(Posted July 5, 2016)

Photo taken in Bruges, Belgium. The marker is balanced on the wrought-iron fence.
Photo by Bridget Redpath '18
Photo taken in Bruges, Belgium. The marker is balanced on the wrought-iron fence.
Photo by Bridget Redpath '18

Hanging around the history offices on the third floor of Founders Hall can be exciting, like during a Hall Golf tournament. Other times, students’ minds can wander.

            Witness Bridget Redpath ’19, of Lakeville, Mass, a history and museum studies POE who noticed that a whiteboard marker owned by historian Dave Hsiung had the following legend written on a piece of tape; “I live at 313 Founders. Please do not take me on a road trip!!”

            “I decided that I had to take the marker on a road trip,” says Redpath, who ended up taking the marker to several countries and a couple of choice vacation spots. “I think it was the two exclamation marks on the marker that inspired me.”

            After carefully making another decoy marker, identical down to the masking tape-label, Redpath took the original marker on her travels throughout the summer. Hsiung was none the wiser and suspected no marker shenanigans.

            Over the summer, Redpath recorded the marker’s whereabouts at many historical sites throughout Europe. She spend a month in Lille, France as part of the Eagles Abroad summer program, but duiring her off time she was able to pose the marker in front of such sites as the Somme Battlefield memorial in Thiepval, France, the Palace of Versailles, the canals of Bruges, Belgium. Upon her return home, she took the marker on a family vacation where it stood tall on Mt. Washington, in New Hampshire and at a water park near Cape Cod, where Redpath works during the summer.

"We're all about humor in the history department, so I knew it would be funny when I brought it back."

Bridget Redpath '18

            “I never lost it, although to make sure, I taped it to my camera,” she laughs. “We’re all about humor in the history department, so I knew it would be funny when I brought it back.”

            And indeed it was. Radpath presented Hsiung with a 13-page, 43-photo scrapbook that documented in detail the errant marker’s travels around the globe.

 

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.