I wake and the sky
Is there, intact
The paper is white
The ink is black
My charmed life
Harms no one–
No wife, no son

Samuel Menashe

Yesterday’s photo of Bill Lewis clearing snow off of his canoe with a wooden paddle brought this emailed response:
“Look at the picture you posted on the blog, the snowy one. That thing on the left looks like a zaftig headless, armless woman with very large breasts. I wonder what it means. Other than that distraction it’s a gorgeous picture.”
That “distraction” was a snow woman (instead of breasts, I see Snoopy with those half arms looking more like ears) created by Adam, who sends this disclaimer:
“It means that Adam was at the time barely 30 , had been celibately in the woods for what at that time passed for a longish while, and was working out his own anxieties not with a knife to the throat, but by creating visions of comfort by turning the very stuff of threat into the stuff of play.”

A closer look at the sculptor and the sculpture
The scene to which Adam alludes is Bill deciding to end it all because : A. We have canoed down a fast flowing river to get to this campsite and there is no way to paddle back up the river. B. The lake water is so cold that if we capsize we die, and C. We are in the middle of nowhere and our bodies won’t be found until spring. What Bill doesn’t yet know, and is an even better reason to cut his throat, is Adam’s plan – load the canoes with all of our gear and pull them overland back to our minivan. I don’t know the exact distance, but it took us two trips and eight hours.

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The rest of the story written soon after the trip is here.

As we plan this year’s fall camping trip… a look at the past, Allagash Lake, 1993.
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Flo comments frequently about others in her little community. Mostly, she refers to them as, well, “them”, or “they”, or “some,” as in , “some get picked up on weekends.” While we were waiting for the barbershop chorus to begin, she pointed out one woman in spiffy red shorts and matching spandex shirt. “She wears those same clothes everyday.” After the woman sat down, Flo asked me,

“Did you know it was Grandparent’s Day?”

” I’ve never heard of Grandparent’s Day, but I see the Happy Grandparent’s Day card on the piano.”

“Betsy and I were talking about it at lunch. I said it was Grandparent’s Day and the man at the next table thought I was talking about birthdays. He asked, ‘When is my birthday?’ ”

That reads a little like he is asking Flo when her birthday is, but no, he’s asking when his is.

“I said, ‘I don’t know. January, February, March, April, May…?’ ”

“He said, ‘I think January.’ “

“You’re laughing, Flo.”

“I know. I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it.”

Matt and I are in a valley, at the base of a mountain, trying to decide where to camp. Itís an area similar to many in Colorado, with a small town nearby. Adams comes along, pulls out his map and says, ìWeíll begin at the top and camp at these lakes (pointing to his map as he talks) as we climb down. Weíll end our trip in this town, and eat here,î he says with a smile.

Two Photos from a wedding we stumbled on in Rhode Island.

The bride and friends.
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Matt and I are in a valley, at the base of a mountain, trying to decide where to camp. Itís an area similar to many in Colorado, with a small town nearby. Adams comes along, pulls out his map and says, ìWeíll begin at the top and camp at these lakes (pointing to his map as he talks) as we climb down. Weíll end our trip in this town, and eat here,î he says with a smile.

Two Photos from a wedding we stumbled on in Rhode Island.

The bride and friends.
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The Sounds of Concord Barbershop Chorus performed for almost an hour at Concord Park. The number in the Chorus (22) almost outnumbered those in the audience.
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Flo, all ears.

Audience participation. This is when I left my chair and pretended I had more photos to take.

I’m usually going somewhere, and I’m pretty determined about it, but inevitably I get lost. Most times, I’m in Cincinnati, in the hills above the Ohio River. There are highways, buildings and bridges that cross the river. I’m usually on foot, and as if I suddenly had a stroke, I find myself lost. Which way to go? Don’t know. I’m not sure I even know where it is I am going.

The other night I dreamed that friend Eric was about to commit suicide, but not if I could reach him in time. He left white notes with numbers attached to various objects like street signs, fences, etc., and all I had to do was follow those notes. Behind me were other friends of Eric; I think Dan, Adam and Mark Schreiber. I was leading the group, following the notes, when suddenly I’m in a mall; a series of stores not unlike the street mall Peter took us to in Honolulu. When I emerge, I’m back in the twilight trying to follow Eric’s trail. The guys are again behind me, but suddenly they turn left when they should have gone straight and that’s the last I see of them. And it’s the last I see of Eric’s notes.

Within the same three week period:

I’m hiking into the mountains. Mountains not unlike Yosemite Valley. I’m looking for a place to camp, a place to bring Matt back to, but I get lost.

I’ve climbed to the top of Mt Monadnock but now the summit is covered in round snow-covered boulders, and I don’t have any shoes on. I can’t get down.

I’m driving a truck a friend of mine stole and I find myself back at the owner’s house, as he is about to come out of the door. I want to run, but it feels like it’s too late.

I’m driving a flat bed truck full of junk that has to be tossed before I get onto the highway. I’ve stopped just beyond the dumpster, but the traffic is too heavy and the truck too long to back up. Should I attempt to back up or risk losing the load on the highway? I can’t decide.

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Drawings by Caroline Radulski

I might have been working on her cabinet doors, or replacing her bulkhead steps, but way back in early 1990 something, I answered Chris Radulski’s phone (she must have been out and told me she was expecting a call).

“Hello.”

“Can I speak to Mrs. Radalooski?”

I laughed and thought to myself, how do you read a name and toss in syllables and non-existing letters? I told Chris about the phone call and she responded with, “I’ve heard much worse.” Unfortunately, from that moment forward, she has been – in my mind – Mrs. Radalooski.

Yesterday I ordered replacement windows from J & C Adams in Cambridge, for a job in Boxborough, and I was asked if I wanted low “e” glass. Trying to keep the price down, I waffled for a moment, when Joe, the salesman, said, “Let me check your past orders to see if you normally order them with low “e”. ” I could hear him shuffling around (surely not through paper). When he came back to the phone he said, “Ah, here’s your last order. You did buy low “e” for the Radalooski job.”

Rakkity sent me Lonely Planet Unpacked, a collection of travel disaster stories. The disasters are not on the scale of Into Thin Air, although the first short story begins with an auto accident. Mostly they’re funny. Here is the first page of Pat Yale’s, A Costly Trip:

I could tell that something was wrong even before I opened my eyes. The ominous silence surrounding me was broken by a rhythmic swishing sound. For a moment I had no idea where I was. After all, in four months on the road there had been so many different beds.

I snapped open my eyes and hastily closed them again. What they had taken in was just too embarrassing: there I was, lying in solitary splendor on the floor of Nairobi Central Station with no other passengers in sight, just a lone sweeper with his twig broom working his way around the hall and studiously ignoring this single white female spread-eagled on her sleeping bag, her backpack for a pillow.

I glanced at my watch. Six o’clock. Just four hours earlier the scene had been very different when I’d crawled off the night train from Western Kenya with what looked like half of Nairobi. Then, apparently, no one had had a home to go to. I’d watched fellow passengers confidently unrolling blankets on the floor and preparing to bed down for the night, and hadn’t thought twice about joining them. With mugging a known hazard of visiting Nairobi, arriving post-midnight without a bed to call my own was inviting trouble How much more sensible to join this embryo squatter city and wait until daylight to brave the streets.

Now, it seemed, I’d slept through the cacophony of a massed departure. It was beyond credulity. Surely nobody could sleep that deeply.

Hil, Matt and President Enrique BolaÃ’os Geyer
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For my brother Peter.

Photos of Bertha’s beach house and her house in Managua.

Travis sent me this sound file about audio blogging. He may have been nipping a bad idea in the bud, I donít know, but I rooted around some more in the authorís site and found this. Maybe a little long, but still, very funny.

On Sunday, Matt drove with Daryl to Woods Hole to take the ferry to the Vineyard. We hope he returns before school on Wednesday. This is his first (that we are aware of) road trip.