Prague 1999

This is another in a series of excerpts from travel journals from past years, those halcyon years when "pandemic" had a dated sound, something that modern medicine had eliminated.

In 1999, I flew alone to Berlin, and traveled by train to Dresden, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest.  I present here my entries for my time in Prague.  I arrived Saturday afternoon, and left Monday morning.  As I note in my journal, it was a mistake to devote only one full day to Prague.  I had only time to form snap impressions, here reported only sketchily, but it's still interesting now to read some of my reactions to the Prague of 22 years ago.

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Sunday, September 12 -- 9:20 a.m.
Prague

"But to have been alive in Prague, in the Year of Grace 1999, was to have sampled in advance the joys of Heaven."  (Proposed e-mail home if I can find a cybercafé.)

Arrived in Prague at Holeŝovice station -- north of the main station -- and immediately got a hotel room.  Reservations woman gave expert directions involving subway/tram connections to bring myself here to the Nusle area of town, considerably south of the center but with good tram connections.  My $65 bought a very large room with three beds and my own toilet and shower; it includes the regular German type breakfast.  Small bar in the reception/breakfast area.  Quite stylish compared with my first two hotels.

City is magnificent.  Ten years ago, it looked beautiful but our guide said it was all held together with paint.  A lot of tourist money obviously has gone into maintenance since.  Not just the big public buildings, but everything.  English is spoken everywhere, and Americans are all over -- unlike Berlin and Dresden.  Of course you don't speak Czech -- who does? -- so English is fine.  Even real estate and for rent signs are printed in both Czech and English.

Local Czech people are obviously less stylishly dressed than German people -- noted it first thing on the subway.  Not poorly dressed -- just not as fashion-conscious/brand name aware.

Charles Bridge is a mob scene day and night.  Blind woman singing exquisite arias from the Magic Flute to accordion accompaniment, four jazz musicians playing swing hits of the 30s and 40s, a young guy showing off with a boa constrictor wrapped around himself.

After visiting the castle and St. Vitus cathedral, I went on impulse to a performance of Vivaldi's Four Seasons (becoming a tradition!) and what appeared to be a Mozart concerto in St. George basilica.  Much smaller chamber group than the one we heard in Paris at Sainte Chapelle in 1997, but it featured a virtuoso female lead violinist who stood and played with animation throughout the entire concert.  On a raised platform at the front of the chapel -- we had a good view only of her, because she was the only member of the group who was standing.

Highly romantic scene for dinner [last night] on Staromĕstké námeŝti -- the old town square -- immediately under the floodlit tower of St. Nicholas Church.  Off to one side was the highly dramatically lit double tower of Týn Church.  The entire square was beautifully illuminated, packed with tourists wandering about, and lined with outdoor cafés.  I lacked only a dinner companion to make it perfect.

More wandering after dinner.  Very easy town to get lost in.  The street plan is highly irregular, and the names are impossible!  They do have large illuminated maps showing your location, at reasonably frequent intervals.

Got my reservations for the train to Vienna tomorrow first thing when I arrived.  I'm beginning to think that was a mistake, and wish I'd left myself more time  here in Prague.

Sunday, September 12 -- 5:50 p.m.
Prague

I'm sitting in St. Nicholas church waiting for an organ recital of a Prelude and Fugue by Bach and eight other baroque pieces.  To say that the church itself is baroque is like saying that  ... well, think of your own simile.  A central dome -- circular rotunda actually, over the altar -- whose exterior forms something of a city landmark.  The inside is so busy, it gives me headaches.  Saints, cherubs, pontiffs, kings -- all in paroxysms of activity.  Quite spectacular, but I wonder about the mind-set of the church authorities who considered all this busy-ness, this magnificent cluttered confusion, to be spiritual -- the Counter Reformation, I guess, which set itself up in Prague with a vengeance with the advent of the Hapsburgs.

But baroque music -- yes!  That's a whole different story.. 

Sunday -- September 12 -- 7:40 p.m.
Prague

Dinner at an outdoor café right on the river -- tourist boat passing in front beside the Castle end of the Charles Bridge.  Twilight, and I am writing by a small oil lantern on the table.  Although this is in the heart of the tourist area, it is not accessible directly from the bridge.  I wandered through several streets and ended up here by accident.  I was going to say that we were dead-ended against the bridge, but I see now that you can pass through an arch under the bridge.

Anyway, it is highly satisfactory.  The view is worth a million, but my dinner of pork filet, dumplings and beer will come to under $10.  I worked up an appetite listening to a very nicely constructed program of baroque pieces, with a mezzo soprano singing one number from a side balcony high above the church floor where we were sitting -- pretty stunning acoustics.

It's getting dark fast and the tables are filling up quickly around me.  I think I'm sorry I'm committed to leaving tomorrow.

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I left the next morning, a five-hour train ride to Vienna.

Cherry trees and Covid masks

A sunny day in Seattle.  And a warm day (for a March day in Seattle), meaning I wore a sweater instead of a jacket.

I did a walk today through and around the University of Washington campus.  I'm happy to report that the cherry trees on the Upper Quad are in full bloom, undeterred by the pandemic.  I can't say that classes are in full bloom, however, although yesterday was the beginning of Spring Quarter.  The school will continue offering primarily remote instruction, except for laboratories, performing arts, and other classes that cannot be offered practically over a computer.

The school does say, however, that they plan to offer more informal student activities and services on campus this quarter.  

The combination of a new quarter, cherry trees, and sunshine did draw a crowd -- primarily of students, but also of older visitors.  Virtually everyone was wearing a mask, which is mandatory on campus.  I'm not so sure that the six-foot distancing rule was so carefully obeyed -- kids will be kids, and they hate to distance themselves from each other.

The Seattle Times reports increased infections at the UW, with 48 new cases in the last ten days.  Experts warn that in Washington, even while new cases are dwindling among persons over 60 years of age, the largest cohort of those infected by new Covid-19 infections has been those under 40.  We are being warned, moreover, that not only does this pool of infected young people pose a threat to older, unimmunized people, but that, contrary to the belief of many, it also poses a serious threat to the young people themselves.

But the long term prospects are far better now than they were a year ago.  The UW is planning for full on-campus instruction by Autumn Quarter.  We all hope that the next time the cherry trees burst into flower, the pandemic will be largely a problem of the past.

Surprise!

"Answer the door, will you?" my sister called from the adjoining room of her hotel suite.  Thursday was her third full day in Seattle.  She had stayed at my house three nights before moving downtown to a hotel on Thursday.  My sister likes hotels as hotels.  For her -- for all our family I suppose -- hotels are destinations in themselves, not just a bed and bath.

I had taken the light rail downtown shortly after she had checked in.  Thursday was my birthday, and a mutual friend was dropping by at about 7 p.m.  We would celebrate my birthday with dinner right there in the hotel room, courtesy of room service.  That must be our friend Suzy at the door, now, I thought.

I stepped to the door and opened it.  My brother and his wife stood in the doorway, grinning at me.  Still cautious about flying, they had driven to Seattle from Oxnard, California -- a fact known to everyone but me.  I hadn't seen them since my last visit to Oxnard in January 2020.   

The expression on my face was worth every mile of the drive, they laughed.

Having dinner in my sister's room was also a fiction, I quickly learned.  We all were fully immunized.  Throwing caution to the wind, my sister had secured reservations at a nearby restaurant.

Although I had enjoyed several breakfasts at a small café after having my shots, those meals had been served very early in the morning when the restaurant was nearly empty.  This was to be my first full dinner in a legally full restaurant.  On Monday, our state had begun allowing eating establishments to increase their occupation from 25 to 50 percent.  I knew this was a good sign -- a sign that our state was getting the virus under control.  Even so, removing my mask, once we were sitting at our table, even with a vaccination, felt like an act of some daring.

We had an excellent meal, with excellent service.  The establishment had lost none of its expertise during the long months of being shut down or severely limited in occupancy.  And rather than a quiet, somewhat subdued dinner in a hotel room, I enjoyed the kind of meal I had missed having ever since the pandemic began -- and enjoyed it together with my brother and sister, family and friends.

I'm well aware that a large majority of my fellow citizens have not yet received even their first shot, but the speed of immunization is picking up quickly.  Dinner Thursday night not only marked another birthday for me -- "Another lap around the sun.  Are you dizzy yet???" wrote one friend -- but also signaled a light at the end of the tunnel, an approaching end to a disastrous experience for our nation and our world.

It was a good birthday.  Not as good as my sixteenth, possibly?  But good.

Sibling arrival

My sister is -- even as I write -- airborne. Flying by Alaska Airlines from Idaho's Sun Valley airport to Seattle.  She's paying me a week's visit, attempting to overcome my gloom as I mark yet another birthday.  It will be the first time I've talked face to face with any member of my family, however extended, since a trip to Oxnard in January 2020.

Fourteen months ago.  So long ago, we didn't even have a pandemic.  Back when people walked around with bare faces.

Kathy and I are both well past our second Covid-19 vaccinations, and, according to the latest diktat from the CDC, are entitled to socialize in the same enclosed space together without masks.  We have a mutual friend, living in Seattle, who also is completely immunized, who will join us.

We really have no plans for the week, other than a dinner celebration -- by hotel room service -- of my March birthday.  (She's staying with me for four nights, and then the last two nights in a downtown hotel.)  It will be sufficiently novel and satisfying just to chat, and to wander about the city (the latter, fully masked, of course!)

I've read that some recently immunized persons who have shared my sense of isolation are nervous about their first face to face conversations, even with people they know well.  They're afraid they've lost their instinct, or talent, or whatever, for idle conversation.  Conversation beyond a polite "hello" and "stay healthy."  

I understand their concern, but I'm not worried.  My sister and I are both babblers who, at least within the family, hardly notice whether our babbling is being listened to, with or without approval.

She lands at Sea-Tac in just over an hour.  

Quattuordecennial

Today marks the fourteenth anniversary of the founding of this blog, Confused Thoughts from the Northwest Corner. 

When I started it, George W. Bush was half-way through his second term, and Barack Obama was the junior Senator from Illinois, just two years into his first term.   I was still trying cases, and was almost a year and a half from retirement.  The Red Sox were just beginning the season that would propel them into the World Series, and to a 4-0 run to the MLB championship over Colorado.  And San Antonio won the NBA title over Cleveland, also 4-0. 

I had heard about folks writing blogs and thought I might as well give it a try.  I sort of groped around for a theme, and decided there would be none.  I'd just write whatever came to mind.  I figured it would keep my attention for only a month or so in any event.  Maybe write six or seven entries before moving on to some new interest.  And here we are, fourteen years and 1,378 posts later.

How did we do this year?  The year of the pandemic?  The pandemic and subsequent lock-downs had barely got under way a year ago, and they may have accounted for the prodigious number of posts.  From a low point of 62 posts in 2014, the quantity increased every year until last year I was bragging of a new, all time record of 112.  This year?  Yes, that would be 148 posts.  I can't vouch for their uniform quality, but I can assure you of the quantity.  I doubt if I'll ever come close to that number again.

So which posts seemed to excite my readership this past year?  As has been the trend for several years, variance from post to post has been small.  In general, there was a low readership during the spring of 2020, with readership then increasing until about Christmas.  Since then the numbers have been lower, but not much time has passed either.

In absolute numbers, there was a tie between two posts, neither of which I think was all that interesting.  One was my tongue-in-cheek comparison of bad natural phenomena we had been experiencing with the disasters predicted in the Book of Revelation.  The other was simply a summary of a streamed political lecture by UW professor David Domke.  Coming up hard on their heels, however, have been two posts from the past thirty days -- (1) a selection from my 1995 travel journal documenting my trek to the base of Everest with my nephew Denny, and (2) a celebration of my having completed my two Pfizer vaccinations.

What else attracted interest?  Reviews of two (2) rather moving books about the experiences of Iranian immigrants to the USA, and a review of a novel about the problems of being a high school over-achiever, desperate for Harvard admission. Also, my review of Mary McCarthy's memoir of her days as an intellectual young woman living in New York City, circa 1940.

Back in 2008, I commented that I didn't want my blog to become just a bunch of book reviews, but -- as you can see -- book reviews do sell.  And I really like writing them.  But I promise not to let them take over the blog.

Graham Greene

The professor never smiled.  He was late middle-aged, austere, intent.  He wore a dark, conservative suit.  To me, he was a professor I could imagine lecturing in Vienna or Berlin, although he had no accent.  He projected a sense of sadness, of disillusionment with humanity.

His class was called "The Theological Novel in Modern Europe."  His class was large, and well-attended.  If your mind tended toward theology, as not all his students' did, his lectures were electrifying.  Every novel he taught, so far as I recall, was by a Catholic author.  He himself was devoutly Catholic.

Students called his class, good-naturedly, "Nine o'clock Mass."

I don't recall all the books we read, but I do recall his introducing me to Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, Georges Bernanos, and François Mauriac.  My young, sophomore brain gravitated toward what, to an American, were the more accessible novelists, especially Greene and Waugh. 

I think we read Greene's The Power and the Glory.  Maybe also Brighton Rock?  It's hard to recall, because within a couple of years of taking his class, I had read all of Graham Greene's "Catholic novels" on my own.  Only in later years did I read, appreciatively, but with less fascination, some of his other works, the ones he called his "comedies."

In this week's New Yorker, American writer and critic Joan Acocella has written a succinct summary of Graham Greene's life and of his theologically-themed novels.  She has done so under the guise of a book review, but she barely discusses the book she's reviewing -- it's the subject of the book that fascinates her.

After my college class, and my own later readings, I considered Greene to be a strongly religious author, but one who applied religious beliefs to real people in the real world.  He did not write about plaster saints or -- except perhaps in Brighton Rock -- villains certain of damnation.  He understood and portrayed the conflicted beliefs and ambivalent impulses driving most human lives.  

Like many readers, I found it thrilling that Greene's protagonists lived as though every thought and every act were watched and judged from on high.  That every thought and act had cosmic significance and was weighed in deciding one's fate.  I remember a student saying that after reading one of Greene's novels, you felt (until you shook it off) that your life had incredible dimensions, an importance beyond our daily concerns of getting up and going to class. 

Greene was an example, I felt, of a truly modern Christian writer. 

Ms. Acocella points out that Greene converted to Catholicism when he was 22, shortly before he married.  His marriage and conversion followed an adolescence filled with thoughts of, and half-hearted attempts at, suicide, suicidal impulses stemming from what appears to have been his bipolar disorder.  His career as a committed Catholic lasted about as long as his devotion to his devout wife -- at most ten years, although they remained married his entire life, until he died at age 86.  

Ironically, it was after he stopped receiving the sacraments, and began consoling himself with the more earthly pleasures of other women, that he wrote his "Catholic novels."  As Acocella observes:

Although Greene may have turned religion down to a lower simmer in his life, in his novels he raised it to a rolling boil.  

I suppose this disconnect between how he was living his life and how he was writing about life in his books resulted in the palpable tension in those books that made them so appealing -- appealing not just to me, but to a mass American audience.  His heroes often were men walking on a precipice, striving for some form of sanctity while teetering, always about to plunge into the abyss.  Even the most truly saintly of his heroes, the Mexican priest in The Power and the Glory, was tormented by his addiction to whiskey.

Christianity arguably does not require bipolar disorder on the part of its adherents, or of its writers.  But my professor was wise in asking his students to read and reflect on Greene's writing.  Whatever Greene's own religious dispositions at the time he wrote his theological novels, he offered stories about real people who strived to live worthwhile lives in a real world.  Some succeeded, others failed, and at least one of them didn't even try.

And Greene himself?  Acocella doesn't really comment on Greene's final years, but notes that after thirty years of absence from the Church, he next received the sacraments when he would have been about 77.  He had another nine years before his death.  

He might well have written an interesting novel about living out those last years of his life.

بازگشت به ایران

It's amazing what a couple of stiff shots of Pfizer vaccine can do for you.  I find myself suddenly jolted awake, looking eagerly to a brighter future, finally able to make plans.

As a perusal of my blog reflects, exactly ten years ago from the 31st of this month, my sister and I flew off to Iran.  The two-week visit was organized by my university alumni association.  We had 35 participants, and were alleged to be the largest American group to visit Iran in 2011.

It was an excellent trip, as we traveled from Tehran to Mashad near the Afghan border, south to Kerman, and then to Yazd, Shiraz, Isfahan, and back to Tehran.  Our American guide was a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan.  He gave four lectures between cities on our bus, but the real fount of knowledge was our local guide -- funny, highly fluent in English, well educated, and well-traveled in Europe and America.

I had always been interested in Iran, but since that alumni trip I've been more so.  In just the past year, I've read -- and commented on my blog about -- two books illustrating the Iranian immigrant experience: Darius the Great Is Not Okay (a YA novel), and Everything Sad is Untrue (a memoir written like a novel, or maybe vice versa).  At present, I'm reading an excellent history of relations between Iran and the United States, dating back to American colonial days, America and Iran, by John H. Ghazvinian.

Darius the Great, especially, describes the sights and people of Yazd -- one of the world's oldest cities, if not the oldest.  I recall some of those sights from my own visit -- the Tower of Silence would be difficult to forget -- but reading that book makes me wish we could have spent more time in Yazd.

All of this leads up to -- you saw it coming, right? -- my announcement that I'm signing up for a two-week trip to Iran in October, this one led by a trekking company that more usually has taken me on mountain treks in the Himalayas and Andes.  The itinerary is somewhat the same as my trip ten years ago.  It eliminates the visits to the more distant cities of  Mashad and Kerman, and devotes the saved time to more intensive explorations of the remaining ones.  It also includes a visit to Kashan, a city between Isfahan and Tehran that I know nothing about.  Rather than being part of a rather large group, I will be on a tour limited to no more than 16 travelers.

Ideally, after that first group visit, I would now be traveling independently in Iran.  The roads are excellent, as are hotels and other tourist infrastructure.  The people are not only friendly, but startlingly so.  If I were European, I'd rent a car and do so, but Americans are required to visit as part of an organized group accompanied by a local guide.  (Our local guide in 2011 freely shared his  personal thoughts on any subject that came up; he definitely didn't fawn over the existing Iranian leadership.)

Whether the trip actually takes place depends almost entirely on the progress that's been made against the pandemic by autumn.  If the trip has to be canceled -- and I'm fully prepared for that to happen -- my appetite will merely be whetted for a similar trip in 2022 or 2023.

More news as the time draws nearer.

Upkeep

My house has a little side porch opening off the kitchen.  There is a door from the kitchen to the porch, and steps from the porch down to the ground.  The door used to open, but the lock somehow seems to have frozen shut.  But the door does have a "cat door" -- an opening with a flap -- through which my feline friends can pass in and out.  The porch bears a number of old mops and brooms dating back to one of Seattle's earlier glacial epochs.

No, wait!  Don't leave.  There's more!

My point is that the porch doesn't get foot traffic.  Just paw traffic.  And because no one ever uses the porch -- other than the cats -- I hadn't really noticed that the steps to the ground had begun to sag to the right, and that the wooden risers were not only covered with moss but were, as the saying goes, "rotting."

But my insurer noticed.  Some eighteen months ago, I discovered a polite young man wandering about the exterior of my house, writing notes.  Soon afterward, I received word from the insurance agent that the insurer wanted (1) all moss removed from my roof, and (2) the porch steps replaced.

"Ah, geeeez!  Do I have to?" was my initial mature reaction.

The moss was easy to eliminate.  Seattle has a lot of moss, and also has a lot of companies who are delighted to remove roof moss.  I wrote a piece on the moss situation fifteen months ago.  But I had a problem finding someone who wanted to do something so trivial as to install four new steps.  And then -- like a deus ex machina -- the pandemic arrived.  My agent said he understood how the pandemic might create problems, blah, blah, blah, and gave me another year to mull over the situation.

Finally, a former legal colleague of mine recommended someone who had done work for her family and probably would be happy to replace my four steps.  After another four months of procrastination, I gave him a call on Tuesday, he came to look at the situation the same day, and he and an assistant arrived with their tools this morning.  It took five hours, but the job is done.

It looks great.  Or as great as four steps up to a never-used side porch could ever look (photo above).

One of my earliest blog posts, back in 2007, was on the subject of procrastination.  An on-going issue with me.  It took me 18 months to get around to finding someone to fix the steps, and the work was completed four days later.  That's how procrastination has usually worked for me, but at least in 2007 I had been procrastinating for a couple of weeks on writing a lengthy appellate brief.  Not for 18 months on making a couple of phone calls.

But the same philosophy was at work in the back of my mind in both instances: 

 "Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now."

Multi-million dollar stamps

It began when I was ten.  My folks had taken a rare -- unheard of, actually -- trip by themselves to Chicago and Minneapolis, leaving their three children in the grasping hands of our domineering grandmother.  (She was a wonderful woman, actually, but of sterner stuff than our parents.)

As a consolation, my mother brought back a gift for me.  A stamp album, and a package of 500 unsorted stamps.  All was forgiven.  In one fell swoop, she had created a previously unsuspected need, and had fulfilled it.  For days I worked on putting the stamps onto the right pages of the album.  In the process, as I've mentioned in a previous post, I mastered such necessary terms as Deutsche Post, Mayar kir Posta, Helvetia, Suomi, Ceskoslovensko, and Osterreich -- terms that surely create waves of nostalgia in anyone who has ever collected stamps..  

Soon, I discovered I had far too many stamps from countries like Germany and Austria to fit on the few allotted pages of my stamp book, and I focused my attention on United States stamps, with a new book devoted to American stamps alone.  But my horizons had already been expanded to the entire world, and I kept my eyes open to philatelic (the term with which we preferred to dignify our obsession) news from other lands.

It was hard to be a philatelist, with his eye on prices and rarities, without knowing the legend of the One Unique Stamp -- the stamp of which only one example was known to exist -- the fabulous British Guiana One-Cent Magenta.  British Guiana (today's Guyana) probably didn't generate a lot of mail back in 1856, when the stamp was issued.  I'm not surprised that only one still exists.  But what's it worth?  Determining the value of a unique item isn't like determining the value of a share of Microsoft stock.  There is no daily trading in the item to fall back on.  Apparently, the last known sales price dates from the reign of King George V who found himself outbid in the 1920s with a sales price of $32,250 (about $500,000 in 2021 dollars).  

But the New York Times reports today that the One-Cent Magenta will soon be on the auction block.  Its owner, a 79-year-old shoe designer, has decided to sell his collection because his heirs would prefer to inherit money, rather than awkward items like stamps.  Anything else of note in his collection?

Actually, yes.  Another icon of my childhood was the "upside down airplane" stamp -- more formally, the "Inverted Jenny."  One sheet of the 24-cent 1918 U.S. airmail stamp was printed with the airplane flying upside down.  According to the Times, the sheet was sold by a post office to a clerk.  The government high-handedly tried to get it back, but failed, and the sheet was sold off, stamp by stamp, over the years.  All except for the plate block of four stamps, with the attached plate number, which also ended up in the shoe designer's hands.

Oh, and he also owns the only legally sellable example of the U.S. 1933 Double Eagle (twenty dollar) gold coin.  All copies of the coin -- a beautifully designed coin, with the same design as those of earlier years -- were supposed to be turned into the government and melted down when America went off the gold standard in April, 1933.   Failure to turn the coins in to the Federal Reserve (and receive compensation) was punishable by a fine of $10,000 and imprisonment for ten years.

Anyway, ownership of the One-Cent Magenta, the Inverted Jenny, and the Double Eagle is sort of a trifecta in the world of collecting.  If I owned them, it would break my heart to  break up the collection and sell them (although the anticipated purchase price would be some consolation).  It would even break my heart to sell my boyhood collection of highly unremarkable U.S. stamps!

Interested in buying?  Check with Sotheby's.  They're handling the sales. 

Climbing Kalapatar

"Why does your email address say "kalapatar"?"  So I'm asked, by new acquaintances who don't properly know my back story.  Here is the entry from my travel journal for October 28, 1995, written in Namche Bazaar, Nepal.  I was hiking together with my 18-year-old nephew Denny.  We had returned from our climb up to a point near the Everest Base Camp, and were now "living it up" in Namche, a couple of days from reaching Lukla and our helicopter ride back to Kathmandu.  I began writing, summarizing the past few days  --

October 28 -- Saturday
Namche Bazaar 

A long gap in this journal.  By now, Kalapatar has been conquered.  I am sitting back in the Trekker's Inn with Denny, waiting to order a beer.  We both just had our first hot showers in ten days, and we feel great.  And now -- two giant bottles of Tuborg have arrived.  Denny is about to order French fries for us as hors d'oeuvres, preparatory for the soon-to-be-ordered deluxe yak steak dinner. 

We arrived at Lobuche, about 16,400 feet, and the tents were set up beside the "Main Street," which led to the only two lodges in town.  We sat in one of the "dining rooms" -- a dark mysterious room whose walls were lined by persons speaking all languages -- and had our afternoon tea.  Met several interesting people including the Swedish guy who came up on the copter to Lukla with us.  He and a friend were also planning to climb Kalapatar the following day, but then planned to return to Lobuche and continue up to the Cho La pass (on the way to the Gokyo valley) -- all in the same day.  Sounded preposterous.  [Learned later they returned only as far as Lobuche, as did we.]  

Also met a young guy from Arkansas, just graduated from Swarthmore, who has a round-the-world-plane ticket.  Started at Bali.  After the Everest area, he may go to Annapurna, then overland to Bombay, and then fly to Nairobi to visit family friends.  Am I envious?  May go to medical school when he gets back to the USA, but he wasn't particularly excited about talking about events so far in the future.  Very articulate and enjoyable to talk to.

Everyone was fairly apprehensive about the climb.   Jim [along with Cory, one of the two other members of our party] woke up the next morning convinced that he couldn't make it, and announcing that he wouldn't try.  He finally agreed to try to get as far as Gorak Shep.  Ang Temba [our Sherpa guide] announced -- in the form of asking us for permission -- that we would return to Lobuche immediately after the climb, rather than spend one or two nights at Gorak Shep.  This meant that two full days were being knocked off the schedule -- one of those days made up for the extra day we spent at Namche while Cory shopped for replacements.  [We learned three months after the trip that Cory had died of cancer, undiagnosed at the time of the trek.  We felt bad for having resented what we'd assumed was her "lack of conditioning," which was holding us back.]

As an example of the effect she was having, Ang Temba was obviously eager to get back to Pheriche [where Cory had become obviously ill] to see how Jim [our REI Adventures guide] and Cory were doing.  So instead of a leisurely trip to Gorak Shep with a late afternoon climb of Kalapatar and a sunset view of Everest, we arose early and got about an 8:30 start.  I could tell by the hike to Gorak Shep that the return to Lobuche would not be a downhill breeze as I had anticipated.  Endless ups and downs across moraine debris, dipping into one creek bed after another.  Finally arrived at Gorak Shep for lunch.  Small tea house -- no cokes or Fanta -- where we had lunch.  Strange striped fowl -- fat and unafraid -- which are alleged to be poisonous to eat (hence their self-confidence) -- wandered all over.

Kalapatar looks like a very easy climb from Gorak Shep -- two trails up a small round hill.  But the altitude is a killer.  Denny kept moving farther and farther ahead.  I went into my power breathing mode fairly early in the climb.  Ang Temba walked beside me for a moment or two, looked ahead at Denny admiringly, and said, "Denny is very strong!"  "And young,"  I replied gasping.  (I wanted me to be the fearless leader, whose exploits made others gasp!)  Ang has later suggested on several occasions that Denny return for future treks, and said he would be happy to guide him to the top of Island Peak, a snow climb slightly over 20,000 feet.

At one point on the trail up Kalapatar, [Jim] dragged himself up to where Denny and I were taking our rest break, fell flat onto the ground, and began sobbing.  We figured that was the end of the climb for him, but he was helped to his feet by Ang Temba, who held him by the shoulder as they continued upward.  He made it to the top before I did, and I have to give him credit for his endurance and persistence.

Just ordered the deluxe yak steak dinner -- all is well with the world.

I struggled to the top, the final part a climb over and around boulders or talus, and achieved the rather precarious summit, which dropped off on both sides to a somewhat dizzying chasm.  We had Jim take pictures of Denny and me, shaking hands, hugging, and otherwise expressing our exultation.  I took publicity photos of Denny with Nuptse and Everest in the background, Denny wearing his "Rob's Rib Shack" T-shirt.

The view in all directions was phenomenal.  I felt much better (once I stopped climbing) than I had on the summit of Kilimanjaro.  I could fully appreciate what I was seeing.  We stayed at the top for about a half hour, and then hustled back down the trail to Gorak Shep where we had a short rest.  At that point, I was feeling pretty good, but the hike back to Lobuche took a lot out of me.  The final "easy" flat stretch leading up to Lobuche seemed to go on forever.  We arrived back at 3 p.m.  I collapsed onto my sleeping bag.  At 6 pm., I took out my contacts, and Denny and I both declined dinner.

Slept until 6:30 the next morning -- a long, noisy night with French groups singing before dawn.  Much more crowded that it'd been the night before.

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I've excised a few lines expressing irritation at our two fellow hikers, which reflect badly on my usual sunny disposition!

From Lobuche, we returned to Namche, spending nights on the way down at Shomare and at the monastery at Thangboche.  Some of our more interesting experiences were on the walk down to Namche and then on to Lukla -- which was definitely easier than climbing up -- but I'll have to save that for another time.  Lobuche, where we spent nights before and after climbing Kalapatar, is 16,210 feet in elevation.  Gorak Shep, at the base of Kalapatar is 16,942 feet, and Kalapatar itself is 18,519 feet.  Kalapatar is an outcropping on the side of Pumori (23,424 feet), with excellent views of Everest.

Three cheers for the Marsh family

One of the few good things that have arisen out of the pandemic has been my discovery -- the world's discovery -- of the Marsh family from England.  I suspect that those of you, my readers, who would enjoy this family of singers have already discovered them -- but just to preserve this blog's historical record, let me briefly describe and praise them.

The parents, Ben and Danielle Marsh, live with their four children in Faversham, Kent, England.  Ben is a professor of American history at the University of Kent.  The parents met at Cambridge, where they both were involved in theater.  The kids are Alfie (14), Thomas (13), Ella (11), and Tess (9).  They are surprisingly good singers, for kids who are neither professional singers nor, apparently, participants in any choir or chorus.  They just sing together. 

They came to my attention last spring, in their YouTube parody of "One Day More" from the musical Les Misérables -- a parody lamenting the Covid-19 lock-down and the resulting enforced living-at-close-quarters difficulties of their family.  If you haven't watched them, viewing is mandatory.  Do not turn your computer off -- watch it now.  It's best if you're familiar with the original Broadway version, but that's not necessary.

"One More Day" (click)

Since that opening salvo, they have released a long string of productions on YouTube.  Some are better than others, but even the weaker ones are literate, funny, and moving.  I wouldn't want you to miss out on experiencing their musical offering of best wishes to their grandfather on the occasion of his prostate surgery, but my actual favorite, after "One Day More," has to be a parody of an 80s hit, hitherto unknown to me -- "Total Eclipse of the Heart."  The Marshes' version is "Totally Fixed Where We Are."  As many viewers have commented, the video is worth watching for Thomas's "interpretive angst dance" alone.

"Totally Fixed Where We Are" (click)

Their songs have produced an enormous outpouring of passionate love from their on-line audience.  One fellow confessed that he was an adult, but nevertheless begged humorously to be adopted by the family.  Many have been reduced to both laughter and, interestingly, tears -- simultaneously.

Why tears?  In our modern world, closeness as a family -- a family, consisting of teens and pre-teens, willing to work together, undertaking projects such as these -- is beyond the experience of many people, people not just from America but from all over the world.  The family has been interviewed on-line a number of times. The parents and kids alike are funny, articulate -- and disarmingly modest.  It was the quarantine, they claim.  We had to do something to keep from going crazy.  Which, of course, is also the theme of many of their songs.

Whatever.  However long their star lasts -- probably not long in today's entertainment milieu -- that star is a shining beacon of hope that families today can still enjoy each other's company; that ordinary people can entertain themselves by use of their own creativity; and that the English -- who survived the Blitz in World War II -- can, if anyone can, make it through this terrible pandemic without losing their sanity.

May we all be so lucky.

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P.S. -- Oh!   And this one, too.  Don't miss the "outtake" at the end.

"I Know Them Too Well" (click)

Breakfast achieved

Just a brief follow-up to earlier posts:  Yes, having reached indisputable full Pfizer immunity this morning, I visited my favorite semi-fast restaurant for breakfast.

My first return in 350 days to in-house eating at the restaurant that for years I visited daily.  My first hot meal in 350 days, with the exception of frozen pizza cooked at home.  My first facial nakedness in an enclosed space outside my own home in 350 days.

How did it go?  Smoothly.  I reeled off the same order -- "Number One breakfast, eggs over easy, ham, wheat toast, coffee" -- as though I had last given it only yesterday.  Slightly uncomfortable wait to remove my mask until after the order was brought to the table, despite a cup of hot coffee awaiting my attention, and slightly awkward re-applying of the mask each time I went for a coffee refill.  Slight nervousness at seeing a group of familiar regulars gathered at the other end of the room, laughing and talking without masks -- maybe they're just more comfortable with -- and confident of -- their vaccinated state.  Pleased to see that half the booths (alternating) were marked with a "No Seating at this Booth" sign, and that the population of the restaurant at 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. was well below the legal 25 percent.  

Food just as I remember it -- good enough to keep me coming back.  I won't be returning on a daily basis -- more likely about once a week.  Partly because I'm still leery of possible exposure, even with the vaccine, and partly because during the past 350 days I've developed a rather comfortable (and less expensive) routine of home prepared meals.  But who knows?  I may gradually slip back into my old routine with time.

Final conclusion -- slight anti-climax.  I'd been awaiting this event for so long.  Now it's over, and it was cool, but it didn't bring total ecstasy -- I didn't feel transfigured, nor did the earth move.  But hey -- such a sense of anti-climax was experienced even as a kid on the first or second day after Christmas.  It's a sad feature of the human condition.