Shannon Costello

During the past seven days, I have been to the National Gallery of Art, the Library of Congress, and Harper’s Ferry.

Monet is still number one on my list of favorite painters, but I really enjoyed the Gilbert Stuart exhibit. My favorite moment was standing in a room trying to find as many differences as I could between the four full-length pictures of George Washington. We ate lunch at a hot dog stand, during which we observed several sparrows who were quite full of themselves.

The Library of Congress was different because so many parts of the building are decidedly not designed with the average tourist in mind. The tunnels from one building to the other were constructed to be practical with no attempt at beauty.

I now have a card that allows me to go into any of the many reading rooms the library has to offer. Since this was my first visit I did a lot more wandering than reading, but I did spend a nice half hour in the Hispanic Reading Room reading Spanish translations of poems by Emily Dickinson (my favorite), Robert Frost, and others. Of course in a book of poetry there are plenty of Spanish words I don’t know, but every now and then I experienced a thrill as I “got” a poem.

The exhibits were fascinating as well. I actually saw the original hand-written manuscript of a book I have read — Glinda of Oz by L. Frank Baum. (Were you expecting something deep and intellectual?)

I also saw one of George Washingon’s diaries. I have realized that I am not quite certain as to the rules governing s’s that look like f’s. When was it ok to make an s look like an s and when should it look like an f? “Cross”, for instance, would be spelled “crofs”.

We didn’t spend much time inside the musuems of Harper’s Ferry, but we spent plenty of time walking around the town. It is built on a steep hillside, with inumerable stone walls and twisting staircases crammed between the houses, many of which date back to the 19th century. My favorite side street was Hog Alley.

We got up at 5:30 in the morning in order to beat the heat to the top of Maryland Heights, which is just across the Potomac from Harper’s Ferry. It was a rather steep hike…I couldn’t imagine toiling up there while helping to drag a 500 pound gun. However, I enjoyed standing up near the top and picking out all the features of the town that I recognized.

My favorite new fact: During the Civil War, shoes were a valuable commodity in the army. This meant that, if you were killed in battle, your body would be found, but your shoes would be gone. I saw a photograph of a battlefield strewn with shoeless bodies. In reading classes one is taught about primary and secondary sources. I think primary sources are a great deal more interesting…I sat in the bookstore and looked through an entire book of Civil War photographs. Couldn’t find any video tapes.

Today I was walking to our house from the mailbox and I saw a sparrow. He fluttered into the air about 4 feet, I think to catch a bug, and landed again. He was pretty cute and I told him so. No wonder they get so full of themselves.

Anyway, I look forward to hitting the Library of Congress again someday in the near future. I understand they have a collection of over 40,000 dime novels and I am quite anxious to read a few. Important research!