August 2024

Books read:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Living an Examined Life: Wisdom for the Second Half of the Journey by James Hollis
One True Thing by Anna Quindlen

Trails walked:

Turquoise Lake near Leadville on August 3rd
Hidden Lake near Taos, NM on August 6th
Heart Lake near Rollinsville on August 23rd
Little Blue Lake near Ward on August 27th

Song of the month: John Denver - Poems, Prayers and Promises

August Summary:

We spent a nice weekend this month in Leadville during their annual Boom Days celebration. It’s a great weekend for families with a huge parade, car show, arts and crafts fair, and the annual Leadville Burro Race. I reviewed a wonderful book called Running with Sherman by Christopher McDougall in my August 2023 blog which made reference to this burro race. Burro owners run with their tethered burros either 15- or 21-mile routes through the high mountains of Leadville. There are burro runs like this throughout the country. It was a blast to see all these characters taking off from the starting line and then seeing them return, muddy, sun-burnt, and jubilant. The only other time I was in this 2-mile-high city was in February of 2022 and it was so cold that I didn't warm up until we got home. It's much more enjoyable in the summer.

I spent 2 weeks this month caring for grandsons due to daycare issues and illness. So I'm really surprised I was able to get in so many hikes and books during this month. Even though caring for kids during the day is a lot of work (especially as we age), it's also a joy to spend so much time with them. Quality time is great, but I've found that quality normally only comes with quantity. We also spent our usual week in Taos visiting our daughter, son-in-love, and granddaughter. Grandkids are such a joy. We are very lucky to be leading the lives we're leading.

I've been having a thoughtful email conversation about politics with one of my good friends who happens to be very conservative. Although we disagree on many issues, we spend time explaining our positions to each other without any name-calling. Why can't our media and politicians discuss big ideas like this? I think that one of the reasons is because many of the divisive issues are very complex: Immigration, Climate, Energy, Economy...The average American has very little time to dive into these complex issues to truly understand them. And even when they have the time (like certain retirees) we won't ever know as much as people who have studied it their whole lives. It's much easier to listen to a talking head say something simple like: We'll just vet the immigrants to not let in criminals...or send all immigrants back to where they came from....or the climate has always changed...or gas was cheaper when "x" was president (I wish the issue of gas prices was as simple as who is president at the time). I've been studying climate change since I retired nearly nine years ago and I still feel like I know so little. There is not any one field of study for climate change; there are several: astrophysics, oceanography, geology, Earth system science, computer modeling, atmospheric science, and on and on. It's one reason why I decide to trust the overwhelming majority of scientists on this topic. Just like we should have trusted the overwhelming majority of medical professionals on covid. How do we stop this endless name-calling, fear-mongering, and hate-speech? I think, like Pandora's box, it's too late. Social media, 24x7 news, confirmation bias, and click rates are driving this insanity. Like I said last month, it's gonna get even uglier in the next two months. Pull yourself away from all of this. Focus on your family, your friends, yourself. And then vote. Vote for who you believe is the best human being that wants the best for humanity at heart. And like the captain on the great Hill Street Blues used to say every day...be careful out there....

Things My Grandkids Say: Spending two full weeks taking care of grandkids was exhausting and entertaining. So many funny things happened that I couldn't keep track of all of them. When I was singing "a peanut sat on a railroad track..." and ad-libbed words to the effect of an avocado sitting on a railroad track, my grandson responded: "Guacamole is from a different country, like Taos!" Yes it is grandson, yes it is....actually according to Wikipedia: "The name comes from Classical Nahuatl (aka Aztec) āhuacamōlli, which literally translates to 'avocado sauce', from āhuacatl 'avocado' + mōlli 'sauce' or 'mole'."

Song of the month: John Denver - Poems, Prayers and Promises

In the spirit of trying to stop the fear and hatred of today's politics, I have picked a song to combat those feelings. I actually featured this song in my September 2023 blog where I listed songs that make me cry. I've always believed this song was highly underrated. John Denver was a talent that passed too quickly from our lives, but he left behind a treasure trove of great songs. John Denver's Annie's Song was played at our first dance during our wedding and was our son and daughter-in-law's first dance at their wedding (covered by Brett Dennen). As much as I love Rocky Mountain High which I highlighted in my July 2019 blog, I think that Poems, Prayers and Promises is his greatest work. I have decided to post all of the words here because they are nearly perfect...and they still make me cry:

I've been lately thinking about my life's time
All the things I've done and how it's been
And I can't help believing in my own mind
I know I'm gonna hate to see it end

I've seen a lot of sunshine, slept out in the rain
Spent a night or two all on my own
I've known my lady's pleasures, had myself some friends
And spent a time or two in my own home

[chorus] I have to say it now, it's been a good life all in all
It's really fine to have a chance to hang around
And lie there by the fire and watch the evening tire
While all my friends and my old lady
Sit and pass the pipe around
And talk of poems and prayers and promises
And things that we believe in
How sweet it is to love someone
How right it is to care
How long it's been since yesterday
What about tomorrow?
And what about our dreams
And all the memories we share?

The days they pass so quickly now, nights are seldom long
And time around me whispers when it's cold
Changes somehow frighten me, still I have to smile
It turns me on to think of growing old

For though my life's been good to me
There's still so much to do
So many things my mind has never known
I'd like to raise a family, I'd like to sail away
And dance across the mountains on the moon

[repeat chorus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVnhggYsDJE

Turquoise Lake near Leadville – We had grandiose plans of hiking Mount Elbert (the highest peak in Colorado) on a weekend trip to Leadville. But sometimes life happens, and it doesn’t work out. We settled instead for a beautiful 2-mile walk along the shore of Turquoise Lake. Named for nearby mineral deposits, the lake sits at 10,000 feet above sea level. I was joined by two of our three grandkids, along with our son, daughter, and son-in-love. We got a little bit of rain and a little bit of sun as is normal in the mountains in August. The views of the big 14ers from this lake is spectacular, and all along the trail were families fishing, camping, and paddle boarding.

Daughter and granddaughter at Turquoise Lake

2 kids, 2 grandkids, 2 dogs

Day at the beach

Daughter, son-in-love, granddaughter

..with part of the dogs...

Happy grandson

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith – This classic book has been on my reading list for years. I’m so glad I finally got around to reading it. Published in 1943 by Betty Smith, it began as a memoir, but the publishing company convinced her to make some revisions and to publish it as a novel. That turned out to be a good idea as it became an instant best seller and was extremely popular with WW2 soldiers overseas (there is a scene in Band of Brothers where one of the soldiers is reading it). It’s understandable why it was so popular with soldiers; it’s a book about hope in the face of so much despair. The version I read had a forward by Anna Quindlen (who wrote the book I review below) in which she described it so much better than I ever could: “As much as any other beloved book in the canon, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn illustrates the limitations of plot description. In its nearly five hundred pages, nothing much happens. Of course that’s not really accurate: Everything that can happen in life happens, from birth and death to marriage…it’s not the sort of book that can be reduced to its plot line. The best anyone can say is that it is a story about what it means to be human. Early on in its explosive success it was described as a book about city life, a story about grinding poverty, a tale of the struggles of immigrants in America. But all those things are setting, really, and the themes are farther-reaching: the fabric of family, the limits of love, the loss of innocence, and the birth of knowledge.”

The book is set mainly in the years leading up to World War I and centers on Francie Nolan from ages 11 to 17 who was born in Brooklyn to a poor family of immigrants from Ireland and Austria. There are flashbacks that tell the story of how Francie’s parents met and their struggles to raise a family on little income, accepting no charity. Her mother Katie cleaned apartments, and her father Johnny was a singing waiter. Katie’s sisters (and Katie) were amazing and reminded me of my mother-in-law's sisters, strong and always there for the family in times of need. And even though Johnny was an alcoholic, his love for his family (and his close relationship with Francie) is a great depiction of the confusing reality that many children face with a father they love but who has major faults. Through all this poverty, which is written about so well, Francie is consumed with learning all about the world by observing and reading all that she can. You’re never sure if she’ll succeed in life up until the end. But whether she does or not, her life of wonder in Brooklyn made her strong like those old trees that grew out of the pavement in the tenement buildings back then, and still do to this day. Here are some lines:

Johnny looked like a handsome, devil-may-care Irish boy instead of the husband of a scrubwoman and the father of two children who were always hungry.

She wept when they gave birth to daughters, knowing that to be born a woman meant a life of humble hardship.

Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be a Rommely woman even though her name was Nolan. They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.

She thought of her mother bearing seven children, bringing them up, watching three of them die, and knowing that those who lived were doomed to hunger and hardship.

“Everything struggles to live. Look at that tree growing up there out of that grating. It gets no sun, and water only when it rains. It’s growing out of sour earth. And it’s strong because its hard struggle to live is making it strong. My children will be strong that way.”

“Forgiveness,” said Mary Rommely, “is a gift of high value. Yet its cost is nothing.”

After Election, the politicians forgot their promises and enjoyed an earned rest until New Year, when they started work on the next Election.

The fishing started. It consisted in baiting the hook, casting it dramatically, waiting a while, pulling it up minus worm and fish and starting the whole thing over again.

“Someday you’ll remember what I said and you’ll thank me for it.” Francie wished adults would stop telling her that. Already the load of thanks in the future was weighing her down.

And all the women in the house tensed each time Katie cried out, and they suffered with her. It was the only thing the women held in common—the sure knowledge of the pain of giving birth.

“Did you know they changed Hamburg Avenue to Wilson Avenue?” asked Francie. “War makes people do funny things,” sighed Katie.

Hidden Lake near Taos – A friend of my daughter told her about this little-known hike just off the very popular trail to Williams Lake and Wheeler Peak. So on this day, my daughter packed her daughter into a front carrier and we all started up the popular Williams Lake trail in the Taos Ski Valley for half a mile before we headed mainly off trail for just over three quarters of a mile up to the lake. There is a social trail that can be followed part of the way, but it’s easy to lose and eventually disappears completely as you approach the large boulders that make up the surrounding area of this Hidden Lake. Most of the 700 feet of elevation gain occurs during that last three quarters of a mile away from the Williams Lake trail. As I was scrambling up these boulders using 3 or 4 limbs, I continued to be amazed at my daughter’s agility in hopping across these rocks while carrying her baby and wrangling the two dogs.

The lake is small and pretty. There is not much of a shoreline, more like piles of boulders similar to Lake Haiyaha in Rocky Mountain National Park. So after taking some photos and being self-satisfied with ourselves for finding this gem so close to the busy Taos Ski Valley we headed back down just in time to avoid a torrential downpour that began about 2 minutes after we finished. There were lots of wildflowers this time of year making for a beautiful walk.

Daughter rock-hopping while carrying her daughter

Pretty lake that only the locals know...and now me

Daughter and granddaughter at Hidden Lake

All smiles

REALLY steep going down

...plus all those rocks and logs to maneuver around

Upper Taos ski valley from up here

The wildflowers where out

Living an Examined Life by James Hollis – This book was given to me by the same person who gave me Brian Doyle’s great One Long River of Song which I reviewed last month. This one is only 100 pages, but it packs a lot of depth into those few pages. Hollis is a psychologist, and he delves into the deep roots of psychology, religion and philosophy to present a sort of 21 step program to become the person you were meant to be, rather than the person your parents or society wants you to be. I found his academic writing to be filled with words I’d never heard of. It was a very difficult book to comprehend. But when I was able to focus deeply (and look up all the words I didn’t know) I found that there was a lot of enlightenment inside. If you want to read a book that comes to a similar conclusion but is much easier to read, try Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning which I reviewed in my March 2020 blog. Hollis really focused on how our upbringing tends to hold us back from being the person our soul demands to be. It’s not because our parents didn’t love us, but because as Jung said, “the largest burden the child must bear is the unlived life of the parent.”

Here are some lines from the book which I either found fascinating or confusing:

Jung said in a letter once that life is a short pause between two great mysteries.

When the path we are on is right for our souls, the energy is there.

For all the amends we owe this broken world, for all the recompense we owe others, we also owe ourselves permission to be who we really are, finally, before we are no longer here.

Only if we make the mistake of travel and find that there is another world, another set of choices over that hill, do we tumble into a larger world of possibilities.

The one thing parents can do for their children is live their lives as fully as they can, for this will open the children’s imagination, grant permission to them to have their own journey, and open the doors of possibility for them.

I have no idea what he says here, let me know if you figure it out (there were many of these lines throughout): When the life of the spirit is compromised by the decline of the mediatorial institutions and connective imagery to the transcendent, one transfers the search for the numinous-- that which speaks to the soul engages the spirit -- to some surrogate such as power, business, sex, satiety, or a palliative substance. Yikes

Happiness is transient but meaning abides.

No one rises in the morning and thinks, Today I will do the same stupid things I have done for decades. But chances are we will. And why?

Perhaps the key measure of successful parenting, despite whatever mistakes we have made, is whether our children really understand that we love them as they are, not as we wish them to be.

…a heroic task remains for parents—namely, to lift off our children’s shoulders the unfinished business of our own lives. The more we do so, the more we free them to be.

Sometimes the price of the parent-child nexus is so costly, the atmosphere so toxic, that the child has to walk away to save his or her life. Sometimes the child-cum-adult has to walk away to secure his or her own journey when the parent narcissistically demands and guilts the child into submission.

…one cannot overemphasize the power of human anxiety to commit the most appalling gymnastics of mind to justify anything.

Sooner or later, a person has to understand and revisit the basics: we are not here for long; we are accountable for this life we have lived or not lived; we are summoned to choice, courage, and perseverance in living this life.

Most of the people we admire most throughout history had difficult lives, but they share a common trait—namely, that they hung on until the new purpose of their lives emerged for them, and they found the courage to live those new challenges.

Heart Lake near Rollinsville – This was my first big hike this month mainly because I spent a couple of weeks babysitting due to day care issues and illness. It felt good to get outside for a full day and push my body on this 10-mile hike with around 2,200 feet of elevation gain. I started at the busy East Portal trailhead which sits alongside the eastern entrance to the Moffat Tunnel. I wrote this about the Moffat Tunnel in my June 2022 blog post about my Crater Lake hike:

The tunnel was completed in 1928 and named after Colorado railroad magnate David Moffat. When the continental railroad was established in the 1860s, the surveyors took one look at the Colorado Rockies and said no way! So it was routed through Wyoming. Moffat died before his idea became a reality, but it was his brainchild to link Denver and Salt Lake City via rail. It took 6 years and 28 lives to build the 6.2-mile-long tunnel.

The parking lot had several cars parked this Friday morning, but I believe at least half of them are from backpackers spending the evenings in the many backcountry spots up here. It was a beautiful sunny morning with temps in the mid-50s and a few clouds as I began walking. It’s a fairly moderate uphill climb most of the way with a few steeper sections. At one mile I reached the Forest Lakes junction. I wrote about Forest Lakes in my August 2023 blog. At two miles I reached the Crater Lakes junction. So, from here up it was brand new territory for me, which I always love. Most of the hike is through forest, along the South Boulder Creek trail which follows South Boulder Creek the whole way up to its source at Rogers Pass. But at around 4 miles you enter a beautiful meadow with views of the ridge leading up to James Peak to your south and the Continental Divide rising to the west. In another half mile you reach the very pretty Rogers Pass Lake with Haystack Mountain rising high to the southwest. I took in the views and rested before heading up the steep half mile to Heart Lake where somehow the views got even better. There were a few campers spread out along both Heart and Rogers Pass lakes. There is a trail from here that leads up another 600 feet in around half a mile up to the Continental Divide. I was tempted to try it but it had already started raining and I didn’t want to be up too high in case of lightning. So I headed back down the steep path to Rogers Pass Lake and then on the main trail back to my car. No cool animal sightings on this day, although I have seen moose up here before. I only saw a large dusky grouse preening its feathers on a tree stump. As I neared the trailhead I ran into a large family that was going backpacking. One dad had a kid strapped to his front, plus his large backpack. The mom had another kid strapped to her front along with her large backpack, and there were two other adults with older kids that were walking. I stopped and chatted with them a bit because I can definitely see my kids and grandkids doing this. They said it’s hard and slow, but worth it. Lots of folks up here having fun in the outdoors. It rained hard on me for about a mile on the way down, but mainly the weather was perfect.

Several trails start at the East Portal Trailhead

OK, 5 miles each way...

Water everywhere up here

...and lush green

Pond with James Peak rising above

Rogers Pass Lake

Rogers Pass Lake from the trail up to Heart Lake

James Peak getting clouds...I'm definitely getting rained on

Beautiful Heart Lake

Continental Divide up above Heart Lake

Lower part of the lake looking very moosey...but no moose today

Rogers Pass Lake, snow, and cloud-covered James Peak

I found this unnamed pond off the trail a bit

This is the backpacking family I ran into. Brave (and strong) people.

One True Thing by Anna Quindlen – I’ve read lots of great books this year, but none of them brought out so many more emotions in me than this one. I laughed, I cried, several times throughout. Published in 1994 by the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist-turned-novelist, this gripping family drama is a semi-autobiographical novel. Quindlen’s mother died of ovarian cancer while Quindlen was a 19-year-old college student; and she cared for her mother as she worsened.

The novel begins with the daughter (Ellen) describing the jail cell she’s been locked up in for killing her mother (Katherine). Then it reverts to the point in time where Ellen’s father, George, who’s a distinguished college English professor guilts her into leaving her high-profile Manhattan journalism job to stay home and care for her terminally ill mother. Family history and drama ensue; and so much more. There were three minor characters that were brilliantly written. The young Hispanic hospice nurse, Teresa Guerrero is mesmerizing; Ellen’s high school English professor is quietly heroic; and Ellen’s best friend Jules provides one of the most emotional reunions ever written. But mainly the story is about how a daughter’s relationship between her and her mother and father can be forever changed in just a few weeks. There is a conversation in the book between Ellen and her father that is incredible, it starts like this: “Why am I doing this alone?” “Doing what alone, may I ask?” “Tending to your wife.” Ouch. Her mother brilliantly decided to purchase 2 copies each of Anna Karenina, Great Expectations, and Pride and Prejudice, so that she and her daughter could have something to discuss while she was dying, and her daughter was caring for her. Ellen and her best friend Jules had this conversation about the books:

“What a great thing,” said Jules when we talked on the phone. “She trumped you at your own game. Not to mention the professor.” “Jules, the thing you do that I hate is that you read a hundred times more into everything than it deserves. We bought books. We’re reading books. We’ll talk about books. So what? I never said she was stupid.” “Thanks for sharing that, hon. I never thought she was. And what I meant was that she probably figured you’d be bored and she’d look at you being bored and it would remind her of why you were there. But instead she found something that will guarantee that you won’t be bored. Very smart. Very smart.”

Her mother also made a speech that more correctly defined marriage than any other I’ve ever heard: “You say to yourself when you’re young, oh, I wouldn’t tolerate this or that or the other thing, you say love is the most important thing in the world and there’s only one kind of love and it makes you feel different than you feel the rest of the time, like you’re all lit up. But time goes by and you’ve slept together a thousand nights and smelled like spit-up when babies are sick and seen your body droop and get soft. And some nights you say to yourself, it’s not enough, I won’t put up with another minute. And then the next morning you wake up and the kitchen smells like coffee and the children have their hair all brushed and the birds are eating out of the feeder and you look at your husband and he’s not the person you used to think he was but he’s your life.”

It’s so good. I now rank Quindlen right up there with Anne Tyler and Marilynne Robinson when it comes to writing about family dynamics. I need to read more of her work to be sure though. Here are some lines:

Ellen never relaxes. New York is her kind of place. An entire city of people who never relax, who were antsy in their own hometowns.

“Chemotherapy,” my father said. There were verbs in his sentences but I did not hear them. “Liver. Ovaries. Oncologist.” I picked up my glass and walked out of the room.

I realized that she did not know why I was there. It was how it had always been. My father made the decisions, and she learned about them later and lived with them. Improved on them, usually.

How providential that most children left home when they did, before they were wise enough to understand their parents.

She was a rather fierce-looking woman, Dr. Cohn, with the strong and handsome face that you see on old coins.

The closest thing she has to a son is a flag all folded up into a triangle that she’s never unrolled once, and a rubbing of his name from the Vietnam Memorial that one of her nephews sent her after he took a trip to Washington.”

Silence. “Are you okay?” he finally asked. “Just working on my morphine dosages here. I had lunch with my father and he wanted to discuss funeral arrangements, but before he could get to burial versus cremation I left to pick up toilet-bowl cleaner. And I’m reading Anna Karenina. I have this sneaking suspicion that this time around, she’s going to stay with her husband and have a miserable life.” More silence.

After dark, people stayed home in Langhorne, not because there was anything to fear, but because our houses—our kitchens, our dens, our bedrooms—were where our lives took place.

This reunion scene with her best friend after all that Ellen had gone through just really got me: And there on the platform was Jules in her city clothes, her long gauzy black skirt, her cowboy boots, her black leather jacket and black sunglasses, her black backpack and black hair curling wildly around her head. I got out of the car and she ran, her boots making tapping sounds on the platform and the stairs, and grabbed me so hard we both listed to the left.

Little Blue Lake in Brainard Lake Recreation Area – I have hiked to Blue Lake a few times now. It’s a gorgeous hike, like most in this area. I wrote about it in my August 2019 blog and in my September 2021 blog. It’s special because it’s not far (about an hour drive), the hike isn’t long or too tough (just under 3 miles and around 1,000 feet elevation each way), and you have a decent chance of seeing moose. The only downside is that you have to plan ahead and get a permit a couple of weeks ahead of time. But it’s also the only way to keep mass hordes of people away. I’ve always wondered what was beyond Blue Lake, and today I got to answer that question. The answer is…Little Blue Lake, and even more beauty and lots of rock scrambling. I reached the edge of Blue lake at 2.7 miles and about 800 feet of elevation gain. Then it was about a half mile more on the nice flat path on the northern edge of the lake. But then it’s another half mile and 600 feet straight up, through a huge boulder field to reach Little Blue Lake. Along the way is a beautiful waterfall seemingly pouring out of the bottom of Mount Toll. And the views of Blue Lake below are stunning. I wandered around up here for a bit, actually looking for a possible easier way back down, but I kept getting ledged out. I’m still convinced there is an easier path, but I would need a hiking partner to work with me on that.

In addition to the many pikas and marmots up here I also was lucky enough to spot 5 moose today. One big old female and two mother-baby pairs. One of the pairs was just bedding down next to the trail as I was heading out. I made a very wide path off trail around them. Mama moose with their babies are generally the most dangerous animals up here. But she just kept eyeing me, appreciating that I was giving them some room. An interesting note about the other mama-baby pair was that I first heard them before seeing them. I had never really heard a moose before as they’re usually silent. It sounded like a cross between a cow and a donkey. Anyway, another great day in the Rockies.