During this semester at school, I am taking a class on Early American lit in which we read the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Alcott as well as many other influential works of American writing. Part of the curriculum was a field trip to Concord MA, the home of many sites of historical and literary significance, such as Concord Bridge and Walden Pond. My professor’s plans for a field trip did not work out, due to poor planning and her getting sick, but she said that anyone who made a visit to Concord would get extra credit. After much arm twisting, I convinced my dad to take Jasmine and I there. I think we drove him crazy with our singing a long during the drive down.
The first place my professor recommended we visit was the Concord Museum, which provides a good overview of the area’s history and places to visit. Inside are reproductions of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s study and other historic rooms, works of art by local artists such as Daniel Chester French, who sculpted the Lincoln Memorial and the Minuteman statue at Old North Bridge, and artifacts belonging to some of the area’s most famous residents.
After exploring the museum, Jasmine and I had to take a look in the bookshop. I bought a copy of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden while Jasmine got a book called Ladies of Liberty, which is about influential women in the early days of America’s government such as first ladies like Martha Washington, Abigail Adams, and Dolley Madison. This book also caught my attention because Eliza Schuyler Hamilton was one of women depicted on the cover. I later used the index to search for references to her and was disappointed to find that the author went the rather unfair rout of portraying my beloved Eliza as plain and dull but devoted and married to a womanizer who was really married to her much more interesting sister.
Our next stopped was Minuteman National Park. Since it was Earth Day, there was some sort of environmental celebration with a lot of old hippy and crunchy granola types with their small children and dogs. Dad told us about how he went to a demonstration there during the bicentennial to protest the Ford Administration’s military involvement in Cambodia. He says that the protesters were standing on the side where the minutemen stood while the police and national guard were on the side where the British advanced. We walked over Old North Bridge, the “rude bridge that arched the flood.”
We made our way through the park and up the visitor center. The day had begun fairly drizzly and by this point it was raining and it was nice to be inside again. I had my National Park Service passport with me and got it stamped in the visitor center gift shop. This was where I bought another book ( Common Sense by Thomas Paine) to add to my collection and Jasmine got another t-shirt to add to hers. Because it was raining, we decided not to have our picnic at Walden Pond but rather to go straight home, after Dad made a stop at Toys R Us.
Jasmine faithfully goes to see the yearly Disneynature film every Earth Day and I promised her that we would go see this year’s Born in China. The movie impressed me, especially its cinematography. I was amazed by the footage of China’s stunning beauty and how they were able to capture very human emotions in the animals the movie focused on: Dawa, a snow leopard, Taotao, a golden snub nosed monkey, and Ya Ya, a giant panda. The charm of these movies is looking at cute animals doing adorable things and on that count it delivered in full. Since we saw it during the opening week, some of our money went to charity which supports creatures like Dawa, Taotao, and Yawa.
On Visiting Concord MA on Earth Day During this semester at school, I am taking a class on Early American lit in which we read the likes of Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, and Alcott as well as many other influential works of American writing.
