My dear visitors, I doubt you will be enlightened or edified by reading the posts below. You may even drop a few IQ points after reading them. But I hope you will be entertained.
Sewing machine out the window – 5
Dennis and I walked through the South Side of Chicago on our mission to reach an interstate highway where we could hitchhike to San Francisco. But we didn’t make it very far.
We probably couldn’t have picked a more conspicuous place to be walking along the street during a school day. And we probably couldn’t have picked a worse year to be walking through Chicago, not long after the Democratic National Convention, when the Chicago “fuzz” let fly indiscriminately on hippies, yippies, journalists like Dan Rather (while within the convention hall), and even a female British MP from the Labor Party who was visiting.
Don’t get me wrong—I’m not a foe of the folks in uniform who protect us from crime. I have been the beneficiary of their actions a few times. But in the fall of 1968, everyone’s emotions were inflamed after the overheated actions of the Chicago police and the widespread condemnation they received.
We were in the territory of Mayor Richard J. Daley.
Richard Daley Sr., old-style mayor of Chicago
So we had gotten rid of all of our ID. But as we walked along, a cop car pulled up next to us, two cops got out, and they asked us why we weren’t in school. We said we were 18 and traveling across the country. Well, maybe Dennis could have passed as 18, but I have always looked younger than my age, and I had only recently turned 16.
They asked for our parents’ phone numbers so that they could check on our story. Dennis gave his real phone number, knowing that his mother was at work and no one would answer. I gave a number that I knew no one would answer.
They kept us waiting for a while as they radioed to associates who could make the calls. I don’t remember the details, but I do remember that after a while, they determined we were runaways.
A paddy wagon came to pick us up and take us to a juvenile detention center.
Not a Chicago paddy wagon of the era, but just to add some atmosphere!
Once we arrived at the juvenile place, Dennis and I were separated into the boys’ and girls’ facilities. I had to change out of my clothes into a institutional smock. I went into a big room where around twenty other girls were sitting around a table. There were certain periods when we were allowed to talk to each other and certain periods when we were not. I managed to strike up a conversation with another girl in which I discoursed (pompously, I’m sure) about my ideas of “freedom,” “imagination,” and so on. We hit it off, which made the long hours go by faster. A meal was served that reminded me of the school lunch program—meatloaf, I think.
In the meantime, the wheels had been turning. Dennis’s mom and my parents had wired money for us to be flown back to Washington, DC. Late that evening, we were ushered into another paddy wagon and taken to O’Hare airport. We got on the plane. The stewardesses had been informed that we were runaways and that they should keep a close eye on us.
When we arrived at what was then called National Airport, the stewardesses kept us waiting while everyone else deboarded. We then walked down the big metal steps onto the tarmac, where our parents were waiting.
(To be continued)
Sewing machine out the window – 4
We wanted to go to Haight Ashbury—but things didn’t turn out that way
Dennis and I worked out the details of our plot. We would pawn the sewing machine and buy bus tickets to San Francisco with the proceeds.
The night before we launched our escape, I snuck my brother’s canvas Boy Scout knapsack out of his room. I don’t remember what I packed except that my essentials included a couple of harmonicas in different keys—I’d been teaching myself to play “blues harp.” As it grew dark, I dropped the knapsack out the window into the bushes. Next, the sewing machine: I tied one end of Dad’s fire safety rope to the handle and lowered it carefully into the forsythia. Then I went outside, untied the rope, went back in, and pulled the rope back up.
Next, I had to compose a letter to Mom and Dad that would explain to them that I wasn’t running away from anything, I was running to a great adventure. (This wasn’t actually true, as I was definitely running away from the discipline of school.) I wanted to be free, I told them. That word had a great appeal. I would mail the letter just as Dennis and I were leaving Washington DC.
In the morning I said goodbye to Mom just as if I was heading off to catch the school bus. I collected the knapsack and the sewing machine—Mom was conveniently washing dishes in the kitchen—and walked to Glencarlyn Park, where I met Dennis. We lugged the sewing machine across the park and took one of the metro transit buses into downtown DC. As I recall, the Greyhound bus terminal was on or near 14th Street. And 14th Street, being a bit seedy, was also a good place to find a pawn shop.
The shop looked something like this
I am astonished that we were able to walk into the pawn shop and dispose of what must have looked like stolen goods. But no questions were asked of these two school-age children carrying knapsacks.
There was only one problem, and a serious one it was indeed: the amount we were given for the sewing machine was a mere pittance. We did not understand that our only bargaining power would have come from at least pretending to reject the offer and strolling toward the door to take it to another pawn shop.
We went to the Greyhound terminal.
And there we learned that our proceeds weren’t nearly enough to buy us tickets to San Francisco. What a disappointment! Well, what could we do but buy tickets partway across the country and hitchhike from there. Our money would get us only as far as Chicago—not exactly where we wanted to go, but at least we’d be well away from home before authorities were alerted.
The bus trip took us through the afternoon and all through the night. Dennis amused himself by imitating the sound of the bus engine as it ground through the gears, which caused the other passengers to stare at us.
It was about nine the next morning when the bus pulled into the Chicago terminal. Now, all we had to do was walk to the edge of town and start hitchhiking. We studied a city map in the terminal and determined that we should walk through the South Side and pick up a major east-west interstate that ran south of the city.
Walking across the predominantly black neighborhoods of the South Side, we stood out like a sore thumb. We decided that we should destroy all forms of identification in case someone questioned us. I tore up my learner’s permit for driving into tiny scraps and buried the scraps underneath a park bench. Now we’d be ready in case the cops pulled up.
(To be continued)
South Side of Chicago
Sewing machine out the window – 3
I hated geometry class
So I had my first boyfriend, Dennis Jones, and I had the horse that Mom and Dad had generously given me for my 16th birthday. And I had the fancy sewing machine, with all the bells and whistles, that my grandmother had given me.
Life should have been pretty good for me, you would think. And I wasn’t unhappy at home, just a little bored with good old Mom and Dad in the typical way that teenagers find their parents to be dull and predictable.
I was going through a bad spell at school, though. Once upon a time I’d been a straight-A student, but my grades had been on a steady decline for several years. In 11th grade, I especially detested typing, gym, and geometry. My geometry teacher, Mrs. George, had frightening eyebrows penciled artificially in what looked to me like the obtuse angles of a geometry proof.
Plus, I’d started getting into trouble for skipping school, which was the main way Dennis and I spent time together. While his mom was at work, we’d go to his house and listen to the latest records. We were enthralled with Cream, Hendrix, Jefferson Airplane. We liked the pseudo-mythological world depicted in songs like Cream’s “Those Were the Days”:
When the city of Atlantis stood serene above the sea,
Long time before our time when the world was free.
The fall of Atlantis as depicted by early 17th century artist Monsu Desiderio
Dennis and I created our own world of imagination that left not a bit of room for common sense. It is rather astonishing (and lucky) that of the famous triad of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, we partook of the last of the three and not so much of the first two, beyond a lot of smooching plus smoking Camel nonfilters. I think Dennis had some ideas on those subjects, though.
Among our favorites
Mrs. Jones got wind of the school skipping, and Dennis was in hot water. She started getting on his case. Life at home became pretty unpleasant for him. A month or so into the school year, Dennis began talking about how cool it would be to run away to California. How would we get there? How would we make a living there? What about not finishing school? Not to worry. We’d figure out something.
But what about the horse? What about my nice Mom and Dad? What about, um, the real world? Somewhere along the way, the balance tipped, and going to California became more important than everything else. When we were chewed out in the principal’s office for skipping school, we made the decision. We were going to run away from home.
And we actually did have an idea of how we would get there. It involved the sewing machine.
Mom and Dad. No one could ask for better parents.
Sewing machine out the window – 2
Dennis Jones
Before I explain about Dennis Jones, let me back up for a moment. The sewing machine from my grandmother was not the only present I got on my 16th birthday. From Mom and Dad, I got something I’d been begging them for since I was about ten: a horse.
In those days, you could buy a horse for a few hundred dollars. But it was boarding the horse at a stable that constituted the real expense. Our family was not wealthy. I’d been riding for several years in Burke, Virginia, which at that time was completely rural. We had an arrangement with a family called the Dickersons that for a flat fee of what I recall as $25 a month, I could ride their horses as often as I wanted. My friend Susie Fuller boarded a horse with the Dickersons, and we rode together nearly every weekend.
After years of my pestering them, Mom and Dad decided that they were willing to make the financial sacrifice for something I wanted so passionately. And they felt I was responsible enough to own a horse. Unfortunately, I was soon to prove myself drastically lacking in responsibility.
I am riding one of the Dickerson horses, "Goldie."
In the picture above, notice that I am not only riding bareback but I am also riding without a bridle, just a halter and lead rope. I was so comfortable on horseback in those days that I could go galloping along the dirt roads confident of controlling my horse with a bit of knee pressure and a tug on the lead rope. I truly loved horses. But life was getting more complicated.
My birthday was in August. Soon I picked out a lovely little buckskin gelding–not yet broken to ride, and therefore less expensive. I started getting him accustomed to the saddle and bridle and working him on a lead in the Dickersons’ ring.
School started in September. My friend Susie was an extroverted type, always getting to know new people, and she had a guy named Dennis in one of her classes. Dennis was a quiet, sensitive type. So was I. Susie decided that Dennis and I might make a nice couple. She introduced us. And the relationship “took”—boy, did it ever.
Dennis was the only child of a marriage that ended in divorce when he was very small. His mother tended toward wild mood swings. At times she was cranky and demanding. Other times, she could be quite funny. One of my most vivid memories of her was the time she danced around the living room to the blaring of the Jimi Hendrix tune “Foxy Lady.” It was clear that she visualized herself as Mrs. Foxy Lady in the flesh. She was a small woman who wore her dark hair in a beehive hairdo, though the fashion had passed years before.
Dennis worshiped Hendrix himself and practiced those wild guitar solos endlessly. He had a real talent for it. Another interest for him was Greek mythology—at least, I remember him making references to the Odyssey.
We both lived in south Arlington and attended Wakefield High School, but our homes were at opposite ends of the school district. Nevertheless, we found ways to see each other frequently. Sometimes that involved skipping school.
Needless to say, between the horse and the boyfriend, the sewing machine wasn’t seeing much use.
(To be continued)
Sewing machine out the window – 1
This is a true story. It is part of a series about my family.
I don’t know exactly what set Dad off on the subject of fire safety. He must have read an article in a magazine, or maybe he saw something in the paper about a family tragically killed by a fire—a cigarette in bed, faulty wiring, dry Christmas tree—who knows. But he determined that he must take decisive action to make our house safer.
He was especially concerned about the two upstairs bedrooms. He bought a substantial length of rope and tied knots in it at regular intervals. Each of the bedrooms had a heavy desk. In fact, I believe our family of five boasted one desk per person, in keeping with Mom and Dad’s priorities. So Dad cut the rope into two lengths and tied one end of each around the leg of an upstairs desk, such that in the event of encroaching flames, the other end of the rope could be tossed out the window and the occupant of each bedroom could safely descend, using the knots for footholds. In the meantime, the ropes were coiled in nautical fashion under the desks.
Mom, Dad, Betsy, Peter around the time of Dad's fire safety program
Not long after the ropes were installed, I had my 16th birthday. My grandmother, like many people, felt that 16 was a major milepost for a girl. So she gave me a very special birthday present: a sewing machine. It was the latest Singer model with all the features. You could do zigzags, buttonholes, all kinds of things.
There was only one problem: I hated sewing. In home ec class, I’d totally flubbed the sewing project. We had to make a pleated skirt. First of all, working on the dining room table, I accidentally sewed the fabric to the tablecloth. And even after I solved that problem, the pleats came out all wrong. Some ran to the right, some ran to the left, and some of them came out as box pleats.
I had no patience for sewing, unlike my mother, who was truly gifted at the art. She made costumes for the three of us children as well as regular clothes, and she even tailor-made a red felt jacket with brass buttons for my stuffed tiger.
At the age of 16, I was much more interested in boys than in sewing. In particular, I was interested in Dennis Jones.
(To be continued)
Mom made this costume for me for a summer school play
East Fork of Fisher Creek
Dwarf larkspur
The town of Sylva in Jackson County, western North Carolina, lies south of the Plott Balsams. The Plott range would win far more attention were it not in the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains. Four of its peaks rise higher than 6000′, and each of its stream valleys forms a dramatic steep-sided bowl.
I moved from Asheville to Sylva a couple of weeks ago, a move that many will find puzzling. Leave behind those great restaurants like Laughing Seed and Tupelo Honey, the Twelve Bones BBQ place where the Obamas stopped to eat, the Fine Arts Cinema and the Orange Peel, all the offbeat people with interesting tattoos—leave behind the most whimsical city in North Carolina? But I was spending all my time driving to the Smokies. Plus—any New Yorkers reading this will laugh—I found Asheville too urban and too expensive. I was paying a little more for everything there than I would anywhere else in western NC. Call it the “Asheville tax.”
Here in Sylva, it takes me about 15 minutes of driving to get to Fisher Creek in the Plott Balsams. Once there, I have a choice: West Fork or East Fork. The way up the West Fork is an old rubbly road that bears the scars from when that stream was part of the Sylva town water supply. The trail up the East Fork is an attractive footpath that leads up steeply past waterfalls and cascades.
On a warm day when thunderstorms were threatening, I went up the East Fork for an exercise hike. There’s a section where you climb 500′ in about a quarter mile. But the wildflowers keep you entertained as you work up a sweat.
The white trilliums turn pink as the blooms start to pass their prime
Ferns were uncurling everywhere, the shape reminiscent of the scrollwork at the end of a violin.
Christmas ferns unscrolling themselves
I believe this is Golden Alexander, a member of the carrot family. Correct me if I'm wrong!
Wild oats. Some call it bellwort.
Bloodroot and trillium
Squaw root
Bluets
After I climbed up the steep part, I noticed that the sky was turning an unhealthy color. I could hear thunder in the distance. I beat a hasty retreat before a downpour of cold silver rain moved in to drench the mountainside.
Light in the foreground, dark in the background
Mom and cosmology
Barbara Bennett
This post first appeared in my Endless Streams and Forests blog in March 2009. It is the first of a series I will write about my mother and my family.
Many people remember my mother as a nice little old lady. And they are right—she was nice, she was little (she grew steadily smaller over the last 10 or 15 years of her life), and one certainly can’t dispute the fact that, at the end, she was old. When she departed on July 3, 2007, her age was 84.
It was just that when you chatted with her over a cup of tea, she might want to talk about the philosophy of science or a new development in astronomy rather than Florida vacations or grandchildren. This was not only an unusual interest; it was one that she had come to relatively late, in mid-life, in the course of her perpetual exploration of the world of ideas. Her interest could not be explained by the usual determinants of childhood experience, college education, or any circumstance involving friends or acquaintances. There was, perhaps, a larger proportion of philosophers than usual within the extended family—my uncle was a philosophy professor—but by and large she came to the subject independently.
In her 50s and into her 60s, she attended university courses in the philosophy of science, eventually publishing a paper about epistemological realism in the context of quantum physics. And, having a mind that always sought connections—those shining moments of insight that come from linking things never before thought of together—she made a connection between the philosophy of science and the subject of nature, her other enduring interest. And she wrote poems about that connection.
Some who read her poems did not like the way she connected the concrete and the abstract. I think the real problem was that those readers simply had no taste for the abstract. They told my mother that she would do better to write about personal experiences—something more confessional, perhaps.
I am glad to say that she rejected that advice.
I would like to share a poem written by my mother. It is called “A New Cosmology.”
By the pulsing light of Cepheids
lucid as in crystal micro-time,
shocked astronomers weigh the age of the farthest
stars and find in wild illogic they
are older even than the universe.
What stars are these that pass like fossil seeds
ambered in archaic time between
extinction and rebirth?
The world collapsing
into darkness, a new time, another
universe will gather up the seeds
of stars, and over eons open out
and flower to become a painted cosmos
never dreamed before. Then what frail
language will be scribbled on the sky
to read the enigmatic stars anew?
Galaxy clusters seen through Hubble telescope
Bleak How, the Pike of Carrs, the Cat Bells, and Scafell Pike
This bit of memoir first appeared in my Endless Streams and Forests blog in June 2009.
It started with my old boss, Gerard McCloskey, loaning me his Wainwright books about walking in the Lake District while I was over in England for work in October 1989. From there it was a spur-of-the-moment decision to do some exploring in the wilds of the Cumbrian Mountains as a side trip. I had no real hiking gear, but I borrowed a backpack—more what you would call a knapsack— from Gerard and, since my raingear was inadequate, I also borrowed an umbrella from his wife Sheila. For footgear I wore shoes that are hard to describe: not hiking boots, not running shoes, but comfortable shoes that were a bit dressy, like something you would wear with slacks to a social gathering.
I got from London to Windermere by train and from there to Grasmere by bus, as I recall. (I am going by memory on all of this.) It was a windy, overcast afternoon as I dutifully looked in on Dove Cottage, the home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth. I am quite willing to journey iambically with Wordsworth, but I wasn’t really in the area to look at points of historic interest. I was there to see mountains. I found a small hotel and had a dinner that involved Cumberland sausage and a brew called Old Peculiar.
In the morning, after my breakfast of eggs and sausage, fried tomatoes, and toast, I called over to an even smaller hotel in the village of Rosthwaite and made a reservation for the next two evenings. I then started walking toward Rosthwaite.
It rained most of the day. To reach Rosthwaite, I had to climb over the wide divide that separates the watershed of the River Derwent from the chain of lakes that includes Thirlmere, Rydal Water, and Windermere. It was a rough, stony track that took me past guardian sheep.
This one wore a black and white sweater
My route took me up the valley of Far Easedale Gill, past the Deer Bields and the Pike of Carrs, and across the height of land at Greenup Edge. At that point my umbrella nearly blew inside out from the wind. Passing through an unmarked junction of rough paths, I continued northwest along the headwaters of Greenup Gill, between Long Band and Bleak How, and down into Stonethwaite Fell.
Near Bleak How
I passed some small farms. All of the streams were running high (or as they would say in that region, the becks were in spate), and in the picture below you can make out a cascade glimmering in the distance. It was starting to get a bit dim.
Approaching Stonethwaite Fell
Right around 4:00 I found my Rosthwaite hotel, folded my umbrella, and walked in. The proprietor said, “Good to see you, Miss Bennett. We will be serving tea in ten minutes.” Hot tea and cookies, which I had in the dining room with three or four other guests, have never tasted so good.
The next day I walked down the Borrowdale valley and climbed Scafell Pike, the high elevation point of England (3209′). From where I started, it was a climb of about 2900 vertical feet. The Pike is a rugged mountain studded with sharp stones and riven by steep gullies. I took a well-traveled route, going up along Grain’s Gill.
Grain's Gill
Then I passed Sprinkling Tarn.
Sprinkling Tarn
The clouds were just brushing the mountain. I believe the next picture was taken looking past All Crags over Angle Tarn, but I wouldn’t swear to it.
The path was easy to follow, but at no point were there any signs—not at trailheads, junctions, or destinations. I hope that is still the case, and I applaud the English for that tradition. It was not hard to find my way to to the summit, but when it was time to descend, many somewhat confusing paths led toward widely separated valleys. Picking my way carefully over the scree, I sorted things out and followed the path that led past the Round How and back toward the Borrowdale valley, a route that roughly paralleled my ascent. I saw some interesting formations of grass and hill on the way down.
I remember that at this point, my ankles were getting a little tired in my thin, low-topped shoes as I stepped from rock to rock, but I am strangely proud of the fact that I managed to pull off this … feat. Eventually I wended my way back to the Rosthwaite hotel in time for dinner.
The next day I headed north toward Derwent Water, a large, clear lake. I followed the River Derwent a short distance, then scrambled up to the top of the ridge that lies to the west of the river. The ridge, or at least part of it, is labelled as Narrow Moor on my map. I passed High Scawdel, Lobstone Band, and Nitting Haws. Clouds were scuttling across the sky, creating a patchwork of light and shadow (see top picture). The ridge terminates in some hills called the Cat Bells, which I descended down to the lake.
Derwent Water
I knew that a boat circled the lake in a clockwise direction, touching at various points at scheduled times. I recall that I had a timetable for the boat, and at any rate, I walked to Hawes End and waited for the boat. I had a bit of trouble at first believing that the boat really existed, but eventually I saw it approach, and I boarded it for the journey to Keswick.
Heading toward Keswick
I strolled around Keswick (pop. 4800) in the late afternoon. The next morning I visited the Pencil Museum, another whole story that concerns pencils going into outer space, graphite mines, and my mother’s attitude about pencils.
Rock tripe and other oddities
Rock tripe
From time to time I am going to post a few photos here, mainly things I see when I’m venturing through the woods. Small things, for the most part, that may not seem exciting to most people but nevertheless interest me.
Rock tripe has a leathery texture, smooth on the top and rough and black on the bottom. It can be used to make a purple dye.
Moss and rock tripe
Pathway through laurel
Spring near its source
The spring comes right out from under this tree.
The pictures above were all taken on the Mountains-to-Sea trail north of Asheville. The photo below was taken on a bushwhack last week up Trout Branch on Mt. LeConte.
Jenny in her native habitat
What is it with mountains and yodeling?
Swiss yodelers
For a long time, when I was growing up, I was under a misimpression. I thought that yodeling was something that mountaineers in some faraway place like Austria or Switzerland did when they reached the summit of a challenging mountain. It was a cry of victory, I thought, an expression of joy and triumph.
Perhaps no one shares this feeling with me, but when I have emerged onto the summit of a mountain with vast expanses of land and space spreading out all around me, I’ve thought that it might be appropriate to yodel. Fortunately for the ears of those around me, I have never actually followed through on this feeling.
I have since learned that yodeling originated as a form of communication between sheep herders in the Alps, and/or between the herders and their flocks. The Wikipedia article even says, “The calls may also have been endearments shepherds used to express affection to their herds.”
Alpine yodeling has parallels in many other cultures—Persian, Central African, and so on. And it was very popular in the 30s and 40s in country music. Jimmie Rodgers’ “Blue Yodel No. 1″ in 1928 created a yodeling fad, but it died down in later decades. Rodgers said he saw a troupe of Swiss yodelers in a performance and decided to give it a whirl.
Jimmie Rodgers
Yodeling still pops up here and there, like a smoldering fire that can’t quite be extinguished. A recent example is Jewel.
But I continue to feel that mountaintops are the best place for yodeling.
"Jodelkoenige" Franzl Lang and Schwarz Ferdl. That means "Yodel Kings."
