Travel

ABOVE PHOTO:  Sheila Johnson on SRS grand lawn.   By Renée S. Gordon “In riding a horse, we borrow freedom”   –Helen Thompson On April 20, 1861 Robert E. Lee resigned his US Army commission and declined Lincoln’s request that he take command of the Union forces. On April 23rd the Governor of Virginia named…

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By Renée S. Gordon “We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home, For the Old Kentucky Home far away.” –Stephen Foster 1852  “My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night” Virginia Gov. Patrick Henry gave a 1,000-acre land grant to David Bard in the late 1700s and in 1780 David’s brother William Bard laid out…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Warehouse Barrels   By Renée S. Gordon “Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake.” –W.C. Fields Bardstown, Kentucky, 47 miles from Louisville, is best known as the Bourbon Capital of the World™. In 2012 it was designated the “Most Beautiful Small City in…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Ed Hamilton Memorial Panel   By Renée S. Gordon “I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky.”  –Abraham Lincoln In the Last of the Mohicans Daniel Day Lewis’ character, Hawkeye, announces that he is headed for the frontier because the coastal region has become way too crowded. The…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  National Constitution Center   By Renée S. Gordon “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”   –Audre Lorde Travel broadens our horizons in ways that are invaluable to our personal growth and development, our ability to comprehend the world around us…

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ABOVE PHOTO:  Slave sale on Courthouse   By Renée S. Gordon St. Louis is celebrating its 250th anniversary throughout 2014 with a series of signature activities and events culminating on February 13, 2015. Visitors and residents alike get to choose from a wide variety of celebratory experiences and the city’s historic significance plays as central…

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By Renée S. Gordon “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.”          –Langston Hughes’ The Negro Speaks of Rivers St. Louis dates its official founding from February 14, 1764, when Pierre Laclède Liguest, his teenaged scout, Auguste Pierre Chouteau, and 30 men, stepped ashore to establish a trading post on land…

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ABOVE PHOTO: Camden County Historical Society   By Renée S. Gordon “In this hallowed ground lie the remains of people of African descent who were servants and slaves during the 1700s and 1800s. They are unknown to us, but precious to God.”    –2011 Christ the King Episcopal Church Philadelphians tend to think of Southern New…

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Renée S. Gordon “Polish comes from the cities; wisdom from the desert.”  –Frank Herbert The first nonindigenous people to enter the Phoenix area came on a quest for golden cities. The story appears to have originated from four Spanish conquistadors who survived a shipwreck off the coast of Galveston and walked back to Mexico City….

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The first documented non-native to enter the southwestern portion of our nation was a Moorish-African slave. Estevanico had been a member of the ill-fated Narvaez Expedition in 1527 and was enslaved by the Indians for five years.

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