Mary Beth Writes

1/25/2023 

I’ve never been to Alaska. I’m sure I’d love it but going there is not a big dream for either Len or me.

However, this. When our son was around 12 he developed a crush on all things Alaskan. Kid who lives in a ranch house on a Midwestern cul-de-sac wants to get lost in tundra and mountains with moose and wolves. Yup.

At first he just talked, dreamed, read books, and watched shows about Alaska. Then, at 14 he got a part-time job as a janitor at a vet clinic and he kept that job until he went to college. It was a good fit for a kid not drawn to homework.

Wilderness gear catalogs started appearing in our house and this kid, with his own money, started occasionally buying expensive high-tech gear. I think he still has some of it.

Then he wanted a kayak. Oh boy. He lobbied Len to drive him to Madison’s Canoecopia which is a huge paddle-sports show in March. They went. Now they were both talking canoes and kayaks. Canoecopia  

We bought an inexpensive canoe and that’s when Racine’s Root River became our local Alaska. Sitting here now, I see the bends and turns in that river. The wide sandbar where geese hung out. Herons stalking fish along the riverbank. Turtles sunbathing on logs. Flag iris and cattails. The splash of otters if one was very lucky. Sigh. I miss it. I’ll link a newspaper column I wrote back then, at the bottom of this.

Our kid saved his money until he had enough, and then he bought a Wilderness systems 17’ touring kayak. I’ll link that column, too. That kayak is in our garage right now.

We were already friends with M and D because the four of us are readers, eaters, and talkers. But the thing is, they also were and still are wilderness-comfy humans. So sometimes they took their boys and my boy on adventurous camping and river trips. One summer our two families paddled five days down the Green River in Utah. When they were still in high school, their son and ours joined a wilderness class in the Teton Mountains.  (NOLS offers wonderful, and pricey, adventures.)

A year ago when our family gave Christmas present lists to each other our daughter texted all of us, “We say our family is unathletic readers and cooks – but look at this list!” Gym clothes, hiking equipment, bike accessories, weights.

It’s powerful what can happen when a kid starts dreaming and no one shuts him down. It’s powerful what happens when we want a good thing and we go towards it, and we somehow bring others along on our quest.

Click here to read Seventeen Minutes of Joy 

Click here to read Dark River 

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Love this ———
Mary Beth's picture

Thanks!

The videos make my heart swell! https://www.npr.org/2023/01/24/1150594286/alaska-puppy-bus-viral
Mary Beth's picture

These are wonderful!!!

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Be a (bit of a) Scientist This Summer!

3/23/2023

This is an updated rerun of a story I posted last spring.

This is about Stream Monitoring and How to Do It. You don’t have to be a man to do this, but many are and that’s as close to the obvious joke as I’m going to go.

Len and his volunteer pal Tom enjoy this volunteer gig a lot. Once each month in the summer they go to the same stretch of the same stream to check water quality and to discover what creatures are lurking in the water and muck.  

A-Z Ice Cream & Marco Polo

DQ will never look the same. This photo is of a patio where one eats their gelato, somewhere in Italy. 

...

3/22/2023

What is the thing most people spend a great deal of time, energy, and money keeping off our necks and out of our homes?

Chilly air

What is ice cream?

Chilly air with sugar.

Igloos

3/16/2022

We are working our way through an Alphabet of Topics and we are currently considering the letter I. Two days ago, I wrote about Idiosyncrasies. Today is Igloo. Next up is Ice Cream.

So here we are again with nervous banks and a jumpy stock market and we “commoners” quietly peruse how many bags of beans we have in the pantry. I hope by the time I finish and post this the news is more stable, but I doubt it. “May you live in interesting times.” Right?

You know what I learned while researching igloos?

I is for Idiosyncrasy - "I'm not goofy. You are..."

3/14/2023  (Happy Pi Day)

Idiosyncrasies are like cave drawings; enigmatic clues that say once upon a time something happened here. A story unfolded. Someone tried to solve a problem. The solution worked, or at least it kept the person comfortable or comforted long enough for the idiosyncratic habit to form.

A-Z Humor Me

Humor 3/8/2023

I heard this joke in a sermon in 1974. I heard that highly revered minister preach at least a hundred sermons and this is the ONLY thing I remember him saying.  

A guy loses his job and is desperate for a new one with which to support his precious family. Nothing turns up until one day the newspaper Help Wanted Ads (so now you know how old this jokes really is) says the zoo has an opening. Guy applies. The HR person looks worried and then says the zoo changed its mind, the job is too demeaning. Guy says he’s desperate, will take anything.

A-Z Heaven ...

3/3/2023

First of all, you should realize that tomorrow is March 4th which is the only date of the year which tells you what to do. Hah.

This week I was amazed by this map/representation of the process of the creation of a new star. A year ago, there were no visuals of this process. What you are looking at is cutting-edge stuff observed and collaborated by 90 astronomers worldwide.

That + in the middle is the new star that right now is bigger than our sun. We know it’s young and new because it’s growing.

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