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The Commencement Speeches…


May 23, 2026

Forty thousand people showed up at the NC State commencement speech for 2026 at the Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, NC. We left the Marriott Hotel near RDU airport early in the morning, where we stayed the night before, to get in line with other parents, grandparents, and family to enter the stadium in time for the security check and find a good place from  where to watch the program.

We could not miss our granddaughter’s graduation in engineering and environmental science. We found some seats halfway up the stands, two-thirds of the way from the podium at one end of the football field. I appreciated seats with backrests; I had not seen these before.

After the usual singing of the anthem and the University President’s speech, the commencement speaker was introduced: Harry Sideris, CEO of Duke Energy (one of the largest electric and natural gas companies in the US) and an NC State alumnus in chemical engineering. He shared anecdotes from his time at NC State before delivering his message to the graduating class: take opportunities and stretch your capabilities, you can grow into the job. He illustrated his message by a biographical story; he was young and inexperienced when put in charge of restoring electricity to half a million people in Florida after a major storm. Sideris described his anxiety trying to restore electricity to the people and the satisfaction he derived when he was successful. Serving people is a goal all graduates should embrace, he said.

I thought it was a positive and uplifting message for young people starting their careers. The other thought that crossed my mind was the employer’s perspective on offering a job to someone who may not be qualified but grow into and learn the job at public expense. I was not convinced that that is fair to the public.

A week later, I attended another graduation, my grandson’s, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, in Blacksburg, VA. In contrast to the three-hour program at Raleigh, the one at Blacksburg took only one hour. And the speaker was Abigail Spanberger, the newly elected Governor of Virginia. Spanberger’s message was simple: follow your inner compass. And she warned that you may take detours before you find your goal. As with the NC State speaker, Spanberger used her career to demonstrate her message by saying that she always wanted to join the CIA. And she succeeded and related some of the hardships she had gone through in training to become a CIA officer. To me, it was a big if to assume that young graduates always know what they want to do with their lives.

Reflecting on young people knowing what they want to do reminded me of Steve Jobs’ commencement speech at Stanford University in 2004. He said he was bored attending Reed College, dropped out, took calligraphy courses he enjoyed, and how ten years later his interest in calligraphy influenced the computer world when he and his partner, Steve Wozniak, came up with the first Apple computer. Jobs’ message indicated one does not always know how life’s detours may become beneficial in the future.

I found Spanberger’s advice different from Sideris’ message, while Spanberger talked about having an internal compass and following it, Sideris suggested taking on opportunities as they come along. Sideris’ own career showed that while he obtained a chemical engineering degree, he became CEO of an electricity-generating company, a position that usually requires an electrical engineering degree.

Both commencement speeches were positive and encouraged the graduates to take opportunities and serve the public. These are common themes, and I found the speakers convincing by sharing personal stories about how they navigated their careers matching their messages.

Both graduating classes received the commencement speeches with enthusiasm, which is probably the norm. Nevertheless, I remember another granddaughter graduating from Georgia Tech in 2023, where the commencement speaker was Harrison Butker, a Georgia Tech alumnus and Kansas City Chiefs kicker, who recommended that female graduates get married and have a family instead of focusing on a career. That message did not resonate well with the women. But in the long run, who cares or do we even remember the commencement speaker at our graduation?

Exploring Covington, GA: A Family Dinner and Scenic Trails


May 10, 2026

We drove to Covington, GA, to have dinner with our granddaughter, who works in Atlanta. Covington is within the Atlanta metro area. And it has the Cricket Frog Trail, which we wanted to ride and compare to the Spanish Moss Trail, which we rode in Beaufort, SC, a day earlier.

The hotel we stayed at was unique for having a four-story-high atrium with a skylight in the middle. The rooms were accessible via an open corridor running around each floor facing the atrium. We have never stayed in a hotel with such singular architecture, although the concept is similar to that of havelis in Rajasthan, except that havelis have uncovered courtyards.

The hotel in Covington with atrium

Arriving early afternoon gave us time to go downtown and walk around before meeting our granddaughter for dinner. Covington Square in the middle of town reminded me of the zócalos in Mexican towns, but without pre-teens approaching to offer to shine your shoes, even your running shoes that do not need a shine.

In the middle of the square was a statue honoring the Confederate soldiers who had perished during the Civil War. Paved walkways crisscrossed the square, with people resting on benches along the walkways, enjoying the mild weather. And there were people walking around the square, sitting at a café, and shopping in funky stores that populated the street fronts around the square.

The Confederate monument

The Clocktower, which is part of the courthouse, dominates the square. It reminded me of the dominating churches at the Mexican zócalos. While researching the history of the Clocktower, I came across an AI summary that described it as a “classic design with detailed architecture” built in the early 1900s. That is pure nonsense. What is classic design? And what is detailed architecture? Then I found another history on Wikipedia stating that it was designed in 1884 in the Second Empire style by Bruce&Morgan, after the original courthouse burnt down in 1883. I believe the second description rings truer because of its specificity.

The Clocktower, the Mystic Grill and the Shrimp and Grits

We had dinner at the Mystic Grill, located next to the Clocktower. The shrimp and grits were one of the best I have ever had; they were made with stone-ground grits, bacon, garlic, shallots, cilantro, and lime juice. The next best shrimp and grits I had was a week ago at Jekyll Island, GA, where the dish contained mushrooms, cheese, and andouille sauce.

The restaurant was noisy, making conversation difficult for me, especially with the larger tables to talk across and the conversations ricocheting in the dining room. But the atmosphere was very inviting, with a 2-story-high coffered ceiling and local historical pictures and memorabilia on the walls.

But Covington has some antebellum homes, the most famous of which is Twelve Oaks, which served as the model for the 1939 film Gone with the Wind. The 1939 movie was based on Margaret Mitchell’s book of the same name, published in 1936. A pricey B&B today with themed rooms and a manicured, landscaped yard, it still features the 12 oak trees around the home, from which the name was derived.

The Twelve Oaks B&B

We rode the Cricket Frog Trail the next day, a 14-mile-long rail-to-trail, once traveled by the Central of Georgia Railroad. The paved trail is a bit hilly with some curves; I wondered about how fast the trains moved along it. We started riding at the rural trailhead and cycled towards Covington. Once we reached the outskirts of the town and encountered traffic, we turned back. It was a pleasant ride, and I saw many estates along the trail.

Coming back to the two rail-to-trails we rode, one in Beaufort, SC, the Spanish Moss Trail, and the other in Covington, GA, the Cricket Frog Trail, I prefer the Cricket Frog for having mostly cyclists and a shaded pathway along the way. The Spanish Moss Trail runs through more urbanized areas, with walkers and people walking dogs, contributing to slower cycling and frequent shouts of “on the left”. And it was also mostly a straight path, which felt boring at times. However, there are a couple of nice coffee shops in Port Royal at the end of the trail and a rookery that boasted innumerable birds, a very cool experience. And I like to end my rides at a coffee shop with quality coffee and some sweets. For riding, the Cricket Frog Trail is better, but for interest, the Spanish Moss Trail is preferable.

Cycling Through Jekyll and St. Simons Islands: A Historical Journey


May 4, 2026

Exploring the Historical Layers of Jekyll and St. Simons Islands in Georgia: A Cyclist’s Journey with Road Scholar. History is woven into nearly every stop and story on these remarkable islands, from grand clubs and pivotal events to deeply meaningful landmarks.

We cycled for a few hours each day, spending the rest of the time visiting historical and other unique sites across the two barrier islands.

Among the many stops we made on Jekyll Island, the most fascinating story for me involved the Jekyll Island Club and its founders. The original owner of the Island, Eugene du Bignon, a Frenchman, sold it to New York investors looking for a wintering place for hunting and recreation in 1886. Fifty shares were sold to industry elites in New York, including the Morgans, the Rockefellers, the Vanderbilts, and other titans of industry. Joseph Pulitzer was one of the original owners as well. He built his fortune publishing the St. Louis Dispatch-Post and later the New York World. A hotel was built, and some shareholders also built “their cottages,” which measured up to 10,000 square feet. The cottages had no kichens, all the people ate at the Club.

The Jekyll Island Clubhouse and the dining room. Below are two cottages.

Among the Club’s many noteworthy events was a 1910 gathering of American financial leaders, who drafted legislation that would later serve as the foundation for the Federal Reserve system.

The depression impacted the industrialist owners of Jekyll Island and their use of the Club diminished. Also, travel opportunities expanded in the 1940s, and the original owners’ descendants lost interest in Jekyll Island and the Club. After the Club closed in 1942, the Island was expropriated by the State of Georgia in 1947 for $647,000, designated a historic landmark, and turned into a State Park managed by a Governor-appointed Commission.

The architecture of the Clubhouse is in the Queen Anne style, with a typical four-story turret, wraparound porches, and complex rooflines. The interior is in the Gilded Age style, with luxurious furnishings that made me think about how the ultrarich lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Thwae Clubhouse is a magnificent building in my opinion and is open as a luxury hotel today.

Turning to another chapter of the island’s history, the story of the Wanderer stood out. This luxury schooner, built in 1856, was converted into a slave ship two years later. Businessmen brought over more than 400 slaves from the Congo in 1858 to Jekyll Island and sold the slaves in the South, that was against federal law since 1808 in the United States. The businessmen were indicted but not convicted, and the ship was seized by the Union Navy and later sunk by Cuba. The Wanderer Memory Trail on Jekyll Island relates the story of the slaves brought over from Africa. I found the exhibits along the trail fascinating, espemcially the musical instruments and the foods the black people brought over from Africa. Walking along the trail and listening to the audio stories gave me a bad feeling.

On St. Simons Island, two key points of interest drew my attention. First was Harrington House, which was once a one-room schoolhouse for black children in grades 1 to 7. Inside the building were pictures and artifacts related to the schoolhouse’s operation, as well as information about the students who attended. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision in 1954 (the desegregation legislation), the school closed, and the students were transferred to the wider public school system in Brunswick. The school docent was from the local community and had vast knowledge of the school’s history and explained that the island’s black population has decreased due to gentrification, falling from over 80 percent to just 1 to 2 percent of the current 13,000 residents.

The island’s past also comes alive at Fort Frederika, built in 1736 by James Oglethorpe. Now a National Monument, the fort was at the heart of 18th-century debates between Spanish and British governments over lands south of Savannah. Oglethorpe asked the King for a land grant to establish a colony, to serve as a defense against the Spanish. Like civil war sites, the Fort Frederika National Monument is a grassy field today with remnants of buildings and ramparts.

Oglethorpe was a visionary, and in 1736, he laid out a town, a utopian kind of village with streets forming a grid pattern, giving each resident a 50-by-100-foot piece of land on which to build a house and a fifty-acre site for agricultural uses. And he brought over from England indebted people in prison as colonists.

Fort Frederika.

I learned that the houses were built with “tabby”, a material made of crushed seashells, mixed with sand and water, the combination of which resembles concrete.

Before concluding my journey, I visited another unique destination: the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island. It is a hospital for sick turtles as well as an educational and research center. I learned that turtles lay hundreds of eggs a few times a year, but only after reaching 30 years of age; after that, they lay eggs every second year up until they die, which might be at 100 years of age. But only one egg will grow into a full turtle out of 3,000 eggs!

The expert also explained that after the eggs hatch, the baby turtles are guided by moonlight to find their way into the water. She advised us not to use flashlights at night when watching the move of the turtles because that may confuse them and lead them away from the water.

Tanks with recuperating turtles.

In addition to listening to an expert on turtles describing their lives, we observed technicians examining a turtle in a lab, behind a window. Next to the exhibition space on turtles was an industrial warehouse, filled with huge tanks housing recuperating turtles. Interestingly, there was only one turtle in each tank. Apparently, turtles are solitary animals, and if more than one is in a tank, they attack each other. Most of the turtles in the tanks came from Cape Cod; the cold water at the Cape caused hypothermia in turtles and were brought to this hospital for recuperation.

Visiting the two barrier islands offered a unique window into American history—from colonial times, through the Civil War and Gilded Age, to the civil rights period. The experience reminded me how these islands encapsulate the evolving story of the region, illustrating why their preservation and interpretation matter so much today.

Cycling on Jekyll Island, Georgia, with a Road Scholar group


April 29, 2026

The challenge we faced while riding around Jekyll Island was using a coaster bike. It was unexpected, and we have not used those bikes in decades. It took some time to reacquaint ourselves with getting on and off those bikes.

Another challenge was cycling up the sand dunes with only one gear. Stopping was the final challenge when the cyclist just ahead of us suddenly stopped. We were to follow each other by one bicycle length. Most of us decided to follow the cyclist ahead of us by 30 feet.

We found the local drivers very courteous; they stopped for us and let us cross the road, even though it took a few minutes for the twenty of us to cross, riding in a peloton.

But once we got on the bikes, the pathways and scenery were worth the trouble of getting going on the coaster bikes. The island pathways were all paved, although I prefer dirt roads, in case I fall. Falling on the pavement could be painful. We were comfortable riding during the weekdays, but I suspect that on the weekends, cycling traffic might be heavy, especially given the pavement width, which was not 8 feet wide.

Our group is getting organized below, and the landscape along the ocean pathway.

The pathways circle the island, offering magnificent views of the ocean on one side. On the other side, the paths ring hotels, beach houses. The landscaping was outstanding on the entire island.

I found one disadvantage of riding in a group is the lack of opportunity to stop and take pictures when approaching a particularly attractive landscape. On the other hand, the guides lead us to the most photogenic sites.

We saw one of those unique sites today, Driftwood Beach. The picture below describes it better than I could.

The oldest tree on the Island, a live oak, was also spectacular with its huge overhanging branches.

We averaged 8 miles per hour riding. Surprisingly, we spent only 2 to 3 hours riding while being on the road all day. The reason is that we visited historical, cultural, and environmental sites, enriching Jekyll Island. But just riding on Jekyll Island alone is a very rewarding experience and I would certainly recommend it. Next time, however, I will take my road bikes and not use the coaster bikes available for rent.

The Round Table in Winston-Salem, NC; Discussion of Gun Laws


April 23, 2026

The round table is in a courtyard providing access to four spacious bungalows. In one of those lives my brother-in-law and his wife, whom we visit a few times a year. Weather permitting, we sit around the round table each day for cocktail hour and discuss affairs, current and past. The volume of the discourse escalates proportionally to the amount of alcohol we consume and the nature of the subject matter.

The subject last night was a shooting at a local high school. Two people died, and four were injured, all under 18 years of age; they were high school students. It was a prearranged brawl. I have never heard of this type of get-together, where gangs or just groups of people arrange to meet for a fight, or brawl, or whatever. One of us at the round table described his experiences with such brawls in the past, except that there were no guns in those days. It was baseball bats, with which he said, “they beat the shit out of each other.” But with guns, the situation has changed. Of the five injured students, four were girls, and one was only twelve years old.

NC has an open carry law, meaning that one can carry a gun visibly. Sitting with us around the table, Wes and Beth have guns; Wes has a couple of dozen guns, a variety, including an AR15. The most expensive firearm he ever bought was US$3000. And following the law, he locks the guns away when not in use. He said that he used to carry one all the time, but less so now. He used to go to the gun range for practice and took courses for gun owners. Beth also used to practice on the range. They have never had to use a firearm, but Wes explained that it makes him feel safer carrying one. He also has a license for a “concealed weapon,” which allows him to carry a weapon on his body in a concealed location.

Huw does not have a gun but said some people attending his church may carry them, not visibly, because one cannot open carry a gun in a church or in government buildings. Why would anyone carry a gun into a church, into God’s house? Where one should believe in love and friendship and respect their neighbor, and so on. Isn’t this a contradiction of your beliefs?

I asked Wes why he has guns when he has never experienced the need for one. He said that the situation may arise when he needs one, when approchng suspicious looking people. Huw suggested that we should do away with guns, teasing Wes. But no, Wes said that “the bad guys can always acquire guns even if the government took all firearms away from people. And then the bad guys would have guns while the good guys would have no defense.” I asked whether he had forgotten about the police’s role in safety. But, of course, the police would take some time to respond, while people present, with guns, could take charge of the situation and shoot the shooter, was the response.

This take-charge attitude seemed to be Wes’ preferred approach to life and demonstrated his manliness by arriving in his huge Ford Explorer (six cylinders with 450 hp) and stepping out of the cab with a beer in hand.

Statistics on firearms I have read clearly indicate that in countries with strict gun laws or where guns are outlawed, the homicide rate by firearms is very low, compared to the US rates, by many orders of magnitude. But of course, how would the US get rid of guns, and at what cost? Not only financial but also political costs.

Just this morning, I read that there have been over one hundred seventy school shootings this year in the US. That is a huge number, and how many students have been killed? I think that this gun culture, with overtones of machismo, is vastly overrated and costly.

Some nasty overtones and dark broodings come to my mind when guns are used in video games and in real life. I have no hope that there is the political will to change this violent and aggressive behavior in the short run, that results from our fascination with gun culture. But then again, I realize that children, especially boys, like to play soldiers, and perhaps it is built into our genes, going back in history as part of the evolution of human society.

And just what happened this morning here in Winston-Salem, another school shooting, right after the school shooting yesterday. Two boys got involved in an argument with one shooting the other. The shooter was arrested shortly after.

The round table discussion was interesting, and we did not get into any uncivilized arguments. I did not learn anything new, except for some details about how open and concealed carry laws work. And I was flabbergasted to learn that some people attending church may carry a gun as a matter of course. But I have never met people before, who believe in having guns, practice shooting, and firmly believe in the value of carrying guns on their bodies in everyday life.