7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

The following will be rather mindless because I’ve just spend five hours at an academic competition (going on to nationals in June! Joy.) which stressed this introvert out, but I have work to finish up tomorrow morning, so I want to knock this out  tonight….

Yes, I’ve been doing some work this week, and it’s kind of odd and refreshing because the work isn’t a Big Project. It’s a small project that I should be able to knock off in a few days, and I will, but one that still stretches me just a bit because it is, indeed, small.

It’s more challenging to write succinctly and meaningfully than you might think. But it’s my favorite kind of challenge.

— 2 —

The  other project I’m working on involves seeing if  a collection of talks from a conference can be shaped into a book. We’ll see….

Speaking of talks…I have one! Now that everyone is getting older, I’ve started accepting speaking invitations again..the next one will be an inservice/retreat thingy for Catholic school teachers a couple of hours away, and I’m looking forward to it. Also, Ann Engelhart and I will be speaking up on Long Island somewhere in early June…more on that when they finish up the PR materials.

— 3—

Recent reads:

Tuesday night, I read the novel The Risen by Ron Rash. It was the most interesting-looking book on the “fiction new releases” shelf at the library. It was short – really, probably novella-length, and it was a good way to spend a couple of hours. The plot involved two brothers, and an incident that had happened almost fifty years before with a teenaged girl. I kept thinking of Rectify as I read, since a long-ago crime involving a teenage female victim is at the heart of that, too.

The fundamental issue at hand was….how can we even try to compensate for the wrong that we have done? What is the relationship between the wrong things and the good that we do with our lives later? Does one cancel out the other – in either direction? A knotty problem, indeed. Artfully written, yes, and it certainly held my attention for a couple of hours and moved me a bit in the end, but at the same time there was a mannered aspect about it that ultimately left me cold. Well, not cold, but cooler than I feel I should have been left.

— 4 —

Drifting about at the library the other day, I picked up a book of Maugham stories. Took it home, and read On the Internet that the one with the most startling titles, “The Hairless Mexican,” was considered one of Maugham’s best. So I read it, could see the “twist” about 2/3 of the way through, and then felt that the “twist” could have been handled much more subtly. As in…the hammer wasn’t necessary. So that was enough of that.

— 5 —.

This was on the “new releases” shelf, too,  so I had to grab it. As of this writing, I’m only about 60 pages in, but am thoroughly enjoying it, and not just Because Rome. I read a lot of social history and history of pop culture, and so far, this is one of the best. One of the flaws of modern writing on these matters is the authorial voice is usually way too intrusive, presuming that the reason we’re reading this book is that we’re super interested in the author’s relationship to the subject matter, when honestly guys, we’re not. This is free of that narcissism, and is quite enjoyable and briskly, yet solidly written. Full report next week.

— 6 —

Miss McKenzie! She found love! So exciting. Okay, not exciting. But a very satisfying read, even though none of her suitors, even the one she eventually accepted, were worthy of her. I’ve decided to immerse myself in Trollope for a time. What I find interesting and instructive is the forthrightness of the issues at hand – namely the restrictions and limitations in which the characters live, mostly financial in nature. We like to think that in our day, we make our choices freely, constrained only by our own lack of self-worth or society’s failure to accept us as we are. None of this in Trollope: your choices are limited, clearly, by how much money and property you have and by your gender. This is your life, as it is.  What will you make of it? Very thought-provoking.

— 7 —

Forgive me for repeating this Take from last week…but..it still pertains, don’t you think?

Lent is coming! Here’s a post from yesterday with links to all my Lent-related material.

The past two weeks, I’ve seen a spike in hits for  this post – and I’m glad to see it.

It’s a 2015 post on one of the most inexplicable post-Vatican II liturgical changes (and..there’s a lot of competition on that score) – the total obliteration of Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays – the three Sundays preceding the First Sunday of Lent. So for those who celebrate the Extraordinary Form and some Anglicans, I understand, February 12 is Septuagesima Sunday. From a Dappled Things article I cite in the post:

In the chapter titled “The History of Septuagesima,” Dom Guéranger added, “The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.”

 Also: tomorrow (February 11) is the celebration of Our Lady of Lourdes. Want to read more about Mary? How about this free book – Mary and the Christian Life.  And St. Bernadette? She’s in The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints. 

Oh and…did you get the mass email from EWTN tying into…the Feast of the Immaculate Conception? Oops.

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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Monday Miscellaney

First off, we’re in the thick of First Communion season….get your signed books here.

Friendship  with  Jesus – B16’s dialogue ith First Communion children

Be Saints!  – B16’s dialogue with British children

I don’t have copies of the next two in the bookstore, but you can find them in most Catholic bookstores and online.

Loyola Kids Book of Saints

Loyola Kids Book of Heroes

Also – Mother’s Day isn’t too far away…..how about The Catholic Woman’s Book of Days?

 

• Over the weekend, I blogged on pseudo-culture – the BBC show Happy Valley and the post-war noir In a Lonely Place. 
• Not much going on this past weekend. 11-year old had a piano competition/judging thing on Saturday and they served at Casa Maria on Sunday, so we were tied to home. That’s okay, we’ll be flitting about soon enough.
• We watched Ben-Hur. Over three days. I hadn’t seen it in years. Probably close to forty of them. You know it’s about four hours long, right? You can see how that happened – given the filmmaking conventions of the day and the fact that if you are going to spend a heap of money on a production, you might as well go all-out and give the audience its money’s worth.

  There is a remake of Ben-Hur coming out and I’ve read a bit of well I never online and can’t remake a classic!

  Well, yes you can. The 1959 version was a remake of the classic silent version, and really, don’t make pronouncements about it being impossible to improve on the ’59 film until you actually rewatch it.

  The length is unnecessary. Those long, lingering dialogue scenes are melodramatic and often risible. Charlton Heston is a terrible actor in this thing. I mean…terrible. The best scenes are the famed set-pieces: The galley scenes, the chariot race and the leper-colony material. The chariot race remains spectacular. Everything else is overlong, stiff and too reverent. The score, as per usual with films like this is overwhelming. Shut up.

  The new version doesn’t look particularly good, though – just judging from the trailers and given that the production team is that Roma Downey crew,  we can be sure that the Christian content will remain intact. But it’s also a good guess that an in-your face CGI-enhanced chariot race will have nothing on the Boyd/Heston matchup of ’59.

  And remember that when the snarky protests come about Ben-Hur being “too Christian” the book was subtitled A Tale of the Christ. It’s about forgiveness, a forgiving heart and mercy that was only found through an encounter with Christ. It comes through in the ’59 version of course, since the movie was part and parcel of that late-50’s Biblical epic boom, but it is pretty stilted and dramatically reverent.

  We had watched Gladiator the week before and had good conversations comparing the two (as in – the plot was just lifted and transposed)  and then digging a bit into history, checking the accuracy (not much on Gladiator, of course)  and looking into the history of the filming of both, as well.

• Random bloggy link of the day: Taking class notes by hand is far better than doing so on a computer.   Tech-crazy schools always bragging about being all-digital, take, er, note.  You’re helping no one except tech companies.

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For the Easter Basket!

How about a signed picture book? 

The copies I’m selling right now will be signed by both Ann & me. Not that a kid cares, but if we have them, might as well sign them, right?

(And I can personalize the sig – just go to the proper place on the order form or let me know what you want via email. amywelborn60 – at- gmail – dot – com.)

Go here to order.

Below are some images that Ann made for a presentation – the pictures are from Adventure in Assisi.  Ann lives in the NYC area, and if you are interested in having her come to your school or parish, here’s her website and contact information. 

 

 

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RCIA Stuff

We are in the final weeks before Easter, which means that we are in the final weeks of candidate and catechumen preparing for full initiation at the the Easter Vigil.

(Of course, RCIA is really, properly only for the unbaptized and already baptized Christians can and should be catechized and brought into the Church year-round if it’s appropriate for that person. But, nonetheless…)

The Scrutinies are the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays of Lent and so perhaps this is a good time to share some good instructional material with friends or family members who are revving up for meeting Christ in the Eucharist for the first time in a few weeks.

The How To Book of the Mass has recently undergone a makeover – I had no role in it and was as surprised as anyone. Mike fought hard for the original cover – he didn’t want the normal Catholic-looking cover and wanted something that would really stand out on a bookstore shelf, so for years the left-hand image had been the cover.

 

 

The new cover looks much like any other intro-to-the-Mass book, but rest assured the content is the same. I’m glad it’s still in print, still selling welling, and helping people. And the content does reflect the most recent translation. Here is an excerpt. 

I have a few copies with the original  cover – you can order here. Or get through your local Catholic bookstore or online. 

In addition, I’d recommend my Words We Pray  – which is a collection of essays I wrote on traditional Catholic prayers from the Sign of the Cross to the Lord’s Prayer to the Memorare to the Liturgy of the Hours to Amen.  Each essay ties in some historical material with spiritual reflection, the goal being to help the pray-er link the prayers of his or her own heart with the prayer of the Church.  St. Paul says, In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings.(Romans 8:26).

One way the Spirit helps us pray as we ought and give voice to our the depths of our hearts is via the Spirit-formed traditional prayer of the Church. It leads us away from solipsism and situates our prayer properly, putting praise and gratitude to God first, and placing our needs in the context of his will, above all.

I have a few copies of that here too, as well as all the picture books.  But you can get The Words We Pray online anywhere as well.  

 

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7 Quick Takes

— 1 —

Shall we stick the Daily Homeschool Report   here?  Yes, we shall.

— 2 —

Thursday is homeschool class at the Cathedral, with only one more week to go, sadly.

So that means no copywork and no home morning prayer. It’s get him up, feed him, and off we go.

Today his drama class practiced their play and his history of science class talked about Louis Pasteur.

After, we ran to the downtown library branch to pick up an armful of Smurf comics.  (More on that in a bit). Then home for lunch, had him talk to me about Pasteur, finish up Beast Academy 5A, and talk about the Writing and Rhetoric story, followed by several exercises (excerpts from Twain, Anne of Green Gables, etc)  asking him to look for unbelievable, improbable, improper or unclear.

As I said, it is prep for learning how to write refutations in a very ordered, but not at all boring way. It’s about instilling criteria in the mind so that one can give reasons for the case one is making.  I’m impressed with it.

 

–– 3—

By this time, it’s mid-afternoon and rainy, so I pulled out the video of Ken Burns’ program on Lewis and Clark I had checked out of the library and we started watching it.  It’s pretty long – 240 minutes, but he was engaged, so I think we’ll just take it in 45 minute sections and watch it over the next week.

Piano practice, and that’s it.

 

— 4 —

Honest to pete, as they say, I had never before watched a Ken Burns doc. It’s quality, for sure, but stylistically so repetitive.  Gliding shot of river at sunrise. Voiceover from journal. Talking head. Gliding shot of river at sunset.

I guess there’s really nothing much more to do, right?

And the talking heads – maybe I’m just getting oversensitive as I age, but wow,  I just wanted to say BACK OFF, TALKING HEAD.  Really, pull that camera back even six inches, and I won’t reflexively recoil from you.

 

— 5 —

Proud that this conference on racial reconciliation is being held in Birmingham right now, held at a local Baptist divinity school and  co-sponsored by the Diocese of Birmingham

 

Speakers include Bishop Braxton of Belleville, IL, the Archbishop of Owerri, Nigeria, and today the mayor of Charleston:

Riley recalled gathering the families of survivors together the night of the shooting as the police chief explained what happened.

“There was this choir of sorrow, wailing, crying, that will be with me as long as I live,” Riley said. “We told the community this was a hate crime. He came from 110 miles away. He wasn’t from Charleston. But he was from America. He wasn’t from another planet.”

The city, without a solid foundation in good race relations, could have responded in anger and with riots, Riley said. Instead, people of different races and religious beliefs gathered in front of the church, held hands and prayed.

“He came with hate, and we in this community would respond with love,” Riley said. “We decided we would take care of each other and we would pray. And we did.”

Riley spearheaded and is still working on a plan to build an African-American history museum on the site of the wharf where thousands of Africans were sold as slaves in Charleston, he said. “Forty-four percent of all slaves who came to North America came through Charleston,” Riley said.

Unfortunately, I can’t attend, but it looks really good.  Maybe we will try to sneak over at noon, but no, on second thought I think there is some big music audition/competition going over on that campus right now, besides classes, and a friend of mine was saying parking was impossible on campus, so probably not….

— 6–

Remember that Lent when your early idealism held and you indeed did not have cheese pizza for dinner every Friday?

Yeah, me neither.

 

— 7 —

Oh, to get back to the Smurfs.

Both of my younger boys, but especially the actual youngest, really like the Asterix-TinTin end of comics/graphic novels.  I’ve mentioned before that the youngest is also a big fan of the Lucky Luke series and occasionally asks if the Gaston series, which he encountered in a cabin in the Pyrenees and gamely tried to “read” in French, has been translated into English yet (nope).

Another short series he likes is Benny Breakiron by Peyo, who was also the author of the Smurfs comics.  I had suggested the latter to him before, but he’d always rejected it because what are Smurfs anyway but something for toddlers, right? (My only real encounter was with the animated series, which I never actually watched, but which made me itchy even just running in the other room. But I had read that the comics were different). The other day, he started reading one in the library, was hooked, and, as I said, asked to return to get like ten more.   I asked him why he liked them and he said he mostly liked how each of the Smurfs had a different personality.

And then he said he thought he had figured out where Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes) lives.

(Illinois.)

Speaking of books…order some from me!  Signed editions of any of the picture books at 8 bucks a title.  Big orders for your entire First Communion class welcome!

 

 

 

For more Quick Takes, visit This Ain’t the Lyceum!

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Another Papal Visit – Five Years Ago

As we prepare for Pope Francis’ visit to Cuba and the United States, over at the excellent blog Supremacy and Survival, devoted to exploring the English Reformation, Stephanie Mann is marking the 5th anniversary of Pope-Emeritus Benedict XVI’s pastoral visit to Scotland and England.  

The Catholic Herald has reposted an editorial written by William Oddie five years ago:

The richness, volume and sheer variety of the teaching the Pope gave us, and its perfect suitability for each of its many very different audiences, ranging from his intellectually hugely impressive address to the leaders of civil society in Westminster Hall to his call to that enthusiastic audience of schoolchildren to aim at becoming saints, was astonishing. And perhaps the first thing that needs to be said is that this was above all a personal triumph for the Holy Father himself. What came over consistently was the huge warmth, the seemingly inexhaustible loving kindness of the Pope’s gentle but nevertheless powerful personality. After all the caricatures, the man emerged.

That talk to schoolchildren was five years ago today, and out of it came our book Be Saints!

Watercolors by the wonderful Ann Engelhart.

Ann was interviewed about her work on this book here. 

The book was also picked up by Ignatius and is available here.  A beautiful introduction to the life of a disciple…IMHO.

Special offer through this weekend:

In honor of this anniversary, you can get Be Saints  for $9.00/copy (including shipping) or five copies for $40.00 (includes shipping).  Go here to the bookstore. If you have problems with any of the forms, just email me at amywelborn60-at-gmail.com.

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Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Not canonized, but beatified and remembered on September 5.

Most of the entry I wrote on Mother Teresa for The Loyola Kids’  Book of Heroes is on the Loyola site, here. 

When we think about the difference that love can make, many people very often think of one person: Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta. A tiny woman, just under five feet tall, with no tools except prayer, love, and the unique qualities God had given her, Mother Teresa is probably the most powerful symbol of the virtue of charity for people today.

Mother Teresa wasn’t, of course, born with that name. Her parents named her Agnes—or Gonxha in her own language—when she was born to them in Albania, a country north of Greece.

Agnes was one of four children. Her childhood was a busy, ordinary one. Although Agnes was very interested in missionary work around the world, as a child she didn’t really think about becoming a nun; but when she turned 18, she felt that God was beginning to tug at her heart, to call her, asking her to follow him.

Now Agnes, like all of us, had a choice. She could have ignored the tug on her heart. She could have filled her life up with other things so maybe she wouldn’t hear God’s call. But of course, she didn’t do that. She listened and followed, joining a religious order called the Sisters of Loreto, who were based in Dublin, Ireland.

Here is Pope John Paul II’s homily on the occasion of her beatification, in 2003:

3. Whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant” (Mk 10: 43). With particular emotion we remember today Mother Teresa, a great servant of the poor, of the Church and of the whole world. Her life is a testimony to the dignity and the privilege of humble service. She had chosen to be not just the least but to be the servant of the least. As a real mother to the poor, she bent down to those suffering various forms of poverty. Her greatness lies in her ability to give without counting the cost, to give “until it hurts”. Her life was a radical living and a bold proclamation of the Gospel.

The cry of Jesus on the Cross, “I thirst” (Jn 19: 28), expressing the depth of God’s longing for man, penetrated Mother Teresa’s soul and found fertile soil in her heart. Satiating Jesus’ thirst for love and for souls in union with Mary, the Mother of Jesus, had become the sole aim of Mother Teresa’s existence and the inner force that drew her out of herself and made her “run in haste” across the globe to labour for the salvation and the sanctification of the poorest of the poor.

4. “As you did to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25: 40). This Gospel passage, so crucial in understanding Mother Teresa’s service to the poor, was the basis of her faith-filled conviction that in touching the broken bodies of the poor she was touching the body of Christ. It was to Jesus himself, hidden under the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor, that her service was directed. Mother Teresa highlights the deepest meaning of service – an act of love done to the hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick, prisoners (cf. Mt 25: 34-36) is done to Jesus himself.

Recognizing him, she ministered to him with wholehearted devotion, expressing the delicacy of her spousal love. Thus, in total gift of herself to God and neighbour, Mother Teresa found her greatest fulfilment and lived the noblest qualities of her femininity. She wanted to be a sign of “God’s love, God’s presence and God’s compassion”, and so remind all of the value and dignity of each of God’s children, “created to love and be loved”. Thus was Mother Teresa “bringing souls to God and God to souls” and satiating Christ’s thirst, especially for those most in need, those whose vision of God had been dimmed by suffering and pain.

5. “The Son of man also came… to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10: 45). Mother Teresa shared in the Passion of the crucified Christ in a special way during long years of “inner darkness”. For her that was a test, at times an agonizing one, which she accepted as a rare “gift and privilege”.

In the darkest hours she clung even more tenaciously to prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. This harsh spiritual trial led her toidentify herself more and more closely with those whom she served each day, feeling their pain and, at times, even their rejection. She was fond of repeating that the greatest poverty is to be unwanted, to have no one to take care of you.

6. “Lord, let your mercy be on us, as we place our trust in you”. How often, like the Psalmist, did Mother Teresa call on her Lord in times of inner desolation:  “In you, in you I hope, my God!”.

Let us praise the Lord for this diminutive woman in love with God, a humble Gospel messenger and a tireless benefactor of humanity. In her we honour one of the most important figures of our time. Let us welcome her message and follow her example

From the Vatican website, a page of papal talks related to Mother Teresa. 

In 2010, the year of the 100th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s birth, Pope Benedict lunched with 250 of Rome’s poor on December 26:

I think of the witness of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, a reflection of the light of the love of God. To celebrate a hundred years since her birth is cause for gratitude and for reflection, that we might have a renewed and joyous charge toward the service of the Lord and our brothers and sisters, especially the neediest among us. As we know, the Lord himself wanted to be needy. Dear Sisters priests and brothers, dear friends, love is the force that changes the world, because God is love. Blessed Teresa of Calcutta lived love for everyone without distinction, but with a preference for the poorest and most abandoned: a luminous sign of the fatherhood and the goodness of God. She knew to recognize in each person the face of Christ, who she loved with her whole self: the Christ who she loved and received in the Eucharist she continued to find in the streets and pathways of the city, becoming living “images” of Jesus who crosses over the wounds of man with the grace of his merciful love. Whoever asks why Mother Teresa became so famous, the answer is simple: because she lived in a humble, hidden way, for love and in love of God. She herself affirmed that her greatest prize was to love Jesus and serve him in the poor. Her tiny figure, whether with her hands joined together or embracing a sick person, a leper, the dying, a child, is the visible sign of an existence transformed by God. Amid the night of human suffering, she became resplendent in the light of divine Love and helped so many hearts find the peace only God can give.

Let us thank the Lord, that in Blessed Teresa of Calcutta we all have seen how our existence can change when it encounters Jesus; it can become for others a reflection of the light of God. To many men and women, in situations of sorrow and suffering, she gave consolation and the certainty that God doesn’t abandon anyone, ever! Her mission continues among many, here and in other parts of the world, who live her charism of being missionaries and missionaries of Charity. Our thanks to you is great, dear Sisters, dear Brothers, for your humble, discreet, almost hidden presence in the eyes of men, but extraordinary and precious to the heart of God. To man often in search of happy, fleeting illusions, your witness of life says where true joy is found: in sharing, in giving, in loving with the same generosity of God that upends the logic of human selfishness.

A chapter from David Scott’s book, The Love That Made Mother Teresa – this chapter on her “dark night.”

A blog post I wrote when the book on her spiritual struggles was published.

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Living Faith

Forgot that today was one of my days. It’s about the lure of Ikea, in case you can’t tell. 

There are certain stores that must surely inject some sort of aspirational virus in me at the doorway.

A particular Swedish home furnishings enterprise. High-end cookware shops. Even big box hardware and lumber stores can get that buzz going in my head:

“My life could look like this. It could be neater, trimmer, coolly designed, and of course, if it were all that, it would be so much better than it is now. It might even be perfect. All I need to do is have this in my house and this and…”   MORE

Also recently, August 31

and

August 28

If you like that sort of thing, Living Faith is very affordable. 

And A Catholic Woman’s Book of Days is composed of those sort of devotionals. 

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School’s coming…

For those of you in more normal parts of the world, you’re thinking, What? That’s not right…we’ve got a month left!

Not the case down here, where school starts well before Labor Day.

My son will be starting high school, and his orientation is a week from today, classes begin on the 10th.

(The satisfaction comes on the other end – his last day of class will be May 20. Some of you were posting “LAST DAY OF SCHOOL” photos when we’d already been out a month. So there.)

Yesterday I pulled the calendar out and started the ritual Marking-Up of Life.  The high school’s calendar, altar serving schedule, homeschool (5th grader) activities, writing deadlines…and I was thinking about all of this and what parts of the uniform are left to buy and if all the textbooks have arrived and what resources I need to order for the homeschooler and then I thought

IT’S STILL JULY!

And I got a little irritated until, once again, I remembered the merry month of May – we were done with school by May 14 this year and managed to do the Wild West Trip (story still to be finished!) before June.

Our travels for the rest of this summer have been mostly regional – well, all regional.  I had thought of doing a road trip to Philadelphia and Boston for, well, right now, but circumstances intervened, and that won’t be happening. So we are just hanging out here, reading, going to the pool, and getting ready for school. So some notes.

• Are you getting ready for school? Catechists, homeschoolers and Catholic school teachers are.  If you are a mind to, please take a look at all the resources I have available for catechesis.
• Do you work in youth ministry? Please check out my books for teens and young adults here.

• Are you planning adult education? Consider these resources.

• Are you teaching First Communion children this year? Take a look at Friendship with Jesus and Be Saints. 
• Are you teaching religion to elementary age students? Friendship with Jesus, Be Saints, Bambinelli Sunday, Adventures in Assisi, The Loyola Kids’ Book of Saints, The Loyola Kids’ Book of Heroes. 
• Can you help catechists, Catholic schools and parish programs?  Consider gifting your parish, school or favorite catechist with copies of these books.  Click on the covers for more information.

I have copies of the picture books on hand – in my bookstore.  In fact, I have a lot of them!  If you are interested in bulk orders, contact me – we can make a deal!

Again – even if catechesis isn’t something you are personally involved in, any catechist, parish school, library or program would welcome a donation as a beginning-of-the-year (no matter when it begins…) gift.

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7 Quick Takes after Chattanooga

— 1 —

….a few days after.

The older brother was on an overnight school trip earlier in the week, so the ten-year old and I took the opportunity to go up to the 4th largest city in Tennesse to revisit the Aquarium (he’d been 2 or 3 years ago, but was ready for a return and his brother wouldn’t mind being excluded) and see the zoo, the children’s museum and whatever else we could fit into about 24 hours. (We couldn’t leave until after his piano lesson on Monday)

— 2 —

Having lived in Knoville during my teen and college years, I have random associations with Chattanooga:

• One of my best friends from college was from Chattanooga and taught me all about the prep/boarding school/High Episcopal culture of the city.
• When I was in high school in Knoxville, our newspaper staff attended a high school journalism convention in Knoxville.  Something I wrote won me an autographed paperback copy of a book by Barbara Walters.  No, I don’t still have it.
• On that same trip,  some of the senior girls went out after curfew to some bar. (They may have even been 18, so it might have even been okay…remember that was the drinking age then. Wiser times.) One of the girls met a guy there – a guy in his twenties – and Chemistry Happened. She was giddy about it when she got back to the hotel room. We lowly, gawky sophomores and juniors were in awe.   They made plans.  He’d come up to Knoxville in a few weeks and they would go to the Dan Fogleburg concert together.

(And of course)

She waited and waited at the Civic Center…

He didn’t show up.

Longer than….

— 3 —

No such drama or awards this time.  Just animal-crazy kid-centered fun.

First thing about Chattanooga:  the city is a model of tourism development and marketing.  It’s the smallest of the Big Four cities in Tennessee, and probably has the least attention-grabbing cachet.  No blues/Elvis/Mississippi River, no country music capitol, no Smokey Mountains gateway. But it’s taken what it has – the natural attraction and history of Lookout Mountain and the Tennessee River, as well as its location as the city through which a good chunk of the Florida-bound traffic must pass  – and built on it.

There’s a degree of artificiality about it, but at the same time, this downtown area of Chattanooga, on both sides of the river, is clearly also for residents, and it shows.

— 4 —

We couldn’t leave until after the Monday piano lesson, but even so, since the Aquarium doesn’t close until 7:30, we had plenty of time to explore.

There are two wings, one devoted to oceans and one to rivers.  The latter is the original, appropriately themed, since it sits right on the lovely Tennessee River.   There is not a whole lot in the ocean wing, but there were penguins and some great rays.

The river wing is well designed:  you ride the escalator up to the top, then wind your way down on mezzanine ramps that branch out into exhibit halls on the sides.  My son’s favorite is the paddle fish – he says it looks prehistoric to him and it does.

I like the Tennessee Aquarium more than I do the Atlanta aquarium, which always seems like such a mob scene to me.  It’s expensive, but then all aquariums are – they are expensive to operate – but it’s worth it.

Then some walking:

The Bluff View area directly east of downtown is lovely, and here’s another great feature of Chattanooga planning:  public art.  It’s a priority for the city, and the placement of all of this statuary adds ongoing interest to an already eye-catching walk up and down hills and over a pedestrian bridge.

The Walnut Street Bridge – threatened with demolition until a little over twenty years ago, the community joined together to restore and revive it as a pedestrian bridge.

— 5 —

Tuesday morning, we took a ten-minute drive to the zoo.  It’s small, and half-priced with our Birmingham Zoo membership, I paid a little over seven bucks for us to get in.  It was us with scores of school groups, but most of the time we managed to stay ahead of them and enjoy the animals without too much ecstatic squealing in the background.

My ten-year old is a zoo afficianado, with one of the great regrets of his life being that he was only four when he went to the San Diego Zoo, and he doesn’t remember it.  His favorite so far is the New Orleans Zoo, but he approved of this one, too, comparing it in size and scope to the Montgomery Zoo and he’s right.

So, no big animals here, which is fine – the biggest cats were jaguars, and supposedly there were chimps but we never saw them.  The highlights for us were the Fennec foxes, which are new and very cute, and the sloth

I’ve seen sloths in zoos before (Birmingham has one), but I’ve never seen one do anything but sleep.  We had been through this exhibit once earlier, had some extra time, so we decided to go back to it once more before we left, and it was great that we did: the sloth, previously curled up and asleep was seriously on the move:

Their Edward Scissorhands hook paws are pretty weird.

It was a good couple of hours and walking around, looking at animals, and listening to my ten-year old tell me all about them.

Then back to town, where we spent some time at the Children’s Discovery Museum.  I was unsure if it might be a little young for Michael, and he was right on the edge, and we wouldn’t return, but the music and art rooms were particularly good and provided him some interesting ways to spend his time.

Then, this happened:

— 6 —

You can’t miss the High Point Climbing and Fitness.  The outdoor climbing walls loom high over the riverside area. We took a brief walk around Monday night, and I told Michael that yes, he could do it on Tuesday…and so he did.  For two hours. Indoors and out.  Arms sore at the end, heels blistered from the shoes, but very, very happy.

And he was pretty excited to learn that they are opening their second facility in 2016….in Birmingham.

And then back home to pick up brother at 11:30 pm at school from his trip.

We’ll go back to Chattanooga for a couple of days sometime this summer to do Lookout Mountain/Ruby Falls/Rock City (which my older son said was really kitschy and actually kind of weird) and Chickamagua.  My big goal of this summer, locally, is to get to Cloudland Canyon State Park, which is just a little south of Chattanooga – it looks amazing.

— 7 —

Had a nice chat with Matt Swain on Thursday morning about the two B16 picture books, available here, of course:

And for Mother’s Day:

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