Guest Blogging: They Got Game

First published, earlier this afternoon, on the Consul General's personal blog, A Diplomat in the Deccan.

If the National Basketball Association really is scouting India for the first player with the potential to make it big-time, ala China’s Yao Ming, they’d better book a ticket to Hyderabad. Fast.

That’s what I didn’t know before agreeing to match up against local kids in a friendly basketball game Friday afternoon.


I jumped onboard as soon as I heard the Public Affairs Section was recruiting American officers for a game at the Sports Coaching Foundation. After all, I’ve got a pretty solid background in basketball. Okay, I haven’t played on a school team since 5th grade and my intramural team recorded only one win in two seasons, but still, my hometown back in Wisconsin is a basketball hotbed. The Fond du Lac Cardinals regularly win state championships and my sister’s classmate made it all the way to the Final Four and a starting spot on an NBA roster. And it’s safe to call my college a powerhouse. The University of Wisconsin Badgers just beat the #1 team in the country! That pedigree has to count for something.

I knew we were in trouble, though, the moment we stepped out of the car. Tucked next to Chacha Nehru Park in a modest corner of the city, the non-profit organization’s dusty sports field is brought to life with that magical sound of children at play, universal in any land. Huddled up on one side of the sports field, a team of girls, all sporting matching blue jerseys. On another side, a team of boys, even taller and older, in matching yellow. They looked like they knew what they were doing.

But still, I was optimistic. These were only schoolchildren, after all.

As we warmed up, the crowd grew little by little. The other sportsters -- the cricket boys, the gymnastics girls and the tennis-wallah -- took a break to ring the court. And plenty of parents joined them. After calling everyone’s attention, Mr. Saibaba, the founder of Sports Coaching Foundation, was kind enough to announce our all-star line-up and asked us each to introduce ourselves. And in truth, I earned more applause with the microphone than with the gameplay that was to come.

“Namaskaramu, na peru Jeremy,” I started, to cheers from the half of the crowd that prefers Telugu. The other half clapped when I parroted “Namaste, mera naam Jeremy hai,” in Hyderabad’s other major language, Hindi/Urdu.

“Mai university me hindi urdu parta ta…kani ee rojlu na telugu na hindi urdu kante chala bagundi,” I said, blending the two very different languages together, as so often happens here on such a diverse subcontinent.

But it was the kids’ chance to show off their skills just as soon as the ball was tipped. The blue-clad girls won the tip and raced down the court. A few well-executed passes, a dribble or two, a swish. Girls 2, Consulate 0. I glanced at one of my coworkers and all he could offer was a shake of the head.

We had walked into a trap. These kids were ringers!

For 15 minutes, the girls found hole after hole in our defense, even if our height and superior bulk kept us in the game. After a short time-out, it was the boys’ turn to embarrass us. They chose to do their damage with the fast break. Lay-up after lay-up. Even the third game, a mixed group of younger kids, was more than we could handle.

But even if the scoreboard wasn’t in our favor Friday, we walked away with our heads held high and a smile on our faces. It was great to see kids of all creeds having fun on the Sports Coaching Foundation, learning real life lessons from both the coaches and the value of gameplay.

Plus, I’m hoping these Hyderabadi kids will keep me in mind for a pair of front row tickets just as soon as they make it onto an NBA roster...

Jeremy Jewett is a first-tour Vice Consul from Wisconsin. On a good day, he stands 5’10”. His line on the day? 6 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 turnovers, 2 fouls and 1 great experience.

Smith-Corona: Sterling

I have a new friend. My new friend gives my day meaning. My new friend cost $5 at the Oshkosh St. Vinnies. My new friend is a 1965(ish) Smith-Corona Sterling. A beauty. She works like a charm, without a single defect.


I take my new typewriter with me wherever I go. In December it was decorating half of Rachel's wall during an Ugly Sweater Party. New Years eve? Came up north with us to Nick's cabin. And there we set about, among other things, to understanding why the seven of us were in the room.

It started small:


But our ambitions grew:


Looking to make your own typewriter art? Great. Here's a suggestion, though. Instead of folding your paper over, use a square of paper with a diagonal that's just short enough to fit into the typewriter. Here's the formula:

The Marriage of Dave Lund and Christa Carlman

I. THE OPENING ACT

J. De La Garza plays “Walk With You.”

Dave walks Marilynn and Angie down aisle.

Wedding party procession:

Mike Vogel (with Lola the dog)
Lisa Rutherfurd (with Emma the dog)
Matt D’Amour and Molly North
Nick Tackett and Beth Lund
Robert Lund and Maryellen Frank
Dan Lund and Susan Carlman
Jim Lund and Lee Riddell
Greg Vogel and Cara Carlman

Ring Bearer Ethan
Flower Girl Olivia
Flower Girl Madeline

Papa Len escorts Christa down the aisle.

II. THE WELCOME

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today under the rockiest of peaks to celebrate the most joyous of days. On this very morning, Dave and Christa will join themselves in the happiest of matrimonies. We are here to share in that celebration of life and love. Today, we will blend new hope with an old tradition. Together with Dave and Christa, we acknowledge the seriousness of their commitment, the height of their aspirations and the depth of their love. And we share in their confidence for the future.

The “we” that is gathered here today is truly a special “we.” “We” are the friends and family that Dave and Christa have come to love and trust. It must certainly be said that they would not be here today without us. Family, especially the beaming parents in our front row, Marilynn and Angie and Len, nurtured Dave and Christa into fine human beings. And friends, especially those from Fort Collins, helped cultivate their relationship from day one.

But there are certainly many people who cannot be here...in this place, at this time, to share in this moment. Many people who are dear to Dave and Christa. And many people who are dear to you, people who you would love to share this moment with, if only you had the opportunity. I offer you this minute to cherish those people.

By saying “We do,” who gathers here today to join Dave and Christa in joyous celebration of their marriage? “We do!” Who gathers here today to reflect their spirit of love, fellowship and inclusion? “We do!” And who here promises to support Dave and Christa today, tomorrow and all the days after? “We do!”

On behalf of Dave and Christa, thank you for being here today. Thank you for supporting them today, and all the days before this day and all the days after. Thank you for being you.

If you’ll humor me, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Jeremy, although that’s often reduced to the single letter J. I have to admit that I’m hardly unbiased in my relationship to the couple. Christa is far my favorite. You see, I know Dave and his “uniquenesses” all too well from our days at the University of Wisconsin. We have lived together twice and worked together twice in almost ten years of friendship. Christa comes with far less baggage...plus she gave me this ridiculously good-looking haircut.

Just like Dave and Christa, this is my first wedding. You might rightly be wondering what website I went to and what link I clicked in order to preside over this ceremony. But I’m not here today as some part of an Internet scheme. I’m not here as a minister; I’m not here as an officer of the court. I’m here simply as a friend with a way for words. The great state of Colorado deems every man and every woman capable of solemnizing their own marriage contract. In that way, Colorado recognizes marriage as a personal pact, just as much as an administrative status or a religious act. Dave and Christa themselves will be the people to make their marriage official this morning, and I think that’s just the way they like it.

III. THE MEAT

But first, in between a pair of readings, I would like to share with you the symbolism of this place. Then, after a song and a soliloquy, Dave and Christa will share their vows. As we bless their union, Dave and Christa will become husband and wife and exchange rings. And, well, we all know what happens after that...

Now, it’s a pleasure to welcome Matt D’Amour. Dave calls Matt a traveling companion, a partner and a confidant. Christa confirms that Dave’s voice rises, just a little bit, every time he talks with Matt on the phone.

A READING FROM THE PROPHET

We, the dearly beloved, are gathered here today at the Happy Heart Farm, a very special “here” to Dave and Christa.

The owners of Happy Heart Farm are true pioneers. Dennis and Bailey bought this land 25 years ago. They created the first CSA, the first community-supported agriculture farm in the state of Colorado. CSAs build a community around the richness of the land, centered on the many benefits of local, organic food. Today, over a hundred members enjoy the bounty of this patch of land. This week, for example, marks the climax of a basil crop that Christa calls “nearly world famous.” From cucumbers in the summer to pumpkins in the fall, Happy Heart members eat well all year round.

Christa was one of those members – a working member, at that - when she met Dave in October of 2006. Working members give three hours a week during the planting and harvesting season in exchange for a reduced membership rate. Befitting two adventuring souls, Dave and Christa met at REI. When Dave found out that Christa was a member of a CSA, he knew he had his “in.” He asked for a tour, and Christa obliged. Since then, Dave and Christa have grown close at this farm. They share a membership and the meals it provides. And just as much, they value the community of friendship formed here.

And it was here that Dave proposed. As he joked to Dennis before the big day, “I’m going to come out to the farm to do some kneedropping, but I’m not gonna be picking weeds.” Last February, Dave planned a romantic bike ride for two, down the road to Boulder and back. The real purpose wasn’t well disguised. Ahead of time, Christa and friends took to calling the bike ride “tour de proposal.” The many mile tour ended right here. Dave brought Christa back to the Farm, coming full circle, and proposed. One journey ended, but another began, right here under this very tree.

Now, I’m delighted to introduce Linda Kengott. Christa and Linda were neighbors when Christa was growing up in Illinois. Christa is happy to call Linda a very special influence.

A READING FROM “WE WHO LOVE YOU.”

And now I would invite a song by Christa’s sister, Susan Carlman. Christa has always admired Susan’s musical talent, and is honored to have her sing “A Wedding Song,” by Bob Dylan.

“A WEDDING SONG,” BY BOB DYLAN

IV. THE THOUGHTS OF JAY

In her outline on what she wanted this morning’s ceremony to look like, Christa called this small section “J’s Thoughts.” A dangerous invitation, indeed. And even before then, last winter, I was flattered to get a two sentence e-mail from Dave. “Thinking about marriage. Thoughts?” A dangerous solicitation, indeed. I’m no expert on love. And I’m no authority on marriage. But I have a thought on both.

Dave is wrong. A household of the finest men I know is wrong, and has been for years. And I, too, was wrong.

For years, we preached the gospel of the four queens: Go big or go home. Sheepshead is Wisconsin’s favorite card game. We trust in a simple strategy: if you don’t throw your biggest trump card, someone else is going to sweep in and take all the points away from you.

But I have come to learn that life isn’t necessarily go big OR go home. This marriage is an example that the principle isn’t always an “either or” proposition. Instead, this marriage is about going big AND going home.

Dave and Christa are going big. They’ve decided on the biggest commitment possible. Embracing love. Investing their energies in another person, in the space between two people. The chips all in.

And Dave and Christa are going home. Not to Illinois, of course, I imagine they like the mountains far too much to do that anytime soon. More like creating a home. Building the physical and emotional space necessary to live in comfort and happiness.

Congratulations to both of you. You two are so much of what our generation looks for in a couple. Together, you are healthy and balanced. You are aware of yourselves and the world around you. You are strong, but playful. Together, you charm and challenge those around you in just the right ways.

I offer you no advice. I give you no expectations. I wish you not good will nor mal or either. You hardly need my goodwill with so much love surrounding you today. Instead, I wish simply that all your journeys be flush with wine and conversation, be they adventures up the Poudre or beyond. Go big AND go home, my friends.

V. THE VOWS

Dave and Christa, before you solemnize your marriage and exchange rings, please join hands and share your vows, so that we may all witness your intention to bind yourselves fully, undeniably and evermore in marriage.

Today we promise to dedicate ourselves completely to each other, with body, speech, and mind. We announce and declare our intention to give one another our deepest friendship and love. When we love we should not say, "God is in our heart," but rather, "We are in the heart of God." And think not we can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds us worthy, directs our course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. But if we love, and must needs have desires, let these be our desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night; To know the pain of too much tenderness; To be wounded by our own understanding of love and to bleed willingly and joyfully; To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for all beloved in our hearts...and a song of praise upon our lips (together).

VI. THE BLESSING

As Dave and Christa solemnize their marriage, please join in the Apache Blessing by repeating after me.

Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be shelter for the other.
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be warmth to the other.
Now there will be no loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two persons,
but there is only one life before you.
May beauty surround you both
in the journey ahead and through all the years.
May happiness be your companion
and your days together be good and long upon the earth.

VII. THE EXCHANGE OF RINGS

Young Mister Ethan, the rings, please! Dave and Christa, please take these rings you wish to give to one another. These rings are so full of meaning, so full of symbols. Both rings are unending, with no beginning and no end. Wherever you go in life, may you always return to each other.

By giving these rings to each other, you confirm and display your love for each other, your commitment to each other, and your trust in each other as you enter the most intimate and the most challenging of all human relationships. By giving these rings to each other, you choose to take each other freely, wholly and evermore as husband and wife.

Dave, please place this ring on Christa’s finger. Christa, please place this ring on Dave’s finger.

With these symbols of your eternal bond, it is a pleasure to announce you...for the first time...to all the world...as husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Dave and Christa Lund. You may now kiss the bride.

SAY HEY, I LOVE YOU, BY MICHAEL FRANTI

The Rawah Writing Project

How to write the first wedding sermon of your life? Hit the mountains, of course.

Rawah Lakes Wilderness
Roosevelt National Forest
25.0 miles, 3 nights

8/29 North Fork of the Larimer
small site for one or two tents 200 feet upstream of the trail crossing.
steady rain, huge thunder not long after i got my tent up.

8/30 Rawah Lake #2
beautiful large campsite across the creek from the trail, on north shore of lake.

8/31 Camp Lake
several areas for one or two tents just uphill of south shore.
read first draft of sermon aloud to a huge bull moose. he didn't seem impressed.

Very pretty scenery. Convenient to Fort Collins, front range. Didn't seem busy. Relatively well-marked trails. Good variety of campsites.

Almost Wikipediaed

I set out to write my first wikipedia page. Encyclopediaing something I know better than just about any one else on this planet. Adventure Learning Programs. Unfortunately it didn't even make it a day. ALPs, it turns out, is not noteworthy...





My entry on Heves, though? Still standing a year later. Noteworthy, apparently...

Adventures in Footnotes

Justice Jewett is ready to rule. But I don't always agree with the majority.

My favorite dissent doesn't have much to do with legal points. Instead, i'm attached to one particular dissent because of a wild case of footnote-ism. 19 in just over four pages. Here's a breakdown of what each footnote accomplished:

1. invitation for appeal
2. sarcasm
3. scold plaintiff
4. additional information
5. additional information
6. clarify
7. idealism
8. clarify
9. scold plaintiff
10. cite Wikipedia
11. self-promotion
12. again, cite Wikipedia
13. clarify
14. perspective
15. defend
16. hedge
17. joke
18. cite a cheesey website
19. cite case law

Patty and the Statement of Purpose

Sometimes people wonder about the statement of purpose i wrote when applying to law school. Most often, of course, those who wonder are folks who are about to set out on writing the same in the very near future.

The story is the story of Patty. One of my favorites.

Four Tuesdays in Europe

The second Tuesday of April

My mom was talking to Nick’s mom the other day. You’ve probably talked to Ms. Olrich, too, if you’ve ever remortgaged at Fox Valley Savings in Fond du Lac, even if you didn’t know her by name.

Nick and I, it so happens, were good friends once. Back in sixth grade, he and I were the boy half of Lakeshore’s Odyssey of the Mind team. A year or two before the detente of teenage hormones, he and I had to be allies.

But a year later, we went to different junior highs, and I don’t think he and I have talked since. It wouldn’t have taken much for our moms to keep in touch better than we have, but they manage to run into each other often. It seems that my parents refinance a lot.

Last week, they were talking about their sons – they usually do. Nick, it turns out, now studies European art. Even if it isn’t what I would have guessed as a career path knowing him as a sixth grader, I’m glad he found something that intrigues him. And it means that he’s gotten the chance to study in Europe.

My mom was quick to pepper Ms. Olrich, she calls her Jean, with motherly questions about Nick’s exploits in Europe. She was particularly curious, you see, because she’s sending me off to Europe. My sister and I are set to see the continent, half a world away from our home. Megan, two years my junior, has spent the spring in Italy, teaching English to hospitality school students along the southern coast. From what I hear, she liked it.

Our mothers look at Nick’s European travels. They look at my wanderlust. Ah-ha, they decided, it must have been something in the drinking water in 1980 when they were pregnant! My guess, though, is that the real reason behind our love to live life far from home is something that was in the air much later.

The atmosphere of 1980 - I was born in the middle of that year, in the middle of July - was fear. The world was a scary place. The globe was split in half. Behind an unseeable iron curtain was a red evil with no wishes greater than our destruction. Only a few years before we had lost to armed peasants in Vietnam. Afghanistan was perhaps the next domino in the Domino Rally of survival. In the Middle East, radicals had oil and hostages, and would give us neither without a fight. As President Carter said, we were in the midst of a crisis of confidence. We were losing to the world. But luckily, I don’t remember 1980, and I don’t think Nick does either.

We came of age, first came to understand the complexities of the world, in a different era. The world was breathing easier. I learned to hide under my classroom desk in fear of only tornadoes, not the spirals of nuclear arms races and the twists of a bitter global dichotomy. As long as we can remember, the majority of the world has lived in freedom, the rule of the majority, even if minority rights are matched by a minority of the world still under political or religious oppression. For our generation, the complexities, curiosities and cultures of the world are challenges to explore, to understand, rather than challenges to our existence. Black and white became a mosaic of grays, a work of art that becomes colorful only when the paint-by-number canvas is sampled by the artist, a traveler to foreign worlds.

I find it unsurprising that the children of Fond du Lac born in 1980 travel and dream of distant lands. I’m not surprised that the children of distant lands, and all the lands in between, who share our birthday travel and explore. The inheritance of our birth, after all, was a world that we are free to explore.

* * * * *
The third Tuesday of April

I was just asked why. Again.

Eight months ago, it was Laura van Arsdale, smack in the middle of the Arizona wastelands, as we were serenaded by the cooling, calming symphony of a desert sunset, who asked why. She asked the simple question, expecting more than the simple answer. Why, she wondered, was I traveling with her.

It is the kind of question that I much prefer to ask than to answer, the kind of question for which I have no real answer. You have probably asked me one yourself, you know what I do. I hide my uncertainty under a shroud of pretended disinterest. I take off my glasses and rub my eyes. I sigh, I look away, I mumble. I run-around, I avoid eye contact. I do anything but answer the question.

But today it was my sister. And strangely, I feel it was a fair question. We were huddled under a rocky overhang in Norway, hiding from spring rain drops and the Norwegian police. Camping on the grounds of a palace/museum, we’re still not exactly sure what kind of estate with cannons we were on, is certainly not a legally-sanctioned activity. We were only inches, although those inches were on the map, from what we hoped was our salvation from crummy weather and an expensive conversion rate – Sweden. But the last train to the land of milk, honey and Saabs had left an hour ago.

So we hiked out of Halden, Norway, with a map showing lots of green spaces just outside of the city, three oranges and half a loaf of bread. And fruit leather. As we left the city limits, we seemed to reach my sister’s limits. But we marched on with full packs as I insisted we would find a good spot to camp just around the next corner. I had no idea where we were going, but we stumbled onto the wooded estate and were quick to call it good enough. Too worried to set up our misdemeanorous tent until dark, Megan was left with nothing better to do than ask why the hell I was traveling.

I probably laughed. I probably rolled my eyes, held my glasses in my hand and rubbed my eyes. I probably said something, but not what I meant. I definitely did not answer the question.

But it is most certainly nearly impossible to find yourself if you aren’t first lost, no?

* * * * *

The fourth Tuesday of April

The joy of traveling is discovering hapiness where you never knew it existed. Happiness, of course, is everywhere, but to find it outside your own experience is to travel. Yesterday, I traveled to Hungary.

Budapest bites you the moment you step off the train. Hungary is not the United States. For the first time, I was behind the Iron Curtain, even if the sharpness of that divide has rusted for the last fifteen years.

Heavy women are quick to peddle open rooms in their home to overwhelmed foreigners. Broken English invites each confused visitors who steps off the train, affluent by default, to share lovingly-stirred goulash for some petty sum. For these mothers, these grandmothers, bringing the West into their eastern home is the only means to support their way of life.

But the gauntlet of unfamiliarity continued even after we managed to convince the heavy women that we were visiting a friend. Even as familiar a thing as escalators becomes foreign, and frighteningly so, in Hungary. Not one of the native Hungarians worried about having to jump, rather than step, onto the fast moving steps. And no one worried about the steepness or the claustrophobic tunnel that seemed to be closing in over us. With metal gears churning, clanking below us, it was a long, long ride down.

And beyond the dangerously-efficient escalators, above the harrowing subway tunnels, Hungary was no less foreign. The challenge of housing nearly two million people gave the central planners of yesteryear a platform to showcase a rather drab outlook on life. For me, the sameness and grayness of concrete block apartment building, side by side, one after another, seemed like it would suffocate happiness, silence life.

But against the smog of a sterile gray, simple colors shine the brightest. In pieces, I began to realize that Hungary, and I would imagine a majority of the world, contents itself with a much different joy than ours. More simple, more pure.

The joy isn’t like ours, it isn’t a purchased high. The happiness isn’t an entertainment that dulls the senses until an even more colorful, more sexy flash of mindlessness can startle you into the shock of instant pleasure.

The joy was more simple. The happiness was the celebration of color. A glimmer of goodness in a world more centered around survival. The joy was the flowers of Budapest. The flowers of Budapest carried in the arms of a Magyar-speaking grandmother, who had seen her country through so much, a past that made as much sense as the present much of the time. The flowers of Budapest alongside the thin pancakes, the thin pancakes that each customer ordered, at the family-owned restaurant. On tables, behind ears, between lovers. Under feet, around fountains, across parks. Against gray.

The flowers of Budapest made me smile.

* * * * *


The fifth Tuesday of April

Dearest Mr. President Bush,

I woke up this morning in Switzerland, shaken and confused by the thunder of a jet fighter cracking the speed of sound high above my mountain campsite. What, I worried, was the Swiss air force doing racing towards Italy? But with sadness, I realized that it was just as likely that it was our own plane, an American plane enroute to or from Germany, that had shattered my little piece of Swiss serenity.

Now you can argue very eloquently that the world, our fractious globe, is far different from my peaceful place in the mountains and that our jets can do good for people all around the planet. That has certainly been the case often in the past, although not always, as we both know. I’m not sure about today.

It was with great trepidation that I marched against your proposed war with Iraq more than a year ago. In truth, I was opposed to the war chiefly because it was your idea, and I don’t like many of your ideas. Even as I decided to speak against your views, I was torn. So much of me said that Saddam Hussein is a bad man, even if he had nothing to do with September 11th. The world would be better without him, we should help the Iraqis taste freedom. I feel betrayed.

You coerced the American public into war, scaring our citizens and the frightful parts of the world into a coalition of the willing. You and your staff argued that we were under attack and than innocent Americans would die terrible deaths at the hand of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. There were immediate results to your preemptive strategy. Our troops marched easily into Baghdad and in other parts of the world, ruthless dictators began to heed American demands. But then there were no weapons to be found, and the world began to get antsy. So you lied.

Mr. Bush, you hijacked the high aims of global activism.

A dozen years ago, your father rallied the world to storm Iraq as the last best option for preserving the international norms of collective security and national sovereignty. Your administration’s escapades in Iraq have trampled upon those norms. You stole the noble pursuits of an active America on the global stage, advocating and advancing liberty, freedom and equality. I fear you stole that ideal for political reasons, and I find that deplorable.

You didn’t ask the American people if they wanted to invest the high costs of war in an optional, humanitarian invasion of Iraq, you scared them into accepting a different kind of war. Only when risks became unwarranted did you need to push the benefits. But still most Americans were with you, willing to bear a significant national sacrifice to bring good to the world. Our billions and our boys, too much of our money and too many of our soldiers, were a price we were willing to pay for democracy, freedom, liberty, even for people we would never meet.

Instead, we have decided to match the old regime’s brutality, in spirit if not tit-for-tat. Our soldiers humiliate a people we are trying to uplift, unless your motives were as fictitious as your rationalizations. The world holds our great nation in disgust, and I can’t help but feel the same way. The pictures are haunting. War has made us the enemy we went to fight.

We are not in this war because America was at risk. Nor are we in this war to help the Iraqi people, apparently. We are in this war because you wanted us to be, and the responsibility falls squarely upon you.

A Piece of Pecos

April, as always, turned to May with a flourish of flower, as Wisconsin awoke from a long winter. But I wasn’t ready to graduate from college, no matter the month. I wasn’t ready to answer that troubling question, “Who am I?,” that had been haunting me for six months.

So I ran away to the mountains, safe again during the long days and starry nights in the warmth of a summer camp. Just an hour past Denver, high in the Rockies, I was living another Denver’s lyrics, I’d come home to place I’d never been before.

But one of the funny things about life is that you’ve always got to deal with it, no matter what “it” is. There’ll be times, my years of teenage angst stand testimony, where it seems like a conspiracy, a fallacy, but you can’t simply climb a tree and escape.

With that question of identity pulsating my every move, I tried to run off again, but on a more grandiose scale. I went on a road trip. I persuaded a bystander to join me, she had the car after all. Our only guides were our desires each morning and Backpacker’s October 2001 guide to the best backpacking in America.

Strangely enough, you can only traverse the grand spine of the Tetons so much before it becomes more quest of identity than a quick escape. On a hot day, it generally happens in the second or third mile. Exploring the trails of Yellowstone that have never seen a motor-home is less a sulking retreat than a introspective journey. Summiting Long’s Peak,

Standing just beyond the yawning doors of St. Anthony’s Catholic church, I felt a need to justify my dissidence. It’s a strange, but not uncommon, call to conversation in my long inner dialogue of questioning and answering. Laura the good Catholic girl went to mass that Saturday afternoon, but I didn’t. I needed to explain and defend that decision, at least in my own mind. That’s what took me to the streets of Pecos, New Mexico.

A small town high in the bush country of New Mexico’s Rocky Mountains, Pecos the village is much like Pecos the world-renown wilderness area – unharnessed by modern convention and conveniences. No sidewalks in the town to take me in the direction of my fancy. What a quaint and unpromising way of life, it seemed to the visiting Midwestern boy.

The sharp squeal of abused brakes broke my detached critique. “Get off my fucking lawn,” a young man snarled out of the passenger window of his friend’s pick-up truck as it sped past. I snapped into fear. I’m unaccustomed to bravado, spite, swearing, and skin darker than my own. He continued to spout venom as his friend drove on. The car never stopped.

I laughed. I didn’t know what else to do. I was scared and saddened, confused and concerned. His bitterness was so unintelligible to me, but it made me feel frightfully alone and different. I was mad that he had so much malignant power over me, so I began to wonder how I could beat him. I decided, not far from that church, to pick up the trash lining the far side of the main road in Pecos.

Broken beer bottles glazed the uneven steps leading up a small hill to the Pecos schools – elementary, middle and senior high all in one fenced compound. Even the railing accompanying the concrete terraces was trashed, half fallen into the overgrown patches of grass next to the stairs. The venomous young man began to make more sense now; it was as if the town was not a community at all. No sense of pride, civility, or communalism. Everyone’s yard was their own, buried behind crooked fences. And who needed school, if education will only make you want to explore beyond your own shackled home. I began to pick up the biggest shards of white, green and brown glass one at a time, shaking my head.

I must have made no sense to him: a blonde-haired young man, curly hair pulled back half-heartedly into a ponytail, creeping up the schoolyard steps with a garbage bag. I don’t know how long he watched me from behind his wrought iron fence. Now contemplating both my disassociation with all things religious and the uneasy convergence of my background and the culture of the rural Southwest, I didn’t notice him until the first grunt.

It was guttural, nearly primordial. It scared me. It had the depth of death; it sang a song of nothingness. It was a drunk one step from unconsciousness, except perfectly sober.

I looked at him and he grunted. He grunted with the tenor of moaning. He was just a boy, but unshaved like an old man. He grunted and flung his hand past me, as if to tell me something. The look on his twisted face almost made it seem like an urgent warning.

“Hello,” I said, hardly expecting an intelligible response from the other side of the black fence on the far side of the road. He grunted. I stopped walking. They were longer than grunts. A low moaning cry, an infantile attempt at communication. Fifty years ago they would have called him deaf and dumb. I’m not sure what they call him today.

I felt sad when I told him that I didn’t understand him. I didn’t; I couldn’t. So I lowered my head, putting another sliver of green glass – until recently part of a bottle of Rolling Rock – into my bag and kept walking.

He disappeared, but only for a moment. He came out from behind the fence that formed his worldview, through the leaning gate linking the patchwork fence and the small bungalow next to it. He followed me with plodding footsteps, still grunting.

I turned around and stopped. I introduced myself, less than sure of my wisdom behind my decision. “Hi, I’m Jeremy,” I said quietly. He was too far away to offer my hand in friendship. He didn’t smile, he grunted.

I took one step down the stairs and one step forward, timidly. I held out an extra garbage bag. “Want to help?” I asked, except in a slow, loud tone, hoping it might help. “WAAN-T TOOO HELLL-P?;” obnoxiously slow and troublingly broken, as if it would help translate my words across an impervious barrier.

I don’t remember if he grunted or not, but he slowly took the bag, then lurched forward, almost falling, and crumpled to his knees. Instead of broken glass, the straw wrapper next to him, or a rusty AA battery close by, he scooped up a dozen pebbles, sweeping them into a pile on the step. As he looked up at me and grunted, I noticed that the stones formed – intentionally or not, I’m not sure – the letter “Y.”

The smart bastard, I thought, he wants to know why. Why wasn’t I sitting in on the Sunday evening mass at the church? Why was I, a skinny little kid from Wisconsin, in New Mexico? Why was my new friend’s life so different than that of everyone else? Why should anyone spend their time cleaning a meaningless street in a tiny town so far from their reality? Why?

I decided not to give him the long answer, I didn’t think he would understand. He grunted again, so I spoke. “It’s a good thing to do,” I said, offering just a part of what brought me to that particular street. “It makes me smile.” In his moanful sort of way, he grunted.

I’m not sure if he was acting in approval, defiance, or ignorance, but he swept the pile of stones into the bag I had given him. He ripped a clump of weedy grass out of the sandy soil and shoved it into his bag. He grunted once before proudly holding the bag out to me and putting it into mine. I stood and watched as he staggered off, half-galloping, with his oversized blue stocking cap flopping with each step, threatening to fall over his eyes each time he jerked his body into motion.

As he disappeared behind his fenced refuge, I couldn’t help but stare. I don’t know if he understood a single word I said that day, even my simplistically abbreviated short answer. And I doubt anyone would find my long answer intelligible. Luckily for me, I think I understood everything he wanted to say to me on that narrow street in Pecos, New Mexico. It doesn’t matter much if that young man – or anyone else – understands me or finds much validity in my long answer, just as long as I do.

The Art of the Cover Page

Is there an art to the cover page? i'd guess yes. a random sampling:

Early Instincts

Apparently journaling and chronicling adventures was an early instinct.