This week I was Loving: Piano Camp Edition

When piano camping with my dear friend Kristen,

we put together our brains
[which for many years we have claimed to share,
to the adorable bafflement of the children],

and come up with GENIUS.

We have some good times with sweet littles (and, as was the case this year, the wee  littles), but we also consider it to be a week of refreshment, simply enjoying being in each other's presence after these long years of friendship.

During a piano camp vacation,
there are certain things that always happen,

like extraordinary snacks
[which may or may not lead to
healthy antagonism between the teachers, as in,
"Miss Kristen, did you eat my cucumbers?!"
and of which the children love to take part], 

 late night games [or as late as two people who need to corral small children into wunderkinds in 4 short days can handle],

 and the crafting of dinners beyond belief
["this is the most beautiful plate of food I've ever eaten!!"
being a common piano camp theme].

[Food preparation is key for piano camp success,

and food planning comes first,

before we even think about that piano...]

There is also always her Ben's ice cream, 

for which we always place our order early in the week
[and for which we shall now take a moment of silence,
as it is so good!!!].

Usually there is the exercising [given all the good food eating]

often in the form of walking [since this is one of the tenets on which our friendship was built, years and years ago, along the beach in North Carolina and then through my sweet little Princeton neighborhood].

We walked one morning around her new neighborhood,
and then the next day we walked around the town,

 including the sites on the campus, old and historical.

[Kristen is an excellent teacher in all realms, so she filled me in on the history of this school that began as a girl's school in pre-Civil War days. When Lee's army retreated through this little town and Grant's army was close behind, the girls were trapped and couldn't get to home. Grant unloaded cannons off of wagons, put the girls on them, and had them taken to the nearest available railroad line.]

Then we went further into town, where there's the old tobacco factories, now turned to furniture warehouses, 

 where any style of furniture you want may be found. 

 [I found these chairs, and nearly fell down dead with desire.]

When Kristen needed to return to campus for a business meeting,

 I wandered around the town,
scoping out all the antiques they have for sale.

[I found this panel, and--once again!--nearly fell down dead.]

The next morning we decided our walk of
the day before needed to be one-upped
[speaking of nearly falling down dead].

 We headed out on the High Bridge trail,

 a 5 mile path

 that leads to this bridge, first built in pre-Civil War days,
and burned when Lee's army was trying to get away.

[If you would like to see a depiction of the battle, you should go to the local Riverside Diner, where you can eat your very delicious meal directly underneath a quite large mural, bearing Confederate flag, burning bridge, and bloody wounds to boot...]

 We stopped in the middle and took in this view, resting our feet and drinking our water, before heading back the 5 miles we came,

and bumping into this little guy.

We closed out our week

 with a recital (of course),
but after we got the little ones through their playing (will they make it through their quartets in one piece?!) and their bowing (could the wee littles be any cuter?! Or more oblivious!?!?) and their post-recital popsicles (because we are all about food afterall...), we headed over to an old high school building, which put Farmville on the map and is now an informative museum.

Back when segregation was taken for granted, the Farmville school for black children was far less than equal. The students organized, and went on strike. They presented their case to the NAACP, who made their school one of the cases in Brown vs. Board of Education.

After segregation was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the white community of Farmville organized,
shutting down all public schooling

 by scrambling together a private system for the white children.

 During the five years that the public schools were closed,

 Martin Luther King Jr. visited to boost morale,

 and ultimately Robert Kennedy stepped in, hired teachers (since none in the community would work for the public school) and re-opened the public system. [Read the above quote to put it in perspective.]

 Kristen [who is, as I mentioned, an excellent teacher] had had a tour with one of the students of the original strike, and she was a fount of information. It was very interesting, and very very sad, especially since the legacy of these years still lives in this place.

We closed out our lovely week with a movie on the lawn,

Meet Me in St. Louis, [which is--by the way and quite ironically, given our afternoon--full of racist moments...] during which we were granted a meteor falling through the sky, marking our Piano Camp vacation a success from all angles.

You know you have a good friend when you [in all your introvertedness] have spent 6ish days with her and could easily do 6ish more [and when you have taught her husband the phrase "Introvert Time", and she--though quite verbal in her dislike of said phrase and the subsequent teaching-of-said-phrase-to-said-husband--loves you all the same].

And since we only managed to [sort of] accomplish #5 on this list
[in the course of changing the lives of these children!! that is],
I guess we'll have to do it again next year!