by Carol McClain      @carol_mcclain We ate in a quaint restaurant with country decorations. Over our table hung something that looked like a Superwoman’s bra. Knowing this couldn’t be, we asked our waitress. “Mule blinders,” she said. Although my picture doesn’t display mules, they looked something like the above picture. the only way a mule could see, …[ read more ]

by Carol McClain      @carol_mcclain   Fifteen fourth graders crowded my classroom eager to make a stained glass heart. I gulped. Fifteen nine-year-olds. Then I stopped breathing. Fourteen active, normal nine-year-olds and one older, disabled child. How can the teacher instruct him along with all the others? I exhaled and breathed normally. In one day I had to send …[ read more ]

by Carol McClain     @carol_mcclain I’d heard being stranded in a cave could cause blindness. Mostly it’s true for infants, but not for adults. Darkness impairs everyone’s vision. For example, miners develop jerky eye movements because they spend so much time in dark spaces. This concept of the damage living in the dark causes brings to mind a study by …[ read more ]

by Carol McClain    @carol_mcclain Have you ever toured a cave? Last year, my family and I explored the Lost Sea in Speedwell, Tennessee. Lights strung along the path led us over ledges, around stalagmites, past underground streams. Deep into the cavern, the tour did what all cave tours do. They turned off the lights. Darkness so …[ read more ]

By Carol McClain:    @carol_mcclain In 1937 King Edward VIII of England gave up his title and power and glory for love. He loved a sinner–a married American  in the process of divorce. Wallis Simpson sympathized with the Nazis. Edward loved her, so he sacrificed everything for her. For an American, this love which created a constitutional crisis in England, speaks of a fairy …[ read more ]