Alexandersmap

    Blog

    • Asking for Directions

      Driving back home after getting my car serviced my trip was detoured for road construction.  Orange signs directed me to a new route, which of course I knew already having lived in the town for 25 years.  During this adventure it occurred to me that I haven’t been asked for directions in years.  The reason is obvious of course; everyone carries directions with them in their pocket.  GPS apps like Waze get you where you need to go, and tell you how much time you have left to your destination.  Where once we asked a person for directions, now this information is readily available.

      I stopped at a rest area a few weeks ago in Vermont.  The rest area attendant and I got to talking a bit about local historical landmarks.  I mentioned I was driving to a meeting near Lake George, had stopped at the Hubbardton Battlefield Memorial and was going to check out the fort when I got to Lake George.  He mentioned the tablet marking the location of the Battler of Fort Anne at Battle Hill, and gave me specific directions on what to look for as I was speeding along at highway speed.  I didn’t ask for directions, but they sure came in handy in spotting the tablet.  There are some things better left to humans to explain.

    • Iceberg Season

      This morning I was thinking about icebergs.  It’s iceberg season in Newfoundland, with more than 1200 released from sea ice and parading past the ruggedly beautiful eastern coast.  Icebergs are big business as tourists flock to see them, much as tourists flock to see Great White sharks now on Cape Cod.  The world has a curiosity about icebergs that goes back to the day the Titanic sank.  There’s something mystical and romantic about these roaming islands of ice marching from their icy prison in the north where they’ve been locked away for millennia to southern waters where they reunite with the blended waters of the world.  Romantic until you run into one anyway.

      Scanning the iceberg sightings this year made me think about my time on Signal Hill in December of 2017.  Signal Hill is impressive without the draw of icebergs floating by you, I can imagine the crowds there on a Saturday with an iceberg floating by.  My time there, documented early in this blog’s history, was memorable but certainly not crowded.  Little did I know at the time that I wouldn’t be back there again any time soon.  It remains on my short list of places I’d love to get back to.

      Environment and Climate Change Canada tracks iceberg activity and states that most of the icebergs that you see in the North Atlantic are calving from glaciers in Western Greenland, with between 10,000 and 40,000 icebergs annually.  I had no idea there were that many in a season.  To be categorized as an iceberg the ice has to be at least 5 meters above the sea level.  That’s the starting point, and icebergs get much bigger from there.  Those that miss the 5 meter cut are still navigation hazards.

      So icebergs triggered my wanderlust affliction, which is always lingering just below the surface.  Surely a trip to Labrador and Newfoundland in April would be a great mix of Aurora Borealis and icebergs.  Frankly I wonder why I haven’t done this trip already.  So much to see and do in this world, and two things I’ve always wanted to see are just out of reach this season.

    • Thoreau Never Worried About Dryer Lint

      Henry David Thoreau describes in wonderful detail his day-to-day life during his time at Walden.  In building his cabin, he obtained used brick to build a fireplace and eventually put in a stove for more efficient cooking.  And he dug a root cellar for storing his food, describing some of the foot lost to moles and other rodents in the matter-of-fact way someone who fully expects some percentage of their food stores to be eaten by rodents.

      Thoreau writes of the ice men who would come to Walden every winter to cut the ice to ship near and far for cooling deep into the summer.  Before refrigerators root cellars and ice houses were the norm, and blocks of ice were the preserving savior of many a family’s harvest.  Root cellars were generally disconnected from the main house, just as outhouses were.  Not having an outhouse in your home makes sense, and really it makes sense for the root cellar as well.  It’s meant to be a cold space, and the food stored there would naturally attract rodents.  Best to have that disconnected from the house.

      Not many people have an ice pick today, but it was so commonplace before refrigeration that it’s immediately thought of as a murder weapon in a mystery.  Casually walking out to the root cellar and grabbing an ice pick to chop off a few chunks of ice for your mixed drink is foreign to us but the concept of using the same tool in a murder mystery makes perfect sense.

      Today as I moved the laundry forward from washer to dryer to laundry basket to closet, I casually pulled the dryer lint from the filter.  For all the modern comforts technology has brought to us, the lint filter is likely low on the list.  But Thoreau would have marveled at it for all that it represented. We are all living a shared experience today with our modern conveniences, just as Thoreau shared similar experiences living in Concord. Most people today would be lost trying to use a wood stove for baking, just as HDT would be lost trying to figure out a microwave. It’s only when you step out into the wilderness that we share the experience of Thoreau in the 1840’s. For it’s there that we become closest to those who lived here before us.

    • Sisyphus the Homeowner

      It’s May 4th and Spring is officially here in New England.  Still a danger of frost, mind you, but the world is blooming.  I’ve been away from home for five full days and as with any extended trip I take a moment to take stock of the house, the pets, the yard and the pool to see what’s changed.  With Bodhi aging I started with him, and sure enough his overall well-being is much worse than it was on Monday.  He’s reaching his time, and we all know it.  For now I wanted to get him outside so he could relieve himself with dignity and I carried him down the deck stairs to the backyard.

      First thing I noticed was the sound of the pool filter making a strange sound and a quick glance at the pool betrayed the reason; the water level was eight inches lower than when I left on Monday morning.  Big problem.  I quickly shut off the filter (thinking the damage is done to the pump) and walked around the pool looking for the source of the leak.  As I write this I still don’t know, but for that much water to be drained from the pool it must be mechanical.  I cursed the timing as this would have been something I would have noticed had I been home.  Kris doesn’t focus on things like this, especially with an aging dog crapping all over the house while she’s at work.

      Beyond the dog and the pool, I noticed the many other changes that occur when you’re away for any time.  The world is constant change, and especially in early spring.  The grass is growing again, which is encouraging given the many bare spots that revealed themselves when the snow melted.  Several shrubs have significant winter kill, which is discouraging given the hope with which I planted many of them just a year ago.  Yet even these show signs of life.  Patient monitoring and maintenance may be enough to bring them back.

      Being a homeowner who travels requires a commitment to maintenance.  You’re signing up for lawn care, housework, mechanical troubleshooting, home decor changes, and ongoing financial outlay to fix or replace things that go astray.  These things ground you when you want to immerse yourself in this world.  Or they handcuff you as you look to the world outside.  It’s a state of mind, really.

      Today I need to roll up my sleeves and get to work maintaining that world we signed up for twenty years ago.  Like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill only to see it roll down to be pushed up again for eternity, being a homeowner means you’re doomed to repeat the same tasks for eternity.  Last year it was the hot tub (still is), this year it’s the pool.  Last year I re-seeded parts of the lawn, this year I’ll be re-seeding parts of the lawn.  Such is the fate of the homeowner.

      There’s a calculation that every homeowner goes through in their heads; is the ROI on this worth the effort?  As an empty nester with a serious wanderlust trait, at what point does it make sense to sell the place and gift these Sisyphean, perpetual tasks to others?  Alas, the answer is… not yet.  For all the maintenance headaches, I love having a pool.  For all the weeding and re-seeding and winterkill, I love having a garden.  For all the sadness of watching your dog age, I love having him around as long as he’s not suffering.  And so it goes, around and around.

    • Buttermilk

      Buttermilk Falls State Park offers lovely views of the many waterfalls that cascade through the gorges carved by Buttermilk Creek. The biggest cascade is the easiest to see – you can basically drive right up to Buttermilk Falls and take a picture of you wanted. But who the hell wants that? I walked over to the falls from the Hampton Inn I was staying at when I checked in to get the blood flowing and again this morning as part of my earn your breakfast routine. From the Hampton to Pinnacle Rock it’s a little over 3 miles round trip.

      The walk from the hotel to the entrance to Buttermilk Falls State Park is roughly a mile of strips malls, fast food restaurants, and loud traffic rolling by you.  Not the highlight of a trip to Ithaca.  But once you turn into the driveway you see the falls right in front of you and the city sprawl becomes a memory.  As I walked in I noticed that the park was completely empty.  It was 6:15 AM after all, but still, I expected at least one or two people tapping into the energy of Buttermilk Falls.

      Yesterday I stopped at the first observation platform as you walk up the stairs.  Today I wanted more than that and aimed for Pinnacle Rock.  The thing about waterfalls is that if you’re going to hike alongside them you’re going to end up walking uphill for some period of time.  At Buttermilk the steepest part of the Gorge Trail is the very beginning, which probably deters a few people from continuing on.

      The Gorge Trail is about 1/2 mile from Buttermilk Falls to Pinnacle Rock.  This morning in the rain that walk required a dose of awareness of where you were walking.  I don’t hike as often as I’d like, but I can certainly handle this terrain.  Much of the Gorge Trail is stairs and terraced stone built in the 1930’s and 40’s.  I’m sure it’s been re-built a few times over the years but it looked very much like it might have then.

      When I reached the second bridge across Buttermilk Creek I looked up and there was Pinnacle Rock, perfectly situated amongst a double waterfall.  This was what I told myself I came here for, but really it was the experience of hiking up this quiet trail early on a Friday morning while hundreds of people commuted to work just below me.

      For me a hike begins with a Friday night-level anticipatory excitement, and I felt that exhilaration as I rounded every hilltop or bend in the trail to see what came next.  But inevitably the hike must end, and as I descended the Gorge Trail I experienced that Sunday afternoon melancholy of knowing I was going back to the roar of the commuters and back to another workday.  As if to hammer the point home for me, I glanced out across the creek on my descent and saw the orange awnings of a Home Depot across the street from the park entrance.

      All told I did the walk from the hotel to Pinnacle Rock and back in under an hour.  That hour far exceeded any amount of time on a treadmill or an erg in my basement at home. If I lived in Ithaca I’d start every morning with a similar hike.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  If there’s anything positive about business travel, it’s that I’ve grown accustomed to being in different places every night.  If there’s a drawback, it’s the relative ease with which you can slide into bad habits.  Today I cast a vote for a good habit, and I’m the better for the experience.

    • Where it all Happened

      When I was a child I thought of Boston, Lexington and Concord as the place where the bulk of the Revolutionary War was fought. Of course, that’s not accurate at all; it’s the place where it started. Or rather, where the underlying tensions felt across the thirteen colonies erupted into open rebellion and eventually violent conflict. Names like Yorktown, Valley Forge, Princeton, Trenton and Saratoga are just place names unless you’ve been there and felt the lay of the land. Having grown up there I’d done that in Boston but it wasn’t until I was an adult that I started visiting these other places.

      Monday I drove from an appointment in Castleton, Vermont to Clifton Park, where I would have meetings the next morning. Before the drive I did my usual survey to see what was on or near the route. I was already very close to Hubbardton, which I’d visited on my last trip up this way. But there was another significant side trip not far from my route…. Saratoga.

      As with any battlefield the action took place across a wide area over a period of time. The Saratoga Campaign took about a month, with other related skirmishes contributing to the overall result. I didn’t have time and wasn’t dressed for an extended tourist campaign myself, so I chose the visually stunning Saratoga Battle Monument as a priority, and let serendipity take over from there. It didn’t take long as I passed two historical markers of consequence next to each other. First was a sign marking the location of Starks Knob, named after John Stark, who held the high ground on this “basaltic pillow lava formation” which blocked the retreat to the north of General Burgoyne’s British and Hessian troops. Second was a monument to the Knox Trail, marking this ground as significant on a few occasions during the war.

      With Stark blocking retreat to the north, and Colonel Daniel Morgan‘s troops blocking retreat to the west, and the Hudson River blocked retreat to the east, options were running out for Burgoyne. He was cut off with nowhere to go. So on the morning of October 17, 1777 General Burgoyne and his 6000 soldiers surrendered. The Saratoga Battlefield Monument commemorates this event.

      Time or the necessary footwear to visit the battlefield itself weren’t available Monday… Another time perhaps. But seeing this magnificent monument, and seeing Starks Knob to know the lay of the land were worth the detour. History books only tell part of the story. Saratoga was a massively important global event that changed that history. Walking and driving around these places helps me understand what these names on the page were facing.

      I didn’t hear the whispers of ghosts when I visited the monument, but I did have my breath taken away as I drove around the bend from the site Morgan held and saw the monument rise up before me. And I had a shot of adrenaline when I saw the sign for Starks Knob. These places, where these things happened, matter to me, and I continue to seek them out in my travels.

    • Earn Your Breakfast

      I knew it was coming, and wasn’t sure how I’d react to it.  A disruption in routine was creeping up on me all month as I looked at the week of April 29th as a travel week, with all the hurdles that come with business travel, as I try to maintain a semblance of habit foundation.  The biggest concern was waking up in a different hotel every morning this week, with no erg to welcome me back before I started my admittedly minuscule rowing workout.

      Monday was no problem, I simply got up early and worked out at home before I started driving to my first appointment.  Tuesday was the real test, and I literally got up, got dressed and walked around in circles for a few minutes figuring out what the hell I was going to do.  But I got over it, walked as many steps as time would allow, walked up and down the stairs a few times and did the obligatory 10 burpees.

      That mental barrier crossed, today was easier and I got up and got to it right away.  Today should have been harder as I arrived at the hotel late last night and didn’t sleep particularly well, but habit trumped fatigue.  As I was walking this morning, the phrase I kept repeating to myself was “earn your breakfast”.  Not exactly “win one for the Gipper”, but it served me well nonetheless.  Our days, and our lives, are a product of the stories we tell ourselves.  I’m trying to tell myself a better story.

    • Not Today

      I re-watched Game of Thrones Season 8 Episode 3 last night.  Would I have preferred it to be filmed on a brighter set?  Sure.  But did that make me as outraged as the media critics who stir indignant outrage with words?  Not at all.

      This show requires a second and sometimes a third viewing to peel back the layers of meaning in every scene.  If that makes me sound like a GoT fanboy, well, that’s your issue not mine.  People who criticize the show usually don’t take the time to watch and understand the show.  Or they’re the people who read the books and feel that the show strayed from the books too much.  Whatever.

      To me, someone who opts out of mass television hysteria whenever possible, Game of Thrones is the best television show I’ve ever watched.  I’ve enjoyed watching the characters grow and evolve in a complicated, dark and violent world as that world hones who they are.  We all choose how we are going to react to the things that happen in our lives, and each of these characters evolve based on this.  It’s extraordinary long form character development spanning a decade.

      Back in the real world, I do my best to develop and refine my own character.  I write about people who are long dead quite often and I know that.  That’s part of being a history buff I guess.  But there are lessons in history, and it’s worthwhile to know who came before us.  As George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  I see countless people not remembering the past, falling victim to yellow journalism, celebrity gossip, reality television, charlatan evangelicalism and political catch phrases.  That there are people out there who believe the world is flat boggles my mind.  But then there are people who believe climate change isn’t real too.

      Game of Thrones offers welcome relief from reality while borrowing heavily from our dark human past.  It’s no stretch to see the similarities in the treatment of women, slavery, massive military conflict, greed and power struggles it leads to, and the privileged lives of the rich.  What I love about the show is that as the characters evolve, they don’t shrink away from these topics, but use them to catalyze the character of the, well, characters.

      The development of the two Stark girls who accompanied their father to Kings Landing and struggled for years to get back to Winterfell is at the core of the show.  Dark things happen to each of them over the years, and may still happen in the final three episodes.  But watching them grow and evolve has proven immensely enjoyable.  In contrast, I’m re-reading Walden and reminding myself why I loved it so much.  These two quotes seemed to call out to me this morning:

      “There is only one god and his name is Death, and there is only one thing we say to Death: Not today.” – Syrio Forel to Arya Stark, Game of Thrones

      “… I read his epitath in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, [it told me], with staring emphasis, when he died; which was but an indirect way of informing me that he ever lived.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      Thoreau was a Transcendentalist who believed in the basic goodness of all people and the divinity of nature.  Thrones is perhaps the most stoic program I’ve watched.  Remembering that we all must die, and every character on this show seems to eventually, allows you to live each day more richly.  And maybe be a badass with a Valaryan steel dagger too.

       

    • The Fulcrum of Isolation and Engagement

      Today I drove three hours from my home to a meeting on the Vermont-New York border, an area I was just in less than two weeks ago.  I have meetings tomorrow in the Albany area so I drove ninety minutes to a hotel Clifton Park, where my first meeting is in the morning.  If you’re keeping score that’s 4 1/2 hours in the car alone, with a 30 minute meeting to break it up.  

      Tomorrow I’m in wall-to-wall meetings all day, with a couple of phone calls in between.  And then I drive to Ithaca to have dinner with Emily before I drive out to my hotel in Buffalo.  Another six to eight hours of isolation in a car with high engagement in between.  I generally make calls or listen to podcasts in the car, but sometimes I just turn off the noise and just drive in quiet…  for hours.

      My business life is a balance of isolation and engagement.  These are deep swings in each direction, and not for the faint of heart.  I’m at once a loner and a social being, and perhaps the thing that saves me is that I enjoy both worlds.  

      Does this make me strange?  Perhaps.  Then again, I feel like a heavy reliance on interaction with others is unhealthy.  Striking a balance is key, and that emotional fulcrum point is very different from one day to the next.
      I drove around Portugal by myself and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Would it have been better with Kris or a few friends?  Absolutely.  But it would have been different too.  And the trip I took by myself will be one I’ll remember fondly despite the isolation.
      I take mini side trips to see interesting things.  But let’s face it, visiting an old graveyard in the middle of nowhere is not everyone’s idea of fun.  Best to knock off my flights of historical  fancy whenever I can, but without dragging along people who aren’t as into it as I am.
      There’s another aspect to traveling alone; I notice things more.  Like an old stone pyramid built as a monument to a long-dead Basque explorer in Victor, New York.  Or a monument honoring the Knox Trail near Saratoga this afternoon.  Or an old gravestone marking the final resting place of Jane McCrea, murdered by Native Americans who were accompanying General Burgoyne in his ill-fated march to Albany which sparked a unifying outrage amongst the Colonial Army that helped fuel victory at Saratoga.
      Make no mistake; I thoroughly enjoy the company of others. I find deep conversation with complex, vibrant people as thrilling as any waterfall or vista I’ve chanced upon (My god I love a good conversation!). And I’ve tried to be what Malcom Gladwell would call a Connector in holding together the cast of characters I’ve become friends with, and pulling others in as well. But the many hours alone in a car ahead of me this week don’t fill me with dread either. If I have the chance to reconnect with an old friend during that drive time all the better.

    • The Evasive Groundnut

      “I discovered the ground-nut (Apios tuberosa) on its string, the potato of the aborigines, a sort of fabulous fruit, which I had begun to doubt if I had ever dug and eaten in childhood, as I had told, and had not dreamed it.  I had often since seen its crumpled red velvety blossom supported by the stems of other plants without knowing it to be the same.  Cultivation has well-nigh exterminated it.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden

      “Hannah Bradley later told her family that “she subsisted on bits of skin, ground-nuts, the bark of trees, wild onions and lily roots” on the trek to Canada.” – Jay Atkinson, Massacre on the Merrimack (endnotes)

      Apios americana, also known as the American groundnut, potato bean and several other names, is an indigenous plant that grows in the forests from Canada to Florida.  I’ve had a strangely compelling fascination with groundnuts since I read a description of Hannah Dustin, Hannah Bradley and other prisoners of the Abenaki who kidnapped them digging around in the woods of New Hampshire wherever they were encamped to find groundnuts to eat.  I live in New Hampshire, I wander about in the woods (though not often enough) and I found the fact that these groundnuts were so readily available to be fascinating.

      Reading about Benedict Arnold’s men starving on their march through the woods of Maine when they invaded Quebec, or Roger’s Rangers starving to death as they evaded the French and Native Americans during campaigns in the Lake George/Lake Champlain region have made me wonder about this evasive groundnut even more.  If this was a staple of the Native American population’s diet, and were known to men like Robert Rogers, why were so many of them starving?

      Henry David Thoreau alludes to one reason in Walden when he writes about discovering a “now almost exterminated ground-nut” someday resuming “its ancient importance and dignity as the diet of the hunter tribe.”  These New Hampshire woods that I like to wander in were once fields as settlers plowed fields and brought in livestock.  The stone fences that criss-cross the forest betrays the history of this land.  So for a farmer from Massachusetts living off the land may have been tougher than it is today.  As ancient forests were cut down and plowed fields took their place the groundnuts became harder to find, just as wild animals who were hunted for food became harder to find.  For the native population who lived off the land as hunter-gatherers, this must have been particularly devastating.

      Over the last few years of gardening I’ve noticed some invasive vines growing into the yard.  I sprayed some of them along with the poison ivy to knock them back, and pulled them off the fence and a spruce tree in the yard.  Imagine my surprise when I realized that the plant I was aggressively expelling from the edges of my yard was the very plant that I’ve been wondering about.