George Washington Slept Here

   We went from "Polar Vortex" conditions to a balmy 56 degrees and rain all day yesterday. The Mr. and I  decided to take a drive to a town known for its well maintained centuries old homes - Wethersfield, CT.  

  The town, founded in 1633–34, has its niche in history, being “Ye Most Ancient Towne” in Connecticut. Over 150 of it's distinctive old Colonial homes still stand as a symbol of  its heritage since the early days of its founding more than 375 years ago.

   We visited in the off season, meaning the museum houses are only open for tours by appointment or on  special occasions.  So, we weren't able to go inside.  All are close together, however. We grabbed some breakfast and walked between, in and around rain puddles and snow melts to take some pictures.  While other continents can boast much older ancient structures, here in New England I still marvel at the homes that withstand the elements and other tests of time for hundreds of years. The design of homes haven't changed much over the centuries either. 

The Webb House -  built in 1752 by Joseph Webb.   A young and successful merchant, he hired Judah Wright to frame a stylish three-and-a-half story house and shop with a massive gambrel roof that provided greater upper-floor storage for Joseph’s trade goods.  It was also probably used as the sleeping quarters for the household’s enslaved Africans.  In May 1781, Gen. George Washington spent five nights in the house.  Here, in one of the front parlors, Washington met with the French general Comte de Rochambeau to plan a joint military campaign that led to victory at Yorktown and American independence. 

 To see the interior, click on the link highlighted above.

Beautiful brownstone steps and foundation blocks...  

Brownstone was a popular, durable building material used in many places

Many of you are familiar with the brownstones in  brooklyn and NYC...

and one of the main quarries back in the day is located right here

in Portland, Connecticut, now a recreational water park.

   Pineapples were a sign of welcome in the early colonies and continue to be a popular element in decor today. Visiting was the main form of entertainment and sharing of news, making hospitality in  that period vital. The way a woman presented her "food" declared her personality and her family's status. There were, in fact, competitions of this nature between the women, creating elaborate table displays with what they were able to acquire. If she could produce a pineapple for her company to enjoy, it was a  highly regarded gesture.  At that time, pineapples came on ships from the Caribbean and those trade ships sailed right into the cove mentioned below. 

 

The Deane House,  built in 1766,  was the home of Silas Deane, the first diplomat for the United States. 

Note the large size of the windows and front door.. This surprised me, as one would think those features would be smaller to keep out the New England weather.  I believe I read that  the doors were made so wide because in those days wakes were held in the deceased person's home and the casket needed to be able to fit through the door.  The large windows were a status symbol, as glass was scarce. The wealthy had the economic ability to install them.

Beautiful old glass like this cannot be duplicated and is prized among 

antique and history enthusiasts.  These particular windows have a leaden hue...

These homes have many layers of (original?) paint and hardware.





BUTTOLPH-WILLIAMS HOUSE -  Built for Benjamin Belden around 1715, this house - now a museum - provided the setting for Elizabeth George Speare's award-winning novel, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which depicts a young woman's encounter with superstition and intolerance
 in a 17th century New England town.

Note the smaller window size in these houses...

I Love the simplicity of this door.

More houses heading toward the cove...

 

The Cove and Warehouse...

Once part of a thriving commercial center, the warehouse located on the cove - now housing a Wethersfield Historical Society maritime exhibit - contains reminders of the West Indies trade that flourished in Wethersfield from 1650 to 1830. Merchants exported lumber, grain, onions, salted beef, fish and pork in exchange for salt, sugar, molasses and rum from the Caribbean. 

We also drove through the ancient burying ground -

"The quaint, often poetic, inscriptions found on the headstones in this historic burial ground tell poignant tales of the demise of loved ones. The skills of a dozen different Connecticut Valley stone carvers are represented here. The earliest one - Leonard Chester's table stone - dates from 1648."

 

Many stones had this face or a variation  of it on them...

An Angel?  The Sun?  A Spirit Guide?

If you care to stay for a while among these colonial treasures,
there is a bed & breakfast right in the heart of it all -

The Silas Robbins House

Silas Robbins, an owner of the seed business Johnson, Robbins and Co., built the large house in 1873.
It is now renovated and  available for weddings, special occasions and as a B & B. 

*LOVE* the front door!

A Soldier's Perspective

If you come here often

you may have caught a few posts  here by my cousin

who was stationed in Afghanistan.

His posts are under the label "A Soldier's Perspective"

on the left of this blog.

He arrived home tonight..safe.....

and his children were at the airport to greet him.

Welcome home, Dennis~

More to come....

A Soldiers Perspective - Part 2

I would like to start with thanking you all for the support and encouraging comments, it means a lot to us. It is truly my honor to serve in the US Army. My experience over here has only reinforced in my mind how amazing the United States is, not perfect of course but we are so fortunate compared to most people around the world. Our pets have a higher standard of living than the average Afghan child.

We have been here for about 2 months now. We have settled into our living environment and our work routine as best we can. The altitude still seems to have a negative effect on our energy levels. Many of us have stopped taking our malaria pills because we are just tired of feeling ill every day. The small exchange on Camp has a lot more items on the shelves now that the border of Pakistan is opened again. The Green Bean Coffee shop is still not open, I’m not sure why, so I have learned to like the Mess Hall coffee. In our spare time we have been building a running track around the camp, the tread mill gets old after a while.

We also are putting together a volunteer fire fighting team since the camp has no real fire department.

 I will say again that the Internet is our lifeline to home and family! I spend a lot of my free time on Skype with my Family or Facebook keeping up with friends at home.

Chuck Yeager and his wife came to visit us about a month ago. Things were kind of HOT over here when he came to visit so he was literally risking his life to raise our morale. Thanks Chuck!

During my interaction with the Afghan Army I have gained a great deal of respect for them, they are smart, tough, eager to learn, and devoted to the future of Afghanistan. The majority of the Afghan Army respects and appreciates what we are trying to do for them. There seems to be a small minority in the Afghan Army that resent us and would prefer we leave. The tension level has been rising a bit between us and them with the increased incidents of Afghan Army and Police attacks on coalition forces. I work for a Canadian Commander and most of the forces on this camp are Canadian, however there are forces from all over the world here training the Afghan Army; U.S. forces are a minority at this location.

Our mission doesn’t allow us much interaction with the Afghan civilian population; our contact is predominantly with the Afghan Army. We do spend a lot of time with the interpreters and they give us some insight into the Afghan civilian life. Most of our interpreters want to move to America, which in itself says volumes to me.

 The People in Afghanistan clearly live a much lower standard of living compared to what we are accustomed to. Most of their houses are constructed of mud and rock. Food is sold along the roadside in small stands and shops;  fresh cut meat hangs in the markets unrefrigerated. Small children are running around on the main streets unattended. Traffic seems to have no rules or enforcement. When we drive thru the streets it’s hard to tell how the adults feel about us, they pretty much just look.  The children on the other hand have various reactions to our presence. Some children wave and give us the thumbs up while other flip us the middle finger and sometimes throw rocks; I’m not sure what to think about all that but it’s hard to know what their contact with US force has been like over the past 11 years.   Afghanistan is clearly a complicated and conflicted nation after literally thousands of years of occupation and wars.

I would describe our state of mind as very alert but not afraid. It is hard to explain but you are so focused on the tasks in front of you and attempting to stay aware of your surroundings that you don’t really have time to be in fear. You are constantly watching people, vehicles and the terrain around you for something that might not look right.

We deal with so much just to move around you really don’t have a minute to think about what could happen, or maybe we choose not to? We do tend to joke around some which seems to defuse stress or fear. If you heard some of our discussion prior to going into dangerous situations it would probably seem odd or inappropriate given the environment but it is just a form of pressure release if that makes any sense. A typical convoy outside the wire (outside of our camp) requires putting on about 75+ lbs. of combat gear, carrying a rifle and a pistol, pre-movement planning and briefs, communications check, vehicle checks, reading the latest Intel reports and climbing into 10 ton armored vehicles. Just climbing in and strapping into our trucks is a workout wearing all of our gear.

I think it is important to let you all know that when it comes to your tax dollars I have seen daily how much better our equipment has become and it is saving our lives every day, for that I thank you!

Thanks again for all your support, I will send my cousin Karen another update in month or two, keep sending her any question you have and I will do my best to answer them.  - Dennis


A Note from Karen:  I can't thank my wonderful readers enough for all the encouragement and support you have given my cousin in his first post, and I hope you will continue in this second installment. I am amazed at what these men and women are doing over there under difficult circumstances, and how much of their regular lives they give up to do so, always in danger.  Yet none have a negative attitude, all I've come to know are proud to serve their country.  I don't think I could walk in their shoes...  Dennis's oldest daughter will graduate HS in just a few days - it's not possible for him to jet home to see it.   This is just one example of the thousands of sacrifices that are made.

 If you have questions for the soldiers, send them to me at karenthisoldhouse@hotmail.com or leave them in the comments section below this post and they'll be answered by Dennis in the next installment.   Thank you for your time - and if you're so inclined, spread the word of this post, lets show these guys we appreciate them.

A Soldier's perspective - Part 1

 

My Name is Dennis P. , I grew up in Connecticut, and I am a Major in the United States Army currently serving at a Camp  near Kabul, Afghanistan. I have almost 28 years of service in the U.S. Army, 12 of those years are active duty the rest I served as a member of the Army National Guard. My cousin Karen asked if I would write a little something about being a Soldier over here so what follows is my experience so far.

I arrived just over two weeks ago. I spent a about a month and a half training in preparation for this mission which will last 6-9 months. This is my first trip to Afghanistan. I am part of an 18 Soldier team that will work as trainers and mentors for the leadership of Afghan Army K*****ks (equivalent to US Army Battalion, approximately 800 soldiers) as they prepare to deploy to their areas of responsibility. This is in preparation for turning all security responsibilities over to the Government of Afghanistan.

The trip to Camp ***** started from Fort Dix NJ and took 6 days with several stops along the way. One of our stops was at an Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.  My brother Andy is a contractor there so I was able to visit with him for a couple days. Camp *******  is 8.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time and the elevation is almost 6,000’ above sea level. With the jet lag, climate change and daily malaria pills we all felt like a soup sandwich for at least the first week making our RIP (Relief In Place) challenging. During the RIP the team that was on mission turns responsibility over to our team. Within 2 days of arrival at Camp *****  we were actively mentoring our Afghan Army counter parts. For me that meant joining up with the Afghan Battalion XO (Executive Officer), an Afghan Army Major, and mentoring him utilizing an interpreter. Adding to the challenges I already mentioned was the culture shock. Fortunately our training prepared us well for the cultural differences. Getting thru the first week was mentally and physically very challenging.

Afghanistan is a completely different world. The climate is very dry, lots of dust and smoke in the air. They burn everything, no EPA here so breathing includes lots of coughing even for the non-smokers. The streets are very congested with cars, motorcycles, bicycles, mules, school kids etc… Many of the children come out to the street when we are around to ask for water and treats occasionally the kids throw rocks at us. Over all it seems that the population supports what we are here for. The Afghan populations living conditions are very different than ours, most of them living very primitive lives compared to what we are accustom to.

 "home"  

Life over here so far is like a different planet. I don’t go anywhere without at least one loaded weapon at my side. Everyone carries a gun over here, including civilians. As you can imagine you don’t have much privacy. The food is OK. We have a small gym on the camp and a Morale and Welfare (MWR) building with TVs, pool tables, books, movies etc… The internet is very slow, 256-512K, but it is our lifeline to family and friends back home. The post office is open about once a week for a few hours if there is someone available to man it and the roads are open for travel. We have a Post Exchange (PX) trailer to get little items like toothpaste, soap, snacks etc… The PX has had pretty low inventory as a result of certain boarder closures. The camp is setting up a Green Bean, the Army version of Starbucks, soon which is a good thing because the Mess Hall coffee is a bit rough. Well I hope I have painted a good picture of my first few weeks in Afghanistan, I’m sure my cousin Karen will include some pictures.

From Karen:  I hate war, but I fully support the troops who are giving up big chunks of their family time, their "civilian" careers, their normal life, and for some, their actual life... for our country, for our people, for our safety.  Through my cousin's generosity in sharing with us, I'm hoping to provide an outlet to honor what they are doing and to show them our gratitude.  I'm hoping Dennis will keep us posted now and again.  Please feel free to use this comments section to send a message to Dennis and our troops. I know he'll forward the sentiment.