East Coast, Aug. 25 to Sept. 10, 2008
It’s difficult to write just a few words about such a great trip. The 1958 class of New Milford HS had it’s Fiftieth Class Reunion, which is what prompted us to head east. Of course, with so many of our family members and friends there, it was a trip with many purposes.
We began our trip visiting with my brother, Rich, in Philly. He is a wonderful cook and I think I gained five pounds during the first week of our visit with him. There were juicy German sausages, which are really missed here at home, BBQ chicken, ribs and terrific tomatoes and peppers from his garden. Of course, there were many laughs and great conversation about “the good ole days”.
On several occasions, as a child and later with John, we had visited Fort Mifflin on the Delaware River and never really had a guide. This time, we were very fortunate and got a young man who was definitely excited about the fort’s history and gave a very good tour. His only difficulty was that planes from the Phila airport, a stone’s throw away, passed over our heads every five minutes making the outside tour halt often because we couldn’t hear.
One must for us when visiting Philly is Pearl’s Oyster Bar in Reading Terminal Market. It was our lunch stop while we were touring center city. Pearl’s is renowned for it’s snapper soup and fresh clams and oysters. John dreams about raw clams so this is always a great treat. The Terminal Market is somewhat like the Pike Street Market in Seattle, selling the same sorts of items. As a child, I remember farmers bringing their produce, sides of beef, homemade cheeses, pickles, baked goods and other tidbits into town and selling them to commuters and those of us who wandered through. There was a goat’s milk bar at which my Dad had to stop each time for his picker-upper.
Rich, John and I also went to Longwood Gardens, which is part of a Dupont estate in Kennett Square, PA. Outdoor pools had spectacular water lilies. Although many of the outdoor plants were done for the season, the greenhouses had full displays of orchids, ferns and humid climate loving things. While still touring the grounds outside, we came to a plant with brown flowers. Now, in the wildflower books there are some blooms listed as brown in color. John said they were hydrangeas at season’s end. Well, I wasn’t happy with that explanation because I wanted them to be something exotic. So we talked with a young botanist who said that, in fact, John was correct. Have you ever seen a red face among brown flowers?
Katie had suggested that we should visit the Mutter Museum. It’s part of the Philadelphia College of Physicians and the exhibits are of human anomalies. There were various organs, skeletal deformaties and other things of a fascinating nature. John and I spent several hours just looking and thought it was an interesting thing to do, but only once because of the macabre nature of the items.
John met two of his brothers at Gettysburg and took a several-day tour. They hired a guide who drove their car and filled in many of the details one doesn’t usually find in brochures, etc. By all accounts, it was a very good trip. John came back through Philly to get me and we went directly to Connecticut for his reunion.
While in New Milford, we enjoyed visiting with family and had more delicious food. We were treated royally all around. Of course, there were more stories, which is what visiting is all about.
The planning committee had arranged for a pizza night on Friday, dinner in Newtown, CT, on Saturday evening and a picnic on Sunday. John got to renew acquaintances and I met lots of really great people. The class was a small one, 52 graduates. Everything was beautifully planned and we enjoyed every minute. Took lots of photos. (I remembered the camera this time.)
On Saturday, during our spare time, we went to a town called Kent, CT, where a friend of ours had begun a mining museum before he retired from teaching. He had made several trips out here to find old mining equipment, tools and ore-containing rocks along with some minerals. The local USPS had its work cut out for it when John (our friend) began mailing home boxes of rocks and other very heavy materials. The employees were probably glad when he stopped coming in. Unfortunately, John was not at the museum when we visited. He was at a gem and mineral sho that day. His friends at the museum were more than happy to show us everthing and to explain how things worked. It was really wonderful to see John’s project, even though a work in progress, come to fruition.
We arrived home very tired; however, we have some great memories and pictures to share with Katie.
P.S. Here’s the battleship New Jersey, parked on the Delaware river, on the Camden side:
