July 2026
Books read:
- The Future is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land, by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon
- The Land and Its People: Essays by David Sedaris
- Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
Trails walked:
- Twin Sisters in Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park (July 2nd)
- Rio Grande Gorge West Rim near Taos, NM (July 10th)
- Grand Canyon West Rim Trail near Tusayan, AZ (July 15th)
- Chapin Creek and Mount Chapin in Rocky Mountain National Park (July 30th)
Song(s) of the month: Tom Russell – The Man from God Knows Where
July Summary:
This country turned 250 years old on July 4th. I’ve never been a particularly patriotic person. I’m lucky I was born in a good country. But there are many other good countries around the world. There are several “bad” countries where my life would have been significantly harder had I been born there. I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world for business and pleasure where I’ve discovered that people around the world are much the same as they are here; generally friendly and hoping for a good life. I don’t feel any special fondness for my country just because I was born here. I have as much fondness for France, Canada, Japan, and Mexico as I do to the US. People who watch Fox News would likely call me unpatriotic and call for me to go to another country to live. I guess they are correct on one count, although all my friends and family are here so I have no desire to leave. I’ve been to Washington DC three times; once before kids to see the museums and tour the White House (before our broken politics), once with kids to attend the July 4th parade and concert (where for a few terrifying moments we lost track of our 9-year-old son among the quarter million people...this was before cell phones), and once as a retiree to lobby for action on climate change (democracy in action). I love the city and its monuments and its history. I am heartbroken by our broken politics. If you’ve read this blog on a regular basis, you know my opinions on why it’s broken (social media algorithms, biased news, an increasing level of incivility and hatred, even from our current president). I’m not optimistic about any of this improving in the near future. Many families and friends have been separated by this rift in the past 10 years. My family and friends are a mix of different political beliefs, and we manage to still love each other and avoid the hatred and that gives me hope. The first book on this month's blog also gives me hope.
My wife and I took a nearly 3 week road trip this month. We spent a few days in Taos, then a night in Old Town Albuquerque where we reminisced about our past (we were both raised here). We visited my wife’s childhood home, passed by the pizza place I used to work at in high school* and ate great New Mexican food. From there we headed to the south rim of the Grand Canyon where we stayed in a cabin for two nights. We walked along the rim, watched sunrises and sunsets, and sat in a bar with Europeans and South Americans as Argentina beat England in the semifinals of the World Cup. We then headed to Sedona where we hung out for the day as a light rain fell on this beautiful cathedral of rocks. Then it was south to Phoenix but not before stopping at the Rock Springs Café on the way for pie. My wife and I lived in Phoenix for 40 years and raised our kids here. We still have lots of family and friends that make this their home and we spent most of our five days hanging out with them and eating at our favorite restaurants (Los Dos Molinos and Matt’s Big Breakfast). After our Phoenix visit we headed north to Prescott where we saw some old friends in their beautiful cabin in the mountains and then stopped at the Cameron Trading Post north of Flagstaff for Navajo tacos. We drove through a flooded Navajo Nation with its incredible rock formations with lightning all around us and ended up spending the night in Durango where we ate at a local bar with fun owners. Our last leg took us through Buena Vista where we got sandwiches and walked around the cute downtown area. After a couple of closed highways and flooded roads we finally made it back home. A great trip of memories.
* My daughter recently sent me an article about Paisano’s Pizza in Albuquerque closing after 53 years in business. I worked at Paisano’s my junior and senior years in high school. Joe, the owner, was a quintessential New York Italian who was a tough but fair boss. This must have been the first couple of years the restaurant was in business. It was a take-out only place back then with a big window where we would hand spin pizzas as customers looked on. I used to cook and deliver pizzas. Some of the delivery places were a bit sketchy (strip bars, X-rated theaters, dilapidated neighborhoods) so I learned a bit about life during that time. Joe eventually grew the business, and it was a long standing sit down Italian restaurant for years afterwards. Great memories; I was sorry to see it closed. Do you remember your high school jobs? These are the other jobs I had in middle school and high school: Pulling weeds and running errands at a Spanish newspaper (I would take the bus downtown after school and my dad would drive me home after work), concessions at a drive in theater, pulling weeds at a trailer park, and busboy on the graveyard shift at Village Inn Pancake House (I learned a lot about life here too, as the bars on Central closed at 2am and all the drunks came to the Village Inn to sober up). All those jobs taught me something about life and helped to make me the person I am today.
This month I read a perfect book about peace in the Middle East, a book of essays from one of our great American humorists, a memoir/autobiography from one of India’s greatest authors/activists, and a fascinating novel comprised entirely of letters and emails. My rambling took me to another peak I can see from my backyard, to canyon rims in New Mexico and Arizona, and to a creek and peak in one of the prettiest places in Rocky Mountain National Park. Enjoy!
The saga of the knee: If you've been following this blog you know that I tore my meniscus earlier this year which stopped my hiking for a bit. I ended up getting a steroid shot in mid May which was like a miracle and I was able to continue hiking. Exactly two months later my knee started aching again after a steep hike in Taos. I guess the steroid only lasts 2 months for me. I powered through a couple of flat hikes this month then let it rest (ice, ibuprofen, etc). Then, magically, it started feeling ok. I was able to do a tough, steep hike at the end of the month. I wonder what August will bring...
Things My Grandkids Say: My oldest grandson was digging through a toy box at our house and pulled out a very long toy dinosaur. He held it up to me and said, “Hey Grandpa, this is the only toy you ever bought me!” He’s right, the toy purchasing department belongs to his Nana. I generally provide experiences rather than things; that dinosaur was purchased at the gift shop at Dinosaur National Monument where I took him camping last summer.
Song(s) of the month: Tom Russell – The Man from God Knows Where
In my last blog I featured RosalÃa’s great album, Lux, and that got me to thinking about some of my favorite albums. There are the obvious picks, the ones on Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of 500 greatest albums of all time for instance (Joni Mitchel’s Blue, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks). But there are also albums I’ve listened to that I think are great, but likely not on this list. Tom Russell’s The Man from God Knows Where is one of those albums. I have previously featured him in my June 2023 blog, where I had this to say about him: “Singer-songwriter, painter, novelist, and essayist with 38 records and six books to his credit; I’ve been a Tom Russell fan for years. I first ‘discovered’ him on a song he and Nancy Griffith performed in the mid 80s called St. Olav’s Gate, which I liked so much I learned to play it badly on guitar. My wife and I saw him at the historic Rhythm Room in Phoenix many years ago. He’s a terrific storyteller live. Rolling Stone magazine once said of him ‘The greatest living folk-country songwriter is a man named Tom Russell.’ And the Montreal Gazette once said, ‘Tom Russell is the best songwriter of the generation following Bob Dylan.’ So why have most people never heard of him? I’ll never know the answer to why artists like him never ‘make it big’, but I have a feeling he's perfectly fine with that.”
I didn’t include any songs from this album in that blog post because it’s hard to separate any one song from this brilliant album. In my opinion it’s his masterpiece. It’s an epic telling of Norwegian and Irish immigrants as generations of families sailed to America and established new lives in this new land (his own ancestry is Norwegian and Irish). There are 26 songs on this 1999 album, which took him eight years to create. Several folks collaborated with him on some of the songs, including Ireland’s Dolores Keane, Iris Dement, Dave van Ronk, and there’s even a recording of Walt Whitman reciting one of his poems. The Irish and Norwegian music blend in with the tragic and magic of the immigrant’s stories. Immigrants have always had a difficult time adjusting to life in a new country, never more so than today in our country. Imagine the desperation it takes to pick up everything you own and move to a new place where you may or may not be welcomed, just to make a better life for you and your family. Even though it’s impossible to choose from among the 26 songs, here are some that I enjoy:
The Man from God Knows Where – The title song is actually presented in four different parts, all of them a bit different. It’s an epic song on an epic album and tells the story of all immigrants over thousands of years. Sample lyrics:
Come gather round me children, a story I will tell
I've been around since Jesus met the woman at the well
I've walked these roads ten thousand years, I'm a ragtime millionaire
I am the rake and the ramblin' saint, the man from god knows where
Wayfarin’ Stranger – A perfect song for this album. The exact origins are unknown, but it was likely a Negro Spiritual dating from the American Civil War. The haunting violin and Iris Dement’s voice make this version one of the best I’ve heard.
Patrick Russell – I assume that Patrick was one of his relatives. The song tells his story of how he left Ireland and ended up in Iowa, telling this story in the year 1910. Sample Lyrics:
I was born in Templemore in 1825
Recalled a happy boyhood until my mother died
Starvation crept across the land, America’s our dream
Six cruel weeks on stormy seas aboard the ship Tyrene
Mary Clare Malloy – Dolores Keane lends her great Irish voice to this song about an Irish girl being shipped via steerage to America. She describes the tragic reality of her situation and that of many young immigrant mail order brides in those days. So good. Sample lyrics:
My best friend was deported back to a poor Killea home
Rider on an Orphan Train - One of the saddest songs I’ve heard. Lots of orphans were created as the result of immigration in the 1800s. Families got split up on a fairly regular basis for lots of different reasons. In this song two young brothers, aged 5 and 3 were riding an “orphan train” when they got spit up (I have grandkids that age; I can't even imagine). The narrator spent the rest of his life searching for his brother, to no avail. Sample lyrics:
Once I rode an orphan train
And my brother did the same
They split us up in Missouri
James was five and I was three
He got taken by some pair
But for me they did not care
We were brave and did not cry
When they made us say goodbye
The Future is Peace: A Shared Journey Across the Holy Land, by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon - Any person who wants to know about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should read this book. I've read several books about this conflict from both points of view, including last month's Gate of the Sun. I'm not sure exactly why this topic interests me (I'm neither Jewish nor Palestinian), but I guess it must have something to do with the intractability of the situation. Both sides believe strongly that they have rights to this holy land that contains the roots of three of the worlds' major religions; this land of crusades and wars and religious fervor. It's fascinating and tragic. The authors, one Palestinian (Aziz Abu Sarah) and one Jewish (Maoz Inon) have both suffered personal loss and grief from the other side. Aziz's brother was tortured to death by Israeli soldiers years ago and Inon's parents were murdered by Hamas in the October 7, 2024 attacks. Yet they both refuse to let their grief turn to vengeance. They are both saying, "ENOUGH!" They have seen that 100 years of violence has solved nothing and has led only to more violence. They have lectured together around the world pleading for peace, including this excellent TED Talk in 2024. Pope Francis was so moved by their story and their willingness to forgive that he gave them both hugs after one of their talks.
What is it inside someone that allows them to forgive something so unforgivable? I'm not sure, but whatever it is contains the secret to peace. The idea behind this book is an eight day journey the two undertake through this Holy Land. The journey takes them from the Gaza border to Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Nazareth, the Galilee, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, among others. Each chapter begins with a short description of the area being visited, along with the historical and religious significance of each. Then they take turns telling their stories about these places. And the stories! So beautiful and so tragic. Both men have been in the travel industry and both believe that travel can open people's eyes to other cultures and ideas. They believe that much of the violence today is because both sides fear each other so much and never take the time to get to know each other on a human level.
I've told this story before in this blog, but it bears repeating. My wife and I visited Israel and Jordan in 2011. When we were in Jerusalem we stayed in an Israeli hotel owned by a very nice Jewish family. While in Jerusalem we took both Israeli and Arab cabs. The Jewish owners of our hotel gave us advice on traveling to Jordan saying we should either take the bus or a Jewish taxi. But one of our Arab cab drivers gave us a much better deal than either of those. Our Jewish hotel owners said we were risking our lives by going with an Arab driver, but we could not believe this because we got along so well with the Arab driver who said his son would be at our hotel the next morning to pick us up. I won't lie, the warning from the hotel owner did lead to a discussion between my wife and I. Luckily we both agreed to proceed. The young man picked us up right on time (he was a bit nervous since he was in the Jewish part of Jerusalem and probably could have been questioned). He was friendly as he drove us around the West Bank to the northern border with Jordan. These were all very wonderful people, the Jewish hotel family and the Arab drivers. But they had such fear and hatred for each other that they could never see the good.
Back to the book, I can't recommend it enough. You'll learn a lot and will be moved to tears.
Twin Sisters in Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes Park (July 2nd) - This is the last week of summer daycare for my daughter-in-law (DIL), so we get one more hike together. I had climbed one of the Twin Sisters back in October of 2021, but it was so cold, and the wind was howling so hard that I was not interested in climbing the other one. It turned out that back then I had hiked to the more difficult one and it would have been easy to hike the other one. Oh well, it gave me an excuse to come up here with DIL who hadn't been before. The hike starts across the road from the pretty Lily Lake, about a quarter mile or so up a dirt road. Most of the trail (3 of its 3.5 miles) is through the forest with nice views along the way. The landslide from the big 2013 flood is probably the most interesting aspect along this section. Just past the landslide the trail gets very steep for a bit, likely due to realignment after the flood. It levels out eventually and at the three mile mark you reach the tree line and the views just explode all around you. We heard marmots but never saw any on this hike. When we reached the saddle between the two peaks, we decided to first hike up the one I hadn't been to before. I think it's called the West Twin Sister. This one turned out to be fairly easy as there was a discernible trail to the top. We rested a bit and headed down to hike up the East Twin Sister, which requires a bit more rock scrambling, but it's beautiful up here with stunning views of Longs Peak. It was fairly windy today also, but not nearly as cold as my October 2021 hike. There is a natural windbreak where we sat down for snacks until I heard DIL scream as a very aggressive chipmunk tried to dip its paws into her trail mix. Her scream didn't phase the little guy as he kept insisting that she feed it. She ended up standing up to eat the rest of her snack as the chipmunk from hell continued to stalk her.
We wandered around the saddle a bit and wondered about this other nearby peak. There was no trail to it but it seems doable. We didn't have time today, but after our hike I read about this peak and some folks call it the third "twin" sister or the South Twin Sister. Triplets! Well, yet another excuse to come do this hike again. It's fairly popular in the summer evidently as there were several folks up here today. We had a nice, leisurely walk back to the trailhead after a nice morning in the far eastern reaches of Rocky Mountain National Park.
The Land and Its People: Essays by David Sedaris - I read Sedaris' award winning Me Talk Pretty One Day back in December of 2021. It was on my reading list for a long time and by the time I read it, it was over 20 years old. I loved it. He's a prolific writer and has written several essays, diaries, children's books, and plays. His latest is this book of essays published just this year. I don't even know how many times I chuckled while reading this collection of 28 stories about aging, family, travel, relationships, death and life. He is one of those writers with a knack of pointing out the obvious in entertaining ways. His humor is blunt, sometimes biting, sometimes sweet. He's around my age, so many of the things he talks about are very relatable. Read this if you want to laugh and to nod your head, saying "Yes!" a lot. Here are some lines:
Then, too, I’m just not confrontational. If someone told me he kept a dozen teenage girls locked in his basement as sex slaves, I’d likely ask, “Does it cost a lot to feed them?”
The thing is that she and I knew each other first—before Hugh and Matt. Before Reagan and AIDS. Before computers and Fox News and Run-DMC. My feelings toward her are proprietary
Maybe she was mad that Russia was bombing Ukraine, or, worse still, that everyone was saying, “We stand with Ukraine,” as if that’s doing anyone in Kyiv the slightest bit of good—you standing.
I wasn’t bothered by the pope’s use of faggotry because I’m not queer; I’m gay. The difference is that queer people are offended by just about everything. They have the rest of us walking on potato chips, afraid we’re using the wrong pronoun
It was a shame that I was invited to the Vatican, actually—like sending me to the US Open when I’d never watched a football game in my life.
Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy – I’ve read both of Roy's novels (The God of Small Things and The Ministry of Utmost Happiness) and one of her essays (Things Than Can and Cannot Be Said, with John Cusack). Her two novels were great, but the essay with John Cusack was disappointing. So I didn’t quite know what to expect with this sort of autobiography/memoir. I was quickly relieved of any concern as it read more like one of her great novels. I discovered during this compelling read that many of the characters in her novels were based on real life family and friends. And what a life, and what a family! Her mother, Mary, was 88 years old when she passed. It’s a miracle she lived that long as she dealt with severe asthma in the polluted cities of India for most of her life. She was not a cuddly, loving mother, in fact just the opposite. She was very tough on her two children (Arundhati and her brother LKC) as she made her way as a single mother navigating the cultural taboos of India. Mary’s ex husband was an alcoholic whom she dumped when the kids were 3 and 5. It was the right decision for their family but made life difficult for them for many years as they drifted amongst uncaring relatives, bordering on homelessness. But Mary had a vision. She turned that vision into one of the most highly regarded schools in the country. The story of how she built this school, and the eclectic architect she hired to design it was fascinating. She took on the India Supreme Court in a landmark case that helped women receive a greater share of inheritance than what was customary in her country. She was one tough lady, who ended up raising two tough and eventually successful children. But it came with lots of pain. Some of the things her mother said to her children were cruel, but then she’d defend them with her life in other ways. She was a conundrum and that inspired this incredible book.
Although most of the book was a life through the lens of her mother Mary, it was also an autobiography of Arundhati Roy’s own incredible life, and also a commentary on the history and politics of India. I hadn’t realized that she began her career as an architect. When that didn’t work out, she dabbled in screenwriting for movies and documentaries. She was a bit more successful in this area, but the urge to write a novel kept nagging at her. When she finished writing The God of Small Things (highly recommend), she was still very poor. It ended up winning the Booker Prize and changed her life. She was always involved in activism (Kashmir, equal rights for women, fighting fascism in her country) and has continued that to this day. That activism has brought several threats to her life, but she’s never wavered. She shares the revenue from her writing with many of the writers, journalists, artists, and friends she’s met through the years, believing (knowing) that nobody requires that much money to live and that a bit of money to pay the rent can make a world of difference to someone else. What a life she (and her mother) has led and what a great book this is. Here are some lines:
In these pages, my mother, my gangster, shall live. She was my shelter and my storm.
My mother unloaded the burden of her quarrels and the daily dose of indignity that she had to endure onto my brother and me.
Mrs. Roy made it her mission to disabuse boys of their seemingly God-given sense of entitlement. She turned them into considerate, respectful men, the kind the town had rarely seen. In a way she liberated them, too. She freed them of the burden of being what society thought men ought to be. She raised generations of sweet men and sent them out into the world. What she did for her girl students, the spirit she instilled in them, was nothing short of revolutionary. She gave them spines, she gave them wings, she set them free. She bequeathed her unwavering attention and her stern love on them, and they shone back at her. That revolution, like all revolutions, came at a cost.
I followed as quietly as I could and watched through the keyhole as she beat him until the thick wooden ruler broke. “No son of mine comes home with a report that says ‘average student.’ ” She raged at him without raising her voice above a whisper so as not to wake the other children in our hostel-home. The whispering made the whole thing even more terrifying.
Mrs. Gandhi’s younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, and his small coterie of privileged hoodlums were promoting population control by organizing camps in which thousands of men, most of them Muslim, were forcibly sterilized.
When it came to me, Mrs. Roy taught me how to think, then raged against my thoughts. She taught me to be free and raged against my freedom. She taught me to write and resented the author I became.
My education, the class I came from, and, above all, the fact that I spoke English protected me and gave me options that millions of others did not have. Those were gifts bestowed on me by Mrs. Roy. At no point, no matter how untenable my circumstance, did I ever forget that.
To get to work I’d hire a bicycle for one rupee an hour. It oughtn’t to have been an ordeal. Millions of working men in the city cycled long distances. For a woman though, it was different. It involved being chased down, hooted at, ogled. My only other option was to submit to being molested twice a day in a crowded city bus…There were days when I would get off a bus mid-journey and walk, hating myself for the tears of shame and rage I could not control. Millions of women put up with this every day.
The minute (Indira Gandhi) was declared dead (assassinated), carnage was unleashed. Organized gangs of Congress Party goons and right-wing Hindu nationalists slaughtered thousands of Sikhs in Delhi—tailors, shopkeepers, taxi drivers— “necklacing” them with burning tires South Africa–style or beating them to death while the police stood by and watched.
She had brought me my old typewriter, the one I had learned to type on. That further broke my already broken heart. This was the power she had always had over me. She could break my heart and mend it, too. With a snap of her fingers. I wanted to kiss her and tell her how much I loved her. But I didn’t. I just said, “Thank you.” I meant Thank you for knowing that your daughter has a writer’s heart.
Muslims were being beaten, raped, and burned to death. The police were refusing to intervene. All the killing was happening under the cold, unblinking gaze of Gujarat’s new chief minister, whom the BJP had paradropped into office three weeks after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. His name was Narendra Modi.
Even up to my very last day with her I never managed to get used to or anticipate the sudden shifts, the sunlight and shadow, the precipitous climate changes in her moods. But I had learned to stand just outside the range of their clawing, lashing fury. Or so I thought. I often miscalculated. In truth I am constructed from its debris
Grand Canyon West Rim Trail (July 15th) - My wife and I took a road trip from Taos to Phoenix and stopped off at the Grand Canyon for a couple of nights. We stayed in one of the rustic cabins at the Bright Angel Lodge which is always a great experience. We were steps away from the rim of the canyon. I got to experience a couple of Grand Canyon sunrises and sunsets which are always dramatic and we even got to watch the Argentina vs England World Cup match at the Bright Angel Lodge bar with a bunch of people from Europe and South America, which was fun. My knee was still bothering me so a walk down into the canyon was not happening, but the West Rim trail is another underrated trail that my wife and I decided to hike. It's normally a 7.7 mile walk from the Bright Angel Lodge along the West Rim trail to Hermits Rest. We combined about 5.7 miles of walking the trail with a couple of miles of tram rides on this warm summer day with thunder clouds threatening but no rain falling. Most people take the tram and then get off at the various stops to see different views of the canyon and then get right back on the tram again. We walked most of this gorgeous rim trail which we had mainly to ourselves except for a few European tourists who are more used to walking than most Americans. There were several spots along the trail where you could spot the Colorado River far below. It brought back memories of the many river trips we've taken in the canyon when our daughter was a river guide. It was a nice leisurely walk, with several detours out to viewpoints with the canyon changing colors as the clouds danced in the sky. I can't think of a better way to spend a day. At Hermits Rest I got a strawberry popsicle and my wife got an ice cold soda which both tasted great after a warm day along the rim of this magnificent canyon.
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans - Talk about persistence; Virginia Evans, who turned 40 this year, has written seven novels, none of which found a publisher. She was preparing herself for a different career when she finally struck gold on this one which has won a PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the 2026 Women's Prize for Fiction. I wonder if she'll get a publisher for any of her previously unpublished novels now... There are so many creative ways to tell a story and this is one of them. An interesting woman's life is unfolded solely from a series of emails and letters to and from her. The woman, Sybil van Antwerp, is 73 when the story begins in 2012. The story ends in 2021. Sybil is a prolific letter writer. She mentions several times that letters allow her to reveal her thoughts in a more orderly and precise way than a phone conversation. Her letter writing started when she was a child who had recently learned the identity of her birth mother, who, she learned, wrote many letters herself. She is an avid reader also and mentions several great books and authors in her letters. She even writes to many of the authors she admires including Joan Didion, Larry McMurtry, Ann Patchett, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Diana Gabaldon among others. She receives replies from some of them and seems to have developed a friendship with Joan Didion as both of them have experienced unimaginable grief in their respective lives. Through all this correspondence we learn about the many people in her life including her brother Felix who lives in Paris, her son Bruce and his family, and her daughter Fiona who lives in London. She receives some threatening letters from a person who is angry about one of her past judgements as a law clerk to a famous judge. Others on her list include her sister-in-law Rosalie who married the brother of Sybil's ex husband Daan. There is her German neighbor Theodore who is a kindly old man whose family barely escaped Nazi Germany, but with a Sophie's Choice type of moment that impacted his life forever. There is Mitch the Texan who courts Sybil and wants to marry her. There is Basam from Syria who initially works for a DNA ancestry company; Sybil develops an email relationship with him as she decides whether to submit her DNA and then whether to allow others to contact her in case of a match. Basam's life was fascinating also as he was a civil engineer who escaped the Syrian civil war but has to settle for gig jobs in America. And of course there ends up being a match in the DNA, a sister in Scotland which turns out to be another great story. She also befriends a teenaged son of a previous work acquaintance who struggles with social anxiety and finding his place in a world of bullies.
Things My Grandkids Say: My oldest grandson was digging through a toy box at our house and pulled out a very long toy dinosaur. He held it up to me and said, “Hey Grandpa, this is the only toy you ever bought me!” He’s right, the toy purchasing department belongs to his Nana. I generally provide experiences rather than things; that dinosaur was purchased at the gift shop at Dinosaur National Monument where I took him camping last summer.
In my last blog I featured RosalÃa’s great album, Lux, and that got me to thinking about some of my favorite albums. There are the obvious picks, the ones on Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of 500 greatest albums of all time for instance (Joni Mitchel’s Blue, Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life, The Beatles’ Abbey Road and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks). But there are also albums I’ve listened to that I think are great, but likely not on this list. Tom Russell’s The Man from God Knows Where is one of those albums. I have previously featured him in my June 2023 blog, where I had this to say about him: “Singer-songwriter, painter, novelist, and essayist with 38 records and six books to his credit; I’ve been a Tom Russell fan for years. I first ‘discovered’ him on a song he and Nancy Griffith performed in the mid 80s called St. Olav’s Gate, which I liked so much I learned to play it badly on guitar. My wife and I saw him at the historic Rhythm Room in Phoenix many years ago. He’s a terrific storyteller live. Rolling Stone magazine once said of him ‘The greatest living folk-country songwriter is a man named Tom Russell.’ And the Montreal Gazette once said, ‘Tom Russell is the best songwriter of the generation following Bob Dylan.’ So why have most people never heard of him? I’ll never know the answer to why artists like him never ‘make it big’, but I have a feeling he's perfectly fine with that.”
I didn’t include any songs from this album in that blog post because it’s hard to separate any one song from this brilliant album. In my opinion it’s his masterpiece. It’s an epic telling of Norwegian and Irish immigrants as generations of families sailed to America and established new lives in this new land (his own ancestry is Norwegian and Irish). There are 26 songs on this 1999 album, which took him eight years to create. Several folks collaborated with him on some of the songs, including Ireland’s Dolores Keane, Iris Dement, Dave van Ronk, and there’s even a recording of Walt Whitman reciting one of his poems. The Irish and Norwegian music blend in with the tragic and magic of the immigrant’s stories. Immigrants have always had a difficult time adjusting to life in a new country, never more so than today in our country. Imagine the desperation it takes to pick up everything you own and move to a new place where you may or may not be welcomed, just to make a better life for you and your family. Even though it’s impossible to choose from among the 26 songs, here are some that I enjoy:
The Man from God Knows Where – The title song is actually presented in four different parts, all of them a bit different. It’s an epic song on an epic album and tells the story of all immigrants over thousands of years. Sample lyrics:
Come gather round me children, a story I will tell
I've been around since Jesus met the woman at the well
I've walked these roads ten thousand years, I'm a ragtime millionaire
I am the rake and the ramblin' saint, the man from god knows where
Wayfarin’ Stranger – A perfect song for this album. The exact origins are unknown, but it was likely a Negro Spiritual dating from the American Civil War. The haunting violin and Iris Dement’s voice make this version one of the best I’ve heard.
Patrick Russell – I assume that Patrick was one of his relatives. The song tells his story of how he left Ireland and ended up in Iowa, telling this story in the year 1910. Sample Lyrics:
I was born in Templemore in 1825
Recalled a happy boyhood until my mother died
Starvation crept across the land, America’s our dream
Six cruel weeks on stormy seas aboard the ship Tyrene
Mary Clare Malloy – Dolores Keane lends her great Irish voice to this song about an Irish girl being shipped via steerage to America. She describes the tragic reality of her situation and that of many young immigrant mail order brides in those days. So good. Sample lyrics:
My best friend was deported back to a poor Killea home
Another sent to Swinburne Isle, died of cholera, alone
The rest of us were shipped to trains, bound for Midwest states
To wild and stormy prairie lands and our prospective mates
To wild and stormy prairie lands and our prospective mates
Rider on an Orphan Train - One of the saddest songs I’ve heard. Lots of orphans were created as the result of immigration in the 1800s. Families got split up on a fairly regular basis for lots of different reasons. In this song two young brothers, aged 5 and 3 were riding an “orphan train” when they got spit up (I have grandkids that age; I can't even imagine). The narrator spent the rest of his life searching for his brother, to no avail. Sample lyrics:
Once I rode an orphan train
And my brother did the same
They split us up in Missouri
James was five and I was three
He got taken by some pair
But for me they did not care
We were brave and did not cry
When they made us say goodbye
What is it inside someone that allows them to forgive something so unforgivable? I'm not sure, but whatever it is contains the secret to peace. The idea behind this book is an eight day journey the two undertake through this Holy Land. The journey takes them from the Gaza border to Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Nazareth, the Galilee, Jerusalem, and the West Bank, among others. Each chapter begins with a short description of the area being visited, along with the historical and religious significance of each. Then they take turns telling their stories about these places. And the stories! So beautiful and so tragic. Both men have been in the travel industry and both believe that travel can open people's eyes to other cultures and ideas. They believe that much of the violence today is because both sides fear each other so much and never take the time to get to know each other on a human level.
I've told this story before in this blog, but it bears repeating. My wife and I visited Israel and Jordan in 2011. When we were in Jerusalem we stayed in an Israeli hotel owned by a very nice Jewish family. While in Jerusalem we took both Israeli and Arab cabs. The Jewish owners of our hotel gave us advice on traveling to Jordan saying we should either take the bus or a Jewish taxi. But one of our Arab cab drivers gave us a much better deal than either of those. Our Jewish hotel owners said we were risking our lives by going with an Arab driver, but we could not believe this because we got along so well with the Arab driver who said his son would be at our hotel the next morning to pick us up. I won't lie, the warning from the hotel owner did lead to a discussion between my wife and I. Luckily we both agreed to proceed. The young man picked us up right on time (he was a bit nervous since he was in the Jewish part of Jerusalem and probably could have been questioned). He was friendly as he drove us around the West Bank to the northern border with Jordan. These were all very wonderful people, the Jewish hotel family and the Arab drivers. But they had such fear and hatred for each other that they could never see the good.
Back to the book, I can't recommend it enough. You'll learn a lot and will be moved to tears.
We wandered around the saddle a bit and wondered about this other nearby peak. There was no trail to it but it seems doable. We didn't have time today, but after our hike I read about this peak and some folks call it the third "twin" sister or the South Twin Sister. Triplets! Well, yet another excuse to come do this hike again. It's fairly popular in the summer evidently as there were several folks up here today. We had a nice, leisurely walk back to the trailhead after a nice morning in the far eastern reaches of Rocky Mountain National Park.
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| This is what the first 3 miles looked like, with occasional views opening up... |
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| ...like this one |
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| Trail art |
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| Twin Sisters above |
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| A hazy smoky view of Longs Peak from Twin Sisters |
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| Notched view |
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| DIL finding a way up the scramble of rocks |
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| DIL scrambling |
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| That hill on the right looks like the third sister...they are actually triplets I think |
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| Saddle between the two peaks |
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| Lunch spot, home to Colorado's most aggressive chipmunk |
Then, too, I’m just not confrontational. If someone told me he kept a dozen teenage girls locked in his basement as sex slaves, I’d likely ask, “Does it cost a lot to feed them?”
The thing is that she and I knew each other first—before Hugh and Matt. Before Reagan and AIDS. Before computers and Fox News and Run-DMC. My feelings toward her are proprietary
Maybe she was mad that Russia was bombing Ukraine, or, worse still, that everyone was saying, “We stand with Ukraine,” as if that’s doing anyone in Kyiv the slightest bit of good—you standing.
I wasn’t bothered by the pope’s use of faggotry because I’m not queer; I’m gay. The difference is that queer people are offended by just about everything. They have the rest of us walking on potato chips, afraid we’re using the wrong pronoun
It was a shame that I was invited to the Vatican, actually—like sending me to the US Open when I’d never watched a football game in my life.
When I was a child, a slap across the face was too minor to qualify as “casual violence.” It was simply what you got for talking back or holding everyone up. It never hurt all that much; what stung was the swiftness of it, the surprise. Who knew my mother could move so fast, like someone belted in the martial arts? I don’t feel like it traumatized me to be knocked around a little.
Could my parents have made their point without resorting to violence? Probably, but it would have taken more time, and with six kids to dress and get out the door, that was a precious commodity.
David Foster Wallace... was a genius. I’ve met only a few of them in my life, and though you can argue the merits of their work, their brilliance is just a fact. You feel it the way you feel the heat when opening the door to a red hot oven.
Dorothea Dix, the state psychiatric hospital. I remember following orderlies through locked wards where adults, curled up like babies, lived in stacked metal cribs, never visited by their families. Completely forgotten. At Dix I was regularly threatened by patients. I was cornered and shouted at, accused of everything you could imagine. It was excellent training for my later life in New York City.
The last time I’d seen Gretchen, she was chugging water from a vodka bottle that still had the label on it. We were at the airport and people were staring at her.
Rio Grande Gorge West Rim near Taos, NM (July 10th) - In another game of "connect the trails" I decided to hike from the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge to the point I had hiked to back in February of 2025. That trip was a memorable one as I had lost my car keys somewhere along the 9.3 miles of walking (my daughter picked me up afterwards and I used her mountain bike the next day to search for my car keys, which I miraculously found). It required 11 miles of walking today to reach the point I hiked to in February of 2025, so I have now hiked (and partially biked) the entire 13.5 miles of the West Rim trail from the Gorge Bridge to Petaca Point. This trail is such an underrated gem. I rarely see anyone out here even though the views of the river-carved canyon are spectacular.
On this day I decided to wake up early so I could see the sun rise during my hike. I got started at around 5:30am and the sun rose above the eastern mountains at around 6am. An early highlight was spotting a very large bighorn sheep at sunrise on the rim around 10 yards from me. He looked up from his grazing to make sure I wasn't a threat and then continued munching. It was beautiful, with the canyon below me and the sun rising to the east. My knee was bothering me again which is one reason I opted for this relatively flat trail instead of heading for the higher mountains. It was a good call as my knee was toast at the end of the 11 miles. But I love it out here as I saw only one mountain biker and no hikers beyond the first few yards from the bridge parking area. There are some sheep trails that take you away from the main trail and closer to the rim. I took some of these today which probably added some mileage, but it's so much nicer hiking along the rim than on that old dirt road. The walk back was a bit of a struggle as my knee was aching, but it was a good day. Watching the sun rise while out in nature is a great way to start any day.
Could my parents have made their point without resorting to violence? Probably, but it would have taken more time, and with six kids to dress and get out the door, that was a precious commodity.
David Foster Wallace... was a genius. I’ve met only a few of them in my life, and though you can argue the merits of their work, their brilliance is just a fact. You feel it the way you feel the heat when opening the door to a red hot oven.
Dorothea Dix, the state psychiatric hospital. I remember following orderlies through locked wards where adults, curled up like babies, lived in stacked metal cribs, never visited by their families. Completely forgotten. At Dix I was regularly threatened by patients. I was cornered and shouted at, accused of everything you could imagine. It was excellent training for my later life in New York City.
The last time I’d seen Gretchen, she was chugging water from a vodka bottle that still had the label on it. We were at the airport and people were staring at her.
On this day I decided to wake up early so I could see the sun rise during my hike. I got started at around 5:30am and the sun rose above the eastern mountains at around 6am. An early highlight was spotting a very large bighorn sheep at sunrise on the rim around 10 yards from me. He looked up from his grazing to make sure I wasn't a threat and then continued munching. It was beautiful, with the canyon below me and the sun rising to the east. My knee was bothering me again which is one reason I opted for this relatively flat trail instead of heading for the higher mountains. It was a good call as my knee was toast at the end of the 11 miles. But I love it out here as I saw only one mountain biker and no hikers beyond the first few yards from the bridge parking area. There are some sheep trails that take you away from the main trail and closer to the rim. I took some of these today which probably added some mileage, but it's so much nicer hiking along the rim than on that old dirt road. The walk back was a bit of a struggle as my knee was aching, but it was a good day. Watching the sun rise while out in nature is a great way to start any day.
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| Sun starting to light up the sky above the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge |
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| Portrait mode |
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| Big bighorn at sunrise |
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| Bighorn |
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| Getting further south...don't get too close! |
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| Sun lighting up the sagebrush... |
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| ..and the canyon walls |
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| My brunch spot |
Although most of the book was a life through the lens of her mother Mary, it was also an autobiography of Arundhati Roy’s own incredible life, and also a commentary on the history and politics of India. I hadn’t realized that she began her career as an architect. When that didn’t work out, she dabbled in screenwriting for movies and documentaries. She was a bit more successful in this area, but the urge to write a novel kept nagging at her. When she finished writing The God of Small Things (highly recommend), she was still very poor. It ended up winning the Booker Prize and changed her life. She was always involved in activism (Kashmir, equal rights for women, fighting fascism in her country) and has continued that to this day. That activism has brought several threats to her life, but she’s never wavered. She shares the revenue from her writing with many of the writers, journalists, artists, and friends she’s met through the years, believing (knowing) that nobody requires that much money to live and that a bit of money to pay the rent can make a world of difference to someone else. What a life she (and her mother) has led and what a great book this is. Here are some lines:
In these pages, my mother, my gangster, shall live. She was my shelter and my storm.
My mother unloaded the burden of her quarrels and the daily dose of indignity that she had to endure onto my brother and me.
Mrs. Roy made it her mission to disabuse boys of their seemingly God-given sense of entitlement. She turned them into considerate, respectful men, the kind the town had rarely seen. In a way she liberated them, too. She freed them of the burden of being what society thought men ought to be. She raised generations of sweet men and sent them out into the world. What she did for her girl students, the spirit she instilled in them, was nothing short of revolutionary. She gave them spines, she gave them wings, she set them free. She bequeathed her unwavering attention and her stern love on them, and they shone back at her. That revolution, like all revolutions, came at a cost.
I followed as quietly as I could and watched through the keyhole as she beat him until the thick wooden ruler broke. “No son of mine comes home with a report that says ‘average student.’ ” She raged at him without raising her voice above a whisper so as not to wake the other children in our hostel-home. The whispering made the whole thing even more terrifying.
Mrs. Gandhi’s younger son, Sanjay Gandhi, and his small coterie of privileged hoodlums were promoting population control by organizing camps in which thousands of men, most of them Muslim, were forcibly sterilized.
When it came to me, Mrs. Roy taught me how to think, then raged against my thoughts. She taught me to be free and raged against my freedom. She taught me to write and resented the author I became.
My education, the class I came from, and, above all, the fact that I spoke English protected me and gave me options that millions of others did not have. Those were gifts bestowed on me by Mrs. Roy. At no point, no matter how untenable my circumstance, did I ever forget that.
To get to work I’d hire a bicycle for one rupee an hour. It oughtn’t to have been an ordeal. Millions of working men in the city cycled long distances. For a woman though, it was different. It involved being chased down, hooted at, ogled. My only other option was to submit to being molested twice a day in a crowded city bus…There were days when I would get off a bus mid-journey and walk, hating myself for the tears of shame and rage I could not control. Millions of women put up with this every day.
The minute (Indira Gandhi) was declared dead (assassinated), carnage was unleashed. Organized gangs of Congress Party goons and right-wing Hindu nationalists slaughtered thousands of Sikhs in Delhi—tailors, shopkeepers, taxi drivers— “necklacing” them with burning tires South Africa–style or beating them to death while the police stood by and watched.
She had brought me my old typewriter, the one I had learned to type on. That further broke my already broken heart. This was the power she had always had over me. She could break my heart and mend it, too. With a snap of her fingers. I wanted to kiss her and tell her how much I loved her. But I didn’t. I just said, “Thank you.” I meant Thank you for knowing that your daughter has a writer’s heart.
Muslims were being beaten, raped, and burned to death. The police were refusing to intervene. All the killing was happening under the cold, unblinking gaze of Gujarat’s new chief minister, whom the BJP had paradropped into office three weeks after the 9/11 attacks in the United States. His name was Narendra Modi.
Even up to my very last day with her I never managed to get used to or anticipate the sudden shifts, the sunlight and shadow, the precipitous climate changes in her moods. But I had learned to stand just outside the range of their clawing, lashing fury. Or so I thought. I often miscalculated. In truth I am constructed from its debris
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| Sunrise |
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| Bright Angel trail zigzagging down the canyon |
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| First glimpse of the river that carved all this |
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| Back, back, back.... |
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| So many colors |
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| Ravens and the maven |
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| Storm on the north rim |
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| Just wow |
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| I never get tired of it |
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| So many crevices |
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| Storm's a comin' |
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| Hermit's Rest at the end of the trail |
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| Sunset |
There are couple of underlying issues, one physical and one emotional that hover over Sybil as she ages. The physical issue is the slow onset of blindness and the emotional one is her undealt grief from the death of her young son at the age of nine. One of the unaddressed letters that continues throughout the novel regards this grief (and guilt). There are so many themes embedded in this series of letters and emails including the aging process, mother-daughter relationships, work-family life balance, grief, friendship, paying for one's past sins, and redemption. I loved every minute of this fascinating story. Here are some lines:
And as a matter of fact, as long as we’re on the matter, you know I really don’t even think Harry needs a
psychotherapist. Leave it to your generation to take someone who is absolutely brilliant and turn it into a
problem.
At the last minute, three days ago, I didn’t go to the airport. I simply didn’t go. If I regret the decision, then so
be it. My life is in winter anyway; only a little while left to nurse regrets.
Fine that he’s not your husband anymore, but he was my father, Bruce’s father, Gilbert’s father. You should
have been there. You know, a lot of times if I’m angry and I take a little time, my feelings will cool off, but the
longer I sat with your not coming the angrier I got. Lina told me he wrote you a letter and waited for a reply,
but you didn’t write back. You, who sit holed up at home and writing letters to god knows who every day, and
knowing full well he was dying. I don’t understand you. I have never understood you.
My brother stood beside
my father and the girl who looked like a boy. My brother was very quiet and still, but my father stumbled
after the car as we drove away. Mother stared out the window the whole way. We drove for hours. We
changed cars again. We did not speak. We went into Switzerland. My father and my brother went to Dachau
and died there.
If you do find anything, Harry, please refrain from sending me an e-mail with long strings of characters in blue
I’m meant to click. The last time you did that I became so lost in the internet I had to press the button on the computer itself to turn it off and then start over when I turned it back on.
Your brother’s death shattered me and I’ve never been put back to right. It seems Dad was able to continue in
love, where I was unable. Grief (the biggest grief in the world) is like—What? What is it that happens to a
person? I’ve always felt it is like a scream living inside me. It’s gotten a bit softer over time, but it’s never gone.
My second son, gone like that. You can imagine the aftermath: grief and guilt on repeat for forty years.
I parked along the road and headed to the trailhead where I decided to test my knee first by heading down 700 feet in under a mile to Chapin Creek. I've always admired this pretty meadow from high above it on the hikes to the peaks. Now I got to hike in the meadow itself. People see moose and elk down here but I wasn't that lucky today. Lots of moose poop, but no moose. I enjoyed a snack while taking in the meadow's beauty. There is a hiking route (no trail) from here to the Poudre River in the park that I'd like to explore someday. My knee felt great, so I headed back up the hill and took the trail to Mount Chapin which is 2.8 miles and 2,000 feet from Chapin Creek, so Taos steep. The views of all the mountain ranges and the meadows in this area are beautiful and I stopped many times to take in these views, and some oxygen. The last push to the top climbs 400 feet in around a quarter mile, so I plodded my way up as the clouds were converging. They didn't look too menacing which is why I continued. I never proceed to a peak if I think a thunderstorm is imminent. It was windy up here, with a nice rock shelter for protection. The views are immense. Maybe not quite the same as Mount Chiquita or Ypsilon Mountain, but stunning nonetheless. I headed back down the steep hill and rested in the meadow, took some ibuprofen and put on a knee brace since I started feeling it a bit. Those both helped a lot. On my way down I spotted a huge elk with a tremendous set of antlers. He was grazing on grass very serenely as I snapped photos of him with the great backdrop.
I got back to my car and drove the last couple of miles of Old Fall River Road which are the best part. Stopped a lot for the views. Marmots everywhere. Passed by the Alpine Visitors Center and then headed down the gorgeous Trail Ridge Road where the highlight was spotting a herd of 50 elk grazing on a grass shelf above Forest Canyon. It was like a scene from Planet Earth.
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| The pretty meadow I've always wanted to walk in |
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| Snack break in them meadow |
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| Time to head up to those peaks |
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| So many pretty meadows up here |
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| Looking west |
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| Mount Chiquita not looking so small |
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| View east from Mount Chapin |
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| Gorgeous walk through this meadow at the foot of the peaks |
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| One day I'll walk from Chapin Creek to Poudre River in those meadows |
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| Bull elk with mountain background |
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| Nice rack |
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| The views along the top part of Old Fall River Road |
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| Arrowhead Lake below Mt. Ida from Trail Ridge Road |
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| Herd of elk above Forest Canyon |