It’s thirty eight degrees outside. And there is no sky. Just clouds. The oak leaves are barely hanging on the trees. Most of them are on the ground waiting for my son to make time in his busy schedule to pick them up and put them in a barrel. He was up on the roof yesterday cleaning the gutters so there is hope.
And my chest cold continues to hammer me at night. I mention it because this is the time of year to be out and taking photos of Christmas decorations. But I need to stay in and try to get well.
We did go out last night to an Open House held at the University of Richmond president’s home. And we enjoyed some good food and relaxed conversation along with some of our neighbors. I met Ed and Abby Ayers, the President of U of R and his wife. Mrs. Ayers was kind enough to let me take a photo of them both in front of the fireplace.
I talked for awhile with an English professor whose last name I unfortunately have forgotten. His first name is Allen and it was a thrill to talk to an English prof again after forty years. It brought back memories of the many kind men and women who gently tried to drill some knowledge into my stubbornly thick chrome domium years ago.
Some of the guests at the festivities
Probably many of them have gone on to far less rocky pastures by now. It’s such a privilege to be around men and women who have devoted their lives to learning and want to share it with young people. Did we appreciate it back then? Mostly, no. But I appreciated it last night sitting with Allen, my wife and some of our neighbors drinking wine and trying to conjure up some holiday spirit.
I went to Boston University during the Vietnam War when the campus and the city were, literally, going up in flames at times. The campus is on a narrow piece of land between the Charles River and Commonwealth Avenue. It was and is all concrete with narrow patches of grass and a few trees struggling with the car fumes. It was nice on a breezy day to put a blanket down and watch the sailboats swing back and forth across the river. While we studied of course.
But U of R is much more like the campus I would choose now with its stately buildings and rolling hills. And I have spent many hours there getting some exercise, taking some photos and not worrying for one second about a final exam.
So everything works out well in the end. I promise some photos soon and we are also going downtown this year to take Christmas photos of the displays around the large buildings. Maymont Park is on the agenda as well as The Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.
I know it will be a difficult Christmas this year for many who have been laid off and don’t know when the next paycheck will arrive. They are in our thoughts as well.
Dr Ayers is responsible for the creation of a wonderful website called The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War.
About Dr. Ayers
In July 2007, Edward Ayers assumed the presidency of the University of Richmond. Previously Dean of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia, where he began teaching in 1980, Ayers was named the National Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in 2003.
A historian of the American South, Ayers has written and edited ten books. The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In the Presence of Mine Enemies: Civil War in the Heart of America won the Bancroft Prize for distinguished writing in American history and the Beveridge Prize for the best book in English on the history of the Americas since 1492. A pioneer in digital history, Ayers created The Valley of the Shadow: Two Communities in the American Civil War, a Web site that has attracted millions of users and won major prizes in the teaching of history.
Ayers has received a presidential appointment to the National Council on the Humanities, served as a Fulbright professor in the Netherlands, and been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
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Last night I was reading the diary of a minister from this time period who was having some health problems. He might as well have called in a witch doctor for all the help that the “modern” medicine of that time could offer him for a relatively simple ailment.
It was fascinating reading in any case unfiltered by any historian or other author’s perspective. Here is the link in case you are interested in doing some reading.
http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/
Ed and Abby Ayers
