Souvenirs from my trip. I have two. A beautiful Wesclox wind-up alarm clock, and my old fedora from storage. Good clocks are hard to find in this age of quartz. I now have a real clock, assembled in Germany, no plastic parts, no batteries, and a real radio-active glow dial all in a chromed armored case. It emits a real tick-tock and 6-8 turns keeps it working for almost two days. Totally superior technology.
Things I heard that I Like: There are two approaches to geography.
1. The representation of the world and all the phenomena therein – Ptolemy.
2. Do you know the way to San Jose? – Bacharach.
How can the Nile River flow up? Good question because I was researching the mnemonic for directions on a map: North to the ceiling, South to the floor. West to the window, east to the door. My object was to find out why, in every classroom in my life, the door was indeed to the right. And I went to dozens of classrooms. My research was unsuccessful, but I know there is an answer due to:
it can’t be coincidence because of the placement of the blackboards
I don’t recall anyone ever questioning it
if it was widely known, somebody would have made a joke or comment
there was a “light over the left shoulder” old wife’s tale going around
both old and new classrooms followed the pattern.
