Traveling With Flat Stanley

April 28,2024

When I was on a summer tour of England in 1995, one of my adult travelers, a parent and a fellow teacher, pulled a plush stuffed bird out of her suitcase after we arrived in London. At her elementary school, any faculty member who was going on a trip had to pack the school mascot and take photographs for a bulletin board in the school’s main hallway. During our visit to the Tower of London, the teacher asked one of the Yeoman Warders (also known as Beefeaters, but don’t call them that) to pose with her and the bird for a photograph. Taking the bird from her hands, the Yeoman Warder straightened the bird’s feathers and sniffed, “The things I do for the Queen!” Before my 2000 spring break tour to England, a third-grade teacher asked me to be a