{"id":15844,"date":"2016-07-11T19:21:28","date_gmt":"2016-07-11T19:21:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15844"},"modified":"2016-07-11T19:22:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T19:22:01","slug":"visiting-a-relic-of-a-glorious-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=15844","title":{"rendered":"Visiting a relic of a glorious past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n

\"parthenon\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A young friend of mine has just returned from a trip spanning several days in Greece.<\/p>\n

Butler Cain, a journalism professor at West Texas A&M University (for now) has been good enough to post\u00a0many of the pictures he took of his journey on his own blog.<\/p>\n

Here’s the latest batch:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/butlercain.com\/2016\/07\/11\/acropolis-of-athens\/<\/a><\/p>\n

This group features shots taken at the Acropolis, which looms over Athens as a reminder of the greatness of the civilization it represents. The Greeks aren’t enjoying too much of that greatness these days, as their country struggles its way through a crippling recession.<\/p>\n

But the pictures of the Acropolis — and of the Parthenon — remind me of two things.<\/p>\n

One is that I’ve been able, along with my wife, to visit that magnificent place more than once. We went there together in 2000 and 2001; I was able to return a third time in 2003.<\/p>\n

For those of us of Greek heritage, the sight of those antiquities sends chills throughout our body. I hope to return again.<\/p>\n

The second reminder is of something my late father once told me when he was able to visit Athens with my grandfather — who came to the United States from Greece not long after the turn of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Dad told me that\u00a0when he walked to the top of the Acropolis and was able to sit inside the Parthenon — which I guess you could do back in 1970 when he and my grandfather were there — he could feel his mind expand. He said something like, “I thought of things I never thought I could ponder.”<\/p>\n

He felt smarter just being there, inside those columns erected\u00a0400-plus years before the birth of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

Butler Cain is going to move on soon to another academic post in his native “sweet home Alabama.” I wish him well.<\/p>\n

Thanks, young man, for\u00a0sharing these wonderful pictures.<\/p>\n

I feel smarter just looking at them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n

Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A young friend of mine has just returned from a trip spanning several days in Greece. Butler Cain, a journalism professor at West Texas A&M University (for now) has been good enough to post\u00a0many of the pictures he took of his journey on his own blog. Here’s the latest batch: https:\/\/butlercain.com\/2016\/07\/11\/acropolis-of-athens\/ This group features shots … Continue reading Visiting a relic of a glorious past<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,9],"tags":[141,494,1996,3503],"class_list":["post-15844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-news","category-local-news","tag-acropolis","tag-athens","tag-greece","tag-parthenon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15844"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15848,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15844\/revisions\/15848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}