Nashville. Parthenon. And Homage to Athena.

The Parthenon, Nashville.

I've drove by Centennial Park many times in Nashville. It is after all located in the uber-hip West End part of Nashville. Not too far from the fave foods of P. F. Chang's. And not too far of a long drive from the Tennessee PTA office over on Acklen either.

Well the family and I were in Nashville yesterday and to spend a little bit of time before heading over to Vanderbilt, we decided to go to Centennial Park, at first, just to walk around. My wife found a lovely swing to sit in and read her book.

My son and I were intrigued by the Parthenon. He always wanted to see the statue. Me being naive on the Parthenon had no idea what statue he was talking about. But I did take this great picture of the Parthenon. This was taken facing generally westerly looking across the park lake. There is a circular drive on the front side where lucky drivers can park their cars and have a short walk to the entrance. So, David and I decided to hike over to the Parthenon and see what was inside this amazingly constructed replica. I say westerly above to point out that the front of the building faces east. Which is the direction Athena faces.

What I discovered inside was a little bit unsettling. After all, I grew up instilled that Nashville was the belt buckle of the Bible belt. The honest-downhome-goodness of country music. More Southern than Global. So Nashvillians thought of their fair city as the Athens of the South? And to pay homage to that they decided building a replica of the Parthenon with a big statute representing a mythical god holding another mythical god along with Medusa and a serpent was a good thing? Well, we all have our little quirks I suppose. But as I say in the end of this post, what a gift to the city in educational value about learning history and culture.

So after perusing a lovely art gallery on the 2nd floor -- well worth the 6 dollars admittance fee to view the gallery by the way -- we climbed the steep stairs to the 3rd floor.

A 42-foot statute placed on a massive marble pedestal, gilded in gold (the real stuff) faced east protected by massive 1-foot-thick, 7.5 ton each bronze doors. Wow. I'll let the pictures below tell their story.

The architecture of the Parthenon is a real joy to see. One really has to go inside to see the artistic touches in completing this building. The amount of money sitting in one spot in the form of the Athena statue is amazing to see. The historical and artistic explanations enlightens many about the past Greece culture that has affected our society so much.

College Testing Adventures

Today, David drove the short distance to the GRE testing center. I recalled my two testing adventures: as a high school junior to ACT testing and as college senior to GRE testing. Neither was close by nor an easy drive.

I don't recall my sisters having to take the ACT test to get into college. But as luck would have it by the time I reached upper high school status, I did. Way back then, there weren't encouragements to study for the test or to take it again. It was a one-shot deal. At least, that is how our high school counselor sold it.

So the nearest testing center, in those days of paper tests, was 95 miles away. It didn't occur to me to see if anyone else was taking the test the same day in order to carpool. And in hindsight, my Dad wished he would have drove instead of sending me solo.

95 miles. To put in perspective that's like driving from Chattanooga to Cookeville. In the early morning. Before dawn's early light. And not on a four-lane highway but a roadbed covered with asphalt and no shoulder. Just a sharp dropoff. A Kansas farm to market road.

On this narrow asphalt road with no shoulder, the front tire had a blowout. As if driving early morning at age 17 by yourself rushing to get to a test wasn't stressful enough. So, not having a place to pull over and being on just the downside of a hill just barely out of sight for oncoming drivers, I began changing the tire.  Thank goodness no one popped over that hill.

Back on the road, I arrived late to the testing center with dirty hands and wondering if this trip was worth the trouble.

As expected, my test results were not indicative of what I really knew. And a few colleges rejected me based on those scores.

Now to my GRE adventure. Well, first, a lot of blame fell on me. I didn't take advantage of the studying groups before the test. And I didn't get to my room to sleep until about 4 AM. It was a terribly mixed-up emotional night for me. At 6 AM, I was roughly woken up by my friend.  I wandered outside and somehow in my mind within the two hours, a terrible ice storm had come up and the roads were frozen solid. But I was told that happened way before in the night.

We had to drive 50 miles in the dead of winter on the frozen Iowa plains, freezing temps, and ice-packed highway to the GRE testing center. I don't remember how bad the roads were.  I slept.

I finished my test in 1 hour and 30 minutes. The fastest time ever at that time. Too bad my scores weren't indicative of my true intellectual value. After begging KU to let me into grad school, I was admitted as a probation student solely based on my writing sample, faculty recommendations, and all of the collegiate groups I was active in.  But KU found out that I was in reality a really good student and the probation was dropped in mid-fall semester.

JFK and the American Political Watershed

Well, it has been a while since I posted on here. Four major things going on at once makes my blog, especially this, my hard-edged blog, back burner existence.

Today, everyone knows in the United States by the wealth of media and social media information that today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of a young President.  Forever scarred into American memory.

JFK poured so much into the American soul: ask not what your country can do statement; Peace Corps, NASA; nuclear arms control. We still have these today.  We as a country have been blessed by their presence.

After making the right decisions over the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK was a certifiable political rock star. His approval ratings in February 1963 was sky high over 70 percent.

But by the summer of 1963, his ratings had plummeted.  Unknown to him, as there was no crystal ball, he had no idea that the Republicans in 1964 would nominate someone easily beatable in Goldwater. JFK's sudden drop of approval came in large part in the hands of Democrats in the South. JFK had made a speech equating civil rights as an American moral issue and that black men and women should have those rights. This was said in the midst of the Jim Crow South. De facto American apartheid. JFK backed publicly on TV legislation that would become, after his death, the Civil Rights Act.

The razor-thin victory in 1960 haunted JFK's advisers; losing the Democratic vote in the South was not a strategy for re-election in 1964.  Despite the haranguing, JFK's advisers were not supporting any trip to Texas, especially Dallas. Adalai Stevenson was pelted with angry taunts just a few weeks before JFK's fateful Dallas visit.  But Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson insisted that JFK had to go to Texas; the vice president's home state.  The 1964 primaries would be starting in February, and the state of Texas support had to be shored up was Johnson's line of reasoning. So to Texas, JFK went.

His death was the watershed moment of the body of American politic. Nothing has really been the same ever since. I would even say the decline of America began in November 1963.

The rebellious movement of the Sixties was tantamount to societal disillusionment.  Individual greed over societal compassion that started in the Seventies, and still evolving today, grew out of that disillusionment.

My apologies to Don McLean--Bye bye American Pie, Drove my Chevy to levee but the levee was dry on the Day America Died.