I was a senior at Wellesley College.\u00a0 I was taking a modern architecture course, and we had to do a paper on a building.\u00a0 My parents knew someone who owned a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.\u00a0 When I called him he was upset at telling me no, but said he had refused many students and felt he had to be consistent.\u00a0 He felt badly enough to call me later and tell me about a modern church built by a local architect, designed so that the sun fell on the altar at Christmas, Easter, and St. John\u2019s Day.\u00a0 As I was an astronomy major, I was fascinated and called John Garber to set up a meeting at the church.\u00a0 Our first words after introducing ourselves were \u201cWhere do you go to college?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWellesley.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWhat\u2019s your major?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cAstronomy.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWould you like a job?\u201d
\nThe job was teaching astronomy to his children at their summer place on the Damariscotta River.\u00a0 He had hired someone else to teach gardening.\u00a0 He was interested in the Neolithic Age, which is when people discovered agriculture, settled down, began to build big buildings, and observed the sky.\u00a0 So the beginnings of agriculture, architecture and astronomy were all together.\u00a0 He also told me that Stonehenge was an astronomical computer, he had read Gerald Hawkin\u2019s article in Nature, which had just been published.<\/p>\n
I was already planning a trip to Europe in the fall with a fellow student.\u00a0 We started in Ireland, and looked for neolithic ruins all along the way.\u00a0 We got to Stonehenge in November.\u00a0 The guard was just locking the gate.\u00a0 We pleaded but he ignored us and left.\u00a0 We looked at the three strands of barbed wire between us and Stonehenge, and climbed through them.\u00a0 We had Stonehenge all to ourselves, a wonderful experience, as the sun shone through rents in the clouds and we could see sunbeams stalking over Salisbury Plain. I was a senior at Wellesley College.\u00a0 I was taking a modern architecture course, and we had to do a paper on a building.\u00a0 My parents knew someone who owned a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.\u00a0 When I called … Continue reading
\n![\"stonehenge64\"](\"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/stonehenge64.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"