Extreme Gratitude

Extreme Gratitude
I first would like to express my extreme gratitude to Larry and Gale Miller for providing me with this opportunity. I am one who had never really traveled very much and had only seen the world through pictures and the stories of others. I come from a family of ten children where going to the McDonalds was considered the family vacation and although I loved the taste of those fresh French Fries they never brought me to tears. But then to be given such an amazing gift as this I became teary eyed a couple of times while on this trip. Both because of the amazing historical events that happened there along side with the notion that I was standing in these historically altering places because of someone's amazing generosity.
Gene kept using the phrase a "religious experience" and I had several while on this trip. The First and foremost has to be standing in Independence Hall. I stood there and closed my eyes and just listened imagining the sounds of John Adams and Ben Franklin pleading their case for Independence. What a phenomenal feeling to be standing in that room. The second would be going to Plymouth Rock. While standing along the shore I tried to imagine the Mayflower pulling into the bay. It was remarkable for me to think that this is where this great nation of ours started. There is a line from the movie "Good Will Hunting" where Robin Williams is telling Matt Damon’s character that no matter how smart he is he would never know how the Sistine Chapel smells by reading about it in a book. This is how I felt as I smelled that salty sea air and touched the water and ran my hand through the sand. I had seen this place in a book and even tried to describe it to my students. But standing there imagining I was back in 1620 when the Pilgrims first walked off the Mayflower and touched that heavenly soil for the first time. For those Pilgrims who were searching for that religious freedom I too shared that "Religious Experience" and then was over whelmed by a sense of patriotism and I couldn't help but think of my own religion and the freedoms that I now enjoy because of the great sacrifice of the Pilgrims. My third religious experience came from walking the grounds at West Point. Maybe it has extra significance because we are currently in a war and this is where our best and our brightest are trained to help retain the freedoms I so gratefully enjoy. It was fun to think about how West Point started during the Revolutionary War and continues today. It was pretty moving to stand at the top of the fort just above West Point and look over the Hudson River just as George Washington had. Another of my favorite things about West Point was to walk down trophy point where there were canons from our enemies from every conflict dating back to the Revolution.
These were just a few of many of the “religious experiences” as Gene would put it that I experienced. I will be able to take them and share them with my students hoping to ignite a passion in them for the History that Larry loved. I would like to just express once again my gratitude to Larry Miller for providing me with this opportunity.