What a trip

Posted on July 21, 2026July 21, 2026 by Mike

Class trip to…erm…Japan?!?

Yep, I promise you it’s for real: my lovely, über-talented, and bona fide genius daughter Madeleine—currently a rising Junior at Bessemer City HS (near Gastonia, NC)—is going on a field trip courtesy of EF Educational Tours to Tokyo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, and Osaka next July 14-22. The link is to the fundraiser her mom and step-dad are holding to foot the cost of this once-in-a-lifetime trip.

The ex-spousal unit and mother of my only child contacted me earlier this afternoon to ask if I’d be on board with helping spread the word about the Send Mike’s Young ‘Un to Jay-pang fundie, so here we all are. The above link will whisk you off to MJ’s donation page, as will this one, from whence those of y’all with a few extra shekels burning holes in your pocketses can toss a few into the kitty and help give a great kid an experience she’s bound to remember for the rest of her life.

I was telling my brother Jeff about this whole deal when he guffawed and choked out past his uncontrollable mirth, “Man alive, when I was in school we were lucky to get to go over to the Schiele Museum in Gastonia every year.” Same here, bro, same here. Loved that joint all to pieces when I was but a wee tyke. I’ll make this sticky so’s it’ll stay up top for a week or two, and not get lost in the shuffle.

4 thoughts on “What a trip”

tominor says:

July 22, 2026 at 6:33 pm

Bessemer was the guy who figured out how to mass-produce carbon steel. Steel bridges and buildings and whatnot wouldn’t be possible without the Bessemer process.

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Barry says:

July 25, 2026 at 8:27 pm

Done

Sorry I missed this earlier – just catching up with the internets…

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Barry says:

July 27, 2026 at 1:55 am

Holy Cow!
How did I miss the Schiele Museum? Had no idea. Granted, I did not grow up here in the Charlotte area, but my 4 children did as are my grandchildren. I’ll have to get the littler grands on over there…

Thanks for the tip Mike!

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1. Mike says:
  
  July 27, 2026 at 11:27 am
  
  Oh, it’s great, we used to really look forward to it every year when I was a kid. It’s a whole lot bigger and better than it was then.
  
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