Department of Small Worlds

Armchair Adventures

Published Aug. 5, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Haven't We Met Before?

            If I met a guy in a bar and he asked where I was from and I said, "The South Pole," I guarantee he'd tell me he grew up two blocks from there.

            That's what a small world it is.

            Everybody has their 'small world' stories.

            Sometimes it seems that no matter where I go, I meet somebody from Fredericksburg. And if they aren't from there, their cousin or next door neighbor is.

            At the moment I'm in Prescott, and that's about 2,200 miles from home base in Spotsylvania.

            So the day after I get here I'm heading out to check the mailbox. (It's always full of junk mail when I've been gone a couple of months.) A neighbor across the street says 'hello.'

            I return the greeting and she stops to chat.

            Now I've spoken to this neighbor a number of times and never took much notice of her accented English. This morning I cannot help notice that it is quite Irish. I don't want to ask her about it directly so, instead, I mention that I've just gotten back from a trip to Ireland.

            Well, you can imagine how her face lit up. She tells me that she's from Limerick, a city in southwest Ireland.

            Oops! I hated to have to say that we had deliberately chosen to drive around that city on the bypass, to avoid the traffic.

            Once upon a time on a solo trip to Alaska in 1995, I had camped in a remote, deserted campground. Next morning, I continued my drive across that country's outback.

            I'd only had instant coffee and toast for breakfast so, when I rounded a curve and spotted a small bar-and-café, complete with curling smoke rising from its chimney, I stopped for breakfast.

            It was a friendly local place, well off the beaten tourist track, and a smiling young lady put a steaming mug of coffee in front of me and asked what I'd like to eat.

            So, okay, the bottom line: she'd grown up in Woodbridge, gone to then-Mary Washington College, and learned to fly at Shannon Airport under the wise tutelage of the late Shorty Dettinger.

            How much smaller world can you get than that?

            Actually, you can.

            A few years back I discovered that my next door neighbor here in Prescott was a young woman whose dad had been principal of a middle school in Spotsylvania. A nurse, she had grown up there and had married a teacher out west.

            The couple moved away shortly after that and I cannot remember her name.

            There are small, small world stories everywhere you go. One reason you discover them is that the first thing travelers usually do is ask one another where they are from. They say there are six degrees of separation among us. I'm not sure it isn't more like four or five.

            Everyone you meet knows somebody that you have at least met. Or at least their cousin. Or so it seems.

            Long, long ago, when I taught at Southland Boys' High School in Invercargill, New Zealand, I remember being introduced to two other Americans on the faculty. One was Jerry, from California. The other was Tim Sullivan, a math teacher from New Jersey who had friends (or maybe it was family) from Northern Virginia. Tim Sullivan, while not a rare name, happens to be the name of my grandfather and one of my sons.

            As I said, everybody who gets around has their small world tales. They are always a lot of fun. I've related a few of mine here which popped into my head. There are lots of others.

            What about you? If you have a favorite small world story from your own wanderings, drop me a note. If I get enough of them I'll pass them along in another column. 

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Ireland: The West Coast

Colorful shop in a Dingle alley typifies Irish love of color and flowers.

 Armchair Adventures

published July 29, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Ireland's Beautiful Dingle Peninsula

             Ireland's Dingle Peninsula isn't very large. From the city of Tralee to the town of Dingle is less than 30 miles. But it may be one of the few places on Earth where you can take a drive from 2012 back to the Iron Age in less than a couple of hours.

            This is no joke. When you can travel in both space and time like that, the additional dimension brings new meaning to the reason why we love to explore.

            On the drizzly morning when we left our B&B at Camp Junction headed for Dingle, the road soon turned into little more than a paved wagon path, twisting and bending up, up till we emerged on the flank of a grassy mountain.

            The scenery was beyond words, reminding of a drive from Billings, Montana, over a mountain range and down into one of the less used entrances to Yellowstone.

            My son, Tim, was driving, and I bid him stop so we could stand in the rain and soak up the exhilarating scenery. Fewer than 10,000 humans inhabit the whole peninsula, but there are more than half a million sheep, and I could spot them, widely dispersed white dots across these lonely green ranges.

            Crossing the ridge, we made a long, straight descent toward a mist-shrouded sea. Tim wanted to see a place locals call Inch Beach. But hopes of driving this wide sandy expanse yielded to common sense after a local told us we could do it, but would likely have to pay the lurking tow truck operator a hefty fee.

            Back on the winding coast road, we came to the town of Anascaul. It would be just another small Irish coastal town but for the stop we had in mind.

            Just on the edge of town we found what we looked for. An old blue-and-white pub bearing a name no one would expect here: The South Pole Inn.

            In 1923, one of the most famous and heroic of the explorers of the Antarctic, retired to this, his birthplace. The man was Tom Crean, second officer in the Royal Navy who accompanied Robert Scott on two major explorations, leading a party that rescued Scott close to the South Pole on one of them.

            In 1914, this quiet, pleasant giant of a man was chosen for Ernest Shackleton's legendary bid for the pole, aboard the ship Endurance.

            There is not space here to recount one of the most heroic and amazing stories in the annals of human exploration. I know what a sweeping statement that is, but those who know never forget this story. Suffice to say that, once more, Crean came through, playing a pivotal role in the survival of the ship's entire crew and their return to England.

            Learning that Tom Crean's pub survived (Google the South Pole Inn), I could not have returned stateside without visiting. We did better than gawk, we had lunch in this little hostelry, which was sold out of his family after Crean's death in 1938.

            I was both honored and humbled by this visit. And as we emerged from the pub into the rain, we walked across the street to a small park. There, a likeness of the pipe-smoking explorer stands, his arms full of puppies born to one of the sled dogs

aboard Endurance. (Among many other duties, the Irishman found time to take care of the expedition's dogs.)

            We drove on around the west end of the peninsula. The scenery here was spectacular-steep cliffs plunging hundreds of feet into the North Atlantic. But strung across the tops of these cliffs for miles was something else I had come all this way to see.

Small, simple stone huts, "beehive huts," the archaeologists call them.

            They are old, and they have survived over incredible periods of time, guardians of this rugged coastline, home to a rugged civilization that survived here over millennia against great odds. Life here must have been difficult, yet some of these sites have been

carbon-dated at more than 4,000 years old, a few even believed to date back 6,000 years.

            Tim and I loved our entire Ireland trip, but if I was limited to only one place, this would have been it: Dingle, County Kerry and surrounds.

            Next time-if there is a next time-I'll come back to this place. There is far more than I can relate here but these are highlights we both found rich and rewarding. Earlier, I mentioned something called the Dingle Way. Hikers come from around the world for this eight-or-nine-day trek around the peninsula.

            We talked to a young hiking couple from Maryland who had just finished the trek. They loved every mile of it but said it wore them out.

            My Ireland to-see list is already long, if I am lucky enough to return someday.

            And just in case you're wondering, no, we did not see Fungie, the people-friendly wild dolphin that welcomes visitors to Dingle.

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Wandering Ireland-Part 3 of 4

The Rock of Cashel

Armchair Adventures

published July 22, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

To the Coast by Way of The Rock

        So many things in Ireland go by more than one name. The Rock of Cashel, for instance. It suggests, well, some special sort of rock, wouldn't you think?

            But what if your map should call it St. Patrick's Rock or The Fortress Rock at Cashel?

            Well it is all those things and more. What it is, has to be any Hollywood set designer's doped dream of what an ancient castle or fortress must be.

            Son Tim and I drove away from Kilkenny, Ireland, thinking we couldn't find a more spectacular medieval castle than the big one looming over the River Nore there.

            Cashel changed our minds.

            Dominating the skyline of the town of Cashel, The Rock, as guidebooks often call it, is a complex of thousand-year old buildings clinging to a huge limestone upthrust jutting up from a lovely green grass plain. It fairly defines the phrase, medieval fortress castle-my name for it.

            And it isn't my imagination that those fields are the stuff of dreams and song. These are the plains of Tipperary, made famous in a World War I song my mom and dad sang me as a child.

            Little wonder there are so many photos. This is the place you bought that expensive camera for.

            We parked in the lot below, craned up at the Rock, shot the obligatory photos and trudged up the hill, an easy walk, incidentally, despite guidebook descriptions.

            Many of these Irish historic sites today, including The Rock and Kilkenny Castle, are owned and cared for by the government-the equivalent of our national historic parks.

            And as at our own heritage sites, you can expect guides and an introductory video, usually quite well done.

            Before entering the castle, we looked for and spotted another historic site, one that I had read was nearby. It is the ruins of the Hore Abbey-graceful, peaceful ruins, ignored by the crowds, in a field about a third of a mile away. I wish now that we had taken time to visit there. The walk alone would have been worth it.

            From a distance, The Rock appears to be a single, quite old stone structure. That is deceiving. While the assorted structures are jammed together atop their prominence, there is actually the Cormac Chapel, the Round Tower, the Hall of the Vicars Choral, St. Patrick's Cross, the beautiful 13th century roofless chapel, and the walled graveyard and grounds.

            These names correctly indicate that this complex of nested structures served many purposes for many owners over the span of its long life, including residence, cathedral and-always-fortress in an often lawless land.

            There is something else, too. It is the Forgotten Void, a small enclosure between an old chapel and the Round Tower. The Tower is believed the oldest stone construction on the site, dating to about 1100 a.d.

            No one seems certain when this limestone outcropping was first built upon, but with the tremendous defensive advantage it afforded in many warlike times, The Rock has been in use for a very long time.

            St. Patrick is said to have baptized King Aegnus in about 450 a.d. at this place. The castle was given to the church at the beginning of the 12th century and the cathedral was built on the site prior to the year 1300.

            We took the tour, felt the winds that whip this hilltop religious redoubt, and headed back down off The Rock, well aware we had been someplace we would never forget.

            Several blocks away, we went in search of food in Cashel, deciding upon a nondescript place with the name "Ladyswell Café." Tim chose the restaurant, and chose well. It was full of locals, and locals always know best when it comes to dining. I had the seafood chowder; he had the pesto chicken salad.

            A word about Irish food here. This little country chock full of rich farmland is dairy heaven. You had better be prepared for real cream, real butter, and so forth, and the best quality. And if you are working your body as nature made it to be worked, it won't hurt a bit. Wherever you travel in this land, the sea is never far, either. And the bounties of the sea are a staple of Irish menus.

            It was time to move on. We hoped to see the west coast at Tralee and the Bay of Dingle that evening and the Irish countryside was calling.

            We took back roads leaving Cashel. As we turned a corner in this country of beautiful farms, I looked back over my right shoulder and saw, proud and lonely, this ancient sentinel of The Rock.

            We stopped and took a long look back at this hauntingly beautiful site. The photo that you see above is what we saw.

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The Irish Heartland

     Kilkenny Castle overlooks the city and the Rover Nore.

Armchair Adventures

published July 15, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

The Rich History of Kilkenny

            On the morning of our third day in Dublin, my son, Tim, and I headed out of the city, intent on getting a glimpse of the Ireland we had come for.

            As so many cities have, this one had a 'beltway' to navigate but with a novel twist: tolls for using it were to be paid at service stations along radial freeways streaming outwards of Dublin. It worked through a series of computer-controlled cameras snapping images of every license on the toll road.

            If we had gone to Ireland for the narrow, winding country lanes, this 21st-century techno-stuff disappointed. Yet, as we would soon discover, that high-tech gimmickry soon disappeared.

            We would revel in many drives down narrow winding ways in the next few days. All that's needed to find them is to take the off-ramps into the past, down countless Irish lanes that even today are little more than paved paths for pony carts.

            That easy, unstrained joining of ancient and contemporary is one of the country's most engaging features. And the Irish themselves seem entirely at ease with this.

            Our immediate destination was Kilkenny, in the country's central southwest region in the county of the same name.

            Kilkenny's popularity as a tourist destination may stem from its appearance as the quintessential small Irish medieval city. Once we managed to deal with and work around the crowds it was a wonderful town, full of scenic cathedrals, friendly locals, pleasant little shops and all of it crowned by that architectural and historic masterpiece, Kilkenny Castle.

            The castle sits high atop a bluff overlooking the River Nore and the city's commercial core, itself appropriately aged to support the more prominent structures.

            We saved the serious sightseeing for the next morning and set off along John Street (could be called Pub Street) in search for food and lodging. We discovered the latter at a small B&B down an alleyway. If there is an Irish pub that doesn't serve decent food, we did not come across it.

            The choices seemed innumerable. We opted for a friendly place, nearly deserted, at the north end of John Street. It may have been for the service, as the young woman there could put a smile on anyone's face.

            Starved for food and news, we snagged a good deal on both and for stateside news, she bid me go behind the bar and use the computer. And the old news hound did just that, logging onto the New York Times to read headlines about the Supreme Court health care ruling. The 21st century certainly has its advantages!

            By the way, to continue momentarily along this line of digression, I do believe free Wi-Fi was, if anything, more widely available in Ireland than in most American towns I've been to. Got a smart phone? Don't travel without it, but be sure to bring the right charging adapter.

            Friday dawned gray and drizzling. We donned rain gear and headed for St. John's Bridge and Kilkenny Castle. Begun in the 9th century, this enormous building, like so many others, was not built over night. Instead, these Irish castles seem to go through a series of lives, expanding, being partially destroyed in some war or other, changing purposes and owning families over centuries.

            Not all guidebooks give you the straight scoop on these things. One reports that this stalwart stone eminence dates to the 12th century, but a guide told us where we could peer through a glass floor at a floodlighted section of a stone foundation dating to the 800s.

            But for practical purposes, most of the castle as it is seen today dates to the 17th century, when it was home to the Butler family, who ruled some 90,000 acres of surrounding Ireland and-essentially owned those who rented it for farmland. This, by the way, from some of the best informed guides I've ever run into. Tim and I talked to three of these historians separately, at length.

            And these were historians, carefully linking eras of British history from centuries past to the present. It was fun asking them to fit the fictional story of NPR's popular Downtown Abbey into the narrative of this castle and others like it.

            Nowhere in the Irish Republic are you likely to forget that the English ruled this land with an iron and often scornful hand for many lifetimes. It took little Ireland until 1923 to win the independence that we had won a century-and-a-half earlier.

            To this day, the Irish seem very fond of Americans. After all, in the great potato famine of 1847-49 and thereabouts, it is believed that a million Irish died and an equal number fled their homeland, most of them to America-an unthinkable toll for a small country.

            And just as Americans know from generational memories of their own Civil War, the Irish will long remember the famine and the generations they spent struggling for independence. 

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IRELAND in the 21st Century

Late evening, Dublin's spectacular James Joyce Bridge, aka The Harp Bridge for Ireland's national symbol.

Armchair Adventures

published July 8, 2012

First in series of four

by Paul Sullivan

Impressions of Ireland

            It seems unreal to think that 24 hours ago I was in the airport at Dublin, Ireland, awaiting a plane back to the States.

            Half a century of expectations went into that moment. Half a century of wondering about Ireland. We had spent eight days roaming the Emerald Isle in an effort to see just what we guessed right...and what we had all wrong about this ancient land. Right or wrong, we loved it all; would return in a heartbeat.

            We have a new dream now: to return someday and walk the legendary Dingle Way-more about in a later column.

            Impressions? Right there you have one of my fondest-talking to people who had just walked that 8-day trail among the rugged, weather-beaten windswept crags where sheep still roam the same moors where iron-age man survived elements and invaders at least a thousand years before Christ.

            That’s on a peninsula along this island nation’s west or Atlantic side. On the eastern side of this Indiana-sized country of 6.1 million, Dublin is another world.

            Ireland, as anyone who follows the news knows, is a member of the EU-the European Union. A member whose economy is not doing well. With some one million inhabitants, Dublin would seem to be the economic engine that drives Ireland. But is it? I certainly wouldn’t know, but our impressions would put it the other way around. Namely, that rural and small-city Ireland seems to be in decidedly better shape than Dublin.

            East-to-west, we saw no real evidence of dire need outside Dublin. Of course, appearances can be deceptive, but the country’s farms and independent businesses certainly gave the impression that they were not suffering.

            We both commented on what a cosmopolitan city Dublin is. Typifying this, on our last night in country, we had dinner in a Mexican restaurant sitting next to two German men, served by a Chinese waitress.

            Dublin serves up a rich stew of the very old and 21^st century. Divided by the River Liffey, the city has a lattice-work of bridges, centuries old and strikingly new, both vehicular and pedestrian. It has an excellent public transit network including light rail.

            The double-decker tour buses, with their hop-on, hop-off at will plan provided our means of getting the essential overview. We liked ‘em so much we went back for a second round.

            Even at that, Dublin has such a rich and varied mix of sites to see that we saw but a fraction of it and could have spent our entire time there.

            Favorites-different as they are-would be the Trinity College Library with its Book of Kells exhibit, and the Guinness Storehouse.

            The home of Ireland’s favorite drink is almost surely the single most popular tourist attraction in the country. I’d bet on it. This masterpiece of marketing concludes with a pint of Ireland’s favorite export high atop its brewery in a glass-enclosed pub with what has to be the most spectacular possible views of Dublin.

            Tim signed up for the Guinness Academy, a 10-minute introduction on the proper way to pour a pint. And I must say, there is a thing or two to learn, as he later showed me in a historic pub many miles way, in a part of this story yet to come.

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Berryville: Heart of the Valley

Time trip: Sammy, Bev and Margy at Berryville News Stand

Armchair Adventures

published July 1, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Back to the Future

 in Berryville

            Here’s what I can recall about Berryville and Clarke County. It’s from way far back, mostly in the 1940s and 50s.

            Mom always said we had lots of McCormick relatives up there, in what she’d call The Valley. That means the Valley of Virginia-the upper valley not far from Winchester.

            Through mom’s mother’s side, we’re McCormicks, but the only one of them I know still living up there is cousin Bev Whiting.

            Aunt Bessie was Bev’s mom, and she was something else. Dad called her a pistol. When I was little, Aunt Bessie evoked a certain amount of fear. Not that she was mean, but she ran the big feed and grain store down by the railroad tracks. She was the boss. And nobody in Berryville ever doubted that.You didn’t cross Bessie Whiting. No sir.

            But I digress.

            I’m not sure if it was my sister, Margy, (Margaretta) or me made the suggestion we ought to drive up to Berryville and see Bev.

            And so it was that on the first day of summer-lovely day it was-Margy wheeled her Honda van westward, over the Blue Ridge, down into the Shenandoah Valley and into Berryville.

            My first reaction was that no town in Virginia could resist change, could hold back the flood of development so well.

            It could have been 1950, from that initial cruise down the main drag. I mean, had anything changed?

            There was great-grandpa Province McCormick’s last home; further along, there was the Battletown Inn, where the diminutive Civil War mounted Scout had hung-out in his final years. A few miles back up the road we had passed something with the name “Hawthorne” on it-a subdivision, I believe. That had been the old McCormick farm before Union troops burned it during a rampage down the Valley.

            Some years before she died, mom offered each of her four kids a piece of the old farm. By then we had established lives elsewhere and turned it down. Now-now that it’s way too late, I’m not so certain.

            This is unspeakably lovely, hallowed, green ground; so close to the fabled Shenandoah River. No wonder someone wrote those unforgettable lines of song, “Oh, Shenandoah, I Long to See You!”

            Back to the moment. It had been so long that neither of us could remember exactly where Bev lived. Margy turned here and there, I tried to lift it from the screen of my fone. Just then she said, “There he is!” And darned if he wasn’t-a small man dressed all in white-southerner to the core-waving us on from three blocks away.

            “Well,” I remarked, “He may be 92, but he sure has sharp eyesight!”

            Bev Whiting is the living embodiment of Old Virginia. Thoroughly decent, well-mannered, level-headed, and looking forward, with an eye on where he’s come from. But it was his sunny disposition I enjoyed most. There couldn’t be a mean bone in the man’s body.

            A child of Berryville, he’d lived his entire life in Clarke County, but for time soldiering in the U.S. Army Field Artillery during World War II.

            I don’t know if there’s a town historian, but I know who I’d nominate for the job. We could not imagine anything or anyone in Berryville worth knowing that Bev Whiting does not know.

            Bev, his stepson, Sammy Card, and the two of us sat there and “visited” (as old timers say) for awhile.

            But when Virginians get together, they eat together. Where to?

            We cruised the town’s single commercial street which offers several choices for dining. But there was only one choice for me, and I said so.

            We had to lunch at the Berryville News Stand.

            In the decades when it really was a news stand, it had been Bev Whiting’s store. The nerve center of Clarke County might have been a more accurate name for the place.

            It’s a deli now. Nothing fancy to look at, but my turkey-avocado-cheese sandwich and big glass of iced coffee was top-grade.

            After lunch, we piled back in the car and, with Bev narrating, took the best tour anyone could imagine of his little town.

            Across the railroad tracks, there was the big building that used to be the family feed and grain business; back behind that, hidden in an industrial park, is the town’s economic lifeblood, Berryville Graphics, a major book publishing house. The Winchester Star had done a story that very day on its expansion. Think books made from real trees are dead as the dodo-bird? Think again. How about 120 million copies a year?

            Those employees must live somewhere, I mused.

            Bev showed us where. And in this scenic little village of surprises, we turned here and turned there and, suddenly found ourselves in a pretty typical suburban development, complete with waving UPS driver. We were right in the middle of the year 2012, after all.             And it really wasn’t all that bad.

           

           

           

Amtrak's Fredericksburg Problem

Armchair Adventures

for June 24, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Wrong Track with Amtrak

            We all have a tendency to think common sense will prevail; to believe that

things obviously wrong will be righted. But when they endure over years, causing serious problems or at the very least a major inconvenience to many, we think that some mysterious "someone" will do something about them.

            If you travel by Amtrak from Fredericksburg to anyplace else, you will have encountered what I am about to write about. If neither you nor anyone you know ever rides the rails on Amtrak to parts beyond, well, forget about this. Move on to other things.

            Several weeks ago I took my son to Fredericksburg's venerable passenger station to catch a southbound train. It was a Sunday morning. As the time for the scheduled 8:50 a.m. train neared, a familiar guessing game gradually spread through the crowd.

            There were several dozen travelers and wishers-well scattered beside the tracks, bags in hand, awaiting what I soon learned were both southbound and northbound trains.

            As if it were not weird enough that the two tracks are numbered 2 and 3, (rather than 1 and 2), nobody seemed to know which train would arrive on which  track.

            Some more assertive folks assured others that the southbound would be on the side nearest downtown, while northbound would be on the opposite side.

            I asked the gentleman who had said this how he had made that determination. "Well, he said, trains keep to the right like cars do on the road." He hesitated. "I guess," he added.

            Not wanting to sound like a know-it-all, or a railroad oracle, I said, no, that isn't right. Trains, I told him, follow no such rule and I had many times caught northbound trains on either of the two tracks. "I suspect," I told him," that rail traffic managers route the trains according to other trains using those same tracks, in order to maintain separation for safety's sake.

            An older woman arrived with big bags. A younger woman with her said the elderly lady had missed the train the previous day because they had been on the wrong side when the train arrived. "And it didn't wait," she said.

            When the train pulls into the station and you find yourself on the wrong side, you must grab luggage and run as fast as you can, frantically hoping to go down the long angled walkway to a center aisle beneath the tracks, cross over to the other side, then lug your bags back up, huffing and puffing, and hope the conductor has seen you and will signal the engineer to wait for you.

            "I just can not believe that in the 21st century," a young man indignantly announced, "that Amtrak inflicts this upon its paying passengers and cannot do better."

            Couldn't have said it better myself.

            Virginia Railway Express does. This little commuter line has an LED light panel providing train information.

            Often, travelers think that surely they can get this basic information calling Amtrak's toll-free number. Been there; tried that. What you get, calling in, is operators who can tell if your train will be late, but their computer screens to not provide the arrival track.

            Or, you might get the Amtrak app for your phone. I have it. Doesn't help.

            Aha, you might say, but they do make an announcement.

            And yes, you would be right, sort of. Sometimes they make an announcement on the track number; sometimes it is not garbled and you can figure out what they have said, and sometimes it is even far enough ahead of arrival that you have time to switch sides…so to speak.

            The Fredericksburg area, a serious tourist town attracting visitors from across the country and around the world (yes, it is true), has had passenger rail service since before the Civil War-a conflict in which, ironically, railroads played a major role.

            I travel through this historic station a couple of dozen times a year. A retired reporter, I naturally strike up conversations with others awaiting trains every time I visit the station and put up with this ridiculous situation.

            What amazes me is that it has gone on so long. And that solving this problem would be so simple and would cost no more than the price of a simple LED light panel.

            Passengers having to play guessing games with train arrivals in the year 2012, (I've always wanted to write this) is just no way to run a railroad.

           

Richmond's Colorful Ginter Garden

Butterfly colors play off against brilliant blooms.

Armchair

Adventures

for June 17, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

New To Do at Ginter Garden in Richmond

           

            One of these days I may have to get a membership in the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond. I mean, it's just that good, and there is always something new.

            Over the years, I've written about the Garden a number of times, as long-time readers may recall.

            The gardens (it really needs an 's' as there are many distinct ones within) happened to be the place that my friend CG set to meet with Nancy Hugo about her new book, "Seeing Trees-Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees."

            Over lunch at the Tea House we talked with Hugo about her book (and everything else under the sun). This isn't a restaurant review, but for credit-where-it's-due's sake, the food was exceptional.

            Hugo had to dash off after lunch, leaving my friend and me to explore the gardens on our own. In one of her many earlier lives, she had been education director there, so she knows a lot about the 42-acre property on Richmond's north side.

            At the north end of scenic Sydnor Lake, we found artist Patrick Dougherty's incredible "Diamonds in the Rough," a sculpture that has transformed countless tree saplings and sticks into a fantasy castle. At least that's my take on it.

            Setting aside the remarkable details of how Doughtery crafted his unusual structure, the end creation is something to stare and wonder at. But don't just wonder at the way it looks. Walk right up to this sculpture; walk on into it. Walk from room-to-room; peek out and through and around it. Don't forget to peer straight up at the sky through the dozens of interwoven pieces.

            Let imagination be your guide. And if possible, check it out when you are by yourself; no one else around. Nighttime, when the moon is low, would be ideal, but unfortunately the grounds are closed then, except Thursdays in summer months. Check the website for details on this.

            Ever thought that right-brain, left-brain stuff was hooey? Really? Do as I say, reach back to find that inner 5-year-old, and try for a glimpse into the mind of someone who held onto that view into adulthood. It's a real trick. But be warned: if you aren't used to doing this, it could be frightening. The human mind-unleashed-is far and away the most potent narcotic of all.

            Details about the construction are provided on nearby panels. Dougherty, internationally renwoned for his tree sculptures, has built something at Ginter Garden that any child could understand and appreciate. Adults, notably less imaginative, may have to work at it a bit more. And that is not a criticism-not of kids,' anyway.

            It was a warm afternoon that day at Ginter Garden. There were a fair number of visitors, for a Monday. In the lobby at the entrance there was a handbill for Butterflies Live, an exhibit in the north wing of the Garden's Conservatory.

            I had to see it. But before you grab that camera and head for the butterflies, I'd best offer a few tips. First, these are free-flying, exotic creatures. Entrance is through an air-lock room where non-essential items must be left. The butterflies are more active at certain times than others. It is quite possible to accidentally stomp on one or-on the other hand-to unknowingly let one piggyback out the door on your way out.

            It's steamy within the butterfly conservatory-purposely so, for these tropical creatures. They may be anywhere in the large enclosure, not just at eye level waiting for you to see and photograph them. Look around. Be patient. Remember that five-year-old I mentioned? Bring him or her along-the real one or the one buried deep within.

            Oh, and not to fret if you can't immediately identify a particular butterfly. There are IDs for each variety on the Garden website, lewisginter.org.

           

           

           

           

           

Trees: A Closer Look

Nancy Hugo at Richmond's Ginter Garden

Armchair Adventures

for June 10, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Tree Secrets

            There seem to be two sorts of people who love nature. I call them the listers and the learners.

            Nancy Hugo graduated long ago from being a lister-checking off this kind of tree and that. The author and outdoor educator turned her love for trees into a passion to show others what a world of wonder grows in every single one of them.

            Hugo and photographer Robert Llewellyn have doubled down from their beautiful book, "Remarkable Trees of Virginia," which she co-authored with Jeff Kirwan, to produce "Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees."

            I met Hugo this week at-appropriately enough-Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond. Her knowledge and love of trees and of the broader natural world is contagious.

            Whether it is trees, birds, wildflowers, reptiles or mammals, geology or any of a dozen or more popular natural realms that attracts us, curiosity eventually leads many of us beyond mere taxonomy-the naming of species or types seen. We simply want to learn more about what we are looking at.

            And as she so convincingly shows, the deeper we look into the world of these outsize plants called trees, the more we see.

            And so it was with Nancy Ross Hugo, a Richmond native who divides her time between Ashland and Buckingham County-the latter where she and husband John operate a nature education program and retreat center.

            In "Seeing Trees," she not only describes what to look for upon closer examination, but all about the intricate elements that allow trees to grow, reproduce, survive assorted trials and the stages of life that they pass through. It is an incredible story, differing for each species.

            The core of this story is the detailed look that she and Llewellyn take of 10 trees, nine of them well-known to any outdoor Virginian, and one introduced variety, the wonderfully strange Ginkgo.

            I perused these probing accounts of the inner lives of the American Beech, American Sycamore, Black Walnut, Eastern Red Cedar, Red Maple, Southern Magnolia, Tulip Poplar, White Oak and White Pine and the gingko, continually amazed that there could be so much to discover about each.

            Everyone has a favorite tree, I suppose. I have two, actually, the American Elm and the beech. At one point I had a single example of each in my tree-covered yard-at least until Dutch Elm disease took my beloved elm.

            My beech remains, though, and after rediscovering its inner beauties, thanks to Hugo and Llewellyn, I will revisit it for a closer look. I had no idea, for instance, that this tree produces a delicate seedling with two tiny fan-shaped leaves; that I will have to search closely for them in the woods at just about this time of year. It will be done-this day.

            I cannot lay claim to a black walnut, unfortunately, but this handsome tree and its appetizing nuts have always fascinated. I know where there is a grand old walnut, and each fall when the thick-hulled nuts fall, I grab a few handfuls to take home. According to Hugo, most commercial walnuts are collected from wild trees, chiefly from Missouri. And I won't give it away, but if you're wondering, she gives some pretty good clues how to get at that nut, which nature has gone overboard to protect.

            Despite her voluminous store of the lore of trees, Hugo insists she is not a tree scientist. She sees herself, instead, as a translator, in that world between science and the curious layman, bridging the gap from the former to the latter.

            With the crucial assistance of the most beautiful and instructive photos of the inner workings of trees that I have ever laid eyes on, she has done a masterful job in, "Seeing Trees."

            Spend a few hours in this book and you will never again view a tree in quite the same way.

             

           

           

Kids' Books Have Changed

Birds haven't changed; people have. 

Armchair Adventures

for June 3, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

 

Old Book Opens Window to a Past Long Gone

            I closed my laptop and struggled to tie together what I had seen.

            The last thing on the screen had been a satellite view of St. Petersburg, Fla., where Edna H. Evans had been a newspaper reporter, before World War II.

            At the time her first book rolled off the presses, March, 1940, she would not have recognized my view of that city.

            It was a boys' book, beautifully illustrated with her husband, Bill's photographs. She was a reporter for the St. Petersburg Times; he took pictures for the paper.

            Her story was a fictionalized account based on Bill's summer trips to Florida as a boy. An ornithologist rents the house next door; the elder mentors the junior as they work together on field research of Gulf Coast Florida's teeming birdlife.

            Not only did the couple share an interest in their journalism, but also in birds, which they had studied extensively along Gulf Coast and island keys.

            Last week, when I wrote this column about bird banding, I had mentioned my own early interest in birds and how it had been stoked by Edna Evans' book, "Bill and the Bird Bander."

            As much as it meant to me when I had read it-probably about age 6-8, this was not classic childrens' fare, destined to last for generations. (Although I've been surprised to see there are plenty of copies for sale online.)

            I was sure that my own copy of the book, which helped spark a lifelong interest in birds (together with my mother's keen interest in all things natural) had long since disappeared, in the 72 years' since it came out, and I wrote as much last week.

            But I had a shock in store the day after I turned in last week's column. Imagine the surprise when my son, Patrick, called to say he had found that old volume, and that it was in pretty good condition!

            (To understand this, you have to know that in our family, books are a passion. We never throw away books, storing them, instead, in places where we never more will find them and they might as well have been thrown away. But once in awhile, mind you, one of these old books returns from the shadowy cubbyholes of our past.)

            I sat down to reacquaint myself with Edna Evans book, the first of at least four she apparently wrote, by the way.

            It was, and yet was not the same as I remembered it. Remember, she did her research and wrote that book in the 1930s. Not only was it during the Great Depression, it was long before a number of major cultural earthquakes shook this country.

            Birds, and the study of them, were the subject of Edna Evans first book, but, I found that the basics of bird banding have not changed as much as I would have thought. Sure, computers have replaced 3x5 file cards and other technologies have made the work faster and easier, but the primary tasks are pretty much the same.

            The big surprise was cultural. Casually, without realizing it, Evans makes references to black people that are quite racist-no other word for it. When she mentions a black man helping the Bill's ornithologist-mentor, for instance, his reply is quoted in dialect.

            This kind of thing just doesn't go in books anymore, thank goodness, especially not in a book from a major publishing house.

            There wasn't much material like that in "Bill and the Bird Bander," but it was there, and it stopped me in its tracks.

            As my own, Buena Vista, Virginia, born mom, speaking of race relations in her childhood, told me in the 1970s: "We didn't know any better. It was the way we were raised. And it was wrong."

           

           

           

           

The Secret Lives of Birds

Bill Teetz bands yellow-breasted chat. CG photo

Armchair Adventures

by Paul Sullivan

May 27, 2012 

 

Banding-For the Birds

            When I was a little boy, someone gave me a book called "Bill and the Bird Bander." It told the story of a kid who learned about birds from someone who banded them.

            That book disappeared in the ensuing decades, in a series of moves my folks made, and I had forgotten it until this morning. Or I certainly thought I had.

            But the memory plays strange tricks, for I planned to write about a visit to a bird banding station last Saturday at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge near Woodbridge. And then, from nowhere, I remembered that old book.

            There is little doubt that the book had an impact, as I have been chasing birds for more than 60 years now. Yet, oddly enough, last Saturday was the first time I had ever gone to a banding station for a close-up look at what's done there.

            Suzanne Miller, a licensed master bird bander, has volunteered at the station since it opened in 2001. She was one of four volunteers manning the station. Nearby, a series of 17 nearly invisible mist nets snag small songbirds for study.

            Betsy True, who had told me about the station, took my friend, CG and I to see how it operates. We met in a parking lot and "birded" our way along half a mile or so of trails through fields and along woodland edges to the station. We tallied a dozen or so species on the walk in and several more on the trip out.

            The banding station was a small shelter in a thick mixed hardwood forest with heavy undergrowth. Four volunteers checked the nets each half hour. Business had been slow, they said.

             But things began to pick up in late morning. First a northern waterthrush, then a Carolina wren, a cowbird, followed by a tufted titmouse and another wren. And on the last net-check of the day, voila! A male yellow-breasted chat. A female chat had been captured earlier that morning.

            The chat, while not a rarity, is not easy to see as it hides in heavy undergrowth. It is a large member of the warbler family that keeps itself well out of sight most of the time. I have probably only had a good look at a chat four or five times. Hard as it is to see, it's an easy bird to hear, with a boisterous, rowdy series of notes. Learn that call and you learn that the bird is not so rare.

            The banders bring their catches to a table at the station. There, with a swift efficiency, they note the species, look for previous leg bands, check its weight and gender (they "sex it"), take measurements, note its age and breeding condition. If there is no band, one of the tiny, numbered bands is attached to a leg.

            All info on the bird is carefully logged.

            Then comes the fun part.

            Visitors may be offered the chance to release a bird. There is a quick lesson-hold it thus; release it like this…

            I would never have guessed what a thrill it is to hold a live bird for release into the wild.

            "Would you like to release it?" asked Kevin Hewes, a bander at the Woodbridge refuge.

            He handed me a cowbird. It seemed so small. The bird settled into my right hand and I firmly but gently placed its neck between two fingers of my left hand.

            The bird peered at me as it sat on my right palm, my left hand restraining it. Someone shot photos; the bird wanted to fly.

            Just like that, I eased the grip on my left fingers and it vanished. It departed so fast my eyes could scarcely track it.

            Shortly before noon, the nets were checked one final time. No birds. The nets were lowered and rolled; equipment stored.

            The banding station operates during the spring migration of transient species. That season is nearing an end. Wednesday was the final scheduled day.

            For the 2012 season, Miller said she expects a total of around 430-plus birds will have been caught, examined and released. And yes, she said, birds previously tagged are often netted again.

            Since 2001, the year of fewest birds tagged was 358; the high was 807. The smallest bird snagged was a ruby-throated hummingbird; the largest, a green heron.

            Data gathered here is fed into a database of the U.S. Geological Survey, which licenses the banding station.

            As we walked back to the car, I found myself thinking that, if I lived a lot closer to the refuge, I would have to volunteer as a bird bander.

           

           

           

           

           

           

Whirlwind Day in Albuquerque

Armchair Adventures

for May 20, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

Albuquerque on Steroids

            Think of a single day in which you are offered to opportunity to see and do the following. Any one of them would make a day to remember.

            It could be a flight in a light plane up one of the most scenic valleys in the Southwest with time to land at the state capital, have coffee, then take off again to trace the path one of the west's most legendary rivers, viewing a rugged range of mountains, as well as dozens of other sites.

            Or it might be an evening concert to hear the world's most famous flamenco guitarist and his ensemble, taking in an electrifying performance of musicians and dancers as they bring a packed house to its feet in waves of applause.

            It could be a quiet drive down a National Scenic Byway through old mining towns from the Frontier West, in the shadows of towering forested peaks, a few with snow still brushing their upper flanks.

            Maybe it would include a chamber music concert by top tier musicians in an architecturally striking setting, sipping wine afterward in a chat with the players who live there.

            Surely all of these activities and a few others couldn't be stuffed into a single day?

Or could they?

            And despite this amazing schedule, everything came off without a hitch, thanks to my Albuquerque hosts, Chuck and Carol Kreis.

            Chuck and I left early Sunday for Kirtland Air Force Base, where he had scheduled time in 66-Mike-Juliet, a clean, well-maintained Cessna 182 of the base Aero Club. After Chuck dispensed with the paperwork and got a forecast, we untied and did a pre-flight on the plane.

            Despite the high altitude of the field (shared as Albuquerque International), the 182 with constant-speed three-blade prop didn't break a sweat holding a 600-foot-per-minute rate of climb as we made a wide climbing turn to a northerly heading.

            Chuck, a retired, high-time career Air Force pilot took pity on this salivating wingless flyer and offered me the controls. What a feast for the eyes and the senses!

            At 8,500 feet, where my old C-150 would be gasping, this little bird didn't seem to notice.

            We explored Santa Fe and vicinity, Chuck pointing out such notable features as the renowned Santa Fe Opera, national cemetery, and the state capital's ancient old town.

            I believe we could have made a day of our aerial tour, but a tight timetable meant that after landing and taking a moment for coffee, we had to depart

Santa Fe and head south for "home."

            On a trip to Thailand, the Kreises had met Conrad and Susan De Jong, retired musicians who live near Santa Fe. It was sheer coincidence that on the Sunday I was there, the De Jong's were holding a chamber music concert for friends at their lovely home in the woods not far from the city. Would I like to come along?

            And that explains why, soon after we returned to Albuquerque, we once more headed north, this time the three of us in a car.

            The De Jong's home is an understated showcase of brilliant design. We were welcomed, joining some two dozen guests for the concert. Although I am not particularly enamored of chamber music, generally, two of the five pieces on the card were, I thought, warm and compelling. All were beautifully executed. Mastery is always evident.

            After wine and hors d'oeuvres, we sat around outside for a time with our hosts and their great little companion, 10-year-old Zappa, a Westie (West Highland Terrier). From their patio, we had a grand view of Wheeler Peak in the Sangre de Cristo Range-New Mexico's highest mountains.

            For the journey back to Albuquerque (getting dizzy yet?), Chuck avoided I-25, opting for New Mexico route 14, a twisting, turning historic trip through that state's colorful mining history, tracing southward 64 miles along the east flank of the Sandias. This is more commonly known as the Turquoise Trail.

            Paco de Lucia is billed as the world's eminent master of flamenco guitar. So it was said; and so did I suspend judgment knowing the tendency of promoters to hype their performers.

            At the University of New Mexico's concert hall that night, de Lucia proved himself to be as good as his billing, if not better. Such energy, such dynamic range, such lyrical raw emotion did he, his dancer and vocalist sustain that he held his audience in the palm of his hands. And when his listeners stood and demanded more, I joined them.

            What a day! I have had none other like it. And I surely will not forget it.

            It was the perfect cap to my solo cross-country driving trip.

            Monday morning I bid adieu to Chuck and Carol, taking along grand memories on the final leg of my drive from Fredericksburg, Va., to Prescott, Az.