Beautiful Young Performers from Stephen Foster at Bardstown, Kentucky

These two beautiful young women roamed the streets of Bardstown, Kentucky not long ago to promote a summer production of Stephen Foster, the popular song writer of the 1800's. How beautiful they were. The musical performance was nice, too. Though interesting: very few really young people there. Mostly older, middle-aged.
To jog your memory, he is best known for his songs that continue to be heard today: "Oh! Susanna," "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Old Folks at Home" (better known as "Swanee River," "Camptown Races," and "Beautiful Dreamer." I hope that wherever he is he can know people still enjoy what he did.

Best Frontier Village: In Bardstown, Kentucky

The people of Bardstown do an excellent job of presenting a frontier village, one from the late 1700's. There are log houses and even a mill. The "characters" or re-en actors I met the day I visited were knowledgeable, friendly and helpful. Wish I were closer in, I'd be a re-en actor, too! Nice trip!

Kentuckians Killed by Santa Anna's Orders at Goliad

Bardstown, Kentucky, a beautiful, beautiful town south of Louisville, offers with many interesting sights. This, to me, was most interesting: a monument to 35 men of the Kentucky Mustangs, 1st Regiment Volunteers led by Capt. Burr Duval from Bardstown who went to Texas in 1836 to fight for Texas independence. Several hundred volunteers from all over the then United States, including the men honored by this monument, were surrendered to Mexican forces and were then executed by the Mexican General Santa Anna on March 22, 1836  at what has since become known as the Goliad Massacre. The monument is on the grounds of a very well done pioneer village at Bardstown.

Religious Symbols of Ancient Ecuador

These are craved stone images of Ecuador on display in a downtown museum in Quito, Ecuador. I do not begin to know the meaning of all of them, but another museum in the city displays hundreds of them. Most relate to getting into the "after life," and when you read about how the ancients of Ecuador did that, it sounds uncannily  like Christianity. The country must maintain some sense of these images in that there are others I hope to post later that show specially craved pans in which to bake bread. The pans are used on All Souls Day, the religious day in early November that celebrates or honors the dead.

George Washington’s death and last words

I found this interesting, so I share.
From the book, “George Washington’s Diaries,” subtitle, “An Abridgement,” Dorothy Twohig, editor

He took ill Thursday, Dec. 12, 1799. He believed he had ague or a form of malaria.

The account of his last words come doctors who attended him.

One of the doctors noted that Gen. Washington about half past four in the afternoon on the day he died asked that Mrs. Washington be called. Once at his side, Washington told her to take from his desk two wills that he had had prepared and to bring them to him.

He looked at one, told her it was and old one and said it should be burned. A little later he said,

“I find I am going, my breath cannot last for long. I believed from the first that the disorder would prove fatal. Do you arrange and record all my late military letters and papers? Arrange my accounts and settle my books, as you know more about them than anyone else, and let Mr. Rawlings finish recording my other letters which he has begun.” It is unclear from the text who exactly he is speaking to or about, except perhaps the doctors.

Later the doctors went into his room at his bedside, and the general said , “Doctor, I die hard; but I am not afraid to go, I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it; my breath cannot last long.”

And still later, he said , “I feel myself going, I thank you for your attentions; but I pray you to take no more trouble with me, let me go off quietly; I cannot last long.”

The doctors found that all they had done had no effect.

About 10 o’clock in the evening he made several attempts to speak, and at length said:

“I am just going! Have me decently buried; and do not let my body be put in the vault in less than three days after I am dead. Do you understand me?” When the doctor replied he did, Gen. Washington replied, “Tis well.”

He was buried on Wednesday, Dec. 18, 1799 in the family vault at Mt. Vernon

Achtung! Nope, he looks like a German soldier...but...

He is just a volunteer at the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio who loves to ride this motorcycle he bought from China. Some days he says the ride is so wonderful, "I just don't want to stop." He rides it about 20 miles to get to the AF museum, and he does all that riding on the back roads.
He said he got it from China and that it once belonged to the army there that had a million or more of them. They were "knock offs," if you will, of a BMW motorcycle. The rain gear and helmet? I didn't ask where he got them.
I keep thinking I'd like one, but then wonder where I would park it, and figure Iwould probably get killed riding it!