American Dream: Find a B&B and Make Some Discoveries

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The Traveling Writer Sees Quirky Things in Rhode Island

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Last week I shared my Louisiana music festival with you. I want to recommend Zydeco again! A week ago I invested in a C.J. Chenier live recording made at the New Orleans Jazz Festival.  I’m glad I did. His showmanship is obvious even when he’s not making music on a stage. And his Red Hot Louisiana band doesn’t play a single note that isn’t red hot.

While attending the Rhythm and Roots music festival (the largest gathering of Louisiana musicians outside of Louisiana) in Charlestown, RI, I stayed with my sister in a bed & breakfast in Kingston, RI.

We went for a walk one morning and found out it’s a college town, the University of RI at Kingston. We drifted onto campus and found an arboretum with a fantastic assortment of exotic trees. They were all labeled with their English name, Latin name, and area of origin.

Everyone in my family is a plant nerd, so we really appreciated that somebody, at some time, planned this place, took care to ship in trees that were likely to survive Rhode Island winters, and took the time to make sure each tree had a label.

This arboretum is a great, humane legacy that some person or persons created and shared. I admire that legacy-building instinct, and I’m grateful for it.

Let me share some quirky pictures of the weird trees. I have pictures of the labels for some, not all. Then we'll get into the bed & breakfast.

Look! A tree in camo!

This tree has beautiful bark in flowing lines.

This blue beauty is a Korean fir.

Here it is in close-up.

Not sure of the name, but it sure looks like green fireworks.

This is a larch, from Central Europe. A bit quirky-looking.

There were neat gates and structures throughout the arboretum.

Not sure what this is, but it sure does have strange roots.

The Traveling Writer Recommends the Sheppard B&Bs

We stayed at Sheppard’s Campus B&B, run by the Sheppard family. It was in an appropriately Victorian house and decorated with antiques. I always enjoy looking at this type of house and furniture, and I enjoy even more thinking how glad I am not to have to take care of any of it.

We had two terrific breakfasts and enjoyed the company of our fellow guests. We also enjoyed exploring the grounds.

A splendid house, both inside and out.

I love the weathered brick.

A compass rose built into the porch floor.

Tons of antiques and healthy potted plants.

A bird cage from India. Felt quirky to find it in Kingston, RI.

Close up of the front door.

Splendid hydrangeas, and all kinds of other beautiful plants, in the gardens.

One of the Sheppards had created a lovely garden around the house. Since I used to be a passionate gardener, and my sister developed one worthy of a House and Garden spread, we made a point of exploring the garden’s paths and noting the different foliage combinations that this gardener had fostered.

I sat in one of the seating areas to make a phone call and to just soak up the sight of sunlight on leaves. This is something I starve for in my life bouncing between Brooklyn and Manhattan. It’s one of the most gorgeous sights on earth, and this peaceful garden filled my soul up to the brim. Then a groundhog came out from under the porch and sat in the sun, to top it all off.

How about you? Been to a good B&B lately? Comment below!

The Traveling Writer Spends Proceeds of Her American Dream

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The Traveling Writer Goes to a Music Festival -- Her First Ever!

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I’d like to divert your attention momentarily from Barcelona to Rhode Island, where I attended a music festival over the Labor Day weekend. It was the biggest gathering of Louisiana musicians outside of Louisiana. It was my first music festival ever--that's if you don't count the concert I went to in the Bronx when I was 14. When the first act came on stage, people on every blanket around me and my friend Rich lit up or downed some pills with alcohol, or all of the above--but you know what I'm talking about : )

This RI music festival was so much fun!

At the ticket counter, I could see that nobody was going to take him- or herself too seriously this weekend. 

The black-and-white checkered sunglasses make the look.

Or maybe it's the Mary Janes...

When I walked across the field to the dance tent and heard Zydeco music kick in, my heart—no kidding—leapt for joy. Zydeco is THE most infectious dance music in the world. I took a Zydeco dance lesson with the accompaniment of the Zydeco Hogs. I highly recommend their recordings. Your feet will begin to bop in spite of yourself. It won't stop there. Knees, hips, shoulders are quick to bop.

The washboard player herself can't resist dancing to the Zydeco.

I also danced to Steve Riley’s music. This is him as a child.

 I particularly enjoyed CJ Chernier & the Red Hot Louisiana Band, who is carrying on his father’s tradition. What a fantastic showman CJ is! And honey, he and his band are red hot. He loves people, loves to give his audience a good time, and gets the musicians and the crowd all riled up : )

Blues, Zydeco, country, Western, bluegrass, Cajun: the Rhythm and Roots festival in RI has it all. Sign up for it as soon as you can!

One show had some musicians that you could look at and tell: they had traveled the back roads of the bayous to play at dance halls for the last 50 years. They were goooood!

A group called Faux Paws was extraordinary. Young musicians on their way to being legendary, in search of their American Dream

I truly enjoyed the show on Sunday called “Sunday School with Christine Ohlman, Rebel Montez and the Sin Sisters.” I wondered if this was an ironic title, whether a coven of witches would show up.

The Sin Sisters, back-up vocals for Christine Ohlman.

 Christine Ohlman and Rebel Montez

Turns out Christine is my kind of Christian. With back-up singers called the Sin Sisters, how could she not be? She defies any pigeon hole of Christianity anybody, including church ladies, could try to wedge her into. She’s singing truth according to her artistic insights, free in God's great artistic freedom to not try to meet expectations of what she should look, act, or sing like. She’s a singer, songwriter, guitarist, recording artist, and music scholar. Her nickname is "The Beehive Queen.” I also approve of her shades.

She treated us to one bluesy, gutsy, beautifully rendered song after another. And she started me on a trail of other artists. She referred to Aretha Franklin, Percy Sledge, Ben E. King and Curtis Mayfield. All treats to be enjoyed because Christine played some of their songs and credited them with enthusiasm.

The Traveling Writer Searches

I love to be not only on a music trail but a reading trail as well. A writing friend recommended George Orwell's "All Art is Propaganda" and that led me to his "Homage to Catalonia" and "Down and Out in Paris and London." I heard of Tracy K. Smith because she was a recent Poet Laureate of the U.S., and that led me to her memoir. I recently enjoyed Doris Kearn Goodwin's "Lincoln," and soon that will lead me to her book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and World War II.

I love these avenues of exploration. How about you? You following any trails lately? Comment below!

The Traveling Writer vs. Kids in Barcelona

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Persistence in Search of the American Dream

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Dear fellow adventurers,

Please take a look at a fun (nearly manic) essay I wrote about perseverance, in which I admit to many things, including the idea that I may be more talented at perseverance than anything else in life : ) It's here, on ChangeThis.com, also known as CEO Reads.

Also, I’m quoted recently in The Washington Post travel section, in an article about rental car mistakes to be avoided (i.e., the one I made). Check it out here. 

Now, for some photos of Barcelona, a spectacularly beautiful city. Then this week’s story – see exactly how some other Spanish kids exhibited their disrespect to me.

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These pics are all from the Plaça Milicia del Desconegut. Styles from different periods of Barcelona's history stand shoulder to shoulder.

A mysterious doorway -- ooooo, what Catalan princess swooned here for her crazy Spanish suitor?

Catalan flags draped on balconies in the plaza.

Great hulking buildings -- what scenes of human travail has this one witnessed?

The Traveling Writer Resumes Her Theme

My friend May, a professor of economics and avid writer herself, replied to my last post that I was making a generalization about Spanish children. I agree with her that generalizations are dangerous to make, especially about people—not only dangerous for the people being stereotyped but also for the person making the stereotype. Generalizations / stereotypes cut us off from the richness and variety and truth of the situation.

But today I’ll tell you about some other kids in Barcelona that I taught and what happened. I’ll also quote two other adults who work with Spanish children. Then we’ll agree to not generalize about all Spanish kids.

While I lived with the 3 feral boys, some friends of their family stopped by. They seemed like nice folks, nice kids. They wanted me to teach their two girls English twice a week, on their lunch break from school. My employers said OK, so I said OK, very glad to have 30 euros in my pocket after every lesson.

Then the families stood around talking to each other in Catalan, and I just stood there, being polite and smiling and not understanding a word. Then one of the two girls I’d be teaching began doing something I’d never seen before, and it horrified me.

She lay down on the tile floor on her back, and lifted her feet up toward her father’s legs, and very slowly and incredibly gently lowered the soles of her feet onto his thighs. It wasn’t so much the action itself as her attitude. She exuded disrespect – she was doing this to lower her father. To me it was quite clear. We all read people’s attitudes every day. I think that I can read as well as the next person and that you would have gotten the same impression.

But I had agreed to teach, and I thought I might be able to handle two girls better than three boys that operated like a pack of wolves.

So I picked the girls up from school a few days later.

We walked toward their house, which was high on a hill and overlooked the blue Mediterranean Sea. To get there, we had to pass a fenced-in pasture where Calçot, a donkey, lived all alone. (His name means Green Onion in Catalan, by the way). There was tall grass along the fence, and some of it had turned brown in the intense autumn sun.

I walked ahead of the two girls, who kept a leisurely pace behind me. They weren’t in a big hurry to do more schoolwork, that’s for sure.

Well, the lesson went pretty well. The younger girl started to put her feet on me under the dining room table and I grabbed her ankle and said “No!” very firmly. She tried again another day, but on this particular day I didn’t feel her feet brushing my leg any more. The younger girl was very reluctant to participate in the games,  was slithery on the couch, made it clear she didn't much care. But with cajoling we got through the games in English that I had prepared. The older daughter seemed to have much more fun--and less of an issue with showing disrespect.

When the mother arrived home from work, I asked the girls to do the games again, to show their mom they had learned something. Then she paid me, and the 30 euros felt like bliss in my pocket. I scooted down the hill, past Calçot, and arrived on the terrace of the boys’ house with time left in the day to write.

As I wrote, I paused and touched my hair. I felt something prickly stuck there. It was bits of dried grass. How’d that get there, I wondered to myself. Then I felt another piece.

I jumped to my feet. There were bits of dead grass on the back of my head and the back of my clothes, from head to toe.

Those girls. They just had to show disrespect to an adult. It was their biggest preoccupation, evidently.

The Traveling Writer Persists in Search of the American Dream

I vowed to never walk ahead of them again.

But those 30 euros were wonderful. I would teach them again. And I would insist that those feet not rest any part of my body.

Now I’ll tell you about two other adults I talked to about the disrespect they experienced from Spanish children. One was my pastor at a church in a neighborhood of Barcelona called Gracia. The church was Eglise de Gracia, a play on the neighborhood name and the grace of God. The pastor’s name was David, and I asked him for advice to deal with the 3 boys I lived with and their disrespect.

“I used to coach my sons in football,” he said. Football is known as soccer in the U.S. Barcelona has a world-famous soccer team.  “I did it for two years, but the boys I coached were so disrespectful to me that I had to give it up.”

So there’s that. And there’s the quote I gave you in the last post, from a Barcelona native: “Los niños en España respetan nada.”

And then there’s the beautiful American woman I met at church, Stephanie, who translated David’s excellent sermons from Spanish to English for me. She was a teacher in an elementary school in Barcelona. She said the disrespect was constant, viral, feral, and hopeless. 

“I just do the best I can,” she admitted, “but it’s really awful, and awfully hard on me.”

That’s how I felt too. Next post, in two weeks: more stories of disrespect. Then maybe we’ll move on. How about you? Do you insist, like my friend May, that I ought not to make generalizations about Spanish children, or even just Barcelona children? We agreed at the top not to generalize, right? Okay, shall we stick to that? : ) Comment below!