Death by Paper?

A couple of friends and family members (well, actually only 2 people total…you know who you are!) have asked me why I am not continuing to write even though I’m no longer living in Boston.  Several question/answers occur to me in response to this question…Lack of inspiration?  Less free time?  Winter doldrums?  As valid as I can convince myself that these arguments are, they really are no excuse for me not to continue writing since it is something I love to do no matter where I am or how I’m feeling.  So, now that I have overcome the holiday writer’s block that ensued after my big move back from Boston to the South and in consideration of the fact that maybe the worst part of winter is behind us (we got a couple of 70 degree days down here a couple weekends ago, but it did snow 1” again last night!), I will commence to entertaining and boring you all simultaneously with my lengthy prose that may or may not be inspired by real people, places and events…

The topic of this blog occurred to me last week while I was going through a giant stack of mail I have been hording for months now.  Obviously, none of this mail was time sensitive since some of it had actually managed to move with me to Boston, live there peacefully in a brown-paper grocery sack in the closet and then survive the move back to Georgia.  The very same day, I received a phone call from my mom asking me for help in locating some papers that she and I had worked on and filed sometime back in October.  My own frustration with sifting through my terribly boring personal stash of financial information and dated mail along with my mother’s frantic desperation to locate some “important” document left me asking myself the question: will all of this endless supply of ‘unthrowawayable’ paper be the death of us all? 

Other than around April 15^th of every year, most of this hoarded information is completely irrelevant to our lives, especially since most financial records from at least the last 3 years are available online through our banks and credit institutions.  Why then have I been infected with this traditional wisdom of keeping track of every transaction, every exchange & every memorandum sent my way for at least 5 years?  I know I have friends, who less tedious with their personal records, completely ignore this advice & some who do not even bother to file taxes (we all know this will catch up to them eventually, it’s just a matter of how much bureaucratic time it will take…) But still, I believe for most responsible adults, this ever present need to keep paper files of everything is just a part of our daily lives and a nuisance that we have resigned ourselves to put up with.

I envision and have nightmares of the day, when, like my grandparents’ homes, my house will contain 2-3 filing cabinets in the office, a couple in the garage and if I’m lucky maybe 1-2 out in a woodshed or barn as well…all filled to the brim with obsolete papers that my ancestors will have to sort through and shred, burn or just throw away.  Is the IRS to blame for this laughable state of affairs in every homestead in every town throughout this country?  Is our inconceivably complicated tax-code with its loopholes, limits & liabilities the cause of me having to rent a separate U-Haul to lug all of this around with me every time I move?  Ok, I exaggerate a little, but really, how much time do we spend worrying about where we put this or that piece of mail, having to go through these or those papers, and keeping records of every little transaction we process in order to “write it off.”

As I try to get organized in my new home & get ready for another inevitable move later in the year, I’m in the process of trying to minimize the amount of junk that I carry with me everywhere I go.  I believe there is a direct correlation in my life between material organization and personal contentment and freedom.  The less I have to worry about materially, the more open I am to enjoy the people and places around me.  In the timeless Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the simplicity of life & asks us to consider how the birds live, carefree and unencumbered by daily worries (verses 19-34).  If this mess of papers, financials, documents & files does not fall under the category of the things we worry about in life for most of us, I would be surprised.  I believe that I ‘all my worries will not add a single moment to my life,’ but I’m not so sure they won’t take away years from it as well!  I do hope that when I go, the determined cause of death will not be…PAPER!              

“Making a list, checking it twice…”

Over the last few weeks, my friends and family have heard a lot about the things I have been trying to “check off my list” as my time here in Boston draws to a close.  What I had initially thought would be at least an entire year of living in New England is being cut short due to a job offer back at UGA beginning in January.  This is a great opportunity for some temporary job security as I prepare to begin a Ph.D. program somewhere next fall, but it also forces me to cram everything I wanted to do and see here into a sliver of the time I needed to do it all!  This has forced me, of course, to eliminate a few items from the list such as: Skiing in Vermont (it’s all fake snow so far), spending a few days at Martha’s Vineyard (much too cold for that!) and visiting Québec City (again, too cold to go even farther north…)  Even still, over the last couple of weeks, I have been able to do several of the things I had been planning to do, even if a couple of them were just to say I had done them. 

One of the “just to say I had done it” places on my list was somewhere I was halfway dreading to go, since I knew it was a major tourist trap & is generally overrun by all manner of camera-toting, goofy-ball-hat-wearing, fanny-pack sporting, wearing-jeans-with-tennis-shoes type visitors to Beantown…everybody knows the place I mean, the place “where everybody knows your name:” Cheers!  This basement sports lounge was the inspiration for the show where Frasier and his mullet had their start and it sits on the Beacon Hill side of Boston Common.  I had walked by many times when I was in the neighborhood, but had never been in until last week.  I picked a quiet, cold, mid-week afternoon to venture in and was pleasantly surprised to find the place fairly empty.  It doesn’t look exactly like the set of the show, but is very cozy & the fish ‘n chips didn’t give me more than 3 hours of heartburn, so I was pretty satisfied with my ‘cheers experience’ overall.  They do have a gift shop and the replicated TV set upstairs where the most ardent fans can relive the show’s glory days if they so desire…having only watched a few reruns on Nick-at-Nite over the years, I didn’t partake in the nostalgia, but did enjoy my time there. 

Another place to visit on my list was the MFA (Massachusetts Fine Arts Museum).  Most museums in the U.S. generally have at least one day where they let you in at a discounted rate or for free and the MFA is no exception, so I took the ‘Wednesday after 4 o’clock free-admission’ as my chance to take a look at what they had to offer.  If you clicked on the link above to the museum, you will see that what they have to offer is plenty!  This place is 4 floors of jam-packed art, including pieces from the ancient world (Greece, Italy & Egypt) as well as a lot of great renaissance pieces and a handful of late 18^th and 19^th Century French Realists & Early Impressionists (my favorite period).  

A special exhibition of Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), who painted a lot of rural, daily-life landscapes was probably the highlight for me, as the exhibit showed all of the sketches and unfinished paintings as well as a few masterpieces.  This really shows the process of painting (sometimes not too glamorous) as the artist lives it, not just the final finished product we always see and esteem.  It makes you realize these guys are human & rarely ever got it right on the first try either. 

Also, their Art of the Americas wing had just recently opened and I would venture to say (unofficially) that it contains the most colonial period art of any American museum.  I say this because many of the paintings are on loan from prominent New England families & as such have never been seen before in public!  Most of this art was painted in the realist fashion and also possesses a certain religious quality in the veneration that was given to the military heroes of the revolution and the subsequent founders and political geniuses of our nation’s beginnings.  This section was extremely interesting to me historically, but seemingly artistically inferior to the European pieces I love from the following century.  This opinion comes from a personal aversion to exaggerated colors and the overly melodramatic style of the aristocracy of the 1700s in general.

Finally, the one last thing that I knew I had to do before leaving this area was to take a trip up into Maine.  This was the last state of the New England area to which I had never been & I knew I would regret it if I didn’t take the opportunity to go while I’m living so close.  Portland, Maine is only about 2 hours away from Boston by car, so I decided to make a day trip yesterday…one of my main goals being to eat fresh Maine lobster!  I achieved that goal in the form of ½ lb. of lobster on a roll from a hole-in-the-wall place I saw as I was driving through Kennebunk on my way up the coast.  I can say without hesitation that the lobster was by far the best I’ve ever tasted & was definitely the most delicious meal I’ve had since I have been up here.  I can’t imagine living on the coast of Maine and having access to fresh lobster every day for $4.99/lb.!  I don’t think I would ever get up from the table! 

Since I was in no hurry and my aim was to see as much of Maine as I could in one day, I had decided to go the scenic route, which took me first through New Hampshire to the beautiful, hilly town of Portsmouth, then on into Maine from there.  The first town I came to in Maine was called Kittery…it lived up to all my expectations of what a quaint city in our northernmost state of New England should be; I was primed and ready to see more.  I continued up Highway 1, which takes you in and out of small towns and by dozens of Antique shops (I’m sure it would take an antique lover a whole day to go just 20 miles along this route!)  I hadn’t really looked at the map before I left, so I was surprised to come up on Kennebunk & Kennebunkport, which someone (you know who you are!) had just told me that very morning was a beautiful spot where they had vacationed…and no I wasn’t talking to any of the Bush family…ha! 

So, that’s where I had lunch and then continued on to Portland.  It was getting colder by this time & even at 2:30 I knew it would be getting dark soon, so I didn’t spend very long in Portland, but did enjoy walking around the cobblestone streets and remembered to snap a couple of pictures (see below) on my phone…I’ve got to stop forgetting that camera!  This was a town where you could easily spend a few days and I was there just long enough to realize I have to go back. 



The old Jeep looks so at home...



One of many cobble-stone alleys



  

Next, I drove about 20 miles further north to drop in at the L.L. Bean flagship store in Freeport, Maine.  It’s more like an L.L. Bean village, with various gigantic chalets hosting their differing product lines.  Really something to see, but the prices were along the same lines as the catalog, so I didn’t feel pressure to buy up all the gear I might have had it all been on sale.  I did browse around the surrounding outlet stores such as North Face and Timberland & satisfied my sweet tooth at the local chocolate confectioner’s.  I headed back to Boston on the Interstate route since it was now pitch dark at 4:30, but with my chocolate and some coffee in hand, the ride back didn’t seem so bad. 

What I saw of Maine was amazing & I can’t imagine anyone who had grown up there ever wanting to leave.  I have a friend from Tennessee who thinks that we could substitute Florida for Maine without missing a beat because Maine would fit so much better in the South…I’m definitely inclined to agree.  Driving down the road flipping through the radio stations, I felt like I was back at home with every other station being country music.  Hearing Alan Jackson, Luke Bryan & the Zac Brown Band (all 3 from Georgia!) was not something I expected anywhere in New England, but it gave me a little taste of home & made me think about the fact that really we’re probably not as different as we make ourselves out to be, Yankees or Southerners…just regular folks trying to enjoy life, spend time with family and friends & check things off of our list.                 

“22,700 in 0.76 seconds…”

22,700 is the number of results that popped up in 0.76 seconds when I typed in “it gets dark too early” into Google just now.  It seems like I’m not the only one experiencing a negative emotion in regard to the cruel games that Daylight Savings Time plays with our biological clocks twice a year.  I know that in the dead of winter, no matter whether we use DST or not, the days are always going to be shorter.  In fact, statistics show that there is a correlation between less daylight (read: Vitamin D), along with colder weather I’m assuming, and a more stagnant lifestyle in the winter, leading to weight gain & depression in many people. 

Frankly, I’m not surprised by this at all as I’m sure none of you are either.  In the last week and a half, I can already tell you that when 5 o’clock PM rolls around (my normal time for going to the gym), I’m extremely hesitant to trek back out into the total darkness that has already set in (it starts to get dark about 3:45-4:00 here already!).  This of course contrasts with the other end of the day when the sunlight wakes me up around 5:30 or 6AM and I hop out of bed with no problem since my body thinks it’s already getting late!  It doesn’t hurt that I have no curtains on my huge 3^rd floor windows and I face the rising sun! 

At first, I thought this new schedule was great…I was getting up earlier than usual and getting started with my “work” by 7-7:30 at the latest.  I place the word in quotations because lately, my days have consisted of working non-stop on Ph.D. applications, which consists of requesting transcripts, scanning documents, sending files back and forth from professors and universities, creating and revising my C.V., writing essays, translating research projects, etc…you get the idea…basically not terribly fun, but fairly rewarding since I know I’ll be done with it all in a week or so more (my personal deadline is by Thanksgiving Day!!)  But, now that I think about it, with it getting dark at 4 o’clock, I’m really not getting done anything more than I was before…this because it seems like once it’s dark, I feel like the day should be over.  The biological clock thing I guess…we are creatures of habit, naturally inclined to STOP whatever work we’re doing when the sun goes down because without any man-made innovations, we would still be living the hunter/gatherer existence that humankind experienced for centuries.  Interesting that DST tampers with this even though in our modern society we are not hampered by lack of artificial light, right? 

Seems like yet another indication of the fact that as human beings, we tend to run away with our ingenuities and they wind up controlling us more than what we profit from them.  After all, how many different pills exist to help people sleep?  How many psychological problems exist that could be the result of sleep deprivation or over-exertion and stress?  If everybody quit whatever it is they had to do right when the sun went down and rested till the next glimpse of daylight, how much better off might we be?  Of course, we wouldn’t be as materially productive as we are now and the very idea of getting 12 hours of sleep every night is a laughable impossibility in our culture.  But for all our desire to return to all things “organic,” “natural” and (I hate the terminology) “green,” we seem to completely forget about this natural phenomenon that occurs every 24 hours that’s called a day. 

Could it be that it was created for a reason?  Could it be that we not only need 1 day of rest in 7, but ½ day of rest per day as well?  Something to think about…   

"La persistencia de la memoria" Salvador Dalí

"Clocks slay time... time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.

-William Faulkner

          

Bicycle Rage?

Over this past weekend, I spent some time with a friend from Athens who is on a tour of graduate business programs throughout the Northeast.  In discussing transportation options for living in this area, we naturally talked about the pros and cons of riding a bike as a means of basic transportation, which I have done almost exclusively since I arrived here.  What I told my friend was to Boston’s credit…but an unpleasant experience on my commute this morning is making me question the idyllic “everybody loves bikes here” image I tried to impress on my friend.  What I still want to believe is that Boston, since it’s a big “small” town with fairly accessible public transportation, not too crazy drivers and plenty of bicycle lanes on most of the major veins throughout the city, is that it is relatively safe to ride your bike here.  I would even be willing to bet that biking is much safer here than Athens, a tiny town in comparison, but where I know people who have been hospitalized multiple times & have even come within an inch of death at the hands of ignorant, careless drivers who believe that the roads should be off-limits to anyone unable to fly at speeds of 80 mph. 

Biking for transportation in Athens, or even in Dalton, where I grew up, is still not terribly common & understandably so with all of the hills that get in the way of an easier ride.  So, even though I used my bike relatively less while living in Georgia, I can still remember many a time where some bully driver tried to run me off the road while spouting ridiculous anti-bicycle hate-speech or flipping me a bird…Ok, that sounds a little exaggerated, but it’s really not too far from the truth y’all.  I never could understand this angst against bicyclists…after all, isn’t pretty much everyone upset about higher gas prices or strapped for cash and trying to find ways to cut back on daily expenses?  Regardless of how you feel about the benefits of using less energy (I’m not a tree-hugger by any means!) or the possibility that our expensive oil habits are keeping terrorism in business (up for debate of course!), a rational person should respect someone for trying to cut back on their use of a car, save money on parking or public transportation and get some much needed exercise at the same time!  Seemed like a pretty good idea to me here in Boston and I would say that 95% of the time, drivers have been very respectful and overly considerate of those of us peddling our way around town.      

Unfortunately, it’s that other 5% of drivers, like the SUV, soccer-mom lady honking & mouthing off to me to her little heart’s content this morning, who send my blood-pressure spinning out of control and give me sufficient motivation to take the time to write a post like this!  For my part, I try my best to cede the right of way to cars whenever I can, but am also very aware of the fact that it is my derrière on the line and that first and foremost I have to watch out for myself, lest I wind up getting “doored” (this is what happens when a car parked on the right side of the road opens up their driver’s side door right before you pass by…you can imagine what happens next!) or smashed into by a 2 ton object going at speeds of 40-60 mph!  So, the precautions you take (I do at least) as a cyclist to prevent these things from happening are the following:

1)  Always ride at least 3-5 feet into the lane away from the cars parked on the street.

 

2) When crossing a major intersection, establish yourself in the middle of whichever lane you need to be in so that a crazy-driver doesn’t try to pass you and wind up pushing you into another lane of traffic or worse into an on-coming car!

3) When riding the wrong-way on a one-way street, always pull over to the side when a car is coming your way…(Ok, this last one should be a no-no anyway, but I’m sure I’m not the only guy on a bike who winds up having to do this on limited occasions!) 

I’m sure more experienced cyclists than me could come up with more guidelines than these for safe riding, but they have definitely helped me protect my body and limbs sufficiently to this point…knock on wood!

All this to say that when riding a bike, you try to be as respectful and yielding to cars as you can be while still protecting yourself…so, why can’t those few hurried drivers slow it down a touch & not heckle us to the point that we risk putting ourselves in danger on the road just because they may have to wait 30 seconds to pass?  I guess this will only ever occur in the meilleur des mondes possibles and if Candide couldn’t find that world, even in El Dorado, I’m unlikely to find it in New England...as much as I may still try.                         

Beantown Bowling

http://www.saccosbowlhaven.com/

Just this week, I discovered that going bowling in Boston (and possibly other parts of New England as well, I’m not sure) is actually something worth writing home about…so I will!

First of all, if someone asks you if you want to go bowling, they probably are referring to what they have termed “candle-pin bowling” here in Massachusetts.  If you all, like I was yesterday, are wondering what this is, it is basically bowling in miniature…well almost.  The balls are about 1/4th the size of a normal bowling ball, are wooden, have no holes for your fingers & are shared by everyone…because they’re all the same!  The pins, in turn, are also shrunken to maybe half the size of a normal bowling pin and are in the shape of candles, standing straight up and down, but with no rounded bottom.  The only part that is not in miniature or shrunk is the size of the alley itself…SO, basically you have a full sized alley with the smaller pins at the same distance away, but you have to hit them with a tiny ball that is much harder to control!

The rules are a little different as well, which was good for those of us needing a higher handicap.  In each frame, you get three throes, but don’t be mistaken, we were still hard-pressed to knock down 8-9 pins each time & even though one gal (from Georgia as well!) managed a spare, nobody ever knocked down all 10 pins at the same time!  The score was all kept manually on a different type sheet than normal bowling, which was easy, since all we had to do was simple addition with our lack of spares and strikes!

Another difference in the bowling “culture” up here (and I’m told other places in the North generally) is that (I’m assuming because of the heinous weather!) people go bowling ALL the time & make a whole evening of it…So, the bowling alley was also a fully functional Brick-Oven Italian Restaurant and Bar with unbelievably delicious pizza & a variety of organic food specials that sounded great & I hope I get to try out again!  So, while you’re waiting on your lane (there was a 2 hour wait for a lane when we got there!), you can sit down to a nice meal and relax with your friends or family.  This strikes me as a contrast to a lot of our seedy bowling alleys in the South where cigarette smoke, plumber’s crack & cut-off t-shirts are pretty much the norm!  All in all, it was a great experience; we bowled 2 games, didn’t manage to break 100, but had a great time…all only a mile from my house right in Davis Square @ $3 a game, not a bad way to escape the cold, while still getting out of the house!  

Pictures courtesy of my buddy from Knoxville's iPhone...the hands up were a poor imitation of a steller 70's bowling photo on the wall...you had to be there!

           

A Hopeful Tribute

Now that life has settled down for me somewhat here in Massachusetts, with my days consisting mostly of looking for jobs, tweaking my résumé, finding new coffee shops with free wireless & scouring graduate school websites to work on my Ph.D. applications for next year, I want to take the opportunity to give everybody a break from hearing about me!  Instead, I would like to honor someone who is and has been one of the most important influences in my life, my maternal grandmother, known affectionately by all of her grandchildren as simply “GranGran.”  

It is with a very bittersweet frame of mind that I begin writing about my amazing grandmother because, as many of you already know, she has recently suffered a massive stroke that has left her partially paralyzed and unable to speak more than a few words at a time.  This sudden debilitation came as a huge shock to all of us, and I’m sure even more so to her.  

You see, until the day of the stroke, my grandmother was not what most people would think of when they conjure up images of a typical elderly retiree.  In fact, she probably was more active and involved in a variety of sports and social events than most people half her age.  Some of her weekly activities included:  at least 2 full rounds of golf per week (and not just for fun, she has WON many tournaments & is known for a couple holes in one as well!), 2 bowling leagues (because just one didn’t challenge her enough!), a bi-weekly bridge game with 3 of her closest Florida friends who are also her golfing buddies, completing the crossword puzzles daily, morning walks on the beach (these maybe not so often as a result of too much golf!), seeing all the popular movies playing at the theatre, reading constantly and filling in often as a pianist at her local church where she is also very active.  I know this list is incomplete, but even only including these activities, I’m again amazed at the vigor and zest with which my grandmother has always lived her life, even as she has suffered knee injuries, foot pain & the sadness of watching many of her older friends decide they just can’t keep up anymore.

Besides all of these activities which have kept my grandmother young and given her the chance to enjoy her retirement, I have always considered her love for conversation and story telling to be one of her greatest attributes.  This love for sitting around for hours on end with coffee in the morning, during a long car ride or flight (she, my mother & I recently travelled together to Argentina for my cousin’s wedding!) or just by the pool on a warm Florida morning has always been something I cherished about the time we have spent together.  The stories that she has told me over the years, along with those from other grandparents, have played an important role in my life and have always meant a lot to me as I value greatly my family history and relationships.  One such story deals with the details of her family’s situation leading up to the time she was born.  I will attempt to recount it here...

The year was 1932 and the grim reality of the failed economy (which in the South was pretty much just the way things had been since Civil War) had forced my newly married great-grandparents to move to New Orleans from their home in Whitfield County, GA in order for my great-grandaddy R.L. to find work.  This was not the first time that my great-grandfather had been forced to go to great lengths to find work in order to provide for his family.  He had actually dropped out of school after finishing the 8th grade in order to walk miles every day into town to work at the Cotton Mill, something he did in order to provide his mother with the extra income she needed to take care of all 9 or so children.  Oddly enough, he never went back to school, but managed throughout the rest of his life to educate himself and become more successful than most folks I know who (myself included) have more formal education than we know what to do with!  So, Grandaddy R.L. went on to New Orleans alone at first to find work, planning on sending for his new bride as soon as he was settled in.  It didn’t take long for him to find a job; I guess because he was willing to do whatever it took to provide for his family.  So, he began working on a banana boat, unloading bananas onto the docks and getting paid $1 per day for his trouble....I’m assuming he did this 6 days a week, so $24/month was his salary at this time.  I know that money could be stretched out a lot more back then, but I still can’t imagine surviving on this type of income when you have a wife & a child on the way....but they did.  Of course, it meant that my great-grandmother T. would have to manage without certain things she would need for this new baby, soon to be their first daughter of 7 children, of which 5 are still living today.  Now we come to the part of the story that always makes GranGran laugh and shows also the innocence of a young Baptist country girl from Georgia going to the big city of New Orleans to live...

During the time that my great-grandmother was expecting her first child, she would go down every day to a kitchen to help serve lunch & in turn would receive a free hot meal.  One lady always seemed particularly interested in Grandmama T. and so pleased that she was expecting her first child.  This lady made a great impression on my great-grandmother with her beautiful clothes, perfect make-up and always nicely arranged hair...it must have been odd for someone to seem this well put together in that neighborhood during the depression years.  Be that as it may, this kind lady began to bring my great-grandmother gifts for the baby to come & provided her with all the clothes and other things necessary for when the baby would be born.  These gifts were accepted and greatly appreciated by their family and only later on did my grandmother find out something that everyone else around her already knew....this beautiful lady was actually the Madame of one of the famous New Orleans brothels of the time...This irony may be lost on some of us in this day in time where we dismiss all behaviour as a ‘personal choice’ or with the philosophy ‘live and let live,’ but for an upstanding Christian home of this time to benefit from the charity of a ‘house of sin’ must have been quite a shock...so that was how it all began!  

Soon after, my great-grandparents were finally able to move back to Georgia, where they lived in Atlanta for a short time while my great-grandfather worked as a short-order cook, developing his love for cooking that would continue throughout his life & then back to Dalton, where they raised a family, started a business & now rest in peace...I had the privilege of knowing them both & am very grateful for the time I was able to spend with them.  I can only imagine the importance of their character, hard-work and love in the life of my grandmother, who as their oldest child looked up to them so much and worked so hard to follow in their footsteps.   

From the time of my grandmother’s birth in 1932 to now, there are so many other stories, mostly happy and some sad, that could be told.  If any of you that are reading would like to contribute to a collection of stories about her life, I invite you to please reply to this post with your story or send me a private message (to:  daltonhair@gmail.com ) and my family will be sure to let GranGran have the pleasure of hearing your stories about her as a tribute and comfort to her during this hard time in her life.  

Thank you and God Bless.    

                                   GranGran's 78th Birthday on October 10, 2010

Two New States & One Province Later...

Having grown up in a fairly rural part of a very rural state that is home to the start of the Appalachian Trail, I have never been able to survive very long in a big city without feeling the need for an escape.  So it was that after spending a grand total of 1 week in Boston, I decided it was time for this now seasoned urban dweller (yeah right!) to visit a couple of the surrounding New England states in which I had never been before.  Since my buddy who had helped me move was already back in class at UGA and since I had as yet to make any acquaintances worthy of inviting on a primitive camping trip, I set off on my own on an overcast Saturday afternoon in the general direction of the Green Mountains of Vermont.

This spontaneous escape from the city did not only come from my ever-present desire of seeing new places and crossing off several of the states still on my list to visit in the U.S., but also from the need to be alone and to sort through the many doubts I was having in regard to my future plans.  As I have already mentioned previously, I had come to Boston to continue taking the science courses that would allow me to apply for medical school next year.  Most of the doubts I had been feeling over the past year since deciding to pursue this course of study, I had been able to suppress with the notion that once I began studying at Harvard, I would all of the sudden become extremely motivated and driven, as I imagined everyone here would be.  I also knew that at this point in my life, getting to the age where I am one of the oldest that try to get into med school, I would need the support of a program like Harvard to boost my attractiveness as a candidate. 

As true as all of those ideas may have been, they do not address the personal issues at stake in considering this career choice…including questions such as:  Do I really want to dedicate the next 10-15 years of my life of constant study, exams, boards & the fight to establish myself in a profitable medical practice?  Am I prepared to forego the ability to live independently for the next 10 years of my life and then be saddled with possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt?  Am I not getting to the age where I’m ready to think about starting a family & wouldn’t it be nice to be able to actually spend time with said hypothetical family instead of working 60+ hours a week & being on call constantly? 

All of these questions and more are just a few of the things that had been swirling around in my mind ever since I began this course of study last year at UGA, but probably the main basis for the decision I was about to make came from a friend looking me straight in the eye and asking me this question: “Dave, if what you love studying more than anything else is language, why on earth are you trying to become a doctor?”  Indeed, why on earth was I determined to be a doctor?  I had always told myself that as a doctor, I would be able to work with medical mission groups in the developing world while at home “revolutionizing” the practice of geriatric medicine as it exists (read: non-exists) today.  This is where my idealism meets the cold reality of medical practice right now in our country.  With the uncertainty of how politics will affect medicine in the near future and the definite certainty of repaying a large amount of debt once medical school would be completed, I had begun to question the practicality of my desire to spend a large amount of time in travel medicine as well as implement innovation in a geriatric group practice wherever I might live in the U.S.  These doubts had been reinforced by the time I had spent over the last year volunteering and shadowing in hospitals, as well as through the advice of close friends that are either now working in the medical field or will soon be. 

So, here I was, having just moved over a thousand miles from home and considering abandoning the plan that was the very reason for my move!  Needless to say, a few days of camping and solitude with only God and the occasional forest critter to talk to sounded like just what I needed.  There were still 2 weeks left until class would begin, so I felt extremely peaceful about getting away and taking my time to sort through all the new ideas that were presenting themselves to me now that I had opened myself up to the possibility that maybe medicine wasn’t the be-all-end-all of my life.  

Within one hour outside of Boston, I was already starting to get into the mountains of New Hampshire, which I learned is known as the “Live Free or Die” state…seems like the latest Die Hard movie couldn’t even come up with its own original cliché title.  This motto struck me though as a huge contrast to what I had experienced so far in Massachusetts where freedom is not something to take for granted, as there are more laws in place here than you could imagine.  My first stop to grab some coffee turned into a little more than that, since I discovered an actual L.L. Bean store and decided to check out their camping gear (I needed a sleeping bag & mat, since my last bag had been given up in a sacrifice to the Poison Ivy gods…I know some of you understand this very well!)  Good to go on gear, I headed on and made it the rest of the way to Stowe, Vermont.  En route, I had made a phone call to the State Park office in this area and had been told a great place to hike in and camp…an added plus being that it wouldn’t cost any money!  The turn-off was just a few miles past Stowe & on the dirt road I was immediately surrounded by only trees, creek, light-rain & 60ish degree weather!  I only hiked in a couple of miles in order to get set up before dark.  I had spotted an island between a fork in the creek and after hiking down into a small ravine to get there, I waded across and began setting up camp.  Here are some pictures of the camp-site & some of the surrounding areas:

    

                          Creek & Wind...(It was dark)

Even though there was rain in the forecast for pretty much the whole time I was there, this didn’t bother me as I and my brother and sister had been trained in the ways of camping by our father with a few things pounded into our heads.  Among them: 

1-      Always be (over)prepared…(from his boy scout days of course)

2-      Learn to dig (and love) trenches…

3-      Tarps, tarps, tarps…bungee cords, bungee cords, bungee cords…

This last lesson on tarps and bungee cords has saved my family from much needless pain and was implemented religiously after our very first camping trip in one of those ancient canvas tents where we spent a miserably wet & cold evening during a severe thunderstorm at Harrison Bay.  Actually, what it meant for my mother was that she never slept in a tent again, but for the rest of us, the tarps (above & below the tent) have been a great solution (Thanks Dad!).

Anyway, the rest of my trip in Vermont went off without a hitch.  It was very quiet and I was able to spend a lot of time thinking and reading. Also, despite the wettish weather, I managed to keep a good fire going, which saved me on the first night when I decided to take a bath in the creek…I honestly felt like I would never be warm again…this water in these mountains up here is COLD!!! 

After Vermont, since I realized I was only about an hour from the Canadian border, I decided to drive on up into Quebec and camp for 1 more night.  The Parc National du Mont-Orford was the closest campground to the border and had a beautiful lake with amazing views.  This was still a part of the Green Mountain chain that goes through Vermont, but the mountains on the Canadian side are not as high and taper out gradually.  I enjoyed speaking French to the Québécois and spending time in a new place, but definitely preferred the primitive (and free!) camping conditions I had found in Vermont to the rigidly controlled environment of the Canadian National Park System.  There, you cannot gather your own firewood, you must buy their bundles & you must have your campfire in the grill, not on the ground!  Among many other rules, this was too many “musts” for me, so I headed on back to Boston from there & was again amazed by the view of a different chain of mountains through New Hampshire, the White Mountains. 

Here are some more pictures:   

All in all, this camping trip had been everything I needed it to be and gave me great clarity and perspective and the courage to return to my life here and make the difficult decision to not continue studying pre-med at Harvard.  What I was going to do now was a work in progress that I would and am in the process of figuring out.  I do know that I will return to the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire very soon, either to camp or to snow-ski and hopefully by then, I will also have some new friends (or old ones will come visit!) to enjoy it with me.