Academy for Lifelong Learning CBMM Kicks Off 2012 Fall Semester

Eight of the 21 programs, lectures and field trips which will be offered by the Academy for Lifelong Learning at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum this fall will kick off in September. There will be an opportunity to explore salt marshes, delve into the many masks of Benjamin Franklin, study and discuss the making of the Articles of Federation and the Constitution, investigate the development of an American art form, examine your personal beliefs, write your memoir, tour the Airport and Poplar Island.

On September 20, Audubon conservation scientist Dr. Dave Curson , will lead a field trip to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge.

For a close exploration of a unique ecosystem, Samantha Pitts and Mandy Smith of Pickering Creek Audubon Center will offer a two part session “Saltmarsh Exploration: Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge”. Salt marshes are one of Maryland’s key habitats for protecting the land, the wildlife, and people in coastal communities. On September 19 from 6-8 pm at the CBMM we will look at how salt marshes act as buffers between the land and the Bay, playing an important role in flood control, filtration, and formation of upland and learn about the diversity of plant and animal species and why people hold salt marshes dear to their hearts. The following day, September 20, the group will take a field trip to Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge with Audubon conservation scientist Dr. Dave Curson where he will discuss the inseparable ties between our local marshes and bird species from all over the world. The group will take a leisurely walk around the marshes looking for birds and enjoying local wildlife. And, for the bold, you will have the opportunity to don waders and enjoy an up-close and personal marsh experience.

A five week program led by John Ford and John Miller entitled “Benjamin Franklin: Not Your Usual Founding Father” will start on September 12 at CBMM. Of all the founding fathers, only Franklin “winks at us…with eyes that twinkle from behind newfangled spectacles.” We will try to decipher his winks by reading private letters, hoaxes, broadsides, satires, anonymous and signed political tracts, scientific speculations, and his autobiography. All to understand better the insatiably curious, sophisticated, self-made, and world-famous intellectual polymath who resides behind many masks – including that of the avuncular, benevolent, stuffy old man, complacently mouthing admonitions to diligence and thrift that posterity has foisted upon him. Or he upon us? Is this just another of Franklin’s personas?

Starting on September 13 at CBMM, Richard Mattingly will lead a five week program entitled “The Windsor Chair: The Most Popular Seating Furniture of the American 18th Century.

“1783-1815: The Trying Times” with Robert Springer will begin on September 21 run five weeks at the Talbot Senior Center. The course will discuss the fate of the Loyalists, the U.S. government under the Articles of Confederation, the efforts to improve the Articles, the Constitutional Convention, and the struggle over the ratification of the Constitution. We will review the formation of political parties including the clash between Hamilton and Jefferson and the presidencies of Washington, Adams, and Jefferson. The growing problems with foreign affairs and the drive toward the war.

Starting on September 13 at CBMM, Richard Mattingly will lead a five week program entitled “The Windsor Chair: The Most Popular Seating Furniture of the American 18th Century.

If a collector of American antiques could choose to own only one item of 18th-Century decorative arts, it would have to be a Windsor chair. The Windsor is a truly American art form, owned by all of our founding fathers and immortalized in many 18th Century paintings.

This course will investigate the development and historical changes in the Windsor art form and relate the Windsor to historical events. Investigation will include determining what makes a Windsor either good, better, or best and how to determine if a particular chair is a real Windsor or something else. Current market values will be discussed to provide an appreciation and understanding of the worth of a Windsor chair.

Don Rush, the News Director at Delmarva Public Radio in Salisbury MD will be leading a program based on the well known book and series “This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Woman.” Starting September 13 and meeting for six weeks, the program invites participants to read and listen to the beliefs of others, and then to write and share one’s own personal philosophy.

Perennially popular Academy for Lifelong Learning outings to Poplar Island and the Easton Airport will be offered on September 18 and September 20 respectively. Joan Katz will continue her series on Memoir Writing with an introduction for new memoir writers on September 6.

For more information about these programs and others starting in October and November, or to register, please call the Academy for Lifelong Learning at the CBMM at 410-745-2916 or download a catalog online at https://www.cbmm.org/l_academy.htm. Also on Facebook.

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