By late June 2011, we were back in Columbia
from our trip to England, Wales and Scotland.
Out of the blue, I was contacted by a chemical company in St. Louis and
asked to do some statistical analysis.
It wasn’t my usual area of consulting, but I learned some St. Louis
history by taking on the project. I had
not known that in the 1940s, St. Louis was an integral part of the Manhattan
Project to build the atomic bomb. At
their plant north of downtown St. Louis next to the Mississippi River, Mallinckrodt
Chemical Works processed a majority of the uranium needed for the building of
the first bomb. This left the city with
a legacy of radioactive contamination.
Mallinckrodt asked me to do some analysis of data taken from drains in
various locations of the building where the processing took place. The purpose of the analysis was to show
whether or not there was some remaining contamination, and, if so, where. Of course, my confidentiality agreement
prevented me from saying anything about the results. The work was very interesting, but lasted for
only four months.
I was happy about selling the condo and the
agreement was finalized in June. I held
the mortgage with the principal and interest payments to be sent to me every
month. If the agreement was not honored,
I would still keep the property. After
three years, the interest rate would increase and, after five years (the time
in which the buyer felt his credit would be restored), the balance of the
purchase price became payable. It was a
nice supplement to my income.
My friend Bob and I took a class on Asset
Allocation offered through the University of Missouri Personal Finance
Department. I had already been exposed
to this topic as a method for structuring investment holdings through my
membership in the American Association of Individual Investors. Their publications and the monthly meetings
of the chapter on Investing for Retirement that I previously attended in St.
Louis had begun my education on the topic.
However, I had not organized my portfolio to fully implement it. I listened with avid interest as the speakers
described the research about which sectors of investing to include and the
percentage of assets recommended for each one.
It took me a while to fully carry out their recommendations. I am a fairly conservative investor and
decided on four sectors: US Large Cap, US Mid to Small Cap, Foreign Stocks and Bonds
or Other Fixed Income Assets. I often
used Vanguard Index Funds to implement the holdings in these sectors, but also used
a Managed Fund if it had low management fees.
In the past, it was recommended that the percentage for the less risky
last category be the same as the investor’s age. However, since people are living longer and
need the income from their investments to keep up with inflation, that
percentage might become lower.
In August, Diane and I flew to Denver to
visit Joe and Karen. The Denver Botanic
Gardens outdoor exhibit was “Native Roots/Modern Form: Plants, Peoples and the
Art of Allan Houser” and included many bronze sculptures. They also took us to
a farmer’s market, where we watched kayakers in a nearby stream. Later we all went to the Denver Art
Museum. We always enjoyed our visits
with Joe and Karen and this time it included meeting Karen’s uncle at his
birthday party.
Bronze sculpture
Karen’s uncle Jack’s 76th birthday
In September we flew to Philadelphia,
rented a car and drove to my sister’s home in Princeton to spend a few
days. On one of these days, we took the
train from Princeton Junction to New York City.
We ate a very expensive, but tasty, lunch at The Modern restaurant in
the Museum of Modern Art before we toured the museum. Then it was time for Diane’s family. We stopped for lunch with Chao-Min before
proceeding to Stroudsburg, PA. It was
nice to see the house where Diane’s sister and niece Kelly were now living with
their husbands. A birthday party at the
home of Diane’s nephew Joe included her other niece, Tracy, and a multitude of
cousins, their children and grandchildren.
It was almost ten years since I first met them, and we could now
understand each other without a translator.
Now I really felt like I was a part of Diane’s family.
We were only back home a couple of weeks
before we left again on our next adventure, “On the Trail of Lewis and Clark: A
Columbia and Snake River Expedition,” booked through Road Scholar, but on a
National Geographic boat. In the St.
Louis airport waiting area, six of us discovered we were all on the same trip
and headed to Portland, OR. Our flight
was delayed and then re-booked through Houston, TX. Needless to say, we were all very late getting
to Portland and missed the tour welcome and orientation. My own preparation consisted of reading the
book The Journals of Lewis and Clark.
Traveling with Road Scholar and then
National Geographic was special. The first
morning, we were given a guided tour of the International Rose Test Garden (IRTG)
at Washington Park in Portland. The
primary purpose of the garden is to serve as a testing ground for new rose
varieties. More than 10,000 individual
rose bushes bloom in the IRTG from late May through October, representing over
610 different rose varieties. So even
though it was late in the season, there were still roses blooming. Before we left the park, our bus drove by the
large bronze sculpture of Sacagawea, the only woman on the Lewis and Clark
Expedition. She was holding her child
Jean-Baptiste and we were told the sculpture memorializes an individual woman,
was funded by women, sculpted by a woman artist and conceived to promote
women’s suffrage. OK! Next, we walked through the nearby Japanese
Garden. Although they had features in
common, Diane and I found the landscaping and setting much different than the
Japanese Garden at the St. Louis Botanical Garden.
Beautiful rose
Sacagawea
In the afternoon, Diane and I were happy to
board our boat, the Seabird, that accommodated just 62 guests in 31 outside
cabins. We passed through downtown
Portland, going under the city’s 12 bridges that have earned it the nickname
Bridge City. It felt good to feel the
gentle current of the Willamette River as we cruised toward the Columbia River. This was going to be a very educational
journey, initially in the reverse direction of when Lewis and Clark came down the
Columbia River before there were locks and dams.
The Seabird
The next morning, as we proceeded up the
Columbia River, we noticed a beautiful young blonde woman on board being
filmed. We were all curious and hoping
to learn more. We had our first
experience of entering a lock at the John Day Lock and Dam. The Columbia-Snake River System has eight
locks and dams which generate hydroelectric power. Adult fish ladders are present at all eight
lower Columbia and Snake dams. They consist of a series of steps and pools
which provide a gradual upward climb over the dams for adult salmon and other
fish species which want to return to their breeding grounds. Diane and I were awake when going through
some of these locks as we headed up the river and would be awake for others on
the way back down the river. We had been
through the locks at the Panama Canal and on the Rhone River, but this was a
much different experience. Standing on
the deck of our ship, the walls looked so high and we felt so low. In the afternoon, we went through another set
of locks at the McNary Lock and Dam.
Filming our blonde guest
Fish ladder at the McNary Lock and Dam
As we went by geologically interesting
features during the day, we stood outside on the deck while the trained staff
described the scenery. A guide told the
story about the formation of the Columbia River Gorge as we went through it. It stretches for over eighty miles and is up
to 4,000 feet deep. It was largely
formed at the end of the last ice age by the Missoula floods which were
cataclysmic glacial lake outburst floods that swept periodically across eastern
Washington and down the gorge.
Each day in the late afternoon before
dinner, there was a cocktail hour in the lounge showcasing local food and wine,
and we had the opportunity to get to know the other passengers. What had drawn us to this particular trip was
the presence of a staff member from the Center for Inquiry of which I was a
member. The Center is a charitable
nonprofit dedicated to defending science and critical thinking while examining
the world around us, believing that evidence, science and compassion (rather
than religion, superstition, pseudoscience, or prejudice) should inform our
values and interpretation of the world.
The staff member gave a lecture in the evening about the organization
and its outreach.
In the morning, we entered the Snake River
and followed it until we reached Lewiston, Idaho and Clarkston, Washington at
the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater rivers. In October 1805, The Corps of Discovery
Expedition camped overnight on an island close to the confluence of these
rivers. Lewiston is named for Meriwether Lewis and Clarkston is named for William
Clark. We went on a jet boat ride
through the nearby Hells Canyon, North America’s deepest river gorge, going
across eddies and through rapids. I
prefer slow and steady, but the boat got us through it and slowed down so the
driver could point out pictographs and petroglyphs created by the gorge’s first
inhabitants, the Nez Perce tribe.
In the afternoon, we took a motor coach
tour up the Clearwater River to visit Lewis and Clark sites. We drove through the town of Kamiah before
stopping at the Nez Perce National Historic Park. The Nez Perce embraced the Lewis and Clark
expedition, providing aid during a very trying time.
Main street Kamiah, Idaho
Objects our Nez Perce guide discussed
Canoe like ones used on the Lewis and Clark
expedition on display at the Park Visitor Center
The ship entered the Palouse River in the
early morning hours and dropped anchor in an open stretch of water surrounded
by steep basalt cliffs. Diane and I took
a Zodiac ride accompanied by a National Geographic staff member who pointed out
and named the birds nesting along the cliffs and the large variety of plants in
and around the water. After reboarding,
we watched the other passengers paddling around in the kayaks the Seabird
provided, a sport that didn’t look comfortable for our aging bodies.
Zodiac ride
Swallow bird nests
Kayakers
After we all went to shore, we boarded a
motor coach to go see a view of the Palouse Falls. Carved more than 13,000 years ago, it is
among the last active waterfalls on the Ice Age floods path, dropping 200 feet into
a churning bowl. After barbecue on deck,
we relaxed outside while sailing down the Snake River and passing through the
Lower Monumental and Ice Harbor locks and dams.
Palouse Falls
Every morning, we had been observing this
beautiful woman with her hair in curlers.
Later we would see her out on the deck describing the surroundings while
being filmed. Well, it was all made clear
that evening when she provided our entertainment in the lounge. She was a member of the TV quiz show Jeopardy’s
Clue Crew, Sarah Whitcomb Foss, and we were her contestants for the evening. Diane and I teamed up and did quite well once
I was able to keep Diane from blurting out her answer before conferring with
me.
Our group left the ship at The Dalles locks
and dam to board a bus for the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center. It had excellent exhibits demonstrating the
formation of the gorge and details about the Corps of Discovery.
Our greeter at the Discovery Center
The bus then drove up to the top of the Rowena
Crest viewpoint that gave us spectacular panoramic views of the Columbia Gorge. Diane and I walked, while some passengers
biked through the Mosier Twin Tunnels.
It was built for the original Columbia River Highway, but now is part of
a car-free section of the Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. Inside
the tunnel, side passages led to windows that framed the views of the river
gorge.
View of the gorge from the Rowena Crest viewpoint
During a visit to the Gorge White House historic
farm & winery, we sampled beer or cider, but I was hungry for lunch at the
Mt. Hood Winery. The ship had moved and
we re-boarded it at Cascade locks and dam and set sail to view Multnomah Falls. From the distance of the boat and because of
the mist that was falling, there wasn’t a good view. However, Diane and I had driven by it before
when driving the highway along the Columbia River and stopped to take pictures. What distinguishes these falls is its total
height of 620 feet with an upper fall plunging 542 feet and lower fall of 69
feet with 9 feet between the upper and lower falls. Millions of visitors stop
to see them. After our usual cocktail hour and dinner, we finished the day with
a talk on Lewis and Clark reaching the Pacific.
Blond with hair in rollers
During the night, the Seabird cruised past
the Willamette River toward our stop at Astoria. We toured Fort Clatsop, the encampment of the
Lewis and Clark Expedition in the Oregon Country near the mouth of the Columbia
River during the winter of 1805–1806 having found “the most practicable and
navigable passage across the Continent of North America.” The wood fort was built because they had to
wait until spring to return home.
Cooking in Fort Clatsop
Before we had lunch, we visited the
Columbia River Maritime Museum. Then we
crossed the river to the other side in order to visit the Lewis and Clark
Interpretive Center perched on a high cliff above the mouth of the Columbia
River. The river opening was named Cape
Disappointment because it was often mistaken for a bay instead of a river. The center wasn’t fully open the last time
Diane and I were on Cape Disappointment to see the North Head Lighthouse. It had an excellent 15-minute film and a range
of exhibits including paintings, maps, artifacts and quotes from the explorers'
journals about their difficult journey through this inhospitable terrain. Stepping outside the center, we found
ourselves on the cliff's edge with fabulous views of the Cape Disappointment
Lighthouse and the mouth of the Columbia River.
It was known as the Graveyard of the Pacific due to the treacherous,
shifting sandbars that resulted in hundreds of shipwrecks. During our last night on the Seabird, we were
treated with yet another educational presentation.
Display of walrus ivory at the Interpretive
Center
The next morning, we joined the departing
guests who were going to the Portland airport to fly home, but instead we
rented a car as we had more plans. We
drove to the state capitol of Washington, Olympia, and toured the Capitol before
proceeding to the north coast of the Olympic Peninsula to visit our friends Kay
and Evelyn in Sequim. We met them when
we lived at the Lake of the Ozarks. They
had moved to Missouri from California.
They were not happy living in the woods outside Eldon, Missouri and
moved to Bend, Oregon where we visited them in 2003. Now, they had a nice new house in Sequim, and
the second floor consisted of a guest bedroom where we stayed. We spent most of
the next day visiting with our friends.
They took us to their small city museum and then we spent a lot of time
walking, first on a trail to a bridge over the Dungeness River and then to the
Dungeness Recreation Area to view the spit and lighthouse. It was good to see them again.
Oregon State Capitol
Kay, Evelyn and me
The next day was my seventy-first birthday,
and I planned on celebrating it in Victoria, BC. We bade our friends goodbye and took the late
morning Port Angeles ferry to Vancouver Island. We checked in and parked the
car so we could walk to the Parliament Building, Royal British Columbia Museum and
around the totems. That evening we walked to a restaurant overlooking the water
so I could enjoy seafood for my birthday dinner.
Me among the totems
The next morning, we drove to Sidney to
take the ferry to the town of Friday Harbor (on San Juan Island), the major
commercial center of the San Juan Islands.
The next three nights, we stayed on the San Juan Islands, an archipelago
of 172 named islands and reefs in the Pacific Ocean north and west of Seattle. After stopping to have some delicious clam
chowder, we visited the Whale Museum and made arrangements to go on a whale
watching tour the next day. We
discovered there was an Oktoberfest at the local
county fairgrounds building that evening and decided to attend. It was a small-town event. We purchased our dinner tickets and took them
to tables to receive food and drinks. We
sat communally, and Diane and I listened to the conversations of locals. There was dancing to an oom-pah-pah band. Not seafood at a Victoria restaurant, but still
enjoyable.
Snowy Mount Olympus on the Olympic
Peninsula seen from the ferry
Friday Harbor
Band at the Oktoberfest
The next morning, we drove north toward
Roche Harbor to visit the San Juan Islands Sculpture Park & Nature Reserve. It was a 19-acre outdoor sculpture park, home
to more than 120 unique sculptures by Northwest artists. We walked through gently rolling fields of
grass cut to create natural corridors between sculptures.
Dragon Sculpture
After our picnic lunch, we drove back to
Friday Harbor for our tour to view an Orca pod. We were glad it was a pretty
day, as we speeded along in a motor boat on the hunt for some orcas. The tour guide was in radio communication
with other boats who were saying where they had recently seen some whales. We sailed around the island and almost all
the way back to Vancouver Island before we accomplished our goal. The captain turned off the motor and we drifted
among the orcas. We encountered a boat
that carried one of the whale-poop sniffing dogs that are being used in
conservation research.
Orcas
Poop sniffing dog
That evening, nestled in the island woods
overlooking scenic ponds, we had a much different dinner at the Duck Soup Inn
featuring Northwestern cuisine. Along
with our seafood, we had our first bottle ever of the viognier grape from a
Washington winery. I enjoyed the evening
even more than I had the night on Vancouver Island.
Next, it was a day for learning history. In 1859, when Great Britain and the United
States agreed to a joint occupation of San Juan Island until the water boundary
between the two nations could be settled, it was decided that camps would be
located on opposite ends of the island.
We started with the American Camp on the southern end of the island. Lt. Col. Silas Casey positioned the camp just
north of the Hudson’s Bay Company barns that were once home to the company’s pigs. The event that started the whole mess occurred
when an American settler shot a British pig.
Since both countries claimed the island, this incident started what
became known as the “pig war.” The
American Camp was considered to be in a good position for an entrenched
camp. The veteran colonel also ordered
2nd Lt. Henry Martyn Robert of the Corps of Engineers, who later achieved fame
for his Rules of Order, to start work on an earthen fortification on the
ridgetop east of the new camp with a commanding view of both strait and bay.
Meanwhile, the British riding at anchor in nearby Griffin Bay were nothing
short of impressed with the colonel’s enterprise. We walked on a nature trail around the camp,
ate a picnic lunch and then drove north to the English Camp at Garrison Bay.
The British had a naval presence in the
area and Capt. James Prevost, commander of H.M.S. Satellite, selected the site
since one of his officers, Lieutenant Richard Roche, described the ground as
"well-sheltered, has a good supply of water and grass, and is capable of
affording maneuvering ground for any number of men that are likely to be
required in that locality..." The 13-year standoff ended when the US and
Britain decided to compromise by allowing a neutral third-party, Kaiser Wilhelm
of Germany, to resolve the issue. The
islands ended up being American and the British withdrew. This method of compromising was
revolutionary, and was used in many later conflicts such as the Alaska Boundary
Dispute. That night we had a nice
parting dinner at a restaurant overlooking Friday Harbor.
Display about 2nd Lt. Robert
We were finally ready to head home, but
first needed to take a ferry to the mainland.
We met the Washington State Ferry for the scheduled 11:05 ride to
Anacortes, Washington (scheduled to arrive there at 12:05). We planned on getting to Portland in time to
have dinner with our friends, Liz and Jill.
However, we were told that due to a labor dispute the inter-island
ferries had been cancelled. A ferry to
Anacortes was re-scheduled to leave at 12:05.
However, it was not on a direct route and stopped at three San Juan
Islands (Orca, Shaw and Lopez) before proceeding to Anacortes, not arriving until
about 3 p.m. We drove through the rain
and Seattle rush hour traffic to Portland, but didn’t arrive there until about
9 p.m. Needless to say, we didn’t see
our friends. We dropped off our car at the airport, stayed at an airport motel
overnight and flew home the next day.
Except for the first and last days, the trip was great. When you travel, you have no control on those
parts of your trip, and you just have to learn to “go with the flow.”
At home, it felt wonderful to sleep in our
own bed and have a good cup of coffee to wake up to and enjoy our cuddle. It was the last half of October. I had finished my work with Mallinckrodt on
the nuclear contamination and with Genzyme on assay validation and was ready to
enjoy retired life even more. We bought
our True/False passes for the three of us (Earlene, Diane and me) at next year’s
festival. Diane and I upgraded our Couch
Club memberships at Ragtag to the Guffman level. The benefits included: 1) free
admission to all Ragtag Cinema screenings 2) bringing one guest to one film for
free each month, 3) call-in-and-walk-up privileges, 4) $1 small popcorn from
Uprise Bakery with every film admission, and 5) 15% discount on regular
purchases from the Uprise Bakery counter and bar. We planned on regularly taking advantage of
all the benefits.
I also received a flyer describing a trip
to Cuba through an environmental company Diane and I had traveled with in this
country. I called and talked to the
owner about the possibility of putting together a group from Columbia. Eventually I was able to find three women we
knew, one from Tai Chi and one who was a good friend of hers and had also been
our real estate agent when we bought our house in Columbia. Her daughter would also go. Although this would be a small group of only
five women, the owner agreed, we paid our deposit and started planning that
trip, as it was scheduled for mid-January.
Then I received a call from Rick, someone I
had not heard from in a long time. He
had been with a virus pharmaceutical company in the Cambridge area. I had always enjoyed working with him, and it
turned out he was now with a similar firm in Munich Germany. He thought his people needed some training on
the statistical methods used to validate assays. Their company also used SAS. I asked him how much money he had left in his
training budget for the rest of the year, he told me, and I replied that I
could do it for that amount. We started
talking about what he wanted to include and when he wanted it done. We settled on two days in early December. I would have some work to keep me occupied
for the remainder of the year. No rest
for the wicked!
Diane had a friend in her salon group of
women who recommended a hotel near the English garden and just a few blocks
from a U-Bahn station for the city subway system. We arrived in Munich early on a Tuesday, took
the S-Bahn train from the airport to downtown and then a taxi to our
hotel. It was lovely: very clean, and our
stay included a complete breakfast which we could order from a menu in their
dining room.
That afternoon, we were ready to go back to
downtown Munich and took the subway to Marienplatz, the central square in the
city center. It had been the city's main square since 1158. It was December 6 and the Christmas Market was
in full swing. There were booths selling
warm mulled wine, cheese, sausage, a wide variety of food and Christmas
products. We had a great lunch. The New Town Hall façade with hundreds of
statues, turrets and arches dominates the square. Its tower houses the Rathaus-Glockenspiel, a
clock which has a show every day at 11 a.m. and noon. We would have to come back
to hear the Glockenspiel chime and watch the 32 life-sized figures reenact
historical Bavarian events, including a golden bird whose three chirps ends the
show. We just walked around, taking in the scenery and making our plans for the
days to come.
Munich was the place where Hitler and the
Nazis came to power in the 1930s. Diane
and I wanted to learn more about how the Nazis ruled during that time. We started with a tour of the Dachau
concentration camp. Our group took the
train from Munich to a station near the camp, and we all walked through an iron
entry gate bearing the slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei,"
or "work sets you free." The
first exercise was chilling. Our group
was lined up in the courtyard and we were told that the prisoners had to do this
every morning only wearing their skimpy clothing. We were cold in our winter coats. It didn’t leave much to the imagination. Then we visited the museum with pictures and
descriptions in English. We learned that
Dachau was the first concentration camp built by Nazi Germany and opened in
1933. It was initially intended to
intern Hitler's political opponents which consisted of: communists, social
democrats and other dissidents. Its
purpose was enlarged to include forced labor, and, eventually, the imprisonment
of Poles, Romani, Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholic priests, among
others. It was not a death camp, but did
have a crematorium for prisoners who died there. We walked through the dormitories, with their
narrow three-tiered bunk beds, by the guard stations, perimeter fencing, farm
plots and other facilities. It was a
sobering day.
Arbeit Macht Frei
Sculpture in Museum
Bunks with three levels of beds
We decided to walk to the cozy, informal restaurant
that was at the end of the block from our hotel. When we entered, we were just motioned to a
round table already occupied by a couple of older German men. They welcomed us, one in English and one in German. We had a nice German beer and simple
food. We enjoyed the friendly company
and told the men we would be happy to see them another evening.
I had to work the next two days. The
company I was visiting was about 10 miles away in a suburb, so I took a
taxi. It was rush hour and slow, but to
me that made the trip all the more enjoyable as I could do a lot of people- and
scenery- watching. Traffic was thick,
and many people were using the trolley cars and buses. I could see that mass transit was the way
most got around in Munich. I was
surprised when I got there and met Rick.
I had never seen him in person, just talked to him on the phone. My preconception was not reality, and I
wondered how many of my other clients would be the same (probably most of them).
We had a cup of coffee and he wanted a
cigarette, so we went up to the top of the building where I could see the
Bavarian alps in the distance.
Then we went to the classroom where I would
spend most of the next two days with the 15-20 employees. Not having worked with them before, I had no
idea about their statistical knowledge.
I prepared several PowerPoint presentations and the students were
provided hard copies. The first presentation
was entitled “Statistical Literacy” during which I tried to determine whether
they already knew the basics. Most of
them seemed to. We proceeded to other
topics like the steps that should be followed to develop a precise and accurate
assay, and all the characteristics that should be considered in order to
validate an assay. Locally-generated
data were used to illustrate the concepts.
The company did have their own full-time statistician, and he proved to
be a challenge to win over. The second
day I had to go to his work space and ask him if he intended to attend, and he
finally did.
Diane was happily playing in Munich while I
worked. Since we had used the subway
together a couple of times, she was able to do it herself. I was relieved when the weekend arrived. I had done my last business “gig,” and felt
like now I could really relax and enjoy myself.
Saturday morning, we returned to Marienplatz. As well as again enjoying the food and drink
at the Christmas market, we toured the toy museum which was located in the
tower of the old town hall. In addition
to nostalgic toys, the collection also contained more modern toys including the
first Barbie from 1959. We took the
elevator all the way to the top in the New Town Hall so Diane could go outside
and take pictures.
The Rathaus-Glockenspiel
Enjoying the mulled wine at the Christmas
market
Robot toys in front with a reflection of the
backs of the Barbie dolls
View from the top of the New Town Hall
across the city to the Alps
We had read that many of the churches near
the old town were beautiful, and we planned a route that would allow us to
visit many of them. What we learned was
that almost all had pictures and a pamphlet at the front door that told the
story about the war damage, and often described how they had protected their
valuable possessions. In the evening, we
went on a beer and food tour, visiting several cooperating businesses, and
learned the history of beer making in Munich.
Me and Diane enjoying some beer
We started our Sunday with a chamber music concert
at a former church that was badly damaged from bombing during World War II and
for decades remained a ruin before undergoing partial restoration and
secularization. We had front row
balcony seats and found the acoustics to be good, allowing us to enjoy the
performance. After lunch at a nearby
German restaurant, we visited The Residenz, the former royal palace of the
Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria, the largest city palace in Germany. We toured it to see its architecture, room
decorations and displays from the former royal collections. Highlights were 1) the Treasury with its
Crowns, statues, chests and goblets, 2) the beauty of Hercules Hall, and 3) the
Bronze Rooms containing over 40 original bronze sculptures from the late 16th
and early 17th centuries.
Balcony view of the concert stage
Bejeweled knight on display at The Residenz
We started Monday with a visit to the City
Museum to see what it said about the history of the city and its culture. The
collections not only featured the graphic arts and painting, furniture, arts
and crafts, but also included toys and fashion. There was a permanent exhibit on
the rise and fall of National Socialism in Munich from 1918 to 1945. Even though the narrative was in German, the
pictures were easily interpreted.
Then we were ready for our final walking
tour: “Hitler and the Third Reich.” First,
our guide took us to Konigsplatz which was used during the Third Reich as a
square for the Nazi Party's mass rallies. The Brown House, the national
headquarters of the Nazi Party in Germany was located nearby. We ended up at the Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall where
Hitler and the National Socialists held their first meeting in 1920, and where
Hitler delivered one of his first speeches on the burgeoning ideology of Nazism
in Germany. We were served platters of
cheese and sausage to eat with our mugs of beer. Despite the merriment, I looked around and
thought about what started there.
Busy Hofbrauhaus
On our last afternoon and evening in
Munich, we stretched ourselves and walked completely around the lake at the
English garden, finally stopping at our friendly German restaurant to sit with
whomever stopped by our table. We were
not disappointed and soon were joined by a younger couple. To me, this trip was not only a visit we had
been wanting to make to the country of Germany, but a nice finale to my
business. Inside myself, I took a bow.