Nostalgia

Carpe diem! With the start of the sugar processing just around the corner (meaning no vacation days for Joel until March), we couldn't let the Labor Day holiday slip by, so we decided to head down to Greenfield Village. It's been about ten years since our last visit...not much has changed, but it's still a delightful place to visit and catch glimpses of American ingenuity. Thomas Edison (laboratory pictured) had the goal of one major invention every six months, and a minor invention every ten days...definitely a type A personality! He even made forty improvements to Bell's telephone. The Wright Brothers (their house is the patriotic white house) actually got their mechanical encouragement from their mother, who was a decent mechanic herself. Their father, a minister, taught them their critical thinking and debate skills over the dinner table by making them argue one side of an issue of the day, then switch sides. And, of course, the Village wouldn't exist without the foresight (and investment) of Henry Ford. Joel and I got to ride in a 1921 Model T (pictured). The roundhouse and locomotives were of particular interest to Joel, while I preferred the architectural features of the buildings. Don't you just love the 1600s era stone country cottage from England? And the cute little building was the garden office of Mr. Burbank, brought in from California.