Day 13 - Jessica

Let me start with the low-lights. I’m sick. Now, for the hightlights. :D
Today was the day I’ve been waiting for (other than yesterday) – the Paper Clips Exhibit!!!! :D he ride was long, but beautiful. I’ve never seen such a scene. And what do I mean? One word: Greenery. What are trees; what are bushes? As a city-zen (aha…get it?), it’s definitely a rare sight. On our way to Whitwell, Tennessee, we watched the Paperclips documentary, which I did not want to watch because I had watched it already the weekend before we left St. Louis. But I had to, anyway, just like everyone else. And, soon after, we arrived at Whitwell Middle School.
When we arrived, I learned that the formal name of the Whitwell exhibit was actually the Paper Clips Project, or the Children’s Holocaust Memorial. I didn’t “feel the souls” at first. I didn’t feel anything. But after we were there for a while, I started to be able to really “feel” the souls of the paper clips, just like it said in the documentary. Ricky, our guide, was adorable. He made me wonder if every Whitwell eighth grader looked like him because I looked considerably older than him when I was his age.
When we met Principal Hooper, I was SO excited. I shook her hand and told her, “I’ve been waiting to come here since the first day! I’m SO excited (sorry for the redundancy)!” But I don’t think she understood just how excited I actually was.
The binders full of letters were really great, too. I didn’t get to write about the letter that I read, but it was really intense. I felt the pain of the paper clips that were dedicated again.
And now, Birmingham. Are there really any appropriate words or adjectives to describe the brilliance of Birmingham? Our speaker was Doug Jones. The fact that I remember his name is significant because his name isn’t even in the travel book and I didn’t look in my note book. Or someone else’s. He talked about the case of the four female children who were killed in the 16th Baptism Church bombing. It had been a cold case for about 30 years, but then they (sorry, I don’t remember who “they” is) decided to pick it back up and solve it. The outcome was that the case had been solved, but they hadn’t had it approved by a court judge or something like that, so they couldn’t put an exact “case closed” date on it. Today was the first time we had him as a speaker and everyone seems to agree that he was TERIFFIC!