Back-Seat Rider

Headed for Pennsylvania and some home-made pumpkin pie, I plunked myself in the backseat and stayed there.  I've sometimes said that if I win a lottery, I'll hire a driver.  I guess I won.  Two-thirds of our family love to drive, allowing me to work and take a nap.

So here we are in William Penn country, full of old stone houses and a lot of wind, but no snow.  Virginia's getting the white stuff this year instead.

Tonight I caught the evening news on ABC, one of the features being criticism of Kate Middleton's likeness on a British coin.  Newsworthy, certainly.  I learned how difficult it is to represent a human face 10 years ago when I hired a sculptor to catch our son, Adam, in bronze.  The poor artist had to put up with repeated objections, "something's not quite right; I can't put my finger on it."  (Actually I could, but that didn't help.)  Seldom can I recognize the real-life version of what I've seen in a photograph, much less a human's attempt to mold a ball of clay.  I remember the brouhaha about Peter Hurd's Lyndon Johnson portrait.  So yes, we need to be reminded every 40 years or so that a coin or portrait isn't a person.  Big news.

"Sometime you should ask Virginia about this," says Virginia.

Or Dennis.  I think I will.