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quilting, plowing, cooking over a fire, and other chores.

A virtual “zoo’s-who” of farm animals, including oxen, mules, sheep, chickens, and honeybees, enhance the experience. Also adding authenticity are livestock, crops, and plants that were common during the time.

The Hudson Gardens boasts a collection of beehives that held as much interest for me as its extensive plantings themselves — not that areas devoted to roses, herbs, fragrance, and nearly two dozen other floral themes aren’t eye-catching and aromatic, or that signs identifying displays with names like Balloon Flower and Fat Albert don’t elicit a smile.

It’s just that when a town resident is on hand to attend to one of the hives that locals are allowed to place in the garden, visitors are likely to learn more than they thought possible about the lifestyle of bees.

If learning that there are nearly 20,000 species of bees isn’t your cup of honey, perhaps reliving farm life from a bygone area will grab your attention. Whatever your interests, you’re likely to find enough to fulfill them only a short train ride from downtown Denver.

For more information, log onto littleton.org. After gallivanting around the world, Victor Block still retains the travel bug. He believes that travel is the best possible education. A member of the Society of American Travel Writers, Victor loves to explore new destinations and cultures, and his stories about them have won a number of writing awards.

our America: remembering 9/11 20 Years Later

By James E. Patterson

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, author and TV personality Hugh Downs edited My World: What My Country Means to Me by 150 Americans from All Walks of Life.

Downs, who died in 2020 at age 99, explained the book’s purpose in his introduction.

“People might wish both to express and to hear from others how they feel about the nation in light of the jarring events of Sept. 11, 2001.”

Downs received a variety of responses from celebrities, politicians, athletes, and religious figures. Some replies were “insightful.” Some were “philosophic.” Some expressed “deep personal outrage.”

All of them, Downs wrote, had “a newborn or reawakened feeling about the country we live in.”

Many of the contributors, including poet Maya Angelou, civil rights leader Coretta Scott King, journalist Helen Thomas, and TV personality Art Linkletter, are now deceased. Each made memorable contributions to the book.

“Let us vow that Sept. 11 will only strengthen the bonds of solidarity between all of America’s races, religions, and cultures,” wrote King.

Linkletter, a professional lecturer in later life, wrote, “When I talk about our freedoms, our opportunities, and the wide horizons of life in the U.S.A., the [audience] response is like touching an electric switch.”

Angelou wrote about the courage of the first responders at the World Trade Center, who “gave us the handhold we needed to pull ourselves up.”

Grammy Award-winning singer Jose Feliciano wrote that America is “a beacon of freedom and opportunity.” He added, “This title, however, seems not to be possible without criticism — even, at times, conflict.” These words from 20 years ago are a valuable lesson for today. Feliciano ended with another valuable lesson: “We must band together in solidarity, for as a nation, there has never been an equal, and as a people, there will never be a dilemma that we cannot overcome.” TV personality Regis Philbin, who died last year, wrote of his feelings of 9/11 firefighters flag memorial. “sorrow, doubt, and fear” after seeing the planes go into the World Trade Center. “We have survived the most savage attack on our nation in modern times and have answered it swiftly and bravely,” he wrote. “I used to wonder if we had the guts and character of our predecessors. I don’t anymore.” Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, upon visiting Ground Zero, recalled the words of President Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln dedicated a portion of the Gettysburg battlefield for use as a cemetery, he said it was the duty of the living “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they … have thus far so nobly advanced.” Bloomberg noted that “the same spirit that guided the soldiers at Gettysburg flowed through the rescuers of Sept. 11.” Hugh Downs did a great job editing My America. In these pages, readers will find encouragement for 2021 and beyond.

9/11 memorial wall.

James E. Patterson is a writer and speaker based in Washington, D.C.

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