Third Quarter Update

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

On the first day of the quarter, I uploaded the June pictures and second quarter update (and e-mailed it).  Linda had departed earlier that morning to visit Robin in Washington.  Jack was home from New York, about to start summer school at SMU.  MacKenzie and I spend quite a bit of time together that Saturday and Sunday. 

 

The next evening, I drove to DFW, said hello to Linda (back from visiting Robin), and flew east to Birmingham, Alabama.  I picked up a Hertz car and headed east on U.S. 280, past Childersville and Sylacauga, past that wonderful road sign for Hog Walla Holler.  By 11:45, after only one wrong turn, I was at Jim and Ann Grotting’s place on Lake Martin.  I had not been there for three years, and it was nice to be there.  We yakked around the kitchen table for 40 minutes or so, and I clocked out on the living-room couch (Jim’s surgical nurse and her family were in the guest bedroom).  Was up at seven the next morning, Monday the 3rd, and in no time on their dock, enjoying a cup of coffee and a yak with Jim, who I’ve known for more than 40 years.  

 

The day was calm: breakfast, a swim (the lake is actually a dammed portion of the Tallapoosa River, and is very clean), then a short ride in Jim’s Cirrus airplane, a technological wonder (I’ve written about it before, crammed with more avionics than most airliners).  We flew north about 15 miles to fuel up; it was a hot day and we had a lot of trouble starting the engine again.  Back at the lake, the beer began to flow.  Their son Ben had caught a couple of bass off the dock, and we set about cleaning them, a task I had not done since brother Jim and I cleaned the Northern Pikes we pulled from Stump Lake in 1966.  It took some effort, but we got it done.  Took a turn on water skis before dinner, managing a bit of derring-do before wobbling down into the water at fairly high speed.  After supper, the Grotting boys set off some fireworks on the dock.

 

The next morning was a repeat of the day before, with dockside fun courtesy of their energetic yellow Labradors, Maggie and McKinley (they could not get enough of retrieving a tennis ball thrown into the lake).  Just before two I said good-bye and drove back to Birmingham.  The 90-minute flight home turned into a five-hour journey, thanks to thunderstorms at DFW.  I was kinda cranky when I got home, but MacKenzie turned me around in under a minute!

 

Nine days later, Linda and I met Robin at DFW and flew up to Vancouver for the first real vacation in five years.  Kind geezer that I am, I gave Robin my seat in First Class, and headed back to 10A.  Got there just as fast.  The ride up there is always a treat, traversing varied landscapes.  Fifty minutes into it I thought of John Wesley Powell, the Army major who explored and surveyed much of the West.  Two hours along, we were over Utah, where Mormon industriousness turned the brown West to green.  We crossed the Snake River right above a dam, then Mount Hood’s distinctive silhouette appeared on the horizon, and the Columbia, silver shimmer pointing west.  We landed in Vancouver about seven, quick cab ride into the city (the Somali cab driver barking in his mobile was a bit much), checked into the Fairmont Waterfront.  Robin and Linda remarked that it seemed out of character to stay in such a nice place!

 

They petered out.  I envisioned a walk along the water to Cardero’s, my favorite Vancouver eatery, for a microbrew and perhaps a plate of B.C. oysters, but they were in pajamas.  So I headed out, up the street to the former Canadian Pacific (now Fairmont) Hotel Vancouver, where things were hopping in the lobby bar.  A Dr. John type was belting out tunes on the piano (along with a string-bass sideman), and offering perspectives on a range of topics, including Canadian real-estate prices (“Winnipeg, the coldest city in Canada, and thus the place with the lowest house prices . . . a musician like me can actually afford to buy a house there.”).  I hoisted a glass of Vancouver Island Pale Ale to this land of balanced federal budgets and trade surpluses.  And when I surveyed the crowded room from my bar stool, I could smile at the fact that everyone in it – well at least all the Canadians – had health insurance.  It’s a point I always make – if only to you and me – every time I land in Canada.  Was back to a dark room by 10:15. 

 

Robin and I were up at seven, laced up, and out the door for a run along the waterfront, out to the totem poles in Stanley Park.  The pace was civilized, allowing time to talk.  Vancouver is an impressive city, and quality urban planning is evident even to the casual observer trotting along Coal Harbour (no black stuff remains; it’s all glass and steel highrise condos).  We ate a caloric breakfast.  My friend Nicolas Ferri, who runs marketing at our oneworld alliance, loaned us his fancy BMW X5, and we took off, back to Stanley Park, across Lions Gate Bridge, and west along Marine Drive to Horseshoe Bay.  A nice drive, and good intro to the pleasantness of Vancouver’s residential neighborhoods.  Doubled back through downtown, and west to the Kitsilano neighborhood, young and hip.  Stopped for a coffee, then on to the Museum of Anthropology on the UBC campus.  Just way cool.  I had not been there for two dozen years, but it was mostly unchanged: a spectacular building designed by the Canadian superstar Arthur Erickson, and brimming with artifacts from west-coast aboriginals, the Haida, Salish, Tlingit, and other peoples. 

 

You may know that because of the generous physical environment from Oregon to southeast Alaska (forests, marine life, relative mild weather) these nations developed very strong material cultures – put simpler, they had a lot of stuff.  The knowledge and ability to carve a totem pole or weave a blanket was almost lost, because an 1884 addition to Canada’s Indian Act prohibited native cultural expression.  Some, like artist Mungo Martin, took it underground until it could surface after World War II.  A remarkable set of stories, and a lot of persistence.

 

We headed back downtown, and dropped the car.  Linda and Robin headed to the hotel.  I walked into the Marine Building (where the oneworld offices are) to finally take a few pictures of the ornate Art Deco interior.  Then the Transport Geek boarded the light-rail line called SkyTrain, riding six stops southeast and back, then onto the SeaBus for a quick ferry ride across the harbor. 

 

Friday night saw us at my favored Cardero’s, right on the water.  The weather cleared, and we had a lovely time, laughing and recalling old stories.  I had a few PEI oysters (red tide recently destroyed the B.C. crop), a seafood stew, and glasses of a local wheat ale with lemon.  We walked back to the hotel, and read.  Next morning I was out on one of the hotel’s free mountain bikes for a 90-minute jaunt, east into a sad zone, Vancouver’s huge district for the down-and-out.  You can’t really say homeless, because there were hostels and shelters and even permanent housing for them.  But some were wandering the streets, pushing supermarket carts.  From there I doubled back around through Stanley Park, English Bay, and the north bank of False Creek.  A good workout.  We ate breakfast and stored our luggage.  Linda and Robin went shopping, and I wandered around the downtown, snapping pictures on a cloudless morning.  I paused at the wonderful B.C. Provincial Court, designed (like the Museum of Anthropology) by Arthur Erickson.  At a shady spot on a second-floor terrace, I read the morning paper and brought this journal up to date.

 

At 1:45 a friendly young bellman drove us to the dock; he claimed things weren’t busy, and we enjoyed the ride in the hotel’s big black Cadillac.  Checked in, went through the usual hoops, and were soon on the Summit, a large (2000+ cruisers) boat of Celebrity Cruise Lines.  Some former AA people now work there, and, happily, one of them upgraded us to a very ample suite.  Robin and I explored the ship.  We sailed about six, and soon Vancouver was a small bump on the horizon, right in front of the massive Mt. Baker (10,775 ft.), across the border in Washington.

 

We had a drink in the Martini Bar, and headed to dinner.  Our tablemates were agreeable and interesting: Cellestine and James Cheek, and their adult daughter Janet.  James, in his 70s, had a distinguished career as educator, including 20 years as president of Howard University.  Their daughter was a physician with the Indian Health Service in Talequah, Oklahoma.  James was eager to tell us stories; Janet tried to dissuade him, but I encouraged it.  Thus began what was mostly a monologue for the next several days; it is curious how some people never think that others might have something interesting to say!

 

Sunday morning was foggy, but then it cleared.  I headed to “church” in the ship cinema, then for a sauna.  We were in the famous Inside Passage, in Canadian waters, and we saw deer and lots of birds.  Scenery was superb all day.  Robin and Linda played Bingo, I read and walked, all good fun.

 

By Monday I was ready to get off.  We passed Orca whales, and a distant glacier, then sailed up Juneau Arm slowly.  When we were opposite town, we saw bald eagles, lots of them.  It seemed like the Feds arranged for a pair of them to sit majestically atop a spruce tree on the grounds of the Department of the Interior building.  Further on, one took wing, swooping over the stony beach.  It was majestic, way cool.  We docked about 12:30.  After a bit of lunch, we headed down the gangplank and 100 yards to an aerial tramway that hoisted us 1800 feet above the water.  The tram and visitor center at the top was owned by a tribal corporation of the Tlingit (pronounced “Klin-git”) people.  We watched a well-done documentary “Finding Daylight,” about the Tlingit.  We liked the fact that Stacy Roberts, age 16, could welcome us in her Tlingit language.  Keep culture alive!

 

After the film, I wandered a half-mile trail through what is basically a rainforest (95 inches of rain per year), with Sitka spruce, hemlock, and the broadleaf alder, plus familiar flowers like the dwarf dogwood and the magenta-colored fireweed that abounds in the North.  Very cool.  Linda and Robin bought some stuff, and we rode the tram down.  The town was awash in tourists – probably 7,000 from 4 cruise ships – and I headed away from the shopping streets, up the hill to the Alaska State Capitol.  Built in 1930 as a federal building, it was strictly a no-frills place.  But the tour was fun, led by a capable young Senate page, and there were only ten of us.  You can infer a lot about how a state is run from 40 minutes in its seat of government.  Thanks to the run-up in energy prices, the state is awash in revenues, but a proper capitol seems out of the question.  The best things on the tour were old black-and-white photos from Case and Draper, local photographers who documented most aspects of Alaskan life at the turn of the century.

 

I wandered a bit more, and at five met Robin and Linda at the Alaskan Hotel; the place was right on Main Street, but there were no tourists inside the bar.  The hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places, and the massive bar was topped with Tiffany lamps.  The flocked wallpaper and open staircase to the second floor gave me hope that dancehall floozies would soon join us, but no.  Robin apparently thought it was too much of a dive, and headed back to the boat, but Linda joined me for a beer.  After she left, I got another pint of pale ale from the local Alaska Brewing Co., and worked my e-mail to zero on the hotel’s free Wi-Fi connection.  I took a snap of my “office” at a small table in the bar, did a bit more work, and walked back to the boat.  We ate a light dinner (by the third night, the cruise ship feedlot syndrome was setting in), and nodded off about ten.

 

Next morning we were in Skagway, noisy with helicopters (the Alaska cruise experience seems to include a lot of additional fossil-fuel consumption, whether by ‘copters, buses, ATVs, any anything else not requiring human energy).  Got off the boat alone, wandered the downtown (all of which is a national historic landmark as the start of the 1898 Klondike gold rush).  First stop was the White Pass and Yukon Route depot, to pick up my ticket for a ride later in the day.  Wandered the town, and found my way to the Skagway City Museum, built in the former McCabe College, the first higher-education institution in Alaska (but it cratered after only three terms).  The collection was small but well presented, including some nicely stuffed animals: brown bear, mountain goat, and beaver.  I was typing some notes for this update in my PDA on a park bench beside the museum when an old locomotive caught my eye, behind some trees.  Rusted out steam loco, WP&YR.  The Transport Geek was happy!

 

Met Robin and Linda in front of the Arctic Brotherhood building, with a façade of driftwood.  Headed onto side streets, to an Internet café full with ship employees e-mailing and phoning home.  The place had cases of Indonesian and Thai noodles on the floor, also for the boat workers.  At 12:15 I hopped on White Pass car #211 and rode six miles up the hill to the Denver Glacier flag stop.  I had scoped out a short hike on the railway’s website, and off I went.  Six miles seemed reasonable on paper (or a website screen), but it turned out to be quite a challenge.  Wait, that’s not right, it was the most rigorous short hike I’ve ever done: the trail was either slippery, poorly marked, covered with knee-high vegetation, or, in places, all three.  I slipped more than a few times, and tipped over once.  But the view from right below the glacier was pretty awesome.  Three hours later, the same train stopped to pick me up, and some day hikers on a group trek.  Back on board, there was another group of hikers, and the leader offered me a cold beer, Kokanee from B.C.  Nice reward!  Visited with a couple from Birmingham, Alabama.  Robin and Linda were supposed to meet me at Starbucks, but they were already back on the boat.

 

I nipped into Moe’s, thoroughly local (their liquor license was dated 1947, from the Territory of Alaska), for a cold one.  Only a couple of tourists there, and one stupidly obscene local.  Headed back toward the boat, stopping at the very touristy Red Onion.  The place was hopping, and, to my delight, there were dancehall floozies, resplendent in period costumes and push-up brassieres.  Some nice views there.  Had a good conversation with a doc from San Diego, a recently retired radiation oncologist turned avocado farmer (ya gotta love California, and, I guess, our tax laws).  Headed back to the ship, showered up, and at seven we watched a Cirque du Soleil mini-show, typically eye-popping.  A nice dinner with the Cheek family, getting to know them better.

 

Next morning we anchored a mile off Sitka, formerly New Archangel, seat of the Russian presence.  The Czar issued the Russian American Company rights to harvest fur, and they stayed for about eight decades, until Secretary of Interior Seward bought the whole of Alaska for $7.2 million (the Russians, defeated in the Crimea a decade earlier, didn’t have resources or will to defend this foothold in the New World).  After breakfast, Robin and I hopped on a tender boat to the dock.  First stop was the Cyber Seaport, Wi-Fi to e-mail.  Like in Skagway, there were ship workers, but here they were wiring money home to Indonesia.  Cash turned into 1s and 0s that would find its way across the Pacific and become houses and food and school tuition and medical care.  We thought of those men later that day when an ignorant fellow passenger complained loudly about “all those tips.”

 

E-mail worked to zero, we walked the town, admiring St. Michael’s, the first Orthodox church in the New World; the 1848 sanctuary burned in 1966, and was rebuilt a decade later.  After the gals went back to the boat, I wandered a bit more, into an agreeable small Episcopal church for prayer, then along the docks that served the commercial fishers.  Ended up in Victoria’s Bar at the Sitka Hotel, where, like Juneau, there was free Wi-Fi and some very nice Alaska Brewing Co. beer.  Worked my e-mail back to zero and brought the journal up to date.  On the way back to the dock, I ambled into the Sitka Lutheran Church, across the street from the Orthodox parish, and found a friendly fellow Lutheran, a seasonal resident from California.  The Finns came along with the Russians, and built their own church in 1840 (when Finland was a Duchy of Russia), the first Protestant church on the west coast of North America.  The sanctuary was new, replacing two earlier ones that burned.

 

The first bishop, Uno Cygnaeus, returned to Finland after five years and founded the Finnish public-school system (now reckoned to be one of the best in the world).  The volunteer invited us to play the 1844 Estonian-made Kessler organ, which had survived a couple of fires, and a woman from Indiana plinked out a credible version of “Amazing Grace.”  It was nice serendip.  A seal was swimming around the dock as our tender prepared to head back to the ship, and I caught a good snap of him with open mouth.

 

Next morning we anchored in light rain off Hoonah, a small, largely Tlingit community on the north end of Chicagof Island (just north of Baranof Island, site of Sitka).  The cruise company describes the stop as “Icy Point Strait,” perhaps more euphonious than Hoonah.  The tenders docked at a 1912 cannery, now revived as a museum, shops, and departure point for the shore excursions (which I work hard to avoid); the whole place was owned by Huna Totem, an Indian company, which was all to the good.  Some good exhibits told the story of the cannery, fishing, and fish processing.  I ambled a short nature trail and walked 1.5 miles into Hoonah. 

 

The first interesting place was a cemetery, which I learned later in the day was the Raven burial ground (the Tlingits are either Raven people or Eagle people); judging by the headstones, all were welcome – Christian, Orthodox, Jew.  One headstone, commemorating Eliza Marks (d. 1848) was a stone bear.  I traversed the town, ending up at the Forest Service ranger station, where I bought a map of Tongass, the largest national forest in the U.S., extending from the Canadian border hundreds of miles northwest, to beyond Glacier Bay.  A helpful ranger, a smiling Tlingit woman, answered a few questions, and I retraced my steps.  In a small place, you adjust your frame of interest, and I began noticing all sorts of stuff: the cartoon face made from various colors of chewing gum outside the school; the sign announcing bingo that night at the Alaska Native Brotherhood (a fraternal organization founded 1912); the civic notices outside City Hall, including news that the local Department of Public Safety began 24/7 service on July 1, funded with reductions in Animal Control (life is always a series of tradeoffs!).  Next door, I stopped into the Alaska Court System and visited briefly with the clerk; no docket that day – I missed two proceedings in front of State Magistrate Maureen DesRosiers the day before.

 

It was about one and raining lightly: maybe time for a beer at The Office, the fourth local or semi-local bar in as many days.  A couple of locals were there, the rest from the boat.  Friendly bartenders and staff (I was struck by the general cheerfulness of service people up there).  In response to my query, Sarah told me that no logging was underway in the national forest, but that the commercial fishery was doing well, salmon, halibut, and, further out, crab.  Dottie, a Tlingit and thus a genuine local, came over to provide more detail.  Fishing was mostly trolling and longlines, rather than with nets, stocks were good, prices firm.  A local boat just returned after 3 days with 700 coho (I did the math later: at 92 cents a pound – way less than the selling price at the supermarket – and 20 pounds per fish, the catch would have netted $14,000).

 

Sitting at the bar, I had time to think about what I had seen that week: of course tourism had become the sustaining trade, but there was still a living to be made on the land and the water.  The place was full of primary resources, for those willing to work in hard and dangerous jobs, albeit surrounded by natural beauty more stunning than I expected.  And empty – I tried to imagine how the State of Alaska could manage such a vast place with so few people.

 

We hoisted anchor about five.  Next morning we were in Glacier Bay, and spent about two hours surprisingly close to Hubbard, the largest tidewater glacier in the world; it was hard to judge distance, but we seemed to be about 1500 feet from the face of the ice.  Weather was okay, cloudy and light rain, but with good visibility.  The water was soupy with ice, and the hull bumped over some large chunks.  The colors ranged from white to gray to swimming-pool blue (the same physics that turns pools blue) to a sort of grayish form of turquoise that was just exquisite.  We could see the glacier “calving” chunks, accompanied seconds later by a thunderous sound.  It was truly magnificent, dazzling. 

 

We turned south, then west-northwest, past La Perouse glacier.  The ceiling had lifted, and the bases of some of North America’s tallest mountains, on the Yukon-Alaska boundary, were visible.  We cruised all day.  I was ready to get off.  Had there been an exit lane, I’d have taken it!

 

At five, there was a cool interruption to general boredom: I was invited to tour the bridge.  The Transport Geek was delighted.  It was very cool.  Heading 270º, speed 22.8 knots, propeller output 36 megawatts (18 each), wowie.  The officers were all Greek.  The guy in charge was articulate and interesting, 11 years with Celebrity. 

 

But as the teacher of youth, I was much taken with Theocharis Vasileois, age 19, an apprentice deck officer.  His older brother was with Celebrity for some years, and recommended him.  He’ll spend a year on board, then go back to school, then back on board, then school.  He had a great smile and was clearly delighted to be aboard.  Although all the stuff was computerized and GPS and such, Theocharis was still plotting the course with pencil and compass on a navigational chart (map) from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (his work on the chart was what prompted the Talking to Strangers moment).

 

We ate an early dinner in the “casual restaurant,” packed our bags, and turned in.  It was foggy and gloomy in Seward on Saturday morning, almost a week after leaving Vancouver.  We caught a minivan to Anchorage airport, a spectacular ride up and down passes on the Kenai Peninsula.  The view from the road – compared to the sea view – was familiar, harkening back to my first visit to this part of the world, in 1969, when my parents let me hitchhike up the Alaska Highway to Whitehorse, Yukon (it was a single ride from near the start of the road, in Fort St. John, B.C., with Mike in a powder blue MG; he was going all the way to Anchorage and really wanted me to come with him for company).  The minivan was cramped, but the scenery, plus pieces from Holst’s The Planets, and other classical pieces, made for a good ride.  Robin slept and Linda knitted.

 

With nine hours before our departure, we rented a red Kia Rio, shoehorned the luggage in, and took off for downtown Anchorage, lunching at a local place with an unlikely name, Club Paris.  After lunch we cruised downtown a bit, then spent a few hours in a Barnes & Noble café, working my e-mail, the day’s New York Times crossword puzzle, and stuff.  In the middle of our stop, I grabbed the car keys and motored around for an hour, out to the University of Alaska at Anchorage campus, splendid modern buildings and a lot of trees, then back downtown.  Quite by chance I happened on dozens of fishermen wading and casting in Ship Creek, less than a mile from downtown – a signal Alaskan scene, for sure.

 

We got back to the airport about six, more than three hours before our flight.  I read the paper and wandered the airport, discovering by accident an exhibit of native art on the mezzanine above the C concourse.  Some wonderful stuff up there, and I returned to photograph a colorful, long-billed (to shade the sun) hunting hat by Andrew Gronholdt, an Aleut; a baby belt (used for securing an infant to mom’s back) in leather and blue beads depicting the Forget Me Not, Alaska’s state flower, by Delores Sloan, an Athabaskan; and a seal hunter statue by Levi Tetpon, an Inupiaq Eskimo.  Those were just three of an amazing array.  They should relocate the exhibit cases to the security line!

 

Flew home, arriving about seven on Sunday morning.  An absolutely wonderful trip.  By 5:30 that afternoon, I was checking websites about a return, but on the simpler Alaska Marine Highway ferries, more my traveling style!

 

It had been almost five weeks since I was overseas, and on the first day of August I flew at dusk, south to Santiago, and to winter.  My seatmate was asocial, which was fine.  Slept hard.  There was a sense of déjà vu at the ATM outside Customs, where my cash card was swiped from my hand on my last visit in August 2005.  This time I made really sure it went back in my wallet, climbed on the Bus Azul, then the Metro.  The first remarkable thing in Chile was a new collection of art at La Moneda Metro station, a series of large Chilean landscapes underwritten by the Banco de Chile.  Very cool.  Snapped some pictures of the station, got back on the train, and was back in my Santiago ’hood, Las Condes, by 9:45.  Eduardo the bellman was there, an old friend and helper. 

 

Worked my e-mail, then laced up for a run along the swift Mapocho River, where there was more public art, in a sculpture garden on the north bank.  Walking back, I passed the unspeakably ugly and embarrassing U.S. Embassy (see rant in the 3rd Quarter 2005 journal).  Showered, bought lunch from the nearby supermarket salad bar, and worked a bit more.  Took the Metro back into downtown, walked around a bit, and at 3:30 gave an ad update to AA’s Chilean sales and marketing team.  The previous Chilean president, Ricardo Lagos, opened the presidential palace La Moneda to pedestrians walking west to the main street (alameda), so I joined the parade.  There were media types in an interior courtyard, and I was hoping I could greet the new prez, Dr. Michelle Bachelet.  But a guard kept me moving!

 

Worked e-mail a bit more, took a nap, and at eight met my Chilean friends Hernán and Constanza Briones, father and daughter.  I’ve described them in previous updates, wonderful people.  Hernán is a very successful entrepreneur, and offers a great window on this prospering country.  We ate at an Italian restaurant in the suburban Vitacura district, Da Carla, a wonderful place.  It was a swell time.  But I was plumb wore out by eleven.

 

Jack was supposed to come with me, and I allotted extra time to show him Santiago stuff I had already seen, so I didn’t have a good Plan B.  After breakfast I headed south on a brand-new Metro line to the main campus of the Universidad Católica.  Wandered the campus, said my daily prayers in the chapel, and rode the Metro into downtown.  Revisited the cathedral, with its very Baroque interior, and paddled around the center.  At that point, the Transport Geek hopped back on the Metro, rode west to the railway station, and hopped on a regional train heading south.  I rode about 25 miles, to a randomly chosen small town, Paine.  Geographers value ordinary landscapes, and this seemed like a typical little place, oriented to the tracks.  The little shops along what might be “Railway Street” in Kansas were dwarfed by an enormous Montserrat supermarket – the local Wal-Mart analog – but here, unlike Kansas (or any other state), they were still in business.  There were lots of little bodegas offering Internet access, which was a good sign.  It was just after lunch, so kids were heading back to school.  There were lots of street dogs around.  It was an interesting side trip.  I was back in the capital by 2:45, and it was, by comparison, teeming.

 

I worked my e-mail, put on a suit, and headed five Metro stops to the original campus of the Catholic University.  The cup of coffee with steamed milk woke me up, and the presentation to MBAs went very well.  Lorena Galvez, my LAN counterpart who I met in Helsinki six weeks earlier, also attended.  After the session we headed to dinner at Ibis de Puerto Varas, in a sort of "restaurant row" along the Mapocho River in Viticura.  Dinner was great: pink razorneck clams with melted cheese, tilapia stuffed with other seafood, fried salmon gnocchi, and Tres Leches cake, plus a very nice Chilean Sauvignon Blanc.  Lorena reintroduced me to a fruit she called “cherimoya.”  I did not recognize it until I saw it translated on the menu as custard apple, which I had eaten many years ago somewhere in the tropics (it’s native to high Andean valleys, but widely cultivated in Chile).  Conversation provided another perspective on Chilean life, all to the good.

 

I was up very early the next day, Friday, and out to the airport by 6:20 for a 7:45 flight to Buenos Aires.  It was cloudy, but there were a few clear patches over the Andes: spectacular!  Landed at 10:40 and arrived to a two-person welcoming committee, Emiliano Castaño and his girlfriend Teresa, both engineering students at ITBA, the Buenos Aires Institute of Technology, the sponsoring institution of the South American Business Forum, a student-run conference modeled on Princeton’s Business Today program (that I attended in November 2005).  Teresa had her mom’s sleek Peugeot wagon, and in no time we where zipping into town on the autopista.  Then it slowed way down.  The bottleneck was a huge police presence; anticipating some kind of block-the-road protest, the cops were in force: buses to haul the protesters, water cannon, clear-plastic shields, the works.  Welcome to Argentina!

 

When arrangements were being made, I insisted on staying at the same hotel as the students, the somewhat spartan (but clean) two-star Hotel Ushuaia.  We dropped my suitcase and walked across the street to join the group for lunch.  Lots of introductions.  The group numbered about 100; half were Argentines, a quarter were from elsewhere in Latin America, and the rest were from the rest: Singapore, France, Spain, Canada, even a guy from Queens.  Listening to the students, I was sorry I missed the morning session, which sounded lively and provocative – it would inevitably be, given the conference theme, “Politics and Social Responsibility in a Globalized World.”  After lunch we headed back to an auditorium in the basement of an adjacent highrise.  I was one of three on a panel simply titled “Globalization”; the moderator was an Argentine with ING, the Dutch banking powerhouse, and my fellow panelists were a retired Argentine engineer who had worked for several U.S. multinationals, and a very colorful consultant and intellectual, a slightly radical guy.  I freely admitted to all that I had no organic knowledge of the topic, but had an interesting perch in the airline business, clearly a catalyst in the process.  My interest, I told them, was to get dialogue going, and in no time we were into it.  Hard questions.  Some strong anti-business views, from students who would flourish in a market economy that universally rewards advanced education.  I got pretty cranky, too, for example, about the hypocrisy of free trade – how the U.S. restricts the efficient West African cotton farmer in order to protect the West Texan.  A student told us that the world’s second-largest lemon producing region, around Tucuman in the Argentine north, could not export to the U.S.  Just plain wrong.

 

Lively chatter continued into the coffee break.  The next session was in Spanish, and a bit less lively.  But the day finished with a huge global thinker, an Argentine who pulled it all together, and got our blood flowing for the group dinner.  I sat next to Joel from Portland, Oregon, the son of illegal immigrants from Peru.  He was a high-school dropout who turned himself around, and was at MIT on a full ride; he was the first in family to graduate from college.  Across from me was Alejandro, a student from Córdoba who was also a very powerful swimmer.  And there were many more.  This was not exactly Talking to Strangers, but it was really fun.  After dessert, the youngsters talked of going dancing, but I found an Internet café to work my e-mail and was asleep by eleven.

 

Up at seven the next morning, out into a cool, dark winter morning for a trot around Parque San Martín.  After breakfast, we walked to the ITBA campus.  While waiting for the sessions to begin, I had a wonderful chat with Marcos Sheeran, Irish-Spanish, working on a Master’s in engineering at the French Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.  After the conference, he was going to spend three weeks volunteering in the shantytowns on the edges of Buenos Aires.  He was one cool guy.  I then sat in two really cool workshops.  The first was given by David Stilerman, a retired Accenture partner, focused on corporate social responsibility. 

 

The second hosted by Alan Clutterbuck and Ricardo Bullrich, was a fascinating window on the challenges of rebuilding trust, integrity, and transparency in the Argentine political system.  Alan (MBA from Stanford) gave up a promising corporate career to found the Political Action Network (known by the abbreviation RAP in Spanish), focused on creating a new kind of politician at all levels of Argentine government, and across all parties.  Toiling to create what we in North America take as a given.  Alan talked about Argentina a century ago, one of the richest countries in the world, and today: broke in many respects.  He talked about how they were building competence one politician at a time.  Chile and Spain were models, he said, because both countries had been traumatized by political upheaval, but had emerged and built strong, open institutions: "The basic problem of Argentina is a lack of trust."

 

Ricardo was recently elected as a deputy (lower house of the national congress) from a reform party, and talked about the national system.  He quoted Jefferson approvingly; it always makes me feel good when one of America’s founders is cited a long way from home.  Alan ended the workshop as he opened it, with a key question: “What kind of country do we want to leave our children?”

 

Lunch was lively.  David Stilerman and I anchored one end of a long table, with plenty of yakking.  A young Finnish advertising student, recently hired by a large Helsinki agency, sat across from me.  Her blonde hair stood out!  The whole thing was just way cool, a reminder of how much I value the opportunity to teach – and more broadly to be among young people worldwide.

 

After lunch, I peeled off, changed clothes, and headed out for some shopping and touring.  I headed first to the leather store where a year earlier I bought the handsome leather briefcase that vanished on the Dutch train in March.  Unhappily, they did not have the model I bought in 2005, and I was particular about finding an exact match.  I did buy a Patagonian cashmere vest, really nice, for an astonishing 16 bucks.  Bought a ten-ride card and hopped on the Subway out to the Congress building, an ornate piece of work.  But something is badly wrong in a nation where the assembly of delegates elected by the people is fenced off.  Sad.  Took the subway to Casa Rosada, the presidential palace, also fenced off (in fairness, our equivalent has also become a bunker; I’ve opined before on fear and fences).  I wandered across the plaza, toward the Metropolitan Cathedral, classical façade but baroque inside, and into one of those moments of travel serendip: a concert was in progress, an organist on a lovely 19th-century instrument (reminiscent of the one I heard in Sitka a few weeks earlier), a soprano and a mezzo-soprano, who performed sacred and secular music.  Their voices were pure, the applause warm.  It was a great place for daily prayers.  At 5:45, I headed into the Peru subway station, a total period piece – not only were the advertising posters vintage, but the rolling stock on Line B was 80 years old.  Many parts of this city are that way, and while many locals lament the decrepitude, it certainly is interesting for the visitor.

 

After calling home, I walked up the street to the Café La Barra, where a friendly barman motioned me to a seat (I was unsure whether or not there was table service).  In no time a waiter produced a Quilmes cerveza negra (bock beer), and a tray of salty nibbles.  I enjoyed a couple of beers while reading the SABF program, then yakking with a couple from Connecticut, a retired paper executive and his wife, down touring places where he had worked.  At 8:30, I ambled back to ITBA for a stand-up pizza dinner and more chatter.  I had told the students I’d go to the party that evening, but when I found out it started at one, not eleven as I thought, I sensibly climbed into bed. 

 

Was up the next morning, rested and ready for a full day of touring.  Out the door, east to Puerto Madero, the old docks which, after the port moved, had been nicely redeveloped with low-rise office buildings, shops, and restaurants.  I ambled across the Puente de Mujer, designed by Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish superstar, and opened in 2001.  A couple of teenagers, part of a school group, thought nothing of adding their graffiti to the bridge, in full view of this scowling grownup and their obviously permissive teacher. 

 

I hopped a taxi, running the sides of the right triangle, not the hypotenuse (I guess he thought that, like most gringos, I did not know direction or navigation!), to Calle Arroyo, to the site of the Israeli Embassy, destroyed by a car bomb in 1992.  This was the starting point of a walking tour of the very upmarket Recoleta district, with its mansions, fancy condos, and fancy retail.  High point was the pure-white Iglesia de Pilar, opened 1732, designed by a Jesuit architect, Andrés Bianchi.  The church was small, but the Baroque interior was stunning.  I walked back to the hotel, checked out, stored my suitcase, and headed out for more touring. 

 

The next cab driver was a character.  As usual, I greeted him and immediately added my standard “Perdóneme, mi español es muy malo.  He disagreed, and started a rant that echoed Alan’s remarks the day before; when he finished criticizing Argentines’ individualism and materialism (he agreed that the national idea was superficial, limited to waving the azure and white flag), he launched a clear running commentary on the street scene, in clipped but slowly-cadenced Spanish.  It was one of those moments when I looked upward and thanked Don Miguel, my first Spanish teacher, for I was able both to follow his conversation and to express myself, albeit simply.  The driver warned me about the dangers of La Boca, my destination – don’t eat anything, watch your wallet.  I shook his hand, gave him a good tip, and headed down Caminito, a street specifically created to showcase local artists.  I admired a small oil painting, but did not buy it.  Stopped to rest my feet at Bar la Perla, opened 1885. 

 

Fortified with a cup of strong coffee, I ambled north into the area around la Bombonera, the stadium of the Boca Juniors football team.  Team colors, blue and gold, were everywhere.  And brown, for I have never seen so many dog turds anywhere.  But if you kept alert and fleet of foot, it was an interesting neighborhood.  There was a match that afternoon, and a very long lineup for tickets.  A bit further on, in a scruffy vacant field, a pickup game was in progress, and I stopped behind the north goal to watch.

 

I walked up and over a small hill in Lezama Park, past a Russian Orthodox church with blue onion domes (in a shade similar to Boca Junior colors, but I reckoned that was strictly coincidence), and into the San Telmo district, teeming with tourists and weekenders.  On a side street, the Orqueste Típica El Afronte was just getting cranked up – four accordions, a bass, two violins, and a piano.  They were awesome, and I took some snaps.  I stopped for a Quilmes Bock at Bar Dorrego, one of the famous cafes of the neighborhood (and the subject of the painting I saw earlier that day on Caminito).  Reviewing photos snapped since nine that morning, I was reminded of my touristic efficiency!

 

Slightly sedated, I headed back onto the street, north to Paseo San Lorenzo and a famous mural of Che Guevara, who hailed from B.A.  On the main drag were Tango dancers, and a crooner who claimed to have collaborated with Gardel, the great Argentine Tango singer who died in 1935 (do the math!).  I headed into La Pergola de San Telmo for a steak lunch and a glass of red wine, yummy and welcome, for it was now 2:30.  Back out and into a fabulous flea market, where I stopped to listen to classical guitarist Gustavo Mozzi, whose soulful rendition of Rodrigo’s “Concierto for Aranjuez” caught my ear.

 

For hours, I had mulled the purchase of the oil painting, and at four I headed back and got it, then hopped a bus back to the hotel.  I ran into Marcos Sheeran in the lobby.  He was waiting for some Spanish friends to pick him up to take him out to the shantytowns, and we had another good visit.  The guy was sunny and magnetic (does the fact that his e-mail address is “lovingeachday@” give some indication?).  His pals arrived, and he was away.  I’ll want to keep in touch with him.

 

At six, Nicolas Levín and Agustín Luciano, recent ITBA graduates who helped with the 2005 forum and were helping again, arrived to drive me out to the airport.  Nice guys both, working for Procter & Gamble and a Wi-Fi startup, the first company to deploy new WiMax technology in Argentina.  We had a good yak.  There was no traffic, and we were back at Ezeiza by 6:30.  I flew home, sleeping hard.  It was a great, great trip, with memories of a lot of really great students.

 

Was home for ten days.  On Thursday the 17th we played hooky.  I think it was the second time in 19 years.  Flew north to St. Louis to attend a Cardinals game as guests of KTRS radio.  I was up at five, and pounded out ten miles in the dark, and headed early to the airport, unsure of the wait to clear security, in the wake of the latest security hoo-hah.  But there was no wait.  We landed in St. Louis early, and I hopped the train downtown.  I got off at the last stop in Missouri, and walked down to the river, under the famous Eads Bridge, first span across the Mississippi at this point (1874).  Dipped my hand in the river, walked south, and under the soaring Gateway Arch.  I never tire of that shiny parabola.  Eero Saarinen won a design competition for it in 1948, but it took 19 years to finally get it built.  From there, I ambled into the Basilica of St. Louis, IX, King of France, commonly known as the Old Cathedral, consecrated 1834; it was a good place for daily prayers.  I had seen it from the outside five years ago, but not the interior.  Then to the Old Courthouse, site of first Dred Scott trial (which ultimately resulted in a very stupid 1857 Supreme Court decision upholding the right to hold slaves as property).  Worked my e-mail in the Hilton, and made my way to the new Busch Stadium and a fancy suite owned by the radio station.

 

It was a fun afternoon with folks from AA advertising and our ad agency.  Great seats, plenty of Budweiser (what else?), and swell food.  Took the train back to the airport and flew back to the Texas furnace.

 

Two days later, on Saturday the 19th, Linda and I headed up to Chicago for the annual pilgrimage to Wrigley Field.  Two ball games in four days is unusual.  First, though, Linda had to do a run up Michigan Avenue.  We took a taxi into the Loop rather than the usual train, but it was mid-morning and the Kennedy Expressway was fluid (high point of the ride was a glimpse of the back of my grandmother’s apartment, which triggered some nice memories of their life on Logan Blvd.  We dropped our bags at a hotel, and split.  I headed south past the Illinois Center and the Prudential building (in the 1950s  it was the tallest building, now a midget) to the splendid new Millennium Park for a quick lunch from Subway, then south on Michigan Avenue.  While Linda shopped, I had an afternoon of architecture, and for that there’s no better place than Chicago.  I admired Adler and Sullivan’s 1889 Auditorium Building, then strode into the Archicenter, the seat of the Chicago Architecture Foundation, in the former Railway Exchange Building (by design genius Daniel Burnham and opened in 1904).  Just a fascinating place – shop loaded with books and cool stuff (I admired the reproductions of Sullivan’s ornate copper millwork).  In the atrium was the Newhouse Student Competition, a contest for students in the Chicago Public Schools, for drawing, model-making, photography, and design.  Their photos beside their works revealed a group much like I met at the Silver Knights Awards in Miami in May – largely non-white, lots of immigrants, full of hope and promise.  It made me feel good on several levels.

 

Elsewhere in the Archicenter was a display of finalists for the 2006 Burnham Prize (Daniel Burnham was one of the key architects at the end of the 19th century, designer of the Chicago World’s Fair and lots more).  “Learning from North Lawndale” was all about the redevelopment of a poor neighborhood on the city’s West Side.  Looking at the ideas, I was reminded that Architecture often is the discipline of idealism – and that is a good, not a bad, thing.

 

At three I joined a group for a walking tour of historic skyscrapers.  Our docent, a young guy in the construction business, was a little green (in experience, not environmental commitment), but he was a volunteer, and thus to be admired.  Our tour wound around several blocks, here in the birthplace of the steel-frame skyscraper – yep, it was another Chicago invention.  I snapped a lot of pictures.

 

Toward the end of the tour, an Italian couple with us noticed a downed homeless man across the street.  I won’t go through the entire play-by-play, but it was an interesting cross-cultural episode.  They left the tour to try to help the man.  Minutes later, paramedics arrived to haul the guy away, likely to detox, with the meter running very quickly.  No doubt the scene would repeat soon.  There is a better way.

 

At five, I peeled off and ambled back to the Fairmont Hotel, met Linda, and enjoyed a local Goose Island beer.  We then took a cab north to Rose Angelis, by tradition our dinner venue the night before the Cubs game.  But a couple of things were way different: first, Cousin Jim no longer lives in the neighborhood, so we couldn’t walk off the big plate of pasta; second, for the first time ever, neither Jack nor Robin were with us.  If I dwelt on that, I’d have gotten all gloomy, so I didn’t.  They are not young forever.

 

We had a swell meal with Jim and wife Michaela, then motored out to Arlington Heights, the suburb where Jim grew up, and to their very fancy new house.  Linda and I were plumb wore out, so we clocked out, with the window in our basement bedroom open to a fresh breeze.

 

Sunday morning it was 25° cooler than the morning before, perfect for a bike ride.  Another tradition kept alive.  Cuz showed me a bunch of parts of his hometown.  After breakfast we zipped a few blocks east to Cousin Donna’s new house, nearly done.  Four of Jim’s five siblings are within a few miles, and that is pretty swell.  We played a bit with their three kids, then motored to within a mile of Wrigley, all on local streets rather than the freeways, which at that moment were less than free of traffic.

 

The game was a blast.  Our Chicago Tribune hosts had us right in the first row, literally at the level of the field next to the Cardinals’ bullpen.  My friend Chuck Wiser was down from Minneapolis, Rick and Murph Dow in from the suburbs (Rick and I worked together two decades ago at Northwest); Cousin Mike and wife Gail; Jim and Michaela; and we two.  Just a great group, a cool, clear day, beer and hot dogs.  The Cards won, 5-3, but it was still a blast.  We lurched out to O’Hare in what was a moving-parking lot, and flew home.  MacKenzie was happy to see us.

 

Four days later, back to Chicago for a presentation to our Chicago sales and airport teams.  There were big storms that morning around O’Hare, and traffic was a total mess.  But I got there, delivered a big show, answered questions, and headed off to the Admirals Club to work my e-mail.  Flew to Minneapolis-St. Paul at eight, a 50-minute ride that took 3 hours because of storms in Minnesota.  A bad day for punctuality!  Enroute, the captain made a clear and informative P.A. about the line of storms that were 140 miles from us (the lightning was intense, even from that distance), and for those of who cared to listen it was a powerful reminder of the greatness of our business.  We have lots of warts, and I know I’m biased, but our ability to safely and reliably deliver 250,000 customers an average of 1100 miles every single day is a stunning achievement.

 

We arrived MSP after ten.  I picked up a Ford and was at friend Chuck Wiser’s townhouse by eleven.  Worked my e-mail briefly and clocked out.  Was up at 6:30.  Chuck returned from morning exercise and we yakked a bit.  Then I headed toward St. Paul, past our old house, to our favorite Bungalow Bakery for a danish and a coffee, then to the Minnesota State Fair.  I was at the art show, one of my favorites, by nine, admiring some nice art (you’ll recall from previous updates that we’ve purchased a lot of art from this show).  I bought a Pronto Pup (known as a corny dog in other parts of the republic), sat down, and had a nice yak with a stranger, a woman from the suburbs who son lived near us in Dallas.

 

Then across the fair to the animal barns, always a high point.  It was 4-H weekend, and youngsters were showing their livestock.  At then entrance to the sheep barn I had a nice conversation with the owners of Ducky, an Icelandic-Leicester crossbreed, with very long charcoal-colored fleece.  A beautiful animal.  How I love animal husbandry, I thought, as I sat down to watch judging of Columbia rams.  Columbias are huge, very durable sheep, really rough and tough.  I ambled through the cattle and swine barns, then started back toward the car.  Enroute, I ran into one of Linda’s college classmates, Judy Beck and her sister-in-law and nephew Simon.  His dad, Judy’s brother, is still farming the acreage in Watonwan County their forebears homesteaded in the 1870s.  A nice bit of continuity in Minnesota agriculture.  Simon seemed surprised that your city-slicker correspondent asked him what breed of pig he was showing at the fair!

 

Next stop was lunch with my friend Mike Davis, a federal judge and great guy, catching up after a year, at a Vietnamese restaurant near their house.  All well with him and his family.  I headed back to Chuck’s for a little nap, then out the door at five to the National Cemetery where my dad is buried.  After a few prayers of thanksgiving, for Captain Britton and the other brave souls buried there, I headed to my favorite Black Forest Inn for dinner with another longtime pal, Bob Woehrle.  We had a splendid time in the beer garden, Summit Ale and great conversation.  As I have written previously, Bob is a really insightful guy.  That night, we spent quite a bit of time on faith and religion; there are not a lot of friends that like that topic, and I appreciated the talk very much.  From there it was out to a bit of bargain-hunting at the Lands’ End “Inlet” store.

 

I picked up Linda at the airport at ten, and we headed back to Chuck’s.  Saturday morning was clear and cool, perfect for a run, and I set off around the small lake nearby.  At 10:30 we were at Linda’s mom’s house for lunch and a great visit with her siblings and our two new nephews, Sam and Ed.  We saw them in January, when they were 2 months old, and now at 10 months they were a lot of fun.  They are really cute boys.  Aunt Linda had new outfits for them.

 

At 2:30 we motored over to St. Paul.  Linda had not been to the fair for at least 15 years, and we had a lot of fun.  We spent about an hour in the Creative Activities building, the repository of an eye-popping array of hobby and craft work: quilts, sewing, woodworking, baking, and more.  Bob Woehrle, my usual fair partner, and I spend time there, but not as much as with Linda.  The quality of much of the stuff is just stunning.  From there we went to the art show, then for a Pronto Pup and a malt, then south for a bag of Tom Thumb mini-donuts (“light as a feather”) and into the Horticulture Building, past the ribbon-winning Christmas trees, vegetables, and flowers.  We stopped for a beer about sundown, sitting on a park bench and watching the array of Minnesotans (who contrast markedly with Texans in that they are nearly all Anglo).  Fortified with Summit Ale, we made a last swing through the art show, and drove home.  We had reached sensory overload.

 

I was up and out the door at seven on Sunday morning, wheeling Chuck’s almost-never-used Bianchi bicycle down 82nd Street to a gas station.  I was hoping the tires would hold air, and they did, so off I went, north, past the office building where Chuck and I first worked together, at Vanguard Travel, in 1969 (I noticed two tenants were still there, after more than 35 years).  Then Southdale Center, the nation’s first enclosed shopping mall (yep, the Daddy of ‘em all).  Say what?  Rob at a mall?  Indeed, I was there on opening day in the summer of 1956, with my mom; lunch was a hot dog in the courtyard.  I circumnavigated the enormous lot – remarkably, it was the same size as it was a half-century ago.  Apart from the municipal water tower on the site, only one other thing was still there after 50 years: the parking lots still had names.  I smiled broadly as I passed signs demarcating the alligator, kangaroo, and fox lots. 

 

Then I rode north, past houses where we lived after our family became renters.  I rode around 50th and France, the interwar shopping area just east of the houses my parents owned before my father got sick and then into debt.  One of those houses, at 5000 Arden, was for sale for $740,000, a lot more than we got when we moved out in 1966 so my uninsured Dad could pay his medical bills.  I rode back quickly, picked up coffee at Caribou, and was back at Chuck’s at 8:15.

 

We motored out to the airport and flew home.   Linda dropped me at the office, and I worked for an hour, then drove southwest, through lots of suburbs and out into the countryside on U.S. 67, past Glen Rose.  It’s hilly around there, and west of town the landscape becomes drier, looking more like West Texas.  I turned left onto a county road and drove seven more miles to Rough Creek, a conference center, for the annual retreat of the AA Credit Union board of directors.  I had missed the previous two, and was keen not to repeat.  It’s an unlikely place for a deluxe small hotel and a superb restaurant, in the middle of grazing land and natural-gas wells.  We enjoyed it hugely, through Tuesday at noon when I drove the 100 miles back to work.  It rained much of the time, not enough, but welcome.  In fact, that rain ended the summer furnace-like heat spell. 

 

Three days later, I headed back southwest, 240 miles southwest to Brady, smack in the middle of the state, to judge the 33rd World Championship Barbeque Goat Cook-Off, which I’ve described before.  I made it to town about seven on the first evening in September, and checked into a rather worn Days Inn.  I worked e-mail on my PDA (the motel did have fast free wireless), then ambled a couple of blocks to a plate of Tex-Mex at the Flamingo Café. 

 

I was up at seven the next morning, and was parked on the courthouse square soon after.  It had been a few years since I had a good walk around downtown (I’ve judged consecutively since 1991).  Even more retail vitality had been sucked from the center.  Evridge's, a furniture and appliance store, was holding on, but government agencies occupied many of the rest of the buildings around the square.  Southeast of the square, the former Brady Electric building had lost its roof.  Ranelle's, a new restaurant, stood bravely on the north end of the square.  There's not a lot of money in this place.  Midway through the walk, a mentally-ill man on a bicycle rode around, yelling loudly.  It was a grim counterpoint to what is always a fun afternoon.

 

Before nine, I met fellow judges Jim Stewart and Jerry Baird in front of the restaurant in the old railway depot.  Soon the whole group was there, and it was just great to see them.  The Brady-Standard Herald described the feeling best in their September 1 issue:

 

In an ever-changing world, the Goat Cook-Off is one thing you can always count on.  You can mark your calendar years in advance and know that rain or shine, you'll always be able to find good friends and good times at Richards Park on Labor Day weekend.  Change is a good thing, and it is inevitable for the health and well-being of a community, but on very rare occasions, the best of things find a way to always stay the same.

 

The judges had a nice brunch, got their briefing (howling at a video on, well, goat reproduction), picked up shirts and commemorative wooden goat-head plaques, and headed out to Richards Park, the event site.  There was no breeze that morning, and mesquite smoke hung.  By eleven I smelled like a frankfurter.   Jerry, Eddie Sandoval (an Apache), and I headed out on an ATV to judge camp showmanship, a vaguely defined category.  But we managed to find three winners, enjoying an early beer along the way.

 

After the showmanship judging, I walked around a bit, and had nice conversations with several people, including a relatively new judge, Kinnan Goleman, an attorney in Austin who raises Corriente cattle (a Spanish breed used for rodeos because of their persistence and their compact horns) east of Brady in San Saba.  Kinnan introduced me to some former hands, a couple originally from Colorado.  Visiting with them reminded me of the relaxed friendliness I first found in the mid-1970s, when I would work one week each summer on the dairy farm of David and Katherine Kelly in St. Croix County, Wisconsin.  It is a virtue of rural life.

 

The judging started earlier, at three, and after eating a lot of goat (great, middling, awful) and yakking with some other judges, I saddled up and motored home, running through heavy showers for the first hour.  Was back by 9:10, another great time.  

 

Four days after that, on the 7th, I flew to Washington, DC, to attend the 20th Hispanic Heritage Awards (American is a sponsor) at the Kennedy Center.   On the way northeast, it occurred to me that it had been awhile since I deliberately gazed at the silver wing and silently celebrated its promise.  It is an awesome thing.  Approaching Washington, we sailed right over Dulles Airport, and I spotted the grove of trees near the terminal, where the transport geek pitched a small tent and camped on the eve of a big DOT transportation exposition, Memorial Day weekend 1972.  Nice to get my bearings.  We landed, hopped on the Metro, and was at The Watergate Hotel (made famous the month after my airport camping) in no time.

 

It was Robin’s 24th birthday, and she was my “date” for the event, which was great fun.   We were able to catch up on her new job at the Washington PR and lobbying firm Powell Tate, her really busy social life (Washington is such a great town for young people), and more.  Several Latino colleagues from AA joined us.  The program, though overly long, was swell, honoring famous people like Antonio Banderas and Jose Feliciano (his teenage sons were sidemen, on drums and bass guitar), as well as some folks who were not household names but who were exemplary and righteous people.   The values that the diverse Hispanic communities all hold dear – hard work, family, commitment to learning, and others – were evident that night.  It was another E pluribus unum experience.  It was a short night, and I was back in the office by eleven Friday morning. 

 

Three days later, on Tuesday the 12th, a trip north had a rocky start.  My 8:05 flight canceled because of Chicago weather.  I got on the 9:05, and by 11:28 was in a taxi piloted by a capable Nigerian.  As we turned off the freeway and entered traffic in the Chicago Loop, I looked up from my notes and began yakking.  He was of the Yoruba people, here five years, a sister married with four kids in the south suburbs.  He came from a village of 1,000, and was back this summer.  He was amazed I knew about Nigeria, and the Yoruba, and such.