From Gambier I headed to Akron. This was the farthest north I’d been in Ohio and, instead of walking, I drove around the city. The next day, speaking to students at the university, I told them that – just as my friend claims that every time he watches a baseball game he sees something new – each new city I visit provides me with something I’ve never seen before. In Akron it was a baseball stadium on Main Street (home of the Rubber Ducks) and a church named after a living person: Ernest Angley’s Grace Cathedral. The words appeared not on a small sign planted on the lawn – as you’d find at St. Stephen’s or St. Jude’s – but in large white letters on the façade. Of course, if you found your own church you can do what you want with it – including stamping its walls with your name – but it seemed to go against the Christian ideal of humility.
When I finished I got a number of good questions from the students who had gathered at lunchtime to hear me talk about how I became a travel writer and how I go about writing a travel story. In the first part I mentioned my year in France, including the summer of farm work in Alsace. A faculty member asked if I was familiar with Blonde d’Aquitaine cattle, which one finds in southwestern France. I said I wasn’t and she proceeded to show me a photograph of hers. (In addition to teaching, she runs a farm.) They were very handsome cows and proved that, even at talks, you are often surprised by the new.
