“When Dad was last here, did he know he would not get to walk Old Rag again?”
It was an honest question, even if I also took the opportunity to catch my breath among the granite outcroppings. All our life, walking seemed synonymous with Dad. His six foot frame was designed for cruising a campus (picking up trash he saw), strolling in a neighborhood, or tackling a mountain. By the time James and I paused on that Shenandoah trail, time had robbed him of his fond ambulations and it would soon rob us of him too. The walks, however, would continue, and I’m thankful for that.
Dad showed his love in two ways: actions and adventures. Those words, especially together, may evoke blockbuster movies or extreme sports but here I use them differently. By actions I simply mean his deeds. Where words failed him, as they often did with those closest to him, his deeds never did. He seized opportunities to attend games and performances, make airport runs, or organize rousing songs and group photos. Less visible were his actions of prayer, education, and advice which he employed to help so many lives. His attention to us through these actions were his words of love.
Where words failed him, as they often did with those closest to him, his deeds never did.
Beyond actions, he loved adventures and also showed love through them. One cannot write about Dad without quoting G. K. Chesterton, who said: “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” He certainly knew how to consider rightly, but damn if he didn’t have a knack for finding, or creating, inconveniences in the first place. Dad secretly cherished getting lost, even with a van full of children. Gas running low? He’d keep going and enjoy the walk to the gas station if it came to that - and probably make a new friend. Take a few more children into our already full house? Nolite Timere! His right considerations lead to adventures, and, through this example, his love delivered memories. It taught us how to embrace the unexpected.
Dad also loved walks and, somehow, his walks with us managed to combine his love through action and adventure. Even at the end of a long day, he would take us for a stroll around the neighborhood or to the park. These were not walks for exercise or to get our steps in, but walks for company. They were not walks to a destination, if we had one, but walks for observation. He’d tell us about some of our neighbors he’d met on previous walks. He’d comment on the shape of clouds. He’d point out a Blue Jay while explaining how they were "very nasty birds, members of the crow family." I don’t remember all the words but I remember the walks.
But like a river can’t or won’t go straight, neither could he. Dad’s walks would meander and his stories with them.
But like a river can’t or won’t go straight, neither could he. Dad’s walks would meander and his stories with them. In this way he would inject little adventures into our walks. In has mind he would chart a course through a neighborhood or city that would take us past points of (his) interest. Along they way he’d tell us the history of a neighbor’s family or about some landmark, plucking details from things he had read and filling in around the edges with his fabulations. He’d inject just enough into his stories that the walks were not walks or tours, they were adventures. In this way, we looked forward to future walks with a mindset of observation and excited wonder.
His favorite walks were on mountains and his favorite mountains were Old Rag, in the Shenandoah Virginia foothills, and Chocorua, in the New Hampshire White Mountains. He certainly loved nature but something about these two granite-topped ancients captured his affection. He made walks on these mountains a tradition for our family and for the schools he fathered. I appreciate, even more in hindsight, the love through action that it took to take our large family, or a group of students, up those mountains. I don’t recall him worrying or over correcting at every encounter with remote risk. He’d simply encourage and enjoy.
...there, a Blue Jay...very nasty birds, members of the crow family.
Naturally, Dad’s walks were accompanied by observation and interrupted by inconvenience. Here, some bear scat or, there, a Blue Jay…very nasty birds, members of the crow family. Do you notice how the species of tree is changing as we climb in elevation, or did you see that poison ivy you brushed? Did you hear about the Native American chief who hid in that cave from lighting? When we ran out of water he calmly informed us a creek was just a mile ahead (maybe). When one of us would trip on a root, he’d carry us on his broad shoulders for the two minutes that it took our young minds to forget it ever happened. Encourage and enjoy.
Long before his fascination with the Earl of Oxford (alias Shakespeare) began, and his own subsequent period of prolific sonnet writing, one mountain walk inspired Dad's poetic pen. In the summer of 1986 he took most of our family, ages 12, 11, 9, 7, and 5 at the time, up Mt. Chocorua in New Hampshire. After what I am sure was an inconvenience-riddled day (for him), he returned and wrote a simple poem that revealed just how rightly he considered the experience. The format, and first stanza, are from John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem about Chocorua by the same name. He penned another 17 stanza and nothing but love and adventure shines through.
Later in life, when he could no longer take the walks he loved, he still enjoyed being part of them. He transported my friends and I so we could tackle the one-day, 41-mile, Maryland Challenge. When he met us at George Washington State Park with our lunch, one of his favorite spots in his favorite state, he smile so broadly and soaked in the moment of adventure. A few years later, when James and I took our own boys on Chocorua, he once again took up his pen to extend what he began writing 33 years earlier. This poem sequel was yet another display of love through his actions, and it was about an adventure that he taught us to enjoy.
The poem would also be one of his last. In the pandemic he never saw, the one that may have killed him anyway but that would have prevented his 1500-person funeral mass, it was nice to see a return of family walks. Cars hustling between extracurricular activities were replaced by people simply strolling. Neighborhoods turned into scavenger hunts of rainbows and painted rocks for young eyes to observe. Neighbors got to know each other like Dad always did. Walks became little adventures in family and in community building.
It is said optimists plant trees because they are doing something for a future they may never experience.
It is said optimists plant trees because they are doing something for a future they may never experience. Dad’s optimism was demonstrated by his love through actions and adventures which served him well where his words did not, and especially now that his words cannot. He never met an adventure he considered an inconvenience and he was never lost as he wandered making friends. It would be nice to walk Old Rag, or Chocorua, or Woodside Parkway with him once more, but I’ll settle for passing on the tradition of walking to his grandchildren. I'll fulfill his optimism. I'll encourage and enjoy. I’ll even point out that Blue Jay over there…they are very nasty birds, members of the crow family.~
Mount Chocorua (2019) from the three sisters:
Old Rag Mountain, VA (2022) with my sons on their first ascent:
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