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usernamenumberMy niece (great niece? whatever's code for "my mom's brother's daughter's daughter") Jade is doing a project for school. They'd just read a series of kids' books about Flat Stanley a flat little boy who goes on adventures by mailing himself around the country and learning about the history of those places (or something to that effect). The premise of this project is that "Flat Jade" is mailing herself to people she knows around the country and getting stories back about what she did on her visit.
My mom and grandma both wrote up stories about visiting California and Mississippi, and Mom asked M and I to contribute something for this area. At first I sat down to blow through something quick, just as a favor to the family, but I kind of got into.
I have to admit that I know woefully little about history, which is kind of sad when one lives in this area. For one example, I had no idea that Paul Revere's ride, which I first learned about in an elementary school near San Francisco, crossed within a block or three of where I live now. I also managed some shoutouts to some of my favorite things about the contemporary culture in the area.
Anyway, I found the project sufficiently interesting that I'm reproducing it here in case anyone's interested in what Flat Jade got up to. :)
(and now I brace for my more historically-educated friends to point out all the stuff I get wrong...)
(oh, also, credit where it's due: M wrote the bit about Flat Jade's visit to Harvard)
Dear Jade,
You great aunt Beth and your great grandmother Lib sent Flat Jade out to visit me and my girlfriend M here in Somerville, Massachusetts, all the way on the other side of the country from their homes in California. Somerville is a small town, but there was lots for Flat Jade to do here!
First we walked just a few steps from our house to a street called Broadway. Flat Jade looked very surprised when I told her that she was walking on the very same street that Paul Revere rode through to warn everyone “The British are coming! The British are coming!”, but it’s true!
Just a bit down Broadway we stopped at Powder House Park, which is a very pretty park full of trees and hills, and a building like a tiny castle. That building is the “powder house”, and it gets its name because soldiers used to store gunpowder there. Since then it’s been used for storing lots of other things, and there has been a farm and even a factory built where the park is now. If you explore the park, you can find little statues hidden all over, each of which represents one of the things the land has been used for. Flat Jade found them all, and I bet you could too! You can see some pictures of the park, and the area around it, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_House_Square
Next, we walked down a street called College Avenue (there are lots of schools around here) to a place called Davis Square. Davis Square has lots of places to get great food, and there are usually musicians that you can listen to. That day a big brass band called Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band was performing. There were about 15 people all playing at once, and everyone in the square began to dance! It was a great time. Here’s a video of another time they played in Davis Square (unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone dancing on stilts when we visited): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouCFMF3Dw-Q
There’s lots more to do in Somerville. In fact, some friends of mine were putting on a play right across the street from Davis Square later that night, but we also wanted to show Flat Jade some of the sights in Cambridge, which is a town right next to Somerville. Cambridge is where some of the most famous universities in the country are. We took the T, which is what we call the subway here, to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which we usually just call M.I.T. This is where some of the best scientists, engineers and computer programmers go to school. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also a lot of fun (or so I’m told). The campus is so old that a friend of mine who went there says that she and her friends used to spend lots of time just exploring it, trying to find hidden little places that no one else has found. Whenever she found a new place, she left a little marker for the others to find some day, and wonder who left it there. Sometimes, students at M.I.T. like to play tricks on the school. Once they even took a fire truck apart and put it back together on top of one of the biggest buildings in the school, all without anybody knowing! Here’s a picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_firetruck_hack_2006.JPG
How do you think they did that?
After M.I.T., we walked down Memorial Drive along the Charles River. This is a beautiful walk with a special trail just for people walking or riding bikes by the river. Every Sunday they even block off the street so cars can’t drive on it and there’s even more room for people walking and biking. It’s one of my favorite places in the city. You can see what it looks like to ride a bike along the Charles river here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA7ocOWwxy4
Soon we got to another very old and very famous university called Harvard. Mindy showed us around there because it’s where she went to school. Harvard is 375 years old. We went to Harvard’s biggest library, called Widener Library. It has over 3 million books! 3 million! It was fun to dance on the many thin steps in front of the library. Mindy told us that in the winter, students like to slide down the snowy steps on cafeteria trays! Flat Jade thought that was so funny, she wanted to take a picture of the library.
(picture embedded in the doc this was originally written as)
Flat Jade also saw a concert at Sanders Theatre, a big theater where there are concerts and lectures, as well as classes on subjects like law and Shakespeare. Flat Jade took a picture as they were setting up for the concert.
(another pic)
Flat Jade also liked the big stained glass window in the hall outside the theater, called Memorial Hall. It was built in honor of Harvard Graduates who fought for the Union in the Civil War. The picture doesn’t really do it justice, but Flat Jade can tell you that the whole hall is really beautiful!
(and another)
After seeing Harvard and M.I.T. in Cambridge, we took the T again, this time across the Charles River (remember that from earlier?) into Boston.
Boston is a big city compared to Cambridge or Somerville, but it’s still small compared to cities like New York. The reason it’s famous is because so much history from the early days of the United States happened there. There’s even a special walking path called the Freedom Trail, which takes you to all the most important places from Boston’s early history. We started in Boston Common, which is a big, beautiful park, much bigger than Powder House Park, that has been used by the people of Boston for hundreds of years. Along the trail Flat Jade saw lots of great sights! She sat in the first public school in the country, called Boston Latin School. It was founded this very month (April) in 1635, and is still running today, 377 years later! Just think about how many kids have gone to school there! She also saw an old sailing ship called the U.S.S. Constitution, and got to see how people used to travel the seas hundreds of years ago. Along the way, we found the place where the Freedom Trail intersects with another important set of places, the Black Heritage Trail. There we learned about how Massachusetts was the first state in the nation to outlaw slavery in 1783, almost 80 years before the Civil War. You can see more of what Flat Jade saw on both trails here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Trail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Heritage_Trail
Whew! That was quite a day! Flat Jade was very tired by the end of it, but she sure saw a lot, from the very old to the very new! We hope she had a great time!
---
One other thing I never worked into the Flat Jade story but found interesting is this short doc on Somerville's history.
What else should I have included, and/or what else should I know about this place? :)
My mom and grandma both wrote up stories about visiting California and Mississippi, and Mom asked M and I to contribute something for this area. At first I sat down to blow through something quick, just as a favor to the family, but I kind of got into.
I have to admit that I know woefully little about history, which is kind of sad when one lives in this area. For one example, I had no idea that Paul Revere's ride, which I first learned about in an elementary school near San Francisco, crossed within a block or three of where I live now. I also managed some shoutouts to some of my favorite things about the contemporary culture in the area.
Anyway, I found the project sufficiently interesting that I'm reproducing it here in case anyone's interested in what Flat Jade got up to. :)
(and now I brace for my more historically-educated friends to point out all the stuff I get wrong...)
(oh, also, credit where it's due: M wrote the bit about Flat Jade's visit to Harvard)
Dear Jade,
You great aunt Beth and your great grandmother Lib sent Flat Jade out to visit me and my girlfriend M here in Somerville, Massachusetts, all the way on the other side of the country from their homes in California. Somerville is a small town, but there was lots for Flat Jade to do here!
First we walked just a few steps from our house to a street called Broadway. Flat Jade looked very surprised when I told her that she was walking on the very same street that Paul Revere rode through to warn everyone “The British are coming! The British are coming!”, but it’s true!
Just a bit down Broadway we stopped at Powder House Park, which is a very pretty park full of trees and hills, and a building like a tiny castle. That building is the “powder house”, and it gets its name because soldiers used to store gunpowder there. Since then it’s been used for storing lots of other things, and there has been a farm and even a factory built where the park is now. If you explore the park, you can find little statues hidden all over, each of which represents one of the things the land has been used for. Flat Jade found them all, and I bet you could too! You can see some pictures of the park, and the area around it, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_House_Square
Next, we walked down a street called College Avenue (there are lots of schools around here) to a place called Davis Square. Davis Square has lots of places to get great food, and there are usually musicians that you can listen to. That day a big brass band called Emperor Norton’s Stationary Marching Band was performing. There were about 15 people all playing at once, and everyone in the square began to dance! It was a great time. Here’s a video of another time they played in Davis Square (unfortunately, there wasn’t anyone dancing on stilts when we visited): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouCFMF3Dw-Q
There’s lots more to do in Somerville. In fact, some friends of mine were putting on a play right across the street from Davis Square later that night, but we also wanted to show Flat Jade some of the sights in Cambridge, which is a town right next to Somerville. Cambridge is where some of the most famous universities in the country are. We took the T, which is what we call the subway here, to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which we usually just call M.I.T. This is where some of the best scientists, engineers and computer programmers go to school. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s also a lot of fun (or so I’m told). The campus is so old that a friend of mine who went there says that she and her friends used to spend lots of time just exploring it, trying to find hidden little places that no one else has found. Whenever she found a new place, she left a little marker for the others to find some day, and wonder who left it there. Sometimes, students at M.I.T. like to play tricks on the school. Once they even took a fire truck apart and put it back together on top of one of the biggest buildings in the school, all without anybody knowing! Here’s a picture: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MIT_firetruck_hack_2006.JPG
How do you think they did that?
After M.I.T., we walked down Memorial Drive along the Charles River. This is a beautiful walk with a special trail just for people walking or riding bikes by the river. Every Sunday they even block off the street so cars can’t drive on it and there’s even more room for people walking and biking. It’s one of my favorite places in the city. You can see what it looks like to ride a bike along the Charles river here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA7ocOWwxy4
Soon we got to another very old and very famous university called Harvard. Mindy showed us around there because it’s where she went to school. Harvard is 375 years old. We went to Harvard’s biggest library, called Widener Library. It has over 3 million books! 3 million! It was fun to dance on the many thin steps in front of the library. Mindy told us that in the winter, students like to slide down the snowy steps on cafeteria trays! Flat Jade thought that was so funny, she wanted to take a picture of the library.
(picture embedded in the doc this was originally written as)
Flat Jade also saw a concert at Sanders Theatre, a big theater where there are concerts and lectures, as well as classes on subjects like law and Shakespeare. Flat Jade took a picture as they were setting up for the concert.
(another pic)
Flat Jade also liked the big stained glass window in the hall outside the theater, called Memorial Hall. It was built in honor of Harvard Graduates who fought for the Union in the Civil War. The picture doesn’t really do it justice, but Flat Jade can tell you that the whole hall is really beautiful!
(and another)
After seeing Harvard and M.I.T. in Cambridge, we took the T again, this time across the Charles River (remember that from earlier?) into Boston.
Boston is a big city compared to Cambridge or Somerville, but it’s still small compared to cities like New York. The reason it’s famous is because so much history from the early days of the United States happened there. There’s even a special walking path called the Freedom Trail, which takes you to all the most important places from Boston’s early history. We started in Boston Common, which is a big, beautiful park, much bigger than Powder House Park, that has been used by the people of Boston for hundreds of years. Along the trail Flat Jade saw lots of great sights! She sat in the first public school in the country, called Boston Latin School. It was founded this very month (April) in 1635, and is still running today, 377 years later! Just think about how many kids have gone to school there! She also saw an old sailing ship called the U.S.S. Constitution, and got to see how people used to travel the seas hundreds of years ago. Along the way, we found the place where the Freedom Trail intersects with another important set of places, the Black Heritage Trail. There we learned about how Massachusetts was the first state in the nation to outlaw slavery in 1783, almost 80 years before the Civil War. You can see more of what Flat Jade saw on both trails here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Trail
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Heritage_Trail
Whew! That was quite a day! Flat Jade was very tired by the end of it, but she sure saw a lot, from the very old to the very new! We hope she had a great time!
---
One other thing I never worked into the Flat Jade story but found interesting is this short doc on Somerville's history.
What else should I have included, and/or what else should I know about this place? :)
