Why not? So I took a photo of my left foot!

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Kaiserslautern, 1971: You can see the Stadt Kaiserslautern Rathaus from the Beethovenstrasse apartment. It is a concrete (pun intended!) expression of the Kaiserslautern slogan of the time, “Was neues in West ist.” [“What’s new in the West.] A handsome, imposing building, it was built on the site of a castle overlooking the town. The citizens of Kaiserslautern are justifiably proud of this striking and modern building. Even after nearly half a century, it’s “lookin’ good”!

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I had good grades in school so got to take Project English, an honors curriculum in which we studied the Transcendentalist writers of the 19th Century. It was heady stuff for 11th graders, and we were spoiled for life with the idealism and Puritan certainty of it all. I know. I’ve talked with classmates who’ve confessed to still having their copies of Emerson’s essays and the poetry of Emily Dickinson. It matched well the Zeitgeist of the 1960s.

evanescence

We had an excellent teacher for the class, but he fell ill. The substitute teacher (also very good) got to cover a section in which we learned about evanescence. To demonstrate the concept in a memorable way, she placed a rosebud in a vase on her desk. The rosebud had just one purpose: to evanesce! But it didn’t. 🙂

On the other hand, half a century later, I remember the experiment and the meaning of the word. Our teacher made the point, even though the rosebud experiment was a failure.