February 2024
Books read:
- Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler
- Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story by Jewel
- The Double Helix: A Personal Account of the Discovery of the Structure of DNA by James D. Watson
- Dawn in Siberia by John Clary Davies
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
- The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Trails walked:
- Petaca Point Trail near Taos (Feb 9th)
- Rift Valley short loop near Taos (Feb 10th)
- Williams Lake snowshoe near Taos (Feb 13th)
- Cub Lake loop in Rocky Mountain National Park (Feb 21st)
- Brainard Lake snowshoe near Ward (Feb 29th)
Song(s) of the month: Jewel
- Hands
- I Am My Father's Daughter
- No More Tears
- Stay Here Forever
- Standing Still
- Somewhere Over the Rainbow
- Ave Maria
Scientist Spotlight – Carolyn Parker, Dayton Project physicist
February Summary:
We spent the first three weeks of this short month in Taos, hanging out with our new granddaughter and doing whatever we could to help her parents get a few moments of sleep here and there. The baby had to stay in the hospital for 5 days after birth in order to address a few issues so during that time we were bringing in food and sneaking in some celebratory drinks, because what better thing to celebrate than creating a new life! Bringing home that first baby is the most joyful and the most difficult thing you can imagine. Looking back to 1986 I'm still not sure how we did it. At the time we had no relatives living in Phoenix even though we had a pretty good support network of friends with babies. We both had demanding jobs that didn't provide much maternity leave and zero paternity leave. We both still remember that first drive home from the hospital, driving like we were seniors headed home from the grocery store with an uncovered bowl of soup. Somehow that little baby girl who was brought up by two parents who had no idea what they were doing managed to survive and thrive and was now bringing home her own special cargo. Circle of life. It was a great three weeks and was very difficult to leave. But our plan is to spend a few days there each month so that we can help where we can and also hang out with everyone out there. They have built a nice community of friends, plus the baby's other set of grandparents live there.
Because we were in Taos so long, three of this month's hikes were near there. I also added a loop in Rocky Mountain National Park and a snowshoe in the Brainard Lake Recreation Area. Taos even influenced my reading as two of this month's books were borrowed from the library of the friends we're renting a home from. My reading started with another great character novel from Anne Tyler, a surprisingly great memoir by Jewel, an account on the discovery of the double helix, a skiing trip to Siberia in winter, and a 1962 novel that was adapted into an Academy Award winning movie in 1975. Enjoy.
With the confluence of Black History Month and the film Oppenheimer cleaning up at all the awards shows I thought I would profile one of a handful of African American scientists who contributed to the Manhattan Project, overcoming all the prejudice of the day. In Ms. Parker's case the double prejudice of being a Black woman scientist in the early part of the 20th century. Born in 1917, Parker was the first African American woman to earn a post graduate degree in physics. After teaching math and physics in college she was slated to help with research for the Dayton Project in Ohio. The Dayton Project, led by Monsanto (of course), was put in place as part of the Manhattan Project to study the use of polonium as an initiator of the chain reaction for the plutonium atomic weapon. Parker worked on the project from 1943-1947. By 1952 she had completed all the necessary work for her doctorate in physics from MIT but unfortunately passed away from leukemia, likely due to the polonium exposure on the Dayton Project.
In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter protests, an elementary school and neighboring park in Parker's hometown of Gainesville, Florida was renamed to Carolyn Beatrice Parker Elementary School and Park in her honor. It was previously named for a confederate general.
Rather than my normal artist description I’ll refer you to this month’s review of Jewel’s terrific autobiography, Never Broken, below. And after reading the book I naturally decided to highlight some of her songs that I enjoy.
Hands – This is probably the first song of hers that I listened to and it’s still on my playlist rotation. She wrote this when she was 16 and homeless. Jewel told Billboard Magazine in 1998 that, "I knew if I could tell the world, my hands are so little, how can they have impact on the world? They seem like tiny little weapons. I can't fight with despair, thoughtlessness. They're not the solution, but they are the first step forward."
Sample lyrics:
If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we're all okay
Not to worry 'cause worry is wasteful
And useless in times like these
…In the end, only kindness matters
I Am My Father's Daughter with Dolly Parton – Jewel’s father suffered from PTSD, not only from his stint in Vietnam, but also from his cruel upbringing. It took many years, but Jewel finally forgave him for the abuses she suffered from him directly and indirectly. This song is a sort of reflection of that forgiveness and includes home video of her growing up in the Alaskan wilderness; plus you can’t go wrong singing with Dolly.
Sample lyrics:
I am my father's daughter
He has his mother's eyes
I am the product of her sacrifice
I am the accumulation of the dreams of generations
And their stories live in me like holy water
No More Tears – Jewel has been involved in solving the homeless crisis ever since she was able to pull herself out of that condition. This song addresses the issue. It showcases her incredible and soulful voice.
Sample lyrics:
Heartbreak is like the weather, ravaging my soul
But I know, it moves on
And storms are followed by the most beautiful blue skies
I will keep carrying on
Stay Here Forever – I love this breezy song from her “country” album titled Sweet and Wild. Nothing deep, just a song about enjoying the one you love on a nice day. It was the opening song for Gary Marshall’s movie Valentine’s Day.
Standing Still – Written during a 3-year hiatus from the music business, Jewel said of this song, “It’s about the irony of how much a person travels in my job, and how it can really cause your emotional life to stand still,” she said. “Fame really tolerates a prolonged adolescence, and your fame and career can outgrow your ability to handle it. You can get really spoiled, and I wanted to get away from [that] and make sure I wasn’t standing still.”
Somewhere Over the Rainbow – My wife and I saw her live a few years ago and what I couldn’t get over was her voice. It was perfect. And she performed the best version of this song I had ever heard.
Ave Maria - If you need anymore proof as to how great her voice is, check out this powerful version of Ave Maria from her really good Christmas album.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijV1e_5ts6E
Saint Maybe tells the story of Ian and his family. When the story begins, Ian is 17 years old as he confronts his older brother about his wife's possible infidelity. Tragic events unfold after this reveal, and Ian is left to deal with the collateral damage. His plans to go to college get interrupted when he drops into a random church (called the Church of the Second Chance) where he gets hard-to-hear advice from the preacher which changes the course of his life. Ian quits school and sets about to help his aging parents raise the three children left behind after all the tragic events. What enfolds is a story of grace, forgiveness, and redemption as Ian watches the children grow up and his parents grow older. Each character in the book plays their part in this family drama that kept me mesmerized and never wanting to stop reading. Somehow Tyler manages to produce satisfying endings to stories that seem to have no end in sight.
A 1991 New York Times review had this to say about the novel: "Each character in "Saint Maybe" has been fully rendered, fleshed out with a palpable interior life, and each has been fit, like a hand-sawed jigsaw-puzzle piece, into the matrix of family life. The result is a warm and generous novel, a novel that attests once again to Ms. Tyler's enormous gifts as a writer and her innate understanding of the mysteries of kinship and blood." And the Washington Post said, “One cannot reasonably expect fiction to be much better than this.”
Here are some lines:
He couldn’t seem to look away. He couldn’t even blink, couldn’t move, because once he moved then time would start rolling forward again, and he already knew that nothing in his life would ever be the same.
His father met him at the terminal. Neither of them knew yet how they were supposed to greet each other after long separations. Hug? Shake hands? His father settled for clapping him on the arm. “How was the trip?” he asked.
They were scared to death of Sister Audrey. She was helping out at Bible camp because she’d had a baby when she wasn’t married and put it in a dumpster and now she was atoning for her sin.
They would be the kind who set off without filling the gas tank first or checking the tire pressure, he was certain. Chances were they wouldn’t even have a road map.
“You think I’m some ninny who wants to do right but keeps goofing. But what you don’t see is, I goof on purpose. I’m not like you: King Careful. Mr. Look-Both-Ways. Saint Maybe.”
Brother Simon always telling us how God had saved him for something special when his apartment building burned down, never explaining what God had against those seven others He didn’t save.
"Kids get into so much! They start to matter so much. Some days I felt like a fireman or a lifeguard or something—all that tedium, broken up by little spurts of high drama.”
And she tipped her head and smiled. After all, she might have said, this was an ordinary occurrence. People changed other people’s lives every day of the year. There was no call to make such a fuss about it.
I was able to kill two birds with one stone by not only getting in a nice longish hike but also walking our daughter and son-in-love's dogs so they could focus on their new baby girl. All along both rims of the Rio Grande Gorge there are several trails that I hope to explore someday. I’ve done a few of them but there are many. Today I chose the Petaca Point Trail on the west Rim of the gorge. It was around a 25-minute drive from Taos to the trailhead where there were exactly zero vehicles parked. I headed south for 4 miles. The day was sunny with temps in the upper 30s and lower 40s. The first half mile is very cool as it hugs the rim of the gorge while heading up and down some hills. Great views and fun hiking. The next 3.5 miles were a bit dull as it headed away from the rim along an old dirt road. But it was great for the dogs as they could run forever without having to worry about bothering anyone. At Petaca point, the views were incredible both up and down the Rio Grande. I imagine there are petroglyphs around here, but I didn’t find any today. We hung out here for a while checking out the views while the dogs (and I) looked for bighorn sheep. I eventually headed the four miles back to the car as the sun was setting, which made for some beautiful photos of the rim. A nice day outside in this beautiful area.
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| Big skies |
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| Much of the hike was through sagebrush with great views |
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| Even the dogs loved the views (or were maybe looking for bighorn sheep) |
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| Petaca Point views of the Rio Grande |
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| Looking north with the Rio Grande winding |
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| Dogs finding snow to cool off in |
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| White-capped mountains peeking (and peaking) above the sagebrush |
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| Big ole sun |
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| Aspen glow on the mountains with the gorge as foreground |
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| Sunset coloring the cliffs |
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| Snowy and windy day on the rim of the gorge |
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| Dogs had no problem finding snow today |
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| Off trail down an arroyo |
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| Snow encrusted pinon tree |
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| Addressing his kingdom |
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| Snow cactus above the Rift Valley |
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| Appropriately named Rift Valley |
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| These handy maps were on many of the mile markers |
She tells her story linearly and begins with her remarkable upbringing in Alaska where she alternates between living in poverty in Anchorage to living in poverty on their family’s homestead near Homer. Her father suffered from PTSD not only from his abusive upbringing, but also from his stint in Vietnam. But he also is the reason she became a performer as he would drag her to all the biker bars across Alaska with her pure and sweet voice from the age of four. Her mother was a very new-agey artist who seemed harmless and peaceful until later in life when she wound up spending all of Jewel’s money after convincing her that she was best positioned to be her manager and never really apologized for it. As the years went by Jewel eventually forgave both of them but now only maintains a relationship with her father since he has taken the steps to fix himself.
There are so many great stories in this book like the time she and her brother had to walk 8 miles to school while bleeding and crying after being beaten by their father; or her hitchhiking through Mexico as a teenager; running mule trains in the Grand Canyon as barter for staying in a Havasupai native’s front yard; being discriminated against as the only white girl in a Hawaiian high school; the deal she made with a struggling San Diego coffee shop owner while she was homeless to play music and bring in crowds which was where she was eventually “discovered” by record label executives. Nearly every day I was reading this book I told these stories to my wife and daughter because they were so heart wrenching and powerful.
Jewel does more than most stars in her philanthropy as she helps support homeless teens, helps people struggling with abuse in their lives, and also supports clean water initiatives around the globe. She has learned many lessons throughout her difficult life and wants to share her philosophy on how one can overcome just about anything, because as she says in the book, “I wrote a line in a song once: “We are never broken.” I believe that truly. It is a hard-earned belief, and rose out of many years of experiencing the opposite.”
Here are some lines:
I called my journal “the happiness project,” and I had no idea that it would lead me not only on a journey of deep personal discovery, but would also lead me from the fishing village of Homer, Alaska, to songwriting, to the White House, to the Vatican, to the cover of Time magazine, and beyond. Most important, the exercise of writing and looking inward led me to myself, and to discovering my own definition of happiness. It is a journey I am still on today.
In the off-season we toured native villages, singing for Inuit (we don’t call them Eskimo—it’s a derogatory term). I have dreamy memories of my parents and me being dropped off in an ice field at midnight in broad daylight, as the sun never sets up there, and being picked up by natives on dogsleds and taken to a host’s house. Being presented with a whole moose leg, longer than my body, for dinner, with salty homemade bacon and a concoction of seal oil, sugar, and snow that they passed off as ice cream.
I had never heard the Rolling Stones sing “Wild Horses” or the Beatles sing “Yesterday,” only dad’s acoustic interpretations. For the most part my musical influences were songs, not the artists.
I have so much compassion for my dad. He endured so much as a child, and then he was shipped off to war. He had suffered from PTSD and it was triggered by the divorce and raising us kids and living in the barn. I’m amazed he held it together as well as he did. While he and I did not speak for most of my early career, we have a healthy and loving relationship now.
Most parents take their children to the doctor when they are sick. My mom told me to sit and meditate it away.
Something my life has taught me is not to see things in black and white. People are neither all good nor all bad.
I began to watch people who appeared to be happy. They got outside. They exercised. They did things they found fulfilling in some way. They took care of themselves.
(about Havasupai Falls): We rounded the corner, and I quickened my pace and then stopped suddenly in disbelief. I could not believe my eyes. And even writing about it, you will think I’m lying unless you’ve seen it too. Blue does not begin to describe the supernatural color of this water.
When Yule found out my dad had been smoking, he made my dad strip down naked and then walked around him and whipped his whole body. Yule built many layers of shame and cruelty into his abuse and punishments, in both mind and body. My dad suffered a lot of trauma in his childhood, and then went off to Vietnam and sustained more.
There is a tangible optimism that comes from making a living with your own hands. It’s honest and grounded and down-to-earth, qualities that served me well in a business that was anything but.
I was promptly escorted to the dean’s office and nearly kicked out of school my first day on campus. Apparently showing up with a large skinning knife fastened to your side was frowned upon in classier establishments.
Inga charged in, incredulous. “How can she be broke? She sold seventeen million albums! She wrote every song!” We both looked at my mom. “Where did it all go?” Inga said. My mom sat still as a desert day. Her hands peacefully folded in her lap. A Buddha’s smile on her face. Calm. Tranquil. A payment plan was devised. I don’t remember leaving. I don’t remember the payment plan. I do remember going back to work.
“Why did you hire me? You could have any actress you want. Why me?” He looked at me, his face as calm and smooth as the moon, and said, “You have period teeth.” And that was it. No pep talk. I turned back to the window. I was the only actress who had not fixed her teeth. That’s what had gotten me the role (in Ang Lee's Ride With the Devil). Awesome.
Stealthy and silent, Tupac was again suddenly standing next to me. He spoke softly and looked at me directly with soulful eyes. He said he was headed to Vegas with a whole crew and thought I might have fun if I came. He had a hypnotic but vulnerable quality that was fascinating. I told him I was there with someone but hoped he had fun. He was shot three days later in Vegas.
Do things that lend themselves to the happiness you desire. Exercise. Eat well. Do something that makes you feel joy, even when you don’t feel like it. Surround yourself with people you admire and who add substance to your life.
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| LOTS of snow |
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| Luckily I didn't have to break trail |
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| Moguls waiting to be skied |
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| First views of the cirque |
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| Williams Lake is between these two ski tracks |
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| Skiers were enjoying this little downhill section |
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| Skiers outnumber hikers and snowshoers up here |
“mere inspection suggested that she would not easily bend. By choice she did not emphasize her feminine qualities. Though her features were strong, she was not unattractive and might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes.”
“Also, there was no denying she had a good brain. If she could only keep her emotions under control, there would be a good chance that she could really help him.”
“She spoke to an audience of about fifteen in a quick, nervous style that suited the unornamented old lecture hall in which we were seated. There was not a trace of warmth or frivolity in her words. And yet I could not regard her as totally uninteresting. Momentarily I wondered how she would look if she took off her glasses and did something novel with her hair.”
No wonder she wasn’t credited with helping out on this momentous discovery until long after her death. After her tragic death in 1958, Watson did add this statement in his Epilogue which seems to have come too late in my opinion:
“Rosalind Franklin died at the early age of thirty-seven. Since my initial impressions of her, both scientific and personal (as recorded in the early pages of this book), were often wrong, I want to say something here about her achievements. The X-ray work she did at King’s is increasingly regarded as superb. The sorting out of the A and B forms, by itself, would have made her reputation; even better was her 1952 demonstration, using Patterson superposition methods, that the phosphate groups must be on the outside of the DNA molecule. Later, when she moved to Bernal’s lab, she took up work on tobacco mosaic virus and quickly-extended our Qualitative ideas about helical construction into a precise quantitative picture, definitely establishing the essential helical parameters and locating the ribonucleic chain halfway out from the central axis.”
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| View from near the trailhead |
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| Moraine Park |
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| Snow got deeper as I climbed higher |
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| Creepy tree waving |
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| Cub Lake frozen over |
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| Colorfully twisted trunk |
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| Baby pine trees peeking through the snow |
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| The Pool near the Cub Lake/Fern Lake junction |
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| Big Thompson River peeking through the snow |
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| Big Thompson near the trailhead |
John, along with photographer Kari Medig and some professional skiers and translators went on a month-long winter trip to Siberia to report on its fascinating skiing scene. The report, and photographs, ended up having so much information they turned it into the magazine’s first ever book. John’s description of the barren, snowy landscapes of Siberia convinced me never to go there in winter and explained why various Russian governments have been sending their dissidents to Siberia for nearly 500 years. And the people, wow; these people were reminiscent of the Alaskan homesteaders in Jewel’s autobiography (see above). Many of them make their own skis using an axe and a planer, along with other homemade equipment to bend them to the correct shape and camber for the landscape in which they live. They use different animal skins on their skis for uphill slogs depending upon the texture of the snow. Skis are critical to their survival during their 6-month winter, and they use them for hunting, traveling, and recreation. Injuries in some of these remote places can be fatal with modern hospitals hundreds of miles away with a limited means of transport in winter. One of the skiers dislocated a shoulder and the locals there put him on a bench and pulled his arm back into its socket…OK you’re good to go! I really enjoyed the stories of these remote places and the people who live there. And the photos were terrific; check some of them out here.
Here are some lines I enjoyed:
Since he shot his first bear at age 14, Vitaly has killed 25 more, but most of his income comes from selling sable furs (this is 2014!)
Residents have no running water. Electricity, powered by a generator, is only available from 7 to 10pm each night. The village has just one telephone.
In the longest, snowiest winters on the planet, they use skis to survive, and to prosper. They make their own boards, build their own backcountry huts…
Siberia has five rivers wider than the Mississippi.
Though several people ..told me it was the warmest winter they could remember, the average temperature in Irkutsk in January was sill minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit.
The imposing Russian was in the nude, wearing a wool Tyrolean-style hat with the Russian word for “avalanche” stitched into it. In line with banya (sauna) custom, he wetted a bouquet of oak branches and began slapping me on the chest and on the back.
Our driver, a young man who took any chance he could to have a smoke, wore his seatbelt only when we passed police, unbuckling it as soon as they were out of view. That last sentence probably wouldn’t surprise anybody who has spent much time in Russia.
In the morning, the sky cleared for the first time in a week. In all, it had snowed between six and 10 feet.
The oldest known ski artifacts are from Russia, from 8,000 years ago.
I saw horses, cows, and haystacks. Kids played in the snow. The scene couldn’t have looked much different than it did a century ago.
Natasha made bread, soup, and served antelope…The family hunted for or grew all of the food…After dinner, Vitaly served tea made from truffles growing under the birch tree. We added honey, taken from a nearby hive.
Incredibly, this hunter in an indigenous Siberian village of 50 with no daytime access to electricity, builds skis with the same profile the modern ski industry had only recently figured out.
Life in the ward changed drastically when Randle McMurphy barged into the quiet and lonely lives of the residents and staff. In the book McMurphy was a large red-headed Irishman which is why Kesey favored Gene Hackman for the role. Nicholson didn’t look anything like the man in the novel, but all the other mannerisms were spot on. I couldn’t get Nicholson out of my mind whenever the character was playing his power games with the subtly evil Nurse Ratched (who was played brilliantly by Ellen Burstyn in the movie). The fishing boat scene, the late-night party at the ward, and the big escape were all written so well that it was like I was hearing the story for the first time. Kesey had also worked in a VA hospital psychiatric wing, so he saw a lot of this firsthand. He believed we were institutionalizing too many people just because they didn’t fit into society at the time. The early 60s were also a time when the world was coming to understand that things like shock therapy and lobotomies were cruel and inhuman. Of course, in the novel, as in the movie, McMurphy eventually underwent both “treatments” after he attacked Nurse Ratched for instigating the suicide of his good friend, the stuttering Billy Bibbit.
I enjoyed every aspect of this novel. The characters, especially the three main characters (McMurphy, Chief, and Nurse Ratched), the power struggle between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched, and the wild scenes in and out of the ward. Do yourself a favor and watch the movie again, or better yet, read this book.
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| Snow covered bridge over the South St. Vrain |
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| South St. Vrain peeking through the snow |
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| These are the ski tracks I followed the first 2 miles |
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| Snow covered snowshoes |
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| Brainard Lake views |
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| Love the peaks up here |
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| No cars at Brainard because the road is closed in winter |
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| Pretty |
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| Little snowshoe guy showing the way |
In this novella (around 200 pages) she somehow manages to include the themes of colonization, war, racism, slavery, violence, and environmental exploitation in a riveting story. The premise is that a colony of people from Earth (Terra) have landed on the planet Athshe in order to strip it of lumber which is in short supply back on Earth (along with most animals other than rats). There are short, furry and peaceful humanoids that live on Athshe and the colonizers enslave many of them to work the logging camps and serve as housemaids and servants. Many of the female Athsheans are raped by the colonizers, similar to the way female slaves were treated in the United States.
As the story begins, a shipment of 200 females from Earth arrives in order to keep the lumber workers satisfied and to start populating the planet with their own species. One of the Athsheans, Selver, learns all about the people from Earth by studying with the resident human anthropologist and although Selver is technically his servant, they form a friendship. When one of the military leaders rapes Selver's wife, he retaliates and is nearly killed by the military man but the anthropologist steps in to save him. Some of the Athsheans, including Selver, are able to enter a dream like state on demand in which they get messages from somewhere (maybe the trees?) about how to act. The message he gets is that basically their planet will be doomed if the Earthlings continue to ravage the land and start breeding. Therefore the Athsheans will have to go against their nature and destroy them. Battles ensue and the sheer number of Athsheans eventually overpower the humans and force them to leave. But the cost of this action is that war and killing are introduced to the Athsheans and those traits will remain in the real world from now on.
Le Guin was an anti war protester during (and after) Vietnam, and the parallels here are pretty straightforward; rogue groups of military men burning and destroying villages using fire bombs, destruction of the vegetation and land that the locals need for survival, rape and torture. But the saddest part to me was that the once peaceful Athsheans were now forever tainted by the killing they had to undertake. That endless cycle of war that we'll never figure out here on Earth.
Here are some lines:
clean sawn planks, more prized on Earth than gold. Literally, because gold could be got from seawater and from under the Antarctic ice, but wood could not; wood came only from trees. And it was a really necessary luxury on Earth. So the alien forests became wood.
The most winning characteristic of the rather harsh Cetian temperament was curiosity, inopportune and inexhaustible curiosity; Cetians died eagerly, curious as to what came next.
old women are different from everybody else, they say what they think. The Athsheans are governed, in so far as they have government, by old women. Intellect to the men, politics to the women, and ethics to the interaction of both: that’s their arrangement.
Selver had brought a new word into the language of his people. He had done a new deed. The word, the deed, murder. Only a god could lead so great a newcomer as Death across the bridge between the worlds.
“What are they doing?” abruptly becomes, “What are we doing?” and then, “What must I do?”
In diversity is life and where there’s life there’s hope, was the general sum of his creed,
All anticipation of triumph went out of Selver. There was no triumph in the world any more, only death.
There’s nothing to kill on Rendlep. No trees, no people. There were trees and people, but now there are only the dreams of them.
Until next time, happy reading and rambling!