Mt. Adams, Take 2 by Fran

A few days ago I received a  most welcome phone call from someone I last talked to 50 years ago.   It was Fran Ansley who had been a student at Putney School, class of 1964.  She and her classmates were getting ready for their 50th reunion and she recalled the winter ascent of Mt. Adams (see my post of July 8, 1913, "Winter in the White Mountains") as well as a trip I took with Putney students in Fall, 1963.   Fran is a terrific writer who regularly wrote detailed descriptions to her family just after the trips were completed.   With Fran's permission I am posting her description of that fall trip.

Jun 19 at 10:00 AM

Long Fall 1963 -- Presidential Range -- Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Adams

Dear Family,

The Long Fall trip was really wonderful.  We left on Friday morning in a truck with one other tripful of people, who we dropped off on the way.  It was a good truck ride … lots of singing and joke telling, and not too cold.  We had lunch on the way.  People were crammed in.  It seemed like everyone must have had four feet.  Boots were jabbing everywhere.

Finally (that is, seven hours later), we got to Bowman, New Hampshire, where our trail started.  It is in the northern end of the Presidential Range.  We all piled out, put on our packs and started off with a chill in our bones because there was snow on the ridge.

The climb was pretty stiff, but I never reached that horrible point of not believing I could go on.  It was lovely to hike this time of year, because the path (which frustratingly consumes so much of one’s attention) is starred with leaves -- curly red and yellow. 

By sunset, we were just below timberline and reached our shelter -- three-sided plus a fireplace -- “The Perch” -- It is literally perched on the side of a ravine on the shoulders of Jefferson and Adams.

We had “gloosh,” that Bill Melvin specialty.  And we SANG.  Bill is the best tenor in madrigals, has perfect pitch and a really fine voice.  So he always has lots of singing.  We learned many new rounds, and several people brought madrigal books, so we sang those too.

Then we all jammed into the shelter.  The guidebook said the Perch holds eight.  We fit in 14.  Everyone had to lie on his side, and when anyone laughed, the whole line of diaphragms jiggled, from one end of the girls’ section, through Bill (the Mason-Dixon line), and on through the boys.  There was no alternative, though, because it was quite cold.  We had already hit some snow, and every tree was covered in a thin coat of lovely ice.  (One bit of trip-bragging:  we put a can of water on the fire to heat.  It had been on a little while, and somebody put in his finger to test it.   “Uh-oh, some sticks have fallen in.”  So we shone a flashlight into the can so we could fish out these sticks, and it turned out to be ICE!)  Anyway, the crowded conditions kept us warm.

Next morning we got up for breakfast (hot Wheatena and bacon), and leaving our packs at the shelter, we walked up to the top of the ridge to Edwards Col (a little dip in a ridge).  It was just incredibly beautiful.  We hit first an evergreeny section just below timberline -- with mossy floor, and dead trunks.  This was virgin forest.  They were all covered with fairyland snow and rime.  Then we got above timberline.  All the rocks had icicles coming horizontally from the off-wind side, and each blade of grass was sheathed in brilliant, glowing ice.  But the most amazing thing was looking through winter on the top into fall blazing below us in the valley.

After a rest and some singing at the col, we went on up Mt. Jefferson, took a close look at Mt. Washington and the southern peaks, decided against continuing on to Mt. Washington because of its commercialization, and came on back to the col for lunch.  Then we walked up Mt. Adams, the second highest peak in the White Mountains, and on the other side of Edwards Col -- the wind there was terrific.  (Estimates non-exaggerated at forty mph.)  You could lean against it with all your weight.

We sang there too, for almost half an hour, met another Putney trip that was going from the Great Gulf to Crag Camp (such alliteration!), then headed back down to the Perch.  With no packs, it was great.  I felt I could have walked all day with no strain at all.

That night was more singing, recorder playing, Bill shaggy-dog stories, secret birthday-cake fixings, etc.  It was much warmer.  (The peanut butter would spread, our boots didn’t freeze during the night, the hamburger was soft, etc.), so several people slept a les belles étoiles, and we had more room.

Sunday morning then we had the legendary Melvin apple dumplings and were on our way -- down the Israel Ridge Trail -- very rocky and steep and fun and murder on the knees.  That ran into the Castle Ravine Trail which follows a wonderful N.H. stream down into the valley.  Finally about 10:00, we were all hot and tired and sweaty, and Bill said, “OK.  Boys on this side of the bend, girls on that.  You’ve got five minutes for a skinny dip.”  Ohhhh man.  It was so cold and so good and a perfect thing to happen.

An hour after that, we were back at the truck and ready to start back to school.

I loved the trip as much as you can see I did … because of the physical things, but more important because of the spirit of it.  Bill Melvin simply has a gift for leading trips. Of course, it was the people on it too.  Bill never picks a clique for his trips, but manages to make wonderful and weird combinations.  You all end up loving each other. Anyway, obviously it was great. 

Existing vs. Living: The Senior Challenge

When I retired in 2005, I was keenly aware of the warnings I had heard: plan ahead, know what you will do with your time. So I took a short course in teaching ESL, formed a group with some of my classmates ("ESL Volunteers of Northern Virginia") and started teaching.  I taught Mondays and Wednesdays at the Herndon Workers Center (since closed) and Saturdays at the Herndon Neighborhood Resource Center.  On Tuesdays I volunteered at the Embry Ruckler shelter for homeless people. For seven years I felt fulfilled, thankful that I was getting to know so many wonderful people, many of whom (though we never asked) were probably so-called "undocumented immigrants."  By chance, three of our students lived right next door. Sometimes when I met some of the homeless people at the library, I was the grateful recipient of generous bear hugs.   These people were great!

In 2012 I finally had to acknowledge that I physically couldn't continue.   For one things, I was the front desk person at Embry Rucker, whose duties were answering the phone and interacting with the residents.  My hearing was such that I sometimes couldn't understand what people were saying on the phone.   People would say, "Put somebody on the line who can hear!"  So I regretfully resigned from Embry Rucker and ESL Teaching. I settled into a routine: wake up at 6:30, read the paper in bed and have coffee until 7:30, go to the gym for an hour, return home, shower, dress, have breakfast and take a nap.  The remainder of the day I spent checking email, my bank account and Facebook, and reading.   Not a very inspiring schedule. When Qenehelo, my wife, came home from work at 5:45, I'd  complain, "I'm just existing!"

So what to do?  I remembered a sermon my friend and pastor, Rob Merola, gave during Lent.   Rob recalled that Jesus had been in the wilderness and had not eaten for 40 days when Satan came and tempted him: "If you be the son of God, command that these stones be turned into loaves of bread."   The reply was important: Man does not live by bread alone."   In terms of this post: we are not here just to exist.

So I joined the Herndon Senior Center with daily activities and lots of very old members.  (I exempt from this challenge, by the way, people suffering from dementia.   We need to comfort and  love these people who through no fault of their own can no longer carry on the daily activities of life.)  For the rest of us: consider Rob's answer to the question of meaning: "Love and be loved."  It's something all of us can do.  None of us exists in a vacuum.   In my case, I have my immediate family: my dear wife Qenehelo with whom I have been together for 33 years, my son, Thabie, a wonderful piano teacher, and my kind and caring daughter Palesa who sometimes frets over all the preparations of her forthcoming wedding.   Then there are my friends at the gym where I go every morning, my friends at the senior center, many of whom are physically diminished, and my fellow parishioners at church..As I reflect on this truism, "Love and be loved," I realize that the senior dilemma is everybody's existential question: How can I make my life meaningful?

Dog Tales

I read in the paper recently a story about a dog which had been away four years and returned home.    Where had he been all that time?  What had he eaten?   How did he find his way home?    Another story said, research shows a dog thinks like a person.   Amazing animals!

We have two dogs: Dakota, a Sheltie-Pekingese mix who is six and gentle, and Bailey, a beagle who is four, lovable, intelligent and mischievous.   Bailey likes to invade the kitchen trash and the bedroom laundry basket.   Given the chance he will scarf down a person's temporarily unattended dinner.   Dakota follows us around.  If someone is taking a shower, Dakota will lie on the bath mat;  if someone is on the the computer Dakota will lie a few feet away.

Bailey with the container of ice cream he stole from the kitchen trash and dragged outside to snack on.

Bailey peeing in the snow.

Dakota cuddling in my lap.

Dakota Christmas 2012

But this post is mainly about another dog, Doodle, a beagle I had while taught at Putney School in Vermont in the 1960's.  Putney is located on a heavily wooded hill top and dogs run free to roam the woods.   Doodle acquired his name because his predecessor, who was killed by a car, was named Yankee.  Doodle always knew where I was and often, when I was teaching, there would be an energetic scratching on the classroom door which a student would open and Doodle would come in and fall asleep under my desk

At Putney I was the trip director as well as an English teacher and in the summer of 1964 I decided to take six students to the Colorado Rockies for six weeks of hiking and camping.   Without giving it much thought, I opted to take Doodle with us.  Our first trip above Nederland (outside of Boulder) took us up through a glacier, over the continental divide down the west side and across a raging river over which I had to carry Doodle because he was trembling with fear.   Doodle was always running off chasing interesting smells.    On one such excursion he didn't return.  We called and searched but no Doodle.   Heartbroken at the loss of our dear dog we carried on.

Two more nights passed; we went up over the continental divide again at a more northerly spot and eventually down to a parking lot.   We were miles from our car, so we hitched a lift on the back of a pick up truck, the driver of which kindly offered to take us back to our car.  As we were driving up towards our original parking lot, there amazingly was Doodle staggering down the side of the road.  We stopped, Doodle leapt into the back of the truck, turned himself inside out with joy and quickly dropped asleep on my lap.

Doodle, realizing he was lost, followed our original path across the raging brook, over the continental divide, across the glacier and down.  He hadn't eaten (or slept) for two days but was determined to find us. What an incredible feat!   What a dog!

Doodle was also famous for his comical feats.  I lived with my son Don (who was with us on the Rockies trip) in a former barn, a corner of which had been converted into an apartment..  The main section was the school's theater.   One Christmas season I decided to put Doodle in my car (located across the street in a tractor shed), knowing that he would bark that unique beagle bark when the people came for the performance.  The production that year was Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard," a somber, humorless look at Russian life.

I settled in with the parents to watch when, a few minutes into the production, Doodle entered stage left, flipped up his leg, relieved himself against a sofa, and then ate a biscuit which had been left out as a prop. The audience by then was roaring with laughter. Everyone except me and our hard-working drama teacher.   A parent took mercy, picked up Doodle and handed him to me.  I was mortified and apologized profusely to the drama teacher, and the play went on.

On another occasion it was town meeting day in the town of Putney, three miles down hill from the school.   I left Doodle at the school, hitched a ride with another teacher to the meeting where such local issues as stop signs and pot holes in the road were discussed   The selectmen and the lady town clerk sat importantly on the stage.  Again Doodle showed up on stage and stuck his snout under the dress on the town clerk.   This time I leapt into action and snatched Doodle away.   I have no idea how the dog knew I was there.

Finally a sad note:  Before I went to Paris in 1968 to teach at the American School, I gave Doodle to a doctor who lived in Brattleboro, eight miles down the road from Putney.   I learned that Doodle escaped! The doctor terrified that he had lost our dog, employed a variety of remedies to lure him back, the most interesting being acquiring several female dogs in heat! When Don and I returned, there Doodle was. He had walked the eight miles back to Putney School looking for Don and me.  What loyalty!

Bailey, Dakota, and Doodle, like so many dogs, exemplify that noblest of emotions: unconditional love.

Where E'er You Walk

For me the beauty of music is epitomized in the aria "Where e'er you walk," the exquisitely lovely song from Handel's opera "Semele."  Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83zpLsWMoFc.   Is there any more haunting love song?

Where e'er you walk

Cool gales shall fan the glade

Trees where you walk

Shall crowd into a shade.

Classical music has always been an important part of my life.   My performing career started when I was five and a choir boy in our local church.  I wore a black robe with a white cassock, a wide white collar and a floppy bow tie.   My solo career came when I was seven and singing Handel's "Halleluiah Chorus."   At the end there are three halleluiahs followed by a dramatic pause and then a final halleluiah.   I lost count and in the dramatic pause I bellowed "HAL".  Everyone looked at me in shock.

I sang in the high school glee club, the Harvard Glee Club (first tenor) and the  University Choir.    Have you ever heard a sixteenth century motet sung by a men's choir?   Such music would turn an atheist into a believer. Here is a recording of  " O Magnum Mysterium": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeKvNxYMDxE   The main functions of the choir was to sing in Memorial Church seven days a week.  One of our less glorious moments came when we were invited to perform for the Harvard Club of Boston.   Our hosts put us in a holding room with a huge vat of margaritas which we dipped into generously.   When it came time to sing we were all loopy.   Somehow we got it together and out came the deeply religious medieval motets.   No one guessed our conditions.  

In grad school I taught myself the recorder and played with a recorder club,  Then at Putney School, where I went to teach  English, I taught recorder to the children at the local elementary school and formed a recorder club with Putney students.   We put on two full evening concerts.   I was also the tenor soloist in the school's madrigal group.   The music director at Putney, a wonderful man, liked to rehearse to the point my voice became hoarse.  The thought of singing solos with a hoarse voice was so scary I had the habit of running ran off and hiding until my voice returned all the while avoiding the music director.  Then, wearing my only suit and work boots I stood at the front of the orchestra and sang the first of many arias of Handel's Messiah "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people."  In the audience of several hundred parents were, gulp, some famous musicians.


Not all my recorder performances were greeted with applause.  When I was a hitchhiker in Mexico City, during my young and restless days, I played the recorder on the streets with my hat on the pavement, to support myself.   I was doing quite well, but, as luck would have it, the police got wind of my activity, and arrested me for working without a permit.   I was jailed for five days in solitary confinement and was eventually deported..

Fast forward to the 1990's: we started our son, Thabie, who was 10, on the piano, using the Suzuki method, and our daughter, Palesa, on the piano, using the traditional method.   Palesa soon discovered her passion was the flute.   As they flourished they gave recitals, giving me a chance to accompany them on the recorder.  Thabie played annual concerts at my mother's retirement community with me playing along in the Bach minuets.   When my mother passed away, Thabie, Palesa, and I played at her memorial service.  My mother, who taught me my love of music, would have been pleased. 

 

Thabie, Palesa and I play a Trio Sonata at my mother's retirement community

Palesa gave a high school senior recital where I joined her in a Handel trio sonata.  Since then Thabie has become a professional musician with a Master's in music and a flourishing piano studio.   Palesa played in the orchestra for a Harvard production of Mozart's "Cosi von Tutti" but then became involved in other interests.

 

Thabie in recital in the mid-90's

 

Palesa (with piccolo) marches with the high school band.in the Homecoming Parade

I remember hearing "O Magnum Mysterium,' O Great Mystery, about the birth of Jesus, sung by a men's octet at George Mason University (where I was an usher) and thinking how could I ever have had doubts.   I remember hearing the slow movement of Bach's third orchestral suite played by the Boston Symphony and marvelling that any music could be so beautiful.  But these are mere words. Music is a universal language that needs no words to express our deepest feelings: joy, sorrow, mystery, love. It acts as unifying thread through the different chapters of our lives.   It is a language understood equally in Germany, Russia, or India, understood " where e'er you walk."

Fist Bumps, Interrupted

After my fist-bump activities in Brooklyn, Harper's Ferry, and the Outer Banks, I said to Qenehelo, my wife, that I needed suggestions for more physical challenges.  She proposed hiking around Lake Fairfax in nearby Reston.

So off we went a couple of Saturdays ago on the 3 mile scenic trek.   I managed well including going over some steep, short rises infested with tangles of exposed roots and rocks.  When we finished it was again fist bumps all around.

This is the half way point around the lake.

Alas, in the middle of Saturday night (early Sunday morning, actually) I woke with my left knee so sore that it wouldn't support my weight.    Apparently I had injured myself going over the exposed roots.   A visit to an emergency clinic with diagnosis of KNEE EFFUSION and few days of ice and my knee began to feel better.

But not so fast.   On Wednesday I developed a severe pain in my right hip. It took six days to get an appointment with an orthopedist who diagnosed not my hip but spinal stenosis.   I mention all this in the interest of full disclosure.   Right now I'm controlling the pain with Tylenol and doing exercises given to me by a physical therapist. 

Oh the frailty of man's body.   It's clear I ran up against some physical limits.   But I'm working on getting back in shape and looking forward to more fist bumps in the future!



Harper's Ferry Fist Bumps

What do Harper's Ferry and Brooklyn have in common?     Brooklyn is highly urban with store fronts and restaurants, topped by apartments on the higher floors.  Cars and cabs vie for street space and crossing the streets on foot is hazardous.  Harper's Ferry, by contrast, is bucolic, set on the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers.  The mid nineteenth century village is located on the eastern tip of West Virginia with Virginia across the Shenandoah to the south and Maryland, across the Potomac to the east.  The town exists as it did over a century and a half ago and is famous for John Brown's daring raid on the U.S. armoury in 1858.  As you stand in the village everywhere is up.  So what could they possibly have in common?

The thing they have in common is that in each I learned I could do  more than I thought I could.   I chronicled my earlier adventures in the "Browsing Brooklyn" post.   A couple of weeks ago Palesa and her boyfriend Jeff came to visit and we decided one day to go to Harper's Ferry.  My plan had been to sit on a bench while the more hardy explored the village but somehow I got started up the main street and for some reason I then decided to try to ascend "Jefferson's Rock."  the highest point.   With my cane in my right hand and daughter Palesa holding my left, up we went.



Here we are starting up!

At the top is a view that Thomas Jefferson famously described as "worth crossing the Atlantic for."

Here I am near the foundation of an old church with son Thabie and daughter Palesa.

And finally on our way down after sharing fist bumps all around.   Kindly ignore the impression that Jeff and Palesa are half carrying me!   I did it after all and I'll admit I felt pretty proud of myself!

After Jeff and Palesa left, Qenehelo, Thabie, and I drove to Kill Devil Hills on North Carolina's outer banks where, flushed with my activities at Harper's Ferry, I undertook what for me were more physical challenges.   The first was at the site of the Wright Brothers first flight in 1903.   The flight took off from the top of a hill which I climbed up unassisted, albeit with Thabie at my side.

Here I am at the bottom of the hill.   The little specks at the top are people.

 

 And here I am at the top where the first plane took off.  Pay no attention to the small kids who doubtlessly scampered up with ease.  

The next day we went to Jockey Ridge State Park, where the second highest dune on the Atlantic is located.  Hang gliders launch themselves from the top.   It was a slow slog through soft sand but again I made it!





Here I am near the top of the dune with hang gliders in the background.

My wife Qenehelo and I near the Bodie Island lighthouse.

Finally we went to the Elizabethan Gardens, a ten acre botanical paradise, the functional equivalent of Brooklyn's Botanical Gardens where I tooled around in a wheel chair.   This time it was just my two feet.   In an earlier time these would be modest exploits, but now they taught me that if I think I can't do something, give it a try.



Assisted Living

Have you ever visited anybody in an assisted living facility?   It's where they put people who can't take care of themselves: they can't dress themselves, go to the toilet without help, remember who their friends are, know when it's time to take their medications.   Some of the people at a facility I visited, I admit, did indeed seem to be enjoying themselves.   When I asked a group of Jingo players what was the differende3 between Jingo and Bingo, one old lady chirped: "the name!" The experiences, however, seem to be quite variable.

During the last two years of her life, my mother had suffered a series of transient ischemic attacks and suffered from dementia as a result.   She knew who we were, but clearly couldn't take care of herself.  When he was in high school my son Thabie gave piano concerts in assisted living facilities.  The residents whimpered for their cookies and kool aid while Thabie was playing.  Nurses tend to talk to them as if they were children.   It's still a place you go to only when all other options have been excluded.

A friend of mine, who is just a year older than me, was put in assisted living by his son who thought his dad should not be living alone.   My friend didn't really need to be in assisted living but there were no independent apartments available in the retirement complex.   We visited him there four or five times and walked around where we saw old people playing bingo or sleeping while watching TV: a thoroughly depressing place.   He said the upper floors were filled with people suffering from decrepitude or dementia.   My friend said he was depressed, especially in the morning when he would wake up with nothing to look forward except sitting in his chair. 

For this guy there was a happy ending as he was able to move into an independent living apartment with a gym with trainers, clubs and speakers, a library, doctors and dentist offices.   The majority of residents were tooling around at good speeds in their walkers.  My friend was much, much happier and we were happy for him.  He drove his walker like a teenager in a sports car.

These visits made me ask myself, how do we spend our final years?   It seemed that the people in assisted living were essentially sitting around waiting to die.   Nobody should be doing that.  Everybody, no matter how decrepit or demented, deserves to be treated with respect and dignity.   Everybody, as far as possible, should be engaged in meaningful social interaction and individual creative activity.  Our final years need to be as important as years in our twenties or thirties, filled with activity we find valuable.

I confess that my own inclination has been to spend too much time reading in my living room chair
My recent trip to Brooklyn (see my post "Browsing Brooklyn")  was one successful effort at moving around more and soon I'll be trying to hike the easy trails in Shenandoah National Park.