Author Archives: lyndaterrill

September Song

September 11, 2001 As often as I think about that day, I also think about the several days before it. If you were in Washington D.C. then, I wonder if you remember the weather? In the days before that Tuesday, the sky was a perfect blue and the temperature was (for Washington) unseasonably pleasant for early September. The organization for which I worked, the National Center for ESL Literacy Education (NCLE), and the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), U.S. Department of Education convened a symposium, The National Symposium on Adult ESL Research and Practice. This conference was held September 4-7 at the S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution. As I remember it, planning and conducting the symposium was hectic, but exciting. My colleagues and I were proud to offer the attendees—adult English as a second language teachers and administrators from the fifty states and the territories—a nonpareil venue and we had the weather to match. One of the random memories that still remains in my mind is that—because the U.S. Department of Education had no authority or budget to provide afternoon snacks—my colleagues and I baked cookies for the symposium attendees. That was crazy; we were already working day and night as educators, but when we finally got home we had to swap our school clothes for aprons. It was crazy, but everyone enjoyed the cookies, so it turned out okay.

The symposium concluded on Friday and several of the participants were planning on getting some sightseeing in on the weekend before they headed home. In addition to the usual Washington offerings, a brand-new event would be going on that weekend. On Saturday, September 8, the Library of Congress and First Lady Laura Bush were hosting the first National Book Festival on the East Lawn of the Capitol. NCLE was hosting a booth offering information and materials related to teaching English to adult immigrants. I can see it now, my friend MaryAnn and I in the early morning, revived overnight from the stresses of the symposium, trundling our signs, flyers, boxes, and bags up to the Capitol lawn, waved through pro forma security. This was not a day for Republicans or Democrats. It was a festival—in all the meaning that happy word suggests—for book lovers. The sun shown, people heard authors talk and give readings, and there was food. Unlike carnivals with Tilt-a-Whirls, this was my kind of event.

After I was released from booth duty, I met my husband and we wandered around listening to several authors. We listened to a presentation by some of the Navajo code talkers. They explained in some detail the code they developed and which successfully confounded Japanese efforts to crack it during World War II. One of the code talkers commented on how he didn’t think most Americans had heard of their service to the country. After the talk, I asked one of the code talkers if he would autograph my program. I assured him I knew about the work of the code talkers. He thanked me for remembering, signed my program, and shook my hand. I have not discarded that program. There’s a website now, so you could find out more about the Navajo code talkers.

Blue, calm weather continued through Tuesday until we heard the news. Actually, I think the good weather continued after Tuesday, but we were all crying so much that the whole world seemed filled with smoke and death.

In the evening when it was finally, finally time for sleep, our son Billy—just starting 9^th grade—hauled an old mattress into our bedroom and plopped down to sleep near us. Such a good idea; let’s all stay close together and hug.

Maybe you had to be in Arlington to hear it and maybe you never read about this. Very early in the morning of September 12 we heard huge, ugly airplane noises and we thought we were being attacked. It turns out that it was U.S. military planes at National Airport, a little over eight miles away from our house. We were already on tenterhooks, but I think this noise helped solidify the case of trauma I was developing.

The next night, Tom and I dropped off Billy with friends and headed into Washington. We were going to a memorial concert to be held on the west side of the Capitol. This was our small attempt to stand in respect and solidarity with those who had died in New York, Pennsylvania, and our home of Arlington. No one knew what was happening yet. We felt there was a slight chance that it was dangerous to hang out near the Capitol, but we wanted to stand up (a little shaky) to our enemies. Only four days since the book festival, the world had changed. We sat on the Capitol steps and looked across the river back towards Arlington to where the Pentagon was still burning.

Thousands of people surrounded the Capitol Reflecting Pool. We lit memorial candles. I think I still have my candle stub. There didn’t seem to be a formal program. Someone would start a song and it would travel around the pool in a wave until we were all singing together. I remember that we were standing by several people who sang beautifully—a well-worn modifier, but true here, nonetheless. We sang patriotic songs and I liked that fine because I have always loved those songs and I loved the United States. I was satisfied though, when someone was starting with “God Bless America” and someone else said something like God bless the world or God bless us all. A latter day Tiny Tim had come to save us from our own parochial—albeit understandably traumatized— selves.

We sang many other songs, but the only one I remember for certain is Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.” It’s like she wrote it for this special occasion years before we had any idea this world would come to us:

If the sky above you
Grows dark and full of clouds
And that old north wind begins to blow
Keep your head together
And call my name out loud
Soon you’ll hear me knocking at your door
You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I’ll come running to see you
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I’ll be there
(1971)

After that night, we never had easy access to the government buildings or grounds or festivals ever again. I understand this, I think, but I haven’t liked it.

My workplace in Northwest Washington was about four and half miles from my home in Arlington. My friend and officemate Carol, who lived near me in Arlington, and I used to plot how we could make our way back home across the Potomac River if terrorists bombed the bridges. I thought that maybe I would be able to swim across the river at Chain Bridge. I stocked up on Ricola cough drops and had enough to be able to share with Carol. I am not sure what that was about, but I still have more than enough decaying cough drops scattered about my remaining possessions. In the face of the millions of people worldwide who faced and do face calamities every day, particularly the immigrants and refugees I had met, I am not particularly proud of being so upset about my own circumstances after 9/11. I do not like terrorists, I want people to act right, and I want to be brave, but generous. There, maybe those are my final words for now about September 11.

Report: Flora, Fauna, Music

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Although, unlike the kids in my neighborhood, I am not going back to school tomorrow, I felt the need to write a report on how I spent my summer. Here it is.

Flora

We had enough rain (more than enough for the grapes and the Italian basil) and the weather was mostly moderate. After all these years of living in Virginia, “moderate” is my word for not so damn hot and humid for so long that I can’t stand it. Notable elements of the garden include:

the best crop of green beans since the early 1980s—bush and pole,
the best crop of green chilies in at least seven years—New Mexico style, not Anaheim,
crazy, prolific summer squash, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange’s “tromboncino”—the plants took over most of the garden until I finally hacked the vines back and offered the fruits to passersby,
tomatoes only pretty good—they suffered from being overrun by the rampaging tromboncinos,
Tom’s rose, “Awakening”—I had nothing to do with it, but I got to see and smell it (his moonflowers are just beginning to bloom in the night and they bring the sphinx moths, more on fauna, below)
green chiles

Fauna

Sometimes I have trouble separating the fauna from the flora. I like to think that is because I am an integrative person. Maybe that’s why I always grow my herbs, flowers, fruits, and vegetables together. Whatever the reason, my jumbled gardens have worked for me and for the fauna.

we had first the bumblebees, and then, slow to show up, the honey bees did come,
cabbage butterflies, skippers, red admirals, and, now, one monarch (I’ve had a jubilant crop of native milkweed—more than in years) I’m hoping more monarchs will arise from the jumble, and
cardinals nested by the porch, then disappeared, later the catbirds came, some wrens and gold finches, always the sparrows, and the crows still keep watch

monarch butterfly on zinnia

Special Sighting: Last week Tom and I camped at Loft Mountain in Shenandoah National Park. We took a short hike along the Appalachian Trail. On the trail, a long, lovely, lean timber rattlesnake crossed our path. He didn’t hurry and he didn’t rattle.

timber rattlesnake, Shenandoah National Park

Music

Because I am an integrative person (so I think), I have trouble separating the fauna and the flora from the music. This summer we had a very successful music harvest.

In June, we heard and saw Paul McCartney. I was amazed, no maybe about it. I kept thinking this old guy is going to need a break, but all he ever did was pause briefly to switch between guitars and the keyboard and the voice. Richer than Croesus or even Richie Rich, older even than I am, still, McCartney sang every song (some were old, some were new, some were even from video games) as if he meant them. He sang a cappella about a blackbird sitting on the edge of night. He told us that “we can work it out” and we believed him.
In early August, we walked to the downtown mall to hear and watch Garrison Keillor. This performance was part of his valedictory tour, “America the Beautiful.” I liked many parts of the show and, of course being an English major type myself, I am a fan. I have loved the way Garrison—may I call you Garrison? As a fellow mid-westerner I feel so close—walks slowly up and down the aisles singing songs with us. When we sang, “I’ve been working on the Railroad,” I was transported back to the car rides of my childhood and to singing with my friends in school or in lilac trees. Garrison sang, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Yes, here 70 miles north of Richmond and he sang, I do believe, all the verses. I want to mention that I knew at least parts of all of the verses. I think that comes from my latter-day abolitionist, overly righteous younger self and to my reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin and To Kill a Mockingbird (many times) during my formative years. I will remember singing with you, Garrison. Thank you.
Last Saturday, Tom and I went up to Wintergreen Resort for the Blue Ridge Mountain Music Fest. When we are in Charlottesville, we attend every August. Each year we fall under the spell of the flowers and the butterflies, the blue hills, and the music that seems integral to the place. All the groups we heard sang and played with that wonderful precision that we’ve come to associate with old-time music and bluegrass. This year, though, it was the group, Balsam Range, that blue us away. I took a dozen photos hoping to catch the passion, the skill, the humor, and the love (sentimental, plaintive, but heartfelt) in their songs. The photos didn’t work out, so now I need to figure out what to say. In their own genre and in their own ways, the artists of Balsam Range seemed as world-class as McCartney. Like Garrison, the group sang a song about the Civil War. This time, though, the sensibility was from the Confederate side. It was a song about a young man about to die a few miles outside of Birmingham. He pleads with the listener to tell his mother that he had been a brave soldier and that he would miss that life he would never have with his sweetheart back home. As I learned time and time again from my refugee and immigrant students, it’s the people close to the ground (on either side of the conflict) that die in war–the farmers, the storekeepers, the women, and the children.

We are part of the flora and the fauna, the music, and the blue and rocky hills. We are integrative types, you and I, and, perhaps we are lucky to be here. We were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Mary’s Rock Shenandoah National Park

Book Report II

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I’ve loved books as far back as I can remember. When I was almost five, I started Cooke Elementary School in Northwest Detroit. That’s a long time ago now, but I still remember the school—staffed by plenty of tough old birds, some with their hair done up in braids like stern fräuleins out of Heidi. I remember the school library where I read the Billy and Blaze books by Clarence William Anderson. It’s not like I’ve remembered the author’s name through these intervening years. In fact, until I Googled the title a few minutes ago, I had forgotten about the eponymous Billy as well. I have remembered some of the illustrations and—more—the joy I felt reading those books.

Tom just mentioned that I need to tell you more about why I liked Billy and Blaze. I admit the specifics are harder to dredge up than the memory of the joy. I liked this book because I liked reading about someone who actually got a pony. I wanted a pony–really a horse. I loved the pony rides at some of the parks I went to with my family. I still want to own a horse, but it seems impractical because a) I don’t know anything about taking care of horses b) horses are expensive c) we own 1/10 of an acre inside a city. I also enjoyed Billy and Blaze because it may have been the first series I read by myself. Not only did I get to enjoy one story, but there was more and then more pleasure to anticipate.

Cooke Elementary School, Detroit, Michigan

Another book I enjoyed (and have since remembered) from those very early years was Squanto, Friend of the Pilgrims by Robert Clyde Bulla. I reread Squanto a few years ago and I believe I have it now in storage as part of my Native American book collection. Nowadays, I wonder whether Squanto was wise to have been such a good friend, but that doesn’t change the happiness I experienced in reading the book. I think I was probably seven when I read Squanto. Here, I think I was first experiencing a sympathetic hero as well as a strong plot related to real life happenings–a literary element I enjoy to this day.

Here’s the point: Even books that are not deemed great or good literature or even decent popular writing, can calm that whirling in my head (see yesterday’s Prologue) and help me to consider new facts and ideas. This is all leading up to the four books I am currently reading:

Lamentation by C.J. Sansom

Lamentation by C.J. Sansom is the latest in the six book (so far) mystery series about Matthew Shardlake, a lawyer in the time of King Henry VIII. Not only have I learned more about politics and intrigue in Tudor England than I’ve ever known, but I have had to consider again the nature of good and evil and of power and powerlessness. We don’t have torture in the Tower of London now, but otherwise those twisty, dark, hot, and smelly London streets remind me too much our own times. Matthew Shardlake tries to be a good person in a bad, or at least troubled, world. When I can, I try to do that, too.

Cordelia Underwood by Van Reid

I picked up Van Reid’s Cordelia Underwood or The Marvelous Beginnings of the Moosepath League at a store called Bull Moose in Brunswick, Maine. I had facilitated the first part of a workshop and felt the need of a calming book to read that evening and on the plane back home the next day. Cordelia, a young adult book and a New York Times Notable Book, fit the bill. I read it in my spartan college dorm room at Bowdoin College and at the Portland airport and in the air. I’m not sure I will finish it right now, but I will cart it along for my next lonely trip because as the NYT Book Review says, this book is “an amiable, richly populated first novel…” (from the blurb on the back of the book).

Look to the Mountains by Charles S. Peterson

The book that has most often been in my backpack recently is Look to the Mountains: Southeastern Utah and the La Sal National Forest by Charles S. Peterson. Tom’s father, the forest supervisor of the Manti-La Sal National Forest when this book project was undertaken, gave us this book when we recently visited him in Florida. I don’t know what has happened to me, but for the last many years, there is no reading I enjoy more than digging into non-fiction histories of the American West. Talk about calming my fretful mind: for me reading about the natural history, prehistory, and history of San Juan and Grand counties in Utah is like the meditative breathing I am always forgetting to do. It’s like chanting a mystical syllable and I don’t know why. I do know, or at least suspect, that I am the only person in this country reading Look to the Mountains at this time.

Lake Warner, La Sal Mountains

Tattered Legacy by Shannon Baker

Speaking of Grand County, Utah, about a week or so ago Tom bought me, Tattered Legacy (A Nora Abbott Mystery) by Shannon Baker, published this year. I’ve only read 30 pages so far and it doesn’t seem to be (charitable comment) a particularly well-written book, but I am continuing through it because the setting is Moab, Utah. Perhaps almost too trendy for its own good, Moab is in the middle of some of the most beautiful landscape on the earth. Clarification: I have not seen most of the landscapes of the earth and many other places that I’ve seen are also beautiful, but the red rock desert touches me in a way I can’t express with any amount of modifiers, hyperbolic or not. Tattered Legacy is nothing like the reality of the Southeastern Utah landscape and history. So far, this book is overly replete with villainous polygamists and clunky prose, but I am going to finish it. Our hero, Nora, works for a group that is trying to convince Congress to expand Canyonlands National Park. I keep trying to convince Congress and President Obama to do the same. If you want to read more about the efforts to save the land and the human treasures of this area, please see the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Grand Canyon Trust, the Bears Ears Coalition, and others.

The Needles, Canyonlands National Park

Waiting in the wings: Stephen King, Finders Keepers. My husband it is reading it now, but only in the daylight!

Prologue: Book Report II

Swedish Ice Box Cookies

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My mother, Audrey, originally got the recipe for Swedish ice box cookies from her friend, Mathilde. The two of them were friends since kindergarten (circa 1921, by my reckoning) and through the years mom got several of our family’s favorite recipes from Mathilde. This recipe’s name shows its own age: It has been a long time since that kitchen machine was called an “ice box.”

My brothers and I baked and ate our share of chocolate chip, peanut butter, and oatmeal raisin cookies, but I think these cookies might have been our favorites. Like so many of my mother’s recipes ( see New Orleans Pralines ) Swedish ice box cookies are easy, but delicious. Here’s the recipe from my mom’s index card:

Swedish Ice Box Cookies*

Cream

1 C. white sugar

1 C. brown sugar

1 C. shortening (my mom used margarine, I use butter)

2 eggs added to above

Add to above

1t. salt

1t. soda

½ c. nuts (Mom and I use pecans)

2 T. hot water

Flour to stiffen—about 3 cups

Bake 10 – 12 min. in 375° oven

May be dropped on cookie sheet immediately after mixing & baked. Or form half into a roll & held in refrig. Several days – Large recipe—-Usually I make half a recipe.

I hope you enjoy making and eating these easy cookies. I wish I were eating them with my mom and dad and brothers. I wish I had some on a plate next to my tea and computer on this rainy afternoon, far in time and place from Milford, MI. So, if you make these cookies, I hope you have someone dear to share them with.

No photos: I don’t usually make cookies anymore (because my husband and I want to eat them–all of them–but we are trying to hold the line).

*I think my brothers and I called them Swedish nut cookies.

Excuses

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If my math is correct, it has been 48 days since I put a new post up on this blog. I kept telling myself that I could at least put up some photographs to let people know I am still here. That didn’t really work because, lately, I haven’t liked my photos anymore than I’ve liked my words or my thoughts. That sentence sounds gloomier than the reality behind it, so I am moving on to other words and thoughts.

Possible excuses for my lack of blog production:

Here in Charlottesville, Virginia—not as snowy this year even as Washington, D.C. (let alone the Northeast)—the snow and cold gave everyone an excuse for taking February off. Me, too, mostly.
Once the weather warmed up in March Tom and I were renovating our yard and garden. Plus, Tom and I got caught up for awhile in March Madness.
Other facile excuses: We work out at the gym two hours most days. By the time we walk to and from the gym, shower, etc. and maybe get some coffee and work on the NY Times crossword, a certain amount of the day is gone along with any thoughts I might have had. People have been working on our house and this leaves me feeling unsettled.
Good excuses: We’ve had family and friends visit. We’ve walked to the University of Virginia campus for concerts. Tom and I are now volunteer gardening in two small areas near our house and we are beginning to help out at an emergency food bank.
Cranky excuses: I am embarrassed about how few followers my blog has. I say to myself, if I only had a cute cat and I videoed the cat doing clever cat tricks, my blog would be a hit.* I’ve also thought of putting up more recipes (soon, I promise, not 48 days from now) or writing about politics. Save the Colorado River, knock down the Glen Canyon Dam, declare Greater Canyonlands a National Monument, and stop wasting everyone’s time on ill-advised high stakes educational testing. Hmmm. That was fun, but I am already weary of my own diatribes.
April excuse: Sometimes, despite the crocuses and daffodils and the cherries and the redbuds, I find no rest in this beautiful world. I feel like I want to go eat worms (if you don’t know the childhood ditty, check online). However, faced with the reality of all the fat and juicy worms in my garden, I’ve decided to cheer up, grow up (about time), and leave the worms for the birds.

Some photos anyhow:

very early birds

crocus

daffodils (Marieke)

creeping phlox

*I did once have a cat, if one could be said to “have” a cat. I received this little cat (from my later-to-be sister-in-law, Betsy) back when I lived in my cheesy basement apartment in Salt Lake City. Talk about cute cats: Mani Sheriar Irani looked like a Siamese except for her little black and white striped tiger legs. She had turquoise eyes. I loved Mani. If she is still in one of her nine lives, I love her still. The thing is, it turns out that I was terribly allergic to her. As a kitten, Mani would sleep on my neck. I couldn’t breathe. Even so, I kept her until I was pregnant with my first child. I figured I was breathing for two, so I was able to give Mani to one of my students.

Coming soon: Swedish Ice Box Cookies

Chúc Mừng Năm Mới

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National Garden, U.S. Botanic Garden

Last Tuesday Tom and I took Amtrak to D.C. In our day and a half in the city, we enjoyed many activities including dinner with two children, two museums (The National Museum of the American Indian and The National Gallery), four gardens (Enid A. Haupt, Mary Livingston Ripley, National Garden and Bartholdi Park of the U.S. Botanic Garden), and several big city meals. One of these meals was lunch at PHO 75 on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington, Virginia.

PHO 75, Arlington, VA

Wilson School

I think I might have mentioned before about my good fortune in teaching at the Arlington Education and Employment Program (REEP). Before you think, oh no (!) she’s becoming too elliptical again, let me explain the connection. One part of that REEP good fortune was all the great food that was associated with it. PHO 75 itself was in the strip mall just the other side of the gas station from Wilson School where we taught.

Phở is beef and rice noodle soup with a variety of fresh vegetables (and lime) added to it.

Phở

When it’s made in the traditional way (e.g. with real beef stock, no cutting up the noodles) phở is a delicious soup.

What I am remembering today though is not so much the taste of the soup, but the happy times doing good work with my friends. Sometimes we’d get the phở carry out so we could go back to school and slurp through interminable meetings. The slurping and the switching between chopsticks and spoon kept one awake and also (in my case, at least) kept my mouth full so I wasn’t always making comments, which sometimes annoyed a program coordinator or two.

The reason I am writing this post: It is the beginning of Vietnamese New Year (Tết). I remember my friends and my students—I counted once, all told I taught people about 85 countries—with love and respect.

The real reason I am writing this post: As a follower of the Gregorian calendar, I made my New Year’s resolution a little over six weeks ago. I resolved to be a kinder person. I’m working on it, but it’s surprising to me how often a nice enough person (like me) has to remind herself to be kind. I am happy that another New Year has come around so soon to help me to remember my resolution. Hot soup and warm memories also help in my resolve.

We had a snowstorm yesterday. It was nothing like the Northeast or the Midwest, but we did get several inches. Still, under a laurel bush, I saw a crocus in bud through the snow. A new year and spring waiting in the wings.

crocus

Music for January

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taking down the dogwood

This morning the Woodson’s Complete Tree Service guys are taking down our dogwood tree. I expect that this is not a foreshadowing of my or Tom’s early demise. After all, we aren’t as old in people years as the dogwood was in tree years. We sometimes wonder whether this tree was planted when the house was built. If so, it would be 85 years old. In any case, the dogwood has had dieback for years and had to come down (see the post To Autumn).

Forgive me, it’s just that January’s short days and cold nights make me think long thoughts. I told you a while ago that I was going to write more about the 2014 road trip. I was hoping for a brief, yet comprehensive, summary of what we saw and felt and what we learned. Maybe later.

Back to January My mother died in January. Three years later my dad died in January. That was okay, really, but I do get a bit pensive whenever there is snow on the Pennsylvania and Ohio Turnpikes (the route we take from Virginia to Michigan for the funerals).

Music of the Spheres Tom bought some new speakers for the stereo system. So we had to try them out by listening to music we’d heard many times to see whether or not the new speakers sound significantly better than the older (by 20 years) speakers.*

The first song I listened to was “Secret Gardens” from Judy Collins’ True Stories and Other Dreams. I listened to it a couple of hundred times when my parents were dying and then died. Thinking back though, even in 1973 when I first owned the album, I cried when I heard this song. I cried Monday when I heard it again. I think they are tears of happiness: “I see you shining through the night through the ice and snow of winter.”

Next, we listened to Joan Baez’s version of “North Country Blues” from her Any Day Now: The Songs of Bob Dylan CD. I think I was checking out the speakers to see how they worked on pure human voices. Very well, I can report.

Next, I made a quirky choice: “Land of the Navajo” by Peter Rowan. The majority of our CDs are still in storage, maybe that’s my rationale for choosing this CD. Or maybe it’s because, while the plot of the song is opaque to me, Rowan’s evocative yodels (or whatever they are) take me back to the land of the Navajo, which I love.

Canyon de Chelly

Tom chose Abbey Road, you know by whom. We listened from “Here Comes the Sun” through “Her Majesty.” I was astounded. They sang with the voices of angels. I hadn’t remembered that.

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear
Here comes the sun
Here comes the sun, and I say
It’s all right

How did they know how to write “little darling” instead using heavier words? Baby, I’m amazed.

Next, we listened to “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” from Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde CD. Tom has been listening to this song since he was a teenager in the town he always characterizes as “the armpit of Utah.” Looks like songs of love and yearning may work anywhere. I note that I am a person from the lowlands.

Finally, we listened together to some songs from Judy Collins’ Wildflowers including “Since You Asked”:

What I’ll give you since you asked
Is all my time together;
Take the rugged sunny days,
The warm and rocky weather,
Take the roads that I have walked along,
Looking for tomorrow’s time,
Peace of mind.

As my life spills into yours,
Changing with the hours
Filling up the world with time,
Turning time to flowers,
I can show you all the songs
That I never sang to one man before.

We have seen a million stone lying by the water,
You have climbed the hills with me
To the mountain shelter.
Taken off the days, one by one,
Setting them to breathe in the sun.

Take the lilies and the lace
From the days of childhood,
All the willow winding paths
Leading up and outward.
This is what I give
This is what I ask you for;
Nothing more.

Maybe I can use this song as the summary of the road trip/marriage we’ve been on so far.

wildflowers

*The verdict on the speakers: I am not an audiophile. I don’t usually listen consciously for sound quality. Nonetheless, the minute I heard these speakers, I had a simile for Tom. The speakers are like my sugar cookies (really Joy of Cooking’s rich sugar cookies). They are so pure, simple, and unadulterated that a person used to inferior baked goods might not notice how delicious the cookies are. Same deal for the speakers.

Road Trip 2014: The Road Goes…

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The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say

J.R.R Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Kolob Canyons, Zion National Park, UT

I am here to tell you that, just as Bilbo said, the road does go ever on and on. Furthermore, as he implied (see above), this road goes on both literally and figuratively.

In our travels I sometimes wear a maroon hooded sweater that makes me look like one of the dwarfs in The Hobbit (not, I note, at all like a hobbit wearing a hooded Elven cloak from Lorien).

maroon hooded sweater with orange knapsack

Before I go farther on this path: Yes, I am one of those The Lord of the Rings junkies, common in my generation. I first read the trilogy when I was seventeen and I have read it at least eight times since. Two of Tom’s and my happiest parenting times were when we read LOTR aloud first to our older children and then later to our youngest.* I am going on about all of this because, as a supposed “literature” person, I feel a bit defensive about reading the trilogy eight times instead of ever wanting to go back to The Magic Mountain or In the Heart of the Heart of the Country.

I am speaking literally and figuratively here:

I always traveled with a dear companion, who, day after day, kindly hurt my broken wrist–my P.T. exercises–so I would heal, and then warmed my side of the winter bed for me.
Red Canyon, Dixie National Forest, UT
Sometimes the road was cold and lonely. I remembered the dead and worried about the living.
winter road
Sometimes the trail was alight with the sunlight glinting on the wings of hundreds of butterflies freshly transformed in the pine woods of the high country. I didn’t manage to capture a photo of this, but the magic remains within us.
Glacier Trail, Great Basin National Park
Sometimes the path seemed dangerous—high and winding and steep—but I think it was only the fear within me.

LaVerkin Creek Trail, Zion National Park, UT

Sometimes we joined family and old friends along the road or met new friends–warmth and safety amid the cold, the heat, and the winding road.

*In my family, I am famous for always crying over the death of Boromir. I want to be a hobbit—merry, strong, and steadfast—but I am more like the frail man of Gondor (inside, of course, Boromir was a doughty warrior on the outside).

Beach Road, Meher Spiritual Center, Myrtle Beach, SC

More to come, I think.

Road Trip 2014: Restaurants

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Grand Canyon Lodge, North Rim, Arizona–the dining room is on the left

My husband Tom and I have been on a road trip since January 2, 2014. I want to write about our journey in some—as yet unspecified—epic, metaphorical piece, but I have been finding it difficult to get these—as yet unformed—thoughts into the computer. Experiences and ideas swirl around in my head, but I can’t focus. I think I will start writing about simple, finite topics (e.g., restaurants, bookstores, campsites, hikes, medical misadventures) and hope that concentrating on them will help some of the other ideas settle down and organize themselves.

Path of our trip, in brief: Virginia, Maryland Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California, Nevada, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, North Carolina, South Carolina Note: we plan on being in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania before year’s end.

Finite Topic #1: Favorite Restaurants

First, a minor confession: Tom and I are, some would say, foodies.* So, although we have shared many camp meals and picnics, we have ended up going to restaurants more than one might think for a couple of (would-be) adventurers. As Tom says, in our defense, we met in a restaurant— Grand Canyon Lodge in 1971—so, really, all this restaurant going is just a logical progression of how we started our journey together.

Anyhow, you can see from the list above, where we’ve wandered. For the amount of places we’ve traveled and eaten in, one might think we would have a long list of restaurants to recommend, but no, we have a list of six favorite restaurants from the whole trip. While there were plenty of okay, pretty good, or good meals, there are entire states, regions, and interstate highways where we didn’t find food that we loved.** Here’s the restaurant list:

K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen, New Orleans http://www.chefpaul.com/site.php
Alicia’s Mexican Restaurant, Alpine, Texas
Juanitas Taqueria, Cottonwood, Arizona
Saigon Bowl, Denver http://www.saigonbowldenver.com/home.html
Plaza Cafe, burrito and quesadilla trucks, Santa Fe http://santafeplazacafe.com/ (Santa Fe was our favorite food town.)
Zingerman’s Deli, Ann Arbor, MIchigan http://www.zingermansdeli.com/

Lunch in New Orleans

I don’t want to critique the restaurants any more than to say that, in each place, we enjoyed tasty meals made with real ingredients and cooked and served by professional, friendly people.

Heading into Alicia’s

Saigon Bowl, Denver

*Yes, we travel with whole nutmeg, Sriracha, smoked paprika, and the dowel rolling pin Tom made me.

** That’s not counting the delicious food we have shared with family and friends along the way.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Close to the Ground: Living Inductively

Lynda Terrill

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Road Trip 2014: Restaurants