National Museum of the American Indian

National Museum of the American Indian - http://www.nmai.si.edu/

Old Irish Blessing

YouTube - uploaded by Chan0the0Man on Feb 7, 2008 .
"Old Irish Blessing" by Denes Agay.

A Young Boy's Summer Vacation

Floating this evening in our pond contemplating the twilight sky as a bat, lightning bugs and the fleeting half-moon take turns making their separate journeys above and beyond me. It is a beautiful evening albeit warm and humid. But how do I love the fresh water feel and smell...

It has been many a day since as a young boy of ten or twelve I fished for trout in Beaver Creek, near Know, Pennyslvania. An idyllic setting for a city boy, a Pittsburgher, to have the opportunity to spend at least one week during the summer at our shared hunting cabin, "Cabin in the Pines." My father and his circle of friends built the Cabin in 1942, shortly before they set off for war. A meadow and hemlocks circle the Cabin with just enough room for badminton and whiffle ball or even a tight practice field for baseball. The campfire would be built every evening with hot dogs and marshmallows and we would look at stars, play cards, or simply tell stories or relate the day's events. Yet it is the trout fishing that I remember best. I would grab whatever bait was available be it a worm or supper fare like a hot dog or corn and head up or down stream. My fishing bait really didn't matter that much though. I usually could catch a minnow on just about anything, but it was the spring-stocked trout that I was after. Usually by June or July the trout had had a chance to acclimate themselves to the water so they weren't quite as reckless in their feeding habits. 

So it was one twilight evening that I grabbed a hot dog and sped off upstream to a hole that I knew harbored trout. That particular evening the trout decided to take advantage of my offerings. In a short time I caught a 12 or so inch rainbow and a 17 inch brown trout. I was one happy boy when I returned to the Cabin with my catch. We cooked the two trout up almost immediately. They tasted great and I will never forget the sense of that evening in the place, the family and the fish...

All good things though seem to end. Within a year or two after that construction on Interstate 80 began. I can remember that my Father anxiously waited for the opening of the I-80 as he knew that it would shorten travel times from Pittsburgh, but also to points (i.e., hunting grounds) further north and west. Little did we know though but that one day when we arrived at the Cabin, Beaver Creek had turned orange. Turns out that the highway construction had opened an old mine and released acid mine drainage into Beaver Creek just upstream from our Cabin and just upstream to my favorite fishing hole. If my memory serves me right my Father wrote to Dr. Roger Latham about the drainage and impact on Beaver Creek. Dr. Latham was the outdoor editor for the Pittsburgh Press at the time.  He subsequently had an article in the Press about the acid mine drainage.

I was devastated at the time. How do you take a clear stream, one that you swim and fish in, and then turn it orange. We had absolutely no control over what had happened. That lesson of long ago has never left me. How do you reconcile societal needs and demands with the natural environment which we so often take for granted. Some how and some way we must understand and better track the impacts, really the potential impacts of everything that we do. Yet I fear that the lesson we must learn is one that will only be lived and learned the hard way. For that I would guess we must say our prayers that we will survive what is to come...

A John Milton Sonnet

On His Blindness

"When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide,

"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts: who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed

And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

John Milton

Brief Passage in Time

Historic Philadelphia, the contemporary one, captures perhaps 300 years as a period piece from the past.   This photo was shot on Clinton (link to upcoming movie that has a set here), outside our bed and breakfest, near 11th and Spruce this past weekend.  We were in town for a graduation ceremony at the University of Pennsylvania. I missed the school's 254th commencement on Monday. I did make the College of Arts and Sciences graduation at Franklin Field last Sunday though.  George Smith, the co-inventor of the charge-coupled device spoke at the ceremony. I much appreciated his speech and his reference that "specialization is for insects."  [My daughter pointed out that this was a quote from one of Heinlein's books...]

How do you package one daughter's life into a ceremony for so many lives that are just beginning in a very rich world undergoing significant, if not transformational change. All the memories and that hope you have sent off with your child into the world.

Alas, travel back in time. Watched the movie, "Robin Hood" last night. The Lady and the Knight. Can't help, but like Cate and Russell Crowe both in their own way. And the story, well, I did like the movie and I have always liked the story.  I guess, based on a visit to Britain some years ago, I have always been fascinated by the Magna Carta and the late 12th century or so. Connections to the past both on a personal level and really for the America society I would guess are still pretty strong. And I liked the quote you know: "Rise and Rise Again Until Lambs Become Lions."

Tempting to think that modern society is that much more civilized. Only time will tell I suppose in many ways. 

Rising Water

Parked outside late tonight. Water is almost over the bridge.  There is too much snow on the ground. We have just about a foot of snow in the woods left, but I can imagine the snowpack is that much higher in the high country. This weekend could get ugly if we receive even an inch of rain - timing and amount will be critical.  Our road may end up downstream...

This morning I went out to the car right around 6 am. Just as I opened the car door I heard a plaintive cry of what I imagined to be a Canadian goose.  I stood there for a minute staring upward into the darkened, morning sky trying to pick out that familiar shape.  The light just hadn't made enough headway over the eastern mountain.  Again, that same call echoed across the valley.  Again, the call faded off into the distance, but not before I hesitated, a bit ill-at-ease with what I had just heard.  It isn't hard for me to latch on to an Aboriginal perspective, if I should even know or sense what that is.  But for a few seconds, then down the half-mile lane and off to town, just shy of fifteen minutes as the car flies - to work.

Back home this evening, close to 6 pm.  Snow has had a chance to melt a bit today with the temperature in the 40s (degree Fahrenheit). The water still has maybe two feet to rise before making it to the bridge deck.  But, I decide to park the car on the other side of the bridge tonight.  The last thing we need is to be marooned without a vehicle on the outside. I wait until 9:30 pm or so before I head back into town to pick up milk and other odds and ends just in case. As I head down our lane I bump into a furry, black butt ambling down the road.  The deep snow channels most furry friends along the same paths and this neighborly skunk is doing the same.  He steps up his pace as he realizes someone is tailgating him. This lasts for twenty yards or so when Mr. Skunk reaches the bridge.  He discovers he has reached the bridge just in time to encounter a fellow night critter, an oppossum.  I smile as I watch Mr. Oppossum and Mr. Skunk apparently discover they had no intent on meeting tonight.  Mr. Oppossum bares his teeth at Mr. Skunk and that is enough to send our furry friend along his way - still along the road.  Given that our friends met on the bridge I gently nudge Mr. Oppossum along and out of my way as he finally stumbles off the maintained road into the crusted and wet snow.  His trail isn't quite so comfortable now.

The trip into town takes a bit of time, but eventually I make my way back home and realize the water is rising faster than I had thought earlier.  I had hoped the slowly dropping temperature might allay the water level from rising any further.  No such luck.  I drop off the milk at the house (but not before chasing a red fox up our lane) and return to the main road to park my car.

It is on the walk back that I remember the day.  The goose above in the night sky, the skunk and oppossum settled on their man-made paths, the red fox dashing off ahead of me, and the deer off in the distance (that I did not mention that started their evening meal early tonight as they often do before an approaching storm). The dark ribbon winding its half-mile way back back to our home obligingly contrasts with the plowed-high berms and the surrounding blanket of snow. Flickering stars in a clouded sky beckon. How many others share this same sky...

Geographic Landscapes

Watched the TED talk by Murray Gell-Mann a bit ago. It brought back long ago memories of the Santa fe Insitute, its intriguing focus, and the beautiful southwestern view falling away from its doorstep. Complexity science and a very, human quest to push the envelope on understanding the world about us. But part of my need I suppose in thinking a bit further on this is that geographic landscapes hold a particularly strong attraction for me. Growing up in the wooded hills of Pittsburgh and my walks with Sal (a half German short-hair pointer and black lab), or the short Robin Hood forays with my recurve bow, or the days when I pushed myself to overcome an injury that I suffered in high school as I immersed myself in the nooks and crannys surrounding our home there in Lincoln Place. Pittsburgh, albeit not as glamorous as the polished, sandy Southwest carries a steadfast, storied landscape carved into southwestern Pennsylvania and etched by the three rivers.  So too, consider two years into a Guatemalan land of tropical sun and sand, two years into a high Sonoran desert, another six or seven years in a transitional boreal forest along the international boundary with Canada, or the present home in east-central West Virginia. It makes me smile because I know the twists and turns of my life are leading me on.  And as our children emerge from our oft-times, too close hold on their paths, they too will engage themselves into a world that is more diverse than one can really imagine.  It is that world out there that may engage you or your loved ones in an intricate dance with life that may only be understood in passing. It is a venture that I would suggest that you must volunteer yourself and allow yourself to play across the providential winds that blow. The first photograph that I added to this post is of bear grass, found within the ancestral grounds of Apache clans in the southwest.  The grass of yesterday was used for many uses. I spent a couple of years working with San Carlos Apache Nation. I do not easily forget the people or the land.

I think if I were gifted as a Bard of old I might regal you with tales of the past, but perhaps over time I can reveal something of those lands that might engage your curiosity...

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In honor of those many individuals across the world that in normal times, from Guatemala to Ethiopia, struggle to simply survive. And then too to those in Haiti and Chile, those who are now arising with the morning sun and praying for a hopeful day.  Toward...