Hobble Creek Review
| Hugh Aaron |
DAY SEVEN
Note: "Day Seven" is taken from a travel memoir that covers a 15 day trip
across the continent - from Cape Cod to Santa Monica - that my son and I
took in a pickup truck in the summer of 1986. He was 26 years old at the time,
in college, and I was 62, recently retired. Each evening as we encamped, I
would write down into a notebook what and who we saw and said that day.
Glacier National Park, Montana
By 6:00 A.M. I'm up and the only one awake in the campground, it
appears. I learn, contrary to a preconceived notion, that campers are
late sleepers. An escarpment that looms beside the campground is
pastel pink and orange in the dawn sunlight. While I unpack the
camera from its case to capture the colorful sight, two deer, one with
small antler stubs, suddenly stand mute before me among the trees.
Smiling, I talk to them softly as one approaches barely six feet away
and stares at me quizzically. For a while they munch the carpet of
soft green leaves on the forest floor then slowly depart. I have a
ridiculous thought: There goes a happy couple.
Danny and I have breakfast in style at the Swift Current Inn
located in the campground. I am as ravenous as he in consuming the
orange juice, pancakes, bacon, sausage and coffee. Over breakfast, he
tells of his dreams the night before. He is washing an elaborate
automobile that he has retrieved from a lake into which it had sunk.
Later he dreamt that he is playing with a parent bear and its cub.
After trying to free-associate to the dreams, we both conclude that
they are an attempt to resolve the conflicts in our relationship, that
he wishes us to get along better. And to get on with his own
independent life, I surmise.
Feeling happy with each another, we hit the trail to Red Rich Falls
and to an indefinite point beyond in the Many Glacier area. A
thirteen-mile hike, the trip is longer and more arduous than
expected, with its steep switchbacks and narrow, frightening (to me)
walkways along sheer cliffs. For the first time in my life I find
myself fearing height, and I slog on prodded by the promise of
exhilarating mountain views at every turn, of aquamarine lakes
sequestered in the long valley below, of countless, silent, silvery
waterfalls, of sun soaked snowfields on 10,000-foot heights. Each
sight seems to surpass the one I just saw. The grandeur of it all
overwhelms me.
On the trail we meet Jennie L., tall and trim in khaki shorts and
short sleeve knit shirt, carrying a small backpack. She welcomes our
company, voicing her preference not to be alone. Who in this isolated
spot, she asks, would help her if she fell and hurt herself or were
attacked by a bear?
"I know you two can be trusted. Two Jewish men."
"You are Jewish?" I say. She nods.
Jews have a sixth sense for each other, believe that other Jews can
only be good, that there are no Jewish rapists or murderers or
thieves. I ponder this delusion. Jews, even those who are assimilated
into the national fabric, don't trust the rest of the world, not after
Hitler, not after the world and its great idealistic democracies stood
by, allowing the Holocaust. And the State of Israel, a political and
military force to be reckoned with, is seen by most Jews as the
ultimate security. Is this another delusion?
Jennie talks freely of her life, of her two sons in their twenties, of
her unhappy marriage to an irascible, controlling man. "But
underneath he's really a kind and loving husband," she adds. " I
couldn't abandon him at this stage of his life, now that he's retired.
No, I could never hurt him like that. And I couldn't bear the
loneliness. Anyway, we can't afford a separation. After dividing the
money, we wouldn't have enough to live on."
When describing my own home situation, hers strikes me as a
mirror image. Annoyed with her incessant jabber, Danny disappears
on the trail ahead. Hoping to understand her point of view, that of a
wife, and gain further insight into my failing relationship with Jane,
I'm fascinated with her story.
She complains of feeling trapped in the smog-bound, teeming,
artificial welter of LA in which she was born and raised. She feels
trapped in the anti-intellectual life-style of her husband, a former
businessman, who can't abide classical music (he would turn it off
while she was listening), who wasn't the least interested in art or
literature or politics or ideas or life itself.
"His investments are his sole interest. We simply don't
communicate. The pity is, I have the same problem with my two
sons, who seem to be drifting."
"Your sons are normal," I say with authority. "They'll find their
way, probably by the time they're thirty."
She admires Danny for his carpentry skills, for his travels far and
wide in the Middle East, southern Europe, northern Africa, Japan,
and around the United States. "He's got something better than a
college education," she declares.
My marriage has become sexless, I say. Sex is gone from her
marriage too. The opportunity for deeper fulfillment has grown
impossible.
"After all, nobody's perfect, right? Most of my friends are unhappily
married. I believe it would really be worse to split. So we make the
best of a bad situation, don't we?" So she spends the summer in
Montana in the forest service writing brochures and in her spare
time hiking the national park trails alone in the natural
surroundings she has always loved.
Looking and acting a good decade younger than her fifty-seven
years, she ambles at a swift pace and frequently has to wait for me to
catch up. We meet Danny sitting near a wide snowfield on a height
just below the summit, which we decide not to attempt since we are
growing tired and still have to make the trip back. The air is cool,
gentle, and soft.
During lunch we gaze between peaks at a series of cerulean lakes
strung along a valley floor like a necklace of sapphires. Before lunch
is done a wind is mounting and storm clouds are suddenly forming
over distant summits.
On the way down I tell Jennie, "I think if we'd met thirty years ago
you and I could have made it together."
"Probably so," she says grinning. "But I babble on so much, I'd bore
you."
"The way I see it, since you can't talk to your husband, you talk to
strangers."
"But we aren't strangers anymore, are we?"
In less than an hour, the constant action of slamming my feet onto
the
sloping loose stone-laden path to secure a foothold weakens my left
knee joint. Only by keeping my leg stiffened can I avoid pain. The
morning's glittering blue sky turns overcast, and the air cooler,
breezier. Dragging behind, I worry that my knee will collapse
altogether and I'll need to be carried. Knee trouble is new to me but
so is the long physical stress. What other limitations due to aging
will I discover when aggravated by tasks I have yet to perform? On
reaching the campground several hours later, I'm no longer able to
hide the excruciating pain.
Before parting Jennie and I swap addresses. I promise to call her
husband when I arrive in LA. Sad that our hike together is over, that
we probably will never see each other again, my heart goes with her.
Oh, what could be sweeter now than to stand under a long hot
shower. A sign in the supply store informs us that timed showers are
indeed available for a dollar. We each enter a stall, strip as hastily
as possible not to waste shower time, and commence lathering
ourselves. My shower never turns warm and Danny's hardly develops
more than a dribble. We give up angrily, unrefreshed, agreeing that
we are victims of a great shower ripoff.
With plenty of daylight remaining, the weather increasingly foul,
we decamp and drive along the two lengthy, pristine St. Mary's
Lakes to the magnificent "Going To The Sun Road" across the waist
of the park. Like gentle birds we cruise through the showery gray
sky among thrusting mountain peaks and snowfields and waterfalls.
Circling enormous gorges gouged out by glaciers, we stare into deep
U-shaped valleys blanketedwith pine stands and fields of varying
hues of green. At the bottom of the gorges, silent swift streams
appear as thin strands of blue. Such sights are unparalleled by any I
have seen anywhere, neither in the mountains of my native New
England nor in the Great Smokies, which Jane and I had visited the
year before.
Early in the evening we make camp in a prohibited area of a
crowded campground on the low, thickly forested western side of the
park near Lake MacDonald. Weary from the long day's hike, we have
dark beer and sandwiches at a park restaurant nearby. After we
settle in for the night, a ranger in a cruiser stops at our site and
politely asks us to move on. Grumbling, we cooperate. Some miles
farther we enter a larger campground at the end of the lake and
after much searching in the twilight find a site.
"What do you think of the trip so far," Danny inquires. "I mean, is it
all that you expected?"
"It's wonderful, full of surprises - about you and about myself. I'm
overwhelmed by all the things we've seen. They're much more than I
expected. How's it going for you?"
"I really didn't expect anything. I just wanted us to get to know each
other better and I think we have. That's why I proposed our trip
together in the first place."
Exhausted, he falls asleep before I talk again. Only 8:00 P.M., - the
light remains until 10:30 - strangely alert, I write notes about
today's experiences. Why am I no longer tired from the rich, full day?
Throughout the trip, by Danny's preference, he has done the lion's
share of the driving, thus enabling me to keep my notebook up to the
minute.
Since our clash in Duluth, I think our feelings toward each another
have been steadily improving. These past few days have been
completely void of friction. Have I at last found paternal happiness?
Although Danny is noncommittal, I believe I'm fulfilling his
expectations. And he is more than meeting mine.
Having seen so much of the park already, we decide against
spending another day at Glacier. Tomorrow we plan to head for the
North Cascades National Park, 450 miles due west. And by Saturday,
the day after, we'll be dropping down to sea level near Seattle.
Note: "Day Seven" is taken from a travel memoir that covers a 15 day trip
across the continent - from Cape Cod to Santa Monica - that my son and I
took in a pickup truck in the summer of 1986. He was 26 years old at the time,
in college, and I was 62, recently retired. Each evening as we encamped, I
would write down into a notebook what and who we saw and said that day.
Glacier National Park, Montana
By 6:00 A.M. I'm up and the only one awake in the campground, it
appears. I learn, contrary to a preconceived notion, that campers are
late sleepers. An escarpment that looms beside the campground is
pastel pink and orange in the dawn sunlight. While I unpack the
camera from its case to capture the colorful sight, two deer, one with
small antler stubs, suddenly stand mute before me among the trees.
Smiling, I talk to them softly as one approaches barely six feet away
and stares at me quizzically. For a while they munch the carpet of
soft green leaves on the forest floor then slowly depart. I have a
ridiculous thought: There goes a happy couple.
Danny and I have breakfast in style at the Swift Current Inn
located in the campground. I am as ravenous as he in consuming the
orange juice, pancakes, bacon, sausage and coffee. Over breakfast, he
tells of his dreams the night before. He is washing an elaborate
automobile that he has retrieved from a lake into which it had sunk.
Later he dreamt that he is playing with a parent bear and its cub.
After trying to free-associate to the dreams, we both conclude that
they are an attempt to resolve the conflicts in our relationship, that
he wishes us to get along better. And to get on with his own
independent life, I surmise.
Feeling happy with each another, we hit the trail to Red Rich Falls
and to an indefinite point beyond in the Many Glacier area. A
thirteen-mile hike, the trip is longer and more arduous than
expected, with its steep switchbacks and narrow, frightening (to me)
walkways along sheer cliffs. For the first time in my life I find
myself fearing height, and I slog on prodded by the promise of
exhilarating mountain views at every turn, of aquamarine lakes
sequestered in the long valley below, of countless, silent, silvery
waterfalls, of sun soaked snowfields on 10,000-foot heights. Each
sight seems to surpass the one I just saw. The grandeur of it all
overwhelms me.
On the trail we meet Jennie L., tall and trim in khaki shorts and
short sleeve knit shirt, carrying a small backpack. She welcomes our
company, voicing her preference not to be alone. Who in this isolated
spot, she asks, would help her if she fell and hurt herself or were
attacked by a bear?
"I know you two can be trusted. Two Jewish men."
"You are Jewish?" I say. She nods.
Jews have a sixth sense for each other, believe that other Jews can
only be good, that there are no Jewish rapists or murderers or
thieves. I ponder this delusion. Jews, even those who are assimilated
into the national fabric, don't trust the rest of the world, not after
Hitler, not after the world and its great idealistic democracies stood
by, allowing the Holocaust. And the State of Israel, a political and
military force to be reckoned with, is seen by most Jews as the
ultimate security. Is this another delusion?
Jennie talks freely of her life, of her two sons in their twenties, of
her unhappy marriage to an irascible, controlling man. "But
underneath he's really a kind and loving husband," she adds. " I
couldn't abandon him at this stage of his life, now that he's retired.
No, I could never hurt him like that. And I couldn't bear the
loneliness. Anyway, we can't afford a separation. After dividing the
money, we wouldn't have enough to live on."
When describing my own home situation, hers strikes me as a
mirror image. Annoyed with her incessant jabber, Danny disappears
on the trail ahead. Hoping to understand her point of view, that of a
wife, and gain further insight into my failing relationship with Jane,
I'm fascinated with her story.
She complains of feeling trapped in the smog-bound, teeming,
artificial welter of LA in which she was born and raised. She feels
trapped in the anti-intellectual life-style of her husband, a former
businessman, who can't abide classical music (he would turn it off
while she was listening), who wasn't the least interested in art or
literature or politics or ideas or life itself.
"His investments are his sole interest. We simply don't
communicate. The pity is, I have the same problem with my two
sons, who seem to be drifting."
"Your sons are normal," I say with authority. "They'll find their
way, probably by the time they're thirty."
She admires Danny for his carpentry skills, for his travels far and
wide in the Middle East, southern Europe, northern Africa, Japan,
and around the United States. "He's got something better than a
college education," she declares.
My marriage has become sexless, I say. Sex is gone from her
marriage too. The opportunity for deeper fulfillment has grown
impossible.
"After all, nobody's perfect, right? Most of my friends are unhappily
married. I believe it would really be worse to split. So we make the
best of a bad situation, don't we?" So she spends the summer in
Montana in the forest service writing brochures and in her spare
time hiking the national park trails alone in the natural
surroundings she has always loved.
Looking and acting a good decade younger than her fifty-seven
years, she ambles at a swift pace and frequently has to wait for me to
catch up. We meet Danny sitting near a wide snowfield on a height
just below the summit, which we decide not to attempt since we are
growing tired and still have to make the trip back. The air is cool,
gentle, and soft.
During lunch we gaze between peaks at a series of cerulean lakes
strung along a valley floor like a necklace of sapphires. Before lunch
is done a wind is mounting and storm clouds are suddenly forming
over distant summits.
On the way down I tell Jennie, "I think if we'd met thirty years ago
you and I could have made it together."
"Probably so," she says grinning. "But I babble on so much, I'd bore
you."
"The way I see it, since you can't talk to your husband, you talk to
strangers."
"But we aren't strangers anymore, are we?"
In less than an hour, the constant action of slamming my feet onto
the
sloping loose stone-laden path to secure a foothold weakens my left
knee joint. Only by keeping my leg stiffened can I avoid pain. The
morning's glittering blue sky turns overcast, and the air cooler,
breezier. Dragging behind, I worry that my knee will collapse
altogether and I'll need to be carried. Knee trouble is new to me but
so is the long physical stress. What other limitations due to aging
will I discover when aggravated by tasks I have yet to perform? On
reaching the campground several hours later, I'm no longer able to
hide the excruciating pain.
Before parting Jennie and I swap addresses. I promise to call her
husband when I arrive in LA. Sad that our hike together is over, that
we probably will never see each other again, my heart goes with her.
Oh, what could be sweeter now than to stand under a long hot
shower. A sign in the supply store informs us that timed showers are
indeed available for a dollar. We each enter a stall, strip as hastily
as possible not to waste shower time, and commence lathering
ourselves. My shower never turns warm and Danny's hardly develops
more than a dribble. We give up angrily, unrefreshed, agreeing that
we are victims of a great shower ripoff.
With plenty of daylight remaining, the weather increasingly foul,
we decamp and drive along the two lengthy, pristine St. Mary's
Lakes to the magnificent "Going To The Sun Road" across the waist
of the park. Like gentle birds we cruise through the showery gray
sky among thrusting mountain peaks and snowfields and waterfalls.
Circling enormous gorges gouged out by glaciers, we stare into deep
U-shaped valleys blanketedwith pine stands and fields of varying
hues of green. At the bottom of the gorges, silent swift streams
appear as thin strands of blue. Such sights are unparalleled by any I
have seen anywhere, neither in the mountains of my native New
England nor in the Great Smokies, which Jane and I had visited the
year before.
Early in the evening we make camp in a prohibited area of a
crowded campground on the low, thickly forested western side of the
park near Lake MacDonald. Weary from the long day's hike, we have
dark beer and sandwiches at a park restaurant nearby. After we
settle in for the night, a ranger in a cruiser stops at our site and
politely asks us to move on. Grumbling, we cooperate. Some miles
farther we enter a larger campground at the end of the lake and
after much searching in the twilight find a site.
"What do you think of the trip so far," Danny inquires. "I mean, is it
all that you expected?"
"It's wonderful, full of surprises - about you and about myself. I'm
overwhelmed by all the things we've seen. They're much more than I
expected. How's it going for you?"
"I really didn't expect anything. I just wanted us to get to know each
other better and I think we have. That's why I proposed our trip
together in the first place."
Exhausted, he falls asleep before I talk again. Only 8:00 P.M., - the
light remains until 10:30 - strangely alert, I write notes about
today's experiences. Why am I no longer tired from the rich, full day?
Throughout the trip, by Danny's preference, he has done the lion's
share of the driving, thus enabling me to keep my notebook up to the
minute.
Since our clash in Duluth, I think our feelings toward each another
have been steadily improving. These past few days have been
completely void of friction. Have I at last found paternal happiness?
Although Danny is noncommittal, I believe I'm fulfilling his
expectations. And he is more than meeting mine.
Having seen so much of the park already, we decide against
spending another day at Glacier. Tomorrow we plan to head for the
North Cascades National Park, 450 miles due west. And by Saturday,
the day after, we'll be dropping down to sea level near Seattle.
Hugh Aaron is an author of eight books - novels, short stories
and essays - and two dozen plays. The Wall Street Journal has
published his series of 18 articles on business management. He
lives in mid-coast Maine with his artist wife.
and essays - and two dozen plays. The Wall Street Journal has
published his series of 18 articles on business management. He
lives in mid-coast Maine with his artist wife.
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