Walt Whitman's Camden
and
Rivers of History
March 31 -April 1, 2001
Participants: Jon Reisman, Jesse Goodglass, Hiroko Hosaka, Valerie Baker, Julie Leff, Heather McConnell, Leigh Neithardt, Jake Ruddiman, Thom Mistele, Phil Bowe, Leslie Van Gelder
On this two part trip we tried to explore the landscape of the Delaware River to see the flow of creativity and history which have flourished on its banks. (We discovered more garbage than poetry, but such is the flotsam and jetsam these days...)
Our first day took us to Princeton, Ewing and Camden. In Camden we went in search of Walt Whitman's ghost as we visited his house and had an impromptu walking tour of the city while we searched in vain for his final resting place. We did find quite a cemetary in Princeton which didn't make up for missing Walt's but did offer us some great ideas for the last stop of Aaron Burr and Jonathan Edwards. Our evening was spent quietly sounding our barbaric yawps at TCNJ.
The next morning we headed over to Washington's Crossing to get a lesson in history and to ask ourselves some questions about which pieces of history seem to get passed on, and which are forgotten. We ended our trip in New Hope, once a Utopian community, where we pondered the question of why do ideal communities always end up with good ice cream parlours.
While we may not have found Walt Whitman himself, we certainly found his spirit alive and well and still filling our minds with the encouragement that it is brave and wise to walk off the path of others expectation and to find a way to love ourselves barefoot in leaves of grass.
Our Situques
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JL
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JR
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VB
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Suggested Reading:
Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Web Resources:
New Jersey Historical Commission
Washington Crossing State Historic Site
