June 10 Photo: Best Bit of My Weekend

This weekend was a very busy one for my family. On Friday morning, we drove down to Pennsylvania in anticipation of my brother-in-law’s graduation from Army War College on Saturday. On Saturday afternoon, we toured the grounds of the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC) near the War College campus. My son was fascinated by the tanks and helicopters; my husband was fascinated by the historical and technical information about each display; my daughter was fascinated by the bunnies running around in the field amidst all the artillery; and I was mostly just happy that everyone else was interested and entertained. On Sunday, we drove down to Annapolis for a quick visit with friends of mine who live in that area. We arrived a bit early for our lunch date, so we took advantage of our free time to wander through the harbor area and take in some of the sights. It was an unexpected pleasure, and it was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend for me, simply because of its unexpectedness.

One of my favorite moments from that little sojourn was a visit to the Alex Haley memorial square right on the waterfront. There is a beautiful statue of Haley sitting with a book in his lap, reading to three small children who are sprawled at his feet in rapt attention. My son looked dubiously at Mr. Haley but eventually shook his hand solemnly (judging but the shiny patina on his right palm, that’s a pretty common occurrence). And my daughter promptly crawled up to one of the children and plopped down next to him as if she wanted to listen to the story, too.

It was such a lovely and unexpected moment. There were many wonderful bits of our weekend, but I have to admit that this was one of the best.