Wasn't Looking Too Good But I Was Feeling Real Well

  I must be in some dirty old man's dream....I am literally surrounded by 3 attractive twenty something women, one in front of me and one on each side.  Fortunately for me, and possibly even luckier for them, they seem completely unaware of my presence.  Considering I am breathing quite heavily it is amazing that they are refraining from calling the local police.  Wait, they don't even have to, our local cop is only ten feet behind me.  It is only 8 degrees out today but I am in a river of sweat, and my heavy breathing seems to be getting heavier. As I wonder if  the women are sweating as well I swing a quick glance to both sides, but amazingly these beauties do not appear to have sweat glands.  What kind of demented dream do I find myself inside of ?

                                          I have returned to the gym.

  As much as I have avoided this dreaded moment with great rationalizations and excuses for oh so many years today finds me in my 30th minute on an elliptical machine, on a course marked Alpine Zone.  In my mind I am hiking The Presidential Traverse, that grueling 20 mile course that may be the ultimate challenge for any strong day hiker up here.  In reality I am at Cranmore Ski Resorts Gym.  After a few challenging winter hikes I had to be honest with myself and admit that one hike a week would probably be all I could fit in.  Not only does it get a tad chilly and breezy in our mountains, these days it is pretty dark before 4 p.m.  And hiking once per week, combined with some holiday feasting, saw my weight going in the wrong direction.  My dislike for organized fitness and gyms would have to take a back seat to reality.  My reality is that I still need to be in much better condition to embark on the adventures that I am already planning this coming spring and summer.  Only working hard this winter will allow me to do that.

  This gym, like every gym, has the stereotypical members.  I had the brawny guys throwing iron all around me.  I saw women in contortions that hurt just to watch them.  Everyone goes for different reasons and with different goals.  At 53 my number one goal is not to die at the gym.  My number two goal is to get into good enough shape to allow me to continue my quest of 100 peaks.  I would like to climb the 48 Four Thousand Footers as well as all of the 52 With a View.  Currently I have bagged 3 of the 4000 footers and 14 of the 52, so 17 down and only 83 to go.  The hikes that I am preparing for are more challenging than any I have done to date.  I need to be honest with myself.  I am hoping that with all of the time I have spent hiking, literally thousands of hours, that I am improving in this category.  After all, when your head is up your you know what the views are not so good.  Much better to actually see life as it is.

  Today is Day Three.  I lifted yesterday so today I get to spend extra time on My Abs !  I tried to tell them that I have no abs but they were not buying it.  I sit on a giant rubber ball and try not to fall off, and somehow do these modified sit ups, and well, you get the picture.  I am far from graceful.  But I am committed to living life more fully than I have in the past, and that requires a sound mind and body.  I may not enjoy my workouts nearly as much as a long hike in our beautiful mountains, but I understand that one will enable the other.  I hope I do not scare the specimens that surround me there.  When I work out I get my money's worth, far from a pretty picture.  But today's gym hours will be tomorrows summits, and the dream of climbing 100 mountains I will make a reality.  Now just pass me my damn towel.

Gving Myself The Gift

  Thanksgiving is finally here and I am living a day that I  have dreamed about for months.  We would have a family walk in the woods before the usual feast. Our son Adam is in from Chicago for the holiday and he is itching for his first Winter hike. Along with our daughter Sarah, her boyfriend Tim, Sue & I we would attempt Mt. Jackson.  Mother Nature would have some other ideas, and the 2 inches of rain that fell yesterday would be a river of ice by the summit, but I shall save the trip details for another time.  Suffice it to say Papa was in his glory, surrounded by my dear loved ones and getting to go for  a beautiful walk in the mountains  instead of television staring.  As this was our first Thanksgiving Family Hike I had plenty to ponder, especially as I strolled hills that were once settled by folks that were violently removed from these lands. Between this dark thought and the brilliant light of family joy my rainbow of feelings ran the full spectrum today.

  Today is our day to give thanks.  It is in the name of the holiday after all.  Around tables loaded with absurd quantities of food someone raised a glass, said a few words of gratitude, and feasting commences.  We proceed to enjoy a warm meal in the company of friends and family.  Stories are told, laughter surrounds the dinner table, plates are cleared while desserts are readied.  And as we loosen our belts for this yearly demonstration of excess a question always comes to my mind.

  Are we really 'giving thanks' on this day ?  And better, to whom are we giving it to ?

  Giving thanks is more than just words to be uttered.  Certainly it's a concept that should not be confined to one day.  And before I agitate my few followers of this blog I will assume that we all give thanks in many ways thru out the year, and need no reminders from Big Dave to do so.  I get that.    And when some of us give thanks it may be to G-d for blessing them.  But if it is G-d that we are thanking, would not the next logical question than be;

  How do we give thanks ?

  It is possible to enjoy this day and think of those less fortunate.  Guilt does not, and should not, be part of the equation.  Our good fortune is just that, nothing more or less.  And most definitely there are ways to make our blessings grow.  When we get to share with those who have less our fortune is multiplied.  When we give of ourselves we always receive more than we gave.  When we reach out to those who cannot we are rewarded with dividends that banks and portfolio mangers can't touch.  Because when we Give Thanks, and not merely say the words, we have given the richest gift in the world to ourselves, The Gift of Humanity.  This Christmas I will be at The Little Brown Church in Conway, helping to feed too many lonely and hungry people that deserve warmth and love as much as I do.  And I am well aware that the Gift will be Mine.

 
 

Couch Sitting is Risky Business

For the second time in less than a week  I find myself on top of good old Mt. Crawford in 50 mph winds with gusts up to 80.  Today's temperature with wind chill is probably twenty below.  This time Rock & I are accompanied by my daughter Sarah.  Apparently she felt like she was missing out on something so we went to Ragged Mountain and got her some winter gear.  As we begin to approach the summit of Mt. Crawford  I am thinking of the weather report I had read in the comfort of my wood stove  warmed living room only hours before...

RECREATION FORECAST FOR ELEVATIONS BETWEEN 2500 AND 4000 FEET IN
NORTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE AND THE WESTERN MAINE MOUNTAINS...
.TODAY...SUMMITS OBSCURED. A CHANCE OF SNOW SHOWERS. HIGHS 6 TO
16 ABOVE. NORTHWEST WINDS 50 TO 60 MPH WITH GUSTS UP TO 80 MPH.
CHANCE OF SNOW 50 PERCENT. WIND CHILL VALUES AS LOW AS 35 BELOW.

   The summit lies 200 feet ahead.  I have already discussed turning around with Sarah twice, once when we both saw a tree move at its roots, the other when we hit a blasting wind on the first ledges.  My baby girl looks soft from the outside but man she is tough where it counts, and both times she convinces me to continue.  Now we are literally a stones throw from the top and the Big One comes, a wind so strong it sends her off her feet and has my dog looking at me, waiting for me to come to my senses.  That time is now.  " Um, think we can turn around now " I say with a frozen smile, and nods all around means a consensus is reached.  The trip down the mountain would be quick, the lure of the truck's heater and lunch seemed to pull us down the trail.  We had stopped before we had gotten into any trouble, even if that meant a summit lay out of reach.  This decision making process , and the experience one requires to make good decisions in the woods when it counts, was my main reason for hiking today.

  Last night and this morning it was fun to recall this trip on social media with pictures and with family, friends and some regular customers who 'follow' my new hobby.  People are amazed that I would want to hike in these conditions.  Many have expressed concern for my safety, while others think I am being too risky.  To those concerned friends and loved ones I sincerely say Thank You.  I assure you I am going slow, being cautious, and staying within my comfort zone.  I never underestimate the danger that lies in these mountains.   Those that know me well understand I am far from a daredevil type of risk taker, and way way too old.  In my mind I was taking a much higher risk being inactive and overweight.  I cannot sit here and guarantee I will never have an accident hiking.  I can state with some degree of certainty that if I had continued my old ways that the end of the trail would have been far worse than any winds or chilling temperatures that any hike has for me.  The warmth of feeling alive again and spending time  in our beautiful forest melts anything Mother Nature has in store for me this winter.

Life is a Group Hike

  "If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich." - John F. Kennedy

  Today's hike would be in the clouds, seemed fitting that on the anniversary of the assassination of one of our great leaders that mother nature would  mist up.  I was 3 years old on that day, and my memories of that decade as a whole were thru the prisms of my parents eyes.  There would be other assassinations, more days of grief, students being shot on college campuses, veterans coming home to rude and unappreciative welcomes. The Sixties were a rough patch in our history, and many of our problems today are still unsettled fights from this time period.  But I would focus my thoughts on JFK today as I hiked up grey and wet Mt. Roberts.

  I wondered if JFK were around today what he would like to be remembered for.  Would it be standing up to the Soviets with steely eyed nerve, or perhaps our space program which he so fervently believed in.  Maybe he would be rightly proud of establishing the Peace Corps, or the first strategic nuclear agreement with those same Soviets.  He certainly did some great things on his short time on this planet.  And we can only speculate what he would be most proud of.  But to me I will remember him as a Man of Empathy.  He came from a wealthy background but somewhere early on he was taught to think of those less fortunate.  When he saw discrimination based on race he took steps to prevent it.  When the poor needed assistance he created the Area Redevelopment Act to address impoverished areas.  He related to all of humanity, no small feat when you grow up privileged.

  I was thinking about how this relates to a hike in the woods.  When you leave a trail head as a group there are several unspoken understandings.  One is that you will return as a group.  Another is that you can only move as quickly as your slowest member.  Another is that if one of your group were to wander off trail the entire group would assist in finding that person.  For lack of a better word I will call this connectivity. And to me this was the one quality which JFK should be very proud of.  He was our hike leader, and he was not content to see parts of the group left behind.  Our problems as a human race will improve the moment we all

understand that that we are on the same trail.  War will exist, as JFK said, as long as we value warriors over peace makers.  I would add that war will exist as long as we think we are all on different trails, and we fail to see the connections.  This life is a very short hike, we should be happy to walk with one another to the end of this trail.

Finding My Beat

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away."  Thoreau 

  It has taken me almost 40 years to understand this quote. I first came upon it in a high school English class.  I remember relating it to my autistic brother at that time, knowing that he heard a much different rhythm than I.  I recall working in Greenwich Village, looking at all of the wild hair & styles, thinking that all of those free wheeling folks were also listening to a funky beat that I could not hear. As I grew older, I would marry, have children, open a business, devote myself to all that is involved with trying to be a good provider, husband, dad, etc. I would find myself in a world sometimes as foreign to me as it seemed to my brother way back when.  And as life evolved I stopped wondering about all those different 

drum beats.  Probably because I no longer could hear one of my own.  

We all try to do our best for others, as much and as often as we can.....but do we actually do enough to help ourselves ? Do we work on improving who we are on a daily basis ?  This involves much more than going to the gym, or reading self help books, or even attending houses of worship.  All of those activities can help us feel better, but I pose this question:  Do they make us better people ?  And one day I realized that for all that I had tried to do for others I was failing myself.  I was not improving, mentally or physically, and I was not the best husband, dad, provider that I could be.  Somewhere along the way I had hit a wall, a self imposed restrictive net that would keep me in a comfort zone and make me feel like I was improving when I was not.  Fooling myself had proven to be an easy task, accomplished many times over the years with ease.   But could I look at the guy in the mirror and ask some tough questions ?  And better, would I react to the answers in a different way ?

  Our son Adam's birthday is in late April. After calling him to send my regards I decided to take a hike.  I would take Sue to the Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge for some early Spring Air.  The flat 3 miles proved to be more challenging for me than I care to admit here.  It also became a line in the sand day for me.  I was tired of some bad habits that I had acquired.  I grew weary of the excess weight that

I was carrying.  I was pissed off about not feeling well enough to be active.  I was disgusted with feeling closer to 80 years old than 20, even if that's what my age says.  I was angry with my performance at work, my attitude at home, my ability to be a good husband and father.  It was not that I had failed miserably at these functions.  It was more that I was not  excelling at any of them.  Or improving.  I had become stagnant.  And only I could change this, if I actually had the balls to do it.  But one thing would have to happen before I could do anything, one major step needed to occur before I could restart my cycle of improvement.

I needed to find my beat.

  More than reason, more than logic, I needed rhythm in my life again.  I needed pep in my step, I needed some of that youthful energy that seemed to have leaked out slowly over the years.  I needed to find something besides work and family that could bring some significant drumming back to my soul.

  I needed to go for a hike.  

Or should I say, as of mid November, 135 of them.  And counting.  And  at this point I am not sure I can stop.  I hike with sore ankles.  I hike with fevers.  I hike with a bad back.  I hike in snow and rain.  I hike when I do not feel like hiking.  I just hike whenever I can.

  Because in these beautiful woods of New Hampshire, much like Thoreau many years before me, I have rediscovered my beat.  It is a simple one, steady and sure, and I find it in nature.  That is where it has always been for me, and will always be.  I will miss some of modern pop culture, and my friends will pardon me if I am not up on the latest fads.  But if anyone is looking for me I am easily found, walking in the mountains with my dog and stepping to the music I hear.