Summer 2013

No big trips, but lots of day trips and a couple overnight ones to places that I found exciting and interesting!

Not in chronological or any other order, but here are some highlights!

I stood in the spot where Moby-Dick was written. I haven't taught the book in years, but it still occupies my imagination, and many of my favorite memories of teaching are of this work. So it was for me an important pilgrimage. 

Stopped in small towns I'd never been to before, and drank coffee and looked at various objets d'art - Brattleboro, VT; Greater Barrington, MA; Northampton, MA. 

Stepped in the Atlantic twice - once near Newport, RI, and then at Atlantic City, NJ. 

I stood before Bam-Bam Bigelow's ring outfit, and many other pieces of priceless ephemera at the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame. There's something valuable and humane, about how people get devoted to these things, to such an extent that they'll preserve the history of their particular obsession, when it would otherwise vanish. 

Also did my part to keep Santa's Land open another season. 

I saw King Lear twice at Boscobel. (A place so lovely one would do well to pay to watch the grass grow there.) And here we have a piece of my teaching that goes all the way back to the beginning, to struggling with young people with such a difficult play, and learning along with them. I have never seen it before and this was something I really longed to do. 

Saw Motley Crue at the beginning of the summer, and Night Ranger at the end. 

So, some good memories!