Musings

Random Stuff

2012-02-10T12:01:00.001-05:00


Photo of a Carolina bay located in Carolina Beach State Park.

I took the above photo last September when I was home visiting my parents. Just recently a beautiful redheaded Cuban tagged me for a meme. I don’t often do these, but this one had possibilities for some smart alack answers and, besides, I was desperate for blogging ideas. I’m supposed to share 11 random facts about myself, answer 11 questions provided by the Cuban Redhead, then tag 11 people with some questions on my own. I will do the first two, but I don’t like people feeling obliged to me, so I’ll forgo the third item. As the band Meatloaf sang, “two out of thee ain’t bad.” Of course, if you want to consider yourself tagged, go ahead and answer the questions I answered.

11 Random Facts about me

1. My second toe is larger than my big toe (which is the classical ideal if you look at statues from that era)

2. At one point in my childhood, I wanted to study volcanoes.

3. During my sophomore year in college, I seriously considered majoring in geology.

4. I was a terrible student through high school.

5. At one time, I had all of Steely Dan’s albums and tapes (I still have a number of their CDs)

6. My Myers-Briggs profile is ENTJ. That should give you psych nuts something to chew on.

7. I am barely on the “E” side of the scale which means I also cherish time alone.

8. I love harsh weather and feel alive with ice in my beard.

9. A favorite possession is my grandfather’s fly rod.

10. From my other grandfather, I have his kerosene lantern that still works.

11. Anything that combines cherries and chocolate is good.

Below are the Redheaded Cuban questions and my answers:

1. Who were you named after, if anyone?   I have two answers to this question, the first is true (believe it or not), and the second is another of my creations: 1. My uncle’s best friend in the first grade… He no longer remembers this guy, but he suggested the name to my parents and they liked it. 2. After the British poet Geoffrey Chaucer, only my parents didn’t know how to spell.

2. If you could spend two weeks anywhere, ALONE, where would you go? I don’t know exactly, but there would be a river and some mountains

3. Who is/was the love of your life? Other than a red headed Cuban? I have a few…

4. What do you hate about blogging? It would be crass to say “memes”, wouldn’t it?

5. Do you have a "comfort food?" If so, what is it? French Vanilla Ice Cream

6. What drink could you not live without? Unsweetened Ice Tea (I know I’m from the South, but I gave up sugar in my tea when I was in college)

7. If you could only own one DVD or movie, which one would it be? “A River Runs through It” Come to think of it, it is one of the few DVDs I own...

8. Name one thing you'd like to do before you kick the bucket.   Remove the noose from around my neck.

9. What famous person have you been told you look like? When I was a kid, it was Ron Howard (when he was on Andy Griffin). As an adult, no one has every suggested I look like someone famous. There is a reason I’m not famous.

10. What qualities do you look for in a friend? Someone who’s fast at grabbing the bill at a restaurant…   A second quality would be someone with life insurance as I’ve had many friends (starting in high school) who have died. Actually, it would be someone who can listen as well as they can talk.

11. Who makes you laugh like no one else in this world (could be someone you know personally or someone famous)? Lately it’s been the Republican primaries, but then I realize it’s not really that funny because one of these dudes might end up with a finger on the nuclear trigger.

Days of Beer (A Review and a Personal Essay)

2012-02-07T14:56:00.001-05:00

Days of Beer, the Review

“Charles Granlich is George Thorogood without the guitar. You know the song, “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer”? This short book is in the same genre. It’s a collection of stories telling of how Charles became a beer drinker (they start ‘em early in Arkansas), how he had love affairs with many cheap brands, and how he eventually came to realize that too much beer came with too many consequences. A “love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of man,” Charles left his drinking life behind, preferring the love of his wife over a cheap bottle of booze. There are a number of funny stories here, such as dealing with the police, raiding beer from others camping nearby, and bootlegging beer across state lines. Luckily, he didn’t get caught; there would be nothing more shameful than being caught bootlegging Coors, which in my opinion is one of the worst excuses for beer in the world. If there was only Coors and water, I’d become a teetotaler and take the pledge! Charles shares some lessons learned from beer. Drinking beer can have a negative impact on one’s love life, but it can also give you some humorous stories to tell (if can you can only remember them). Days of Beer is cheaper than a cheap beer (unless you happen to be in Vietnam). It’s short, just a page shy of 50, and is available as an ebook for 99 cent. I read it on a Nook. My only complaint is that occasionally a word would be split up (without a hyphen) and a letter would be on the line above or below. But that wasn’t too much to deal with considering that I did get some laughs at Charles’ expense (Don’t feel too bad for him; I paid the 99 cent). I should acknowledge, in a desire that my review being unbiased and all that, that I have gotten to know Charles through the reading of his blog and his comments on my blog. But I still had to pay the 99 cent! ”

Days of Beer, Part 2

Like Charles, I grew up in the South, but in another part. I have never really been one to drink heavily and I didn’t really become a beer drinker until later in life. When I was younger, I’d occasionally have a beer on a hot afternoon, but in the circles I ran, most of us who drank preferred bourbon or scotch. Charles notes that in general Southern women aren’t impressed with beer drinkers and I knew more than a few who considered beer to be low class, but had no problem with their guys drinking whiskey straight (as long as it was in a glass and not straight out of the bottle). So I cut my teeth on the harder stuff, only occasionally having a beer. Charles could have his affairs with the St. Pauli Girl while I was best friends with guys like George Dickle and Johnny Walker. (But before you get any wrong ideas, we weren’t lovers, just acquaintances.) This all changed in late summer 1986 when I left the South for Pittsburgh to study theology. I was once again a poor student, made even poorer by the house payment for which I was still responsible. With that burden over my head, I moved into the dorms to save money. Although I had my own room, dorm life with the hockey games in the hall didn’t set well with me. I would have gone crazy had it not been for Jim, my next door neighbor in the dorms and the only other guy on the hall not right out of college.

I’d arrived a day or two before Jim and had my room all set up when he arrived. It was late one afternoon and he popped his head in my room. I was spread out on the bed reading, but invited him in and I told him there was some ice tea in my fridge if he wanted some. He poured himself a glass and took a seat at my desk and began to talk. Jim was a great talker. He was telling me all about himself when, in midsentence he stopped and said something like “Holy Cow,” although that may not have been the exact words he’d used. As he talked, he’d been looking at my room, at the books I’d hauled up from North Carolina, the teddy bears that had been a gift of my girlfriend at the time, Cindy, whose picture was also pasted around the room. But what caught Jim’s eye weren’t the books or the pictures or my old typewriter (I’d be another year before I got a computer). Under my desk was a box containing the remnants of my liquor cabinet. There were bottles of single malt, of various bourbons and whiskeys, a bottle of Southern Comfort (just because) and some pretty good liqueurs like Drambuie and Grand Marnier. Jim’s worst fear, enrolling in a school full of temperance pledgers, had just been shattered. That night we went out for the first time and for the next year, we would explore all the ‘burgs in Pitt through their local taverns.

Pittsburgh is a beer drinking town. Over the first few weeks at school, I became acquainted with Iron City and “IC Light” (which sounds like icy light, when ordered). Then there was Rolling Rock, made with the refreshingly pure waters of Latrobe, a myth that survived until I made my first trip to Latrobe and failed to see any water source that looked refreshing or pure. Nonetheless, Rolling Rock would be a beer of choice for most of my time in Pittsburgh. Except for when I was hot and sweaty, I never got to where I could chug beers like the natives, which may be why I survived the first year of studying while Jim didn’t. Down South, when drinking bourbon, you learn to sip it and to nurse it along. Otherwise, you’d end up in the gutter, a destination I avoided. I did the same thing with beer, sipping and nursing it along. This often meant that by the time I had drunk a bottle of beer, the last of it was room temperature and not very good as I am not a European and haven’t found anything pleasant about warm beer. Rolling Rock had the answer, a seven ounce pony. It was the perfect sized bottle and I could drink it all before it warmed. And since the bottles were reusable, they appealed to my environmental ethic. A case of 48 ponies cost only nine dollars (plus the four dollars and eighty cent deposit, an initial investment as I kept the case and returned the empties for a refill).

Oddly, in Pennsylvania (at least in the 80s), you couldn’t buy beer in a grocery store. You had to go to a bar, where you paid a premium price, or to a “beer distributor” where you could only buy beer by the case. The good news is that beer by the case is cheaper. After looking around, I discovered the best distributor to be a drive-in arrangement in Sharpsburg, across the Alleghany River. This was a quite convenient arrangement. You drove in and popped your trunk and they’d fill it up for you and after paying the bill, you’d drive off with your front tires barely touching the pavement. There was always beer in my refrigerator, but most of my drinking time was spent in pubs and bars around the city. My favorite was just a few blocks away, where beers were still fifty cent a glass and the most expensive bar drink was two bucks. But Jim and I also explored the rest of the city, stopping in clubs to get a feel for the variety that the city offered.

I should write more about beer and Pittsburgh and maybe I’ll do that later. But there is one more story I’d like to share, one about Sapporo Beer (a beer Charles refers to in his memoir). In the room across the hall from me was Ken, a student from Japan. A couple weeks after school started, I came across a place that sold beers from around the world. I think it was the Original O (or the Dirty O) a well-known hotdog and french fries establishment in Oakland, across from the University of Pittsburgh library that also had a collection of beers from around the world in their bar. Seeing a beer from Japan, I brought a six-pack thinking Ken would be thrilled. He wasn’t. Those beers weren’t drunk until I was out of American beers. Back in the ‘80s, when we were concerned that Japan was going to surpass the United States economically, beer was the one import from the Land of the Rising Sun that didn’t make a dint in the American market.

Jim and I often talked about writing a guide to the bars and pubs of Pittsburgh, but we never did. Maybe this is a start…

In Siberia (photos and a book review)

2012-02-03T20:07:00.000-05:00

Siberian Village (photo taken from train)

This post is mostly a book review. But I added some of my own photos from my summer trip that took me from Beijing, through Mongolia, on to Ulan Ude, Russia and across Siberia the Urals and on to Moscow and St. Petersburg. These photos were used in the posts that I made in the blog I kept during the summer.

Sunset over Lake Baikal

Colin Thuborn, In Siberia (1999, HarperCollins ebook, 2009), 270 pages

During the Soviet era, much of Siberia was closed off from the West. The Soviets utilized this vast area (which contains nearly a fifth of the world’s landmass) as the Czars earlier: a place to exile criminals and political prisoners. During the Second World War, industry began to develop in Siberia, far from the reach of Hitler’s tanks. It is a place of great resources—minerals, oil, timber, wheat—and great hardship—the coldest temperatures ever recorded in inhabited place is in Siberia. After the breakup of the Soviet Union and two years after the end of collective farming, Colin Thubron set out to explore this region. Thubron, an Englishman, was familiar with Russia, having spent time there during the Cold War and having written on the nation. In his travels, he takes the Trans-Siberian Railroad as well as the BAM (Baikal-Amur Railroad), a line that runs north of Lake Baikal, and a steamer up the Yenisei River to the arctic. In the East, he flies to remote locations. In all, he covers the region from the Urals to the Pacific, from the “Altai Republic” along the Mongolian border to Dudinka, beside the frozen waters of the Arctic.

Siberia, Thubron suggests was “born out of optimism and dissent.” (22) Starting in the 1750s, Siberia became a place to exile criminals (just as Britain exiled its criminals to Australia) and although the number of criminals outnumbered the political prisoners, the later served as a “leavening intelligentsia” for the region (162) Ironically, Siberia with its vastness was also a place of freedom. In the 18^th Century, those who moved there had a saying, “God is high and the czar is far off.” (22) In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, Siberia was a stronghold out for the White Russians who fought against the Bolsheviks. Thubron tells of talk in Irkutsk to build a statue to honor Adm. Kolchak, a leader of the White Russians who was shot by the Bolsheviks at Irkutsk and his body pushed below the ice. He doubts the monument will be built. (This summer I discovered a beer brewed in Irkutsk with his name on it, which to me seems a fitting tribute.)

Along the Trans-Siberian (old water tower)

Traveling in the years after the breakup of the Soviet system and the end of state-sponsored atheism, Thubron is surprised to find religion so alive. “Russia’s atheist past seemed no more than an overcast day in the long Orthodox summer,” he noted. (56) As he traveled he witnessed new and renovated churches opening. At the dedication of a monastery outside of Omsk, he asked himself, “Why had this faith resurrected out of nothing, as if a guillotined head had been struck back on its body? Some vital artery had preserved it.” (59) Not only does he explore the resurgence in the Orthodox faith, (who seemed to be profiting from the ability to import and sell alcohol and cigarettes tax free (56), but also Buddhism among the Buryat (165ff), a dying Jewish settlement in Eastern Siberia (208ff), Russian Baptist (220f), Old Believers with their insistence of the correct way to cross themselves in prayers (175f), and even a few who were trying to revive traditional shamanistic practices (98ff). In each situation, he meets with religious leaders. One of the more interesting interviews was with an Orthodox priest in Irkutsk, whose father had been a communist and whose mother was a Christian. He told about how in the Army, he began to be convicted of his sin and came to God through his guilt. This priest feared a war between China and Russia and also felt that America was a godless land (156-7).

Dining on the Trans-Siberian

But not all of Siberia is teaming with religious revival. Many of the encounters were with people who had lost faith in communism or who felt their world had been pulled out from them. There was a woman who had been sent to Siberia by Stalin, yet still refused to criticize the Communist Party. Toward the end of his journey, in northeastern Siberia, he visits Kolyma, the location of some of the most deadly camps. Being sent here was a death sentence. In the winter of 1932, whole camps (prisoners, dogs and guards) froze to death. It is here that the coldest inhabit place on earth is at, where the temperature has dropped to -97.8 F, where ones breath will free into crystals and twinkle onto the ground, a phenomenon known as the “whispering of the stars.” (254) Yet, despite such harsh conditions, they produced nearly a third of the world’s gold in the 1930s. It is estimated that one life was lost for every kilogram of gold produced. Over 2 million people died here. (251f) The condition of the camps horrified Thubron, who seems concern that the residents of Siberia accept the camps of the past without much thought.

In his last collection of Stalin horror stories, Thuborn tells of the prison ship, the SS Dzhurma, which got caught in ice in 1933 with 12000 prisoners on board. All the prisoners froze to death and half the guards went crazy, according to Thubron. This would also be the most deadly maritime disaster ever, in terms of life lost. When I read this, I thought it sounded like fodder for a horror story and I did some checking and from a couple sources on the internet, found that there are some questions of the validity of this tragedy. Two things don’t fit according to these sources. First of all, the ship that became known as the Dzhurma wasn’t even sold to the Soviets until 1935. Secondly, it was only a little over 400 feet long, making it nearly impossible to have had 12,000 prisoners onboard. However, in 1939, another “death-ship,” the SS Indigirka sank with its human cargo trapped below deck. (256)

Along the Trans-Siberian, note kilometer marker (km from Moscow)

I really enjoyed this book and wish I would have read it before traveling through Siberia last summer. At that time, I read Ian Frazier’s excellent travelogue, Travels in Siberia. Thubron’s book is a little out of date, but it is also excellent. His writing is engaging and never boring as he weaves together a story about this vast and unknown landmass. I found reading this book on a e-reader both pleasant (it’s nice and light) and also a little troublesome as I wasn’t able to easily flip back to the map at the beginning. However, the map doesn’t show up that well and when I was home, I found myself dragging out an atlas to locate places Thubron traveled. I recommend this book.

Novoibisk Station

Groundhogs, roadkill and sore shoulders...

2012-02-02T12:20:00.002-05:00

Last night, after an evening of playing basketball, I was driving home and almost ran over a groundhog. The over-sized rodent waddled out in front of my truck and I slammed the my brakes, thinking it might be a bad omen to do in a groundhog the evening before his special day. Of course, the idea that animals are running around at night like that in the heart of winter is a testimony to global warming and the fact that the ground here isn’t frozen, isn’t snow covered and it feels more like the first of April than the first of February. But I’ve already complained enough about the weather. I know they’re saying that Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow down in Pennsylvania, but I can assure you that that rodent I saw last night (If he lived till morning, which is questionable since he’s playing in the streets) didn’t see his shadow!

Thinking about Groundhog Day reminds me of a favorite movie of mine, Groundhog Day. I’ve seen it a half-dozen times which really means I’ve seen it a few hundred times for the movie is just 15 minutes (of fresh material). The producer kept splicing together copies to make it a feature length film. That said, I like Bill Murray (Phil Connors). He may be ugly, but he’s funny. He’s also not the reason I’ve seen the movie multiple times. Let me share you a secret. I really like Andi MacDowell (Rita in the film). She has ties to the Old North State. Unfortunately, she was born in the lesser of the Carolinas, but she spent her summers in North Carolina, which was obviously a blessing that she used to refine her gracefulness. Andi is beautiful and I fall in love with her again every time I watch one of her moves. Personally, I just don’t think it’s fair that Bill Murray gets umpteenth opportunities to both sow his wild oats and still get Andi MacDowell at the end of the movie! The way Andi smiled at the groundhog in the movie, I’m sure she’d be impressed with my quick reflex that saved that rodent from becoming one with the pavement last night.

Just one final question as I move the heating pad over a bit, "why am I still trying to play basketball with guys half my age?"

January 31 (tennis and The Last Station)

2012-01-31T23:36:00.000-05:00

It’s the last day of January. I took off work while it’s still daylight. I should have had enough time for a couple of miles of cross-country skiing; after all I am living in Michigan. But what did I do? I hit tennis balls with my daughter. And I’m not talking about making the familiar 30 mile drive to a big city where she takes tennis lessons in an inside tennis center, but at the courts at the local high school. Yep, that’s right, it was 52 degrees (11 degrees Celsius for my non-USA friends). I played in shorts and a long sleeve sweatshirt. Of course, we didn’t have a net (the nets have been removed for winter) but we did have the courts to ourselves. After dark, I took the pooch for a walk around town. When I came back home, I watched for the second time The Last Station.

If you haven’t seen the The Last Station I recommend it. The movie is based on the final year of Tolstoy life as seen through his last secretary, Valentin Bulgakov. Valentin goes to live at Tolstoy’s family home, where he witnesses the struggle between Chekhov to Tolstoy’s wife Sophia’s battle over the rights to Tolstoy’s work. He also sees the bitterness and the love between Tolstoy and his wife. At one point, the author is frustrated with his wife’s complaining and says, “You don’t need a husband, you need a Greek chorus.” Chekhov, who dislikes Sophia, tells Tolstoy’s wife, “If I had a wife like you, I would have blown my brains out… or gone to America.” Even though there is tension, you do get the sense that Tolstoy and his wife are in love even if they can’t live together peacefully and the elderly man finally decides he has flee. Tolstoy leaves on a train until his health fails and he is taken into by the station master at a remote station and given a place to die. The small town in inundated with reporters wanting to know what’s happening to the world famous author. During this time, Chekhov and one of Tolstoy’s daughters conspire to keep Sophia away from her husband. They are successful until the very end when the daughter relents and allows her mother to see him one final time.

In addition to the drama around Tolstoy, Valentin also has some drama of his own. As a Tolstoian, he is trying to live the ideal life based on the ascetic principals of his boss, yet he finds himself having an affair with Masha, a young Tolstorian. In a way, you get the sense that what Valentin and Masha are experiencing in their love mirrored the relationship between Tolstoy and his wife when they were younger.

The movie deals with how we create idols out of our heroes. Around Tolstoy are a group of disciples trying to live as he has taught. At best, Tolstoy is amused by this and his wife is repulsed by it. Tolstoy takes a liking to his new secretary, confiding in him that he’s not a very good Tolstorian himself. In another scene, one in which Chekhov is present along with a lot of reporters, Tolstoy kills a mosquito. Chekhov denounces this, saying that it doesn’t look good for him to kill anything. Tolstoy counters, telling Masha that Chekhov is a better Tolstorian than he is. At the end of the movie, Valentin confronts Chekhov, charging that he is creating an icon out of Tolstoy and that the image is going to look more like Chekhov than Tolstoy.

The scenery in the movie is lovely. The birch forest reminded me of being in Russia this summer (even though much of the movie was filmed in Germany). Of course, the train scenes were also pleasing to my eyes! This is a good movie that shows how the perceived lives of our heroes often differ from the reality. It also shows how people attempt to control others for their own gain. This is a good movie. It’s romantic, but with a twist.

Drifting into Darien

2012-01-27T12:21:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I was in a nearby city and a sporty black car driven by a woman passed me. I didn’t pay much attention till I saw her personalized license plate. It read, “MEN LIE.” There’s got to be a story behind that! I know I haven't been writing as much lately as in the past. I just haven't felt like it. I suppose I could complain about the weather and how the skiing stinks this winter or make fun of the Republican primary debates that are about to replace the NBA playsoffs as a metaphor for eternal, but everyone is joking about that. (Maybe that's what her license plate was about, the debates, but I doubt that.) So instead, I'll post another book review...

Janisse Ray, Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2011), 237 pages, a map and a few photos

The Altamaha River is one of the most unspoiled rivers in America, and Janisse Ray has lived most of her life near its banks. As an infant she was baptized (accidentally) on her first river trip when her father’s homemade boat sunk. In this book, she sets out to explore the river with her husband and a group dedicated to preserving it. In the first half of the book tells the story of their trip down the river as she recalls its history and explaining its natural setting. The group feels a kinship with river men who built log rafts out of longleaf pines and floated them down the river in ages past. Along the way they pass Ragpoint, where raft men used to tie a rag onto a tree for good luck, a tradition that continues to this day. They float past some of the largest cypress left standing, trees that have been spared the logger’s saw. In addition to the narrative, the first part of the book contains a numbers of lists that include one of what they are carrying along with lists of birds seen and trees observed.

The second half of the book consists of a series of personal essays in which the author explores various aspects of the river. These essays include a night fishing trip with a politician and a guide, a trip to the Bartram Botanical Gardens in Philadelphia where she investigates a “lost” species that had been found along the river. And then there is a humorous story about a trip with botanist to an area within the river’s watershed and the language gap that existed. She produces a rant directed at the United States Forest Service for their “liberal” definition as to what constitutes a forest. She tells of threats to the river from the discharge of a paper mill, the nitrogen that runs from farmer’s fields, and the problems with clear-cutting. She makes a case that a river is only as healthy as the forest through which it flows.

These quotes come from the final chapter of her book:

What I needed was to watch the amber water sliding past the ivory sandbars under a high blue sky. I needed the peace of wildness.

We go to lay our burdens down, to refuel ourselves, to fill our eyes with beauty, to enter the unchanging, to experience metaphorical time. We go to be transformed. (211)

This is the third book I’ve read by Janisse Ray. My favorite is still the Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, in which she tells about growing up with the longleaf pines and issues a call for their protection. I, too, grew up under longleafs, a few hundred miles to the north and share her concern for these majestic trees. Check out this other review of mine on a book about longleaf pines. I also liked Ray's second book, Wild Card Quilt. This is a good book, but in my opinion it doesn't rise to the level of the other two books of hers I've read. I like her narrative along the river as I have always wanted to do a similar trip down the Cape Fear and write a narrative that links its history (including that of my ancestors) with its natural history.

"How, Then, Shall We Live?" and other stuff

2012-01-21T15:09:00.000-05:00

I've made it back from my trip. It was a shock to the system to leave temperatures in the upper 70s and to have the pilot welcome me home to a balmy 14 degrees and then having to drive on snow-covered roads. Coming back, there was also an "incident" with the plane as one of the deicers had failed to close properly and we were delayed 30 minutes or so in Atlanta. Landing on a snowy runway, it was good they got it fixed. I am going to have to spend some time this weekend catching up with folks blogs, but before that, I'm going to enjoy this snow and today's sun and do a little skiing. Below is a review of a recent book.

Wayne Muller, How, Then, Shall We Live? Four Simple Questions that Reveal the Beauty and Meaning of Our Lives (New York: Bantam Books, 1996), 289 pages.

Wayne Muller is an ordained minister (he doesn’t give a denomination), a psychotherapist and the founder of “Bread for the Journey,” a ministry in Northern New Mexico. In this book he addresses four basic questions: “Who Am I? What do I love? How shall I live knowing that I will die? What is my gift to the family of the earth?” Muller draws upon his experiences in working with people (especially the poor, those with AIDS, and those in his clinical practice) and a vast knowledge of Christian, Jewish, Chinese, Buddhist and Native American spirituality. Each section of the book provides numerous stories and quotes as well as exercises to help the reader come to his or her own answer to the question. Early in the book, he tells a story from the Buddha in which he equates a story with a raft. It’s not to be carried as baggage, but to be used to help you get to the other side of a river. Like with a raft, once the lesson is learned, a story is to be let go. (36-7)

Each section has numerous stories that vary in length from half a page to a few pages. Although the stories focus on the same topic, they don’t necessarily flow together. This allows the book to be read as a devotional, a few pages at a time. The strength of the book is in the diversity of stories from around the world. If any areas are underrepresented, it would be Islamic and Hindu authors (although he does quote the Sufi poet Rumi and a Hindu holy man). This book is a storehouse of knowledge. For Christians that may have a problem with so many references to non-Christian sources, I would remind them of the doctrine of “Common Grace.” Muller doesn’t offer clichés as answers to his questions. Instead, he encourages us to struggle with the questions ourselves. This is the second book by Muller I’ve read. The first was Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. I recommend them both.

Quotes:

“Within the sorrow, there is grace. When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in breaking open, we uncover our true nature.” (26)

“For many of us, the hardest thing to accept is the way our life has gone. We didn’t have the family we hoped for… I have to accept that I will be who I am and make some peace with it. It is a little sad, and yet I also feel some relief.” (62)

“Our own true nature is not something extraordinary; in fact, it is quite ordinary, an inevitable proportion of our daily life.” (64)

“The spiritual life is not a process of addition, but rather of subtraction.” (99)

“When you use all your strength to fight your death, you are losing all the energy you have left to live.” (167)

“We mistakenly believe that if we accept our deaths, we will begin to die. Curiously, the reverse is true: When we accept we are already dying we are set free to live.” (168)

“Love, serve, and remember” -Indian guru Neem Karoli Baba (197)

“To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day.” -Tao Te Ching (209)

“When our days are complicated and fast, things get lost. All too often it can be precious things that get lost—a sunset, a walk, a gentle word, an opportunity to be kind…” (211)

“Gratefulness arises naturally from this fertile balance of honoring both our sorrow and our joy. We name our sorrows so that we can bring care and attention to our wounds, so that we may heal. At the same time we give thanks for the innumerable gifts and blessings bestowed upon us daily, lest we forget how rich we are.” (221)

“Gratefulness slows time.” -222

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” -Lao Tzu (224)

“Your lamp was lit from another lamp. All God wants is your gratitude for that.” –Rumi (227)

“’Love,’ wrote Jean Vanier, ‘doesn’t mean doing extraordinary or heroic things. It means knowing how to do ordinary things with tenderness.’” (239)

“Real joy is to be found in the balance between giving and taking. Like breathing, we must both inhale and exhale.” (266)

“As the bee takes the essence of the flower and flies without destroying its beauty and perfume, so wander in this life.” -The Buddha (273)

Our work with ourselves can be an invaluable gift to those who are in need of strong and faithful company.” (274)

When I was doing a google search to find a photo of the book to include here, I came across the photo at the bottom of this page. (Just do a google search for "how, then, shall we live?" I assure you, even though he doesn't give us direct answers to his questions, I don't think this is what Muller had in mind when he wrote the book. (Please note, this photo isn't mine and is copied from a blog that I think must have copied it-along with a lot of other photos. If it is your photo and you want it removed, just let me know and I'll do it. After all, you got a gun!).

Sunday afternoon Skiing, Double-nickels, and an aborted take-off

2012-01-18T08:32:00.000-05:00

Old Michigan Central Railroad bed

It has been a weird winter. Actually, it hasn’t been very winter-like as we have not had much cold weather. Finally, this past weekend, we had enough snow to ski so Sunday, after church, I headed out with a couple of friends and we skied the Paul Henry Trail along the old Michigan Central Railroad bed from Irving to Middleville. It’s a nice trip that I’ve made many times before (on a bike and in a canoe). After two days of snow, it was a beautiful day with the sun bright although low in the sky. In Middleville, we rested at Champs Bar and Grill, where I enjoyed a pint of Newcastle and half a dozen spicy chicken wings.


Thornapple River

On Monday, it warmed up and the snow began to melt. I also turned double-nickels. Unfortunately, my birthday was hectic as I had to get stuff done before heading out Tuesday for a conference. I’ll be in Orlando till Friday. The flight down was a little exciting (and long) as the plane had to abort a take-off on the runway. The pilot said an alarm had gone off in the cockpit and the plane had to go back to be checked by maintenance. We sat on the plane for two hours, but to Delta’s credit they did everything to make it pleasant, giving us extra nuts and drinks while we waited and the flight attendant even did a dance. While we waited, they also re-booked those of us who had connecting flights.

Thornapple River

Deep River

2012-01-13T22:04:00.000-05:00

I have been very busy since getting back from vacation and haven’t been around much. We’ve been having weird weather. Yesterday it was nearly 50 degrees, today we had four or five inches of snow. While traveling on train, I finished listening to Deep River.

Shausaku Endo, Deep River, 1993 (I listened to the unabridged audio version)

I am still trying to get my mind around this novel. Endo begins with brief biographies of several Japanese tourists who are heading to India to visit Buddhist holy sites. Osamu Isobe is a businessman who realizes, as his wife dies from cancer, that he loves her and had mistreated her. Before her death, she makes him promise he’ll look for her reincarnated in someone else. Mitsuke has suffered from a broken marriage, a promiscuous life and the horrors of having seduced Otsu, a student in college who was planning on entering the Catholic priesthood. She is curious about India because she learns that Otsu is now living there and she hopes she can learn to love. Kiguchi was a Japanese soldier in Burma, who wants to honor those who died in war. During the war, he was kept alive by a friend who had a terrible secret; he’d eaten the flesh of another soldier in order to stay alive and to keep Kiguchi alive. These three characters, along with Otsu, are in my opinion the most prominent within the story. However, there are a number of other characters that adds to (and complicates) the story. There is Numada who wants to find a particular bird and some honeymooners, with the husband only after photos and the wife wishing they’d gone to Europe.

The key to the story is Otsu, who has studied for the priesthood in both Japan and Europe. Otsu struggles with the Western concept of God and has battled with the church. In desperation, he leaves the church and takes on the life of an Untouchable, compassionately helping those who have come to Ganges to die. He is a gentle soul, through whom Endo critiques both Western theology and Japanese spirituality. Otsu sees God everywhere, especially in those he helps. He thinks the church’s great heresy is how it, as an institute, sees itself as owning the “true God,” and suggests that God is so big that he’s outside of any particular religion. He also suggests that Jesus would be where he was, serving those who are most in need.

Although I have theological issues with the universalism Endo puts forward through Otsu, I found Otsu to be a believable character who struggles to live as a disciple of his Savior. Otsu certainly “takes up his cross” as he enters the lives of the Untouchables. I very much agree with Endo’s insistence through Otsu that God is free from human constraints. In addition to dealing with the nature of God, Endo incarnational and sacramental theology is seen through in the story of Kiguchi, whose eating of dead soldier’s flesh. However, the sacramental links are not as well developed as Endo’s nature of God. .

This book has given me much to ponder, but I am cautious to recommend it to others. Had he limited the main characters, Endo could have keep the book more focused. I really enjoyed hearing the Japanese side of the suffering in the war (through Kigunchi), however I found the insertion to be somewhat forced. Also being thrown in the mix is the tour to India occurs at the time Indira Gandhi’s assassination by Sikhs, which seems to overly complicate things. However, Endo, a Japanese Catholic Christian (who died in 1996), seems to want to show the good and the bad of religions (Catholic Christianity, Buddhism, Sikh and Hindu. Endo is best known for his novel Silence which is about Jesuit missionaries attempting to bring Christianity to Japan in the 16^th Century.

Coming Home on the Southwest Chief

2012-01-04T17:03:00.001-05:00

Eastern New Mexico

I know this is a long post, but its was a long train ride (~1850 miles)

The air is crisp and Orion has dropped into the western sky as we make our way into the Flagstaff train station. The waiting room is nearly filled with passengers and baggage awaiting the eastbound arrival of the Southwest Chief. It’s 5:15 AM and we’re fifteen minutes before the train is supposed to arrive. I’ve parked the rental car in the city lot across the tracks, place the keys in the drop box and take a seat on the old wood benches. The train is running fifteen minutes late. Outside one of Warren Buffet’s Burlington Northern Santa Fe trains of containers race through town, on its way to Los Angeles and then to a ship to where ever. A few minutes later another train approaches from the west, heading east, with containers that probably originated somewhere in Asia, most-likely China. At 5:41, the time the train was to have departed Flagstaff, but we learn it’ll be another twenty minutes before it arrives. At six, everyone begins collecting their luggage. The station agent instructs those in coaches to head to the right and those with sleeper car accommodations to go left. We make our way to the 430 car where an attendant takes our tickets, helps us aboard and directs us to our assigned berths. . “The diner opens in 20 minutes,” we’re informed. At 6:10, the engineer blows his horn, signaling that it’s time to go. A few seconds later, the train begins to move into the darkness of the Southwest. In my compartment, I stare out into the dark sky as we leave the city. I nod off for a few seconds, but it’s hard to get back to sleep, so mostly I look out the window. To the southeast the sky is just a bit lighter and fewer of the stars can be seen. Slowly a thin red line is seen on the horizon and it gradually grows into a band of red. I can begin to make out the shape of what few trees grow in this country, the utility poles and lines of fence posts. As it becomes lighter, I notice I can tell the difference between the types of brush.

A little before 7 AM, I head to the dining car for breakfast. The train pulls into Winslow, stopping only for a minute to let off and pick up passengers. I’ve been through this town several times and have yet to see “a girl in a flatbed Ford.” The waitress, a young Hispanic woman with a bright smile, brings coffee and informs us of the day’s special. I decide to have the omelet made with three eggs, spinach, onions and tomatoes with a side of grits and cinnamon raisin toast. It’s a filling breakfast and the chef liberally sprinkled oregano on the omelet, giving it a nice spicy taste. While at breakfast, the sun breaks the horizon and its rays immediately light up the desert floor. Along the interstate, silver trailers pulled by semis reflect the light. Fence posts and utility poles cast long shadows. As the sun rises, the shadows are reeled in. We pass numerous freight trains, mostly hauling containers, but there’s one with piggy back trailers, and unit train of coal cars, another with closed hoppers hauling grain and another of tankers, hauling chemicals.

Service stop in Albuquerque

Before I realize it, the train has cut through the Petrified Forest National Park and is running along the Pesrco River as it makes its way to the New Mexico border. Although Interstate 40 parallels this section of track, it was originally Route 66, the highway made famous by Steinbeck in his Depression era novel, The Grapes of Wrath. When I was in school in Pittsburgh, I met a retired dentist who told me about his family’s trip out west in 1923. The man was in his 80s at the time I knew him, but was only about ten when his dad, who was a physician, decided to take off the entire summer. He packed up the family in a large car he described as looking like something off the Beverly Hillbillies set. As this was before road trips were popular and motels and service stations dotted the landscape; the family had to provide for themselves. They mostly camped at night and cooked their own food (carrying tents and a stove). He said that from the time they left Kansas City until they arrived in Los Angeles, the only paved roads were in towns. They had to serve as their own mechanics, too, often fixing half-dozen or so flats a day. As they boiled under the hot sun of the Southwest, they complained to their dad as to why they were driving while others were zooming past their car, riding comfortably in the sleek trains along the Atkinson, Topeka and Santa Fe Route.

The train I’m on was the descendant of the Santa Fe Super Chief, which was introduced in the 1930s. At its time, the Super Chief was luxury on rail, featuring all Pullman sleeper cars powered by diesel engines. This was the train of Hollywood Stars and would later give the framework for the movie “Silver Streak,” which although it used a different name, followed the Santa Fe’s route between LA and Chicago and featured the comic antics of the young Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder.

We reach Gallup at 9 AM. From the sounds of the announcement, it sounds like the train crew is having problems with folks getting off the train to smoke and holding up operations. Gallup is just a quick stop to drop off and pick up passengers, but many have jumped onto the platform where they can legally smoke. The conductor wants to make up time and he tells people to only get off the train at scheduled stops. Since Amtrak went non-smoking twenty-some years ago, they have encouraged people who need to puff to take advantage of longer stops where they service the train. The next such stop is Albuquerque.

After Gallup, we climb. The wheels of the train squeak in the curves as they scrape against the side of the rails. To our north is a mesa that rises several hundred feet, the red Navajo sandstone is rich in the morning sun. To our south are lava fields, with the broken black rock only rising maybe fifty feet. Occasionally, in valley of sage is an ancient cottonwood, its huge trunk sprouting hundreds of scrawny limbs that twist every-which-way. This is Native American country. There are traditional southwest adobe housings along with many trailer and manufactured homes. Also, along what was once Route 66, are the ruins of motels and restaurants and trinket shops. For a hundred miles or so out of Gallup, the tracks parallel Interstate 40, alternating between being just north or south of the freeway. About fifty miles out of Albuquerque, the tracks drop to the southeast, before heading north along the upper waters of the Rio Grande. For the next three hundred miles, the tracks head north, paralleling Interstate 25.

During the morning, my daughter works with her violin and a keyboard on her ipad to figure out the notes to a favorite song. I spend my time writing in my journal, looking out the window and reading Janisse Ray’s book, Drifting into Darien: A Personal and Natural History of the Altamaha River. No one is in a hurry.

Northern New Mexico (notice the lounge car window reflections)

We arrive in Albuquerque on-time, having made up nearly thirty minutes. Albuquerque is a long stop, nearly forty minutes, as the conductors and engineers change (the car attendants and dining car attendants remain the same the entire trip) and the train’s locomotives are fueled while the water tanks in the passenger cars are filled. During the stop here, I get out and walk up and down the tracks. On the edge of the tracks are Native American vendors selling jewelry and woven rugs and hats. We leave Albuquerque at 12:10, right on time. As we leave the city, the tracks take us through back yards that all seem to contain a wood-fired adobe beehive oven (something I’d always wanted). The houses all have satellite dishes. Some are traditional southwest looking homes, but many are not.

Our reservation for lunch in the dining car is at 12:30 PM. The nice thing about a sleeper is that all meals are included, which means I eat more than I should. I have a veggie burger, made out of black beans. It’s pretty good. Included are chips, ice tea and desert. I have a cup of raspberry sorbet.

The Lamy station is the transfer point for those whose destination is Santa Fe. Ironically, although the famous town became the name of a railroad, the main line never made it to Santa Fe. The mountains were too steep to put the tracks into the town, so the town of Lamy was built. A short-line still branch off the mainline here, but those passengers desiring to get to Santa Fe, there is a bus. The train snakes through steep cuts in the pale orange sandstone as we leave Lamy. At times, the walls are so close to the tracks that if a window was open, one could reach out and touch the rock. Our progress is slow as the grade is steep as we move into the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, climbing up the Glorieta Mesa. According to the timetable, it’ll take us nearly two hours to cover the 65 miles between Lamy and Las Vegas. The snow is also deeper, pinion and gamble oaks are now mixed in with the juniper. The late summer blooms on the rabbit brush is now brown.

Once we reach the Glorieta sidings, the track isn’t quite as steep and the train picks up speed. The westbound Southwest Chief passes us; it’ll be in LA tomorrow morning. I head to the lounge/observation car where I spend the afternoon, looking at the scenery (here I can see both sides of the tracks) while writing and talking to fellow passengers. We parallel Interstate 25; when the tracks are level we make good time and when they are steep, we slow down. Here, on top of the mesa, there are fewer cuts into the rocks and as the train snakes, we can see the engines up front and the coach cars on the back end.

Las Vegas, New Mexico isn’t as glitzy as its named counterpart in Nevada. But it’s an older town along the Santa Fe Trail. Next to the typical mission style train station Castendada, an old hotel and “Harvey House.” In the days before dining cars, the trains would stop here and the folks at the “Harvey House” were assigned the task of feeding the entire train as quickly as possible in order that they could get back on the road. Leaving Las Vegas at 3:15, the tracks carry us along high plateau, mostly grasslands with the occasional windmill and ranch house. The sun is now dropping in the southwestern sky as the magic hour approaches. In the winter, the sun seems to hang on a little longer and everything is bathed in soft light. The brown grass turns golden. Yesterday, at this time, we were driving across Southern Utah and Northern Arizona, through the polygamous towns of Hillsdale and Colorado City as we were heading to Flagstaff to catch the train. Canaan Mountain, in its various bands of colored sandstone, was beautiful in the low light. Today’s landscape isn’t quite as dramatic but it’s still beautiful as the sun casts warm hues across the plateau. The sun finally gives up and drops behind the mountains a few minutes before we arrive in Raton.

Northern New Mexico

Raton is a longer stop and I get off the train and walk up and down the platform. It’s colder, now that the sun has set and we’re in higher elevation. In the summer, thousands of Boy Scouts get off here in order to visit the Philmont Scout Ranch, for a week or two of hiking in the Desert Mountains of the Southwest. I’m told that having a large scout group on the train can be a trying experience for the rest of the travelers, but we don’t have to worry about it as its winter. I’ve taken this route once before, during the summer of 1993, but since I had a sleeper, I was spared the experience as the scouts onboard were all in coach. When we leave Raton, we’re on some of the steepest track in the country. We’re five cars behind the locomotives, yet can hear them groan as they work hard to pull us up the grade. At times it seems we’re going no faster than I can walk. The track is so steep that a marble dropped on the floor would race to the back of the car. It takes nearly an hour to go from Raton, New Mexico to Trinidad, Colorado, a distance of only 24 miles. At the summit, the tracks are at 7588 feet, the highest point along the Santa Fe line. We rush through the Raton Tunnel and then begin our descent. But even the downhill is steep and curvy and the engineer maintains a slow descent. Its pitch dark by the time we reach Trinidad.

Our dinner reservations are at 6 PM and since we don’t have enough for a full table, we are seated with a solo traveler who introduces himself as “Dave, a hillbilly from West Virginia.” He’s quite a talker, telling about working in the coal mines as a kid and then leaving the state and doing various jobs around the country including working behind the scenes in the movies. He’d gotten on in Santa Fe and is heading back to his home country where he’s planning on retiring. For dinner, I have a chipotle beef tip with apricot sauce, roasted vegetables, rice and a salad. I’m not a big beef person, unless the meat has been spiced up some. This was delicious! After dinner, the train stopped in La Junita, Colorado. We’re fifteen minutes early. Since the engineers and conductors change here; we have nearly a 30 minute break. But it’s cold, 14 degrees, so after walking the length of the train a few times, I seek the shelter of the car, where our attendant is busy putting down the beds. I’d talked to him earlier today. He’s been an attendant for Amtrak for 35 years. He started working with them during the summer, when he was a grad student working on a photojournalism degree. He stayed with it, taking on average three six-day trips a month (a trip from LA to Chicago with a layover day and then back to LA is considered a 6 day trip).

Old Burlington Route Steamer in Galesburg, IL

Through this section, I have a good data signal and spend the next hour updating my facebook page and reading and commenting on blogs. We stop briefly in Lamar, to let off and receive passengers. As we leave, I put away my laptop and pull the covers over me. Outside, it’s cold and snowy. The stars are bright and Orion and his dog seem to be just outside my window. We pass a number of grain elevators and enter the Central Time Zone. It’s now 10:30 PM and I call it a night.

I sleep well, waking up only once, at 5:15 AM. We’re at Topeka, then. The station is on the other side of the train, and from my window I look out at a rather sizable rail yard. Freight trains are being assembled. The lights are so much that I can barely see the stars, but I pick out what I think are the two bright stars that make up the arrow in the archer’s bow, but then realize I shouldn’t be seeing that constellation this time of the year and that it must be Cygnus the Swan. As we begin to move out, I fall back asleep. At 7 AM, the announcer comes on and says we’re in Kansas City, a fifteen minute stop. I pull on a gym suit and walk outside for fresh air. When the engine whistles and the conductor calls “all aboard,” I jump back onboard and go to the diner for breakfast. This morning I take it easy, enjoying a bowl of steel cut oatmeal along with some fruit and toast and, of course, coffee. We’re seated with a woman from Royal Oak, Michigan, who has been visiting family in Kansas. She’ll be on the same train we’ll take out of Chicago, although she’ll have two and a half more hours of travel, arriving at her station at midnight (if the train is on time). As we eat, we cross the Missouri River. A unit train of grain hoppers passes us, heading west. There is no snow here in the Midwest, just brown fields and bare trees. The tracks cut through the northwest corner of Missouri and the southeast corner of Iowa, as we race along through farmland and wooded areas and the occasional town. Broom sledge, brown and dry, line the tracks thought much of this section. We stop in La Plata, Missouri. This is a small station and we have to make two stops, one to let off the sleeping car passengers and again to let off those riding in the coaches on the back end of the train. Over half of the passengers appear to be Amish in their traditional dress.

As we approach Fort Madison, Iowa, along the Mississippi River, we pass the factory where they make the large electrical windmills. Hundreds of blades are stored around the buildings and some of them are on secured to flat rail cars, awaiting shipment. Fort Madison is a “smoke stop” and I get off to get some fresh air (there seems to be only one smoker in our car and he walks far away from the train to light up). I walk around a bit, but we are only stopped for a few minutes before the engineer blows the whistle and the “all aboard” call is made. It’s okay because they have already called the 11:45 AM dining reservations (it’s only 11:15). We’re about 10 minutes behind schedule, but all bets are on that we’ll make that back up as we race into Chicago. In the dining car, as we pull out of the station, the tracks parallel the Mississippi River. A paddle-wheeled riverboat is tied up at the docks and I pose to get a shot when we go by, but just before we get there a pair of orange, black and yellow Burlington Northern Santa Fe locomotives on the next track blocks my view. It’s a unit of cars filled with automobiles. Soon, the tracks make a right hand bend and we’re on the trestle over the Mississippi and into Illinois, the final state of our journey. This is farm country. The dirt is black and the fields of corn and soybeans are fallow in the winter. Along the edges of the fields are farm houses and barns.

For lunch, I have the chef’s special. I am not normally a big macaroni and cheese fan, but his mac and cheese includes cauliflower, corn, garlic and chipotle sauce. It was good and has a spicy bite to it. The meal is especially filling since it includes a salad and a dinner roll. When we leave, we say goodbye to the dining staff as they’ve treated us well this trip.

Illinois farm

Our first stop in Illinois is Galesburg, a railroad town. Tracks merge here before heading into Chicago. At the station, many of the Amish get off the train along with a few other passengers. Next to the station is the Galesburg Rail Museum. Someday I need to make a stop here. On display is a Burlington Route steamer with a couple of Pullman cars. There have been a number of old steam locomotives on display in the various towns we’ve traveled through. In this part, they’re always the over-sized Burlington Route or CB&Q (Chicago, Burlington and Quincy) steamers designed for fast transportation across the plains. On the other side of Kansas City, they’re Atkinson, Topeka & Santa Fe locomotives, most of which are smaller and better on the curves. Riding through this country of farms and small cities, we see the backyard of America, filled with clothes lines and swing sets. Many of the streets that run out from the tracks have wooden two-storied box-shaped homes and are lined with trees. But it doesn’t quite look right as there is no snow on the ground, which is usual for January.

We pull into Chicago’s Union Station on time, at 3 PM. We’ve covered 1699 miles in 33 hours, having traveled through deserts and mountain, through reservations and many small towns and a few larger cities, crossed the great rivers and the rich farmland of America’s heartland!

With a three hour layover, we head to the Great Room. It’s still decorated for Christmas. We camp out on the wooden bench seats. As I finish reading Ray’s book, Drifting into Darien, a police officer stops to ask what I’m reading. I try to explain the book and he asks if it’s like the book they made into a movie with Brad Pitts about two boys and their father a Lutheran minister in Montana. “You mean, A River Runs Through It?” I ask. “That’s it,” he says. I correct him saying that the day wasn’t Lutheran but Presbyterian and explain the differences between the books. Although I am enjoying Ray’s writing, it’s nothing like MacLean’s masterpiece. I tell him a bit about Ray and her writing about nature in the South. He acknowledges the number of great southern writers and notes the rising number of southern crime fiction authors. I admit I haven’t read much in that genre unless Carl Haaisen’s writing could be classified in the genre. I’m surprised that he knows Haaisen, and he asks if I’ve read Thomas Cook. I haven’t and he tells me about a crime fiction book Cook wrote that’s sent in Birmingham, during the days of Bull O’Conner. As we talk, he seems to know a lot about Cook and the setting and I ask if he knows Cook and he admits that he’s talked to him a number of times, saying that he plays in the crime fiction genre. When I ask if he’s published anything, he acknowledges that he’s shopping a novel, but has a non-fiction book in print titled Just the Facts: True Tales of Cops and Criminals.

At five, an hour before departure, we head into the crowded waiting room. I talk a bit with an Amish man who’s just travelled here from central Pennsylvania to see a couple families off to Mexico. At 5:30, the make the first call for the Wolverine, the train that’ll take us to Kalamazoo and home. We board, climbing up iced-over stairs. The train is crowded. We start slowly, going through the maze of tracks south of Chicago, before circling around the south shore of Lake Michigan. It’s a short trip, just two and a half hours (plus another hour due to the change of time zones). At Niles, I call my friends where I’d left my truck. They tell me they’ll be there at the station. It’ll be nice to be home as I hear it’s been snowing. At 9:30, right on time, the train stops in Kalamazoo and we carefully make our way down the icy steps. After a thirty minute drive, our trip will be over.

A end of the year hike...

2011-12-31T23:25:00.000-05:00

In Spring Creek

Happy New Year Everyone! I write this as the magic hour is fast approaching in the East, but I am in the West so I have a few more hours of 2011 to deal with. What a year it's been. It's been nice being back in the West. Yesterday, my daughter and I went skiing. It was her first time to ski out West and she did great. Today, I went hiking with my son in Spring Creek Canyon, south of Karanaville, Utah. This was the first canyon I hiked in Utah, just a few days after I moved here in 1993. Between 1993 and 2003, I've hiked this canyon dozens of time. It is always a good hike. It was icy going in, but as the sun cleared the canyon, the temperature warmed and we hiked out in the mud. I'll end the year with some photographs of the hike and one of my grandson.

Hiking toward the Canyon

As the canyon tightens

Spring Creek

With my grandson

Ain't Technology Wonderful (on the Southwest Chief)

2011-12-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

Why did this turn sideways? Union Station, Chicago

I’m on the Southwest Chief, heading west to Flagstaff, Arizona, where I’ll then drive north Southern Utah to meet the grandson. I’m not really that old; I’m sure it’s just an honorary title! Anyway, I figure that for a year in which I’ve ridden tens of thousands of miles on the train, this is a great way to end out the year. I’m using my cell phone as a hot spot which is allowing me to share these photos from Chicago’s Union Station. Ain’t technology amazing! If I’m not around before hand, have a wonderful New Year’s Celebration!

Christmas: The Meaning of the Incarnation

2011-12-25T12:57:00.000-05:00

A Christmas Card from the early 1900s

I heard this story years ago and I share it with you today, because he shows the meaning of Christmas to those of us who follow Jesus Christ. One year at Christmas there was home to which Santa delivered a train for Christmas. On that Christmas morning this house looked like a disaster had struck. Tossed across the floor were boxes and wrapping paper and bows, ribbons, and of course new toys. In this particular house the most exciting toy was the train. This boy loved racing the train round and round, as fast as it would go, but in the confusion, a discarded box got on the track, and the train derailed.

Bending down over the train, this young budding engineer kept trying to get it back on the tracks, but he couldn't get the wheels to seat properly. Finally, his father realized what was happening. “You know, you can’t do that standing up above it,” he said. “You have to get down beside it.” The father then dropped down on the carpet and lay beside the tracks and with his son by his side, proceeded to show him how to put the train back on the tracks.

That’s one way we can think about the incarnation, the coming of God, how God comes to us as a child. The human race has derailed from sin. We’ve all had a few boxes in our paths. We need to be put back on the right track in life. It just couldn’t be done from up above – God has to come down beside us in order to put us back on track.

May you have a blessed Christmas!

A Evening Stroll through Town

2011-12-22T10:20:00.004-05:00

Bed and Breakfast

Karen from Minnesota recently noted that I hadn't written about any hikes or canoe trips recently... I realized I need to get out more. I took this walk on Tuesday night. We’re having unseasonably warm weather this winter! The photos were taken a few years ago, on another unseasonable warm Christmas, when I walked around town with a camera and tripod. On this trip, it’s just me and the dog, but I invite you to join us as we stroll through town a few nights before Christmas.

This evening I found myself needing to “walk my mind to an easy time.” The last few days have been stressful. It’s a busy season and on Sunday, a friend committed suicide. I need some air and since we’re having somewhat balmy weather for December (it was actually a few degrees above freezing when I set out) and there's no snow on the ground, I head out. Unlike James Taylor, I don't have to worry about the sun burning my back and shoulders as it's already dark. Before I get to the end of the block, the skies begin to spit sleet. I like the way it sounds popping on my rain jacket. At 6 PM, I hear the faint electronic bells from the Methodist Church ring out a couple of Christmas Carols. My dog is with me. I don’t even turn on my ipod to listen to a book, as I often do, as I need to clear my head. Instead, I just walk and look and think as I head toward the city center. It’s just shy of a mile to the old section of town.
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It seems to me that there are fewer holiday lights this season. Maybe the warmer weather is keeping folks from getting into the spirit. Or maybe it's the economy. I don’t like gaudy displays of lights, but a well decorated tree visible through a living room window and perhaps a few electric candles (single blubs) in the rest of the windows and maybe a few white lights on an evergreen out front is tasteful. I pass the funeral home, a homey old building and I think about Ray. We’re the same age and he’s been in this business his whole life. When he was in college, his dad had a heart attack and he had to take over the business. Now, thirty-some years later, he’s still at it. A lot of folks are stand-offish with undertakers, but I wonder if it’s not one of the highest callings in a small town as Ray has to bury his friend’s parents, his friends and tragically at times, friends of his own children. Ray’s been busy this week, including handling my friend's remains.

I turn left on Broadway, and walk in front of the Episcopal Church, an brick edifice built in the 1890s. It’s a lovely chapel. Across the street is the old Presbyterian Church, with its large white columns and the steps leading up to the sanctuary. It was built in 1853 and served the congregation until a year or so ago when the faithful moved outside of town into a new church. Today it’s being reclaimed as a community center and I’m thankful they've placed wreaths on the double doors in the front. It keeps it looking like a church.

Next, I walk by the local bed-and-breakfast, a beautifully restored Victorian home, tastefully decorated with white lights. As I cross Broadway at the courthouse, a majestic brick building that was constructed in the 19^th Century, I notice the sleet has turned to rain. At the corner of Broadway and State (in most towns this would be Main Street) is a life-sized Nativity: camels and wise men, sheep and shepherds, angels and the holy family. It’s amazing how many folks in town who never go to church insist on keeping the Nativity at the corner of the courthouse. It’s not only in the South that you find ornery folks who don’t want the government or the ACLU telling them what to do. Last year, or was it the year before, someone stole Baby Jesus and everyone got upset. Smugly, perhaps too much so, I thought to myself that if we keep him in our hearts and not on display where he creates an ongoing controversy, no one would be stealing him and he’d do a lot more good.

Courthouse (nativity to the right of the photo)

After passing the courthouse, I cross Church Street and look in at the folks having dinner at the Seasonal Grill, our fancy local Italian Restaurant. When I moved here, this was a printing shop, but that closed and reminded empty for a while. Then, a couple years ago, a family renovated the old brick building, creating a delightful restaurant. Next door is Richie’s, where they ground their hamburger fresh daily. I suspect the burger that isn’t fried on the grill goes into the next day’s soup. They are closing up for the evening; a guy places the chairs on the tables as another guy was mopping the floor. Tomorrow morning at five, Sandy will be opening up, making coffee and the day’s soup as well as setting the chairs down as she prepares for another day’s business. Next is the music store and I spot Steve in the back, sitting by the piano with a student on the bench playing. The appliance store is still open and Tim is measuring a large screen TV for a sharply dressed woman with a short pleated wool skirt and dark tights, who looks on intently. I don’t know her, but wonder if this is what her family will find hanging on their wall Christmas morning. The windows in the jewelry store are lighted, as well as the used clothing store with beautiful dresses displayed in front, but both are already closed. The lights are also out at Kimmy’s Kitchen, except for back in the kitchen where I see a few girls working, probably making fudge for the Christmas season. I stop at the Second-Hand Corner, a favorite store to rummage around in, and examine the tools and the musical instruments in the windows.

As I cross Jefferson Street, I look down the block. A gang of folks are outside the Old Town Tavern, smoking cigarettes. It’s been a couple of years since Michigan instituted a ban on indoor smoking, forcing the addicted to brave the elements when they want to light up. Next to the tavern is the pharmacy, but I’m sure Dave has gone home for dinner by now. His home is one of the nicely decorated ones I passed on my way into town. Across the street from the bar and pharmacy is the sporting goods store, where I’ve brought a few rods and have examined a number of rifles and shotguns, just because its a guy thing to do. Next door is the dry cleaners. I remember there are a few shirts and a suit there, with my name of it, waiting to be picked up. I walk by the other jewelry store, it’s window showing potential Christmas gifts, and then by our local coffee shop where a few patrons are enjoying lattes. I pause at the smoke shop, thinking about how robust good tobacco smells and how terrible it is for you. The craft store is also closed, as well as the knitting store, but the new tattoo parlor next door, in what used to be a Thai and Chinese restaurant, is open. “Would I really want those guys sticking a needle in me over and over?” I wonder. At the corner of Michigan is another Italian place, not quite as swanky as the place at the other end of the town, but they have good subs and pizzas. I cross Michigan and walk by the old grocery store. It’s been nearly five years since they’ve closed up shop. I continue walking as the rain turns to snow, heading passed Ace Lawn and Garden Center and to the old CK&S trestle over the Thornapple River. Last year, for Christmas, I added an old CK&S boxcar to the train under my Christmas tree. The trestle is the last structure standing for the railroad that went bankrupt in 1937. After they stopped running, the trestle was continued to be used by the Michigan Central to serve the manufacturing on the north side of the river, but the Central closed and pulled up their tracks in 1984 and today, the trestle is a walking bridge. I stare a few minutes into the dark waters swirling around the pilings and wonder if we’ll get any snow, to speak of. But as I turn to walk back to town, the snow stops.

At the library, I see Ed is at the front desk talking to Gerardo. Gerardo is British, but his grandfather was from the Gold Coast which is now Ghana. I once hosted a visitor from Ghana and thought Gerardo might like to meet him, so I invited him to join us for lunch. As the guy from Ghana had never been to a Mexican restaurant, we headed over to the Mexican Connection. It was a truly international experience, a white guy treating an African and an African-Brit to a Mexican lunch at a restaurant run by Colombians. There’s not much diversity here, but that day there was! Also at the library are a group of guys playing chess by the front windows. If I didn’t have a wet dog with me, I might be tempted to join them. I keep hoofing it down the street, passing the town hall and police station and the sculpture that many think is obscene. I just think it’s ugly.

I cross Michigan again and began the walk back through the old section of the city, on the opposite side of the road. The hardware store that takes up 2/3s of a block, with a section devoted to paint, another to bicycles and another to knickknacks. The brew pub comes, in a building that was the old furniture store before its renovation. They have a nice banquet hall upstairs and above it, hanging from the roof, is the ball they'll drop at midnight on New Year's Eve. I look into the window at the bar and the stainless steel brew tanks. If I didn’t have my dog with me, I might stop in for a “State Street Stout” or to sample whatever seasonal brew they have on tap. I cross Jefferson Street again. Next up is one of a number of hair and nail establishments the town has, followed by our local health food store. There’s a florist and Christian Bookstore combo, and I wonder how's Norm doing. He's been fighting cancer lately. Next to the florist is an antique store with some metal toy trains in the window that look neat, and next to that is a variety store that has a Confederate flag blanket to sell. As a Southerner, I don’t particularly like seeing such flags down South, but I really get offended at seeing them up here. I wonder what Billy Yank, the statue that used to be in front of the courthouse and now is in the park, would think about it. The radio station is dark, but broadcasting on remote and I listen for a few minutes to Christmas music that’s played on the speaker outside their doors. I pass a photography studio and a framing shop, and a real estate office before crossing the Church Street and pausing by the theater in front of the Courthouse to see what’s playing. It doesn’t look like I’ll be going to the movies this week as none of the four playing seems interesting.

Crossing Broadway, I pick up my pace as I enter the newer part of town. The street is lined with banks, insurance agencies, gas stations, a car wash, an auto part stores and a Family Dollar Store, all sprinkled between fast food joints: Pizza Hut, Wendy’s, Subway, Big Boys and McDonalds. On the other side of the street is a strip mall: Kmart, clothing stores, more restaurants, another dollar store, a bank, a “rent-to-own” racket and a supermarket. Further down the highway, after the county jail and sheriff’s office is Burger King and KFC. I walk on out of town, toward the industrial area to the west of the city, turning on Cook Road, as I hear the bell from the courthouse, a good mile away, toll seven times. I've been gone an hour. Down below, to my left, is Fish Hatchery Park, affectionately known as “Goose Poop Park” as the Canadian Geese seems to like the lakes where fish were once raised. The ponds are not even frozen, which seem strange. The ball fields, playground and tennis courts are all dark. At the corner of Green Street is Mt. Calvary Cemetery, where the Catholic faithful are planted. I turn down Green Street, walking pass the cemetery and then the front entrance to Fish Hatchery Park, and up the hill by the hospital and into the residential section of town, toward the house with a Moravian Star hanging, like a beacon, from the front porch.

Going inside, I shed my Stetson and wet raincoat. My dog shakes himself off. He’s got that wet dog smell. I plug in the Christmas tree and set a fire in the hearth at the other end of the room and enjoy its warmth.

Downtown of "My Town"

I'm dreaming of a long hike...

2011-12-17T12:22:00.000-05:00

Entrance to St. John's harbor, Newfoundland

I’m letting Bing Crosby dream of a White Christmas, I’m dreaming of a long hike…

This past week, I received an email from Backpacking Magazine. I get at least one email from them a day, most of which ends up in my junk mail folder. But this email made it through and instead of deleting it without looking, something caught my eye and I read it. The email announced a contest to send six selected readers out on hikes that would be featured in the magazine. I certainly don’t expected to be picked out of the thousands of responses they’ll receive, but since I’ve been doing such dreaming about what a next trip might look like, I decided to write down my thoughts. Even if not chosen, this is a hike I’d enjoy and hopefully maybe before I get to old I’ll take the walk. The photo was taken by me this past September when I was on a ship that stopped for a day in St. John’s, Newfoundland. I have placed my response into their categories (although I may not have answered them in the way they'd want).


Detail the route you’d like to hike—what’s its name, where is it, and why does it deserve coverage in Backpacker?

The East Coast Trail hugs the rugged shoreline of the Atlantic from Cape St. Francis to Cappahayden, Newfoundland for160 miles. In the future, the trail will be extended to run the length of the coastline of Newfoundland and Labrador. Its location, near the confluence of the arctic Labrador Current and the tropical Gulf Stream provides contrast. From the cliffs, icebergs and whales can be observed as a variety of birds take flight. The plant life is diverse and the marine life is abundant in the tidal pools. There is even a wave driven “spout-geyser.” The trail is steeped in history. Vikings set foot here centuries before Columbus and European fishermen working the Grand Banks found safety in the harbor that’s now St. Johns. Small fishing villages dot the shoreline (some providing opportunity to stay in bed-and-breakfasts along the trail). Other fishing villages have been abandoned. Their remains stand as a testimony to the past. At the entrance of the harbor to St. Johns is Signal Hill, where the first trans-Atlantic radio signal was sent. Eight lighthouses dot the landscape as the trail passes through four provincial parks and three ecological reserves.

My plan is to travel overland to Newfoundland, taking the train to Nova Scotia where I will board a ferry to Newfoundland. I will cross the island by bus. While hiking, I will camp in approved locations along the cliffs and shoreline (with the hope of observing the Northern Lights) as well as staying in some of the bed-and-breakfasts and hostels along the way. Although I have not extensively studied the maps, my gut feeling is that two weeks would allow one to cover the 160 miles of trail at a pace that allows for some exploration. In an attempt to learn about the island’s culture and natural history, I will read some of the rich literature of Newfoundland such as Wayne Johnston’s novel, The Colony of Unrequited Dreams, and his memoirs, Biltmore’s House, Alistair MacLeod’s Island and Annie Proulx, Shipping News.

Tell us why you are the best hiker for the job

I am a seasoned wilderness traveler. I have hiked the entire length of the Appalachian and John Muir Trails, as well as numerous canyons in the Southwest, many of the trails in the Sawtooth and Boulder Mountains of Idaho and the Beartooths of Montana. I have also done a number of long distance canoe trips including one to the James Bay in Northern Ontario. I enjoy writing, especially when I can connect the history and the people I meet with the natural setting of the terrain I‘m covering. I keep a journal with me most of the time, especially when hiking. I am a decent photographer. In 2011, I was blessed with a four month Sabbatical which allowed me to travel overland from Indonesia to Europe (mostly by train). Coming back home from Europe on a ship, I spent a day at St. Johns. From the harbor, I set out on foot for Signal Hill, which is how I discovered the “eastern-most hiking trail” in North America. I am itching for an opportunity to get back and explore the Maritimes.

Children of the Changing South

2011-12-13T17:41:00.001-05:00

Foster Dickson, editor, Children of the Changing South: Accounts of Growing Up During and After Integration (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2011) 189 pages.

This was a personal book for me. In 1963, my family moved to Virginia where I started the first grade in a segregated school. When I was nine, we moved back to North Carolina where the schools had been integrated, but only slightly. They were “neighborhood schools” and mine was over 95% white. Then, as I began the 9^th grade, court-ordered busing forced the school district to ship students around the country in order to achieve a 70% white, 30% African American mix. Reading these essays by those who lived through integration, I recalled many of my own experiences.

Foster Dickson, a teacher in Alabama, assembled a collection of essays from African-American and white authors who had grown up during and after the end of the segregated South. Those writing the essays came of age from the late 1950s through the early 1990s. The older ones lived through the movement; the younger ones recall what their parents experienced and how it is now to live in a world that has changed. These essays point out the cost of segregation. As horrible a system it was, there were losses even for those who benefitted the most from change. Ravi Howard’s essay “Elevator Music” recalls the iconic Ben Moore Hotel in Montgomery, a center of the black community and a place where his parents bumped into Martin Luther King, Jr. in the elevator. After integration, the hotel went out of business and is now abandoned. On the other side of the equation, white students left their traditional schools as many fled (taking their money and support with them) to the private academies that began to dot the South. This shift left the public schools much poorer.

Fear was a common experience that crossed racial boundaries. I remember in my own life, how afraid those of us who were bused from Roland Grice to Williston in the 9^th grade were when we were transferred to a school in a strange part of town. Many of the African-American writers also wrote about their fear, as Lean’tin Bracks explained in his essay “Covered Walkways.” “If the Ku Klux Klan-type people would blow up four little girls, then it was open season on us… Will the police come to help us or hurt us?” Others recalled the experience of cleaning ladies, both African Americans who worked in the low paying jobs as well as white women who by availing themselves with such low-cost labor were allowed to break into new fields. Leslie Haynsworth’s essay looks at the economics of cleaning ladies and she wonders if she would avail herself of such services if they still existed. Another contributor, Becky McLaughlin, tells about her parents joining a Presbyterian Church in Arkansas during a time of family turmoil. Her parents not only became involved in church, but her father who’d been a crop duster moved the family to Africa where he worked as a pilot for the denomination’s mission board. Coming back to the States four years later, she spoke of how hard it was to re-enter society that was still holding on the vestiges of Jim Crow. Another “white” contributor spoke skeptically about his family’s “Indian blood,” wondering if there might not be a dark secret in his past. An African-American contributor wrote about the absence of vacations and swimming opportunities for her people and how, when her family moved around the world (her father was in the military), they tended to stick close to the base and not tour around because of a “Jim Crow” mentality.

Many of these essays are creative and they are all a joy to read. I was reminded of the aroma of curing tobacco and found the “third person perspective” used by Kathleen Rooney to describe her “first-person experience” to be especially effective. Preceding the collection of essays is an introduction by Foster Dickson, in which he reviews recent historical and literary studies of the South, starting with W. J. Cash’s work in the 1940s. Foster also notes how the Civil Rights movement in the South paralleled the movement for Women’s Right, the changing political landscape, and the “rebranding of Dixie” into the Sunbelt. Foster also provides insight into each of the essays. This book captures a number of voices of people who have experienced the Civil Rights movement, first hand. One of the more obvious weaknesses of the book (in addition to the$35 cost) is that all the contributors are well educations and most of them are in higher education. There seems to be an overweight of “English professors” among the contributors, which makes for great writing and enjoyable reading. However, the selection of contributors leaves voices out. Having been raised up during the Civil Rights movement, I remember the large number of drop-outs (of all races). Obvious these folks, as well as high school graduates who didn’t go on to further their education are not heard in this book.

"Class Dismissed: Goodbye Mr. Biggs

2011-12-10T09:47:00.001-05:00

I have been so busy lately that I've not been around much. This morning, as I was reading through the news feed on my facebook page, I came across a post from an elementary school classmate of mine, informing those of us who attended Bradley Creek Elementary School, that one of our teachers had died.

Nearly a decade ago, when writing the article that I have at the bottom of this page, I did a quick search to see if I could find Mr. Biggs and failed and had assumed he'd died (I wasn't even sure if his name was Briggs or Biggs). I wish I could have gotten up with him. He might have been proud to know that I have yet to spent time behind bars. I'm pretty sure that's what he expected from a group of us (or maybe he'd just been heartbroken over our failed criminal justice system). We gave him hell! In the obituary, I learned that he wasn't captured in the Philippines (as I seemed to remember), but in China, where he was a Marine assigned to embassy duty in Peiping. And he was captured on that fateful day of December 7, 1941. Seventy years later, he would die on that same day. I also didn't know that he stayed in the Marine Corp for 20 years and retired in 1959, having received three Presidential citations and having become a decorated hero during the Korean conflict. God bless you, Mr. Biggs! For more of my memories of Mr. Biggs, go here and here. I realized that in these posts, I identified him as Mr. Briggs!

Below is an article I wrote from a newspaper in Utah, back when I had a monthly column there...

From the Spectrum, January 17, 2003.

I've had the privilege of knowing two men who survived the fall of the Philippines in World War II. Both men, in their youth, endured three years of horror as Japanese Prisoners of War.

My first encounter was as a fifth grader. At a time when almost all elementary school teachers were women, Mr. Biggs was the only male teacher at Bradley Creek Elementary School. Tall and lanky, we privately called him Mr. Chips. He did resemble the character from the movie. I can’t recall much of his story, but I remember he had enlisted in the military as a teenager, only 16 or 17 years old. Stationed in the Philippines on the eve of the Second World War, he was captured at the fall of Bataan. The rest is history. After the war, he went back to school and became a teacher and, by the bad luck of the draw, ended up with a host of mischievous boys. I regret now that I can recall more of my misdeeds than his experiences.

My second encounter with a survivor of the fall of the Philippines was Kanarraville resident John Lee. Most people his age can recall what they were doing when they heard Pearl Harbor was attacked. With a grin in his eye, John once told me he was in a gin mill in Manila during the early morning hours of that infamous December day. Suddenly lights went up as officers and military police herded everyone back to their duty stations. While other ships headed for the open ocean, John’s ship, the submarine tender USS Canopus, was ordered to stay put. For several months, both the Army and Navy depended on the ship’s extensive machine shop. At one point, the sailors of the Canopus, who had no combat training, were given rifles and pressed into duty as infantrymen to repel a Japanese landing party. Before the fall of Bataan, they scuttled their ship and were transferred to Corregidor, a fortified island in the mouth of Manila harbor. There, the sailors were assigned to the Marines who guarded the beaches. Against a constant bombardment, they held the invaders off for another month. With little ammunition and few rations, and all their big guns out of commission, the island surrendered on May 6, 1942.

John talked rough, but had a gentle heart. He adored my daughter and all other children and adopted many stray animals. When eating out, he always asked for a doggy bag and saved a choice piece of meat for his four legged companions.

Ironically, the hearts of both men who experienced the horrors of war and inhumanity at the hands of their captors were softened. One dedicated his life to children and another tenderly cared for animals. With Mr. Biggs, I missed an opportunity, but with John I was given a second chance. We owe our freedom to their sacrifice and, in their memory, should strive for a more humane world.

John died this past week, his final battle being cancer.

###

"A Day that Lives in Infamy": Two Stories.

2011-12-07T13:40:00.000-05:00

For my generation, it was where we were when Kennedy was shot. For later generations, it would be where they were when the Challenger exploded or on 911. But for those of my parents’ generation, their defining day was December 7^th, 1941. This post contains two stories of where people were at on that day, as Roosevelt defined, that lives in infamy.

A few years ago I was visiting with my aunt, my mom’s oldest sister, trying to gleam as much information as I could about my mother’s early life. Unlike a lot of people with Alzheimer’s, my mother never talked much about her childhood and I was curious. I asked Betty Ann about the attack on Pearl Harbor and how the family heard about it. Betty Ann said she, along with my mother and their other sister, were cutting through the woods and fields to Beulah Hill Missionary Baptist, where the family worshipped. As they passed a neighbor’s house, the neighbors yelled for them to come and listen to the news on the radio. This was an area that didn’t have electricity until after the war, so I assume the radio was battery powered. I remember my father’s father telling me about them having two batteries for their truck. One was in the truck charging while the other was used to run the radio. I asked Betty Ann if they were going to an evening service, but she insisted it was the morning. I didn’t press the issue even though I knew it had to be later in the day as this was on the east coast and the attacks occurred in Hawaii in the morning (which would have been the afternoon in North Carolina). So either they were going to an evening service or coming home from a long-winded morning service.

My grandfather had spent most of that fall in High Point, taking a welding class. The family had been waiting for the Christmas break from school to move to Wilmington, where my granddad had lined up a job building Liberty ships at the new shipyard. The day before Pearl Harbor, on December 6, the shipyard launched its first ship, the Zebulon B. Vance, named for a former governor of the state. A few weeks later, my granddaddy and his family joined thousands of other families from farms around the state in a migration to Wilmington where they lived during the war.

John was a man I knew when I lived in Utah and I was proud to call him a friend. In the late 1930s, he worked for the CCC, and then he joined the Navy. In the early morning hours of December 7, he along with host of other sailors and soldiers, were feeling pretty good in a dark Gin Mill in Manila, in the Philippines. “All of sudden,” he said, “the lights were turned up and MPs and SPs were there with their nightsticks drawn, kicking and cussing and knocking us with the sticks, ordering us back to our duty stations.” The news of Pearl Harbor had just arrived and all American bases were on high alert. “It was a hell-of-a-way to begin a war,” John later recalled.

John was assigned to a submarine tender that had a problem with its shaft and was being refitted. As his ship could only make a few knots an hour, it was decided that they would not try to run the blockade. Instead, the ship became a machine shop for the Army fighting in the Philippines. Once the ship was out of supplies and could no longer provide support, it was taken out into the harbor and sunk, in an attempt to keep the Japanese from entering Manila Bay. The sailors then dyed their navy uniforms to make them camouflaged. A Marine was assigned to three sailors and they became foot soldiers. Being Navy, they were evacuated from Bataan before the surrender and fought a few more months from Corregidor, where they surrendered after running out of ammunition. John spent three and a half years as a POW working as a slave in a coal mine in Japan. Until his death, ten years ago, he still had nightmares of the horror he endured.

###

Musings as we begin December

2011-12-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

Taken on a morning hike back in October

December 10^th is my eight blog anniversary. If I don’t say something now, I’ll forget it. Eight years—that’s a long time to tell tales and try on occasion to be entertaining. I am honored to have you reading this. Thanks! I always have plans to write more than I ever do. One day, maybe I’ll collect the stories together for a memoir for my kids and nephews and nieces. On another positive note, I was honored when Hilary at "Smitten Image" highlighted my post titled "They Shoot Canoes, Don't They" as a "Good Read" in her blogs of the week.

It’s been a little over two months since I have returned home and back to work after a four month Sabbatical. My time away was incredible, but it also feels good to be back on familiar ground. The past four years had been so busy that when I left in the spring, it took a while for me to slow down and enjoy and realize that the dream of a sabbatical had come true. It seems odd to have left not long after the leaves had finishing to bud out, only to come back as they were changing. Now the leaves are gone and we’ve had two small snow storms, nothing major, but enough to remind me that I missed out on summer (that’s okay as it was plenty hot in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. I need to dig out my skis and wax and be ready to explore the woods when we get the first major snow of the season.

The two months have flown by and now the tree is up and we’re counting down the days to Christmas. I have a number of crèches (or nativities). Hopefully, none of them are as bad as those in this blog that highlights the worst nativity scenes imaginable. Check it out. I think my dog might like the one created out of Spam! Another sign that Christmas is almost here is Judy’s posts of decorating the governor’s mansion in home state of North Carolina. Check it out.

May December be a blessing to you.

"They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?" More of Sage's Canoe Tales

2011-11-28T18:27:00.001-05:00

Sage, on the Black River, Summer of 1975

This is another of post about my early canoe adventures. Unfortunately, I don’t have many photos from this era of my life. As for the title of this post, it comes from a book by Patrick McManus that I came across many years after this event. When I first saw the book, I thought he’d stolen my story!

Walking out of the store with a bottle of Coke in one hand, I ripped open a bag of peanuts with my teeth and shook a few in my mouth. Looking up, I saw a Chatham County sheriff’s car over by our vehicles. My stomach knotted as I walked over to where Larry, my uncle was waiting. The deputy, wearing a protective rain cover on his billed hat, walked up from the other direction.

“Ya’ll boys ain’t going to run that river today, are you?” he asked my uncle in a slow drawl.

We plan on it,” Larry answered.

“That ain’t a good idea,” he continued. “We’ve gotten a lot of rain and that river is angry.”

“We’re going to check out the gauge before we put in,” Larry assured the man.

“Well, if ya’ll boys go down that river, I ain’t gonna go lookin’ for you,” the deputy said.

“We’re not asking you to,” Larry responded.

The deputy looked at the canoes on the two cars, then padded his pistol and said, “I ought to save ya’ll boys lives and shoot some holes in those canoes.”

“Please sir, don’t do that,” my uncle responded.

It was in the spring of 1975 and my brother, my Dad and I had met up with Larry at a country store and gas station outside of Pittsboro, North Carolina with the thought of running the Haw River. None of us had ever been on the river, but Larry had talked to some who had and we had a plan to run it if the water wasn’t too high. We drove over to the US 15-501 bridge and parked beside the road and walked down the slippery back to check the gauge. The river was running at 3 feet above normal. Larry’s sources had told him not to try to run it in an open canoe if the river was more than six inches. A few years later, I would run the river when the gauge was at 3 feet, but then I was in a kayak and had sharpened my paddling skills a bit. It was an incredible run with an eight foot standing wave below Gabriel’s Bend swallowing us whole and then spitting us out. We could have never run that river successfully in open canoes. That deputy was right; he’d probably been looking for us as that river would have eaten our boats and struggling in the middle of boiling water. But on that day a few years later, I was in a kayak and the river was a blast.

Although he was my uncle, Larry always seemed to be more of an older brother to me and he was much closer to my age than to my dad’s age. When he graduated from high school in 1969, he joined the Navy and spent four years as a corpsman and somehow managed to stay out of Vietnam even though for half his enlistment he was assigned to the Marine Corps. When Larry got out of the Navy, I was in high school. He started attending a Community College and would later transfer to Appalachian State. Unbeknownst to each other, we both purchased a canoe within weeks of each other and through our college years we often paddled together. The failed Haw River expedition was just the first of many.

Knowing we couldn’t safely run the Haw, we decided to try the Rocky River, which parallels the Haw. The Rocky River eventually merges with the Deep River which later merges into the Haw form the Cape Fear River. I’m not sure how we decided on the Rocky River. Maybe the deputy suggested it, but I remember we looked at maps at the Haw River Bridge and decided to check it out. From the bridges, the Rocky looked promising, so we dropped the boats and shuttled the cars and began the run. If the water had been much lower, we’d be walking much of the river. There were lots of ripples and rock gardens and some short and exciting drops. Larry and my brother were in his canoe; my father was in the back of mine. It was the first time we’d paddled and, as far as I knew, my dad had never paddled a canoe on a river.

At one of the last pieces of fast water before we got to the 15-501 bridge, we were swept up into the trees. I thought things were going ok as I got low in the boat and tried to steer us back into the flow, when I realized my dad was out of the boat and holding onto the canoe with one hand and to a tree with another. I never figured out how he got out of the boat without me knowing it, but I tried to stabilize the boat as he crawled back in. But as he let go of the tree and jumped into the boat, it rolled and we were both in the freezing water being swept downriver. Larry was yelling for us to hold onto our paddles and he and my brother were collecting stuff from our boat that was floating downriver. At the bottom of the fast water, with everything collected and the water dumped from the boat, we got back in and fifteen minutes later arrived at the bridge. We’d talked about going further down the river, but with my Dad and I both being wet, we decided that might not be the thing to do. As for my canoe, it had a ding on the keel that continued to remind me of the Rock River. After this canoe was stolen, I would often look at the keels similar looking canoes tied on top of vehicles, hoping to find my old canoe.

Over the next few years, Larry and I would often paddle together. Sometimes my brother would join us (my father never did join us on these trips even though he did on occasion paddle with me). We did several trips along the Black River, including an overnighter where I was in the bow as we floated down the river while fishing upstream. In a quiet but serious voice, my uncle instructed me not to move. I wasn’t sure what was up, but the out of the corner of my eye, I realized we were about to bump up to a log. Curled up on the log and looking at me, at eye level, with his tongue darting in and out, was a fat Cottonmouth. Had we bumped the log, the snake would have been in the boat. Larry safely maneuvered us around the log. On another trip, we explored the Uwharrie River (where we were surprised to find a dam that required a difficult portage). And then there was long day my brother and I joined Larry for a long paddle on the South Fork of the New River. It rained so hard that day that we had to regularly stop and dump the water out of our canoes and the only respite we found were under bridge abutments. Like trolls, we ate lunch under one such bridge.

In the spring of ’76, Larry called me and asked if I would be interested in a kayak. He’d just purchased one and a friend of his had another one to sale. I brought the boat and we then began another chapter of our lives.