The article offers inspiration for anyone in a book club who has been thinking of organizing a book-inspired getaway. You’ll want to read other articles there, too, about the “positive difference books make in people’s lives.” So true.
Sea Wall at Utah Beach by U.S. Navy combat artist Mitchell F. Jamieson
If you can’t make it to France to observe the 70th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy, you can see it through the eyes of combat artists who were there in an exhibit at the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, MO.
Seventy years ago, on 6 June 1944, the Western Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy in northern France, opening a second front against Nazi Germany. General Dwight D. Eisenhower called the massive operation a crusade in which “we will accept nothing less than full victory.” More than 5,000 ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end, the Allies had gained a foot-hold in Normandy, but at an unbelievable cost; more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded. Yet, their efforts opened the way for more than 100,000 soldiers to land and begin the march across Europe to defeat Hitler.
D-Day has been the topic of countless books (See my post on what to read before visiting the Normandy beaches) and movies including The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan. It was also the subject of a little-known group of artists, the U.S. Navy combat artists. The paintings of three of them—Mitchell Jamieson, Alexander Russo, and Dwight Shepler—are on display in an exhibit at the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Missouri, entitled “D-Day Normandy: Operation Overlord.” The paintings are on loan from the Naval History and Heritage Command.
During the war, newsreels and photos dominated coverage of events, but the generals wanted artists to interpret the war, which is quite different from straight-up photography. Painters can vividly depict subjects beyond the range of of the camera lens such as action at night, in foul weather, or action widely scattered over the sea or in the air. They could also omit the confidential technical details a camera might reveal, thus making many interesting subjects unavailable for publication. So, select soldiers from all branches of the military carried pencils, paints, and sable brushes into battle along with their rifles and fought furiously to communicate the experience of war to the public. “I was scared most of the time,” said combat artist Edward Reep in a PBS documentary (and book), They Drew Fire. “But I always put myself in a position where I could be part of the fighting. That was my job.”
The paintings in the National Churchill Museum portray everything from the horrors of the initial landing in which American soldiers literally fought an uphill battle, to the GIs building an artificial harbor on the beach, to the capture of German soldiers. It’s a lasting record of how soldiers lived and died during the invasion, all on exhibit in Fulton.
Why Fulton, Missouri, you may wonder. In 1946 Winston Churchill delivered one of the most significant speeches of his long career at Westminster College in Fulton. (President Harry Truman, a Missouri native, joined him on the platform.) That address, formally entitled, “The Sinews of Peace,” but best known for Churchill’s pronouncement that “an Iron Curtain has descended across the Continent,” marked the beginning of the Cold War.
In the 1960s Westminster College set out to mark what would be the 20th anniversary of Churchill’s visit and to really make something of its connection to the event. The college settled on the the idea of moving a Christopher Wren designed Church from London. St. Mary the Virgin Aldermanbury, had stood in London since 1677 but was badly damaged during the London Blitz and narrowly escaped demolition. Instead, Westminster College moved the church stone-by-stone to its campus and rebuilt it to Wren’s original specifications.
The National Churchill Museum resides beneath the church. Its displays were recently rebuilt to incorporate the use of technology to better bring to life the story of Winston Churchill and his world. It features permanent and changing exhibits, along with a variety of related activities and was recognized by the United States Congress as America’s permanent tribute to Churchill. So, while former soldiers, private citizens, and dignitaries from Europe and and the U.S. will visit the Normandy beaches and battlefields to mark the anniversary this summer, those who can’t make it to France can see the invasion through the eyes of the combat artists, smack in the middle of the Midwest. The exhibit runs until July 20.
At the outdoor market in Honfleur, where I purchased the Livarot cheese. Its scent perfumed me and my car for the rest of the day.
Livarot is one of the oldest types of cheese in France and it smells like it—like its been hanging around gaining strength since the 1600s. A specialty of the Normandy region, Livarot is a soft “washed rind” cheese which means it is typically bathed in a wash of salted water which helps break down the curd from the outside, influencing the texture, aroma and flavor of the entire cheese. The “bath” does absolutely nothing to cure the smell.
It may be an urban legend, but I’ve since read that Livarot is banned on public transportation in France. Its earthy aroma has been described by some as reminiscent of feces or “barnyard.” I would never have ordered something with that description, but it first came to me on a cheese plate in a restaurant in Honfleur, in Normandy, a small slice, apparently exposed to the air long enough to diminish its signature odor. And it was great.
Good enough to make me want to purchase some at the market the next morning, in the process of packing up a few goodies for our lunch that day— a little french bread, sausage and a bit of the cider for which the region is also famous, and which smells much better than the cheese.
Melons at the market
I packed our picnic into my backpack, which stayed locked in our small closed car until lunch time, imparting a zesty Livarot odor to our car, a smell somewhere between stinky feet and a gym bag full of recently used hockey gear.
We were able to eat our picnic in the open air and again the taste of the Livarot seemed wonderfully unrelated to the smell. We couldn’t eat all the cheese, so frugal as I am, I wrapped up the leftover cheese and returned it to my backpack for later consumption.
In his wonderful book French Lessons: Adventures in Knife, Fork and Corkscrew, Peter Mayle devotes a whole chapter to the Livarot cheese fair in the town of Livarot, and in particular, the cheese eating competition. The rules: a time limit of 15 minutes during which contestants must eat their way through two whole cheeses, each weighing about two pounds. “Livarot,” he says, “is not a modest cheese. It announces itself to the nose long before it is anywhere near you mouth, with a piercing, almost astringent aroma.”
That may have been the reason why that evening when we checked into our hotel, I noticed that the hotel clerk and other people in the lobby appeared to move away from me or avert their faces. “Madam!” I realized that I was wearing the Livarot-filled backpack and exuding that aroma wherever I went. Formidable!
Have you ever had a food-related travel incident? Please tell us.
Woohoo! Off The Beaten Page: The Best Trips for Lit Lovers, Book Clubs, and Girls on Getaways has received a 2014 Independent Publisher Book Award. Off The Beaten Page received a silver medal in the travel category, one of 78 National Category medals known as “Ippys,” chosen from about 4,000 entries.
Inspired by “field trips” with the author’s own book club, Off The Beaten Page offers a literary look at fifteen U.S. destinations as seen through the works of famous writers. The book takes readers on a lively tour of some of the most fascinating places in the U.S., combining a love of literature and a quest for a good time with friends. Off The Beaten Page helps readers not only extend the experience of a great book but also to gain a greater understanding of the people and culture in the places they travel.
Featured destinations include Newport Rhode Island, New York City, Boston, Charleston, Miami Beach, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, Boulder Colorado, Austin Texas, Santa Fe New Mexico, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
So you think the idea of visiting a presidential library sounds about as interesting as watching paint dry. I was in your camp until I visited the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin Texas. I expected lots of yellowed documents, some photos, and “Mad Men” era tchotchkes. What I got was a tour of some of the most dramatic events of American history, in which Lyndon Baines Johnson was intimately involved. They include the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, the space program, and his transition to the office of President after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, to name a few.
The signing of the Civil Rights Act 50 years ago puts LBJ’s role in that issue at the forefront this year. Johnson “pushed for legislation to fix societal problems, signing bill after bill, act after act. From the War on Poverty to Civil Rights, Medicaid to Medicare, he knew a better society wasn’t enough — we needed a Great Society. Put simply, he got things done.”
His legacy in this area is only now being recognized because it was previously overshadowed by his administration’s handling of the Vietnam War. At the museum, one sees a portrait of a man tortured by his responsibilities as commander-in-chief during that unpopular war. But the library informs visitors on the other sides of Johnson, who was often a funny guy and a savvy politician, who twisted plenty of congressional arms to further his legislation. Most importantly, the museum gives visitors historical context for so many of issues with which Americans struggle today.
If you have time, head for the hills….Texas Hill Country, that is…to see the LBJ ranch.
Read up:
Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream
Robert Caro’s many volumes of work about LBJ includingThe Path to Power and The Master of the Senate
Robert Califano’s The Triumph and Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson: The White House Years
Two newer books, The Bill of the Centuryby Clay Risen and An Idea Whose Time Has Come By Todd S. Purdum
On April 7, 1933 brothers August A. Busch, Jr. and Adolphus Busch III decided to surprise their father, August A. Busch, Sr., with a six-horse Clydesdale team pulling a bright red beer wagon to commemorate the repeal of Prohibition. They couldn’t have known at the time that they were setting in motion one of the world’s most recognizable corporate icons. Now, the “gentle giants” are beloved and recognized well beyond the beer brand they represent.
Gentle giants relax at the Clydesdale “prep school,” Grants Farm in St. Louis.
Louis, Mo. which offers family friendly tours. Check out St. Louis Mom for her take on the tour. The horses also frolic in the fields at Grant’s Farm in St. Louis, the Clydesdale “prep school.” Grant Farm’s behind-the-scenes “Clydesdale Experience” tour provides an in-depth look at what it takes for a young Clyde to become an official Budweiser Clydesdale. Guests tour the stables while gaining an inside look into the operations, the training process, and daily horse maintenance. Heaven for horse-loving kids. Reserve ahead! Warm Springs Ranch, the 300-plus acre Clydesdale breeding farm located near Boonville, Mo., also offers tours.
Not just any Clydesdales qualifies for one of the traveling teams or “hitches.” A Budweiser Clydesdale must be a gelding at least four years of age, stand 72 inches at the shoulder when fully mature, weigh between 1,800 and 2,300 pounds, have a bay coat, four white legs, a white blaze (that big stripe on his nose), and a black mane and tail, so not all the horses make the team.
A Clydesdale mani-pedi and mane braiding
Ah, to be a Clydesdale! (aside from the gelding part.) The official home of the Budweiser Clydesdales is an ornate brick, stained-glass, and chandelier-festooned stable, built in 1885 on the historic 100-acre lAnheuser-Busch St. Louis brewery complex. The building is one of three located on the brewery grounds that are registered as historic landmarks by the federal government. It’s much nicer and cleaner than most people’s homes.
There, the horses are brushed, curried, trimmed and shod like movie stars. When relaxing they wear stunning red coats sporting an embroidered “A” monogram. At work they wear hand-crafted patent leather and brass harnesses that weigh in at 130 pounds, a mere speck if you weigh 1800 pounds yourself, and fancy plumes on their heads.
The horses and the brewer have come a long way since the dark days of Prohibition from 1920 to 1933. Rather than close its doors, as more than half of the nation’s breweries did, Anheuser-Busch diversified and marketed more than 25 different non-alcohol products such as soft drinks, truck bodies and ice cream, among them Bevo, a non-alcohol cereal beverage. Yum. It’s no wonder the Busch family was as happy as Clydesdales in clover when the twenty-first amendment to the U.S. Constitution ended Prohibition.
But they wouldn’t have made it through Prohibition without ingenuity and savvy marketing skills and they soon realized the marketing potential of that horse-drawn beer wagon. So, the company also arranged to have a second six-horse Clydesdale hitch sent to New York on April to celebrate the event. The Clydesdales drew a crowd of thousands as they clattered down the streets of New York City to the Empire State Building. After a small ceremony, a case of Budweiser was presented to former Governor Alfred E. Smith in appreciation of his years of service in the fight against Prohibition.
Recognizing that they had a pretty good thing going with the Clydesdales the company extended their tour through New England and the Middle Atlantic States, drawing giant crowds along the way. That included a stop in Washington D.C. in to reenact the delivery of one of the first cases of Budweiser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Still, the brewers couldn’t have imagined the horses they harnessed as a publicity stunt would turn into a brand icon and the annual stars of the Superbowl.
Read Up!: All the King’s Horses: The Story of The Budweiser Clydesdales by Steven D. Price.
For Kids: Ruby, the Diva Clydesdale
by Ramona Lampe
Walk anywhere around beautiful Busch Stadium in St. Louis before a Cardinals game and you can’t help but be caught up in the tide of red-clad baseball fans. Even if you lack dyed-in-the-(red)-wool citizenship in Cardinals Nation, their enthusiasm for the team is infectious. You, too, will become a fan, if only for a night.
But, you don’t want to appear a total rookie, blowing in from out of town like a bad throw from left field. Instead, brush up on the local baseball lore so you can dazzle your companions in the bleachers when you casually mention “Stan the Man,” Willie McGee, or perhaps Ducky Medwick. (I just like to say “Ducky Medwick.”) To do that, head over to the newly opened Ballpark Village, a $100 million entertainment complex adjacent to Busch Stadium and make your first stop at the Busch II Infield adjacent to the village. The new stadium opened in 2006 but Busch II is laid out along the same lines as the old ballpark’s diamond giving fans a chance to walk the sacred ground once tread upon by legends, as well as partake of another local legend, Ted Drewes frozen custard.
Next stop in your education: Cardinals Nation, inside Ballpark Village, where you’ll
From the field at Busch II, outside Baseball Village, the windows reflect the Cardinals’ Busch Stadium.
find The St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum. It boasts the largest team-held collection in Major League Baseball, second only to the National Baseball Hall of Fame, with over 16,000 memorabilia items and over 80,000 archival photographs. Along with the museum, Cardinals Nation contains a two-story restaurant and a roof top deck with a view of the game. Also inside Ballpark Village you’ll find FOX Sports Midwest Live! which features a stage for live concerts and performances, a state-of-the-art 40 foot diagonal high definition LED screen, and immersive LED ribbon boards that will encircle the two level space; PBR St, Louis: A Cowboy Bar which claims to have “the world’s meanest mechanical bull;” the Budweiser Brewhouse, and several other establishments that make this a year-round destination.
Finally, to sound like a real insider, you’ll want to hit the books. I know that beer, not books, may be the first word you associate with baseball, but you won’t be sorry if you complete your Cardinals curriculum with a few of the reading ideas I got from Ron Watermon, the team’s VP of communications, which appear below along with a couple of my own. For more great baseball books, see my post Major League Vacation. This effort may seem a little disloyal to your home team. My newfound enthusiasm for the Cards makes me feel a little like I’m cheating on my other boyfriends, the Minnesota Twins (if only they’d win more often) and the Detroit Tigers (who I grew up with). But what the heck, when in St. Louis…. So, read up, drink up, batter up— and be sure to wear red.
Stan Musial: An American Lifeby George Vecsey
One Last Strike:Fifty Years in Baseball, Ten and a Half Games Back, and One Final Championship Season by Tony La Russa
3 Nights in August: Strategy, Heartbreak, and Joy Inside the Mind of a Manager by Buzz Bissinger
100 Things Cardinals Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die by Derrick Goold
And for Kids,
St. Louis Cardinals 101 by Brad M. Epstien
Meet the Cardinals by Mike Kennedy and Mark Stewart
An illustration fron Peter Brown’s beautiful children’s book “The Curious Garden.”
If you’ve spent any time reading this blog, you know my goal is to encourage people to READ and GO. Literary travel means reading a great book and going where it takes place or to the type of place the book is set, which can be right in your own town. Literary travel allows you to experience both the book and the place in a more intimate way. And, it’s a great way to expose children to the pleasures of reading, giving them more ways to relate to books and their subjects.
Take, for example, the topic of Earth Day. What better way to help kids understand the
Wild Rumpus Book Store in MinneapolisExiting Wild Rumpus through the child-size purple door.
concept of caring for the environment than by reading a super-engaging book on the topic and then venturing out on a lit trip to a local park, garden, or community Earth Day event? Listen up grandparents, aunts and uncles and others who seek interesting ways to interact with the children in your life. You should put Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder on your list.
For a few great book suggestions, I stopped by one of the country’s all-time best children’s bookstores, Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis. I have to admit that since my children are grown, I look for just about any excuse to wander into this store, which is full of fun booksellers, live animals, special events, and cozy reading spots, not to mention books, books, books. It’s pretty entertaining just watching children and their families interact with everything in the store. Don’t have kids? Wild Rumpus has a great selection of YA and adult books, and you can still enjoy the animals.
Here are a few of their Earth Day reading suggestions:
The Curious Garden by Peter Brown
Miss Maples’ Seeds by Eliza Wheeler
Celebritrees— Historic and Famous Trees of the World by Margi Preus
Before William Sydney Porter, aka O. Henry wrote his famous short story “The Gift of the Magi,” he lived for a few years in Austin, Texas. The tiny house he rented survives as a museum. It’s tucked in right next to the giant Hilton Austin in the center of town and this property looks like it would have great potential to become a parking lot or fast food joint, and in fact it barely missed the wrecking ball back in the 1930s.
As I’ve mentioned in a previous post on authors’ homes, the places where famous authors lived are often a disappointment compared to the places they describe in their books. And, a huge modern building right next door doesn’t help you envision the author’s life as it was in the 1800s. Nonetheless, if you’re in Austin, you should pay a call at Porter’s house, if only to get a taste of how people lived at the time. The price is right, too. It’s free, but please make a donation when you leave.
While he resided here (1893 to 1895), Porter made his living drawing maps for the General Land Office and publishing a paper called the Rolling Stone (quite different from the current publication of that name). Before you go, be sure to read a couple of his most famous stories–“The Gift of the Magi” or “The Ransom of Red Chief.”
William Sydney Porter, aka O. Henry
Ah, the symbolism. If Porter could see his tiny home now, wedged in next to the giant hotel, I’m sure he would find inspiration for another story.
The Eiffel Tower is one of the most famous monuments in the world, which means it has
The original photo
been photographed at every possible angle and every time of day since construction began in 1887. But I’m not so interested in telling you about the Eiffel Tower as I am in letting you know about an an app that that I’ve had great fun playing with, Waterlogue, which turns photos into some pretty cool watercolor painting-like images. It works on any Apple iPhone, iPad or iPod touch that is running iOS version 7 or great. You download a photo, and apply one of Waterlogue’s filters. And, Voila!
As a result, my photo, which is just like those that millions of other tourists have taken, now looks a little different. Give it a try. There are some serious crafty possibilities.
Travel to the places you read about. Read about the places you travel.
Off The Beaten Page Travel 