Tag: travel

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A Solo Paddle to the North End of Cumberland Island

Title page for article showing a kayak pointed toward land
Sunset from Cumberland Island
Sunset from campsite on Brick Kiln River

A soft light glows outside in the darkness. It could be a dying street light, except there are no streetlights on this island. I check the time. It’s a little before 6 AM. Time to get up if I’m going to beat the tide change. I pull on my pants and crawl out of the hammock. Sliding into flip-flops, I stand and turn around to a beautiful view of the nearly full moon setting across the marsh to the west. Its light reflects off the ripples on the waters of the Brickhill River. I look at the shoreline. The tide is coming in strong. I’ll need to be on the water soon if I’m to make the fourteen miles back to the landing at Crooked River State Park without fighting the current. 

Heading back to the mainland

In the dark with only the moonlight guiding me, I stuff my sleeping bag and hammock into their sacks and stow both into the holds of the kayak. I pack my stove and percolator. With not enough time for coffee, I skip it figuring I can pick up some later on my drive home. Dropping the food bag that’s hung from a branch, to keep it safe from raccoons, I take out a couple of granola bars and a pear for breakfast. I eat one of the bars while watching the moon set. What little light I enjoyed is gone with sunrise still 45 minutes away. Taking out a flashlight, I stow everything in the kayak and make a last tour of my campsite. Then I slide the kayak down the bank and into the water, crawl into the cockpit, and begin paddling. 

Paddling toward the St. Mary's Submarine base
Distant sub base in morning light

In less than 30 minutes I’ve passed Table Point. When I paddled here two days earlier, the tide had turned by the time I arrived here and it took me 90 minutes of hard paddling to make it to the campsite. I’m making good time. I look behind me and catch the opening rays of the sun as it rises over Cumberland Island. I take out the pear and eat it, enjoying the splendor. When I resume paddling, I notice the large covered submarine dry-dock at the Kings Bay Naval Station. In the low light, it looks remarkably similar to Noah’s Ark, floating beyond the marsh grass that separates the Brickhill River from the Intracoastal Waterway. It’s ironic, I muse to myself, that each submarine carries almost as much destructive power as that ancient flood.  

Travels to Cumberland

I have spent the last two nights camping on Cumberland Island National Seashore. This is my second trip to the island. The first trip, two years earlier, was to Sea Camp on the south end of the island. That site is served by a ferry from St. Mary’s. It’s close to the beach and has potable water, flush toilets and hot showers. We spent a lot of time soaking up rays on the beach, swimming in the surf, as well as exploring the ruins of Dungeness, a grand home built by Thomas Carnegie. It burned in the 1950s.

The Carnegie Influence on the Island

In the late 19th Century, Thomas Carnegie, the brother of Andrew, purchased much of the island and had a massive winter home built at the site of an earlier Dungeness mansion. Thomas Carnegie died as his mansion was being completed, but it was occupied by his wife Lucy. In time, as each of their children married, Lucy granted them land on the island and a stipend to build homes of their own. 

Kayak beached at Brick Kiln River campsite
My kayak shortly after arriving at Brick Kiln River wilderness campsite

My campsite for the weekend was on a bluff along the Brickhill River. The wilderness site can hold six groups, but there are only three other campers the first night. These guys, students at Georgia Tech, had come over on the ferry and peddled bikes the ten miles along sandy two-track dirt roads to camp here. We chat for a bit and I learn they are planning on leaving early on Sunday in order to catch the 10:30 AM ferry to St. Marys. 

The Paddle over and Plum Orchard
Inside Plum Orchard showing den with fireplace
inside Plum Orchard

On Saturday, as I left Crooked River, paddling in the rain, my first stop was at Plum Orchard, one of these magnificent homes. Thankfully, by the time I arrived, the rain had stopped. This home, built by George and Margaret Thaw Carnegie, was the first of the island mansions constructed by the Carnegie children. The 24,000 square foot home was seasonally occupied until the 1960s with Thomas and Margaret’s granddaughter and husband being the last occupants. Today, the home is a part of Cumberland Island National Seashore and the National Park service offers tours. After eating lunch, I stuck around for a tour. It was well worth it, even if it meant the tide turned and my paddle to the campsite was more difficult. The home features a grand entryway, a formal dining room, modern bathrooms, an indoor squash tennis court, a women’s parlor and a men’s gun room that displays trophy heads of various animals bagged by the Carnegies. It is magnificent. 

Plum Orchard
Plum Orchard
First Night

Fires are not allowed at this site, so after setting up my camp, I fire up my gas stove and use it to prepare chicken and rice for dinner. I watch the setting of the sun, sipping on bourbon, then retreat from the bugs into the security of my hammock where I read for an hour with the use of a flashlight. Then I turn it off and go to sleep.   

As it was still warm in the evening, I left the fly off my hammock in order to receive the best breeze. But at 3 AM I wake to the rustling of palm leaves and distant thunder. The moon and stars are no longer visible. I quickly get up and position my fly over my hammock. The rain comes as I put in the last of the stakes into the ground. I crawl back into the hammock and fall asleep to the sound of rain.  

I sleep in till nearly 7:00 AM on Sunday morning. Getting up in the dawn light, I perk coffee and boil hot water for oatmeal. I notice my neighbors have already left. 

two track road on Cumberland Island
The two track that runs the length of the island
Sunday Morning Exploring

After breakfast, I set off on a hike to the old settlement on the northern end of the island, about four miles away. It’s warm and muggy, and I’m serenaded by insects, songbirds and a distant woodpecker providing the bass. About half way to the settlement, a shower passes by cooling me off. When I arrive at Terrapin Point, I stop for a few minutes on the high bluff overlooking what used to be the Cumberland Wharf. A large pod of dolphins feed in the shallows as a barge makes its way south along the Intracoastal Waterway. In the distance, I can see the Sidney Lanier Bridge from Brunswick to Jekyll Island. 

inside of First African Baptist Church
Inside the church

My hope was to be at the old First African Baptist Church by 10 AM, but I am a few minutes late. The cornerstone indicates that it was built in 1893, but I later learn that was when the first church was constructed out of logs. It was rebuilt out of timber in 1937. I step into the old building. It’s small, with only eight short pews. Taking out my smartphone, I am pleased to have a signal. I log into the streaming service of Skidaway Island Presbyterian Church in time to catch an excellent sermon by our Associate, Deanie Strength. As I listen, I think about those who in years past worshipped here and that it is good the gospel is again heard in these walls.

HIstory of the settlement

The residents of the Settlement were former slaves. They lived where they did to work for the hotel that used to sit on the north end of the island, as well as to work for the Carnegies who turned much of the island into their private winter playground. The community dwindled after the hotel closed, with a few people hanging on to work as servants in some of the islands homes. Today, the church and one home remains open by the National Park Service. 

African American Baptist Church on Cumberland Island
The church and a home left from when this was a community who worked in the homes and hotel on the island

In 1996, a hundred and three years after the church was first built on this site, it became the setting for the late John Kennedy Jr’s and Carolyn Bessette’s private wedding ceremony. Tragically, two years after their marriage, both were killed in a plane crash off Martha’s Vineyard.

After listening to church, I eat lunch and then hike back to the camp, taking the Terrapin Point and Brickhill Bluff trails. At times, from high bluffs, I’m afforded wonderful views of the marsh. Other parts of the trail move deeply into the woods of this maritime forest. I am amazed at the size of some of the longleaf pines. In addition to pines and live oaks, the most abundant trees, hickory and magnolias are also common. I scare up a few feral hogs that grunt as they run away, along with a wild turkey and an armadillo that makes all kinds of racket as it rushes through dense growth of saw palmetto. 

A restful afternoon

It’s about two o’clock when I arrive back in my campsite. I rest for a few minutes, reading David Gressner’s Return of the Osprey. As I read, I notice an osprey hunting out over the Brickhill River. For the longest time, the bird never dives for a fish, but when it finally does, he misses. The bird comes up out of the water flapping, nothing in its talons. It shakes its wings as if to shake off his missed lunch. In reading this book I learn that mature birds generally catch their prey fifty percent or more of the time. That’s a pretty high percentage. Either my bird was having a bad day or it was young and just learning to dive for fish.  

Beach scene with sea oats
Beach scene

After resting, I take my chair, book, and some snacks, and hike the two miles out to the beach. Along the way, I pass several fresh water ponds. In one an alligator is sunning and as I walk by I catch sight of the tail of a large snake slithering down into the water.  I spend nearly two hours on the beach enjoying the sound of the waves as I read and nap. At 5:30, I start back, wanting to be able to fix dinner and prepare for the evening before dark.  Knowing it’s going to be a long paddle in the morning, I am in my hammock sleeping shortly after watching an amazing sunset.  

Front page of a magazine article

This slightly edited post originally appeared in The Skinnie, a magazine published on Skidaway Island, Georgia. The opening page of the article is to the right. When I wrote this article, I was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church on Skidaway.

For another kayak adventure of mine on Cape Lookout, click here.

Planning a trip to Cumberland Island

To visit Cumberland Island, camping sites (both in developed sites and wilderness locations) must be reserved through the National Park Service. Check out the Cumberland Island website at or call (912) 882-4336. Cumberland Island Ferry has the concessions for ferry transportation to and from the south end of the island. Their schedule varies depending on the season. Boats (motored and kayaks) can be launched from St. Mary’s or Crooked River State Park. If paddling, know the tides especially in the Crooked River where the tide currents can be faster than most people can paddle! There is also a rather pricy lodging available at the Greyfield Inn, a former Carnegie mansion. To stay there, the Inn arranges a shuttle from Amelia Island, Florida.  

Sunrise on Cumberland Island
Sunrise, 2016, near Sea Camp
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HopeWord’s Writer’s Conference 2023

Katherine Paterson speaking at the HopeWords Writer's Conference

I enjoyed HopeWords Writer’s Conference so much last year, that I attended it again last week. It’s amazing the conference can draw such talent and so many attendees to Bluefield, West Virginia. The city which grew up around a railroad hub to serve the coal mines in Southern West Virginia isn’t an easy place to access. There are few flights to the city, there is no longer passenger train service, and even the main interstate bypassed the city by nearly a dozen miles to the north. But this year, the conference sold out of in-person tickets and brought in an incredible line up of authors. 

A tour of Bluefield and the surrounding area

Bramwell

This year they offered something new, a tour of the Bluefield area before the conference began, which took us around the city and to Bramwell, a city at the end of the Pocahontas coalfields. In our bus tour we saw some incredible scenery as well as examples of poverty of the region. After driving around Bluefield, our first stop was Bramwell, a town located west of the city.  In the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, Bramwell was where the bigwigs who managed the Pocahontas mines lived and many of their mansions have been restored. During this time, the miners lived in shacks in small communities close to the mines. Today, Bramwell is famous for those wanting to four-wheel through mud. While touring this town, we were treated with the best milkshake in West Virginia at a restaurant in the old pharmacy. Our tour also took us east of Bluefield, up the winding highway 58, to overlook the city. This was the way you traveled through the mountains before the interstate with its mile-long tunnels was completed forty years ago.

Highway 52 overlook of Bluefield

The Conference 

Miroslav Volf

The conference began with the keynote speaker, Miroslav Volf, a professor of theology at Yale.  I reviewed his book,  A Public Faith earlier this year. Volf spoke with sadness on how the university has given up on helping students understand how to have a meaningful life. Instead, starting in the 70s, the shift has been more on the means to a good life with the emphasis on students to “follow their dreams.” As he points out, when we follow our dreams, we pursue our means. The means then become our goals. A second challenge is that the old order in western philosophy has been replaced by a more pluralistic idea. In response to this shift, while acknowledging that we live in a pluralistic world, Volf began at Yale a program to have students explore what a good life looks like in different traditions around the world. As each tradition have claims on the truth, his goal was to have students seriously consider each claim by asking thoughtful questions about the good life and to whom we are responsible. 

The question about to whom we are responsible led Volf into a discussion of his own faith in Jesus Christ and on how the myth that we are individuals disturb our world. We are not just individuals, but individuals who depend on one another and share a common vision. With Christians, this includes not just the living but also the dead (the community of saints). 

Volf left us with two questions that disciples (and all people) need to ask themselves. 

1. How do we want to make the world better, and 

2. To whom are we responsible.

Volf on Saturday afternoon

Saturday, after lunch, Volf reappeared on stage with a discussion led by HopeWords’ founder, Travis Lowe.  Here are some highlights:

  • “The story of the Bible is that God decided to make home among us.”
  • “I never write with the idea of audience in mind, instead when I write, I wrestle with ideas I’m interested in.”
  • “The chief virtue of a theologian is to be humble. We want to say something true about God.”
  • “We hope in God which means the future we hope for might be different than what we now think.”
  • Quoting N. T. Wright: “The future is not for us to be raptured, but for the earth to be restored.”

After Volf left the stage on Friday evening, we were treated with a concert by a bluegrass band, “Chosen Road.” We were also served delicious deserts made by members of local churches.

Saturday morning’s marathon session

Saturday morning was a marathon session with four back-to-back speakers. 

Ann Voskamp

First up was Ann Voskamp. I have read some of her online writings but while I was interested in hearing what she had to say, her presence wasn’t what drew me to the conference. However, her talk, for me, was the highlight of the two day event. Voskamp began with the Biblical concept of the scribe (Judges 5:14, Ezra 7:6, Matthew 8:19, etc). She encouraged us to be scribes and to tell our stories within God’s larger story. Drawing on quotes from Martin Luther (“Satan hates the use of pens.”), T. S. Eliot, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and others, she offered inspiration for us to explore the gritty parts of our lives. “Jesus’ choses the small and the slow,” she reminds us, “so he can be glorified.”

She shared three ways to handle the pen:

  • Immerse yourself in the Word (read, understand, & live the Word).
  • Realize the power in a parable.
  • Trust that something happens beneath our pens.

And four ideas of stories

  • What is this book/story a theology of (suffering, creativity, community, etc).  Dig into the truth
  • What is this book a psychology of (trauma, grief, love, etc). How do we understand, what are our felt needs.
  • What is this book a story of? Story is what moves us through a book.
  • What is this book an activity of? What is we want people to do after reading our books/stories?

Closing quote: “Shame dies when stories are told in sacred places.” 

Esau McCaulley

Next on the agenda was Esau McCaulley. Having read his book  Reading While Black several years ago, I was glad when it was announced that he would be one of the presenters. McCaulley, an African American evangelical scholar who studied under N. T. Wright, has found himself in a unique position as he critiques both the white evangelical tradition as progressive Christians.

McCaulley began his presentation by proclaiming that he never dreamed of becoming a writer. His plan, from his childhood, was to be a preacher within the black community. But after writing a few opinion columns, he found the Washington Post and New York Times reaching out to him. Pointing out that most writers speak of the need to find their voice, McCaulley said that for him it was finding his place. Coming from the black church in northern Alabama, going to an evangelical college in the Midwest, then doing doctoral work in Scotland allowed him to learn about place. 

He spoke about culture which relates to our places in the world. Culture involves both God’s glory and human failure. 

Drawing on 1 John “I am writing to make your joy complete” McCaulley outlined three insights into his writing:

  1. It must come from me.
  2. It must involve culture making (adding beauty and tearing down that which is wrong).
  3. It must involve courage and joy.
Hannah Anderson

Last year, Hannah Anderson told her story, which is mostly outlined in her book, Humble Roots, which I read after last year’s conference. This year, she used her 45 minutes as an introduction for our last speaker, Katherine Paterson, to whom she insisted on referring to as “Mrs. Paterson.” 

Anderson pointed out the changes that have come to writing as we live in a social media age. The goal of a writer is not to reveal everything, she suggests. Instead, we are to create characters or to reveal parts of our selves. There are stories we may not want to tell and that’s okay. She points to. Mrs. Paterson as a writer who tells “true” stories through fiction and reminded us of the truth of the Velveteen Rabbit, that real is what happens to you. She ended with a quote from Paterson’s first book, a primer on the Christian faith that was published in 1964, in which she reminds us that “grace tells you that you are not a commodity,” but that God wants to make you real.   

In a way, Anderson provided an introduction for the President of Bluefield College to come out and present Katherine Paterson an honorary doctorate. 

Katherine Paterson

Paterson began with a quip. “One of the advantages of being old is that you can’t hear praise. Because if you did, you might believe it.” I looked her up on my phone and learned that she is 90 years old!  Paterson used the theme of the spies being sent into the promised land and suggested that writers need to be like Joshua and Caleb, who offer hope. She also pointed out that Jesus was a storyteller. Quoting Barbara Brown Taylor, she reminds us that stories need “pockets of silence,” or spaces where we can lay down our defenses and not be demanded for a decision. Instead, story is a place where transformation begins. Jesus does this by letting us decide who to identify within the parables. 

Katherine Paterson speaking in the beautiful Granda Theater
Bridge to Terabithia

Years ago, I read Paterson’s book, Bridge to Terabithia, but I didn’t know the backstory of this book, which is her most famous one and won the Newberry Prize. She told about how, when her son was eight, his best friend was a neighbor girl who was struck by lightning while at the beach. Her son felt he had done something bad for her to have died. She struggled with this because she didn’t have a satisfactory answer why the world is a “dark land where bad things happen to good people.” Because we deal with a God of justice and mercy, we must struggle with such situations. Otherwise, we could just pass it off as random event. She wrote Bridgefor herself, as she tried to understand both the girl’s death and her son’s reaction to it.  She also noted how there were those who criticized the book and acknowledged that any story that has power also has the power to offend. Then she offered several examples of people who had read the book as a child and reached out to her later in their lives, telling her how the book helped them through dark periods. 

Drawing on an analogy of a waiting room for a children’s ICU, she suggested there are two kinds of parents who sit there. One is the Psalm 23 parents who see themselves and their child walking with God through the darkness. The other parents are the Psalm 22 ones who cry out to God in anger. 

Quotes: 

“We who work with words are loaded with dynamite, but can bring hope and healing to the world. 

The most important thing is for the word to become flesh. 

Afternoon session

The afternoon session included a discussion with Volf (see above) and a presentation by S. D. Smith and Lewis Brodgan. Because of another commitment, I had to leave before Brogdan spoke, but this year I came away with one of his books which I look forward to read. Last year I found him to be an engaging and thoughtful speaker.

S. D. Smith

Smith, along with Anderson and Lewis, is one of the original founders of HopeWords. He is a fantasy author, which is a genre I seldom read. As a speaker, he’s funny and began by making fun of himself and his lack of awards. His message warned the church that we often push the “creative types” into the enemy’s camp, but that we need such people in the church to help us make sense of the world. 

While he doesn’t have an MFA, he used the letters in a different way to illustrate his discussion on writing.

M is for modesty (we write from our own center)

F is for fidelity (we are to be faithful to Christ and his church).
“If our writing is not doxological, it will be diabolical.” 

A is for audaciously (we are to be bold). 

Smith also reminded us that in the big picture, we are between redemption and restoration (R&R, but it doesn’t feel so relaxing and restful).  We are to live “until our death scene.” 

HopeWords 2024

Part of next year’s lineup has already been set. The keynote speaker will be Daniel Nayeri, who is an Iranian-American Christian writer and author of Everything Sad is Untrue.  Here is the link: https://madetoflourish.regfox.com/hopewords-2024 I hope I can attend again, but I am also hoping to once again attend the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. God willing, I plan to attend one of these two events.

The train tracks cut Bluefield into two halves

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Driving West in ’88

I wrote this back in 2015 and pulled it out as a piece for a memoir. It’s a true event that occurred when I drove West for the first time. On the way out, I stopped first in Nashville, where I met a friend that’d hike with along the Appalachian Trail. Then I headed to St. Louis, where I stayed at my great uncle and wife’s home on the western side of the city. Leaving their home, I was entering land that was new to me (I’d been to St. Louis a few times and once flew into Kansas City for an assignment in St. Joseph. But I had never step foot on the land between Kansas City and California. I’ve attached two photos (somewhat scratched) from that trip across Kansas. Sadly, I never got a photo of the red and black ’55 Buick.

My destination for this trip was to visit a seminary classmate at Hill Air Force Base in Ogden, Utah, then to Camp Sawtooth in Idaho where I’d spend the summer. From there, I would go on Virginia City, Nevada where I would spend a year as a student pastor. I have posted a number of stories from that time: Becoming a preacher, Matt, Doug, Christmas Eve 1988

A Katy train in Eastern Kansas, photo taken in June 1988.
A Katy Train in Eastern Kansas, June 1988
(copied from a print)

My stomach growls, but I want to get through the congestion of Kansas City and Topeka before stopping to eat. It has been five hours since breakfast outside of St. Louis at Homer and Bebe’s home. Since leaving their home in Pacific, I’ve only stopped for gas and to pick up a new map at the Kansas welcome center. As I put the miles behind me, I’m in unfamiliar territory. I’d spent time in Missouri but had only flown over the vast territory between Missouri and California. 

 As I drive west, I notice a strangely familiar car, a ‘55 Buick with a red body and black top. It’s travelling just a little slower than me. I turned on my blinker and moved into the left lane to pass. When I pull beside the car, I looked over at the driver. His left elbow sticks out of the window, and he holds the steering wheel with his right hand. He’s wearing a white tee-shirt and a beige hard-shelled jungle hat.  

“It can’t be,” I think. 

 I take a second look. Is this an aberration? The car is identical to the first car I remember riding in and the man driving looks just like my dad did when he was younger. I remember as boy fishing in Dunk’s Pond with my dad. He wore that same style of hat and a white t-shirt. And, in the days before air conditioned vehicles, he often hung his left elbow out the window. 

“What had happened to the car and dad’s hat” I wonder as I pulled around the Buick. As I sped down the highway, I kept glancing back in my rear-view mirror, thinking about my dad and wondering about that man who could have been his twin.    

I decide to stop at the next intersection with a place to eat, but after passing a few exits with nothing, I gambled on the next town. I pull off at Paxico. There’s nothing at the interchange, but I followed the signs across the Southern Pacific railroad and then, paralleling the tracks, into a small town with a decisively western feel. The air is stifling hot as the humidity builds, but I need to stretch my legs. I walk the length of the commercial district, the few buildings that still exist each having an awning over a wooden sidewalk to shade those passing by. Then I head out by the railroad tracks and watched a west bound train rush through without slowing down. 

After a few minutes of walking and watching the train, I head back to the bar and grill. It’s cool and dark inside. It takes my eyes a few minutes to adjust as I grab a seat at a table and ordered a hamburger. A radio plays in the background. Between country music songs, there are advertisements for farm implements and reports on crop prices.  At the bar, three men in overalls drink drink beer and discuss the weather, hoping they’ll get some rain out of the storms forecasted for later in the day. I eat, taking it all in. I feel free as I’m on my own and have been racking up the miles.

Thirty minutes later, after paying my bill, I’m back in the car heading west. I watch in fascination as the clouds builds on the horizon. I dreaded this drive across Kansas, but I find myself intrigued by these gentle hills and rich dirt. As the clouds become darker, I notice a bolt of lightning and then another and then it hits. A tremendous wind is blows against my car. I hold on to the steering wheel with both hands. Then comes the rain, racing in sheets across the prairie. Soon, drops of rain and hail pound the roof with such force that it drowns out Steely Dan cassette playing in the car’s stereo. I slow down. Under an overpass, I notice a group of motorcyclists seeking shelter. 

Soon, the storm passes. Steam rises from the highway, making distant views hazy. I pick up speed. Ahead, out of that haze, I see the car again, that 55 Buick. It’s way ahead, but I’m gaining on it.

I will pass him several more times today and even tomorrow morning, the last being just before I leave I-70 and take 1-25 north toward Cheyenne, Wyoming. 

Sunset and utility poles in western Kansas, June 1988
Sunset over western Kansas (copied from a print photo)
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Travels, Readings, and Reviews

author sailing on a Rhodes 19 out of Landings Harbor
Sailing out of Landings Harbor

I’ve been gone for the last nine days. Last week, I attended the Theology Matters Conference at Providence Presbyterian on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. This is their third conference and they’ve all had excellent presentations. This was no exception. Then I headed down to Skidaway Island, where I lived outside of Savannah. There I met up with some friends I used to gather with for late Friday afternoon board meetings. I also got in some sailing with other friends. Then I drove up to Wilmington, NC, to see my dad, along with one of my brothers, my sister, and some friends. While the wind kept us off the water, I did do some hiking around Carolina Beach State Park. I came home yesterday. Below, I review three books I read while away: 

Douglas W. Tallamy, The Nature of Oaks: The Rich Ecology of Our Most Essential Native Trees

Cover of "The Nature of Oaks"

 

(Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 2021), 197 pages including references, planting guides, and index. Many photos. 

The author moved to a new home in Pennsylvania in 2000. Shortly afterwards, he collected an acorn from a nearby white oak tree. Planting it in a container, it sprouted. After it grew some, he replanted on his property. After 18. years, the white oak is still young, but nearly forty feet tall. He author comes back to this tree, which serves as his laboratory for studies and his example for talking about the lives associated with oaks. This book is organized month by month as we gain insight into what’s happening to the oak as well as those whose lives depend on oaks. Such lives include not just insects and caterpillars living on the oaks, but also birds and other animals that feed such animals. 

This book is a delightful read. While I have known that trees often have bumper crops of acorns and other fruit, I never knew it had a name (masting). I always assumed this phenomenon helped overwhelm animals depending on certain seeds, knowing that they couldn’t eat all of a bumper crop and some seeds will help the plant reproduce. I learned this is only one of three possible answers to the question of “masting.” Nor did I know that blue jays will often bury acorns up to a mile from the oak that produced the seed.  Nor did I know that oaks provide a larger percentage of the insects needed by songbirds to survive than other trees. While I certainly knew that oaks and even more so, birch, hold their leaves sometimes through winter, I know why or that there was a name to describe this phenomenon (marcescent). Even more amazing is Dolbear’s Law, which accounts for how fast crickets chirp based on the temperature. These are just a few of the interesting facts presented by Tallamy in his book of wonder. 

Tallamy warns us of overusing insecticides, which have devastating impact on wildlife (especially birds). He shows how the oak is quiet resultant, often surviving attacks by insects and even plants like mistletoe that live in its limbs. Because of this book, I’m going to find some white oak acorns and plant them on my property! Of course, don’t expect this book to teach you how to tell the difference between a white, red, or black oak. This is not a guidebook, but a book that describes how a specific tree can benefit our world.

Thorpe Moeckel, Down by the Eno, Down by the Haw: A Wonder Almanac

Cover of "Down by the Eno, Down by the Haw"

 (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2019), 127 pages.

I picked up this book because when I was younger, I felt the call of the Haw River and wanted to spend as much time as possible running its rapids. I’d never paddled the Eno, but I knew of it. I was expecting to learn more about these two streams. Reading the book, I was shocked to learn that wasn’t what the book is about. Instead, the author who is also a poet, spent a year collecting these thoughts while living in the North Carolina piedmont. He’s drawn into the woods. While he mentions rivers, he doesn’t identify which one. Other times, he’s visiting a pond instead of a river or describes walking in the woods. His focus is to describe in detail what is going own around him. It must have been a year with many hurricanes striking the coast for Moeckel describes their aftermath after they pour out their water over the piedmont and mountains. 

Like The Nature of Oaks, Moeckel divides his thoughts by months. In each month, he makes multiple trips into the woods. He’s observant and his writing reads like a prose poem.  It took me a few months to really get into his writing. By the end, I was sad there were no more months.  To read about my first experience with the Haw and another book review of the river, click here.

Rick Bragg, A Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People

Cover of "The Speckled Beauty"

(2021, Audible), 6 hours and 22 minutes. 

The thing about dog stories which have haunted me since I watch Old Yeller as a kid is that in the end, the dog dies. And I have shed more than my share of tears over the death of dogs, both those I’ve known in life and those I’ve read about. The good thing about this book is that Speck doesn’t die. He lives on with us, still chasing cars and animals and rolling in stinky dead stuff. As Bragg claims, his dog isn’t a “good boy,” but he still uses that term. When Bragg is away from home, his mother, or his brother (who lives next door) are likely to throw Speck in jail (the outdoor pen). But Bragg has a soft heart from this stray dog that showed up one day at his house. The dog was missing an eye and beaten up, having obviously been in a few fights. Bragg cleans him up and as he recovers, takes him to the vet. It was just what a man, who had a host of health issue, needed. He nurses the dog back to health and in a mysterious way, the dog helps him overcome heart and kidney failure, cancer, and other ailments of a man beginning his sixth decade.

I listened to this book. The author reads the story. His slow voice tells the story in a way that I might have been out on the back porch listening. Of course, I wasn’t. I was in a car on a six-hour drive to a conference on Hilton Head Island. While this book might be classified as a memoir of him and his family, he doesn’t focus on himself. Furthermore, Bragg’s humor is often self-effacing. He says he’s living in his mother’s basement (but if I remember correctly, in one of his other books he admits to buying his mother a house and land). And once COVID hits, the dog becomes a cherished companion. 

Bragg will have you laughing and crying, sometimes in the same paragraph. This is how storytelling should be done. 

I highly recommend this and many other books by Rick Bragg. See my review of another of his books, The Best Cook in the World: Tales from My Momma’s Table. My favorite book by Bragg is Ava’s Man.   

Long leaf pines at Carolina Beach State Park
Long Leaf Pines in Carolina Beach State Park
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Lopez and Volf: How might we foster a better world?

These are two other books which I read while down with COVID. While they may seem totally different, I did find some common ground between these two deep thinkers. Both are interested in how we can help others achieve their potential and sustain society. 

Barry Lopez, Horizon (2019, New York: Vintage Books, 2020), 572 pages including maps, index, and bibliography. 

In six extended essays, the late Lopez takes us along on his travels to isolated spots around the globe. As his fellow travelers, we are privy to his thoughts. Not only does he beautifully describe this location and what’s happening there, but each setting also allows him to converse with authors, artists, explorers, natives, and scientists. While each essay stands independently, there are several people from the past who appear in more than one of the essays. These include the British explorer, “James Cook,” the British scientist Charles Darwin, and a little known half-native Canadian, Randall McDonald (who taught English to the Japanese court years before Commander Perry opened the Japanese mainland to western shipping).  

The book opens with a 47-page introduction titled, “Looking for a Ship” in which Lopez provides some background into his life and explorations. Much of this material was also covered in more detail his memoir,About This Life. However, the introduction does provide the reader with a context to understand Lopez’s journeys that take him to the polar caps and places in between. Lopez’s first essay centers around Cape Foulweather in Oregon, where Lopez lived when not traveling. Cape Foulweather is also the site of James Cooks first sighting of land along America’s West Coast in 1778. He tells about his many visits to this point, as he reads James Cooks travels and strives to understand how the landscape has changed over the years.  His next stop is Skraeling Island in the arctic waters of northern Canada. Then he moves on to Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos, and then to the site of an archeological dig in Kenya (titled Jackal Camp). Next, he goes to an old British prison in Tasmania, before concluding his journey in the Antarctic.  Some of these sites, Lopez visits for only a season. Others, he has returned many times.

Except for the Antarctic essay, which is the only place on earth without any human ancestry, Lopez seeks out to understand the lives of those who lived before the region was “discovered.” This includes Native Americans in Oregon, Paleoeskimos in the Arctic, South Sea islanders in the Galapagos, early humans in Africa, and Aboriginals in Australia.  With his extensive knowledge in botany and biology, he discusses the changes to the landscape from human migration. As an example, I knew red foxes were not native to North America but learned the British also imported them to Australia for hunting. 

These extended essays provide Lopez time to reflect on the colonial world, the role class plays in a society (which he even found in the scientific communities in the Antarctic), how animals and landscape evolve, and the concerns of the speed of such evolution in recent centuries. Lopez also looks to the future and ponders creating new ways of bringing more people to the table to discuss and help the world from the crisis that we are experiencing from industrialization. Lopez often comes back to the role elders play in traditional communities and suggests that we need to listen to them.

This is a book to be savored. Lopez encourages us to look around and to understand our place in the world. 

QUOTE ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN: “to live in fear in a whole in which one’s destiny is never entirely of one’s own choosing.” (page 508). 

Miroslav Volk, A Public Faith: How Followers of Christ Should Serve the Common Good (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos Press, 2011), 174 pages including notes and index. 

There are many who blame religion for many of the world’s problems. Monotheistic religions seem especially vulnerable to such changes. While Volf is writing to Christians, he does make many references to Islam. Of course, all religions have examples of failing to live up to their potential (Volf labels this “malfunctions of faith”), Volf believes religion and especially the Christian faith has the potential to contribute much to the common good. Furthermore, as Volf notes, much of the terrible violence of the 20thCentury, the most violent century in human history, wasn’t because of religion. Genocide was most often conducted by secular regimes. 

Volf begins his study by looking at how and why religious groups have failed to contribute to the common good.  For Christians, this “malfunction of faith” is mostly due to our failure to “love God and love our neighbor.” The Christian faith, for Volf, is certainly not waiting for “pie in the sky.” Instead, our faith should be a source of human flourishing, and not just flourishing for believers, but all people.  Religion is about the good life and requires religious people to engage in their communities for the good of all. However, he criticizes the extremes. The followers of Jesus should neither withdraw from society nor should they try to dominate society. Instead, with creativity, they should seek to engage positively in a religiously pluralistic world.

One of the problems in the West is that we tend to understand the good life as “experimental satisfaction,” which can never sustain our deepest desires. The source of the good life is not found within us, but outside, from God and from others. Only by living up to Jesus’ great commandment, can we experience such goodness. 

Volf does not envision a world in which there is only one faith. In fact, as I pointed out above, he’s critical of such ideas. We will never be able to bring God’s kingdom to earth. Only God can do that.  For us to attempt to bring about heaven to earth by silencing other beliefs will only lead to further malfunctions of our faith. Instead, he envisions a pluralistic world where those of all faith need to be in conversation with one another and learn from others. While Christians believe in the truth in Jesus Christ, that doesn’t mean there are not things we can learn from others. While he doesn’t use the term, the Calvinist view of “common grace” (as opposed to saving grace) seems to apply here. All good comes from God, including that which is good in those who may have a different view of faith from us. 

Volf is a professor at Yale Divinity School and the director Center for Faith and Culture. There is a lot packed into this thin book on how we our faith can help a troubled world. 

For those interested, Volf will be the keynote speaker at this year’s “HopeWords Writer’s Conference in Bluefield, West Virginia on March 24-25. This is a reasonably priced conference that I highly recommend. Check it out by clicking here.

HopeWorld 2023 Speakers
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I’m traveling for a few weeks

Waiting for the sun (on a day that turned out stormy)

Did you miss my sermon on Sunday? Well, I ran away last week. And through this week I will have limited internet. My technology dry spell continues through the weekend. Next week, I’ll be at Calvin University and Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But right now I am in a beautiful part of God’s creation, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. I’m staying in DeTour Village, watching the freighters sail by. I am also doing a lot of reading and planning. Many of the books I brought with me I read years ago, but I’m reviewing them for a seminar group I meet with next week. Others are new books to me, which I’m reading for the first time.

Can you guess which books I’ve read before? And which are new to me?
Hint, I’ve read 7 of the 13 books in the photo.

Last weekend, I was blessed with a visit from Robert and Donna, friends of mine from my Utah days. They, along with Robert’s sister (who took the photo below before church on Sunday) are on a cross-country trip and spent three days with me. While Robert and I come from different theological traditions, talking theology with him is always enlightening and I much appreciate his insights. On Saturday, we made a trip up to the Soo Locks at Sault Ste. Marie.

Do you like my Jerry Garcia designed tie?
Robert watching a 700+ foot freighter move through the Poe Locks
A freighter passing by last Friday, before the weather went south….

I’ve learned something new this week. That’s always good, to learn something new… In the yard by the house where I’m staying there are two apple trees overflowing with fruit… The fruit that drops from these trees are being eaten by sea gulls. I never knew gulls would eat apples. I also expect I’ll have to find a car wash when I leave this place!

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Dave, Blue Hole Canoes, Bill, Bob, and a book review 

Dave and my introduction to Blue Hole Canoes

In the winter of 1976, I was a freshman at University of North Carolina at Wilmington. One night, I attended the local Sierra Club meeting. The hot topic at the time was the protection of the New River, a river I’d paddled and felt I should become involved. I don’t remember much of the program, but I did meet Dave Benny that evening. Dave was close to twice my age, and an engineer at Dupont. He had recently purchased a Blue Hole canoe. Learning I also had a canoe (It was my first major purchase when I was sixteen), and had paddled several rivers in Southeast North Carolina, David picked my brain. Over the next six or seven years, until I left that part of the state, Dave or I would lead many of the canoe trips offered by the Wilmington chapter of the Sierra Club.  

The Unique Blue Hole Canoe

Dave’s Blue Hole was a unique canoe. I don’t remember why he decided to purchase a boat built for white water to run in the black water rivers in the eastern half of the state. But I was impressed how well it handled in narrow winding streams where there were lots of logs just under the surface. Those unseen logs would often catch the keel of my Grumman canoe. The Blue Hole had a flat bottom which helped it float them. Its design also allowed the paddler to quickly turn and to move easily across a fast current, a benefit when paddling in a swampy area during high water where the water flow wants to pull your boat out of the channel and into the swamps. 

A faded photo from the early 80s that I recently found. At Crusoe Island, Columbus County, NC, on a paddle down the Waccamaw River. I think Dave’s Blue Hole is the canoe to the right. The photo of me and the boats were either taken by Dave or another friend, Phil Morgan, who paddled with me one of the trips I made down the Waccamaw River.

However, when the river widens and the wind picked up, the flat bottom made the Blue Holes less desirable. One had to paddle harder to keep the boat tracking properly. Many of our trips would begin on smaller creeks and then end up on larger rivers, where Dave and whoever was paddling in his bow had to work harder than the rest of us. 

The Blue Hole was made of a new substance called Rolex ABS. It was much stronger than fiberglass and a lot quieter than aluminum, like the Grummans. In my boat, any bump on a submerged log or a drop of a paddle or water bottle into the boat would be announced to everyone. Dave’s boat was much quieter. 

Dave and the finer things in life

Dave and I didn’t paddle together much. We were generally in our own canoes, with each of us having another participant in our bow. But on occasion, the two of us would go out together to scout a new river or creek. Then, we’d often take Dave’s canoe. Dave seemed to have all the cool toys. As a middle-aged single man, he could afford such things. In addition to his canoe, he was the first person I knew with a Leica, a German camera known for its superior optics. He also purchased a Sea Gull 1.2 horsepower outboard motor. This British designed motor, I would later learn, was popular among sailors to power dinghies and rafts to and from a mooring. 

Dave obtained the Sea Gull motor so we could take a canoe upstream to check out new streams. After motoring upstream, we’d paddle back down to our vehicle. One such stream was Colly Creek, which flows into the Black River. That little motor pushed us upstream easily. But there were lots of weeds in the stream, which kept tangling up the prop and causing the sheer pin to snap. Dave, however, came prepared. We became very proficient at replacing sheer pins that day and when we had no more pins, we were in sight of a bridge we could use to launch from. It was time to turn around. We paddled with the current to our waiting vehicle at a bridge just downstream of the confluence with the Black River. Colly Creek became a favorite paddling stream, and I must have run that creek a dozen times. 

Leaving Eastern North Carolina and acquiring a Royalex Canoe

I left Eastern North Carolina early in 1984 and lost contact with Dave. In one of our last trips together, he had invited a woman along. I heard they later married. For a few years, I would occasionally hear about him from my brother who was also an engineer with Dupont, but in another factory. But then he retired and that was many years ago. 

Update January 2025: Learning there will be a Blue Hole Rendezvous this May, I searched to see if I could find Dave Benny to let him know about it. Sadly, I discovered his obituary. He died in 2012, due to complications from heart surgery.

My Mad River at a campsite along the Missinaibi River, Northern Ontario, 1992

As for my old Grumman Canoe, it was stolen in 1985. I would replace it with a Mad River Explorer. Like the Blue Hole, it’s also an ABS Royalex boat. However, instead of a totally flat bottom like the Blue Hole, it has a rocker bottom which allows it to track better downstream and on lakes. I still have that boat. I have paddled it in rivers in nine states as well as northern Ontario where I paddled to the James Bay. I have replaced the wooden gunnels twice, and it’s still a good paddling canoe. I must continue caring for that boat for they no longer make ABS Royalex.

Paddling with Bill in one of his Blue Holes
Bill and me

Two weeks ago, when I was at Montreat, a Presbyterian Conference Center in Western North Carolina, I met up with another old friend. Bill and I had been a part of the team who ran the youth program at First Presbyterian Church in Hickory NC. We both paddled a lot, but only once made one trip together, that I recall, on the Henry River (where parts of the Hunger Games would be filmed decades later). Bill, who has lived in Asheville for over 30 years, suggested we paddle the Tuckaseegee River. Bill’s canoes have multiplied. He now owns a trailer full and they’re mostly Blue Holes. On this day, he brought along a tandem boat which we paddled together. 

Meeting Bob Lantz
Bob Lantz on the deck of his cabin

We made our way down the river, through rapids named the 1st Hole, the 2nd Hole, the Slingshot. A short bit after running the Double Drop rapid, Bill suggested we drop in and see a friend of his. We found Bob Lantz at his cabin on the river and spent some time sitting out on his porch drinking a beer and talking. Bob was one of two designers for the Blue Hole canoe. After talking to him that day on the river, I decided that I needed to read his book. Doing so, I realized that Dave’s canoe would have been one of the earlier boats built by the company, only a few years after its founding. 

Sadly, Bob no longer paddles. He’s had a couple of knee replacement surgeries and cannot kneel in a canoe. But he does get to enjoy being on a beautiful river and watching canoes, kayaks, and rafts float by. 

Bill’s Blue Hole at the Take-out on the Tuckaseegee River

###

Bob Lantz, Lean Downstream!! The Whole History from Beginning to End of the Blue Hole Canoe Company 

(Bob Lantz, 1979), 231 pages with many photos and diagrams. 

This book contains many moving parts. It’s part memoir but includes engineering and business details of canoe construction along with bits about how to paddle and work to save rivers in Tennessee. Combining these elements, the reader learns much about the growth of canoeing as a recreation activity in the 1970s and 1980s. The author appears upfront with his honesty, admitting when he made mistakes. And his mistakes include a superior attitude of how to paddle before being taught proper techniques as well as business and personnel blunders while running a company. 

The book jump around a lot. However, the author warns the reader about this at the beginning. Lantz takes a thread and runs with it (such as the business of building canoes) then backtracks to fill in his personal details. He also tends to blatantly “foreshadow” what will happen in his writing by telling his readers he’ll get to it. However, the book is easily read. Lantz writes in a conversational style, not the technical style one expects from engineers. This less formal style seems to work well and serves the author’s purposes. 

The author claims this is the “whole history” of the Blue Hole Company. However, I couldn’t help but assume some things are left out. But such is the nature of any writing as we can’t cover or report on everything. I would suggest the book is a history of the company through the eyes of one of its major players.

This book is also a history of the personal life of the author. I must admit, I felt sorry for him. Lantz was suddenly single and middle aged, sitting by his wood stove on winter nights in an old Tennessee farmhouse. When I visited his cabin on the Tuckasseegee, I admired his stove. He seemed appreciative and said it was his second Jotul wood stove. His first one eventually burned out the sidewalls trying to heat his house on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee. Reading the book, I realized the stove is a minor character in Lantz’s story. 

That said, I was impressed with what Bob, a former aerospace engineer, and friends were able to do. They developed a company that radically changed the sport of white-water canoeing. From the idea to build canoes out of Royalex, to their design and develop of aluminum gunnels (purposely using low-tempered aluminum) and thwarts, Blue Hole was a pioneer in the canoe industry. The company lasted for fifteen years (1973-1988). Sadly, internal struggles seemed to sink the company. When friction between partners increased, the bank called the loan and the company liquidated. 

I recommend this book to those interested in the development of canoeing in this country. Even if you don’t read it all, the book has great photos. As a warning, I doubt those uninterested in canoeing and rivers would find much enjoyment from the book. I am also grateful to the role the author and the company played in protecting several rivers in the Southeast. 

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Heading to Iona

In 2017, I spent a week in a Christian community on Iona, an island in the Scottish Inner-Hebrides. This is a description of my journey to the Island. It’s an all day trip from Edinburgh, where I’d stayed with friends. I had hope to lead a group to Iona afterwards, but the next summer, the Abbey was closed for renovation. In 2019, it was only partly open, then along came COVID! This is an edited post that I am migrating over from another blog.

Leaving Edinburgh 
With Ewan, on Arthur’s Throne

After a quick breakfast of porridge with Ewan, we head to the train station. I thank him for his hospitality and walk down the ramp to board the waiting 7:15 AM train for Glasgow. This is the first of my multiple leg journey to the Isle of Iona. Minutes later, the train rolls through the countryside, stopping every so often at a station where an automatize voice of a woman encourages folks to “Please mind the gap when alighting this train.” As it’s Saturday, the train has few passengers. The conductor stops and talks, telling me where the best to get coffee in the Glasgow Station (which he recommends over the coffee they serve on the train). I ask him where I can find a bank machine (they don’t call them ATMs over here) and we talk about the West Highland Line which I’ll be taking to Oban.

In Glasgow: banking troubles
Trains leaving Edinburgh station

I only have fifteen minutes in Glasgow. I grab coffee and then head to the bank machine. My card is denied. I try again. It’s denied again. The call for the boarding the 8:21 train north. The next train is two hours later, and I don’t want to wait. I have some cash on me, maybe 50 pounds, but know that once I get to Iona, I will need cash. I’ve been told most places won’t take plastic and there are no bank machines. Thankfully, I’ve prepaid for the week. At least I will have a place to stay and can eat.

The train pulls out of Queen Street Station and soon we’re leaving the city behind as we race along the north bank of the Clyde River. I try to reach my bank by cell phone. This isn’t a local back, it’s a rather large regional Midwestern bank, but even their call center has “banker hours.” Its 3 AM back in Ohio. I hope to have time to get things straightened out during my short layover in Oban. I want to kick myself for not calling them before leaving the country, but I try to put the worry behind me. There is nothing I can do at this time. I look out the window. It’s rainy and gloomy.   

Heading north

At Dulmuir, a group of young women board. They’re loud and keep jumping back and forth from seats. I offer to trade with the one of them who sits across the aisle with a couple from Glasgow, so they could all be together. Furthermore, I can be on the side of the train with the water. The train is now moving northwest, running alongside Gare Loch and Loch Long, both saltwater lochs open out into the Firth of Clyde. The couple tell me there’s a naval base along here for submarines. 

Their son has spent his life at sea, mostly as an officer on merchant vessels. The woman tells me about his ship being at Newark, New Jersey on that fateful day in 2001. As it was mid-day in Scotland, he called to talk and was on the phone when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center. He has since given up traveling the world and today is a captain of a buoy and lighthouse tender. His ship is in Oban for the day, so they’re taking the train up to have lunch with him.

The train leaves Loch Long and passes over a short bit of land before coming into Talbert, on Lock Lomond, one of the more famous lochs in Scotland. We run alongside the loch for ten or so miles before climbing into the hills north of the loch. 

At Crianlarich, which appears to be just a train station in the woods, the train splits. They had informed us in Glasgow to sit in the front two coaches. We’re now bound for Oban. The last four coaches head for Fort Williams and Mallaig (a line I plan to ride next Friday). After a few minutes, we’re riding through the woods. After Dalmally, we come alongside Loch Awe (what a wonderful name). In the middle of the lock are the ruins of a castle. We are heading west now, and soon pick up Loch Etive, which is open to the sea.  I’ve recently read that the furthest you can get from the sea in Britain is sixty-five miles and looking how these saltwater lochs reach so far inland, I understand how that’s probably the case.

Still worrying about my bank card as we head into Oban

My worry over my bank card has bothered me all morning. Then it dawns on me that I have another bank card on me. While it’s a bank I don’t use as often, generally it is just to hold cash, it’s local and a few days before I left, I had made a deposit. Doing so, I told the teller of my plans for travel out of the country. She assured me she’d make a note on my account so I wouldn’t have a problem. I’m more than a little relieved as I’m not sure I’ll have time to contact the other bank when in Oban.  

Buoy Tender at Oban

After Connel, the train turned south and we’re soon in Oban, an old town built around a harbor. It claims to be the seafood capital of the world. The couple point out their son’s ship, docked just behind the ferry terminal. I bid them farewell and wish them a wonderful lunch and walk out of the train station looking for a bank.  It all falls in place. There’s a Bank of Scotland with an ATM just across the street from the train station. On the other side is the ferry terminal. I have nearly an hour before it leaves. I withdraw 200 pounds from the bank, then walk across the street and buy lunch from a vendor (a tuna and cucumber sandwich and an apple). 

Ferry to Mull

Taking the lunch with me, I board the ferry for a fifty-minute trip to Craignure on the Isle of Mull. With spendable cash in my wallet (my American dollars aren’t much good), I’m at ease. I find a place to sit on the upper deck. I’m sheltered from the weather, but am outside. I sit down and enjoy my sandwich as the boat pulls away from the port and makes its way through the harbor.

The harbor has several sailboats moored, as another makes its way into the safety behind the break wall as we push off from the pier. The day is stormy, and I wear a rain jacket. The entrance to the harbor is rather narrow. The ship slows to let a small passenger ship (or a large yacht) make its way into the safety of the harbor. As we go outside, the waters are rougher. I can’t imagine sailing in such waters in the small boat as had just made for the harbor. 

Thoughts on Iona
Cross in front of Iona Abbey

As we leave the mainland, I think about my destination. I’ve wanted to visit Iona for a long time and now can achieve this goal. Iona has been a destination for pilgrims and the curious for nearly 1500 years. In 563, an Irish abbot named Columba and a group of twelve disciples (sound familiar) land on Iona, where they set up a religious community. At this time, sea travel was easier than traveling overland on non-existent roads, and the small island becomes a center of faith and learning that extends throughout the British and Irish mainland and the islands that surrounded them. The Book of Kell’s was supposedly produced here, and some think the practice of carving large stone crosses which are prominent in Ireland and on some of the Scottish Islands, also began on Iona. The community thrived until the 10th Century when Viking raiders began to pillage the islands. Although a few monks continued to live on the island, the center of learning was moved to Ireland where it was safer from these raids. 

In the 12th Century, after the Viking threat had waned, the island began a new period of importance as a Benedictine monastery was founded on the site of Columba’s monastery. About the same time, an Augustine nunnery was also founded on the island. These two continued until the Scottish Reformation in 1560. Afterwards, the site slowly began to crumble, but became a place for artists and authors to visit (a who’s who of British literature in the 18th and 19 century made journeys to Iona). Eventually, the site became property to the Duke of Argyll, who allowed it to be used as a place of worship for all denominations (Church of Scotland/Presbyterian, Roman Catholics, and the Scottish Episcopal Church). In the late 19th Century, he turned the site over to a Trust who worked to restore the ruins. In the 1930s, a new Iona Community emerged and continues to this day.

Crossing to the Isle of Mull
Rough Waters

Approaching Mull, at Craignure, we pass the ruins of the Durant Castle. This country feels old. Soon, we pull up to the pier and those who have cars below are asked to go below and prepare to disembark. Along with maybe a hundred or so others, I disembark down the gangway to a line of buses. I find the bus for Iona and stow my backpack in the luggage compartment and pay the 15 pounds (round trip as I’ll be returning this way next Friday) and take a seat in the back.

It’s nearly fifty wet miles across Mull, mostly on one lane roads (with turnouts so that vehicles can pass one another). The bus runs across Glen More in the center of Mull, and then drops down to the Ross of Mull, where we run along Loch Scridain. The driver is a bit of a maniac, gunning the engine where there is nothing ahead and at times stomping on the brakes in time to pull into a passing place.  It’s still raining but the countryside is beautiful, with lots of rocky hills, plenty of wildflowers, fields covered with ferns, and interesting varieties of cows and sheep. The distant hills and mountains are shrouded with fog. After nearly an hour, we pull into the small town of Fionnphort, where we unload.

Ferry to Iona

Everyone on the bus is headed to Iona, with most spending a week as a part of the Iona Community. I began to introduce myself to folks who have been on the same train and ferries going back to Glasgow. We all stand at the ferry terminal, with our packs and suitcases beside us, watching the ferry bounce around in the water as it makes its way across. Iona is easily seen in the distance. This ferry is a lot smaller than the other one. There are just two cars going across (a special permit is required to take an automobile to this island that’s only 5 miles long). Most of us are on foot. We board and I find a sheltered place up top, where I can watch the island approach.  

On Iona
Abbey on Iona

The Iona Abbey is easy to spot. Soon, I’m on the last leg of my journey, a fifteen-minute ride across the Sound of Iona, in which I gain my sea legs. The ferry pitches and rolls and struggles to dock against a strong wind and tide.  Once we arrive, we time as we get off the ferry, so that we avoid splashing our feet in the water. There are vehicles waiting to take our luggage, while it’s up to us to walk the third of a mile to the Abbey and the MacLeod Center (I’m staying in the later). 

At the McLeod Center, I find my bunk and unpack. It’s an hour before dinner, so I lay down and watch through the window the grass blow in the wet wind. I love the sound of the wind, and soon am napping to its calming presence.    

Worship in the Abbey

Dinner is simple but delicious: carrot and turnip soup, good chewy bread, raw vegetables, fruit, and desert with coffee. Afterwards, we spend a few minutes getting to know everyone, learning our duties for the week (I’m to help at breakfast and will chop vegetables for the lunch and evening meals). At 7:30 PM, we walk in the rain down to the Abbey for the welcoming worship service. Lighted with candles, the sanctuary is beautiful. It’s still light after the service. This far north it will be for several more hours. I’ve been up a long time. Tired, I go to bed early. 

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The Ride of a Lifetime (in the cab of a steam engine)

First Presbyterian Church

In 2013, I visited Virginia City, Nevada. I had lived there in the 1980s, when I was a student pastor at First Presbyterian Church. Before my time there, a tourist railroad had been established and was reconstructing the famed Virginia and Truckee Railroad. The big news when I was there, was the train crossing the highway into Gold Hill. Since then, thanks to generous grants, the train now runs to the outskirts of Carson City. It is a crooked grade as the train climbs up the east flank of the Virginia Mountains. I wanted to ride this train and see what it was like in earlier days. But they had sold out of the tickets for the weekend I was to be in Virginia City. Telling this to a friend who at the time was also the bookkeeper for the railroad, she said she’d make a call and see what she could do.  When I got to town, she asked if I’d like to ride in the cab of the train. Of course, I would! It was the ride of a lifetime. I wrote this piece almost ten years ago and have polished it up a bit for posting here. 

Virginia City at sunrise from the Combination Mine shaft

I arrive at the V&T shops a little after 7 AM.  As they prepare the engine ready for the day’s run, I walk around the machine shop where the Virginia and Truckee has the capability of repairing and rebuilding old locomotives. Maintaining a steam locomotive requires a lot of work and a shop is a necessity as parts often have to be fashioned to replace those that have worn out. The complexity of a steam engine led to their demise as it is much easier to maintain diesel-electric locomotives. Today’s locomotives may be efficient and easier to maintain, but they lack the romance and the “life-like character” of a “breathing steam engine.”

Our run today is aboard a ninety-ton Baldwin locomotive built in 1914 for a logging operation. The locomotive features smaller wheels and a large boiler, which also made it a perfect engine to pull trains up a steep line that snakes around the Virginia Range as it climbs from the Carson River to Virginia City. In its “working life,” this locomotive hauled logs for the McCloud Logging Railroad which ran around Mt. Shasta in Northern California. Today, she hauls tourists to the Comstock Lode and has been trucked offsite (she is the largest locomotive capable of being trucked) for movie appearances. Some of the guys from the V&T ran her in the movie, “Water for Elephants,” and have a photo in the shop with Reese Witherspoon, one of the stars in the film. 

Backing down the mountain

At about 7:30, Tim, who serves as conductor and brakeman, tells me to hope aboard. He introduces me to the crew, Brian and Ed, and gives me some instructions such as watching my feet so that I don’t ruin my shoes or injure myself by being pinched by rotating the sheet metal flooring between the tender and the locomotive. While we wait for the signal, the iron horse hisses. A few times every minute, there’s a booming sound which I learn are the air pumps keeping a nice draft in the fire box. When we get the “all clear,” I find a comfortable place to stand and hold on as Brian, the engineer moves the throttle into position and releases the brakes. We’re off, pulling three empty passenger cars. Because there is no longer a working turntable, we’ll pull the cars down the grade with the tender in the lead. At Moundhouse (Carson Eastgate), where we’ll pick up passengers, we can drop the cars, move the engine to the front as in a normal train, and the pull the cars back up hill.   

Checking smoke

It’s cool in the morning, but it promises to be a warm day.  Because the grade steepness, the descent must be controlled. I watch Ed, the fireman, as he maintains the boiler, making sure there is enough steam for both movement and brakes.  Ed learned to fire a locomotive on a miniature (5 ton) steam trains in California. Brian jokes that he has the easy job and Ed agrees. Oil fires this locomotive. Coal would require shoveling, but the fireman is free of that task. However, watching the boiller requires constant vigilance, especially on a grade like the V&T which has a few places that you might be going down, only to find yourself heading uphill for a short stretch. Besides keeping enough steam so that Brian can operate the train, he must make sure the water level remains high enough to cover the plates within the boiler. On level ground, this is easy, but when the locomotive is pointed uphill, the water runs into the back of the boiler. When it goes over a hump and points downhill, the water moves to the front of the locomotive. The danger of this sloshing around is that the metal might be exposed to air and the fire without the water to cool it down. This would risk spraying those of us in the cab with steam and seriously damaging the boiler.

Brian, our engineer for the day, oversees the train itself. He’s a Virginia City native. He graduated from high school on the Comstock in 2000 and that summer went to work for the railroad. He’s been at it ever since. For years, he was seasonal and had to find other employment in the winter, but a few years ago, was hired on full time. In the winter, they make a few runs (last year’s Christmas run was infamous as the snow was heavy and it took them nearly three hours to make the run back up the mountain. Brian and Ed can do each other’s jobs and often switch back and forth. As the engineer, he’s in charge of the operation of the train, but must depend on the fireman to watch the boiler and to provide him the steam needed for a smooth operation. 

A few minutes later, Virginia City is out of sight as we cross the tunnel at the Divide and move toward Gold Hill. Down below us is the Crown Point Mine and Mill site. We cross the highway, by the old station. then the tracks turn south and cross earth fill that once traversed by the Crown Point trestle. They tore the trestle down in 1936. Today, it is widely believed that the trestle continues to live on the Nevada State Seal. However, this is a myth. The seal was designed in 1863 and predates the building of the trestle by five years.  Interestingly, there wasn’t even a train within the boundaries of the Nevada Territory when the seal was designed, so the trestle on the seal expressed a hopeful dream of the artist.      

After Gold Hill, the tracks make a long circle around American Flats.  There is a new mining operation with cyanide leach fields on the north side of the Flats.  Also along this section is a herd of horses.  Ed and Brian seem to know well as they have names for many of the wild animals.  At Scales siding, the halfway point, we stop, and Brain and Tim check the brakes. There is some smoke in one wheel and they are afraid it is overheating, but after checking it, all appears well. We loop around the south side of the Flats, above the old American Flats Mill, which operated up into the 30s. Then the tracks turn south, and we slip into a tunnel.  On the other side of the tunnel, we can see Moundhouse, the site of where the Virginia and Truckee and the Carson and Colorado Narrow Gauge used to connect. The train continues to hug the hillside. The tracks mostly follow the original route except through Moundhouse. Brain, the engineer, tells me that the original tracks went straight through Moundhouse and picked up the Carson River near where today are several brothels. Figuring the whorehouses shouldn’t be disturbed by trains, they relocate the tracks to the west of town. We cross over Highway 50 on a trestle and soon are at the station.  

Brain prepares engine for run back up the mountain

A full parking lot awaits us as people line up to ride a piece of history. We drop the passenger cars in front of the depot and uncouple the engine. Switching tracks, we take on water. I learn that although the train will only use 300 gallons of oil during the weekend, each trip up and down the mountain will require nearly 8000 gallons of water. Once they fill the water take, we run through a wye and then pull in front front of the passenger cars for the run up the mountain. Before leaving, Brian oils the working parts of the locomotive

The Crew on a rare break

As we leave Moundhouse, Ed pours a couple of cans of sand into the firebox. The draft is such that the sand is sucked through the boiler tubes and out the stack, cleaning out any build up on the tubes and hopefully making the train run smoother. As the sand runs through the boiler, or perhaps because of the addition air of having the firebox open, the smoke turns black for a few minutes. Although it was a relaxed trip going down the mountain, running uphill requires more work, especially from Ed, who has to constantly keep checking on the boiler and making sure there is enough steam for running the train. It almost seems he is as much of an artist as a mechanic as he both watches the gauges and adjusts the amount of water going into the boiler or the amount of fuel pumped into the firebox. But it’s not just the gages that he watches; he also keeps an eye on the smoke, occasionally glances into the firebox, and is always listening to the boiler breathing.    

The sun is now high in the sky and it’s getting hot, but I’m not prepared for the experience of the first tunnel. When we enter it, a hot wind blows across the boiler and into the cab and the temperature must have risen by 30 or 40 degrees. Coming down, with the boiler behind us, the tunnels weren’t hot, but with the boiler in front, we feel all the heat. This was the reason the last steam engines built for the Southern Pacific were “cab-forward” varieties. It was harder to build a cab-forward locomotive when the fireman had to shovel coal (or you had to have the fireman and engineer in two different ends of the train which created communication problems).  But once the railroad began using oil, they could move both to the front of the boiler. Not only did this allow better views of the track, it keep the cab more comfortable in long tunnels and the miles and miles of snowsheds the locomotives traveled as they made their way through the Sierras.  

at the Gold Hill Station

At Scales, we stop for a few minutes and Brian gets out and oils various parts of the engine. We then continue on until the Gold Hill Station where a few people get off in order to have lunch at the Gold Hill Hotel. Most of our passengers continue as the train climbs into Virginia City. There, everyone gets off. They’ll have three hours to tour the town before making the run back south. I skip the ride south but follow the train in my car. Stepping out into the heat, I photograph the train repeatedly as it makes its way down the mountain. Ed, Brian and Tim will leave the train at Moundhouse overnight. The next morning they’ll pick up passengers and run them up to Virginia City. At the end of the day, after dropping the passengers off in Moundhouse, the empty train will be driven back up the mountain to Virginia City. There, it will shuttle tourists around the Comstock between Virginia City and Gold Hill. The steam trains only run between Moundhouse and Virginia City on Saturdays and Sundays.  

Arriving in Virginia City
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Rebuilding in Kentucky

Photo by KREM, from the internet

On the evening of December 10th, a storm system produced terrible tornadoes in mid-America. The storm began in Arkansas and moved northeast into Missouri and Kentucky. By Sunday morning, when the clouds cleared and the sun rose, a destructive path, at places a mile wide and over 250 miles long, remained. 89 people dead and nearly 700 injured. 74 of these deaths occurred in Kentucky, 13 in Dawson Springs where nearly 60% of the structures in the town were beyond repair. Just east of the town, the tornado swept an empty coal train, including its engines, off the tracks. It is unusual for a storm to strike so late in the year and to remain on the ground for so long. This storm will go down in history. 

A few days after the storm, Libby Wilcox asked about us doing a mission trip to help those who had lost so much.

Looking south, were homes used to stand

On Sunday, May 15th, after worship, a group of us from Bluemont and Mayberry, two of the rock churches along the Blue Ridge Parkway, headed to Kentucky to volunteer to work. The heavy clean-up was over. Now, where there used to be homes, one can only see the outline of foundations. Those participating in the work group included Libby, Fred and Ann Tanner, Shep Nance, Danny Miller, and me. In addition, we collected towels and sheets to give given to families who had lost everything. Before we left that Sunday, someone gave Libby money to buy our lunches on the drive to Kentucky.  People are generous.

Fred and Ann at welcome sign

We traveled to Madisonville, where we stayed at First Presbyterian Church while volunteering to help rebuild in Dawson Springs. Before the pandemic, First Presbyterian hosted the “Great Banquet,” a three-day spirituality retreat similar to Cursillo or Walk to Emmaus. With COVID, they suspended the retreats. After the storm that struck just south of Madisonville, they decided to utilize their retreat space for outside groups working to help rebuild. The church was a wonderful host, with not only bunk rooms, but shower rooms and a full-sized kitchen. Not only did they feed us on Wednesday night, but they also had an ice cream chest which was open and available when we came back from the worksites. 

Fred and Danny wiring in basement

Having been on several such trips, I have learned that each one is different. One must be flexible. Our first day was spent at a home which was on the north edge of Dawson Springs. While the home wasn’t destroyed, it required major renovation. Just south of this house, destruction was total. Looking across the valley, where there had once been homes, it was now empty except for a few rebuilding projects. 

On Monday, we rewired a basement (which had been partly destroyed by the storm and required metal posts every few feet long the foundation, that held the house to the ground). Several of us rewired while others helped clean up upstairs behind a Methodist team that was working at the site. 

Our remaining four days were spent working on a new home a mile north of Dawson Springs. This house replaced one that was totally destroyed. It was for an older woman, and her new home was built next to her daughter’s house. An Amish group framed and roofed two “tiny houses.” Placed together, making a “T”, one section consisted of the kitchen and living area, the other section the bedrooms and a bathroom.  We completed the wiring (we were officially working under an electrical contractor, who was responsible and would do the final connections to the panel box). In addition to running wires, we installed insulation and put in blocking so that the next group could commence installing drywall. 

With the home owner (left to right: Danny, Libby, Homeowner, Shep, Me, Ann, Fred)

While we made our lunch each day. On Tuesday, we even celebrated Ann’s birthday with chocolate cake and ice cream. Then, starting Thursday, the chef from Operation Blessings, treated us to lunch. This group related to the 700 Club in Virginia Beach, supplied the supplies for the house we worked on. Interestingly, Nechama, a Jewish group, donated their tool trailer. We couldn’t believe the amount of food the Operation Blessings chef provided(Spaghetti and meatball or meatball sandwiches and cookies on Thursday. Barbecue chicken, macaroni salad and brownies on Friday). With the church’s ice cream, this was probably the first mission trip ever where, despite the heat and sweat, we gained weight. 

Chef fixing us spaghetti and meatball sandwiches
our part is done!

After five days of work, we cleaned up and a group of us went out to Greens Steakhouse in Madisonville. This was a delightful restaurant in an old part of town. We sat upstairs in a balcony, overlooking a piano, where a local musician supplied background music. On Saturday morning, we headed back to the Blue Ridge. The work in Kentucky will take years! It was good to see so many different groups including Habitat for Humanity, Mennonites, Amish, Methodists, Baptist, Jewish involved in rebuilding.