Senior University of Greater Atlanta, Inc | | |
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FIELD TRIP
MERCEDES BENZ STADIUM
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FIELD TRIP - THE BREMAN MUSEUM | |
Thirty-six of us enjoyed a morning visit to the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum on Thursday, Aug. 22. We were welcomed in a large reception area by Rabbi Joe Prass, Director, Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education, and Ariana Gil, Group Tour and Volunteer Coordinator. This visit was inspired by the Zoom class, “The Absence of Humanity: The Holocaust Years”, led by Rabbi Prass, that many of us had just completed. | |
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Later we were led thru the museum by docent and SUGA’s own Roy Sobelson. He told us many stories to illustrate the four themes carried out by the Museum: Resourcefulness, Resistance, Rescue, and Resilience. The rooms are full of pictures, captions, and explanations of events and people leading up to, during, and after the Nazi plan to eliminate the Jewish population. Listening and walking through these rooms was difficult but enlightening and necessary to understand the horrible period of history. | |
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Following the Breman trip, Many of us enjoyed lunch together at various eateries after our tour. And many of us plan to return for another visit to this museum and the other exhibits at this place.
WE LOOK
FORWARD TO
OUR NEXT
TRIP!
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A LITTLE QUIZ
NIckNames of Major Cities
Nicknames, whether for people, pets, landmarks or cities, often represent memories and expectations, identity and belonging. In cities, whether complimentary or not-so-much, nicknames can engender feelings of community pride and provide cultural context for people far and wide.
How many of the nicknames below can you link to a U.S. or international city? (Some cities have additional well-known nicknames.)
1. Example: The Big Apple — New York City
2. City of Brotherly Love
3. City of Big Shoulders
4. City by the Bay
5. The Queen City
6. Mile High City
7. The Big Easy
8. LaLa Land
9. Beantown
10. The Big D
11. La Belle Ville
12. Bride of the Sea
13. Auld Reekie
14. City of Dreams
15. Pearl of the Danube
16. The Eternal City
17. City of Gold
18. Brazil’s Locomotive
19. The Window on Europe
20. City of Lights
21. City of a Thousand Minarets
(Answers at the end of Newsletter)
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QUESTION!
IS THE CUSTOMER ISALWAYS RIGHT???
Having spent nearly fifty years in retail store management, I have to question that old saying “The customer is always right”. I have had many occurrences where I must disagree due to some customers trying to take advantage of this old saying. I will give you an example where I had to keep my cool and try to reason with an unhappy customer.
One summer my store was selling charcoal grills. The grills come in large size boxes with some assembly needed. On the box was a picture of a smiling woman putting the grill together with noting on the box that it can be built in less than an hour. Well, after gathering tools and laying all the parts out for a quick assembly, I found that I was cursing the woman on the box. I was in my second hour and nowhere near having the sample grill ready to show.
Later that day, after the grill was on full floor display, I had a gentleman wanting to purchase the grill that I built. I explained to him that the sample grill was not for sale, that all grills came in boxes, and he would have to put it together at home. So, after ten minutes explaining this to the gentleman, getting nowhere, and remembering I should be kind and courteous to him, I sold him my sample grill.
The next morning, I was looking out the store window at the parking lot and I could not believe what I was seeing. The gentleman that bought my sample grill was wheeling it back towards the store, with grill ashes spilling out of it. I immediately went out to stop the man from coming into the store with it. He said he wanted to return it because it did not work, that the steaks just did not taste right cooked on the grill!
Okay. You decide! Would you have accepted the return and given the gentleman a refund? How would I decide this confrontation?
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WHAT DID YOU
DO THIS SUMMER?
Summer Camp at
Lake Chautauqua
Jane McKinzey
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The Chautauqua Institution, established in 1874 in southwestern New York hosts a summer season where people from across the country gather to delve into topics such as the Evolution of the Modern Presidency and the Transformative Power of Music. In August, I attended a week focused on Water: Crisis, Beauty, Necessity. Each morning in the 4,000-seat amphitheater, National Geographic Explorers presented inspiring lectures punctuated with stunning photographs. Among the most interesting were discussions on coral reef regeneration, ice core retrieval, and plastics removal from oceans and other waterways. A particularly memorable lecture by award-winning wildlife photographer Laurent Ballesta described his deep-water Gombessa Expeditions to explore, study, and photograph the Mediterranean Sea. Additionally, for our Road Scholar group, a World Wildlife Fund researcher presented lectures on major river systems, emphasizing efforts to improve natural marine habitats while protecting the livelihoods and cultures of local communities.
Chautauqua’s early history is rooted in adult religious education, and afternoon interfaith lectures linking the spiritual with the week’s topic continue to be popular events. I particularly enjoyed hearing about the non-profit Drink Local. Drink Tap. Inc. which educates and helps develop clean water systems in Cleveland and in Uganda. Other afternoon options included concerts, films, opera, art exhibits, classes, tours, and a riverboat cruise. Outdoor activities such as tennis, canoeing, walking, and biking were readily available as were opportunities for shopping (great bookstore!) and playing card and board games. The rocking chair porch of the historic Athenaeum Hotel overlooking scenic Lake Chautauqua is also a fine place to spend an afternoon! Nightly amphitheater performances included concerts by the Chautauqua Symphony, Rissi Palmer, and most notably Melissa Etheridge and the Indigo Girls.
One friend refers to Chautauqua as my annual week at “nerd camp”! So be it. For an enriching experience learning about current topics, enjoying the arts and rich conversation, and just relaxing, I highly recommend a week at Chautauqua!
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This summer, as I have since 1996, I attended the Mountain Collegium Music Workshop in Cullowhee, NC. This is a weeklong music workshop with about 100 participants who gather to study and play mostly early music (medieval, renaissance and baroque) played on period instruments such as viola da gambas, recorders, sackbuts, cornamuses, cornettos, shawms and a number of other esoteric instruments. | |
The participants practice selected pieces in small groups all week long and at the end of the workshop do a performance for the students and faculty and any local folks who wish to come. It’s a grand experience, studying and playing music 6 to 8 hours a day, although also rather exhausting. It’s particularly good for those musicians who do not have an opportunity to play this type of music with others in their community since early music is not as commonly performed as modern music. In Atlanta we are lucky in that we have several groups who perform early music and I enthusiastically participate in several of them. There are number of unusual instruments that one might see at an early music concert and I’m attaching a photo of me holding a serpent which sounds a bit like a tuba and is in the cornetto family of instruments. | |
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Exploring Magical Norway
June Lester
When I was 9 years old, my 4th grade teacher, Eleanor Newton, read a book to our class about a group of children in Norway during World War II who were part of the resistance to the Nazis and the Quisling regime (On the Edge of the Fjord, by Alta Halverson). The leader of the group was Petra Engeland, and it was the first time I had encountered a book that had a girl as the heroine. Ever since that time, I have wanted to visit Norway, a lifelong ambition that I realized this past summer when my daughter took me on a trip to Norway.
We first visited Oslo, where I was able to spend a half day exploring the Munch Museum, which has the world’s largest collection of works by Edvard Munch; see the Oslo Opera House (built to look like a glacier); and visit the famed Vigeland Park, the sculpture park that is Gustav Vigeland’s life work. From Oslo we traveled to Flam, along the way visiting the Borgund stave church (built around 1200) and riding on the Flam Railway from Flam to Myrdal, reputed to be one of the most beautiful train rides in the world (I would agree). We visited the Briksdal Glacier, had a cruise on the Geiranger Fjord, saw many beautiful waterfalls, and drove through the world’s longest tunnel (24.5 kilometers) twice. Our trip ended in Bergen, where I visited the third largest collection of Munch works, had dinner on the Bryggen harbor front, and ate brown cheese ice cream (sounds awful but is really good).
All in all it was a magical trip---and I checked Norway off my bucket list. There are still many places left on the list, but none have been there as long as Norway. I don’t have the next trip planned yet, but part of the great adventure of travel is deciding where to go, what to see, and how to accomplish all the many details that one must attend to before embarking. I look forward to to hearing from all of you about your bucket list travels!
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Trip to Idaho in June
Madeline Griffin
I went to Idaho for a week in June, along with my friend Amelia and her
granddaughter and husband, Ariel and Ben. I have a goal to visit all 50
states and this was number 45. Amelia and I flew from Atlanta to Boise,
and the young people flew there from Colorado. We met up in the
airport and took off in our rental car. The first night we stayed in
Mountain Home, which is a funny name for a town that has no
mountains! In the evening, we went to Bruneau Dunes State Park to
attend a wonderful astronomy program. We were able to look through
several telescopes, including one that was pretty large. So many stars
to see in Idaho!
The next three days were spent in Twin Falls, with various adventures,
including spending some time at the beautiful Shoshone Falls, which is
higher than Niagara Falls, although not as wide. The falls are in a large
state park with nothing commercial around them. We got up very early
one day to drive to Craters of the Moon National Park, so we could do
some short hikes before the heat was too bad. What a fascinating
place! Lots of lava and a unique ecosystem. We also toured the
Minidoka Internment Camp near Jerome, which is a National Historic
Site. More than 13,000 Japanese individuals were interned there
during WWII. So terrible that this happened!
Our last three days we stayed in Stanley, in the Sawtooth Mountains.
About 120 people live there year-round, but several thousand visit in
the summer. Absolutely gorgeous there. We had two really wonderful
hikes in the area, and saw some beautiful lakes and waterfalls. Stanley
is one of the darkest places in the US, so we saw a lot of stars every
night. On the way to Stanley, we stopped at Ketchum and Sun Valley.
Did you know that Sun Valley was the first ski resort in the US? It was
developed by Averell Harriman, the chairman of the Union Pacific
Railroad, in the 1930s. We took a cable car and then a chairlift to get to
the top of the mountain, where there is a spectacular view. If you have
not been to Idaho, I highly recommend it.
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CALIFORNIA – HERE WE COME!
Gretchen and Bill took another four week long trip during our Spring to Summer Quarter break. We flew to San Francisco, rented a Prius hybrid car (gas being $5+/gallon), and took off traveling. We went North to Napa for wine tasting, then a bit farther for a visit with an old high school friend of Gretchen’s in Ukiah.
Back on the road going South, we enjoyed Monterey’s Aquarium and 17-mile drive there. Continuing down the coast road to Morro Bay, we stayed with another friend. After a lovely time with her, we next stayed in Solvang, a small Dutch village on the coast. Then we spent five days in Anaheim. We had lunch with Bill’s nephew, took a long tour sightseeing in L. A. and marveled at the Crystal Cathedral , now a Catholic Church called Christ Cathedral. Our last stop was in Escondido, near SanDiego, where we stayed with another very dear college friend. She arranged two theater nights for us and a visit to the SanDiego zoo. We also toured the huge Navy aircraft carrier, Midway. Then we flew back home to Atlanta.
In looking back, in spite of getting colds and visiting three “Doc in the Box’s” , we had a beautiful, fun-filled time. The scenery in coastal California is unbeatable and we shivered in cool weather while you roasted in the heat here in Atlanta. It’s also really fun to visit old, old friends who you haven’t seen in years, and may never see again. You take up with them just like you had not been apart for so long. And you also realize, again, what a wonderful country we live in!
We enjoyed our summer. How about you?`
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Cruising Barcelona to Lisbon via France and Italy
Cynthia Forbes
In June I went on a Regent cruise from Barcelona to Lisbon with a friend. The itinerary was different from the usual in that it took us to southern France and Italy before sailing back to Spain and Portugal. The day before the cruise began, we toured Montserrat, a mountain monastery just north of Barcelona where monks have lived since 1025--they're celebrating their 1,000-year anniversary next year! The Black Virgin (La Moreneta) was found in a cave near there in the 800s. There's also a museum with a variety of work by local artists from the mid-1800s to the present as well as very well-known artists, like Picasso, Degas, John Singer Sargent, etc.
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Our first tour stop was the island of Mallorca, Spain, and included a tour of Bellver Castle, with its beautiful views of the sea, and Sa Foradada mansion where, at various times Chopin and George Sand and later Empress Sisi of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 1800s stayed. Sisi was the Princess Diana of her time. We had a lovely Spanish lunch that included paella flavored with squid ink so it was black instead of yellow!
On to Sete, France, and a tour of Arles to see the Roman ruins and then to Saintes Maries de la Mer, capital of the Camargue and a wetland area famous for its pink flamingos, white horses, and black cattle. Next, we sailed into Saint-Tropez, and at the local market, I found a pink bejeweled collar for my dog. She will be the envy of everyone in the dog park! They still remember Brigitte Bardot there since she was really the one that put Saint-Tropez on the map. We had a mistral wind so there was an absolute flotilla of sail boats out and about! (see pic)
On the fourth day, we visited Lucca, a medieval town in Italy surrounded by a massive 16-foot-tall, 23-foot-wide wall. We also passed through Carrera, known for operating its marble quarries since Roman times. The quarries look like snow on the mountain, but it’s all white marble. In Sardinia, Italy, I explored an 11th century church and some first century Roman ruins of a bath house (see pic of mosaic floor and ruin of wall).
Back to Spain, our next stop was Almeria, where I began my 3 days of eating tours. This one was called “Almeria’s Traditional Cuisine.” In the central market, we enjoyed delicious cheeses and sausages/jamon, followed a restaurant visit for tapas and cava wine, followed by the local paella made with yellow rice and seafood. In Malaga, Spain, I went on the “Malaga Gastronomy Route," and guess what? More paella, only this time with yellow rice and chicken! Every place claims to have invented paella, and it was delicious everywhere I had it. But before lunch, we had a tour of the city, one of the oldest in Europe, founded by the Carthaginians. We went up to a viewing point where we could see the bull ring, now mostly used for concerts (see pic). It’s a very beautiful city with lots of fountains.
Our last stop before heading home from Lisbon was in Portimao, Portugal, where my excursion was called “Sample the Traditional Tastes of Algarve”—like I haven’t gotten enough yummy stuff already—but they didn’t serve paella! All in all, it was a delightful trip filled with amazing food and beautiful sites.
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Cruising the Maine Coast - Anita Eidex
This August for our Anniversary, we took our second cruise with American Cruise Lines. Last October, for my birthday, we went with them down the Mississippi River from Memphis to New Orleans. Wonderful, also!).
This time we toured the coast of Maine, an area where we’d never been.
Although Ernesto was “making waves” that affected our itinerary, we did visit all the ports intended. However, since most of them started with B’s - Bangor, Belfast, Boothbay, Bar Harbor, etc., we had a little trouble knowing where we were when. Each was beautiful and interesting. Learned a lot about shipbuilding, lobster industry, history of lighthouses, prohibition (which began in Maine) and lot of the history of that part of New England. Didn't know that Maine had been part of Massachusetts originally! There was a very interesting History teacher aboard, who gave daily lectures.
[Ed. note: Enjoy particularly the picture of the Eidexes "making a new friend," as Anita put it! Created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo, mysterious, whimsical troll sculptures made of recycled wood are tucked throughout the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Find them all, put together the clues and the trolls reveal the secret of "Guardians of the Seeds" which are necessary for preserving the forest's biodiversity of both plants and animals!]
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Watch-Fors and Reminders:
1. Watch for more info about our annual members' meeting on Friday, November 15th, annual SUGA members' meeting. We'll vote on new board members for next year and on any pending by-laws changes. We'll also express our appreciation to all of our instructors and volunteers following classes on Wednesday, November 13th. You can join us! Look for information on signing up soon.
2. Annual Food Drive. SUGA holds an annual food drive to provide goods to the Rehoboth Food Bank. List of goods requested are available during in-person classes. You can also email us and we will send you the list.
3. Reminder that SUGA's financial year now follows the calendar year. We are now registering for winter quarter classes and the annual membership fee will be due at that time. $225 for full year's access to all Zoom and in-person classes.
4. Almost Halloween! Remember to bring left-over treats for our coffee break cache!
5. Reminder that day passes are available at front desk. Put them to good use by inviting friends and acquaintances to "try out" SUGA. (Note: We've added 19 new members this year, but there's plenty of room for more. We are not quite back to pre-pandemic numbers.)
6. Remember that you're welcome to "try out" the Book Club! It will meet after class on Wednesday, November 6th; the selection this time is Horse by Geraldine Brooks. Even if you haven't read the book, you'll hear good conversation and perhaps meet new people.
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Answers to Nicknames Quiz:
1. New York City, 2. Philadelphia, 3. Chicago, 4. San Francisco (also Manila and Melbourne), 5. Cincinnati and Charlotte (also Toronto), 6. Denver, 7. New Orleans, 8. Los Angeles, 9. Boston, 10. Dallas, 11. Montreal, 12. Venice, 13. Edinburgh, 14. Mumbai, 15. Budapest, 16. Rome, 17. Johannesburg, 18. Sao Paulo, 19. St. Petersburg, 20. Paris, 21. Cairo
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Thanks to our Newsletter Editor Jane McKinzey!
You may submit articles now for future editions.
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Senior University of Greater Atlanta, Inc
Sugaatlanta@gmail.com
SUGA IS A 501(C)3 NON-PROFIT
SUGA does not promote, recommend or endorse any product, service of activity other than its educational offerings or activities approved by the Day Trip Committee or Board of Directors.
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