Doing What the Lady Told Me . . .

Although my wife and I have returned to our regular, mundane lives, the memories of Gettysburg linger-- especially the Cyclorama-- a 19th-century form of visual entertainment featuring an enormous panoramic, 360-degree immersive painting, often with dioramas around the base of the painting to add a degree of three-dimensional realism . . . the Gettysburg Visitor's Center has one, painted by the French artist Paul Philippoteaux and his team of artists, depicting Pickett's Charge, the climactic and farily suicidal Confederate attack on the Union forces in Gettysburg on July 3, 1863-- the Cyclorama was completed in 1883-- and several copies were made-- and the paintings toured various cities and were viewed like a movie-- fantastic experience . . . and I will also remember the stories of the Shriver family-- we took a tour of their house and the old lady giving the tour was enthusiastic and grisly in her descriptions of the horrors of war and the tragedy surrounding the Shrivers-- they were slated to open a basement saloon and ten pin bowling alley, when war reared its ugly head and George left to serve the Union, and then, as the Battle of Gettysburg loomed, the house was abandoned for a bit, and used by Confederate sharpshooters (who were shot themselves-- there is still blood in the attic) and George Shriver ended up in the notrious and terrible Andersonville POW camp, where he starved to death . . . anyway, if you go to Gettysburg, be sure to tour this house and be sure to see the Cyclorama-- and at the end of the tour of the Shriver house, our tour guide implored us to read the diaries of the Shriver family and she said we should be writing down the mundane details of our own lives, because you never know what future generation might find interesting . . . and I have been!