Salem, Day 200:07 Oct 28 2008
Times Read: 732
We woke up around 8:00 on Saturday, had coffee and bagels from the “Complimentary Breakfast” set up in our room, got ready for the day and we were out by 9:00.
Drove into Salem, found parking quite easily and hit the town. Our first stop was the NPS Maritime History area. I thought that there would be an extensive collection of material since Salem was such a large shipping and whaling port in the 19th century, but I was disappointed. They have a small visitor center, several buildings and a reproduction merchant ship. But, of course, there were separate fees for each thing and long lines. So we just walked around and then went on to the House of the Seven Gables.
As we got to the House of the Seven Gables, we were immediately preceded by 3 full tour busses. This made the line for admission VERY long. As the tours are done by set times, we would have had to wait about 2 hours before being able to go on the tour….So we elected to bypass this as well!
We spent the rest of the morning going through the various shops on Pickering Wharf. We got into Laurie Cabot’s shop again, after a bit of a wait in line where we had some great conversations. I even had a chat with one of Laurie’s students regarding VR. He visits but does not have a profile. I encouraged him to sign up so I hope to see him here! Gina bought a book and a CD of meditations and Laurie Cabot was signing various items, so we did got to sit down with her and have a chat. She seems like an amazing woman!
On our way to find somewhere to have lunch we passed by the memorial for those put to death during the Witch trials of 1692. This is adjacent to a 17th century graveyard. We were appalled by the behavior of people in this area. There were literally hundreds of people trampling through the graveyard, dropping their trash and behaving very inappropriately. In addition, people were using the memorial stones for the various victims as lunch counters, storage areas for their crap, letting their kids climb all over them. It was very sad, but a definite display of how our society views the past as “Entertainment”, rather than something to learn from.
We had a nice lunch at a little Thai restaurant and then headed out for the afternoon. We went through quite a few more shops, got t-shirts for our Daughter and her Boyfriend who watched the animals for us, as the kennel we normally use was closed. Got some gifts for some friends of Gina and some other stuff.
We next went to see a performance titled “Cry Innocent”, which is a theatrical rendition of the Trial of Bridget Bishop. This started in the street with the “Arrest” of the Actress portraying Goodwife Bishop and proceeded through the streets to the old Town Hall, where the “Trial” was recreated. They presented the actual evidence given at the preliminary hearing and the audience served as “jury” and voted whether to indict or release Bridget Bishop. The audience was given an opportunity to ask questions of the various “witnesses”. The stupidity of the average person amazes me. One person asked “Why are you charging her with witchcraft when you say the Devil has hold of her…Why not charge the Devil? He’s a man and you just want to hate women”. To this the actress playing Bridget Bishop yelled at her “What are you talking about? How can you charge the Devil? When’s the last time you have seen the Devil around town?” It is amazing how profoundly dumb people can be.
After the presentation we mad a few last stops and then headed to dinner. We ate at the Legal Seafood in the North Shore mall. It was an awesome meal. We all started with Clam Chowder, Gina and Dave split an order of Steamers as an appetizer and I had Wellfleet Oysters on the half-shell. For entrée Gina and Dave had stuffed lobster and I had Scrod. I also had 2 Sam Adams Octoberfest beers! MMMMM!
Full and tired we headed back to the hotel and tried to stay up for the Phillies game. The rain delay and the full day meant we fell asleep!
COMMENTS
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BubbleGumClaudia
02:56 Oct 30 2008
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO