Tecktonik Travelerz: October 2011

Friday, October 28, 2011

Happy 125th Birthday Lady Liberty

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LADY LIBERTY

She is 125 years old today.

I've sailed passed this lady hundreds of times and I still remember the first time I laid eyes on her. I was seven years old and she was gargantuan. I was a big teenage mutant ninja turtles fan at the time and I had one of their super cool t-shirts with a matching hat that had all the turles around the brim. I remember climbing the million and one steps to reach lady liberty's crown. And on the way up my hat fell off and whirled down, down, down. I thought I had lost it for sure. I think i was a bit too short to see out of the windows of the crown and someone had to lift me up to be able to see.

I got my hat back when we reached the bottom, to my relief. A kind park ranger had found it and held onto it until it was safely returned onto my curly head.

Here's is Emma Lazarus' 1883 poem, "New Colossus", which is mounted at the statue:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Tomorrow, the statue will be closed for a year due to renovations.

::Sadness::

But she will reopen and shall continue to welcome travelers to the Big Apple, New York City.

^______^