Patti Lynn Clark Barnett

Here are a few pictures Stan took.

We visited Valley Forge National Park this afternoon and took these pictures. The weather was beautiful, bright and cold! I hope you enjoy these pictures of the National Memorial Arch.

This is the inscription on the inside of the arch:

And here in this place of sacrifice in this vale of humiliation in this valley of the shadow of that death out of which the life of America rose regenerate and free let us believe with an abiding faith that to them Union will seem as dear and Liberty as sweet and Progress as glorious as they were to our fathers and are to you and me and that the institutions which have made us happy preserved by the virtue of our children shall bless the remotest generation of the time to come. --Henry Armitt Brown

This is a detail of the arch ceiling:

The arch is to the right of the flag behind the trees:

The Gwynedd Wildlife Preserve is absolutely beautiful and practically in our own back yard. I'm supportive of private citizens and corporations preserving green space and I'm also very grateful they have prevented this land from being subdivided. Otherwise, we would not be able to enjoy it like we do.

Last Sunday was a spectacular day with clear blue skies and it was so warm we ended up carrying our coats. Far more like spring than mid winter temperatures. Other than very muddy trails, it was perfect. My husband and I sat under this lonely hickory tree last year and ate hickory nuts he arduously cracked with a rock. Fresh hickory nuts taste fantastic, but if you have ever eaten them from the shell, you'll understand why they are so very expensive, that is if you can find them at all.  It is virtually impossible for mere humans to extract the delicious little nuggets from their cloistered embedments and chambers. However, an amazing non struggle for the squirrels I've seen devouring them with almost mechanical speed. Seems to me the hickory nut tree is rare and headed for extintion. This being the first I've seen in years. On this visit, we could not find a single nut that the squirrels had not gotten to first. Must have heard we were coming:))

I am thankful to God for our good health and the ability to experience the joy of days like this.

Winston Churchill Avenue is in Paris off the Champs-Elysees on the Left bank and runs between the Grand and Petit Palaces. The street, of course, is named for Sir Winston Churchill, Britain's Prime Minister during World War II. There's a statue of France's leader, General Charles De Gaulle at the north end of the avenue and one of Winston Churchill at the other. The Churchill statue is modeled from a photo of Churchill marching with De Gaulle down the Champs Elysees on November 11, 1944.

A ceremony was held on the 80th anniversary of the signing of the Armistice which ended World War 1. Queen Elizabeth II joined France's president Jacques Chirac to unveil the statue of her first Prime Minister who led Britain during World War II. The Queen, speaking in French said, "I am confident that Winston Churchill, my first Prime Minister, who guided me with such wisdom and humor through the early years of my reign, would have commended to me the special recognition of the 80th anniversary of the Armistice".

Brian Reeve, an expatriate businessman, remembers suffering through the London Blitz as a child. He said," Churchill was a man on the move, who wouldn't stop". He said Churchill would walk through the streets just encouraging people, and this, "Was very, very, impressive even to the kids".

The 10 ft. bronze statue by French sculptor, Jean Cardot, weighs two-and-a half tonnes. The plinth bears the immortal words, "We shall never surrender". Churchill is one of a very few foreigners to have his likeness displayed in Paris.

 We need more stalwart souls like Churchill today. His brand of fearless optimism and rock solid resolution are in short supply among modern politicians. 

The cathedral is dedicated to, "Our Lady" (Notre Dame) and stands in the center of France, the point from where all distances are measured. This is also the center of Paris. Midst so much historical significance and architectural grandeur, it is difficult to select a focal point on which to write a post.

I'd studied about the edifice's flying buttresses and the orders of columns in an art class, but other than that I knew very little about Notre Dame. The facade includes a panel depicting Judgment Day. Angels with trumpets are reminding us that all people from all social classes will be judged someday. Jesus stands between twelve apostles. Above them is a row of 28 kings of Judah. Somewhere between 1789 and 1799 (during the French Revolution) the citizenry took these statues to represent the much despised kings of France. So, they decapitated the statues. A neighborhood school teacher collected the heads and buried them for safe keeping in his back yard. In 1977, some 200 years later, they were discovered during excavation for a construction project. Today the 28 original heads can be seen a few blocks away in the Cluny Museum and the original statues have had reproduction heads installed.

When the rise of Christianity started to become threatening in Paris, the bishop of Paris, St. Denis, was beheaded by the Romans. This was to put the fear of the Roman gods into Christians entertaining the idea of forsaking the establishment ways. Well, it is said that St. Denis, headless but determined, "Got up, tucked his head under his arm and headed north, paused at a fountain to wash it off and continued on until he found just the right place to meet his Maker. Parisians were convinced by this miracle and Christianity gained ground and a church soon replaced a pagan temple".

The Louvre has over 30, 000 works of art displayed along 12 miles of displays. Suffice it to say, we walked five hours and saw a fraction.

The wind blown, "Winged Victory" "Venus de Milo" and "The Mona Lisa" are here among all the other art treasures great and small.

Once a friend of mine in Phoenix, on first seeing a portrait I'd labored over for days, had no comment. It ticked me off and I said so. His reply was, "Patti, after seeing the works of art (like that above) in the Louvre......." A lack of tact maybe, but now I can't argue with where he was coming from.

The Orsay and Orangerie Museums are the homes of my favorite group of artists, the Impressionists: Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cezanne and others. The impressionists', seemingly, carelessly, splattered and splashed canvases made it easy to understand why the established artists of the 19th century were outraged, shocked and insulted. They wanted to ride these, "No talent, messy, lazy dabblers" out of town on a rail. Such departure from the laboriously detailed realism to which they had devoted their lives was a disgrace to the name of art. You can’t get any more wrong than that. This is a picture taken through the back of one of the two large clocks in The Orasy Museum. The view is north across the Seine.

Of course these museums house art of other styles and periods. It is difficult to take your eyes away from the beauty of "The Birth of Venus" painted by Alexander Cabanel in 1863. The same can be said for numerous other works, for sure.

The panels of Monet's water lilies, at the Orangerie, I must admit, were disappointing. They, like the "Mona Lisa" in the Louvre were much easier to appreciate in reproductions. The “Mona Lisa” is quite small, behind glass and roped off so that you can only get within about 10 feet. And then there was a huge crowd. This is far from an ideal environment for experiencing great art!

I

f your levels of creativity are waning, these visits will get you going again…or nothing will.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, "Le Dance"

The Rodin Museum is a few blocks from where we stayed in the Rue Cler neighborhood. The museum is housed in the mansion home of Rodin and contains a huge number of his indescribably magnificent works. This was the last museum we visited and after seeing the others, I thought the awe factor would have leveled out. The Louvre overwhelmed me but Rodin's works left me silent.

The only two works I was familiar with enough to name were, "The Kiss" and "The Thinker". Both are here. In my estimation, neither comes close in beauty and emotion to some of his lesser known works.

My husband was especially impressed with “La Cathedral”. This sculpture is of two right hands entwined in a right-handed helix. He thought it was the perfect artistic representation of the double-stranded short interfering ribonucleic acid (siRNA) molecules which he and his colleagues are trying to develop as therapeutics.

There is a section devoted to Camille Claudel, his young student /muse, inspiration who became his mistress. After Rodin left her, she wound up in a mental institution where she died. Her works were good but there is no question who was the master and who was the student.

If you visit this museum, don’t miss the gardens. They are very well designed and serve as a wonderful backdrop for some of Rodin’s largest pieces like “The Thinker”, “The Burghers of Calais” and “The Gates of Hell”. The garden is a great mix of large trees, formal grassy areas, a formal round pond and winding paths. There is an outdoor café where you can sit and reflect on what you have just seen.

Today's two news stories about the defacing of the Monet painting at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris and the investigation into the death of Princess Diana were like deja vou. I saw that Monet painting, the Ritz Hotel and that deadly tunnel just last week. How coincidental is that? The Ritz is in a high end shopping district where the fashion is Paris personified. I could imagine Princess Diana  shopping here and I wanted to see inside the Ritz. For security reasons, you aren't allowed beyond a certain point.  I met a guy named, Pascal, who works there as I was  leaving.  And he was very pleased to be recieving a copy of my tribute song to the princess,"Diana"

This is a picture of the d’Orsay main hall taken from the top level balcony at the east end. If you are into Impressionists this is a must see. Many of the Monet paintings are in rooms 32-34 including the paintings of his garden at Giverny.

The Ritz in Paris is on the Place Vendome north of the Tuileries Gardens.

There is a memorial to Diana at Place de l’Alma at the north end of the bridge de l’Alma directly above the tunnel where the fatal accident occurred. This picture is taken facing west with the Seine on the left and the Eiffel Tower in the background. Bouquets of flowers and other objects are still layed there in Princess Diana's memory.

I spent the week of June 13-21 in Johnson City, Tennessee with family and friends. And for you Else Whereians who wonder if the southern hospitality you've heard about really exists, well, I assure you it is alive and very well!  It was good to see and reconnect with several I had not seen in years. Everyone was so very cordial and I was the recipient of a generous dose of Southern Hospitality.

I'm really not getting paid for this plug, but this North East corner of Tennessee is undergoing a development boom and if you're looking for a dynamic place to relocate, I highly recommend this fast growing area. I hardly recognized much of the locale in and around my home town of Jonesborough and Johnson City. There's a building boom of businesses, fantastic homes and new highway systems everywhere. The health care industry is in the process of a major expansion and I was told there will be a St. Jude's Children's Hospital built soon. This expansion seems to have started with the opening (1974) of the Quillen College of Medicine at E.T.S.U. and continues to accelerate.

The remaining land marks are getting fewer and farther between. But that is the price required for the march of progress, I suppose. Again, if you're starting a career or business you may want to give East Tennessee a shot.

Thanks, again, to everyone that made my visit so memorable with their sweet, generous spirits and by showering me with a load of good manners and that good old southern hospitality.