Trip has far exceeded expectations so far ....Weekend playing music at the Zion UCC Peace and Justice event was incredible experience. They welcomed us with open arms! Feel like weve left there with several new and permanent friends. Its really nice to meet other liberal friends in Kentucky!!!!!!! We also discovered the Y in Henderson and we went there twice to swim and shower up. Worked perfectly. Price free with our Y membership. What a great way to travel!!!!! Sun night we ended up at Patchwork Central in Evansville. We werent sure what we were getting into - but it turned out to be a sort of regular church service of misfits. LOL Kind of a community center thats focus is actually helping homeless and poor and providing food (grown themselves) - and showers, etc. We were impressed. Patchwork program theme was The Good Samaritan - and about midway into the speakers speech - a young man in beggars clothing, unshaven and unkept, carrying a big sack of groceries, came into the room and was invited by the speaker to join the group. She continued on with her message - without too much disruption, but everyone was moved by the syncronicity - a homeless person obviously in need, showing up at that exact moment. I felt like an angel was bringing us a BIGGER LESSON. What was it going to be? Anyway, after her speech - we were asked to perform our song....and so we went to the front - and Andy began to sing - Give Yourself to Love - a minute into the song, the young man joined us....and you know Andy - he just kept singing - and they ended up doing a duet - with me in the middle. Every time I moved my hands - he moved his....and by the end of the song - we were good friends. His name - Peter Pan! Andy said to the audience - our message was that we are all in this together - and its about time. Peter Pan then said his message was that we are all children of God! (Hmmmmmm) After sharing a meal with the regulars, we left the evening. Peter Pan was in the kitchen doing dishes. He told me earlier that he had been to ALL the churches in Evansville that day - and NO one had allowed him to stay and sing! He was so happy that we let him sing a long! Amazing grace..... Then Monday we went over the river to Evansville - and found the Four Freedom Memorial right on the Ohio River in downtown Evansville. The monument had come to our attention during the Peace & Justice weekend - which was based on one of the Freedoms - the Freedom from Fear. (The other freedoms are 1) Freedom of Speech 2) Freedom of Religion 3) Freedom from Oppression (Want). We have some research to do - but we believe the four original pillars were taken from an old train station built in Evansville - probably by Andys great great grandfather who started or at least invested heavily in the first railroad that went through Evansville. It so ties us to the past - to see a part of our message to the world being made possible by previous generations of our forefathers. While we were at the Visitors Center at the Monument - we started talking about Andys Great Great Grandfather William Heilman - and the gal there at the Center - said - Oh, we need to put you into contact with the City Historian. So she called him up and he came over and we talked personally to him for about an hour and a half - and really got excited to get busy on the book that is incubating inside me on Heilman and Mullins (Andys great grandfather) - who were major industrialists in Indiana and Ohio and hired thousands and thousands of people (where has manufacturing gone in this country????). Heilman could really be looked upon as absolutely instrumental to the development of Evansville. Also Andys great great grandfather Mullins - owned the largest coal mine in the state of Ohio...so there is a big story here somewhere. We didnt have a chance to go to the Evansville Museum where the Vulcan Statute and Exhibit is located. Vulcan was built by Andys great grandfather Mullins (in Salem OH) and was on top of the Vulcan Plow plant in Evansville for many years. Vulcan Plow was an offshoot of Andys great great grandfather Heilman who was a major industrialist in Evansville in the 1800s. The historian wanted the family to know they were doing good with the statute and taking good care of it. It will be available for many generations to see it into the future. Today we drive on over and spend the night with my brother Jim in Kansas City, KS. Then we will be on the big road - 500 miles a day kind of driving for a couple days with our next big stop in Cody, WY where we . So far we couldnt ask for a better trip. All in all everything has functioned well and is beyond expectations - the car, the connections and our music stuff - so we are in Cloud Nine! On the road again, waymarking/waymarks/WM9KAM_Four_Freedoms_Bicentennial_Monument_Evansville_IN_USA
Posted on: Tue, 22 Oct 2013 14:43:24 +0000
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