He was the dark horse candidate in the 1852, this son of a tavern keeper in rural New Hampshire. He’s still a bit of a dark horse in our national history. Most Americans, if they recognize Franklin Pierce as one of the presidents, cannot place him in the proper era. He served in the decade leading up to the Civil War and was much involved in events leading up to that cataclysmic event. His lack of recognition served us well when we visited the Franklin Pierce Homestead Historic Site. It’s a state park and a National Historic Landmark. We were the only two people on the three o’clock tour and got to linger with our guide far longer than the usual tour schedule permits. And we’ve come away with a deeper understanding of the man and his era.
Ever since its debut on Broadway the two of us have wanted to see “Wicked the Musical”. Today we realized that dream. In the Apollo Victoria Theater in London’s West End we were witness to the incredible prequel to The Wizard of Oz, the story of the Glinda the Good and the Wicked Witch of the West.
London’s National Portrait Gallery’s temporary exhibition, “Six Lives: The Stories of Henry VIII’s Queens” presents an amazing collection of portraits, jewelry, personal effects, books, costumes, and more to illustrate not only the lives of the six women who married the second Tudor king, but the effort across five centuries to keep their memory alive.
The purpose of our trek to Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham in the southwest of London was to see a recently recovered bronze bust of the Emperor Caligula but we discovered so much more in the recently restored 18th Century “little Gothic castle” built by Horace Walpole.
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