Outdoors and Indoors

You wouldn't know it to look at me, but I am a believer in life-long learning (despite my own having stopped somewhere around age nine, on a good day), and whether you prefer indoors or outdoors, or some combination of both, there are ample opportunities all month long to broaden our horizons if, perhaps that should be capitalized, IF, we are willing to do so.  

We are a little more than halfway through a calendar of events The Last Green Valley calls Walktober 2013. It's more than just hiking and exploring unfamiliar places and spaces; it's proof positive that real eduction is often what you learn after you know it all.

I discovered last Saturday on a visit highlighting the Civil War Memorials in the Yantic Cemetery that there's a former Vice President of the United States interred there. I've mentioned I do a lot of walking and that cemetery is one of the places I've walked by frequently in the last twenty plus years.

But Saturday in addition to seeing the restored Sarah Larned grave marker it was inspirational to make the acquaintance of Lafayette S. Foster, the President of the Senate when Andrew Johnson succeeded the assassinated Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and, elsewhere, to see the final resting place of two US Navy Admirals, who were also father and son-in law (but who never met). Amazing stuff.

Nearly every Walktober event, and we have a ton of them all across the city, is held twice so despite the month being half over, for instance, the Yantic Cemetery tour will also happen this Saturday, the 19th, at 11 AM. And if you missed the first Legend of Uncas Leap, that will be this Sunday at one.

There's something for everyone, to include four-legged friends earlier Sunday morning as A Dawgs Day in the City kicks off, or barks off I suppose, at 9:30 at the Estelle Cohn Memorial Dog Park.

How about a hike along the Norwich Millionaires Mile on Broadway and Washington Street a week from this Sunday, or a visit to The Golden Clock Tower that is our City Hall on Monday, October 28? These walks are part of other chances to appreciate our everyday surroundings as we pass through on our way to other places.

Of course, one of those places should be the Otis Library especially as The Friends of Otis Library are staging their annual Fall Book Fair Friday through Sunday giving all of us a reason to stop in and read up on so many of the memorable moments of history we have here in our own backyard, when we learn to look.
-bill kenny