Heritage Facts Bundle #4
For 300 years the White Plains Presbyterian Church has been nurturing faith in our city. Heritage Facts, or snippets of history, appear in our Sunday bulletin every week. Check the index for other posts.
March – April 2013
HERITAGE FACT: The first pastor to serve the Rye and White Plains Presbyterian Churches was The Rev. John Walton, a native of New London and a graduate of Yale College. Walton was known as a pastor in the dissenting, or English Puritan, tradition. Though serving both congregations for many years, Rev. Walton moved his home from Rye to White Plains in 1726.
HERITAGE FACT: When this congregation as first established in 1714, the members of the church were subjects of Queen Anne. Anne the last of the English Monarchs and the final Stuart to hold the throne. Her reign saw the Act of Union (1707) which united England and Scotland under a British Monarchy. But her reign was already near an end. The same year this congregation began meeting saw the ascension of George I, the first of the Hanoverian line who would hold the throne until the twentieth century.
HERITAGE FACT: Our earliest parishioners who lived a trade lived in the village. The farmers resided in the surrounding areas and from the hill tops on their land they enjoyed the most wonderful spread of nature – sweeping vistas of the lower areas, flanked by the Bronx and Mamaroneck Rivers. The higher promontories continue to be known today by the same names: Chatterton Hill on the west side of the Bronx River, Hatfield Hill, Merritt Hill and Purdy Hill on the White Plains side of the Bronx River. Several miles to the north, nestled against Miller Hill, stood Miller farmhouse.
HERITAGE FACT: As our children lead our Palm Sunday procession today, it might be interesting to know some history of our church school. Our earliest Church School classes met in our former sanctuary.
From 1825 to 1854, twenty-five to thirty students sat on each side of the pulpit, the boys being taught by Elder Purdy and the girls by Mrs. Bogart. When fire destroyed that sanctuary in 1854, the classes were moved to the manse until a temporary “lecture room” could be built on the corner of Barker Ave. That structure was later replaced by the New Chapel in 1888 (which is currently the location of the Upper Room and the Thrift Shop). The construction of the Church House in 1922 joined the chapel to the Sanctuary and became the newest home for church school, with classes meeting in cubicles between the wooden posts. A growing Church School program was one reason for the building expansion in 1963, when the present classrooms were designed.
HERITAGE FACT: The large Allin Window in our chancel dates from the 1940s. It was installed as part of a sanctuary beautification project, and was the gift of George Allin. The stained glass depicts the heavenly host of Isaiah chapter six singing “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty.”
Heritage Facts Bundle #3
For 300 years the White Plains Presbyterian Church has been nurturing faith in our city. Heritage Facts, or snippets of history, appear in our Sunday bulletin every week. Check the index for other posts.
January – February 2013
HERITAGE FACT: Did you know that when the construction of the Church House was completed in 1926, it included a locker room and shower facility? The new building was designed to join together the existing sanctuary and chapel, creating a space for social events and meals. The Lower Fellowship Hall not only housed the kitchen, but was used by young men to play basketball. Thus the showers!
WHITE PLAINS HERITAGE FACT: Ten years before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed by a man with a gun, a woman tried to stab him to death in Harlem, and nearly succeeded. The knife came so close to his heart that Rev. King recalls that “if I had sneezed, I would have died.” In his final, most apocalyptic sermon, delivered on the eve of his assassination, Dr. King recalls a letter written by a young girl, a student from White Plains High School. Of all the letters he had received during his recovery, this is the only one he said he remembered.
She wrote simply “Dear Dr. King: I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it should not matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune, and of your suffering. And I read that if you had sneezed, you would have died. And I’m simply writing to say that I’m so happy that you didn’t sneeze.” [The full text of the sermon in linked here ]
HERITAGE FACT: The bell in our church tower was cast in 1856 by the Jones and Hitchcock Foundry in Troy, NY. It measures 30 inches by 38 inches. The pealing rope is still wrapped around the original wooden wheel, 66 inches in diameter and includes a tolling clapper which can be used for funerals.
HERITAGE FACT: Sunday morning church school is an outgrowth of the Sunday School movement, which started in England in 1783. These English schools were planned to teach the 3 R’s as well as “religion and morality through the Scriptures” to children forced to work 6 days a week in factories in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Today, while our Church School children are introduced to the narrative of scripture with wonder and curiosity, our congregation speaks out about the problems of forced child labor, child soldiering and violence against women and children, while advocating for living wages and labor rights.
Heritage Facts Bundle #2
For 300 years the White Plains Presbyterian Church has been nurturing faith in our city. Heritage Facts, or snippets of history, appear in our Sunday bulletin every week. Check the index for other posts.
November – December 2012
HERITAGE FACT: White Plains was settled in 1683 by a group of English dissenters migrating from Rye, New York. When the Anglican Church confiscated the property of the Presbyterians in Rye, settlers came to “the white plains” in search of good soil for farming and freedom of religion, both of which they found here. Material had already been gathered for the construction of a sanctuary; so on May 17, 1714, land for the new church was transferred from Mr. John Frost of Rye to The Rev. Christopher Bridges, and our church was established.
HERITAGE FACT: The oldest planned road in White Plains is North Street, which was first known as the “Queens Highway.” This was in 1708. It was the “road to Rye.” North Broadway, the street on which this church is located, was originally used by the native inhabitants of this area. It can be found in the written record as early as 1697. At that time it was known simply as “White Plains Road.” The name was officially changed to Broadway in 1734.
HERITAGE FACT: Rockledge Avenue (the Northern edge of our property) was originally part of the “Dobbs Ferry Road.” It was begun in 1730. This was the direct line from White Plains to what was then known as Hudson’s River. Lake Street, as we know it now, was laid out in 1762 and was originally called “The Road to Connecticut.” Maple Avenue was the “Old York Road” to Eastchester. Together with N. Broadway and North Street, these were the main roads of White Plains in 1880.
HERITAGE FACT: Did you know that the Bronx River was named after Jonas Brönk who came to this country in 1639? Brönk was the first white inhabitant of Westchester. The Saw Mill Parkway is named after the lumber mill he operated on the banks of the river. The Native American name for the river was Ahquahung.
HERITAGE FACT: The photo above is the Guion Memorial, a 19th-century textile or mourning picture, typical of the period 1790-1840. It shows mourners gathered around the headstone of Monmouth Hart Guion (1771-1833), with the White Plains Presbyterian Church in the background. The church is the present stone structure, completed in 1856, the third sanctuary erected on this site. The Guions were one of Westchester’s pioneer families, with roots in Rye and White Plains. Louis Guion (c. 1654-1732), progenitor of the clan, was a Huguenot from La Rochelle, France, who arrived in New Rochelle, New York, around 1687. Read more HERE and in article by William Ketchum in the Spring 2012 issue of The Westchester Historian.
HERITAGE FACT: Do you know which President of the United States was the first to visit White Plains? Find the answer elsewhere in the bulletin. . . . ANSWER: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the first U.S. President to visit White Plains. Both George Washington and James Monroe spent some time here, but neither was the president yet.
HERITAGE FACT – Pop Culture Reference: New York Times best-selling author Robert Tannenbaum published his legal thriller, Betrayal, in 2010. One of the central characters, a Manhattan newsstand owner named Warren Bennett, is known as “Dirty Warren” because of the obscenities that issue from his mouth. Warren suffers from Tourette’s syndrome, an abnormality in the brain which causes uncontrolled physical and verbal tics. And here we are: on page 106 the reader learns that Warren’s first signs of Tourette’s were his inappropriate outbursts “at the private school where he attended or while sitting in the pews at the White Plains Presbyterian Church.”
HERITAGE FACT: At the front of the sanctuary, below the pulpit, is a broken headstone from a portion of our cemetery which no longer exists. The remains were relocated, but many stones still reside in our basement vault. Take a moment to view the stone before it is returned.
The full inscription read: “In memory of Margaret Downing, Wife of Hart Purdy, who died March 1st, 1847. Age 52 years. I mo. 2 das.” On the portion of the stone that remains we can read the following verse
Behind I leave a partner dear
Faithful in life, in death most near
A father too I trust will be
To William Young remember me
My friends I’ve bid you all farewell
With Christ the Saviour, friend to dwell
To join the throng of angels bright
In heaven above the world of light
Heritage Facts Bundle #1
For 300 years the White Plains Presbyterian Church has been nurturing faith in our city. Heritage Facts, or snippets of history, appear in our Sunday bulletin every week. Check the index for other posts.
September – October 2012
HERITAGE FACT: Did you know that Quarropas was the Native American name for White Plains? It meant “White Marshes,” which became for the early settlers “White Plains.” The name probably referred to the white mist that hung over what was then a great marsh. Today, the intersection of Quarropas and Martin Luther King, Jr. is the site of the Westchester County Courthouse.
HERITAGE FACT: Did you know that the history of White Plains began with a group of Puritan settlers from Rye? The early history of these two towns is inextricably bound together. The settlers were seeking fertile land for farming. They believed that they had purchased this land from the native inhabitants in 1683. White Plains was incorporated as a village on April 3, 1866, and as a city on January 1, 1916.
HERITAGE FACT: In 1759, White Plains became the county seat of all Westchester. In 1776, on the eve of Independence, it was still a small colonial village with just a few stores and dwellings, two taverns, one church, and a court house. One of the earliest laws in the village sought to insure that “horses and mares not run free” along N. Broadway.
HERITAGE FACT: The first train to White Plains was in 1844, the first electric train 1910. Main Street was originally known as Railroad Avenue because it connected the town center, located along N. Broadway, with the new rail station. This new street quickly became the center of the new village.
Rev. John Smith Headstone
HERITAGE FACT: The weather stained and time eroded tombstone in the hallway beside the chancel records: “Here lies the remains of the Rev’d John Smith, the First Ordained Minister of the Presbyterian Perswasion in Rye and The White Plains.” Smith served this congregation from 1742-1771. He was not the first pastor to serve this congregation, only the first Presbyterian. “Wore out with various labours,” his body rests beneath the present church building. A memorial headstone is located in the narthex near the front door.
HERITAGE FACT: Did you know that Presbyterians were instrumental in defining and defending democracy in colonial America? The Rev. John Smith, who served this congregation from 1742 to 1771, was brother to Judge William Smith of New York City, a member of the triumvirate of “Wall Street Presbyteries”, Livingston, Scott and Smith, who started the “Sons of Liberty” and issued the first call for the Convention of Patriots. They met in Philadelphia and played a part in drawing up the Declaration of Independence.
HERITAGE FACT: According to John Rösch, the grandfather of the Rev. John Smith “had been a brave soldier under Oliver Cromwell, and his father, Thomas, a business man of force and fine character, came to New York with his family in 1715.” Smith was the minister in White Plains and Rye for nearly half a century (1742-1771) and was closely identified with the progress of White Plains and the surrounding community.
HERITAGE FACT: “Jesus doeth all things well.” This is what Joseph M. Tyler, born 1873, wanted on his headstone when he died. No date is recorded for his death, but the sentiment serves as a good epitaph for the whole cemetery. For almost 300 years, the Presbyterian “Burying Ground” has been a site of grief, longing and Christian hope for our community. Ours is the oldest cemetery in White Plains.
Heritage Facts: Index
For 300 years the White Plains Presbyterian Church has been nurturing faith in our city. Heritage Facts, or snippets of history, appear in our Sunday bulletin every week. This post will serve as a constantly updated index for all of the Heritage Facts as they are published.
Bundle #1 (September – October 2012)
Bundle #2 (November – December 2012)
Bundle #3 (January – February 2013)
Bundle #4 (March – April 2013)
Bundle #5 (May – June 2013)
Bundle #6 (Sermon References)
Bundle #7 (Heritage Days)
Bundle #8 (July – August 2013)
Bundle #9 (September – October 2013)
Bundle #10 (November – December 2013)
Proclaim Liberty: Juneteenth Observed
A sermon preached by the Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary at the White Plains Presbyterian Church on the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost [Juneteenth observed], June 16, 2013
Psalm 78: 1-8 Jeremiah 34: 8-22
I have chosen this remarkable passage from Jeremiah as our text for reflection because of the way it deals with slavery in ancient Israel. It does not appear in the three-year lectionary cycle of readings for worship, and so it is little preached on, but it serves us well today as we reflect on Juneteenth.
“King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty – that all should set free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should hold another Judean in slavery. And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that all would set free their slaves, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again; they obeyed and set them free.”
The covenantal background here is the Biblical Jubilee described in Leviticus 25 and Isaiah 61, in which every seven years those held in debt bondage were released with their debts forgiven, and the land itself was given rest from constant production for human need.
This is the same Jubilee announced by Jesus as the beginning of his ministry when he declared
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me
because he has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to let the oppressed go free
and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Jubilee practice is rooted in Israel’s earliest memory of the God who freed slaves from the oppression of Egypt, the God of Exodus who made a covenant with Israel so that God’s free people would never again be enslaved, even to one another. But Israel ignored the hedge the Jubilee slave release provided against the tendency of humans to exploit one another for selfish gain.
The historical context for this passage is Judah’s war with Babylon that eventually led to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 and the exile of its ruling families and priestly leadership. We don’t know why Zedekiah suddenly announced liberty to the slaves. Perhaps it was a desperate attempt to demonstrate covenant fidelity and save the city, a prayer in a foxhole, so to speak. Perhaps it was genuine repentance, as suggested by verse 15, for the practice of slavery that effectively denied the God of Exodus and made Israel little different than its Imperial neighbors. Whatever it was, Jeremiah tells is that God noticed act and God thought it was a good thing. And the text is clear, freedom is something the slaves themselves desired. But then, just as suddenly, Jerusalem repents its repentance and takes back their male and female slaves, rendering freedom null and void. In so doing, says Jeremiah, Israel profaned the name of God. As a result, God will now set Israel free; free to experience sword, pestilence and famine, free to be treated by Babylon as they treat one other, free to watch the destruction of their city, free of their own freedom.
No wonder we don’t read this very often.
Juneteenth (celebrated annually on June 19th, which is this Wednesday) is African Americans’ Independence Day, also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day. It celebrates the end of slavery in Texas – a symbol of the South. When Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, it had little immediate effect on most slaves, particularly in the Confederate States. Most African Americans remained slaves until the end of the Civil War in 1865. But in Galveston, Texas, slaves did not even get the word that slavery had ended until June 19, 1865, two and a half years after President Lincoln had freed them with the Emancipation Proclamation. Texas resisted to the very end. On June 18th General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 federal troops to enforce the emancipation of slaves. On June 19th, from the balcony of the Ashton Villa, he declared, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves.” The streets filled with jubilant celebrations, and Juneteenth began to be celebrated the following year. Today it is officially observed in 42 states, including New York, and here in White Plains.
New York has its own stories of freedom and resistance.
Emancipation in New York began with the Society of Friends more commonly known as Quakers, in what is now Harrison and Purchase, just to our East. In 1760, the abolitionist and Quaker preacher John Woolman visited Rye with his anti-slavery message, and convinced many in the Society of Friends to free their slaves. Seven years later the Quakers in Purchase petitioned the New York Yearly Meeting, something like our Presbytery, to support the abolition of slavery and demonstrate such support in their own lives. For the next ten years, individual Quakers were encouraged by the Meeting to voluntarily free their slaves until, in 1777, they voted to disown anyone who resisted emancipation. Essentially, if you refused to emancipate your slaves, you were barred from membership in the Society of Friends. It was not until 40 years later that New York state passed the law abolishing slavery in 1817 and designating a 10 year period for the gradual manumission of slaves, to be completed by 1827. The Governor who signed that bill into law was none other than Daniel D. Tompkins, a Presbyterian and a child of this congregation.[i]
The Quakers, however, had no such “gradual” approach which was designed to protect the economic interests of slaveholders. Instead their focus was on the slaves themselves. You see the Quakers didn’t just free their slaves, leaving men, women and children to fend for themselves in a hostile economy and society. The Quakers in Purchase also offered economic compensation to their former slaves. Committed to the welfare of their new neighbors, the Quakers gave formers slaves rough farmland, land for a church and helped them build houses. This is how Stony Hill, New York’s first free black community, was created. Most residents practiced subsistence farming, or served as carpenters, shoemakers or laborers for the white farmers. The community was solidly centered in the black church and provided a safe place for free blacks, not only of New York, but for those migrating North, and later for those travelling the underground railroad to freedom.
Do you know where this community was? Just about a mile from here in what is now Silver Lake Preserve. If you have not been, or have not been in a while, I encourage you to check it out. Silver Lake Preserve today is 167 acres of trails and lake wandering over the visible remains of Stony Hill, including the remains of many homes and a cemetery full of civil war soldiers who served in New York’s first black regiments.[ii]
Our Psalm this morning instructs us to teach our children about the past so that they might not repeat the mistakes of previous generations. That means telling both “the glorious deeds” and the “dark sayings”; the good and the bad. So let me do that with some of our own history as it relates to slavery.
Just a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to take a guided hike through Silver Lake Preserve with a naturalist from Westchester County Parks and a historian from Hartwick College, Dr. Edythe Ann Quinn. I took the opportunity to ask her about possible relations between Presbyterians in White Plains and the residents of Stony Hill. Her response was to pose the question, “What do you think it was like for free blacks to leave the safe confines of Stony Hill and visit the county seat in White Plains on the eve of the civil war?”
Whites and blacks, we know, played and worked together, some of the children went to school together, and at least one family intermarried. But blacks could also encounter hostility. One of prominent members of this church, Edmund Sutherland, who was at various times Superintendent of Schools, Town Supervisor, and a member of the New York State Assembly, was also the publisher of the Easter Star Journal. The Journal was the Democratic Party newspaper for Westchester that was, as Dr. Quinn put it, anti-Lincoln and pro-slavery. Headlines regularly demanded concessions for the Southern planters and enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act.[iii]
Of course, that should come as no surprise: most of New York State was anti-Lincoln and pro-slavery, not out of any love for slavery but out of economic self-interest. The merchants, bankers and traders, who made up this community, not to mentions the immigrant labor force, all feared the loss of Cotton revenue and the impact of free blacks moving north looking for jobs. A good many stood in the way of freedom because they were, literally, invested in the status quo. And that included the pastor of this church, David Teese (1853-1864, 1865-1869).
Juneteenth reminds us that from Zedekiah’s Day until our own, there has always been resistance to the exercise of freedom. Between the proclamation of freedom and its realization, there is often a lag in time. But that lag profanes God’s name, and requires compensation.
Our congregation was clearly divided, on the eve of the civil war. Twice they tried to remove their outspoken pro-slavery pastor, Rev. Teese, from the pulpit; families moved their membership elsewhere, financial support waned. Eventually, the pastor left. And when Edmund Sutherland, that prominent pro-slavery church member who was a politician and newspaper publisher, passed away childless, a schoolhouse he possessed was left to church. The church, in turn, gave it to the Stony Hill Community in what seems to me, a small act of reparation to the now free black community who had born the brunt of his hostility and the church’s inaction.
So as we enter this week, both the Biblical texts and our observance of Juneteenth invite us to speak clearly about God’s demand for human freedom and impatience with our prolonged delays that profane God’s very name. Our urgency for human rights and well-being should match God’s very own. Knowing more about parts of our own congregation’s 300 year history reminds us that God entrusts to every generation the power and the responsibility to promote human freedom and dignity. And in this time and this place, our decisions about what we stand for, who we welcome, what we are ready to risk and sacrifice and join, are our legacy as much as the stones of this building or the markers in the cemetery. For our words and our actions have the power to build or to impede God’s kin-dom coming on earth. So as we enter our 300th year, let us take up the gauntlet thrown down by history, with courage. Let us tell the truth about our past – our uncertainties, our mistakes, our insights, our compassion, our reticence, our boldness. Let us take seriously the exhortation of the Psalmist and pledge that “we will tell the next generation” so that they can be guided by past mistakes as well as successes, that we and they may put our trust in God, and keep God’s commandments.
Amen.
[i] HERITAGE FACT: Daniel D. Tompkins – Biographer Ray Irwin has written,
“Most Americans, if questioned about Daniel Tompkins, would have to plead total ignorance. Many historians would find it difficult to describe him with any accuracy. He remains a dim figure even in New York City, where among the multitudes who daily throng Tompkins Square in Manhattan and Tompkinsville, Staten Island, there can be few who ever associate those localities with the individual for whom they are named.”
Since we will get to know Daniel D. Tompkins and his family in Heritage Facts throughout the summer, let’s summarize a few important facts about him:
- Daniel Tompkins was born on June 21, 1774, at Fox Meadow, Scarsdale.
- He was presumably baptized in this church, where his father was a Trustee. His family remained active here for generations.
- Daniel studied law at Columbia University, and served on the NY Supreme Court (1804-7).
- He was elected Governor of New York and served from 1807 until 1816.
- Daniel served two terms as Vice-President of the United States under James Monroe (1817-1825).
- Though Daniel is buried in with his wife in her family vault at St.-Mark’s-in-the-Bowery, NYC, the rest of the Tompkins family (parents, siblings) are all buried in our church yard.
[ii] Marc Breslav, A History of Stony Hill: Westchester’s First Free Black Community, 1986. http://www.nynjtc.org/document/history-stony-hill
Sabbath Day – Dancin’, William & Wrestlin’
Let me consider this sabbath day to have begun last evening. I went Dancin’ at Garcia’s to well past The Midnight Hour.
Garcia’s is the new performance space at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester. The Cap was one of Jerry Garcia’s favorite place to play music, and the Grateful Dead performed some memorable music there. “Bertha” was heard for the first time at the Capitol, as well as the first ever “Playin,” “Greatest Story,” “Loser,” and Wharf Rat.” Can you imagine hearing “Playin in the Band” for the first time?
Stella Blues Band is our premier Dead cover band, and readers of this blog know I have been following them for a couple of years. They currently have a month long residency at Garcia’s. Last Wednesday, Stella Blues played the inaugural show in the new space, and did so by covering the famous Englishtown ’77 show. How appropriate! This week they played tunes from the eleven shows the Dead did at the Cap in 70-71. Next week they will play their first ever acoustic show, and the following week will offer an “audience choice” performance. If you haven’t already, check ‘em out on facebook, youtube, etc.
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Last Thursday I wrote about my search for my great great grandfather, William David Geary. Ancestry.com has helped me document his residence in Union County and Fair Oaks, Indiana, as well as observe his growing family through census records. But I was able to learn little more.
Today a very helpful woman in the Jasper County Public Library, Indiana, helped me hunt down two obituaries for William. Totally frustrating. I mean, I know it was a small town and everyone knew everyone, but who writes a sentence like “He is survived by his widow” ? I know who she was, but would everyone else reading this? “He is survived by five children, Clarence…Mrs. Floyd McColly, Daisy, Pansy, and one other son.” Really? Did everyone know that Mrs. Floyd McColly was Beulah? Could they not remember the name of the other son? Was this Augustus or was this Ray, Sarah’s son? And since it is likely Augustus, why not mention Ray, who was raised by William since he was less than two years old?
The Rensselaer Republican can claim he was a prominent member of the community and in the next sentence say “his life history is not available at this time.” Well, that history is what I’m looking for! That he was “prominent” at least holds out hope that there will an newspaper article or something surviving.
[Anyone out there hold a subscription to a newspaper archive who could do a search for William David Geary or W. D. Geary, as his obituary called him?]
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I am fighting a cold. I took a long nap this morning and then spent the afternoon reading What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe. This is the fourth volume of the Oxford History of the United States. Other scholars have called this period that of Jacksonian Democracy or “the market revolution.” Howe prefers to see it as a “communications revolution.” At the beginning of the period nothing moved faster than horse. By the end, the rail road, telegraphs, the Erie Canal, steamboats, and much more had transformed the country, its public and its politics. And of course, the ever present evil of slavery.
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August and I had burgers and dogs for dinner, watched the end of the Mets-Cardinals game, applied temporary tattoos of sharks to our bodies, and then wrestled as shape-shifting super-heroes (and villains): We could turn into any of the sharks we were wearing simply by touching their tattoo. Amazing how much physical exercise this kid needs.
