On our way home from the trip to Hanging Rock we stopped off at a couple of thrift shops in Lexington and Asheboro. We also got a little bonus thanks to Judy listening to NPR.
This isn't road construction. It's the traveling exhibit of our national treasure, the Library of Congress. Judy heard on the radio that they would be at the Asheboro library Saturday. We found it a couple of blocks off of Old U.S. 1 in the downtown section.
The exhibits were displayed in a specially designed tractor trailor.
Gateway to Knowledge was the theme.
The Library of Congress was founded by President Thomas Jefferson, and a large portion of the core of its collection consists of his own personal library. It was donated after a fire destroyed most of the original volumes.
His statement, "I cannot live without books," could have been uttered by any member of my own family.
This mural on the truck's exterior show a sampling of the displays inside. And yes, that's Spiderman. One feature was the original draft for the first issue of the Marvel superhero.
This quote by James Madison is powerful and frightening at once. I wonder what Madison, Jefferson, and other founding fathers would think of the state of our nation now. The twin threats of ignorance and ideology make an educated and informed citizenry more indispensable than ever before.
I feel that Jefferson was a great visionary, whatever his personal faults may have been. He purchased the Louisiana Territory, then commissioned Captains Lewis and Clark to explore the vast region that would one day allow our nation to stretch "from sea to shining sea." I love his convictions, expressed below, that memory is the core of history, and that shared memories constitute the core of a common national past.
If he realized the importance of knowing history in the early years of our republic, how much more important is it now, some 235 years later? This is precisely why I taught American history to my third graders each year.
The display board pictured here shows how a technique called "hyperspectral imaging" uncovered a fascinating secret in Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence. He had unintentionally written fellow subjects, but upon realizing we would no longer be subjects of a king, he changed it to fellow citizens. Shades of CSI?
Yes, our visit to the Traveling Library of Congress was an unexpected pleasure and bonus to conclude our 36 hour trip. Did I just say 36 hours? Whew! I can't believe we did all that.
I'm sure Thomas Jefferson would be duly impressed.
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