Today on the homepage, I have a Cincinnati journal — notes on the Queen City, replete with photos. You may like it: here. Cincinnati is not only a beautiful place, architecturally and naturally, but also a very interesting one, not least from a historical point of view.
On Monday, I had a London journal. Let’s have some mail, in response to it. A reader writes,
Jay,
I spent quite a bit of time in England during my Air Force days. We would go to London whenever we could. It was like Disneyland to us, and the underground was an E-ticket ride.
I understand, completely.
Another reader says, “Dr. Johnson was certainly right.” (Said Johnson: “He who tires of London is tired of life.”) Our reader continues,
I think I made my first visit to London in 1984, and I can’t imagine tiring of it. I wanted to name our son “Heathrow,” but my wife put her foot down. (“Heathrow,” she might have stomached, but when I started talking about “Schiphol” and “Narita” for the next two, she knew better than to start down that path.)
In my London journal, I had photos showing several street signs, interestingly worded. And Heathrow’s father (so to speak)? He forwards a photo that he took in Cambridge. “I’m still puzzling over what this sign means,” he says.
A note from another reader:
If you can (and have not done so), visit All Hallows-by-the-Tower. The church’s history is fascinating. Amongst other items in the museum, you will see the baptismal record of Louisa Johnson (later Mrs. John Quincy Adams). She is one of the two First Ladies who were not born in the United States. You know the other one.
Melania!
In my journal, I had a photo of a home that T. S. Eliot lived in. A reader writes,
My AP English teacher in high school was a Lithuanian woman with a fairly thick accent. I was a math-and-science guy, but she opened me up to literature. Anyway, as we made our way through the course, she would mention Eliot, among others, but I had not yet read anything by him. For at least a semester, I thought she was talking about a woman named Tia Salia. One of the best teachers I ever had.
Wonderful.
Care to end in Nashville? A reader who writes to me about London includes a shot of that city — of Nashville, I mean. “Greetings from the sunny South!” he says.
Whoa, mama. In any event, my thanks to one and all.