MOVING ON.....2024

A Note From The Author: Jacqueline E. Hughes

I am so happy to welcome in the new year, 2024!!! My Blog is changing-up a bit....mainly because I am evolving. Travel will always take precedence in my life and, my journeys will be shared with you. This 2024 version will offer a variety of new stories and personal ideas, as well. This is all about having fun and enjoying this Beautiful Journey called......Life!!!

Thursday, February 21, 2019

A PLEASANT SURPRISE: STIRLING, SCOTLAND



A series of essays....


OLD TOWN JAIL, LOCATED IN STIRLING, SCOTLAND


....as seen through my eyes!




By: Jacqueline E. Hughes


We left the magnificent town of Edinburgh after two days of strenuous uphill climbs to visit the Edinburgh Castle and to conduct epic sightseeing walks along the Royal Mile and further south onto the upper terraces of Edinburgh’s Old Town. Slipping into narrow, stone passageways, we discovered ancient, soot-covered buildings towering  high above us filled with bell towers and intricately carved, solid oaks doors rising ten feet tall and higher. These resplendent buildings, courtyards, and gardens were filled with history and intrigue, taking us back into another place in time.

When I think about the history of places we visit and envision the people who kept them alive via hard work, an abundance of stamina, and pure survival instincts, I think of a line by English writer and researcher, Luke Kemp, when he said, “We will only march into collapse if we advance blindly. We are only doomed if we are unwilling to listen to the past.”

Sitting in our rental car, loaded with luggage and pure anticipation of what awaited us around the next bend in the road, we could see the silhouette of Edinburgh Castle growing smaller in the distance behind us. 

Soon we would discover our new home for four days on a working sheep farm just south of Glasgow near the village of Uplawmoor. From ‘home base,’ we would conduct day trips to Wigtown, ‘Scotland’s National Book Town’ to the south, hiking trails near Loch Lomond in the Highlands to our north, and over to the hilltop town of Stirling located northeast of Glasgow and noted for its own ‘castle on the hill.’ 

Wondering if day-tripping to Stirling was a sound idea given that we’d recently discovered Edinburgh with its mighty castle in the sky, would seeing something so similar be worth the precious amount of time we had in Scotland? After some debate, the four of us piled into the car on our way to Stirling for the day.

Let’s just say....we were not disappointed with our decision.


OLD TOWN STIRLING


We parked at the lower level of Old Town Stirling and meandered our way up the narrow, cobblestoned street of St. John leading up to Stirling Castle that loomed high above us but still out-of-sight. The walk was breathtakingly steep as we passed iconic buildings such as The Stirling Highland Hotel that was once a school and still boasts having a working observatory. The Stirling Old Town Jail sits just above the hotel and dates back to 1847 and features daily tours with enactments by local actors depicting the conditions there so many years ago.


STIRLING HIGHLAND HOTEL

NAVIGATING SMALL, BRICK PATHS

A FRIENDLY (?) FACE!

ANCIENT PAVERS BENEATH OUR FEET


As we circled in front of the jail, we came up to an ancient brick and mortar entrance (replete with black-painted gargoyles) that would usher us into one of the most amazing cemeteries that harbored many unique surprises. Old Town Cemetery rests just below Stirling Castle and features tombstones dating back into the late sixteen hundreds! Our vantage point from here was panoramic with Stirling city resting far below, Ben Vorlich rising high above Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park to the northwest, and Stirling Castle still out of sight but just around yet another cobblestoned bend in the road.


STIRLING CITY RESTING FAR BELOW 

STONE AND BRICK ENTRANCE TO CEMETERY

GARGOYLES KEEPING WATCH
LOOKING THROUGH THE GATE


INTRICATE PATTERNS

DOOR TO ANOTHER WORLD


If you know me by now, you would understand how intrigued I can be by an amazing cemetery. Old Town Cemetery offered so many exceptional photo ops complete with ravens adorned in luscious purple/black feathers with their beady eyes guaranteed to stare right through you. 


ROWS OF SHADOW AND LIGHT

"AND THE RAVEN, NEVER FLITTING,
STILL IS SITTING, STILL IS SITTING......."

Apparently, Stirling Castle came in at a close second for all of us after experiencing the phenomenal views, cemetery delights, and magnificent old structures standing majestically on the hill dressed in their finest sooty attire and surrounded by colorful late September flowers and drifting autumn leaves.


LOOKING OFF TO THE NORTHWEST

THE SUN CREATES PINK SKIES


STIRLING CASTLE UP ON THE HILL
A VORTEX WITHIN THE CEMETERY?

THE SUN UPON MY SHOULDER

LOOKING OUT AT BEN VORLICH

CHAPEL WITHIN THE CEMETERY

LOOKING OUT TO THE SOUTHEAST
TOWARDS EDINBURGH

We had worked up a healthy appetite by now given the trek up to the castle and the sharp wind that gave noses and cheeks a healthy rosy glow. We’d spied a charming whitewashed eatery catercorner from the main entrance to the cemetery called Hermanns and located on Broad Street. For twenty-six pounds sterling per couple, we feasted like kings and queens and, if truth be told, enjoyed one of the most delicious meals of our entire Scottish visit. I would return to Stirling again if only to enjoy the culinary delights offered by Hermanns.


DELICIOUS FOOD SERVED WITH
ELEGANCE IN MIND


DESSERT WORTH WALKING
UPHILL FOR

'HAVE A SAFE JOURNEY HOME'


After lunch, we launched our descent down Broad Street in search of our car. 

With a bit of sadness in our hearts, we bid a cheery adieu to Stirling that crisp, sunny day in September, vowing to return one day, soon. For now, we were happy to know that someone was wishing us a safe journey home!


COLORFUL FLOWERS
LINED OUR WAY

BORDER FLOWERS BRIGHTENED
A LATE SEPTEMBER DAY!



A WELCOMING DOOR!



Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved

Photo Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved

Thursday, February 7, 2019

"WE ARE NOT MAKERS OF HISTORY, WE ARE MADE BY HISTORY" ...MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.






A series of essays....



THE DECLINE OF HISTORICAL THINKING
BY ERIC ALTERMAN
        Courtesy of inxti


....as seen through my eyes!




By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

A recent article in The New Yorker states that there is a huge decline in historical thinking. (Eric Alterman, published on February 4, 2019). Mr. Alterman claims that, “For the past decade, on American campuses, history has been declining more rapidly than any other major, even as more and more students attend college.” He also believes that, “The steep decline in history graduates is most visible beginning in 2011 and 2012. Evidently, after the 2008 financial crisis, students (and their parents) felt a need to pick a major in a field that might place them on a secure career path.”

With the base cost of an undergrad education rising swiftly, this approach by both middle class parents and their children would seem to make good sense. Student loans do not pay for themselves and only by securing a good job upon graduation would one be able to pay them off, eventually.

I can understand this line of thinking. I don’t like that it exists, but I can offer-up some of my own reactions, emotions, and reasons for this particular decline of History majors within our country’s higher education institutions.

After this current administration came into office and the likes of Betsy DeVos was slated to run the U.S. Department of Education, I began calling her new project ‘The Dumbing Down of America,’ and with good reason. The emphasis of each move she made was to slowly deteriorate our current public school system by any means possible. What better way to under educate and under develop our young minds than to take away sound, basic programs (the arts and science, reading programs, geography, history) that were previously in place in order to elevate the public school’s curriculum, spark imagination, and enhance the education of America’s youth? For me, DeVos and the current administration’s agenda was quite obvious right from the beginning and deemed highly compromising if planning out a prosperous future for our country.

The King of Lies who happens to reside in the White House today personally ignores the fact that it is clear that historical analysis would demonstrate that legal immigration into America has accounted for much of our creativity, innovation, and economic production. By ignoring the facts, misrepresenting our own history, and blatantly lying to the American public, “the Republicans have, for the past few decades, depended on Americans’ inability to make sense of history in judging their policies. Under Trump, they have succeeded in turning legal immigration into the excuse for all the country’s ills,” Mr. Alterman explains.

If we are educating someone to be able to handle all of life’s experiences, without having an historical background or any knowledge of the past they cannot be totally ready for life. The last generation, at least, have become people who live in the ‘now’ and often fail to recognize the importance of ‘where did we come from, how and why did we get to where we are today, and are we capable of knowing what mistakes we have made in the past so as not to repeat them?’ I’ve written before how instant gratification is the name of the game for so many of us today and our electronic devices have become attached to us in, sometimes, very unhealthy ways.

Walter Lippmann, an American writer, photographer, and activist, once warned nearly a century ago that, “Men who have lost their grip upon the relevant facts of their environment are the inevitable victims of agitation and propaganda. The quack, the charlatan, and the jingo (One who vociferously supports one's country, especially one who supports a belligerent foreign policy; a chauvinistic patriot)... can flourish only where the audience is deprived of independent access to information.” In other words, if the citizens of a nation have no knowledge of history, they are asking to be led by jingos!

The amassing of Trump lies just within the past two years of his presidency proves that he is a quack, a charlatan, and a jingo. And, unfortunately, as explained by Mr. Alterman, “Without more history majors, we are doomed to repeat him.” 

Like a brand new parent, we learn to live with and by our own mistakes. And, by the time a second child comes along, we, with any luck, have become more prepared to handle the general welfare of our new ‘little one’ than we may have the first time around. So it goes with the works of historical fiction and non-fiction authors, storytellers, history professors, and the all important student graduating with a degree in history. Life comes around full circle and the more we can learn about ourselves, research that which came before us, and study the habits (right or wrong) of our ancestors, we will always be a step ahead in the game of life and discover the process of enclosing the circle that completes us.

IS THIS HOW WE WANT OUR
HISTORY BOOKS TO LOOK IN THE FUTURE?
                  Courtesy of roundex


We can ill afford to leave the pages of our history books empty. The generations that follow us will surely be deprived of independent thinking, as well as the access to information that will help shape a sound and prosperous future.



Copyright © 2019 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved