Wendy Guckamus

It was a long time ago. Long enough to erode the delicate details that make memories etch themselves in small places of the heart. Dimmed by all those other things that clutter my brain. And yet, there's a feeling I can’t forget. Of a friend.

The time was back in the days of Junior High and High School, a time of social awkwardness that is born of adolescence. There is a desire to be like everyone else and the reality that you are not. Anything different made you weird and developing friends even harder.  I was the kid from Dorothy Nolan. One of five or six girls in my elementary class who were tossed in with kids who had gone to larger in town schools - Caroline and Division Street elementary schools. The town kids knew half the mixed population of the new seventh grade class at the Lake Avenue school. These kids had neighbors down the street. I had friends across the field or up the hill.

To develop new friends, I got involved playing volleyball and other after school activities, but living out in the country made it tough. We had one car and my mother did not drive. So when the bus rolled down Lake Avenue if I wasn’t on it walking home was a realistic alternative. It was a six miles slog which gave me plenty of time to develop reasons why I missed the bus. Trust me, there were no acceptable excuses for such irresponsibility.  Hanging with friends didn't cut it.

On the days I played volleyball I took the activity bus home, a late running bus that traveled the rural roads scattering kids like wind scatters leave. I was always one of the last kids dropped off.  The activity bus didn’t come close to the house.  I had to walk up the hill from either Danda’s store or Winslow’s bar. The roads, less traveled in those days, were black ribbons that ran through even darker woods. In Upstate New York it is dark before 5 pm on winter nights.

But a few friendship blossomed.  Oddly, I can’t remember how or when I met Wendy Guckamus.  I think she was a friend of another friend. We became friends. There aren’t a lot of details that I remember. I just remember the friendship.  We went to football and basketball games together. Standing in the bleachers she’d grab my arm and pound on it with excitement when our Blue Streaks made a great play. I would beg her not to hit me but she couldn’t help it.

On one of the few sleepovers my Mom stepped forward to gracefully introduce her to deodorant. Yeah, we were budding teens.

We progressed through High School but we drifted apart. Why? I don’t have any clear answers for that either.  I guess things just happen in High School.  And once I graduated I joined the Army and left home.

Over the years every once in a while I would drive past the street where she lived and think of her. Whatever happened to Wendy?  Her address was as strange as her name. Its number included  ½.

Today, I made a UPS  delivery in an office. A signature was required.  After viewing the scribble on the signature pad I asked the young lady what her last name was. “Guckamus,” she replied.

“You’re kidding? As like in Wendy Guckamus?”

She smiled. “Yes. She was my aunt.”

I didn’t catch the past tense. I was excited  to find a Guckamus standing in front of me. Of course, I was in a typical UPS hurry.  “Tell her you met Valerie Perez. Wendy was my best friend in High School.”

The young girl looked alarmed. “She passed away about three and a half years ago. She had been ill for a long time.” I watched her drop her guard as I offered my apologizes and condolences. I even said I had been thinking about her just last week. The UPS route went down her street and past her house. She offered the explanation. “She had breast cancer.”

“I’m so sorry.”

BFF, Wendy Guckamus.

Perfection

My mother was a good cook. I don’t use the word excellent because good better describes her cooking. Good implies solidness, a steady state of reliability that brought comfort to the table as much as nutritional substance combined with deliciousness. And she did it on a budget for a family of seven. I am just a cook.

I thought about my Mom this morning as I made turkey soup. My sister hates it. That is why every Thanksgiving I get to drag the turkey carcass home from Worcester. Because I had to work these past three days I didn’t have time to make it. So the boiled bones sat in the garage in same large pot my mother use to use. The joy of living in the North Country is turning the great outdoors into a semi-convenient refrigerator. Or freezer.

When Mom made soup she would bring the pot in from the garage and chunk off the semi-solid turkey fat that formed on the surface. Then regardless of the temperature of the stock she would begin to fish the bones out of the pot and remove the remaining meat. Sometimes the stock was nearly frozen. The job was bone chillin' and finger numbin'. But every piece of whatever that wasn’t a bone got removed and placed back into the pot. That is why my sister hates the soup. My mother, a product of the Great Depression, wasted not a scrap of the turkey.

There are some things that should not be found in soup. Grizzly opaque cartilage is one thing along with other stuff that doesn’t chew like meat. It doesn’t work well on the palate. I personally don’t care for weird feelings in my mouth. It is why I despise nuts in chocolate pudding. Still there is no reason not to enjoy the taste of home made turkey soup.

I am a Boomer, spoiled rotten of my own higher education and presumptions of easy living made possible by my parents' sacrifices. Making food should not be painful or full of toil. Yet I know all good soup doesn’t flow from a can of Campbell’s  After the fat has been skimmed off, I don’t go fishing for bones in a pot of liquid that would frost bite fingers. I put it back on the stove to warm. Why Mom didn't do this is beyond my speculation. 

I pick through the bones to remove identifiable meat tossing aside those things that are suspect - slimy, really dark brown, flimsy, gelatinous. My mother would be appalled at my wastefulness, but I must confess that when I eat my soup I’m not wary about tactile textures on my tongue. Maybe Mom’s soup was better, but I never wonder what I just swallowed when I eat mine. Did I mention that you ate whatever was on your plate or in your bowl… no questions, ifs, ands or buts?

Two things go with turkey soup. Snow storms and hard poppy seed Kaiser rolls with melted butter. Deep snow with tall drifts and real butter, not that Twinkie-style oleo.  There is comfort in watching the steam rise from both broth and roll when the snow is piling up in the driveway. So on this chilly night for dinner it is turkey soup and Kaiser rolls. No, it is not snowing.  Everything doesn't have to be perfect. 

Shopping

The last time I shot a weapon I was in the Army. Don’t misunderstand. Back in the day women didn’t qualify. I never got any training from Uncle Sam.  A couple of soldiers –  they worked in a photo lab with me -  Terry and Will, took me out to a place along the highway south of Anchorage, Alaska.   There the road slithers between the Chugach Mountain Range and The Cook Inlet and shares the narrow piece of land with a set of railroad tracks. Everyone went there to shoot because you could fire any weapon and if you didn’t hit the beer can the bullets went careening off into the inlet. If you got lucky you could shoot a whale.

This was the era when the world met Dirty Harry. On this particular day we experimented with a monster 357. I say experiment because I really don’t think Terry and Will knew much more than I did. I managed to pull the trigger once during the mayhem of attacking beer cans. When I heard a pinging zip fly over my head I quickly realized that rocks and stray bullets don’t mix very well.

Fast forward a gazillion years.  I ventured into a gun shop for the first time in my life. It was about as intimidating as my ventures into pawn shops. No, I have never hocked anything, but repressed my inhibitions to dive into the fascinating troves of turquoise jewelry, 8 tracks and other obsolete electronics hulled in from the reservations surrounding Gallup, New Mexico.Ah, my vacations.

I entered Zack’s Sports in Round Lake behind a young man with a rifle slung over his shoulder. The parking lot was full of pickups.  Inside, the cave-like shop was packed with guns and people. That is men who were buying, selling, repairing and talking guns, ammo and knives.  I slipped in, shoved my hands into my pockets and began cruising along the walls where rifles and shot guns hung like trophies.

Finally, the man behind the counter of hand guns asked how he could help me.

I pulled out my shopping list. “It was suggested that I take a look at a Walther PK380 and a Sig P239.” I thought I sounded rather intelligent. Less desperate than, "I want to buy a gun." to which the only response can be, "for what?"  None of your business.

"We don’t have any of those right now. I might have one in the back to show you." He disappeared. Was this the time he zoomed the security camera in on me? Checked my mug against the FBI’s Most Wanted.  How do you buy a gun in New York? I stood before a twenty foot long glass case with double shelves of hand guns. Pistolas. Weapons. Firearms. Guns.  I tried not to look guilty, stupid, or nervous. Did I have the same detached look I had earlier when I stood before the deli case in Price Chopper to buy roast beef?  

I grew up in a house without guns. Somehow a small 22 rifle without a firing pin came into the house from her father to my oldest brother.  That seemed appropriate enough, but too much for my mother who strongly believed giving guns to children at Christmas was a major offense against the Baby Jesus. Second Amendment rights never concerned my mother.

Now I ventured into waters I never imagined I would. The idea of shooting a gun has no appeal to me. In the fall, I hate hearing gun shots in the woods around the house.  There's even a shooting range near my father’s church. It’s plain weird to hear an array of fire when walking into service on Sunday.

But things have changed.

He returned to let me know he didn’t have either gun I wanted to see.  I asked to see a shot gun. Remington 870.

“Twelve or twenty?”

Ha, I can pass this test.  “Twenty.” Didn’t I read something about the bigger the gun the smaller the kick? Or was I confusing that with The bigger the Government, the smaller the citizen?  

“Is this for home defense or hunting?”

“I would like it to be versatile. Both.” You know when the time comes and we are living off the land. Killing zombies and such.

So I got an explanation for barrel lengths and a quick demo of switching out the barrel. Yes, this totally amazed me.

Now was the time for true confession.  “I haven’t fired one of these before. Do you guys give lessons?

They didn’t but I got the name of two guys who do. Neither one is named Terry or Will.

Onward

My father fought in WWII,  was wounded twice and later was captured and spent the last months of the war in a POW camp. I refuse to believe that his sacrifice was made so that 70 years later I would roll over and quit because America re-elected an idiot, dolt, and commie who buffaloed 50% of the nation into thinking he is going to transform this country into Heaven on Earth. There are 50% of us left who believe otherwise and I will not concede this nation just as my father did not. Yes, there is a time to cry. There is a time to be angry. But never is there a time to despair.

To despair is to sin. God gave us a gift, as a nation and as individuals. As long as I am able and I have the talent God gave me, I will fight for what he gave me...my liberty, my freedom and my happiness.

Join me.

Ambition and Glory

Ambition got the best of me when  I rented a lift to paint the east two story  side of my Dad's house.  I figured a day to wash and prep. A day to dry and a day to paint. Without the hassle of running up and down ladders and moving them, I could get up in that bucket with all my supplied and knock the job out.

I told the guy at the equipment rental company, “I need a lift so I can get 22 feet high.”  A little eight grade math had given me this number.

“Well, then you need a 40 foot lift.”   

I hesitated about a machine so large. I’ve operated larger, but never on my own. “No worries we’ll give you a lesson before you take it.” I noticed all the instructional decals stuck to the side of the machine were half torn away or faded. I expected a hands-on tutorial.  Instead, I got a verbal machine gun-style barrage of instructions fired in brief bare-bones spurts. On-off switch. These levers operate the legs. Level it. These operate the bucket. Remove these pins before you raise the lift. That will be $550.”  He handed me a safety harness large enough for a 450 pound man.

This monster of a beast menacingly followed me home. Six long miles.  I hoped my bumper and hitch were not tearing away from my Jeep's body.  Parked in the back yard it began to sink into the ground. Rain and moles do not make for a hard packed footing. After making two calls back to the rental company for clarifications on how to lower the legs and raise the bucket I was golden and spent an hour getting comfortable with the controls.  Soon I discovered  I couldn’t reach the lower half of the building. Maybe if I moved the lift into a different position further from the wall. But I didn’t want to back the Jeep up to the tongue and fool around with reattaching the hitch. Nor did I want to back the monster up.  I settled for the highest and the middle part of the building. Washing wasn’t going to be the problem. Painting would be. I would have to use an extension bar.

I ran around the neighborhood collecting ladders and rigged scaffolding to paint the lower half. Still I would have to move the platform bridge between the ladders as I have only one set of jacks.

And then it rained. And rained the following day and the forecast predicted more rain through the following Tuesday. And the lift sank further into the ground. Then a revised forecast for Friday. Sunny and unseasonably warm. That morning I watched dew dry. It’s worse than watching paint dry. Finally, I jumped in the lift about 10:30am and painted continuously until 5:30pm. The forecast was for rain on Saturday so I kept at it, non-stop, to finish all but the spots where the ladders rested against the wall.

Dead tired I went to my forty high school reunion and watched my class mates show up soaked. Damn rain.

This morning everything on my body was sore from bending, squatting, reaching all day. I hooked the lift up to the Jeep for the return trip.  I was nervous about this. Would my Jeep, even in four wheel drive, going to have the muscle to drag the load out of the saturated yard?  I was concerned about backing it up too, but Dad relented to let me take it across the front yard staying away from the septic drain field.  

I backed the Jeep to the tongue and lowered it on the ball. Locked in place. Released brake. Slowly inched forward. I got traction, gained a little momentum and kept on going. Like driving in snow.  I went around the perimeter of the yard. Slipped between the weiglia and spruce tree, past the lilacs and by the hornet nest.  I didn’t stop until I hit the top of the hill on the road by the school house. The grip on the steering wheel deadly. My foot was shaking on the gas pedal. God, I had not been that nervous about something since I had to make a presentation in seventh grade. 

Now all seemed to be good. Slowly driving into town, again the machine lurking behind me. On West Avenue I was two lights and one left turn from the rental company when I came through an intersection with a dip and off came the lift. Holy shit.

What went through my brain at that very moment was reality. I was being chased down the road by a run away lift and it was going to shove itself up the rear end of my Jeep.  The thing wasn’t stopping nor was I. I didn’t want it crashing into me or anything else. I use the Jeep as a barrier.  I kept the monster behind me and tried to keep the Jeep just ahead of it. We kept rolling.  As nervous as I was hauling it out of the yard, I was not nervous about this situation. As long as a cop didn’t come by.  Did I mention no trailer lights?  It finally came to rest along the side of the road where traffic could easily pass by.

I got out to assess the damage, expecting to find the rear end of my beloved Jeep smashed in like a soda can. No damage. The lift? Right. Only a tank could destroy this thing. Neither Dad nor I could lift the tongue to my Jeep’s hitch. I went to the rental company. They sent a guy out who lifted the tongue onto the hitch. Ah, to be strong.  He told me to return it to the store. Where did he think I was going?

The end of the story? Somewhere between the backyard and the store was the key.  I found it. Yes, once again, I thanked God.

I don’t know when the last time was that Dad’s house got painted. I’ll remember this time. 

Outrageous

Insult Muslims and they go on a rampage, not against those who insulted them, but innocent individuals who had nothing to do with the insult.  No other ethnic or religious group does this. And this is the religion of tolerance? That is outrageous.

What is the point of saying, “We didn’t do it.” as a defense? Muslims don’t listen to reason. They won’t say, “Oh, okay.” And go home. To think so is outrageously naïve.  

Culture does shape behavior.  Religion is an undeniable element of culture and a culture that warps self-images so its followers will blow themselves up, demeans women by treating them like property, condones honor killings,  rationalizes irrational behavior and justifies these “values” in the name of god is abhorrent.  It is outrageous to think otherwise.

Apologies mean nothing to people who deny the stark truth of their religion: Allah is a fake god and Mohammad was a nothing more than a heathen who rationalized his behavior in the name of a god by founding a code of his craven conduct.  

Have you seen the video? It is as juvenile as an eighth grader making farts with his arm pits. Yes, it is not a flattering picture of Mohammad as it scrapes nearer to a truth than any Muslim would care to accept. This video no worse than what has been seen on South Park regarding Jews or Christians.  What should be the response to the crucifix in urine a winner of the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art's "Awards in the Visual Arts" competition, which was sponsored in part by the United States National Endowment for the Arts?

Under the guise that the video insulted the prophet Mohammad, several thousands of tolerant Muslims showed up at the embassy in Cairo, breached the compound and burned the US flag. The Egyptian government never flinched.  In Libya the US ambassador is murdered along with three other Americans in a calculated attack.  The warped Islamic claim is they must vindicate Muhammad.  This just vindicates the claim that the religion is being held hostage by its lunacy.  The logic apparently is: A insults B. B murders C to avenge the insult. Outrageous.

Let’s be candid. Islam is nothing more than thugs holding the world hostage.  Don’t give me that this is the fringe. The so called fringe is Islam itself because the rest of rational Muslims are shaking in fear like the rest of the world.  Have you heard one high level Muslim express outrage? No.

Well, I ain’t apologizing. It is time to stop appeasing these unchecked Islamic countries and rip their guts out.

Prayers to the families who lost husbands, sons and fathers: Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, Shawn Smith and Chris Stevens.

Back When Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon

Dad will tell you that man walked on the moon before the road he lived on for the past 54 years was paved. I’m not sure why Dad uses mankind’s milestone instead of saying the road wasn’t paved until 1973. Something always fascinated him about historical achievements whether it was George Washington dragging cannons through the snow from Ft Ticonderoga or the Race to the Moon. 

Back in those days when the United States entered the race my parents had an eight party line because it was cheaper than a private line. The phone was a basic issue rotary dial, jet black in color and hung on the kitchen wall.  That was technology.  Whenever we made the rare but necessary long distance phone call to Sears in Albany or grandparents in New Jersey the operator asked for our number before putting the call through. That was so the call could be properly billed. Back in those days no one would lie about what number they were calling from. But that didn’t prevent my brother or me from softly picking up the receiver to catch a conversation about someone’s constipation or pregnancy.  

It was also a time when only universities and the government had computers that ate punch cards and spit out data in equally complex code. The men who operated such equipment had buzz cuts, Buddy Holly glasses, wore starched white cotton shirts with short sleeves and pencil thin neck ties.

On the evening of July 20, 1969 when Neil Armstrong took that first step on the surface of the moon rabbits grazed in the narrow path of grass that grew down the center of the road. Mom, never one to be impressed with modern marvels, had gone to bed. So too had the rest of the family leaving Dad and me in the flickering blue-hued light of the consoled television set.  We waited for what seemed to take forever.

 I grew up watching the space program assembled in the school cafeteria at Dorothy E Nolan. The teachers always wrangled the six grades together to watch the return of our astronauts, our heroes.  I learned any thing that had to do with space took time.  A decade to get to the moon and a boringly long amount of time to pluck returned space craft from the ocean. Nevertheless, we sat glued to the black and white TV screen listening to Jules Bergman and Walter Kronkite explain something in nautical miles. There was just something that captured our imaginations back then. The wonder of who we were back when things were amazing.

I was fifteen years old that night. As a teen I don’t remember doing too many things with my Dad. Watching Neil Armstrong step to the surface of the moon was one event I never forgot. I don’t remember if I stepped outside that night to stare up at the moon. It would have been a waxing gibbous just as it was the night Neil Armstrong died.

Truly, may a hero rest in peace for he was one of twelve who saw His glory from the surface of the moon.

New York, New York

A brief moment of space in Times Square.

Under the “thingie” in Penn Station I searched for a familiar face. Others did the same.  A boarding call cued people to stretch a line from one side of the terminal to the other. Others pushed around me. I heard my name. There she was. All the way from Germany. A Twitter and Facebook friend I had never met.

I had gone to New York to meet her, a writer, an author with an amazing story. But talent needs no story. Talent gets discovered sooner or later. I reflected on the fact.  I was in a yellow cab headed for lunch with a woman who had three published books. Her break came when a publisher read her manuscript’s page 99. that had been posted on a website.  That was it. Page 99.

She asked why I wasn’t writing? Did I have writer’s block?  No ideas? Why had I stopped?  There were more excuses than Obama had for the economy. Work, running around the countryside, painting and going back and forth between Hawaii and New York.  Time consuming excuses. All true. The rationalization easy. But every one was weak. If I wanted to write – that is, really write – all I had to do was do it.  I’d find a quiet place, a sacred time and hold up for three months to take a huge chunk of ideas out of my brain.  Not even fear could hold me back.  For crying out loud, I already wrote and self-published a book. It couldn’t get any more difficult or humiliating than that.

Oh, the humanity!

By 3 pm, we were toast. The city had sweltered to an almost unbearable oven. It was hard to touch the city. Beneath us subways pushed heat and fumes through the street grates where people stood like hotdogs on a grill. No Marilyn Monroe poses here. Odors from unpleasant origins hovered and caused unsuspecting heads to turn in self-defense.  And motion... The motion jabbed from every direction. Traffic down the street, up the street. People crossed right, left, came head on and dodge around you from behind. A million souls among the steel, concrete and the plasma screens all screaming for someone’s attention. The din etched in my ears, numbing them to nothing but the harshest of auditory chaos. A horn. A hawker selling bus tours.  I began to float, weaving between the others aware of almost nothing in the middle of everything.

I stood outside Madison Square Garden behind the thick metal cylinders that protect the entrance from a truck filled with explosives being rammed down the throat of  Penn Station.  The traffic light changed and a hurried crush of people come toward me from across the street.  Like a wave on a beach, they washed around me and dispersed along the sidewalk and down the stairs. I was inside my own head and yet for personal safety I dared not completely let go from my surroundings. I had lost five dollars in the Subway when I was in eighth grade. My art class came to see the museums.  I wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Inevitably, in this ocean of humanity were encounters – the taxi drivers who navigated the streets while we chatted in the back seat, the wait staff at Serendipity, cashiers at a café, a restaurant owner, the person sitting at the next table who consumed a BLT smoothed in a heap of bacon, a shop sales clerk who tried to sell her a $400 green handbag, the attendant at Penn Station who let us sit in the waiting area even though she wasn’t a ticketed passenger, and the postal clerk who volunteered to let me into a closed museum - all friendly, all helpful and all hospitable.  

The train whistle cried out with more frequency. Albany approached. It had been a long day. Even as the sun dropped behind the purple silhouettes of the Catskills, the air hung heavy over the Hudson River. It was the kind of thick air you gulped instead of breathed. You’d swear that you would drown. I stepped onto the platform and into the glass enclosed escalators, a thermal trap. It felt like an oven set to warm a loaf of bread. I ignored the last bit of crowd, those who swept from the train to make their way home or to some hotel to cue up for the next day’s business deal, legislative conference or important presentation. A bubble created by my own thoughts about the day shielded me from the last slight bump, or polite but rote “excuse me” from those who pushed past.

On the drive to Saratoga lightening flickered in the gathering thunderheads.  Muffled rolls of thunder greeted me as I pulled into the driveway. The hum of crickets and katydids filled the dark woods. This was a silence I could handle. The sky broke and the rains came in a heavy downpour.

Auf Wiedersehen, mein Freund

One day I’m going to either tell the story of the day I met the famous author Mariam Korbas in New York City for lunch at Serendipity, or I’ll tell my own story of how I became a famous author.  I haven’t decided which yet.

Mount Washington

First, a little background to understand how this whole expedition got started.

1. My sister, Robin, is younger, faster, and far more athletic than me. She could sit on her butt for months (which she would never do) and I could run, swim and hike every day of the week and I would still have a tough time keeping up. She was the Lance Armstrong before there was Lance Armstrong. She has an engine that won’t quit. Therefore, I don’t compete with my sister;  I participate with her.
2. Mount Washington is in her backyard. It’s the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288 ft and is famous for dangerously erratic weather. For 76 years, until 1996, a weather observatory on the summit held the record for the highest wind gust directly measured at the Earth's surface, 231 mph on April 12, 1934. Weather is what makes this mountain so very dangerous to climb. Its last life taken was in January 2012 when a young man from Massachusetts fell descending Tuckerman Ravine.
3. My first trip up this mountain was last September. Robin, Dad and I drove up the eight mile road to the summit and were treated to blue skies and 70 mile visibility. Very unusual for a place where building are chained to the ground.
4. I love rocks. I love mountains with rocks. They call Mount Washington the rock pile.
5. I am known to say stupid things like, “It would be neat to hike to the summit of Mount Washington.” Robin jumped all over that.

So in January, taking advantage of Hawaii I started to train for our climb. Running and swimming, to keep up with Robin, like this would ever happen. Once I returned to New York , I started climbing a few mountains in the Adirondacks, namely Prospect and Buck. I carried weight and went on longer trails than the trail we would take up the mountain.  I wanted to go in June, but Robin warned that there could still be snow. God, Almighty.  So we settled for the week of July 4^th.  allowing the entire week to get the right weather window to make our ascent.  Tuesday looked the best, but logistically we weren’t ready. Wednesday promised clear skies, but deteriorated as a weak front descended from the north.  Once that pushed through Thursday became the day.  Meanwhile, we did two short hikes to “blow the stink off us” as Grandpa House would say.

We headed out for Pinkham Notch Lodge where the trailhead for Tuckerman Ravine was located.  The early morning air held a crisp feel of fall - still three months away. A dampness settled into the valley leftover from the heavy thunderstorms that rolled through the previous day. The 5 am Mount Washington Observatory Morning Weather Report promised 45-60 mile per hour winds on the summit, but some clearing later in the day.  Oh, boy. 

At 8 am we checked in with the ranger at the information desk.  “Sounds like a great idea,” she chirped when we told her of our plans.  She ran down a short must-have gear list....fleece, rain jacket, a light source, food and water. The bulletin board posted a more thorough a list of items. These were the things needed should shit happen. And on this mountain it happens.  The only thing we didn’t have was a ground pad. But if I had to huddle the night on a cliff, I would sit on my pack instead of the cold ground.  We were far more prepared than most. And we agreed it was all about the journey not the summit. If we had to come down because either one of us couldn’t make it physically or mentally, we would come down.  And certainly if the weather pounded the summit with fire and brimstone we would retraced our footsteps down the mountain, something I dreaded because of my knees and something I dreaded even more as I picked my way up the rocks on the steep headwall of Tuckerman Ravine.

Mentally, I wasn’t as psyched as Robin. Sure I wanted to go, but I had crashed and burned four days earlier on Buck Mountain, planting my face into the ground and injuring my pec muscle. It still hurt to take a deep breath. And deep breaths go hand and hand with climbing mountains.  But I wasn’t ever going to be more ready.  

The trail begins going up and it never stops going up. The first two miles was a wide jeep trail. Robin and I walked side by side, picking our own ways over the rocky trail.  I learned long ago when climbing mountains don’t look up.  I’ve climbed to 19378 feet in South America, and I’ve been to Everest Base Camp so I knew what up was all about. To pass the time, we sang "Somewhere Over the Rainbow".

The oaks and maples soon gave way to birches, hemlocks and pines. Moss grew thick on the rocks along the river bed where rushing water muffled the sharp chirps of the birds hidden in the underbrush. The path narrowed, but kept a sidewalk width all the way to Hermit Lake.  Our steady pace knocked off the first mile in 45 minutes.  Good. We will need that when we hit the headwall.  But we reminded ourselves not to overlook the overlooks. I was also lugging a camera. Use it, damn it.

The Hermit Lake Shelters looked like they should have been occupied by elves that lived in among the Indian Paint Brushes and other bright late summer flowers. The lodge offered the last bit of civilization - a toilet and a water pump. It is also the point where the summit hikers and the day strollers part. If a reminder was needed that the trail ahead was a serious climb a huge first aid rescue station was staged at the lodge.  It wouldn’t be the last one we would see.

Sweat ran down my face as I took step after step on the boulder strewn trail that ran parallel to the first water fall. Clouds moved in covering us with a dew. One moment the clouds shrouded the wilderness in a gray blanket. The next moment the sun competed for the earth.  Here contour lines sat on contour lines.  From where we came disappeared and our destination laid somewhere over our heads. The wind circled in the ravine and pushed at our backs making the climb over wet rocks a bit easier. This was not hiking, it was climbing. Near the top of the headwall, three hours since we left the trailhead the winds shifted and blue sky sat behind the high ridge line in the direction of the summit.  A strong wind carried white wisps quickly overhead.  Exposed to the strong wind above the tree line we put on our jackets. At the junction of Alpine Gardens Trail the ravine below cleared.  For the next hour as we hiked the Alpine Gardens Trail we were treated to blue skies and panoramic vistas.  We stopped over and over again to enjoy how lucky we were to have the break in the weather.

Here we met a man who had come up Huntington Ravine. He said he hiked a lot but that had been the toughest hike he had ever done. He was amazed it was open to the public. We had been advised to stay off it. The trail is so steep with some footholds too far from the next. Short legs and arms might not be able to get a good purchase. 

I noticed the cairns were 20 to 40 paces apart. These rock structures, about three feet tall, marked the trail across the landscape of short shrubs, flowers, lichen and granite rocks glittering with mica. Near the intersection for Huntington a thick blanket of clouds once again rolled in. Locating the next cairn became crucial. We picked our way over the rock debris fields on last .3 miles of the Huntington Ravine Trail above the head wall. Rocks of every size and shape spilled in  jumbled direction. Careful observation and feel for each rock was required. It was no place to fall. Clouds blew steady from the right depositing moisture on our glasses. It was impossible to keep them clear. So much moisture collected on the lenses that it ran off on my cheek as if I had been crying. I was thankful that as we neared 6000 feet the wind was not biting and we were not being pelted by sleet.

I became disoriented. Not lost. But I could not have pointed in the direction of the summit. We hiked blindly from cairn to cairn trusting that each marker would lead to the next and that somewhere out in the fog was the observation station. We crossed the road leading to the summit just as a group of motorcycles roared up out of the fog. We crossed the cog rail shortly after the train began its descent to the base on the west side of the mountain.  Still no summit. Then I heard voices. Suddenly materializing out of thin air, a huge concrete and stone building appeared.  It was less than 60 feet away.  Finally, the summit.

We had done it. Five and a half miles in five and a half hours. My thighs were getting tired but I didn’t feel exhausted. Still there was no way I was hiking down. We had strategically located two cars so we could either take the cog or the shuttle off the mountain. If I had to I would wave twenties in the parking lot. Except all I had was one dollar. I couldn’t even buy my sister a Maxwell cup of coffee at the summit. CASH ONLY.

After facts:

1. Robin let me lead the entire way.
2. I never put on my new rain pants.
3. I highly recommend Sole, moldable custom footbeds. My feet never felt better after a hike. $40.00
4. I cussed only once. When I knew the summit was close, but  I couldn’t see it.
5. We met a ton of great people on the trail.
6. Neither one of us know the lyrics to "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."

Some great photos are on my facebook page.

Bivouac Of the Dead

By Theodore O'Hara 

---

The muffled drum's sad roll has beat
The soldier's last tattoo;
No more on Life's parade shall meet
That brave and fallen few.

On fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents to spread,
And glory guards, with solemn round
The bivouac of the dead.
 
No rumor of the foe's advance
Now swells upon the wind;
Nor troubled thought at midnight haunts
Of loved ones left behind;

No vision of the morrow's strife
The warrior's dreams alarms;
No braying horn or screaming fife
At dawn shall call to arms.
 
Their shriveled swords are red with rust,
Their plumed heads are bowed,
Their haughty banner, trailed in dust,
Is now their martial shroud.

And plenteous funeral tears have washed
The red stains from each brow,
And the proud forms, by battle gashed
Are free from anguish now.
 
The neighing troop, the flashing blade,
The bugle's stirring blast,
The charge, the dreadful cannonade,
The din and shout, are past;

Nor war's wild note, nor glory's peal
Shall thrill with fierce delight
Those breasts that nevermore may feel
The rapture of the fight.
 
Like the fierce Northern hurricane
That sweeps the great plateau,
Flushed with triumph, yet to gain,
Come down the serried foe,

Who heard the thunder of the fray
Break o'er the field beneath,
Knew the watchword of the day
Was "Victory or death!"
 

Gettyburg

It wasn’t a planned stop, but after a week in Tennessee working on my apartments and three days on the road, I diverted to Gettysburg, only thirty miles from my annual route north and south.  For years I have whizzed by the city and historic battlefields of the Civil War where the south came to make a decisive statement in the north. I didn’t know what to expect.  I have been to great battlefields in Europe – Verdun and Normandy where nation’s victories were bought by the greatest of human sacrifices.  Here in the gentle fields and slopes of Pennsylvania the threshold to the greatest military engagement in the Western Hemisphere opened to reaffirm a Nation’s promise.  For three bloody days two armies collided. The battle turned the Civil War around for the Union, but the war was hardly over.

What words have not been said or written about these places where men died.  Despite the glory and the victories every man dies his own death on the battlefield. And if he walks away in whole or part, a bit of his soul died nevertheless.  For every man who remembers long after the smell of gun power has dissipated and walks the grounds where hell came to earth each takes away a stirring that separates him from the past, and yet connects him to his ancestors by blood or by cause.

They say, “Close your eyes and listen.”  This place among the rows of iron cannons and witness trees will speak. The wind will carry cries of men across the fields now full of song birds, and tiger lilies. Worm fences contain the spirits and souls of those who fought in sweat stained uniforms and blood soaked boots. The hollow grounds will whisper stories of torn and worn men, of flesh ripped from bones when to die was a blessing, to suffer a curse.

As I toured the front lines of the past engagements, I wondered about these men. Those who came from Texas and Maine, from New York and Louisiana, from Minnesota and South Carolina. Men who came from foreign lands and western frontiers. Of brothers and fathers, together and on opposing sides by fate or geography as much as philosophy. Here were the boys one day in June who woke in July to die as men.  Men of courage, of ignoble fear. Men of heroics, of cowardliness.  Men of God, of lost faith. Men who had everything to lose, others with nothing to gain.  Each sworn to the cause.

The cause?  States’ rights, slavery, expansion, Lincoln himself... However, the answer weighs more heavily... “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Semi-Déjà vu

I’m on my annual drive south to Tennessee to play landlord for the week.  The past chores have included power washing the building, painting the front porch railing, cleaning gutters, sweeping out the basement, chopping down trees, cleaning empty apartments. This year’s project is to repair the shower tile that is leaking, although I have hired help. Since the apartment is occupied I can’t afford my steep decision curve while I assess the next step or figure out how to resolve an unexpected situation – which is always likely to occur.

I’ve pressed hard since returning from Hawaii. Before leaving the Big Island I mapped out a schedule from the first of June to the third week of July when the track starts. Sure one week includes a day trip to New York City to see a friend from Germany, and there is time in New Hampshire where my sister and I expect to bag the summit of Mount Washington one fine day during the Fourth of July week. But the schedule also included Belmont and a paint project for a neighbor. Now this week. Time to truck to Knoxville, purchase tile, demolish a couple bathroom walls and reinstall new backer board then re-tile, grout...all without traumatizing the tenant’s 20 year old cat that I believe died three years ago. The cat never moves!

I started out this morning shortly after dawn. It’s 850 miles and in my 1989 Jeep, 70 mph feels like the wheels are about to take off without the chassis. I tool down the Interstate without any cruise control. I own the driving lane. Everyone else has the passing lane. 

I envisioned Winchester, Virginia as tonight’s destination but pushed on to Walnut Hill, near Staunton and called it quits when I saw a sign for a KOA Kampground. What the hell. I’m going to save forty bucks on a motel room, but I’ll miss out on ordering pizza and pigging out on the whole damn thing. Oh, yes, I’ve done this a few times.  I could chill in front of the TV, watch some two thumbs down HBO movie, propped up on four thick foam pillows, listening to the annoying rattle-hum of a dorm-size refrigerator and wondering what is under the bed.

Instead, I traded the motel for a campsite, a grease stained picnic table, and a flock of noisy mallards. My site is next to a tiny stream. Water/electric hook up.  I’ve pitched my tent six years away from a site where Diablo, Phoenix and I camped in my Dad’s RV.  It was mid-fall then and I had wrapped up my book tour. The day had been traumatic. A disintegrated tire in Wytheville, Virginia left us on the side of I-81 precariously close to the traffic where the vehicular wind whipped the tiny RV back and forth as we waited for a tow.  See November 10, 2006 blog.

Tonight, I’m snuggling down in my LL Bean sleeping bag before the mosquitoes descend on my carcass. I’m not roughing it too much. I got Wi-Fi, but nothing to eat or drink so I’ll venture out to find some snacks.

Wait just a minute. I saw an advertisement for Domino’s Pizza in the Kampground brochure. They deliver!

Belmont Again

Every year I swear I am not going. It is a long day that starts in the wee hours of the morning. With little to no sleep,  the Peace Officers and Security Guards from Saratoga Race Track board the chartered buses for the downstate track  We arrive to stand in ragged formation—some times in the rain—to be allocated out to our downstate supervisors with about as much emotion as the distribution of bowling shoes. Once assigned, the supervisors never introduce themselves, say welcome or thank you for coming. They escort us to our posts and give us parting remarks like “someone will relieve you” and “don’t leave your post” and then disappear for the rest of the day.  We are lucky if someone does relieve us. Most of the time we are on our own. After being on our feet since 7am and the last race done thirteen hours later, we are reassembled in the “Yard” to sweep the drunks and the diehards who won’t go home off the property. Then we board the buses to arrive back in Saratoga twenty four hours later. 

For this we are compensated with deli sandwiches made with bread the Jews lived on while wandering in the desert. There are no condiments for this deli treat made with a wilted lettuce, rubbery cheese slices and cold cut meats. It arrives from Patterson, New Jersey without any chips, or plates or napkins and warm soda.  They even pack up the leftovers to feed us when we stop the bus for a pee break on the return trip. The sandwiches are dragged out from under the bus like a dead body for the vultures to feed upon. For the privilege to go to Belmont to see history in horse racing we get $225.

I wasn’t going this year, but with the prospect of a Triple Crown there was no way I would miss it. Then I’ll Have Another scratched, but I was committed.  I was assigned to relief so I worked my ass off making sure I covered my four assigned Peace Officers. No freaking way was I going to give these guys just a one hour assigned break as instructed by the sergeant.   I finally took a break at 5 pm wandering off to find a semi-quiet spot behind the racing office. By then, I had been up 24 hours and knew I had a good eight hours to go before I hit my bed.

So why go? I always said there is nothing like experiencing the excitement of the crowd as the thoroughbreds take the turn at the top of the stretch and bring lean muscle and speed thundering across the finish line. Even the casual observer can't ignore the crowd's new personality built on high hopes and wild dreams of being witness to horse racing history.  In Saratoga, I experience this apart from the crowd. At Belmont, I stood in the crowd packed in on the ground floor of the grandstand.  The average Joes mingle here with beer, cigar and a two dollar bet dressed in everything from a Hollister t-shirt and flip-flops to a cheesy seersucker sport jacket and green tie. All day I slowly wove through the crowd looking for idiots.

In accordance with New York State law there is no smoking in the building. I watched a guy light his cigar steps away from the betting window. It went up like a blow torch. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” I barked.

“Oh, is there no smoking?” Twenty feet away suspended from the ceiling a huge sign hung. I looked up at it.

“Com’on” drawing the phrase out in typical New York fashion. "It’s NY State. You know better. Besides, I thought you had some out of control barbeque thing going on there. For crying out loud.”

He sheepishly crushed the lit end of the cigar on the sole of his shoe. I walked away.

At Saratoga they play the Star Spangled Banner about and hour and fifteen minutes before post time. My job requires that I stand at attention and salute; I would do nothing less. In the four years I have been going to Belmont, I don’t recall hearing the National Anthem, but some time about the fifth race I picked it out of the din in the grandstand. I had been sitting outside the Canadian Press Box. I stood. I didn’t salute because I couldn’t see the infield or flag from my post. I removed my headgear. I watched the crowd. Not a single person paused, hesitated or even flinched. No one stopped a conversation. No one stopped walking. The reaction could not have been more oblivious if it had been elevator music. And yet before the Belmont Stakes post parade the speakers blared New York, New York.  People erupted in cheer. They danced and sang with Frank Sinatra. I stood in the sea of humanity dumbfounded.

It was 3 am when I got home.  I ate breakfast: cereal, yogurt and strawberries and then crawled under the covers. I swear, I don’t want to do that again, but we will see what happens after next year’s Kentucky Derby and Preakness.

Memorial Day Question

This has been turning over in my brain ever since I read Eleanor Roosevelt’s quote. “Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

For His Son I was worth dying for. And for that sacrifice I am forever grateful.  

On this Memorial Day Weekend I ask: did those who went to war and paid with the ultimate sacrifice die for me? Did they go off to war for me, the one who enjoys the life, the liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Or did the soldier die to defend, protect and preserve the Constitution which sanctifies my God given rights as an individual equal among all others? 

It is a noble cause to die for another and many have done so, but I say the soldier died to uphold the Constitution, to preserve the country under which it was founded.  That was what I swore to do when I served.    

No man should die for another as no man should be in bondage to another.  By no means do I say to neglect a moral obligation to another. I talk of war. However, we are all equal in what was freely given to us by the Creator.  Let all men take up arms to protect what each man was given so that another does not steal his rights.

When men unite in limited government to insure their personal liberties and freedom they assume a responsibility to defend the bond that they made which secured their rights. That is what we shall die for. That is what they died for.

But for another man to die for me, I think not. Die for my country, my Constitution and the principles and values she holds. Not for me, for I too shall be in battle. That is my responsibility as a soldier and as a citizen.

Spewing Waste

Can I give you an example of governmental stupidity?  On the Big Island of Hawaii we have an active volcano, Kilauea. It spews all kinds of crap into the air to the tune of up to 2000 tons of sulfur dioxide per day. A conservative output for Kilauea is 660 tons of sulfur dioxide. Grasp this fact.

It is important to realize the environmental impact this volcano has on the island. On the mild side is the visible blight known as vog which casts a dull haze over blue tropic skies.  Of course, in this thick cloud lives all sorts of chemicals. Also spewed are things like hydrogen fluoride, hydrogen chloride, carbon dioxide.

The junk emitted from the volcano causes metal to fatigue, clothes to rot, grasses and other plants to die, and when eaten by animals can be harmful to them causing such things as bone loss. For humans the gases cause respiratory conditions, body aches, lethargy, eye irritation and even depression.  Yes, paradise living at its best.   

Now consider the EPA, our good intention government friends who oversee the rules and regulations to keep us safe from shit that comes out of volcanoes by proposing caps on emissions on electrical plants.  That's right. We have three electrical plants on the Big Island.  Fossil fuel burning menaces. The Hawaii Electric Light Co, known as HELCO, pumps out a whopping 575 pounds per day.  Look at the numbers…pounds from the plants, tons from the volcano.  That means the emission from the three plants is .04 percent of the volcano.

Nevertheless the EPA proposes to cap emissions at the three plants to “improve visibility to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.”  EPA’s associate director, Kerry Drake, out of the Air Division at EPA’s Region 9 office in San Francisco says, “We did take into account the volcano.”

Please! 

Now, I am all for clean air and reducing pollution. But as our government spends more and more as Americans struggle to keep up, and worry about job loss in hard economic times,  I wonder how much this cap is going to cost for a negligible result?  Hawaii already has the highest electricity rates in the nation.  We already pay $5.00 a gallon for gas. Here’s just another reason for HELCO to increase rates to pay for an "improvement" that will have same impact as you not pissing in the ocean.

This Ain't Philly

The other day a perfect stranger yelled at me. 

My co-worker at Diamond Parking asked if I had ever watched the reality TV show on A&E called Parking Wars. Seriously? There’s a show that follows the Philadelphia parking authority people around the city as they write tickets and impound cars for parking violations. A year after I ended my recycling gig, I still think Redemption Wars would provide much mind numbing entertainment  The behind the scenes look at the nasty business of recycling – and why people bring stinky trash to the redemption center. Alas, the good things I miss in life because I don't have a TV.  I can't tune into the ½ hour show which highlights Philly’s most arrogant idiots who think they can park anywhere, anytime.  However, after I had my first irate person hunt me down to complain about his ticket, I jumped on the Internet and watched Episode 18 to see how the Philly job compares to tickets writing in paradise.

I was making my way back to my moped when a man stopped his car in the middle of the road "to discuss" why I gave him a ticket.  Granted, he was a little upset, but I honestly thought we were going to discuss it. I should have known that when a person prowls the streets looking for you they are either a Good Samaritan trying to do you a favor - like return your wallet - or they are insane.  He was insane.

I let another car pass before I could respond to why I wrote his parking ticket. I addressed him with sir and braced myself for the worst.  I kept my voice low. Figured it might diffuse the situation. Not really.  I remembered his car and knew exactly where he had parked,  a newly designated pay-in-advance parking lot. He had not paid.

“You got no business giving me a ticket. I wasn’t even in one of your spots.”  That was true. It was not parked in a number stall.  He managed to squeeze it into a space too small to number. It had been part of a handicap spot, but since that was removed the space by itself was not large enough to park a car in. For most.  I  could have written a ticket for improper parking...not in a stall.  Instead, I issued one for no advance payment.  Either way, you owe $40.00.

“You have no authority to issue tickets.” I was puzzled. I wasn't some random person wandering the Kona parking lots tagging cars. My company had been hired to manage the private lot. The owner decided to charge for the use of the space. I was hired to enforce the fees. I looked at my hand-held phone that contained the program for ticket writing. The program is awesome. With it I record all the necessary data on the car. It computes the length of time a car was parked in any "free for the first two hours" parking lot.   It takes a photo and prints it as part of the ticket along with the GPS coordinates.  No, “my car was never there” excuse. I'm sure the owner, my employer or I are not breaking any laws. 

“I’m going to the police and file a complaint. I’ll have you arrested.” You parked in a private parking lot which charges $3.00 for two hours and you arrogantly didn’t pay. I think that is theft. I'll have you arrested.

“If you don’t take this ticket back I am going to see my lawyer and sue you. And I am going to sue you for the cost of my attorney.”  I’ve been threatened by better and for far worse. Piss away your money as you will. That is your right. 

“Are you going to take this ticket back?” He shoved the ticket at me. Not flinching I said, “ No sir."

“Then I am going to the cops.”

“Okay.” Good call.

He zoomed off. I’ve been waiting for him to run over me. 

Its tough doing a job where people hate what you do. But I do make people happy too. Two Japanese girls ran up to me after I gave them a ticket. “I paid. I paid. The machine took my money.” I waited for the story. She called her friend over to corroborate it. “I put six dollars in machine. I didn’t have enough cash to pay seven. I didn’t have. The machine would not return my money. And no ticket. I could use credit card. I called the phone number on the machine.” The friend showed her phone and pointed to the called phone number.

 The story seemed plausible.  

“Please, no ticket,” she pleaded.

“Okay,” I said.  But that was too easy and they were suspicious.

“I won’t get a ticket when I get home?” Apparently, this is an embarrassing event back home. I assured them they would not. I wrote void on the ticket and showed them. She gave me her name -Alice- and her phone number so I could check their call.  I had no intentions of doing that. I placed an empty envelop on their car so I won't tag it again.

“Thank you. Thank you. We are not bad kids.” That cracked me up. They skipped away. Really, they skipped.

Yeah, Kona ain’t Philly.