A Few Final Takeaways From Chautauqua

Suzy and I are home from our time visiting Fort Ticonderoga and a week at the Chautauqua Institution, an experience I recommend to anyone from any place and of any age.

  1. New York and Pennsylvania are big states with much more going for them than New York City and Philadelphia. Get away from the cities and go to the rolling hills and mountains. Make a few stops in the small towns and you will gain understanding of the two Americas that are tenuously coexisting right now.
  2. Yo Yo Ma lectured and then played at a concert with his group the Silk Road Ensemble. Yes the man has a gift from God, but he also has a vision. His lecture where he spoke about the three spheres of influence — politics, economics, and culture was a fitting  end to a week of lectures, discussions, and conversations about “The Arts and Global Understanding,” that week’s overall theme. Visit his website yo-yoma.com to learn about his Bach project. You could also learn about the Adirondacks, Amusement Parks, and Bats to name a few that week alone. 
  3. Spend a little time with your children learning about our country’s origins. Our trip to Fort Ticonderoga and the Saratoga battlefield gave us both a better perspective of what our forefathers went through in both the French and Indian war and the American Revolution. You might get a little different perspective on Benedict Arnold for example.
  4. Learning doesn’t cease when you finish school. I just spent time with over three thousand people most older than I who were thirsting for knowledge.
  5. Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again and I understand his point, but I also understand Be it ever so humble, there is no place like home. It is good to be back in Charlotte.

Tomorrow we will return to my morning meditations. Thanks for joining me on my adventure north. W.

About the author

Webb Hubbell is the former Associate Attorney General of The United States. His novels, When Men Betray, Ginger Snaps, A Game of Inches, The Eighteenth Green, and The East End are published by Beaufort Books and are available online or at your local bookstore. When Men Betray won one of the IndieFab awards for best novel in 2014. Ginger Snaps and The Eighteenth Green won the IPPY Awards Gold Medal for best suspense/thriller. His latest, “Light of Day” will be on the bookstands soon.

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