Congratulations to Melvin Morales for being the first student to tweet a selfie at the location of the September 22nd #FindMeFriday!
A little about this week’s location:
The Tortoise and Hare sculpture is located in Copley Square and was created Nancy Schon, originally from Newton, in 1995, Massachusetts. This sculpture is a tribute to all the past and future runners of the Boston Marathon. Shon provides a wonderful explanation of her reasoning behind using these to iconic characters to represent this iconic race:
After watching the 1991 Marathon, I started thinking about what a sculpture might be like for the Boston Marathon, the oldest foot race in the United States. I wanted to create a sculpture that would be attractive to children, yet be a meaningful metaphor for the race. I knew the marathon was based on a Greek warrior who in 490 B.C. ran approximately 25 miles to announce the news of a great military victory. The Greek connection of using another kind of race, that of the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare created by Aesop ( ?620- 560 B.C.) came to mind. I couldn’t show a man running, or a woman, or a person in a wheelchair. It would be impossible to portray all the people from all over the world who run. The tortoise and the hare seemed a perfect metaphor to represent the wide variety of people who participate in the marathon – people of all ages, shapes and sizes, many of whom finish, but walk over the finish line.
So the next time you are in Copley Square, be sure to look for this whimsical sculpture and remember, it isn’t how fast you go that is important, it’s how long you are able to keep going that matters most!
Carry on, my friends. Carry on!