2025 Life Logs, Day 101: Beyond the White House
Date: Friday, April 11, 2025
Weather: Cloudy, Rain Late; High Temp 48, Low 38 degrees F
Location: At Home on Lakeview Avenue with My Shadow, Falmouth, MA
No, I’m not daydreaming about what might happen to Trump once he is “Beyond the White House.” That is the name of a 6-week course offered by the Mashpee Public Library that I am currently taking. It is an hour and a half class, once a week on Friday mornings, and is taught by Jane Scarborough. Jane is a vibrant 80-some-year-old retired constitutional law professor. She is currently running for a position on the Falmouth School Committee, and she definitely has my vote. Jane seamlessly weaves current events with history. The book that is the basis of our class is “Life After Power: Seven Presidents and Their Search for Purpose Beyond the White House” written by Jared Cohen. Today we focused on Thomas Jefferson. His ‘beyond the White House’ founding the University of Virginia. Before his death, he designed his own gravestone and wrote his own epitaph, “Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.” There was no mention of being the third president of these United States.
I had a wonderful artichoke dinner with the Goldstone’s tonight. It has been quite a week. Heather was in Boston for four days at a staff retreat, Jonah had unexpected surgery to set his broken arm,Trump’s tariffs sent the US economy into a period dangerous instability, and the chaos in Washington just keeps on going. So many things happen in just one week these days that a week feels like a year. Hopefully Trump is off playing golf again this weekend so we can have a bit of a break. TGIF
