that we sure do have a lot going on here at the Crossroads of America.  
 

The Memorial Acte

We went to the Memorial ACTe Museum in Pointe-A-Pitre last week. This museum tells the history of slavery in the Caribbean Islands through narration, artifacts and art. Phenomenal place. 

I want to tell you about The Tree of Forgetting  installation I saw there, by Pascale Marthine Tayou.  Here's a photo.  I had never heard of the original Tree of Forgetting's place in history.  I've been reading more about it.  Here's a description:

The Dahomey kings were known to employ magic to help their trades and as such, along the slave trails were left different elements given supernatural powers to help them in their evil business. The first stop along the slave trail of Ouidah contains such an element. Europeans desired slaves whose memory would be wiped clean of any remembrance of their culture, family and homeland. The kings were afraid that, if slaves knew were they came from, they would be able to flee and come back to their lands so a magical tree was used to allegedly make them forget all of that. Men were asked to turn around the tree nine times and women seven, after which it was said the magic of the tree would make them forget all their ties to the land they were pushed away from.    From https://www.youngpioneertours.com/slave-trail-benin/

I doubt anyone fell for this trick, but good try, slavetraders.  

As you know, we're dealing with our own kind of Tree of Forgetting in the here and now, with states passing laws left and right that aim to control what teachers can say about where we come from and where we are together today. Like the slavetraders of yore, these lawmakers and their supporters are fearful of liberty and justice for all. 

Their laws may represent a walk around the tree, but I doubt most of us will fall for these shameful tricks in the long run.   Memorial ACTe is a Site of Conscience.  Our classrooms are also Sites of Conscience.  You should definitely go to this museum if you want to.