I had some time to kill the other day so I toured Oakwood Cemetery and walked 2 miles there. As always I took snaps of some of the more interesting grave stones, focusing in particular on intriguing names. The last shot is of the water tower on the south end of town - quite something.

FDR’s estate was excellent. We took the 3:00 tour. Unfortunately our tour guide was not all that great. She had a screeching tone of voice, garbled a lot of information, and seemed in general to be either new at this and/or not well prepared. Oh well.

We walked past the museum, the grave site, and to the house. Toured the first and second floors. It’s very well appointed and maintained and reminded me a lot of the house on Campobello in the way it was decorated and furnished. It’s about 90% original, as I understand it.

Tour ended there. We walked around outside, and through the stable building (beautiful); visited the grave site and then went to the museum. This retraced FDR’s life and career and was very well done, especially the part about the depression and the first 100 days. Learned a lot.

By the time we were done with all that, it was pushing 5:30. Too late to tour Val-Kill (Eleanor’s house) but we went over there anyway, walked around outside and took pictures. Very nice place. Idyllic, but I noticed you could hear loud road noise there. Probably not a factor while she was living there, though.

After breakfast we headed down to West Point. It was about an hour drive on busy roads. Fantastically beautiful area down there. It was clouding over as we arrived. We bought our tour tickets and looked over the visitor center (pretty much a joke) - then toured a couple of buildings of the museum, which was really interesting (small arms, mainly).

It was starting to rain as we headed out to the tour bus. It was a really nice bus and it was fully packed - no extra seats. The tour guide, Shanna (pronounced Shawnna), was just plain excellent. She knew her stuff, she was enthusiastic, and she managed the tour very well. As we rolled to the first stop, the cadet chapel (great big pretentious Gothic stone structure), the storm started pounding in earnest. Thunder, lightning, and driving rains. We waited in the bus for a bit, then made a break for the chapel. Had a little lecture in there and wandered around. Then bolted back to the bus.

Went from there to the “Plain,” the big parade ground of legend. Rains eased up then. The Plain was interesting. From there to the riverfront and Trophy Point, where they have a big Civil War regular army memorial and a bunch of captured cannon and so forth. Incredible view of the Hudson River from up there.

They had threatened to cancel the cemetery visit if the thunder/lightning continued. Fortunately it stopped, and we took the bus to the cemetery. The old cadet chapel is there, having been moved there in 1915, brick by brick, and re-assembled. That was the high point of the tour. Inside the rather plain chapel there are shields on the walls honoring the Revolutionary War generals. George Washington’s is much shinier looking than the others – when the chapel was re-assembled they couldn’t find his, and weren’t even positive there had been one; so they made a new one, hence the shine. And another one has the name blanked out, and the death date. That one is for Benedict Arnold, placed there as a reminder of how the country views traitors.

Wandered through the cemetery quickly, stopping at certain points. She had lots of anecdotes about people I had not heard of. I saw the graves of others I had heard of - Judson Kilpatrick (”Kill-Cavalry”), William Westmoreland, Robert Anderson. Fascinating place. Just wish we’d have been allowed to wander around on our own. But no. The place is saturated with security stuff, much of it cartoonish. They even scanned all the driver’s licenses of the visitors. For what purpose I don’t know but it creeped me out. (Or is it ‘crept me out’?)

I drove from my Chicago job straight to Canton to spend the night prior to my weekend trip to New York with John. Thursday evening I had dinner with John, Meg, Brenna, and Evan. Afterward Meg and the kids came to the hotel to swim. Lots of fun.

If Tom Cruise had a comic book.

“Time for us to part company”

How to fire (and get fired) – a primer.

Andy Giuliani: “Treat me special”

Suing Duke University for kicking him off the golf team, even though:

. . .He acknowledged that he may have misbehaved in February when he tossed an apple in a teammate’s face, flipped his putter a few feet, threw and broke a club and gunned his engine in a parking lot. Rather than “quibble” about those details, Andrew Giuliani said that he had apologized, and that his conduct paled next to the “bizarre” treatment he said he received from the school. . . . In six rounds last year, according to the Duke Web site, Andrew Giuliani averaged 74.5 strokes per round, scores that put him in the bottom half of the 14-person team.

Further retch-inducing details here.

Seven years ago Deanna and I got married on Wedding Hill just north of our house. It’s been an amazing, wonderful seven years and I am so grateful to her for letting me fly along with her!

The wedding weekend was quite something. Quite a whirlwind! It was so great to have so many of our family and friends attend. Shout-outs go to Mother and Dad, Chris, Laurie and Dave, plus Meg, Brenna, and Evan. Thanks to all of you.I had a great time driving Jon and Susie to Detroit to fly out for their honeymoon. Their initial trip travails are well documented over on Deanna’s blog and I won’t belabor it here - suffice it to say that, at last report, all is well and they’re having a great time.

Stories intersect

I’ve always loved the story of the Scott Fountain at Belle Isle. James Scott was an oddball zillionaire who feuded relentlessly with people his whole life and seems to’ve been proud of being pretty universally detested around Detroit. In his will he left money to the city on the condition that it be used to erect a fountain in his name and (I believe) with his likeness. Debate raged over how to handle this bequest that would ostensibly honor someone who was so reviled. Finally they built the Scott Fountain, designed by Cass Gilbert – a really gorgeous place and one of my favorites in town. Legend has it that it was deliberately designed so that water from the fountain would spray on Scott’s statue.

Anyway, apparently somebody stole the plumbing from the fountain for the scrap metal a while back. Supposedly repairs are about to be made – but this strikes me as an interesting intersection of stories.

Maureen Dowd on Clark, McSame, and getting shot down

McCain himself has joked: “It doesn’t take a lot of talent to get shot down. I was able to intercept a surface-to-air missile with my own airplane.”

Garrison Keillor (nothing further needs said):

I’m 65 and have a good life and can’t claim that the Current Occupant has done me much harm at all. It’s when I think about 10-year-old girls I start to get hot under the collar. This clueless man has dug a deep hole for them and doesn’t seem vaguely aware of it. He has spent us deep in a hole, gotten us into a disastrous war, blithely ignored the long-term best interests of the country, and when you think of the 4,000 kids who now lie in cemeteries, and for what? — you start to grind your teeth. . . . I hope we get a better president than the disgusting incompetent we’ve wasted eight years of our national life on. Think twice about who you put your arm around, Sen. McCain.

Cookie is relentless about engaging the other pets. She has worked very hard to make friends with Winston, and she is always pestering the other cats to play. Today she managed to get Dishes, a bit of a dim bulb, going. Out in our front yard they had one of those swatting sessions, and then Cookie ran up a tree.

On Sundays Winston and I usually do 3 miles together, 1 in the morning around the property, then 2 around the section. Here are some scenes.