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The Swans at Wroxton
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Copyright, All Rights
Reserved, Barry W.
Hollritt, 1978, 2002
I welcomed in 1978 while riding an UP elevator at Boston's
Logan Airport. It was the stroke of midnight and I was in a very deserted,
overseas terminal as the champagne corks were being popped in the sleazy
airport bars on the second floor. An overseas terminal on New Year's Eve is
a very lonely place to be without any loved ones around, and whatever human
warmth there is seems to draw itself into any available bar as the hour
closes in on midnight. The sense of brotherhood peaked at midnight and by
the time my flight boarded for London, that feeling was already beginning to
dissipate.
I arrived in London on New Year's Day and traveled out to the
countryside to have a nice pub dinner for the holiday at the North Arms Pub
in Wroxton. The pub borders on the grounds of Wroxton Abbey, a Jacobean
mansion that serves as the overseas campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University
and a school that I attended. There has been a building on the site of the
abbey since Medieval times and it was the home of the Prime Minister of
Great Britain during the American Colonial uprising! Who would think that
200 years after gaining independence from England that American students
would be playing baseball on such hallowed grounds of Britain! In the back
of the abbey, nestled in a small hollow, is a stream fed pond that harbors a
fleet of mute swans. I photographed the pair as they passed one another in
the fading English light. After taking the shot, I triumphantly made my way
to the pub for a final pint of ale! |
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