Yale (Dinosaurs) #AtoZChallenge #WordlessWednesday

Once again, I have a two meme day.  First, Wordless Wednesday, brought to us by Sandee at Comedy Plus (for the link, please see bottom of post). Also, it's Y day in the Blogging from A To Z Challenge.  Two memes for the price of one.

In 2024, my spouse and I visited Yale University.  Visiting their Peabody Museum has been a bucket list item for my spouse since childhood, when he became interested in dinosaurs.  Dinosaurs are one of the specialties of this free to the public museum.

Yale Peabody Museum sign.

Life size Torosaurus latus dinosaur statue outside the museum. There were plans to erect a garden next to this with plants that grew during the times this dinosaur existed when this was erected in 2005, but if they did, I didn't see signs of it.

Dinosaur Skeleton.

Skeleton and architecture.

The building the Peabody Museum is in.  This is a fantastic museum, as you might expect from a world class university.

I have more pictures, many of them not related to dinosaurs.  Maybe one day I'll publish some more on my blog. Y not?

Y Day in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge. My theme: Beauty of our Land.

Sandee's Comedy Plus: 

 

Forever in First Grade

Tomorrow, Newtown High School in Newtown, Connecticut is holding its high school graduation.

Before I go any further in my blog post, I must warn my readers that some of the following may be disturbing.

If you're still with me....here's a highway sign.  It's a simple highway sign.

Let's take a short drive into Connecticut.

The name "Newtown" may sound familiar to you. If it does, this is probably why:

On December 14, 2012, a 20 year gunman killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.  20 of them were first graders, and six of them were adult staff. (The gunman also killed his mother, bringing the final toll to 27.)

Those 20 first graders would have been graduating from high school next week.

Time flies, doesn't it.  Since then, there have been so many school and other mass shootings in our United States that some of them don't even make it past the local news.  

This essay written by a student who was the same age as the Sandy Hook students on that day is food for a lot of thought. 

It is said that the high school class of 2024 in Newtown has a special closeness, forged by that nightmare day and the many days after.

As for the staff:   One of those staff members, Mary Sherloch, grew up in the area where I live.  She was the school psychologist.

Perhaps that closeness growing out of grief would not have been a surprise to her.

But, we must never forget that the graduation tomorrow will be a few students short.  They were never given a chance to grow.   They will not walk across that stage with their peers, except, perhaps, in memory.

What will have become of them? We'll never know.

That is something to truly grieve for.