Do Donna and I like seeing Impressionist art? Did painter Edgar Degas have a thing for ballerinas? Yes and yes. So when we heard that the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. would be the only U.S. stop for an international touring show featuring the works from the first exhibition of Impressionism, in 1874, we made sure to see it. We went the Monday after Thanksgiving, when there were no throngs of student-field-trippers, and made a pre-holiday lunch-and-a-show date of it. The term Impressionism was coined by art critic Louis Leroy during that first show, which was sort of a protest by artists whose non-conformist works had been rejected by the Salon de Paris, the annual show organized by the powerful and conservative Academie des Beaux-Arts. Leroy used the term derisively in response to a painting by Claude Monet called Impression, Sunrise . The painting shows a busy seaport, looking across the water to the docks. The boats and their masts are hard to discern through t...
Is there a more romantic setting than the sprawling parking lot of the massive (8,400 acres) Meadowlands Sports Complex in East Rutherford, New Jersey? Especially on a big college-football game day, where 50,000 beer-infused fans crowd together to tailgate, pre-game, and celebrate like the end of the world was imminent? I think not. Forty-four years ago Donna and I and some friends and relatives attended a Notre Dame-Navy game. Donna and I had met a few weeks before, when a mutual friend played matchmaker and brought us together in Washington, D.C., where I was living and working. Our friend, Monica, was trying to set me up with another of her friends, but Donna and I had an immediate attraction. This was our first weekend together. I stayed at Donna’s parents’ house, where she was living. It was a big deal meeting the parents and siblings. The next morning a big group of us headed to the old Giants Stadium in multiple cars and met up. It was cold and very windy. I don’t rememb...