Quite a week!

I feel overwhelmed by all that has happened this week since I posted my last blog! Monday and Tuesday were fairly quiet, but Wednesday we met Mary Anderson for lunch along with Anne Janeway - on the 8th anniversary of the death of my friend John Nissen (Mary's husband). Wednesday afternoon was Centering Prayer and Wednesday evening Zohar study. Then on Thursday, we had our Short Stories course, with two stories: The Swimmer by John Cheever, and In the American Society by Gish Jen. Friday, we made an excursion to Litchfield, Connecticut, and our friend Calvin Farwell came along with us. There's a lot to talk about and there isn't time to deal with it all right now because I need to get back for supper. But here is a start - in reverse chronological order. Yesterday, we picked Calvin up at a little after 8:30a.m. and set out for Litchfield. It was a gorgeous day and the fall color was spectacular. We took an interesting route - we went the back roads to Wilmington, VT, then took Rte. 9 up the mountain to Searsburg, and Rte. 8 south down to North Adams, MA. That was a particularly lovely drive with great views of foliage and also a windmill farm - one of the few in Vermont (Vermonters believe in Green energy but they don't like to see windmills on their ridgelines. A bit of a conflict there!). We had all taken that road before, but not for many years. North Adams was bustling and considerablhy gentrified since our lasr visit - it has been given an economic boost by the Mass MoCa At Museum, which has re-purposed the old brick mill buildings that are North Adams landmarks and made them into a world-class museum of modern art. We haven't been to Mass MoCa for a long while, but we couldn't stop today. Another time. We followed Rte 8 south through several other Massachusetts towns and into Connecticut, and down to Litchfield, which is a very lovely village in central Western CT, near Torrington. Why Litchfield? Well, it seemed like a nice destination - I had been there two decades ago so so and was happy to re-visit it; Ellen knew of a flower farm located there that she thought it would be fun to see; Calvin grew up in Connecticut, and if he had ever seen Litchfield, it had been decades. We got there about 11;30a.m. or so, and it is indeed a very beautiful. prosperous New England village. I had visited there originally as part of my research of the Guilford Church history. Why there? Because our first minister, Abner Reeve, (who came to Guilford in 1770), is the father of the man who made Litchfield famous and important in U.S. history - Tapping Reeve, who founded the first law school in America there in 1784 and taught over 1000 students the law. Those students went on to be U.S. Senators and Congressmen, judges, even Supreme Court Justices. I researched and wrote about Abner Reeve extensively in my history of the Guilford Church, Safe Thus Far, and I took a copy with me in case the Historical Society Library in Litchfield might like to have a copy. That part didn't work out - the librarian wasn't there - but we got to see Tapping Reeve's house and one-room law school; Ellen got lots of postcards, she saw her farm, and we had a nice meal at a local watering place. The trip back was equallly lovely and interesting, and we were home by a little after 7p.m. A good day!

Tapping Reeve, founder of the Litchfield Law School

Tapping Reeve's home in Litchfield. Open to the public with lots of historical displays

The interior snd exterior of the one-room law school, attached to Reeve's home. Amazing that over 1000 students learned the law here.

A room with displays about the law school

Foliage scenes and windmills