Before we went to Dealey Plaza, my brother and sister-in-law told me that there are “X”s in the street that mark where President Kennedy was hit. I found this idea to be shocking at first. Do we really need to know the exact spots, marked with an X on the pavement?

How does a city mark its role in a dark part of American History? It’s a dilemma for Dallas and the JFK assassination.

“Mt. Vernon is not nerdy!” insisted my friend Susan B. when she first heard about the concept of Nerd Trips. Apparently, not everyone is comfortable with the idea that somewhere they’ve visited has been labeled as nerdy. Susan grew up in Washington, D.C. and visited Mt. Vernon nearly every year, often on a school field trip.
Her declaration was the first salvo in what I call “the Great Nerd Debate.” What exactly makes something nerdy?