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Excerpt from A Week in Two Worlds: Stepping Into the Snow Globe

The rain pattered softly against the RV windows, a steady rhythm that might have been soothing if I weren’t somewhere else entirely. I was supposed to be here—wrapped in a blanket, book in my lap, sipping tea and watching the water at Florence Marina State Park. But instead, I was inside a snow globe, watching cadets march in formation, sponsors glide across a ballroom floor, the world inside the glass shimmering with tradition and elegance.

I had always seen Gordon that way—beautiful, untouchable, a place suspended in time. And in some ways, I had wanted to be there. To be a sponsor, to twirl in an evening gown at the Military Ball, to be part of the story that had been so carefully preserved.

But when I shook the snow globe, another story appeared. A cafeteria where Black students had to strategize just to find a place to sit. A fundraiser where students were auctioned off, until someone finally turned the game on itself. A girl, just 14, stepping onto campus for the first time and realizing that the magic in the snow globe wasn’t meant for her.

This week, I lived in two places at once—the quiet isolation of the RV and the noisy, living memories of Gordon in the 1960s. One was supposed to be an escape. The other, a confrontation with history. And in the end, I know which one I actually visited.