Mary Higgins Clark's memoir is a must for writers

I've never read any Mary Higgins Clark (1927-2020), but I've listened to Mary Higgins Clark and just finished hearing her memoir, Kitchen Privileges.  

Whatever kind of writers you may be, dear readers who are writers:  Kitchen is a must.

Over many years Ms. Clark persisted at her love, never giving up, developing her craft. The recipient of countess rejection letters, she maintained her sense of humor and joined writers' groups, constantly striving to make her short stories more appealing and improve her writing skills.   

Never does she lose her cheery disposition found throughout the book, despite the many family tragedies she suffered:  the early deaths of her father, husband, and two brothers.  She lived to be 92 and died about a year ago.

The audio is blessed by her mellifluous voice which always adds to the enjoyment of a heard book when the author reads it whenever the author can come close to the beauty of Ms. Higgins' sounds.  In the book, she mimics several characters in her life and successfully produces their voices, cadences, and inflections.

The publisher, Simon & Schuster, likens Kitchen to a Bronx version of Angela's Ashes, but I find the comparison a terrible exaggeration since there is no way Ms. Clark's upbringing  remotely resembles that of the hardships endured by Frank McCourt and his family. 

She was married three times, the first and last being happy unions, but the middle marriage lasted all of approximately two sentences, about as long the marriage itself (later, annulled), and this "intrusion" in the book's theme seems out-of-place and thrown in at the last minute, perhaps by a demanding editor to keep it honest? 

 

This was one of those rare books I was sorry to see (or hear)  end.  Maybe, I will join the millions and read one of her 51 books, her second, Where Are The Children?,  published originally in 1975 when she was 45 and now in its 75th printing, according to Wikipedia.  Her first, Aspire to the Heavens, was plagued, she says in her memoir, by the title.  It was re-issued as Mount Vernon Love Story in 2000, the year before Kitchen Privileges was published.

With five children suffering the sadness of the early death of their father and Ms. Clark alone to raise them, she wrote, rising daily at 5 a.m. when everyone else was sleeping. We can do it, too.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Today is the 372nd anniversary of the beheading of King Charles I

  

This anniversary of a king's beheading is not to be forgotten by supporters who will lay wreaths at the statue of England's King Charles I (1600-1649) today, not far from his execution site, says the Royal Encyclopedia.

Killers of the King: The Men Who Dared to Execute Charles I by Charles Spencer lays out all the gory details of his death and his trial, followed 11 years later by the worldwide manhunt for the regicides, conducted by Charles's son King Charles II when royalty was restored to the throne in 1660.

With his back to the viewer, Charles I, seated in the center, faces the High Court of Justice in 1649/Wikpedia, public domain.Engraving from "Nalson's Record of the Trial of Charles I" in the British Museum. Plate 2 from A True copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice for the tryal of K. Charles I as it was read in the House of Commons and attested under the hand of Phelps, clerk to that infamous court / taken by J. Nalson Jan. 4, 1683 : with a large introduction. London: Printed by H.C. for Thomas Dring at the Harrow at the corner of Chancery Lane and Fleet Street, 1684.

It was treasonous to house the king's killers or even think about killing him and so, off with his head (sometimes hers)! 

Which is what happened to at least ten of them.

Charles was not a good king, he was not a great king but a greedy king, a king who was arrogant, extravagant, conceited and, to top it off, married to a Roman Catholic.

It was his way or the highway when it came to wars, the Scots, religion, and Parliament. He treasured his vast art collection, funded by his subjects about whom he cared little.

All the regicides were ordered to surrender, and some did, thinking their lives would be spared. Hell hath no fury like a son whose father has been beheaded.

Some were beheaded anyway, confound those promises!

In the first regicide trial, that of Colonel (later, Major General) Thomas Harrison, the judge ruled:

"'...you shall be hanged by the neck, and being alive shall be cut down, and your privy members to be cut off, your entrails to be taken out of your body, and (you living) the same to be burnt before your eyes, and your head to be cut off, your body to be divided into four quarters...'"

to be disposed at the King's pleasure.

Well!

And that wasn't the end of it.

Preceding the butchering, the guilty were hauled in a sledge on the way to the gallows, wearing only a shirt to better receive the tossed objects and insults directed at them by Londoners and to ease the butcher's job of cutting off their privates after they had regained consciousness from hanging.

Until this reading, I had never thought too much about "drawn and quartered," but Readers, it was real and literal!

(The Capitol Hill insurrectionists should be thankful this is 2021 and not 1660 when the "regicides" were hunted throughout England and beyond.)

Head for the hills, man!

And that's what some did, to the Netherlands (those wretched Dutch who turned in the prey) and to New America where a hunt for Col. Edward Whalley and Lt. William Goffe was n'er successful, be that the two were hidden often by government officials and private individuals, on farms, in the wilderness, in basements (two years) until Mr. Whalley died and Mr. Goffe (his son-in-law) was never traced to his final "settlement" which, the author suggests, just might be in Virginia.

King Charles II was so mad that his New World subjects and huntsmen could not find "the most prominent" of his father's killers, Whalley and Goffe, that he took away New Haven's independence and made it part of Connecticut. Take that, you blarney killers!

(Streets in New Haven still bear the regicides' names like 10 Downing Street in London, named after a "first-rate traitor," one of King Charles II's men, who tricked the Dutch and captured three regicides, including his former commander. Samuel Pepys called Downing [doesn't deserve a first-name listing] "a perfidious rogue.")

Then there was Dame Alice Lisle, a mother of 11 and in her late 60s who had harbored two regicides and was the wife of the regicide John Lisle, already dead by 21 years, killed by an assassin in Switzerland, but don't hold that against her, and they did.

Off with her head!

The judge became part of her prosecution and the jury debated all of 15 minutes, and Dame Alice, a community pillar, became the last woman beheaded by order of the English government. (Her sentence had been commuted from burning at the stake, the usual death sentence given to women.)

One famous regicide (or regicide supporter, depending on what you read), and still known to us today was John Milton (1608-1674), the poet who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for a few weeks and penalized financially, but he was one of the lucky ones who kept his head. (Sometimes, the writing profession can be a lifeline.)

Charles II had the body of Oliver Cromwell (the chief insurrectionist who died in 1658) and others dug up, hung at the gallows, beheaded, and spiked on poles for the thousands to see, a lesson to all you commoners who even thought about killing a king. (Wikipedia's list of the regicides excludes Poet Milton.)

Reader, if you can get through all of the names at the beginning of the book, you've overcome the most boring parts, and the pace quickens to the actual trial of the king. (The index is excellent.)

And whether at the beginning you're unsure if you support the king or the regicides, by the end you'll be rooting for the latter as did I and also, the author who dedicates the book as tribute to them (and "Charlotte").

As usual, I am asking, please, for a glossary of the players with brief biographical sketches to help the reader keep them straight, and a map of escape routes would be useful, too.

Who's got the movie rights? I want to see it, but, no gory parts, please!

The chase! The chase!

patricialesli@gmail.com

A sight for all eyes: the Marquesa at the National Gallery of Art

Francisco de Goya, María Ana de Pontejos y Sandoval, the Marquesa de Pontejos. c. 1786, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Note the lovely flowers and ribbons which adorn her engagement gown and the limp carnation in her right hand. Only women can imagine how "scratchy" the dress was/Detail of The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington

See her shoes and her pug which barks at you on the audio at the National Gallery of Art/Detail of The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington

When next you visit the National Gallery of Art after it opens again (and it will), feast your eyes (and your senses) on Marquesa de Pontejos found just beyond the Rotunda, heading east on the main floor of the West Building towards the U.S. Capitol.


Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) of Spain was the artist who painted the Marquesa (1762-1834) when she was 24. Likely it was for an engagement portrait for her first marriage to the nobleman Francisco de Monino y Redondo, the Spanish ambassador to Portugal. (Twenty-four seems rather old for a woman's first engagement for that time period and even, "old" centuries later. If this is her engagement gown, imagine her wedding apparel.)

After her husband's death in 1808 the Marquesa married a royal bodyguard, Don Fernando de Silva y Meneses, who died in 1817 before her last marriage in the same year to her most famous husband, Joaquín Pérez Vizcaino y Moles (1790-1840 and 30 years younger than the Marquesa!).

Joaquin joined forces with the militia to oppose King Ferdinand VII, which forced the couple to flee and spend 11 years traveling throughout Europe (mostly in France) before they returned to their native country.*

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya presides in a prominent gallery at the National Gallery of Art, Washington/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Marquesa was born on September 11, 1762, the only child of a wealthy Spanish couple. When her father died in 1807, she inherited her title.

She's a beaut, a tall lass, elongated in the manner of  Diego Velázquez  whose works Goya admired and found in the royal collection to copy. Goya was a masterful portraitist, considered "the most important Spanish artist" of his time, says Wikipedia,

Finding their way at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, overseen by The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The wonder of The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Wonder times two at The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington/Photo by Patricia Leslie

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington/Photo by Patricia Leslie

 

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Goya fancies the Marquesa in the style of Marie Antoinette, apparel which the Marquesa and others of her station declined to wear publicly because of shame and unpatriotic criticisms from common people.  (Rather like wearing a mink coat in the U.S. today: Beware of paint and PETA!)

Notes from art historians mention the Marquesa's tiny waist which was likely made possible by heavy corseting.

Look at it.  Possible?  Do you suppose artists then, as they do now, use their artistic license to remove pounds and lines? Especially for commissioned pieces?

The Marquesa's dress is strewn with fresh pink flowers, maybe roses, but alas, her expression is one of boredom, matched by the droopy, limp carnation in her right hand.  Art historians gleefully point to it as a symbol of "love," however, it matches her face and the suspected direction of a relationship we'll never know. Many women of high rank were portrayed with big smiles, missing here.

Was she unhappy at the prospects of marrying Redondo? I imagine it was an arranged marriage. for surely, Goya painted her in person without photographs (invented 40 years later). 

She stood for him in the uncomfortable gear and look at her shoes!  Ouch!  

Her head gear practically becomes a halo which, to an artist 16 years older, she might have possessed.

A pug in the lower right corner barks in the children's audio at this NGA link.

In 1786 the year of this painting, King Charles III appointed Goya the painter to the king and shortly after his coronation in 1789, Charles IV made him court painter.

Hear the NGA audio about the painting in several difference languages.

*From Jonathan Brown and Richard G. Mann, Spanish Paintings of the Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, National Gallery of Art, 1990

The Marquesa de Pontejos, c. 1786 by Francisco de Goya, National Gallery of Art, Washington/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Who: The Marquesa de Pontejos

What: by Franciso de Goya

When: c. 1786

Where: The West Building, National Gallery of Art, Washington

What time: Under normal circumstances, the National Gallery is open seven days a week, but given these unnormal circumstances, please check the website.

Metro stations for the National Gallery of Art:
Smithsonian, Federal Triangle, Navy Memorial-Archives, or L'Enfant Plaza

For more information: 202-737-4215

How much: Admission to the National Gallery is always free.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: 'Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up' is highly recommended

 

The chief message to journalists: Don't give up.

If I were in charge of reading lists for journalism students, this would be on it, a story within a story of how a civilization was decimated by the atomic bomb, and how the people bombed lived to tell about it.

Which they did to John Hersey, reporter and novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for A Bell for Adano, his first novel, the year before the bomb was dropped.

Lesley M. M. Blume's Fallout: The Hiroshima Coverup and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World (2020) follows Mr. Hersey's account of his interviews with six bomb victims and the secret production of the story in the New Yorker which published the report in a 31,000 word issue, the first time it devoted its entire issue to a single topic.

In the article which came out a little more than a year after the bomb dropped, Mr. Hersey describes the U.S. government's efforts to withhold the effects.

The story portrayed for the first time, Japanese as human beings, like me and you, ordinary people (p. 127). Until the story, Americans resisted considering their enemy across the sea as anything but murderers intent on destroying their nation. But the bomb drop on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 shattered the lives of civilians, children, families, people.

First atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan by B-29 superfortresses on August 6, 1945. Title from item. "Official photograph furnished by Headquarters, A.A.F. AC/AS-2"--stamped on back of print. "If published credit U.S. Army, A.A.F. photo"--stamped on back of print. Photo number: A-58914 AC. Forms part of the National Committee on Atomic Information records at the Library of Congress. PR 13 CN 1995:068 (1 AA size box)

Ms. Blum describes Mr. Hersey's three weeks in Japan interviewing survivors who became the focus of his article. How he got there and got "in" Hiroshima are important pieces of the story's puzzle.

His collaboration with the New Yorker's co-founder, Harold Ross, and an editor, William Shawn, were so secret, they kept the subject hidden from the magazine's staff who wondered about content missing for the next edition.

Two other journalists had earlier written about Hiroshima, but their reports were dismissed, although their reporting led to a requirement that reporters must be accompanied by an official.

Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett ridiculed "housetrained reporters" who simply wrote what the U.S. government wished (p. 30).

Worried about the U.S. military's response to the article, the New Yorker's trio passed it pre-publication for muster to Leslie Groves, the director of the Manhattan Project which developed the bomb. Surprisingly, with slight edits, he okayed it.

Tormented throughout his work, Hersey was horrified that a single bomb could cause so much destruction (p. 72).

One of the victims described eyes which melted, the liquid flowing down what used to be faces on people still alive.

Many ran naked through the streets.

Skin peeled off.

A baby choked on dirt swallowed in a collapsed house. The mother refused to relinquish her child's decomposing body for days (p. 85).

To escape the fires, some jumped into one of Hiroshima's seven rivers where bodies of massacred victims floated (p. 92).

Civilians appeared "like a procession of ghosts," one survivor told Mr. Hersey (p. 84).

Of 300 doctors in Hiroshima, 270 died or were wounded; nurses lost 1,654 of their 1,780 to death or injury (p. 89).

By November 30, 1945 the death count reached 78,000 with 14,000 people still missing.

Burned legs show the effects of atomic bombs on people who survived.Otis Historical Archives of “National Museum of Health & Medicine” (OTIS Archive 1)/Creative Commons, Wikipedia.

Partially incinerated child in Nagasaki. Photo from Japanese photographer Yōsuke Yamahata, one day after the blast and building fires had subsided. Once the American forces had Japan under military control, they imposed censorship on all such images including those from the conventional bombing of Tokyo which prevented the distribution of Yamahata's photographs. These restrictions were lifted in 1952  http://www.noorderlicht.com/en/archive/yosuke-yamahata/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=66792817. 

On a press tour of facilities in New Mexico, Lieutenant General Groves told reporters that the number of Japanese who died from radiation was "very small" (p. 45) and that Hiroshima was "essentially radiation-free" (p. 46).

Speaking to the Senate Special Committee on Atomic Energy, he quoted doctors who said death by radiation "is a very pleasant way to die" (p. 47). Mr. Groves had no apologies for the bomb drop, unlike some scientists who showed misgivings (p. 146).

The day after Victory over Japan was declared on August 14, 1945, a poll showed the majority of Americans approved the bombings, and almost 25% said they wished America had bombed more (p. 24).

After the story was published, the eyewitness subjects applauded Mr. Hersey's acuity in retelling their lives.

The article was printed as a book, Hiroshima, which became a worldwide phenomenon which has never gone out of print, selling three million copies and available in several languages. At publication it was picked up by 500 radio stations, including the BBC, and thrust Mr. Hersey into the limelight, a position he resisted.

The welcome epilogue brings the reader up-to-date with key characters, but a glossary of them would have amplified the content and made it easier to follow, a wish I have for most books I read.

This is a small book with an index of almost 100 pages which consumes almost a third of the total pages. I wished for more research, a longer book with additional "behind-the-scenes" descriptions.

Still, a book to be reckoned with and acknowledged as another chapter in America's gruesome past.

patricialesli@gmail.com

Update: This Christmas ain't what it's supposed to be

A close-up of one of the 2012  White House Christmas trees when President Obama was in office/by Patricia Leslie

How about a little clam chowder mixed with carrot cake? 

No?

It all started with my son telling me on the day before I was supposed to leave for Thanksgiving in Nashville, that I'd better not come. 

Thanks, William! (I don't think I'm as bad as my ex-mother-in-law, but my daughter-in-law might disagree.)

 An explosion of clam chowder/by Patricia Leslie

Then I decided, because of all the covid-fears, to cancel my Christmas trip to Orlando to see my sister which really relieved me of a lot of stress and saved me tons of money because I have to stay in a hotel, rent a car, buy food, etc. (I fly "free" on Southwest!)

A mixture of clam chowder and carrot cake with "lunch (somethings)" thrown in/by Patricia Leslie

My sister lives in a 35-years-old +++ mobile home with a sagging roof and an inside zoo (no charge for admission!). Really, the odors which waft from said zoo are enough to keep a relative outside which is where I stay when I visit.

We celebrate Christmas in her driveway in folding chairs, opening presents and drinking mimosas. When I used to go inside, her gnarling pit bull and Doberman Pinscher constantly circled my chair and were a bit unnerving. (She had to call the police more than once to separate those two. You ever read any Flannery O'Connor?)

So far, my Christmas gifts have included a used pair of Uggs (unwrapped), a drugstore calendar, and (via UPS) a smashed container of clam chowder mixed with the carrot cake in a dented plastic container, the edibles from my sister who also sent a pretty Christmas cocktail napkin and a paper plate in another box.

I'm not a big fan of carrot cake anyway, but digging among the ruins in the box, I was able to salvage some parts which tasted pretty good and were particularly moist.

Isn't clam chowder in a plastic container supposed to be refrigerated?

When I opened the box, the chowder which was not clinging to the sides of the box and had not soaked the carrot cake, splattered my brown winter coat which I wear indoors where, for many reasons, the thermostat is set at 58 (sometimes 55) degrees Fahrenheit.

The explosion and mixture of white on brown were rather Christmasy after all, like snowflakes on a mountain.

My sister also sent a whisk (?)... to stir the chowder and the carrot cake?

She works at the Walmart and to hear her tell it, you'd think she was there 90 hours a week which are actually 12 or 16. 

Yesterday she left me a message that her food stamps had been cut off. At the library she forgot her password to log on for her food stamps so she called the governor's office and someone called her back the next day and set her straight on her food stamps. 

The family which sent me the drugstore calendar usually sends nuts or cookies, but the calendar was my gift this year. You know what a drugstore calendar is, right?

Yep, a free calendar you get at the drugstore!

I know, I know, I know! I am a horrible person, especially in this horrible of horrible years and I should be grateful for anything.  I  a-m  g-r-a-t-e-f-u-l.  Thank you, friends and relatives for these wonderful gifts!

And let's see what tomorrow brings!!

Update: Tomorrow did not bring grapefruit my daughter and her family usually send. I love that grapefruit. Where, oh where can my grapefruit be?

Instead, they sent two little boxes. Unless the contents are diamonds or some other equally comparable gem, they cannot compare with grapefruit. With the slooowwww post office deliveries this year (thanks, Trump, and your new post office honcho who I hope President-Elect Biden replaces on January 20), I am hoping the grapefruit is delayed, and it is coming, coming, coming, right?

But this Christmas ain't what it's supposed to be.

Another update:  On January 12, 2021 grapefruit arrived!  Thank you, family!  This Christmas became what I wanted it to be!  Happy New Year!

patricialesli@gmail.com

Book review: Bob Woodward's 'Rage'

Readers, he's much worse than you thought.

The first quarter of Rage is rather ho-hum, nothing much new as Bob Woodward sets the stage.  Momentum picks up when the Trump interviews begin.

This, with Michael Cohen's Disloyal, serve up a man as scatter-brained, tempestuous, vindictive, immature, hateful and superficial as one can possibly imagine any fictional character to be, but he is real, and, praise God, soon to leave Washington, D.C. for, we hope, forever.  Goodbye, you n'er do well!  2021 is looking better and better.

These books confirm my observation that Trump is not that smart. He's more like a toddler throwing temper tantrums. It's all for him or nothing. "I want my way! I want my way!" he bellows, and like a subservient parent, the media gives him "his way" (Cohen). The media elected him, says Cohen. Wait, this is a review of Woodward's book, not Cohen's. Where was I? (Now on to Bolton's.)

Interspersed in Rage are sections on Dr. Anthony Fauci, who, of course, plays a key role as coronavirus takes the spotlight and control from Trump and his sycophants.  The revelations about covid-19's strangulation of the U.S. brings one of the book's few humorous parts when Dr. Fauci describes Trump on page 354:  "His attention span is like a minus number.... His sole purpose is to get re-elected." 

No wonder Trump kicks up a fuss when he loses!  He will not believe it, and no one will tell the emperor he has no clothes.  He's nothing but a blunderbuss who recalcitrant Retrumplicans (Chris Cuomo) are afraid to challenge since the bully may sick a sickophant (sic!) their way! 

Mr. Woodward and Trump give serious discussion to the possibility that China deliberately set the U.S. on virus fire mimicking the SARS outbreak in 2002.

Mr. Woodward's epilogue ends:

 "When his performance as president is taken in its entirety, I can only reach one conclusion:  Trump is the wrong man for the job."  

For a second Rage edition, may I suggest the addition of a leaderboard for readers like me who find it somewhat difficult to keep all the players straight.   

Also, a correction for the location of the Feb. 11, 2020 event (page 244) found in "Source Notes" (p. 411) with Dr. Fauci at the Aspen Institute: It was held here, at Aspen's offices in Washington, D.C. not in Colorado . I know because I was there, and although unlikely, it is possible that the panel presented the same subject on the same day at the Aspen offices in Colorado. (One of the panelists was Ron Klain, later appointed to be President-Elect Biden's chief of staff. Also, it was the same day coronavirus got its official name, covid-19.) 

About the number of presidents (p. 391):  Although there have been 45 presidencies, there have only been 44 presidents since Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897).

patricialesli@gmail.com

Bike, stroll, rock and roll the Mt. Vernon Trail

On the Mt. Vernon Trail in Alexandria, you can fish solo and ponder the meaning of ......? You choose/By Patricia Leslie

 Or fish with a friend/By Patricia Leslie

 Or ride/By Patricia Leslie

 Run/By Patricia Leslie

 Run almost naked in 50 degree weather/By Patricia Leslie

 Ponder solo/By Patricia Leslie

 Ponder with a friend/By Patricia Leslie

 Bike/By Patricia Leslie

 Rendezvous or find sculpture in wood/By Patricia Leslie

 Fish with a group/By Patricia Leslie

 Contemplate a science project/By Patricia Leslie

 Find Mother Nature/By Patricia Leslie

 Study Mother's effects/By Patricia Leslie

 

It's heave ho on the Mt. Vernon Trail/By Patricia Leslie

 Admire the sinewy trunk that remains/By Patricia Leslie

 All the way up to the tippy-top and wonder when it will fall/By Patricia Leslie

 Find beauty everywhere and admire the craftsmanship of bridge designers. The 18.5 mile trail will celebrate its 50th birthday in 2023/By Patricia Leslie

 See the gorgeous Potomac River sights/By Patricia Leslie

 Bike with friends/By Patricia Leslie
 

Walk instead of ride the challenging last mile before Mt Vernon, George's home/By Patricia Leslie

But if you get a running start and think you can ..../By Patricia Leslie

 You can!/By Patricia Leslie

 It's a demanding finish/By Patricia Leslie

 Easier to walk/By Patricia Leslie

 Than ride/By Patricia Leslie

 Or strategize on the best way to top it/By Patricia Leslie

Whatever you do, enjoying the outdoors and escaping inner space are delightful on the Mt. Vernon Trail. Thank you, National Park Service!/By Patricia Leslie

patricialesli@gmail.com