My friend Larry A. and I were talking about our grade school education in Catholic schools (his in NYC, mine in VT), and the experience of nuns as teachers. It was a fine start to our education, we both agreed, emphasizing as it did those all important basics like reading.
I am extremely grateful to those teachers – and my parents who so believed in education – for giving me every tool they possibly could to prepare me for what lay ahead. If I have any regret, it’s in my own lack of attention to what was offered.
MANY MANY THANKS to each of you, wherever you are now.
There’s a photograph of the Nubble Lighthouse on the Voyager spacecraft – launched in 1977 – that’s one of 115 images chosen to represent the earth. Interesting discussion of some of those images here. Back on earth, that’s the Full Harvest Moon coming up a few days ago.
Here on the northern fringes of Tropical Storm Hermine, with wind coming in from the NE: some branches down later in the evening, and electricity was out for a few hours, but otherwise the area fared pretty well.
Living closer to the water now, I find myself more interested in flags, mostly as a quick read on wind direction and force. In an unexpected way, they’ve also become inspirational, from the Tibetan prayer flags out back over our garden, to the American flags around the neighborhood. They’ve brought me closer to distant places, times and peoples, whether Tibetan villagers or those who fought or otherwise witnessed the War of 1812, from whence comes the Star Spangled Banner (“…gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there…”). Powerful symbols they have always been, and likely to remain so.
